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This episode, we've got a grab bag of different topics including a product-led growth discussion, what to do with a stagnent content site, and the role tools should play in running a business.
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.
00:00.88
Rick
What's up this week Tyler
00:01.17
tylerking
Ah, a lot I'm kind of feeling a little overwhelmed right now. Ah you know how things kind of ebb and flow and like ah a month or two ago I was like oh I've got a ton of time for you know design work and a lot of flexibility and stuff. It's just completely flipped where ah, lots of meetings and. Stuff stuff that's important, but not not my favorite type of work. But good stuff's coming out of it so a few updates here a we hired 2 full time cerm coaches which I'm very excited about 1 starts in a couple weeks I think and the other one will start in the summer so that's exciting thank you yeah and it's you know every time you hire anyone. It's exciting. But um I think these feel like really safe hires like I'm not that there's sometimes a sense of nervousness that comes with new hires with these two I'm like we've hired this position many times the interviews they just knocked out of the park like I feel really good about.
00:40.88
Rick
Congrats.
00:59.48
tylerking
These are both going to work out.
01:01.10
Rick
That's the sign of a good interview process I did a ton of research on town acquisition and hiring when I was building it out for windfall and one of the the most important takeaways for me that changed my mindset on interviewing and hiring was that the point of an interview process is not to get the perfect Hire. It' to de-risk the hiring process and reduce the chance that you make a bad hire when you flip it on that. Um the head and it's head like that and you feel like you felt after these 2 hires that says you have a really good hiring process.
01:18.83
tylerking
Yeah, so.
01:27.67
tylerking
Yeah, and I I agree with that overall um and that like making a bad hire is just so I mean it's terrible and you want to avoid it I will say I think that that approach has led like Silicon Valley and big companies and stuff to not take certain risks. That I think they maybe should take and it it kind of leads to like every company's hiring the exact same type of person. It's a diversity problem. It's it's bad for innovation I think so it's a double edge sword I think.
01:55.85
Rick
So yeah, absolutely because the the yes there without risk There is little upside.
02:01.31
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, um, but so we did those 2 hires but there's actually 3 positions being hired for right now there's serum coach. That's the big one because it's the full time. But then there's Dev interns and coding fellows. So i. Counted the other day I will have been in 30 interviews in the last month which is pretty exhausting my part of it is an hour each one was the the full timers. It's an hour but um for the other ones. It's an hour so it's you know.
02:19.61
Rick
Ah, how long how many hours per interview roughly.
02:33.42
tylerking
It's like it's doable if if it were like this all the time something would need to change. But we're about through it and then I probably won't do another interview until the fall at the earliest. But then right as that's ending I'm like okay so.
02:44.98
Rick
That's great.
02:49.26
tylerking
Now I am doing for people who've been longtime listeners I do this cycle of like I meet with the leadership team. We make some decisions about what to do then we give a presentation of the company and then I do a 1 on 1 meeting with everyone at the company every six months this is kind of my like Ceo check in with everybody so starting next week I've got. Eighteen one on ones coming up.
03:10.81
Rick
Yep, and yeah, you know like it's great. You learn a ton but it's also you hear about all the problems.
03:14.58
tylerking
Oh it's It's emotionally so draining I kind of I've got a lot of work to do between now and then because I have to prepare the presentation but like I have to build in time to um, kind of relax because that week is yeah a lot like you say a lot of good stuff but but it's draining. So.
03:33.26
Rick
Yep, well good. That's it sounds like you're I mean it sounds like you're going to be busy for the next few months or just like a few weeks.
03:38.20
tylerking
Um, yeah I don't know how long it depends on how much follow up there is after these one on ones like I think the meetings will be done in two weeks ah the question sometimes when this happens there's like ah you know I have a long list of stuff I need to do sometimes. That doesn't happen so we'll have to see but I mill I'll get out of it eventually. What's going on with you.
04:01.65
Rick
The tone of this of of this episode is so different than ah, two weeks of design work.
04:08.10
tylerking
Yeah, no I yeah, it's but I'll say this like it's stuff that I find very rewarding in the long term like day to day I do not enjoy this work. But if I just cleared my schedule and did design work all day a year from now I'd look back and be like I'm not I'm not happy with that. So.
04:27.53
Rick
Yeah, it's like dessert versus protein vegetables all like but yeah, but eat your veggies and and you'll you won't regret it but eat some dessert and you might um well I just I'm I'm in a good mood because I haven't worked really today was.
04:27.90
tylerking
It's a long-term thing. Yes. Yeah, or we'll say vegetables I like protein.
04:46.70
Rick
My first day back after taking three days off my dad and brother came into town to ski and we skied your valley four days so it's pretty awesome. It was my second third fourth and fifth day skiing this year outside of the one day ahead with you which is sad to admit, but true, but it was really fun to watch my brother. He hadn't skied since he was like five or six years old
04:51.72
tylerking
Nice.
05:05.90
tylerking
Really.
05:06.24
Rick
And could barely remember it um to watch him sort of Fall fall back in love with skiing and want to like just Ski opening to close every day. It was pretty cool.
05:16.70
tylerking
That's interesting because like I kind of figure when 1 child in a family loves skiing I guess I assumed all your siblings would also be big skiers.
05:23.40
Rick
You know it's It's interesting. Everyone can ski but we stop doing I don't know we just haven't done as many we used do an annual Ski trip since I moved out here that annual Ski trip doesn't happen which is kind of weird. Maybe they don't that' but does that say about me, you know? Um, but no, it's it's ah it's fun.
05:34.51
tylerking
And he.
05:42.47
Rick
So anyway, um I you know this first vacation I've taken since I started the new job at windfall. So it was nice to I actually did not log in to my email except to like just make sure I wasn't missing anything for five or six days counting the weekend which is ah the most detached I've been in about 6
05:53.69
tylerking
06:01.14
tylerking
Wow, That's great. Were you still checking leg up health during this time or like I guess I'm I'm curious working at a bigger company like you do now. Do you think it's more. It's more doable to disconnect that way.
06:01.56
Rick
Six to nine months so pretty cool.
06:13.41
Rick
Way harder I can disconnect from like a health in my role leg up health I could tell j d I'm gonna take a month off but he'd be like cool I'll let you know I'll call you if I need anything and I probably hear from like once he wouldn't like that I mean we I think we have very productive weekly meetings. But yeah it sayst.
06:21.68
tylerking
And.
06:33.10
Rick
Doesn't need me whereas like um man I feel I feel like I held things up I was a roadblock while I was gone at windfall and just for three days like and I felt it today coming back where I was like oh crap like people I need to I need to I need to get on I need to work late tonight just to get out of the way of people.
06:38.90
tylerking
Interesting.
