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In this episode, we've got a grab-bag of topics including when to worry about scaling, an argument against delegation, and a few shoutouts.
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.
00:00.96
tylerking
I Just just had a good day I feel like the um like the fellowship. Ah the the people that I'm teaching how to code have hit a point where they're doing cool stuff and it's just it's very cool seeing them actually build stuff Anyway, how are you doing.
00:01.20
Rick
What's up Tyler.
00:27.54
Rick
What do they? What kind of stuff are they building tell me more.
00:36.90
tylerking
Well, yeah, so we're just teaching them basic like cred development like or a web development building cred apps. So but today like in the past every time I met with one of them. It was like here's how you do this thing I have to teach you all the concepts and now they're a few weeks in and I just had a meeting with someone and. Was like okay here's the next step and she was like okay so I needed to do Abc I don't know how to do d but I'll look into that like she just knew how to do it I was like oh people learn things. That's very fulfilling. Yeah, by the way how do I sound I got a new mike's the same Mike but a slightly new setup I said okay.
01:25.56
Rick
I Love that? yeah.
01:39.80
Rick
I Think you sound good. Yeah.
01:48.60
tylerking
I got a cloud lifter I used to have a dbx 88 s now I'm using a cloud lifter. We'll see how it goes ah well so I've had 2 of these now they start out really great. The the old thing I had have like all these knobs and you contain ah turn them and make yourself sound really good. But.
01:58.36
Rick
Have you been disappointed with how you sound.
02:24.88
tylerking
Both of them over time just stopped working and so 2 episodes ago. My sound I thought was pretty bad because it like the thing was kind of fallen apart and so I got a much simpler thing way fewer options but I'm hoping it doesn't stop working over time. Yeah.
02:32.26
Rick
A.
02:53.80
Rick
That's cool. Um I think you sound good but I'm not the audio is that you are.
03:00.00
tylerking
Right? Well thank you I Don't think I have a good ear for it I've I'm interested in turning Knobs I can never tell if it sounds good or not. But anyway how how are you doing.
03:18.64
Rick
I'm good I'm good. Um I had some I feel like it's been a while since we talked um it know two weeks always seems long way longer than one week like we used to do and then I think this was like a three week gap or maybe it was a two week gap I don't know it feels like we haven't talked in a while.
03:40.84
tylerking
I agree on going? Yeah yeah because I think yeah I think it was three weeks but and neither of us have any memory now.
03:51.36
Rick
Doesn't it feel weird like like this new cadence like doesn't it feel like long long enough where it's like what did we talk about last time I can't remember whereas like last when we were weekly. It felt like we could I don't know I just felt like we had a continuous conversation more. So.
04:03.56
tylerking
Like what are we talking about last yeah weekly. It felt like.
04:15.26
tylerking
Like we had a continuous conversation. So yeah, it was like a part of the routine when it was weekly whereas now with biweekly. It's like oh oh my there's a podcast today like do I have any topics to talk about? Yeah, but yeah.
04:29.92
Rick
Yeah, yeah, it's different. Um, Ah, but yeah, I'm good. Ah you know I think I've kind of hit a I think may was really challenging for me. Um I don't know that was coming through in the last episode but. Yeah, and maybe the one before that but like it was a gauntlet of personal travel work travel ah feeling like I'm failing at everything succeeding at nothing. Um, every time I tried to fix something like you know I'd fix that thing but another you know plate would you know break and fall and break and so um.
05:20.36
tylerking
No lack million and.
05:37.00
tylerking
Play break.
05:46.24
Rick
Anyway, I'm I'm coming out of that and feeling better. Um, ah, but I had a like a really big learning today. Um, where this I guess it was kind of recently. But then I acted on it today and it made me feel so much better and that has has to do with partnerships. Um, and how it's a little bit different. With a partnership then an employee like um oftentimes employees just want to like you just focus on like what their roles and responsibilities are and you want to clarify them and if they're clear and the the responsibilities are being met like generally everyone's happy you know, but in a partnership. There's this weird sort of like evolution. It's not like someone reports to you the business changes and like you're both respond like your responsibilities are constantly changing and I don't know I can't explain it exactly but what I realized was I wasn't clear on what j d needed from me to. To to know that I was being a good partner to him and so I was worrying about whether I was doing enough ah to so you know you know be a good partner. Um, and I guess it's. Applies also and like if you're a boss of someone and you're full time like knowing whether what what that person thinks you need to do to be their good boss like be on the same page or that's like pretty important but I hadn't really thought of it in this partnership case. But like anyway we talked this morning I was like what are the things I need to do to. Know that I'm being a good partner like and I think like the list is probably shorter than what I think it is um and we got really clear on what those things were and just stress for me evaporated like I looked at my to-do list and 90% of the things that I'm failing on. Don't like fall into one of those buckets. Um.
09:13.44
tylerking
Gotcha So you thought you were failing but he didn't think you were failing. Is there anything was you just like everything's good and now you have clarity or were there things he said where like oh actually should be doing maybe a little more of this or yeah.
09:13.90
Rick
And so just yeah, so ah.
09:33.48
Rick
Yeah,, there's so there's some things came out of it where it's like no I don't care about that I care about this.. It's like oh okay, well that's actually easier for me to do and than these other things. So one of a couple things came out of it. Um, one was ah. You know I think there are 3 things that I need to focus on um one is just making sure there's enough money in the bank like that I'm kind of a financial partner in that Regard. It's like so long as the business plan can be funded like that's I'm delivering. Ah yeah, yeah, that's my job like that's ah if there is like check.
10:28.72
tylerking
And so it's not that there wasn't enough money but he needs to know there's enough money? Yeah like and can I just pause real quick for anyone listening I Actually think this is a really valuable thing for bootstrap founders to do with employees like even non-partners like people worry about this.
10:46.46
Rick
And there is right now so we don't worry about that. Um.
11:07.26
tylerking
I think way more than they should I just think it's human nature and because I kind of thought like it was obvious we have enough money and like don't don't worry yourself with it and I've found that once or twice a year. It's good to say to the company like we have money in the bank. We made money over the last twelve months like people people really like to hear that.
11:36.98
Rick
Yes, yup, so um, two so that was one 2 is ah related to like my recurring sort of product operations work related to no code like being like the nocode maintenance person not like doing anything new just keeping it running. Um. And that's pretty like low effort and I'm I've been delivering on those things. Um, the None thing is where I think we were I was like doing the wrong things and that is what he would call like just generating leads for him. Um, he just wants lead like people to talk to? um.
12:19.18
tylerking
I'm delivering.
12:44.90
tylerking
Mostly like yeah and so it like just kind of rain.
12:49.92
Rick
And so it's like just kind of rainmaking a little bit from ah like making introductions to my network or improving Seo when I have time so that more traffic comes in and then like when we have good seo already like doing a better job of capturing. You know there's people who are coming to the site and teing them up for a conversation for him things that he you know. Isn't like like his his skill set. He historically hasn't focused on so he doesn't necessarily have the skill set to do nor is it a good use of his time and so um, those are the 3 things and um in order like money in the bank like check if that's done then move to the next one check and then if that's done move the next one and so I'm delivering on 2 out of 3 of them. And instead of focusing on the third one I'm doing other things that don't matter to him like worrying about messaging and you know brand you know, point of view and you know onboarding improvements and website improvements like and um, you know.
