Two indie SaaS founders—one just getting off the ground, and one with an established profitable business—invite you to join their weekly chats.
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Growing an Early Stage SaaS: A Conversation with SavvyCal Founder Derrick Reimer
Follow Derrick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/derrickreimer Check out SavvyCal (which Michele uses and loves, btw): https://savvycal.com/Colleen Schnettler 0:00 This episode of Software Social is sponsored by Orbit. Orbit is mission control for your community. Grow and measure your community across any platform with Orbit. Find out more at orbit.love. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Software Social Podcast. I'm your host today Colleen Schnettler. Today I'm very excited to host a special guest, Derrick Reimer. Derrick is a serial maker and has successfully built many products. He's now building SavvyCal. Hey, Derrick, thanks so much for being here. I'm really happy to have you on today. Derrick Reimer 0:34 Thanks for having me. Yeah, I've been a fan of your guys's podcast since it came out and have enjoyed following along with your respective journeys, and especially as you've been getting simple file upload off the ground. It's pretty exciting stuff.Colleen Schnettler 0:47 So in a little bit of a change of the traditional podcast guest format, I actually invited you here because I want to talk about me instead of your product. You know, I would really like to talk to you because you are a technical founder. And I feel like you've done this five times now. Derrick Reimer 1:12 Something like that. Yeah, Colleen Schnettler 1:13 something like that. Quite a few companies. So I just kind of wanted to get your opinion on, like my product and my growth trajectory. And if this thing is gonna work, and I have so many questions like when to bail, right? Yeah. Derrick Reimer 1:30 Yeah, no, it's, it's good. I'm happy to dive into this stuff. I love kind of strategizing. And, and, you know, talking shop with with other folks. So yeah, happy to have to dive in on some of those questions. Colleen Schnettler 1:41 Awesome. So one of the things when I started simple file upload is I kind of made a lot of the mistakes, I think traditional or first time founders make in that I just built something I wanted to build. And I just wanted to ship a product, right? Like my first goal was literally make something that people could buy. And so that was like a really exciting time just learning how to create a piece of software I could sell to more than one person. Derrick Reimer 2:08 Hmm, I think I remember when you were kind of just getting started on this and kind of talking about it. And, you know, Michelle would grill you a little bit on like, well, you talk to customers. But if I recall, like you do have, like some this intuition for the need for this came out of your own experience a bit, right, which is like, yes, that can be a dangerous place to start. But it's also I feel like one of the more like, it kind of sets you off on a good foot. In one sense, if you have a really good understanding of kind of the the problem like you've felt the problem deeply yourself. And so I feel like you were starting, maybe you didn't do all the customer interviews right out of the gate, but like you sort of had this intuitive sense, like as a as a consultant, and you've built this stuff many times before that, like, Oh, this is kind of I'm spending repeated effort on this problem. And I'm seeing other people doing that, too. Is that is that kind of characterize? Like, how the genesis of it came about? Colleen Schnettler 3:07 Yes, definitely. Yeah.That's Yeah, that's really why I built it. And there's a lot of excitement in the beginning, right, just like getting your first product to market. And I think I made a really good choice to put it in the Heroku marketplace. And it seems to be meeting a need, I think I kind of Accidentally on Purpose found a hole, right? Because Heroku has the ephemeral file storage. So this is a problem. Literally, everyone who uses her Roku has, right. I don't really know, though. I mean, it's just fancy file storage. I don't really know, if it's a product that can even replace my job. Like, I don't know, if the How do I like even determine if it can get there?Derrick Reimer 3:56 Mm hmm. Well, I think so part of that is, so you're kind of speaking to like market size, like how many, you know, how many dollars are flowing through this industry of people wanting to to solve this problem. And I did, I did a little bit of like, just scoping around before coming on here because I wanted to do do a little bit of my homework and it seems like there are quite a few, like, companies that there are kind of big name players like cloud Neri right that have sort of been around a while people use them for image storage like image manipulation or like optimization, right. But also like in looking at kind of their their marketing it seems like they're they've gone a little bit up market like they're they seem a little enterprise II to me from the looks of them, you know, like it's, I look at it as an as an independent software builder and I don't know if I'm perfectly in the target market for your product, but like when I look at Cloud Neri To me, it's like this looks a little long in the tooth like they like it's not something I would want to jump into putting into my stack because it looks a little bit too Little bit to enterprise. And like, like, I would want a fresher take on that. But it seems like it seems like there is there's a pretty decent sized market for, you know, file storage, image storage, image manipulation, CDN, like putting things on CD ends, and like making that whole side of things smoother. So I guess like my initial take is like, I think there is something here. Now the question is, which we can kind of talk through more like, is there? Is it something you're interested in? Like, really going after, you know, and like, and? Yeah, but I think there's, I think there is something there.Colleen Schnettler 5:40 So what do you mean? Is it something I'm interested in really going after?Derrick Reimer 5:45 I guess, like, it's gonna take, I think you're at that point right now where like, you've got some initial traction, you're in the Heroku marketplace. And actually, it's, it's really cool. I looked, I just searched upload in the marketplace. And you're like, ranked number one or number two, which is pretty amazing. Right? Yeah, that's a really good. That's a really good spot to be in. I was I was shocked that there was not more options there. Right? Yeah. Yeah, me too. And honestly, this is, this is a problem that I have, every time I build this app, I kind of go through this, this phase of like, relying on gravatar, only for avatars, because I don't want to build in the upload part. And then it's annoying. Yeah. And then like, gradually, I've gotten, I've actually pushed more and more towards just being on Heroku. And, like, I used to, like drip was on AWS and we just had like custom instances. So we already had s3 there. And it was sort of part of our tool chain already. But this time around, like I don't, I've been trying to stick to like a pure Heroku stack, keep things really simple. And it was definitely an awkward place when I needed to add this, like the ability for people to upload their own Avatar and like, Okay, so now I have to go like create an AWS account, like I ideally didn't want to do that. So I don't know. Yeah. all that to say like, it seems like there's a there's an interesting gap here. Now, it remains to be seen if there's a ton of people, you know, like me and like you who, who are like not wanting practically like not wanting to spin up a raw AWS account and start, like getting in there and manipulating buckets and doing all that kind of stuff. But I don't know, I think my intuitive sense is like, I think that there's, you know, and I mean, they're the risk is that, like, Heroku just steps in and solve this problem at some point. But I mean, they haven't been around a long time, and they still haven't done that. So I think, I think there's a, I think there's an opportunity. But I guess back to the original question, like what do I mean by Do you want to, like, really go deeper on this, I think it's like, it's gonna, it's gonna probably take figuring out some, like, we're experimenting with some, some repeatable, like, marketing channels and traction channels. And it's gonna require a bit of investment, and experimentation, and, and so it's gonna take time, potentially money, you can pull those different levers, you know, depending on, on which one you have more of, to play with, you know, but I think that's, that's kind of the point that a lot of a lot of like, first time founders, technical founders get to where it's like, you're really good at the, you know, building the the product. And so now it's like, applying energy towards the marketing side, and really trying to like, suss out what's going to work on that end. Because I think your product is is probably well poised to, to solve a real need. And it already is solving a need for 10s of customers. Hundreds of customers. 33. Yeah, yeah, yeah.Colleen Schnettler 8:47 Yeah, you know, and the thing about trying to learn marketing as a developer, it's like, I feel like I'm just throwing darts at a board. Like, maybe this'll work. Maybe this will work. I have no idea what I'm doing, which I guess is part of the process.Derrick Reimer 9:06 Right. Right. Right. I mean, that is, yeah, that is kind of what marketing is about. It's, it's a there's lots of channels. So I don't know if you're familiar with attraction, but I always bring this one up to founders. Have you have you? Okay,Colleen Schnettler 9:20 it's a client traction.Derrick Reimer 9:22 It's called traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Maris. It's been around a while, I think they've maybe revised it once or twice, but I have like a have an older copy sitting here. But it's basically like,Colleen Schnettler 9:32 it's literally on your desk. Yeah.Derrick Reimer 9:37 And because I this is one that I will just periodically revisit. And so because they start out with like, sort of running through this framework, they call it the bullseye framework. And it's sort of like it's just a little, a little exercise you can go through to sort of brainstorm each traction channel. They listen here and there's 19 different channels morality. PR and conventional PR search engine ads, social and display ads, SEO, content marketing. I won't list them all. But like, so they sort of start out the book with like, here's a brief description of each one, here's a framework for going through and brainstorming, you know, which ones do I think might work well for my product, and then, and then the rest of the book is sort of like going deeper on each one and how to think about like devising an experiment. So because like, I think I've done a little bit of, I just did a little bit of brainstorming ahead of this recording. And, you know, one idea I had was like, I feel like, there isn't like an SEO opportunity here. If people are, if people are really like me, and like you trying to like not go full in on like a manual setup with an s3 bucket for doing this. There might be some, there might be some some keywords that people are searching for typically, like, file uploads on Heroku, or something like that. And, you know, there's tooling you can use, like a traps or SEO, Moz, and a couple other ones that can give you some data on keywords like that. And so you can sort of, you know, you can, you can just do some research, some brainstorming, maybe make a spreadsheet, and then, and then kind of follow some of the advice in a book like this to kind of devise like, what's the minimal experiment, I could do produce maybe a couple pieces of content? And then see how see how that works? Without just saying like, yep, this is definitely what's going to work because you don't really know what's going to work until you actually experiment with it. Right?Colleen Schnettler 11:40 So I think I have a psychological block here. And I think my psychological block is I feel, I feel like it's my product is maybe not that great, because there's so much it doesn't do I mean, it does what it says it does, and it doesn't really well, right. But like, I don't know, if that's just like the developer in me, or like, no one has asked for these features. But like, there are certain features that it doesn't have, and it kind of like, makes me more a little bit uncomfortable almost trying to market it. When I can't offer those features. Is that weird?Derrick Reimer 12:19 That's a very common, I mean, that I've experienced that with every single product. I've had it talking to other founders. Yes. I mean, I think there's, I think the type of person who is likely to go on this journey, I think it's sort of a self selecting thing a little bit like there's, I think we tend to have this propensity to be be a little bit of a perfectionist about the products we make. And, and have a little bit of imposter syndrome to use the buzz word, you know, like feeling like, it's not, it's not as good as, as maybe we're making out to be I know, I've fallen in this trap. Many times of like, under marketing, or under selling what I've built. And when I've looked at other companies that are maybe founded by, like a non technical, like more sales type of person or something, they tend to, they tend to bias towards the opposite side, which is like, as soon as there's a little kernel of something built, it's like, let's sell, sell, sell. Yeah, and that's, that's not good, either. Like you want the product to truly match what you're selling. But I think I I'm hearing from you the same bias that I have, which is like, a natural tendency to, to undersell what you have, ultimately, like, it doesn't. Like, if it's solving a problem for people, then it is enough. It is enough, you know, and and so you have to be willing to, to push it and to market it. And believe me, if it's not, if it's not good enough for certain cases, you'll hear about it. Customers are very, very willing to to tell you when they think your stuff is not good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.Colleen Schnettler 14:04 Yeah. I think that has been like part of my problem is I'm just like, oh, but I should just and I know everyone does this, but it's still it's hard when it's your thing. Like, there's some personal I don't know, you know, wrapped up in that where you're like, oh, it doesn't do this thing. I literally was on a call with a guy the other day, and he was asking me about it. potential customer and like, I lead with that Derek. I was like, oh, but it doesn't resize. Oh, you can't sign it on the server. Like why did I do that?Derrick Reimer 14:33 Right? Yeah, I'm not funny. That's why I mean, I've found Same thing with with customer support. I don't know if you've experienced this at all. When people will write in, they'll ask, they'll ask about something that maybe we don't support right away. But there's like a, there's sort of a workaround, that's in my mind. It's like not in my engineering mind. It's like this is not a pure good solution. It's it's a hack. Right? Like Like you train a support person, because a lot of times I have struggled to like to be the one to tell, tell the person how to do the hack. Instead, I'm like, Nah, sorry, we can't support that. But we're working on it. And I remember this when we first unleashed like, we fully trained our, our support rep, or support rapid trip, and there were all kinds of things that people just needed to do workarounds for and he would just tell people like, yes, we can totally support this. Here's how you do it. And you know, it was a paragraph worth of like, you know, what I would consider to be a little bit of a hack, but really, it was just creative problem solving. And the customer was like, nine times out of 10. super thrilled. And they're like, yeah, thanks so much. This is awesome. So yeah, yeah.Colleen Schnettler 15:40 Okay. Okay. Yeah, I can see that. I am. Okay. So the product has been live for five months. And I'm at like, 1300 MRR, which it's hard to know where that falls in the world of good, bad, mediocre. It's growing, but it's growing slowly. And I just kind of feel like I don't know what to do next.Derrick Reimer 16:05 Sort of, it's growing right now off of primarily the Heroku marketplace. Is that right? Correct.Colleen Schnettler 16:11 Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay.Derrick Reimer 16:14 Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know how much more it seems like you're like I had one one checklist on my on my bulleted list here about like to ask you about doing like kind of SEO specifically for the Heroku marketplace. Because this is this is sort of a thing like folks who have WordPress plugins, there are things you can do to to specifically, like optimize your, your plugin listing to increase the chances that someone will find you first. But then I like I searched upload and you came right up. So I think you're I feel like you're your SEO on this, like specific niche search engine, the Roku marketplace is actually really, really good. So I'm not sure yeah, I mean, it's it's it's someone else's platform. I don't off the top of my head, I don't know how much more you could really do. On that, besides potentially, like, you know, working on on messaging bear a little bit. Which is potentially something you could do I, I was curious. Just to hearing your words, like what do you feel like the primary pain point that you're solving for people is right now. And it was like, is it informed by your, your perception, from what you've heard from customers? A combination of both? Have you been surprised that other people have a different pain point than what you expected? I guess, kind of talk me through that a little bit.Colleen Schnettler 17:34 One of the interesting things here is, so to get on the Heroku marketplace, you have to make your app free, and you have to get 100 users. And so when I did that the people who were free would talk to me like they they had all kinds of stuff to say, now that I'm selling it. First of all, I can't get anyone to talk to me, which is super weird. But but so people who were talking to me more, it seems like it met that need of the storage, because if you have to set up a I mean, you know AWS Iam course, like so much involved because it's a direct upload, there's so much involved in setting up direct uploads in an application, so the people, I think it's doing what I intended it intended for to do, which is it extrapolates away, file, uploading to the cloud, and I am even backing it up, which I probably don't even need to do but but I like doing it makes me feel makes me sleep helps me sleep better. So I I'm actually saving your stuff on to two completely different storage providers. And that's such a problem on Heroku. Because of their file system, I don't think it's as big of a problem outside of Heroku. But one thing I did is I made it expensive. And I made it expensive because I figured like I looked at cloudberries pricing and I went like 75% below that. And so one thing I have thought of is to do like a cheaper model, because then people who just need avatars like you're not going to pay 35 bucks a month just for avatar storage, but maybe you'd pay 12Derrick Reimer 19:20 I don't know. Yeah, I think it is pretty interesting. I mean, I think I would probably pay 30 What is it? What is your base price? 