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We discuss meeting a fan of the podcast and how we're going to try to productize our hiring process.
The Products: Raisonne.gallery, OpenHouse.social
- (00:00) - 020 - We Productize Hiring
- (00:50) - Introduction
- (01:05) - Daila met a fan
- (03:03) - Daila's homework
- (03:49) - Aiming for a new Little Robot website
- (09:01) - Can we productize our hiring process
- (15:10) - Can we build a marketplace course
- (20:20) - Outro
The Products: Raisonne.gallery, OpenHouse.social
Newsletter: factory.twostoryrobot.com
Twitter: @twostoryrobot
Instagram: @therobotfactorypod
Follow Jonathan: @thejonotron
Follow Caleb: @calebissharp
Creators & Guests
What is The Robot Factory?
Follow along as we attempt to build and sell a SaaS company. A build in public behind the scenes journey of a small software agency, Two Story Robot, trying something new.
Caleb: I don't want everyone
hearing my mouth noises.
Jonathan: It's fine.
Caleb: No, I don't like
mouth noises at all,
Jonathan: Uh,
Caleb: I don't want anyone else
to have to hear them either.
Jonathan: Uh
Daila: them on meditation apps.
If you ever like listen to a
meditation one, but you hear a
lot of, I just, I can't, can't
Caleb: If I'm listening to a podcast
and someone's mouth is right up to
the microphone and all you hear is
smacking, I don't listen to the podcast
Jonathan: You don't listen
to the podcast at all?
Caleb: Nope.
No.
I'll, I'll block them
so they don't pop up.
Jonathan: You blocked them.
Find them on, find them on Twitter
and just block their profile
so they can't even message you.
Caleb: exactly.
Jonathan: Uh, somebody.
Intro us.
Caleb, your turn.
Caleb: Good morning, good afternoon,
and good evening and welcome
to the Robot Factory Podcast.
I'm your host, Caleb Sharp.
Daila: I'm Daila Duford
Jonathan: and I'm Jonathan Bowers
. What is this podcast about anymore
anyways, like what are we, we're still
Daila: I don't know, but,
but I met a fan the other day
Jonathan: yeah.
Tell us about that.
Daila: I was pretty excited.
Yeah.
So we have talked about Askew's
in past, um, Podcasts Askew's an
amazing local grocery store, little
in Salmon Arm, um, little, little
free advertising for them there.
Anyways, I make all my friends
there and one of my cashiers,
Andrew, if you're listening,
Jonathan: Oh, hey Andrew.
Hi,
Daila: Andrew told me he's been listening
to our podcast and it made me so happy.
Jonathan: That's awesome.
Daila: Andrew is an excellent cashier.
Jonathan: Oh, does he?
What?
What makes an excellent cashier
Daila: Oh, well,
Jonathan: be beside, besides just like
making friends with Daila , because
Daila: that's a big part of it.
You have to be willing to talk,
share a little about yourself,
Caleb: have to be fast.
Like I was at, I was at Save-on
the other day, and I don't mean to
call anybody out, but the cashier
was so slow, like beep beep.
Daila: Oh, but maybe have you guys
read about, this is so cool to me.
There's grocery stores now that
have introduced an ultra slow lane
for people who do want to visit.
Jonathan: What.
Daila: It's amazing,
and I feel like it was made for me if
I ever leave to work somewhere else.
I'm sorry, Jonathan.
It's going to be to run the ultra slow
lane at a grocery store because it's
meant for people who just wanna talk.
Jonathan: Well, I'm excited we have, uh,
one more listener that, um, surprisingly
makes, uh, well, maybe unsurprisingly,
makes a significant difference
to our stats . So thanks Andrew.
, uh, we don't have a ton of listeners.
Daila: We will
Jonathan: So now, now I believe
our audience is moms and
Daila: cashier and Andrew
Jonathan: grocery store,
cashiers, grocery clerk.
Daila: I don't know.
I think a clerk is
different than a cashier,
Jonathan: Did you do your homework?
Daila: Oh, I tried really hard, but
it's hard to get emails for bank people.
But I have, I have put out many
feelers and I'm waiting to hear back.
