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Sometimes it feels like the tech industry is more of a zero-sum game than it used to be. We discuss that, and a lot more in this episode.
Two founders talk about how to build software businesses that are meant to last. Each episode includes a deep dive into a different topic related to starting, growing, and sustaining a healthy business.
00:01.40
Rick
What's up this week Tyler I love it when I get a little checkle out of you.
00:03.31
tylerking
Ah, not much I'm doing good doing good. How are you doing you all we we always have this silence and there's Zencastr does this countdown 3 2 1 and then you just Ram in here with all that energy I'm never ready for it. Ah. No yeah, think been good. Um, so it's kind of like end of summer I mean it's end of summer for everybody but like we especially at less annoying. We have 9 interns fellows who I'll just refer to as interns for the sake of this discussion nine out of a 19 person company. So roughly 50% of the company is here just for the summer and then they leave and so they all just left and so lots of like rituals and fun stuff and all that related to that. So yeah.
00:45.80
Rick
Well what? what? what? tell me more like any big learning and big takeaways from this batch.
00:51.94
tylerking
Yeah let me run through it happened and we'll see if there are learnings or not so one is the fellowship. So 6 of the 9 people are not technically in turns they are just learning to code and working on their own projects. Um, they at the end of every summer we have the fellows give a presentation about you know what? they learned and stuff like that and they demo their products and all that and it's just It's just amazingly like fulfilling like all these 6 people just a showing off really cool projects that they worked on and then also like 3 or 4 of the 6 were like coming into the summer I thought I probably don't belong in tech and I was probably going to switch majors and now. I'm sure I'm meant to be a software engineer like all 6 of them said that at the end they're like I'm after this I'm 100% sure I'm going into tech so that was pretty fulfilling um part of it was they like you know when you look at a tech like.
01:35.25
Rick
What was the reasoning they give.
01:44.82
tylerking
Environment like if if you kind of think of who who's a tech person I think things have like gotten better but it's still like the Mark Zuckerberg prototype like the nerdy harvard guy in a hoodie type of thing. Um I say that is like a nerdy guy who wears hoodies. But ah.
02:02.32
tylerking
Like I think a lot of them just don't see themselves represented in the industry and they're just not sure if they can cut it like they go to their computer science classes in college because these are like freshmen sophomore in college and they're like almost everyone else here is not does not look like me does not talk like me. They've all been coding since middle school and they just thought they were too far behind and so I think part of it's just giving them. Sense like no, you've you still got time. Um, one thing I want to mention about this I talked about this a while back. So the fellowship we used to have the goal of like trying to get people into tech. Um, like people who maybe hadn't aren't majoring in computer science. Maybe some people in 1 case, someone didn't even own a computer. Like trying to take someone who wasn't interested in tech and get them into it this summer we pivoted a little bit and said let's take people who are already trying to get in but aren't ready yet like they can't get a real internship yet and try to give them that stepping stone and I mean it really paid off like this. This was so much better.
02:54.45
Rick
How did you evaluate whether someone was over the threshold that made them eligible versus someone who isn't quite ready for you guys.
03:02.55
tylerking
Yeah, that is tough because you hate to tell someone like you're not ready to be an intern but a couple of people applied for both the internship and the fellowship and we gave them the intern interview and in both cases it was pretty obvious they like I'd be like so we're going to do some database queries and they're like I've never used a database before it's like. Okay, not off a great start. You know they they understood that like they didn't have the skills where it's not skills. It's like it. Well it is not talent its skills. It's like they haven't learned the thing yet and so we just gave them the Devin or in turn interview and if they didn't pass it then we're like well are you interested in the fellowship. Um.
03:33.30
Rick
Um.
03:41.67
tylerking
But yeah, by time.
03:41.67
Rick
So people So so you basically said people who are applying for internships that are not getting them meaning they had the desire and some base level of knowledge to to be able to apply for those? Um, that's interesting. Okay got it I got it.
03:53.81
tylerking
Yeah, 2 2 of the fellows were that way the other 4 honestly like they weren't applying for internships like they knew they're like I'm definitely not ready for an internship ah several 2 or 3 of them weren't even sure they they've been taking computer science classes but haven't even decided to major in it yet. So for them. They were like. It was very clear that internships weren't happening for them. Um, but yeah by by making this pivot to kind of like people a little more upstream it just had so much more impact like I think in the tech world. We tend to be more ambitious than we should be this is like the classic like Elon Musk colonizing Mars type of thing. Ah.
04:30.67
tylerking
Instead of saying we're going to take someone who has no clue how to code and get them ready to be a programmer in a summer we said we're going to take people who are a semester away from being ready and we're going to get them ready and by biting off a more manageable piece like just just so much. It's less work for us I think it had more impact. It's more likely to lead to us recruiting these people for full-time roles in the future just I feel really good about how it went.
04:52.44
Rick
That's awesome man. It's like the perfect and do you think anyone will become an employee at some point or a future intern.
04:58.24
tylerking
um um I think it's so we don't have any positions right now we may we have may have future intern positions I think it's likely that 1 or more of them are interns in the future. We don't really have any full time positions. But if we did um, definitely yes, like ah. I don't know the exact number a number of them were like coming into this I thought like this are more interns and fellows. They were like I wanted to go work at big tech and after this summer nah big techs not for me I want to work at a company like this. So ah, I'm just feeling great I'm like bragging on myself too much here, but it feels good. Um.
05:29.93
Rick
It's so awesome. That's awesome.
05:33.59
tylerking
So anyway, yeah, like fellowship ended went really well. But the next step is like we're doing it again next summer Similarly I need to figure out how to delegate some of it because it took just a massive amount of my time this summer So that's next up on my list there.
05:44.44
Rick
Um, yeah, and you don't You don't think that's a good use of your time or you think there's a better use of your time or you don't like it. What's the reasoning that you need to delegate it.
05:53.45
tylerking
Um, I'm torn to so I don't want to say it's not a good use of my time. It's one of the most fulfilling things I do but like basically all summer I am maybe at 50% capacity for for anything else and that's like ah. Quarter of the year I mean a huge chunk of my total productivity for the year goes down and I like being involved I think there's stuff that probably I can do better than anyone else at the company but I don't need to be giving every single lesson and sitting in every single project planning meeting and all that stuff. Also think it's a good opportunity for other people of the company to you know mentor like they get some mentorship experience through this as well. So yeah, if anyone out there like this is like terrible roi to be clear I'm not saying if you want to run a successful business. This is a good idea. But like if anyone out there is feeling comfortable and wants to like kind of.
06:33.35
Rick
That's awesome.
06:44.64
tylerking
Half philanthropy half have interns talk to me I'd love to I'd love to have more companies doing this. Um.
06:51.81
Rick
I I did a similar thing for during the pandemic. Um for and college students who were sophomores and Juniors who got their internships canceled. Um, and where I had basically a mini I called it a mini internship and it was like very low roi for the business but so fulfilling. Um, and I have like I based a lot of the stuff I did on the materials that you had shared with me and um, it's it.
