Software Social

Should indie entrepreneurs take advice from VC-track folks?

Show Notes

Should indie entrepreneurs take advice from VC-track folks?

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Creators & Guests

Host
Colleen Schnettler
Co-Founder of Refine, Founder of Simple File Upload
Host
Michele Hansen
Co-Founder of Geocodio & Author of Deploy Empathy
Editor
Cory Stine
Audio Editor
Writer
Meghan Coleman

What is Software Social?

Two indie SaaS founders—one just getting off the ground, and one with an established profitable business—invite you to join their weekly chats.

Michele Hansen 0:00
Hello Coleen.

Colleen Schnettler 0:02
Morning Michelle.

Michele Hansen 0:03
I hear you were in Los Angeles recently. Is that true?

Colleen Schnettler 0:07
That is true. i What were you

Michele Hansen 0:09
doing in LA?

Colleen Schnettler 0:11
So I went up to La on Monday for there was a meetup with Sam Parr, Steph Smith and Andrew Wilkinson. Do you know who any of those people are?

Michele Hansen 0:20
I think I met Steph Smith Bria founder summit founder summits. And then it's a sandbar the guy with that podcast. Yep. Yeah. He's my first million guy. Yeah. Yeah. That podcast. And then I Andrew Wilkinson. I know. I know of him from Twitter. But I don't actually know him for he

Colleen Schnettler 0:38
owns tiny, which is a company that buys companies, I believe. Yeah, yeah, that's right. You really pass that test? Because I didn't prep. I didn't prep Michelle on this. She had no idea what I had done. So that was well done. Yes. So this is La tech week. So I went up to LA and got to meet some great people and go to this event out in Santa Monica, where we got to hang out. And I had the most amazing time. Yeah, I think what was so cool about it is we live I mean, I tend to surround my self with people who are like me, and have similar a

Michele Hansen 1:22
lot of people do. Yeah, feather flock together. Really? Oh, there's gonna be a big increase in folksy isms. In my speech, maybe no. One's gonna sit here and look at hay bales and listen to you talk about LA tech week.

Colleen Schnettler 1:49
Anyway, anyway, so I went up there. And right, I was talking about people. So most of the people I know, have similar ambitions to me as well, which is wonderful. Like, these are my people, I surround myself with these people, because I identify with them. And we can relate to one another. But it's really interesting talking to people who just think on a completely different scale. For example, when you talk to people who have venture backed companies, they're not thinking, oh, I want to build my business to a million dollars. They're thinking, I want to build my business to $100 million in the next 10 years. I think it's like five to seven technically. And so it's just really fun and instructive to talk to these people, because they're just, they just see things on a totally different scale. And so I had a great time, like, it was nice to be exposed to that I think I need a couple more people like that in my network, just to remember that we can think bigger, you don't have to, but you can. And when you think like if I want my business, because I would maybe tell you, I want to grow Hammerstone to a million dollars in the next five years. Okay, what do I have to do to make that happen? Maybe I want to grow Hammerstone to $50 million in the next five years? What would that look like? And it's just a really interesting game when Aaron and I are starting to really think about pricing and offerings and, and how we want to structure like the business part of the business. And it's just a really interesting idea. When you start to think about, I mean, it sounds so cheesy, but like charging more, and what does that look like? And how could you do that?

Michele Hansen 3:25
Yeah, I think it kind of reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Morgan Housel. The he's a thinker on investments and psychology and says how always know the game you're playing. And when you take advice from people know the game they're playing to, and if it's not the same game, as you remember that when you take the feedback, right, and so I think it might be a helpful exercise for you of saying, Okay, I think I'm playing this game of $5 million business. And what did you say? Five years? Three years? Yeah,

Colleen Schnettler 3:55
something like that. Right?

Michele Hansen 3:57
I think that's the game I'm playing. Here's why I think I'm playing that game. And here, here are the decisions I'm making that lead to that kind of an outcome. But hypothetically, if I were to say, I'm actually playing the game of 100 million in five to seven years, what decisions would I be making? And also, like, you know, what, what are the downsides of the decision you've made to be 5 million in five years? And what are the benefits of that life? What does your life look like? What what is your business look like? What does the product look like? Right? What are the what are the benefits and the drawbacks and everything else that go with being, you know, going on $100 million track? I think it's, it's, it can be helpful to say okay, they are they are playing this this different game and they'll make different decisions. And some of those decisions or those actions that they take maybe instructive or, you know, something that you can take from and many of them might not be, either, but it seems like it's helpful. In terms of like getting your sort of entrepreneur juices going to kind of think about strategy and that way, which maybe is isn't really something you did very much as as a consultant.