14:13.54
tylerking
Doing like worrying about.
14:44.54
tylerking
So does that mean he doesn't need you to worry about it because he's going to worry about it or is he just like neither of us need to worry about that stuff. Okay, no, we.
14:45.82
Rick
That kind of stuff.
15:00.34
Rick
Neither of us that need to worry about that right now until we have None of people coming to the website and we're optimizing for conversion stop worrying about messaging on the website until we have None of people signing up stop worrying about the onboarding flow. Um.
15:19.70
tylerking
Worry. Okay, because ah in our last episode you were talking a bit about like messaging and redoing the website and stuff so that's kind of on hold now. Yeah cool I Love that I Just love the feeling of like you've got this thing. It's gonna be a lot of work and you're just like up delete you know.
15:32.74
Rick
Um, totally yeah.
15:45.50
Rick
Done. Yeah, yeah, so I think like that's one key learning is that like when you're when you are a partner with someone being clear about like not necessarily what your job is but like what it what are the checkboxes to saying like you're a good partner. Um.
16:12.76
tylerking
Like you're a good partner. Yeah, and I got on that today and now it's like.
16:18.24
Rick
And I got clear on that today and now it's like okay I have a list of things like I have a list of boxes now I can just make sure I'm checking and I know I that j d is saying I'm going to be a good partner. Okay.
16:31.54
tylerking
Yeah, cool did the did the reverse happen did did he ask you what he needs to be doing and did you have any interesting things there yes and so that.
16:45.68
Rick
Yes, and so that led to a conversation. Yeah yes, um, ah, and so I said like at the other day like there are 2 things that I worry about 1 is like your happiness like doing the job today. So that you know and making sure that we're on track to be in a position where you're happy doing this for a long time.
17:20.42
tylerking
And so that.
17:23.52
Rick
Um, and so that all leads to results and growth of the organization like it's very simple and it leads to like a very clear outcome that we've already aligned on and that is getting to a certain number of clients by the end of the year um and so I was like great. Um, why aren't we just talking about that in our meeting and nothing else you know? and so um.
17:53.82
tylerking
Like bad or meaning and nothing else. Yeah, so.
18:03.20
Rick
what what I realized and this is I'm going to transition into kind of a separate topic here which is um but it's very related which is like I have made the mistake of I believe this of prioritizing efficiency over effectiveness. Um I wanted like I was idealizing like getting control over the business and like. Managing it systematically um and wanting to um, sort of focus on like how we're doing certain things so we can repeat it versus just you know going and doing the thing and getting the outcome done by any means necessary. And I this I came into the meeting thinking that was that that was a problem but that Jenny's answer to those questions like quickly. Yeah, like validated that and so we've made a huge pivot to like where we're focusing our conversations on it's like we don't care about how anymore. All we care about is marching to that number where j d's you know Jd's happy j d like we're we're hitting our number on nothing else matters other than hiing the number and so what? what? like I think I go back and forth I've done this a couple times but like I'm now convinced that like it doesn't matter. And when you're in survival stages control doesn't matter like when you like at the end of the day you just got to go do what you got to do to like survive and that's the mentality we need to have for this time period together because. If you think about like why wouldn't this work out from a partnership standpoint most of it's around like do we have enough clients to pay enough money to retain Jd like that's the like survival of the business at its core. It's like so nothing else matters. Um, except like getting to that point where it's survival like repeatability goes out like the window like.
21:17.24
tylerking
Yeah, like survive.
21:41.56
Rick
Until we hit some threshold and so anyway, um I Just think like tasks like what you're doing doesn't matter if it's not leading to an outcome that is desirable and so we are shifting our focus almost entirely to like ah you know if the outcome isn't getting moved. It doesn't matter. Um and you know.
22:17.76
tylerking
Ah, yeah, a bottleneck outlook right? If this isn't tackling the bottleneck it's It's not worth work worth doing.
22:21.52
Rick
We are that we.
22:31.42
Rick
Yeah, exactly. So if it's not you know if we're not if this isn't leading to the outcome. Let's not even talk about it. Let's not do it and then you know honestly like let's just have note like outside of the high-level company overview stuff that we've talked about in a previous episode like the values and like the you know strategic like. Concepts behind the business. Do whatever we need to do to hit the number and let's just go do it.
23:14.98
tylerking
Do yeah now having said that there's there's a lot of hand waving going on there where it's like well yeah in order to go do it. You do have to have some kind of a plan right? like if you just like J D Stop stop talking about that. Go do it and he's like but I'm talking about doing it like.
23:35.34
Rick
Now.
23:47.88
Rick
yeah yeah I don't I don't mean that I think like I think a good example of this I don't mean that example but like a good example of this would be like getting focused on. Um you know how many exactly how many reachouts do we need to do to get to 1 conversation who cares? let's just go have as many conversations we can.
23:51.76
tylerking
You know it's I don't I don't believe.
24:16.58
tylerking
Yeah, let's just go have a.
24:25.84
Rick
Once we get to this number of like outcomes that we need. We'll do the math later and reflect on whether we want to repeat it again.
24:26.58
tylerking
Like yeah, we'll do the math later. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. We're We're going through this right now with our marketing thing where you know we're big enough. Our revenue is big enough that it's kind of it's tempting to be like well you know if if we can't bring in you know. Ah, Thousand in New um Mrr per month from this channel. It's not going to be worth it. But like nothing starts out at that and so we have to just do these one off things and we we still haven't cracked it but like we we're trying to be in this mentality of like we're going to. We're going to try to get some customers the old fashioned way like you are and then. See if we can scale it from there because if you start from the beginning saying this needs to be scalable like nothing can live up to that like this is the classic innovators dilemma. Yeah yeah.
25:52.10
Rick
It's and it's paralyzing if people go you start chasing your tail. Um, and anyway that what kind of what None question that led to this sort of for me was what would like I think what would I do if I were. Jd. It's like I would be doing the most unscalable crap ever and just throwing so many noodles against the wall and like I felt like I I was not unintentionally like constraining Jd from just doing that.
26:42.74
tylerking
Right? Because when we've talked before that it was like you know, get 60 leads from Linkedin and reach out to this and when maybe what he should be doing is like yeah spend some time on Linkedin but also like oh I drove by a thing that said there is an event happening today. Maybe I'll go to that event and see see how it goes like that type of thing.
27:14.42
Rick
Yeah, exactly the stuff that's just like spontaneous and just momentos like get shit rainmaking. It's thought it. But.
27:21.60
tylerking
Yeah. You know one of my greatest regrets is in business that didn't matter at all, but it was just like we've never been good at like marketing gimmicks. But we had a good idea once and didn't do it and it was at dreamforce like salesforce's big conference have I told you this before oracle hired a bunch of people. Stand outside of it have I told you this okay have I said this like on that maybe I said this like two weeks ago on the podcast I don't know the story is so there are these people standing outside the conference with balloons they work at Oracle and they're like.
28:07.80
Rick
You've told me yeah I'm aware of the story but like what what's what's your what's your story.
28:32.52
tylerking
Stacked head to toe and like oracle gear and they have balloons that say like Oracle number 1 is still the number one cm this is before salesforce was number one and we were like we should go there and get signs that say lessing crm like one thousand two hundred and thirty first crm like you know, just make a joke about how small we were.
28:55.36
Rick
Um, yeah, yeah.
