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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.
00:00.60
Rick
What's up this week Tyler
00:02.93
tylerking
Um, I'm ah I'm back in St Louis after ten days and in your state had a good time there Utah yeah.
00:08.49
Rick
Utah yeah Utah um, it was good seeing you um park city was dead.
00:12.61
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, So since it's a ski resort town and the Ski season just ended like half of the businesses were shut down and but I kind of knew that though like I was looking around at like it doesn't make sense to plan a work retreat in a Ski resort town during Ski season because you're paying ridiculous prices to not. Actually go skiing. Um, but the prices were pretty affordable if if you just want to be in a cool, a nice climate looking at mountains out the window but otherwise not enjoy any of the things about a Ski town. This is the time to go to Park city.
00:45.22
Rick
Oh absolutely yeah thispi was beautiful up there and you guys had a really nice place right on Main street and then ah I see you guys got some work done too.
00:51.59
tylerking
We got just an absolute ton of work done. It went about as well as I could have possibly imagined.
00:59.80
Rick
Ah, do you have on the agenda today. Do you have plans to share what what the mission was with the trip and and yeah, that'd be amazing. Yeah.
01:06.14
tylerking
Yeah I mean I can I can just start with that I guess um, so yeah I I for a little history here for people who are not longtime listeners I used to go to Utah so I lived in Utah Rick and I were roommates um, way back in the day. Ah. And then as my responsibilities of lessening serum became more managerial and there's more just like crap that comes up day to day I started about once a year when did I start this like 2016 maybe something like that. Ah I just go to Utah for ten ish days and you know cancel all my meetings. Not really check email or slack and just. Kind of do individual contributor type work for 10 straight days. So I have a history of doing this but this is the first time I went with someone else. So Robert who's kind of our lead developer went with me and we both went with the intention of like we want to build a new feature product. It's kind of in between. Um. Which we'll call a form builder I've been talking about this on the podcast for years. The idea that our customers want to be able to make a form that other people can fill out and when it gets filled out the data gets piped directly into the crm. Um, so it is a feature of a crm but like there are also standalone form builder tools. So like in a sense. It's like from a feature set standpoint. It's almost like a separate product. Um, anyway, so we we spent ten days in Utah like so we started the project there and we basically ended with like.
02:32.69
tylerking
Maybe not quite a v one like there's some rough edges that need to get polished off. But um I mean a pretty functional like working product. Ah, ah for for a form building tool.
02:43.26
Rick
That's awesome and do you have any? do you have it out in the wild yet any any beta customers yet or is it still in in sort of QA.
02:50.60
tylerking
Um, kind of it's it's not that it's in q a it's that there's some work that needs to be done to actually get it deployed like we need to set up a new subdomain to host the public forms on and like um now that kind of the sprint is over the the pace has slowed down a little bit. We certainly could have it deployed if we had kept our. Foot on the gas. But um I would guess in the next couple weeks we'll have like a beta testable version. But even then probably I I'm guessing. It'll be a couple months before we like fully launch it even though I think it's like it's ready for a good demo like. But there's there's just for a kind of new product. There's so many little things around the edges that well well maybe I'll all this is one of the topics I have is like 1 of the things on my mind is normally when we build a feature what we care about is the perception from our we care about 2 audiences when you build a feature.
03:34.20
Rick
Um.
03:43.94
tylerking
Most of your current customers. Don't use it because they already almost by definition. Your product was good enough for them already. They already have their workflow set up, especially our customers who are not very tech savvy. They don't like change for the most part when we launch a new feature. They don't use it most of the time but they do perceive value from it. Right? They want to know that we're still working on stuff. We're still improving the product even if they're not using it and then maybe you know 10% or something will use it but mostly they could use it right? but mostly it's new customers who are getting set up for the first time where they don't already have those kind of calcified workflows. They're the ones who are going to use it but with forms the.
04:11.20
Rick
Um, they could use it.
04:18.82
Rick
E.
04:23.55
tylerking
Ah, point of I mean part of the reason we're building it is so that our customers get value out of it but part of the reason we're building it is if they use it and send the forms out. It can help create a viral loop so this more than any feature we've ever built. It's really important that our customers actually use it. You know.
04:39.93
tylerking
And as a result I'm I normally kind of roll my eyes at like spending a lot of time on doing kind of feature launches so to speak like new customers. Don't Care. What's New. They just care what the product as a whole is and old customers aren't going to use it anyway. So Normally we just like write a blog post make a video and and email it out to people with forms I Want to be. More thoughtful and like really try to get people to use it.
05:02.52
Rick
Um, couple of ah, are you good if I if I offer some unsolicited advice on this. Um, so so ah I agree with like the launch eventually. But um, what what? I would generally recommend in what I've done I've seen done well in the past um not by me but by other people.
05:07.47
tylerking
Um, please please? yes.
05:20.12
Rick
Is doing um, securing like 10 to 20 like accounts that are going to actively use it and test it out in the wild first and it's almost like a mini startup almost where you're doing like ah you're you're actually getting testimonials. You're identifying bugs and so when you do the big launch. It's actually a proven product versus.
05:27.76
tylerking
Ah, almost like.
05:33.67
tylerking
Here before.
05:40.40
Rick
That's the first time you're getting customer feedback. Um, you probably already were planning to do that. But um, it's one of those things that sometimes like you you could spend a lot of time planning a launch and then you you just but you don't really know what you have until people actually use it.
05:52.58
tylerking
Right? I was planning on most of that. So part of I I like what you just said partially because it makes me think I was already planning the right thing the thing I didn't I hadn't thought of is testimonials. Um, that makes a lot of sense that to tell our current users hey. Some some of you have already been using it and here's what they had to say that is a very good idea that I hadn't thought of I was already planning so maybe a year and a half ago or something I surveyed a bunch of our users about how they use forms because we were thinking about building this long time ago. Um, so I already have a list of like 150 people I think um, that filled out that survey. That I was planning on like some of them aren't customers anymore presumably I need to go through and clean the list but like that to me is the list of people I'm going to start reaching out to for kind of I was going to start with like like live interview you like user testing do that with. Ah, handful of people then try to do a beta test with maybe a few dozen people and then do the full rollout.