06:47.11
tylerking
I Do think what you've got at leg up Health is unique and it's entirely. You're doing you. You said this before like when you took the job at windfall How much work you put into making sure legup health could run without you but I mean it it was years of less knowing serm. I would take vacation in the sense like yeah I'd go snowboarding or whatever but I was definitely checking email on the lifts and stuff like that it was years before I felt like I could unplug the way you seem to with leg of health.
07:13.76
Rick
Yeah I mean JJ I mean j d's you know, 90% of that. So it's pretty cool that is a really good question I think I hope Jd if you're listening. Let's definitely talk about that because we should I had not even thought about that we should absolutely have a plan for you to unplug once you've put it in a year or 2
07:17.28
tylerking
Can he unplug.
07:31.32
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, air news first.
07:32.91
Rick
Um, just kidding. We'll talk about it. Ah no, but um, no, it's it's a good point. Um I think seasonal the nice thing about Legup Health is the seasonal business like yes, he probably could you know he would still need to be on call for emergency situations like we had a client who had a serious. Serious her daughter had a serious accident recently and you know we have to we have to respond to that in real time to help them make sure they get the coverage that they need um and make good medical decisions. Um, but yeah, like I think there's always like like this on call component for him right now is the only. Um.
07:58.68
tylerking
Oh.
08:10.74
Rick
You know, full-time employee. But that's a really good question I'm going to have to talk to about that I haven't even thought about that asking that.
08:12.95
tylerking
Yeah, sort of talking about. But I think being on callll the time fine as long as you aren't called very often like we have this right now where like my brother who does devops like server kind of making sure the servers are running if the site goes down. He's oncall twenty four 7
08:19.67
Rick
Yes, yeah.
08:32.13
tylerking
Year round. But it only happens you know occasionally so it's fine. Your your left my headphone just fell out. It's an airpod pro just popped out of my ear. Yeah.
08:38.40
Rick
Is that a airpod pro. Yeah yeah, they suck. They don't say in your ears I like the the quality of sound that comes out of them. But if you move a little bit man you like I've almost dropped airpod. Prose in just about every situation you can imagine.
08:56.51
tylerking
Have mostly I'd luck with them but not there anyway. Ah okay, cool. So yeah, you'll you'll talk to JD about detect ah disconnecting. That's cool, anything else. What's cool.
08:58.71
Rick
That that. Yeah, it's yeah I the I just before I went on vacation I went I did a kind of a semi like last minute trip out to San Francisco um to to do some windfall stuff but it was cool because. Just so happened that Duke was playing the sweet sixteen in San Francisco the chase center which is where the warriors play and so we ah you know the founder of windfall aup and and 1 of the other co-founders Dan Both went to duke where my year at Duke and so we all 3 along with like 10 other guys went to um.
09:23.79
tylerking
Nice.
09:38.10
tylerking
Nice they win I'm not following it at all.
09:38.13
Rick
Went to the game which is really fine. Oh that's so sad this is like actually big news because 1 yes they did win 2 It's coach case final season. Do you know coach shezeki is okay yeah, and 3 because they won.
09:50.45
tylerking
I Do know that it's his final season. Yeah.
09:57.41
Rick
Ah, the elite 8 game which is the game after sweet 16 they now face unc in the final 4 which is their art trial.
10:02.23
tylerking
So some one of the 2 fan bases is going to be absolutely devastated I love I love that about sports. Just the everyone's unhappy except 1 team.
10:11.27
Rick
Well Duke Duke fans you know root against you and see every round so we're already been devastated by the fact that they made it to the final 4
10:19.41
tylerking
Nice You know I'm a hater at Heart I Love it.
10:22.22
Rick
Ah, exactly. But now like you know I'm I'm kind of looking at my wife going should I get a ticket to the final 4 and go to New Orleans and I'm just like I'm too tired I can't do it.
10:33.16
tylerking
I just said yes to ah something a similar thing I got I got invited to a bachelor party that I was kind of surprised you get invited to and it's like it's maybe not like my it's not the bachelor party I would plan for myself. Ah, it's like Mexico Beach type thing. There's just like. Think I think we're getting to an age you just got to say yes because ah you know the the number of bachelor parties that I'm going to get invited to going forward. Not that many.
10:52.62
Rick
Um, may.
11:01.34
Rick
Yep, and they won't be that they probably won't be beach you know beach in Cancun. Yeah, the the other I kind of doing personal updates right now but like 1 other personal update is um on Saturday I celebrated my kid's Oliver his first birthday.
11:04.29
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, it'll be like golf or something.
11:18.55
Rick
Which is really cool. Um, my wife did this like twelve month photo progression of him every month in the same like position. It was really cool. We had a party bunch of people came over the house. Um, and I just made me realize like wow this year has been incredibly life changing all kinds of things happening. So.
11:21.52
tylerking
A.
11:35.56
tylerking
Yeah.
11:37.45
Rick
A lot of reflection now I guess like I don't reflect on my own birthday because it doesn't matter anymore I'll now reflect on my kid's birthday because it does matter.
11:43.32
tylerking
Cool Well Congrats. Do you do you congratulate people for kids' birthdays. Whatever ah mazel tov. Yeah cool. Um, so was it last episode. We talked about like doing a growth plan for lessening serum I thought maybe I could give some updates on that.
11:47.47
Rick
I Mean he's alive. We're doing something right.
12:01.90
tylerking
Um, so for people who didn't listen or don't remember like quick update like we talked about a lot of stuff I kind of gave the whole growth plan and you you gave a lot of valuable feedback. But I think the main thing you kind of pushed back on and challenged me on was like what is the product team doing and in particular. Like I listed 3 things that qualify as a good growth project for like developers to work on 1 was something that ah increases the odds of someone signing up for free trial two is something that increases their odds of coming back a second time after they sign up for the free trial and 3 is something that brings more traffic to the website. You kind of challenged me that we've Underin invested in number 3 and you kind of said like even if we end up sticking with the original plan we at least owe it to ourselves to dive deeper into what are all the ideas in that third category. Um, so we followed your advice ah bracken and I separately spent. Time brainstorm like thinking 3 stuff we each made a very long list and then we had a pretty long meeting just like let's go through all the ideas. Um, it didn't radically change it so I was actually very pleased to see that the things we had come up with. We're already pretty close to the best things but 1 interesting thing did come out of it. Um, we were comparing so you know if we've got 30 ideas on the list and we're like what's number 1 what's number 2 is number 3 what we kind of decided is number 2 is so much better than number 3 that we should kill number 3 and just put 2 people on number 2 um without specifics like any reaction to that.
13:40.60
Rick
Not the outcome I expected but I'm not surprised by the outcome either. Um, it seems like ah okay, what? what what? Um so the third thing I was like was it it was it. What are you doing instead of the third thing I guess like what what is that? What conclusion did you come to.