3535 35 Yeah, I would probably I don't know if that's too much, honestly. EspeciallyColleen Schnettler 19:42 successful people always tell me that they're like, it's not too much. Yeah, it's like a lot.Derrick Reimer 19:47 I mean, so potentially there's a it is interesting to think about kind of the the on ramp that people will have to to like kind of getting started Using your product, because I think like, for me, I'm running a SaaS application, I'm very, I'm very willing to just throw down $35 towards something that's a critical piece of, of hosting infrastructure. Like that's not a, that's not a big deal. But if I were, maybe if I were really early on and still, like vetting whether my product was actually going to work at all, I might be more hesitant. And this is something interesting, it's an interesting quality of your product in that, like, this decision is usually made decently far up front in the cycle of a product, right? Like, if someone's building something and, and at least uploading an avatar or some kind of some file of some kind from the user is like a key part of their application flow, then they have to make this decision pretty early on in the development cycle. And like now that, for example, now that I have my kind of avatar uploading thing sort of working, I say, sort of because I'm, I'm not doing because I'm technically channeling the bits through my Heroku instance, which is not ideal, like, if, if like someone, you know, if it's a big file, and it takes too long times out, it's like not, it's not veryColleen Schnettler 21:14 bullish. It's my judgment phase. steric, I'm just, yaDerrick Reimer 21:17 know, as you should. I, to me, this was like a, this was like, a quick and dirty, like, there's plenty of server side libraries that are built to to handle this. And so it was really easy, it was quick and easy. But I also know, like, it's not, you know, as soon as I let people upload, you know, bigger files, like a, like a big banner image, for instance, like, this is probably not going to work. And I'll have to revisit, like, making this even better, and perhaps pull your tool off the shelf. But I think, you know, if people, if people don't do what I did, and they do it the right way, from the get go the right way, meaning like something that will scale, then they're probably more likely to just to not, not pull that out and switch, like once, or twice a step.Colleen Schnettler 21:58 right about that. Yeah.Derrick Reimer 21:59 So the, the question becomes, like, how can you catch people earlier in the process, like, at the point where they're, their project is still nascent? I see, you have like, a seven day free trial. And I wonder if, I mean, just, here's, here's one idea, you know, is potentially, like, retooling this to be like a limited usage based trial instead, or like a, you know, free for development and you like, automap, you automatically delete the files after, you know, 36 hours or something like that. So that's aColleen Schnettler 22:31 really good idea. Yeah, yeah.Derrick Reimer 22:34 I love that. It's like a sandbox environment where you can just, you're just paying for bandwidth, essentially, which is pretty cheap. And if it becomes a problem,Colleen Schnettler 22:42 you can always be a problem. Yeah, that's a great idea. Because then people, so the problem well, yeah, I'm gonna think about that. I like that idea. Like a sandbox mode omos, where everything, like you said, it's deleted every day or something. But then people could try it out and see if it was a good fit.Derrick Reimer 23:00 Yep. Yep. And then, and then potentially some kind. I mean, yeah. So the, you could have a cheaper tear. I'm still skeptical about this, because it's like, people just need to, I just believe people need to pay for critical pieces of their infrastructure. Like that shouldn't be a problem. But again, like since we sort of have to, you don't want that to become a something that prevents people from adopting your, your tool either. So so maybe it makes sense. I don't know if you've gotten any feedback from from customers so far, when you kind of were making that jump from like, the free to the requiring people to pay phase, but like, did you sense a lot of price sensitivity from people directly? Or is it more like in your own kind of?Colleen Schnettler 23:47 It's in my head? Yeah. I mean, I feel I have a couple people pay me $250 a month? Yeah. Yeah. Like that, like blew my mind. I wasn't even gonna make that tier because I was like, who's gonna pay that people are paying that?Derrick Reimer 23:59 So what what kind of customer is paying? What's their use case? Who's paying that on that tier? Are they individual product owners? Are they like a consultant? Who's doing a lot of projects? Or what is the the nature of their work look like?Colleen Schnettler 24:12 So I don't really know. Okay, that would be helpful information. Yeah, so I've got to get? Yeah, I don't really know. I'm still trying to set up some customer interviews with those folks to find out what their use cases.Derrick Reimer 24:28 Mm hmm. Even like, yeah, is it? Is it tough to see from there? I mean, if you just kind of look in your database, like, how many do they have a bunch of instance, a bunch of separate instances connected? Or like, do you have any kind of or is it just or literally on your end? Is it just like you're seeing buckets with files flowing into it? And it's kind of hard to tell what they're actually Yeah,Colleen Schnettler 24:48 I just have it set up. So what I can see is I can see the buckets with their files, okay, net, okay, which I actually haven't really even looked at, but that might, that might provide interesting information if I did that, yeah, at least. Yeah. Cuz. And so yeah, another question I sort of had is like is I think you've maybe talked about on here a little bit, but remind me like, are you? Are you primarily trying to market this towards, like consultants who are constantly starting new applications for clients? As opposed to like, individual operators? Yeah, that's it. So that's kind of part of part of where I am right now, too, right? Like, I'm trying to figure out who my ideal customer is. I thought it was people like me. And I have a couple consultants that I know that are using it. And it's cool, because they've signed up their clients, you know, on individual instances. So it's like, one person has given me several, you know, several accounts, right. But I don't like I thought that they would be my people, but I only have a couple of them. So there's a lot of people who are less experienced developers using it. And they're just trying to build something. It's not like no code, but like, kind of in a low code, but still using Heroku space. They're kind of trying to like, put pieces together to sell a product. So like, I've got like real estate companies and nail salons and people like that. And I actually have more of those people than I have consultants. So it seems like because it's setting up AWS is technically challenging. My supposition at this point is that I'm going for people who are who have a store or building a product, who don't want to spend the time or don't know how and don't care to spend, you know, three days learning how to use or setup AWS.Derrick Reimer 26:54 Mm hmm. That makes me think that like, I mean, no code is kind of a large, growing trend right now. Right? We're hearing this all the time. platforms like web flow. I don't know if webflow. I don't know much about them at all, unfortunately. But I know that they're super popular. And lots of people are using them to build things and sort of stitching together services. I don't know if that's, yeah, I wonder if your products, I feel like your product is in a is in a good spot for like, technical people who just want to who don't want to own the, the code that is responsible for doing the all the uploading and storage part, which I feel like that is a little bit different than people who are like, I literally don't write any code. Yeah, it's a different audience. You know,Colleen Schnettler 27:44 you're right. It is a different audience. And my people are developers, I've seen like, none of the people I have talked to don't write any code, like none of them are. Pure novotest. Yeah. Yeah, they have to have some kind of code knowledge. Right.Derrick Reimer 28:01 And so yeah, probably for that reason, I would probably put like, I would, I would maybe put a pin in the like, the no code piece. I think it would be hard to, to like market to both audiences at the same time, like, feels like a split focus a little bit.Colleen Schnettler 28:16 Yeah, no, you're right. And I have a job and a family. So like, I don't have, you know, stuff, right, I get stuff going on?Derrick Reimer 28:23 How much? How much time speaking of time, so like, How much time do you feel like you can, you're able to, to invest in, in this business on like a weekly basis.Colleen Schnettler 28:34 So that has been a roller coaster of adventure. But I am trying to, I'm working on arranging my schedule. So I have one full day a week to do simplify upload. Which still doesn't feel like a lot of time but like this last consulting client, I had, you know, consulting Did you consult before what did you do when you started drip? Were you full time were you?Derrick Reimer 29:00 Yeah, I actually haven't done a ton of consulting myself. I sort of hopped from like trying to start my own things to then working with Rob, my co founder of drip, like doing some like, part time contractor stuff with him. And then I kind of quickly moved into a full time with him. So I sort of skipped the consulting phase that a lot of a lot of us founders go through.Colleen Schnettler 29:20 But you had a full time job before that. I actuallyDerrick Reimer 29:23 was I was like, fresh out of college and living cheaply and nice, like competed in a startup competition and like 110 $1,000 one year that was like enough for my expenses. Yeah, basically, I was sort of just yeah, parlaying some savings and stuff like that. So it's sort of a funky little journey. Yeah.Colleen Schnettler 29:44 So you never had a full time job.Derrick Reimer 29:47 I didn't, I did. Actually, tail end of college. It was in a completely different industry. It was I was working for a small company that was selling landscape products to nurseries so It was like, it was a summer job. It was like a family friend, small business summer job turned into like a, I worked at it like full time tail end of college when I was thinking about getting an MBA. And it was actually some of the best work experience I had. Because, I mean, it's like, it's like brick and mortar business, like getting on the phone, calling truckers doing like handling, putting out fires, like in real time. It was pretty, it was pretty interesting, but not not in the tech industry.Colleen Schnettler 30:30 Wow. So you, so that so you've always been doing this as your career? building businesses?Derrick Reimer 30:38 Yeah, pretty much. But I started I mean, when I started out in when I was fresh out of college, and then trying to get stuff off the ground. I was, I was making all these classic mistakes. I was like, I was kind of a hobbyist developer, learning web development, started some things, never talked to a customer just like built a product and then was like, Oh, I need to actually think about marketing. So yes, I definitely like, like, went through school of hard knocks, learning those, learning those lessons the hard way until and IColleen Schnettler 31:09 don't know if there's a different way to learn it. Right? Like, I don't know. I mean, we all okay, so like, I can use this example, this is my first product. And I had a million ideas before this, none of them got off the ground. And I don't know, sometimes, sometimes it feels like you just have to ship something like for your first product or the early days, like you just have to build something and ship something and then see what happens and then learn. learn this stuff as you go. Well, IDerrick Reimer 31:37 also think there's something to be said for like, especially in that early in those earlier days. For me, I was much younger, I had didn't have as many financial responsibilities. So it was a pretty low risk time for me, you know, but like, so yes, I didn't get a successful SAS app out of it. But I, what I did get was like a high degree of proficiency in Ruby on Rails, and learned a lot of like, what not to do more of what not to do than what to do camp in terms of like building a business. But that was still valuable experience that I took with me. And so even when, you know, I've built products that have not actually been commercially viable, like, yeah, building things, shipping things is still a valuable exercise. For sure. But I think I think that's not I don't think that's where you're at with this one. Honestly, I think this one is I mean, 1300 MRR, you you've proven it's, this is a, this is a business now, because you have customers, they're paying you. You've made it at least past that phase of like, Oh, no, did I build something that no one wants? So I think you're, yeah, I'm hearing in your voice that you're not sure if you've built something that like will actually that you could actually grow, I think you can grow this thing. I do think you can grow this thing.Colleen Schnettler 32:48 I mean that and for me, that's kind of like, what, that's what I'm really unsure about, like, you know, going from zero to 1000 makes it feel like a real business. But like 1000 to 10,000 is a whole different ballgame. Right? Like that's, that's a lot of money. I mean, so it Yeah, so that's kind of the like, man, can I grow this?Derrick Reimer 33:10 Well, the nice The beautiful thing about SAS though is it does compound right so so you have your you have a churn rate, we all have a churn rate. And but but they're definitely not churning out like, like, even if you stopped getting soft acquiring customers, he would still be kind of a slow progression down to zero, like these things, these things, that's why they have have this flywheel effect going. And so I mean, it kind of, you know, SAS fundamentals, you figure out where what your traffic channels are going to be, you go this is an oversimplification, but still like this is fundamentally what it is like you figure out what your traffic channels are going to be. And then you work on optimizing your conversion rate, top of the funnel to the next phase, all the way down to you know, trials, or what would have restructured all the way down to becoming a repeat paying customer. And provided you continue doing marketing activities that increase that top of funnel number of people coming to your website and trickling through like Plinko trickling through your funnel, you're gonna add customers, you know, each month, and before you know it, you know, you're gonna have 1000s of MRR 10s of 1000. Now, like that's kind of how these things grow, which is why I love SAS.Colleen Schnettler 34:21 Can we go back to something you said earlier that I didn't hone in on but I want to I want to revisit real quick. You said you don't think I could market to both the no code space and the Heroku space. So my reading between the end you're right like I only have one day a week and I'm still developing it's an act of development like their stuff it doesn't do yet that it needs to do. And and I read between the lines there but I just want to verbalize so I should focus on the Heroku people right because I own those keywords. Yeah, IDerrick Reimer 34:48 think so. I think okay, I would I would do is probably try to try to optimize the heck out of that and try to try to figure out now I know you're there. bummer. Is that like you get limited data from Heroku? I don't know. Yeah,Colleen Schnettler 35:03 that is really frustrating, by the way.Derrick Reimer 35:06 Yeah. I don't know if there's any, anything creative you could do to? Like, I would be curious how much traffic does your add on page get? Like? Do they share any kind of analytics like that?Colleen Schnettler 35:15 They do. So once a week, they they Oh, no, you know what? They allow me to add a Google snippet. Oh, Google Analytics snippet to the add ons page. So I do see the traffic I get there. Okay, so I don't see anything else. But like, I do see how many visitors I have?Derrick Reimer 35:33 Are you comfortable stating on air what the traffic number looks like?Colleen Schnettler 35:37 So I get, so I do weekly, weekly reports for myself for pageviews. So last week, I got 275 page views on the Heroku elements page. And I mean, I've no concept of that a lot. If that's a little like, I don't really know how you even valuate something like that? Well,Derrick Reimer 35:59 and it is. So it's, that's a small number, like in terms of like website traffic numbers, but but it is also like, presumably, it's pretty highly targeted, like these are people who they're searching in there specifically for a solution to this problem. So like, probably a view from Heroku is from the Heroku marketplace, like that is worth more, it's maybe worth I don't know, 10 times more than just a random like website visitor view, you know?Colleen Schnettler 36:26 Yeah. What does it tell you? If I'm getting 275 page of views a week, but I get on average, two new customers a week? What is that from that page? Does that right? What would you take from that information?Derrick Reimer 36:39 Um, so I, to me, that feels like potentially there's an opportunity to, to put some work into experiments experimenting with trying to optimize that a little bit. So it would be like, what's the kind of like, stuff you and Michelle talk about, you know, what's the? What's the language that's going to resonate the most with people? Can you you know, is there? I'm just kind of looking at your, your ad on page here. What does it do? Yes, some good images here. I like that file upload without maintaining infrastructure. That seems really good for what, for the hypothesis that we've discussed here on like, what people are really wanting, but I'd be curious, like, you know, if if, like, testing a different lead headline would potentially be a better hook? I don't know. Yeah. So I think there's some, I mean, it's, yeah, again, it's tricky, because you can't really do like a true A B test, the traffic is not traffic is not high enough, either, where you could do like a true like scientific split test. So it's gonna be a little bit more of like, just maybe a little bit of experimentation on on, kind of getting your tightening up positioning and all that kind of stuff. So I would maybe spend a little bit of time on, on playing with that. But, but aside from that, I'm not sure how much more you really have control over on this specific place. So then I would, I would probably start thinking about, I mean, still marketing to the same type of person who would be looking for this in the Heroku marketplace, but going outside of the Heroku marketplace. So right. You know, again, like I would I would kind of thumb through traction and see if see if anything jumps out as like, who I think I think that one might work for me. But like, I do think, you know, like, like, an example would be like, what if you wrote