Alan: There we go local regardless in progress
Mario: Huh?
all right, We'll have to, I'll have to figure that out.
Alan: Start again.
So when you.
implement Paddle's checkout process, there's two main options.
First, you can either do a, a product, which is like a, you know, delivering a
license or a piece of software URL or, something or a subscription service.
And then when you do subscription, you can you create a catalog of subscription.
Which each one becomes a different Paddle like service that you get the ID for.
And so you can match things up and, you know, handle restrictions or limitations
on your end so that you can then set a.
A price for each of you can either just say one price in US and then
US dollar, and then, you know, auto localize that, or you can set specific
prices for like me, for instance, for Japan, I want a round number in Yen.
So I override the the.
Price to be something around number that matches kind of with the dollar.
And then when you do the, to actually implement the checkout itself
on your app, you have there's, there's two things you have to do.
First of all, there's the actual purchase taking the card details and things,
and then there's the the webhook side.
So you get a bunch of data back when they start subscribing, or you can
choose which webhook events to change.
So if they like, if a billing payment has completed our payments failed, or
if they've changed their email address.
So they've canceled or any, all of these things are if a card
subscription failed, things like that.
So you can choose all of these webhooks.
And so you get like a you know, payload back and there's a simulator.
So you can simulate all of these within there.
So to get to that point, you have to actually collect the payment details.
So there's two options.
There's either a a JavaScript one, which does an overlay or there's
an inline one, which effectively gives you a, a customizable.
form, which is like on a separate page.
So to make it just simple and less work doing the I'm just
doing the JavaScript overlay one.
So it just produces like a a modal on top of your page and
it just works really easily.
Getting that bit is fine.
I'm just having to now deal with all of the different webhook Things that matter.
Right.
So a lot of them I'm like, I don't care if they're if they for instance
change their address or something.
That doesn't matter to me, but if they cancel subscription, that matters to me.
Or even when a payment if a payment fails, do I tell them in my UI, they'll probably
get an email from Paddle anyway, but also I should probably tell them in my UI also.
Right.
So how do I update that?
So that'd be the.
The whole model locally in your applications suddenly expands a
bit because it's like, well, what different states do I need to show?
You know, I showed them that last billing data and then next billing date.
So, you know, if I tell them, you know, your active subscription, but
you'll be next charged next Tuesday.
It, it's just another thing to take care of and to show.
And so it's takes a little bit it getting it working.
Paid and it's you get the thing back and you can do something different,
you know, increase the number of users or whatever that is easy.
And then there's just all of these like extra bits, which it's kind of
one of those that there's there's there's the obvious things like
you need to store a cancel URL.
So if they want to cancel, they have to go to Paddle associate
you, they give you a URL.
They click on that.
They get redirected to Paddle where they canceled their subscription, or
if they need to change their billing.
So you get, they send you these URLs as part of the web of you've got to store
those and then put those in your eyes.
So that's like a
Mario: Are those accounts specific or?
Alan: so those are account specific.
Yes.
So if you're a subscriber to my thing and you want to
cancel, I store, the cancel URL.
You click the cancel, I send you there.
And they cancel on Paddle.
So it's the I guess it's to do with all of the because they control the billing
and they are the I was a seller of record.
I forget the actual term of it.
Right.
Mario: So.
yeah.
That's what it's
Alan: Yeah.
So, because I don't know anything about the the, the users details
effectively, but they send me their email address as part of the payload.
But apart from that, anything to do with billing, I know nothing about apart
from they work, they paid for something, they paid this amount for a thing.
So to, in order to complete that, like canceling out, changing the
so if they want to upgrade or downgrade their subscription plan,
also, I have to do the same thing.
Bounce them back to Paddle in order to do that.
Because I can't know anything about their billing, right?
So it's there's a little bit of stuff which if you're doing, if
you're using Stripe, I believe it's a more direct approach way.
You know, it's like, I bill you, you get this I get this back.