07:11.42
tylerking
Um, yeah.
07:18.81
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
07:19.29
Rick
Those relationships are still there. It's really interesting, Very very powerful relationships and they're so appreciative and most of the people who do stuff like that go on to do some really cool things and so's I Do think like there's a long return on that. Um, that just it's not immediate gratification by any means from a roi standpoint but but fulfill it.
07:27.78
tylerking
Okay I.
07:38.24
tylerking
Yeah, absolutely yeah, there's a return if you're a startup who's like trying to get you know to default alive. It's like this is not the way to get there. But yeah, if you're comfortable and yeah I agree like long long term. Yeah, we have you know.
07:39.31
Rick
Immediate. Yeah.
07:54.88
tylerking
6 to nine you know 9 people This summer are going through this program and like that's 9 connections every summer forever it definitely adds up over time. Yeah, um, another nice thing about it is a sense of seasonality so that leads me to but basically like so that same day we also celebrated ah twenty five hitting 25000 users which we.
08:03.78
Rick
Um.
08:13.20
Rick
Um, what'd you do.
08:14.55
tylerking
So we so it was it was such a cool day. So the the morning was the fellowship presentation and then for the first time ever. We shut down support halfway through the day we shut it down at 1 pm ah and the whole company went out to get lunch together and. Did some like daytime activities. We did like a ferris wheel type of thing and just kind of random stuff but then reconvened at night at a brewery. We rented out a brewery and just had like a party. Everyone got to invite guests. We had like a Acrob like 1 of our employees is a circus person and she had like 1 of her friends come and do tightrope walking at the brewery. Just wild. It was like a really fun party that the fact that it was also everyone's last day just made it like a really special kind of end of Summer milestone party. So it was a lot of fun.
08:59.67
Rick
That's awesome now that now you've got more stories for people to tell about that last party that they had um.
09:03.61
tylerking
Um, yeah, definitely yeah, you comment on this somehow sometimes that you'd like to like celebrate stuff more and um I don't think I'm as good at this as you think I am but this was definitely one of those where like I think we'll all remember this for a long time and. Um, and now I'm kind of thinking we're just gonna have an end of summer party every year you don't have to have something to celebrate.
09:24.89
Rick
I Still think ah you you are good at this. You are good at partying and planning parties. Um your wedding I'm still like bummed over the wedding your wedding being canceled that was the most hilarious wedding website and plan and invitations. That I've ever seen in my entire life.
09:43.76
tylerking
Thank you I appreciate that I don't think most people are going for funny with their wedding. So I didn't have much competition. But yeah, um, and then I know I've been talking a lot but I'll I'll wrap up my this update with this like so basically summer's over now and 1 really nice thing about. Kind of the seasonality of interns. It's like really chaotic like 9 people who basically don't know what they're doing that need a ton of mentorship and handholding and they're just loud and stuff and they're all gone now which or a couple interns are still wrapping up really amazing having them. What's so cool is now that they're gone. There's a sense of calm and everyone's like. Right now I get to go get my work done. So it's kind of a nice like hitting the reset button on the culture of the company was like all right. We had our fun. It was. It was nice having those people now everyone go get shit done. Yeah exactly but everyone wants to like it's not me being some kind of task master. Everyone's like really relieved that they get to.
10:29.15
Rick
Get back to work.
10:39.15
tylerking
Focus more on their individual work now. So anyway Summer is over what's going on with you.
10:41.41
Rick
That's cool. Ah well we had our windfall had its company offsite last week we do every six months we do a company offsite was in San Jose at a resort. It was really well done. Um. It was Wednesday through Friday. Yeah I think you were in San Francisco it's ironic that we're both there but we couldn't like it was it was literally like 8 a m to 10 p m activities ah presentations to happyy hours to dinner to post dinner activities. Um.
11:08.31
tylerking
Wow.
11:15.43
tylerking
That sounds fun and exhausting.
11:17.35
Rick
And people like fun and exhausting exactly. Um I did have I did talk um I did I gave a presentation about company rituals which um I have is ah a discussion topic. We have time for today if we don't we can I talk about another time but um, that was an interesting talk to prepare for. Um.
11:35.37
tylerking
Suspicious.
11:35.60
Rick
And I'm very interested in your take on rituals at some point but but it was it was good to kind of I'm involved in onboarding so I see everyone's face when they come in the company I know everyone's name. We've about 70 employees at Winfall. But ah, you know it's weird kind of walking up someone to be like hi so and so and. They're like who are you but it it was it was cool to have be facetoface. We're you know, highly remote, 20 people 20 different states 20 different states represented I think um so having everyone in 1 place was really really cool. Um, it's so important. Yeah headquarters are in San Francisco and then there's also an office in Denver.
12:04.29
tylerking
Um, the company is like based in San Francisco though does like what does that mean? Okay, but a lot of people aren't catching.
12:13.17
Rick
Most people are in San Francisco ah yeah and and so you know, but but a lot people don't come in the office every day. So anyways, getting 70 people into 1 place to talk and work together and you get to know each other better. It's it's a big undertaking but it's super impactful and if you know. It's important to do offsites when you are a co-located company. It's even more important to do it when you're a heavily remote workforce and so I'm glad that we did it. But as a result of the company offsite I now feel behind on everything. Ah. Didn't get any work done. We basically all put up out of office reminders for three days um or out of office ah replies. Um, and you know then you know there's a board meeting this week and then there's you know there's just more and quarterly we have a fiscal year that's February First forward so this is the but.
12:59.39
tylerking
Wow.
13:08.80
Rick
First two weeks of a quarter performance reviews like it just it's a lot. Ah yeah, and so um, I'm feeling really behind on everything right now I I started like right before all this started happening in our last recording I talked about how I wanted to bring a couple people on to help with digital marketing.
13:10.44
tylerking
Never ends.
13:27.14
Rick
So I got I had initial conversation with those people and said yeah I'll get you that and then I haven't gotten them that and now they're like ah should should I hold a spot for you like what's going on. So now I feel guilty. Um anyway I am ah.
13:35.30
tylerking
Um, this is.
13:44.40
Rick
Hoping to get caught up this week so that I can get focused on the business. My main. Um update on Legup Health is jd and are are zeroing in on a local what we're calling a local marketing blitz for Q4 so legup health um is Utah focused. Um, we definitely want to have a local marketing flywheel. Um that we figure out to generate leads and close turn into customers. Um, but like we aren't going to build a flywael overnight so what we're kind of thinking of it in the terms of ah of a blitz for um, ah for q 4 this year and i'm. You know there's a couple of things that we're trying but I'm interested in what you might consider you know as a local marketing tactic for ah for ah for leg of health like we're we're doing. Yeah so we're doing chambers of commerce as one lever where we're optimizing for Seo.