Um, I thought you could just like
look up their email addresses.
Turns out you can't, so now
Jonathan: I bet you
Daila: personal route.
I I, was going to try cuz I feel
like I probably could, but, but yes.
So now I'm, I'm reaching
out the, the personal route
and waiting to hear back so.
I half of the assignment, yes, I
did not have a conversation, but
I've started the conversation.
Jonathan: Um,
Daila: just hasn't talked.
Jonathan: ah, that's okay.
Well, some
Daila: gonna happen?
Jonathan: step little steps.
Daila: Yeah,
baby steps.
Jonathan: Did you do anything
product related on Friday?
Daila: What did we do on Friday?
We, well, we're working on, on
our, uh, the new little robot site.
And it's pretty close
and it's pretty awesome.
Um, yeah, so Steve, our designer, he's,
he's just learning how to bubble now,
but he learning, he's so fast at learning
that he built most of it already and now
we're going through and optimizing it.
But there's just these crazy
little animations that he's
doing, um, that are very exciting.
So, yeah.
So we're.
We worked a lot on that.
Um, a lot of it was just strategizing
and planning for stuff like hiring
and apps and stuff like that, but it
was good.
Jonathan: I met with, another agency,
a marketing agency that has done
some work with real estate agents.
Um, so circle all the way back
to like OpenHouse.Social , the
thing that we kind of started on.
Um, so he's, he's been feeling around
with some real estate agents, uh,
around the idea of not necessarily
this tool exactly, but a service
where, Somebody , the agency.
Um, just, just posts like
managers of social media for
you and like, this exists.
This isn't new, this isn't a new idea.
Um, But we were, we were
scheming and talking.
Can we, can we reduce the scope so that
it just focuses on a few key things that
we think we can automate really easily?
Um, and he's, he's, I think he's
starting to get some bites and so
he's gonna, he's gonna basically
do what I wish I had more time to
do , which is, manually do everything.
So he's gonna sign up some, sign
up some real estate agents and.
Just produce their social media
images and posts for them.
Um, I know that doesn't sound
like anything different, but we're
gonna try to do it in a way that
allows us to figure out what are
the pieces that we can automate.
Um, and he's gonna, he's
gonna start, um, start using
OpenHouse.Social for some of it.
So, uh, I gotta get him an account, which
I can't remember how to do, but, um,
Daila: Whatever happened
with open house.social?
I feel
Jonathan: We just stopped.
We just stopped doing anything about it.
We, we just, yeah, we just, I don't know.
I don't know.
We, we have this habit of doing
things and then just kind of
leaving them to sit around.
Caleb: I think we stopped doing it because
we thought we found better things to do.
Jonathan: Well, that is true.
We also got very busy, um,
Caleb: don't, don't have infinite
Jonathan: I wouldn't say better things.
We found other things that
captured our attention.
Shiny objects, that were different
Caleb: Well, I, I had other things to do.
Jonathan: Yeah.
You had other things to do.
Um, I also, I also had other things to do.
We had a whole other, a whole other
startup to create, um, out of thin air,
which was, which was pretty exciting.
Um, we're still working on that, but
yeah, so this, this might come back,
um, in some form or another, and
I'm actually quite excited about it.
Daila: What you been working on, Cal?
Caleb: Um, I can't, I can't talk about it.
Daila: Oh one of those.
Hey, whatever happened
with crop insurance?
This is like a full retro episode
Jonathan: Oh yeah, that's
still, that's still going.
I sent off some documents to the person.
He's, he's doing a demo in early March.
Daila: excellent.
Jonathan: did we talk
about that on the podcast?
This.
Daila: I, we did a little
bit, I think when I.
I used to listen to the
podcast, but now that I'm on
it, I don't listen to it after.
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so we've, we've built this, we've
built this tool that lets, that analyzes
satellite data to figure out crop yield.
Um, and we're working with
somebody in the industry.
It's a pretty, it's a pretty
neat, neat, exciting tool.
Um, it incorporates satellite imagery,
weather and gives you much, uh, much
higher resolution insight into crops
, but specifically for grass feed or
like grass feeded for, for cattle.
so that's essentially
finished for the moment.