06:45.55
Rick
Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, and that that should give you the confidence that the launch is not going to fall flat.
06:51.70
tylerking
Yeah, but this really goes against my nature though because like almost everything else we launch. It's like not that we we wouldn't expect to ship something with bugs or whatever but it's always like well let's ship it most people don't even Notice. We don't have to announce it the the moment we ship it? Um, and then like. You know we'll just polish up or we won't whatever like most features we know exactly what it's supposed to be from the beginning. It's like we already have tasks people want the ability to rearrange tasks like do we really need to do user interviews for that. Probably not. So this kind of goes against my nature to say like rather than just ship it immediately like let's wait and try to really get it perfect because I'm I'm very anti launch for the most part.
07:30.70
Rick
And when when is there. Any reason you wouldn't go ahead and enable this on all accounts just to see user behavior before officially launching it like you could like make it available and then launch it after you make it available.
07:42.40
tylerking
Yeah, we could um my thought is that first impressions matter quite a bit. Um I this could be wrong, but like I think I know with me. You know I'll be like notion is a product I use really heavily or slack when I'm in there and they kind of announce. A new thing I'm going to like check it out for 5 minutes and either I'm going to dive fully into it or I'm never going to look at it again. Um, so my thought was that I want to like really push people as hard as I can in their first. Time using it to not not to think oh maybe I'll come back to this but to think I need to set this up right now. Ah, what do you think about that am I just making this more complicated than it needs to be.
08:21.66
Rick
Ah, probably but you know I I don't know but at the end of the day like I think thoughtful thinking of your customers and even if you're like overengineering thoughtfulness like that pays off over time. Um, so if you have an inkling that this is ah this has risk.
08:32.94
tylerking
Um, yeah.
08:37.93
Rick
Um, associated with with unthoughtfulness. Um, ah then I would I would just be cautious. It's an important thing you spent a lot of time on. Um, it sounds like you're thinking about this the right way I'm I'm excited to to just see this get into customers hands and hear about how customers are using it because um, it's It's certainly am ah ah going to be.
08:41.90
tylerking
Um, yeah.
08:56.99
Rick
Ah, more valuable tool for them than ah using like a Google a Google form.
09:01.23
tylerking
Yeah I I don't want to get my hopes too high but like so about we we actually finished the core functionality about halfway through the trip. Um, and then we were faced with the decision of do we do we add more because when I say core functionality is still very Limited. Um in what it can do do we add more functionality or do we go back and polish. The the stuff so it feels really good. Yeah, exactly and so we went with the skateboard approach as you're supposed to do according to that one graphic that we're all familiar with um after doing that when I use it I'm like this is the best thing we've ever built like.
09:19.23
Rick
A perfect skateboard or a half-built car.
09:35.71
tylerking
And it's more polished than anything in our real product and just ten days in ah which feels great but also a part of me is like it's polished to me. It has a much more like high tech like real native software feel to it. Um and less of a this is a. You know a form on a web page and you you fill it out and hit submit ah type of feeling and so I do I definitely need to test it with our users to see it because they're not like me necessarily and will they like it. But anyway I'm i. I like can't help but tell myself all these stories in my head about how this is going to be like absolutely huge for us which is probably bad. Nothing's ever as good as you hope it'll be yeah, it is fun.
10:13.20
Rick
Oh that'll be. That's fun though. It's fun to daydream. Um, yeah I don't know like can I just reverse this one before we move off this topic 1 more time and just say like what's the worst that could happen by treating this feature like any other feature you build and just getting it out there.
10:25.63
tylerking
Yeah, so I think the downside is it's you know we've been using the term cup holder recently which is the idea of a feature. It's like another cup holder in a minivan like you don't buy the minivan because of the cup holders but like once like it's got the 4 wheels in the engine and the steering wheel the things you need the cup holders just make it a little nicer. Um. I think worst case scenario is this is a cup holder. It's like oh cool. Ah, if I need a form I might I might come look at this versus like let's get everybody to or as many people as we can to really ah, go set up their forms and like I think that the difference is are we getting. But well let me pause how many submissions per month would you guess we're going to get a year from now like once this has had some time to catch on.
11:07.24
Rick
And you you care about some form submissions because that's eyeball seeing the less knowing Crm brand like that's the key Kpi.
11:12.38
tylerking
Yeah, so so there's there's like people seeing the form which will have a little powered by whatever but in my mind like when you use these kind of viral loop products like a document signing thing an invoicing tool. It's after a person submits it that they kind of hit a page that's more of a sales pitch for the.
11:20.45
Rick
Um.
11:32.90
tylerking
The tool itself. So to me that's a pretty big impression.
11:34.66
Rick
And and it's also you know, demonstrated demonstrated value for the person who's using the form So it's like the right. It's like with a one metric that matters for this project? Um, okay, well man I I don't know what your this like this would be if.
11:38.42
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah, exactly.
11:47.65
tylerking
Um, yeah, who who knows.
11:50.84
Rick
Yeah, like how many new leads are getting created in less links here m every day what it's like kind of like what percentage of those do you want to automate for your users. Um I don't know I it'd be cool if like like 1% of less than like I don't know like if there's like 10 a thousand new leads.
11:56.46
tylerking
Yeah, so it's it's a hard question to answer. But I.
12:10.55
Rick
Ah, added a day like 1 of those is automated through a lessoning cm for them that would be kind of a cool thing.
12:16.10
tylerking
That's I haven't thought about it in terms of like total number of leads. Um, but yeah, the the way I've been thinking about it not that it matters like it. We'll launch it and whatever happens will happen. Um, but I've been thinking about it like what percentage of our users will use this. Like a real form tool and then I do have some insight into what other form tools usage gets per user. Um, you could tell a story where we get a thousand submissions a month and you could tell a story where you get 100000 submissions a month. Um.
