Arvid Kahl: Are you a bootstrapper who's never
considered raising investment money? Or maybe you're a diehard
VC funded growth hacker who can't imagine running a business
without that extra cash infusion? Well, either way,
Jason Cohen's journey from bootstrapping to raising
millions will give you a fresh perspective on the funding
debate. Jason discusses his personal discovery of wanting a
different journey with WP Engine, which led to raising
money after two years of bootstrapping. And now it's
unicorn. Well, there you go. We also uncovered the importance of
understanding your competitors instead of just demonizing them
in order to develop a unique strategy for your own business.
Jason has seen and done a lot as a founder. And no matter what
stage of this journey you're on right now, you will learn
something from our conversation today. Let me quickly thank the
sponsor of this episode, acquire.com here. More about
that later. And now, here's Jason Cohen.
Thank you so much for being on the show, Jason. That's really
nice for you to come. Two exits and two unicorns, those are
quite some credentials that you have there. And one thing that I
really, really love about your journey is that the businesses
that you've been involved in, started out bootstrapped and
then later raised investment money. And I always wondered,
following that journey, was that the plan from the start or did
it become a necessity at some point? How did you go from
bootstrapping to raising money because those tend to be
different things, right?
Jason Cohen: It was never the plan from the start with any of
them. And so with Smart Bear, I never raised money. I sold it as
well, it was still bootstrapped. And it was only the company I
sold it to, which was Insight Venture Partners, a well known
VC out of New York. They put in more money and bought up a
number of companies, which it now is still called Smart Bear.
But it's a number of development tool, companies centered around
quality. And, but I never raised money for it at all. Then with
WP Engine, WP Engine was my fourth company and in bootstrap
again, because all of them were. That's the deal. But about two
years in, it became clear that the market was way bigger than I
thought. It really was an opportunity size, that you could
raise money for, meaning like it was plausible. It made sense
too. Not that you have to, but you could and it would be
logical given how big it could be. That became clear after two
years. And then the other factor was, again, having done it many
times and also now being a father at that time. I think a
combination of that was like maybe I want a different journey
this time. And I don't mean a different journey as in, oh, I
know how to make companies. This is easy. That is not true.
There's a couple of things that are easier, like, oh, you know
this about taxes or you have this one framework about doing
this one thing. Okay, a little bit. But largely everything's
new, new customers, new market, new product. Even in a market
you understand, 10 years later, it's still a different market.
Still, everything's different. And so you really have to have
beginner's mind with each company. So not that I thought I
knew all of that, but rather, am I optimizing for profit or
growth? Is the constraint money? Or is the constraint people? How
big of a strategy should we make or can we make? What kind of an
impact can we make in the world? What kind of an organization we
want to build? Those are the kinds of things where there can
be very different paths. And since I had done one path and
one set of constraints and goals, you know, multiple times.
Again, I didn't go into it thinking I wanted something
different. I thought I wanted the same, but then it turned out
like you know, what may be? And so it was this just discovery,
personal discovery, I guess, as well as being in a maybe luckily
in a market and with a product with such fit because it was
incredible product market fit that that was a viable option.
Of course now in retrospect, absolutely. Correct.
Arvid Kahl: Right. Yeah. I think that paid out pretty well. Well,
the thing that I wonder about, like when I build my businesses
in the past, I always considered myself identity wise, a
bootstrapper. I thought that was part of me, right? And that
always made the even just the idea of raising money, something
like no, that's what other people do, right? It's kind of
the inversion of what Seth Godin is talking about where things
move up, like people like us do things like that. People like us
don't do things like that. They don't raise. So did you struggle
with that at all with this kind of identity thing as a
bootstrapper?
Jason Cohen: I did not because of a couple of things. One is I
do identify with the companies I have or the ideas that I have,
the blog that I've written for over 16 years. Those kinds of
things, of course, are part of my identity. And I do feel that
way about. I don't feel that way about processes. I don't feel
that way about sort of some of these more objective decisions,
should you raise money or not? What kind of culture should you
have? Is design important or less important? There's which
markets and what kinds of things are good? Other than some very
broad things like making the world net better instead of net
worse that I think some companies do or unethical things
other than some, like very big boundaries like that I don't
have a personal thing. So like, I don't have an axe to grind
with investors versus not having done both. It's like, yeah, they
both have upsides, downsides. There's bad actors in both
places. And I don't know, you know, like, I see all of the
above. So I don't know the one's evil and one's not evil. I've
had experiences with investors, where without them there's no
way the company would be as good as it is including things like
culture and people, not just financially. And also things
where the internal desires of the investors mean that the
pressures on the company are wrong. And I don't mean WP
Engine necessarily. I've invested in dozens of companies.
So I've seen the other investors act. But like, as an investor
myself, I've been with companies where it was very clear that the
founder would be better off if they sold it. They wanted to
sell it. And I saw some investors trying to get them not
to because I guess that investor wants to whatever. But I saw
others, including myself saying, like, good for you. Let's help
you do that. That's what you want to do. Let us help you do
that, which we did. So maybe that was, I mean, was that less
overall return for investors? I don't know, it was a return on
the founders burned out. So that actually sounds good for
everybody. So I've seen people be extremely helpful in that
role. And I've seen people be, I mean, hurtful is maybe the wrong
thing, but like, not taking the company into consideration,
being very selfish and so forth. I've seen both. So to just paint
a broad brush and just say it's bad. I get it, I understand that
mentality, it's something to do, it's a thing to rail against.
That makes sense to me. But to me, I care about the actual
behaviors going on rather than the concept of like fundraising,
being something that is or isn't me.
Arvid Kahl: It feels to me that it kind of not taking
investment. Too many people is shortcuts to not having
alignment problems with investors because there's no
investors, kind of an alignment problem, because you're not
gonna have any alignment. But obviously, there are great
investors that will align magically or at least
intentionally with your business. So yeah, that's kind
of what I've come to understand as well. And it's funny that
you're saying that you are invested in other companies. I
think I found on your website that you are or were invested in
short, Swift capital. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Did you?