I do have a little bit more
work I need to do on it.
Um, not, not the product itself, but.
Some of the other, other opportunities
that exist because of it, uh, which
I can't really get into just yet.
But I, I do think there is some
opportunity for some funding and, um, I do
think there's a, like a slight pivot into
a different, a different market for it.
Um, so we've gotta, we've gotta
explore that a little bit, but it's
very early, very early for that.
Daila: That's neat though,
that the product's done,
Jonathan: Oh, I mean, it's not done the
pro it, it's a, yeah, it's a prototype.
It's, it's not really usable by anyone.
Um, but it shows, it shows what
is possible, um, and very, very
easily shows what's possible.
So it's, it's pretty cool.
It's pretty exciting.
Daila: Ah, what else we got?
What else we got on the, on the go?
Team,
Jonathan: Well, I mean,
Daila: feel like we
have so much on the go.
Jonathan: know.
There's so much on the go.
This is a podcast about product.
so I'll share, I'll share another,
I'll share something else.
It's kind of product related.
So we, we have to hire, I'm
pretty sure we have to hire.
Daila: Oh, this is exciting.
Yeah.
Jonathan: So we've got a number
of projects that are on the go,
um, demands, uh, of time, both
currently and in the future.
Um, you know, we've committed to
some things that, uh, are, are in
increasing in their demand and some
future, future things that we'd
really like to get, uh, get going.
That just needs, we need some more people.
So we're probably going to.
And so one of the things that, uh,
that we've done in the past is, um, we
have a, we have a, a different hiring
process our hiring process is like this.
We ask three questions.
and you answered those three questions
in a short, like short paragraph form.
And they're values oriented questions.
We assess them based on, based on value.
So they're, they're questions that that
ask, You know, ask you to reflect on how
you would, how you would handle certain
situations or, or, uh, do certain things.
But they're based on values.
And then we assess all of
those, all of those responses.
We, we try to anonymize it, um,
or we do anonymize it cuz it's,
it's pretty easy to anonymize.
Occasionally somebody kind of reveals
some identifying information in
their answer, but not, not often.
Um, we are anonymize it and then everybody
on the team goes through and reviews.
Um, samplings of those questions
and sort of assesses them.
And it's a pretty, it's
a pretty fast process.
It, it doesn't take that long to do.
Um, but we built this in, in no code.
Um, and it works, it works quite well.
Like, it, it allows us to
very quickly scale out.
Uh, A large number of assessments to
the whole team so everybody can go in
and say, I'm gonna do some assessments
and spend an hour just grabbing some
responses and, and assessing them
based on our rubric that we have.
And I was telling somebody about this and
they said, Why don't you sell that thing
? Like that sounds awesome and I, I agree.
It does sound awesome, but I'm
just not sure if anybody, if
anybody would like it or not.
Um, it's worked really well
for us cuz I think we've got
a pretty, pretty great team.
Uh, maybe there's a bias there, but,
um, I think we've got a great team
and other people have said so too
and I know that we've gotten some
feedback on our hiring process that it
is, um, quite different cuz we don't
ask for a resume or a cover letter.
Upfront anyways, we, we do
ask for it at some point.
Um, so I have been, I have been rebuilding
this thing to be something that is a
little bit more generic, I guess, and
something that, that can work more
than just for one job at our company.
Um, and I, I want to turn it
into at least some content.
We're on a talk about how it works
and see if anybody's interested
in, I don't know, using it.
Maybe they'll buy it as a template or.
Um, but yeah, so I'm kind of working on
that as a bit of a, not a side project
thing, but, uh, a small thing cuz we, we
do need to do some hiring, so I actually
have to , I'm motivated to get, get
this thing finished, uh, and then, and
then we'll turn it into some content.
Um, but it's, yeah, it's,
it's, it's kind of neat.
Uh, and I'm excited to see if we can, if
we can automate it further and just make
it a lot less work for us to administer.
Um, even things like, honestly,
even things like receiving resumes.
can be kind of a pain cuz people email
them and then, um, like traditionally
people will just email them somewhere and
then somebody's gotta take that stuff and
file it and put it somewhere and make it
available to whoever's gonna review it.