Colleen Schnettler 5:12
Yeah, I really, I mean, you know, we I had this moment where I was talking to my my new friend, and he was asking me how much we're selling these licenses for licenses for, and I told him $1,000 a year, and he like, was not kidding. Dead serious was like, why are you not selling them for $20,000 a year? Like this, he was not being ironic. And I was like, what? And he was like, Well, look, what is when we look at this database, what Aaron and I are finding as we look at this is the hair on fire really valuable problem is what we provide is really helpful. But the really valuable problem is fixing your slow database queries. I happen to be business partners with like, a sequel expert, he has a course he has released the Laravel equivalent of gems to like, he solved a huge problem in the client, with this pagination issue. So much. So that planet scale, took his idea and made a Ruby gem to do it in Rails. So theoretically, could there could be an offering where I bundle Aaron with the product. So for $20,000 a year, you get the product, we Aaron installs it, and you get two hours of his time a month or something right, like you get, we look at your New Relic and tell you when you have slow queries, like there's just other opportunities to really lean in now that we are honing in on the real problem. I just think there's other opportunities. But if we do that, like the people we reach right now are in our network, our network is not a lot of fun, you know, $50 million companies and up. So to change the offering or to include like a bigger offering like this, we have to figure out how to even find the customers that would be interested in this.

Michele Hansen 6:58
And you don't I think what when you're asked that question, or if you're asked that question again, of why aren't you selling it for $20,000 a year? I think your responses? How do I sell it for $20,000? A year? Right? Yeah, cuz right now, you, you don't know how to sell a product for 20,000 a year?

Colleen Schnettler 7:21
Right? Well, that's what we were talking about. Like, like,

Michele Hansen 7:23
right, and like, you know, it reminds me to sing from from never split the difference. negotiating tactic is when you get some, I don't know, of course, the examples he gives her like, you know, you're negotiating with like a Philippine drug lord or something who's captured a hostage or whatever. But like, when they've got some, like, you know, demand to say, How am I suppose to do that? And I think when when you're talking to people, and they're like, Well, why aren't you selling it for? You know, $50,000 a year? You say, How am I supposed to do that? Yeah, that's exactly what I don't like, because because the question is really not for you to be like, Well, I don't know, do we have the product features? It's, the problem is that you don't know how to sell into an organization that buys things for $20,000. A year.

Colleen Schnettler 8:08
Right, like, and that's what we talked about. I was like, so we talked about, of course, the first step, which is what, what makes the product that valuable, but also, honestly, Michelle, like legit logistics, talk, because we you and I have kind of back when you were talking about enterprise sales, you talked about when you price something, you think about the engineer who has the credit card, what's his Max, he can just put on that credit card, right? Probably not $20,000,

Michele Hansen 8:33
usually 500 bucks or less, maybe 1000.

Colleen Schnettler 8:37
So we have a deal like that with our client now. And we have a contract because it's a huge amount of money. So you know, when you look at like, the engineer wants to buy it, or the CTO wants to buy it, they have to go through their procurement department, all that stuff. It's a whole different to your point. I don't even know how to do that. It's a whole different business model. But we've done it once. And it wasn't that painful, and it has a huge payoff.

Michele Hansen 9:02
I think it'd be interesting to ask these people you run into how they learned to sell into enterprises. Because I mean, I mean, I admit, it's something that I've just sort of, you know, just learned as I've as I've gone, yeah, but I've actually I've never worked in a, you know, a huge enterprise, right? Like, the biggest company I've ever worked in was like, sub 400 people when I worked there. So the dynamics of a company that is five people versus 50 people versus 5000 People are so different and how they purchase things is so different. Yeah. And it might be interesting to ask these people. So how did you actually learn to sell into those organizations?

Colleen Schnettler 9:43
Right? I love it. Yeah. It's just fun. Like the whole experience was really fun. Just like I said, meeting people who kind of think differently and we had not been seriously considering doing enterprise sales out the gate. We to tall order It's a lot, right. Yeah. Yeah. But it's an interesting idea that, you know, as we build up, there are deals available what what we can provide as a kind of package, this product plus sequel consulting, I mean, because when, when your database locks up and you're a $200 million company, every second is costing you money, like that is a problem, you will do anything to solve, if I can prevent your database from locking up by seeing these queries come through, this literally happened at our client, before it happens. I mean, these people would 100% Pay $20,000 a year to have someone be able to fix that, to have someone be able to catch that before it happens. Like I have no doubt that that is completely worth it to them. But to your point, like going from knowing they would do that to actually figuring out how to sell to them is a whole thing.

Michele Hansen 10:58
Yeah. I mean, I mean, I, you know, I've actually heard that I remember from customers of ours, actually, there's someone I was talking to a couple months ago, who was to talk to me through their data pipeline. And, you know, just like in a factory, like if, if anyone out there listening has ever read the famous business school book, The goal about factory operations, and how they how things get bottlenecked, right, like, one step of that process gets hung up. There's just this domino effect that, you know, even over the course of like, 24 hours, like, you know, our customer ended up with like billions of records just in backlog that had to be processed, because things got snagged. But how do you tell that story? And how do you position yourself to be able to tell that story is a whole nother question?

Colleen Schnettler 11:49
Yeah, I definitely think there's something there. I mean, I think, to really grow the business and to grow the business quickly, this would be a really cool move, if we can figure out how to do it. And I'm not taking my eye off the ball, like we have a lot going on, we don't have time to figure that out this month, or next month. I mean, that's probably like a November, December, January problem, but I really think it's worth it to take that, like, seriously consider how we could go down that

Michele Hansen 12:19
route. And I think I mean, the broader point is that $1,000 a year per license is not sustainable, and not gonna get you to where you want to go like that requires a lot of volume. And the thing about your business model so far is that it seems to require you to have a call with potential customers before you sign them up. And as a two person team that's also doing all of the development and everything else. Like that's not sustainable. Like, we would not have taken off unless we had our model, which was, at least for you know, for the first six months, we were only just pay as you go payments, which, like we just went high volume, zero touch. And then we eventually added higher touch things. But it took time for us to even have the time to look at those kinds of customers. But we had the luxury of having full time jobs and not trying to make it into a full time business right away.

