Zero Percent Concerned

[00:00:00] Speaker A: What I find myself and others like yourselves is that it does hold us back in our marketing because we are too shy, too real, too careful and self conscious. There is a way to be completely honest, but to push it toward being more attractive. I don't want to say somewhere in between because somewhere in the middle is actually still lies. Welcome to the off site podcast. I am your host, Jordan Gal. This is where I, I team up with friends to catch up on our work and just as importantly, what's going on beyond the work. As always, this podcast is brought to you by Rosie, the AI powered phone answering service for small businesses. Everyone gets started in an industry in some way. You break in somehow. It might be a job, it might be an event, it might be something that happens. Starting a business. For me, when I decided to leave my family business and join like the Internet world, Rob was my entry point. Startups for the rest of us and microconf. And really what I bring it back to is your encouragement of me to apply for an attendee talk and getting on stage. I think it was my first microconf. So it was like, welcome to microconf. Yes. You're also talking. At least it's for eight minutes. So Rob helped me get onto the Internet my first 20. [00:01:22] Speaker B: 2015. Is it that long ago? [00:01:24] Speaker A: I don't remember years. [00:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's 10 years ago, right? [00:01:28] Speaker A: 2015 sounds like it was a year or two ago. 2005 sounds like it was a while ago, not 2015. [00:01:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a good attendee talk though. You got some good reviews. [00:01:36] Speaker A: I think that was like, like cold email or something. Something like that, yes. And my other co Host, Aaron, I DMed you, I think Twitter DMs are down, but I wanted to ask you a question so that I would make a fool of myself by being wrong about this, but I think we've never met in person. [00:01:54] Speaker C: I think that is correct. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Okay. So I admire Aaron from afar. There's something about podcasting and listening to someone that they can't hide. And that's true, you know, and good guy Aaron, I just admire and I love listening to your podcasts. I'm very happy to have both of you on as my first guests. And I'm just going to ask you how to make this podcast good. That's going to be the episode. Aaron, welcome. [00:02:15] Speaker C: Honored to be here. And I, I gotta say, you've been a podcaster, Jordan, for like, I don't know, five years, 10 years. I don't understand the nervous energy. You know how to do this. [00:02:25] Speaker A: I think it will take a bit of time to kind of fall into a pattern that's comfortable if. If anything, and feel free to either agree or disagree or add to it. I think I got too comfortable in the podcast with Brian. I think I didn't bring my A game because it was just like, oh, it's Friday. Let's just, like, turn this thing on and see where this conversation goes. [00:02:43] Speaker B: You're just kind of showing up and doing it, which is fun. Which is fun. But I do find that those podcasts tend to plateau at a certain point because there's 500 or 1500 people who want to hear that. That's cool. But to actually re. I had to reinvent the podcast when I lost my co host in 2018 after 450 at 448 episodes. That was a moment of like, oh, I need activation. Founder activation, energy as well. Rubin and Brian Balfour, they both use this term of like. It took a whole reinvention of like, how do I. What? I gotta rethink everything from zero. And it seems like that. I mean, you literally are rethinking it from zero because it is episode one of a new show, you know? [00:03:19] Speaker A: Yeah. It feels like two different types of shows, yours and Aaron's. When I am looking for learning, you know, value would kind of be like a shorthand for it if I'm looking to learn something. I scroll through your podcast episodes. I just hired one of your guests. That's how much value I got out of the episode. But I said, I don't. I want more than this. 60 Minutes. The guys at Fletch for positioning. So I listen to the podcast, I learn from it, and then I say, I want. That's right. That's right. I say I want more of that. So that's kind of how I think your podcast goes, Aaron. It's more of a journey story. Does that sound right? [00:03:57] Speaker C: Yep, that seems right. [00:03:58] Speaker A: Okay, now, Aaron, that doesn't mean there's no value. [00:04:01] Speaker C: I appreciate that. Yeah. So the podcast I do is called Mostly Technical. I do it with my friend Ian Landsman, and it's basically just like, what's going on? And I think the value there, Some of the value there, frankly, is just entertainment. It's just like, let me hang out. Let me. I'm walking my dog. Let me hear these guys complain about Disney World. And, like, you know, you're not learning a lot, but it's kind of like just a, you know, hangout show. I hope that there's also value in real time recounting of what, you know, we're up to. Ian runs a very old and stable business, I think 20 years now. And so he provides a different perspective than I do. We call him business dad on the show because he's just like, what if you did everything right? And that's basically what Ian does. He's like, what if you actually filed your taxes in the correct way? And it's like, oh, wow, you know, that's. That's pretty good point. And then what? My business partner, who's not Ian, his name is Steve. We're like on year one month, you know, 13 of running a business. And so there's entertainment there, but I hope there's also like, hey, we're trying this and it worked great. We're trying this and it worked terribly. And hopefully there's some learning there. It's not as concise and distilled as startups for the rest of us. So, like value per minute, ours is way, way lower. But you do get some sort of insight that you don't get in a, you know, 40 minute interview on startups for the rest of us. So they're providing different things. [00:05:32] Speaker A: Yeah, the. The Journey podcast, which I think this will be, you know, some form of combination of these things. Just because it's not the same co host every time the arc provides a different view of things. The I tried this, I talked about this, and then a month later, looking back, actually that was completely wrong. Or turns out that was right in this other way. That leads me to my first actual question. What are you working on this week? That's how I view a podcast like this being valuable for both the host and the listeners. Looking back and in real time, nothing theoretical. Right. For me, I had a board meeting this week. That's what I can talk about. But for the two of you, what are you working on and why are you working on? Why is it animating your week? [00:06:14] Speaker B: I have three things. I'll be quick. But one is a podcast episode because startups for the rest of us is episode a week for 15 years. And I just interviewed, man. It's a good interview. It's this guy, Kevin Wagstaff. He and his brother bootstrapped a sassy and sold 49% of it at a valuation of $90 million. So they each. Exactly. This is. This comes out like next week. This. And he came to MicroConf and met the acquirer in the men's room at MicroConf in Denver. Yeah, no, it's one of the most incredible story. I talked To a lot of people. And I was blown away in this episode. [00:06:49] Speaker C: So. [00:06:49] Speaker B: And Kevin is super sharp. So every. He's like one of us. I was. I was telling Ruben like, he's one of us. Like, he is that. But he's under the radar still, you know, Like I had never heard of him before. I saw him mention me on a podcast, on John Warlow's podcast about the exit. And then I was like, wait, who is this guy? Wait, he came to Microcontroller. Wait, listen. Starts the restaurants for eight years. 