some guides on like, specifically targeting, like, keywords on uploading Heroku you know, like a guide called How to upload files in Heroku. And, and you could even funny that you could even, like, describe how to do it without using your product. And it would probably be like, it'd be a big old long article with a lot of details in it. That's, like, Oh, my gosh, is so terrible, then, like interspersed throughout you could be like, do you want to skip all this? Just click this button. You know, yeah. And,Colleen Schnettler 39:01 and, you know, I think as I I as a developer, like someone's content, like, we'll get me to buy their product, like I like the autoscaler I use I bought it because he had a such a great content piece on picking your dinos. I was like, Oh, this guy knows knows what's up, like, I'm gonna buy this. Yeah, so that's a great idea.Derrick Reimer 39:19 I like that. That makes that makes good sense. Um, have you this just came top of mind. Like, have you talked to anyone at Heroku By the way, like anyone in their sort of partnerships integrations?Colleen Schnettler 39:33 Yes. So they, they require you to talk to them in the beginning, but I don't have to talk to them anymore.Derrick Reimer 39:39 Okay. I'm curious if there's an opportunity to to potentially get featured somewhere like I don't know if they have a blog, a newsletter, kind of like a integrations highlight thing. I feel like you know, you're, you're one of the only people right now is actually filling this gap of like, uploads for their platform. So there might be an opportunity. I'm not sure what the name of this role would be just like somebody, somebody in the market on the marketing team or the content team or something, maybe go start with, like your kind of contacts that you initially had at at Heroku. But like, it seems like, I don't know, if you could get a newsletter feature from them. That would be Yeah, potentially really high value, or some kind of feature somewhere on their site. I'm not sure all the all the different ways they have to promote their integrations. But it's, I mean, it serves their their interest to, to, like promote this thing that's solving a problem that their customers have. So there might be like, a little co marketing opportunity there.Colleen Schnettler 40:42 Yeah. How do you decide how to split your time between your marketing efforts and your development efforts?Derrick Reimer 40:50 Yeah, that's a it's a tough problem. Because the context switching is, is it's pretty heavy. Like it's very different. Very different disciplines. I, I've experimented with sort of doing like, I don't know about I think everyone has their different like, way their brains work. For me. It's like I'm, I'm at my best in the morning. And then it's kind of all downhill from there.Colleen Schnettler 41:18 Like, I'm a morning morning work person. Yes, yeah.Derrick Reimer 41:20 So I used to, I used to do like, kind of slice the day up a little bit. And I would spend, and so naturally, I would spend my mornings on engineering stuff, and then kind of give the leftovers to marketing. And I found that was kind of hard to do. Like, for me, it didn't work that great. And usually, by the end of the day, I was sort of so burned out, like, if I was really good at my job in the morning, that just meant there was almost nothing left at the end of the day. So I struggled to make progress on that. So I've been a fan of, you know, trying to, like, use the Primetime for marketing on specific days, if I'm going to, if I'm really need to, like, do a heavy task, like write something or, or do like a lot of creative work on something some, some marketing tasks are just like, they're pretty rote. And you can just sort of slot them in wherever but other things, you know, require a lot of creative energy, right? And, yeah, coming up with with a plan or whatever. So I don't know, I I've, I've kind of liked doing sort of dedicating a day or two to that. But I think it kind of, I don't know, I've never I haven't come up with something very rigid for myself, like, like, Mondays are always gonna be marketing. It's just, there's, there's too many things changing all the time, too many dynamics and an early stage company that I haven't found, like for myself a rigid kind of cadence to work. But I do feel like trying to look at like, in the span of a week, how much did I invest into marketing and kind of have at least a gauge in my head on that, you know, if you go a week without investing anything into marketing, but then again, for you, you said one day a week, so maybe it's you might need to stretch that out and say, like, you know, one day on every other week, it's like, focus on marketing versus focus on product, like, that may be what you have to do. And that's perfectly fine. IColleen Schnettler 43:17 tried to do so when I was trying, I was trying to do like marketing an hour every day. And like, I do it first thing when I was fresh, but like the context switching, oh my gosh, it was killing me because like, you get into a tat and then you know, job. So I'd like get into a task. And then it was like, oh, but now I have to stop mid in this task and like, do this other thing. It just yeah, it wasn't working. So I guess I'll just play around with that. But I like to maybe every other week or something because it takes me a while to like get into the marketing. mindset, ya know?Derrick Reimer 43:51 Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, like, the another area like I, I feel like your product is, is in a place where Obviously, these products are never done. There's always things to add, we all have roadmaps, but maybe I'll push you on this too, like you might need to spend like the next couple of weeks, for example, like really just thinking giving your best mental energy to kind of the marketing piece like, Alright, you're sort of at this place where like, I'm not sure what to do next. And that that might mean it's the time to, to, you know, set the product work aside for a little bit for a couple of weeks, even and kind of work through, you know, maybe working through this traction book or working through some other frameworks to kind of think about because yeah, it's it's hard to when you're just thinking about like, Okay, well, what should I What should I do to grow next, but you're only giving yourself like an hour or two. It's like, that's not enough time to really like, Alright, let's just we need you to like sit, sit back, open up your mind. Really just think for hours on this and it's hard to like, just sit sit down and like be like, I'm gonna think now for three hours straight. Like that doesn't work, obviously, but like giving yourself the room to just sort of Google around a bit and just kind of let your mind go free a little bit and sort of brainstorm and jot things down on a whiteboard or whatever works for you. And sort of think, like, marketing does require a fair amount of creativity, like just doing what works for other people blindly doesn't necessarily. It's not necessarily the most efficient path, like sometimes it requires like, like sitting back and trying to come up with those insights like, yeah, maybe a sandbox account or something like that, you know, like, yeah, and yeah, but you have to give yourself time to, to come up with those insights.Colleen Schnettler 45:41 Yeah, a little space, I see exactly what you mean, like you kind of have the space in your brain? Yeah. And so I do have one more question for you. So you've sold a few companies? How have you made the decision? And I know, there's gonna be a lot of like, personal goals, and etc, etc. But like, generally speaking, how do you identify when the right time to sell is for you? And for the business? Things like that?Derrick Reimer 46:07 Right. Yeah, so I've just talked through the things that I have sold like. So I started a product called code tree that I did kind of in tandem, when I was working at drip. And gradually, like, My role at drip sort of increased to the point where like, I became, like, I was fully invested fully in on this on this journey. So like, What started out as a side project, I was like, maybe this will be my next, my full time job. At some point, I'll kind of move on from drips like that, the dynamics of that relationship changed, I got more serious with my commitment to drip. So then I had like this product that was on the side that I wasn't really, that I didn't feel like I could really invest the time into. And I didn't have the motivation to like to work basically two jobs and like, do the nights and weekends thing. Like I was like, No, I'm not gonna do that. And so it was sort of just sitting on the side. And I determined like, I think, I think someone could grow this, I think this is still worth something. And since it was still growing a little bit, it hadn't, like, started to like, really contract and, and shrink. I was like, this is probably an optimal time for me to get it off my plate. Right. Okay. So that was one drip was obviously a much different situation. It was a fully scaled up applications. It was a strategic acquisition. And so that's sort of in a different in a different bucket. I feel like,Colleen Schnettler 47:30 Yeah, I think so.Derrick Reimer 47:32 I product that I started, kind of before savvy cow was called static kit. And it was like a tool, toolkit of products for static site builders, and I just never really never really got good traction with that. And so that one was like, Okay, I was sort of, out of ideas and motivation on how to grow it. And I was ready to move on to something else. And so I ended up selling that one, because it's like, well, if if I happen to have a competitor, and I felt like they were kind of moving in that similar direction, and maybe it would be worth something to them to, like, have a little a little jumpstart on some, some of this some of the code that I wrote. So that worked out. So it's sort of been like, yeah, the times I've sold things, it's like, it's either not a good fit with my, with my goals in my life anymore. Yeah, or I feel like it's, it's better to capture it, harvest the value now and like cash out now, as opposed to like, continuing to try to try to move it forward.Colleen Schnettler 48:34 I don't know if this was your intention, but like, I'm feeling super pumped right now. Like, this feels like part advice, podcast part, like pep talk. Yeah. Like, the fact that that, you know, I just think some of the things we talked about, like seeing a path forward is is really great, because I have found through this whole journey, if you will, a lot of it just seems to be like managing my own psychology. Like, Oh, can I do this? Is this gonna work? Like Yeah, but epic failure. There's just so much of this like, like cyclical, like, Oh my gosh, I'm brilliant. I came up with the most, you know, amazing thing ever to be like, no one wants this. It's terrible. So, you know, I've really, I've really found that to be interesting, very different from like, working a traditional job is like, there's a lot of, like, personal you know, you know, personal stuff wrapped up starting a business.Derrick Reimer 49:27 Yep. Yeah. No, totally. I mean, that's kind of the whole name of the game, honestly. And I don't have any great answers on how to manage that. Because it's, I mean, I feel like probably every founder is kind of in the same in the same boat on this one. And it's like, yeah, that's that's a tough one to solve. But having these kinds of conversations is good. I think, you know, like being, getting getting outside perspectives and talking stuff through doing your weekly podcast. That's all hopefully helpful in that Staying sane.Colleen Schnettler 50:02 That's amazing. Thank you so much, Derek for coming in today. I had a wonderful time talking to you. Obviously we ran a little bit long, but like this conversation was super valuable for me. So I really appreciate it.Derrick Reimer 50:15 You're welcome. I love talking through this stuff. So happy to happy to do it.Colleen Schnettler 50:19 So that's going to wrap up this week's episode of the software social podcast, you can check out Derek's product savvy cow and please let us know what you think we love it. If you enjoyed the show, if you would leave us an iTunes reviewTranscribed by https://otter.ai
Shutting Down and Opening Up: A Conversation with Marie Poulin, Creator of Notion Mastery
Pre-order Michele's book on talking to customers! https://deployempathy.com/order Marie's course, Notion Mastery: https://notionmastery.com/ Marie's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mariepoulin Marie's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKvnOhqTeEgdNt1aJB5mVng Marie's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariepoulin/ Michele Hansen 00:00Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by Approximated. If you need to connect custom user domains to your app, Approximated can help. It can route any domain or subdomain to any application, all easily managed with a simple API or web dashboard. You can have unlimited connected domains automatically secured with SSL certificates for one flat rate. Website builders, communities and marketplaces all happily use Approximated every day to manage thousands of custom domains for their users. And it was built by an indie founder just like you, so every support request is handled by a developer who will personally help you out. Head over to Approximated.app today and mention Software Social when you sign up to get an extra month for free. Michele Hansen Hey, welcome back to Software Social. We have another guest with us this week. I am so excited to have my friend, Marie Poulin, here today. She is the creator of Notion Mastery, which is this amazing Notion course that has over 1200 students, averaging $45,000 MRR. Pretty amazing business that she has built up. Welcome to Software Social, Marie. Marie Poulin 01:18Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat. Michele Hansen 01:21So um, people listening may know you from all of your YouTube videos and courses with Notion, which have been crazy successful, and only, only, since October 2019, since you launched it, but I actually want to talk about something else. So you had another business, a course business called Doki, and actually, the last time I spoke, like, like, like, actually spoke with you like, internet friend is so funny. Like, I feel like I talk to you all the time, but actually, like talk to you, talk to you, was you and your husband, Ben, were thinking about what to do with Doki and whether you should sell it or shut it down. Marie Poulin 02:15Yes, and you very kindly reached out with some suggestions on how we might handle that. And it, it sort of wasn't, I don't want to say it wasn't our passion anymore, but yeah, you know, Ben got offered a full time gig. So for anybody listening, my husband and I teamed up back in 2014 to, to run our company together. We built a software and we ran it for I mean, five-ish years or so, and I think neither one of us was, it was definitely our first software project. And it was that build a giant software project that does all of the things and, you know, kind of wishing that we had done something smaller when we learned about the whole software building all of the different pieces. And so when we first went to MicroCon, that was, it was just so eye opening how many things we had done wrong, and it was it was a really wonderful learning experience. But I think it kind of showed us that there were parts of that, that just, I don't know that either of us was super excited to go 100% all in on it. I liked the working with people side of online courses and actually shipping and working on their websites, and just all of, all the other pieces of it other than the software. And so the burden was really on Ben to build all the features and do customer support, and, you know, he was pretty much like the solo founder handling all of those parts of the software, and I was handling more of the consulting side of it. And it was a huge burden on him. It was huge. And so when he got offered a full time job, it was a chance for him to step into more of a leadership role, be challenged, be working with other people, and it just, he really flourished. And I think it was something he was missing. Like, when you're a solo founder, you're just, you know, you're wearing every single hat. You're making all the decisions. And if you're bumping up against stuff you've never seen, it's pretty tough. It's a tough life to be, to be solo founder. So I was really encouraging him to, to kind of explore this new venture, but it sort of meant that Doki got left in the dust a little bit. And so we kind of took our foot off the gas, and just in this year in January 2021 we decided what if we just kind of shut down signups and, and just kind of let it do its thing and just kind of keep supporting the clients that were still using it, more like our consulting clients and not really market at widely. And so we did and I was like, how do you feel about this? And he's like, oh, I feel I feel so relieved. And I think that was really important that it didn't feel sad. It didn't feel like oh no, we're shutting this thing down. Like he felt like no, this is a chapter of my life that was great. And now it's over. So it's been a journey. Michele Hansen 04:54So, I mean on, you know, on this podcast, you know, we talk a lot about like, getting a SaaS off of the ground, or I guess, in my case now, like, getting an info product off the ground, and then also running those companies. But there's this other phase of it, which is exiting, and sometimes exiting means selling a company, or, you know, being acquihired by someone, or it means shutting it down. And I'm wondering if you can kind of talk through that a little bit about how you guys decided to sunset it, rather than sell it. Marie Poulin 05:37Yeah, because we had gone through this conversation back and forth. And we even had, you know, several people who had made offers to buy, and it felt actually pretty close, like, that was something we were really seriously considering. And again, you're, it was just really, really valuable to get your, your insights on that, and to have somebody that, you know, not attached to it just kind of as an outsider giving us perspective on that. And so we, we had some meetings, and we definitely considered it, and I think the burden of what would have needed to happen to be able to make that handoff happen in a way, such that it could actually be successful for those who are taking it over, felt too big for Ben. I think it was, again, given that his attention was elsewhere, it there was just such a cognitive load associated with all of that cleanup work, and just, just kind of the whole process of that transition. And it's possible that it may not have actually been that much work. It's kind of hard to know, in hindsight, but I think the anticipation of that, and just, you know, when Ben does something, he wants to do it properly, and he wouldn't have felt good, I think to just kind of pass it off as is knowing how much legacy work needed to be rebuilt. And he, he just didn't feel comfortable with it. And I was like, you know, I don't know this stuff as well as you do. And if you feel really confident and happy to just kind of say, you know, what, we're totally cool to just, like, the, the amount just kind of doesn't match