12:47.47
tylerking
That's that that's what's at Stake in my opinion is how many like how much can we really get this to spread. It'll be I think no matter what it'll be a feature our customers like and they'll think Wow This is a big improvement to the product. It's just how much actual usage does it get.
13:01.95
Rick
Yeah, interesting. Yeah be it's you're thinking about all the k there's a fun project I can't will you report out like on this regularly for the rest of the year in terms of like stages of rollout. Um, and then also like metrics that you're tracking related to success.
13:16.37
tylerking
Yeah, absolutely um, can can I actually prolong this a little bit and and pitch you on some ideas I've been playing around with um so like I with the idea of launching it I have been thinking like is this the time to do some more gimmicky launch stuff like more than just communicating to people. Um.
13:18.50
Rick
Yes, yes, thank you.
13:33.57
tylerking
I had 1 idea that I might have talked myself out of already. But I'll share it and that is like sometimes companies do giveaways. Um I've had the thought of like for every form submission you get in the first month that's like an entry and a giveaway and like we'll give someone a macbook pro or whatever um, something along those lines just to to try and create a sense of urgency so instead of like oh I'll check out forms next month being like well I might as well get it going right now because who knows to gimmicky.
14:02.35
Rick
No I would try stuff.
14:06.60
tylerking
The other one I had was so my idea was what if we like offered you know x number of users can get a free consultation and we'll set your form up for you and then unice our marketing person pointed out something really smart which is presumably a lot of our customers already have forms and especially the customers who. Get the most form submissions already have forms. Um, we they don't we don't even have to have a consultation. We could say send us a link to your form. We'll set that exact form up for you in less knowing Crm and all you have to do is link to this other form instead.
14:40.81
Rick
I would not be afraid to like make it super easy for your first one hundred users to adopt this? um and just like roll out the service and try everything I would throw noodles galor against the wall and if it doesn't work like don't repeat it but like try something else I would not worry about being gimmicky or.
14:50.36
tylerking
Um, yeah.
14:55.60
tylerking
Yeah, well yeah, no that one I feel very good about that that doesn't seem gimmicky to me at all. Um, but I think that and I don't think the customer wants the consultation call probably like they'd rather the low touch will just set the form up for you I think.
14:58.32
Rick
Ah, yeah.
15:09.69
Rick
But I offer it like let them choose. yeah yeah yeah I don't know I just feel like the feedback loop here is so important or in the early days when you launch a product and like the lie. There's nothing better than like getting someone on the phone seeing them what they're doing today.
15:13.60
tylerking
Well sure I mean we always have free customer service. But um, there's only.
15:26.80
tylerking
Um, ah.
15:28.56
Rick
And then like seeing them with their reaction to what you've built.
15:32.40
tylerking
Absolutely I'm planning on spending a lot of time on the phone with customers I'm talking about after that when we're ready to launch it to the general public. Um, but you can't you can't announce 20 things though. That's the thing is like there there needs to be some focus to what the you know the promotion is I think.
15:36.42
Rick
Same.
15:44.82
Rick
Do you guys have an integration with Google docs and Google surveys or forms. No can you can you see how zapier is anyone using zapier for google forms.
15:50.40
tylerking
No no, you can use zapier to do that. But ah I did I don't know the answer that. But so few people I think only like 50 people are using zapier total. So even if they're all using it for forms now I do think we we have a pretty simple api. We definitely have customers who.
16:02.29
Rick
Ma'am.
16:07.97
tylerking
Manually take form data and put it in through our Api. But again, it's a small minority of our total customers. Um, so I think a lot of our customers could use this but a lot of them don't have forms right now. So it is a bit of a like behavior shift which that's never an easy thing to to get people to do. Um, so I'm my my like goal is to get 10 percent of our accounts. Not normally I think of usage by user. In this case I think like one company. It's not like well a 100 user company is going to have a hundred people making forms. It's like they're going to make a a lead intake form for for the company. Um.
16:28.88
Rick
Yep.
16:46.26
tylerking
So my hope is 10% of our accounts are like using our forms tool as heavily as you would if you like bought and like like a paid forms account with you know, type form or whatever.
17:00.25
Rick
I think that's a great north star goal and like aspiration that will take a year or 2 or 3 potentially um, would encourage you to ah have a like a first milestone. Um, that's like very achievable that you can like have a company celebration on that everyone can rally behind.
17:07.46
tylerking
Um, ah.
17:14.21
tylerking
Um, yeah, that's fair.
17:17.26
Rick
It's like you have line of sight of to for 3 you know three six months from now like confident confident line of sight too. Um, and so like maybe you have like 3 milestones along the way this year that like are really worthy of celebration. Um, the other thing I was going to say is that um when I I'm losing it but I don't want to lose it because it was really valuable. All.
17:27.33
tylerking
Um, yeah.
17:34.70
tylerking
Oh shoot.
17:36.81
Rick
Um, ah as part of your launch and your learning phase. Um, this has the potential to have like not just like having a feature available but like recipes associated with it where you can have a playbook almost that you're giving to your customers of like you probably haven't thought about this but you can use a form too.
17:48.42
tylerking
Um, yeah.
17:56.40
tylerking
Um, yeah, absolutely.
17:56.98
Rick
So get get employees submit referrals um get partners to submit referrals. Get you know there's probably like a thousand use cases but like just yes, nope.
18:04.19
tylerking
Yeah, and P Surveys Yeah, all kinds of stuff Yup, get peep. Yep, Um, yeah, the hope is a yeah to create a lot of content just like a steady stream of content about different ideas and then also to keep launching. Um, so like there will be the initial launch but we're going to keep working on forms. And the hope is every time we build a new feature like oh we just added a new field type here's like ideas on how to use that field and hopefully that's each one of those is a way to kind of keep engaging people. Um.