13:56.24
tylerking
Yeah, yes, so I'll give the specifics so number 1 is zapier is zapier just across the board is like the best thing for us to build in so many ways like that's that's a given almost but it does accomplish this and that we would get listed in the zapier marketplace which is like a potential new new source. Um. Number 2 I've talked about a lot on here appointment scheduling. This is not quite that but it's a twist which is just event invites. We have this calendar thousands of people use us as their calendar. We don't actually have the ability to email anyone event invites so you go into your serum you create an event you add context to it. You separately have to email them. People are listening this and they're probably like and anybody uses this piece of crap software a lot of people do so I think it's like a pretty big unlock if we can say when yeah thousands of these events are already getting created every day or I think I should look up the numbers I think that's right. Ah, if there's just a step that's like do you want us to email all the people on this event. Would provide value to our customers but like lots of people would would see the name lessening cm I I think so that was number 2 um number three was a mobile app. We do have native mobile apps and I'm a little torn here. Get it. They have these app stores. But I do think they're pretty saturated at this point. Um I really view it more as it's an advertising channel. Um, not I don't think organic growth on app stores is a thing anymore. But ah I think it's probably less competitive than Google adwords. But you're making faces. What do you think.
15:24.18
Rick
I think I think like I don't I I don't know the crm customer journey. But I highly doubt people are like maybe there's 1 user accounts going. Oh I'm going to go search the app marketplace for a crm tool. Ah. And that's gonna be how I buy a serum I just I can't imagine doing that myself. So it's like yeah maybe yeah, yeah, yeah, so it seems like.
15:42.56
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, you may be right? it it would be a huge investment with I don't know how you even validate that I guess you could You could do some interviews or something. Um, yeah I agree.
15:56.15
Rick
It's like a it's like a nice to have user feature these days to have a native crm app. Um versus like ah it may be increased conversion rates because that's a qualifying question for someone. Um, but I don't know.
16:03.30
tylerking
Ah. And that's why so the reason it was on the I said we were pleasantly surprised after we did this. The reason that was on the list is not because we viewed it as a good way to create growth. It was because we thought it would improve the odds of someone coming back a second time but then when we listed everything we're like what are all the marketplaces we could be on.
16:19.32
Rick
No yeah.
16:25.35
tylerking
Think zapier is number one and like there wasn't there weren't a lot of we were're on a lot of them already like to be clear. There are a lot of other good marketplaces. But we're already on them. The ios app store is probably number two that we could come up with. But basically we we brainstormed like we could keep we like event invites don't have to stop with the invite email. There's all kinds of stuff you could do where oh and then like you can message each other about the event and you can like we could make a rescheduling flow that kind of works like doodle or like evite like there's a lot of ways to build on it that get people out of their email onto our site interacting with the event and so this is ah this is a hypothesis. We need to validate it if we can but like I think. Building that out more as opposed to moving on to whatever number 3 or number 4 are are more promising ideas.
17:08.22
Rick
And that's interesting and what I'm hearing maybe this maybe I'm not thinking about this right way. But also I'm I'm seeing seeing like stepping stones towards a callendly type competitor appointment setting tool which has a really interesting scale up like ah you know, kind of.
17:19.32
tylerking
Yeah.
17:26.91
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, we're never going to be viral like Facebook style viral. But if we could just get enough growth from that to cancel out churn I mean that that would be enormous. You know, um.
17:27.19
Rick
Multiplying multiplying opportunities.
17:37.21
Rick
Yeah, well cool that thanks for reptating on that and I ah do you feel like it was time well spent.
17:44.22
tylerking
Yeah, it. Ah yes, it didn't change hugely what we're doing right now but it gave us a lot of clarity. So first of all, like you said there was this big like foggy area where we didn't even know what the options were. Sometimes you go through a brainstorming thing and you come to the conclusion you are right? all along. But you feel confident in it. It's partially that and also partially like I think I see step 2 and step 3 a lot more clearly whereas before we were like I only see step 1 so yes, it was helpful. Thank thank you for suggesting that. Um.
18:15.20
Rick
Cool Thanks for updating on. It's super interesting I Want you to build beer and then I also want to see this event stuff because I we've talked about the callamly stuff for a long time and it just yeah and it just it feels like there's.
18:19.89
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, um.
18:26.65
tylerking
I Know for like years.
18:32.79
Rick
I Don't know it feels like there's a room for a so Ah, very small business tool that's like baked into their workflow without the home to think about it. But maybe I'm ah maybe I'm wrong.
18:36.25
tylerking
Um, yeah, no I I feel very if less knowing serum died today and I had to start a new company I build it around calendar tool for businesses I think it's it's a very heavily used every business. Uses their calendars really heavily and really there's been very littleov innovation. It's like outlook calendar and then calendar and like there's so much more room for stuff beyond that. But so you're right? We've been talking about that for years. Another quick update on that I'm really excited. Ah, the developer who is the best fit for that project just finished her last. Project and they they kind of snuck up on me I was just like she was like what do I do next is like holy shit are we finally after years of talking about are we finally actually starting this event invite thing. So she's working on it now. So like the seal is broken. You know I feel like at this point it's almost going to be impossible to stop this from happening.
19:32.27
Rick
That's awesome congrats I have an update from last week as well. Um, you know how are we talking about delighting people and some some companies like Zappos go out of their way to create remarkable customer service moments not like.
19:33.43
tylerking
Yeah, really exciting? yeah.
19:48.76
Rick
Customer experience moments like when they're experiencing your product but like service moments like oh well, this brand is just goes above and beyond for customer service and we were talking about like what are ways to do that following up on that. Um Jd has been experimenting with sending crumble cookies. Ah do you know what? crumble cookies are okay.
20:04.20
tylerking
No I don't.
20:07.15
Rick
So I don't know if this is big outside of Utah but in Utah there are like 3 or 4 gourmet delivery cookie shops where you can order like you know you order a dozen donuts but they're actually like gourmet cookies. They're like like six inches you know in diameter and they're just like incredibly.
20:21.80
tylerking
Wow.
20:25.46
Rick
Terrible for you but also tasty. Anyway, you can you can order and have them delivered to people's homes as a gift as part of their business model. So in addition to sending cold emails sort of built out a campaign and sent ah ah cookies to a test account. And it. It didn't go is perfectly but what ended up happening was like they got it. She fight like it took like a week to get in touch with this person. It's a business owner. Um and twenty mention of the call she was like did you were you the one who said us the cookies and Jd was like yeah. Like I didn't want to say anything because I thought like maybe you didn't get them. She was like oh yeah, it came but they didn't have a note on them so we had no idea who said them to us. But we loved them it like made our week
21:06.79
tylerking
Oh interesting. So it it worked out just why was there? No note was that like you just forgot Oh they just didn't put it on but they loved it. That's great.
