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In this episode, we talk about how easy it is to work on multiple things at once because it lets you avoid making tough prioritization decisions, and what we’re doing to avoid that trap.
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.
00:01.81
Rick
Um, what's up this week Tyler
00:04.64
tylerking
I'm ah I'm getting ready to go on a little trip I'm going to Asheville next week you're not hometown but sort of hometown.
00:13.27
Rick
Yeah hour away from my hometown which is actually called Morganton um, it was a ton instead of a town because I think it's technically a city. Not a town but it's right on the threshold of being a town.
00:15.83
tylerking
Um, Morganton old.
00:24.54
Rick
Um, but a I grew up in that it's blue ridge oh no, it was called what's it called again. Blue Ridge mountains so it's called yeah I'm beautiful. Lots of trees humidity asheville is wonderful like lots of breweries. You're going have fun.
00:27.99
tylerking
That sounds right? Yeah, so sounds like yeah I don't think I'm really going to get to spend much time in Asheville. So the reason I'm going for people who don't know it's like to go to founder summit which is a conference down there and it's at some like. They're calling it like camp additions. So it's around. It's at some like lake I don't think like resorts probably too strong of a word but something like that. So I probably won't really experience Asheville the the town very much but ah the weather and the mountains and the lake and stuff and then yeah. You know this is kind of my first conference ish ever ah you and I were going to go to microconf the one that got canceled by covered I went to a business of software which is kind of like similar to microcon as I understand it of having never been a microconf but that was like I was just a little baby.
01:10.98
Rick
Um.
01:17.54
Rick
Um, he.
01:20.50
tylerking
When I went and I like didn't talk to anyone I honestly hated it I I kind of resented the whole experience but ah now I'm like sort of no people like over the internet like Mutual Twitter followers and people like that where I feel like I'm going to be able to go there and actually like. Not just go into a little corner and be by myself the whole time I am yes um, I'm a little nervous about this because for a few reasons but I'm they're doing different like tracks and I'm in the light kind of culture team building one and I'm planning on doing a talk on.
01:38.88
Rick
Are you speaking.
01:54.35
tylerking
How to how a higher entry level people. Um, yeah I'm a what I think it is except I asked to the organizers like what percentage of people at this. Do you think are like fully remote companies and they're like probably 95% and I'm not.
01:58.20
Rick
Um, that's great. That's used. That's very useful.
02:11.65
Rick
Ah, it's like the advice there is don't hire entry level people. Yeah.
02:13.79
tylerking
Right? Exactly like I mean some remote companies do higher entry level but a lot of my advice is like bring them in have them sit right next to you. You know that kind of thing and like I I'm I'm struggling to translate that I still have to prepare the talk and it's on like.
02:27.67
Rick
You could like for you for remote like you could have like a boot camp thing where you fly people in tell you know for ah for a month. Um.
02:33.82
tylerking
Um, that's a great idea. Yeah like onboard people for we act and you know it's funny. Oh. It's now that you say that that's what we did because our first person we hired that I didn't already know because we were remote at first. We hired someone when I was in San Francisco we hired someone in St Louis and we just flew out to St Louis for a week and yeah, onboarded the the person. So why didn't I think of that. Okay, well yeah, that's true. Okay, nice. But anyway I'm trying to prepare that I do really like though I'm the type of person who.
02:55.20
Rick
There you go and you have a story about it.
03:06.94
tylerking
Like if I'm at dinner with friends having a great time talking and the the check comes and we pay I didn't matter how good of a time I'm having I'm like time to leave. Let's get out of here I have a purpose if there's a purpose. Let's go do the purpose I Really like that I'm I'm talking at this conference because now.
03:13.30
Rick
Years like bounce. You know you don't like sit.
03:23.45
tylerking
I'm like I'm going to this conference as a speaker I have a role That's what I can focus on instead of just being there. No no I Yeah just like drop the mic and walk out. Um and I don't think this is the type of conference where like everyone's sitting there watching I.
03:27.75
Rick
Are you going to leave after you speak be done it.
03:40.14
tylerking
The the speaking is a pretty minor part of this so I don't think it really matters that I'm speaking like they didn't even line me up as a speaker until last week so this isn't like a big deal but it gives me a sense of purpose which I like so anyway I'm looking forward to the conference. Um I'll report back on. And my experiences.
03:59.25
Rick
That's awesome I'd love to hear about this i' very interested in this this the founder summit it for people who don't know is put on I believe by the same people who do calm fund and the group of people. There's very similar the Micros crowd I believe and ah I'm very interested see if you.
04:08.77
tylerking
Um.
04:16.90
Rick
If you get value out of it and would want to do it again next year because I don't I currently don't do any um outside of Utah intentional ah relationship development I don't want to call it networking um, but this seems like it would be on the list of things to consider outside of Utah.
04:28.22
tylerking
Um, the.
04:33.67
tylerking
Yeah I Think that's very possible I have this weird like guilt about it because it sounds like it's going to be fun and I'm like can I really count this as work like to have to take vacation days for this should the company pay for it or should I but um, throwing all that aside it sounds like like a bunch of other people who are going are like. Making a whole week of it and it sounds like ah if nothing else. Fun. Even if it's we'll see how good it is for networking and stuff.
04:55.39
Rick
I Mean that's the best I Think that's what's like really good salespeople like that are that enjoy their jobs I feel like they have this intersection of they they make money a lot of money and they travel and go do and they have friends in the industry and they go to the same conferences and they just.
05:08.92
tylerking
Her of her.
05:13.30
Rick
Have like these rituals and it feels like this could be 1 of those.
05:15.40
tylerking
Yeah, for sure I'm really jealous. This is one thing I'm jealous about of like solo founders or like just co-founder teams or whatever is there's you don't need to draw a line between like what's the company and what's you so you can just be like screw it I'm just Goingnna I'm going to go because I want to and that's the end of it. But I I kind of I'm like well I I can't. Not that I I don't let my employees go to conferences but like there's rules around. It's like we have a professional development budget and you know here are some limits on it and stuff like that and so I'm I'm following all the rules which makes me feel guilty about it. You know anyway. But yeah, yeah.
05:49.18
Rick
It'd be cool if you got a customer or 2 out of it.
05:53.70
tylerking
I'm not feeling optimistic about that. But we'll see maybe maybe um yeah, what's going on what's going on with you.
