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As the CEO of Kit, Nathan Barry has a front row seat to what’s working in the most successful creator businesses.
On The Nathan Barry Show, he interviews top creators and dives into the inner workings of their businesses in his live coaching sessions.
You get unique insight into how creator businesses work and what you can do to increase results in your own business.
One of the things Nathan is passionate about is helping you create leverage.
Creator Flywheels let you create many copies of yourself so you don’t get bogged down with the little things in your business. Flywheels will help you reach a place where you can focus on revenue instead of busywork.
Tune in weekly for new episodes with ideas and tips for growing your business. You’ll hear discussions around building an audience, earning a living as a creator, and Nathan’s insights on scaling a software company to $100M.
Learn how to get more results with less effort and:
Grow faster over time.
Work less hard over time.
Make more money over time.
Rachel Rodgers: Sometimes you have a gut feeling, and it doesn't mean it's going to work out the way that you want. Sometimes it gets messy first, and then later on, maybe it's years later, you realize oh, I'm glad I made that decision because it sent me down a pathway that was hard. But that led to where I needed to go.
Attention is power, and creators harness it better than anyone else, but they're not using that attention to create the biggest impact possible and are vastly under monetized. Hi, I'm Rachel Rogers, my cohost, Nathan Barry, and I believe you can be a billion dollar creator. Sound impossible?
Over the last ten years, we followed each other on our own quest to build billion dollar companies. We've studied creators and seen how entrepreneurs build traditional audiences, and use them as a launching pad for a massive business. It got us thinking, if it can happen for them, it can happen for us. If it can happen for us, then why not you?
Billion Dollar Creator is a show teaching creators how to capture attention and turn it into real wealth. We will deep dive into brands, celebrities, and entrepreneurs who have done it before and show you how you can apply it to your business as an everyday creator.
Join us weekly as we learn from both the wild successes and the missed opportunities, the grand gestures and the integral mistakes. Through that, help you become an expert at building your audience on your journey as a billion dollar creator.
Nathan Barry: So we are back after a whirlwind couple of weeks of travel. Are you rested and recovered from New York and Nashville?
Rachel: I'm just delighted to be home for like a full seven days without having to leave. That's exciting. Because we were, it was two weeks back to back that we had our first two tour stops.
Nathan: Yeah, so I guess talking to both of those, New York was a hit. We had filled out the room in Roosevelt Island. Sahil did great.
Rachel: Yes.
Nathan: That was a ton of fun. I think, okay.
Rachel: So good.
Nathan: I have not, what am I saying here? You have come and spoken at my event. You spoke at Craft and Commerce. So I've seen you in front of like, our whole crew of customers. There's a lot of overlap since we've been in the same circles for a while. It was interesting seeing you when like in your community because wow they came out in force.
Like afterwards, we finished the recording. It was like great. Now we're going to go grab a drink. Like, now we have this creator meetup happening. It was a good time. Then you immediately had this line of 50 people. You talked to everyone. You were so generous with your time. But you just talked to everybody. I think I talked to like ten people or so that came up.
Rachel: Really?
Nathan: Maybe 15. Then I like mingled around the room. You like had to have handlers to help your line. I think maybe just not having done events, and you did your book tour during COVID and everything. So I think you had probably the step function in popularity that maybe you haven't experienced in real life quite as much. But that was one, or at least I hadn't experienced it. I was like damn, Rachel has like diehard fans.
Rachel: Yes. Listen, shout out to all the Schmillies who showed up. Schmillies is short of Schmillionaires, which is who we refer to as our club members who are part of our membership community. But yes, and even people who just read the book came out as well. I think it is an effect of a book. Like have people connecting with the book.
It just goes to show like when I was writing that book and sharing the ideas with potential publishers and agents and all of that, it was considered somewhat controversial. Like some people didn't like it. They tried to get me to tone it down. Which do I look like the type of person who tones anything down? Never.
Nathan: That is a great way to get you to not tone something down.
Rachel: Have you met me?
Nathan: I'm going to do that. Next time I want you to do something, I'm going to be like Rachel, can we tone that down? If I want to get you to go big.
Rachel: Yes, exactly.
Nathan: Maybe we should just play small here. You're going to be like no.
Rachel: Turn the dial all the way up. That's the younger sibling rebellious part of me. But yeah, so it just goes to show when you have a big idea that even seems somewhat controversial, you should share it. If that's your truth, get it out there because there's probably a lot of people who do resonate with it. There's probably also people who hate the idea. That's okay too. Like you're going to draw your people to you, and you might repel some people who are not down with it. That's fine because they were never going to be your customers or supporters anyway. It's all good, you know?
But yes, so I think people feel seen by what they've read in my book, and I think that's why they're so passionate. It's always nice to see like when people come out and support these events. When I did my book launch for We Should All Be Millionaires in 2021, it was all virtual. So we had a lot of people there. A lot of people have read the book since then.
I didn't really know what the impact was until I went to South by Southwest in, was that 2022? It must have been. I went to South by Southwest in 2022. That was the first time people were like screaming my name in the street. I went like outside of Austin for barbecue. Someone came up to me and was like are you Rachel Rodgers? So that's when people started coming up to me. I was like oh, people know who I am now. This is so weird.
Nathan: Well, that’s an interesting thing.
Rachel: Also if you put your face on the cover of the book, that is going to happen. So just know that because I didn't pay attention to that idea.
Nathan: There's a few of those decisions on the fame side of known for your name, known for your face. Like, you can actually, there's pros and cons to all of it. But you can endure it. We have friends who have very heavily gone YouTube in that direction and get recognized everywhere. I was with Ali Abdaal in London, and he's got this great like productivity YouTube channel. I don’t know. Three, four, or five million subscribers now.
Rachel: Wow.
Nathan: It's a lot. I was asking him like because we've recorded, and then I'm like hey, let’s go for a walk. It's like how often do you get recognized? He’s like, “Oh, a couple times a day.” Then we're going for a walk and he gets recognized twice by different people.
Rachel: Wow. Yeah.
Nathan: So, it was one of the things. He said if he takes his glasses off then he gets recognized less often.
Rachel: Oh, okay. So that's the strategy.
Nathan: Whatever your signature look is, you can change that up.
Rachel: Yeah. So like if I rock braids instead of my usual like big hair, I feel like I'll be less recognizable.
Nathan: Yeah.
Rachel: It's also like people are mostly showing love, but it is. It's sort of like when you're, I've definitely been recognized at the grocery store when my five year old is running away from me, and I'm trying to chase him. Someone's trying to tell me about what my book meant to them. I'm like that's amazing. I so appreciate that, but I gotta chase a kid right now. He's leaving. I've got to go.