Colleen Schnettler 13:20
Right. I just I think there's huge opportunity there. And I think you know, the cool thing about doing these things, like showing up to Meetups is it just takes one interaction, to make it worth it. And to kind of change the way you think about things. And it was great. I mean, I met a lot of other people. Oh, I met this one. This one dude. And he has, he's like opening indoor skiing and snowboarding room snow simulators, but they're like, you're like physically on skis. Anyway, it was just cool to be exposed. It's funny when you know, that was you're looking at me like wait, can you explain that again? Okay,

Michele Hansen 13:58
so this is from Denmark, though, where we literally have a ski slope on a power plant because there are no mountains here. So

Colleen Schnettler 14:04
okay, so I think again, again, the thing I liked about this event is I'm very entrenched in my own world. So if you tell me you're going to build a business, that's not a software business, I get really confused. Like, how do you do that? Do that? Why would you do that

Michele Hansen 14:22
thing? How do you send them to people?

Colleen Schnettler 14:24
Right? What if that's terrible? So this one guy I met on the internet. He was super excited and he had great energy and he is opening Okay, let me try to explain it again. Remember, like 15 years ago rock gyms were not a thing. And then they exploded and now there's a rock gym in every city in the world. Not mine. But yes, okay. Not yours Kansas fantasy, but the rest of us. And it's a huge thing. Like we love going to rock gym as my kids like to go. It's expensive to do Okay, so his thought and I think he's right, is that indoor skiing? And snowboarding simulators, if done well, are going to be the next rock gym. Like you don't see them anywhere. There's no we're here. I'm in California, like Nintendo Wii basically but for skiing, right but it's like he was showing me a video and you're on you physically are like bindings like your bike, you're on the skis. You're in the bindings and it's you physically are going back and forth. Like you're you move, right, you're not just standing there like moving your body, like your feet are moving it all the discomfort of ski boots and none of the cocoa. Yes, exactly.

Michele Hansen 15:41
But I just know that actually sounds really cool. I mean, especially like, like, we don't have any mountains here. Like I have to drive two hours to Sweden to ski

Colleen Schnettler 15:48
like, well, I so that's pretty cool. I mean, he said, it's like really intense. He's like, there's like the G forces are real, like, everything about it is real. And think about it like so I live in California now. And I'm like, we've never been skiing. I'm like, I want to be a family that skis because that's what we do out here because we have real mountains. Okay. And so I looked into how much it would cost. Okay, you ready for this? I have three kids. How much would it cost for my husband myself? My three kids were close to Big Bear Lake. It's like a couple hours away. To go down to Big Bear for a weekend rent ski stuff. Take lessons.

Michele Hansen 16:24
Oh, including a hotel. Right? Yeah. I don't know. $8,000?

Colleen Schnettler 16:28
No, eight Nefer. Weekend, but over the weekend? A week? Like, okay, like a week?

Michele Hansen 16:35
A week? Okay. A weekend? I don't know. $3,000? Yeah,

Colleen Schnettler 16:39
it's like insanely expensive. If I could, I mean, it was like, I it was so funny, Michelle because I'm like, we're gonna learn to ski because we went on vacation in Tahoe, we had a great time. I'm like, we're gonna be a family that learns to ski while we're in California. And then I looked at how much it costs to rent the stuff, take do the ski school, get the hotel, and it's nuts, to nutty. So if I could pay this was telling my new friend, if I could pay $50 for a half an hour for everyone in my family, if we could learn to ski at a fraction of that cost on a simulator. Like, if it was here in San Diego, I would go like right now today is that how much it would be $50. Now I don't know. He said he does half hour sessions. I forgot to ask him how much it costs. We're real excited. Anyway, the whole point of this story about skiing is, is it's so funny when we record these because I'm like drinking caffeine and you're like ready to go to bed. So I'm trying to ask most you my caffeine through the through the zoom. The whole point of the story is, it's great to get outside of your network. And it's great to meet people who are doing things that are different, because it expands your worldview on what is possible.

Michele Hansen 17:56
So for somebody listening who's like, yes, this meeting new people things sounds really awesome. And maybe there are meetups near me, but holy crap, that also sounds scary. Coleen, how did you get all of these people to talk to you?

Colleen Schnettler 18:10
Oh, my gosh, okay, first of all, if I can do it, and then you can do it because

Michele Hansen 18:17
you're a human golden retriever, though.

Colleen Schnettler 18:19
Thank you. I thought we I thought we changed my spirit animal. I can't read like a

Michele Hansen 18:23
golden retriever.

Colleen Schnettler 18:25
This is what you do. Oh, no. So I was saying that because like I was at a meet up last night. And I'm the only woman I'm always the only woman. So it's already awkward for me. Okay. My life. People don't know, like if they can talk to me or not like they're a little uncomfortable. So we get real awkward. And you just like go up to pee. It is so awkward when you start. But what if you're at one of these events, people want to talk. So I literally like just go up and insert myself and say hello. And sometimes it's the worst. And it's like, they're clearly in the middle of a conversation and they don't want you there. And then you just walk away. But sometimes that's not what happens. And these people are also feeling incredibly awkward and have nothing to talk about. And so it's okay.