18:32.16
Rick
Yeah I was thinking about my uncle's business like when I first moved to park city um I was a carpet cleaner for clean carpets of park city I don't know if you knew that? Um, yeah, ah yeah, we ah ah.
18:40.10
tylerking
Um I did yeah.
18:43.72
tylerking
I Think at one point we had some weird entrepreneurial scheme that involved carpet cleaning I Forget what it was.
18:52.11
Rick
Um, but yeah, they sponsored our basketball team in park city. Our men's basketball team and it was ah got dirty carpets that was the name ah clear and then on the back. It's a clean carpets of park city. Um, ah, but anyway, ah, ah. 1 thing that that they you know in in park city and resort town if you're a service business like that you get a lot of referrals from property managers and so we had ah a form use case where I would build a web a web form basically to like automate an email send for intake to for that for that lead.
19:18.27
tylerking
Are.
19:25.39
Rick
Ah, from a referral and um, that was mind blowing at the time. Yeah, that was granted that was you know fifteen twenty years ago at this point but like you know at the time it was like mindblowing and but there's there's no ability for um, the entrepreneur in this case to edit that. Um, so the the minute you make this like somewhat like.
19:27.63
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah.
19:39.13
tylerking
Um, right.
19:43.67
Rick
Usable by a non-exavvy person. It's pretty pretty on pretty Matt powerful unlock.
19:46.26
tylerking
Yeah, and the the sending an email thing after so we're working on 2 big projects right now forms is one the other one is we're just getting started on like real email integration which anyone who uses this here I'm the way you do is like can't believe we don't have this already but we we don't even automatically log emails yet. So. That's the first step but then. Hopefully later this year being able to send emails from the crm now once we have that if we have forms and the ability to send email then yeah, we can start doing those little automations like when someone fills out the form send them this email so it'll be many iterations before we get there but that's definitely I think probably sometime in 2025 we should. We should have that ready.
20:22.93
Rick
That's awesome.
20:23.99
tylerking
Yeah, um, so I've got more to say about forms but I've probably been ah dominating the topics here. Do you want to give some updates on your end.
20:31.62
Rick
Well I don't have a lot. Um I'm I'm ah just kind of going through a wave of just lots of um of work and ah, you know if you I don't know if you're I'm overwhelmed at the moment. Um with the things going on personal life. Ah, professional ah like creative family. Ah, etc. Um, our builder is ah still quite difficult. In fact, having a meeting today about it. Um, they're coming to the House. We're going to walk through the items but there's stuff from our closing list. Um that we like wrote an addendum to the contract that they would fix within the first thirty days that haven't been addressed. Um.
20:59.39
tylerking
Case.
21:07.88
tylerking
Um, Wow It's been a long time right? Yeah, okay.
21:10.56
Rick
And it's ah six months six somewhere between six and nine months I haven't like actually calculated the months. But anyway it's it's not that's just I'm ready for that to be done. Um, but at the same time we need to protect ourselves. So it's like you got to go through the motions you got to be you got to be you know somewhat? um.
21:19.78
tylerking
Um, yeah.
21:27.77
Rick
I don't say temperamental but Stern is probably the right word. Ah but also like keep you have to actively manage them so that's happening today. Ah windfads is entering a new quarter so that's super busy and just ah, we got an executive offsite in San Francisco in may and I'm going to Denver next week. So. Unk just a lot of stuff. Ah and then leg up's going really well like um and leg up referrals like we had ah almost like a record month. Ah in April Sixteen new clients added we added a couple businesses. Um, and we can't really explain what's happening but like lots of referrals. Um.
21:47.10
tylerking
Um.
22:03.33
tylerking
Um, yeah from from just there's no pattern or anything. It's just random cost existing customers mostly or just.
22:03.97
Rick
And why we don't know why.
22:09.50
Rick
Existing customers like so I don't know if you're remember in the partner meeting um in in March but I was like hey like there's a lot of people who want to catch up should I do these catchchups I haven't done many of those ketchups but every single one of those ketchups has led to or vial.
22:17.38
tylerking
Are. Oh Wow Well since you don't really have much going on right now. I say you should do more catchments.
22:29.80
Rick
Ah, yeah, v 2 But but but it's it's but that's but that's like a small fraction. You know of the referrals that we're getting so I don't know if it's just that we're meet but kind of hitting that base that leads to meaningful number of referrals and this is just going to increase as we increase the base or if there's something that we've done without realizing it.
22:46.81
tylerking
Yeah I Wonder if there ends up being a seasonal thing where it's like you know there, there's kind of a lull after open enrollment closes and then people or I don't know. But.
22:47.28
Rick
Jay and I can't identify anything.
22:56.63
Rick
Could be tax time like I mean that's the only thing I could think of as like April Fifteenth makes people think about this stuff.
23:02.86
tylerking
Yeah, cool, well good and take take it when it comes I guess.
23:08.73
Rick
Yeah, um, yeah, and so like the the 1 thing that I did take away from this which you already kind of called out is that give it's very clear that if I network into our icp space. It leads to good things like good things happen. It's just like and it's pretty quick turnaround. It's not like. Um, it's not like oh I'm gonna go like sell someone but like if I go have lunch with someone and tell them what we do like the result is usually somewhere in the next like 1 to three months like an introduction that is pretty close to the dollar. That's not why you should go network with people like it's very selfish but like at the same time It's like because you get. 2 benefits right? You get to meet this person and help them and but and like grow your relationships but at the same time it like feeds the business and so I'm I'm getting more confident about doing that and it being a good use of time.
23:46.60
tylerking
Um, yeah.
23:55.42
tylerking
Yeah,, that's great. Yeah, it doesn't even sound selfish like it's selfish if you say I'm going to go you know, extract everything I can out of that person and then tell them to fuck off like that's selfish. But if if you're just like. Ah yeah, it's good for the business if I know lots of people and create lots of serendipity like that. That's a win-win.