So there are those awkward moments in your regular life when you're in mom mode or like not business mode or author mode where it does kind of shock you a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I heard something recently about, I forget is it Anthony Mackie? He's like, who is he in one of the Marvel movies?
Nathan: Oh, I'm the worst with.
Rachel: I'm the worst as well. But anyway, he plays one of these heroes. I watch all of them because my kids and my husband into it. But then obviously, I'm not paying attention enough clearly because I can't remember which superhero he plays.
Anyway, it was on the news recently that he was somewhere and an 11 year old boy went up to him and was like, “Oh, I'm so excited.” He loves the superhero that he plays. He wanted him to sign his autograph. He told him no. It was like all this backlash as a result. I was like I kind of get it. Like, I get it. Like, sometimes you have to have boundaries open. Sometimes you're just not in that mode.
So there was like all these people were debating like an 11 year old, that's cruel. I would have a hard time saying no to an 11 year old kid, but I also get it. Because when it's not just one. If one says hey, can I have a photo then you're going to have a line. He knows all the people. So he's probably going to have a line of tons of people wanting a photo after that moment. So I get it. It's definitely a double edged sword. There's lots of benefits. There are some downsides as well.
Nathan: Yes. Well, the nice thing for our event is it's scoped. Like we show up, talk to. I mean, just an amazing number of people came out, which was really, really fun.
Rachel: It was so awesome.
Nathan: Like people show up in person. It's one thing to be out for a jog and you're like sure. I'll hit play on Nathan and Rachel's episode. It's another to show up. We had two people who came to both, and I don't think they lived in New York or Nashville.
Rachel: Exactly. Yes. There are some folks who are like coming to multiple tour stops, which is amazing. I love that. Also, the one in New York in particular was in the least convenient place to travel to. Roosevelt Island is actually not that hard to get to when the F train is running. When the F train is not running, you cannot get there by subway. So you have to battle traffic. It was like also basically squarely during rush hour that they would have had to travel to get there. This was.
Nathan: And the United Nations was in town. So that part.
Rachel: Oh my god, yes. President Biden was in town. So like, traffic was horrific anyway. So there was a lot of things that that over 100 people overcame to come out to our tour stops, and we're very grateful.
Nathan: I was walking. I don’t even remember what street, but then I was just walking along, like turned a corner. There was Secret Service and assault rifles and everything everywhere. I was like oh, I'll be walking to the next block. I was like what was that? Then Dave, who works on our team, was like oh yeah, the United Nations. Then sure enough later like a whole caravan of police cars and black SUVs went by, and I was like oh. Got it. It was just one of those what's going on? I'm going to go the other direction.
Rachel: It's so true. We definitely live in a world where there's so many virtual options, virtual things to show up to you don't have to show up in person. So, but I do think that there's some wins that happen when you do. Like the connections that you can make. They meet friends who live in your town. So you make new friends and make new connections.
There's so much magic that comes from relationships that I think it's important to still leave your house sometimes and go foster those relationships in person. So we have more tour stops ahead. So you have more opportunity to do that.
Nathan: Yes. Billiondollarcreator.com. See where we’re showing up.
Rachel: Yes. I think we need to give some love to the Nashville event because we talked a lot about New York, but we didn't give any love to Nashville.
Nathan: Well, Nashville was great. First like Suneera came out. Her story is amazing. If you haven't listened to the episode, go listen to that. Because I mean just what she's created absolutely blows my way. She's totally like has just has incredible ideas, unapologetic about like her mission to take over the world. It was amazing.
She doesn't live in Nashville. So she was there for another event, was able to say like when you asked her is like okay. Yeah, I'll like extend my trip a day and come on out. So she was fantastic. We got lots of praise for her episode.
Rachel: Yeah, the audience loved her. We had a great turnout in Nashville too. We were hanging out next door to Taylor Swift’s apartment. We have to now mention Taylor Swift on every episode. But yeah, we had a good turnout there too. I was like this is so cool. Because they were saying nobody ever comes to Nashville. So thank you for coming here. So that was really cool that people were excited. I also just love seeing that ConvertKit and Hello Seven audience converge and like make friends and connect. The diversity of the audience is really dope. That’s exciting.
Nathan: Both events. A lot of people commented on that of like, there's a unique range of people. That was really fun. The other thing. Yeah, so at both events, and we won't do this at all of our events, but at both, we hosted a mastermind beforehand where we we’re teaching about like the more advanced concepts of being a billion dollar creator in that mindset and then flywheels. We had other people teaching sessions as well.
That was fun to just get like a 20/25 professional creators in a room. There were people like we were teaching stuff, and then some of our guests would jump in. Like Julie Solomon, who I hadn't met her. I followed her online, but I'd never met her before. Someone had a problem, and she like jumped in and was like okay, what about this? Have you thought about that? I was like I'm going to sit down now, and you can.
Rachel: Let you do your thing.
Nathan: You can do your thing because that was really, really good.
Rachel: It was very good. I loved what Tim Grahl shared about building what that bigger vision is. He led everybody through an exercise that I had some major ahas during that exercise. So like, the masterminds have been great for me. I have like pages of notes from both of those mastermind days. It's so valuable to get together with a group of entrepreneurs.
It's also another example, there was someone from my audience, who's young Black woman. She's like probably in her 30s. Then an older white man who has his business, and they were talking and totally vibing and connecting or like sharing ideas. I'm like I love it so much.
Nathan: Yeah.
Rachel: It makes me so happy to see.
Nathan: There's so many great ideas that come from a different perspective. What's obvious to one person is like oh, I never thought of that before. When you can say like oh, my job is just to get you all in the room and then we’ll go from there.
Rachel: Let the magic happen.
Nathan: On that note, speaking of magic, we could do a segment called lovers and haters. I don't know what we'll call it. It'll have to be something but.
Rachel: I like that.
Nathan: Now that we're a few episodes in, we're starting to get the blend. Maybe we'll start with, hater is too strong of a word. I'm just throwing that out there because I think it's funny. This is not actually.
Rachel: We’ll say detractor. Like with net promoter score. Promoters and detractors. Yes, it’s very cool.
Nathan: Yeah, we're going with lovers and haters. Crank it up a notch. Pretend extreme. No, no. So you saw this post. Why don't you run through it really quick on the detractor side?
Rachel: Yes. So we had someone who posted on one of the social media channels, I won't name which one. Her name is Michelle. Here's what she said. “A million dollars is not enough. Now it's about being a,” in quotes, “billion dollar creator when over 80% of women owned small businesses don't crack $100,000 in revenue. It's not about a billion dollars or a million dollars.
“You don't need web celebs to break down Ryan Reynold’s marketing strategy for Aviation Gin, which I'm pretty sure is be famous, funny as fuck, and make great ads that go viral. Figure out how to pay yourself well and don't give a crap about what the billionaires do as that won't work for you.” So.