14:28.26
tylerking
A local marketing tactic.
14:37.95
Rick
You know Utah Seo Related Keywords um so that when someone searches local, we get found. We're doing. We have five customer reviews now we had 1 last episode. We have five five star reviews now. Um, we're ah doing outreach obviously to.
14:44.95
tylerking
Nice, nice.
14:53.32
Rick
Prospective Consumers Prospective Customer business customers and Prospective partners. Um, we're joining Associations we've we've looked into some of like the advertising like local advertising and local um like Radio. It just doesn't seem right? that seems more like ah of a flywheel brand awareness play than a blitz and it doesn't. Does it feel right? Um, feel free to challenge me but like any ah, any levers. You think we should pull local marketing wise any any any marketing tactics that you would pursue. Yeah.
15:20.89
tylerking
Um, I mean you yeah because you just listed like everything I feel like um I think it's probably less about like get more ideas more like high level channels but and more like which of those seem most promising. Um. Problem you're doing all okay but you.
15:38.49
Rick
We're gonna do all of those things were all the things I listen we're going to do but are there any more that you think we should do and you're gonna say no are there any like important local marketing avenues that we're not thinking about like chambers are our obvious one.
15:49.22
tylerking
You know when I think of when I think of local marketing I think of like how to market a retail business like you know, go on Yelp or whatever I I guess insurance agents are on Yelp and maybe even.
15:58.64
Rick
Moo Yelp that's interesting yeah we're not on Yelp we need to be on yelp.
16:04.98
tylerking
Yeah, like I realize you don't have a Yelp and Google maps and stuff like that is more for storefronts. You don't have a storefront but like your search you are competing with people who have storefronts and someone might search for someone with the storefront and find you I don't know how good of an idea that is but um, yeah, so.
16:17.84
Rick
Yeah, health insurance in Utah like there's a ton of people on here.
16:24.29
tylerking
That's something I've always wanted to run like I know restaurants are a terrible business. But I've always been like man I could I suck at marketing compared to other Saas founders I would be I would kick the shit out of any restaurant marketing person because they're all terrible locally. Ah yeah, what else.
16:36.99
Rick
What other ones you got Yelp's a good, a great one.
16:43.16
tylerking
Um, I mean how do people find stuff locally. Yeah I think the associations you talked about makes a ton of sense you you talked about like radio and stuff I agree that doesn't make sense yet. But once you have a brand it could I feel like that's just kind of reinforcing That's like the. Fourth or fifth touch point after you've already gotten some um I don't know like think like people love Sports teams and stuff like that I could imagine a little sponsorship like that.
17:10.25
Rick
Spot. We should sponsor the fricking like we should be sponsors of college and high school athletes now that they can make money off of their ah I think I think now anyone can without but the whole point was like you couldn't you know.
17:19.40
tylerking
Um I didn't know high school could.
17:26.55
Rick
Be an amateur maintain your amateur status and play college athletics if you took money now that that's gone you can do it at any point in time.
17:28.26
tylerking
Yeah, find a college football player and have him say when I get a concussion I Call leg up health. But.
17:36.83
Rick
Exactly or or better yet like the the high school football star pay him fifty bucks and like have him like wear I'd leg up HealthT -shirt
17:46.99
tylerking
Yeah I listen all of the even just the stuff you name sounds like too much to me like I would say pick the best 1 or 2 or 3 ideas and focus so we could brainstorm more. Ah.
17:56.80
Rick
Do do you know anything about nextdoor.com
18:01.76
tylerking
Next door. Yeah, that's the like kind of neighborhood social networky thing. Yeah, yeah, that sounds like potentially a good one? yeah.
18:05.68
Rick
Yeah, yeah, that's why I'm thinking about that one? Um, but anyway yeah, we're just gonna blitz all this and we're just gonna make it so that you can't get away from us and then the the other thing I want is someone have retargeting so that if someone. Does make it to our homepage. Um and they so they fit a certain profile. We're going to follow them around and market to them.
18:23.64
tylerking
Yeah I think that makes a lot of sense I just got a little piece of feedback from someone who knows what they're talking about on this that was do Google retargeting instead of Facebook retargeting just because it's way cheaper.
18:36.29
Rick
Interesting. Yeah.
18:39.95
tylerking
I'm not saying that's like blanket advice for everyone but like that's what they said to us is because we tried Facebook and it didn't work and then they're like you should try retargeting. We said it didn't work. They're like oh you did the way more expensive one. Do do Google retargeting.
18:49.44
Rick
And I'm sure much more people are on Google the Google retargeting platforms than the Facebook ones right? like.
18:55.24
tylerking
Yeah, the cool thing about Facebook is you can you can retarget if you're just like anyone who comes to my site I want to just plaster ads on their face I think either 1 works but with Facebook you can be like you know people in this area this age you can do more demographic targeting I think.
19:09.82
Rick
And they'll do it off of like is it just retargeting them with ads on Facebook or is it retargeting them across all like different websites. Yeah.
19:17.24
tylerking
I am far from an expert on this but my impression is so Google has Adsense which is like this ad network for all these websites I don't think Facebook has an equivalent ad network I think for Facebook the ads are on facebook.com or Instagram or whatever.
19:30.31
Rick
Um, that's what I thought so if someone isn't going on Instagram or Facebook they're not going to see those ads. Yeah, which you know most people do I just don't.
19:33.90
tylerking
I Think that's correct. Yeah.
19:41.23
tylerking
Same? Um, yeah, no, it sounds like you do the blitz. Um I wanted to follow up on something I talked ah quite a while about which was ah pay transparency I kind of announced less knowing serum was moving to a pay transparency model where basically.
19:42.70
Rick
Now But what else you got.
19:59.70
tylerking
There's like nuance here but we're basically sharing internally not public with the world but public internally at the company. What everyone gets paid um a couple follow ups to that because like I never had a chance to say how it went. 1 is like you and I were talking about this on the podcast and you were like oh like let's let's see what you know who's going to come and negotiate for a raise or you know what's going to happen I've not heard a single thing from anyone so absolute crickets that doesn't mean I won't hear anything. It doesn't mean people haven't like felt feelings and just didn't share them with me. But. So far. It has created absolutely 0 additional work for me thoughts ah six months something like that.
20:35.64
Rick
Well, how long has it been since you shared this? Wow Yeah, that's pretty yeah. Wow.
20:46.77
tylerking
So now we were already pretty transparent to begin with so like everybody I think part of the reason is no one was surprised by it if you have like a totally opaque ah culture I think switching to this would probably cut like ruffle lot more feathers than it did with us.
20:58.95
Rick
Yeah I guess it doesn't really surprise me that much. It surprised me that not a single person has brought it up I guess I thought it like there would be at least 1 person who would be like Tyler this doesn't seem very fair but that didn't happen.
21:03.40
tylerking
Yeah.