24:14.73
Rick
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, that's the plan. Um, as far as what we're working on JD and I are still focused on building the demand generation machine. We actually just posted a blog post today and I ran into a huge problem that I would like to rant on with webflow and then I also have run into this problem for years with building content.
24:27.52
tylerking
Um, okay.
24:31.92
Rick
I'm thinking that maybe you and I could build a mini saas on this to solve my problem and try to sell it to other people. Um, but okay so when you're but writing a blog post that's in technical writing you oftentimes have to build custom tables to house content make it easy for people to parse. Um, so like there's usually like some sort of intro. Ah, um.
24:36.96
tylerking
Um, let's hear it.
24:51.64
Rick
Material and then there's like okay here are the categories pick your category and then read to the right? you know that could be like the simplest version and then oftentimes in regular regulated industries these ah the the inputs to the tables change every year or ah with the tax year. So like 1 element of of the problem is there is no way.
24:56.78
tylerking
Her.
25:11.38
Rick
To easily create a well formatted table in a blog post in webflow. Um, you have to like custom code a table and so like it's bad or a gri you know a grid you know, whatever. However, you want to do it. It requires custom code. Um second.
25:19.59
tylerking
Um, yeah.
25:27.71
Rick
Ah, you know if you just do the basic html elements like it's formatted horribly So then it requires custom Css Um, and then you know on top of all this you end up in a place where there is um, ah you know content that needs to be updated in these tables. Ah that you need to Manage. And and then and then you end up with all this custom code that you have to go edit over time every year and so it's just like a compounding problem and so it seems to me that this would be a fairly easy like mini saas to build where you build the table you embed the table. Um.
25:48.25
tylerking
Oh.
25:59.35
Rick
And ah, you manage like the the table content and design through an app but like the embed is a Javascript.
26:04.39
tylerking
Have you looked for like webflow plugins to do this because it looks like there's a thing called Fins Suite table there might be others that this might already exist.
26:10.63
Rick
Um, no.
26:17.32
Rick
F and sweete is what that's called um, ah fin f and sweete. Yep yep f it's f and sweet designs man. Ah yes, yep f and sweet. Um I know well I Just um, yeah.
26:23.23
tylerking
Um, f in sweet. That's how you're supposed to say that no way is that how you pronounce that? Ok so you know about this and it's not what you're looking for.
26:37.20
Rick
I Would just say that like it doesn't solve the problem that I'm trying to do. It's like good design like they're very designed forward like they they do really cool complex webflow things for design. But what I'm actually looking for is more functional where it's like I don't care if the table actually looks that good as long as it's formatted usably. Um and.
26:40.95
tylerking
I.
26:48.75
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah, it sounds like you almost want like put the data into notion or airtable and then like put a view of that in in webflow rather than hosting the data in webflow.
27:01.34
Rick
Correct but but the key the key is and this is what's key for tables and blog posts is that you want the page to have the content in the html document so that it gets indexed by Google so there's an seo fact factor here.
27:17.20
tylerking
Um, and it.
27:18.16
Rick
So it's not like I said Javascript earlier that will not work because ah the ah.
27:21.20
tylerking
Okay, so it has to use the webflow Api to actually push html to the to the page.
27:27.95
Rick
Or ah or it's a I don't know exactly how this works. Um, but like yeah we need H html to be.
27:35.52
tylerking
Yeah, and just to ah to to preempt any potential responses from from listeners that might say Google does follow embeds my understanding is they claim to and there's evidence that they don't or that that they at least d. Prioritize content that is included via Javascript. That's my understanding they they claim to run javascript and and to follow that stuff. But I've I've seen people be like nah. That's bullshit.
27:52.80
Rick
Okay I didn't know that if well if it works for a javascript then that would solve like.
28:04.24
Rick
I'm interested I didn't know that um, but yeah, that's the problem like is this an easy problem to solve technically like and there's no one from where I can tell that's actually solving this problem and I run it like I would pay money for this because it is super painful every time I need a table. Because right now I'm just screenshriding tables in Google docs and pasting them as an image. Yeah.
28:20.44
tylerking
Oh wow y'all yeah that that definitely sucks. Um I don't know it's funny. It. It makes it reminds me of you know my mom has the blog. The yummy life and like I home built it we. We don't use wordpress or webflow or anything like that and what I did for her is so she has a separate tool and like the admin thing to put. Like recipes and then I gave her these little embed things where she could do like square bracket recipe underscore id and square bracket. But because it's all in php I replace it on the server rather than in the client. So um, it's effectively what you're looking for here. But yeah I don't know how you do that in webflow. You have to you have to push it push the html to the blog post if you don't want to do a Javascript embed.
29:04.56
Rick
Yeah, and that's and that's why I'm going like maybe I'd be happy with a Javascript embed here certainly like better than a ah better than an image. Um, but like I'd be interested in the seo thing I assume like other people are running to this problem. Um, and they're yeah, either not.
29:10.48
tylerking
Um, it's better than an image.
29:20.93
Rick
I Don't know what they're doing.
29:22.34
tylerking
Yeah I wouldn't be shocked dear listeners if you know a solution to this. Let us know I wouldn't be shocked if someone does but ah, okay, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah maybe ah a simpler version of this is just like make a tool that generates the html so you can copy and paste it into.
29:25.13
Rick
Now.
29:37.99
Rick
Yeah, that would be awesome and then I you know, simply go through it and then I can manage like hey this needs to be updated like just a system to manage all the tables that have data across the site and to easily embed like copy and paste those tables into a blog. This.
29:39.20
tylerking
A webflow post like.
29:47.58
tylerking
Um, yeah, that's probably not that hard like that's not like a Sas right? That's a little like Chrome widget thing. Um, you know if you want like I think with like up health we've been trying to figure out what should I be working on because.
29:58.40
Rick
Widget.