Michele Hansen 19:09
So you basically just walk up to them with a tennis ball in your mouth. You're like,

Colleen Schnettler 19:12
you want to throw it to me, like want to be friends. No.

Michele Hansen 19:16
No, go away. And then you're like, okay, somebody else will throw my tennis ball.

Colleen Schnettler 19:20
Yeah. So there was one time when I went up and said hi to someone, and it was awkward. I think that got like, it was just a weird situation. And then you just leave, right? It helps if you have an excuse, like you're like, I'm gonna get some water. But usually they don't even care. They want you to leave anyway. But then you find people where it's less awkward. And then like I said, you're at a freakin meet up. Like, literally, it's in the word like people want to meet new people. That's why we're there. And if you don't click with someone, it's okay to just, like, be like, okay, it was great to meet you and leave because they, you know, you don't have to stand there awkwardly and pretend to continue to chat if it's just not working out.

Michele Hansen 19:56
You're so brave. Like the whole reason I got into giving talks AX was because I would go to events like that and not talk to anyone. And now when I give a talk, people come and talk to me. So I don't have to do that.

Colleen Schnettler 20:10
Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying it's not awkward. It's super awkward. And you kind of gotta be in the headspace for it like if you're crabby or tired, it can make it kind of challenging. But people are there to meet people. So, give it a shot, see how it goes, mingle, mingle. Oh, man, I want to tell you something about the LA tech thing. So Steph Smith is brilliant. Everything. She says I love her. And she, you know, she wrote the book doing content, right? And she said two interesting things. During her talk. She said, one, you have to be very mindful of the content you consume. So she only follows I don't know, 100 people on Twitter. And she doesn't follow a new person unless she unfollowed someone else, which I just thought was really interesting. And to she was talking about the different kinds of content you can produce. So I feel like this episode in particular, we've been a little more chatty, like we've been a little more ourselves. We've been like, less super busy. And she was talking about the difference between like blog posts and newsletters and podcasts. And she said the reason you would say you listen to a podcast, because you want like the business news. But really, if you're listening to a specific podcast, it's because you're there for the personalities of the people you're listening to. Yeah,

Michele Hansen 21:24
yeah. They're like keeping you company as you're walking the dog or driving or whatnot.

Colleen Schnettler 21:29
So you'll remember when we started this podcast, I said, I was all I Rowley. And I was like, I don't know why every guy with a podcast feels the need to tell me his life story for 20 minutes before he starts talking about his business. You remember that? Yes. Okay. And I'm having too. Is this like too much? I had too much coffee or something?

Michele Hansen 21:49
No, no, I'm just wondering where you're going with that? Because I wasn't gonna out. No, we'll leave it. But I wasn't gonna ask you on that one. I was just gonna.

Colleen Schnettler 21:56
Okay, so this is funny, because that's, so when we started, I wanted to be like, really, really business focused. And I did not want to be like, chatty, like I'm doing right now. However, hearing Steph say that it occurred to me like, you want to provide as podcast host, I think we want to provide a little bit of both, right? Like, people listen to us. Because they feel like we're friends. Hopefully, if you don't feel like we're friends, sorry.

Michele Hansen 22:23
They're always going elsewhere with her tennis ball.

Colleen Schnettler 22:28
They listened to us, you know, because they feel like they know us. And hopefully, we provide in addition to some maybe interesting business insights. Hopefully, we're also providing like, a situation they can relate to, or something that makes them feel connected to us. And so I guess where I'm going with that is it kind of makes sense to have a podcast then that is business focus. That's what we're doing. But where you can also kind of be yourself and be a little more chatty, because people kind of want to be a fly on the wall during our coffee chats?

Michele Hansen 23:03
Yeah, I guess is that I've thought about it, it was less about what people think of us and more so that, like, our goal is to help people feel less alone in building a business, myself included in that because this forces us to talk to each other every week, which like, I don't talk to any of my other friends every week.

Colleen Schnettler 23:24
That's so sad.

Michele Hansen 23:26
Yeah, well, that's, you know, you move halfway across the world. And you know, that that's what happens. But so I feel like that's, that's kind of the purpose. But I think also people do have good conversations on podcasts that are good to listen to, right. Like, that's like, honestly, the one good thing about having to be back in language school this week, which like, the stress of it is going to kill me. But I get to listen to podcasts again. And so when I was, you know, driving there on Monday morning, which is basically 40 minutes through fields, and, you know, it was like, okay, it wasn't just me in the field, it was me listening to Matt and Peter, talk about what's going on in their businesses on out of beta. So, yeah, I think it just kind of helps. Yeah, helps us feel less, Alone. Alone time. I agree. And I think also people have good conversations on them, too. Like, there's a joke I heard once. You know, what do you call a deep conversation between two men a podcast. And I think it's true. And I think it like gives people an opportunity to have a good conversation with someone when they might not otherwise do that, and maybe hopefully gives other people permission to do that. In their daily lives. Right. And to not feel like they have to have a podcast to have a good conversation with someone.