21:12.20
tylerking
Right? right? and it didn't and people have mentioned it in passing like as a like oh you know my friend is negotiating for a raise. Glad we have pay transparent like people have said stuff like that. But not that they've never come to me and been like we need to talk about this? um. The second thing I want to mention one of our listeners Jonathan Miles hi Jonathan thanks for thanks for writing in he asked ah a question. Yeah Rick is laughing right now am I not a good radio host Rick ah first time long time first time. Ah now.
21:41.17
Rick
Knows great. It was too good is what it was.
21:47.65
tylerking
Um, Jonathan kind of wrote in and after the pay transparency thing was like why were we? Why didn't we find a middle ground of of doing something like just ah publishing I hope I'm representing him correctly, but just publishing like bands of salaries like the developers on average make this amount or that amount. Um. So I wanted to respond to that I think there's 2 reasons a company might do pay transparency 1 is you want to give people information to allow themselves to negotiate for themselves um giving these pay skills I think does that beautifully they can see you know what does a developer make or as granular as you want like what does a developer with this much experience make and so on. Um, I think that would be achieved by this middle ground The second reason is a different type of equity which is like holding the company accountable for paying people fairly like are women making as much as men are people of color making as much as white people and so on it's very hard to do that with. Aggregate information at a small company because if you're like if you go 1 or 2 levels deep of that data. You can figure out who everyone is anyway. So if you are only interested in the first objective I think doing pay so to pay bands instead of publishing individual people's salaries is better.
22:51.40
Rick
M.
23:01.61
tylerking
If you want the second type of equity and you're a small company I think you need to go full transparency. What do you think about that.
23:09.58
Rick
This is not important to me from an equity standpoint. So I follow more in the first camp I'm not saying that pay equity isn't important. Let me be very clear. It's just not a part of my business objective I Yes I agree with what you said I agree with what you said? um.
23:17.73
tylerking
Do you agree that if that is important you need to go full transparent. Okay.
23:24.94
Rick
I would probably personally fall into the first camp of like wanting to drive transparency for purposes of helping people take care of themselves and feel good about it. Um, but but like yeah but I agree with what you said.
23:32.49
tylerking
Um, yeah, if I a little. So if you're like you and you don't care about it I think I would advise preemptively publishing the bands.
23:49.31
Rick
I think you're right and I I was in the back of my mind going this actually would help us a lot with scaling leg up health is because we're gonna have to go after I'm not sure who our target coach coach profile is so we're gonna have to hire coaches. Um in mass at some point to support. Ah. You know thousands and thousands of clients and ah, you know what does that profile look like what it. What is it like what is their promotion opportunity and it's like it's not going to be There's not like going to be this huge margin to negotiate with so it's going to have to be pretty well thought out ahead of time to scale. Um and like.
24:21.60
tylerking
The.
24:25.50
Rick
Like we're not going to be able to negotiate with people. It's going to be like listen like hit this number hit this number hit this number and so um, being able to qualify people with that upfront. There's lots of advantages of having it sort of built out and transparent and set in stone from a scaling standpoint recruiting standpoint. Ah.
24:26.62
tylerking
This is the offer. Yeah.
24:42.58
Rick
Review Performance review standpoint So I like it from from that perspective. Um I'm more but I'm more ah like thinking of it from what's best for the like what's best for our company versus like what's best for the individual.
24:55.90
tylerking
Yeah, no yeah and I'm saying that like that's that's not where I'm coming at from this but like if you want to do? What's best for your company I this is going to sound really cynical and maybe I like shouldn't even say this but like Duke go halfway before people force you to go all all the way you know? um.
25:08.67
Rick
Um, yeah.
25:12.58
tylerking
So anyway, um I got one other update here. Um, before we move on to other stuff. Ah yeah, so I talked so I think last week or last episode rather we talked about how ah less knowing serum's going to try to go after kind of an Api platform play a little bit make our api better try and get other people to integrate with us. So i've. A 2 people reached out to me based on me saying that on the podcast and were like hey I might be interested which is awesome like people actually listen to the podcast and those people are developers. Normally I have no way of making money off developers but I found a way.
25:46.71
Rick
Ah.
25:48.34
tylerking
Um, no, but that's very cool I Appreciate the people who've reached out but I also started doing a very very minor amount of kind of cold outreach to people I'm aware of that are building apps that would like I think that they would benefit and we would benefit from them integrating So I'm. Kind of doing something like business development in a very low key way right now to try to fight part find partners.
26:05.31
Rick
Do you have any like anything concrete you can share or specific around like use cases or is it more like idea phase right now.
26:13.41
tylerking
Um I don't want to just in the interest of not like giving sharing other people's information if they don't want me to I don't want to say who I reach out to but I'll say like I basically put some thought into ah the the formula is it's got to be a category of product. Our customers ask for so they ask for? Ah, you know. Invoicing tools form builder tools document signing tools various things but they have to be smaller than us because someone bigger than us is not going to integrate with us the smaller fish always integrates with the bigger fish and I want their product to be good enough that I can recommend it So I've kind of been looking around like who in the bootstrap or indie Hacker Space. Do I feel like.
26:47.17
Rick
Um.
26:51.21
tylerking
Has a good product is smaller than us and ah like the product could integrate nicely with listening serum. Yeah, and again, if if anyone else out there. Let me let me know.
26:58.53
Rick
Um, like that I'm interested I Yeah, keep keep finding them and um I would love to hear more about this as you go like especially as it turns into like real stuff like.
27:08.70
tylerking
Yeah, now it would be like 1 of the things on my mind is if we want this to work when as soon as we get our first we we have people who have integrated with us but like not, they're not like good tools I shouldn't say that they're probably fine but like they're not. We didn't reach out to them and be like we love your tool. Can you integrate? they they just like. It went the other way. Um, the first time we get one of these partners I I'm going to go overboard on getting them customers right? I'm going to be like we're going to mention you in every newsletter for the next month we're going to like like we have some channels to really push it so I'm going to really focus on the kind of like partner success which. I'll definitely talk about when the time comes? Yeah um so I've got some ransome shoutouts and stuff. Ah, but I've been talking a lot. You got anything? Yeah I have not tell me.
27:45.81
Rick
Very interesting but very interested in that.
27:53.73
Rick
I got a shout out have you heard about the new Vp at lucid her name is sable lindquist. She's now vp my wife is now Vp of product marketing at lucid software which I thought was kind of cool.
28:02.24
tylerking
Sable Lindquist that's awesome king yeah congrats able.
28:09.45
Rick
For those of you don't know lucid um is the producer of lucid chart and lucid spark visual diagramming software but Tyler and I were around working at the same company as one of the cofounders of lucid and ah, it's kind of weird now 10 years ten plus years later fifteen years later.
28:26.37
tylerking
Yeah.