30:06.78
tylerking
Making the product better is not the lever that matters right now it's it's all kind of marketing and distribution type stuff if that's actually like meaningfully valuable to you I mean I could build that just for internal use I think we need to flesh out what exactly it is. But if it's something along the lines of like here's a Google sheet I want to be able to push a button and turn this into html.
30:10.19
Rick
Um.
30:16.72
Rick
Yeah.
30:26.30
tylerking
Something like that ah seems pretty doable. Yeah I don't think that'd be hard. It'd be. It'd be doable. Yeah well what I don't know is how many people are writing the type of content you're writing at some are but it strikes me as a.
30:28.88
Rick
That's cool and can we can but can we charge money for that to other people who want to do that.
30:45.20
tylerking
Ah, market where you'd have to have you have to charge a lot because I I doubt there are that many people buying.
30:48.56
Rick
Google Google sheet to html table Converter Convert Google yeah there's lots of people who are doing this all right cool. Well, that's where I'm going to go that was helpful. Thank you and then 1 more rant you.
30:58.66
tylerking
Um, okay, great use 1 of us cool. Yeah.
31:06.57
Rick
Were talking about how terrible the 8 sleep was last episode because it you could not control. Oh oh is that what it was okay. At some point you were telling me that this awesome 8 sleep that I have which cools my um, my body while I'm sleeping is not useful because you couldn't control it.
31:12.13
tylerking
Um, now I think we were talking we were talking about that on Wednesday I think at dinner.
31:26.27
Rick
Without your phone and so I just want to let you know that the 8 sleep has released pod 4 which comes with 2 special features first it has 10 time two x the cool cooling power for the warm bodies like me out there which I would love and then second you can control it without your phone.
31:41.96
tylerking
It just has like little knobs to like a little control panel that goes next to your bed.
31:46.40
Rick
I didn't look into it that detail I just saw and I said ha tell Tyler about this.
31:52.93
tylerking
Ah I'm not convinced Rick I bought up an 8 sleep. So many things about the design screamed like tech hubris to me like like oh you don't don't worry. About any of those features we have ai. We'll figure out what temperature you want it to be and I'd wake up in the middle of night I'm like it's it's an uncomfortable temperature. Let me control and they're like the only way to do that is to use your smartphone which yeah turning on your phone screen in the middle of the night when trying to fall asleep is a great move I need more from you Rick I need I need specifics.
32:22.22
Rick
Nothing. Yeah well Anyway, what else is going on in your world.
32:24.50
tylerking
I'm glad I'm glad you're happy with your 8 sleep I hated mine. Um I wanted to say some more about forms. Ah, which is one of the things that made it's made me realize so so like for a long time now you have not fully. I think now you do more but like when when we first started this podcast. You didn't understand what lessening serum was about at all, you didn't understand why anyone would use it. Um, which is fair like you shouldn't use it. It's not for you. But I think I've understood through this forms experience part of what what the disconnect was. And that is that I feel like there was a first wave of sass and a second wave of sass and that less knowing serum has been stuck in the first wave and I didn't really feel how different these things are until building forms and when I say waves First of all, you're familiar with like first wave second wave third wave coffee. That's the analogy I'm trying to make here first wave was like shitty gas station. Coffee second wave was like Starbucks where everything was the same and then third wave was like artisan this coffee shop is buying beans from you can't find anywhere else and roasting them in a specific way.
33:22.52
Rick
Nope.
33:33.66
Rick
Ah, double poop double poop. Ah you know like ah fertilized coffee beads.
33:38.35
tylerking
Yeah, I'm not a coffee drinker so I'm just repeating what what my coffee friends have told me but I think those are the waves anyway, I feel like there's at least 2 waves of Sas now the first like fundamentally saas you know we use the term cred app right? like create read. Update delete. There's a database. The app is the ui layer on top of the database but fundamentally what the app is is. It's just letting people put data into the database and get data out of the database right? Cried. That's what kind of we all think of a b two b sas app as being I think for the most part and that's all it was in 2009 back when we started lessening serum. Um.
34:02.57
Rick
Cred.
34:13.49
tylerking
What what? I'm realizing with forms is that it's just a completely different thing when your Saas product is providing you with value when you're not using it. Um, and that's what forms does ah you can You could potentially not even log into the serum to look at the data like we email you when the form gets submitted. You can just set up the form and stuff's happening and this is you know email automation works this way anything with kind of like an automation workflow element works this way and I've never been drawn to that because like the the reality is I'm interested in building the like. Thing The user interacts with that's the design I like I like saying Well how do we make this clear and intuitive and take as few clicks as possible while still not being confusing and you don't get that when it's like well everything's just happening automatically behind the scenes but I am seeing the power with forms of how cool that can be.
35:06.39
Rick
Yeah I guess that and connect to the dots. So when we talk about the second wave of Sas where people mean by that is that ah work is being done without physical presence.
35:15.81
tylerking
Yeah, like you do you know something happens and then that triggers a zapier call then that triggers. Whatever and what it like something happens without you pushing a button you know.
35:23.92
Rick
I hadn't connect with that dot. But that makes a lot of sense and so cool. Yeah, that in that this is your.
35:30.57
tylerking
Ah, like when you use it crm. That's what's happening right? it this The the reason you look at lessening serum and you think why would anyone use this is because it doesn't have any of that stuff right? yeah.
35:38.80
Rick
Yeah, totally yeah, like that's a stuff that I like I'm looking for.. It's like that's when I talk about like ah you know what I want legup help to be Well, it's it's taking ah an average insurance agent and turning them into my iron man. But it requires this type of tooling and automation in order to make that happen.
35:54.53
tylerking
Yeah, absolutely um and you know again I think ten fifteen years ago this was this wasn't common at all or if it happened it was all custom. It was like okay I have my crm I have my project management system I'm going to build a custom api call that you know what does whatever. But yeah now obviously for for. 105 years now it's been much more common to say either I'm going to plug these things together as zapier and things are going to happen automatically or and all in 1 built for you tool. And yeah, I'm just starting to see with forms like it's already. You got a little bit of that. But then like yeah when someone submits a form. Let's create a few tasks for people and assign things to different people.
