Two founders talk about how to build software businesses that are meant to last. Each episode includes a deep dive into a different topic related to starting, growing, and sustaining a healthy business.
00:01.40
tylerking
What's going on Rick.
00:02.36
Rick
Oh you know, just mosing along trying to ah not fall into the trap of overwork and exhaustion.
00:07.81
tylerking
Based on your I think this is the first time I've ever seen you with your hair messed up in my life. So how's that going.
00:15.35
Rick
Ah, well just just to remember we've switched our podcast recording times to early morning I am an hour ahead of you so you've had an hour an hour more than me to to you know, get get ready for the day. Um, but no I've I've gone through a lot. There's like some you know.
00:20.47
tylerking
Um, yeah, it's 8 a m for you.
00:28.18
tylerking
Fair enough.
00:33.80
Rick
Cool stuff happening um that hopefully at some point I'll be able to share on the podcast but I can't right now. Um, ah you know, not with leg up health but with other entities and um so that's been. Ah, yeah, ah, kind of a distraction. Ah and then um, windfall it is our end of fiscal year yeah last night and end of quarter.
00:44.80
tylerking
Are.
00:52.97
Rick
Ah, into fiscal quarter and so um, you know it was It was a like kind of ah, a big sales month and and a big sort of push to finish strong and we had a really good close the quarter So I'm I'm just sort of in this space of oh which has happened. Ah.
01:10.60
tylerking
Um, yeah yeah cool um yeah I yeah was at big snow tiny comf last week um
01:11.20
Rick
And probably going to I need to take a day off like I just not sure what I'm going to do it I'm probably going to take a day off maybe early next week do a long weekend or something how about you.
01:23.41
Rick
I cannot wait to hear about this.
01:26.94
tylerking
Yeah, so ah as a reminder for listeners. This is. It's called a conference but it's it was nine nine people this year so it's not It's like you go snowboarding and hang out in a hot tub. It's it's hard to really call it a conference but um in the afternoons and evenings. Each person has to have a talk and um. It's less of a like I'm smart here's my wisdom talk and more of a here are the things I'm dealing with more like a kind of like meet up type of thing like a mastermind as opposed to a real conference but um, yeah, it was fun. It was hung out there for three days and ah. Learned stuff and had a good time.
02:05.55
Rick
I Always um am curious like about the stuff that you learn. So ah, you want dig into that I'm.
02:11.32
tylerking
Yeah I'm happy to I I should say I always have this weird guilt. Ah as a founder or like as a founder you can kind of take whatever privilege you want and yeah like I'm doing this podcast during work hours is this work I don't know and I've always like until. Last until last episode I Always did it after work hours and there was no question like this is fine I Always just feel a little hesitation about but stuff that I really enjoy doing and would do for fun, but it's also related to work Anyway. So like when I go to something like this. What I want to do is bring back like. Ah, specific idea that's going to drive growth or you know something like that and ah that way I can very easily justify it I don't think I have that but I so I like I had a great time I feel really energized about the business. Um I did learn stuff just I don't know that any of it was like. And idea I'm going to apply to my business but you know for example I got a sense of how other companies are doing and like trick marketing tricks that are working for other people. They don't work for us because it's maybe maybe more of a sales driven type of approach I feel like I got smarter I don't know that I could say any specific thing I'm like taken back ah to like last year I was like. Whole new positioning because of big snow tiny cuff I don't think I have that this year. Um, yeah.
03:25.57
Rick
I I mean maybe maybe if there's time today we can hear about the sales marketing tricks because that might apply to leg of health.
03:33.72
tylerking
Yes, it might? Um, yeah I didn't organize my thoughts on that. So I might want to think about I might want to like write down and try and remember the specifics. Um, yeah so okay, a couple things I wanted to share. So I think the theme of my presentation. I I was going in and kind of struggling to figure out what to even talk about because the same reason I've said I'm going to have not have much to talk about on this podcast which is just like for me 2024 is a year about a year of execution and it's not fun to talk other people. Don't want to hear me talk about like these dinky little features. We're building you know like I could be like oh we're going to add color coding groups like you don't care about that. Um, neith that neither do the people at big snow. So the the main point I ended up talking about is just like I think I'm coming to terms with the fact that the business less knowing serum is successful enough that at this point when we make decisions. It's it's for something else and. Part of it. Not all of it but part of it is what makes me happy. Um and just saying like there's a lot of I feel like in the past there's been a lot of tension in my internal tension for me between like the world says you're supposed to do it this way. But I don't want to do that.
04:47.33
tylerking
And so I felt like I'm doing it wrong or something and what I'm I think I'm coming to terms with and really validated at big so tiny comp I think was when the world says to do it this way. There's this implication that that's to maximize shareholder value. No one says that out loud. That's just implied. But there are a million other goals. You could have other than maximizing shareholder value and if if you have one of those other goals. Maybe all those best practices or some of those best practices don't apply anymore and so that was kind of the theme of my talk is just like there's a lot of stuff that I was doing that I felt bad about that I'm just not feeling bad about anymore.
05:16.43
Rick
So you you kind of got reassured that the path that you're on is an okay path and probably the right path because it's making you happy.
05:26.52
tylerking
Yeah I think so like last year there was the the dynamic at big snow is like you're you're giving your talk and people just interrupt you and be like I disagree that's stupid. You know like it's a very ah no, one's afraid of um disagreeing with you there and last year I got a lot of disagreement and this year I didn't um, and I think a big part of it is because we decided to raise prices last year everyone was like what the fuck are you doing? why? Why haven't you raised prices on your legacy users and we did this year and I think everyone's like all right. That's all we wanted. But yeah I got I felt good I also felt good I mean i.