28:28.54
Rick
Um, to be sitting here and and I'm married to now one of the vps and they're thousands almost a thousand employees now I think so it's pretty cool product marketing. Yeah, yeah, it's huge. We we celebrated with takeout last night or 2 nights ago.
28:35.84
tylerking
Wow Vp of product marketing. That's awesome. That's huge good job. Stable yeah did ah I'm trying to turn this into like how do you celebrate stuff more. But.
28:50.80
Rick
We don't have any time we have baby we're baby jail yeah know there's no, there's no time for celebrations. However, we are going to Cancun the week after labor day and it's we're not taking the baby. It's a big deal.
28:52.82
tylerking
Print out some swag for her baby jail.
29:04.90
tylerking
Wow and you're like do you think you're fully unplugging from work that's going to be such a change for you. That's awesome. Great.
29:10.77
Rick
I've taken time off. Yeah yeah, we'll see how it goes what are your shoutouts are they rants or shout outs.
29:20.97
tylerking
Um, so one one of these is kind of old they're they're shout outs. Um I've been I mentioned a while back I kind of had fallen off of the founder podcast stuff and I'm back in it which I don't know if that says something about me am I like I don't know mentally am I more engaged now I don't know ah but 1 that I've been.
29:33.55
Rick
Um.
29:39.67
tylerking
Really enjoying is default alive with ah Corey hayns and Chris Baggs I mean I've listened to it for a long time but I don't know if I've shouted them out but episode 72 um Corey hayn said something that I thought was really interesting. So I just want to like repeat it here and editorialize. Ah so for people who don't listen Corey is a marketer who's. I mean he's tech savvy but he's not like a developer so in that sense. He's non technicalchnical um that had an idea for like a poker I don't know anything about poker but some app for tracking stuff that he decided to build with no-code tools. Um, and so he just kind of dove in. It was really interesting as a developer hearing him talk about like. All these concepts like he basically described oh I had to learn what a 1 ne-to- many relationship is in a database and he he maybe didn't know the term to use but like talking about all these concepts that are fundamental to building a cred app and what it made me realize he built this whole thing in no code, but it made me realize is like. There are 2 skillsets 1 is knowing the concepts of how like like software architecture works and the other one is knowing how to code and those 2 are often lumped together but maybe in the future knowing how to code will be less and less valuable. But I think the. Knowing the software engineering architecture side probably isn't going anywhere does that resonate with you.
30:55.90
Rick
That resonates one hundred percent with me and I totally agree with it the problem right now is to build anything truly truly meaningful from a software perspective requires coding still no code the the no code movement isn't there yet.
31:07.87
tylerking
But.
31:14.16
Rick
But yes I do agree but I think we're moving more and more towards like less code in lots of different ways. Um, but yes I thought that totally resonates with me so and no code is a great way to learn those principles.
31:16.63
tylerking
What the.
31:25.39
tylerking
Yeah, and it might not even look when we say no code we kind of mean you know, webflow and airtable and all these tools. Um I talked with Drew Riley for his trends report on this and one of his points was like in in a sense. All modern programming languages are no code um like for for people who. Know what I'm talking about like writing you know machine code like ones and zeros that's code and then as soon as you abstract away from that you say no, we're writing c plus plus now even though that's still really low level. It's it's less code and ph p is less code than that and I could imagine it coming from either end like maybe.
31:46.76
Rick
Yeah.
31:54.62
Rick
It's less code.
32:02.37
tylerking
A dollo and tools like and bubble get better enough that you can build apps with that or maybe the coding tools get so abstract that you're you know quote unquote coding but it's it's not like it is today in any event this made me feel really happy because I've commented recently i'm. Forgetting how to code. But I actually think I was always better at the understanding how the app should work part than the actual coding part and I'm not getting any worse at that because I'm still sitting in all the meetings and helping people plan and so I'm kind of now I'm sitting here waiting for the world to come to me so that I can be a productive software creator again.
32:38.84
Rick
That's cool I Love it I Love it.
32:40.76
tylerking
yeah um yeah I id recommend listening to again that was I mean listen to any of them but like 72 episode 72 I'll link to it in the show notes was I just thought like a really cool dive into maybe a peakek of what the future of software engineering looks like um.
32:55.35
Rick
Did you get any insight out into what no code platform there he was using Cole.
33:01.50
tylerking
I think he said it was a dollo and in the the most recent one he said he actually ran into a few challenges like getting it published because it's for like ios apps like getting it published and getting the sign in with Google button working and stuff like that. But ah, it sounds like getting an actual app like.
33:09.84
Rick
Are.
33:18.57
tylerking
I've actually been trying to think for myself like the next time I run into a situation where I just want a little crud app I'll just I should just go into a dollar and try to make it because I would love to get some experience with that? Yeah, um, so okay.
33:23.51
Rick
Credit.
33:28.90
Rick
Yeah, no, really like the simple you can do the simplest things.
33:37.44
tylerking
Next rant shout out and I think this could turn into a bigger topic. Potentially um I was listening to out of beta with um Peter soon and Matt winsing um that it's just another founder of do do do you listen any of these you not like a big podcast guy.
33:53.28
Rick
I Know um I know default alive and I but I know both of these podcasts and I have them both in my playlist I have have It's been a while since I listened to any podcasts much less. These.
34:03.99
tylerking
Yeah gotcha. Well these are both kind of a similar format to what you and I are doing here. Um there's 1 of the recent episodes. It's called what what kills a startup. Ah so Peter on the podcast has started reform which is a ah like a form building tool. And over the last several months you can kind of he kind of goes through a journey I hope I'm representing this correctly that builds a prototype gets some initial traction especially like he's pretty wellconnected in. You know these circle like kind of bootstraer indie hacker circles gets early adoption. Things are looking great and then it kind of plateaus. Pretty quickly like not like not plateaus at millions of dollars in revenue but like plateaus before it's really default alive. Um, and so there's been. They've they've done an interesting deep dive into like the the ideology around what.
34:48.92
Rick
Um.
34:57.44
tylerking
What it takes to to start a successful company because I feel like the if you go on indie hackers the narrative you that everyone assumes is true, just conventional. Wisdom is like build something in a week or two like a really quick prototype Mvp and then what really matters is marketing have you seen this. Like attitude from people.
35:15.17
Rick
Yes, but I just ignore it. But yes I do yes.
35:19.29
tylerking
Well, we'll go on what because you don't have the context I do here? What do you mean? just ignore it.
35:25.43
Rick
Um, well most advice and like aspiring entrepreneurial forums is like canned and overly simplified and designed more to Motivate. Ah. Then to actually and inspire then to actually like succeed and so um, I've just a negative sort of yeah I don't know if that time. Yeah.
35:45.88
tylerking
Ah.
35:49.32
tylerking
So Okay I agree with you but the problem is there are examples of that happening and and you're always like I don't know I'm always like damn like a I'm not focused on marketing enough I'm a loser and B like why am I So slow. Why are we so slow at building stuff. Um, yes.