up with, with what it would be worth to do that work, and how much extra time it would have taken him outside of his full time job. It just, it didn't feel like it was quite worth it to do that investment of the work. So that was a decision I sort of felt it was kind of up to them to make as a burden was really on him, and I think he felt a huge relief, honestly, even just like taking the signup off of the site. And just realizing, like, our business has gone in such a different direction, and it's okay to say goodbye to this chapter, and so it felt good. And I think that was really important is can we stand behind this decision? Does it feel good? Does it release a certain, you know, energetic burden, and it really did, and so that we felt good at the end of the day, for us that, that was the right decision. Michele Hansen 07:44I'm struck by how much respect I hear in that. You know, there's the respect that you have for Ben, that this was something that he knew really well and what like, had, you know, that, that, that transition work would have been on on him and your respect for that. And then his and also sort of both of your respect for your emotions, and recognizing those as valid and worth prioritizing, and, because I think some people say, oh, well, I'll, you know, get a lot of money from this. So you know, screw my feelings, like, you know, just have to suck it up, suck it up and do it. Like, I mean, the the market for even small SaaS companies like Doki, like, like, just for content, like, how much was Doki, like, making when you decided to shut it down? I mean, Ben would certainly have a better sense of the numbers at that point that we made the decision. I mean, certainly the pandemic did have a big impact. And we'd already kind of stopped doing any new feature development, even maybe the year before the pandemic hit. So I would say, you know, at its height, maybe $50,000 in a year. So we had some months that were like 4k, maybe 5k, and so by the time we shut it down, it was like 2500 to 2000. Like, nothing to sneeze at in terms of it was very low maintenance and, you know, covers our mortgage and expensive, like, that's awesome. But there is that mental load that's required there that you're kind of always thinking about that uptime, or you're thinking about how long, how long can we go not adding any features and not doing anything to really kind of improve or support or even do any marketing. So in some ways, it sort of felt like there was a time limit on how long we could get away with just, just letting it kind of simmer in the, in the background and not give it its full attention, and so it didn't feel good in that way that it it did have this sort of energetic burdensome feeling, and so respect is is absolutely huge. Like, you know, both Ben and I are incredibly autonomous. Like, we have always kind of worked almost like two separate founders under the same brand umbrella. So even when we partnered up, we still very much had our own projects, our own clients, and there's a lot of trust there with like, Ben and I are very different people, very different types of projects, very different things that light us up. And so, you know, Ben has higher anxiety than I do, and when we first launched Doki, I know the feeling of always being on and having to answer those customer support questions, and I think it takes a bigger toll on him than, than it might other people. And so that has to be factored in, like, what's the point of building these, like, software and these businesses that support our lives when it's just adding to our daily stress? Like, that's, that's not the point, right? So I think for both of us, it does really matter. Like, what kind of life are we building for ourselves? And if, are we building something that just feels like another job, but we just kind of built our own jail? Like, that's, that's not really fun. So I think we have a lot of understanding and respect for, yeah, what kind of life are we building, and ideally reducing stress and not adding to it so that, that was really important to me that he felt really good about that enclosure and didn't feel like oh, this was a failure, or, you know, it didn't go the way we wanted. For me, I'm like, holy crap, we learned an epic crap ton. You know, we just, it was just absolute, you know, entrepreneurship school on steroids. Like, you know, you just learned so many different parts from your customer research and the technical capacity and all the decisions that once you've done it once, and then it's almost too late, like, the wheels are in motion, and you've already, there's already, like, technical debt as soon as you started. It's a wonderful learning opportunity, and part of us wishes we'd tried it on something small, but my gosh, the learning has been incredible. So I don't, I don't regret any of it, and I don't think he does, either. It's the reason he has the job that he does now. It, he's, he's just like, both of us, I think are just highly skilled people that are going to adapt whatever happens like okay, cool. That was an awesome chapter. Next. What's next, you know. You guys are incredibly emotionally intelligent and atuned, and, I mean, yeah, I mean, that you take that kind of focus is really, I think, remarkable and really commendable. And, you know, so after we had we had talked last fall, I guess, you guys were still kind of, you were unclear on whether you were going to shut it down or you were going to sell it, and I just tweeted out if anybody was interested in buying a SaaS, I think I said it had like 2.4k MRR. And I got so many messages after that, but I actually just got another one last week, and I got one, like, three months ago, like, the market for really, like really tiny SaaS companies is just, just bonkers. And I think it's so amazing that you prioritized how, like, not just the money, but how you felt about it. Now, of course that the notion courses making 45,000 a month and Ben has a full time job, like, that sort of makes it a little bit easier to make decisions that are not just guided by the financials, I imagine. Marie Poulin 13:16Definitely. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure that, that was a part of it was just, okay, we're not we don't have to make a purely financial decision right now, so what's going to feel, yeah, what's gonna feel the best? And I guess, yeah, I guess they didn't realize that maybe not everybody is as driven that way, but I'm definitely a very feelings driven person, and I know, we've talked about this a little bit with, with the sort of, you know, likely being an ADD or ADHD founder, and just, I didn't realize before, I think, how much of my decision making around how I've shaped my business has been, like, I've talked about it in terms of alignment and, you know, values-driven and that sort of thing. But I think part of it is I cannot muster up the energy to do stuff I'm not super freakin' stoked about. So I do kind of factor that into all my decisions. Like, I'm never going to design services that I'm going to be resentful of as soon as I'm designing them. It's like, if I already know I'm going to be resentful doing all these calls, like, I just cannot make that, that service available. So I do think I've gotten pretty tuned into like, alright, what's the stuff that lights me up, and how do I craft my offers so that I can be totally shining and excited about them? Because that, that's just, I guess, how I move through the world. Michele Hansen 14:34It seems like you combine this incredible self-awareness about what energizes you and prioritizing what energizes you with this huge sense of responsibility for the users of what you have created. Marie Poulin 14:54Yeah, I'd like, I'd like to think so. I mean, you know, one of the things that happened when we first launched Doki, was that people were signing up for it, and then they weren't shipping. Right? It's like anything now, like the time that it takes to actually launch a course, and I know you've had, you know, episodes with Colleen about this of just what it really takes to really grow an online course and actually make it a sustainable living. And so people would, would sign up thinking the tech was gonna solve that for them, and they're all, like, ready to go, and they they pick the technology well before they have their content created. And it didn't feel good that there were people paying us a monthly thing and they had never shipped a course yet. So, the first thing I did was like, well, we need to get people shipping faster, how do I do this? And I ended up creating a course that was run your learning launch that was trying to get people to like, get the shitty first draft of your course out as soon as possible, right. Like, co-create it with people. I'm a huge, huge believer, in co-creating products with your people. They are going to tell you what they want, they tell you what they need, and then the words that they use in those sessions, in those live calls that you're doing with people, that's exactly what shapes your, your sales pages and stuff. So I, I'm just a big fan of working with people on this stuff, and not just, you know, working in secret for six months building a thing, and then you know, putting it out into the world. Like, we know that it just it just doesn't work that way. So yeah, I think I do carry a huge, huge respect for, for the users that are signing up for my thing. It is a responsibility I do not take lightly. And so even right now with, with the course, I've been working for six months on the new curriculum. It's like, where can I look at all the places that people are stumbling, and maybe we overwhelm new, new people that are coming in like going, oh, my gosh, this course is so big, and then they get scared, and they run away and then they don't complete the course. Like, it does matter to me not just that they complete it, but they actually do experience some kind of transformation through that process. So like, how can I improve the learning outcomes? How can I design this better? I can't help myself, like maybe that's partly a bit of perfectionism. But it's like, I want this to be a really epic experience for them and be really memorable. And, in a way, that's my marketing, right? It's like other people sharing with other people, their experience of the course. To me that feels way better, and way easier than like, chucking a bunch of money into ads and just like getting it in front of people. It's like, no, I want the users to be so excited about it, that they are shouting it from the rooftops and getting people in the door. So yeah, that matters for sure. Michele Hansen 17:20It's so interesting, you're talking about like, building collaboratively with people, and, you know, I like I'm a huge advocate of talking to people and talking to customers, but I never really built in public, so to speak, until a couple of months ago, when I was writing my book. And you know, to what you said about, you know, getting early feedback from people and building it with them, that, that has been an incredibly, like, a transformative experience. And it's, it's really remarkable when you combine that combination of, as you said, something that you are super stoked about with other people who are stoked about it, like, you know, like to kind of, you know, talk a little bit about being like, you know, ADHD founder. So like, for so for, just to give us sort of a little bit of context. So like, I was diagnosed with ADD at 11, which I guess they don't diagnose people with anymore, because apparently, like, they were only diagnosing girls with it, or something. So now everything is all under ADHD. And you sort of are recently exploring, like, whether you're ADHD, and so but like, on this, this combination of, you know, working on something you're really passionate about, and then in the course of working on it in public, finding other people who are really passionate about it, who help you improve it, like, I feel like that puts my hyper focus in this insane overdrive. Marie Poulin 18:54Yeah. How do you how do you control that? I'm so, I'm so curious kind of what your, Michele Hansen 18:58I don't. I, yesterday, I was so annoyed that I had to stop working and make dinner. I was like, can't I just work for like, 48 hours straight, like, and, which is, like, not, like, I, like, my work life balance is a lot better than it used to be like, but I just like it's so, it's, like, painful when I'm really interested in something because it's like, yesterday, I was like, working on the book, like and it was just I was so, like, so fired up about what I was working on. And then I was like, okay, actually, like, we need to, we need to eat. Like, and I have you know, we have a family and like, my husband was mowing the lawn and like, you know, so I was like, okay, I need to like go to the grocery store like, I need to shift gears, but like, the whole time I was there like, you know, yes, I bought like lettuce and yogurt and whatever else we needed, but like, my brain was still like, writing. Marie Poulin 19:48Somewhere else. Michele Hansen 19:49Like, my brain like, was writing and I think, you know, to what you said about how you and Ben work very like, autonomously, like, Mathias and I work together for the most part, and I think this gets frustrating sometimes when I'm still thinking about something else, but I don't give any, like, outward signals of that. I'm just like, a little bit quiet. And like, he like, talks to me and like, I just don't know, Marie Poulin 20:12You're nodding and say you're listening, but you're writing in your head. Yeah. Michele Hansen 20:14Yeah. Like, I don't even acknowledge it or, like, I seem like I'm listening. And then he asked me 10 minutes later, like about what he had told me about, and I'm like, what, like, this is new, and he's like, seriously. Like, the hyper focus can be amazing, but also kind of detrimental at the same time because if I have to do anything else, I'm just cranky. Marie Poulin 20:40I definitely, I definitely relate to this, and I think this was, this was one of the the signs like, I, I thought, well, I couldn't possibly have ADHD because like, I've been self-employed for 12 years, and I have a successful business and I get things done, and, you know, I sort of had a lot of misconceptions around what it meant to be or have ADHD because my sister has ADHD, too. And she is like, the poster child of what what you think of when you think of ADHD, and very hyperactive, super distracted, extremely extroverted, just like, a million thoughts, like, interrupting other thoughts. And, and I was like, okay, that's what ADHD looks like. It was very distinct. And so because I get things done, I sort of thought, I just had a different perception of it, and I realized that the hyper focus binges that I go on that were like, oh, that explains why like, it can be really hard to tear myself away from, from the screen, and it almost becomes borderline obsessive, and it can be really difficult to manage. So that is one of the signs I started to be like, oh. It always happens in these super inconsistent bursts, right? Very, very wildly inconsistent. And I always, yeah, like, frick, if you just have a dial, you could, you could, you could turn that on when you needed to, but oh my gosh, so I can relate to that. Just, it's inconvenient, and yeah, it's also the thing that helps us kind of push forward and get things done, and it's a wonderful thing when it's there, but it can happen at the detriment of other parts of our lives. So that's definitely something that I struggle with, for sure. Michele Hansen 22:13You know, I, like, I relate so hard to that, because I can't possibly, you know, have ADHD because you get so much done. Like, when I was in college, I think there was like, a running joke about how many jobs and side projects I had at any given time. Like, I think it was like, I had, it was like, six. Like, I had a part time job, I had an internship, I had like, volunteering, I had, like, all of these like, side projects with my own going on, like, um, and, but when I, so when I was diagnosed as a kid, like it was very much presented as I had this deficit of focus. And then I had to overcome that deficit of focus, and then like, that was it. And like, I, so I was never like, really in therapy or any sort of treatment. Like I was taught how to manage that, like calendars, and like, planners became a huge part of my life. But when I was, this was when I was in elementary school. So when I was in middle school, I was supposed to have like, you know, a tutor, and like somebody who like worked with me on it, and like, a plan, they call it a 504 plan in the US, but I never actually had it because my grades were too high. And, Marie Poulin 23:21People always think you need the support, right? Michele Hansen 23:22Right. Because it was like, oh, like if you you know, if you have those, like if you have this deficiency, like, she's overcome the deficiency if she's getting A's and B's, so there's no problem here. And I didn't, really for me, it wasn't only until the last like six months or a year that I started understanding all of these other facets of it that, like, it's not just that sometimes I have trouble focusing on tasks I don't want to do. Like, there's all of these other things like, you, you know, that, there's the hyper focus you mentioned, there's the like, the perfectionism that you touched on earlier, you know, there are those kind of, you know, everyone's experience of it is different. But like, I, there's just so many things that like, I thought were me things that were just kidn of weird about me. And then it turns out, there's all these other people who are weird, like me, and, Marie Poulin 24:16To read other people's descriptions, and you go, are you kidding me? Like, that's a, that's a thing? I'm not alone? Or like, I thought it was just a family quirk, and then you're like, oh, or is it that actually a good chunk of my family also, you know, like sister's diagnosed and when you look at the behaviors, you're like, oh, yeah, like, it would explain why our family kind of operates this way. And, you know, the more you start to meet people, you're like, oh, okay, there's, there's maybe a reason, too, that, and I don't know if you if you feel this too, but that for example, people with ADHD seem drawn to my work or drawn to my, my style, right? Because I think in some ways you get attracted to different people's communication styles, and I realized, like, in certain calls that I would I have with people that were very energizing, I didn't realize this at the time, it's almost like, you know, when you like, once you see it, you start to see it everywhere, of all the people that I connect with that had ADHD that I didn't know, I was like, oh my gosh, that explains why when we get on a call, neurons are firing, and we're all over the map, and we're just like changing gears, like, constantly, and it just feels like this creative spark is just like, going and going and it's incredible. It's a very different experience with someone whose brain doesn't work that way, and I, I started to clue in, I'm like, oh, maybe there's a reason. And then when you start to look at the behaviors, I'm like, okay, like, it would explain a lot. You know, and you start to kind of look backwards and be like, oh, yeah, all those behaviors start to kind of click into place. And you