Nathan: First of all, we just got called web celebs. So.
Rachel: Yeah, let's take that.
Nathan: I'm going to take that. That’s where I aspire to be. I'm not quite there yet but.
Rachel: Yes, exactly. So, yeah. So I just thought that was interesting. She probably doesn't, maybe she knows I follow her, probably doesn't care, which is totally fine. I mean, I don't have a problem with people who don't agree or don't like what we're doing. But I think it's an interesting question about relatability, or if this idea that a million dollars is not enough. I actually, no one has ever said that. I never said that. I don't think Nathan, that's something that you've said.
What we're saying is if you want more, you can have it. Let's talk about how to get it. We're always willing to share what we've accomplished and how we've done it, and how we see people doing it so that we can break it down so that you can do it if you want to. So the idea about Billion Dollar Creator is not that everyone has to be a billion dollar creator. The idea is that everyone could be a billion dollar creator. Let's break down what it takes to make that happen.
I personally don't feel like my goal is not to be relatable with we should all be millionaires. The goal was not to be relatable. Because what's relatable is staying small and having limiting beliefs and having our income remain low or having a lack of control and power over your career and your lifestyle. That's not what I want. I don't want to relate to that. I want to reach for something bigger.
I've done that for myself. I want to teach other people how to do the same because I know a lot other people want that too. So I wanted to normalize a million dollars when I heard no one talking about it. When I started, it was always like six figures. I'm like I've made six figures. I don't know about y'all, but I'm still broke. After I paid my team, paid taxes, and all the other things, there's really not that much left. So six figures sounds very glorified. It sounds like it's going to do well more than it is for you.
So I wanted to normalize that, and not saying that I single handedly did because I don't think I did. But there's lots more seven figure entrepreneurs out there now. It is normalized now. Now let's normalize the next thing, which is building a business that can have a value of a billion dollars. It's like why not? Why can't you do it? If it's something that you want, why not you?
Particularly if you have a big mission attached to it, why not be able to see that mission to fruition in a bigger way? If you have more resources, then there's more that you can do in the world. There's more that you can change. So that's my stance on it. So that's my response. What are your thoughts, Nathan?
Nathan: Well, I think what you said about being relatable is really interesting because that was, when you proposed the name for the podcast, my first thought was nope, that's not relatable. Even though it's based on an essay that I wrote, you know?
Rachel: Yes.
Nathan: So I think it's an interesting problem of obviously, you want to spread ideas to as many people as possible. To do that, the common thought is okay, let's make it relatable. I've even thought about that during some of our recordings where I'm watching the audience and going well, quick aside.
It is amazing to record in front of a live audience. Because with you and I recording on Riverside, it's like is this good? I don't know. I'm having fun. Do you have fun? Okay, great. I think it's a good episode. But when you're recording in front of a live audience, you get the mm-hmm. You see people go like. I think we got an amen at one point.
Rachel: Yes, you get that immediate reaction. So you know the audience is with you. You can even see them jotting down notes. Yes, the head nods, all of those visual cues to let like that they're with you.
Nathan: Yeah. So if you ever have the opportunity if you're a podcast host, record in front of a live audience because it's so fun. But on that note, I was thinking about relatability because we have inherently chosen a topic that is not relatable to a lot of people. I find these trends or like this tendency that I have to want to go and make it relatable.
Like okay, but here's how if you're starting completely from scratch. I'm sure there's some content that we'll come out with that will be the beginner's guide to or at some point, we'll cover that a little bit. But there's 100 or 1,000, or 10,000 other shows out there that are talking about how to earn your first dollar on the internet and how to get to $100,000.
So we're not trying to be all things to all people. Yep, it's, to Michelle's point, like it's absolutely a problem that most businesses and even most women on businesses don't crack $100,000 in revenue. That is absolutely a problem. That's not the problem that we're solving with this show. You're solving it with so much of your other content and training and your book and everything else. I'm solving it with content and training and a software product. Like this show is something different.
So I think saying like yep, the show probably at times, often, our goal is for the show to often not be relatable. For you to either decide that's not for me and to shut it off and unsubscribe, or to say like I want that to be. Like that's where I'm headed. So I'm going to keep engaging and listening.
Rachel: Yes, for sure. I think there's so many people who have big dreams and big goals and are scared to say them out loud. So I'm like okay, let me go first. Then maybe that makes you feel safer. So that you can say you want to build a billion dollar business, you can say you want to build a million dollar business, whatever that big goal that's scary for you to say out loud.
Let's normalize saying it out loud, and not having people mock that person and say who are you? Well, here's what the stats show. So why would you be capable of doing that? We say the opposite. We say of course, you can do that. If you want to do it, you can do it, right. Let's talk about billion dollar execution like we did on the last episode with Suneera.
We're showcasing somebody like Suneera because I think she's very relatable in a lot of ways. Like her story is relatable. We talked about how she was selling things out of her car when she started out and then had this idea and decided to go full on and execute on it and created a billion dollar business. So if she could do it, of course, you can do it as well if you want it.
So my goal is not to, it's sort of like this idea that like oh well, we can't count on people to get the best grades, or we can't count on this population to make the most money. Or we can. We can tell them that of course you can do that, and we can show them how to do it. Then maybe that actually is what solves the stat. Not this idea that well the stats say this so don't count on it. No. The stats say this so we say fuck that. Let's crush those stats and make them irrelevant. So that's my feeling on it.
Nathan: I love it. I saw this quote from my friend Cathryn Lavery, and she was quoting Rudyard Kipling. The quote is if you don't get what you want in life, it's a sign that either you did not seriously want it or you tried to bargain over the price. Like, when I heard that, I was like oh. Okay, so if you think about any of these goals, like a huge business goal or a health or fitness goal or whatever else, the number of times when you're like yeah, this is what I want. You're like oh, never mind. I don't actually want it.
Like, you realize the amount of work that it is and so you don't do it, or you try to negotiate, and you're like I want it, but this is what I'm willing to pay. Either monetarily or usually in the level of execution. I want to be super fit, but it's a little too expensive for me.
Rachel: Only if I don’t have to give up cake. For me, that's my thing. I love sweets.
Nathan: Same. I'm right there with you. So thinking about trying to negotiate on the price. This is what I'm willing to do. Sometimes it's an important thing to know your boundaries and what something is worth to you.
When you find out the true price of a goal, it might not be worth it to you. But then you have to decide okay that is why I didn't get the thing that I set out to do. So that quote and Suneera’s comment last episode about billion dollar execution just went hand in hand to me, and I was like okay.
Rachel: I love that.
Nathan: Do you know? Are you clear on your goals? Do you know what the price is? Are you willing to pay it? Or are you over here trying to negotiate of like I will build that business, but only if I can do it in exactly this way?