36:11.12
Rick
It's It's not to build a I think like where where I disagree is. It's not build a product and then market it. It's solve a problem and then market it and I think what some people get caught on is like yeah you you might build a a great product but it's not solving any problem.
36:26.91
tylerking
Right.
36:28.66
Rick
And so like it's like I don't know much about the reform I mean I just pulled it up. Why you while you were talking but like I mean this is a this product has been done many times. Um, and so like what problem was was being solved here.
36:38.90
tylerking
Um, right? Okay I think that's a great way to frame it. Um because and and that's like Peter is acknowledging that in the podcast which I think is so refreshing because like no one ever admits this stuff. It. He's just like the product has to be better than it is ah. And it resonates really strongly with me given like my company is literally called less annoying crm we're literally saying there are a million crms out there. We're just another one. Um and there I don't know there are a bunch of interesting takeaways I maybe I'll just rattle stuff off and like we can go down whatever rabbit holes we want hear.
37:10.70
Rick
So to be clear here like it sounds like he but he went into a did he built what problem was he solving I think he's probably built a really cool form product. But the problem is like there's a lot of foreign products out there and people are pretty happy with them or not.
37:19.46
tylerking
Um, yeah.
37:25.95
tylerking
I well I think that was I think there is pushback on that like I think um, what's the main. ah ah I forget the name of the big one that everyone uses um the one where like it's 1 question per screen. Do you know what? I'm talking. Ah why.
37:29.98
Rick
Okay.
37:41.83
Rick
Oh um, the embeddable form to a type form. Yep.
37:44.83
tylerking
Type form? Yeah, um, basically that people hate type form. Especially apparently I didn't realize this the editor like I've filled out type forms as the end user but like the the editor to create the forms apparently super slow and clunky and so it was very much like a no, we're not innovating in solving a totally new thing but like we're making ah a better mass trap was. The idea I think I hope I'm representing this all well and like similarly savvy cal by Derek Rymer also kind of in these same bootstraper circles is just callendly but better, but it's not I don't think it really has any features that cowly doesn't have you know and less annoying serum. That's what that's what we are so like there's no denying.
38:04.41
Rick
Cool, Yeah, okay, got you cool.
38:24.19
tylerking
That's the problem that that reform is having is that there's just too. There's too much competition customers have these high expectations but it does kind of go against the indie Hacker narrative of like build this thing and then go market it and that's the whole problem like if if your product's not doing something new and. But or yeah, if it's not solving a problem that people had then you got it. You.
38:42.78
Rick
Um, yeah, and and kind of coming full circle here is like back in the day like when you and I were at Zane benefits together. We we literally built internal tools to solve like very the first wave of problems that Sas ah founders. Ah.
38:56.34
tylerking
Okay.
39:02.24
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, so I think I like that you said first wave because that's one of my takeaways from listening to this is there are waves of products and what was in the first wave like Crm project management email marketing form building.
39:02.69
Rick
Built companies to solve and those those obvious problems have been solved like yeah.
39:20.71
tylerking
Invoicing stuff like that right? An interesting thing that I said savvy cal seems to be working I mean not ah, it's not like huge yet. But I think they've gotten past the plateau that um, reform hit that's like second wave. It's not a calendar. It's a appointment scheduling tool. It's like a little more niche a little smaller It's not like a company wide system of record. It's just kind of a little add on to your calendar and I feel like maybe that's the frontier right now that that bootstrapers can target what do you think.
39:56.77
Rick
What's what's the frontier. It's ah Niche Niche Apps within bigger apps like is that right.
39:59.40
tylerking
Yeah I'm not I'm not sure I have like a full like a good way of describing this generically but like building an add on to a calendar is more likely to succeed right now than building a calendar or like I don't think there's any way.
40:14.10
Rick
Yeah, oh yeah, for sure.
40:19.18
tylerking
Ah, bootstrap company like less knowing serum could get started right now and succeed.
40:22.76
Rick
I disagree with that So I was thinking like Serm's the other day like it's earth serum out there for example, like most crms take a account view like of records. Not a person view like is there a crm out there that takes a person view where. You're a person. It could be associated with multiple companies. Oh I Just blew your mind. Yeah well, but like but like like for example with leg upheld like our core customer is the person. It's not the company and so but then we meet people.
40:40.17
tylerking
We do oh with multiple companies. Well no, we can do that. But ah, ah.
40:53.30
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, that's how the lessening serums designed.
40:58.49
Rick
Yeah, okay, and so can you have a person who's like an employee with multiple companies.
41:02.90
tylerking
The multiple companies thing requires a small workaround but the the contact is well. You can do it either way, but the default uses Ah, there's no term called account like Salesforce has and um, we have companies but by default like everything is a contact.
41:12.44
Rick
You have companies.
41:20.40
tylerking
And then like oh this contact works at a company but the company record is generally not there. Not very important.
41:24.88
Rick
So 1 one thing that would be interesting if I were going to start crm is there are companies out there who target consumers that work at and are so are associated with multiple organizations being able to easily associate contacts with multiple organizations could be ah, a unique spin on crm.
41:27.20
tylerking
A.
41:41.51
tylerking
I think this is a I think this is a perfect example though of like that wouldn't work um because and and I think this is kind of what I feel weird talking about reform I don't even know Peter but like I feel like we have a weird pair ofocial relationship because I listen to his podcast um like.
41:41.64
Rick
I'm not saying.
41:51.37
Rick
It.
41:58.79
tylerking
You can solve 1 problem better than any other crm the other hundred and fifty problems you're going to get wiped out on that's that's just not important enough. Yeah yeah, like when less knowing serum started every other serum sucked.
42:05.70
Rick
the the bar the bar is extremely high for the product for me to get anyone to actually just use this here m for the in the first place.
42:16.97
tylerking
And so we could do 1 thing better and everything else a little worse but it was okay, but that doesn't work anymore I don't think.
42:22.31
Rick
And I wonder if this is applicable with reform but like integration seem to be something that's pretty like in common here like you know sevy cow or to beefs effective requires lots of integrations. Um a C R m. Now required to be like basic functionality requires lots of integrations like trying to displace pipe drive part of the reason we use Pipe drive is because we can plug it into everything Else. We're using without even thinking about it. Ah they have native they have integrations. Um, and then you know then you add in.
42:44.95
tylerking
Yeah, are you just doing that through zapier or like they have native integrations for that stuff.
42:55.51
Rick
And I'm sure I'm assuming reforms the same way like type type forms like the power in type form isn't in the editing it's in the ability to stream together automations which requires integrations. Um, and so I'm wondering if like anyway there's that's just one layer of complexity is the ability an app needs to be able to talk to.
43:05.16
tylerking
And.
43:12.32
tylerking
Ah, yeah.
43:14.40
Rick
Other apps. Um, which you know from a Mvp standpoint I'm assuming I don't know much about how hard is to build integrations. But I'm assuming that's like a pretty substantial investment from a product development standpoint exactly exactly.