06:00.20
Rick
I'm diveing deep into digital advertising this month primarily because it's the intersection of where legup health needs to go for our marketing and where windfall plays. So. It's a double whammy in terms of helping me to be be better at at my job. Um, and so ah. I'm learning a ton and one of the things that I'm learning is like there's some serious like digital the reason digital advertising has gotten so complex. It's way more complex than I ever like imagined it was is because of the precision with how you can target people now which is enabled by data. On people. Um, so more specifically you know when you go to a website. Um, there's things called cookies that track you associate you you give that website information now. All of a sudden you've associated your personally identifiable information like an email address with this online identity. Which then gets kind of bought and sold and traded and shared across all sorts of different websites and um, there's been huge. You know if you've heard of gdpr which is the european union's response to the regulating this and then also like the California I think it's called the California something privacy act. Um.
07:11.25
tylerking
Yeah.
07:14.44
Rick
This is a big deal and we're about to hit a kind of a crossroads on it and I am like the the positive side is the more data that you share the more relevant ads become for you and the more helpful other people can be in terms of serving you content and so serving you. Um, and on the on the other side. Ah the more data that people have and the more they know about you the more that they can manipulate you and take advantage of you and so um, you know I am ah I'm I'm on one side of this ah to like for me like. Pros Outweigh the cons and I would rather have more precise targeting and um, figure out how to combat the the negative sides of that. Um and have ah the the good side. Um, but I'm wondering where you sit.
07:58.62
tylerking
Have.
08:06.50
tylerking
I have 2 like lines of thought here. Um one. So you mentioned the regulations around this have you followed? Ah, Apple's I think it's called Att thing and how that plays in where they I don't understand it like technically exactly what they did but they they limited what third parties like Facebook can do in terms of tracking. Right? And yeah, do you have any any context to add before i.
08:27.95
Rick
I don't know the details of this but the larger issue here is ah the concept of thirdparty cookies and not being able to share third -party cookies across websites I guess um and so the the phrase for this is the death of a cookie and it's causing a huge um.
08:33.37
tylerking
Ah.
08:40.46
tylerking
Yeah.
08:44.97
Rick
Shift and how people are approaching advertising online.
08:46.51
tylerking
Yeah, and I think it's specifically like within apps because yeah, this is like what Apple controls that like if if 1 if the door dash app wanted to use Facebook advertising they could like put the equivalent of a pixel in their app and now they basically can't do that or something like that. And this was initially pitched by apples is like huge like we're privacy advocates yada yada which I immediately was like yeah great like fuck Facebook but it turns out so there's 2 problems here one is like there. You can directly tie that to like small businesses suffering. Um, not I don't I don't mind Facebook suffering but it's making it very difficult for a small business to advertise too I feel somewhat conflicted by that. But I don't feel conflicted by is in addition to that Apple launched their own ad network that doesn't have these same tracking restrictions. So basically Apple says there's no privacy. If we're the ones making money. But if someone else is making money absolute track tracking is terrible. Um, so I think Apple comes off looking really bad here anyway, that's not addressing your key thing.
09:53.64
Rick
Yeah, your point though is that there's there's been a huge sort of buildup on the internet of these ah huge entities that control a substantial portion of the audience online whether that's Apple Google Facebook Linkedin etc.
10:04.74
tylerking
Me.
10:10.21
Rick
Like which I guess is Microsoft um, and then you've got like okay we've got ad advertisers like you and me who want to reach these people and then you got the people who want to be reached on the other side. But then you've got these huge I think they're called walled gardens. Ah you know, kind of controlling access. Um.
10:24.53
tylerking
Mold gardens. Yeah.
10:28.70
Rick
Extracting as much as they can. Ah you know you know in terms of attacks.
10:31.11
tylerking
Well, and yeah, so that brings me to like the more direct answer to where I stand on this which is so like when I was a kid. There is a corner bookstore I think it was called Paul's books and we'd go in and they kind of I don't know if they knew me specifically but they knew people in the community and they'd be like a what's up. If Paul's books said like hey, what's your birthday. What's your address. We'd like to send you a birthday card or give you a discount on your birthday. Great. That's like an awesome version of what you're saying that like you can serve people better if you know more about them. But. Just because something is good. Doesn't mean it's good at the scale of hundreds of millions or billions of people like Apple having all this information on us or Amazon having all this information on us can like they can still serve us better, but it also might you know break democracy or lead to nuclear war or like. I think on the micro level. It is definitely better for almost everyone involved and I'm very very worried about systemic risk and I kind of there. You can't you know put the genie back in the bottle or whatever but like there's no going back. But I kind of think that this might end up being a net negative long term.
11:43.57
Rick
Ah, what? ah.
11:44.35
tylerking
Ah, having all this data I think it might be a net positive to not have all the data collection even though in any individual transaction. It's probably better to have it.
11:52.29
Rick
Okay, got it. Got it. Um, interesting. So yeah, what ends up happening though. Is you you start regulating at the end of the day advertisers want to reach an audience and people with an audience are going to figure out how to monetize their audience and so. You can put up all sorts of like data regulations. That's still going to happen like advertisers are going to want to pay money to reach people's audiences and that's all the internet is is like you know people paying other people to leverage their audience. Um. That clicked for me recently and I was like okay, well and then you've got these people that are huge like these big bullies who are charging a huge tax in between those 2 people those two parties.
12:32.32
tylerking
Yeah I didn't like fully appreciate the importance of the word like what a media company is because like it's like okay a media company is like a Tv channel and Facebook what do they have in common but it's exactly what you just said media companies get audiences and then sell that attention for to to someone else. Yeah.
12:48.47
Rick
Um, yep, So um, yeah, do what other updates. Do you have.
12:51.49
tylerking
All right? Um, yeah I've got a couple things just updates on topics. We talked about previously one last time I talked about how like our Nps Score was all messed up because like we're getting a bunch of one star. We do 1 through 5 stars. We were getting a bunch of 1 star clicks from like bot email bots basically. We started tracking the user agents of who is clicking it and stripping out like there's 1 user agent that all these 1 star clicks are coming from and if you strip that out as of three days ago we hadn't gotten a single below 4 star click period ah out of I mean not a huge sample size but of like 50 clicks or something like that. So. I think our mps score is actually like way higher than I thought it was I think this has been happening for a long time. So that's cool I guess um, yeah, it's yeah, it's good. It sucks like we've been tracking mps for 3 years and like I basically have to throw all that data out. We can't really track like is it getting better or worse because.