29:04.38
tylerking
I Think that that would have had a decent shot of like getting on tech crunch or something and I regret that we didn't do that.
29:14.42
Rick
Those kinds of like really creatives like oneoff cheap marketing Hacks like why don't we try those more like why are we is that just our personality or is it um is like the gimmicks like that like you do enough of them when I'm going to hit.
29:35.68
tylerking
Yeah, and there's a so there's a type of person who just sees these gimmicks everywhere like if you if you listen to my none those guys every experience they have in life. Like some opportunity stands out to them of like how to do some weird Twitter thread on it or whatever I've only had this one idea in my life which is why I regret not it wouldn't have worked but like I regret not doing it because I didn't realize how precious that one good idea was.
30:12.18
Rick
Yeah.
30:31.00
Rick
Yeah, so like what one that comes to mind when I think about this is like I was at a ah Ceo conference or something like back in the day and um, so this came up as like ah and ah like a conversation like I was ah a talk session at the event and. But the guy who was talking was like 1 of the things I used to do was he would Brent a llama um and just walk it down the street. Um, and ah, it's somehow tied into like he was it was related to like the fabric he was using in the clothes he was trying to sell for his brand but like that that just.
31:33.60
tylerking
So yeah.
31:40.82
Rick
The llama was really cheap and everyone wanted to stop and ask him questions and pretty much everyone who stopped and asked him because it was a mass market good like was a prospective customer and he used that to get his initial customers like and it's just so simple. Yeah.
31:59.32
tylerking
Yeah, that's amazing and it's incredibly unscalable. It's not like Okay, there's a llama on every street corner now. Yeah.
32:16.58
Rick
Yeah, yeah, but like like what a great idea and I I would never even think to do that nor would I I probably never would do that. But what a brilliant like little thing to do and there's all kinds of little gimmicks like that you could do I heard another one where like just um, if you're trying to sell something related to food like.
32:19.60
tylerking
Like what a great idea. Yeah, we never even think that nor would I.
32:36.78
tylerking
Yeah, for sure like I heard another one.
32:56.54
Rick
Go stand out next to chick-fil-a and offer to pay people ah pay buy people fee a free fry and ask them questions about ah you know their preferences like that's a good way to get clients on on food anyway.
33:17.60
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, honestly I think of the realties just do anything I'm sitting here in my house in front of my computer just do anything other than that you know.
33:25.44
Rick
Yeah, just good air. Yeah, what's going on with your in your world.
33:44.68
tylerking
Um, so that maybe I'd start with a question for you. We're getting so we're still experimenting with marketing stuff. Unfortunately no real traction yet. Um, running experiments I'm feeling good about the process but ah, just nothing. Nothing has worked really I mentioned software advice is. Ah, the the place we buy leads from is sort of coming along our big problem. There is just volume. That's not my question for you but just update volume is tough although I wrote this on Monday and then since then we've gotten this big surge of leads so you never know but I get the impression buying leads is not like ah. We were kind of doing what we just said we were like let's buy a few. Let's see how it goes it was going okay and they're like all right Let's ramp it up and they're like you're already buying them all and we're like we're getting like None per week is this all you've got um so we may have hit a wall there. Ah, but.
35:12.70
Rick
Yeah, ah.
35:30.40
tylerking
Another thing we're doing is like Google Adwords like Sem stuff and the thing I wanted to ask you about is just like how you historically have tracked marketing results. So we have like reports that are like you know this ad got us this conversion or whatever but it's not really tied to revenue like if you look at Google Analytics if you look at. The adwords dashboard have you ever found a good solution to this.
36:13.80
Rick
So um, not really, but but in like None cool thing about hubspot for example, is that it automatically like associates. Ah this type of information with opportunities that get created. So um, you know. Ah, you should be able to report on revenue like in an idea you you want as long as you can tie opportunities. You know, ordeals back to close None deals back to um the Google group or campaign and then associate the cost of that campaign you know.
37:06.32
tylerking
Opportunities so week or the old back to yeah back to.
37:32.80
Rick
Relative to the deals that were one then you can get some roi analysis but I've had ah I've had a you have to I don't know how to do it if you don't have a system that does it for you Hubspot Just kind of did some magic. It's called the general term for this is closed loop reporting where yeah where you have a lead that you know is generated that.
37:48.14
tylerking
Don't have a system that doesn't for you? Yeah bit of Magic. It's called the general. Loop closed loop reporting. Okay, we.
38:10.12
Rick
Cost some you know some amount of money and you can figure that out and then you know like the result of that lead from a closed loop standpoint. Do you have that information.
38:22.60
tylerking
Got you? yeah right? Well we have the information in 2 different places right now we have our own like homemade reporting that I built like twelve years ago that's actually pretty good like I mean it's ugly and stuff but it once someone gets to our site it like knows what ad they came from and.
38:37.94
Rick
A.
39:01.18
tylerking
Ah, takes that all the way through to like did they sign up for free trial. Did they pay. You know it's because it's all our data I actually think like building homemade analytics like this has some merit. The thing is unless we want to start integrating with the adwords api which we're not going to do. Ah, we don't have like. Impressions and click through rate and quality score and that stuff so right now we're kind of putting both of those those None different sources into a spreadsheet It's just kind of tedious.
39:51.84
Rick
Yeah I mean unless this kind of makes me the thing that's coming to mind is like have you outgrown your own crm as a company and you need to? yeah yeah, yeah, so's I feel if feel it Well I know it feels um but it's a really interesting question though like at what point does less annoying crm.
40:06.40
tylerking
Your company. Yeah I can't We can't use Hubspot Man How would that look.
40:31.60
Rick
Um, that you're building for a 5 person company not work for less annoying serum the company.
40:41.66
tylerking
Yeah, we we actually used to talk about that a lot because back in the day we're like we're going to. We're going to grow and become a thousand person company and it was pretty clear. We would outgrow our product because we didn't want our product to be good fit for a None person company. That's less clear now because it's like we're 20 people and maybe in a year or two. We'll be 21 and I'm kind of like I think we should be able to be good enough for that size. Although it's less of a size thing and more of like how automated are you thing there are a lot of 20 person companies that are like our sales guys have their rolodex and enter it into a spreadsheet you know and they could be using us whereas. Everything we do is very low touch highly automated and like our products just um in for that. Um, so I hear you in a sense we already like we use front like for somewhat cr I me aspects. Um, yeah, we could potentially use hubspot. As a marketing reporting tool not as a crm.
42:27.22
Rick
Yeah, and um, but again, you're going to end up with the separate data like that you have to that you have to join is there a tool I don't know of a tool other than like ah crm that ah does you know.
42:36.28
tylerking
Like what repeat that? Yeah,, We're not going to to be clear I have no interest in doing that but like we could is there a tool I don't know of. Zero M Yeah like would mix panel do this I Wonder don't know maybe yeah like I'm sure that like as long as you could hook up.
43:04.22
Rick
I Don't know maybe I'm sure like I'm sure that like as long as you could hook up any any like analytics tool that you could hook up and get data from the different systems that you're using and and figure out how to tie them together. That's basically what you're doing in a spreadsheet anyway. So yeah, there should be a tool that does that.
43:25.92
tylerking
That's basically what you're doing on spreadsheet Anyway, right? So the key is yeah, it's not. It's not a question does it have the the revenue information and the website traffic. The question is does it integrate with the adwords stuff and probably that's that's more rare than.