21:10.97
Rick
Ah Day J D put a note in it but like it it it is didn't put it on. So um, anyway, we they loved it. So like if we can figure out how to like even if there's not a note make sure that they know it was from us through like an email or a text communication. Um. I think that could work for us and it's like $10 to send cookies I don't know but probably yeah I Assume so.
21:31.40
tylerking
Do you get notified when it's delivered because I could imagine an email subject. Enjoy the cookies if they get cookies and then they have that email show up like 5 minutes later they're opening that email.
21:41.36
Rick
Yeah. Um, yeah, and that's worth I mean I think I think if you lead with that and go hey like I'd love to talk to you and like no pressure but like could we set up a 50 minute call. That's like that reciprocous reciprocation Gland that we're hitting um that that and know it I was cool I thought it was a cool idea that he tried.
21:55.37
tylerking
Um.
22:00.77
tylerking
Yeah I yeah I love little gifts like that have you heard of um greetable before I'm guessing not it's it's a St Louis company but they you know they're used elsewhere. Um, it's this tiny little box. It's like a um.
22:07.36
Rick
No.
22:18.10
tylerking
Like origami sort of like you you buy it as a flat sheet of paper and then it folds into a box I think nowadays maybe they change their model and they send it for you. But anyway, it's just got a tiny little thing like a little thing of gummy bears or you know a very small thing but it's like kind of a card kind of a box for a gift and we we sometimes send these to people. Um, and it's like you know it's a ยข50 thing of gummy bears. But for some reason people love it so much more. It has all these pictures in it so you could like a picture of you and ah your logo and whatever anyway, that's another if if you want a probably even cheaper thing to try.
22:52.52
Rick
That's a great idea. It's we It's fun to try these things like just experiment and see what happens and every time it it works. It's like when that's a win. Yay yeah.
22:54.43
tylerking
Ah. Yeah, yeah for sure. Well especially like so either if you're in the early stages of any startup you you kind of do this hustle like maybe this isn't scalable or whatever but it sounds like in your case, the the 1 on one hustle is the the plan long term. Um. Which is yeah awesome. Just you know, try everything.
23:19.38
Rick
Exactly and how do you The only trick is like how do you operationalize it which kind of leads me into my next update. Um, which is like ah we ended up triggering because we were sending a lot of emails out through gmail gmail's like hey like there's a lot of emails. Um are you spamming. Um, and so we were like okay, we better, get a throughpart tool for this. Um, and so we've we've invested um through experimentation over the last ah couple of weeks into ah a full stack of prospecting tools I just wanted to share a little bit about what those tools are how we're using them and rough estimate. May be wrong on this. But I think it's it looks like it's made Jd about 5 x more efficient. He's able in a five day work week to get um you know what in one day excuse me. He's able to get what he was doing done in a five day work week. So.
24:10.60
tylerking
Wow.
24:12.66
Rick
Basically just multiplied the number of weeks of productivity by by 5 for this for the remaining remainder of the year but anyway the the 4 tools are pipe drive which is our crm the tool that we added last week was is reply io which is a it's sort of like a a. It's a prospecting email tool I'll call it a spanning tool and then there is contact out which is um is basically a way to get people's personalized personal email addresses. Um and phone numbers versus like a Zoom info which will give you business email addresses and phone numbers. And then sales navigator which is Linkedin's basically ah product for spamming people on Linkedin and so we we have these 4 tools. You know what? it's just it's what it is um I mean technically it's not spam by definition of spam but like it's it's ah it's interrupting people.
24:50.37
tylerking
Yeah.
24:59.46
tylerking
You're not even pretending. Yeah.
25:06.28
tylerking
A.
25:07.75
Rick
When they don't want to be necessarily interrupted and so anyway, um, we've had pipe drive since we started this effort but in the last three or four weeks we've added these 3 other tools and man it works and they all integrate and talk to each other.
25:18.80
tylerking
So so describe the flow. So like you're pulling data from Linkedin and putting it into pipe drive and then reply io sending an email something like that.
25:23.86
Rick
Yeah don't know I but j d could answer this question better. But and maybe that's something he could be a guest so he could talk to him more detailed about his pacific picture flow at at some point but like the way like I I'm thinking about this is first. There is sort of like. List building which is like here are potential people. You know, qualified prospects that we would like to reach out at and you could identify those via Linkedin via sales navigator by filtering out professions and that sort of thing you might buy a list from a third -party vendor you could ah you know join ah an association and. As part of that association get access to the member list. You might also attend an event be a sponsor and oftentimes they'll give you a list of the events attendees anyway, like you build the list and then the second part of that is enriching the list with contact information because oftentimes you'll get the list and I'll be like first name last name.
26:06.65
tylerking
Yeah.
26:21.47
Rick
Maybe a Linkedin profile but there's no email address. So then you got to enrich with the email address. That's where contact out comes in and then you got to import it into your your crm which is where pipe drive comes in and then you want to like sort of connect it to your prospecting email tool so that you're one, you're not spamming people through gmail. And triggering Gmail alerts and 2 um, the cool thing about like a tool like reply io is it's Multimed. So once you have your list let's say you you know you're you're doing a list of a hundred a day you can you know build your list enrich it import into pipe drive and then kind of. Push it into a flow for lack of a better word in these prospecting tools and you can build out a flow a 14 day flow which maybe starts with a phone call or an email then a text message not that we would do that because that's a little bit too invasive in my opinion. Ah, Linkedin message a Twitter follow a Linkedin like I mean these are all like things you do over the course of fourteen days to get someone's attention. Oh send cookies on day 10 um, and that's all built out through the reply to io so that each day you log in to reply to io and it may be like for the for the 100 you started today the first. Phase of that flow. But for all the active campaigns you have you do the task for that day and so it really systematizes the the outreach when you're doing this over you know over if it's ah if it's a 14 day flow you you know you might have 1400 leads that you're working. Um.
27:35.63
tylerking
And.
27:49.50
Rick
At 1 time it it keeps it tells you exactly what to do without you having to think about it.
27:51.67
tylerking
Cool have you considered ah adding retargeting ads to part of that flow.
27:57.68
Rick
Yes, um I am not sophisticated enough to do that and like I don't have I'm not I don't have the time to invest in that right now. But yes, what's so cool is is is our is we build our first party data you know through these means we can then um, you know. Yes, we can retarget specific people like a like if someone is a qualified prospect and we know who they are like from a digital identity perspective. Let's oh man, not only are they a qualified prospect but they're also a business owner which may know like 15 other qualified prospects or icps. Let's spend a hundred.
28:21.99
tylerking
Oh.