Colleen Schnettler 24:43
So on that note, yeah, where I was going with that, which is yeah, the very, very little meta note there. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And I guess my point was, like, I heard Steph say that and I was like, okay, it's okay, if we mix in all the things which I think we there's some episodes where We

Michele Hansen 25:00
do like we're to businesses sometimes like sometimes like business robots. Yeah, I

Colleen Schnettler 25:04
think I guess I'm just saying like, I think that it's okay to be more casual. I think sometimes we are like, really, we're only talking about business. And sometimes we're not. But you and I both noticed, like the episode when I told you to stop washing your hair, people love that episode.

Michele Hansen 25:19
It's an update on that I have not succeeded in not washing my hair. So, however, I did realize that like, you know what, I don't have to do my hair every day. So if I can save progress, 90 minutes of straightening and whatever, bring my hair and instead, like, try to put that time into working out then like, that's me. You know, maybe I don't look as good on Zoom. Or I just tell people Sorry, I'm video off for now pandemic over no more. Thank you. Bye. Stop. Yeah, you get to video me. That's it. I swear to it, I missed like a walk and talk. Like, I wish I could, you know, stroll through the fields on a phone call, like, because I just think better when I'm moving. Rather than like, looking at a screen that gives me motion sickness. But then it's like, you know, so what, okay, my hair isn't gonna look great. Like, you know, today, I just let it dry. Like, whatever. And, you know, then I can at least give myself 20 minutes back, and I joined a gym. Did I tell you that? No. Congratulations. That's awesome. Michelle. Yes. So we had this whole thing talking about going to the gym. And I was like, Yeah, I got to start working out again and everything. And then we talked about it and, and like, you kind of blew my mind when you said that you only work out three times a week, because in my head, like getting back into working out means like, six days a week. And I don't know if this is like, I'm like, poisoned from doing like competitive sports growing up as a kid or whatnot. It's very, like all or nothing to me. And I was like, you know, what if I just like join a gym, and I can join one where there's one near language school, so I just like hop on the elliptical for like 20 minutes afterwards, and just like, burn off the stress before I drive home. That'd be good. And then I was like, and then when he was like, You should really join the adult gymnastics team. Again. I was like, okay, so I can do that on Tuesdays. And then I do the like, you know, cardio on Mondays, and then well, I should really work in some yoga to get some stretching in. And I would also learn I really want to learn lifting. So yeah, right. And then he's like, wait a minute, you just like filled your schedule with stuff when you said you're gonna try to do something three days a week? And I was like, yes, yes, I I am so all or nothing, and it's not good for me. I have not actually gone to set gym. So I'm a I'm a, they probably love me as a customer. You ever listen to that planet? Money episode on planet? Yes, sure. Hi. Like, they actively don't want to go to Planet Fitness. Which, you know, I think about that episode all the time about our business because like, it's so important to me that we get paid when people actually get value out of our product and that our incentives are aligned with our customers rather than being directly opposed to them. Yeah, I think it just doesn't feel right to me. Yeah, that's probably one of my favorite episodes of that. We'll have to link to that. I don't know, man.

Colleen Schnettler 28:14
Okay, so first, where are we?

Michele Hansen 28:16
This is like, also the weirdest episode. Sorry, guys. It is. Yeah. And everyone will hate it or love it. There will be no in between. Yeah,

Colleen Schnettler 28:23
it's alright. Because it's our podcast. So I guess we get to do what we want. So anyway, about the working out. So I used to be like that too, because I used to be a runner. And I used to have this like, I have to run six days a week thing. And when I switched from running to lifting, I saw it just changed the whole way of you working out and it like changed my whole body. And it was amazing. I'm not saying you should like learn to lift I'm just saying right now I want to though, but this is like lifting weights has changed my life you can work out I do really, really intense workouts because I'm an intense person. So that makes me happy. But I only do it three days a week. And and my fit like, I'm in better. I feel physically better than I did when I used to run six days a week. Do you still have a trainer? No, because I go to a gym now. The trainer was a COVID thing. She came to me. Okay, so that's been life changing for me.

Michele Hansen 29:14
But wait, so you just go to the gym on your own, like this.

Colleen Schnettler 29:18
Do you get a load? No, no. So they do. So it's a very, it's like a CrossFit gym. It's not CrossFit. But it's like CrossFit. So you go to they have classes. So you don't there's no just like going to the gym and lifting on your own. You have to go to classes, okay, cuz

Michele Hansen 29:31
I'm like, do you just like show up and then you like lift things? And there's probably somebody listen to his like,

Colleen Schnettler 29:35
you can do that. But no, I wouldn't start that way. So if you're interested in getting into it. Again, this isn't CrossFit. But it's basically CrossFit except they're not trying to kill you. And it's not cultish. But it's sorry if you like CrossFit. I love to watch the CrossFit Games. I love that show. But yeah, CrossFit wasn't for me, it was a little too crazy. Anyway, so it's super high intensity, but the nice thing is it's an hour long class and they tell you what to do. I think just showing up to the gym and being like, I'm gonna lift weights today is like awful. One thing also, you said something I want to talk about for a second, you said the stress is going to kill me. So I know last week or the week before we were talking about you joining a gym, but what do you need to focus on from now to December? Because I don't want the stress to kill you.