43:45.00
Rick
E.
43:55.78
tylerking
Like everything integrates with the website traffic like put this javascript snippet on it and you get it. Okay, okay so probably we'll just keep doing the spreadsheet thing if any listeners have any amazing solutions This let me know. Um, yeah when wendy.
44:09.98
Rick
Yep, that sounds right. Yeah, have you ever thought like when when do you hire So who is the analyst at your company that provides insights to people to make good better decisions about their jobs.
44:35.46
tylerking
Yeah, um, ah bracken is doing that right now kind of we're in the early stages of this and I don't know what it's going to look like long term but my brother bracken who's the other co-founder has a Ph D in something not dissimilar from Data science. Um, he doesn't do data science for Us. He does devops. But. He's starting to like build tooling to be able to like you know, get answers to questions very quickly for us. So I think that'll be useful. Yeah.
45:27.84
Rick
Cool. Yeah, just it's interesting question like when do you need someone whose Job. It is to be the insight giver and like how empowered are people at less makes hereum to go get these answers to these questions. Um and like such just limited to Marketing. It's like customer service as Well. Like. This customer service I Guess front probably provides a lot of the insights that they need from a volume standpoint like where or where do they go I guess for um, for their like how do they know that they're at capacity or not at capacity. How do they forecast? um.
46:12.28
tylerking
Use stand point where we go yeah for their.
46:34.20
Rick
How do they? How do they know quality of service retroactively that kind of stuff. Yeah.
46:37.50
tylerking
Yeah I can talk a little about how we do I know this isn't you weren't asking exactly but just because you said I can talk a little about how we do that in customer service because Michael who's the head of that team is like he's not an engineer by by background. But I think he kind of has an engineering mindset like kind of tooling problem solving type stuff. And so he's done a pretty much a no code and he's built his own analytics stack. Basically where he kind of pulls data in from why you left? Yeah well and sorry not like not like coded it himself I just mean he has like in notion he has.
47:35.86
Rick
It's just such a ah ah King thing to do building your own tool set.
47:55.38
tylerking
Ah, set of things that pulls data from various places I think it pulls it all into Google sheets. But then like builds reporting that you can see and then the wiking and notion. Yeah, so it's like some of the data comes from front like how many emails are we sending and stuff like that. But I think callendly and demo desk are 2 of the bigger places we get because countly we use when a customer schedules a call with us.
48:00.98
Rick
Oh cool. Oh so he's no coded like string some stuff together. That's very cool.
48:33.96
tylerking
So they provide data on like how many calls were booked and what type and what were the sources coming from so we actually just turned off like if you're watching our beginners guide videos. We we had a link at the bottom. It's like do you want to call with us. We just turned that off because the reporting showed like we're getting a lot of calls from that. But it's like if you're watching the beginners guide. You should keep watching it.
49:07.28
Rick
Yeah.
49:11.80
tylerking
Rather than schedule a call. Um, so he has some data from that we have data on calls coming in so he basically has all these charts that are like you know oh none of July happens call volume drops dramatically and over time he can look at and be like huh for some reason our demos. Are increasing but our emails are decreasing or whatever. So it's not like super sophisticated but he can he can do that level of analysis. Yeah, and that's one of those things that I've talked before about the moat you build of just like over time you get more and more sophisticated like when we started we didn't have any of that and just.
49:44.14
Rick
Why man that's cool. That's very cool.
50:15.88
tylerking
Every six months. There's like a new little report that someone built and it's like if someone wants to start a new company and do customer service better than us like good luck catching up to all of this stuff like there's just this mountain of institutional crap that you have to build over time.
50:50.00
Rick
Yes, it de it's awesome I would be where you are.
50:55.76
tylerking
Yeah, anyway, yeah well I want to be where you are in that having ideas for growth.
51:09.54
Rick
Well what? what? Um so so ah I don't know if that helped on the roi thing like do you have anything else. Um, update wise.
51:23.66
tylerking
Um, yeah, so I mentioned that the ah the volume issue with software advice. The other thing I'll say here just like an idea we had recently. So you know we're talking about kind of product like growth type stuff. Um. Ah, you I know you're you're pushing me to do like more directly product- led growth which I agree with and we're going to do but None of the things we want to do or I shouldn't say we want to do? We've been talking about I are we big enough to be more of a platform than we are and let me just run a thought by you so we don't we have an Api It's not great, but like. We are very close to having a really good api that we got almost for free like we improved our internal api that that our app uses to talk to the backend and we're just like making that available to customers more or less and there's a little bit of work to do but it'll be good at that point we were toying with the idea of like what if we just went and found. other other saas companies that are smaller than us and said we'll give you $10000 if you integrate with us or something along those lines and try to jumpstart because that could be a good deal for them because not only do they get the money but like we have 25000 users and if they're smaller than us and they'll be the none app of their kind. In our ecosystem we could send them some customers potentially and the thought is maybe we could jump start getting a little bit of a platform playgo in there would like.
54:01.46
Rick
And what value like what is driving What does this do for you I Guess um is it get you more signed is this like a roadblock to sign Ups is it a customer request. What's the outcome. You're looking for.
54:19.40
tylerking
Yeah, the the thought here is 2 twofold None it makes the product better. That's not product led growth I get but like that's a nice freebie. Um, but the other one is then we get their customers in the same way they get ours and we're the bigger fish in this relationship. But if we do this with a handful of companies. Could it add up and then hopefully you hope it becomes like self-sustaining where it's like long-term. We don't have to pay them $10000 like companies want to integrate with us because we have this cool ecosystem. Interesting.
55:13.38
Rick
No, it's it's interesting I want I'm curious how many so um customers that are perfect for you that you miss out on just because you don't integrate with a really common tool that they were that they buy before they buy your crm um, that drives their Crm decision. Um.
55:38.44
tylerking
For they buyers here right? drive their zero and I don't think this would help with that because like the the ones that they've already heard of aren't the ones we would be integrating with as much. It's not like they want constant contact and so we're going to go pay constant contact to build the integration. It's more like.
55:48.00
Rick
That's a really interesting question.
56:13.76
tylerking
Some nobody. No one's ever heard of um but they still have some customers presumably. But so this led to a well actually let me pause. Yeah, so you said interesting basically is your takeaway from that. Not I guess.
56:20.90
Rick
And.
56:31.74
Rick
Yeah, well I guess um, it seems like ah yeah, it seems like a good idea and then is the long-term goal to maybe buy some of these products and ah build them into the app or is it like to build it just seems like like um. This is maybe an experiment type thing more so than like a slam dunk to me but something worth trying and I like the idea of like spinning 10 Grand versus ah your resources on it to see if it works and then if it works you can do more of it. But it's got yeah I mean it's cool I'll like it.
57:16.34
tylerking
Like a slam duck. Yeah yeah, agreed trying and I like the idea of like.
57:31.84
tylerking
Resources on it' right, don't work more of it. But yeah mean, yeah, and yeah, also like we want. So for example, we integrate with Mailchimp right now. Our integration is not great. Um, we want someone to come and build like a really tight one where it's like you know when someone changes the status on a pipeline. It automatically starts a drip campaign on their end or whatever. Ah, we're not going to build that with Mailchimp. But someone else could build it with us and that'd be cool, but so that led us to this so we need to figure out who to partner with if we were to do this because you know there are none saas companies out there and many of them are customers maybe aren't a great fit for them and vice versa. Um. And that led to like an interesting thought of like I don't think there's anyone out there curating software in a thoughtful way for small businesses if we went out like we'd have to go out anyway and decide who are we going to approach and offer the None or what I may I'm using that as a placeholder number offer that to people.