36:26.64
Rick
Um, well this is your first ah lead like non- customer facing feature right? like this faces a ah use a a customer a lead or prospect a customer prospect or customer of the user and.
36:31.45
tylerking
Um, yeah.
36:40.12
tylerking
Yeah, by the way last episode I couldn't remember I couldn't remember what we were going to call them your first guest was submitter I relistened to our episode. Do you remember this conversation. Um, well we weren't going to call them submitter. We're going to call them respondent. But then.
36:50.40
Rick
Yes, what did you call already calling him respond. Ah so so but but this is your first like submitter facing thing right? and like.
36:58.30
tylerking
Ah, now we're going to call them submitter So there's there's the submit which I also think sounds stupid but we're we're going with it. Yeah.
37:07.47
Rick
And you can't really do this stuff that soistic like that's the first step right is getting inserting yourself in between the customer and their people. Um, yeah, yeah.
37:13.74
tylerking
Right? That's the entry point to the automation and then the question is okay well what are all the things and I don't think you know our goal is not to become hubspot or Salesforce or something like that. But yeah I don't want a billion dollars that sounds lame after like you know.
37:22.32
Rick
Why not the billion dollar companies. Let's go do it.
37:32.19
tylerking
Fly private or something I'm not into that. Ah no I don't want to I'm not interested I Still love the thing I Love building is the user interface and so I'm honestly not super excited about like.
37:32.21
Rick
But okay, oh.
37:46.51
tylerking
Really really automated things. But yeah I cannot deny the power that that you see when you say well oh someone fills out a form if that connects to sending an email to creating tasks to adding people to a group adding people to a group can sync them to Mailchimp already. That's a feature we have and then if that can trigger not information on mailchimp. Yeah, it's kind of exciting to think about I'll admit it.
38:05.84
Rick
Yeah, especially if you can you know be the ah I don't know the the the bridge for these less tech-avvy entrepreneurs to learn to to connect on this stuff.
38:14.26
tylerking
Yeah that's a great point I think yeah like ah back to the question. Why would anyone use lessening here m and it like the answer is something like we've we've been able to get medium. Complexity in a so in an in a low complex like medium complexity functionality in a low complexity interface. Um, and I think if we take that same philosophy with automation and say there's already everything we could automate is already automated out there. You can you Rick can already do it. Can we let. Our customers do what you can do I don't think anyone's nailed that yet.
38:50.72
Rick
I don't think that's like the goal though I think this is like leveling the playing field for small businesses like this is unfair right? like the average small business low tech heavy like is missing out on all this automation stuff that we're talking about the second wave of Sas and like that is a huge competitive disadvantage.
38:59.82
tylerking
Um.
39:06.30
tylerking
Yeah I I like you saying that I on my little blog thing I did a while back less knowing business I mean the the first post I wrote was called the technological divide and it was exactly what you just Said. It's like technology is widening the gap between what a small business can do and what a. Bigger or more tech savvy business can do and like what we as entrepreneurs should try to do in my opinion is try to level that that playing Field. So What you just said Mirror is exactly what I I have had that thought before but I hadn't connected it to automation the way I am now.
39:36.72
Rick
And this is a lot about like this is very similar to what we talked about with leg up health too like it's all about leveling the playing field for hiring and and retaining um with health insurance and you know you're not going to be able to have the budget of of you know, ah of a Google um, as a small business but you can certainly.
39:51.90
tylerking
Um.
39:53.34
Rick
Make a compelling case. Ah so that Health insurance isn't like a ah a non-starter like um and so anyway, yeah, it's ah this stuff gets me up in the morning.
39:56.58
tylerking
Um, right? Yeah I like that a lot now I do have to fight against you know my instinct is always to like oh new product strategy. Let's you know, go after this or whatever and you know my hope my hope for this year is that we're really focused on building. Just making our serum better catching up with our competitors on the core features that a serum is supposed to have I think forms fits within that but like you can imagine me taking this too far and being like we're you know we're spending the rest of the year on our automation platform or whatever and that's not what we should be doing so.
40:30.63
Rick
And.
40:33.36
tylerking
I think it's very cool. We're going to inch in that direction. But I I need to try not to lose focus here. Um all right? Ah, another thought I had when in Utah was so it's kind of my main time to code like you know 10 straight days of nothing but coding. And I like it I like coding I also like designing one of the weird realizations I had though is I had a few moments of kind of relief in Utah where some project management needed to get done where we were like oh. We thought we were going to code this in in one way but we're actually going to use a different tech stack for this thing got to remake the cards and like like they can notion and rethink how we're going to approach this because that you know that changes. What's the work that's going to go into it and I found myself being like ah yes now I feel at home like this is what I should be doing.
41:25.79
Rick
Ah, ah why I think it's like the one of the most underrated powerful things that ah you know is critical to get to to to lead.
41:28.46
tylerking
Which I kind of hate ah because.
41:37.81
tylerking
I kind of agree that I agree that it's not a lot of people have that skill set I if I can be a modest I think I do I think I'm good at project management but it like. It very It comes very very close to the like office space. You have 7 managers. What would it? What would you say it is you do around here type of like empty suit bureaucracy you know like it's very easy for product and project management to turn into unimportant work which makes me. Nervous like I like it so much I want to turn it into my full time job and that like that would be a huge mistake There's not a full time job there at at a company like this.
42:08.64
Rick
Um.
42:17.91
Rick
No it. It don't project management only matters ah to the extent that the project that you're managing matters. Um, so like that like the the the management itself is not important the project getting done is yeah yeah.
42:27.61
tylerking
Yeah, that the project gets done and if the project was going to get done putting more time into project management is pointless I mean I don't know if you've been following all the layoffs and tech and stuff. But it seems like both product and project. But especially I think product managers have been really. Ah, hit hard by the layoffs and I follow a number of product managers who are trying to be polite to their colleagues who just got laid off but they're like yeah this thing that I do there were way too many people doing it. So I Love it and I feel gross by it.