Rachel: Yes, yes. That is a powerful quote. I love it. I'm going to need to print that out because I love the idea of trying to negotiate the price and saying well, I don't want to give that. I think sometimes the that that people don't want to give or that that that it costs a lot of people, it’s not always blood, sweat, and tears. Sometimes it's that but it's not always more labor.
It's what labor you do. It's asking for the sale and risking being rejected. It's making yourself visible on social media or YouTube or whatever. That's what's scary is like risking putting yourself out there and people commenting and being mean or having whatever response. It's always like this fear of rejection that actually is the price we don't want to pay in a lot of cases, which is the price that we absolutely must pay. We also pay the price.
So we live in a world where we can create this podcast, and somebody like Michelle can publicly disagree, and that's fine. Right? It's both of those things should coexist. I'm good with that. I'm okay with people rejecting the idea. That, honestly, it only makes me dig my heels in more. So it only makes me more committed.
Nathan: I was going to say if you have anything negative to say about the podcast, please post it publicly and make sure to link to the episode so that other people can listen and decide if they agree or disagree.
Rachel: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Nathan: On that note.
Rachel: Honestly.
Nathan: Go ahead.
Rachel: One last thing I was going to say is sometimes what I was wondering too is I wonder if she's actually listened to the episode or if she's kind of.
Nathan: Just saw the title.
Rachel: Yeah, or just saw the title or is going off of the essay and not necessarily. So I think there's a lot of that too where we see a headline or a title and we fight with that, but actually don't consume the content. So I just think like if you're going to be a hater, consume the content so you have more reason to hate. You can strengthen your hater argument.
Nathan: We will give you lots of ammunition. Feel free to use it. Yeah. There will come a time that I'll say something really dumb on the show, probably already have, then people will have legitimate reasons to hate on it but.
Rachel: Exactly. Also, we're open to feedback. Like, sometimes people will reject it or not like something we say, and they're making a good point. I'm like you know what? Yeah, you're right. Thank you for sharing that with me so I could do better. So I don't think that I'm perfect or above feedback.
Nathan: Yep. I'll just throw in there again that our lovers and haters category is a joke. We don't actually think that.
Rachel: Yes, we actually send love to everybody who's even given it a try or paid attention to this podcast, even if you haven't listened to a full episode. Thank you for even trying it even if you decide it's not for you.
Nathan: Oh, for sure. On the lovers note, we got a note from Kat. She says, “I listened to episode with Suneera last night, and I can't say enough about the impact. I laughed at myself for wanting to cheer out loud multiple times with the pure gold she was sharing.”
She goes on from there but yeah. There's just lots of times. I love that feeling when you're listening and you're like that's right. Then you realize like oh, I'm on a jog right now. Okay? So it sounds like she had some of those moments where you're totally into it, and then realize I'm not in a room full of people who are hearing the same thing.
Rachel: Exactly. I've definitely done that. Especially laughing out loud like while I'm out on a walk or run and people look at me like what is she listening to?
Nathan: Look, I'm just having a better time than you are. Try not to be too jealous.
Rachel: Yes, so yeah. I appreciate the feedback. Please keep giving us feedback. Definitely send us love. Definitely send us things that you want to see us cover or talk about on the podcast, and we'll keep honing it.
Nathan: That's right. One thing that, a topic that I'm fascinated by is decision making. Everyone says like oh, trust your gut. I've had this idea in my head of like, okay, but should you? Like, there's the qualitative side of like oh yeah. We all have those moments where we've done something, or you're entering into a situation, you're like I don't think I should trust this person. Then later they find out that they ripped somebody off and this deal went terribly wrong, or you see something in the news about them. You're like my gut was right. I think there's something to it.
But what I wanted to know is if my gut feeling on decision, should it be trusted? Can I have this track record of decision making to learn do I make good decisions? My mom used to say something, I think somewhat as a joke to my older siblings, I don't know. But when we’d leave the house, she'd be make good choices. She kind of teased us with because I think someone else, I don't know if it's from a TV show or something.
But that stuck with me of okay, do I make good choices? Not just like are they morally right or some of these things, but are they leading to the outcomes that I want? So something that I do is I keep a decision journal. Whenever I remember, it's not for every decision, but whenever I remember, I try to write down what the decision was, what the options that I was weighing between, what I chose, and why.
I think this is especially important for hiring decisions. Because I feel like I have a pretty good hiring track record, but it's definitely below 100%. You can't hit 100%. So like even to be able to see like in the hiring decisions, you're usually trying to choose between three really solid candidates at the end. So what are you basing it on? Product strategy decisions, what times did I go down a path where I thought okay, this is going to be the future of the company? Then six months later, I'm like yeah, never mind. This is going to be the future of the company.
Rachel: Exactly. Yes.
Nathan: So anyway, that's something that I do with both, write down the decision and the details about it. Then also write down if I were to check in say at 90 days, I will know this decision was a success based on X, Y, and Z. I will notice it was a failure based on these things.
Rachel: Wow.
Nathan: That really, really helps me because there's times where I'm ah, it's going poorly but we'll turn it around. Then I'll pull up a decision journal and be like wait, it's going poorly for the exact three reasons that I said. If it doesn’t work out, it will be because of this. All right, past me called it. It's time to pull the plug on this.
Rachel: Yes, that is so valuable to see because so many times as an entrepreneur, especially as your organization gets bigger and bigger, it is not in a playbook. There's no textbook that's do this in this situation. You're going to have situations where you're like I have no idea what to do, and you have to go and think about it. At some point, you got to make a choice. Sometimes it's literally 50/50. You could flip a coin with some of the challenging decisions that you have to make.
So if you actually have a track record where you could say particularly on this kind of decision or just on these big decisions that I've made in the past, how many times was I right? It's almost like checking your work on your gut. If your gut says to do X, like was your gut most of the time? Was your gut wrong?
I actually suspect that first of all, I think that follow your heart or use your gut is good advice in some circumstances, but not everything is a matter of the heart. Like not everything is something that you have a strong gut feeling.
Sometimes you, first of all, don't have a strong gut feeling so you don't know what to do. It's also your gut feeling could be wrong. It's possible to be wrong. One of my friends who was actually a life coach was really helpful to me when she said like saying use your gut. Your gut is one source of data. It’s not the only source of data. So your gut says this. What does people on your team say? What do the stats say? What data can you point to or what objective information do you have that you can use that are other points of data to help you decide?
There are some times where you have a gut feeling or you know in your heart what you need to do? Those times just do it, right? That's what you need to do. There's plenty of other decisions where you have no clue what to do, and your gut ain’t saying nothing. Or you're trying to make it say something that is not actually there. Right.