28:30.98
tylerking
Yeah, like next time they're on Youtube show them show them an ad. Yeah yeah, I've never done that but we're okay, we're learning about that right? Not not even saying we're doing it. But since we're doing this growth push.
28:36.11
Rick
Yes, yes, yes, that's that's more sophisticated.
28:45.48
tylerking
Alex and Eunice are like researching all this stuff and they're like man retargeting has come a long way since you know last time I looked at it. Yeah.
28:50.81
Rick
And that's a lot of what windfall is is doing so part of windfall secret sauce is the ability to like create net New audiences based on lookalike audiences and based on an I see an ideal customer profile without you having to like buy pii. Um.
29:00.82
tylerking
O.
29:10.75
Rick
So there's a lot of cool like stuff you can do with the digital marketing stuff. It's way complicated though. It requires a lot of expertise.
29:14.29
tylerking
Yeah I mean I wish none of this existed. Ah I don't think the world is better because this exists but you know don't hate the player hate the game I Guess um, cool. Well, that's exciting and also like very cool that.
29:23.94
Rick
Yeah, yeah.
29:32.31
tylerking
J d set this up because I know but prior to Jd entering the picture when you were just talking about abstract first second hire the way you kind of described it was like your job Rick was building the automation the tools, the workflows and then plug a human in to execute the fact that Jd he's kind of a full stack employee here. Ah. That's very promising for kind of what what he he'll be able to do in the future.
29:54.70
Rick
And yeah, the the kind of the big picture here is like that's the difference between bringing on a partner versus bringing on a first employee and I got a partner here who can who can do it all. Um, you know from 0 you know getting to. Ah.
30:00.27
tylerking
Will.
30:13.70
Rick
The next hire and it's a huge source of source of leverage I mean it's just huge and ah but it's it's expensive. It's more expensive than you know hiring? ah and you know? Yeah yeah, an an experience maybe first startup employee but I'm glad I took this route.
30:27.59
tylerking
Yeah, for sure. Cool um, all right I got another kind of growth related. Update here. Um I don't oh yeah, sure. Okay.
30:34.46
Rick
Can I say 1 more thing actually before you transition. My rant is relevant to what I just I just said and I don't want to like come back to it because like I just rattled off a lot of tools but I want to be very clear. We did not just go buy the tools and figure out how to use them. We did things manually. We figured out like where we actually like got shut down by Google um, and then we said okay, how do we make this more efficient now that we've figured it out and I just want to call that out. That's how it should work. You shouldn't like have a problem and then go buy a tool to solve it like people solve problems. Tools do not solve problems like and so um, you know I just I want to rant I just I keep I'm getting annoyed when people just want to like like buy tools every time a problem comes up when it's like listen like number 1 we've got plenty of tools. Um and we have too many tools right now and.
31:22.77
tylerking
Ah.
31:31.80
Rick
Adding another tool to the mix just complicates things because you got to figure out how they talk talk together. They're siloed and they cost money like Anyway. So I Just oftentimes you don't need new tools to solve problems that you have and you shouldn't buy a tool until you figure out how to solve the problem yourself without the tool. But they can be huge searches of Leverage Once you like want to like automate some ah solution that you figured out manually Anyway, I feel better. Having said that.
31:54.60
tylerking
Yeah that's a great reminder. Yeah I I kind of I can relate to the temptation to buy now because like in the early days I you know I had a lot more energy and I was just like I was kind of in hustle startup mode and it was like oh there's a new thing I'm I'm gonna. Read about it I'm going to just go start doing it and then yeah, exactly you said the tools come later but I'll admit now I'm like you know it's a bigger company I can't do everything and maybe we don't have an employee who really specialize in that or maybe they don't have enough time to explore and so it is tempting to be like. Can I give someone $500 a month and this problem goes away. Um and the answer is like almost always no, but whether it's a consultant or a tool or whatever you normally can't buy so full solutions that easily.
32:43.89
Rick
M.
32:47.30
tylerking
So this is a terrible segue into my next point because I'm about to try to buy a full solution to something.
32:50.84
Rick
I did not know that Okay, let's go.
32:53.71
tylerking
Ah, no, it's not a tool. Don't worry, but um, so I you don't I think like listen to as many podcasts and stuff like that as me, but um, are you familiar with demand maven or Asia aranio is the kind of head of it. She's like very like present in kind of the microconf world like. Those podcasts. She's she's often a guest on I think she talks at microconf. Anyway, she runs this ah consultancy called demand Maven which is it's like a growth ah kind of consulting company for like maybe not explicitly but like basically bootstrap saas companies more like like if you read there. Marketing page. They might as well say we exist so that less annoying crm can solve their growth problems like it's it's positioned exactly for us. Um, and I've I've just heard lots of good things. So as part of this growth push we're doing I'm like I'm again I'm not I'm not going to be like. I'm going to pay them and they're going to solve our problems. We're also doing it on our own from like what would an expert come in and do so I had a call with Asia earlier this week and the we haven't actually signed the paperwork yet, but it sounds like we're going to do a a consulting engagement so that's 1 more possible way. We're going to.
34:06.89
Rick
What what are? what are you asking her I mean what can you share I Guess are you? What are you asking them to do specifically like and what are you going to grade success.
34:07.12
tylerking
Kind of crack this growth problem. So.
34:15.10
tylerking
Yeah, so they've got um, kind of 2 main like it's it's a service but kind of 2 main products if you will one is like develop a go-to-market strategy for a new company and the other is like fix growth for a company like us. Um, so we're doing that second one. As I understand it. It's basically like they're going to so basically ah what you told me in either I forget if it was the last one or in a recent podcast you kind of said figure out who your ideal customers. You need to go talk to your current customers. You need to find people that aren't your customers but could be find out where they are. Why are they firing. Previous tool. Why are they hiring your tool. Um, so I think the first part is just understanding all this stuff that we should know but we don't and then putting together. Ah the the it's kind of like a 68 week engagement. They're not going to execute on it within that time but they will basically say based on this and our experience. Ah here are the channels that seem promising for you and here's like a plan for going after them and then at that point we can decide are we going to go do that ourselves or are we going to hire them or someone else to help us execute on that.
35:26.35
Rick
That's great. So um and is that going to be delivered over in sixty eight weeks or is the assessment sort of like the first deliverable within that sixty eight week plan 6 to 8 Oh I heard 68 I was like oh god.
35:33.81
tylerking
Us sorry 6 2 8 not 68 yeah sorry yeah it would be a.
35:41.81
Rick
So so so in the next in the next ah two in the next one and a half to two months you're going to get like an assessment. Basically it's like hey here's a plan here's a plan of how we would tackle this click here to pay 5 times as much money.