see, actually, things with a new lens. And when I look at past behaviors, and maybe ways I've really, really judged myself, and I was like, oh my gosh, like, I just, I didn't realize, you know, and I think for me, a big part of that is workaholism, in a way. Like I thought, I really judged myself for being like, oh, I'm like a workaholic, a workaholic. And I thought, yes, and like, it's not so black and white like that. I am very driven by the work that I do because I've so carefully crafted work that I don't hate, and so I've designed work that I love. I'm getting to connect with people and ideas get to form, and I'm always doing new things every day. So of course, like it's feeding that dopamine, I'm like, yeah, it's like, I love this. And so, it is really difficult to shut off work. And so I think I carried a lot of guilt that I work on weekends, but also take really long breaks in the middle of the day and go gardening. And so like, I have found my own ebb and flow, and I think I was really harsh on myself with some of that stuff. And then I was like, well, what if it's actually okay, that my brain is a little more activated than the average person or, or it just kind of feeds off information differently, and maybe I want to consume more courses at a time than the average person. And so it's just brought up a lot of interesting reflection that I'm seeing behaviors and maybe a different light, and that I actually find I'm being a little more compassionate with myself to be like, hey, is that Maria's personality is that ADHD? Is that me coping? Like, it's still very much learning for me. So I'm still kind of just keeping an open mind and just really trying to reflect and notice those behaviors now. Michele Hansen 27:20You know, the, we are, you know, what's called sort of neurodivergent people living in a neurotypical world. And I think, from, you touched on sort of that, that guilt about not having sort of, quote, unquote, like, normal patterns for things and ways of thinking about things. And I think unpacking that shame that we don't fit the neurotypical box is so important, because, I think in, you know, education and kind of maybe, and like, when you're not working for yourself, like neurotypical is the standard, and people who don't meet that are kind of just outside of that. And so, like, there's like this, like, we blame ourselves for that. But if instead, you know, we can, like find ways to work on the things that we are passionate about, and that do energize us, then these, like, amazing things can be unlocked. And I think, like, I have noticed that I tend to find a lot of neurodivergent people in the kind of, like, indie SaaS courses like, internet biz world, and I wonder if that's because a lot of us have just felt like we didn't, yeah, like, we didn't really belong and like, but like, the way to, like really bring out like, what we are capable of, like, like, I remember when I worked, you know, in bigger companies, like I always, I would describe myself, like a pin and a pinball machine. Like, I just always felt like I was just like, bouncing around constantly trying to show like, what I was capable of, and like, what I was good at, and like, what I could do and what I could contribute, and that was always, like, way more and different than whatever the role I was in was supposed to be doing. And it was so frustrating. Like, it was like, deeply frustrating, you know, versus now, like, you know, I can focus on the things that, you know, sort of with, I guess, with a little bit of business knowledge, right? Because you can't just focus on things that don't lead to an income. Um, you know, like, yeah, the things that really energize, and like you've said, how this, like, managing your own brain in a way, it's kind of like, maybe what attracted you to notion in the first place, and then kind of prompted you to go on this path of making this amazingly, like, I'm so amazed by all the things you build with Notion, like this tool that, like, helps you not only steer your brain, but like express it in the way that it wants to be expressed that maybe is not really reflected and other tools. Marie Poulin 29:53Yeah, it's a, it's a weird and wonderful thing, but it does feel like this bizarre culmination of all of my weird interests and strengths, and like even the fact that it's kind of like a No Code builder of sorts, right? It's like I have a web design background, and so I think naturally I'm inclined to build information architecture, but do it beautifully. Like, that's what I did for clients. And so, and then even like my design thinking background, and how I've studied systems, or how I've had to find these productivity systems for myself that worked. And the way certain tools, you know, are very opinionated, and they, they sort of force you into, like, like Asana, for example, everything is a task, like, it sort of forces you into one way of thinking, which is great, it's a great task manager. But I'm like, my strategic planning doesn't really fit in there, and how do I connect that to, to, and everything just kind of felt messy. And, you know, as someone with ADHD that already, already feels like I'm everywhere all the time, for me, Notion was this place where like, suddenly I could see everything that was on my plate in one place in a really easy way. So this ability to like, zoom out, zoom in very, very quickly and have it all integrated was just like, ah, everything like has come into place. And it just kind of clicked, and I think I was just so passionate, so excited about it, it felt like you know, I said life was a shit show before Notion. Like I had tried to get to, like you said, lean on calendars, we like find the systems to kind of lean on like a bit of a crutch. But there were still some systems pieces missing that Notion, in a way, forced me to build my own in a way that really worked for my brain. And I don't think it's a coincidence that just so many of the people that have joined the course or that seem really excited about it and get a lot out of it have also mentioned their own ADHD. Like, I literally just saw a message pop up in the forum, like 20 minutes ago that said how they think notion is just an ADHD friendly tool. I'm like, What an interesting thing that, again, it wasn't even on my radar a year ago or two years ago. I didn't even really think about it. I didn't, I certainly didn't even remotely suspect that I would have had it. And yet, now that I'm aware of it, and I'm seeing more conversations around neurodiversity, really just seeing how Notion gives neurodiverse folks a place to be themselves, as kind of cheesy as it sounds, like, the fact that you can just make it what you want it to be. It can be a personal growth engine, it can be a place where you organize your files, you know, daily journaling, like, you name it, whatever you want it to be, it can be a place that inspires you. And so I just, I love to show people like, well, here's how I'm using it for my garden tracking, I just love there's just endless possibilities with it. And I think if you only look at it as a productivity tool, you know, people kind of poopoo it or they're like, oh, procrastinate, procrastinating on building their setups, and let you know, people have all sorts of opinions about it. But I actually think it is, it's a tool for managing your emotions just as much it is as a tool for managing your information. So I find it quite fascinating from a tool for making you more mindful about how you work and what you need, and just noticing your energy. And I didn't, I didn't know all that stuff wasn't stuff that other people did. It's not till showing it to people, and they're like, holy crap, this is the most organized thing I've ever seen in my life. And I'm like, me, are you kidding me? Because like, I see the baseline the scenes, right? It's like, it's, it's funny to me the things that it's only once, you know, to bring it back to your conversation about sharing in public, working in public. When you make your thinking visible, and you share what you're doing out there, that's where I think you start to see what are those spiky points of view that you have? Or what are the interesting ways that you approach stuff that people are like, whoa, I didn't even think of it that way. So yeah, I'm curious, too, in you sharing your stuff publicly, and doing the writing publicly, like, has anything surprised you that you put out there and you're like, oh, wow, I didn't expect that to really land for people or, you know, what did you notice in your process of sharing your stuff publicly? Michele Hansen 33:53Yeah, I mean, so something that actually has surprised me in the last, I've had two people in the last week, tell me how the introduction of my book made them completely rethink how they approach other people. And, Marie Poulin 34:11Wow Michele Hansen 34:12How they like, didn't even like, they didn't realize like, the extent of empathy and what it was and how they could use it and how it can help them be a better you know, coworker or person and, like, not just someone who's better at making landing pages or making product decisions. And I started out, like, I, so I, the the introduction, I actually originally didn't really have a very good introduction of the book. Like, I didn't define empathy very much or anything. And then one of my early readers was like, I think, I think you need to introduce this a little more. And so I did, and then like, it basically sounds like people are, some people like reading the first 10 pages and then being like, whoa, and then like, going on this other path. And then like, and then they're like, okay, well when I actually like, need to build something I'll come back here for the scripts. But like, having this, and, you know, like we've talked, like we've talked a lot about, like emotional intelligence here, and like, I've had my own journey with there and like, talking about, you know, workaholism, like, is that is that a trait? Or is that a trauma response? Like, it's kind of both, like, and like, so that has been a really important journey for me. By the way, if that resonates with anyone that's called the flight response, just Google that. And, and so that like, like, I have this kind of like, this, like, little dream that like, you know, like, people, nobody puts like, be more empathetic on their to daily to do list, maybe some, maybe you do. But like, nobody really doesn't. But they put like, you know, get more sales, like, write a new landing page, like, figure out which features I should build. Like, those are the things that come up on people's to do lists. And so I have this, like, kind of dream that like, in the process of helping people do those things they already want to do that they will become more empathetic in general and learn that this is a skill that they can apply not just to business, but to the rest of their life, because it's been such an important journey for me, because it's something that I really didn't really learn until my 20s. And, and, yeah, I mean, that's, I don't know. Yeah, it's been very, like, it's been very soul-nourishing for me. Marie Poulin 36:31The process of writing and sharing? Michele Hansen 36:34Yeah, I think like, in a very unexpected way, and, you know, kind of talking about ADHD, and so it sounds like what you're doing, like, you sound very much like a systems thinker. And you have built this sort of digital system that reflects your mental system, and in the process of doing so, you're helping people realize that, you know, they could build off of that to build something that reflects their mental system. And it's like, and you're helping them really like, blossom into, into expressing their thinking. And what I'm doing, like, I have, I have had feedback from people who have said, they are ADHD, or autistic, and they have said that, like, this is very, very different for them, for, I mean, for those two groups for very different reasons. But like, I've had people tell me, like, I don't think I'm capable of doing this because, you know, as you said, there's a kind of that stereotype of people who are ADHD that they, like, you know, talk over the people, like, can't stay on a topic, like, you know, just all of that, which, like, I mean, I think if we weren't doing a podcast right now, like, we would be excitedly talking over each other right now, like. Marie Poulin 37:53I was wondering. Michele Hansen 37:54I, like, am really holding back. Marie Poulin 37:57Which is exhausting, right? It's like, it takes a lot of energy to, like, tone it down, be normal, like, Michele Hansen 38:04Oh, I'm gonna go jump on the trampoline after this. But, like, for me, it's like this weird thing, because, because I didn't learn, like, this either wasn't built into me, or I didn't learn it as a kid, like, I've had to really focus on learning how to like, listen to people. Marie Poulin 38:23You're so good at it. Michele Hansen 38:25It became a hyper focus thing for me, like, so I feel like when I'm listening to people, like learning, like, I have to like, I think it's why people are like, oh, this made me realize these things about empathy I didn't even realize, because I had to, like learn empathy and listening at a level that most people don't have to. Like, I had to really understand it. Like, I had to really dive deep into it. Because I just didn't have that, like, I didn't, I was not born with that feature built in. So, and then, but like, I think it kind of became this thing that, like, I hyper focus on. And so like, when I'm talking to someone, like, I'm just like, I'm like, completely submerging myself into them, and like exploring their brain, and I think, you know, talking about like, systems thinkers, like, that's something I love is like, getting to understand the system of somebody else's head and like getting to, like, poke around and all the little corners and be like, oh, why is, what's going on here? Like, we're like, what do we got going on here? Like, Marie Poulin 39:29I compare it to like, looking at their underwear drawer. You're just like, you get to see like, it's very personal, right? And people are often like embarrassed or they feel a lot of shame because, like, their their space is really messy. But I love that, right. Michele Hansen 39:42I love mess. Marie Poulin 39:42It's so beautiful. It's, and I will say, like, in the call that we had with you like, I was so struck by how intently it felt like you were listening. I was like, I, it was like almost disarming. Like when I got off, I was like, I can't think of the last time that someone actually was just there to listen. Like, there was no agenda there. Like, you were you were really just there to be a helpful ear, and it was just quite impressive, I have to say, I was just like, holy crap, Michele is an incredible listener. I was really blown away. And so I love that you got nerdy about listening. So nerdy. I love it. Michele Hansen 40:23I mean, I grew up being, I think the thing, the number one thing I heard growing up was Michele, you never listened, like, you're not listening, you don't listen. Like and like, I have found complex, that I have found that the things that I'm really bad at, like, if I get over that, and then, like, I will, like intensely research it, and it will become a huge focus for me, like, I would like, so like in college, I studied international affairs and economics, and I remember in one of my first classes, one of the professors asked who knew what, like, Bretton Woods was, and, you know, I'm from New England, and I was like, I know, that's a ski resort, but like, I don't know anything else. And like, you know, it's it's the, the post-war monetary system that was set up after the war, basically, to prevent another war, economically. But I didn't like, know that, and I felt like really embarrassed. And I ended up like, really diving into the topic to the point where it was not only my thesis topic, but for like, two years, I wrote papers about related things in other classes, even when I wasn't required to. And now I have this, like, just all of this knowledge about, like, monetary relations in Europe, specifically focused on the US and Germany, like, between, like 1958, and like 1973, really intensely on the 71 to 73 period. And, like, I it's not particularly, like, for what I do, it's not really useful information, but like, kind of like, I feel like that's very similar to how I got into doing listening and interviews because, because I was so bad at it, because I didn't know what I was doing, because I was like, I felt embarrassed that I didn't know what was going on, or like, people had made me feel like I was deficient in that. Like, I think this is where that, like, that hyper focus comes in. It's like, once you like latch on to a topic, like, you can't get your teeth out of it, even if you, like, wanted to. Marie Poulin 42:28Painfully relateable. I love that you brought this up to you because I think I've done this throughout my my career to where it's like, oh my gosh, like public speaking this is like, I'm terrible at this, I'm so afraid of it, it's like, must hire three different coaches and take five courses and like, read every book, you know. Like, just go down these crazy rabbit holes to go to such an extreme to work on a skill that you know, I was maybe like, not, not that great at it wasn't terrible, but just didn't feel like a strength. And I think I've often felt self conscious of is it a waste of time, when I should be like focusing on my real strengths. And so, I just think it's so funny. There's, there's obviously a trigger there around feeling incompetent, or like, I hate that feeling stupid or feeling like something I'm really bad at is preventing me from succeeding in business. And I, you know, I've shared before a little bit about, like, fear of being on video and fear of being on stage. And so these are all things I've obsessively worked on. And you know, I'll share like a super vulnerable moment from not, not that long ago, but there was ,there was someone who shared with me, they spoke with someone who had taken the course, and it was an older woman. I don't know when she took the course, but maybe she took it like, early on in the course building journey. It's definitely gone through a number of iterations. But she she was like, angry. She was like, oh my gosh, she goes so fast. She's all over the place. She needs to read about adult learning. Like, she's a terrible facilitator. And like, if I showed you my Notion goals page, it's like being a masterful facilitator is literally on my, my big visionary goals. And I was like, oh my God, am I, is this just like a skill I am, I am bad at? Like, it knocked me on my ass and I questioned everything. I was like, oh my god, what's going on? And in the same week, I literally had someone say that my sessions were the thing that they look forward to every week. And it was so weird to get this, like, the most negative criticism I've ever gotten, and the most positive, and it was in that same week that I had actually discovered, that I started to realize I probably had ADHD and I realized that my presentation style and my exploratory show you the possibilities, it's, it's quite different than say someone who might be a little more neurotypical, a little more instructional in style. I know that my vibe, it doesn't jive for everyone, but it really works well for people that have ADHD, and so that's where I was like, oh, crap. So, hiring a course coach, a curriculum designer, a learning advocate, like, I went all deep, and I was like, I'm going to learn about facilitation, I'm going to learn about teaching, I'm going to learn about learning design, like, how can I make this experience so good that, like, nobody could ever say anything like that? You know? And like, fair enough, if someone, like, it doesn't resonate with them, I totally get that. But it just, it just felt holy crap, like, is this is this like, a giant blind spot that I'm not seeing? And, you know, after talking to a number of students, a number of people, it was like, no, like, you know, this is someone who's not very comfortable with computers. This is someone that, like, it doesn't make sense for this type of person to be using Notion. Like, I don't think Notion is the right tool for everyone, and I don't think my instructional style is is for everyone, and I'm okay with that. I've made peace with that. And there's room to to improve that. So I definitely feel you on like, ooh, rabbit hole, here we go. Let's work on this scale. Because like, no one can criticize this again, like I would go all in, just watch me. Michele Hansen 46:04Have you come across the term rejection sensitive dysphoria? Marie Poulin 46:08I have. Michele Hansen 46:11So it's this term for how, I don't, I don't have a good way of explaining it. But like, it's for how painful, like, that kind of criticism can be, and how it can either, like, prevent people from wanting something in the first place, or when you get that criticism, it i, Marie Poulin 46:30Highly motivating. Michele Hansen 46:32Yeah, but like, it's all-encompassing. Marie Poulin 46:35Yeah. Michele Hansen 46:37Like, it's, and then you said that somebody else that same week said how much they loved your course, yet, you're, You keep ruminating on the bad, right? Ruminating and obsess over and then hyper focus on that, and then go into this mode of, like, wanting to make sure that never ever happens again. And it's like this kind of extreme version of loss aversion, where, you know, we're so afraid of losing something, like, of losing that, in this case, like, that person's, you know, like, their positive feedback on the course or their, their positive experience with it, rather than focusing on the people who already had a positive experience and making it better for the people who is, because like, it's like, do you actively, like, frame your course, or some of your courses as being for ADHD people, or, like, neurodiverse people? Marie Poulin 47:33I don't, again, part of this is I'm not officially diagnosed. And, and, you know, again, I'm still learning about this stuff. And so I partly feel like a little bit of imposter complex around this whole topic to know I want to be very careful, you know, like, just, just being mindful about how I talk about it. And, and, Michele Hansen 47:53Everyone's experience is different of it, like, yeah. Marie Poulin 47:56Totally, totally. And so I just want to be very careful about it, and it is something I've considered of like, maybe it would actually, like, the number of people that have watched the, I have a YouTube video where I'm teaching my sister who has ADHD how to use Notion, and the positive feedback, and the people being like, oh, my gosh, it was so nice to see normal people, like, normal people like me, you know, other people with ADHD, just, just going through this experience. And it did make me wonder like, well, hey, knowing that this is the case, and knowing that it seems to attract these people, should I go in that direction? So it's been on my mind to some, something to maybe mention, and even kind of tease out a little bit, like, in my welcome sequence. When I'm introducing myself, I'm starting to, like, try out using some of the language. And I will say, I've gotten an incredible response. Anytime I've talked about it, it's been really, really positive. So, I don't mention it, but it is something I'm like, maybe like, and should I get a diagnosis to be? Does it matter? I don't really know. I'm not really sure what the, what the protocol is there. But yeah. Michele Hansen 49:01I mean, like, I have a diagnosis, but like, I, I feel like I don't really understand it very well, like, because I just kind of accepted it as this thing that was just wrong with me that I had to control. And then like, that was kind of it. Um, and I like so in my book, actually, in the original newsletters, like I talked about having ADHD and how, you know, focusing on people and listening and like, all that, like, were really difficult for me because of that, and I got so much positive feedback on it, but then I got it into the book, and I, like, one of my reviewers was like, you know, your experience of ADHD is not a universal one. And there's like, and they were saying there's kind of a difference between like writing it in a newsletter, where people know you and they start from a point of kind of the sort of familiarity, like, that they they trust that you come from a good place, but like writing it in a book, people won't know me people won't know like and even if I say this is only my experience of it, like, someone who has had a different experience of the diagnosis or, or like, doesn't, like, that they have the diagnosis doesn't let you know they have made been made to feel less than because of it, or worse. I think both of us kind of tend to view it as this, like, this thing that we could steer and bring out, like, bring out our true selves, so to speak. Like, so I ended up taking it out, but it also feels so relevant, like it, like it feels like this piece of information that people need to know that it's like, Yes, I was known for not being able to listen to anything, so then I focused on it to the point of it being like, this obsessive skill. Almost necessary base information. Marie Poulin 50:46Part of the story. Michele Hansen 50:47Yes. And the same way that like, and so I found a way to like, kind of tell that story that I had to listen, like learn how to do this, but like without using the diagnosis, but like, part of me, really. So like, maybe it's like something I can do in a talk or something like that, right? Like, there's not every, like, there's different forums for things. Marie Poulin 51:04Not every medium needs to, yeah. Michele Hansen 51:05And also where I can kind of explain, and if someone has like a question of like, well, that's not my experience of it, then we can talk about it afterwards. And they can know that I'm coming from a good, I don't, I don't know, I also feel conflicted, because I don't want to, like, I can only speak from my own experience. Like, I am, and again, maybe again this is maybe an ADHD thing, or it's like, I haven't hyper-focused on ADHD itself, so therefore I cannot speak about it. Marie Poulin 51:29Totally. Oh, my gosh, the hyper-focusing of watching all the videos about ADHD and like, it's just, it's it's so funny looking at all the memes. I was so dismissive of ADHD, because I was like, oh, well, come on. That's all of us for every single meme. And at some point, I was like, wait a second, like, is that all of us? And yeah, it took some digging, and I was like, wait a second here. Michele Hansen 51:52There's some tweets about this that I find myself referencing, and it was either people with ADHD need to stop being so relatable, or I need to go to the doctor. Marie Poulin 52:06Exactly. Michele Hansen 52:07I think, you know, my, so this is super fun talking and relating to you and like, realizing, you know, that we're both not weird. We're weird together. But my, the reason I really wanted to talk to you about this here is because I think people who are neurodivergent, who don't fit the box, like, tend to feel like we're not as capable of things as other people, or we have been made to feel that we're not as capable. And I hear from people that are like, I don't know if I could run a business, like, I can't, you know, like, if I can't focus on one set thing, like, and I'm all over the place, like, I can't possibly run a business. And I think what I like to show and, like, what you show, amazingly, is that not only can you run a business if you have ADHD or any other like, because I noticed all these, like, people in the indie community, like, they're people, like people who just don't fit the box. Like they have, they have disabilities, they have chronic health conditions, they are autistic, like, whatever those things are, like, they have been able to find a home in this place, and like, you can run a business if you're ADHD like, you, like, like, I present myself as evidence and I feel like you are evidence of that, too. Marie Poulin 53:35Absolutely. I think a big part of it comes down to you have to know yourself really well. Like, you have to know your triggers. You have to know how you're incentivized, how you best operate, so that you can either get the support that you need, or again, you can design your products and services in a way that, even though, for example, I've been a generalist for a decade, and it's really only in the last year and a half, two years, that I was like, I'm going all in on Notion. Like, I see an opportunity here, like, let's, let's just try this, I'm going to see, like, what's the worst that could happen? I make, I make some money for for this chapter and I get known as the Notion person and then I can, like, flip the chapter and do the next thing. I've been in general so long, I was like, whatever, let's just give it a try. And what again, what I love about it is my days can be so freakin different. Like, I am not doing the same thing every day even though I'm doing one thing and so you know, it's about finding traction with that one thing but if you can design your business in such a way that you're still getting, you know that dopamine hit or whatever it is that you need, you got to know yourself well enough to know, hey, I really thrive with routine or I really thrive with days that look very different, and then getting someone to support you on your team, like, maybe you have a small team. For me hiring my direct my you know started with a virtual assistant, who is now my, mou know, Director of Operations and having her is no doubt a humongous part of why I've been able to do the kind of growth that I've done. Like, I would have been scrambling wearing all these different hats. So to have someone whose focus is entirely operations and all the nitty gritty, like, export of CSVs, any of the detail work, I'm like, let's just be honest, Marie is not the details person. I've accepted this. And now we have someone who is a details person who frickin loves that stuff. And the stuff that makes me cringe is the stuff that makes her day, and like, what better? Like, that's all you can ask for, I think. So, even if you're just getting support in a really, really tiny way, you know, again, there's just so many opportunities, I think, to get creative with the way you design your business, that it is supporting you. But you do have to, to know yourself really well, I think to know how to do that. Michele Hansen 55:51And what I, you know, ADHD, the first two words of it, or attention deficit, and I find that you show is that it's not a, like, it doesn't have to be this thing that's deficient about you. Marie Poulin 56:06It's just a little inconsistent, that's all. Michele Hansen 56:08Like, it can be, if you sort of steer it and give it support, like, it can be this amazing thing that you bring to the world. Like, it's not a deficiency. Like, I feel like that's just kind of like, the message I can give to like 11 year old me, like, it's not a deficiency, like you just have to help it come out. Marie Poulin 56:28Well, hyperactivity like that, like you've said before, like the phrase, it just, it doesn't carry a whole lot of positive connotations. And so, Michele Hansen 56:36No, the whole thing sounds very negative. Marie Poulin 56:38It does, yeah, we're we're off. Like, there's something broken with us, versus hunter gatherer brain, like different types of brains, I think evolved for different purposes. And, you know, we all, we have our own incredible use cases, like I know, you mentioned in other episodes, the ability to form connections between really disparate stuff very, very quickly. Oh, my gosh, in companies to have that kind of strategic person who can really see those connections, there's no doubt that each of us kind of can plug in somewhere and we can really shine in different ways. But it's, it's tricky, like you said, if we are neurodivergent, in a neurotypical world, it might mean that we might have to take the initiative on that and, and take charge in different ways and kind of carve our own path. Michele Hansen 57:25But then when we do, like, other people seeing like, hey, like, it's not just me, like, you know, you mentioned the, like the Dani Donovan's ADHD comics. I don't know if you've seen those, like, I'm so appreciative that she's so open about it. Marie Poulin 57:37Yeah. Michele Hansen 57:39It just, I think, because we have been made to feel deficient or different, like we, you know, I know I tended to like hold this in, and I realized that even like, most of my best friends didn't know I had been diagnosed as a kid until a couple of years ago, because I just never talked about it. I just, like, accepted it, this thing that was wrong with me, and like, whatever, like, we don't need to talk about it. But then we talk about it, and it doesn't actually, yeah, it doesn't have to be. Like, it can really bring whatever our uniquenesses into the world. Marie Poulin 58:08Yeah, I'm hoping it's sort of becoming a little bit more destigmatized, and on Twitter, and it just feels like I'm hearing more about it, and people maybe are getting a little more comfortable talking about it. And even it seems like things that therapists maybe wouldn't recognize before, like, it's starting to become a little bit more known. And so yeah, I'm hoping that, you know, by sharing some of my own honest insights that that it does help destigmatize it. I think the more people, you know, like you and I talking about it, I do think it just kind of opens up the doors a little bit. So, if we can be part of that then you know, yay. If it helps one other person even just kind of embrace their their inner weirdness a little bit, then we've done our, our duty. Michele Hansen 58:52Yes. Exactly. Or embrace the weirdness of, you know, their loved ones, too. Marie Poulin 58:58Find your weirdos. Yeah. Michele Hansen 58:59Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's probably a good note to end on today. It has been so fun talking to you, Marie. I feel like we've, we've gone on quite well, like, we normally run half an hour and we're quite over that, but I'm okay with it. I, this is so fun. I'm so grateful that you came on. And so, if people are curious about your courses, or about you, where can they find out more? Marie Poulin 59:26You can check out my website is MariePoulin.com. You'll be able to find the course on there, too. That's NotionMastery.com, pretty active on Twitter. That's that's probably where do most of my chitchat about business and founder life and ADHD and all that sort of thing. So @MariePoulin on Twitter, and if you're curious about more of the, more personal behind the scenes stuff, and plants and gardening, you can check me out on Instagram, too, so. Michele Hansen 59:51Awesome. Thank you so much, Marie. Marie Poulin 59:54Yeah, thanks for having me. Really fun.
Getting Started with Customer Interviews: A Conversation with Nicole Baldinu, Co-Founder and COO of WebinarNinja
Pre-order Michele's book! https://deployempathy.com/order Follow Nicole on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NicoleBaldinu Michele Hansen 00:00Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by Recut. If you make videos or screencasts, Recut could help you cut your editing time by half or more. Recut removes the awkward pauses, the gaps and the silent parts so you can stop spending hours slicing and dicing with the razor tool. Recut makes a cut list that you can import into your favorite Mac-based editor, like Adobe Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut, or ScreenFlow. You can get 10% off with the code SoftwareSocial, or download the free trial at GetRecut.com. Michele Hansen Hey, welcome back to Software Social. I am so excited about what we have going on today. We have Nicole Baldinu, Co-Founder and COO of WebinarNinja joining us. Welcome, Nicole. Nicole Baldinu 00:51Hey, Michele. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Michele Hansen 00:54I'm so excited to have you on. First of all, I mean, you guys have built such an incredible company. Just to give a little bit of background. So, WebinarNinja was founded in 2014. You also produce the $100 MBA Show, which won Best of iTunes in 2014. 23 full-time team members, 100% customer-funded, an amazing business. I am so excited that you're joining us today. Nicole Baldinu 01:24Aw, thank you. That's, that's really nice. It's almost like sometimes you forget, you know, where you've been. You just keep going and charging forward. It's like, yeah, we've been around since 2014. Must be doing something right. Some days, it doesn't feel like you're doing anything right, you know. Michele Hansen 01:43When in 2014 did you guys launch? Because we were also 2014. Nicole Baldinu 01:47Oh, WebinarNinja, like, around April. Michele Hansen 01:51Okay. Nicole Baldinu 01:52It was around April, yeah. Michele Hansen 01:53Wow. Nicole Baldinu 01:54I know. It's crazy. Michele Hansen 01:56It's kinda, so, we launched in January of 2014, and we are still just the two of us. And you guys have like, 23 people, and I mean, it's so interesting how many, like, different paths you can take. Nicole Baldinu 02:14Yeah, and the number of iterations, I think, like, yeah, I don't even remember version one, you know. It feels so long ago. But that's true. Like, I don't think we in, like, even intentionally set out to just grow, grow, grow. You just kind of take one, one step forward, and you just keep moving. It's like, yeah, we need help, like, you know. You're answering all your customer support queries in the beginning, and then it's like, no, you need some help. And then you hire your first teammate, and then it just, just keeps growing. Michele Hansen 02:47So, let's fast forward a little bit to, I guess, would be five years into it for both of us. We met at MicroCon in 2019 and were basically instant friends. Um, and I remember what, I think, I think you might have come up to me, and you were really interested in learning how to do customer interviews, which is, like, my jam. Nicole Baldinu 03:17Yeah, I loved that conference so much. It was, it was such a, I think for me, that was the first time, it was kind of the first SaaS-focused conference. I think a lot of the conferences I'd been to before were very, I don't know about you, if you've attended like, other conferences outside the SaaS space, but a lot of podcasting conferences, you know, I remember the first, do you remember NMX? New Media Expo? Michele Hansen 03:45The name sounds familiar, but I didn't, I've never been a huge conference attender, so I haven't been to a lot. Nicole Baldinu 03:52That was my first conference, and that was January of 2013. And that was literally when I, you know, that was my first kind of foray into entrepreneurship, and so meeting bloggers and podcasters, and it was all just such a new unknown, like world. But I remember like, MicroCon being just really special because I just felt like, that it was, it was kind of like, I felt people were really honest and vulnerable and authentic when it came to talking about, you know, the pitfalls and the challenges of SaaS. businesses. And yeah, and I remember I loved your talk because I just felt like, you did, what was it like a chat, like it was a 10 minute tactic or something, or? Michele Hansen 04:41Yeah, it was an attendee talk. Nicole Baldinu 04:43Yeah. Michele Hansen 04:44Yeah. Nicole Baldinu 04:45And, and I still have your notes. I shared this with you last time we spoke. I still have your notes because I just thought it was so helpful, so practical, and the, the crazy thing is though, when was that? So that was MicroCon 2019, right? Michele Hansen 04:59Yeah. Nicole Baldinu 05:00That's the first time I heard, I think that's the kind of the first time I really thought, oh, you can do, like, you can talk to your customers. You can do, like, this kind of user research. And I've only done my very first customer user research this year, three years on, but I still have your notes. And it was, yeah, it was just super inspiring. I just thought it just seems like such a cool thing to do. And, yeah, so I finally, finally took the plunge. Michele Hansen 05:28So, let's dive into that plunge a little bit because I think it's, I think it's totally normal that it would take you some time from from like having that moment of being oh wait, I can talk to customers, to then sort of, not just like, sort of working up the courage for it, but also the time and, like, fitting it into your schedule and thinking it really, really through and so, like, could you kind of take us back to earlier, I guess, earlier this year, when you really started to hit the ground on it? Nicole Baldinu 06:03Yeah, and I mean, I should, I should also say that we had done user research and customer interviews, but it wasn't me that had done it. So Omar, who's my Co-Founder, the CEO, also my husband, business and partner in life and business, he had done the first user interviews, and kind of, because he's more customer has been always more customer-facing. He had done user interviews, but it was something that I never felt that I could do. Like, I'd kind of be behind the scenes and reading Intercom, like support, you know, conversations and seeing what, you know, customers were saying and replying. But it was all very much chat and email never like, let's get on a call and let's talk about it. So recently, we've kind of wanted to, the whole reason behind starting to do this is because we wanted to kind of refine part of our offering and also look at a potential MVP out of this, this offering. And so I just thought, I don't know, and all of a sudden, I just felt like I want to do it. I don't even know what, like, why I just woke up one morning and said I'm going to do these, which is, like, really unlike me. But um, but I just decided to, yeah, I think I made that decision, like, I'll do the interviews. And then as soon as I took that decision, I literally went for my notebook from the, to look for the notes that I took from MicroCon. I then went and looked at all your blog posts and everything that you had on, you know, on the topic, as much as I could like, digest in like, I had a week, I think, before I was like, I scheduled the first one. And, and then yeah, and then I was just like, okay, I have got my questions now, thanks to like, you know, I looked up some of the sources that you had, you know, referenced. So I went in, you know, okay, I've got my questions. Now I know what I want to do, I want to know what I want to ask. And then it was literally the mechanics of okay, get a Calendly up, send out the blast, like, the blast out on Intercom to actually invite people to, you know, to be interviewed. So then all those little pieces, too, that I think, like, I was kind of procrastinating on, they just all fell together really quickly. It's like, okay, you just got to invite people, people reply. You just got to have a, you know, a sequence to, you know, send them your Calendly then it all gets done, then you've got your questions. And then it just, then they just started. And then as soon as I did my first one, I was really upfront with the first. She was she was lovely, my first interviewee. And that was great, because I was very nervous and I just basically said, you're the first person I'm interviewing. And so that kind of just made me feel a bit more at ease. And, and she was just lovely, and just easy to talk to and just answered all my questions. And then I just realized, after that call I was like, this is so much fun. I love this. I think when we talked last time, I was like, totally geeking out on just how much fun it is and what a positive experience it actually ends up being talking to your customers. Michele Hansen 09:08I think last time we talked, which was about a month ago, I remember you said that it had basically become your favorite part of your job. Nicole Baldinu 09:19Did I say that? Yeah, it's true. It's weird. It's totally taken me by surprise. I was thinking a little bit more about that, though. Why? I feel like it's a very positive experience. Because initially, I thought oh, you know, there's the potential that you know, the conversation could just turn into like, this is one of the things I thought it would turn into. I thought it would turn into a let's, let's ask about, you know, support for WebinarNinja, like, show me how to do this or complain about something that's not working as expected. I thought it would go down that path, but it didn't. It just ended up being very much focused on the questions I was asking and, which was really focused on what they do, like how they deliver their content, and, and about their business, and about why, I mean, the, my favorite question, and this, I think comes from your blog post, and I think this is what kind of, I see them light up and kind of lights me up is when I asked them, what's the big picture? What are they trying to do? And that question is just, it's, it's just my favorite question on the interviews, because it just brings out, yeah, it just gives them an opportunity to really share, oh, this is why I'm doing what I'm doing. And they get to just, I don't know if I'm like rambling a little bit, but I don't know, would, have, you've asked that question before, right? Michele Hansen 10:55Yeah, I'm curious, can you ask me that question as if you were interviewing me? Nicole Baldinu 11:02Okay. So, Michele, what's the big picture of what you're trying to do? Michele Hansen 11:13And that's it. Nicole Baldinu 11:14That's it. Michele Hansen 11:15Like, that's only a couple of words. They're not very big words. Like, it's a such a simple question, yet you have found that that just lights people up. Nicole Baldinu 11:28There's only one person that kind of asked for clarification, and then when I had to reframe it, I just said, why are you doing what you're doing? Oh, my why? Oh, okay. But everyone, everyone else kind of, it was interesting, like, everyone else got it. And it all comes around to you know, they want to help, they want to share, they want to empower. It's just, it just brings out, yeah, it brings out their why, but without asking it in that way. Because I think if you say what's your why, I think if it's all, I don't know why that feels a bit more daunting than what's the big picture? Because the big picture, because sometimes I would actually expect from that answer that they would talk about what they're trying to achieve in their business. I actually didn't know originally where that question would go. That's kind of probably what surprised me. I thought it would be more focused on the business. Like they would tell me what they're trying to achieve maybe financially, or, you know, what their goals are. But it did kind of step back, for some reason it did actually generate the response of this is why I'm doing what I'm doing. That makes sense? Michele Hansen 12:38No, it does. I've actually been, I was thinking about this a lot the past couple of days, because one of my, my subject matter editors for my book was, they made a note in the, in their edits, that I had a couple of why questions, and they reminded me that those need to be what questions, and I've been thinking about what's and why's all weekend, actually, so I'm so glad you brought this up. Because when we ask someone a why question, we're asking, in some ways we're asking for causality. We're asking why they do something, like, and asking them to sort of think through the reasons why they do something. But if you ask someone the same question, but you rephrase it as a what, it's a much easier question. Like, why are you here versus, what led you here? They're basically the same question, but if I asked you what led you here, you walk me through the different steps that you went through, and the causality can sort of come through the details of that. Versus if I said, why are you here, then you have to sit and be like, why, why am I here? And like, like, you get lost a little bit in the question. And so asking a what question instead is usually cognitively much easier to answer. And, you know, maybe, as you said, some people may, you know, they may appreciate being asked a why question after the initial what question. But for most people asking, you know, I mean, I do this with my daughter, too, right? Like, you know, instead, instead of saying, like, you know, you know, what, like, why aren't you down here for dinner yet? Like, being like, be like, so what's your plan? Like, dinner is on the table, what's your plan? And then that opens up to, oh, well, I'm actually getting this ready. Or like, you know, this weekend, she's like, oh, I'm making a card for daddy for Father's Day. Okay. Alright, cool. Like, you're not, this isn't an intentional thing. But so, rephrasing as a what I think gives it also, as you said, it gives people options to where to take that question. And I think, I think kind of as sort of both of us just had a moment of earlier on when we were talking of like, wow, I guess we have been doing this for a long time, and it's pretty awesome, and how cool is that? Like, we don't really step back and think about that very often, and I wonder if when you asked that question it like, it sounds like you are prompting that same kind of reflection in people, which, in turn, makes them really excited to talk to you because you're making them feel good about themselves and what they do. Nicole Baldinu 15:25Yeah, I'm just blown away by that, just that little explanation about the difference between the what and the why, like, it just takes the whole process, the whole, asking those questions to another very sophisticated level, and just realize sometimes, like, I don't want to, I don't, sometimes I feel like I don't want to think too much about it, but I think it can be so sophisticated and so refined, the actual process of asking these questions and learning more about people. I guess this is my first run at it, and, yeah, like, even if it's, if it's not at that level, whatever I'm getting out of it, I feel is worthwhile. And I know that I can take it to another level because I love what you just explained, and I think it makes so much sense. But yeah, there's, there's so many layers to it. There's so many layers to it. And it's true, I do feel that it does, I do feel that sense of like, it's fun, like they don't mind, like the crazy thing is it's like, I don't know how long the tick, a typical interview should be, I should ask you that, but, you know, I said, you know, I don't want to take up too much of people's time. So I just said, okay, I'll just keep it to 20 minutes. They've all gone overtime. And there's not a sense of like, I need to get off this call. I have to initiate that let's get off this call, because they're very happy to continue talking because we're both actually having, I feel like it's an enjoyable experience on both sides, which is really cool. Michele Hansen 16:56Yeah. Nicole Baldinu 16:57That really surprised me but, Michele Hansen 16:59So that that makes a lot of sense to me, because you are, like, you're hearing about how your product helps them and, which, you know, you mentioned you, you know, pop in on intercom support tickets and whatnot. Like, I think for, you know, us founders who do, like, talk to our customers a lot just by default, because you know, there's customer support their sales, like there's, there's all those other things. But interviewing someone is so, so different, because they tend to, like,, it's much more appreciative environment than, than like, hey, there's this bug or whatever. But then also for that person, like they get to talk about what they do, and they're actually, like, MRI studies they've done of people when they are, when they are talking about themselves or their experiences to another person, like, the parts of the brain related to motivation and enjoyment light up way more than they do, than if you were, than you were listening to someone else talk or you're talking about something that isn't directly related to your own experience. So it's, like, it is enjoyable for people to, to be asked these questions. I think as you kind of, as we were sort of talking about a little bit with the what's and the why questions like, there's, there's a lot of, like, levels here, but you don't necessarily need to know all of those levels in order to get started. You just need to be, I think, kind of like you did, to just sort of being willing to take the jump, which, you know, I think the first time feels a little bit like a polar bear dip and jumping in a freezing cold ocean, and you're like, okay, here we go. And then the next time you're just like, sprinting towards the ocean and excited for it. Nicole Baldinu 18:48Have you ever been, this is just going sideways now, have you ever been stood up on one of these interviews? Michele Hansen 18:53Yeah. Nicole Baldinu 18:54Okay. Lots, or just? Michele Hansen 18:56So I noticed that that, like, it used to happen a lot when I was a product manager working in a company. Um, and I think that so, but when I'm from recruiting as the founder, like, people tend to show up. Like, it seems like it's more important to them. Like, when I was working in a company, we had someone who was coordinating all of the interviews, and so we had never spoken to them before we got on the phone with them, even over email. And I think it's easier to blow off, like, an anonymous person, rather than the person they're going to talk to, nevermind somebody who has a title, whether that's Co-Founder, or like, I mean, sometimes we actually invented titles just for the purpose of interviews, like, Nicole Baldinu 19:42That makes sense, though. Michele Hansen 19:43Like, I think we had some, like, Head of Customer Experience, which wasn't even a title at the company. And actually, Cindy Alvarez in Lean Customer Development talks about doing this, too, that like, it's much easier to know show when, when you don't feel, like, an attachment to that person. Um, so I think these days, if someone doesn't show up, it's usually because like, something, like, something legitimately like came up. Nicole Baldinu 20:12Yeah, no, I totally feel that because it's literally been just one person. And I do feel like there would be something that, you know, because I do recognize that sometimes I feel like there's an element of not intimidation, but like, oh, wow, I'm actually getting to talk to the Co-Founder, so it is a bit more special for them. And I do feel the first part of the interview might be a little bit stiff, but, yeah, maybe a little bit stiff until we kind of, you know, until I think a big picture question really breaks down the, let's forget that, you know, we're just literally two people talking. And then I think they do forget the interview setting. But yeah, I'd say like, you know, just one out of how many I've done, and it's not that many. I've done 13, so one out of 13. That's not bad. You can do the math. I haven't got a calculator, what ratio percentage that is. But, uh, yeah. Yeah, I definitely think, and the flip side of that, too, is the, the recognition at the end, which I get to feel really kind of special or feel so, it's so rewarding for me when they'll turn around at the end and say, you know, this is so good that you're doing this. Like, they really appreciate that a company would actually listen, take the time to talk to their customers. And they, you know, I've had people wish me the greatest success, and you're gonna do a great job, and this is gonna be amazing. And it's just, and you can, and I feel, I like, I genuinely feel like they're being authentic, because they felt like I've listened to them. I've, you know, taken the time to, you know, give them an opportunity to share what they need, what their pain points are, you know, learn a little bit more about themselves. And then I do feel there's that reciprocation of, like, I wish you well, and no, I wish you well. It's kind of cheesy, but it's kind of sweet at the same time. Michele Hansen 22:17You know, I find that people who I do interviews with, even though it's really not intentional, like, they will offer to do a testimonial for us. They will offer to be a reference like, like, or I'll notice on Twitter, like six months later, like, they're the one who's like popping in on threads when, when people need what we do. Like, it really creates this, like, incredibly valuable connection. Nicole Baldinu 22:42Yeah. Do you have any, like, do you do any follow up? Like, what's the next step? Because literally, I'm at like, stage one right now, where it's like, doing the interviews. And I've just hardly just, you know, started the analysis, and I haven't gotten very far. And then I'm thinking, well, what's the next step after that? Is there some other sort of, invite them to a focus group with, you know, and like, what's, what have you done? Michele Hansen 23:08So I actually, I want, I'm going to come back to asking you about the analysis because I'm super interested to hear about that. Um, it depends really on what it is. So for example, if they like talked about something that, let's say that we ended up deciding in the future might be a new product, for example. Like, I might come back to them and be like, hey, you know, this thing we talked about, and it might have been, like, three years ago, like, we're exploring this now, like, can I talk to you specifically about this particular element again? Or maybe we have a prototype of something, asking them to run through it with us or, you know, if there was sort of something that was unclear, or we needed to follow up with them about. Um, but sometimes there is no follow up. Very often, actually, they will follow up with me and be like, hey, like, you know, like, you guys seem really open to feedback, and so we're, you know, we're working with this other piece of data, like, is there any chance you guys could support that or whatever? Like, they will come back to us very often. But there doesn't, you know, beyond a thank you note, really, there, there doesn't have to be, there can be as much follow up as you need, right? Like if you're doing something early, like it might make