59:03.26
Rick
Hey.
59:24.40
tylerking
How do we find those companies. How do we evaluate them and decide which ones we actually want to pay this money to if we've done that work is there a byproduct of this That's maybe like a content site or something like that. That's like hey small Businesses. We have done the research and we found the companies that we really trust that we think are good for a certain type of business.
01:00:00.82
Rick
Yeah I think that I I've run a I know a I know one website that does this but you probably already on it. What was the name of it Small business software. Um I can't remember the name of the company but it was like small business something. Um.
01:00:17.40
tylerking
Yeah, they're There're a lot. Well sorry good I can't remember.
01:00:35.12
Rick
But it has ah you are. You're probably already on it.
01:00:36.52
tylerking
You are you probably are yeah I might not know about that specific one because there's a lot. But if you like Google this all the results are like g 2 type stuff where great websites I think g two is really good and valuable but they're not exactly curating anything. They're just like here is you know people can come and here's a list of everybody as opposed to like. What I want is a wire cutter for small business software where it's like we used it all. We tried it. I'm not going to give you 20 email marketing tools and rank them I'm just going to tell you which one to use. Okay, cool. So.
01:01:33.32
Rick
Oh interesting. Okay, cool.
01:01:43.18
tylerking
I don't know if that'll happen but I figure if we're doing the Api play anyway, that might be a byproduct of it. It could be like a little mini site or something like that if anyone else out there wants to do this instead. Do it and we'll ah will'll spot will we'll buy ad space on your site or something. Yep, exactly.
01:01:52.44
Rick
I Love it.
01:02:08.96
Rick
Yeah, go get a bunch of traffic and let us pay you for that traffic.
01:02:21.88
tylerking
Actually just had this one one of our themes that you and I often talk about is marketing channels almost always dry Up. We did have one of these sites in the Crm space that kind of we were very we were their very first advertiser ever. They were nothing at the time. We actually got some really good ah roi on it. It went great and now all the other s companies know about it and like our ah roi tanked said this is just how marketing goes you have to like you have to get stuff early before everyone else knows about it. Um, yeah, back to you? What's what's next on your list.
01:03:08.92
Rick
Yep. Well, there was another acquisition in the um in our space and I would call our space like the personalized benefits and individual Health insurance space. Um, So ah, ah, it's crazy. Ah so ah, take Command Health which is our primary competition that people keep um, but like several years behind us. Um.
01:03:23.90
tylerking
Space. Wow How many companies are there left after all these acquisitions.
01:03:52.84
Rick
They probably caught up at this point would people keep out I would be interested to know what like the customer count comparisons are um, they they? um they bought aycombinator company. Um and you know I linked you can in the note I've linked to it. Um, but the company was called savvy heavyy had reached out to me. They reached out to Jd. Um, you know. Ah, year over the years given our experience in the space and they built a really cool platform um focused on h or a's health reimbursement arrangements for larger companies and what I can't tell I don't know the details behind this acquisition but it like looks like None of those things like probably driven by their reset like.
01:05:01.70
tylerking
Yeah, like they couldn't raise the next round and had to get out.
01:05:02.40
Rick
Heartraising interest rates in the in the market. Um, where the yeah and and so it's I think it was probably like ah I can't tell if it was a technology or and or a talent acquisition but like the people who worked at Savvy were like really smart people. Um for the benefit space.
01:05:34.74
tylerking
Right? You know.
01:05:38.40
Rick
And ah, and so like I can't tell what takeman wanted to do but like the the press releases take Command acquires them to ah expand their their platform. Um, but it's really interesting to see Ah so this consolidation happen in the space where like I played for so long and we used to be the only game. Um. Like the last recession we were the only people doing this um and now it's like ah it's like like a marketplace of like like companies. Um, so I don't know what this means I Just thought it was interesting. Um, and to me it makes me feel like there's a real market here and I'm not.
01:06:19.72
tylerking
Um, now.
01:06:53.92
Rick
Wasting my time on some idea that like this. There's a real thing happening emb real movement and I got juiced by it more so than anything else, but it's like man take Command you know is ahead of me even though is now ahead of me even though we were ahead of them at people keep and it's um. Um, a little bit envious I guess of the things that they're doing in the stage that they're at.
01:07:25.30
tylerking
Yeah I'm curious so in this year I space I'm always excited when a company a competitor either gets acquired or raises venture capital because every crm company starts out at our level like simple product for small businesses and the. The more money you raise or if you get acquired, you're basically raising expectations where it's like it's not enough to to be making None or 10000000 a year. You have to be way bigger and the only way to do that is to go after enterprise clients and they move up market and abandon their initial clients and so they leave us to be the only long-term player in that space. But you're working in the individual insurance space where maybe like what does it mean to move up market like do you think that dynamic exists in your space. Yeah.
01:08:49.82
Rick
Yeah, um I think ah not from an up. So so I think like if you think about our space. It's not just individual health insurance. It's really employee benefits with individual health insurance as the solution for employee benefits because employment still drives health insurance. Um, and so you know. At the end of the day. Um these companies the the companies that I'm talking about here. They serve businesses. Um, and so moving up market to them. Is you know moving from 10 person companies to companies with hundreds of employees. Um from an individual health insurance standpoint like there's a very difference between like being. Consumer-drive and focused and then like getting bought by like ah a a large benefits consulting firm and serving and then like being asked to serve. Ah you know employees of companies aging into Medicare right? And so like I think a lot of these acquisitions are more geared toward the b two b space and so if like take.
01:10:30.66
tylerking
I Think a lot of the.
01:10:44.68
Rick
Takes like the savvy company that they they had individual health insurance service for businesses and I'm sure they would have helped a consumer. Um, if they'd come but because they're no longer on the board and they're going to Savvy. They're probably you know, not going to be available for individuals. It's more of a focus for you have to be a user on take commands. Platform for employers to get access to the consumer service. So um, you know I think it's not this is there's not really a go up market concept but there is a degradation or elimination of consumer services that probably does happen in an event like this.
01:11:27.20
tylerking
Yeah, you know I think.
01:11:47.98
tylerking
Yeah, this is one of my big constraints like if I were to start a new business. You know that you're supposed to ask yourself like what don't I want to do basically or or what are what are my rules for starting a business and one is it's got to be something that a really really well funded company wouldn't want to do.
01:12:22.90
Rick
That's I'm working on 1 of those. Ah yeah, um, cool.
01:12:26.76
tylerking
Yeah I think that's great. That's a good place to be um, nice. So I've got a handful of we've in our little notion doc. We've got like a ranson shout out section I've got ah a few here. Um, so only I want to talk about. Um.
01:12:49.48
Rick
Go for it.
01:12:59.12
tylerking
My dad sent me an email for it. It from Seth Godin I assume you're familiar with him. Do you follow his newsletter or anything I think it's still daily. This guy must have. It's been like 20 years this guy must have put out more content than anyone else alive because I also used to read it and then I eventually I was like okay I've got enough marketing platitudes here.