13:38.13
Rick
It's great news.
13:50.25
tylerking
There's not a great way to clean the historic data because we weren't capturing user agent unfortunately, um, another quick update is I've been talking about like the integration stuff we're doing trying to get integration partners and 1 of the points I made is like these early companies that were trying to get to integrate with us. You know they do all the technical work of building the integration. But I really want to do is send as much traffic to them as possible to make them successful so that they can like we can use that as a case study. Basically so zip message has recently finished their integration with us and we kind of launched that over the last week um and we did something kind of cool which is earlier today Brian the founders that message hosted a webinar for our users so he has a webinar about like how to do asynchronous coaching and consulting. We sent an email out to all of our coaches and consultants and we're like hey do you want to attend this webinar got like 60 people I mean. They didn't all show up live but they'll get the recording and I think maybe there were 20 people live and we and I was there and kind of Brian and I both answered questions and stuff and so anyway it was kind of a good experience of like our audience Brian's content and product and technical work. Ah.
15:02.27
tylerking
Feels like a repeatable model to me I think.
15:02.37
Rick
And do you did you get any feedback from the attendees that this was super valuable.
15:08.81
tylerking
Um, a handful of them in like the chat were like that. Thank you so much. This was great I don't know what the webinar platform is but like it lets you rank it like Brian set this all up but I get the emails so 2 people did give like click a star and we got a three and a four out of 5 stars. So.
15:25.51
tylerking
That's not gray and it's okay, 3 3 is not great, but ah I think it was pretty good overall in terms of how people responded to it.
15:35.40
Rick
And I have lots of questions um from a zip message perspective like did they get some users out of this. Do they know how many and like is it like positive roi for them is it was it worthy of the and but do you have a case that.
15:48.16
tylerking
Yeah'll I don't know I definitely not yet and I'm not sure what Brian will even be willing to share with me or have me be willing to share with other people but like ah.
15:50.11
Rick
You have a case study here. You think you can take to other app Builders I guess.
16:00.29
tylerking
It's pretty clear to me like a lot of people. There were a lot of eyeballs on zip message like 22000 people get to the email I know you can't really trust open rates anymore but we got like a 3% click through rate on the email. So about 3% of the 22000 clicked a link in the email and the email is mostly about zip message. Um, so and then you know 60 people signing up for the webinar I I have to imagine he's getting some customers out of this I I don't know how many I think probably like if if it's especially probably a good deal for a new. Very new company where. If it's 10 or 20 users like that could make you're just struggling. How do I get my first user s period. This is a way to do it but then also like if it's in a category. We don't currently have an integration with so like we're launching the reform or they're hopefully launching the reform which is a form building integration in light. Hopefully the next few weeks that will be our first web form integration I think we're going to send them a lot of traffic I think the second web form integration. We can still send some traffic to for sure but like diminishing returns. Yeah, absolutely.
16:57.90
Rick
Number go.
17:06.47
Rick
As much yeah makes sense cool. Thank you for that. Update that's really interesting. Well webinar actually related. Um, you guys just did a webinar for an app integration. We are doing webinars.
17:13.27
tylerking
Next on your list.
17:22.89
Rick
For our chamber partnership strategy so earlier this year we committed to joining a bunch of chambers of commerce as members and um, we actually have like 5 of them who are 4 or 5 of them who are doing ah joint webinars with us sponsoring our webinar and marketing it to their um to their group. We did our first one yesterday. Um, and it was success. Ah, amazing like what I didn't appreciate is the first webinar you do is super hard but then the second one is like incrementally like there's nothing more to do except you get better. Um, if there's the same content so going from 0 to one on web on a one on a webinar.
17:49.52
tylerking
Thessist.
17:53.29
tylerking
Yeah.
18:01.37
Rick
super super hard but now we have 4 or 5 of these left and all the work's done and and we even have recordings that we can use to market so kind of the build once sell sell twice concept here is is hitting me um and and you know I think we we have really good content now we have.
18:13.63
tylerking
Um, yeah.
18:20.21
Rick
Slide. We had to force us to build good slide designs. We have good content. Um, and we're driving some awareness that we wouldn't have been able to drive otherwise.
18:26.37
tylerking
And so this is just like everything you need to know about individual like getting your own individual insurance or something or.
18:33.13
Rick
This is geared towards um given it's the chamber we're gearing it towards employers. So we're saying the the webinar topic is about how to evaluate health benefits for your small business. Um in 2023 um
18:44.29
tylerking
Got you cool and when you say it was a success like a bunch of people showed up or you got good feedback. What what makes you say that? um.
18:49.64
Rick
No, just that we got it done um was like the the first one we had it was very low numbers I want to say it was like maybe 15 registrants 16 registrants and 5 people showed up total but that's huge for us like going from nothing to to that.
18:59.69
tylerking
Her.
19:06.30
Rick
Ah, we didn't market it at all ourselves on that one I think it was like a seven day turnaround time on like an announcement to that. But then we're we've got weeks ahead of the next ones. So we we're going to really do reach out and invite people to them.
19:15.50
tylerking
Yeah, cool since we just both talked about webinars. Can you say like I don't I don't get them I don't get what why anyone attends a webinar by or like you'd think you could just record the video and put it on Youtube but there's this like. Kind of pressure created by the fact that it's happening live I guess yeah.
19:37.16
Rick
I Think um, there's a ffomo. Yeah, like that's the the whole thing It's like is is this recording going to be available. There's also the concept of timeliness and ah questions like you you have to wait to get the recording. Um and then ah.
19:48.27
tylerking
Um, that's true.
19:54.15
Rick
There's value added by it to any questions questions that are spontaneous.
19:58.27
tylerking
Yeah, yeah I Guess we we did spend the majority of the time on on Q and a we we used to do webinars like with customers like as kind of like you can schedule a demo with us but you have to find a time and it's kind of like a lot of pressure or you can just you know twice a day we'll do webinars and people can join um my. But I've been toying with trying that again, but all right, We're both. Um.
20:19.90
Rick
Probably not a huge impact like for us. It's like we went from doing nothing to doing something and it's like wow 5 people we didn't know showed up and listened to JD talk for 45 minutes that's pretty cool like yeah, ah and then you know oh maybe we if we get to 30 people the next time that'd be huge for us.