Were you aware that? Sure. Swift capital was the acquirer of my
SaaS business a couple years ago? Yes. Yeah. So I kind of I
guess I have you to thank on some level for being
Jason Cohen: No, but but there's a great example of what I think
of, okay, as an investor, well, it is, as an LP in that they are
an investor. Of course, they buy out the company completely and
run it and so forth. But they are an investor in the same way
that a private equity, is there really a private equity for
small companies? So Aren't they great? I mean, I watched your
interview with Kevin and like, aren't they making the world a
better place? Aren't they making it not only the world better for
founders who are getting who gets to get out of the company,
whether that's for liquidity or burnout? Or both? I would guess
a lot of the time, isn't that better. And that elevates people
who are at the company, and they get a chance to shine and have
some leadership positions that maybe there wasn't room for
before, because it was a small company. So it's not better for
them. And it's better for the customers, of course, if the
company has continuity, and doesn't just burn out because
the founder burned out, you know, that's, so isn't that
making the world way better, and that's an investor. So, again,
like I care about, I do think there's a lot of bad behavior
investors, and I love it when, when that's called out because
it's very bad. You know, Cory Doctorow, for example, fantastic
at calling out bad behavior in industries, companies, etc. So,
Hell, yes, I'm like, I'm way I'm ready to rail against those
behaviors, right. But to just say, like, investors are bad,
it's like, Sure, Swift is bad. Really? You really want to say
that, because you're just so Boostrap? Like I said, people do
say that. And I don't I don't I just don't agree with that.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, I don't agree with that either. It's funny
because I learned a first word through Morgan style singer who
I had on my show just a couple of weeks ago. And he was just
just an assassin entrepreneur who sold his businesses there as
well. And that gave him the opportunity to build better and
even bigger businesses. Like they literally make the dream
that he had possible by being there and being willing to
acquire the thing that he was ready to sell. Like, that's also
a thing like what Kevin was saying, like most people sell
for a reason. And money is not always that reason. Burnout is
different diversification that is a big thing too. Right? Like
taking some money off the table or getting getting a half exit
or full exit or whatever. Yeah, people have their reasons. And
it's nice that there is something in there for everyone.
And even there are funds like the com company fund or tiny
seed where there's Some money for bootstrappers that is not
bound to the VC growth expectations as well. I like
that there's a continuum. That's what I really enjoy. And I think
at some point in my life, I was very much on one side of it,
just like, you know, radical bootstrapper. Which is funny
because I used to work for Silicon Valley like series, a
race, SaaS business in the past, and I thought, oh, Vc is where
it's at, right? It's where it's all at overreaction, that's
Jason Cohen: false, too, right? Like,
Arvid Kahl: both are super limiting, in a way. Yeah,
Jason Cohen: it's silly. I think I think when is it bad? When is
it good, very interesting questions. But just to say,
like, you know, selling your business is bad, or fundraising
is bad as like, oh, my gosh, that's just that's just, it was
productive and silly. Right? And then especially if you're really
mad about it, what do you do?
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that's, that's a pretty weird stance taking in
in our community, I think the polarization I think it might be
a social media problem, that things are so polarized that you
have to take a stance, because if you don't, then nobody cares.
You do because it kind of in anticipation of getting some
support, you take a more radical stance, and then you kind of
drift apart. I mean, do we have this in the political systems of
the world? Maybe?
Jason Cohen: One nice thing about being extreme, is it's
very easy to think about stuff, because it's just like, This is
bad. This is good. And so that that, and I don't mean that in a
bad way. I mean, that in a good way. It's sort of like, you
know, what diet? What's the diet that works? Well, really, like,
as long as you're not eating too much and too much bad stuff.
That's probably about right, unless you have like a very
special problem. So how come there's so many diets? Well,
these diets are like super extreme in this are never eat
that. Probably, it's just a simple rule. And the fact that
it's a simple rule means it's easier for you to follow it. And
a more complex, subtle rules is harder. And so the cognitive
load going down, it just like makes it easy. Go to the
restaurant, just do this and tell them know that and, and
it's just better. And so it's not really about that there's no
carbs, or there's no this or that, it's really just that it's
a simple rule to get to what you want. So similarly, I mean, it's
fine just to say, like, VC bad, or fundraising, bad,
bootstrapping, good, that's what I'm gonna do. There's nothing
wrong with that, really, because, okay, then you're only
going to read these kinds of blogs, you're only gonna follow
this guy. So good, because that means you'll get this, you'll go
deeper in one area, that's good. Now, I could say you're not as
well rounded, you may be missing out on ideas, you certainly have
a skewed version of what the world's like. But it's actually
kind of useful. So I don't know like, it's a good way to focus
your time. So I think if you're getting upset about it, then
maybe it's like, hey, look, that's crazy, to be upset. But
if you're like, no, I'm just focused, I think that's probably
why is actually,
Arvid Kahl: I think that there's a difference between being
interested in something and being prescriptive about that.
Right, you can be super interested and go super deep. I
mean, that's kind of the T shaped employee thing that I'm
always thinking about, right, you have a broad view of
everything, but you choose one or two, the moment you become an
A shaped employee, you have a problem, right? You don't want
to be the just just going deep on one and ignoring everything
else. Well, another thing too, is,
Jason Cohen: uh, your competitors may have raised
money. In fact, if you're in any kind of a market, that's not
trivial, there is other there are other competitors that are
maybe large, maybe raise money, or maybe they're simply large,
so they have money themselves, like, it doesn't really matter
where they raise it or not. And so if you know nothing about
that, and what their incentives are, what their culture might
be, like, what they might be trying to do, what their goals
are, how is it that you're going to develop a strategy of your
own, where you win in your own way, knowing how they might
react, or may think about different things, you may know,
oh, since they need to do growth over everything else, if I'm, if
I go really strong in, let's say, customer relationships, and
I spend all this extra time talking to people making
relationship reaching out as soon as they can, personally, as
soon as they sign up. I can do that, because I'm not at scale.
And because I, I could be profitable, more profitable, or
even just happier have a happier customer base, more delighted
customer base, rather than how fast can I grow a certain
number, but they do, because I know that they're raised from
wherever place and that's how they run their companies. So if
I have a strategy that does X, Y, they will not follow me. Like
even if they could compliment could like in quotes with, you
know, monetarily, they won't, because that's not their
culture. That's not their goals. So I will definitely have a
unique strategy if I do that. See, that's, that's part of what
makes strategy good is when you can say that. So if you know
nothing about the other side, because you can't be bothered,
and you think it's quote unquote, stupid, even though
they're 100 times bigger than us, how could it be that stupid?
Then you're probably just ignorant about your own
strategy. So again, you don't have to like it. And you know,
but like, just be ignorant of it. Or say that they're dumb
when they're winning. It's like, that doesn't sound right. You
want to build your own strategy where you win in your way,
whatever that may be. And what that way will not be is you
trying to outspend them on things because that's what
they've got. Is that money in a different way. But similarly,
they do need to in a funny way, they almost need to spend money,
it's not quite true that they need but they kind of do like
you raise the money, the purpose is to spend it on something that
directs the company or causes growth, something like that. So
they kind of do need to do that. Well, if you know that, what can
you do differently? Okay, so it actually can be really
enlightening. Not because again, they're, they're dumb, but
because they have a different set of things they're solving
for different set of constraints, different different
goals than you. That's, that's the genesis of a good strategy.
Arvid Kahl: I like that. That makes a lot of sense to me that
that's self imposed ignorance by picking a spot and never looking
anywhere else. That is a self limiting belief, right? That is
something that limits you, not just in who you can talk to and
who you can learn from, but also just understanding how other
people work. Thanks for sharing this. I think this is a pretty
smart strategy, just to be aware of other people's incentives
tends to be good to know what your competitors want. So you
can see if you could just do something else that they don't
want, and then live beside them
Jason Cohen: react to they won't follow just so they don't even
want to. It could be, yeah, you know, another thing is, if your
attitude is, they're dumb, like they raise money, so they're
dumb or they're bad, or they're evil, that's preventing you from
a true analysis of what their strengths really are. strengths
that they have, that you may or may not want to combat, you may,
you may want to go strength or strength, that's fine. But you
may want to go in an area where they're weak or not looking. If
your attitude is they're dumb or bad, then then you're not
thinking about where they're strong and good. And that's what
you need to do so that you're building a strategy with that in
mind. So it's harms your ability to think objectively and
rationally about it.
Arvid Kahl: Assigning any kind of emotional quality to a
business generally tends not to be a smart choice. Yes, it's a
very, very human thing. And businesses as much as the legal
code may disagree here are not people. They don't think exactly
like people. Yeah, I like that. And I think this this kind of
self, it's an ego thing to me in many, many places where founders
are like this, or at least where they openly communicate about it
that often rings off. I know best because and then comes the
list of accolades and experiences that they think that
gives them the right to feel superior to everybody else in
the industry, right? It's protecting their ego, to not
look at other things that might clash with their reality
Jason Cohen: does. But like, I think that there's a healthy
aspect to that, like, yeah, why did you start a company? If you
must think that you know, better? Like otherwise? What are
you doing? You must believe this is a better design, I have
better ideas. I want to run the organization in a better way. In
fact, they don't want to raise money, because they're just
going to pull me as you say, in the wrong direction, or have the
wrong account or incentives or just whatever. And I don't want
that. Because it could be I think I'm right, but it's it's
even more, I think, just don't tell me what to do. I just need
to do it my own way. Yeah, some people need to do it their own
way and think they're right, they're very confident. But I
find that a whole lot of founders, me included, want to
do it my own way. But I wouldn't say I know I'm right. I just
need to do it my own way. Right or not, I need to do it. Sorry,
I just need to, and I don't need investors telling me what to do.
And I certainly don't want employers to run with you. So I
might not even have that confidence to say that I'm
right. But I still need to do it my way. So I think you do have
to hold on to that, because that's the impetus. That's the
motivation to do it in the first place. And so you need that,
that's the thing that's giving you the energy to do it. So you
do need to have that, that whether it's confidence or not,
you need to keep that because that's what's going on. But to
your point, like, okay, so that can be very strong and give you
energy give you motivation, cause you to do all these things
in the first place. Good, keep it, but then when it bleeds over
into, not just I need to do it my way, but and also everyone
else is dumb or evil or like Well, wait a minute, like, you
don't need to put that label on someone else in order to say
everything you just said about yourself. That's not necessary
to do that. And if you realize that maybe allows you to keep
that attitude without having to be negative. Something else.
Arvid Kahl: I don't think I've ever was trying to instill in
others that they're doing it wrong. But I did suffer I guess
in the end a lot from thinking that only I knew how to do it,
right? And only I was the one that should have done the thing
that I did. You had a talk recently, I guess to in 2018.
It's Astor where you kind of go into the mental health things
that that founders go through and where people who are at a
stage where they they're really not happy anymore with what
they're doing. And they say, Well, I can leave the company
because if I do everything implodes, right? That's kind of
self aggrandizing perspective, but I really thought that it was
let me just admit this year i i thought i cannot hire anybody
they don't know like, they can do the work as I did it, even
though I was effectively building a yet another crud app,
right in a movie and I did it elixir. So it's a language that
not too many people code in. But it doesn't matter. This still
hundreds of 1000s of these developers out there, I just
thought, hey, there's not enough work for them. Because only I
can do it quickly enough. If there was so many self
delusional stuff in my life that I didn't hire, and not even just
coders, we didn't hire anybody, which led me to a burnout state
and fortunately, had Kevin and insurance there that were able
to guide me through the acquisition and kind of allow me
to leave the company and not have it implode on me and derive
the value that I so painfully build, including this right now
not even understanding my own mental psychology around this
topic. It was horrible. I didn't hire because I thought nobody
could do my work, which is like, why do we do this? I wonder you
certainly didn't do that you you did hire and you grew a sizable
company. You have your own building, though. That's really
cool. So did you ever struggle with this? Like, how did you
talk to yourself about this, to get other people to do the work
that they're better at than you maybe?
Jason Cohen: Well, I mean, I've worked with really good people.
So I'm not under the illusion that there's not such a thing as
good people, I think, a couple of things to unpack there about
that. So again, the founder does have a certain vision and energy
that you can't hire for. So you're kind of right, that you
can't hire someone, quote, unquote, to do your job for you.
If by your job you mean everything about being a
founder, and that's true. But what's not true is that you're
that you need to hire someone to replace all of you. That's not
That's not wasn't needed, as you said, like the job might be to
hire a developer. That's not replacing all of you. And it's
really quite silly to say out loud that no developers are as
good as you at writing code, it's just not true. It may be
true that you don't know how to find them that nobody wants to
work for you. That might be true. But that sounds like a
personal failing, actually a problem a personal problem, not
something that you should be proud about, you know, now,
maybe you can't afford it. That's a whole different story.
But but if you can, yeah, so the attitude that I give, and I
think I might give it in that talk, I can't remember, is
certainly as the CEO, let's say, founder, what is your job in
terms of creating the team? And the answer is not that you're
creating, that you're hiring marketing person to do
marketing, how do you engineering through engineering,
you're hiring people that specifically are better than you
at that function, so that that function becomes better than it
currently is. If you don't, then the company will never get
better than you personally are at every function, which is a
complete failure of leadership. You're telling me it's not a
leaders job to make the whole organization better all the
time. Really. That's not That's not his job. That's not the job
of every leader to things getting better. Clearly part of
the job, your organization is not getting better, smarter,
more skilled than making better decisions, then you're not doing
good, then then that's you're failing. So that means you have
to hire people that are better than you at everything. Again,
there's some things like there's a certain there's a certain
relationship that you have with everyone as the founder or a
certain aura you have that you can't hire for it. There's a few
things like that very few. But almost nothing is like that. And
now the difficulty is higher is how do you find someone who's
better than you at something? If definitionally they know more,
they have a higher skill set, they're more experienced? How is
it that you would evaluate that, but again, if you use that as an
excuse not to then you failed as a leader, and that's on you? And
so, there are some answers to that. Like, again, it's not
easy, but like who said it was easy. No one, no one promised it
would be easy. So some things you can do, for example, is
during the interview, you can ask them even questions that you
have currently. And how would you approach this? Like, they
don't have all your details? So they can't give you? Well, maybe
they can, but you could ask how, how would you approach this? How
have you approached this in the past? So let's say it's
marketing, and you know, well, you know, we've exhausted our
one channel, like we get customers every month this
channel, but we need to go to other channels, we're not sure
even what to do. What do you do? So do they, they're like, oh,
yeah, so like, you got to look at a lot of channels at once.
And then and then test like this and use budgets like that. Or
maybe they say, you know, people say that, but it's wrong. Here's
why. And what you should do is just pick one or two adjacent
ones, or you should first I like to survey the customers or find
out where they go. And it turns out, they're only in like one or
two other places. So you just go whole hog into those two places.
You don't try everyone or whatever their ideas. I don't
know. The point is, if they come back with all these thoughts,
they clearly thought of this before they've done this before.
It sounds rational to you. It sounds like someone where the
things they're saying seem rational to you. So in other
words, they're compatible with your way of thinking that's
important. And yet it feels like oh, wow, that feels like several
steps in the future, and yet compatible. That's starting to
feel like someone In an interviewer who is better than
you, but compatible, so you can also you can think of that in
terms of their thought process and skill set. You can of
course, think about it culturally, although it doesn't
tell you. You can do reference checks on them that can be hard,
especially if they're working and not telling people that
they're looking. Also you don't you know, you want to a lot of
times when reference checks, people just say nice things. So
you want to ask to me, I asked things like, Look, everyone
thrives in certain environments and fails in certain
environments, where what kind of environment do you think this
person throws? And like, what would be the attributes there?
And where would they just fail? Again, not because they're bad,
but just this be a super mismatch? So I ask questions
like that, so that the person doesn't feel like they're being
negative about the person, but I don't tell them what my culture
and expectations are. Because I want an honest approach. So
that's an example of that. So things like reference checks
with questions like that. These fit questions of thinking, but
ahead. Again, there's no magic formula, obviously, this, it's
hard. But like, these are among the things obviously references
from other people you trust. If you're hiring a marketer, and
you've never done that before, do you have anyone else that you
know, or it's in your network that you've worked with in the
past who'd be willing to help you interview that person, you
know, help you do that, you might even pay them a fee for
that, if it's a little bit more of a professional relationship,
and that might be worth it. Obviously, recruiters can do it.
But we all know like, the best ones are really good, but a lot
of them just shuffle resumes and charge you a lot. So might even
be better to give someone you know, a grand five grand, 10
grand, and have them help you with the process that might be
actually better. So these are all possibilities to tackle this
question of how do I hire someone who's better than me at
the thing? But when you do that, I mean, obviously, it's almost
definitionally, you're you're creating a stronger, better
company. And by the way, it's so much fun. Like, as a founder,
who thinks you know, everything, how fun is it? When other people
have an idea? And you're like, oh, okay, we that design is
amazing. That feature was incredible. That insight is
good. That marketing campaign is freaking badass, I would never
have done that. How fun is that? Anyway, just fun. Not to mention
effective. Like, yeah, that's the organization you should be
trying to build, of course, you know, so that's some ways to do
it. But yeah, that should be the attitude. Now, of course, you
may say, I never want to hire anyone ever I want to be so
that's totally fine. I'm not, I'm not trying to put that down
at all. But if you want to hire even one person ever than then
this is the right attitude.
Arvid Kahl: I wish I would have met you five years ago, because
I couldn't really use this honestly, that because what you
just said, like I the solopreneur thing. That was
everything. And the only thing that I really knew is to do my
own thing. I had worked in companies before, but I never
had any management training or hiring training. I was just a
software engineer. Right? It was technical, I did the thing that
people told me to went to a couple of meetings not at and
bring brought my ideas and stuff. And that was really the
life that I knew. So I had no idea what to look for. And even
that I could do it. I think that was the big difference. I was
not aware that I could just talk to people and then hire them.
Like it was bizarre, because solopreneur ship was all about
giving yourself permission for anything. But I was not
internally giving myself permission to even think about
hiring is that that's kind of where I was. So what you what
you thought, or what you just said, and I thought this is this
is a wonderful way of leveraging, I guess social media
is to have a network of people that can help you with it.
That's
Jason Cohen: one way. I mean, you don't have to have that. But
it's an example of how a network can pay off in ways you might
not have originally thought. Again, there's there's many
different ways that's one way I do think there is there is an
attitude, which I've had in the past as well believe it or not,
of like, well, I just I don't want employees, I want it to
just be me, I don't want to deal with even one employee. Because
I really want to control everything. And it's just more
fun and screw it. And the only meaning I want is in my own
head. Now, again, I'm not putting that down. I'm just
saying if you want a different path, then here's some attitudes
to have, right? But let's say you let's say you want to be
like I'm the only one. But then you burned out. So here's what I
would say about that. I say you I burned out. It's smarter to
like, like you're the only one has ever burned out. I think
it's actually the most common case. That's my opinion. And I
certainly have myself so like, anyway, so but what do you do
about that? So there? Again, I go back to a theme that's common
for me recently, which is this idea of having a consistent
strategy. So okay, you don't want employees, it's just you,
obviously, you want to be profitable and probably
sustainable. Maybe you want to say sell it someday? I don't
know. So what other decisions do you need to make about the
customers the market, the product, tech support,
marketing, sales? I know you don't have sales people in that
environment, but like there's a function of sales, or maybe
there's not maybe it's a zero function, but like, what other
decisions need to be made, so that you don't burn out? As as
because if if it's like it's only me, but I'm going to make
these decisions that really need more people. Support is 24/7 but
it's just me. Okay, well then you're going to burn out when
you get a certain number of customers certain masks stuff is
just gonna consume you. So if it's going to be you forever, do
not have 24/7 support. Now you could art you could and now
anytime I say like, it has to be like that you can always think
of, well, it could be because what if so, there's always other
way other solutions. So I don't mean to say it's so absolute,
but let's just say, by default, if it's gonna be just you, then
you don't want to be waking up in the middle of the night if
servers go down. So you need to pick a product, which the
customer is not depending on 24/7. So that if you have four
hours of downtime, they're not going to be happy, but they'll
live. That's works if you're solo. Having having to always be
the only one with a pager always forever, burns you out,
especially once you get more and more into that stuff happens
more and more, and then your dev support can be similar. So it's
like, okay, no problem, you want to pick that no problem, but
then you need to make other decisions that are consistent
with that choice. So that overall, you're building a
manageable thing. And I think when that's so I don't, you
know, any decision you make is, to me is like, that's fine. But
inconsistent decisions, they're not fine. You need to pick, you
know,
Arvid Kahl: yeah, I don't think I ever made that choice. Again,
I don't think I ever thought that I had to make that choice
when I started. Because it just I'm going to build a software
business, because that's what I know, that's what I've done for
10 years, I'm going to do one by myself. Yeah, and I kind of I
must have completely missed that I did all the other ones in
teams have like four or five people with people on call and
stuff, right? This must must have slipped my mind that there
was support to be done in a software business. It's bizarre,
but you are, in a way as a founder, this is the kind of
reality distortion field that you also talked about earlier,
that gives you this optimism and that like striving for making
something new, where other alternatives already exist, that
sometimes blinds you to the reality of the business for
which you may or may not have the capacity, what you just said
with the Patriots in the morning, that is where my
anxiety levels came from.
Jason Cohen: Or you could you could have no choice and you can
say, oh, you know, I can contract with people for that.
You can do that for support. And you can do that for the pager.
Now, you mean, there's downsides to that, besides cost, like,
will they do a good job, especially in support, that's
really dangerous, because they're talking to right to your
customer. So that becomes part of your brand. And part of your
product. Is that okay? It might be might not be depends on your
business and your attitude. With the with the technical page, or
at least the customers aren't seeing it. So if they can, if
they can kind of shield you from some of that, then that might be
alright. So again, like, you can be creative in saying how No, I
am going to make a 24/7 product. But I'm also going to design my
product in such a way that I can then when I'm at scale, not
right away, when I get bigger, I can contract with a company.
Because my product is going to be built such that there's
Runbooks that just always allow you to rollback or re you know,
redo the I don't know, whatever I'm I'm going to be able to do
that. And I will build a product so that that's the case. So
we'll be able to offload that. Now we sold it again. Yay. So
but what you can't do is ignore is ignore it completely, like
either make them go away by not having that requirement, or
there's another solution. So I not just not just having
effectively inconsistent choices, but probably probably
not choices you made on purpose. But choices that happened
anyways, about your behavior that are inconsistent that will
kill you. So another thing when you start doing that and saying
like, oh, wait, this is conflicting with that is is you
start having to decide, well, what do I really want? Do you
really want to be a solopreneur? Or do you really want to have a
bigger company that takes more people to be bigger, you have to
really decide again, there's no right answer. It's only right
for you or wrong for you. And at this point in your life, like I
started the VPN and wanting to bootstrap again, then I changed
my mind. So that's okay. But which one is right for you?
Maybe you should limit growth. So that doesn't ever get to any
kind of scale? That's an impossible thing to do. Close
signups. Yeah, you did it. So there's so many ways, but like,
you really have to end up deciding this is what I want.
This is more important than this other thing. So I will keep this
and give up that. But having to do that having to make those
really tough decisions. It's a beautiful thing. And I don't
care how smart you are, you should you should make these
decisions. And then you'll have this more consistent company
that sought that solving for the things you whatever you decided
was what you wanted. That's what it was solving for. And also,
again, these other strategic choices about who you're picking
as customers and how they're aligned and that's good. That
just feels good. Oh, I got another type of customer who's
right for me. Yay. Like this is a good thing. That's what
strategy should look like when it's done right.
Arvid Kahl: What do You ever consider building a solopreneur
business again, now that you've been, you know, way on the other
side with a business like WP Engine, um,
Jason Cohen: I would consider doing anything again, because I
can, you know, so I've made enough money where I can do
whatever. So I can definitely do work on stuff that I enjoy. So,
but one of the nice things there is, that means I don't have to
make money. So when I do something solo, yes, I probably
would explicitly do something solo, but it doesn't have to
make money. So it could be it really doesn't have to. And the
fact that it doesn't have to, is such a special advantage of
whatever it is. It could be philanthropic, it could be
writing stuff or whatever. Like it could be whatever, investing
in other companies. But since it doesn't have to make money, that
gives me lots more choices of what it could be. So I almost
feel like, I want to do one of those other things. That ignores
money because I can tell that's something that's more unique,
that would allow me to do something be something more
special, which is probably overall better. Like I don't
think you have to be do that. But like, it's probably better
overall, if you are if you subscribe to like the Kevin
Kelly idea of being completely unique, or they've Perl thing of
the personal monopoly, you know, being you're the only person
who's you kind of thing. I think, in general, that spirit
is very good. I don't think it has to be dogma, you know, but,
but I think the spirit is good. So that tells me I don't need to
make another company that makes money. So it could even be an
open source project. It could be a philanthropic activity. It
could be Yeah, more of the writing and that kind of
creation. I want to write more about the strategy stuff I was
just talking about. I haven't written much about that. So I
want to Okay, good. So, so do it. So probably not a company,
but that's why, right?
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, sounds like you. You're not limiting
yourself, which is great. Like the the idea to that you have to
repeat yourself reminds me of the thing. Patrick Campbell, he
was speaking at MicroConf in Denver a couple months ago. And
he was saying after he sold profitwell to paddle for like
$200 million dollars, he still felt like he needed to prove
that, you know, he could do it again. And if you have a nine
figure exit and the first emotion you feel is this is
probably a fluke, I need to do it again. Right, that was his
reaction says a lot about the pressures that he was operating
under. And it's nice to hear that you don't feel to be quite
Jason Cohen: I mean, this is all very personal, right? So there's
no, there's no right answer, but it is interesting to see. One
obvious reaction to that is I did it now I can, I might do it
again. But I can pick what would be fulfilling and I'll have to
figure out what that means for myself. That's my attitude. And
as you said, I've written about have written about what
fulfilling means to me and how to do that. So okay. Your other
attitude could be Yeah, good. Maybe it's a fluke. I have to do
it again. Now again, who is my fourth company? So I guess I did
go back and again, I guess, maybe Fourth time's the charm. I
don't know. But that's also logical. Because why did you why
do you why do you do the second startup? For the same reason you
did the first one because you were just compelled to, there's
really to me, there's Oh, we have so much rationalization. My
mom used to do this to me, my dad did that I grew up like
this. I had this kind of thing. It may be who I'm not who am I
to say what the rationale is, but what I feel it's often just
you just needed to like it's really not necessarily that
complicated. And so why didn't you do the second one? Because
the same way you did the first one because he's like, I gotta
do it. You know? Is it more complicated? You know, and some
of these rationalizations they sound okay, I'm just, again, I
don't know what's in people's heads. So but I'm skeptical
because it's so easy to justify, or to rationalize in any way. So
like, a classic example is someone's a neat freak. And they
ask why and they're like, well, my mom growing up was an
absolute neat freak and made me this maybe do this maybe that
and you know, it just stuck. I like to do that. That's how I
grew up. Then you ask another person who's a neat freak. Why
are you a neat freak? Oh my gosh, growing up my mom was the
slob and the whole house was a mess and keeping my room neat
was like my way of keeping control over my own life. And
just having some agency was staying neat and that's just
kind of stuck with me. Now here's the that by the way, this
is all true story. This this this example is a true story.
Turns out these are identical twins separated at birth. Both
growing up in a in an adoptive family. Okay, so the reason
they're neat Is there any freak? It's in their genes? That's why
that's the whole thing they just are. And this explanation of it
came from my mom, from completely opposite reasons is
all bullshit. None of that's why it's because you're afraid that
the end of the story is justification. Oh, right. That's
a real story, by the way. And so to me, that applies to many
people's rationalizations of anything. So like, why did you
start a company? Oh, well, are you aware that? It could be?
Again? I don't know. I'm no psychologist, and I don't know
you. And you know, so I don't know. But maybe he just needed
to. And so why did you do it again? Because he still needed
to? I mean, maybe that's it?
Arvid Kahl: Honestly, yeah, I think so. And with this one in
particular, right, we sold the SaaS business, and then we fell
into the void, you probably know which void I'm talking about,
like, when you when you leave something behind, and you feel
like it's right. It's kind of it's still yours, but it's not.
And that made me built what is effectively the boots are
foreigner, which is a media business, which is not SaaS
anymore, obviously. But I, I still needed to do something.
And I needed to do something that gives back to the community
that allowed me to do the first thing. So I started another
business. And now I'm doing the same thing again, right, I'm at
a point where I should probably hire and all that. So, you know,
there's I'm going through the same motions, but this time with
some more experience, hopefully, more enough more to make better
choices. But yeah, it's it's the nature nurture thing that
bothers a lot. That bothers me a lot. Like not knowing if the
thing that I'm doing is because I meant to whatever that may
mean, or internally, right? Or if it's something that I think I
should do it this this difference between the like
going your path and going to default path. Who determines
what that is? That I struggle a lot with that because it's so
easy to still be a founder once you've been a founder? Again, we
talked about easy, easily done, easy done. The next thing? Yeah.
Have you ever considered not being a founder anymore? At all?
Jason Cohen: Yes, I mean, again, you know, I'm not I'm not
leaving WP engine right now. It's been 13 years, though. So
at some point, it just makes sense. It's just long time. And
I'm not going to start another company. First of all, I'm
older. And and I think continuing to do the writing and
putting these thoughts out like that, that that's an obvious
thing to do, which is not accompany. I don't have ads or
anything, you know, there's not a company. It's fun to write
code. So open source project. Sounds sound interesting. Of
course, working with other people, again, I've been an
investor and been on board and stuff like that. So that kind of
stuff. Sounds sounds interesting. I don't want to be
just an investor, I think a full time angel investing wouldn't be
good for me because I need to produce I need to create, and I
love helping others to create that is great. But at the end of
the day, if if, if I've not produced anything at all, that's
not I'm not going to feel good about that. So I imagined that's
part of it, but not all of it. But even that isn't a business.
I mean, sort of investing is sort of but not in the way
you're saying, right? It's you're not incorporating and I
don't know that not like that. So yeah, I probably almost for
sure won't have another business, but they'll have
projects that matter, whatever that means to me.
Arvid Kahl: That's fun. Yeah, I do like your writing I really
enjoy it. Your long form writing is it's very thoughtful, and it
has nice graphs, when I do like me some graphs to have people
visualize their thoughts, like the most recent one you did with
the the elephant curve that is really interesting. You have
notes in the space that I don't have much knowledge of the DVC
growth space, it's still exciting to understand, just
like we said in the beginning, so you know that the companies
that follow that pattern have these particular problems or
issues at a certain point. So I I really liked this, like, it's
funny that you think that's not a business, because, in a way,
like most things are potential businesses until they are turned
into a business. And it's not and I don't mean like turn your
hobby into your business kind of thing. I just mean, this is a
thing that just either can or can not be monetized, you'll
see. And the monetization turns it into a business but the
action would be the same that you would take in the business.
It's a it's a media business that doesn't make
Jason Cohen: Yeah, sure. Like maybe that's what it is. When I
think of business I think of something that has revenue that
would be good. I would like that. That's not my goal. Like I
would rather like oh, I'll take the you know newsletter
subscribers the RSS feed the Twitter that's what I want
because it helps my ego and makes it feel good when I posted
and other people share it. I like that. And then people say
it's nice and then I that makes me feel good. And I have these
ideas but if no one else has no one else can have them that's
not so fun. So that that feels like it's worth putting it out
there. That's that's the revenue I want. I suppose the dollar I
even say in my in my emails just once a week. I say like, I don't
make any money off of this in any way. And so The best way to,
to contribute back is to share it. Because again, that's that's
what I want is I just want that. That's it. So, is that a
business? I just don't say that because it's not for revenue.
But yeah, if you if you want to say like, Yeah, but you're,
you've got a project and you're trying to optimize for something
or other and you're trying to build something up, and it's
over a long period of time. And it's not a hobby like chess.
It's a little bit more directed than that. Okay, then I agree.
But I guess the real point is, is not for money. That's the
point of that.
Arvid Kahl: Thank you for honestly defining what it is for
you. And I think that that honesty stuff is something that
I've heard you talk and seeing you talk about a lot, too. And
if you've had a talk for more than 2020 years, 11 or
something, I think, yeah, that about honesty and business
really enjoyed that. Because I've been doing a thing that I
have so conveniently placed on this here, thing I building in
public, right. So like building a public is something that I've
been doing by myself or myself and with others, and seen a lot
of people do, and I really, really like it. And building and
public is effectively being honest about your journey, the
ups and the downs and that kind of stuff. And I do wonder, what
do you think about that movement, in particular, because
you've been around for a while, right? Like burning and Publix
that structurally exists since I guess 2009 when Pat Flynn
started the Smart Passive Income podcast where it became more of
a digital thing. I mean, people have been sharing that journey
everywhere. before, but now it's a it's a thing, right? So the
fine thing. So what do you think of building and public? Would
you recommend that for founders like to share the journey from
the start, even while they're still building? That's something
you would do?
Jason Cohen: Yeah, I mean, this is definitely another one of
these personal things, a bunch of stuff comes with it. And if
you value those things, then that's fantastic. But you don't
need to do it if you don't want to. So there's a lot of nice
things. One nice thing is you are constantly evaluating
yourself, because you're not just post revenue, you say
things like, I'm trying this marketing thing, oh, this didn't
work. Oh, I had this thought. And you know, Oh, what did you
do for that? And even to think, what am I going to post? And
what do I think about that? Because I need to post what I
think about it, that's almost for sure. A valuable thing. That
kind of meta conversation is good. And then having some
feedback. Now, of course, you're gonna get feedback from all over
the place online. So who knows which of it is valid or not? You
have to sort through that's too bad. But But, but hey, that's
better than no feedback and just sitting there going, is this
good? Is this bad? I don't know what to do with any of this. So
like having some kind of feedback, even though you still
have to evaluate it, that's probably valuable. We were just
saying, Do you have a network? And do you have you know, where
can you go for that? Well, you're building it, you're in
you build it over time that way? Is that valuable? Yes. There
might be these moments where you're like, I need my network
for this, or can you help me that I noticed some people
sometimes are like, should I do design a or design B and you
know, it's, it's kind of fun. And it's kind of neat. And
sometimes there's really smart people out there who give really
interesting feedback that you were never gonna get. So these
are all kinds of reasons why it might help your business
succeed. Because it helps you think more clearly. And you can
get some feedback and build a network like, not necessarily
network to buy the thing, but network to talk through
problems. Or, hey, I need to incorporate should I use that
stripe Atlas? Or what should I do? You know, like, even just
these basics, that's pretty useful. So these are benefits.
Drawbacks would be things like, it takes a lot of time, if you
actually are going to build a network and have a lot of people
and say, it's a lot of time, and you could be spending that time
doing anything else. Resting, writing another feature,
launching a new marketing campaign, anything, anything but
yapping on Twitter. And so, in a sense, like, yapping on Twitter
will not directly help your business. And we just said I
would indirectly and so that's fine. But like, it takes time.
And I don't believe people are like, I just do it for five or
10 minutes a day, and I'm building a public that I don't
believe you, you're on here all the damn time. And you're doing
all kinds of shit and like, it's a lot of your life. And also
it's fragmented. We all know that context switching and that
is bad, very bad. So it's not just I spend 20 hours on Twitter
if in 60 hours of my business every week, it's that it's like
this. And so that context switching makes that much worse
than it might sound when you total it up. That's not totally
enough is not how time management and attention
management works. So I think it's quite distracting and
probably dramatically reduces your productivity to build in
public. So that's that's a big issue. I think Uh, another
positive aspect though, is going back to strategy since it's my
favorite topic of the moment, obviously, but not the academic,
crappy SWOT type bullshit. But like the stuff we're talking
about, you know, some of the things that matters. One
beautiful thing about building public is you have to build a
product and a strategy in which beings a secret is not part of
your strategy. Yeah. And that's good, because that's usually a
really weak kind of a strategy. It can work for like your coke
formula, KFC for okay, like there's, there's, there's a time
in place, maybe a truly tremendously amazing algorithm
of some kind, like, occasionally, occasionally, I
get it, but like, is that what indie developers are normally
doing something of that? No, no way, right. And so but so it's
forcing you to make a strategy of growth, and even have
competitive advantage that isn't based around some sort of secret
that probably other people can just rip off. We're like,
because you're small, like, one kind of a secret is that you're
small. So like, when you're starting out, especially when
you're selling to businesses, you don't want them to know,
it's just you. So you say we have a homepage about us. And
you talk about how you're headquartered in wherever the
hell your houses, you know, right. You know, you never let
on that you're one person because you want the you want
that business to trust you believe in, you think that
you're stable, and so and so you don't want to say that you're
only one person. That's an example of a secret, though, not
just algorithms, but that's the secret. If you're building a
public, then that's not a secret. So that means you can't
rely on that ruse, and still get customers. To me, that's good.
Yes. Because you are just one person. And if someone thinks
you're a big organization, they may expect things like 24/7
support or you know, more features or integration. And
you're not going to do that, because that's how you're so
that kind of a secret to me built a bad strategy in that
it's inconsistent with who you are and what you can actually
deliver on. So that promise, I'm like a bigger company, you will
not fulfill it. Therefore, it's a bad strategy to have that
positioning. And I think it's a good strategy to have
positioning, it's, you can fulfill that promise. But then
some people will want to buy from me. Yeah, and they
shouldn't, because all the things they need, that's good
thing. Instead, you should focus on the people for whom you are a
perfect fit, you know, so to me, it helps you actually kind of
forces you into a better strategy, meaning a better,
like, actually who you are, therefore, promises you can
actually fulfill. And then you'll get people who are like,
oh, I want to support the little guy. I want to support the one
person. Yeah, then you will get them. And that's right. That's
who you are. And so that's a good reason. So building a
public sort of pushed nudges you towards, don't have secrets,
don't try to be something you're not trying to win on your actual
own merits and weaknesses went on that that is a better
strategy. Again, you should pick consistent decisions with that
to go with it. Right. But that's actually going to be better. So
build in public, if you use that that way. I mean, that's, that's
helpful. So overall, like, of course, building and public is
cool. I do worry about the time commitment, I say commitment,
the time that you spend and that you just have to decide what you
think about that might just be worth it might be like, well,
that's part of my social time that I could have spent with
friends instead of spend on Twitter. It could be this just
so fun, you just don't care. It could be that you do regulate
yourself a bit. Like maybe you don't go on all the time, or
it's real regulated, like I go on during lunch and I go like
kind of over mealtime, I'll do it. Otherwise, I really won't.
And that will keep my productivity high. So there
might be ways to mitigate, mute the negative things that it is
and keep those good stuff. Overall, though, is it better
for the world I would have to think it is, the more you can
see that people, all people of all kinds from all kinds of
backgrounds doing all kinds of things are all trying and many
of them won't succeed. And we love all of them anyway, we're
rooting for all of them anyway, if they don't succeed with one
particular product, they'll just do another one. And when people
can see that, I think that's a beautiful empowering thing. So
that to me that in terms of the overall view of the world, hell
yeah. That's, it's a great it's a great thing to see.
Arvid Kahl: I love that because the motive motivating nature or
quality of building in public is extremely strong, particularly
with failure like people fail and they do something else. All
right, I guess I can try if you're afraid of failure because
I come from a I'm from Germany a pretty you know, bureaucratic
system and school was just the same don't try you might fail
that's kind of often was the message that I got as a kid and
it's kind of still in me, although you know, nature
nurture. We talked about this earlier, but I learned this and
I've just I'm just now just doing things to see if they work
or not, because I've also seen other people try and fail and
get back up and be successful eventually. So that's, that's
something that that that definitely allows for and I love
that you talked about this, the self selection of your potential
customers, either in into your business or out of your
business. You you're forming, you're not for me either of
these is great, because it just aligns better. So that's, I'm
glad to hear you're talking about building public in that
way. So it's really nice to hear what I feel mirrored back at me.
Because that's, that's why I do it because I want to see people
feel empowered to do things that they otherwise wouldn't do.