01:13:06.62
Rick
I Used to years ago is he still writing like a daily like short little thing. Um like yeah.
01:13:27.76
Rick
It? yeah.
01:13:38.38
tylerking
Ah, but my dad forwarded me one that I don't know that it necessarily had anything like that I hadn't heard before but it just reminded me of something. Um, he basically talked about that The title is why organizations slow down. Um and it went through why they do and it gave a few reasons and one of them is what he called Handshake Overhead which is. Ah, familiar concept I think but the idea that the more people involved in making a decision the more you know handshakes as it puts it but like the more connections between people that all need to agree there are and so with a really really small group. You can make decisions a lot faster. Basically right, This is not a new concept. But.
01:14:45.86
Rick
E.
01:14:51.48
tylerking
It kind of reminded me of ah like a lot of people including people in our space are really really into delegation. Um, and I'm not like opposed to it per se but I do think people maybe overdelegate sometimes. Because I think there's something powerful about if you're small enough of a company that one person can make all the important decisions as empowering as it is to say to Employees. You know you can go make this you can go make that it does create a certain amount of bureaucracy doing that and I think there's some merit to being like. I'm going to be the decision maker for as long as I can because that's the way we're going to keep making decisions quickly. Um, there's like a thing here.
01:16:14.80
Rick
It's There's also like a thing here where it's like there are there's what do you delegate like there's a difference between delegating a task and ah and then delegating like a pretty important um decision. Um.
01:16:24.92
tylerking
Know right.
01:16:36.58
tylerking
Yeah, right.
01:16:42.46
Rick
So like I mean did what was what was like the what how does this apply? um to like a start to glass companies. Is it mean like retain. Um does it mean retain like certain things or like don't hire people or what? what? okay.
01:17:04.48
tylerking
He not don't hire people I don't think but like stay involved like there's there's a type of it's not quite start to last or indie hacker but like again to reference my none if you listen to that. There's like this group of fairly prominent entrepreneurs that are I think mostly bootstrapers or. Raising maybe friends and family type stuff. But they're not like going the Vc route and they're like buying a bunch of dry cleaners or doing the airbnb thing or something but like a big part of that mantra is like delegate everything and don't do any work basically or it's not that don't do any work but do like the highest impact work at at all times. And I think like those people are way more successful than me so I'm not saying that doesn't work or whatever but just like a different approach is ah hire people trust them to do good work and all that. But it's okay, I'm twelve years in and most important decisions still go through me and like those people on my none wouldn't like that and I'm never going to be as rich as them, but it does come with some advantages I guess is my point. Yeah, just that um, there's a lot less infrastructure in place. There's a lot less process.
01:19:05.32
Rick
And what are those particular advantages.
01:19:30.22
tylerking
Ah, because if if you're delegating important decision making there still needs to be some sense of accountability I think a lot of those companies lean really really heavily into like Kpis and tracking metrics and stuff like that. You're basically running the business like a much much larger business than it really is. Um, and that maybe is nice for the founder's lifestyle and it maybe is good for like if you want to scale real big if you're going to be a big company eventually maybe start now but a lot of things can be done much much more simply if you're just like I have good intuition. Don't do anything super important that I don't know about. Um, just make sure we don't do anything I hate you know like it's just a much simpler business and I think decisions can be made faster.
01:20:42.92
Rick
Interesting and so the the argument against delegation is effectively like it slows you down when the more you delegate the slower you go? Oh go.
01:20:56.58
tylerking
You know? Yeah the more bureaucracy there is yeah I think net you this is the tradeoff you have as any company grows each individual person moves slower but the organization as a whole moves faster because you have more people but like I think there's a threshold where like if you have a none people. You have no choice but to to go that route but some people switch to that mode at None people and some people switch to that mode at None people and I think in that 10 to 30 phase I prefer being acting like a smaller simpler company than acting like 1 like what you're going to be in the future.
01:22:03.48
Rick
Called.
01:22:09.42
tylerking
I don't know if I'm right? But and maybe I'm just like saying what I want. Um I also just thought I'd call out like in that ah email blog post whatever it was newsletter. He did say like None solutions to why organizations slow down. Um I thought it was just kind of interesting because I never really I knew all the problems for why. Organization slow down I hadn't thought about the solutions. He says the 2 ones are boring as a strategy which is just like yeah move slower you know like he used Apple as the example where he's like people don't expect a new iphone or like that level of innovation from Apple every year anymore what they want is for their iphone to continue being the best phone. Um, so boring is a strategy is one option the other one. Yeah, he called structural bankruptcy which is just like your the company's moving slow and it's not what you want it to be just like throw everything out and basically start over which is scary.
01:23:48.50
Rick
Why why? I don't get that like so once you get to is this like once you get to a point where it's like not you've delegated so much like the only way to do It is to like either be okay, being slow and boring or blow it up.
01:24:00.16
tylerking
Ah, like the one way to do it.
01:24:14.64
tylerking
By boring I don't mean like slow exactly but like safe like just operate a big company. Well like that's that's what he means by boring. Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
01:24:29.80
Rick
Like like you're a cruise ship. Don't try to go into the cave like stay away stay away from the island. Yeah versus.
01:24:47.70
tylerking
And then Structural Bankruptcy is like disrupt yourself like acknowledge that your current structure can't do the next big thing and do the next big thing in some other way like suck a bunch of money out of your main cashmaker and use it to fund a fundamentally different structure at your company. Yeah, and I think of the two like.
01:25:12.46
Rick
Yeah, self self disruption. Yeah cool.
01:25:25.56
tylerking
As much as everyone I think wants to be like I'm the risk Taker Disruptor I think boring is a strategy is more my so my speed ah you got a rant and or slash shout out here. It's kind of related to this.
01:25:34.34
Rick
I like it this is it's kind of related to this. Um, yeah, you know because when you delegate like None thing so there's like and I want to talk about capacity capacity. So. I've been thinking a lot about this. Obviously it's just related to my you know, kind of tough may like I'm I'm operating at such a full plate um in life right now that if like I don't if I miss None ur sleep on Monday like it screws something up like there's a domino effect I don't have any room for error. And so part of that's part of my conversation with Jd is like what what can I stop like having to worry about so that I have some room for error. So I can like get sick and not like get like just create the biggest problem ever. Um, so there's like capacity on an individual level. But then like when you're delegating There's also like you have to think about.
01:27:12.16
tylerking
Things brought so there's like.
01:27:27.52
Rick
Capacity of the person of the person or the group of people or the organization that you're delegating to um because like you. Um, if if you're at full capacity. Yeah, it might be like pretty efficient. Um, but your ability you know to absorb. Um, ah, unexpected events or change is extremely constrained and so um I just I just want to revisit today like the importance of a buffer for optimizing effectiveness like like not just efficiency but like outcome. Like trading some efficiency for effectiveness. Um, and so I think like I think like leg up health of the organization is doing a good job of this with Jd where he has a lot of buffer and time to think about like how to do things and that sort of thing. Um and then ah I also think like. Um I am aware of this in general as a concept and I try to do a good job of it like with my reports at windfall and that sort of thing but I'm terrible at doing it for myself and yeah, and so anyway.
01:29:34.62
tylerking
Terrible doing it I noticed so.