Uh, and I think there's even some like
small subtle things that we can do
there to, to help, to help with that.
Daila: I like it.
So what if we, cause I know the,
the tool you're building it in,
like you said, we could probably
sell it as a template or something.
What if we were to build it in another
tool and offer it as a service?
Jonathan: Oh, well that's interesting.
. I don't know.
I don't know if I'd thought about that.
Daila: totally build
it in say, bubble, um,
Jonathan: Oh.
Daila: or something like that, and
actually turn it because it, it is great.
Um, . I love how we are starting
to automate the hiring process.
Cause I remember when I first
started, I was basically the
automator who had to go through and
remove any identifying information
before I sent it out to you all.
And, uh, yeah, that,
that was time consuming.
But I, I was the bot, if you will.
Um, so it was a much nicer the next few
times when I didn't have to go through
Jonathan: Ah, okay.
How, how long do you think it
would, so, you know, you know
how this process works, right?
So like, we, we do these questions,
we assess them as a team.
Um, one of the things that was
a problem in the past was , we
waited until we received all.
All of the answers to questions.
And then we did assessments and it
introduced this artificial delay.
So people that filled it out at
the beginning, um, didn't get,
we didn't assess them until after
the last person had submitted.
And that se that seems like an
artificial delay that wasn't necessary.
And then that pushed back getting resumes,
and then that pushed back, um, interviews
it, the whole process took like six weeks.
And it was, it just was way, way too long.
And I, like, one of the reasons why I
wanna automate it is so that it can be a
continual, kind of a continual process.
Uh, but we, we get, uh, responses.
We get resumes and cover letters,
and we schedule interviews.
That's kind of all it,
all this thing does.
How long, how, like, how much
effort do you think it would
be to build this in bubble
Daila: I dunno.
See, I'm, I'm not good at estimating,
but I'm better if we do like a quick
down and dirty v p So can that be my
homework for, for this week to do like the
Jonathan: Oh, yeah.
Daila: ugly,
Jonathan: Oh, I like
Daila: little, and because I love
doing those and then I like handing
it off to Steve to make it pretty.
Um,
Jonathan: just a second.
Let's try.
So one of the other things that we're
trying to do with Little Robot is, um,
downsize our services a little bit.
Um, one of the things that we
want to do is MVP in a day.
Daila: Yeah.
Jonathan: can we do that to ourselves?
Can we, can we build an MVP in
a day of this, of this process?
Of this thing?
Daila: Yes.
Jonathan: Okay.
Let's do that.
Daila: I'll do that on Friday.
That'll be my Friday
Jonathan: Okay.
Daila: job.
Jonathan: Okay.
Let's do it.
Daila: Sounds good.
And yeah, I'll just
pick the main features.
I can't build everything in one
day, but we'll build the main.
Main
core.
Jonathan: main things.
Um, so another thing that I want, I
kind of wanna talk about, I forgot
about, and I just remembered, um, I.
We're gonna try, also,
try something new again.
Uh, just, we just try new things.
. That's all we do.
We're just like, let's try this,
let's try that, let's try this.
Um, so I, I've, I've recently started
doing more of the business development and
analyzing, uh, inbound, inbound requests.
People fill out our contact
form, people fill out.
There's other ways people get ahold of us.
One of the themes that I've
picked up on is a lot, a lot of
people wanna build marketplaces.
Bubble in no code, and their budgets
tend to be on the smaller end.
And so they don't, they're not
really a good fit for us to
go and build that for them.
And, you know, they can't really
afford to hire us to build out
a whole marketplace for them.
But there's a lot of people
asking for this stuff.
Even, even today, I saw three
more, like, you need a marketplace.
You need a marketplace.
And so I, I want to, I want to try
creating some free content around.
. So one of the things we had talked about
was let's just build a marketplace for
some, um, some niche that we like and
show people how we've done it, what we've
done, and then eventually turn it into
a course or some kind of, um, some kind
of package that someone can buy so that
they can teach themselves how to, how
to build this thing, uh, and build up a
little bit of an audience as we do it.