So I love having that check on it. Like actually is trusting my gut an effective solution. So of course, I have to ask, how often are you right? What do the stats say about your decision making?
Nathan: Yeah, the hard thing is that often, this is true for a lot of decisions, often it's not clear cut down the road. There have been a lot of times that I have been right for different reasons than I expected. It's easy to say like I made this thing, and it worked. See? But then you looking like I made this thing. It's going to work because of X, Y, and Z. Then you end up like it did work for entirely different reasons. Your assumptions were not accurate.
So, I've had that with like marketing campaigns at ConvertKit. People that I've hired that have really surprised me. Like they ended up not being good at the thing that I hired them for, but they were entirely excellent at a new role that we found for them.
Rachel: Yes, that’s happened to me too. Yes, that has happened at Hello Seven as well where we hired somebody for one role. They did a good job in that role, but then this other role that we gave them that we wound up doing sort of by necessity asking them to help out with it, and they wound up crushing it. We're like oh my God. You're the new person to do this now. Forget this other role we had for you. So yes, I've had that experience as well.
It's interesting too because one of the things that I was going to say about following your gut that I was kind of nervous to say, but now you're making me bolder. Is to say sometimes you have a gut feeling, and it doesn't mean it's going to work out the way that you want.
Sometimes it's like there's a path that you're meant to follow. Maybe it's so that you can learn a hard lesson sooner rather than later. So it's like just because you followed your gut feeling doesn't mean that it's going to work out neatly. Sometimes it gets messy first and then later on, maybe it's years later, you realize oh I'm glad I made that decision because it sent me down a pathway that was hard but that led to where I needed to go, you know?
So I think it's we sort of think life is going to be this linear path. It doesn't always work that way. So sometimes you do need to follow that, your inkling, following your instincts. I feel like in therapy this is something that is a common theme that I'm working on with my therapist, which is like following my instincts.
Because if you think about it, you're the most experienced person on the team building this business. No one has been doing it longer than you. No one understands the nuances better than you, typically. It does start to change over time as you get bigger and bigger. But right now, like that's still 100% true. So like you're the star player.
So following your instincts, you have so much data that you've taken in over many years that are leading to that instinct. So it makes sense that you would follow that. A lot of times, it's like doing the opposite of what the team wants to do, which is the battle that you have all the time, that I have. Where my team is like we should do X. I'm like we have tried X like 12 times over the years, and it's never worked. I don't think it's going to work this time either.
Nathan: Well, I think that's so important of the experiences that you have that the team might not have been there for. Then how that feeds into the instinct. Something about me is that if I see evidence that something is working, I will stay on it for an unreasonable amount of time.
Rachel: Yeah, you're patient.
Nathan: Someone said this actually at the New York event. I think at the mastermind. I'm going to totally get the quote wrong, but it was basically being impatient with action and patient with results. That’s the way that I think I am of I'm we have to execute on this now. Every day matters. I really think about that.
When you're trying to do something big, you're trying to get to millions, 10s of millions, 100 million in revenue or more, you need that compounding to start absolutely as early as possible and to go as fast as possible because we're just trying to get to goals that are absolutely massive.
But often that compounding takes a very long time. So I look at experiences that I've had of customers that I tried to land for ConvertKit, where it’s taken me four years or more to get a single customer. Not that that's the only thing I'm doing, but of these touchpoints over the years, following up every couple of months. Staying in touch, saying hey, can we do this project for you? Any of that. Or even the early days of ConvertKit, like two years in ConvertKit was at $2,000 a month in recurring revenue. Lots of smart friends were saying you should shut this down.
Rachel: Yeah, I would have said that. I would have been like this isn't going anywhere.
Nathan: So now I have this trait of if I see positive signs on something, I will keep going. My team wants me to say okay but if we don't have X result by Y date, we're going to shut it down. I'm like yeah, those seem reasonable. Let's definitely reevaluate on that day if those things happen. They're like no but commit in advance to shutting it down. Because I also have a tendency to spread the team thin.
What I realized, like we're facing this with our sponsor network right now. I thought, so we're doing about $350,000 a month in sponsorships. Which on one hand is a huge amount of money, tons of money getting paid out to creators. It’s fantastic. I thought we'd be closer to $750,000 a month by this time. My forecasts say we’d be 750,000.
Rachel: It'd be faster.
Nathan: By this point.
Rachel: First of all, can I also just pause and say we literally have to lie to ourselves. Otherwise, we would never start these journeys that take so long. We have to like be almost semi delusional and be like it's going to happen in six months. Six years later, you're so glad you did it. You know what I mean? But on day one if they would have told you six years, you'd be like I don't have six years in me. You do though. You just don't know that you do on day one. So it's like just pretend that it's going to happen in six months.
Nathan: When I grew up, we do lots of stuff in the outdoors. So I remember going backpacking and like as a 12 year old, I'm so tired. Are we almost there? My dad is like yeah, the lake is just over that next ridge. You get there. He’s like no, no, no. I didn’t mean the little ridge. I meant the ridge past it.
Rachel: The big one behind it.
Nathan: Then you get there, and you're super excited about it. His little white lie about how far of a hike we still had helped get me there. I think we do that to ourselves where there's actually a quote. I mean, there's all kinds of things to bash on Elon Musk about, many of which I agree with. But someone asked him you're always wrong. You keep saying this is going to be out this year. This is going to be here in five years, like all of this. You're just perpetually wrong timelines on everything.
He just said yeah, I look at the track record. You're right. I am always wrong. The thing is that I think what he says is I'm an optimist. In a way that I have to think in that positive way otherwise I wouldn't tackle it. So he's like I'm always able to pull off some version of it and usually very wrong. I think this is possible. I'm not lying to you. I generally think this is possible within three years or whatever. I'm continually wrong, and I continually create these big results.
So it’s just interesting thinking about that of when do you, you don’t want to be delusional, but some amount of that is required. But then you also want to be aware of the mistakes that you're making so you don't repeat them and do them consistently. Because that's where you could end up.
Let's say you get into a situation where you're like okay, I have this bet. It has to work within 12 months because of this amount of money that I'm spending on it, and I don't have more money to throw after it.
Then you could get yourself into a situation where your company has to shut down because you didn't pay attention to your track record that says like oh wow. This always takes twice as long as I say it well, and my team always tells me I'm under scoping. So if you're not keeping the history, then you could get yourself into real trouble. So it’s an interesting balance.
Rachel: You could. Then also, you could say we can only do this for 12 months because we're going to run out of money in 12 months. Then some new partner or new revenue could emerge that you didn't expect. Now all of a sudden, now you’ve got another 24 months of runway. So it's like you got to be open to.