20:30.67
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah for sure.
20:37.79
Rick
Um, remember our goal is just to get to 200 clients by the end of this year. It's net 150 increase or hundred forty increase yeah exactly yeah.
20:43.62
tylerking
And that's ah, that's that's 200 individual clients like 1 of these business clients might bring you 20 people. Potentially yeah yeah I mean that seems well worth it. Especially now that you got the content made. Um I've got like big. Big stuff left. Do you it looks like you've got some more update yona yours.
21:03.58
Rick
Like yeah yeah, let me go through through my updates and we can do your stuff. So um, first like kind of small update. That's random, but interesting is windfall is opening an office in Utah I guess I should say that I am opening an office for windfall in Utah.
21:12.59
tylerking
That's awesome. Okay, like like would they be opening this if you didn't work there.
21:19.70
Rick
Probably maybe um, the main driver is we're building out a sales development team which is basically a fancy way of saying outbound prospecting team. So it's a team of sales people dedicated like dedicated to like identifying and teeing up accounts for sellers closer.
21:28.79
tylerking
Ah.
21:33.10
tylerking
And you Utah is thought of as a great place for this skill set is is that and.
21:38.86
Rick
Exactly? Yeah, so if you if you look at like the the the areas that we would have looked at for this. It would have been like Arizona Denver Salt Lake City maybe not Salt Lake City but leehigh Salt Lake city um a couple other areas and so. It could have been Utah if I wasn't here. But since I'm here Utah makes a lot of sense.
21:58.12
tylerking
Well like I don't know how much this is the reason I've I've heard before that because you know Utah is such a large mormon population and so many mormons go do missions. It's a group of people who are much more comfortable with things like cold calling and sales and stuff like that than. Just the average random american.
22:17.39
Rick
That's one factor the other factor historically has been a cost of labor being lower for equal or better talent. Um, and then ah the the third factor that's sort of sort of starting to offsets the costs of labor because cause of labor is going up.
22:32.22
tylerking
Great.
22:34.27
Rick
Is the fact that we've had a lot of entrepreneurial success saas success here in Utah so you've got ah trained good trained talent.
22:40.23
tylerking
Yeah, okay because like from a cost standpoint if what you need is like a minimum wage call center employee. You'd go to Iowa or something like they like Salt Lake City is not. It's not like the coast but it's quite a bit more expensive than say st louis where I live.
22:58.50
Rick
Yep, But yeah you you get the experience like you're not hiring someone and teaching them what a Saas company is you're hiring someone who's been in a Saas company seen sales development done right? Um, and they want to they want to go to an earlier stage company and and make it it impact. So.
23:08.80
tylerking
Um, makes sense cool. So what? what's your role going to be in getting that office open like are you like getting a lease and all that stuff.
23:15.62
Rick
Ah I mean so to nuts man. Hopefully yeah I think ah we we have some coic location. Ah ah, coworking relationships already in other ems in and other states. So we'll probably leverage those I won't go into detail for privacy purposes. But like. Ah, we'll probably do something co-working and then um, you know if if you are someone in Utah listening to this podcast and you're interested in. Ah there are kind of 2 buckets of roles here. Sales development is one? Um, so we're looking for someone to hire and build out like hire as the leader and help build out the team work really closely with me and then. Second is um, a revenue operations manager who would work really closely with me as well to lead our revenue operations team. So um, and then we'll be hiring many sdrs sales development representatives after that, but it's it's kind of weird because I'm kind of mixed about this I'm excited.
23:58.79
tylerking
Cool.
24:10.40
Rick
But then and it's like oh man I got to go to the office.
24:11.82
tylerking
You don't think you'll do you have to go in five days a week but you're you're going to love it. Yeah.
24:14.42
Rick
I don't know I probably like I don't know it'll be interesting I think I like it I just haven't done it in many many years
24:24.91
tylerking
I'm loving two days a week in the office every every Wednesday which is our first day I get I show up and I'm like yeah fuck you I should come in every day and every Thursday when I leave I'm like I'm glad it's over. Yeah, it's perfect for me. Yeah, but.
24:36.80
Rick
Two days a week is perfect is what you're saying um, another another thing that is related to um, you know the recruiting that I'm having to do for those roles and it's also related to like marketing leg upella. It's not getting close to crunch time for legupella it's open enrollment season. It's coming. And so I'm like okay like now people want to talk about health church like I have like forty five days where people are open at talking about health insurance I want to maximize this and then I've also got a you know timeline to fill these vacancies. You know, open office that requires a lot of outreach a lot of networking and I was like yeah I'm going to have a great week of all this I'm like.
25:10.32
tylerking
Ah.
25:13.51
Rick
Today I woke up I'm like I am going to find 10 good candidates through my network for sales development manager and then I realized like I don't have any of the like scripting done I don't know what I need to say I don't like I haven't really thought like enabled myself to be good at the outreach and the networking. And it click it dawned on me. It's like if you want to do networking. You've got to make it really really? Ah and you're an introvert like me me back up if you're an introvert like me and if you're not an extrovert like me. Um, and you like it takes effort to like be social because it does for me. Um, you have to like.
25:31.87
tylerking
Ah.
25:37.83
tylerking
You are not an introvert.
25:50.26
tylerking
From now.
25:50.30
Rick
Remove all the friction and and really enable yourself upfront if you're going to be successful with networking and outreach and I just realized like I hadn't done that it just dawn to me so I spent I'm like spinning this week like going. Okay success. No longer is outreach this week success is like getting to the point where outreach takes no effort.
26:07.85
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense I I haven't done a whole lot of this but like what comes to mind is when I ah maybe a year ago is trying to hire somebody and we did it through like cold outreach on Linkedin like 1 at a time outreach not like posting a job. Yeah, every every single person you're like okay I got to pull you up I got to read your whole profile I got to guess about what your life story is and like what pitch is going to work on you and yeah, it's it's exhausting even even just sending like a little 200 word message on Linkedin.
26:37.21
Rick
Yep so I'm going to create a Google doc it's going to have all my templates I'm going to go through and next week I'm just going to blast through hundreds of people. But if you try to do that without a script man. It's exhausting mentally. Oh.