43:27.40
tylerking
It's certainly the hardest thing we ever do which is why we're trying to get other people to integrate with us.
43:32.56
Rick
Exactly So But yeah I think I agree with you in in in nuchell but I would I I guess um it it seems like there's probably I agree that there's probably like these edge cases around the core apps that are going to be constantly without like kind of. Problems without good solutions and those are the ones that you could probably get away with ship fast and early mentality and the bar could be low.
43:56.36
tylerking
Yeah, yeah I Just I think we're in a new wave like it's always been the case that we couldn't start a pharmaceutical company bootstrapping like it costs too much to take a drug to market. Um, but it used to be the case that you could start a big.
44:05.40
Rick
Are.
44:13.47
tylerking
Central system of record software as a Saas bootstrapped I think those days are gone not to say it will never happen again. But it's it's going to be exceedingly rare. Yeah yeah, so there's then then you know that the borders expand and there's still probably plenty of ideas but it's not what they used to be so that's one.
44:23.26
Rick
Um, it's gonna be harder and harder because the bar has been raised.
44:32.50
tylerking
Take way ahead from all this one is um, maybe like I think tech is more zero sum than it used to be and what I mean by that is like it used to be don't worry about your competition. Don't worry about ah anything like there's so much that hasn't been done yet that just go do it. And you don't have to care. There's enough for oxygen for everybody in the room and I think that like innovation in terms of the platforms and the distribution methods has really stalled over the last five years and all the oxygen is starting to get taken up and especially by the big tech companies like you know Google Apple Microsoft.
45:05.35
Rick
Um.
45:10.19
tylerking
Amazon those companies keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and there are fewer and fewer like like you know what stripe is right now like like the really really giant soon to be public company there used to be a ton of those and there are not anymore I feel like.
45:24.85
Rick
Um, yeah.
45:28.34
tylerking
This affects me this this relates to me rather we're going through this marketing push right now and this is the the harsh reality I keep running into is like there are only 10 spots on the front page of a Google search. It's you can't just say go write blog posts because like. Facebook Pipe Drive Zoho Salesforce or not Facebook salesforce. They've all written the blog posts and it's not enough to just do something valuable. It has to beat out one of these other ones it has to take 1 of them off the front page of that Google search and that's really fucking hard to do.
46:02.56
Rick
Yeah, and it's really the top 3 Yeah yeah, it's like so. But yeah, that's a good point. It's it's kind of like um the the analogy that comes to mind is at some point there will there will be no more waterfront property you know and.
46:03.80
tylerking
Yeah, you're right? of course. Yeah.
46:15.90
tylerking
Um, yeah, right? And yeah, ever Then everyone doesn't get waterfront property I mean we're already there obviously. But yeah, um, so I yeah I've been a little.
46:18.11
Rick
What do you do? ah.
46:22.77
Rick
Ah, um.
46:30.38
tylerking
I'm very excited about lessonening serum in general you can probably tell my moods high but like marketing specifically a part of me is just like I don't a part of me wants to just come to terms with like some of this shit's not gonna work. You know, but what I'm trying to decide is are we on the good side of that or the bad side if you're just getting started and you're trying to start a sea arm company. It's like good luck. You know we're like really small compared to salesforce but we also have millions of dollars in revenue and have been around for 13 years and I can't decide if we're at an advantage or a disadvantage in this new world.
47:02.42
Rick
Um, and then the other thing I'm going to is like maybe what's the new Sas like is it some other type of company that isn't software as a service but some other industry that you know you should be indie hacking in. Um.
47:12.73
tylerking
I don't think it's a given that there is a new sass though like we've we've grown up for the past thirty years there's always been a new frontier of tech and I just I'm not saying there never will be another but I don't think there is currently that's why everyone's doing this dumb web three bullshit. We talked about this a couple months ago. Everyone's getting into web three because there has to be a new frontier but like what if there's not.
47:36.69
Rick
I was kind of thinking of like Dtc as being kind of interesting like direct to-consumer ecommerce. Ah I feel I feel like that's something we don't you and I potentially maybe you do I don't know a lot about but it seems like yeah ah, kind of the next wave of entrepreneurs are.
47:53.35
tylerking
That.
47:53.46
Rick
Are doing well there with little little to no investment. Um, but like ah you know, kind of like adjacent ah software enabled services that you know, ah kind of bringing the concept. The the learnings from Saas to ah to a new ah new space like.
48:02.48
tylerking
Yeah.
48:11.55
Rick
Um, know that's that's kind of what I was what I was thinking about.
48:13.88
tylerking
That's for yeah, there's probably less competitive spaces I don't know if there's anything that's going to lead to like a gold rush like we had in sass over the last ten years but yeah um okay I've got more if if you don't mind. Ah.
48:18.30
Rick
Yeah, that was interesting. Keep going.
48:29.94
tylerking
1 thing this has me thinking about is I'm I'm waffling between whether you need a I keep going back and forth between lessening serum wants to improve growth. We need a step change like we need a big change. There's the saying. What got you there? What got you here won't get you there. Um, and now I'm think I'm mixing both of the podcasts I've referenced so far have talked about this in the last episode. So um, what got you here won't get you there which leads me to think like I need to like. My marketing I need to find a new channel or whatever or do something big or like go freemium or something big and I'm waffling between that versus no actually iterative change iterative change might be fine. This idea that the product competition actually matters and it's not just build some shitty Mvp and market the hell out of it. Almost gives me a little more permission to be like yeah, let's just keep making the product better and better and better now. Maybe I'm lying to myself there or again I'm waffling like it's what I don't know which one is true and you don't either. But.
49:35.50
Rick
Um, so is this you waffling or is this like is this a conversation is the waffling conversation. What people are talking about or is it. Okay.
49:45.49
tylerking
Um, now this is me waffle when I listen to podcasts I like pause it every 30 seconds and then talk for 5 minutes to myself. So like I'm like in the conversation and debating people. This is this is my addition to it.
49:53.15
Rick
Yeah, yeah, okay so you're listening to these people and saying okay, it's much harder to start a new product. Maybe I shouldn't try to start a new product at less knowing Crm I should be just trying to make our existing product better.
50:08.47
tylerking
Like not just start a new product but like do I need some radical new market. Sorry I'm going all over the place here, but let me give you a little math. Okay, there is a difference between a plateaued company at $0 um mrr and a plateaued company at a million dollars um mrr $0 plateaued means you're adding no new customers and you're losing no customers meaning you have 0 traction period and in order to grow from there. You have to you have to go from 0 to one you have to do something significant if you're plateaued at $1000000 a r but that means is you're losing I don't know let's call it ah $200000 in error or whatever. No, that's too much. You're losing $50000 a error or a month and you're adding 50000 error a month. Um. What that means is if you could increase if you could keep churn the same and increase your growth rate by 10 percent now you've got your now you're growing decently an iterative very small percentage change works for the second company but not for the first. So. I'm tying this back to the marketing stuff that I've been struggling with where I'm like I'm looking at I'm like I don't think we're going to get Seo like really working like 10 x better than it was I don't think we're going to get content marketing really working. But then I'm like well maybe we just need to get it ah like something's working already. We're growing. We're not even plateaued. We're growing.