I mean, that sort of sums up what I love about entrepreneurship is like you just never know what the hell is going to happen next. You just stay on the journey and trust that you will have a good enough answer on the day that you need to have it and just keep going. That's really all it is like you have to trust that you can handle whatever is going to be thrown at you and not try to over prepare. You do need to prepare somewhat right.
Obviously learn from your mistakes is key. Because if you keep making the same mistakes, it gets really annoying. It's like really? Did I do that again? Dammit. You know what I mean? That's really frustrating. So I think tracking your decision making for that reason is really valuable.
But I do think you have to trust that you are going to have the right response. You have the skill and the ability to figure it out when it happens and come up with the next move at that time, and not overly course correct for what could go wrong. Because that's what creates being really risk averse, which prevents you from taking those big swings that are actually what results in these big opportunities. Not just being, what is it? Famous, funny as fuck, and making great ads that go viral. It's not that that makes you a billion dollar creator. It's showing up every day doing the work.
Nathan: Yes. Well, on that note of thinking about like the mistakes that you make, there's another list that I track. It's just in the Apple Notes app. It's not tracked in any fancy place. But it's just a note called Unforced Errors. Now, if anyone doesn't know from sports, an unforced error is defined as a mistaken play that is attributed to one's own failure rather than the skill or effort of one's opponent. Right. So this is like.
Rachel: You dropped the ball.
Nathan: You dropped the ball, whatever it is. That was an entirely catchable pass, the tennis swing, like it was all you. No one made you do that. This is the list. I think as an entrepreneur, as you get more and more successful, you get more positive feedback. Like oh Rachel, you're so amazing. You did this. You did that.
Rachel: Oh totally.
Nathan: Then that can get your head. You're ;like oh, I should trust my gut on 100% of these things, or I don't make mistakes, or other people get too far caught up in the other direction. But you have to realize that that feedback is going to keep building you up.
So having the list of okay where have I made a mistake that it's not through, like I was trying to choose between A or B. I went with B. It turns out A would have been better. That's not an unforced error. An unforced error is when you're saying the strategy on something, or you totally miss an opportunity that you should have seen. I have a couple of these that I could talk about. Do you want me to?
Rachel: Yes, I would love you to. One thing I was going to say too is this is why I have a sort of personal policy that I trust no one's opinion of me. So that means when people are sending me love all the time and being like you changed my life, or I love your book, or this or that, or you're the best. I'm kind of like maybe, I don't know. You know what I mean? I take it with a grain of salt. I'm going to accept the compliment. It's sort of like I accept it. I'll hold it in my hands, but I will not let it get into my veins. I will not let it permeate.
It's the same thing with hate. Like with people who are like you're the worst, you're evil, you're this, you're that, whatever. I'm sure you could probably Google it and find plenty of things, plenty of adjectives that people have said to describe me. I don't trust those either. Again, it's like I can hold it in my hand. I even, when I get that sort of negative feedback, I can look forward and say okay, let me ask myself do I feel like I was out of integrity? Do I feel like I did something shady? Let me ask myself really and think about it.
I ponder that because you got to ask yourself. You’ve got to be always be 100% honest with yourself. But I just have this policy that I don't trust anyone's feedback. I just have to trust my own. Do I feel like I'm in integrity?
Nathan: Right.
Rachel: Of course, I have those close friends and close family members who tell me the truth about myself, both the good and the bad. I'll take what they have to say with more weight. But I think you just have to have a policy of not accepting too much praise and not accepting too much hate either.
Usually, the truth is somewhere in the middle. You're not the best thing since sliced bread, but also not the worst thing. Just somewhere in the middle. I feel like that's a great way to stay even and not let shit go to your head and also not beat yourself up too much or hate yourself because you made a mistake. You're allowed. We’re all human.
So anyway, that's just an aside. Before you go into unforced errors, you were going to say something about the Creator Network, about getting to 350. I feel like people are going to be mad at me for cutting you off. So I want to make sure.
Nathan: We're going back to that. We can jump around between a few things. So I realized that I have this tendency in myself that if I'm seeing any, I need two characteristics to be there for project. One, I need to see any positive momentum, and I need to fully believe in the its eventual role or place in the business. If I have those two things, I will stick with something far longer than is reasonable.
It's because if I look back in my entrepreneurial career, I have like these four or five moments where any reasonable person would have said time to shut that down. Many people did say that, and I chose to stick with it. Then it resulted in something very, very successful. So I have to make sure to bridge the gap.
Like this is something for our sponsorship network where now it's getting real momentum. But the team kept saying okay, here's your spreadsheet of where you said it was. Here's where it actually is. It's inconsistent, all of that. I had a hard time articulating why against all data, we just needed to stick with it. I'm like no because creators need this service. I'm seeing yes, that was a big problem. We figured it out. We'll figure out this next one, and on from there.
So I think you have to be able to tell that story to your team. Not just saying my gut says stick with it. I can't make business decisions off Nathan's gut. But then if you can tell the stories and say this is why. This is the track record that tells me if I stick with things longer than is reasonable, I will often get great results. So I'm willing to keep investing.
Rachel: Stick it out. Yes. I love that so much. I do think you have to sell ideas to your team. Like you have to share the narrative that's in your head. They need to know it too because they need to know why they're getting out of bed every morning to work on this thing that they think is a fail. If you don't show why you think it's a win, they're going to still think it's a fail and be like why am I working on this waste of time project?
Nathan: Yeah. There's this idea that I've heard people say like good ideas should sell themselves or stand on their own or whatever. It's like no. So many good ideas require great marketing and packaging and then relentless sales until someone actually understands it. So that’s your job.
Rachel: Yeah, exactly. I think that that's true. Having an insight that this is something that needs to be in the world or belief that this is something that needs to happen in the world. I'm okay to wait to get the win. I don't think people understand that enough. It's so easy to be well, they're just in it for the money. It's all about the money. I'm like that is so one note. It's so not true.
I mean, maybe it's true for some people, but I think it's pretty obvious who, like the people who are in it for the money, it's usually obvious that they're in it for the money. But I think that the fact that you can create something in the world that makes a positive impact and that you have to take so many losses, so many hits sometimes along the way to see that win.
It's like people just see the win. They're like they're just in it for the blah, blah, blah. Do you know how broke I was for so long, how long I was working on this by myself, how everyone told me I was crazy? I was basically building Noah's Ark. Everybody came to town to tell me I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I had to keep building anyway and embarrassing myself before I could ever get this win. Now it's like you're judged based on the win alone. Not all of that effort that it took that you were doing in private to make it happen.
So, but I think I'm glad we're talking about this because I want people to know that's so normal. Other entrepreneurs who have this insight or have this idea and even though they're not seeing tangible wins yet, they truly believe in it. Then it's like you’ve just got to see it through. There's no guarantee because you're seeing it through that it's going to win. But maybe you learn something else that's super valuable, or maybe it does actually win eventually.