I do things is it's a direct kind of thing with you and the
the person buying the thing.
Whereas Paddle is a little bit of this.
You know, going around the houses a little bit because I send
them that they changed it there.
I get to web put back.
And then they come back to me.
So there's, there's a little bit of more of a round trip involved,
but it's straightforward enough.
I mean, it's easy enough.
And I say, I think it's worth doing for this stage just because I don't have to
then worry about the whole tax thing.
Mario: How are you finding their API, their documentation?
Alan: It's fine.
I mean, it's.
There's a few annoyances that you have to kind of read
between the lines a little bit.
And the biggest annoyance is that there Using API docs should not be a single
page web, just make it static, HTML document that I can copy and paste from.
So you can't co copy and paste from their API document it
as in you can't select text.
And, and I'm like, okay, you've given me a webhook within your documentation.
with keys tokenized keywords that I'm supposed to check on yet.
I can't copy and paste that keyword and it's like, it's really annoying stuff.
I just wish
Mario: oh yeah.
Yeah.
Alan: this is where my you know, get kind of annoyed with single page web apps
when there really isn't any need for it.
It's a HTML document.
It's a text page.
Mario: Yeah.
It's it's yeah, it's just it's documentation.
It should be just plain HTML.
Alan: Yeah.
So th there's there's little frustrations like that.
And it does feel like it feels like the certain areas that where
obviously, I guess it's, so I don't always that a smaller company.
I don't know.
They seem to be reasonably big, but I guess, compared to
Stripe, anything small, right.
That does seem bits, which.
They're finished, but they don't feel fully fleshed out.
Yeah.
It feels like, you know, there's still lots of things they're
doing they haven't done yet.
And there's bits, which is like, this doesn't seem clear and obviously
there's a there's a lack of Scale of support in terms of ecosystem.
So like for instance, those, there's no library for Alexa for doing it,
but I mean, it's simply enough, right?
I mean, it's, it's me sending a you know, a payload to get some JavaScript
to do something, and it's receiving a webhook that I have to verify the
signature with just usual crypto stuff.
So it's simple enough, but also you're kind of on your own with regards to.
There's the data build a subscription service around it.
So it's but it's fine.
I mean, again, the, the convenience of once it's done,
I won't have to think about it.
Right.
So and you know, even if I was doing this with Stripe, I'd
still have the same kind of.
Things with regards to, you know, messaging in the billing section and
you know, when, how do you cancel and how do you, it's all gotta be that,
and this is slightly easier, I guess.
So it's fine.
Yeah.
I, no, no real noise is just something to kind of work through it.
Mario: Yeah, I've been thinking about it.
And I think I'll follow you in trying out Paddle it's.
It's gonna save a lot of headaches with you know, taxes and all that stuff.
Alan: They also have a metered option as well.
I believe I didn't look into it because it's I'm not doing it, but if you're doing
like you number of minutes or something like that I believe you can do that.
So if I was to move to like per seat seating, I think I can probably
implement it using that as well.
But I'm not going to do that again for the first version.
I'm just going to go with a flat.
I'm think I'm going to do like two or three levels, like up to 10 members up to
20, and then on limited or, you know, to a few hundred or something, just to make
it clear there's different levels and then to can get a feeling for whether I'm in
the right ballpark, just to kind of get some idea of how it's how people use it.
Mario: Right, right.
Alan: Again, going for a per seat billing at this stage feels like
adding more complications than I need.
So the other big thing is I've been doing the 500 startups academy
thing, founder academy thing.
So,
Mario: Oh, nice.
How's that going?
Alan: Yeah, so it's kind of interesting as I am, there's two
kind of main components to it.
There's so it's a four week course bank And there's 50 companies.
Like half of them are in Japan.
The other half are dotted around the world.
Quite a lot around Asia, a few in Europe.
And so there's a weekly.
Like video course on a particular topic.