26:41.11
tylerking
Nice, nice cool. Yeah I'm always so I'm the type of person like if I have to call someone for any reason like you know the dentist leaves a voicemail like are you coming in to Mark like we're confirming your appointment tomorrow I'm like. Right? I got to psych myself up I got to call them back. What might they ask me do I need my insurance info like I spend 30 minutes preparing to call them back just to say yes I'm coming in tomorrow. So yeah I'm amazed when people can just get on the phone and be like I've got no script I haven't thought about this at all I'm just going to go.
27:08.89
Rick
Yeah, you get it.
27:14.70
Rick
Yeah, yeah, you do agree I mean the podcast is it's interesting that like this forum is fine but like a phone calls is is not but I guess you're yeah, it's me. Okay.
27:24.95
tylerking
It's all about who I'm talking to like I actually I always I think like not not to be immodest I think I'm good on this podcast and when I hear myself on other podcasts where I'm talking like ah someone's interviewing me I don't know I always I hate what I say because I feel much more I can I don't think other people can tell. But I feel very performative I'm like oh that answer was not even true like they asked me a question and I wanted so hard I wanted so badly to be interesting that I just I didn't exactly lie but I kind of like made up an insight that I don't even believe you know? ah.
27:45.77
Rick
He.
27:55.18
Rick
Um, you're saying you don't do that on this podcast. Yeah cool. The last little thing here is that um you know, kind of what's next is once I get through this like outreach on blocking which is this week I'm going to shift to.
28:02.50
tylerking
No I don't that like if I if I don't have anything to say I'll be like yeah I don't know.
28:15.90
Rick
Ah, updating the website and launching digital advertising which I'm super excited about because I've never done it before at least never done it Well and I think it's I think it has a chance to actually have have an impact.
28:26.21
tylerking
Cool, Um, you'll I Assume update us unlike the full kind of tactics of it all when it happens.
28:31.86
Rick
Yep I at the core. Um I'm counting on Jd driving a ton of outbound traffic volume and then I want to make sure that we capture that traffic with the best possible pitch on our website um with a goal of creat them creating a counter starting a quote and then I want to? Um, so. Configure our analytics suite and our our ah digital marketing or digital advertising ah to ah identify who's in Utah and then remarket to those people and then basically ignore everyone else.
28:59.93
tylerking
Cool and so sorry so November first is when things get really like that's when open enrollment begins.
29:08.58
Rick
Yep so I've got a lot of we we have a lot of work to do. We've been working our butts off so we've got a lot more work to do over the next two weeks but or it's going to be depressing.
29:12.69
tylerking
Yeah, and this it's gonna be a fun month and a half of podcasting I'm I'm looking forward to hearing what happens. Yeah yeah, if Rick doesn't talk about leg up health at all that month and a half we've got problems. Um.
29:22.93
Rick
Ah, yes, that's it for me.
29:27.85
tylerking
Cool. So yeah I don't this may or may not end up being a big topic but it feels like it could be um, kind of 2 product project management related things. Um I'm not really sure what order to say these in but maybe maybe I'll just do them together like one I'm kind of like adjusting how we're doing project management. I like spent a whole bunch of time in notion making like a database to track all of this stuff. But more importantly, like um, okay, let me give a little history here. So originally? um, we just I I did all the coding and I kind of like project management and just do it naturally. And so I would just take a big project and just start like I didn't need like a lot of it's like the opposite of me calling the dentist right? I could just pick up the phone and start talking basically and then when we hired a couple developers I just I thought everyone's like me I'll just tell them what we need and and they can let me know if they have questions but that didn't end up working people like. Project management. They like to know here's exactly what I need to work on and have smaller projects so they're not super overwhelmed all the time so we came up with this like sort of like informal version of agile that's like way less structured. Where basically we break projects into what we call jogs a jog is meant to be two weeks you work on it. You finish it. You ship it you meet with me and Robert the lead developer plan the next jog that's been the cycle. We've been doing any questions about that before I continue. Yeah well that might be coming to an end actually yeah in case, it's not clear. A jog is like a sprint but the the word sprint is so stupid because you can't sprint all the time. Um.
30:44.90
Rick
And I think it's funny that you call him a jog I'll just make that comment.
31:00.59
tylerking
So the problem we're running into there's a few things. The big one is like no jog actually takes two weeks um they all take longer and it's not I mean maybe part of it is like the developer could work faster and there are like little a small part of this is I want to get more out of the developer that's like a small part of this. But much bigger part is just like you know a bug fix comes in or ah, whatever like just there's any number of reasons that in some cases projects end up getting done two or three months later and when you finish a project every two weeks that naturally forces a meeting every two weeks and you don't need any other meetings I think two weeks is a fine cadence for that what ends up happening is it ends up stretching 1 or two or three months and then I haven't met with them in that long and. By the time I talked to them like they forgot what the point of the jog they're like I'm working on this and I'm like that wasn't a part of the jog. What do you mean and they're like well it's been months since we talked last. So basically I'm switching to a a cadence of meeting every two weeks and not worrying about this whole jog thing just being like every 2 weeks we're going to talk about what you're doing for the next two weeks if it's the same thing we had on your list for the last two weeks so be it. But.
32:14.74
Rick
So long story short. You've basically said let's remove all the complexity of planning and just talk about what we're working on and then we can layer back in whatever we need to make it ah more efficient. You're basically going back to first principles and rebuilding this thing.
32:25.32
tylerking
Yes, we are but like 1 of the key reasons I feel comfortable doing this is there was a a thing. We met the the first time when I said like we weren't doing things right? The first time part of it was. We didn't have structure and planning but a big part of it was like I didn't know how to plan a project to like. Break it into small pieces and ship stuff quickly and now I have enough confidence that I know how to like it's actually I think there's actually a pretty valuable skill in like this is a eighteen month like man hours project. It's going to take six months for 3 people or whatever. But. But then to say okay, what can you do for a couple weeks that we can actually ship and then how do you combine enough of those together that six months from now. Everything's done. That's like ah, a valuable thing to be able to do that I now feel like I can do.
33:17.43
Rick
You're you're saying you're a good product manager now.
33:19.51
tylerking
I think so or at least in this senate or we we'll see ah it'll be put to the test. Maybe I'm a bad product manager because I let the stuff I let three months go by without meeting with anyone. Ah, but yeah, my hope is well my hope is we'll have a meeting every two weeks and just fit each meeting. We'll just use our own. Best judgment. What is the right scope for the next two weeks and just try to hold ourselves accountable to ship stuff quickly. But the meetings aren't timed with the projects. That's the key.