Michele Hansen 30:23
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's going I think I'm thinking, yeah. Okay. And it's just tough because I have to do that all day, Monday, Friday. And then I still have to, I mean, not only do I have to work full time, because you know, I'm an entrepreneur, and none of us are working 40 hours a week. I mean, sure. Yeah, sure. There's, there's plenty of people who figured out the four hour work week thing, that's not me. So I'm basically trying to squeeze like all of my work in into less time, or really, which means that it bleeds into the weekends and evenings, which was cool when it was a side project. And that was my time to work on it. But now it's like, less cool. And I just need to find a way through it. So I'm hoping that you know if I can, yeah, find time for the cardio or I mean, once the weather cools down, I'm looking forward to doing ice bathing, which is like so excited. I want to do fading here. We have a

Colleen Schnettler 31:24
we have a sauna. So I'm sorry, do you have a sauna?

Michele Hansen 31:27
Yeah. So I can like go jump in the ocean, or actually one of the moms from school, she literally has a freezer in her yard. And then you go in the sauna afterwards. And it's so calming, like we did it in May, which is not winter bathing. But it's, you know, the water is still like 50 degrees in May. And you like hop in the ocean really quick. And then you go in the sauna, and it is so calming. And I felt super calm for like a solid 36 hours afterwards. Unfortunately, it's like 80 degrees here right now, which is incredibly hot for here. So winter breathing is not really in the guards. But I'm looking forward to that once the weather cools down. And hopefully I can try to find time for like a yoga class or something.

Colleen Schnettler 32:10
Okay, can it can we back up for one second? Okay, take a breath.

Michele Hansen 32:14
Yeah, I guess the problem with me trying to de stress myself is that I didn't like adding things to my list. And

Colleen Schnettler 32:20
literally when I was like, I'm like, Are you stressed? Yeah. And I'm gonna go do these all these other things

Michele Hansen 32:29
going on. So I'm gonna do more. Yeah, that I can. Well, that we say that I realized that. That is not helpful. Okay.

Colleen Schnettler 32:36
Yeah. Because I didn't bring it up to ask you what you were going to do. I was trying to get so you're back. Spectacular. So you're back. You're back in language school, right? Yeah. And that is every day. I thought that was Tuesday hours. It's

Michele Hansen 32:55
no, no, it's Monday, Friday, I have to leave at 8am and I get back at 230.

Colleen Schnettler 33:01
Okay, so kills your Monday, Friday, you still have your full time job, obviously, which is a business. So it's not. It's more than full time you still have your family. So for

Michele Hansen 33:11
some of my side projects, what's that? Oh, yeah, Hulu, this and that. And my book. God knows what else I do that I'm forgetting.

Colleen Schnettler 33:18
So from now, when does the language school end?

Michele Hansen 33:23
middle of December. I have my first part of the exam in the middle of November, which overlaps with microcomputer, which means I can't go which is like, super sad. Sad emoji. Yeah, sad emoji. And then it should be over by the middle of December, but then I'm done with that, assuming I pass. Okay. So you can't do anything. So I basically you just have to suffer from now to December, right? There's no, there's nothing. And in this in the spring, I actually was able to go once a week, which was really good. Yeah. But I think because I have the fluency exam this semester. Like I really need to try to go both days. Okay. Yeah. Just so I get it over with.

Colleen Schnettler 34:07
So for the next couple months, you just have to grind it out. Like there's no, there's no, yeah.

Michele Hansen 34:13
And I and I think that's the thing is, like, I'm trying, I don't want to look at four months of my life and be like, I just have to survive, right? Because like, that's not just four months of my life. That's, well, first of all, it's four months of my life, but it's also like four months of my family's life. And I don't want to just be like looking at the future being like, God, I just have to merge through it and survive, right? Which, you know, and of all the things that could happen to a person, like, it's not the worst thing, but yeah, I want to I want to find a way to I'm not going to be thriving, you know, but I also don't want to just be surviving.

Colleen Schnettler 34:49
What do you want to be

Michele Hansen 34:51
handling the stress appropriately and not walking around feeling like I'm constant underwater and stress, which is how I feel in this moment.

Colleen Schnettler 35:02
Yeah, I mean, that's a long time. I mean, you were, you weren't joking, you were just saying you don't want to just survive. But man, I had three babies, and those first four months, you're just trying to survive. So I feel like, there are times in your life, where you're just like, we just have to survive this. And yeah, get through, it's just a mani

Michele Hansen 35:21
appreciate, like, the moments like, you can. Like maybe I should do like a little like, like people do, like gratitude journaling and stuff like that, which yeah, I've done at various points in my life in in different ways. And I was like, you know, maybe I should make a list of three things that were frustrating today. And then three things that were good. And just try to do that. Again, I'm adding something to the list. But like, just to like, remind myself, that's like, okay, you know, what, today was really stressful. And I was doing all of this, you know, stuff and had a lot of work to do. But you know, what, I got 20 minutes of picking raspberries. And that was really nice, or, or whatever that is, have you done that before? When I was in college, I kind of did a form of it, where I challenged myself to do three nice things for random strangers every day. And then I like took notes on it every night. It was my own form of sort of gratitude journaling of like, Yeah, but I have not really I think I haven't done gratitude journaling, because quite frankly, sometimes it bleeds into the whole toxic positivity world where it's like, only think about the things you're grateful for, because you should just be grateful, rather than like, so I'm kind of thinking like, hey, like, let's acknowledge the stuff that sucked, and then also force myself to look for the things that are nice and like, accept all of these things as a cohesive whole rather than trying to just think about the good things that happened today.