And then at the end of that week they have a effectively, a networking session
and a, an AMA with somebody either that was teaching the cost of the video
course, or it, that, that related to that they also work in that field.
So for instance, this week's was like SEO.
Last week's was sales and marketing the previous week was.
Like growth, experiments and metrics and how to add like what metrics to think
about and how to measure them and stuff.
So they've all been very there.
The SEO one probably is a little bit Well, I can't, I guess it's still kind
of relevant, but I'm not in a position to do much with that right now, apart
from, you know, get my first version of the landing page up a newer version of
my landing page up, and then start to think about how I can work with that,
to, to grow content and things, to to improve the SEO of both the site and
all of the content I want to produce.
but the the previous week about like both sales in terms of segmenting
gear, potential users and how to target different users and the
value of different types of users.
So more than anything, I mean, this is none of it is stuff that you couldn't, or
haven't already learned about either from,
reading stuff on the web or reading, you know, all of the startup
books that you've probably got the same as me or just YouTube.
I mean, a lot of the same people have done very either the same people or
other experts on this area have done.
You know, you can see YouTube talks about the same kind of topics.
So the data, the information is out there.
It's nothing radically new.
But effectively somebody's sitting you down and say, The spelling it out and
then saying, now do some of this, like, you know, there's exercises going through
it, like you know, working out like your segments of your users, and then having
an AMA session with someone who is an expert on this and being able to, you
know, it's, it's like a 90 minute session.
Basically them going through the user at the audience questions.
Right.
So it it's very valuable.
It's been really valuable.
And just in terms of getting you to do the work, which you've probably put off.
I mean, even just going through that thing of well, okay.
Who are the, your target segments and what's the value of each one and why are
you, you know, what kind of problems are you solving for them and how do you talk
to them and how just looking at this and then saying, okay, well, how do you
measure and analyze and optimize for this
metric for this, this sector the segment.
And so just going through that and actually making you write this down
or think about it more than, yeah.
I kind of know what I'm supposed to do.
Right.
Has been incredibly valuable and it's made me a lot more analytic about you know,
some of the stuff that I was thinking of doing, I'm like I need to, you know,
reassess some of these things.
So it's, it's definitely been valuable.
I mean, absolutely been valuable.
And just the, some of the DMA sessions, you know, these people are, you know,
they both either work at 500 as mentors or they're, you know, related to
the, the 500 in the kind of network.
Yeah, just
sitting with them for, you know, 90 minutes on zoom has been just like, yeah.
It's like knowledge bomb.
It's been, I mean, I guess the, the thing which has stood out partly for
me is that you can kind of see the, you can see a pattern in almost like
the startup factory at work here.
Right.
I mean, I guess it's very American centric, obviously, because, you know,
500 is, and the whole start-up as a, as an industry is very America centric.
Right.
But you can almost through both of the, both the course material and the sessions,
the AMA sessions themselves, you can almost see the the recipe for a startup
as in it's very clear is that you, if you look at any of the bigger or the more.
Becoming successful startups.
So not, not necessarily the Stripe or the, you know, the, the, the unicorn
kind of companies, but the companies which are raising, you know, a 10, 20
million are worried that, you know, just in that stage where they're,
they're not you know a real startup that they've graduated from that we're
making a product to, or actually growth.
And then when you see these courses, you can almost see the recipe that
they followed to get to the point where they are and what they're
implementing in order to grow further.
It's, it's a very clear I mean, each case is different, but there's
that the patent is the same and the, information that they're using to create.
the instructions to get there follows this pattern perfectly.
And then, so it's kind of interesting seeing the structure behind it all.
So it does definitely, I guess, companies that have gone through
500 or YC or anything they're going through the same course.
Right.
And they're implementing the same things in a very similar way, just for the.
You know, th their own industry.
Yeah.
And you can start, certainly see the patterns appearing
Mario: Well, that's good.
That's that's.
That's
Alan: well, the hope is then that is you can reproduce this, right.