I feel like nine times out of 10 when you stick with something, and you just keep pouring into it and you're relentless about it. Well, maybe not nine times out of 10 but more often than not. Let’s say six out of 10.
Nathan: Most people make a failure of not acting rather than acting on something for too long.
Rachel: Yes, exactly. Exactly right. I completely agree. So good. I'm glad you finished that story. So long story short, the sponsorship network is here to stay.
Nathan: It is here to say. It is growing well. I think we grew another 10$ just last month on it. So it's like there we go that you’ve got to stick with those for a while. Unforced errors aside, two of these, no, I’ll share three. One is, you were around for this. Not the you had anything to do with it. It’s just that you were an observer on the sidelines is rebranding the company from ConvertKit to Seva.
That was something where I really, I've always been inspired by brands like Nike and others that have like these names that you just know what they mean. They can really build an iconic brand around it. It's not just a software company or a shoe brand or something else. Like the brand really means something.
So I was on this like multiyear quest to rebrand ConvertKit. I've written about it. I won't go into like the whole story. But the short version is we bought this domain, seva.com. S-E-V-A. Seva in Hindi and Sikh culture means selfless service. So I'm like that’s great. We are here to serve creators. That fully resonance with it. So we bought that, rebranded the company, announced it on stage. I had a bunch of people being like that's the dumbest name ever. Why would you do that? I expected that. It's give it a few years. Like so many companies.
Rachel: It'll take hold.
Nathan: Like what does Lululemon mean? Then what ended up happening is realizing, we started to get a different category of feedback where people were saying not like this name sucks or something like that. But they were like this name is sacred to me. I was like well, hold on. In the hate mail, you're sort of like whatever, whatever. What's that?
I knew that it was a Hindi word and it was a Sikh word as well. In Hindi, the research that we'd done, like it means service. It'd be proud seva, but the passport service is basically seva, passport. So where you would go to get your passport. But in Sikh culture, it means like giving without the expectation of anything in return, like the highest form of worship.
Rachel: Yeah.
Nathan: So that you realize oh, that's like something really, really important. So we went through this whole journey. There were different layers of it. First is it's something for someone else's culture, like that's not ours. Then second it's something very, very meaningful. So I ended up changing the name back, undoing all this, getting a new wave of backlash because now it was oh, you've given in to the social justice warriors.
It was like oh my God. Trying to say here's the journey that I went on. Here's why I think this is the right decision and the best, if you truly understand what Seva means like the only option to do is to not use this for like your for profit company. So there's a lot of things in that. Sometimes stuff will happen that you make a mistake and learn from it, move on, apologize for it, but the unforced error in that is really this is research that I could have done in advance.
I did, whatever, a day's worth of research, a couple of weeks, that sort of thing. To make a change of that size, it's easy to say oh, some people will hate it. Some people will love it, and we'll move on. But like this was all knowable information.
Rachel: Yes. It was foreseeable. Even sending a survey to a segment of your most passionate or your biggest users, you know what I mean? To say like the people who are most committed to the brand or whatever and getting a cross section of feedback. So it's making a mistake sucks. We all beat ourselves up when we make a mistake, but it was such a public mistake.
It's so painful. You're like hey, this is our new brand. We're here. Yay. Then it's oh, we fucked this up. God dammit. Yes, but honestly, I think that what people fail to realize so many times is like making the mistake is rarely the problem. It's always the reaction after you learn that you've made a mistake. After you get this additional new information. You could have dug your heels in and said I don't care. Right? But you actually listened to your audience.
Nathan: I think it would have worked out fine if I had done that. I think whatever controversy would have blown over. People would have moved on. There's plenty of companies, words like Prana or Asana. Similar culture, similar like giant multibillion dollar brands. Everyone's like yeah, that's fine. Now, this is a probably a different level of importance on the word. But on one hand, I was thinking about that. I was like okay, this will be fine.
Rachel: Will this blow over.
Nathan: People will move on. But it was really the moment of okay, what are my values? What does this mean? So it's not just.
Rachel: You’ve got to be honest about that.
Nathan: Yeah. Here are the consequences. If I go to path A, it'll be this. Path B, it'll be that. It's not like just weighing it back and forth. Like okay, what do I think is right? That's the thing that made the decision. So then in my decision journal, in my list of unforced errors, I have notes on okay. On decisions of this level, here's types of things we can do in the future. Let’s carve off. I have 200,000 people on an email list. Send an email to like 5,000 of them across culture and test this out.
Another example that I loved is the company FreshBooks. They make accounting invoicing software. They had a new version. They decided to rewrite their software from scratch, a totally new version, but they knew that if they rolled it out, and were like here's the new thing. Some people will be really upset.
Rachel: Yes.
Nathan: So they wanted to know. They want a real feedback and to be out there in the market for as long as possible with the new version, and keep improving it without all the preconceptions of the old one. So they founded a new company, gave it a different name, never told anyone. Then there's just this new player in the invoicing space that started competing for the same customers and started competing out there in the market.
It was able to like build and grow and get feedback. Then only like 18 months in after doing this did they then say actually, just kidding, we're the same company. We now have a really solid compelling product that we've been testing in the market for 18 months. We know exactly what's better. We've closed all the gaps.
Because they could say hey, switch from Fresh Books to this one. Someone’s like no, I love this feature in Fresh Books that you don’t have. They’re like great. We missed that in our testing. So they could build that out and go from there.
So I think just this idea that there are ways to test things, and are big, bold, as an entrepreneur someone's going to hate this, but I'm going to do it anyway. It could really get us into trouble and really easily mitigated trouble.
Rachel: Yes, for sure. I think that's so true. I think with a decision like that, first of all, if you don't feel good about it, you're going to carry that forever. If you would have stuck in. Also, you could also have just a group of people, even if it's a small group of people, that forever hate your brand or just people will forever remember how you handled that.
I think because of the decision that you made, people will forever remember how you handled that. I think it just builds so much trust and so much love and draws people who actually are aligned with how you think and in your belief system, your values to you. So it's a beautiful thing.
So like actually making big mistakes and embarrassing mistakes can be so much growth opportunity. Even like growth opportunity in terms of more people are drawn to your brand because of how you recover from the mistake, and your willingness to listen to other people. All of that matters so much. I think people underestimate how valuable that part is.
Nathan: Yeah, I think you're right. The two other unforced errors that I'll share to just encourage people like keep their own list because I hope this has sparked some going oh. Now I have a list of things.
One of them is in the email marketing world, there was this debate for a long time between like simple plain text emails and like beautiful design emails. We ran a bunch of tests. We found that pretty much always like, in a statistically significant way, the plain text, looks like I just sent it from Gmail email would almost always outperform any level of beautiful design and branding.