Colleen Schnettler 36:51
Okay. Sure. I mean, I think the key with all of this, all of this may not seem convinced, I'm not convinced. I think the key with all this stuff is different things work for different people. But I feel like if we try to find what works for you, that's gonna add stress to you, instead of decrease stress. But yeah, that's fair. I mean, I yeah, I mean, sure, gratitude. Journaling takes like, five minutes at the end of the day, so it's certainly worth trying. But it's not gratitude journaling, it's sorry, right? Acknowledge self empathy, journaling, OMG, self self empathy journaling, okay. So I know you don't have time to read a book, but story worth finished two books this week. So okay, so you're clearly still failing at managing your time. That's fine. It's a different problem.

Michele Hansen 37:35
I think, actually, if I finish a book, that means that I spent my free time doing something I enjoy, rather than Mindlessly scrolling Instagram,

Colleen Schnettler 37:42
was it a book about business?

Michele Hansen 37:45
One of them was, yeah, okay. It was actually you know, what it was? It was obviously awesome, which Oh, yeah, dude, we're gonna talk about next week next. So, you know, hashtag Book Club. We're gonna I'm excited to do that positioning exercise for refine.

Colleen Schnettler 37:58
I'm excited to Okay, listen, I don't know what the answer is for you for managing your stress. But I don't think trying to add five new activities, like yoga and ice bathing and gymnastics, and Pilates on top of your schedule is the answer. So that's my feedback for you.

Michele Hansen 38:13
I think that's fair. Okay. Yeah. You're I think that's,

Colleen Schnettler 38:18
I think you should try your journaling exercise, I think. So back during, in high periods of stress in my life, one in particular was during COVID. I read Matthew Dix story worthy, and it's about this concept of any moment in your in your life can become a story. And if you learn how to look for it, and so it's not gratitude journaling Exactly. But it's kind of like find those tiny moments that happen to you all the time. But you don't see them for what they are. It's like

Michele Hansen 38:46
David Sedaris journaling instead.

Colleen Schnettler 38:49
So I mean, so I did that. And I remember, you know, it wasn't life changing or anything, but it was, it kind of forced you. It wasn't like I said, it wasn't necessarily gratitude, it was moments so they didn't have to be great. Oh, um, so I mean, that gratitude journaling, whenever I try it, I'm like, Oh, I'm so thank you for for my family. I'm thankful for the sunshine. I'm thankful for, you know, quiet time. And then every day, I just want to write those three things down. So I haven't really figured that one out yet. But the story where the book is about finding like really specific moments, like I think one of them and again, I this was during COVID I wrote down stuff like like, there was just like, really, this moment, I would have forgotten where like, a ladybug came in the house and my daughter wanted to save it, you know, just like things like that, that are just normal everyday things. But looking through the lens of like the story of my life become much richer in terms of their meaning. And now I want to go back and like because I haven't done it in years, but I did it like when we were in the deep COVID Everything was terrible. Now I want to go back and see what I wrote. I'm sure it was all cheesy things.

Michele Hansen 39:54
It's so funny because my COVID journal is like everything is terrible. Oh my gosh,

Colleen Schnettler 39:58
I really want to find out I probably won't have time. Yeah. But anyway, I thought

Michele Hansen 40:02
what is this isn't story brand,

Colleen Schnettler 40:03
it's something else. But don't worry worthy. It's about stories. It's not a business going by Matthew Dix,

Michele Hansen 40:09
or is it a business book? I mean, find those small features that are worth reading land. OMG.

Colleen Schnettler 40:13
Michelle, you're ruining my vibe here.

Michele Hansen 40:16
Just kidding. You're right tag content.

Colleen Schnettler 40:19
Everything is a business book. Anyway, it was just a really neat. So So where I'm going with this is I know I'm getting long winded. But it wasn't gratitude. It was like, little moment, what makes a story and little moments that can become a story. And you know, obviously he talks about because I want to get better at storytelling for business. But he told us a business book, okay, it is secretly a business book. But he just talks about like, moments. And so that's cool. So like, just like, your jokes about the harvest. Like that was kind of a fun moment. You can write that down. Yeah,

Michele Hansen 40:54
like the hay bales are literally taller than my head right now. And I'm looking at them as I talk to you.