You know, if it's working for these 10 companies, but those things aren't
working for those 20, well, you do the things which are working, right.
So you can obviously see these things must work because these other companies
that are becoming successful and raising more money on, you know, doing reasonably.
So yeah, I guess it's a case of like, okay, take what's the things which are
obviously working for them and, you know, reproduce some of those tactics.
Right.
So,
Mario: yeah, yeah.
Alan: it's been super interesting.
So yeah, this, this week is a SEO and next week is oh, I forgot.
So that's why I that's next week.
I'd have to think about that next week,
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Alan: very oh, it's about fundraising.
Of course.
It's a, it's about basically pitching and fundraising and stuff like that.
So again
Mario: last week, how many weeks is it?
Alan: it was four weeks.
Mario: Four weeks.
Okay.
Alan: So it definitely interesting.
And even if I don't, you know, necessarily go looking for money, just knowing the
system and the process and the expectations and what people are
doing is just helpful and very interesting, useful to know.
Right.
So.
Mario: Yeah, for sure.
Knowledge is power.
So even, even if you don't go that route, do you, it's always good to know.
And.
Yeah.
Even if you don't get investment in that way you could, channel some of
that knowledge in your own way to grow your company at the pace that you
want to grow it, you know, the, it doesn't have to be all VC and all that
Alan: Right.
Right.
Exactly.
I mean, that's, that's certainly an option and, you know, I it's never say never.
Right.
You know, there's there's, there's big advantages to doing that depending on
what the type of company you want to grow.
Right.
So it's but again, just knowing.
Having this kind of knowledge dump on you is, is really valuable.
So yeah, I'm, I'm really enjoying it and it's, it's definitely been made me think
a lot about the, some of the strategies or lack of strategies that I've been doing.
And just how you, you can almost, you know, obviously it's, it's not
that simple, but you can almost.
Be more strategic about what and how and who you are talking.
So, I mean, I guess this is a common problem with you know, indie makers in
general, as we build what interests us or what we see a small niche for rather than
the big picture of like you know, looking at where exactly the valuable markets are.
So but again, it doesn't, you don't have to necessarily do
exactly the same, but just.
Keeping these things in mind and making, using the thing, which
you've, which are relevant to what you're doing is incredibly valuable.
So,
Mario: yeah.
That's awesome.
Well hopefully it, you sounds like you're, you're getting a lot of
out of this what is it called?
Course?
It's
Alan: Yeah.
It's a, is it 500 founders academy?
500 Kobe.
So yeah, Kobe city are basically.
Supporting it.
So there's a bunch of, you know, networking and mentoring that they
are arranging as well as like a.
Together with them.
So, so kind of a joint venture between 500 and Kobe, so
Mario: Nice.
Alan: So I had, I'll have an excuse to go to Kobe city.
I've never, never been to that area.
Mario: There you go.
Alan: yeah, exactly what that looks like.
They have some fantastic so similar to my city Fukoaka they are running a you
know, with the goal to, to encourage startups and new They have a startup
visa system and a like a court that the city like encourages and supports
small businesses in various ways.
Like they provide this startup hub.
So they've got you know, in the same way we've got an old elementary
school that they've revamped and it's now our startup center.
I have like a co-working space there and things have subsidized
offices, Kobe doing the same, but.
Brand new fancy building.
So we've got like a cool old historic building.
They've got a brand new fancy office, so you see a different type ticket,
but I mean, they, they also help you.
If you're a foreigner and wants to start a company in Japan start a startup,
then they can, they help arrange you can get a visa to start a company here.
Even if you don't have like a working visa.
There's.
Things that you can do to achieve that.
So both she be a city in Tokyo Kobe and Fukuoka are running these, these schemes.
So it's, you know, Japan's got a long way to go in terms of
entrepreneurship in digital space.