90 million. What is happening? [00:07:09] Speaker A: Wait, I'm on a commission. Hold on. [00:07:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, yeah. [00:07:12] Speaker C: Million times 0.49 divided by 2. 22 million. [00:07:17] Speaker B: 22 million. Then they sold. Each sold another 10% at 110. Like, no. Yeah, they're in the 30, $40 million each. And the brothers. And they bootstrapped it. [00:07:27] Speaker C: I'm happy for them or whatever. That's awesome. [00:07:29] Speaker A: So they. They didn't sell a controlling stake. They sold a minority stake. [00:07:33] Speaker B: They did. Then later they sold more between the two of them. Now they own 30%. So the private equity owns 70. And they've hired a CEO and neither of them are working at the company anymore. It's software for. It's SaaS for home inspectors. And it grew. Really? [00:07:48] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:07:49] Speaker B: Every moment of this, I'm like, how did you. But it only took you six years. Like they started in like 2017 or 18. This is not a 15, 20 year business. So anyways, that's why I love. [00:07:58] Speaker C: All right, see you later. That's awesome. [00:08:00] Speaker B: I know. Okay, man. [00:08:03] Speaker A: She's great. So you have an episode coming out or you're recording that episode? [00:08:07] Speaker B: Yeah, Recorded that. Recorded the intro for it. And that goes out I think next week. The other thing that I'm doing. [00:08:12] Speaker A: Do you have to suppress like a little bit of hate? Like as. [00:08:15] Speaker B: No, I feel so. [00:08:17] Speaker A: Yeah, come on. [00:08:18] Speaker B: That's actually not. [00:08:19] Speaker C: Are you talking to me? [00:08:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Genuinely don't feel that. So you're worth so many more times than I am in terms of net worth. And yet I am happy for you. Truly. [00:08:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Hell yeah. [00:08:30] Speaker B: And then this YouTube video, man, I put out most popular YouTube video of all time on our channel maybe, except for like Jason Cohen's. So maybe it's the most popular. In the first two or three weeks, it like took off like crazy. And the comments on it, it was something like seven startup ideas I would never build. And so you know my list, right? It's like B2C. Two sided marketplaces. I don't know I had a bunch of other things that only take a percent of gm. And I specifically say for bootstrapping. Right. If you're going to raise Venture, go do these things. And the comments. 225 comments on this thing. And it starts off really cool because it's our audience. And then it goes really bad really quickly because it's YouTube and outside of our. This guy doesn't know he's talking about. He's just trying to sell a course. That was my favorite one. It's like, yeah, that's all I do, bros. [00:09:12] Speaker C: I don't give anything away for free. I feel that. [00:09:15] Speaker A: Chapter one. [00:09:16] Speaker B: I'm a course boy. Yeah, that's what I do. So I did a reaction. I think I've done one reaction video out of like 500 videos on our channel. And this is a reaction video to those comments. And I just recorded. [00:09:25] Speaker C: You are a YouTuber. [00:09:26] Speaker B: I totally am. Producer Ron's like, do you want to do a reaction video? I'm like, I don't know. Probably not, but let's try it. And then I get really fun. [00:09:34] Speaker C: What is it exactly? [00:09:35] Speaker B: Yeah, can you. So I asked my 19 year old and they sent me. [00:09:40] Speaker C: So we'll see. [00:09:41] Speaker B: I don't know if I'm spicy enough is my big. My big concern. [00:09:44] Speaker A: Well, well, I was going to point out that the video is from a negative point of view itself. Right. It's not six ideas that I would do, it's seven ideas that I would not do. It's almost like inviting. I mean, that's the definition of clickbait. Right. It inviting disagreement and. You got it. [00:09:59] Speaker B: I think so. And. And then the other 20 videos we put out with similar titles get no engagement. And so there's thanks, social media. [00:10:06] Speaker A: So that's the week. So very media driven. [00:10:09] Speaker B: That's what I enjoy. That's my favorite part of my job, actually. Yeah. Is doing that in books. That's the third thing is I'm working on this, my sixth book. [00:10:16] Speaker A: I was going to ask you what your job is now. [00:10:17] Speaker B: My job now is podcasting. YouTubing. No, it's. It's also like Microcom, Tennessee but like. Tracy Osborne runs. She's head of product and she really runs the day to day the operations. And so I weigh in and I'm the face of it. But I don't have operational responsibilities, which is exactly where I want to be right now. It's my best life. [00:10:34] Speaker A: Rob has become a VC who. Who just. [00:10:36] Speaker B: No, never, never say, cut that out. Get that edited out, people. [00:10:41] Speaker C: He's a content creator. [00:10:44] Speaker B: I'm an influencer, venture capitalist. None of these things feel right. None of them feel right. [00:10:49] Speaker A: But it does look like the guys at TVPN are having a great time, though. I will hand it to them. [00:10:54] Speaker B: I don't know what that is. [00:10:56] Speaker A: Tvpn. Okay, so I think it's Tech Bros. Podcast Network, which is perfect. [00:11:01] Speaker C: I think it's Technology Brothers. I think they've owned it. I think they are reclaiming Tech Bros. I think it truly is Technology Brothers. [00:11:10] Speaker A: So it's a podcast, but extremely well done. Daily news show. It's like daily for three hours. Incredible guests and it's. I mean, it's just. I think they're both VCs, but it's really well done and very entertaining. [00:11:23] Speaker C: I haven't watched a ton of it, but they run it like an ESPN live show. Like, there's a ticker. They're both on the side, there's a ticker. The guest is in the middle. There's sponsors at the top. You know, they're dressed up in suits and open collars and it's just like they're leaning into the bit and it seems to be working. I mean, they had like Marc Andreessen on there this week or last week, didn't they? [00:11:45] Speaker A: They have everybody. [00:11:46] Speaker B: Yes. [00:11:46] Speaker C: It's crazy. Yeah, it's of course three hours. So who is listening to it? I don't know, but it seems like he's having a lot of fun. Yeah, I guess so. [00:11:55] Speaker A: Yep. Aaron, what are you doing this week? What's your job? [00:11:58] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question. Same. Same job as Rob, you know, just make YouTube videos, I guess. We're both YouTubers, so we have been over at Try Hard Studios. We have been working on relaunching screencasting.com, which is a property that I have, I've had for a while. But we have revamped, amped the entire thing. So we now, next week will launch the flagship course and then four other adjunct courses. So we'll have a course on final cut, Pro, DaVinci, Screenflow, and