33:45.40
Rick
Yeah, so you're just making sure you're always every 2 weeks you're repri. You're basically repriorzing every two weeks
33:50.15
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right, right? Maybe we got it right? two weeks ago and we're exactly where we thought we're going to be. Maybe we got it wrong and we need to like you got three days out of that 10 days worth of work done and we're going to plan a new two weeks starting there. Yeah, that's exactly right.
34:06.86
Rick
Yeah, the other thing that could happen in the meeting like that is you you look at? oh you're working on that. Um, if you kept working on it in the current scope like there's a rescoping ah conversation that happens. Oh we have new information this is taking longer than expected. We also have this.
34:14.61
tylerking
Like yeah yeah, yeah.
34:23.92
Rick
Other thing that you could be working on now. Um, let's cut scope.
34:27.97
tylerking
Yup, and cutting scope is one form of this but this actually segues perfectly into the other related point which is we are focusing our resources a little bit more than we have been our history. We've always said just like normally we don't I just give the example of the 18 man month project. Normally we don't work on that like we work on things small enough that one person owns the project. We don't really have like multiple people on a thing. Um, but 1 thing we're changing right now. We've been working on this redesign for a while that's kind of been on hold for a bit and it's It's creating some like dependency issues where we have 2 versions of our product right now like the old design of the new design and everything everyone else builds they have to support both versions which is a mess so what we're doing is we're just like we're going to take everyone who who is a good fit for this project. Take them off their other projects and put them all on this one. But that's a good so I'll talk about that in a second that's a great example of that rescoping thing you were talking about if we'd been meeting every two weeks I would have said like let's this would have happened two months ago but because we weren't there wasn't like a good spot for me to just say like tap someone on the shoulder and be like hey stop stop what you're doing. You know? so. I'm looking forward to this.
35:36.29
Rick
This is awesome. Um, oftentimes when a change like this happens. Um, people might see it as a negative when you roll this out but like once you start doing it. They're gonna be like oh this is so much better I didn't realize all the pain that your stuff that.
35:42.82
tylerking
Not but.
35:51.44
Rick
I was had related to this are you getting any negative pushback positive feedback.
35:55.96
tylerking
Um, no negative pushback yet. Although admittedly like everything I'm telling you has not been fully communicated to people I've kind of like cats on the roofed it where I've like and like I'm thinking about changes and here are some things that I'm thinking about um I haven't like announced it yet. And it's part of that. It's not even official I don't have it all figured out yet and this could this could blow up in my face like I I don't want to act like I have strong confidence that this will work. But um I feel that I think it's worth a shot. Um, as special.
36:24.68
Rick
It's I listen what I the frequency if you change nothing other than the frequency of communication about priorities like I think good things are going to come from that. So like that like that's all that's like good things will happen when you talk more.
36:30.26
tylerking
Yeah I feel very I I feel very confident about that one I agree the thing I yeah the the other part we're like putting multiple people on a project is like i. I think I feel good about it. But certainly for this one project. Um I do think there are like downsides to having multiple people work on a project and this is why like a solo founder stands a chance of competing against companies with multiple employees is like there is there are no. Conflicts where like 2 people do things that don't work well together or like 2 people work on the same project at the same time There's just like perfect communication with yourself in your own head and when you have 1 person owning a project you get that even if it's like 6 developers but they're all working on different projects. You kind of isolate them all pretty well. Um.
37:20.90
tylerking
I'm a little nervous having multiple people on one project that will create a lot more overhead in terms of planning and and communication and stuff like that. Yeah.
37:26.50
Rick
Yeah I hear you you're gonna learn though and you'll try it. You're not making that hard a hard call on that you're just trying it. You're trying it with 1 project right.
37:36.10
tylerking
We're trying out with actually 2 so so here's like the framework brack and I came up with for like deciding if we think this makes sense it needs to be put to the test but 1 is like we've got 2 requirements. Everyone only should work on things. They're good at so if it's like here's here's the project I want to put everyone on but this. So like the redesign is very frontend heavy. We're not putting our backend devs on it I'm not going to like ask someone to do something. They're bad at um and then the second one is like a project that doesn't create those coordination challenges I was just talking about some projects are like this is just a 1 person project. That's that's all there is to it but as long as those 2 things don't apply. We're going to rank all our projects. And put everyone that fits on the top 1 and everyone else like we're just going to go down the list until everyone's allocated that way. That's the hope. Um, you know what? the hardest part of this has been this exercise. Well now I have to know what the top project is but.
38:19.61
Rick
Um, yeah I like it I like the um I like that but what? ah it puts pressure on you.
38:32.62
tylerking
Yeah, um, it turns out so like when we had 2 developers the difference between number 1 and number 2 is so small that it's like well who cares which one is the top 1 But now we've got 6 and there's a huge gap between number one and number 6 and I didn't realize until now that like like why the fuck have we been working on project number 6 like.
38:51.96
tylerking
It's It's like easy cop out but we shouldn't have been doing it.
38:54.46
Rick
You know it's so it's so interesting. Um, ah that is a like when you look at an org when it gets larger that that's what happens with functional Silos like you have this company goal but people instead of working like you have marketing Sales. You know so customer support customer Success product. What ends up happening is like everyone creates their own goal to hit to that like their own like projects to hit that goal and they don't talk to each other and then they all like realize oh I actually need products help like marketing needs products help to do their project product needs marketing help to do their project and so you have you know.
39:14.85
tylerking
Ever.
39:31.30
Rick
6 you know functions times 3 goals competing with each other for resources and nothing actually gets done. Everyone gets frustrated huge coordination challenges. Um instead of people talking and going like we have 18 things we could work on. Let's pick the top 6 that we all work on together. Um, it's it's it's ah it's a huge challenge but that was happening on your.
39:39.32
tylerking
Um, yeah.
39:44.78
tylerking
Oh.
39:50.60
Rick
Team as individuals and it's interesting that that I haven't even ever thought it I see it so clearly happening at an organizational level right now I've never like thought about it happening at a individual level. But I'm sure it's happening and I don't even notice it.
39:50.33
tylerking
Um, yeah.
40:01.33
tylerking
Yeah,, that's that's a really interesting point I mean we've talked about this before that like one of the superpowers of small businesses is one person can know everything which goes back to that. There's no lack like nothing's lost in translation for that one person it's possibly other people. The company. Don't know everything that's going on but as long as. You have a central organizer and everyone does what they're supposed to do. You won't have the kind of Conflict. You're just you were talking about. But I let us have that conflict anyway.