05:55.99
Rick
Ah, that's awesome.
06:00.31
tylerking
You know I shouldn't share anything specific about any other business. But I think it's okay to share like as a general trend a lot of the growth challenges that lessening serum's having are widespread. It's not just less knowing serum struggling with this which like it sucks to take pleasure in other people's misery. Yeah and I don't I hope it doesn't come across that way but like when you're. Trying something and it feels like man seems easy for everyone else and why is it so hard for me when you find out. Oh. It's actually hard for everyone. It's kind of reassuring in a way that's another kind of takeaway I had.
06:30.99
Rick
Yeah, like you're not. It's it's ah more macro than micro. It's more you know systemic than than specific to you.
06:38.10
tylerking
Yeah, which actually I think there's a real takeaway there. It's not part of it is just like emotional health like you you don't beat yourself up as much but part of it is like I think if if I could critique myself in 2023. You know you can go back and listen the podcast and i. I was talking about growth so much and we tried a bunch of stuff and we actually I think executed on what the plan was and it didn't work and looking back I think I can say why it didn't work and that's that I thought less annoying serum was uniquely struggling with marketing and we needed to fix what we were doing to be like everyone else. And it's a completely different strategy if you're like oh no like most of the growth channels are just completely saturated and there's kind of a retraction in sass in general right now and things like that that changes what the strategy should be and I think I think it supports what the strategy is this year which I've talked about before but like basically rather than trying to find some you know Brand New Marketing channel or whatever. It's just like let's focus on our core ah strengths and just get a 1 % improvement there a 2% improvement there and try to compound a little more. Yeah, so I feel good about that.
07:47.28
Rick
That's awesome, but but you have to like j d and I were doing our one on weekly 1 on one earlier this morning and um, we had a similar conversation about something else which is like we were. We were um so we Amazon has a business. Offering for ordering stuff but they charged a subscription fee for it and so I canceled that but it was it kind of messed Jd's workflow because he can't now log in and he doesn't get email alerts and that sort of thing because there's not 2 users. Um, and so he was like can we please set up like a shared email address for.
08:11.36
tylerking
Um.
08:20.12
Rick
Amazon so I can get notified when people get their gift cards, blah bla blah blah um, and so so we were going through Google groups and setting up billing at like a billing at email address for Amazon and when we pulled up the groups we saw like 5 so or 6 variations of Jd Clery at leguphealth.com and it was from like last early last year when we were ah attempting to figure out how to spam people. Um and get them to ah ah you know you know buy from leg of health we we set up 5 burner accounts for him to like massively spam people and it didn't work. But.
08:39.76
tylerking
Ah.
08:54.57
tylerking
Um, yeah.
08:58.51
Rick
You have to try that stuff to go Nope I I know that doesn't work. Um, we're not going to do that again and we were We had that we went through that kind of change like of like why did we do that I was so stupid. It's like no no, we had to now we don't have to worry about that anymore.
09:07.70
tylerking
You have to try? Yeah, yeah, and it's hard because the the rallies it does work for 5% of businesses and those are the only ones you see about on Twitter or wherever because no one's like I tried this marketing experiment it failed or very few people do that.
09:16.80
Rick
Um.
09:20.57
Rick
Or I I am starting to realize that I I think there are a lot of thought leaders out there who are full shit and they are out there saying this stuff is working and they they've got a really pretty story around it. But if you go look at actual like results there they have none.
09:29.98
tylerking
Um.
09:36.29
tylerking
Yeah, there's certainly a lot of that. Yeah, but like okay I can't get Adwords to work. Someone's getting Adwords to work. You know someone's getting Seo to work.
09:45.39
Rick
Oh I would say that you do have Adwords working in some capacity and ah, you're getting leads somehow and it's working. But it's not like this um ah fake.
09:56.92
tylerking
Um, yeah.
09:57.95
Rick
Success that is like perfect which is what is like sold and talked about because no one is doing that. It's not 5% is I'm trying to say it's like less than one percent is is my point.
10:04.46
tylerking
Yeah, okay, but yeah, there are 6 there I agree most of most of the bullshit out there is fake some of it's real. Um I personally know people who have done the thing you are trying to do that worked ah, but um. Okay, the ah one of the if if I had to say one specific takeaway like I know I said I didn't like learn anything directly to apply. But while I was giving my presentation 1 person kind of gave some feedback that really resonated with me which was. I I forget exactly what I was talking about at the moment but I was I was saying one of these things like have this conflict between what I want to do and and what everyone else thinks I should do and he basically said you know would it be bad for the business if you left and I was like yeah I think so like not to toot my own horn. But I think I'm an important part of the business and he's like It's okay to do things that will keep you around for the rest of your career versus doing things that will make you lose interest in the next couple years and so you know going to big snow itself is one of those like I feel super energized after doing that and I I have that I still have this sense of guilt because I'm like I wouldn't I wouldn't. 1 of my employees to go take a week off work to go snowboarding and hanging out in a hot tub. So I do feel kind of like a hypocrite but it's true like like his point was if this is going to give you more energy to stick with this for a really long time and stay engaged like that's pretty valuable to the business.
11:33.79
tylerking
I Think that's probably a reminder that a lot of founders especially startup to last types need to hear of like yeah we talk about Growth. We talk about product and execution and all this but just doing what you need to do to be able to stay in the game for a long time like in terms of mental health just sustainability in general like that. That's a really important thing that doesn't get talked about a lot.