51:37.56
tylerking
Maybe I should be less focused on trying to hit a home run here and just slightly tweaking and improving everything we're doing already.
51:44.59
Rick
It's so funny that you're waffling on this I had a conversation with JD this morning who's my partner at leg up healtht and we we are constantly waffling between like continue to do. It's working and then trying new things you know and it's um, yeah it it does feel well.
51:55.33
tylerking
Ah.
52:01.86
Rick
It. It seems like this is a conversation that should happen within each channel not like across channels. So I don't know like each channel is either. Ah, you know an unknown that you're trying to like go from 0 to one on or it's something that's working and you're incrementally improving. Improving. Is there a situation where you're in a channel and you're at 1 but you're trying to go to 2 on like it seems it's.
52:25.83
tylerking
Yeah, well yeah, there's because like we kind of have Seo working. We just don't know how it's just gradually over the years it's gotten better and I guess I've been telling myself we can't just go through and tweak some h one tags and you know do that type of thing we need something bigger than that. But maybe that's not true.
52:44.42
Rick
Why yeah I would yeah so I I think that's where I'm going like that channel to me see it feels like it's an incremental improvement make Slash maintenance channel. Um.
52:45.28
tylerking
Yeah, you're right.
52:52.52
tylerking
So I Guess the question is let's say we never find another not like literally never ever but like let's say incremental channels are the only things we can get working should I just like accept that and be like okay we'll just keep hecking away at the same shit. We've been doing.
53:10.72
Rick
It it with eighty or ninety percent but like you should I feel like you should always be innovating I mean my bias is towards like adding new product like figuring out trying to figure out a new channel product like growth channel um, so i.
53:20.49
tylerking
So yeah, product led growth is the thing that I would be if I were to do this I'd be saying let's put our bet on product led growth and stop betting so much on traditional marketing type growth.
53:35.61
Rick
Are you betting on traditional marketing type growth right now or are you just managing it look up. Okay, yeah, so um, yeah, that makes sense I would say ah but but but is that really like.
53:36.34
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, no, we're bet we we hired demand maven we're we're spending probably a hundred thousand more this year than we would normally.
53:52.33
Rick
Betting on it or is that just like better managing it because you weren't really doing anything with it before like.
53:56.67
tylerking
No, it's betting on like we've been. We've been doing a lot of stuff where it's like it's with the assumption that we have to figure out something. Um, yeah.
54:03.79
Rick
It's got to get this is yeah Okay, um, yeah, that might be an unrealistic expectation.
54:10.33
tylerking
Which is a buttman I would hate to be starting a new I mean again, like we said if you start a new company right? now you just have to find one of those spaces that's less competitive but like I'm having a hard time here and we've got so many advantages compared to a new company. It's tough out there like sales.
54:23.60
Rick
Have you tried like doing outbound. Yeah.
54:30.32
tylerking
Ah, no, but like that there's no way the math could work I mean it.
54:34.69
Rick
If you hired I don't know like if you knew what there there are 7000000 small businesses out there. What is it something like that. Ah, and yeah, so like what.
54:42.33
tylerking
Yeah I think there's 20000000 that have fewer than 20 employees something like that.
54:51.60
Rick
It would be nice to know like which one of those if you could know like of the people who sign up how many came from a spreadsheet versus some company like going after come come other companies more aggressively I don't know I'm going into new channels though. So.
55:07.20
tylerking
Yeah Jason Lemkin would say that wouldn't work. Yeah, right.
55:09.90
Rick
So I it yeah based on your acv. Yeah, and I I think that's true on a sales basis. But if you're taking more of a demand Gen approach. Um so like ah more like more systems based approach I think it could.
55:26.50
tylerking
What? yeah.
55:28.69
Rick
But um, but that's a new channel that's not taking what's working now and managing and and incrementally improving it so that would be a bet. Yeah there you go? yeah.
55:36.55
tylerking
Yeah, we're doing that I realize now we are doing that with software advice which we've talked about um, okay, final thing here I've said this but I want to go back to it. The idea like I feel like I have more permission to take the approach I want to with the product and what I mean by that is. Again, indie if you just follow indie hackers too much. You will get this to sense that you have to be focused on marketing and like the the quality of the product barely matters. Um and and like I said earlier there are a lot of success stories of someone building something very quickly and marketing it and getting a lot of money. None of those things I can't name a single one of them and this is an interesting dynamic There are a million success stories on hacker news or on indie hackers that I've seen of this model and not a single one has been lasting enough that I could name it right now and I can name a lot of companies that are either. Bigger than us or on it on track to be bigger than us where they don't take that approach and they they do hard technical product stuff. They put a lot of care and love into the product and it seems to be working I mentioned savvy cal 2 pulls another convert kits another the companies that actually last and make it are ones that. Don't take the approach to product that the indie hackers crowd would have you believe is the right approach. So that's one of my takeaways here that I feel good about because like that's what got me here but I keep.
56:57.98
Rick
Yeah, he.
57:03.67
tylerking
Doubting myself because like the internet says that's not what you're supposed to be doing you know.
57:07.61
Rick
Yeah I agree like I mean I It's so much easier to run a business when the product is remarkable and people talk about it and say good things and tell the people about it then compare and stay with you for a long time. Versus a product people buy and then Churn or and don't talk about.
57:30.49
tylerking
Yeah, so I'll just close with this I'm feeling somewhat hopeless with marketing and incredibly hopeful with like our ability to differentiate ourselves with the product and so like net might like I am feeling more invigorated and more optimistic from all of this but Like. It's a lot of good and a lot of bad mixed in there.
57:53.58
Rick
It's great. It's it's like I was I mean it's amazing. How an entrepreneurship It's just constantly like highs to lows to highs to lows and just this conversation was one of those. Um, but it's constant and what I was where I was trying to.
58:04.47
tylerking
Ah, just just.
58:11.49
Rick
But was level setting with j d we're having kind of like a couple of weeks of that leg up health and where it's just kind of lows Beck into highs and um, it's just part of it and it doesn't get any better at once you had a million. It doesn't get any better when you get to 10000000 is just this is this the state that you have to be comfortable with.
58:28.39
tylerking
Um, yep, yep, ah all right? Maybe that's a good stopping point for us then unless you got anything else.
58:36.74
Rick
Yeah, no, that's good. Um, if you would like to review past topics and show notes visit start to last dot com tyler I will see you next week no I will not I will see in two weeks all right bye.
58:46.27
tylerking
See you then 5