then one other that I'm forgetting, Premiere. So this past week has been a lot of rearchitecting the platform. We've moved everything over to Stripe now. It's very, very good. And we've added like upsells, cross sells. We're just becoming a proper, proper e comm place, but instead of, you know, selling shirts, we're selling courses. So that has been a. Just a fantastic amount of work. And we thought we were going to launch yesterday and got to the point where it was like, all right, I think we're going to launch. Have we done any of these things? No, we haven't. Let's launch next week. So we're going to launch next week. So it's been good, and I'm excited about the broadening of our product offering, but it's just been a tremendous amount of work. And you know what? Selling courses, it's so lumpy. Turns out you got to launch courses more often. And so it's like, boy, I hope this works, because we haven't launched a course in a while. We got to get on the. Get on the treadmill again. [00:13:30] Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah. From what I see around that property specifically, you do more in a month than I do in a year in terms of just the sheer amount of work required. [00:13:40] Speaker C: I don't know if that's true, but it feels like a massive amount of work. [00:13:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I often feel like that is true when I look inside my company also, I look at all the engineers, I basically look at everyone else, and I'm like, you're doing so much more work. But I am actually at my desk all day and I question myself on that. [00:13:55] Speaker C: Well, if it makes you feel better, I look at other people and I'm like, I'm a massive failure. I've got to go way faster. So, you know, I don't know if that's healthy, but it's true. [00:14:05] Speaker A: That might be a personality trait, you know, in, like, a worldview, in how you're willing to either give yourself a break or be hard on yourself. Because it. It feels very common. In almost every case that it feels common in, from the outside, it looks wrong. [00:14:18] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's the thing. I mean, I don't know if y' all played sports when you were younger, but it was like, I remember being. I ran track and I was relatively slow. I just wasn't very fast. And then I got better and I got better, and my personal best kept getting better and better and better. And yet I was always comparing myself to the. To the person that beat me. And in. In this way, I think, you know, comparison is the thief of joy. But comparison also is motivation for me because I'm competitive as fuck. And if I'm looking at someone putting out twice as many videos, I'm like, how. How are they doing this? And it's usually. It's, well, they have more time, to be honest. Maybe they don't have young kids, or maybe they don't work a day job and all they do is videos and they don't. [00:14:51] Speaker C: Maybe they haven't written six books. You know, like, that's the thing comparing one thing to one thing. And that's just not fair. [00:14:57] Speaker A: Yes. [00:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. I think that's how I've matured in it is to realize, oh, you know, even if Aaron puts out twice as much content as I do, maybe he doesn't write books or maybe, you know, again, he's not running, you know, the stuff I am or whatever. [00:15:09] Speaker A: But my version of maturity in that problem is that I only take from it what's good for me. So just the motivation, I like end the envy there, like just enough, oh, the fuel tank is now full. And then I kind of bring the attention back toward, well, what am I actually motivated by and that, you know, becomes more local in like family home, the things that are meaningful to me. [00:15:31] Speaker C: And then ignores in your personal bank account. [00:15:35] Speaker A: Oh man, I'm so happy that came up. [00:15:39] Speaker B: And you must have gone through a lot of therapy to get to that point. That's very mature. [00:15:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:15:45] Speaker C: Healthy way of separating it. I'll take what's useful and leave what's not. Like, who's your guy? How do I get. [00:15:50] Speaker B: I want to sign up. Exactly. What do I take? You're taking. [00:15:53] Speaker A: Okay, I really wanted to be dismissive of that comment, but then I thought back to all the therapy sessions. Yes. And recently I stopped doing therapy sessions because I, I didn't want it to just be a forever thing for, for me, I started therapy. It was like literally founder therapy. So when my previous co founder and I split ways and I found myself talking to myself because I didn't have anyone to talk to at that same level. Because, you know, as founders, you do shield your team from a lot, good and bad, from a lot of the stress, from a lot of the corporate issues, from a lot of the founder motivations and incentive, I feel like are very dangerous to share. It's just true. You just, you know, your outcomes are different, your end result is different, your day to day motivations are different. So when I no longer had a co founder, I really found myself just like spinning around my head. And around the same time, another friend of mine, John Ewalt, had seen someone and recommended and it was extremely helpful. And then I stopped. And then for me, more recently, since moving to Chicago, I started therapy again after October 7th because I was very angry. And then eventually as that chilled, that turned back into founder therapy. And then around six months ago, I would love to take credit for it, but it was more my therapist saying, I think you're good now. Yeah, this is getting repetitive and I think you might be better off on your own for a while. I was like, oh, okay, I graduated. [00:17:23] Speaker B: Little hybrid. Yes. [00:17:27] Speaker C: Good for the therapist, by the way, to say, like, you don't have to keep coming back and paying me every week or month or whatever. Good for them. Yes. [00:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. I feel like that took a while. The envy that all of us experience. You know what I also think is helpful? Realizing how much of it is absolute nonsense, absolute bullshit. Realizing that is very helpful. I had a lot of that experience where, where a competitor of mine was incredibly good at the hype. This is, this is the, the Bolt. The rally versus Bolt thing. [00:17:57] Speaker B: That guy was infuriating. [00:17:58] Speaker A: Infuriating. And underneath, because I was in the industry, I was in the space and I was talking to the same investors, everything like 90% of it was absolute lies, complete nonsense. So to see other people react emotionally to it and knowing the truth underneath it, I felt like, oh, I'm doing the same thing, but with other people that I don't know the full truth. [00:18:20] Speaker B: Bad. The number of signal messages that I send to folks like Ruben and Anar about tweets on the Internet that I'm like, this is completely fabricated. Like, this is preposterous. And I'm infuriated. It's getting this much engagement. Like social media, media is a net negative for me because of, of. Because I see behind the curtain and I see the Matrix and I know enough people and enough things to know this is made up. That's just not true. You can just say shit on the Internet and they believe you. It's. That part of the Internet kills me. [00:18:45] Speaker C: Actually, I'm, I'm kind of glad I don't know all the behind the scenes because that would make me furious. [00:18:51] Speaker B: It's not the best. [00:18:52] Speaker C: No. The thing I do see that is, that is superficially obvious is like somebody that has a one time sale business and they say they're at, you know, 20K MRR. And I'm like, that's not possible. Oh, your business is a one time sale business that doesn't exist. And so that's the part where I'm like, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's frustrating. [00:19:14] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know if there's anything to do about that. Because it's rewarded. [00:19:17] Speaker C: It is. [00:19:18] Speaker A: If it's rewarded, it'll be repeated. [00:19:19] Speaker C: I guess I will say I do think. I don't know if it's A Bible verse or just something my mom used to say. Be sure your sins will find you out. It feels like it's rewarded short term, but then people like Rob and Ainar and Ruben are texting about it and that doesn't end well. Right. If people know that you're faking it or a fraud. The group chats behind the scenes are like, can you believe that this person is saying this thing? I'm putting them on my list of never hire, never trust, never work with that sort of thing. So I know that bad guys win all the time, but I do think that there's some part of like, justice is long and will come for you. [00:19:55] Speaker A: I think, yes. I think overall, yes. I think people have difficulty with it in VC world because you see the same person raising money and if that feels like a reward. [00:20:05] Speaker C: Yeah, so. [00:20:06] Speaker A: So that, that kind of bothers you and then that drives the bad incentives around. Well, get the hype. You know that guy Roy from Clulee? [00:20:15] Speaker C: He cheat on everything guy. [00:20:16] Speaker A: Yes. Cheat on everything. Yes. [00:20:17] Speaker C: Talk about, talk about being mad. That makes me mad. [00:20:20] Speaker A: Okay, Okay. I think that's a great example of this, you know, weird cycle. It's almost like he understands the cycle better than do. And he understands, oh, this is easy. All I need to do to engineer attention is just be awful. [00:20:35] Speaker C: Yes. Make people mad. [00:20:37] Speaker B: But does he understand it or is he willing to do it? Because you know what I mean? That's the thing. Like all three of us could go online and say preposterous shit. And I could make stuff. I could lie, I could make stuff up. In fact, I saw someone call themselves, well, just say a number. You know, I'm a. I'm a the $50 million CEO. And it's like, what? But you don't run a company that, like, what does that mean? But you're just saying it. It's like you don't run a company that does 50 million. You've never have in your life. But what. And then you hear talk about it and you're just like, oh, that's just a made up thing. So I could go and say, well, I'm a. All the value of all the tiny C companies we've invested in is 350 million or whatever the number is. So I'm now a $350 million CEO, right. I could do this, but I don't. So I know how the game's played, but I'm not willing to do that. And my hope is, as we've just said, that in the long term, you know what? In the short term, it's a voting machine. The long term, it's a weighing machine. That's of course the stock market, not social media. But honestly, like, I hope that in the end that, you know, it weighs out. We'll see. [00:21:31] Speaker A: Yes. If I look back at Carhook's payment processing, I will henceforth be known as the $3 billion CEO. [00:21:36] Speaker B: That's it. This is it. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Let it be known. [00:21:39] Speaker B: That's an alternate title for this episode. The $3 billion CEO. [00:21:44] Speaker C: It's like when the people put manage $50 million of ad spend and you're like, for whom? What? That doesn't mean. Yeah, exactly. [00:21:53] Speaker B: Years. Like you did 20 grand a month for like, none of this. [00:21:57] Speaker A: Yeah, let me challenge us on it for just a sec. What I find myself and others like yourselves is that it does hold us back in our marketing because we are too shy, too real, too careful and self conscious. There is a way to be completely honest, but to push it toward being more attractive. I don't want to say somewhere in between because somewhere in the middle is actually still lies. But if I look at my, you know, our marketing language and our claims, we would be better off to be a bit more aggressive. [00:22:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree with that. I think there's like a Protestant humility that's like, I'm just working, especially amongst bootstrappers. Like, I'm quiet, I'm working, I will work my way out of this problem. And I do think specifically engineers who are bootstrappers could stand to be a little more not self aggrandizing but like, just markety. Like, just say, we're good at this thing. This is the thing we do. Instead of like, well, you know, technically it doesn't work in this case. You're like, whoa, back up. Just say you're good at this thing. [00:23:08] Speaker A: Yes, yes. No, I recently, I'm running an experiment. I'm putting out a lot of content, a lot of that content. It's not all written by me, so it's edited by me, so I approve it. So at the end of the day, it's from me. But the conversations I've had with the content agency have been super interesting because when I get the first draft of things, my immediate reaction is, that's too declarative, too certain of itself. I don't want to talk like that. Then when I'm writing posts myself, I find myself literally, the first sentence is always a caveat. This may not work for you, but it's like, okay, okay, okay, okay. So. So there's something there to learn about a time to be self deprecating, a time to be overly cautious. And. And at the other end of the spectrum, just. Just the worst thing I see, the worst thing that's not me, is this is what you need to do. I'm not willing to say this is what you need to do. This is what is what you need to do. You're falling behind it unless you do this. Like that is allergic to that stuff. [00:24:04] Speaker B: Yeah. The real clickbait, the struggle that I see is with developers or with folks who are more. Maybe a little more shy and really want to be super factual, is it can be hard to. Let's say it's a scale of 1 to 10. You know, 10 being complete, made of bullshit, and 1 being way too reserved. Going to 2, 3, 4, probably super reasonable, but a lot of folks at 1 don't know how to go to 2, 3, 4. It's like they do. They swing really hard and they're like, well, I see this person getting success with the Kuli guy. You just said that works. So I'm now going to try to be the Cluley guy. Right. Or the sweaty startups guy. And it's like, I don't. Don't, please don't do that. [00:24:36] Speaker C: Like, don't be the sweaty startups guy. [00:24:38] Speaker A: No, no, the mute button. The mute button is very important for your life. [00:24:43] Speaker C: Yep, it is. [00:24:44] Speaker A: So I want to talk about what I did this week and then let's see if we can find some connection. Rob, I don't think tiny seat companies do board meetings now. [00:24:53] Speaker B: Just the ones who've raised. Who've raised from, you know, subsequent rounds from. [00:24:57] Speaker A: Right. I was gonna say institutional, but you are technically institutional. [00:25:00] Speaker B: Yeah, but. [00:25:00] Speaker A: Right, yeah, but you don't take. You don't take board seats. [00:25:02] Speaker B: No, they don't have a board. [00:25:03] Speaker A: No. Okay. [00:25:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:04] Speaker A: And Aaron, this stuff is a foreign language to you, like other bootstrappers. Do you guys do quarterly board meetings or. [00:25:11] Speaker C: No, no, no, no. I understand the language, but I don't. I don't speak it. No, we don't. We don't do any board meetings or anything like that. I talked to Steve for four times a day, and that's the board. But no, no board meetings. [00:25:22] Speaker A: Board meetings are new to me with this company. It's the first time I've ever, you know, had someone from external on the board. And then this. This quarterly cadence is super interesting. And I thought, as a bootstrapper, that I would hate it. And I Actually, really like it. There is a little bit of legal involved. I remember the first one I went into, I was talking to my lawyer, who I've worked with for, for maybe 10 years. So we are close, we trust each other. And he also joins the board meetings. And I asked him, I said, okay, so. So we'll record this. And he was like, no, no, no. No children, no brother. You're not going to record this. So some of the things have been like a surprise. And I do acknowledge that the things that you're saying there, they count. They're on the record. So you do have to be mature in the way you're talking about everything. And there is a push, there is an incentive to make things sound good. That is the truth. That's probably the one thing that's more difficult that I would like if it was an absolute, you know, raw, honest. This is. These are all the bad things. But it's not quite that. I still find it really valuable. I sent a tweet out a few days ago, oh, the day. The morning of the board meeting, and wrote it's. It's a lot more fun when you're growing fast. Because I had board meetings for, like, two years where it was really not much good news at all. It was, yes, this deal closed, but this one didn't, and this one churned. And now we're here, but we need to get there. And here's the new plan. And that was literally a sweaty experience. I would leave, like, with body odor, like, okay, that all the stress came out. Still valuable, but a lot more fun when it's good. So that's really what I worked on. The presentation we're kind of good at. We know where to get all the data. It's really useful because you look back and if so, it forces you to look at your previous slides because you're literally copying and pasting your previous slides. So you're changing numbers and you're moving over from last time to now, this time. And then it's useful to look three months into the future and say, how do we show ambition without shooting ourselves in the foot and setting ourselves up for falling short? Because there is an element to doing really well. But you fell short of plan, and it's still not good. So it's an interesting thing. So, Rob, do you think companies in tiny seed, Aaron, do you think a company like yours would benefit from that touch of formality around something like a quarterly check in where you look at everything? [00:27:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Not that intense, though. I don't want Them to have to build decks and do all that. Like I've seen because I was a part of the board meetings at LeadPages after they acquired Drip. So I've been in venture backed board meetings that were going well and those that were not going well. And I do think, I mean much like so with Tiny Seed and frankly all of my investments, it's like, hey, I'd like a monthly update email that kind of says, hey, here's the highs and lows and the problems and the, and the asks and the successes and this and that. I don't think everyone needs to do that, but I do think it's a, it's a nice discipline that gets you to reflect for 15, 20 minutes and send a plain text email that has all that stuff in it. Right. I think a quarterly check in for Dynasty companies would be Great. We have 204 investments. I don't have the bandwidth to do that. That's a part of it. But the folks who do go on to raise subsequent, they often have this in place. The thing, it swings a little too far though, right? It's like once again, going on a spectrum is like some board meetings require weeks of preparation and then it's like, what are we doing here? Are we building a company or are we effing around trying to make the board happy? Right. So I think again, on a one to ten scale, maybe, maybe a three or four type of board meeting where it's just a check in on things, metrics check in I think are helpful. This only applies, look, if you're building a solopreneur business or you're building an amazing lifestyle business that makes hundreds of thousands or you know, low millions a year with a few contractors, like, you don't need this. But it's when you're building a company and Jordan, you're building a company, you're going to have 10, 20, 30 employees more than that as you grow, like that's where this becomes helpful. [00:29:16] Speaker C: I agree with Rob. I don't want it to be formal at all. We used to get at a company I worked at, we used to get the board presentation after it happened as an all hands every quarter. And it was kind of, it was kind of nice. But it was like 40 slides of these customers. This is ARR. This is the churn. And it's like, boy, this is a lot of detail. I can't imagine putting it together. And it did feel like they were always like prepping for the next board meeting, like a month and a half out and I'm like, well, there's not that many months in a quarter. So do you guys ever not think about a board meeting? But I think it could be useful in a bootstrapper scenario in the case like Steve and I, where you have a co founder. Because as much as Steve and I talk, like I said, multiple times a day, it's also. It would be nice for us to have like a. Maybe it's just the beginning of the month. Here's the plan for the month. And let's look at the plan for last month. And were we too ambitious? Not ambitious enough, did we get sidetracked, that sort of thing? Because I think what Steve and I run into is we're both contributors, like individual contributors working on the things, and we can get heads down and forget or ignore like the bigger picture direction that we're trying to work towards, which puts us in May without having, you know, shipped a new course this year. Because we're like, heads down working on all these important things and we look up and like, well, crap, we need some money. So I think have doing that once a month, I think for Steve and I would be still super valuable because there are two of us and we're working on, you know, separate but similar things. [00:30:54] Speaker A: Do you have a spreadsheet? Do you do projections? Like, here's what we want to do for the year? [00:30:58] Speaker C: No. I mean, we've talked about what we want, like, how much money we want to make, but we don't have, like, we haven't broken it down to like this course, that course, this product, that product. No. [00:31:07] Speaker A: Do you do something like a bookkeeper or you just run through everything through accounting and account at the end of the year kind of thing? [00:31:13] Speaker C: We run everything through Mercury and then we have a proper CPA that handles the rest of it. We don't have that many transactions. It's pretty easy for us, right? [00:31:22] Speaker A: It's like, it's not that many lines, okay? [00:31:23] Speaker C: These guys, gusto and Mercury and that's about it. [00:31:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Which is kind of nice. I don't like formality, but I like a spreadsheet. So I always have. We have this Google Doc that are projections and then underneath I duplicate and I just have like optimism. One, Optimism, two optimism three pessimism, like, you know, bad case. And I'll do like higher ad spend. Ludicrous ad spend because I just want to understand what the drivers are and I play around. Then I have one called reality, and that's the one that I update where I'm like, this is actually where we are. And I often then delete all the other tabs and then start duplicating based on the reality, you know, so I'm, I'm kind of tracing reality and then playing with scenarios that go off of there. And I think for me, what that does is it keeps me calm around Runway. Because when, if you run an, an unprofitable business, the only thing that matters is staying alive. And so the only thing that matters is just don't run out of money. And I see that as the, the foremost job of the CEO in this type of company is just make sure there's enough money in the bank. [00:32:27] Speaker B: Pretty much, yes. [00:32:28] Speaker A: And I don't know how to compare myself to others and how I'm running that. So I often ask like my VCs. It's like a personality driven like spreadsheet and decision making process. So when I pivoted, I think I pivoted way earlier than others would have pivoted. So I pivoted with millions in the bank. And other people are like, well, now that we have three months left in the bank, let's pivot in and cut. And I did that like way, way, way, way sooner. Rob, your business is. Speaking of Lumpy. That is right. There isn't like a, you know, stripe revenue line that moves, moves up and down. It's just not, it's just not like that. [00:33:04] Speaker B: No, no. And it's a challenge because I'm used to running SaaS which compounds MRR month over month, always up under the right. Like that's those the businesses I've written. It is. And it's not like it happens on its own. It's a huge freaking. There's a reason I also don't do it anymore because it's so freaking hard. Tiny Seed makes money on management fees and so we raise a fund and then we have. One could say, well, you have solid straight revenue for three years, but one could also say you're completely stagnant and flat for three years. And I had to really get like, oh, I can't just spend more money. The budget is the budget. That's all the revenue coming in. It's a really interesting thing. And then with microconf is different, but also microconf spiky because it's tickets and you know, it's signups and this and that. We have staff for that. So yeah, it's a different game, but it's not so big. See, I'm not. We're not burning money like you are. That's the big one. Big difference is you want to grow as fast as possible and you have this funding and you're burning. And for us it's like the total team size between the two companies is like 10 people and we are break even slash slightly, very slightly profitable. So you just. It's not as complicated as it might sound. I say as we have a full time ops person who's also a full time bookkeeper and you know, it is complicated. It's just obfuscated from my point of view. [00:34:16] Speaker A: You know, I do see some analogy to running a venture business with the situation you just, the scenario you just described. Because my income is stable, it doesn't really matter how much the company makes, my income isn't changing. So it is my management fee here. You manage the company, this is how much you make a year and then look at the asset that you are responsible for and make those numbers go up. It's not really directly connected to your income. It is connected to your outcome. [00:34:45] Speaker B: Not your income is either huge, your outcome is either huge or it goes to zero. Probably in the game you're in now. [00:34:52] Speaker A: It is, it is very strange in, in that way because everyone tells you it's so unlikely this that you know, but you're just driving toward an outcome and then you're responsible for maximizing that outcome. But you also have to layer in your own like self interest. It is a bit of a, of a puzzle on how to handle that. Because if the company sells for $50 million, I do really well, but the investors don't and the employees don't. If it sells for 250 million, it's a party, you know, everyone, everyone does really well. If it sells for more then it's a different thing. So there are like these strata of outcome but there is an element to if there is an outcome, you kind of win. It's just what degree of winning. And I think maybe I like that. I like the okay, here's your nice stable income. Take care of your family, don't complain and then start rolling the die and see what kind of outcome you can hit before you run out of chips. I'm just going to stretch this analogy all the way. [00:35:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:45] Speaker A: Aaron, do you think about an outcome, do you think about income or both? [00:35:49] Speaker C: I'm split right now primarily thinking about income. And the reason is I don't think what we currently have is sellable for any sort of outcome. What we currently have is a glorified personality business. I mean I think everything we do is really high Quality and I take a lot of pride in the education aspect of it. But at the end of the day, the business is, is me. You know, obviously that's not reality because Steve does as much as I do. But if you sell a bundle of courses and the instructor doesn't come along, what are you going to sell it for? You know, it's like selling, selling an agency where there's one main contributor to the, the work product. But the flip side of that is, you know, if we launch course, we make $500,000. Steve and I put close to 250 each in our pocket. And it's like, it's not all bad. And I will say at this stage in my life that is incredibly necessary. I mean I've got four kids at home and a wife that works extremely hard at home. And so like I gotta think about income right now. Steve and I have software ambitions that we're finding along the way as we're, you know, building this business. We have bumped, as everyone does, a bunch of things that are like this sucks. And so we are finding as we're doing this some things that play to our strengths in like the video space that are more software shaped. And so I think if we can stabilize, if we can stabilize the course business, we can use that to fund a little bit bigger swing that would be more outcome focus, something that would be sellable, that is not tied to Aaron Francis the name. And that is the kind of longer term dream because the, the, the business we run right now is very labor intensive and personally very exhausting, I'll be frank. And so the hope is we can leverage what we have into something that is slower growing but hopefully more sustainable and has a bigger outcome potential. [00:37:53] Speaker A: You might be selling yourself short though. Someone could come along and give you six and a half billion dollars worth of stock to join their company. You just have to be Jony, I've, that's all. [00:38:01] Speaker C: And to that I say, Sam, I am ready to join whatever. You know, I'll do you a favor, I'll do it for three and a half billion. We'll save a little bit there. [00:38:10] Speaker A: The kindness. [00:38:11] Speaker B: Step one. Aaron, be Jony. I've. [00:38:14] Speaker C: Well, okay, that's trouble. [00:38:18] Speaker B: Wait, this is a problem. [00:38:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So gents, I had all these plans to like talk about things in the news like that. I don't think we have time for that. I want to finish off, let you guys get back to work. I have two great podcasters here with me. What advice do you have on how to make a podcast Good. Is it authenticity? Is it the value thing? Is it consistency? You know, combination of these things. How do you make a podcast good? [00:38:44] Speaker B: I have two questions. What are your goals for the podcast? Meaning? And I'm going to say if you want to be Seth Rogan, Seth Rogen, if you want to be Joe Rogan. [00:38:52] Speaker A: Sorry about that. [00:38:52] Speaker B: That, that's a whole other show. If you want to be Joe, Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss, to them, a good podcast is maximum reach, maximum AD$, whatever, maximum societal impact. I don't think that's your goal. That's not my goal. Yeah. Maximum length with like, you know, so that's their goal. That, that's a good podcast for me, a good podcast based on my, what I'm doing in my life and my mission of, you know, multiplying the world's population of independent self sufficiency sustaining startups. Like, my goal is to have an extremely loyal, tight audience that is as big as possible without, you know, I don't go into broader entrepreneurship because I don't want to water it down. Right. So that's, that's my goal there. And Aaron's is probably different. So I think that's where you need to start is like, what do you want? You know, and is it a mix of those? And then once you know that, then it's like, well, who is the audience for it and how do you make it good for them? And I think Aaron and I could probably both weigh in on. If you want to go broad, here's how to make it good. You do it three hours and it's super. Just entertaining, entertaining, entertaining. But if you want like credibility and you want whatever customers, then you have to be authentic, but not too authentic. You know, you can walk over that line. You start smoking a doobie with Elon Musk and suddenly you're not going to have customers but Joe Rogan. Right. So this. Yeah, those are my first two thoughts around it. [00:40:05] Speaker A: I think what you said there, that was interesting or at least surprising to me was that you did acknowledge a reaction back. Once there's an audience, then what do they, what do they need from you or want from you as opposed to just be yourself and whatever audience comes out of that. Great. So there is some response, some back and forth. [00:40:23] Speaker C: Yeah, you can just decide which one you want to do. And I'll agree with Rob and say that like, Rob and I do very different shows. I think my revealed preference is the, like the ride along, you know, what's going on this week show. I think Rob's is the only one I listen to that is more like every week has, you know, is topical and has a guest and my revealed preference reveals itself again. Every time Derek Reimer's on, I'm like, ah, a regular Rob and Derek. Like, yes, I want to hear the boys talk and like Rob and Ruben, I want to hear the gang. And so even in, you know, Rob's more topical show where ours is more rambly, I still like the storylines. And so Rob is correct, you have to decide what you want to be. But I'll talk to you as if you want to be what, what I'm doing. And you can disregard this if that's not what you want to be. I think the thing that you need to be careful of as you're doing this is I'm going to tune in and I'm going to want to hear what's going on in Rosie, what's Jordan doing and your co host who is going to be, you know, some bums off the street like you have today. They may not be ready to ask you, Jordan, what's been going on this week? Oh, let me dig into that. Hey, wait, tell me more. And as a listener, I'm going to want to hear Jordan's story because that is the through line. And so you might have to either tell them to interview you or be more like, I'm going to offer up what's been going on this week and I want you to ask me questions about it. If there's a failure mode for this like rotating co host model, I think that's it. Which is I'm tuning in for you, but no co host is brave enough to turn the tables on you. [00:42:02] Speaker A: Okay, I think that's great advice. I do think I will end up more toward the ride along narrative version of things. And I tried to dig into what my preferences were also over the last few weeks when I had time off. But that's a great point around that. I think I can manufacture that depth in the story through repeating co hosts and also manufacturers creating segments that are like, well, I guess what are you working on? This week was kind of an attempt toward that. But I should not be shy to dive into more details. [00:42:39] Speaker C: In fact, you might lead that segment. You might start with this week at Rosie doing this, this and this co host. What have you been up to? Because at the end, like I think you as the main host are going to feel comfortable directing the conversation and throwing it across to the other one when they finish their update. If they go first they're not going to be like, now, Jordan, let me. Let me ask you the same question. And so it's going to be like, okay, thanks for the update. I guess I'll go now. And it's like, oh, that feels kind. [00:43:06] Speaker A: Of weird, doesn't it? Yeah, Very interesting. I'm going to think about that. [00:43:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to chime in there, because I think updates are super interesting when interesting things are happening. But we both know that building company. I mean, you see every update podcast I've ever listened to, aside from, well, there's a handful that keep going, but they last a few years and then they go away because it's just. You're just not doing interesting things. 52 weeks a year, 10 year. 10 years in a row, which it doesn't. I mean, Mike and I, startups for the rest of us, started as an update buy. You go back, listen to the early ones. It's he and I talking about our experience. And then after a year or two, I'm just like, dude, maybe I do an interesting thing once a month, maybe. And then it's like, I can't even talk about these things because I'm, like, going to sell the company for. And it took six months to do that. So there were six months of me, he and Han, like, I don't know what I'm doing. [00:43:49] Speaker C: Meanwhile, Mike is doing a Google audit for a year. And you're like, we can't keep talking about this. [00:43:54] Speaker B: Exactly. That's exactly right. So. So what I'm saying, Jordan, is updates are. Are the best. I love them. But you have to make the podcast interesting without them. And you. You saw the pivot, episode 449 of Startups for the rest of us, where I still talk about stuff, right. I do solo episodes. I talk about burning out, I talk about things. But it's not every week. You know, it's not everybody's listener questions. There's Q and A. There's like six to seven different episode formats. I'm not saying you have to copy that model, but I realized quickly, early on, although those, to me, that is some of the best content. You don't have 45 minutes of that content 52 weeks a year. So how do you. How