35:52.65
tylerking
Ah, yes, with so so first of all, they probably can't start for until may so six six to eight weeks from then um, and then I don't get the impression. Their model is like the upsell I think they have like very limit. She's kind of like this this project is what we do.
35:59.15
Rick
I'll shoot.
36:11.58
tylerking
Um, we have like an ongoing retainer thing but that that could do some she she was pretty clear like we're not a full service agency. Our goal here is not to like be running these campaigns for you? Um, so yeah, we'll have to see what it like do we think we can execute on it or not.
36:27.65
Rick
I'm looking at the the positioning you're right like demand Maven Io is the website for anyone who's listening who wants to check this out. Um, the positioning is fantastic and the work that they do is actually the hard work like most agencies come in and like do the. Blocking and dackling but they they aren't capable of doing the strategic game planning like hard work. They they rely on that already being being in place. This is like very hard work that they're promising that they're going to do and they have great reviews that they can do it? Um I like i. Ah, people keep I wasted a ton of money trying to ah hire an agency to do this type of work. The strategic positioning. Ah you know, go tomarket planning work and it went horribly. They need that. Good agency needs that to be in place so that they can align to it and help you execute it man I think this I what a fun business to run like I bet they see so much cool stuff I will not be surprised like this is actually an interesting service business that like it's kind of like um for a non-technical founder. The ability to run a service business like this you're going to see so many different business plans. So many different go-tomarkets. There's going to be another business that flows out of this based on all the learnings that they've had because they're in the guts of so many different businesses. Really interesting. Um, really interesting services business I like super jealous of it actually.
37:42.81
tylerking
Who.
37:50.51
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, so I go into any engagement with outsourcing anything I go into thinking This could be a total dud and it could totally fail So it it is I'm like placing a bet on this. Um. But going in with realistic expectations. But I'll admit I'm pretty optimistic here that this is the type of work that is important. You talk about all the time you enjoy it. This is like miserable work to me I do not want to do this work. Um, so if they do it even halfway decently.. It's stuff that we've just never done before.
38:22.88
Rick
Man yeah I'm looking at their 4 steps like that's so hard work and then they have an optional implementation like actually actually execute the plan but you're paying for a plan and that's what's cool. It's like in 6 to eight weeks after they start in may like you're going to be able to say yeah I when I execute this plan or no like I like the plan but I want to execute it myself and make some changes or.
38:31.79
tylerking
With.
38:42.29
Rick
I Don't like it at all. Thanks. But no, thanks.
38:42.90
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, so fingers crossed all it'll be a while before I have updates but whenever I do I will definitely mention it on this podcast I'm not I doubt they care. But I'm not if you look around their website. You'll get a sense of the.
38:50.77
Rick
I Can you share any like costs associated with this I'm curious like.
39:02.00
tylerking
Prices they charge and what we're paying is what I expected so I'm not going to give a number but ah their website is representing things accurately. Yeah, absolutely um, all right I got 1 more thing before we I don't know if we have big topics but 1 more kind of little one.
39:04.42
Rick
Called.
39:11.59
Rick
Thanks for sharing that.
39:21.62
tylerking
Ah I've done 2 so as a reminder for everybody about a year ago I took a week off my normal work and built the site less knowing business which is sort of like a content site slash my personal blog newsletter. Um I put a lot of effort in upfront I was writing like at least a blog post every week. I got up to 200 newsletter subscribers I sent out a monthly newsletter. Um I have kind of the the last two newsletters I have not had any new blog posts. So I basically haven't written a blog post in the last two months I'm trying to figure out what how accountable I should hold like. How much I should hold myself accountable for creating content and what the pace should be um I have more thoughts on that. But what What's what's your initial reaction to that? yeah yeah I mean it was all documented on the podcast and someone can go back and listen and I'm based on what I say now they're going to be like.
40:05.12
Rick
I have to ask a lot of questions like what are your goals. Why are you doing this in the first place.
40:19.52
tylerking
You were an idiot. Ah it was like a combination of things but 1 was an attempt to try to get content marketing working. Um I wouldn't it didn't like flop. It gets a little traffic again. 200 subscribers to the newsletters and nothing given the effort I've put in but it's also not you know. Meaningfully changing the business. Um, but another thing is like I wanted a place to write stuff like sometimes I have thoughts and I feel motivated to write I love the fact I'll say I don't regret anything I did here because I know in the future I will want to write blog posts again. But I'm not like inspired to right now and so the question is like should I force myself or should I just wait until. Um, more inspired you have more questions. Yeah, ah I don't necessarily need to change anything aside from like do newsletter subscribers should they expect blog posts every month and I don't think they'll I don't think they'll care but like.
41:00.42
Rick
So you're not This isn't a question of like getting rid of it. It's a question of like how do you reposition it.
41:13.76
Rick
Oh no gotcha.
41:18.85
tylerking
Should I like at 1 point you you and I have both said this. It's like a forcing function to force me to blog. So it's more should I force myself to blog is is really the question here.
41:27.42
Rick
Well, you're not doing it's it doesn't seem like it's work working and you don't like you didn't write a blog post for your last month um I mean it seems to me like you're the type of person who thrives off of like the moment that you're inspired and it like.
41:35.31
tylerking
Ah.
41:45.71
Rick
Maybe for your personality and for you like committing to any sort of frequency is is silly and maybe it should be you know spot spontaneous based on getting hit by happy filling and you could in one week send out 3 emails but not you know, send another email for.
41:58.23
tylerking
A.
42:03.70
Rick
You know few quarters and I feel like the people who follow you would would would not have a problem with that. Um, but there is there is merit to schedule.
42:08.35
tylerking
Well like um yeah, let me ask you this. So my my plan was not to stop sending. So I what I I have not been sending an email every time There's a blog post I've been sending a monthly email no matter what and I write a decent amount in it like it's almost a mini blog post in the newsletter. So.
42:22.30
Rick
Mean.
42:27.13
tylerking
Even if I don't have anything to link to I think it's just like my plan was to still send a monthly newsletter but not necessarily to write blog posts anymore and again unless I have something I want to say.
42:36.80
Rick
Do you like I Guess do you like writing the content in the newsletter monthly. Do you get value out of that or do you want to stop doing that.
42:43.13
tylerking
Ah I I like it more than forcing a blog post because it's kind of temporary So I don't like I always end up when I get started. It feels like a chore and I always end up appreciating it. At the end I'm kind of like I actually had something to say here and I didn't I didn't think I would but it worked out.
43:04.52
Rick
This may not be helpful but I'll just share sort of my thought process around my blog a newsletter and I kind of leave my anything I write for ricklandquist Com I Want to be somewhat forget the word. Ah I think it's called Evergreen like I want it to last forever I don't want to put bread at a blog post that I'm gonna like it's gonna be out of date.