01:29:49.60
Rick
A couple of thoughts here a plan without room for error is an unsustainable plan. Um, and it will eventually catch up to you and when I mean like a plan without room for error means like when every hour of your day is accounted for. So if you look if you pull up your calendar and you're in back to backs all day which is like what I am um like you don't like. You have no opportunity to absorb a bump in the robe. Um, one bump in the road means you have to like Cascade. Ah you know things that affect all kinds of different people and then alter like the other side of that is that if something new comes Along. That's really exciting. You. Can't even evaluate it or sees like or sees it. You know if it's a good one and so who knows how many opportunities you Miss If You're on a full plate. Um.
01:31:16.38
tylerking
We I think there's a good metaphor for this. We talked about recently you were talking about your personal finances and how you like pulled out of the market in 2020 and him put money back in like a thing that's always seems strange to me is when people say like buy low like buy it when the market dips that means you had to have money sitting around doing nothing during that time and.
01:31:47.54
Rick
Um, yeah, yeah.
01:31:53.40
tylerking
It's a bad metaphor because I actually don't think you should have money sitting around but like that idea you have to have time sitting around so that you can invest it when the opportunity comes along.
01:32:04.42
Rick
Totally exactly um and ah, you know you know when you're busy. It also protects like the the concept like the idea of a root problem. Um, you know you you you end up symptom treating So You can just get through your day or you know get. Not let it affect the other things. Um versus maybe like dealing with root problem. Anyway, it's um I Just ah I think like there's too far like I think if you give yourself too much excess capacity and buffer. There's like you lose the um the advantages of um.
01:32:42.58
tylerking
Yeah.
01:33:17.74
Rick
You know creativity that is created by constraint. Um, because there's positive you know positives so operating within constraints like they make it may it creates this um urgency and and thinking that doesn't exist by itself. Um, but anyway I'm just at this place now where I'm like I've overcorrected on busyness.
01:33:52.22
tylerking
Yeah, so what are you going to like I realize you're limited in what you can say about your job at windfall and stuff like that. But like for me or for if you're just like a total indie founder.
01:33:54.26
Rick
I'm too busy I.
01:34:16.70
tylerking
The answer here. There's all kinds of answers here. You just do less just move slower just accept that like whatever what? what about when you work with a group of people and you're not necessarily in charge of your expectations. Yeah.
01:34:29.90
Rick
Yeah, so I think um, so so the way I'm applying this to my life. Um, so this concept can be applied to a business, an organization. It can be applied to ah a report a role. Ah um, business model I'm I'm applying it to my life right? like so. I've got a number of things that I want to do and so I've gone through those things and you know I want to write. Um I want to pursue leg of health. Um I do want to continue to ah you know be at windfall I do um you know want to be. A you know good partner to a sable and a good father to Oliver so like I have to like start cutting back on some something some things. Um and I don't know like what are those things so you know the 2 things that like I think I have control over are one is leg of health and that that led to some really healthy conversation part of this like realization led to.
01:36:10.98
tylerking
Yeah.
01:36:16.66
Rick
Conversations we already talked about in this episode of like you know hey um I need to know where I stand with you and like what constitutes me delivering meeting your expectations and that's a lot less than I have on my list of things to do so I've already created some buffer there where it's like okay I've got've I've now got I can I can meet. Jd's expectations of a good partner and then I have room now if I have time in a week like I can do these extra things but they're not expected of me. Um and then ah writing um you know I think I've got to do something different there by the way I'm almost a thousand subscribers.
01:37:25.70
tylerking
Know Wow Congrats But but content like I and you know how I feel I you get some value out of it that like I I don't see but like on your list of priorities to me. This has always been the thing that like.
01:37:31.12
Rick
Yeah, it's kind of cool. Um, and I haven't really put out a bunch of new content lately. But like I.
01:38:04.42
tylerking
Should get cut you know valuable for my mental health. Yeah, but you gotta cut something What are you gonna cut then yeah, but.
01:38:06.98
Rick
It's It's the most valuable meant for my mental health of anything honestly like yeah so I but I have got I've cut So I've cut some leg upheld stuff already. Um I don't know. Yeah yeah I don't know I I can't like yeah count you see my calendar.
01:38:24.18
tylerking
So Like yeah, but was that enough though I've seen your calendar I don't Know. You sent me a screenshot one day and I just want ah like I got heartburn from looking at your calendar.
01:38:41.10
Rick
Um, yeah, um, the other change that we made I don't know if I share this with you on the last podcast but sable and I flip flopped I was watching so oliver in the morning. And she was watching him in the evening and we flip-flop that three weeks ago and I'm starting to see the impact of that because now I have like I can wake I like to wake up at 5 am in an ideal day and I now have 5 am to 9 am m unscheduled um five out of six days a week um five out of seven days a week and so um, that means I can like it's 4 hours of like blanks.
01:39:32.24
tylerking
9 a m on schedule 5 out of six days a week
01:39:52.18
Rick
Canvas time that I can use on. Whatever.
01:39:53.78
tylerking
Whatever, that's an interesting hack because like I feel like it's you presumably? you're still getting sleep. So it means you're going to bed earlier but like if someone comes home from work and is like I'm going to work the next four hours to their wife and kid that looks like no I don't think you are.
01:40:06.66
Rick
E.
01:40:26.34
tylerking
Ah, but if you wake up 4 hours early and you're like I'm going to work the next four hours that doesn't seem nearly as irresponsible.
01:40:33.20
Rick
Exactly so I now watch Oliver at 5 None um if I if I need to do more windfall stuff I'll stay up and do that before I go to bed. Um, and then you know I kind of wake up in the morning and I kind of balance that between like what like search I just leave that for what i'm.
01:41:08.16
tylerking
What I'm interested in working on. Okay that is with all on.
01:41:08.96
Rick
Interested in working on and a lot of times that is windfall um, but oftentimes it's you know, spending a couple hours on writing um you know going for a run and listening to a podcast. Ah you know those kinds of things so it's it's still early. But I've created that space have to protect that time so much. Yes, and.
01:41:28.60
tylerking
So now you have to protect that time because it'd be so easy to be like oh well j d's up at 7 Oh let's do a call 7 because it's easier or whatever you just have to make sure nothing gets booked and you don't you don't also don't like the the night before say oh I'll just take care of this tomorrow and then you've kind of got implicit scheduling.
01:41:51.70
Rick
Yep.
01:42:02.48
Rick
Yes, so those are the 2 those are the 2 big things and I'm trying and it's too early to say but like I can already tell I'm digging out of it. So I know that this is working because it's leading to like me being able to think um, ah but it'll take a few more weeks to play out. But.
01:42:08.30
tylerking
Yeah, let you think.
01:42:35.20
Rick
Um I don't want to give up anything honestly and so I'm not going to yet. Um, but I I'm trying really hard but it's important buffer is important. It's so important and I now have 4 hours of buffer a day well have 4 hours I've created 4 hours of buffer a day which is actually pretty significant and ah.
01:42:36.44
tylerking
I Don't want to give up anything. Honestly, yeah I'm not going to yet.
01:42:49.98
tylerking
It's important Buffer is important Buffer is important do as I say not as I do.
01:43:11.80
Rick
You know we'll see it where where that leads and it's already leading to good places.
01:43:12.32
tylerking
We'll see a word without yeah cool I Will once again say the Phoenix project is my favorite book on this topic. Not for you. You're not going to read it I know but for the listener out there. Ah if you had more buffer you could read it? Ah um, cool.