43:01.71
Rick
Well um I know what you're talking I can relate to this So I I get it like there's something madly satisfying about like taking through dependencies and ah making it so that a a very complex thing becomes.
43:10.79
tylerking
With a.
43:17.62
Rick
Very doable and simple.
43:19.13
tylerking
Yeah, ah, what a great feeling. Um, cool. We got just a few you have anything else on your list or show just keep running through things.
43:26.90
Rick
I Just have a little bit of a rant on solicitors. Um, so one thing that we did not experience at my. Ah last place is we never had like a person knock on our door and try to sell us something. Um I never I hate getting interrupted like there's nothing worse like I have my phone on silent.
43:37.73
tylerking
Um.
43:43.40
Rick
I block unknown colors. Um I don't like I I get span probably 30 times a day on email like it's like super annoying to me. Um, and I like filter like anything like that I like don't want to get interrupted by a filter like automatically you know so I can look at it when I want to.
43:48.62
tylerking
Her.
44:01.85
Rick
Get solicited daily almost like it's crazy like the number the number of like window cleaners who have like knocked on our door. They're like in their early twenty s and just like tried to pitch us on cleaning our windows is I don't even I've lost count.
44:05.15
tylerking
Um, ah.
44:15.50
tylerking
Well Utah is like full of these people right? because like the the mormon mission prepares people to just be incredible at this.
44:23.32
Rick
Oh yeah, and it's like I want to be annoyed and and like make him go away but at the same time I'm I'm also like impressed and like respect them for doing it. Um, and they they've got like a pitch they get. They get the job done. They get. They get the quote. Um, it's hard to say no.
44:31.70
tylerking
Um, yeah.
44:36.70
tylerking
I Mean to some extent this is like J D does the the digital equivalent of this right? like at you at your direction. You're like I'm going to spam people I'm going to cold call people but they better not do it to me.
44:40.17
Rick
I I just feel like it's I just I feel like showing up at people's houses and like texting people are like like past the point of their it's like personal.
44:54.64
tylerking
They're different. Yeah, so so here's a etiquette question for you when someone rings your doorbell and your home. Do you have an obligation to go answer. Okay I Just don't answer the door if I'm not expecting someone I'm like whatever I don't know who it is I don't I don't care.
45:02.24
Rick
No.
45:07.70
Rick
The the they they got the way these guys get me is I'm usually like dealing with something else at my front door. They're like oh hey, hell hey Neighbor have you seen this have you seen this around here. We've been around here. It's like no I haven't seen you I don't know who you are What do you want.
45:16.84
tylerking
Um, ah yeah, hard to avoid that. So have you actually bought something from some of them. Okay.
45:27.42
Rick
No, but like it's like it's like what are those things where like they get what they wanted out of the call which is like you know the ability to pitch me and get a quote give me a quote and it's like damn it.
45:35.41
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah I agree I hate it I There's no. The problem with the competitive Market is even if 95% of people say they're not going to do it The 5% that do are the ones that are going to end up rich. So then everyone has to do it.
45:52.84
Rick
Yeah, speaking of which um, there's an incredible episode this guy. Um ah, niko dado. He used to work with me at people keep but he's the Cmo at Entrada now. Um, which is a property management company here in Utah with a. If you look it up online. There's like their their founder did some weird stuff a couple years ago but just ignore that it's a new new new ownership management. Yeah um, but but they have a podcast that's like called like the third node I can't remember exactly what it's called, but um, something node and they're interviewing like the like tech superstars in Utah to try to tell a story of like.
46:15.29
tylerking
Um, like past it.
46:29.88
Rick
Venture and tech. Ah, um, entrepreneurship in Utah it's really interesting but they they interview. Do you know the story behind vint. Do you know what? Vivet is yeah home security. Um, and then also solar. They have a solar piece so kind of like home automation is like the general thing.
46:39.31
tylerking
Um, so like a home security thing like up.
46:49.61
Rick
Um, but anyway the the guy who founded that is a guy named Todd Peterson and he actually started a pest control business. Ah so he started selling pest control by by knocking doors and he but actually like the way he he ended up building that business was he built the distribution where he really knew how to like hire these people following their mission.
46:58.24
tylerking
Um, first.
47:07.43
Rick
Ah, you know, sign him up for a quota and they just knock doors all day. Um and sell home services but pest services and eventually they he pivoted. They took the distribution and reapplied it to home security with Adt and then eventually built the you know, displaced Adt. But anyway, great great. There's this great episode both like it just like.
47:15.10
tylerking
Um, so.
47:27.33
Rick
This if you can figure out distribution through solicitation like this like you can sell everything. Yeah.
47:27.99
tylerking
Yeah, or however, any kind of distribution like it's I ah regularly think if I had to start a company from scratch today I have absolutely no confidence I could do it just because like my my whole distribution right now is based on the fact that we already have customers I don't I don't know. How you go get customers from scratch. It's well yeah, but it it was different fifteen years ago like you could just buy Google adwords and they were so there even back then they were expensive but like it was doable on a bootstraper's budget now it's you're paying $20 a click for a good keyword and those people.
47:47.14
Rick
You did it.
48:04.54
tylerking
Are evaluating 50 different crms I mean there's no way to make it work for our price point. So yeah, whether it's knocking on doors or something else I'm always jealous of people when they even if it annoys the shit out of ah Rick when he's at home trying to focus on something.
48:08.50
Rick
Now.
48:17.27
Rick
Well, it's it's one of those things I am conflicted about it like I'm annoyed but at the same time. It's like I respect respect. Do you have anything else. That's quick all right? Well if you'd like to review past topics and show notes visit start to last dot com.
48:25.33
tylerking
Yeah, yeah for sure. Um, Nope I think I'm good.
48:34.44
tylerking
Um, see ya.
48:35.41
Rick
Next time.