40:29.54
Rick
It's it's easier to let people work on more things than to decide to do the hard work and decide what the top things are and say no to everything else.
40:37.62
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent and so that's that's the of of everything I just rambled about the thing I'm most excited about if we can if if all this works well enough that we continue doing it is at any given time you're going to be able to like say hey Tyler what's number 1 and I'm going to be able to answer you and that that just hasn't been true but ever really so I'm I'm pretty pretty excited for that. Yeah, it is well that that's one of the big I'm I'm going to be in a lot of meetings and spend a lot more time ah planning but I like that type of work. So.
40:54.26
Rick
Um, me.
40:58.58
Rick
Lot of work for you.
41:08.17
Rick
That's leadership I mean my opinion that's like 1 of a core a core ah responsibilities of a leader is to create focus.
41:13.59
tylerking
Yeah I definitely think you're right I I do like I also think you know what we're not a high growth startup anymore I can work on the stuff I want to work on not not fully I do need to be a leader but like I think it would be okay to give myself permission to be like I'm not a full time manager. But this is the type of management that I like tell anyway I'll keep I'll keep updating once it'll probably take a while to like like I'm going to let everyone finish their current jogs before switching them? Um, so it'll be a while before I have results on this but I'll keep you updated, um, another. Partial update and partial just like business idea so ah, timing worked out great on this. We earlier this year I I very like vaguely mentioned that we kind of did a reorganization of what we call idea which is the like diversity equity and inclusion group at the company. Um, basically. Not everything we work on as a company is about making money. It's some of it's about like our values and things we care about and we earlier this year came up with a more concrete system for like saying well what are the things we care about and and what are we going to work on and putting constraints. So we don't try to work on everything. We picked 3 top priorities and 1 of them was making our app more accessible for ah people who use screen readers like blind people for example, um, which I love because like historically all of our idea stuff has been very like internal focused like who do we hire in and the St Louis Community and this is the first time it's been like.
42:42.47
tylerking
Our product getting more accessible which I think is awesome. Ah, we had our first. Ah well at least the first person who contacted us about it like fully blind user sign up since then um, a he was like he emailed me directly and was like.
42:59.83
tylerking
I'm sick of trying crms that don't work on a screen readerter does yours and I was like I Really think so I hope um and he tried it out and it turns out he was like this is like the best Saas product I've used on like or at least one of the best he was like Salesforce is very good but too complicated. Is the only like simple cri my views that's accessible so I felt very good about that. But it occurred to Me. We're not like amazing at this. We're getting better but we just started investing in this and he was like you're miles ahead of everyone else. Um, is there an opportunity. To make software for people with disabilities because it seems like the bar is so low that you could You could just knock everyone else out of the park or out of the water thoughts. Yeah, so and I looked.
43:44.47
Rick
Um I I think it's a great idea.
43:52.30
tylerking
I Think the blind pop that the fully. But so there's like you know, a lot of people have vision Impairment. There's like fully blind like zerovision at all. Um I think it's rare enough that the you'd have to charge a lot because it's not like big enough of a market. Probably I Wonder if there are other disabilities that are like. Still get an interfere with your ability to use most products but um, have like a larger market.
44:16.61
Rick
Super interesting. Um, basically the the cool thing about it is you don't have to reinvent any sort of ideas. You just take existing ideas and reconfigure them for a different audience. You know so it's Like. Kind of it could be. You could see it as boring work. Um in terms of like and and from an innovation standpoint because it's very formulaic but man the impact from an impact perspective like hugely motivating.
44:43.93
tylerking
Yeah I mean the the highlight of my last month has been I've been emailing with this guy and he's just like oh my god I can use software now and and I don't want to overblow like how good we are like we he still. He also sent like as a huge list of like this doesn't work. This doesn't work. This doesn't work. Ah. But but the fact that I'm like okay it's on the list. We just shipped a fix to that. He's like you're actually putting effort into this like cool. Um, which is very sad like I you know I feel terrible for people who have to work with screen readers. But it is really fulfilling.
45:11.95
Rick
Um.
45:15.23
tylerking
To to provide a service that they otherwise would not have access to and it's really not that hard. Yeah, um, if anyone out there is is interested in that I get in touch I'd be happy to like point you in the direction of um, what I think we're doing that's working if you want to head start on that.
45:17.79
Rick
You know that's cool.
45:34.80
tylerking
Right? You got any ah ransom shout outs here.
45:36.54
Rick
Um, one thing that is a big deal that no one that probably cares about other than me is that um the family glitch has been eliminated by the federal government. Ah officially and that means that employers can feel less guilty about offering group health insurance. Which is bad for my business but at the same time It's good. So I'll explain effectively like when you offer group health insurance in the United States you disqualify if it's affordable to the employee you disqualify that employee's entire family from a premiuming tax credit because the calculation of whether or not this. Plan was affordable. It was happens at the employee level. It doesn't take into account that you have 5 people in your family. Um and and may be eligible for like this huge tax credit because tax credit increases with household size. Anyway, they've made like basically they've changed the rules to do the calculation for the family members at the family rate.
46:30.38
tylerking
Oh.
46:32.46
Rick
Affordability which means a lot ah a ton of people are now going to be eligible for premium tax credits who historically haven't been because of ah their ah breadwinners. Um, the breadwinner of the family having access to affordable employee health insurance. So there's huge opportunity for.
46:46.67
tylerking
Um, yeah.
46:52.25
Rick
Like Ael to say hey you have access to group health insurance. Um, but ah, you may be able to get like a $10000 tax credit by having the employee stay like the the worker whoever's working stay on the group plan but get the family individual policies and then now the group. It's not as bad for an employer. Employer to offer group health insurance and quote unquote screw. They can't it's harder for them to screw people out of the tax credits. Um, so it's a good thing. A little small thing. No one really cares about hopefully I did a decent job of explaining that but maybe not.
47:15.55
tylerking
Yeah, that's very cool.
47:22.75
tylerking
Well and like and I only partially understand it but like 1 1 thing that I think is very cool about this like all of the news is like nothing gets done and people only care about these 3 issues and I know the government's fucked but like it is cool that things are. Someone is spending time trying to fix to improve things that nobody hears about like that is kind of a optimistic thought I think.