Colleen Schnettler 41:00
Yeah, I don't know, stuff like that. But But I think I think our takeaways here is you, you do just have to survive. And every period of your life can't be super thriving. Like maybe if maybe if you change your mindset on this, right? Like maybe if you'd like you're looking at these next is so cliche to say like, change your mind. Okay. I know it's cliche, but it's like also cliche because it's

Michele Hansen 41:20
true. Okay, so it's like gratitude journaling. This is a cliche that you

Colleen Schnettler 41:24
like, I liked this one. Yeah. I don't like gratitude journaling, it's not my mentor through your your, your favorite cliche, but when you think, okay, mindset is an I like, I hate the word mindset, because it is so cliche, but it's just how you think about the problem, like, so you have four months, if you think about it is like this, oh my gosh, this is awful every day is going to be so full of stress, that's going to impact this accurate, that's going to wear you down like so fast. I can't imagine doing that for four days in and I'm worn out. But if you think about it, how can you think about it differently? So it doesn't feel like such a heavy burden? I mean, can you think about

Michele Hansen 42:01
it? Yeah. But not going in? Like a gratitude direction? No,

Colleen Schnettler 42:05
not I'm thankful for this. Undue validating. Yeah, no, no, that that I'm thankful I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to diamond. No, no, I don't want that. But if you I mean, I think you've got to, we've got to figure out we you've got to figure out a way to think about it differently. Like, and maybe the way to think about is just accept that it's going to suck and maybe just accepting that will take away some of the anger or anxiety around the suckiness of the situation.

Michele Hansen 42:35
Or I guess that's kind of what I'm hoping for with the we're gonna call moment journaling. Like, not just writing down the good things that happened that day, but also the frustrating things and like acknowledging them to myself, so I at least feel like they are spoken into the world and acknowledged even if it's just on paper, right, like because I think that's really important. Because I think when we go through things, and we shove down all of the negative things, they just fester. Like they stay there. And if you keep trying to tell yourself to be grateful, you're just going to end up angry. Yes, feeling incredibly invalidated. Yes. And so I'm trying to be like, okay, like, can I just do both and again, not being it'd be like, I'm thankful for my family, but like, I am thankful for my family, but like, you know, you know, I got to spend 20 minutes picking raspberries and yeah, I was worried about July and they're actually coming out really good. Like, like, something like that. Or like, you know, I love seeing you know, our dog, like happily run through the field. Like,

Colleen Schnettler 43:39
right? Yeah, that's that's your Okay. All right. This Yeah, episode was little crazy. I am still like writing the hi from LA week and I had an indie hacker meetup last night. So I have like a lot of energy. So

Michele Hansen 43:50
you're such an extrovert, like, you are so energized by people?

Colleen Schnettler 43:53
Well, it's only my people. Right? Like when you go to other people's people, talk to people. Like when I go to like, work social events for my husband's work. It's not the same I have to work real hard. But like Man, my people I just freaking love it. So yeah, that's why this was episode was all over the place. But this sounds like a good plan. We want you to report back on your moment journaling.

Michele Hansen 44:19
All right. I will. Should we read the sponsor list backwards this week? Just to make it interesting.

Colleen Schnettler 44:24
Yeah, do it. Can you do it? It's gonna be hard. You're gonna have to concentrate real hard. Oh, my God. This is like the alphabet backwards. I believe in your like this is Go ahead.

Michele Hansen 44:33
Huge thanks to all of our listeners who have become software socialites and support our show. You can become a supporter for $10 A month or $100 a year at software social dot dev slash supporters. Mitchell Davis from recruit kit Eldon from nodal studios. Damien more of audio audit podcast checker, Jessica Melnik. Nathan of develop your UX James sours of castaway.fm Arvid call Josh Smith of Te hero.io Simon Bennett of SNAP shooter backups. Steve of be inclusive Monza from Ruby on Mac Anna from cradle proud mama from AbleNet LLC Joe Mazz allottee of rails devs.com Lena and Alex from recap see Adam from Rails auto scale, Greg Park from trait lab. Kayleigh of chocolate. Chris from URL box. Michael Kapur of new see proposals. Cam Sloan John from credo and editor ninja, Ben from consent pit Josh the annoyingly pragmatic founder I don't find Josh annoying I don't

Colleen Schnettler 45:37
either Josh you don't annoy me at all. Like let's get you and you always get me sage advice onward.

Michele Hansen 45:43
I don't find pragmatism and I Okay, Richard from stunning Alex of course Oh systems John Koster, Andrew Culver at bullet train, Matthew from appointment reminder. Jack Ellis and Paul Jarvis from Fathom analytics Justin Jackson from Mega maker, Jeff Roberts from outside a and a massive subscribe sense. Nate Ritter of room steals Mike Wade of crowd sentry. Corey Haynes of swipe Well, Reuben gammas have signed Well, Kendall Morgan, Jane and Benedict from user list. Remi from memo.fm Alex Hellman from the tiny MBA team tuple Brendan Andre of bright bets Stefan from talk to Stefan max of online or not, Dave from Rica. And Mike from gently used domains who has a nice personality. The daringly handsome Kevin Griffin and Chris from chipper CI. Good job. We should like put it in an Excel spreadsheet and it's like randomize it.

Colleen Schnettler 46:39
That's a great idea. Yeah.

Michele Hansen 46:42
Yeah, it's, it's, it's been a week.

Colleen Schnettler 46:45
I believe in you.

Michele Hansen 46:46
I know you do. And that's the best part. Like you're the little golden retriever around him. I would Yeah. Yeah, we got this. You got this?

Colleen Schnettler 46:56
I believe. All right.

Michele Hansen 46:58
Yeah, we're so I don't know. I think you've had so much coffee at this point that you're you're like, I believe I can fly stage.

Colleen Schnettler 47:04
Yeah. Kind of Yeah. That's where we are, but I'm enjoying it. So I'm just gonna write it.

Michele Hansen 47:10
Alright. I'll talk to you next week. Bye. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai