WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.840 Michele: Hi, everyone. 00:00:01.050 --> 00:00:02.580 Welcome back to Software Social. 00:00:02.910 --> 00:00:08.990 I am so excited to have two guests with me today, Michael Rouveure and Damon Chen. 00:00:09.391 --> 00:00:14.081 These are two founders you've probably come across on Twitter or perhaps 00:00:14.081 --> 00:00:15.671 in the founder summit community. 00:00:16.117 --> 00:00:22.423 Both of them, have been funded by calm fund and so today we're kind of 00:00:22.453 --> 00:00:26.983 hear about their experiences launching their companies and what that has 00:00:26.983 --> 00:00:29.066 been like being part of calm fund. 00:00:29.526 --> 00:00:32.433 So Damon and Michael welcome. 00:00:33.332 --> 00:00:33.752 Michael: Thanks for having. 00:00:34.182 --> 00:00:35.382 Michele: Yeah, I'm so excited. 00:00:35.382 --> 00:00:37.302 So, so let's jump right into this. 00:00:37.704 --> 00:00:42.754 So Damon Chen, you are the founder of testimonial. 00:00:43.254 --> 00:00:44.574 Take me back to the beginning. 00:00:45.054 --> 00:00:48.524 How did you even start with having your own company? 00:00:48.524 --> 00:00:48.824 Where did that. 00:00:49.489 --> 00:00:52.819 Damon: Go back to the early 2020 when the pandemic just hit. 00:00:53.319 --> 00:00:57.001 And, you know, a lot of tech companies you know, I used to work for Cisco, 00:00:57.121 --> 00:01:00.211 and Cisco is one of them, you know, ask all employees work from home. 00:01:00.645 --> 00:01:04.322 And you know, it can make me lonely in the beginning. 00:01:04.822 --> 00:01:08.449 And, during that time I was pretty fascinated about, in indie hackers 00:01:08.469 --> 00:01:12.027 community, but, you know, w when reading those posts and reading those 00:01:12.027 --> 00:01:16.497 comments, and I still kinda feel lonely and I'm thinking why, right. 00:01:16.527 --> 00:01:18.747 So it's in the end. 00:01:18.837 --> 00:01:22.755 I still can't really build the connection between the person who 00:01:22.755 --> 00:01:26.505 replied me, the person who made the post, and it's all text based. 00:01:26.805 --> 00:01:32.955 And I'm thinking what if that I make a video focused community, and I started 00:01:32.955 --> 00:01:37.395 to build the MVP, and I launched the product, I launched the community, and 00:01:37.425 --> 00:01:39.990 it was called lonely.dev back then. 00:01:40.050 --> 00:01:44.200 And cause you know, it was just to represent myself, and I kind of 00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:47.854 felt very lonely in the beginning and, uh, that's the first thing 00:01:47.854 --> 00:01:49.304 that I built, it was just for fun. 00:01:49.804 --> 00:01:52.414 During the time that I launched the community, and I was still 00:01:52.414 --> 00:01:58.794 employed by Cisco, I got my paycheck and didn't have any of my vision, 00:01:59.004 --> 00:01:59.934 you know, and this kind of goal. 00:02:00.437 --> 00:02:05.244 And I'm met a lot of friends during the time that I built the lonely dev, 00:02:05.747 --> 00:02:11.718 and after that, you know, I thought the pandemic would just disappear, at the 00:02:11.718 --> 00:02:13.878 end of the year, but I still didn't. 00:02:14.238 --> 00:02:19.558 And I, it kind of become a problem between my day job and my side hustle 00:02:19.638 --> 00:02:22.908 and also my family, because back then my daughter was like one half years 00:02:22.908 --> 00:02:28.728 old, and we were afraid to send her to daycare because we care about her safety. 00:02:29.231 --> 00:02:35.579 And, at the end of 2020, I decided to, you know, take a unpaid leave from, 00:02:36.281 --> 00:02:41.591 for six months and because the unpaid leave won't give me any paycheck. 00:02:41.801 --> 00:02:46.456 And I started to have these kind of, you know, financial pressure. 00:02:46.576 --> 00:02:51.729 And I started to think that, you know, I shipped quite a lot of features, 00:02:51.759 --> 00:02:53.629 these kind of stuff into the lonely dev. 00:02:53.649 --> 00:02:58.472 And the why not, I can pivot the idea into a stand alone product. 00:02:58.832 --> 00:03:03.352 And also meantime, reuse as much code as possible because, for me 00:03:03.502 --> 00:03:08.362 personally, there's a lot of, you know, opportunity costs and time cost 00:03:08.482 --> 00:03:10.672 for me to build a brand new product. 00:03:11.062 --> 00:03:15.901 The best use case for me is to just reuse the code that I previously shipped 00:03:15.931 --> 00:03:20.221 to lonely dev and try to see if I can pivot into a standalone product. 00:03:20.551 --> 00:03:24.562 So I was just, you know, brainstorming the things that I added to the lonely 00:03:24.562 --> 00:03:29.362 dev and of course, I think that I added is the video recording and the 00:03:29.362 --> 00:03:30.742 video streaming, this kind of thing. 00:03:31.222 --> 00:03:37.719 And, you know, for a indie hacker, because I built several, you know side projects, 00:03:37.749 --> 00:03:41.994 but I also have one common problem, which is, how can I sell the product? 00:03:42.204 --> 00:03:46.734 How can I get the social proof and prove that potential buyers that, hey, 00:03:46.734 --> 00:03:48.354 this is the legit and you can buy it. 00:03:48.384 --> 00:03:53.724 And I do have happy customers and a testimonial comes into my picture. 00:03:54.144 --> 00:03:58.759 And, there's one moment that, the Shopify, I think the Shopify website, 00:03:58.789 --> 00:04:00.199 and I saw some video testimonials. 00:04:00.259 --> 00:04:04.549 And that's was really a spur of a moment that I think probably I can 00:04:04.549 --> 00:04:06.019 build it video testimonial thing. 00:04:06.469 --> 00:04:12.019 And, that became the beginning of the testimonial and I just reused almost 00:04:12.199 --> 00:04:14.509 80% or 90% of the code from lonely dev. 00:04:14.869 --> 00:04:18.737 And, uh, you know, go to landing page for testimonial and then launch 00:04:18.737 --> 00:04:20.297 it right before the Christmas. 00:04:20.327 --> 00:04:24.598 And I got several thousand revenue from the launch. 00:04:24.628 --> 00:04:30.148 And I think that became a hit to myself and also a strong validation 00:04:30.388 --> 00:04:31.798 that it probably can be a thing. 00:04:31.828 --> 00:04:35.148 So that, yeah, that's the beginning of the whole journey. 00:04:35.658 --> 00:04:37.098 Michele: So that was interesting. 00:04:37.098 --> 00:04:41.952 So you started out basically by building something for yourself to solve your 00:04:41.952 --> 00:04:45.987 own loneliness during COVID, which I think is something, I think a lot 00:04:45.987 --> 00:04:49.550 of us definitely feel, and then, you know, at a certain point, you 00:04:49.550 --> 00:04:52.980 decided to take this leave from work. 00:04:53.550 --> 00:04:57.660 And so, and that kind of spurred you to say, okay, well, how can 00:04:57.660 --> 00:05:01.190 I maybe start making some extra money while I take this leave? 00:05:01.190 --> 00:05:03.080 Which it sounded like really for your family, you knew 00:05:03.110 --> 00:05:05.127 you needed to take that time. 00:05:05.407 --> 00:05:09.397 And so that, got you looking for, I guess, sort of opening your eyes a 00:05:09.397 --> 00:05:14.697 bit more on opportunities to sort of monetize what you had already built. 00:05:14.697 --> 00:05:19.544 I mean, it's pretty amazing that you were able to reuse 80%, of the code and, and 00:05:19.544 --> 00:05:24.132 you were also solving a very core problem that a lot of people have at the same 00:05:24.132 --> 00:05:29.372 time of how do I, how do I let people know that, you know, I'm legit and that this, 00:05:29.402 --> 00:05:31.545 you know, that this is a good product. 00:05:31.935 --> 00:05:34.185 I'm curious, so when did you, so you said that you launched 00:05:34.215 --> 00:05:37.190 testimonial december of 2020. 00:05:37.190 --> 00:05:37.910 Is that right? 00:05:38.407 --> 00:05:40.717 So when does your leave from work start. 00:05:41.217 --> 00:05:42.267 Damon: I think a month before. 00:05:42.717 --> 00:05:43.797 Michele: A month beforehand. 00:05:43.917 --> 00:05:44.170 Okay. 00:05:44.170 --> 00:05:47.050 So you were kind of already feeling a little bit of that pressure at that point 00:05:47.050 --> 00:05:49.710 of not having, a salary during that time. 00:05:50.395 --> 00:05:53.755 Damon: Yeah, but the good thing is for me, for my family is that my wife 00:05:53.785 --> 00:05:58.675 works full-time, and I worked for Cisco for eight years in the Silicon valley. 00:05:58.705 --> 00:06:01.885 And, you know, we do have quite enough savings. 00:06:02.185 --> 00:06:06.729 So for me, I can foresee what would be the worst case for me, 00:06:06.759 --> 00:06:09.609 which is I lost one year of income. 00:06:09.729 --> 00:06:13.974 And, uh, you know, before quit my job, and I just promise to my 00:06:13.974 --> 00:06:19.397 wife, if I can't really make it work, you know, my goal is to hit a 00:06:19.397 --> 00:06:22.807 100,000 ARR by end of the year 2021. 00:06:23.197 --> 00:06:25.777 And if I can really make it, I would just to go back to find 00:06:25.777 --> 00:06:27.720 a job at any tech company. 00:06:28.050 --> 00:06:32.524 So that's the goal that I promise to my wife, you know, but luckily 00:06:32.664 --> 00:06:38.471 I made it before, uh, 2021 ends and I can still continue my, you know, 00:06:38.471 --> 00:06:39.551 I guess, to continue to pursue. 00:06:40.551 --> 00:06:41.151 Michele: That's awesome. 00:06:41.331 --> 00:06:47.740 So you went from in December of 2020, had a really good response from that. 00:06:47.848 --> 00:06:52.282 How did you come across calm fund and, and I'm curious, what your thoughts 00:06:52.282 --> 00:06:53.482 were when you first came across. 00:06:54.033 --> 00:06:56.993 Damon: I first came across, definitely from the in indie hackers community, uh, 00:06:56.993 --> 00:06:59.363 where, you know, Tyler was interviewed. 00:06:59.860 --> 00:07:04.970 A bit before that, uh, what I know is all about, you know, tech crunch, Y combinator 00:07:04.990 --> 00:07:10.770 or these kind of, you know, very uh, famous, uh, them in a Silicon Valley. 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:16.731 And I never heard about, the calm fund, unless I listened Tyler next 00:07:17.201 --> 00:07:21.101 podcast and then I'm like, wow, there's a VC of that to give you money. 00:07:21.131 --> 00:07:27.015 And, uh, you can do it to what you used to do, and they don't give you any pressure. 00:07:27.015 --> 00:07:32.341 They don't push you to move faster and, uh, And how amazing it is. 00:07:32.341 --> 00:07:37.561 And that, that seems like, you know, the best fit for me, because I do 00:07:37.561 --> 00:07:42.665 have family, I do have a very young kid and I don't really want, you 00:07:42.665 --> 00:07:46.690 know, to take money and also adds up a lot of external pressure on myself. 00:07:47.080 --> 00:07:51.410 And I just, uh, want to continue to do what I do. 00:07:51.560 --> 00:07:54.376 And, that's why I think that calm will be a perfect. 00:07:55.473 --> 00:07:58.736 Michele: It's interesting that you talk about, you know, the, like the 00:07:58.736 --> 00:08:01.454 tech crunch type of funding and, you know, VC and everything else. 00:08:01.454 --> 00:08:05.324 Damon: I applied Y Combinator for several times, and I never 00:08:05.324 --> 00:08:06.734 got an interview request. 00:08:07.234 --> 00:08:12.524 And I just kept applying a Y Combinator and Y com I already is the only, you, 00:08:12.524 --> 00:08:17.174 know, the incubator or, you know, these kind of stuff that I heard about. 00:08:17.674 --> 00:08:22.324 And after, you know, being a lurker, in the in hackers community, 00:08:22.354 --> 00:08:25.934 and I heard quite a lot of stuff I heard about, you know, MRR. 00:08:25.934 --> 00:08:31.064 What is MRR, what is ARR, and all these kinds of, you know, inspiring 00:08:31.094 --> 00:08:37.839 founders and a calm fund and this kind of interesting VCs that maybe a better 00:08:37.839 --> 00:08:40.089 fit at for in any hackers like us. 00:08:40.589 --> 00:08:41.099 Michele: Yeah. 00:08:41.099 --> 00:08:45.469 You know, thinking about it, like, I think something is really different about, 00:08:45.774 --> 00:08:50.104 You know about calm is that they will fund companies that are side projects. 00:08:50.134 --> 00:08:50.734 Indeed. 00:08:50.764 --> 00:08:52.204 It's a selling point. 00:08:52.624 --> 00:08:57.564 If it's a side project, that's already making money because I mean, even in 00:08:57.564 --> 00:09:03.354 the, you know, the free flowing VC capital days of, you know, say 20 15 00:09:03.354 --> 00:09:06.517 to early 2020, and then it kind of picked up a little bit for the last 00:09:06.517 --> 00:09:08.077 two years and now it's back down again. 00:09:08.576 --> 00:09:11.736 But even during the free-flowing times, like if you've got a side 00:09:11.736 --> 00:09:15.036 project like that, they'll just, they won't even reply to your email. 00:09:15.036 --> 00:09:18.606 They will just show you the door because it's taken as the signal 00:09:18.606 --> 00:09:23.176 that you're somehow not serious enough about what you're doing. 00:09:23.184 --> 00:09:25.791 And they just have no interest in it. 00:09:25.960 --> 00:09:27.840 And calm is like very different, right? 00:09:27.840 --> 00:09:28.090 Damon: Not to. 00:09:28.435 --> 00:09:31.775 Not to mention the side project, but also if you're a solo founder and 00:09:31.805 --> 00:09:37.149 most of the VC, you know even Y combinator or won't even consider, 00:09:37.179 --> 00:09:38.919 you know, so being a solo founder. 00:09:39.420 --> 00:09:40.710 Michele: Oh, interesting. 00:09:41.265 --> 00:09:42.915 Michael: That's a big point to bring up. 00:09:42.915 --> 00:09:47.502 We have a lot of founders in the community that are solo, and when you look at 00:09:47.502 --> 00:09:50.952 funding so many places, they don't like you just because you're by yourself. 00:09:50.952 --> 00:09:51.252 Right. 00:09:51.312 --> 00:09:54.372 And you might have like the best business model. 00:09:54.372 --> 00:09:56.892 You might be like super niche and have something really great, but 00:09:56.892 --> 00:09:59.022 they just won't even look at you because they think you can't do 00:09:59.022 --> 00:10:00.342 it because you a solo founder. 00:10:00.582 --> 00:10:03.312 Whereas a calm funder, they don't look at it, whether you're 00:10:03.312 --> 00:10:04.662 solo or not, they look at what. 00:10:05.264 --> 00:10:05.444 Michele: Yeah. 00:10:05.990 --> 00:10:10.520 So, I guess, Michael, maybe we should talk a little bit about your story as well. 00:10:11.020 --> 00:10:13.550 So you were the founder of jungle bee. 00:10:14.004 --> 00:10:17.781 Can you take us back to, to where the idea for jungle became. 00:10:18.329 --> 00:10:19.169 Michael: Yeah, absolutely. 00:10:19.199 --> 00:10:23.521 So I grew up in the Caribbean and, uh, In the island it's Saint 00:10:23.521 --> 00:10:26.485 Martin, which is very, very busy, lots of, lots of tours there. 00:10:26.785 --> 00:10:30.595 And my family, they actually have a tour and charter company there. 00:10:30.655 --> 00:10:34.675 And so I kind of grew up in the tour business and grew up on 00:10:34.675 --> 00:10:36.829 boats, you know, working on boats. 00:10:37.129 --> 00:10:41.815 And at some point in all of that, I started selling tours online, you know, 00:10:41.815 --> 00:10:43.495 to like tourists coming to Saint Martin. 00:10:43.495 --> 00:10:47.853 So this was like a maybe 2015, 2014. 00:10:48.273 --> 00:10:50.723 And so the websites, they weren't great, not I talk like today. 00:10:50.783 --> 00:10:54.623 And so that small little business that I had did really, really well, it was 00:10:54.623 --> 00:10:58.763 called Essex and deals, and I'd basically make a commission on all the bookings 00:10:58.763 --> 00:11:00.473 I was selling for these tour companies. 00:11:00.503 --> 00:11:05.273 So I was operating as an agent and somewhere along the line, I realized 00:11:05.303 --> 00:11:08.033 it was really, really difficult because as bookings came through 00:11:08.033 --> 00:11:09.955 to, through my own website, right. 00:11:10.405 --> 00:11:14.185 I would have to then collect the money, but then also check of 00:11:14.215 --> 00:11:16.755 each tour company, you know, if the actually had space for my. 00:11:17.560 --> 00:11:19.300 My guest didn't know about this, but I did. 00:11:19.690 --> 00:11:23.150 And you know, some of companies are really professional and 00:11:23.150 --> 00:11:24.230 they're answer you straight away. 00:11:24.260 --> 00:11:26.004 And others are like pirates. 00:11:26.034 --> 00:11:27.344 You know, they'll be on a tour day. 00:11:27.554 --> 00:11:28.274 They'll go home. 00:11:28.304 --> 00:11:29.054 They'll clean their boats. 00:11:29.054 --> 00:11:30.154 And then they suddenly they're at the pub. 00:11:30.154 --> 00:11:31.964 I mean, you can't reach them until the next day. 00:11:32.354 --> 00:11:37.239 And, um, it was very difficult to handle reservations for tours. 00:11:37.719 --> 00:11:41.828 And so that's kind of when the idea of jungle became to me and the whole 00:11:41.828 --> 00:11:43.538 point was to fix a problem that I had. 00:11:43.598 --> 00:11:46.568 And a lot of the tour companies that I spoke to also had their problem was 00:11:46.868 --> 00:11:50.768 dealing with availability and receiving bookings from local activitists and 00:11:50.768 --> 00:11:53.078 agents or concierge desks at the hotels. 00:11:54.036 --> 00:11:55.546 That's how I got started jungle bee. 00:11:55.686 --> 00:11:58.026 So I kind of designed like the platform. 00:11:58.416 --> 00:12:01.786 And so one thing you have to keep in mind in all this, like I mentioned 00:12:01.796 --> 00:12:05.116 was I used to work on boats, you know, I dabbled on websites and stuff 00:12:05.116 --> 00:12:07.186 like that, but I was not a developer. 00:12:07.186 --> 00:12:09.766 I was on some island in the Caribbean. 00:12:09.796 --> 00:12:12.406 I didn't know about Silicon valley startups. 00:12:12.406 --> 00:12:13.996 I didn't know anything about this stuff. 00:12:14.026 --> 00:12:15.406 I wasn't even involved at all. 00:12:16.057 --> 00:12:18.707 You know, you'd find me at the beach, you know, working on 00:12:18.707 --> 00:12:19.577 boats and things like that. 00:12:19.577 --> 00:12:19.787 Right. 00:12:19.787 --> 00:12:22.221 So it was, rather interesting. 00:12:22.221 --> 00:12:24.704 And so I started to learn about, you know, everything that goes 00:12:24.704 --> 00:12:26.474 on and trying to raise money. 00:12:26.714 --> 00:12:30.374 And I knew that jungle bee was going to be a very difficult booking system to build. 00:12:30.854 --> 00:12:33.674 It wasn't going to be a small little app cause you're dealing with money 00:12:33.674 --> 00:12:37.634 and availability and time zones and schedules and just so many things. 00:12:38.024 --> 00:12:41.744 And so I kind of did a mock up and I went to all the different tour companies 00:12:41.744 --> 00:12:42.884 that I knew that I worked with. 00:12:43.214 --> 00:12:46.964 And with them, I was actually able to raise $90,000. 00:12:47.814 --> 00:12:47.964 Michele: Wow. 00:12:48.029 --> 00:12:49.952 Michael: Um, yeah, we didn't even build software. 00:12:49.982 --> 00:12:53.252 I mean, there was no, there was no safe, there wasn't a convertible note. 00:12:53.252 --> 00:12:57.512 We kind of put together like this very standard business equity contract for 00:12:57.512 --> 00:12:59.282 common stock with all the shareholders. 00:12:59.762 --> 00:13:03.322 And I found a dev shop in South Africa that would help me. 00:13:03.322 --> 00:13:05.752 So I did, I looked at a lot of dev shops, you know, cause I wasn't 00:13:05.752 --> 00:13:06.862 sure, I didn't know how to do this. 00:13:06.862 --> 00:13:08.302 I didn't even know what technology to use. 00:13:08.302 --> 00:13:13.152 You know, all I had was my little balsamic mockup, and so with that money, I jumped 00:13:13.152 --> 00:13:17.352 on a plane, went to South Africa and we actually built the software and it 00:13:17.352 --> 00:13:19.842 worked really, really all it came out. 00:13:20.052 --> 00:13:21.762 This was just to give you a date. 00:13:21.762 --> 00:13:24.602 This was in the beginning of 2017. 00:13:25.112 --> 00:13:30.742 And then by I'd say it was May or June 2017. 00:13:30.742 --> 00:13:31.762 I was really excited. 00:13:31.762 --> 00:13:36.151 We had actually launched v one of our booking system in Saint 00:13:36.151 --> 00:13:37.291 Martin as the first place. 00:13:37.351 --> 00:13:41.221 And we were able to get all the hotels and activity desks to use the software 00:13:41.221 --> 00:13:43.981 and start booking all the different tour companies, you know, on the islands. 00:13:44.241 --> 00:13:45.271 And it worked really, really well. 00:13:45.631 --> 00:13:49.624 So that's kind of how jungle bee started, right at the beginning. 00:13:50.124 --> 00:13:53.274 Michele: And so, I mean, you said you were on an island in the middle 00:13:53.274 --> 00:13:58.456 of the Caribbean, not a developer, didn't know about the Silicon valley 00:13:58.456 --> 00:14:03.506 tech world that Damon literally lives in, uh, quite a contrast here. 00:14:03.980 --> 00:14:09.840 So, you had this $90,000 in funding from the community, basically. 00:14:10.341 --> 00:14:14.458 So, how did you end up coming across calm? 00:14:14.528 --> 00:14:16.948 And why did you end up taking them off? 00:14:17.388 --> 00:14:17.808 Michael: Yeah. 00:14:17.868 --> 00:14:19.068 So that's a really good question. 00:14:19.098 --> 00:14:20.778 And that's where it gets really interesting. 00:14:20.778 --> 00:14:24.745 And why calm company fund, I think is such a great model, because the 00:14:24.745 --> 00:14:27.145 story it gets, um, it gets a bit crazy. 00:14:27.145 --> 00:14:31.017 My story then, because this was May or June 2017. 00:14:31.287 --> 00:14:34.587 And I'm not sure if you guys remember, but around September, October, 00:14:34.587 --> 00:14:39.793 2017, the Caribbean, was devastated by hurricanes Irma and Maria. 00:14:40.297 --> 00:14:43.823 And so, the startup, we had launched, well, I had launched 00:14:43.823 --> 00:14:45.173 basically, you know, the community. 00:14:45.822 --> 00:14:47.202 It did super well. 00:14:47.202 --> 00:14:48.222 We were really excited. 00:14:48.222 --> 00:14:51.252 We were really happy in September, I mean, we were doing over a million dollars 00:14:51.282 --> 00:14:53.262 in bookings worth in the marketplace. 00:14:53.382 --> 00:14:54.312 It was just amazing. 00:14:54.702 --> 00:14:57.762 And then suddenly one day everything went, just crashed. 00:14:58.062 --> 00:14:59.532 It just like it was all gone. 00:14:59.562 --> 00:15:01.722 All my customers lost their boats. 00:15:01.789 --> 00:15:05.342 All the other islands that we were set up to go and launch it disappeared as well. 00:15:05.839 --> 00:15:11.059 And so that's when things got very interesting for me and my wife, Audrey. 00:15:11.557 --> 00:15:14.017 We had to like kind of survive at that point. 00:15:14.514 --> 00:15:19.194 And so what I ended up doing is, I ended up going to work back on boats. 00:15:19.224 --> 00:15:21.534 So I used to work on these big luxury yachts. 00:15:21.884 --> 00:15:24.044 And I got a job, thanks to a great friend of mine. 00:15:24.075 --> 00:15:26.175 He got me on one of the boats, as an engineer. 00:15:26.535 --> 00:15:30.218 And so, I basically had a side job plus the startup. 00:15:30.248 --> 00:15:32.348 I didn't want to lose because we had put so much into it. 00:15:32.828 --> 00:15:36.038 And so, uh, for about a year, almost a year and three months, 00:15:36.038 --> 00:15:37.568 you know, throughout 2018. 00:15:37.858 --> 00:15:42.598 The whole, you have 2018 up to the beginning of 2019, I worked as an engineer 00:15:42.628 --> 00:15:46.558 and with the salary I was earning, I was able to hire some more developers 00:15:46.738 --> 00:15:51.028 and keep building jungle bee has the Caribbean market kind of came back to 00:15:51.028 --> 00:15:52.498 normal, you know, slowly but surely. 00:15:53.045 --> 00:15:56.185 So jungle bee was full-time, then it became like a side hustle. 00:15:56.975 --> 00:16:00.125 I just keeping it there going while I was working full-time on the boats. 00:16:00.605 --> 00:16:05.045 And then back in March, 2019, I believe. 00:16:05.045 --> 00:16:05.315 Yeah. 00:16:05.495 --> 00:16:08.335 I decided to like, know that such, you know, I can only do both jobs so. 00:16:09.033 --> 00:16:11.223 Because the jungle bee will be software is demanding, you know, 00:16:11.223 --> 00:16:12.363 and the customers and everything. 00:16:12.693 --> 00:16:14.703 And so I kind of quit my job then. 00:16:15.206 --> 00:16:18.566 And that's when the pressure started to like, you know, come up very, very 00:16:18.566 --> 00:16:20.246 quickly because I'm not a developer. 00:16:20.276 --> 00:16:23.336 I can't build like in Ruby on rails and react and all that. 00:16:23.336 --> 00:16:27.356 So I couldn't just look off to my software that I wanted to keep using. 00:16:27.356 --> 00:16:29.066 And I had people like running, you know, using it. 00:16:29.715 --> 00:16:32.775 Back in that time, I'd moved to South Africa because well, it's really cheap 00:16:32.775 --> 00:16:35.535 and it's a good way, if you're going to survive as a founder, it's really 00:16:35.535 --> 00:16:37.125 beautiful there and it's super cheap. 00:16:37.125 --> 00:16:40.935 So that was, um, that was my, my objective in March. 00:16:41.355 --> 00:16:45.405 And so I kind of hunkered down for two months and started getting really stressed 00:16:45.795 --> 00:16:49.515 and started looking at like different investment models and things like that. 00:16:50.018 --> 00:16:50.348 And. 00:16:51.001 --> 00:16:51.481 Everything. 00:16:51.491 --> 00:16:55.315 I had seen just like what Damon says, you know, about, VC's needing you 00:16:55.315 --> 00:16:59.875 to have a co-founder and then you need to have, you know, X amount off MRR, 00:16:59.875 --> 00:17:03.685 but you need to be growing or MRR by like 200% per month, you know, and like 00:17:03.985 --> 00:17:07.435 just going off all these crazy demands was totally the opposite of what I'd 00:17:07.435 --> 00:17:08.605 been in a jungle bee, but, you know. 00:17:08.665 --> 00:17:11.755 I was building it to be honest and, um, in a very calm way. 00:17:11.785 --> 00:17:15.111 And I had survived a hurricane disaster. 00:17:15.111 --> 00:17:17.871 So it was the opposite of what people wanted to see. 00:17:18.321 --> 00:17:20.301 And then, just like Damon as well. 00:17:20.331 --> 00:17:22.971 I saw Tyler on a podcast and I can't remember which website. 00:17:23.671 --> 00:17:27.361 But everything you said made so much sense, you know, about building a 00:17:27.361 --> 00:17:31.581 company slowly, making sure that your revenue is you hope higher 00:17:31.581 --> 00:17:33.171 than, you know, your expenses. 00:17:33.471 --> 00:17:36.381 And then just getting to the point where you need to. 00:17:36.381 --> 00:17:40.341 And then when you work with shareholders and VCs and things like that, 00:17:40.341 --> 00:17:41.571 they're actually there to help you. 00:17:41.571 --> 00:17:43.551 You know, they don't have these demands and you've got to have 00:17:43.551 --> 00:17:44.511 to meet certain milestones. 00:17:44.541 --> 00:17:46.071 You just got to keep the company going. 00:17:46.071 --> 00:17:48.501 And which was something that I found rather amazing. 00:17:49.106 --> 00:17:52.006 And yeah, I just got, super lucky to be honest. 00:17:52.006 --> 00:17:54.733 I mean, I reached out to Tyler back then it was just a little form 00:17:54.793 --> 00:17:59.436 sent of a pitch deck and we started chatting and one day he sent me an 00:17:59.436 --> 00:18:00.786 email and he said, Hey man, you're in. 00:18:01.286 --> 00:18:02.846 And I was like, oh my gosh, that's unbelievable. 00:18:02.876 --> 00:18:06.796 And from then on, the pressure was all gone, you know. 00:18:06.796 --> 00:18:10.159 Like then I could like actually, I was really going to go full-time into 00:18:10.159 --> 00:18:13.251 jungle because I was already looking at, you know, finding another job. 00:18:13.671 --> 00:18:17.571 And so from then I was full-time into jungle bee and I was able to really 00:18:17.571 --> 00:18:20.301 concentrate on our customers, what they needed and really push the 00:18:20.301 --> 00:18:21.651 software to where it needed to be. 00:18:22.151 --> 00:18:24.161 Michele: I mean, that's incredible. 00:18:24.161 --> 00:18:30.634 Like you literally had a hurricane hit your business and destroy it. 00:18:30.914 --> 00:18:32.834 Not metaphorically, like literally. 00:18:33.154 --> 00:18:33.934 Michael: Yeah, all gone. 00:18:33.973 --> 00:18:37.873 I've got some, the most amazing graphs of, you know, bookings and revenue, and 00:18:37.873 --> 00:18:39.643 you can just see like how high it goes. 00:18:39.673 --> 00:18:42.843 And then suddenly it just does like a, like a full vertical drop. 00:18:43.323 --> 00:18:45.603 And then it's not just that, but we also got hit by COVID. 00:18:45.603 --> 00:18:47.673 It took us two years to recover from that. 00:18:48.093 --> 00:18:52.293 And then in 2020, the beginning of 2020, COVID happened, and the 00:18:52.293 --> 00:18:53.643 exact same thing happened again. 00:18:53.673 --> 00:18:55.683 So we went through like two major disasters. 00:18:56.073 --> 00:18:59.529 And, yeah, thanks to calm fund in the community and everything that 00:18:59.529 --> 00:19:01.179 we, you know, that they've provided. 00:19:01.659 --> 00:19:04.799 We were actually able to survive like a massive hurricane disaster. 00:19:04.809 --> 00:19:08.026 We were able to survive the COVID pandemic and we're still here. 00:19:08.276 --> 00:19:10.859 Our competitors have crushed, like they have no more money. 00:19:10.859 --> 00:19:13.703 They had to close our companies, everything, and we've just been able 00:19:13.703 --> 00:19:15.203 to survive throughout all of that. 00:19:15.689 --> 00:19:16.979 So we're like, we're definitely slow. 00:19:17.009 --> 00:19:19.879 We're more like with like a turtle, you know, slowly going 00:19:19.879 --> 00:19:21.499 forward, but we're still there. 00:19:21.929 --> 00:19:24.299 Michele: I think you're a cockroach, like you're your unkillable. 00:19:24.979 --> 00:19:25.939 Michael: Yeah, exactly. 00:19:26.009 --> 00:19:27.529 can't going to go and get rid of us. 00:19:28.519 --> 00:19:28.819 It is. 00:19:28.819 --> 00:19:30.649 Michele: I mean, you know, it's interesting you talking about that 00:19:30.649 --> 00:19:35.513 because, I think sometimes a fear people have about taking funding from anyone 00:19:35.823 --> 00:19:39.650 is what happens if things hit the fan. 00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:40.100 Right. 00:19:40.130 --> 00:19:42.080 And like our revenues drop to zero. 00:19:42.080 --> 00:19:45.130 Like, I mean, I've, I feel like that's something that, that held me back for a 00:19:45.130 --> 00:19:48.400 long time and going full time is like, oh my God, what if, you know, what, 00:19:48.400 --> 00:19:51.760 if a major company comes into this space or like, there's this big change. 00:19:51.760 --> 00:19:55.260 And like, all of a sudden our business just disappears overnight. 00:19:55.260 --> 00:19:58.220 And that was just like me worrying about it. 00:19:58.250 --> 00:19:59.910 But that, literally happened to you. 00:20:00.410 --> 00:20:03.688 And so I'm curious, what was that experience like for you. 00:20:03.688 --> 00:20:07.018 Cause I guess I know people kind of, sort of get worried that like their 00:20:07.018 --> 00:20:11.465 investors would be pressuring them or, you know, kind of turn their backs on them. 00:20:11.465 --> 00:20:14.335 And so I'm curious how that kind of dynamic played out. 00:20:14.557 --> 00:20:14.947 Michael: Yeah. 00:20:15.024 --> 00:20:17.214 Well, I mean, personally, you know, you kind of, well, 00:20:17.214 --> 00:20:18.294 you get really upset, right? 00:20:18.324 --> 00:20:19.524 Especially if it happens twice in a row. 00:20:20.349 --> 00:20:20.849 Come on, man. 00:20:21.119 --> 00:20:22.299 How is that even possible? 00:20:22.329 --> 00:20:24.639 You know, how do you get to like major disaster happen in a 00:20:24.639 --> 00:20:26.439 row, so you get sad, all that. 00:20:26.469 --> 00:20:30.759 But from a point of view of, you know, for the hurricanes, one thing, but 00:20:30.759 --> 00:20:35.943 like when um, COVID happened and calm fund was there, it was the opposite. 00:20:35.943 --> 00:20:36.873 I actually felt okay. 00:20:36.903 --> 00:20:41.517 Because when it started all going down and I'd sent a message to, you know, 00:20:41.527 --> 00:20:45.365 CB was head of platform at calm fund, and then I'd sent a message to Tyler. 00:20:45.795 --> 00:20:48.285 Both of them had reached up, and they were like, hey, you know, just tell 00:20:48.285 --> 00:20:49.785 us anything we can do to help you. 00:20:50.065 --> 00:20:53.365 You know, this COVID will eventually end, so you just got to survive 00:20:53.365 --> 00:20:55.525 this and we're here to help you just tell us what you need. 00:20:56.022 --> 00:20:58.992 And the same thing happened in the community. 00:20:58.992 --> 00:21:02.006 I remember bunch of founders were worried and things like that as well. 00:21:02.396 --> 00:21:06.716 And, you know, we had a group, everybody could speak and there was many, you 00:21:06.716 --> 00:21:09.876 know, investors, which we call them mentors because they, you know, they 00:21:09.876 --> 00:21:14.175 actually do work, has blended work, but they act as mentors in the community 00:21:14.685 --> 00:21:17.145 and everyone was very, very supportive. 00:21:17.268 --> 00:21:20.768 There was no, uh, no pressure whatsoever. 00:21:20.828 --> 00:21:25.978 And since I've been in the community since 2019, I've seen this happen a 00:21:25.978 --> 00:21:29.458 lot of times, you know, whether it's a disaster or actual, you know, competition 00:21:29.458 --> 00:21:32.458 or just business, not working out for some of the founders in the community. 00:21:32.961 --> 00:21:37.515 And when things go wrong, so far from what I've seen, you know, from 00:21:37.515 --> 00:21:40.998 the company team, but also all the mentors, everyone's just being super 00:21:40.998 --> 00:21:44.238 supportive and like saying, you know, sometimes it just doesn't work out. 00:21:44.268 --> 00:21:45.108 That's totally fine. 00:21:45.168 --> 00:21:46.938 You know, it's not, it's not the end of the world. 00:21:46.938 --> 00:21:48.348 It's just the way it is sometimes. 00:21:48.348 --> 00:21:49.188 Right in business. 00:21:49.588 --> 00:21:52.018 There's no pressure whatsoever at all. 00:21:52.348 --> 00:21:53.278 I don't feel any pressure. 00:21:53.775 --> 00:21:54.555 How about you Damon? 00:21:54.805 --> 00:21:58.495 Damon: Yeah, for me, it's like, uh, I took the money from Tyler 00:21:58.555 --> 00:22:00.199 and then kind of disappear. 00:22:03.991 --> 00:22:05.213 You know, we are all adults. 00:22:05.213 --> 00:22:11.333 I mean, you know, we don't need anyone to supervise us 24 7, and we know, we 00:22:11.333 --> 00:22:16.223 are the founder, and we are in the best position to know what we need to do. 00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:19.770 But, the best part for having the calm fund on the side is, 00:22:19.800 --> 00:22:24.470 you know, as running business and we will hit some lows for sure. 00:22:24.670 --> 00:22:27.970 And a calm fund is the best community. 00:22:28.120 --> 00:22:28.540 I would say. 00:22:29.037 --> 00:22:33.147 You know, to give you a help, to give a hand whenever I need any help. 00:22:33.447 --> 00:22:35.007 So it's always there. 00:22:35.037 --> 00:22:40.274 So that's also the reason why I accept the temperature from Tyler, uh, is 00:22:40.274 --> 00:22:43.024 because, you know, I'm a solo founder. 00:22:43.114 --> 00:22:48.124 I just quit my job and I do need a community, which I 00:22:48.544 --> 00:22:49.954 can surround myself with. 00:22:50.314 --> 00:22:54.904 And, uh, I don't really need, you know, a community full of, you know, 00:22:55.404 --> 00:22:59.654 those CEO's from those kinds of, you know, NASDAQ listed public companies. 00:22:59.684 --> 00:23:04.419 But what I really need is those funders who are, no a few miles ahead of me 00:23:04.419 --> 00:23:09.579 with a couple of million-dollar ARR that I can really feel them, and I can 00:23:09.579 --> 00:23:14.279 follow their steps, and I can get their practical advisers and I can also get 00:23:14.279 --> 00:23:16.479 really inspired from their journey. 00:23:16.569 --> 00:23:19.680 And I'm hoping that one day I can be one of them. 00:23:20.010 --> 00:23:23.720 So that's, that's the biggest reason that I, you know, joining 00:23:23.720 --> 00:23:25.696 calm and I'm also feel very. 00:23:26.345 --> 00:23:32.375 Michele: So you launched testimony on December of 2020, when was it that you 00:23:32.375 --> 00:23:34.465 ended up, taking the money from calm? 00:23:34.965 --> 00:23:42.002 Damon: It was May, 2021 and I'll quit my job at the end of the March 2021. 00:23:42.302 --> 00:23:43.292 I quit my job. 00:23:43.322 --> 00:23:46.412 I actually, you know, not only building public on Twitter, but 00:23:46.412 --> 00:23:47.702 I also quit in public on Twitter. 00:23:49.632 --> 00:23:49.952 Yeah. 00:23:49.952 --> 00:23:57.082 Uh, I made a, I posted a tweet say, Hey, if I can reach a 1000 MRR, I'm 00:23:57.082 --> 00:23:59.356 going to quit, quit my job in public. 00:24:00.316 --> 00:24:06.826 And at the end of the March, I reached my 1000 MRR ago, which means that I 00:24:06.826 --> 00:24:08.986 have to quit my job because I promised. 00:24:09.522 --> 00:24:10.902 Michele: Because you promise the internet. 00:24:11.292 --> 00:24:11.772 Damon: Yes. 00:24:11.832 --> 00:24:15.582 And, uh, a month up later, I reached, uh, 2000 MRR. 00:24:15.912 --> 00:24:19.619 And by the time, Gil reached out to me uh, on Twitter and 00:24:19.619 --> 00:24:20.849 saying, Hey, can we have a talk? 00:24:20.939 --> 00:24:22.559 And then I'll have to talk with Tyler. 00:24:22.619 --> 00:24:27.509 And then at the end of the April or early may, and I got the temperature from Tyler. 00:24:28.009 --> 00:24:28.949 So that happens with. 00:24:30.702 --> 00:24:32.742 Michele: Did your boss at Cisco see that tweet? 00:24:33.244 --> 00:24:34.924 Damon: I'm pretty sure that he did it. 00:24:37.204 --> 00:24:37.774 Michele: I'm curious. 00:24:37.984 --> 00:24:40.864 So, you know, you mentioned, you know, talking about with your wife and kind of 00:24:40.864 --> 00:24:44.194 the decision to take this leave and she had a full-time job and everything else, 00:24:44.194 --> 00:24:48.694 what was that conversation like with your wife when you said, like, when you got to 00:24:48.694 --> 00:24:52.114 that decision of, if you get to a thousand dollars a month, you can quit your job. 00:24:52.731 --> 00:24:57.111 Damon: I would say not only for me is a risk, but also for my wife. 00:24:57.611 --> 00:25:03.131 it's also a big risk for her because she will be the only one that contributes 00:25:03.154 --> 00:25:04.688 in the financial wise to our family. 00:25:05.171 --> 00:25:09.796 I would say she definitely got the equivalent you call pressure as I do. 00:25:10.266 --> 00:25:14.718 As I said, you know, I can foresee what is the worst case for our family, 00:25:14.748 --> 00:25:20.948 which is, you know, we lost 200,000 salary you know, one year salary. 00:25:21.448 --> 00:25:26.785 And , for my wife, it's definitely better that if she can see some moment 00:25:26.785 --> 00:25:32.665 and from a business, and I think 1000 MRR, 2000 MRR is definitely a 00:25:33.085 --> 00:25:38.231 early sign that she will get a little bit of confidence, for what I do. 00:25:38.261 --> 00:25:40.801 And of course, nothing is, no risk. 00:25:40.831 --> 00:25:41.161 Right? 00:25:41.161 --> 00:25:45.511 So if I do anything, you know, there's always some, some risk there, 00:25:45.781 --> 00:25:51.635 but it's always a balance between the freedom and the financial wise. 00:25:51.695 --> 00:25:57.508 So for me, if I quit my job, I got all the freedom except for the financial freedom. 00:25:58.288 --> 00:26:00.808 So that's the goal that I'm going after. 00:26:00.875 --> 00:26:05.194 You know, if I still keep my job and, uh, you know, the 00:26:05.224 --> 00:26:06.694 financial stability for sure. 00:26:06.724 --> 00:26:11.814 But, uh, you know, in the meantime I lose the freedom to take care 00:26:11.814 --> 00:26:15.924 of my young kids and also this kind of, you know, daily update. 00:26:15.954 --> 00:26:21.144 I have to update my boss, you know, what I did in the past day, you know, whatsoever. 00:26:21.640 --> 00:26:23.980 So that's kind of like a mental torture for me. 00:26:23.980 --> 00:26:28.172 So, you know, working for tech companies like Cisco, there, there 00:26:28.212 --> 00:26:29.742 will be a lot of trivial stuff. 00:26:30.239 --> 00:26:33.739 And, uh, you know, it's just, I know it's just a matter of time to get 00:26:33.739 --> 00:26:36.079 them finished, but it's a boring job. 00:26:36.199 --> 00:26:39.619 And not to mention, I work there for eight years and things started 00:26:39.619 --> 00:26:41.659 to get really boring to me. 00:26:42.079 --> 00:26:46.372 And, uh, I would say it's a mental torture for to updates my 00:26:46.372 --> 00:26:48.172 progress every day, every week. 00:26:48.669 --> 00:26:50.615 And, I would say it's always a balance. 00:26:50.685 --> 00:26:54.205 If I choose to stay full time, you know , I will have the financial 00:26:54.205 --> 00:26:59.079 stability, if I choose to quit my job, and I will have the freedom, but, 00:26:59.079 --> 00:27:02.529 uh, you know, it will take some time to regain our financial stability. 00:27:03.082 --> 00:27:04.749 Michele: So I just realized something. 00:27:04.749 --> 00:27:09.699 So while you were building testimonial, you were on leave from Cisco. 00:27:10.119 --> 00:27:12.999 So were you also taking care of your daughter at that 00:27:13.149 --> 00:27:13.539 Damon: Yes. 00:27:14.149 --> 00:27:14.539 Yes. 00:27:14.599 --> 00:27:18.869 I will say when I did decide to take the leave, taking care of my 00:27:18.869 --> 00:27:21.179 daughter was the highest priority. 00:27:21.419 --> 00:27:25.109 And I never imagined that our launch testimonial one, I, and 00:27:25.109 --> 00:27:27.749 not to mention that I would make money out of a testimonial. 00:27:28.109 --> 00:27:30.629 And it's just a surprise for me. 00:27:31.259 --> 00:27:37.067 I would say it's a surprise to me because I never validated 00:27:37.277 --> 00:27:38.357 the testimonial one idea. 00:27:38.627 --> 00:27:41.387 Cause I think that I can reuse a lot of code. 00:27:41.477 --> 00:27:44.237 I can quickly build the MVP within a week. 00:27:44.507 --> 00:27:48.137 I launch it, I directly launch it, after the MVP is done, the next 00:27:48.137 --> 00:27:49.487 day I launched it on product hunt. 00:27:49.907 --> 00:27:53.327 And then, you know, because back then there was some lifetime deal 00:27:53.627 --> 00:27:57.983 and I sold 10 or 20 copies of the lifetime deal, which brings me 5,000 00:27:57.983 --> 00:28:00.042 revenue within the first two weeks. 