So we stayed focused on this idea of people say oh, I wanted to be able to make this beautiful email. We're like no. You shouldn't. We're here to help you make money. Do this instead. What ended up happening is basically the market started to shift. What was like hey, I’d like a beautiful email design, but I'm okay with anything. Then people said no, it's really important.
So important that a company called Flodesk came out. That was their only value proposition. They're saying this is all that we do is really beautiful email templates. They ended up building a business to, I think, over 15 million a year in revenue. Carving out a section of our market all because we like stayed true on this one thing that we believed in and excluding people who were like okay. Well, I'm going to go find a solution somewhere else.
That was something that the reasons that we focused on plain text emails was still, they're still true today. If you run the same tests, it still performs. Most people are just I don't care. I want to represent my company in a way that I'm really proud of. So being so attached to the data in that. Like I was so attached to the quantitative data that I missed all the qualitative data. I should have reevaluated.
Now, two years ago, we did reevaluate, and said okay we can actually build an even better email designer than Flodesk. We can build this whole open ecosystem where any designer can contribute templates. It's taken us the last 18 months to bring that to life. Now, it's totally live. It's available. It's on our free plan. It's fantastic. But I gave up $5/$10 million in revenue with that mistake. Then just really taking too long to course correct.
Rachel: Yes. That reminds me of this idea of kill your darlings. That is a Stephen King quote, and it's usually advice given to writers where you like fall in love with some aspect of the story but it's actually not serving the reader. It's not advancing the story, and you need to kill it and let it go.
Nathan: But that scene is so well written or whatever else.
Rachel: Exactly. You're just like you're in love with it. It's the same thing that happens to us as creators and entrepreneurs where we are obsessed with this idea. This idea holds us back or holds clients back, and we're like I'm going to be relentless with it.
Like an example of that for me was, and this is where I made a good decision, but I could have easily gone the other way, which was I hated memberships. I used to always be like memberships over worst. Screw memberships. You don't want to build a membership business, blah, blah, blah.
I had good reasons, which is basically like a lot of people do memberships because it's cheap, and they don't want to have to sell something that's expensive. So they sell something cheap and often go out of business because they don't have a big enough audience to support the membership.
Nathan: The churn is too high.
Rachel: Yes, exactly. Like a membership is a serious business. Like you got to really put a lot of effort in and you have to have, I recommend that people have a larger audience when they first launch a membership, like a more established audience. But anyway, COVID came, my business was obliterated. Not gone, but like lots of revenue gone in less than 30 days because of it.
So I had to decide okay, I have all this audience. I have this team. I have this content. How can I match it in a way that makes sense for the times? Like the obvious answer was start a membership. I was like oh my God, no. I have to like publicly do what I've always said I never would do. You know what I mean?
It's the embarrassment of that is like that could keep you from doing the right decision. Or you could say you know what? I'm allowed to change my mind and actually see where I was wrong. Now I see that this is actually the best way to just serve my customers. So I'm going to do what's best for my customers instead of what's best for my ego right now. You know?
Nathan: When what's best for your customers and what your ego wants conflict. Yep. I've had a few of those moments, more than a few. They're painful.
Rachel: They can be, yes. But in the long run, you're better served when your clients are better served. Like everybody wins. But it is sort of embarrassing sometimes. So yes, but I love this, even this process. We should just make unforced errors like a section of the podcast.
Nathan: Well, I don't have time to make any more unforced error. I listed mine out. I've got like six or seven in the list, and that's so I won't ever. No, I'm just kidding.
Rachel: Listen, you don't plan to, which is exactly why you will. But it's fun actually to like reevaluate. What are some of the decisions? Because people always ask okay, you have an eight figure business. What are some of those key points that made that possible? Where were those key decisions? What were those key inflection points?
For Hello Seven, deciding to create a membership, that was a key inflection point because that took us right to million dollar business to a $5 million business in 12 months. Which I had no idea that it was going to do that. It would be nice to say I saw that coming. I did not.
Nathan: All engineered from the beginning. But then when you list these things out, either decisions or unforced errors, you can see those trends. Like in my unforced errors, I have three or four things on that list that are all the result of putting a single person on a project and basically not resourcing a project well enough. Then it ends up not being successful, which means it doesn't warrant more resources, which means that it ultimately dies out.
So I can see that across a handful of these things. I'm like okay, that is like a trend that I have. I think of oh, I could do this as a solo person. So let me just one person on it. Then even these things that I deeply believe in end up dying out because I don't resource them properly.
So now, when I'm planning something I'm like oh, let's just put one person on that. They'll get that done. It'll be awesome. Then I'm like wait, but here's the graveyard over here of things that made same mistake. Maybe. Maybe that’s how we actually get projects killed. If I believe in it, I should have a different strategy. So.
Rachel: I'm kind of obsessed with this. I can't wait to go like write a list of all of my unforced errors that at least that I can remember.
Nathan: Yep. Ask your team. They have a deep memory. My team has it.
Rachel: My team, my husband. My husband. It's so funny because all of my like strengths finders, it's all I'm very futuristic. I'm always like thinking about the future and creating the future. My husband, his highest strengths, I forget what it is, what it's called, but it's like someone who looks to the past to make decisions. So like always looking at data from the past.
So he's like the future doesn't exist yet. Forget the future. Let's look at past data. Let's make present decisions based on past data. I'm let's look at the possibility, and let's make decisions based on possibility. So we clash on this all the time. It's almost like we laugh about it now because it's so obvious that we always, he's always looking at past data. I'm always possibility.
But anyway, he keeps a clear record of my mistakes. So I'm going to go to him as the president of my company, Brittany. First of all, her memory is like a steel trap. She remembers everything we've ever did. I'm always like well, we made this decision. She's that is not at all what we did. Actually, what we did was XYZ. She remembers it to a tee. So they have all the resources I need, I think, to make my list of unforced errors.
Nathan: That's good. Well, for anyone listening, if you make your own list of either a decision journal or have a process like that, or you have your list of unforced errors, we would love to hear about. Twitter, Instagram, any of those places. You can even write them into review. If you're like oh, I want to write an Apple podcast review talking about my unforced errors, go ahead so long as it includes five stars. That’s all that I want. To be clear, you're rating this podcast, not the quality of your decision making on the Apple podcast review.
On that note, we will be. Let's see, when this drops we will be in New Orleans at FinCon for a live recording show the week after this drops. Then we're going to do Austin and LA in early November. So look for those dates. It’ll all be on billiondollarcreator.com. Definitely write a review. We have so much more that we want to cover. We just talk too much. So we're going to have to save so much good stuff, like a billion dollar breakdown on Shelia Johnson for next episode.
Rachel: Yes.
Nathan: That'll be good. All right, thanks for hanging out.
Rachel: Bye y'all.
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