11:56.30
Rick
Totally. Ah yeah I mean but what an excuse to do whatever the hell you want to I Love it.
12:02.38
tylerking
Um, yeah, that's the problem like there. This is a very slippery slope right? um.
12:09.23
Rick
Ah, but yeah, like you like I think it governs itself though because like if you if you ruined the business like that is not something that that would make you happy and so like there there I think it it naturally like kind of has limits um to it.
12:21.70
tylerking
The type of limit. It doesn't have that I want to impose on myself is like you can end up in a situation where you know I have the corner office and I show up whenever I want and have no accountability to anyone because I'm like well isn't it important that I stay engaged in the business. This is what I want and.
12:36.70
Rick
But that's not engaged in the business by the way.
12:40.60
tylerking
Well okay, but you you could give the argument. Well I'll quit entirely if if I can't do this shit if I can't be a toxic boss. No I'm not going to but we're saying this out loud for the benefit of the podcast say like yes, this logic has significant limits. But if you're on my side where you probably overcorrect and feel like.
12:46.60
Rick
You're You're not going to do that? no.
12:59.19
tylerking
Too much like you can't do things that actually would be good. Ah anyway I found that valuable. Ah, then? yeah, my final thing is I just I walked away with a lot of confidence that the cup holder project thing that I've referenced last couple episodes the idea of just there's no strategy to our product at all in 2024. It's I just want customers to be delighted by the product. That's it and we're going to do the things the highest impacts to effort ratio things we can do to make our customers like our product so that's I came out of this just thinking 2024 is going to be so simple I'm not saying it's going to work. But. What we're going to do is going to be simple and straightforward and ah I just have like total confidence that that's what we need to be doing right now.
13:42.16
Rick
That's terrific. Um, can you talk about the marketing sales gimmicky tricks that are in a generic way that perhaps could help leg up like is there anything that you can think of that was like oh man I Wish that worked for like that might work for leg up health.
13:55.62
tylerking
So the the best ones I heard were for more of a like kind of sales driven versus kind of self-serve marketing driven so less knowings like very self-serve I I guess less's leg up health kind of in the middle like it is a sales motion but also pretty low. A Cv.
14:12.75
Rick
M.
14:15.40
tylerking
Um, so I'm trying to think like like what we well so one person did go through what what you were just talking about basically for lack of a better term spamming people and I think what you described as a lot less sophisticated than what you need to do to make it work I think you need to have totally separate Google accounts and there's the software that will like so. Start sending emails. Oh you were okay if you were if you were using Google groups though I don't think that is.
14:36.29
Rick
We're doing that. Yeah, it's called warming up the account. No the Google the Google groups were forwarding emails from the accounts that we had archived so we originally had a separate accounts.
14:49.47
tylerking
Oh okay I Well no I sorry I think they're all supposed to be on different domains. Okay got you I hesitate to say this because like I I don't think anyone should do this but also it's a you know it's an arms race. Whatever um.
14:53.47
Rick
Yeah, that was the next step if we had gotten any traction with that We were going to set up multiple domains. Yeah I think our messaging was like probably not not not the best at the time and so it'll be interesting to see as we.
15:06.11
tylerking
What.
15:12.88
Rick
Start working on outbound again whether we can Maybe we revisit that. But I just don't think it's right I think um I'd rather be more targeted and like higher quality lower volume than than that The that's us that's a spray like cuts a spray and Prey approach.
15:21.86
tylerking
Yeah, the the the people I've heard for from whom it has worked well. It's like we have a super clearly defined customer and we can actually tell who they are based on like their Linkedin profile. It's like It's sort of spam in the sense that it's automated, but it is like you have a you should have a very high hit rate I think um, that's I'm I'm aggregating together. What multiple people have told me here. But what leg up health has is like hey you run a nail salon. Do you want health insurance or I mean is more thoughtful than that. But.
15:52.69
Rick
And they.
15:57.22
tylerking
I Don't think it was you You weren't able to pre-qualify people as well as the other people I heard from.
16:00.38
Rick
And the other factor is like there's like 3 buckets of value propositions. There's like make money save money be more productive and the only the the only value proposition in my opinion. That's like makes people like run to the phone to call a solicitor back or to like. You know, jump on a meeting as a result of a cold email is. You're going to tell me how to make more money and I and I believe you like like oh you're going to save me you know 10% of ah $1000 per month expense. That's not that interesting to me sorry like ah but like like I think a lot of I'll be curious if like.
16:25.62
tylerking
Um, ah.
16:28.69
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah.
16:35.60
Rick
The the businesses that are succeeding this are like have about have a value proposition of like let me help you grow your business. Let me help you grow faster. Let me help you make more money.
16:42.16
tylerking
Yeah, and ah yes, the the the there is 1 person there in particular who ah was I would say succeeding at at growth stuff more than most and what you just described is exactly right? It's like. In a week you will have made more money if you if you do this thing and it's very easy to prove.
17:02.55
Rick
Yep, yeah like why wait for what there is. It's a no brainer call to take.
17:07.38
tylerking
Yeah, um, cool and then the other one I I don't want to say the end entire. He probably wouldn't care if I shared the exact tactic but also the point of big snow is you're nuts but like it's a small group. You're especially share but let let me just generically say.
17:16.84
Rick
Yeah, so don't yeah, don't violate anything.
17:23.00
tylerking
There are a lot of um ways you can get someone on the phone not for us. There's there a lot of ways you can communicate with someone. That's not about sales. So For example, like I want to do a case study on you I Want to interview you I want to you know do that type of thing. And it had never occurred it always occurred to me. You do that thing for your current customers. Um, as a way to like build content that other people want to read it never occurred to me that if you reach out to somebody asking to interview them. Not so that anyone else in the world will ever see that interview but as a way to start a conversation with a lead. That's a kind of that's it's like Galaxy brain shit that I would never think of I was trying to be vague but did that make sense What I was saying okay.
18:04.90
Rick
Ah, yes, who does interesting. Um I need to start a Utah health insurance podcast for small business owners.
18:13.40
tylerking
Something along those lines now. It's probably not worth it for like you don't want to do an hour long podcast interview just to generate a lead for a 10 Well yeah, fair enough I think the reality is not many people turn down a chance to.
18:20.60
Rick
10 minute interviews
18:28.24
Rick
Health Health insurance real talk utah small business edition 10 minute episodes on why health insurance sucks. Yeah, ah.
18:31.20
tylerking
Yeah, or you know so. Yeah, and no one would listen to it but it doesn't matter the point is to get the the conversation or like I wonder if you know magazines or yeah, you know news like all all this content stuff is hard if you want an audience.
18:48.63
Rick
M.
18:50.75
tylerking
You don't care about the audience you just care about getting people to talk to you to create the content. It's It's a completely different game right.
18:54.78
Rick
But it's brilliant like I could just see like there's a no number of ways to skin that so that's a really interesting idea.
19:01.87
tylerking
Yeah, um, so those are um, those are my main takeaways. But yeah I I thought it was great I'm I'm not much of a networker I know you are you have you have a big Rolodex I don't um anyone out there listening if you don't have a big rolodex like me a. Say Yes, if someone asks you to do something like this say yes and B if no one asks you to do it. Go do it yourself I think it was is a very good use of time for me. Ah yeah, what else?? What's on your mind.
19:28.22
Rick
Tossome.
19:33.88
Rick
Well, um I think I I mentioned that I've been I've been doing a lot of travel. Um, and I'm still trying to figure out how to travel ah and not get exhausted I don't sleep in hotel rooms and so when I travel if it's multiple nights like I get progressively more exhausted because. I'm like waking up at every sound and I don't know if that's just a me thing or that's just how other people are um so I've been trying like this past couple weeks I've tried like short trips like ah 1 ne-nightres. Um, maybe you're going to try a day trip next time. Um, but it's still like the the first trip was fine but I had another trip back to like kind of like within the same week.
20:03.16
tylerking
Um.
20:11.15
Rick
Um, and so it was like going on a long trip I never recovered from the first one. Um, but I don't know if you have any tips on traveling I Just can't sleep in the hotel rooms and um I think like the best thing for me to do is probably just to like take an early flight take a late flight back and just sleep in my own bed.
20:14.80
tylerking
Um, yeah.
20:28.83
tylerking
Um, that makes some sense. Do do you know why? you can't sleep in a hotel room like is it noise is it light is it pillows and mattress. Yeah.
20:35.86
Rick
Um, probably all of the above. It's I think it's mostly noise and like ah it's I think it's primarily noise and then temperature is a factor but um I usually just put it as low as it can go in the hotel room and it works out fine.
20:50.13
tylerking
Yeah I feel like hotels have more temperature control than most houses do um I so I just to big snow I for the first time ever brought my own pillow. Um, my wife and I are both we we got these pillillas that we absolutely love and now when we whenever we got a hotel we're like I can't sleep on this shit.
20:53.93
Rick
Yep.
21:07.20
tylerking
Um I like have have you tried bring a pillow bring an eyemass bring like a noise machine. Um like whatever you can to kind of neutralize.
21:13.57
Rick
The noise machine I think you know that's probably the biggest we sleep with massive noise machines in our in our and our bedroom at home and I bet that's like that would probably be an unlock as would a pillow but I'm not going to carry a pillow around like that's just not going to happen. So my pillar is massive.
21:28.21
tylerking
Why not? So I got a travel size version of my normal pillow I normally use the purple Harmony Pillow I think it's called but they made like a little baby version of it. It like fit fit in my backpack with everything else in it.
21:32.60
Rick
Like I really.
21:45.18
Rick
I'm going to try this noise machine First that's actually a really good idea. Um, because I think that I think it's actually like these these non repetitive sounds like that the air conditioning makes or the outdoor noise. Um that I think I just like because I'm not in my safe space like I just like shoot up.
21:53.47
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
22:00.74
tylerking
Um, the other thing I'd wonder though is like so my hesitation with the fly fly back the same night. So a I feel like air travel takes a lot out of you like.
22:02.45
Rick
Quite awake.
22:13.30
tylerking
You're in a very dry environment you often I often get dehydrated on a plane. Um, there's much higher risk of getting sick and I'm not even talking like even pre covered I would get sick from airf travel all the time like just a cold or whatever. But. Get a good night's sleep and then get a cold isn't a good tradeoff. Um, you've got the travel time I just feel like the costs are yeah but and then that's the other thing like if you're having the alcohol Anyway, like if you're probably your brain's going at full Speed. You've got a lot of adrenaline from whatever you were doing that day like just.
22:33.97
Rick
Then if you if you mix it. It's an alcohol like that even accelerates the dehydration.
22:49.14
tylerking
You could be sleeping in your own bed and it's not going to fix that I don't think.
22:51.88
Rick
Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah, so that's just like that part. You mentioned I was frazzled at the beginning of the show and like it's I part most of it's travel related. Um, it just like I did figuring out how to do that help in a healthy way. Um, and that's going to ramp up this year I'm going to be traveling a lot more than I havent historically um.
23:00.37
tylerking
Um.
23:09.84
Rick
Like up health. Ah, we've wrapped up the expense cuts so turned off like tons of subscriptions. Um, just can't but like the biggest subscription that I paid unnecessarily for multiple years was a Hs which is our Seo tool. Um I mean I definitely will.
23:22.39
tylerking
Are.
23:26.57
Rick
Make seo a big part of leg up health's growth strategy but I haven't done it yet. Um, and I just wasted thousands of dollars on this subscription. That's the crazy thing and so I was having all this like anxiety about turning it off. It's been a month now and it's like I'm still getting emails from them that are at.
23:33.40
tylerking
Yeah, this is the thing about Sas is you can just turn it back on when you need it.
23:45.72
Rick
And a lot of ways more valuable than they were before because they've changed the emails that they're sending to the free version and the free version is actually more valuable.
23:49.13
tylerking
So yeah, we used to pay and then I thought we were still paying because I still get emails from them and everything and I logged in to cancel and I was like oh we've been on the free version for the last year I didn't even realize it.
24:02.63
Rick
Yeah, so anyway, um, we're profitable now month to month. Um all the commission stuff is set up. Ah so I just feel like a huge weight lifted. Um.
24:12.59
tylerking
Do do you have a sense of like total savings ah from canceling all these subscriptions just like get I Guess yeah, that's something cool. Okay sorry.
24:19.13
Rick
$5000 a year. Maybe if not more like yeah I mean like 1 1 big like group of set of savings was all the no code tools that we were paying for um that the.
24:32.66
tylerking
Um, oh yeah.
24:34.69
Rick
We we could cancel this year as a result of the platform that you've built and and the migration.
24:36.31
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Obviously no code is cheaper than hiring a developer and paying like a developer salary but hosting no code because you need so many different tools. It's quite a bit more expensive than hosting a real web app.
24:49.59
Rick
We were paying hundreds of dollars for a login ah tool we're paying hundreds of dollars for 8 airtable hundreds of dollars for webflow hundreds of dollars for zapier to to do the zaps. There's probably another tool in there that I'm forgetting but those are the 4 core ones and. All combined. It was ah thousands of dollars
25:08.70
tylerking
Yeah, and I think the hosting stuff that I set up is 40 or fifty bucks a month something like that and it honestly it could like it's not worth the time it would take but you could host it for five bucks a month if you wanted to like do more devops work like it's crazy how cheap you can host a Sas app.
25:12.95
Rick
Yeah, it's really nice.
25:20.73
Rick
Yeah, the other the other areas of like cuts that I probably didn't need to pay for are like collaboration tool cuts like we're a really small company and a lot of this time I was just me and I set these collaboration tool paid collaboration tools up to create. Documentation when I could have just done it a Google doc for free. Um, so that was an notion slack. Um hundreds of dollars a month for like or years ah hundreds of dollars a years I think I think slack was $450 a year um I think notions similar. Um, so it's a thousand bucks right there
25:43.60
tylerking
Um, like what kind of tools. Are you talking about.
25:59.25
Rick
So anyway, um so Db Tbd on notion I Think there's a lot of value in baking notion into our long-term plans at this point but slack because there's no reason to pay for the for us to pay for the the main version.
26:00.44
tylerking
Um, yeah.
26:10.94
tylerking
Yeah, we were just paying for it to get so that certain things could trigger a notification in slack which ended up not being worth it. Yeah.
26:21.33
Rick
Yep, exactly? Um, but yeah, like so so now I'm ah now that that's wrapped up. Ah I'm I'm I'm basically moving into ah growth planning with Jd and it's really interesting I'm I'm really.
26:35.42
Rick
1 of the things we're doing at Legup Health right now is um, one of our core values is recharge um and the the kind of the the history here is like we we have to push really really hard from October and through January as open enrollment hits where we become like a very reactive organization and time really is money like how many enrollments can you do. And if if someone wants to do an enrollment at Midnight. We'll do an enrollment at midnight um pizza in the office. Whatever you know it takes um but then like if you do that year-round like it's not sustainable. So recharge is about after outside of open enrollment making sure that we're enjoying passions taking time off recharging ourselves for the next open enrollment. And so we're're we're giving a lot of space right now at Leg up health for jd for you for me to just sort of like chip away at things but like not feel any time pressure. Um, and as part of that Jd started to think about you know? Okay, we've got a goal. We're at one hundred k and recurring revenue roughly per year right now.
27:14.78
tylerking
Um, ah.
27:33.83
Rick
How do we get that to 2 3 or 4 times that by the end of by by this time next year and it's really interesting like I've given him a lot of space to play in when we were at people keep I would just like say I need to plan it a week and so I've never actually gone through an experience like this with him. He's coming up some great ideas like.
27:50.10
tylerking
Um, sisters.
27:51.93
Rick
1 but like and we're kind of dividing it into buckets of of arr 1 obvious bucket of Arr is to get licensed in Texas um, and because because he's got like 20 people that were we could make 8 clients immediately and it's like 5000 it's like somewhere between five and ten thousand dollars in arr like.
28:04.42
tylerking
Yeah.
28:09.99
tylerking
Wow.
28:10.63
Rick
With the flip a switch and so there's like he's got like these these like buckets of like this will get us 5 a care and they're like just like things that we know will work. We just need to go do the work and then there's this like exactly exactly and then so he's he's come up with a lot of those that I I just like.
28:20.44
tylerking
Yeah, it's like picking up quarters off the ground. But if you pick up enough of them. You got some real money.
28:30.55
Rick
It takes time to think about but like they you if you think about them enough like they become like very simple. Um, but then there's this like we're not going to hit our our growth goals by by just picking up quarters. Um, where I think we're just starting to play around with is like okay how how are we going to you know, really pull a lever of growth and and we haven't really you know. Sound anything there. But um I think we'll you know we will yeah.
28:53.98
tylerking
Can I can we workshop one of these things right now because you mentioned the whole get license in Texas thing. Um and this is I think I brought this up before and I feel like you gave me a reason why this doesn't make sense. But I'm going to say it again because I don't remember like I feel like back in the day. You were the main person doing like up health and then j d was for a while but he was in Utah at first right? And okay.
29:14.37
Rick
No, he was always traveling but he had he had so he was he was actually traveling the world in an rv with his family. Um, and so he actually wasn't in Utah but his home was in Utah and ah when they wrapped up the rv they ended up in Texas instead of Utah and so that was sort of like unexpected but.
29:22.67
tylerking
Um, so okay.
29:33.42
Rick
But.
29:33.72
tylerking
Well at least when you were like there is a time when you were doing a lot of the stuff and you were in Utah and I feel like a lot of things were tried out in like the local market that maybe worked like at least sort of worked but that the problem is JD's not there. Ah.
29:48.66
Rick
Being in person and doing like spontaneous in-person networking attending events saying I This is what I do like it. It is the best way to grow for leg of health.
29:57.45
tylerking
Um, right? So I'm wondering if like I leg up health should just be a Texas and like all the Utah positioning should just shift to Texas because that's where JD is and maybe all those things would start working if he could do it there.
30:10.39
Rick
I mean that's that is a so the the no brainer era growth is just go get the people he already knows but this sets up the other experiment which is what you just talked about which is maybe perhaps in-person networking is a more effective thing and Jd can actually do that in Utah I mean in Texas.
30:25.15
tylerking
Yeah, well and like I'm wondering when you do Seo should you be focusing on s on on and he's in Galveston right? should I know that's not a huge huge market but like should the Seo start with Galveston stuff not Salt Lake City stuff because that like. He's at this point the anchor of the company I feel like.
30:43.39
Rick
Yeah, perhaps perhaps this this is but yeah, this is the kind of stuff that like we're starting to talk I don't know is the answer. But yes, um, it's something we should absolutely consider and and and figure out how to you know maximize the test on.
30:55.81
tylerking
Um, cool. Also yeah, it makes you wonder if when the time comes to bring on ah another Jd type like kind of service person. Maybe it's a being remote could be a feature here right? like pick pick an ideal metro area and find someone there.
31:11.11
tylerking
And then just run the exact same playbook we're going to do local Seo for you. We're going to sponsor some local chambers of commerce and so on.
31:11.16
Rick
Yep.
31:15.85
Rick
Totally um yes, and yeah, so so perhaps like if there's there's an argument that if Texas takes off and and Utah continues to trickle our next hire being a part like kind of like a general manager of Utah person to open up our Utah office. Anyway, it's premature and that could be me.
31:33.35
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah.
31:35.75
Rick
You know? Ah, but but but it's you know it it may that seems really far away. Um, but but the ah the idea is that? Um, yes I love like I remember um back in the day meeting one of the uber ah people and. I learned a lot about how uber grew but what they did was they started in San Francisco or they started in some say may I don't go. It's New York or San Francisco um and then they built a playbook and then they would basically hire in the local market or hire someone from like a consulting firm and send them into the local market and they would build a a basically. Ah.
31:53.42
tylerking
Yeah, San Francisco I think
32:08.73
Rick
Ah, special team for that market and they would do everything from get the drivers and they would run it like their own little company and I think that will that is something that we could work that could work well for us on a micro basis.
32:12.76
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, I'm kind of jealous of I often wish that Crm had any kind of local component at all because every business that has to operate locally has to almost by definition be small scale or it's it's either a massive company that doesn't get.
32:22.77
Rick
E.
32:32.62
tylerking
The local dynamic or it's a local company that doesn't it's not sophisticated at all and it's just like that's not a niche that most Sas companies can go after because no, no, one's like I want to buy a crm in Cleveland or whatever. But yeah, you can. That's a potentially a very cool thing. Okay, um. And wanted to bring up a couple ideas that growth things we're going to try out that these are ideas that came from ah podcast listeners a few episodes back. We had one I think it was titled growth is hard and I got a couple responses to that. Um, both of these are. So I want to give I'm not I don't have permission to say anyone's name so I'm not going to say the specific people but you know who you are thank you for the ideas and also I'm like they're both ideas I know about and I just needed someone to nudge me. Um, so I appreciate the nudge but 1 is I have a call this afternoon with um. Corey Haines from conversion factory are you familiar with him. Um, so we don't you know we'll see if we actually end up using them or not but um, for people who don't know Corey is kind of one of the bootstrapped Sas marketing kind of thought leaders out there but he started a ah marketing agency that does.
33:24.84
Rick
M.
33:42.82
tylerking
Um, I'm going to learn more this afternoon. But I think like kind of website optimization webflow design kind of a variety of things but all kind of in that ballpark. Um, so we're going to talk to see if we can ah have them kind of help us out with kind of marketing opt like like optimization of our website. Um, that was one idea I have a couple thoughts on that and one it like it. It doesn't sound all that interesting. It's like oh bring on a marketing agency. You know every company knows that but a couple thoughts here one is until recently I was kind of thinking we need new. Demand generation. We need new leads coming in the top of the funnel like that's the thing that ah like I just thought our our growth isn't good enough and that's the problem and kind of consistent with what I was saying earlier I don't think we have to like radically change anything if we can just get you know this. This 1 interaction got 2% better this other one got 3% better. Um I actually think we can hit our growth goals with pretty small optimizations which is part of what's inspiring this immediate reaction to that like does that seem plausible.
34:47.79
Rick
Um, now. Yeah I agree. Um I I mean this is one of 1 of the core values I talk about a lot at ah Ed went from windfall and one of the learnings I've had from working there is leverage over optimization. That is what you have to play when you're playing the venture game. It's like you have to find the big wins and like not if you're if you're growing off of optimization optimization. There are diminishing returns to that and you're not going to be able to to sustain the level of growth necessary to make the the economics work for everyone. You're not in that boat like there's a whole other game you can play which is. Fundamentally optimization and incremental improvements and play it because other like your your competitors can't.
35:27.25
tylerking
Yeah I that's a very interesting point. Totally agree. Also I think there is a subset of venture backed companies where that's probably it's different and that is anyone with a viral loop because if. Every customer you get turns into another customer down the line improving any part of the like it's a flywheel at that point and you can improve any part of it and it accelerates instead of hitting diminishing returns now I don't we're never going to have viral growth the way Facebook did or whatever but I do think one of like the the. Hypothesis we have right now is that word of mouth is going to be It's what's worked for us in the past and it's going to be a big part of it and potentially it actually again I'm not expecting exponential growth. But maybe it actually has a bigger impact than it seems like it would.
36:14.35
Rick
Yeah, and if you believe if you have any sort of signs that point to like ah ah, some sort of viral or like multiplying component. Um, ah then incrementally improving that is not optimization. Its leverage.
36:28.24
tylerking
Yeah, fair enough. Um I'm also excited about this if it ends up happening because ah like eunice is our marketer. She's been. You know it's a 20 person team 1 marketer that's probably like less marketing than especially for a self-service kind of marketing driven growth. Company like we are. That's like less investment in marketing people ah than normal. Ah I don't want to hire more marketing people partially because I don't think I have the expertise to put them in a position to succeed the st louis market doesn't really have a lot of expertise. In this already so you'd have to hire a new person and mentor them. But who's going to mentor them I certainly don't have that ability. Um, but also we have money right now but not long term because we're doing this price increase. It's going to get us some runway but our user growth problem is still not solved. And I don't want to hire anyone in any role right now because I don't want to increase the odds of having to lay someone off in the future. Um, so that's another reason I'm excited about like can we kind of give eunice a team of people to work with but that are on more of a contract basis where it's like okay, if.
37:22.25
Rick
Me.
37:34.73
tylerking
You know six months from now or three months from now. Let's let's get rid of it if ah if it's not making sense anymore. So I'm excited about that. Yeah.
37:38.67
Rick
I like it but this is yeah if it works it works and it's like I mean you can keep paying for it. But do you think 3 much is long enough. Okay.
37:49.12
tylerking
I don't know we're going to I don't even know exactly what they do? um so I I don't want to focus this too much on this specifically conversion factor. Although I am optimistic ah about it. But um, the activity. Yeah, and we're also going to talk to a kind of Adwords type person. Um, where.
37:58.14
Rick
It's more about the the activities that they would be doing. Yeah.
38:06.73
tylerking
I think again I'm not expecting huge ad like this to become some kind of major channel but we're already spending several thousand dollars a month on Adwords if we could pay a person five hundred bucks a month to come in and tweak things better than we know how to it saves unis time she doesn't have to think about it anymore and we probably get slightly better results. So. I'm probably like ah overly hopeful marketing never works marketing is a scam. Never do it kids but I'm still trying. Ah yeah, the second idea is and again kind of obvious but someone needed to say it to me. Um, so we have 2 growth people Unice is doing marketing.
38:32.41
Rick
Ah, what's the second idea.
38:43.32
tylerking
Alex is doing what is best described as sales. Ah well like we hired him to do biz dev and the the biggest opportunities are biz dev but like we don't have a full time job of that so he fills in most of his time with sales but we sell to very small companies. It's hard to make it work anyway. Ah, he's been I've talked about some podcast. He's been buying leads from like software advice and companies like that. Um, which is okay the the idea again, we've been in the mindset of we have to get new leads. The problem is the number of leads coming into our website but the idea is well we already have a bunch of leads coming to our website that it's It's a self-serve Signup thing like you go you start a free trial and then after you do that we kind of email you and say hey do you want to get on the phone do a demo anything like that. The idea is well. Why isn't there a talk to sales button on the homepage. Um, there are a lot of things that might not work about it like. Will a ton of low qualified people book demos and then it'll be a waste of time like that's why we don't do demos with people right now until they sign up for free trials. We're trying to kind of qualify them a little um but we're going to test it out. Um and basically have these go to Alex instead of to see our I coaches and the the question is can we make it so. Only somewhat qualified or not only but enough that the people clicking this and and talking to sales are qualified enough that it's not a waste of time and then b I'm wondering if this will skew towards slightly larger customers. Um, because most people don't want to talk to sales. They want to just go sign up. So anyway, that.
40:18.60
tylerking
Tbd on that. But that's the thought.
40:20.24
Rick
Ah, there's no reason not to do this because talking to customers is how you learn and so there's potentially like insights that you're missing out on from people who are coming to the site that aren't talking to you and so interacting with you in a meaningful way that could be an unlock so on purely the.
40:33.66
tylerking
Um, ah her.
40:37.13
Rick
The ability to like learn from who's coming to the site and have real conversations with people like I think it's worth trying this I will call out though. You do have a contact us call to action on the website. It's just so like if someone's really like yeah if someone like really wants to talk to you like they can get there. The interesting thing is like.
40:49.37
tylerking
It's in the nav.
40:56.10
Rick
If you put talk to sales and in certain places are people that would have signed up for a free trial going to use it. Um and because they're just like not tech savvy that kind of thing. Um, it'll be interesting I think there'll be a lot of learnings that come from this. The other thing that is similar to this that that might be worth experimenting with as well is just throwing a chat box. Um.
40:59.98
tylerking
Right.
41:15.58
Rick
Up up on the website.
41:15.84
tylerking
So we're actually the the ui for this? Um I don't think it's live right now but it will be next week if you go to our website but it's going to pop up where a chat. So we're not actually going to change anything about the site. But if you stay on the site for ten or twenty seconds it'll pop up in the bottom right corner but it's just a button to a calendar booking.
41:31.44
Rick
Yeah, now that makes sense I think you'll learn a lot from that experiment and it'll lead to this was a terrible idea. Ah oh like we don't This is not what we want to do with our time or it's going to be like man. We should have been doing this the whole time. How do we? How do we make how how do we take this to the next level.
41:40.67
tylerking
Um, yeah.
41:46.34
tylerking
Yeah, definitely an experiment I do want to call out. Let's say it kind of works the next step in terms of how I like I'm I'm saying this out loud so you can hold me accountable this. It's not enough for it to work. It has to work better like none of these are new leads. Right? They're people who are already coming to our website. They're already somewhat interested in lessening cm they might have gone through our normal flow and paid us anyway, it's going to be very hard to know mathematically like I think there's a difficult thing to measure like it's not enough that the people Alex talks to pays. It's that they have to pay at a higher rate than they would have paid if he didn't talk to them.
42:20.33
Rick
I think that discount like that that discounts 100 % the learnings that you have from having sales interactions live interactions with with prospects. So I think like if I look at listening serm I think you have tons of interactions with customers that provide feedback. But there's just like if you look at like the the market there's customers. There's people who are not yet customers who you have a relationship with which are people coming to your website and then there's this whole other bucket of people who have no idea what less annoying cm is which is your the rest of your tam. Um, and it's like I think you you I think generally you don't have a ton of interaction with prospects. Who haven't created a free account was that is that true. Okay.
42:58.15
tylerking
Ah, no Alex is currently spending all his time talking to leads. The question is does he talk to leads we buy or does he talk to leads from the web site. So I get where you're saying that there's value in those conversations. But there's opportunity cost here which is now he's not having all those conversations with the software advice leads and so yeah, it's if listen if our Acv was 10 times what it is. It'd be a great channel for us. Um, it's just like he's probably getting us I don't know 10 customers a month
43:12.58
Rick
Yeah, is he converting the software by leads.
43:29.48
tylerking
And that's ah, it's something but given the amount of time he's putting in and the amount of money we're spending on the leads. It's like because we don't have better ideas. It's worth doing I think but that's kind of the question here is is it better to to squeeze more juice out of the people already coming to our website. Or is it better to get even though it's a very small number these extra people that weren't looking at us at all in the first place. So I think it's going to kind of be vibes like how does it feel to him. Basically.
43:55.99
Rick
Interesting Cool I'm um.
44:04.60
Rick
Yeah, it'll be interesting to watch because this feels like something you should be doing like regularly even if it's just for a day a month just to get the insights. Um I don't know I'm I'm interested in how valuable you find the insights from his conversations.
44:18.49
tylerking
Yeah.
44:20.41
Rick
To to to feed your product roadmap and if it's like I already know all this then like it's ah it's not valuable. But if there's what if there's something that you're getting a perspective that that you're not getting that would be like hugely hugely valuable for the product roadmap.
44:33.21
tylerking
I Think it's good for you to call that out because people listening might that in this case I think the people who are the new way is going to be more similar to our normal customer than what he's getting from software advice. So I actually think he's probably going to narrow the type of feedback he gets. But yeah, we'll see um.
44:42.73
Rick
E.
44:50.66
tylerking
If nothing else I love the idea of like our Dna is serve the like when people come to us. We want them to be get a great experience. Both product customer service and even sales ah focusing on. People who are already interested in us instead of going out and trying to like be good at marketing and be good at sales is definitely more a part of our Dna to some extent like we have to do what we have to do we have to go do marketing. We have to go do sales. But this is like closer to our core competency. So if we can make it work I'll I'll feel better about it. Um.
45:21.91
Rick
It's awesome.
45:24.43
tylerking
All right? looks like we're running up on time any closing thoughts anything else. You want to talk about or should we call it.
45:27.90
Rick
I think I'm good. Um I Ah yeah's like I just feel I need to go recharged now. So I and hope I need to take a day off. So yeah I need a take a day off, um probably won't be day but it'll be did someday soon and then.
45:36.68
tylerking
Um, take a day off Rick all right? Well good luck with that planning that right now I'll let you know? Yeah, so.
45:46.20
Rick
Yeah, and are you coming up to you ta soon? Okay, woohoo, all right? Well if you'd like to visit ah past topics and show notes check out start to last dot com.
45:57.86
tylerking
Um, all right see ya.