47:49.31
Rick
Yeah, yeah, and you know well it's something that we can take to our customer base. Um as value add and and also maybe even get some clients out of it. Um I had another question. Do you use? um the notion desktop app.
47:56.42
tylerking
Yeah, great. Now I I know there's like tradeoffs between desktop versus first browser I think notion in particular is uniquely a thing that should be used in the browser. That's my opinion.
48:11.49
Rick
Yeah, um, I Actually really like how much faster the notion app is in terms of like writing but man Grammarly doesn't work well outside of the ah outside of the browser and so like that really affected negatively impacted my ability to use the desktop app. So.
48:23.39
tylerking
Ah.
48:28.34
Rick
And back to the browser app. So I agree with you.
48:29.19
tylerking
For me, it's tabs and I assume the desktop app has tabs but I don't think you can separate it into like multiple windows as I understand it or maybe maybe I'm wrong about that. But that last time I checked that was the case I have like 20 notion tabs open across 3 screens at all times.
48:36.84
Rick
Oh.
48:46.84
tylerking
And I just can't imagine using notion in like a single windowed view.
48:49.67
Rick
Yeah I don't I don't know I I mostly use it to when I'm doing like deep writing and I need to like focus on one. It's it's a speed of of a like writing and word processing issue but man the grammarly thing like totally like.
48:56.19
tylerking
I.
49:07.48
Rick
Offsets and he gains and in writing processing efficiency.
49:11.35
tylerking
Ah, Web Web browsers are just so great like I'm very much of the opinion that you should default to using a web browser unless there's like a very important reason why it needs access to you know your computer like sensors or like. Maybe notifications. Although you can do that through web browsers too these days I Pretty much stick to the web browser for almost everything I think slack being the main exception to that? Um I would mention I got a new podcast I've been listening to ah, it's called ship Sas Faster. Um.
49:33.43
Rick
Um, what um what what else do you have today? me which one.
49:43.12
tylerking
It's ah from Simon and vulkcan to to kind of indie hackers from the Uk fun I feel like I I listen to too many americans nice and nice here and ah people talking. But.
49:52.34
Rick
Here are your voices.
49:55.49
tylerking
Yeah, different voices talking about prices and pounds and all that fun stuff. But no, it's that's obviously not the main reason but I've been enjoying it I think it's it's this format of podcast. Ah ship ship Sas faster. So recommend it.
50:06.41
Rick
And I believe um if it's the same Vulcan He has a no code tool that he's building. Um that competes with web like kind of a webflow type interface. Um.
50:11.90
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, that's right? and then um Simon does ah like a kind of backup tool for like um, Digitalocean and I think Aws and azure and other stuff like that now. So yeah, it's it's fun listening to it. And like having all these founder podcasts.
50:27.73
Rick
Um, that's awesome man I I know you do it.
50:33.28
tylerking
I'm out right now I actually I mean not like through through the end of time but I've listened to every podcast that has come out in like the last two weeks I think that I subscribe to yeah.
50:39.67
Rick
When we first start doing podcasts I didn't listen to podcasts. Do you remember that I listen to a lot of podcasts now.
50:45.78
tylerking
I Remember you we had like a lot of conversations where I think some of them were even recorded on the podcast where you like I don't get what the point of this is I'm like you're on a podcast right now.
50:55.21
Rick
Ah, yeah I totally change like I definitely have a different um like a target. Ah you know profile ins of podcasts I like but man so much so value. We'll be able to throw something on walk like Holy cow.
51:10.77
tylerking
Like I I'm sorry for such a tangent I was having conversation with the person like Maggie who does videos for us at less annoying today. We're talking about like the tone of the videos we wanted to make like you know, very like slow versus fast casual versus formal. Um. And we had the conversation of like why? Why do so many of us listen to podcasts a lot more than audiobooks and I think it's kind of like exhausting hearing perfect english that's been edited and that's spoken. You know, articulating every sound like there's something just easier about hearing a natural person talk even if the. Content's worse.
51:47.34
Rick
So last thing I'll say and then I will sign off about this. So as I'm thinking through digital ads like there's a lot of retargeting opportunities with display video um or video I should say video advertising versus like um display ads and. I don't know if you've noticed but like if you go to Youtube sometimes there are these cuts that like look like it's a Youtube video but it's actually an advertisement where this guy is just like sitting like you know you know at his computer. Yeah oh you don't while you pay for Youtube that's that's sad um so so but anyway like this.
52:12.25
tylerking
I'm on Youtube premium Rick I'm not 1 of you. Nory's watching advertisements I use it instead of Spotify. That's why.
52:22.41
Rick
It's highly effective to be hit with a casual ad where someone's talking to you um without polish and I'm going to try that with like I help this ah this open around period. Yeah.
52:27.65
tylerking
Ah.
52:32.46
tylerking
Yep, that almost every Tick Tock ad is this way even from like major major brands. It's just like some person sitting in their living room talking to you.
52:41.43
Rick
I might even like put we're looking at ah is it says Zencastr but it says playground ah is a zencastr. Why just say playground I guess the rebranding. Yeah okay.
52:46.87
tylerking
Yes I don't know Zencastr redesigned stuff and I'm about to quit and switch to something else. But.
52:54.52
Rick
So um, the but it says like your handle at at the top right of your screen I don't know if you can see that does for me. Does it say ricklinquist or Rick. Yeah, so the top right says Tyler King um that's kind of an interesting thing to have like as a call to action like you're talking on an ad like leg up health like at Leg Upel anyway um there's a.
53:02.20
tylerking
Um I don't have anything at the top right.
53:08.93
tylerking
Yeah, oh yeah I.
53:12.20
Rick
I see a lot of opportunity with video advertising that is highly targeted and and untapped I think for us. Um, where we like during open enrollment like if we can get 1 like someone who like we know has health insurance to watch an ad that tells them to basically create an account and why the huge.
53:27.54
tylerking
Yeah I Yeah in the past I Always said, no no video or image. No media based ads like video or photos because it costs so much to get high quality media created but now like like we're saying it. You can just do a selfie or whatever and it's Fine. So. Yeah, go for it. No good talking to you.
53:47.75
Rick
Um, there you go anything else you want chat about you too if you'd like to review past topics and notes visit startup to lastst.com see you next week
53:54.96
tylerking
Start here, See you.