00:28:00.522 --> 00:28:02.532 And, uh, that was kinda. 00:28:03.284 --> 00:28:05.564 To me, to be honest. 00:28:06.171 --> 00:28:09.391 Michele: So I'm curious, like I was incredible journey. 00:28:09.391 --> 00:28:12.351 Like what did your day actually look like? 00:28:12.351 --> 00:28:15.981 Cause you were effectively, I mean sort of effectively a stay-at-home 00:28:15.981 --> 00:28:18.321 parent with a side project. 00:28:18.321 --> 00:28:21.321 So like, what did your daily schedule look like? 00:28:21.321 --> 00:28:24.081 And like when did you find time to work on testimony? 00:28:24.731 --> 00:28:29.519 Damon: I would say, most of the time during the day was just playing around 00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:33.389 with my daughter, reading books and playing Lego with this kind of stuff. 00:28:33.892 --> 00:28:36.772 And I only worked for testimonial during her nap time. 00:28:36.832 --> 00:28:39.402 And, during the evening time after she went to bed. 00:28:40.211 --> 00:28:40.901 Michele: That sounds a lot. 00:28:40.901 --> 00:28:44.271 Like my weekends when the early days of geocodio. 00:28:44.599 --> 00:28:48.664 Damon: Even worse, I would say, you know, right before I launched testimonial on 00:28:48.664 --> 00:28:55.304 product hunt, my wife got sick and we have no clue if she got COVID or not. 00:28:55.304 --> 00:29:00.337 And she, I told her that, you know, you just, stay in the bedroom and, uh, 00:29:00.337 --> 00:29:01.767 you know, you know, don't come out. 00:29:02.367 --> 00:29:08.044 And, uh, you know, she scheduled some COVID test three days later, because 00:29:08.094 --> 00:29:09.874 back then the schedule was pretty busy. 00:29:10.054 --> 00:29:15.661 And, you know, she stays 24 7 in the bedroom and I'm the only one, 00:29:15.931 --> 00:29:19.681 you know, taking care of the kid, cooking food, and this kind of stuff. 00:29:19.681 --> 00:29:22.651 So during the testimonial launch, I'm super busy. 00:29:22.911 --> 00:29:26.408 Uh, I only got time to work on testimonial, you 00:29:26.408 --> 00:29:28.318 know, when, when my kid is. 00:29:29.115 --> 00:29:32.715 Michele: I mean, so you were under a lot of pressure when 00:29:32.715 --> 00:29:34.568 you were launching testimonial. 00:29:35.276 --> 00:29:38.806 Damon: Uh, less I, make some money, from the launch. 00:29:39.026 --> 00:29:39.536 Michele: Yeah. 00:29:39.866 --> 00:29:41.006 Yeah, there was there, there was high. 00:29:41.226 --> 00:29:44.946 Damon: I would say the, uh, stripe notification is the thing about, 00:29:45.771 --> 00:29:48.917 you know, energized me during the first few launch days. 00:29:49.332 --> 00:29:50.545 Michele: Yeah, yeah. 00:29:50.635 --> 00:29:51.383 I can see that. 00:29:53.512 --> 00:29:55.172 Michael, I'm curious. 00:29:55.172 --> 00:29:59.568 I mean, so your, your journey was also, I mean, growing fast and then 00:29:59.868 --> 00:30:03.738 hit by a hurricane, went back to working on boats for a year and a half. 00:30:04.278 --> 00:30:09.738 How did as a side project um, move to South Africa, like, what 00:30:09.738 --> 00:30:12.978 were the conversations with your wife like during all of that? 00:30:13.258 --> 00:30:17.548 Michael: At that point, she had kind of given up on, like what's 00:30:17.548 --> 00:30:19.348 going to happen next, at that point. 00:30:19.348 --> 00:30:21.108 Because, there's more of the story. 00:30:21.108 --> 00:30:25.599 Like even at one point off to Africa, just before COVID, we had decided, 00:30:25.599 --> 00:30:28.225 I had decided, and obviously I spoke to her about, and she's always, she 00:30:28.225 --> 00:30:30.205 always says yes to everything at the end of the day, to be honest. 00:30:30.235 --> 00:30:31.105 So it's pretty cool. 00:30:31.608 --> 00:30:33.438 I said like, hey, we need to go to Costa Rica. 00:30:33.468 --> 00:30:35.058 We need to go to the different Caribbean islands. 00:30:35.058 --> 00:30:37.938 I'm going to sell jungle bee will be a software directly to the tour 00:30:37.938 --> 00:30:40.628 operators and go and speak to them, learn from them and make it happen. 00:30:41.388 --> 00:30:42.738 Yeah, I just told her and she was like, yeah. 00:30:42.768 --> 00:30:42.978 Okay. 00:30:43.008 --> 00:30:43.358 For sure. 00:30:43.398 --> 00:30:43.848 She loves it. 00:30:43.848 --> 00:30:46.278 The more we travel, the more we do crazy things the better. 00:30:46.782 --> 00:30:48.972 Obviously at one point they did get kind of tiring, you know, 00:30:49.672 --> 00:30:51.392 one point it was no one morning. 00:30:51.392 --> 00:30:54.142 I remember she woke up and was like, hey, can you go and get those amazing 00:30:54.172 --> 00:30:55.858 croissants for me at the bakery. 00:30:56.362 --> 00:31:00.382 And I was like, well, darling, um, the problem is that was two islands ago. 00:31:00.412 --> 00:31:01.732 We're not even in that country anymore. 00:31:02.365 --> 00:31:03.953 Cause we, we had been moving so much. 00:31:03.987 --> 00:31:06.177 Yeah, it was, um, it was definitely interesting. 00:31:06.177 --> 00:31:08.487 Cause you just didn't know really where, where you were going to be. 00:31:08.487 --> 00:31:11.037 And you know, we didn't have like a permanent address. 00:31:11.097 --> 00:31:11.697 We were moving along. 00:31:12.397 --> 00:31:14.400 But throughout that whole point. 00:31:14.753 --> 00:31:16.463 I mean, throughout the whole, you know, from the beginning 00:31:16.463 --> 00:31:18.343 to the end, it was fine. 00:31:18.593 --> 00:31:20.363 We've always been very aligned on everything. 00:31:20.923 --> 00:31:21.763 It's very easy. 00:31:21.993 --> 00:31:22.383 Michele: Wow. 00:31:22.883 --> 00:31:27.183 I mean, I get the sense of, for both of you, I mean, given sort of how kind of 00:31:27.423 --> 00:31:32.153 tumultuous things were in the beginning of your companies that like, kind of finding 00:31:32.153 --> 00:31:36.233 out that something like calm existed, that you didn't have to be on that, you know, 00:31:36.653 --> 00:31:44.670 2000 or 200% monthly growth rate track, kind of like gave you a sense of relief. 00:31:45.167 --> 00:31:45.467 Michael: Definitely. 00:31:46.015 --> 00:31:46.405 Damon: Oh, sure. 00:31:46.633 --> 00:31:51.744 I mean, I always believed that the biggest pressure should not be external. 00:31:52.104 --> 00:31:57.054 I mean, we, as the founder, we should have our own motivation to drive 00:31:57.054 --> 00:32:02.857 the revenue, to grow either like a rocket ship or at least grow steadily. 00:32:02.857 --> 00:32:08.147 So it's not really the money can solve the growth problem, is always the founder who 00:32:08.147 --> 00:32:11.126 need to, you know, keep our own business. 00:32:12.130 --> 00:32:12.370 Michael: Yeah. 00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:16.553 Also, I'd like to add, like, for example, before I joined, um, calm 00:32:16.553 --> 00:32:20.683 fund, I was not really part of like the whole, you know, tech community, actual 00:32:20.703 --> 00:32:21.593 important, tech community me at all. 00:32:21.686 --> 00:32:25.196 And, um, so when you like, you know, building software, right. 00:32:25.196 --> 00:32:27.704 And you'd doing a startup because you know, you're doing a startup, obviously. 00:32:27.716 --> 00:32:30.716 It gets really difficult to make decisions you've got, you don't know what you're 00:32:30.716 --> 00:32:34.166 doing, whether it's right, whether it's wrong and not only that, but you 00:32:34.166 --> 00:32:37.666 don't know who to bounce concepts or ideas or for it to even know if you're. 00:32:38.171 --> 00:32:41.021 If what you're doing is actually realistic or not at all. 00:32:41.381 --> 00:32:43.230 And, that was a big relief. 00:32:43.260 --> 00:32:46.800 So when I joined calm fund, I was able to just to speak to anybody or 00:32:46.800 --> 00:32:52.080 bounce ideas off Tyler or CB, or, you know, one of the mentors that are 00:32:52.080 --> 00:32:55.200 more specialized in what I'm kind of doing, you know, one of the problems. 00:32:55.560 --> 00:32:59.220 And that kind of helped a lot because then you know that when you speak to 00:32:59.220 --> 00:33:02.400 somebody like that, that actually, you know, they've got experience and then 00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:05.880 you look at your own company and you can say, okay, well, this is might not 00:33:05.880 --> 00:33:09.270 be perfect, but I'm definitely going in the right direction versus before. 