But they're trying, I mean, it's been really good for me just in terms of,
helping arrange me you know, contacts within the city mentorships you know,
things like the coworking space and just that, you know, that there's a
lot that they try and do to encourage and to support small businesses.
So, yeah, it's a nice thing to have as good system.
Mario: That's awesome.
Yeah.
Well good luck with the rest of the course and you're yeah, you're gonna
it's, like I said, sounds like you're getting a lot of value out of it and yeah,
Alan: It's been interesting
Mario: take notes
Alan: yeah, exactly.
It's it's been interesting also seeing just the variety of companies, because
it is a it's a founders academy that they're also 500 are also running a thing
with IHG city, which is Growth to Japan.
So if you've got a successful product or company abroad, they're basically running
a similar kind of cause, but different target at basically bringing your company
to Japan and how to set up here, how to grow and how to find your audience here.
As opposed to starting a company, you know, you, you're not in the founding
stage, you're in the growth stage.
So that's a much smaller cohort.
It's like 10 companies.
Whereas I was at 50 And so it's obviously different target is a slightly longer,
it's got obviously a very different focus.
Yeah, so they seem to be running a few of these things and that's I
think they said they're going to their planter run this founder's academy,
like twice a year or something.
And the growth one, I think that.
Once a year or something.
So yeah, it's all a super, super interesting.
And,
Mario: That's awesome.
Alan: opportunity to, to be just acquire knowledge.
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: got to put it into practice now, which is easier, said than done.
Mario: This was free, right?
This, yeah.
Alan: Yep,
Mario: That's nice.
Alan: exactly.
I mean, obviously it also sets you up in terms of just networking for, you
know, if I ever decided to try and join another accelerator, there's just so many
people I've spoke to on that, that you know, the network is expanding, right.
And just it's super useful to have these contacts and and just say.
Mario: Cool.
Very cool.
Alan: Just going to put into practice now.
Mario: Yeah.
So, where are you at in terms of the product and and launching, I
know you're integrating Paddle, so you're getting ready for opening
it up for billing and stuff.
Do you, what are your plans?
As far as opening it up to the public, open the gates or
Alan: Yeah.
As, as I said, there's no reason.
I mean, the product is.
This is why I was kind of giving you a crap because it's, there's a
million things that are currently I see as glaring problems with it.
Right.
But at the same time, I also have people using it daily and they finding it useful.
So amongst those beta testers, it's like, well, if they're finding it useful,
then other people probably will too.
Right.
So I kind of have to get to the point where, you know, I
stop trying to fiddle with it.
And a lot of the things I want to do now are bigger things.
There's lots of smaller things that I can improve, but there's, there's just bigger
feature sets that I want to work on.
And if I start working on those
now I'll never launch.
Right.
So it's like, okay, I've got to draw a line in the sand with it's like,
it's useful to people right now.
So therefore launch and, you know, I'll go in with a pretty, you know,
straightforward pricing system.
So it's like, you know, just it's this and it's VO can use it for,
you know, 10 say I'm thinking of.
20 or 10 30 and, you know, hundreds of something like that, just to
make it an affordable and easy kind of price point, almost like
a No, no, no real excuse not to.
If you find it useful not to pay, if you find it useful, right.
Again, just to, to help understand the users, the how the product fits and
what to focus on next, things like that.
So I said, Forcing myself to to get it at the end of the month
about whether we'll hit that.
I don't know, but as soon as close to that as possible.
And then just say I'm going to have a either a two week or a, I think a
two week free sign up without a credit card and then hit the the paywall.
I thought about doing.
Credit card first.
So that's something Paddle supports as well as you can enable
a trial period within Paddle.
So I can basically say like 14 day trial.
But that way they have to enter the credit card first and then
on day 15, they get billed.
But so the other, the other way is you handle the trial and then after
14 days, I say, you need to pay and they send them to Paddle for billing.
I can understand both obviously the, you know, the, the internet
wisdom, conventional wisdom is you take credit card upfront.
And if you look at anybody on like, you know, MegaMaker, or MicroComp full,
probably swear by taking credit card data up front and doing the trial and
then auto bill after two weeks, unless they cancel I feel that I dunno, I just,
as somebody as a user, I hate that.
And then I can completely understand the reasons for doing
it and it makes perfect sense.
But at the same time, if I can't try out a product without entering
a credit card, I get kind of.
Unless it's some, I mean, Transistor, I guess is the one, which was like
a, I know exactly what that does and if you need it, you pay for it.
Whereas it feels like this is almost like a, let me understand the product
and then let me decide if it's, if I'm going to pay for it or not.
So
Mario: Yeah, I can, I can see that reasoning.
That makes sense.
It depends on the product as well.
Because yeah, like you said, if it's something that people already know what
it is and they know what to expect, you know Yeah that I can see how just
require the credit card and and don't charge it until the trial period ends.
But in your case, because it's it's it, the user's going, gonna
want to explore the product and kind of, you know, get to know it.
Yeah, I think, I think you have, I think that's the right approach.
Even though Yeah.
The advice out there is, you know, always.
You know, don't, don't
Alan: Yeah.
Mario: give it away without requiring requiring the credit card,
Alan: Yeah.
I mean, you have the same dilemma, right?
Especially since running, if someone does a call, it costs you money.
Right.
You know, from me an additional 10 users it was a bit of server load.
Right.
It's nothing.
Whereas for you, it actually costs you money to have a free user.
Right.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is one of, which is one of the reasons I've been in this
private beta mode for a while.
It's, it's a little too long for my liking.
I you know, I don't want it to go on forever, but that's one of the reasons,
you know, there's a cost to running the system and I want to keep it as controlled
as possible to iron out all the kinks and it's, that fine line between you
know, spending money on running the system and allowing the user to test
it and you know, for free, because.
you know, I feel the same way I, from the user point of
view, I don't like when I have,
to put a credit card in, you know,
Alan: I can understand the reasoning completely.
And again, in certain situations it kind of makes sense.
So it's like, well, I know what this is, and I need this thing,
so I'm going to pay for it.
But some kind of free trial to just let me really get a feel for it before I
commit to this in any way, even if it's a free commitment free just entering a
credit card, feels like I'm not ready yet.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
So how are you going to handle the transition
Alan: Hmm,
Mario: end of trial to charging?
Alan: is a good question.
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: Yeah.
I mean, it's the, the easiest is literally to, so I know who created
the account, as in, as an account owner, there's a workspace owner
and then there's team members.
They, any of those can be admin, but there's one person who is
the owner and always an admin.
And so.
If I hit the paywall, my easiest thing I'm going to do is basically everybody
else gets a message saying, you need to tell you, you need to tell your
account owner that you need to pay.
And then the, the owner basically goes to a page that says, choose a billing method.
That's the, the easiest way.
I'm not sure if it's the best way.
It would be nice if people don't lose access to their data.
So obviously if they so the other way would be.
You can't check in or something, right?
So you can't publish a check-in.
So that would be another way of if people can log in and they can still
see all the things they've done, but they can't publish anything new,
Mario: it's effectively read-only mode
Alan: read only mode right now, it goes into read only mode.
So that would probably be the better version.
It's just a bit more work,
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, because you have to touch a lot of points in the code
base to make that happen, right.
Because every part of the app where they can add something, you would have to
Alan: Exactly.
Do I do allow stop comments as well?
Do I stop like reactions?
Do I do, can I, do I stop them editing things?
So right now you can publish a new way.
Can edit an old one.
You can add comments, you can react to things and yeah.
So each one of those things it's like, well, it'd have to go through
an additional check and I'm like, ah, it seems like a lot of work.
So
Mario: Yeah, it is.
Alan: So the at that's probably what I'll do is that again, I might change
that late to date, but it's the easiest thing to get me to launch.
Right.