43:08.41
tylerking
Ah.
43:18.82
tylerking
Rent.
43:23.86
Rick
You know in a matter of months like long shelf life. Um, and then I use my blog for more of my reflective stuff that's week to week I have a weekly cadence and I love writing it I don't put nearly as much time into like like the reflection part and sharing what I'm up to as you do, but but i. The little bit I do it forces me to think about what happened in the last week and that is really valuable and I don't know how valuable it is to other people like so there's a question there that I can't really answer which is like do people care what I'm up to like but the fact that I think about it is worth it for the effort I put in but I feel pretty comfortable. Not.
43:44.96
tylerking
Right.
44:02.00
Rick
Putting in new content if I don't have it and I don't but but I do want I do want the pressure. Um, if I go multiple weeks without putting new content in I like the pressure that it forces me to like Okay I'm not prioritizing with something that's really important to me I need to reevaluate my priorities.
44:10.21
tylerking
Right? right.
44:17.84
tylerking
Yeah, um I yeah I think I agree with all that I'm I'm perfectly happy to continue writing the monthly thing because like you say like forcing you to reflect is valuable. Um, one of the things I said a year ago if you go back I said this on the podcast is I was like way back in the day I wrote. Wrote a lot of blog posts that didn't do a lot in the moment and then like over the years they actually built up decent traffic and I kind of lamented I was like oh if only I'd been doing this this whole time I think I would actually have a lot of traffic. Um, so that's that's the one part I'm nervous about here is like.
44:54.67
Rick
That so so that is why I have this four six lecture for myself I have the same moments like I should have been writing for ten years while I was at za mode that people keep I regret not doing that I'm not gonna go I'm not gonna let that happen again. That's why I have this commitment to the world that I'll send out a weekly newsletter and yeah like I'm okay.
44:55.38
tylerking
Yeah, just a commitment. Yeah yeah.
45:05.98
tylerking
Well.
45:12.86
Rick
There's buffer built in where it's like yeah if I don't have a new piece of content. It's okay I'm not I can kind of wait for it to come back. But if I go multiple weeks like for you might be multiple months. Um, and I'm not ah producing content I want this to force me to reassess like what I'm doing because I know that if I go longer than that.
45:31.44
tylerking
Yeah I I wouldn't regret so to to be honest, my dream is less knowing Serum has good growth channels the blog like me generating any sort of Buzz myself is irrelevant but I have a place to write when I want to.
45:32.12
Rick
Ah, regret it Would you.
45:51.21
tylerking
Um, because but throughout the last ten years prior to launching this regularly I'd like write a blog post in a word doc and like a Google doc and I'd be like I think this is pretty good but I have nowhere to put it and like the the activation energy of getting getting it somewhere is too much and so I just scrap it. I would love to have this site as a place to post stuff in the future. But um, no I don't think I like need to write aside from to please myself if like all my other goals are being met. You know.
46:20.47
Rick
I mean I just did I took your most recent your ah your top post on your greatest hits and I just typed it into Google you're you're already on the top of the second page of Google for entrepreneur or Ceo key term. So like you're you're indexing and so i. Kind of feel like you need to force yourself to do this for like I don't know like another four or five months and because I think you're like just about to hit the point where it actually starts accelerating so I kind of do you think you might be like giving up too early.
46:52.41
tylerking
Yeah, that. That's what I were I mean I did it for nine months I mean I wrote 60 posts I think um I wrote a decent amount. But yeah, you, you may be right? It's also funny I I've started getting comments on my Youtube videos I made like a year ago. Ah not a lot I got like 3 comments in the last month but like okay. That there is something to this this content thing.
47:12.85
Rick
Yeah, no, you're you're you're indexing now like last time I It was a months ago that I just kind of investigated how you're doing but like you're starting to rank So I mean I would I'd want to if I were you which I'm not I'd want to have some sort of like.
47:29.70
tylerking
So.
47:32.57
Rick
Continuing to put new content out and sort of keep it fresh on some cadence. Um, but I feel like for you like you're going to get inspired by something just just from this content alone now that we've got the kind of the podcast Back. There's going to be something I bring to the discussion. It's going to like trigger you and you're going to get passion about and you're going to like be thinking about it over the weekend and you're going to write a blog Post. So I don't know I don't I don't I feel like if you took if you're not liking the pressure of having like thinking feeling like you need to write a blog post for the newsletter get rid of it.
47:51.60
tylerking
Yeah.
48:04.66
Rick
And you probably still will.
48:05.90
tylerking
Yeah, you know what? I think what? you just said so as you were talking I was thinking you know what I was in a meeting earlier today where an employee is dealing like they're kind of a like a leader of a part of the business and they're struggling with a question they came to me and like how do you do this and we sat down and just. Put a plan together and I've done this maybe like a few times in my career. So like this was not my first time I didn't think about it the time like shit that should be a blog post but and I would love writing that what I what I now realize I don't like trying to create a topic that I'm not working on I don't like own to be like.
48:25.37
Rick
See.
48:41.40
tylerking
What's what's my thought leadership going to be today but just saying here's a thing I just solved let's share it with with somebody I think I enjoy that so I just need to pay more attention to when those opportunities fall in my lap I think.
48:50.35
Rick
That probably will solve your problem and then like maybe if if you're if you're feeling some negative like repercussions of feel like you have to do something like reposition. The newsletter is more of like a hey I'll post content when I when I have it and it sounds like you've already done that. So maybe you just need to yeah not change anything just.
49:02.76
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, great thing about this podcast is I just include 2 podcast episodes every newsletters like there's some content every time.
49:08.98
Rick
Beyond the lookout more I.
49:13.92
Rick
Yes, yeah I mean any yeah like you've got some the cool thing about a month too is like you guess some interesting updates like like just you have some interest like you're got the leadership updates you've hired 2 people like there's lots of things that you can write about there that maybe aren't like worthy of its ownos.
49:19.99
tylerking
Yeah.
49:31.82
Rick
But yeah I Just want to reemphasize that my quick assessment of your of your seo is like you are just now hitting like the return like the point of like where it starts to blip up. Um, compounding like returns on your effort and I think like ah to to slow down Now. My opinion would be is that that would be a mistake.
49:51.61
tylerking
All right? all right? I'm I'm not committing long term but I'm I'm committing medium term. Okay, yeah, cool. Um all right? Well I think that's all our yeah I.
49:55.10
Rick
yeah yeah I think that's a good idea. Um, but cool. Yeah, like fun I like talking about that stuff 200 subscribers too is really good.
50:09.93
tylerking
I'm I'm pleased with it. Ah I haven't really added any in a couple months um so two hundred s good, but there's there's also not a positive trend there. Oh oh absolutely sorry, let me let me rephrase I didn't so what happened is I wrote a ton of content.