00:33:09.818 --> 00:33:12.308 You could be going completely the wrong way and you won't even know 00:33:12.308 --> 00:33:13.478 about it until it's too late. 00:33:13.978 --> 00:33:15.928 That was, um, that was a big relief. 00:33:16.235 --> 00:33:16.505 Michele: Yeah. 00:33:16.505 --> 00:33:21.125 I mean, I can really see that because you, you are not coming from a tech 00:33:21.125 --> 00:33:25.045 or a product background at all right. 00:33:25.045 --> 00:33:28.988 Like you were working on boats and tourism, which is incredibly helpful 00:33:28.988 --> 00:33:33.248 for your business in terms of subject matter expertise, but in terms of 00:33:33.498 --> 00:33:37.688 how digital, you know, products and software work not as much. 00:33:37.688 --> 00:33:39.978 And I think some of these things as a founder, like it's difficult 00:33:39.978 --> 00:33:42.408 sometimes because yes, you know, there's an amount of build in public. 00:33:42.408 --> 00:33:44.598 And I guess I'm curious your take on this Damon, but like 00:33:44.958 --> 00:33:49.378 sometimes you're also like, is this something I can admit to in public? 00:33:49.428 --> 00:33:52.128 What will people think of me if I ask this question? 00:33:52.128 --> 00:33:57.957 Or like, can I, can I share this or can I ask this in public? 00:33:57.957 --> 00:34:02.619 And so sometimes it's nice to have a small community of people who are both 00:34:02.709 --> 00:34:08.192 in your situation and then also people who are kind of at further stages down 00:34:08.192 --> 00:34:10.232 the line to bounce something off of. 00:34:10.482 --> 00:34:12.422 But Damon, I'm kind of curious how you think about that. 00:34:12.432 --> 00:34:15.697 Cause you're a big I mean you quit in public, right? 00:34:15.697 --> 00:34:18.862 So you're a big build in public person and kind of have been doing that, 00:34:18.862 --> 00:34:19.972 you know, from the very beginning. 00:34:20.742 --> 00:34:24.252 Damon: I will say building public journey is also a surprise 00:34:24.252 --> 00:34:25.692 to me because as I mentioned. 00:34:25.692 --> 00:34:29.429 The first, thing that I launched is a community, which means that 00:34:29.429 --> 00:34:31.169 I have to be the biggest champion. 00:34:31.529 --> 00:34:34.819 I have to keep posting the videos to lonely dev. 00:34:35.299 --> 00:34:39.270 I have to connect people outside but lonely dev and to drag 00:34:39.270 --> 00:34:41.500 it back uh, to our community. 00:34:41.800 --> 00:34:47.298 So that became the beginning, of I, you know restarted my twitter 00:34:47.678 --> 00:34:51.868 because I sat off twitter when I first moved to this states. 00:34:52.348 --> 00:34:55.415 And I'm in states days to pursue my graduate degree. 00:34:55.775 --> 00:34:57.425 And then I signed up, but I never used. 00:34:57.545 --> 00:35:04.405 And, uh, and after I start building my side hustle, I have to be, be like 00:35:04.405 --> 00:35:06.565 an extrovert or something like that. 00:35:07.615 --> 00:35:12.206 And I have to keep, you know, posting the product updates. 00:35:12.596 --> 00:35:15.886 And I think it's like that, and that become the beginning 00:35:15.886 --> 00:35:17.056 of my building public journey. 00:35:17.553 --> 00:35:23.423 And after I built several products and I just ah, you know, to, to tweet 00:35:23.423 --> 00:35:29.247 a thread and just summarize what I've done in 2020, and I, I made a thread 00:35:29.267 --> 00:35:33.227 like, um, you know, these are the apps that I shipped in 2020, and you 00:35:33.227 --> 00:35:36.055 know, most, all of them generates $0. 00:35:36.055 --> 00:35:40.685 I haven't run there only one generous several thousand within a few days. 00:35:40.755 --> 00:35:43.865 So my whole point is that, you know, keep building and to be 00:35:43.865 --> 00:35:45.833 patient and that's the whole point. 00:35:46.223 --> 00:35:49.033 And that became, you know, at the beginning of everything. 00:35:49.533 --> 00:35:51.561 And uh, yeah, I'm pretty much share everything. 00:35:51.861 --> 00:35:57.080 A except for, uh, calm and that we do have a slack private structure, which 00:35:57.080 --> 00:36:02.663 is called 5k Twitter, Twitter, 5k, community, and, uh, you know, the Kenneth 00:36:02.683 --> 00:36:06.323 castle and the founder of, uh, sleep and, uh, the founder fan pointer, GG. 00:36:06.820 --> 00:36:07.930 And I said, noah brag. 00:36:08.320 --> 00:36:10.780 I was invited by noah brag back then. 00:36:10.780 --> 00:36:16.383 You know, we, we are all, you know, on Twitter with several thousand followers on 00:36:16.383 --> 00:36:19.616 Twitter, but not reach 5,000 and our goal. 00:36:20.261 --> 00:36:27.041 You know, for the private communities, you know, we have to reach 5,000 followers on 00:36:27.041 --> 00:36:29.471 Twitter and that's why the name come from. 00:36:30.101 --> 00:36:33.221 And, uh, for some, you know, trivial stuff. 00:36:33.251 --> 00:36:35.428 And we were sure within the private committee. 00:36:36.075 --> 00:36:36.195 Michele: Yeah. 00:36:36.840 --> 00:36:38.640 Communities is really, really important. 00:36:39.140 --> 00:36:42.888 So I just have one more question, you know, if you're kind of thinking back 00:36:42.928 --> 00:36:47.991 to yourself or, you know, from your own experience, I'm curious, like, if 00:36:47.991 --> 00:36:52.468 you knew of somebody else with a job who had a side project that they wish 00:36:52.478 --> 00:36:55.818 they could go full time on, and they're considering taking funding from calm, 00:36:55.918 --> 00:36:57.198 what do you think they should know? 00:36:57.509 --> 00:37:02.055 Damon: I think you gotta be prepared and you gotta know that 00:37:02.175 --> 00:37:07.095 what is the road blocker for you about why not quitting our job? 00:37:07.602 --> 00:37:11.082 Is it that, you know, you didn't see the initial sign of the product market 00:37:11.082 --> 00:37:17.628 fit or you just need you know tens of thousand as the, you know extra financial 00:37:17.988 --> 00:37:20.058 cushion for you to quit your job. 00:37:20.558 --> 00:37:26.638 And, for me, I mean, personally, I think I'm, well-prepared before quitting my job. 00:37:27.135 --> 00:37:30.725 And, uh, you know, I got the financial support and also the, 00:37:30.755 --> 00:37:32.155 you know, the mental support from. 00:37:32.155 --> 00:37:34.715 my wife and we do have savings. 00:37:35.215 --> 00:37:39.859 And having a community, we should follow, you know, indie, hacker uh, 00:37:39.889 --> 00:37:42.979 founders is the thing that I really want. 00:37:43.319 --> 00:37:44.979 That's why I took the funding from calm. 00:37:45.472 --> 00:37:51.372 And, uh, you know, if you are hesitating had any you know, whether or not 00:37:51.372 --> 00:37:55.832 you should quit a job if, you know, money is the thing that, troubling 00:37:55.832 --> 00:37:57.812 you and you just take the money. 00:37:58.022 --> 00:38:02.534 And you know, it become nearly no risk for you because you got 00:38:02.534 --> 00:38:07.967 the money and moreover you have a much bigger opportunity to make a 00:38:07.997 --> 00:38:11.537 much bigger impact to your personal life or your, your family life. 00:38:12.037 --> 00:38:15.847 Yeah, for me, I think the only suggestion is that, you know, you got 00:38:15.847 --> 00:38:21.447 to know what is the thing that blocks you from really quitting our job? 00:38:21.687 --> 00:38:24.327 You know, I mean, if it is money, take the money. 00:38:24.387 --> 00:38:30.217 If it is, you just don't have the competence in product just to compute it. 00:38:30.264 --> 00:38:33.787 You know, as a side hustle and once you see the initial product market is 00:38:33.997 --> 00:38:39.100 already assigned and you want to have a much quicker, growth rate, then take 00:38:39.100 --> 00:38:42.482 the money to fuel your business and, um. 00:38:43.329 --> 00:38:43.779 Michele: Yeah. 00:38:44.259 --> 00:38:49.059 It's, you know, And I think something that really led us to invest in it 00:38:49.059 --> 00:38:53.429 is that I think, you know, thinking back to when it was a side project for 00:38:53.609 --> 00:38:58.526 us you know, I remember, I remember learning a bit about venture capital and 00:38:58.526 --> 00:39:03.206 learning very quickly that a business like ours was basically uninvestible. 00:39:03.706 --> 00:39:09.316 Cause it was not rocket ship growth, you know, it's like, it's weird nobody's, 00:39:09.676 --> 00:39:11.376 right, in the tech world, you know. 00:39:11.878 --> 00:39:15.658 And, you know, it was already profitable, which is a bad 00:39:15.658 --> 00:39:18.298 thing, um, in a lot of cases. 00:39:18.298 --> 00:39:18.598 Right? 00:39:18.998 --> 00:39:21.788 Who knows how things are, you know, today with, with everything crashing. 00:39:21.988 --> 00:39:24.608 And so I always just considered our business just sort of like 00:39:24.668 --> 00:39:28.276 uninvestible, but from what I had read from some of the bigger VCs 00:39:28.306 --> 00:39:30.879 and never even considered it, but. 00:39:31.429 --> 00:39:33.799 You know, we got to this point where there really was a lot of pressure 00:39:33.799 --> 00:39:41.405 for us on running the business and having two full-time jobs and only 00:39:41.405 --> 00:39:47.136 having that nights and weekends and nap time to work on it as you to Damon. 00:39:47.596 --> 00:39:50.356 And when I found out about it, I was like, you know what? 00:39:50.386 --> 00:39:55.506 This would have been so helpful for us when we were at that point of 00:39:55.506 --> 00:39:59.556 like, this is just not quite enough there to feel really, really confident 00:39:59.586 --> 00:40:03.126 about one of us going full-time or both of us going full time. 00:40:03.486 --> 00:40:06.836 You could probably get there, but like this, this is something that would 00:40:06.836 --> 00:40:08.816 have been really attractive and also. 00:40:09.513 --> 00:40:13.353 Helpful to us, not just because the funding, but also, you know, sort of how 00:40:13.353 --> 00:40:17.073 the funding works and, you know, I see just people go on calms website and just, 00:40:17.463 --> 00:40:23.138 you know, read about the agreement, which is called a seal th that Tyler created 00:40:23.438 --> 00:40:28.021 for it, but it was, I think kind of important for us to sort of pay it forward 00:40:28.021 --> 00:40:30.158 in a way to try to help people who were, 00:40:30.808 --> 00:40:35.808 you know, or we are in a similar situation as us and just relieve some of that kind 00:40:35.808 --> 00:40:41.261 of pressure and stress in their life from trying to make a business work you 00:40:41.261 --> 00:40:44.981 know, from the ground up without any, you know, major support behind you. 00:40:45.481 --> 00:40:45.841 Michael: Yeah. 00:40:46.344 --> 00:40:50.034 I'd like to add, um, just another thing as well, you know, for, I mean, 00:40:50.034 --> 00:40:53.814 I think this is really important for any founder that is considering taking 00:40:53.814 --> 00:40:58.791 investment from calm fund, what they need to know is at the calm company 00:40:58.791 --> 00:41:05.724 fund, there is a lot of investment that goes into community and putting 00:41:05.724 --> 00:41:11.504 together documentation and getting a lot of help in place to help the founders. 00:41:11.894 --> 00:41:15.374 And what's interesting, as well, I at calm fund, I don't know if it's like this at 00:41:15.374 --> 00:41:20.847 other funds, but at calm fund, we kind of operate in a way like a bootstrap sort 00:41:20.847 --> 00:41:23.607 of startup and what that means right. 00:41:23.607 --> 00:41:26.757 Is, and not everybody sees us, but I do because I help out the 00:41:26.757 --> 00:41:31.197 actual calm fund team all the time is our team is completely 00:41:31.197 --> 00:41:33.350 focused on helping the founders. 00:41:33.740 --> 00:41:36.920 And whether that means like spinning up new projects, you know? 00:41:36.920 --> 00:41:42.095 So we've had CB who was putting together, you know, artificial boards, you know, 00:41:42.095 --> 00:41:45.575 so I don't know, they have a special term for that, but basically you bring 00:41:45.575 --> 00:41:49.265 in, you know, board members, you do found the companies that don't have 00:41:49.265 --> 00:41:51.256 board rights, but they're there to help. 00:41:51.256 --> 00:41:54.270 We've got all kinds of experiments going on all the time, you know, in some 00:41:54.270 --> 00:41:58.560 work and some don't work, but what's interesting is we constantly invest and 00:41:58.590 --> 00:42:03.910 innovate into helping founders, whether it be resource docs, knowledge, whether 00:42:03.910 --> 00:42:07.360 it's like many groups, like masterminds. 00:42:07.360 --> 00:42:11.464 We even, I have this internal platform called HQ, which is absolutely amazing. 00:42:11.834 --> 00:42:16.637 It's a full directory of the founders, the members anything that a, a founder, 00:42:16.667 --> 00:42:20.957 any problem that a founder runs into, or even our mentors, as well, when 00:42:20.957 --> 00:42:24.159 they run into problems, you know, those issues are like documented. 00:42:24.429 --> 00:42:27.669 And then we have, you know, someone that does an amazing job at writing 00:42:27.699 --> 00:42:31.209 articles about it, so that when that problem happens to you, all the 00:42:31.209 --> 00:42:34.989 knowledge, like the collective knowledge of the entire community is not lost. 00:42:35.289 --> 00:42:39.069 It's right there in our internal platform for any founder or mentor to go and get. 00:42:39.069 --> 00:42:41.669 And I think that's, there's a lot of value in that. 00:42:41.919 --> 00:42:42.249 Michele: Yeah. 00:42:42.889 --> 00:42:44.809 Michael: you know, investing there's, there's more. 00:42:45.204 --> 00:42:45.564 Michele: Yeah. 00:42:45.574 --> 00:42:48.754 I mean, I've, participated in that myself, which is really interesting 00:42:48.754 --> 00:42:52.624 as an investor because in a lot of funds, I get the sense that there's 00:42:52.624 --> 00:42:58.214 kind of an you know, a bit of distance between the LPs and the, those are the 00:42:58.214 --> 00:43:02.974 investors, you know, the partners and the associates running the fund, and then 00:43:03.064 --> 00:43:06.784 the companies themselves, like there's not too much interaction between them. 00:43:06.842 --> 00:43:11.187 And with calm, there's a lot of interaction like mentored a founder's 00:43:11.187 --> 00:43:15.915 summit group myself and was also on one of the calm advisory boards. 00:43:15.943 --> 00:43:19.295 And of course we're all in slack and accessible as well. 00:43:19.552 --> 00:43:22.342 There was a base camp for a while too, and it's always, I remember seeing 00:43:22.342 --> 00:43:24.532 sort of a luminary of our world. 00:43:25.537 --> 00:43:28.387 Just jumping in and commenting I'm on a thread. 00:43:28.387 --> 00:43:31.777 And it was like, whoa, I have a emailed from this person, I've only 00:43:31.777 --> 00:43:37.264 seen up on stage at micro con f, as a keynote, um, in my email, this is okay. 00:43:37.324 --> 00:43:40.754 Like, um, you know, because of calm fund. 00:43:40.774 --> 00:43:43.394 Because people have access to people who really know they're talking about. 00:43:43.894 --> 00:43:44.704 Michael: Yeah, exactly. 00:43:44.794 --> 00:43:45.694 And it's great. 00:43:45.991 --> 00:43:48.811 You see the value everyday, you know, with the founders in the community. 00:43:49.307 --> 00:43:49.697 that they get. 00:43:50.202 --> 00:43:53.212 Michele: Well, I think that's about going to wrap us up for today. 00:43:53.212 --> 00:43:57.609 Thank you so much for coming by today and thank you to calm fund 00:43:57.639 --> 00:44:00.249 for sponsoring this episode today. 00:44:00.739 --> 00:44:05.899 Michael, Damon, if people want to hear more about you and your 00:44:05.899 --> 00:44:07.099 businesses, where should they. 00:44:07.762 --> 00:44:09.112 Michael: Find me on Twitter, I guess. 00:44:09.142 --> 00:44:09.862 That's that works. 00:44:10.684 --> 00:44:12.844 Or sign up to my software, if they have a tour company. 00:44:13.344 --> 00:44:14.004 Damon: Yes, I'm here. 00:44:14.084 --> 00:44:20.024 Yeah, my, uh, my Twitter handle is, uh, Damon Chen, D a N E N G C H E N. 00:44:20.527 --> 00:44:28.104 Cause I couldn't get the real Damon Chen, but a D M E N G a is the Chinese 00:44:28.104 --> 00:44:30.594 pronunciation of the English Damon. 00:44:31.090 --> 00:44:34.980 So I just choose the Chinese pronounciation as my twitter handle. 00:44:35.289 --> 00:44:38.409 And if you are running a business and you want to get the, uh, the 00:44:38.409 --> 00:44:41.979 sort of proof for a business and the checkout test one to go to you. 00:44:42.479 --> 00:44:43.019 Michele: Awesome. 00:44:43.379 --> 00:44:46.126 And if folks want more about calm fund. 00:44:46.195 --> 00:44:51.586 You can go to calm fund.com, there, you can see more about the approach of 00:44:51.586 --> 00:44:56.586 the fund, the philosophy that Damon and Michael mentioned that Tyler Tringas, 00:44:56.606 --> 00:45:00.942 the founder of calm fund, shared on indie hackers, more about investing, 00:45:01.192 --> 00:45:02.962 as well as, about the community. 00:45:03.465 --> 00:45:04.255 Thank you guys for. 00:45:05.007 --> 00:45:06.447 Michael: Thanks for having this was awesome.