do you think around that and not force it? Because I've also been in that where I was forcing it, and I'm kind of not making things up per se. [00:44:36] Speaker A: But like, dwelling on things that, you know, can be done in a sense or two. Yeah, yeah. [00:44:40] Speaker C: And it's exhaust. That part is Exhausting. When you come to an update show and you're like, God dang it, I'm still trying to do this thing that I've been talking about. Now I'm depressed because I've said that for four weeks in a row. Yes, that part's hard. [00:44:53] Speaker B: Derek Reimer talked a lot. I mean, when he just decided to leave, what was his show with Ben? [00:44:58] Speaker C: Art of product. [00:44:59] Speaker B: Art of Product. He was like, I just can't do the updates anymore. Like, I just don't have it in me. I just. Yep. And that was it. That's it. Right. And that's always the reason why they, you know, they tend to go away. [00:45:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. My. My going in, I mean, literally in the notes that I had for this first podcast was really a split between these updates and these, like, takes on more topical things, because depending on the show and what's going on in the business, it could be weighed toward one or the other. Right. So this was. It's easy for us to just kind of yap and. And take up time, and I don't think we want to be here for another hour or two. But that. That's the general thinking on that, you know, half. Half or that split won't be half. Half. It is part of what made the podcast with Brian and I start to go stale. I really didn't have that much to talk about, especially when things were just not going well with Rally, where it was like, I don't know, like, just say the same thing again this week or what I'm trying to do. So I. I hear you on that. I have a bit of the opposite problem right now, where I feel like if I give my very honest updates, it's going to sound like bragging because things are going really well, and I don't like to do that, but it is a lot more interesting when things are going well. Right. Talking about scaling up to 100k a month in ad spend. Okay. It's interesting. It's not bragging. It's kind of, you know, an interesting experience I've never had before. And I can talk about it. [00:46:19] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. But if you're like, hey, this is what I'm learning, you're not going to come across as braggy. And, Jordan, you're going to have plenty of updates that are going to be catastrophic, so it'll even out over time every week. You're not going to come on and humble brag. So while it's. While, you know, while the sun's shining, you're going to make Hay in terms of your updates. And then when it's not, you're just like, hey, it's. It's maybe not going as well as I thought. [00:46:40] Speaker A: So in my work or in my business, it does feel like a lot of things I cannot talk about publicly. Sometimes. I don't know who it was with, but I did a podcast recently where I talked about our advertising strategy, and then I hung up and I listened to it, you know, a few days later, and I was like, I. I cannot talk about that anymore. Okay. That's actually revealing too much, and I can't talk about it. And then, you know, that sucks because that was an actually interesting topic to talk about. How we went about finding the advertising agency, what I said to them, and why it's working. Like, okay, it is interesting, but I can't talk about it. Do you feel like yours really lends itself to just. The more you share, the better off you are? [00:47:21] Speaker C: I think on the spectrum, I'm much closer to the more you share, the better off you are. Again, because of the unique shape. Unique amongst the three of us, not in the world. The unique shape of our business, which is basically, I am the top of funnel. Like, as an individual, I am the top of funnel for our business. And that is, you know, that benefits from me being on podcasts and writing and tweeting and, like, making YouTube videos and all of that. Now there are still. I'm comfortable sharing anything about, you know, my internal state or how I'm feeling. There are some things about the business that we're trying to, like, move in silence, and so we don't talk about those things. But they're. Those things are just far fewer than I think probably a business like either of Yalls has. They're just not. There's just not a lot more going on behind the scenes than what you would imagine. [00:48:11] Speaker A: Right. You're sharing everything as part of the business. Part of the marketing strategy. [00:48:15] Speaker C: Part of the business strategy is sharing everything. [00:48:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that. [00:48:19] Speaker C: Which itself is exhausting. But it is a, you know, a strategy. [00:48:22] Speaker A: Yep. [00:48:23] Speaker B: And then competing with Aaron has a moat. And it's Aaron. It's the personality. If someone wants to compete with Aaron, they can't just go do the same search for an agency, spend 100 grand a month on ad. That's not that. That's right. That's Jordan. You're in a different spot where you are. Someone could compete with you by knowing the mechanics of the things, and you really can't do that with. [00:48:42] Speaker A: Yes. The strategy and the secrets, which are my favorite part of business, are specifically the things that I should not share. [00:48:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's hard. [00:48:49] Speaker A: Yes, that's what it is. [00:48:51] Speaker B: I've been there. I know what that feels like. [00:48:53] Speaker A: Yes. Like the way we are, you know, splitting up the features into the plans, I can talk about in the abstract, but not in such detail. [00:49:02] Speaker C: I feel like all these things that you shouldn't have shared is. Are the things you told me on mostly technical when you came on. So my bad. If I. If I elicited all of these things out of you, that. [00:49:11] Speaker A: That might have been the one. [00:49:14] Speaker C: My bad dog. [00:49:16] Speaker A: No. Come on. Well, gentlemen, I think where we're concluding is that you guys need to come back in a few weeks so that there's a. There's a through line. Cool. And now that I know that you two are basically content creators for a living, I don't feel bad at all. [00:49:29] Speaker C: What else do we have to do? Nothing. [00:49:32] Speaker B: Just tell us the night before and we'll be here. We'll show up. This is easy. This is the easiest work I do in a week. [00:49:37] Speaker A: I like it. [00:49:38] Speaker C: No kidding. [00:49:38] Speaker A: Cool. Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining on episode one. Thanks everyone for listening. Give us some comments, give us some feedback. Weigh in on exactly where this thing should go. [00:49:48] Speaker B: How do they do that? [00:49:49] Speaker A: Look at you. [00:49:50] Speaker B: Teen me up like a Jordangal on X. Twitter mention or DMs are open and if they're not, you're going to open them before the episode goes live. [00:49:59] Speaker A: My profile is posting on LinkedIn a lot, but I am not there. So hit me up on the X on the Twitter. Aaron. Thank you very much. Rob, thank you. [00:50:08] Speaker C: Yes, you're welcome. And you can find links to Aaron and Rob down in the show notes below. See, I got you, brother. [00:50:14] Speaker A: Beautiful. Thanks. [00:50:16] Speaker C: This was fun. Thanks. Bye. [00:50:20] Speaker A: Sam.