50:16.74
Rick
But you're not writing new content and new content. Yeah yeah.
50:26.27
tylerking
For the first few months and then I went down to like more of a once a month cadence I didn't really add any during that whole once a month period I kind of got them all upfront but whatever I'll keep going. We'll we'll see um, that's all the like kind of ah tip like you know current updates. Do you have a.
50:33.52
Rick
Got you.
50:45.38
tylerking
Any other topics kind of on the on the backlog you want to talk about today.
50:46.63
Rick
I got 1 thing here that I think it's pretty quick so I can we can probably finish with this I was thinking about what you said on a recent podcast the other day and I just wanted to call it out again because I think it's it's something I want you to like help me get better at I just think you're really good at this I like being negative too. But I think. As I've tried to improve on some of the leadership qualities that maybe I I didn't like about myself in previous roles I've avoided being negative. Um at the because I don't want to come across as ru, but you mentioned that there's a way to be negative without being rude. Um, you can be real about things without being rude.
51:21.55
tylerking
Yeah I think real That's not I didn't put it that way but calling it being real I think is the right way to describe this? yeah.
51:24.74
Rick
Um.
51:28.27
Rick
And I I'm trying to I feel like I've I've overcorrected to just stop to to kind of being avoiding being real at the expense of of being because I don't have to do it without being rude. And I'm I'm I'll kind of swing back to no I Want to be real but I Also don't want to be rude. How do I find that balance. Um, and anyway, um, I've caught since we've talked I've caught myself trying to be real but being rude and I just curious like do you have any like suggestions on like how to be real without.
52:00.26
tylerking
Are you talking about like with employees. Any particular context I do think like doing it on Twitter is different from doing it in a workplace for example, so.
52:00.64
Rick
Being rude.
52:09.29
Rick
Well let's just I mean here's a perfect example, you're you're at a restaurant and you know you've made a reservation. Okay, and um your expectations of the reservation aren't being met. How do you.
52:16.69
tylerking
The. Oh man I would never say anything I want to be so I want to be at the restaurant with you so that I can be like hey Rick why don't you go say something.
52:25.52
Rick
Ah, you would never say things. So so you're just to avoid it. Yeah, so like I if I would definitely say something in that situation. But then I would be perceived as being rude and I don't know how to approach that conversation. Anyway, that's not a good example for you to coach me on but like.
52:37.21
tylerking
Yeah.
52:43.70
tylerking
Yeah I know what you mean I Just don't have any wisdom for that one. Ah.
52:44.80
Rick
Yeah, what? what are the don't like yeah will you tell me when you see me being real but rude I would just I would love for you to call me out when you see that Maybe that's the way you can help me with this.
52:54.24
tylerking
Um, yeah I mean one of the hard things about it. It's so it's so much dependent on the relationship you have and this is why So if I were at a friend's house and my expectations weren't be met I'd absolutely tell them but the problem is like. You have no relationship with the waiter or whoever at the restaurant and so you have no trust to to lean on and that's what I find so difficult or like to do this? Well it really really helps like you do this to me you push but you last last podcast episode you kind of not in these words, you're like hey you're being stupid. About this growth thing here's what you should do ah but I it wasn't rude at all because I know you I know you respect me I know we're coming from the the same place so you did it great. There. But yeah, how do you do it with a stranger is that part of the question.
53:43.68
Rick
Yeah, that was the example of I guess the the restaurant reservation but it's it's so it's also like yeah interacting on Twitter having conflict. Um, yeah with people like you're meeting at an event being real. Yeah, with yeah I guess like yeah, it's.
53:50.18
tylerking
Ah.
53:56.33
tylerking
Yeah.
54:01.60
Rick
It's it's being real when you don't have that trust built up to allow for um you know serious misinterpretation.
54:02.37
tylerking
Right? right.
54:08.15
tylerking
Yeah I'll say I most often run into this on Twitter and so maybe this is like way too specific of advice. But 1 thing like every single reply anyone gives you that's that's my number one Twitter advice and then you can or or especially if you're disagreeing with someone. Like their comment and then disagree with them and that will immediately tell them because online. It's so easy for people to jump to like who is this asshole like are we enemies now. Should we fight and if you just like the tweet I think they're like oh no, we're not enemies. You know.
54:41.47
Rick
Yeah, so it's it's it's ah it's almost yeah, know the the general framework there is like it's kind of like a be positive before you're negative kind of thing like validate them in some way before you hit them with the with the real with the realness.
54:50.96
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
54:59.22
tylerking
Yeah I think that's like again I don't want to act like I'm great at this but let me like a thing that happened today I gave I just gave a job offer to a coding fellow for the summer and I mean he was ah he accepted thankfully so like all good outcome but like in the offer in the interview he was like really into web 3
54:59.45
Rick
Um.
55:18.22
tylerking
Which as you know I'm very skeptical of but this is like a 20 year old kid who like a he he doesn't know he you don't know he's learning stuff and so in the offer letter I just wrote up I just want I just want you to know I'm incredibly skeptical of web 3 as are most of the employees at this company. We will support you I think you should be curious. You should be interested in the technology if that's what you want to learn this summer we'll do our best to help but I don't want you to come into this environment thinking ah like like I don't want you to be surprised when you get in here and realize a lot of us are really skeptical. That's maybe a small form of this of just like. Saying the truth but also being like I really want you to to pursue this if you're interested in it. You know.
56:01.97
Rick
That's cool. No yeah, like no, it's yeah, it's it's it's it's like a acknowledgement of the person's view as okay. Um, and you know that the person is not wrong. There's nothing wrong with you.
56:15.74
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's probably even even a better generalization than 1 you gave before like like that it's your you're addressing.
56:19.67
Rick
But here's a different perspective.
56:30.99
tylerking
The reality of the situation and not making a judgment about the person. But how do you communicate that and that's probably context dependent.
56:32.92
Rick
Yes, yes, yeah without them thinking. It's a taking it personally I think I make people take things personally without intending to all the time.
56:43.44
tylerking
Yeah I will say in the restaurant example I almost never say anything when I do I say like listen I Want to be clear I know this is not your fault you're doing your job but there's a problem.
56:53.90
Rick
Ah, yeah, this is not what I This is not even close to what I signed up for.
56:59.10
tylerking
Yeah, your boss really fucked up by hiring you? No Anyway, yeah sorry I don't think I have any great insights to share there but no interesting topic though. Yeah cool. Nope I'm good.
57:04.19
Rick
Yeah, um, well cool anything else that was helpful. It's basic stuff. It's basic, um, anything else all right? Well if you like to review past topics and show notes visit start to last dot com see you next week
57:21.30
tylerking
See you.