I've, I've, I've formulated my
thoughts a little bit more on
this, um, since, since we talked
about this however many weeks ago.
Uh, not on the podcast, just as a team.
And I think, I think
what we need to do is.
Build it in the open, not charge
any money for like, watching us
build it, just build it in the open.
But, um, do some, like, maybe do
some kind of, uh, I dunno, like a
Patreon thing or, or something where
you can, you can become a premium
subscriber at a very discounted rate.
That at the end of it, you get
the thing that we produce, right?
So you can watch free, anybody can
watch for free, but at the end you get
the course or the, like, the, maybe we
create a cohort based community where
people who are trying to build, uh,
Marketplaces can, can work together
and will help them, like they can
ask questions and things like that.
Um, so that's, that's what
I'm thinking at the moment.
Um, and we, we, I think we have a
marketplace idea that we wanna build.
Is that true?
Did, did,
Daila: That is true.
We talked about that on Friday
and yep,
Jonathan: What are, what is
the thing we want to build?
Daila: Uh, well, we
talked a very little bit.
I'm probably not the one to speak to it.
Amber is, but very, very high level
is a, uh, uh, farmer's market, um,
direct to customers marketplace.
Jonathan: Yeah, and I think,
yeah, I think we can build that.
We just do, do we have the time?
do.
Do we have the
Daila: is
the thing now that I've taken on more.
Um, yeah.
When let's hire so that
we can take on more.
Um, yeah.
I say, I always say, yes.
We'll, we'll, we'll figure it out.
We'll figure it out, but
we need to prioritize it.
So, yes.
Jonathan: Okay.
There's too, oh yeah.
There's too many things
we've got going on.
Daila: There's so many things and
nah, I've gotta finish some up,
so, Okay.
Jonathan: Well, anyways,
that's, that's one of the ideas.
Um, I think what I might do is,
uh, if I can see if we can drum up
some interest in that, um, ahead of
time before we actually start it.
I don't know.
See if anybody's interested in it.
Daila: yeah, yeah.
Hey, interest is always,
Jonathan: I mean, I've even got some
people who've directly asked us, can
you help us build the marketplace?
So I'll just start there and say,
Hey, here's what we're thinking.
Daila: Yeah.
Yeah.
I like the idea of coaching
them through it too.
Jonathan: Mm.
Daila: nice.
Jonathan: Because that's a, a
lot of them are, are actually
looking to do this themselves.
I think.
Um, and may maybe mainly because
they're a little bit budget constrained.
Um, that doing it themselves is, is,
is probably what makes sense anyways.
And a bubble's actually pretty,
you know, pretty easy to learn.
I've not learned it, but , I'm told
Daila: It is.
It's, yeah, it's wonderful.
Jonathan: Well, we'll think, we'll
think a little bit more about that,
but that's, that's what we've got.
Cooking stewing.
Daila: yes.
I feel like our stew pot gets
bigger and bigger and bigger,
Jonathan: Oh my goodness.
Daila: gonna have to start
ladling some stuff out.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Um, okay.
Daila: you just roll your eyes when
I said
Caleb: No, no, no, no, I was just thinking
about what that's supposed to mean.
I don't know how to, What the analogy
doesn't, I feel like it falls apart
Jonathan: Stop adding more ingredients
to the stew and let's start eating
Caleb: eating the stew.
Daila: Exactly.
Eat it.
Caleb: eat, maybe meal prep
and put some in the freezer for
Jonathan: Yeah.
Daila: Yeah.
Perfect.
But I feel like we keep doing that.
Jonathan: Yeah.
All right.
you've been listening
to The Robot Factory.
Uh, I've been one of your
hosts, Jonathan Bowers.
Caleb: I've been your other host, Caleb.
Daila: and I've been the
other host, Daila Duford
Jonathan: we'll talk to you next week.
Hopefully.
See you soon.
Bye-bye.
Caleb: Goodbye
Daila: Now I'm self-conscious
about saying goodbye
Jonathan: know we got critical on
Daila: Caleb's anot.
So I waved, waving,
doesn't really do anything.
Caleb: Can't see that.