A lot of these things, there's a, there's a trade off between the
amount of work to get it to work.
And the, is it the best solution?
Maybe not, but I'll have to revisit that later.
Mario: you know, as we're talking about this, I'm thinking here I'm
listening to it and I'm thinking about it and I don't know.
If you go in that route, right, you don't require the credit card,
they go through the trial period.
And when that ends, it's almost like you have to reel them back in and
have them enter that credit card.
Whereas if you do that beforehand, now you have it.
And now at the end of the trial period, well, before the end of the trial you.
the way that I would approach it as you send a message, right.
Cause you don't want to surprise them with the credit
Alan: The panel does this automatically.
I believe.
I think I have to check, but yeah, you could just send them a message.
Just say you're about to be billed for this.
Mario: Yeah.
So you're trialing period ended and you're about to this amount is going
to be charged on next date or whatever.
So now it's, it's, it's less.
Alan: Less friction at that point.
Mario: Friction because you've already got the credit card.
You don't have to reel them back in and have them go to a form where they are
going to punch in their credit card.
So I don't know.
Alan: know I've struggled with this a lot, because again, the, the problem, as well
as having a free trial period is that you end up with a lot of churned accounts.
Like, you know, it's easy to sign up for anything, especially including
even, you know, bots and stuff.
And I, I want to minimize the barrier to signing up, but at the same point
then there's so, you know, you.
Yeah.
You open up the potential for abuse, right?
Because, and it's like
Mario: And that's, and that's the one thing about requiring the credit
card that it helps you weed out.
Those who are not serious about it, those who are really more
serious about trying your product.
And they're really curious, they're willing to, put the credit card in.
And I honestly, now that I think about it, I do feel like that
where if I have to put the credit card in, I kind of don't like it.
But if it's a product that I really want to check out.
And that I'm curious about.
I don't mind so much.
I, you know, I know that I'm going to get, especially if I'm told ahead of time, we
won't bill you, you know, and you know, we will let you know before you before we
Alan: So another thing to consider is that there's a potential for.
This as a foray, something that a team might try without getting
their managers buy in first.
So for instance, you know, we would like to try this too.
We try it.
And then we tell our boss, this is useful for us.
Can you get, can you pay for this?
So the moment I can transfer the ownership of the workspace
to my boss, he pays, it's done.
The other thing to consider as well as in Japan, Staff
generally don't have credit cards.
You don't have an expense card.
Now every company I've worked for in the UK in the U S is like, you work
here, here's a card and it's expensed.
And just make sure you submit your receipts.
Right.
But in Japan, generally, that doesn't happen.
Staff don't get like personal credit cards.
So in fact, it's also a potential problem that Staff can't even get
stuff, signed it like a manager.
She might not be able to get sign up for, for product has got
to go to her manager's manager.
And then that person will want an invoice and they'll want to pay with a they have
a paying system here called pay easy, which is like a bank transfer system that
is done at an ATM And so there's a whole separate billing system because in general
credit cards are just not that common at companies, especially at small companies.
So then I've got the, the, the question is, well, in that case,
it may be, I just split it.
So Japan, you don't.
And I'm like, oh God man,
Mario: No, no,
Alan: which I did think about for a little while and then like do I do that?
Mario: no, but that's an excellent point because of the nature.
Again, the nature of your product, you have.
It's more for teams, right.
More team oriented.
So you have to think about that.
And that's, that's an excellent point.
you want to remove that friction because you want people to try it
out and then they can go to their boss and say, Hey, we love this
thing and you know, can we get it?
Alan: Yes,
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: I know this is, this has been, I mean, same as, as the pricing has
been something I've been toying, you know, like going around in my head,
I've been back and forth on it a hundred times just as like you know,
can I really like, especially as you said, if it's, if it's small team and
yeah, we want to try it out, then if we like it, then we tell our boss that,
you know, we should use this.
This is useful for us as a team.
Right.