That's really
Jason Cohen: nice. Yes, and that that aspect is undeniably Great.
Arvid Kahl: Well, I do also appreciate that you share a lot
of your knowledge around building businesses, even if
it's not like building public, as you build a business, but you
just have a lot of strategy stuff that you that you do
share. And I was I was recently looking at your Twitter profile
and I looked at your Twitter bio and I found what I think is
probably one of the best Twitter bios that I've ever seen. I can
just quote that here because I just really, really loved the
bio is keyword buzzword half truth, adjective. Hey, look at
me, founder of two unicorns, WP Engine and smartbear.com. I love
the stash is great. And it does say a lot about how you don't
want to be perceived in our community. And what I what I do
wonder is how have you avoided becoming like a hyper public
thing influencer in a space that very actively pulls people like
you that have been successful into these prominent places, and
then corrupts them into these machines?
Jason Cohen: That might happen? You say, I avoided it. I'm
trying to I'm trying to get more popular. What do you mean, when
you get I'm just I'm just failing?
Arvid Kahl: More smart quotes, like just really, really tiny
frogs every day. Just throw him out? Like a you're avoiding
success? How did you do it? What wouldn't call that success? I
don't think our community it's necessarily a successful thing
to be considered like, you know, a person that is only doing it
for for cash or some
Jason Cohen: Yeah, I don't know. Who knows, because I don't
control how other people see things and what they do. One
thing is I don't live in Silicon Valley. And so whatever machine
that is, I'm not a part of never have been. So I don't know if
that's part of it or not, it's really hard in retro spec to
even in retrospect, to say like, why did that happen? And you're
like, oh, like, I did various things, various things happen. I
really don't know, what causes what are what absence of thing?
Cause the absence of another thing? Like, I don't know. I do
think I mean, you said earlier about being honest. And as you
know, and as you said, like, I've been talking about that for
a long time, really live that all the time, and just like just
being very open about everything. Maybe that's part of
the answer, though. Because maybe if you're vulnerable and a
human being, then you can sort of stay grounded and stay. I
want to say accessible, but you know, relatable maybe, um,
whereas like, it's hard to, like, Zuckerberg is a machine,
right? And like, anything that would pierce that idea of him
being was the machine is bad. Like, the thing is, he's a
machine, you almost don't want to think of him as a human. So
maybe the maybe being honest, like that maintains my, my
status as a human being,
Arvid Kahl: your lack of success as a machine. That's funny. I
never heard anybody referred to being a human being as a lack of
success in a social media platform. That's pretty funny.
Yeah, I get it. I think, like just being a relatable human
being makes you kind of more immune to the allure of being a
persona, right? Like, it's this thing between being a person and
a persona. Oh, right. Right, right. Personally, I think I've
been a prudent person. When I started, then I became a persona
for a little bit, right, all of these smart quotes and stuff.
And then I just thought, wow, this is so much work being not
me. I would rather be myself. And then I went back to person
with the knowledge of what a persona does, so I could avoid
it. Yeah, I guess you had similar experience on those
platforms, right.
Jason Cohen: Yeah. I don't know. I think it's just it's just what
I it sort of, like we were saying earlier, it's just that's
this is how I have been forever, as you can see, I mean, I've
been writing for so long, in that way public, not like public
like a government official. But you know, that kind of public
for so long. It's real clear over almost two decades of
writing. Like, okay, well, this is who I am. Take it or leave
it, I guess. Like, if you like it great. If not, well, that's
what it is. So I don't know.
Arvid Kahl: Certainly is your personal monopoly right there. I
think you're gonna find yourself pretty
Jason Cohen: well. Yeah. Right. And one of them in fact, the
Twitter bio has this exemplifies this is I've always said like,
if you're first honest about a situation, then it's very, it's
much, much easier to deal with it, whether it's negative or
positive, whatever the hell it is, but just like being upfront
about it, just kind of like, if it's in a meeting, it like takes
the the worry levels down a bit. She's like, Oh, we can just
admit something and then we can do Deal with it. It's okay to
just say it. Yeah, it's okay. Yeah. And so, or like, even if
you're like, Man, I'm terrible at x or like, I'm I don't know,
like, I'm too hard on other people about X, if you just say
that, like, I know I am. I'm kind of working on it. And I
kind of don't know, it's kind of out of my control. But you know,
there it is. I'm not proud of it. But there it is. It just
diffuses it's so much like, the next time that happens. They're
like, you're doing it again. You're like, God, I know. Okay.
Oops. It's just very, very different. Right? So it's right
there in the Twitter thing. Bullshit, bullshit. Look at me,
me, me, me. Then I then what do I do? I turn around, say, Look
what I did. Yeah, that's right. Because I want to follow me. So
I want to say something that says you should follow me,
right? But I start by by being like, hey, look, this is we all
know that Twitter is just like CNBC. And right. I do too. Well,
here's mine. And it's like, okay, you've sort of bought my
debt forgiveness, but okay, like, now listen to your
bragging and, but I don't quite feel like it's bragging because
you just defuse the situation.
Arvid Kahl: It's all expectation management. That's what Yeah, I
think that you've done you've been doing a great job. So let's
do something for your Twitter following. Now that we're coming
to a close with this interview. Where do you want people to go
to social media?
Jason Cohen: On Twitter, it's a smart bear, like the animal and
and then the blog, or the articles, I guess, is a
smartbear.com. So there you go. So yeah, like you want me to
feel good. And follow me on Twitter and subscribe to that. I
only I post at most once a week. So and as you said that, like
they're, they're more in depth, they're thoughtful. So it's
definitely like, low, low quantity, but and then sometimes
I'll post like an old one from decades ago that are that are a
decade ago, that's um, you know, poignant or people like or
whatever. And so it's low. You won't I won't send you a lot of
stuff. But hopefully, it'll be a good, median. Good. So yeah, you
want me to feel good, subscribe, and then tell other people and
then share some stuff. And I'll feel so good. It'll be great.
Right?
Arvid Kahl: Like it subscribe, right? Is that what you got to
say today? Thanks so much for that. I think that the stuff you
do send is more than median good. Let me just say this. I
really appreciate it. And I appreciate you being on the show
today. That was really, really kind of you to share your
knowledge and your insights and your experiences from building
businesses like this. Man, Jason, thank you so much for
being on the show. That was
Jason Cohen: oh, man, I love talking about this stuff. And
anytime, any topics, happy to it's, this is a lot of fun for
me to see. I don't make money. But like, this is fun, actually
fun. So I want to do this. So yeah, I think thanks for having
me. I appreciate it.
Arvid Kahl: I'll take you up on that. All right. Have a good
one. See ya. Thanks so much.
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And now thank you for listening to The Bootstrapped Founder. You
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