01:43:27.72
Rick
I have it on my list. It's on my list I just have other things I want to read. So yeah.
01:43:50.34
tylerking
Ah, so maybe we can end it with my I kind of have a twopart shout out here. Um so one of our listeners ahay ah suggests I listen to um, the Vincent Wu interview or or it wasn't really an interview but he was a guest on indie hackers. Do you listen an indie hackers podcast I have a listen.
01:44:18.70
Rick
I haven't listened to podcasts lately um, a ton but I um I do ah you know I do like um, indie or podcasts like if you is there a good recent one.
01:44:39.36
tylerking
Yeah, very there there is I highly recommend it. So I've got a None part here one I think the inie hackers podcast for me has gotten a lot better recently? Um I always I think Courtland's a great interviewer but I don't like interviews. It's like just write a blog post or make a Youtube video like what the the the podcast. None people talking to each other format is not appropriate when like all of the information is known in advance in my opinion I like it when people are having conversations and building off of each other in a way that you can't do with just None person recording their thoughts. You know? Ah so Courtland now has a co-host his brother. Ah whose name I'm spacing out on. Um, but they do it together and sometimes have guests and sometimes don't and there's a lot more conversation. So none of all for anyone who used to listen to any hackers and then was like okay I got enough of it I'd recommend giving another shot ah related that his brother whose name I should be able to remember and I can't ah.
01:46:31.24
Rick
Chandler now channing chaning.
01:46:33.10
tylerking
Ah, Channing Channing yes sorry channing not that you're listening. Ah, he said something that I thought was really cool I think we're living time like yeah, he did because we used to be in his podcast network. But then I was like we're canceling the podcast we're out and I never told him we're back in.
01:46:44.58
Rick
He I think Corlet occasionally chis like listen start he probably delete. Yeah yeah, and then and then he like delete I think he got rid of the whole podcast thing is this still up there? Yeah yeah, yeah.
01:47:10.90
tylerking
Got rid of the oh didy. Yeah it it wasn't going anywhere. It was a good idea just you know, um, it's gone are we on it Still we are you see pulling in our our feed he pulled us.
01:47:24.40
Rick
Yeah, it's gone. It's gone. Yeah no, it's still there still there. Um, ah we are. He's no he pulled us out of the podcast Network Oh man. Okay.
01:47:45.58
tylerking
I emailed him and told him to do that. So I think that's probably appropriate anyway. Ah so Channing said something really interesting he because they're they're kind of like pontificating on the point of life and stuff and he said a quote this isn't from him. He's was quoting someone else but he said to live a good life live a good story. And then he specifically pointed out like what's a good story like meaning like if if it's not interesting to talk about your life. Don't don't live like that basically um, but he made an initialing point which is that all stories have like antagonists and conflict. Um and that like a lot of. I'm this is now he stopped talking this is me editorializing like when I heard that I was like yeah a lot of startup advice especially for like indie hackers and like lifestyle type people is about making everything as easy as possible and about being really nice and being friends with everybody and I've said many times on this podcast. How like I feel like I'm more negative than so many other people. And this gave me like a little bit of like cloud cover for doing that where I'm like yeah if you don't have any enemies what the fuck are you doing like you need a little conflict to have a good story What do you think about that.
01:49:45.14
Rick
Ah, that's funny hey if it makes you feel good and happy. Do it.
01:49:58.22
tylerking
Happy. Do it but like can you be like long term happy and fulfilled with no conflict. No like.
01:50:06.86
Rick
No I think like I think um well I think what you're getting is to to accomplish anything meaningful in life. It requires ah bruises and um, you know that? So yes I mean it requires adversity and adversity. Yeah.
01:50:30.66
tylerking
Bruises now.
01:50:39.78
tylerking
University University yeah.
01:50:43.88
Rick
Leads to um, hate whatever you want to say like in the way that you mean it and ah I'm good with it Man Yeah, but you do it like we've we've talked about this too it related. There's a big difference between hating you know the concept and hating the person I think you do a really good job of hating.
01:50:51.92
tylerking
You mean it? yeah being a hater not necessarily hating anyone like.
01:51:20.96
Rick
Behavior or hating on ah the the approach versus hating on the person and I think that is like a really key nuance here where you're not like calling out a person and being like that person sucks. You're saying Google the organization sucks or Apple like.
01:51:33.96
tylerking
Think that is like a really unique one where you're not like calling out.
01:51:49.24
tylerking
Right? right? or like so pick an enemy and try to make it ah large enough that you're not being mean to, you're not bullying a specific person. Yeah, um, so yeah I thought that was at that that anyway to live a good life live a good story I Thought that was interesting. So onto the recommendation which was.
01:51:57.14
Rick
You know their U I sucks. Yeah individual. Yeah.
01:52:28.52
tylerking
Vincent Wu who was the founder of coder pad back the day I actually realized I had listened. This is a none time on indie hackers I'd listened to his none one and loved it. I actually got a term from that that I use all the time which is nihilist optimistic nihilist. He referred to himself as like someone who doesn't doesn't believe anything matters and also. Is happy and optimistic. Um I think that's a cool philosophy anyway, I'd strongly recommend listening to it. This guy's incredible like I I haven't like had a role model in a long time I feel like and I listen to I listen to his new one and then went back and listen to his old one and as I'm listening I'm just like man I want to I wish I could talk the way this guy talks I think he's like a great. Thinker. Ah really great podcast I thought yeah yeah, Vincent Wu um so I follow him on Twitter and I don't know I'm sure there's other places to find what he's doing the problem is he sold coder pad and now it seems like he's just like doing whatever the fuck he wants all the time and what he wants is not to be putting out content for me. So.
01:53:49.28
Rick
Interesting. This is the indie hackers 1 vin sit wu cool I'll check it out.
01:54:24.54
tylerking
I'm not sure how to get more? Yeah I might I'm going to san I'm going to San Francisco where he lives a couple times later this year. So I might I mean I am not the type of person by the way to reach out. Be look. Let's get coffee or whatever but you know I might we'll see I'm not going to who am I kidding it's gonna be here.
01:54:24.82
Rick
Ah, that's awesome. We'll reach out to him send him an email.
01:54:48.50
Rick
Reach reach out and say let's reach out to him and say let's get a beer. Let's get a beer.
01:55:03.80
tylerking
He does say on the podcast he might he ah he does oh I forgot some hallucinogen some like let's let's go triptic I've I've never done anything like that. But let's go trip together. Man is is that a thing is that like let's go to the cafe and do some acid.
01:55:26.76
Rick
Yeah I I am not involved with that kind of stuff I don't have the buffer for that. Um, but I feel like something would go incredibly wrong if I did that? Yeah, ah.
01:55:44.34
tylerking
yeah yeah I don't think I don't think the None time you do drugs is in a public cafe anyway. So yeah I just thought to give that shout out and that's all I got cool.
01:56:02.22
Rick
Um, cool man. Well I will um I guess I'll see what's our next podcast a couple weeks like three weeks okay cool I think um I think I'm going to have some interesting updates in three weeks about the business. Um.
01:56:16.22
tylerking
With their next I think it's 3 three weeks again and then we're back to the every other week schedule I think.
01:56:35.14
tylerking
Weeks Great! So excited to awesome. Look forward to hearing it talk to later.
01:56:40.20
Rick
And so I'm excited to talk to you then all right I'll see you.