And if you'd, they've got to put in their own personal credit card to do that,
then it's possibly not going to happen.
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: more of a chance that's not going to happen.
Right.
I mean, the other thing, as well as I could just literally, you know, to
tackle abuses like 14 days, how long do I keep an account for, if somebody,
I mean, I've done this with services.
I sign up for the trial thinking.
Yeah, I might need it.
And then 14 days comes and you go, I'm not ready to pay for it yet.
And then, you know, like three months later, I'm think, right.
I need to use that thing.
And I go back and I expect the account to be still be there.
Right.
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: it's not, I'd be like, well I'll do the things.
I get emails from services.
And it's like, you haven't used this Bufala account in three years.
And I'm like, what the hell is that?
We're going to delete your account.
And I'm like, fine, because I don't know what the hell this is.
Mario: I remember That when I created that.
Alan: That does a complete sidetrack, but a slight annoyance and emails is
when a startup as cause it's always a startup like generally, you know,
the bigger companies, if Stripe emails uh, you know what Stripe is, right?
But if it's some company that emails you and says, oh, we noticed you
haven't used such a thing, we've added a new feature to do this.
I'm like, I have no idea what your service is and you're
talking about this as if I do.
I tried your product a year ago for.
An hour, if you're lucky.
And then they, you know, rather than kind of, it would just take a paragraph
at the top of the email saying that, you know, I was thinking, you know,
product X is the thing, which, you know, time-tracking you go, oh, right.
Oh, it's a thing.
Right.
But it, you you'd be surprised at how few companies do that.
always a massive annoyance.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
I actually need to do that cause I'm going to be sending an email out pretty soon
about with an update about the product
Alan: I need to do the same thing, right?
Yeah.
I've got an email list of a bunch of people I need to
tell them it's released and I
Mario: Yeah.
And I haven't sent an email in forever.
I, the only one time I sent an email to some of the people that I was
onboarding and it's been months, I need to get better at that.
Alan: So I'll make sure you put a paragraph at the beginning.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
I need to get better at communicating.
As we were talking about this, it reminds Me of something I wanted to
talk to you about, but I think we're going to have to leave it for next time.
Alan: thanks.
I think
Mario: so we'll have another topic.
to talk.
And it has to do with wait, what was it again?
As you were talking to
Alan: chances of remembering.
And two weeks was zero.
Mario: I know, right.
I need to add it to my notes for next time.
Has to do.
with oh yes.
Retention time of recordings.
I need to figure out What I'm going to do about the the whole
thing of storing files, recordings.
Alan: not free.
Mario: And it, you know, if I don't introduce some kind of retention period
after which, files get purged, then it, it just keeps piling up and increasing costs.
So I think I have to introduce some kind of the, you know, this
concept of retention period.
And for some subscription plans, it would be less.
Or, you know, the cheaper ones would have less retention period.
And if you want more, you know, a year or whatever subscription plan costs more
Alan: again, your billing is slightly complicated.
Just because yeah, you, well, I mean, there's so many leavers you can
pull on your billing process, right?
It's like a retention, the how many recordings, the size and things.
So, yeah, it's
Mario: Yeah, I'm trying to, yeah, I'm gonna try to keep it simple, you know?
Alan: right?
Yeah.
You have to.
Mario: based it on, on, minutes.
Right.
It's just packaged minutes and retention period then.
And that's it.
Yeah.
But maybe we can talk about it in more
Alan: talk about that.
It'd be good.
I want to have a think about this as well.
So, because I come with some opinions because I never have any of that.
Mario: All right.
Cool.
Sounds good.
All right, so this is probably a good point to wrap it up.
All right.
it's been a minute.
I think I dunno, I think we might've skipped a week or something, but
Alan: it's, it's a confusing period of time.
So weeks make no sense anymore.
Mario: But We're back.
and yeah, do this again in a couple of weeks and until then have a great one.
And I'll talk to you then.
Alan: Cheers.