sense to, you know, to ask them hey, like, can I come back to you for further questions if our prototype or maybe to help us prioritize different things, like, to go back and do card sorting with them? It really kind of, like, it sounds like you're talking to people who have been customers for a long time. Do we actually talk about that targeting you did to decide who to talk to? Nicole Baldinu 24:40I didn't, I just ran, no, they might not be customers for a long time. But they definitely are users and have an, I would say that the ones who've replied are all you know, they've had, they've used the product for some time, but it could be as little as like a month. It doesn't, Michele Hansen 24:59Yeah. Nicole Baldinu 25:00Not longer than that. And then yeah. Yeah, we've had, I've had some more longtime users, but generally it's, yeah, just people that, because the question was quite targeted and asked a very specific question when I did the call out, like, do you do this and this? I'd love to talk to you. Michele Hansen 25:19Oh, yeah. What was, what was the exact question? Nicole Baldinu 25:22The exact question was do you run live courses or live training? Michele Hansen 25:27Oh. Nicole Baldinu 25:28I want to talk to you. And then so, that was the, yeah, that's how I got them in. So I think that specific question helped as well. I want to know if it helped. Michele Hansen 25:45You picked that question because you said you're exploring an MVP of something, and also sort of potentially repositioning or sort of tweaking your positioning towards that specific market? Nicole Baldinu 26:00Yes, because its current usage, it's a current way that the customers are using, you know, WebinarNinja to deliver live training and live courses. So I wanted, I want to learn more about how they're using it, and where their pain points are, and, yeah, and what we could do better in that, in that kind of space. Michele Hansen 26:23It sounds like it was a question most people would answer yes to. Nicole Baldinu 26:27If they do it, yeah. Michele Hansen 26:28Right. Yeah. Nicole Baldinu 26:29But not all our users. So because I suppose you know, there's a lot of WebinarNinja users who are, you know, using webinar ninja for marketing. Michele Hansen 26:39Right. Nicole Baldinu 26:40And they're not necessarily delivering training. Michele Hansen 26:43Right. Yeah. So the analysis, before we talk about what you do after the analysis. Nicole Baldinu 26:51Oh, my God. Michele Hansen 26:53Like, what are you doing? Like, like, what does this process look like for you right now, and it may not be sort of conceptualized as a process. Nicole Baldinu 27:04Okay. So so far, it involves printing out the transcript. Step one. Step two is reading it with a highlighter. And, and so I guess where I'm struggling, or where I kind of want to refine the analysis is, what am I looking, because I'm looking for a few things, I suppose. I'm looking for, you know, words that they say or things that they actually do, actions they perform, things that are concrete. Then there's also the oh, I wish something that they don't do, but it's kind of aspirational. So. you know, how much weight can you put on, on, on on those kinds of, you know, it's like, oh, we should do this. But it's like, what, have you ever done that? You know, would, how likely are you, they don't know. They wouldn't know, right? If it's something just like, you know. And then it's also, yeah, looking at it through the filter of like a marketing message. How would I then communicate to resonate with people who are doing the same thing so that I could, you know, attract the same type of people as customers? So there's kind of like, three buckets, I suppose. And so yeah, and then so there's the highlighting. And then it's, because of there's these, kind of, three kind of areas, and I'm just kind of have columns, and I'm just writing out, you know, things that fit under those columns. Michele Hansen 28:45Do you feel like you're getting out of that what you were hoping for? Nicole Baldinu 28:52Um, well, I have to say so far from just the interviews themselves, I feel like I've gotten a lot out of it. But I want to see, I, I'm not sure. Yeah, I don't know. This is a little bit like, I don't know, early stages. Michele Hansen 29:08Have you, have you tried diagramming the process for them, like, trying to sort of identify what, you know, what their big picture is, and then just all of the different pieces of that? Even if they're not, you know, sometimes we think of a process as like a bunch of linear steps, but sometimes it's also sort of an ecosystem of steps that kind of sometimes all sort of happen in a jumbly sort of order at the same time. And I'm curious if you've been able to sort of figure out what that looks like, for even, for each person. Nicole Baldinu 29:43No, but you're obviously saying that I would do that diagrammatic kind of visual for each one, right? And then later, look at all the similarities. Michele Hansen 29:55Yeah. So some, I mean, if you're looking at people who are going through the same Sort of overall goal, then it would make sense to, to split out all of the different steps per person. And then to break them out by, did we talk about the different dimensions of problems? Like, the functional, social, emotional dimensions? Nicole Baldinu 30:16You, yes. But I was very, like, new to everything you were saying, so I was like, one process to everything. Michele Hansen 30:24That's okay. So, um, so I find this helpful, especially for, like, pulling out relevant parts that can be used for marketing or like, you know, sort of, wouldn't, like, quote them exactly, but like, the can inform like copy and whatnot. So there's a functional dimension to a problem, which is, you know, they, they want to run a sales training because they need their salespeople to sell more, or something. Like, so they need a tool that allows them to connect with their sales people remotely, for example. There's a social element, which is they are running this training, and there may be 10 people that they are training, and those 10 people have different levels of technology experience, and some of them have been with the company for a very long time, some of them are very new. Like, what are the different social factors going on, and how might they express that? Like, I want my team to feel like they're on the same page, like, for example, might come through and a quote, and then you say, so you hear that word team? And you're like, okay, well, what do they mean by team? Who exactly is on that team? Like, what, what is the story of all of how all these people came to be working together? And there might be an emotional perspective, as well, of like, how, how do they feel about the tool they used before? Was it frustrating for them? Did they feel like they were, you know, banging their head against the keyboard trying to get it to work, or to get their team members to install it? Or did they feel great when they get off of these trainings? Like, does this, do they find the tool, you know, easy to use? Like, and like, those are like, those also can come out in the quotes, too. And so what I find helpful is to kind of diagram the different steps, and they may be they may be linear steps, they may be, you know, concurrent, like, and then, and then, but for each one of those pieces of it, breaking out the functional, social, emotional components of it. Nicole Baldinu 32:23Okay. Okay, yeah. Wow. This is so cool because there's just, there's so much to unpack in, you know, in one person's experience. And then I suppose, as you see the commonalities, I guess, that's when you, you know, across more people saying, if they're saying the same thing, I guess that's when you get validation, that's when you get, yeah, the understanding that this is affecting, this could be affecting more people. So I suppose I've gone, you know, the experience of actually talking to one person becomes very, like, it's just you and that person, and it becomes very much restricted to that world. And then you've got to step back and go, okay, I've got all these people now, they've said all these things. Now I've got to make sense of it. So it's just, I feel like I'm still, I'm enjoying the first stage so much. Like, and I feel like I've gotten a lot out of that first stage. But now it's like, okay, now this data is so valuable. What do I do with it? And I want to make sure that, yeah, it's unpacked. And then obviously, I know this information, I'm going to be unpacking it, but then I've got to communicate it to the rest of the team, as well, so putting it in a way that's like, you know, I can share it with Omar and the product team and now CTO. So there's just so many levels to it, but it's you know, it's all doable. It's exciting. Michele Hansen 33:59I think the more people you talk to, too, you're gonna start seeing those commonalities in in processes. So like, last episode, I was talking a little bit about activity-based design, which is basically the idea of going a step beyond human-centered design and thinking about the different processes that people are going through, and then you can start seeing the, the commonalities there. So for example, when I'm talking to someone, and it turns out that they're using us because they're doing, you know, US government Home Mortgage Lending compliance, like, their experiences of that are going to be very different than somebody who is you know, working with getting the timezone back from tractors that are in fields. And, but if I talk to somebody who's doing the compliance, like, generally like, like, as I when I hear that I'm like, okay, now I have a better idea of what this process is, from an overall perspective. How can I learn more about this person's, like, their company's specific functional elements, their specific social elements, like, their specific emotional pieces? Like, what do they think of the other options that they've tried compared to the other people I've heard and getting more and more depth each time. But there can be a huge breadth and, especially as I think you guys also are a horizontal SaaS, right? So you're, you're selling across many different industries, and, and I think this is where customer interviews are so fun, because I get to learn about so many industries and like, I'm like, I didn't even know that was a thing. Nicole Baldinu 35:45I know, so varied. Michele Hansen 35:48Versus, you know, someone who's selling horizontally, sorry, vertically within one industry, like they might not have that sent, you know, it might vary based on, you know, company size, or stage or whatnot. Um, I'm really curious, you mentioned bringing your team into it, which, you know, as a two-person team, we don't really do as much, but so like, how have you been able to bring other team members into this, or like, involve them in what you're learning? Nicole Baldinu 36:16Well, so far, like, the first step I thought would be just okay, I'll put it, I'll make sure that I share the recording, the transcript, the details of the person I've used, you know, in like little folders on Basecamp. I've just basically organize it into little folders. And then as soon as I, you know, put up a new, a new interview, then I make sure that I share it with, so far right now, it's just me, oh my and our product, UX-UI designer, Maria, so I just share it, I say, hey, guys, there's a new interview. And I know they've been watching some of them. You know, I've highlighted a few that I thought, oh, this is super interesting. This person is definitely someone we'd go back to. So that's been just the extent of it so far. I feel like if I'm going to then, you know, share it, say, with our CTO, when it comes to more development time or, you know, when it starts to be a thing that's going to be fleshed out, or you know, if there's any development work, then I feel like there would have to be more, kind of, maybe a bit more of a traditional kind of a report where it's like, you know, X percent of people said this, or the majority are saying this, this is what, you know what I mean, it would have to kind of be backed up a little bit more by statistics. Michele Hansen 37:29I think they're, you know, I like to use qualitative and quantitative data together. And, you know, I, thinking back to when I was working in a bigger company, you know, we would say, like, for example, we see, you know, you know, 35% of users drop off on this page, and, you know, and then having a sort of data that like, this is important to the business for, you know, x millions of dollars reason, right? Like, if fewer people did that, then hello, money. And, but then we have like, quotes from people like, oh, well, it turns out that, like, they find this really difficult because that x, or they're looking for this other piece of information that isn't there, so they click the back button. And then here's a quote from someone that says, I really didn't know where to go, like, and then, and it's like, okay, so like, here's the picture, like, and now here, okay, great. Like, here's a project, like, here's something that a team can work on of, like, you know, the bounce rate from here is 35%. Like, let's get it lower because we have the, you know, we understand why people are doing that. We also understand why it's important to the business. Like, statistics, I find will not really come out of interviews, but interviews, explain why the statistics are what they are. Like, a spreadsheet of data will tell us what is happening, but it will never tell you why. Only people can tell you why, but you need both. Like it's, it's, I think there's sometimes people sort of think about, like, that you only use, you know, quantitative data, or, you know, I talk about interviewing and I think you only do interviewing, and it's like, no, like, porque no los does, like do it all together. Nicole Baldinu 39:10Porque no. Definitely los dos. Definitely. Well, yeah. It makes sense. And I think that's just, I think, why the process of actually, you know, literally doing a very manual printing out, highlighting actually gives you the opportunity to, to read because, you know, you're going to get one kind of experience when you're listening the first time and, you know, you're asking the follow up questions. But there's so much probably that's missed, even in on that call, until you actually go and read and, and highlight and just, yeah, analyze word for word, everything that was said. And there's a whole other layer there to unpack. Michele Hansen 39:15Yeah, I wouldn't, have you asked Maria, your UI-UX designer, to also read through them and do her own highlights? Nicole Baldinu 39:42No, not yet. But that, is that something you, Michele Hansen 40:00That might be interesting. And, and there is research that says that when, like, multiple people are analyzing an interview, they pull out more of the problems. So the, the sort of like the paper on customer research was in the, is in the context of usability testing was called The Voice of the Customer. It's from 1993, or 1994, and they did all these different tests on how to pull out customer problems and analyze them. And they found that multiple people analyzing an interview tends to bring out many more of the user needs than just one person doing it. That makes so much sense. Yeah. Because then, like, the way I'm thinking, obviously, I'm trying to do this as fast as possible, too, right? Let's get to like, analysis and presentation of like, here it is. This is what we need to do. I am trying to, like, speed that process up. But yeah, the risk there is that it's really then just my interpretation. Nicole Baldinu 41:02Right. Michele Hansen 41:03Right. And some, they might just watch a video and, yeah, I remember that. But that deep level of analysis is, yeah, is going to be missed if we don't give that opportunity. So, yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, we did that, I believe, like, with the first user interviews. We gave those to our marketing teammate. So, that's how those were used, I feel. But I definitely think if it's, you know, we're starting, you know, if it's an MVP, then yeah, you're right, like someone else needs to go, I think this is actually the problem, or yeah, I agree, or no, I disagree. That's not the problem. And I think, you know, organizationally, giving somebody else the chance to discover something, too, like, they're not just being told what the learning is, but they have it, like, chance to discover it for themselves and maybe see something that somebody else missed. And one thing I love in Erica Hall's Just Enough Research is she talks about how powerful it is to bring other team members into the process because they're, you know, when we do interviews, and then bring them to other people and we're so excited about what we've learned, sometimes people can feel threatened or intimidated by that. Because all of a sudden, there's this new information coming in, and now it's on them to learn it rather than they didn't get to experience the joy of discovery themselves. And, Nicole Baldinu 42:29Oh, my God, you're blowing my mind. Sorry. Michele Hansen 42:30And so it's more, like, if you can allow them to be in on the discovery process, whether that's as, you know, a silent listener on the call, or as part of analyzing the transcripts, or even, you know, collating transcripts, which is when you find, you know, let's say you find five common quotes, and then you're putting them all together have different commonalities. like they're part of the process, they're part of what's being learned, and they feel more invested and aligned with like, like, I just remember when, what like, when we, when I worked in a bigger company and we started bringing in the developers into just sitting in on usability testing, and not even asking questions or anything, just just listening, like, the level of team motivation and alignment, like skyrocketed because all of a sudden, everybody was learning. Nicole Baldinu 43:23So was, I just, yeah, I hear you. Like that, it makes so much sense, but I suppose it's one of those things that we just feel like, oh, we don't have time, you know, we got to move on. We got to keep, it's one of those things that does take time. But you're right, like, that excitement that I think is, like, this is so awesome. I'm having so much fun. This is so important. I'm learning so much. Just by sharing it, it literally is just my experience at that, at that point, unless somebody else gets to discover it for themselves now. Oh, man. How long, this whole process is gonna take three times as long. No, no, but it's good. It's good. It's so it's so valuable. But yeah. Michele Hansen 44:06And also the, in, the process doesn't have to ever stop. You know, it sounds like you're sort of in an intense phase right now, where you've been, I mean, when did you start doing the interviews? Nicole Baldinu 44:20Oh, my gosh. Would have been like, not that long. Probably just like, three, four weeks ago. Michele Hansen 44:29Okay. And you've done 13 in the past month, basically. Nicole Baldinu 44:33Yeah, less. Michele Hansen 44:34Yeah. Nicole Baldinu 44:34Is that a lot? Michele Hansen 44:35That's, that's a lot. Like, that's a really good number, like, um, you know, I guess you are doing a specific like, project. So I mean, usually the, what I, like, the general guidance is to do five and then sort of stop and pause and analyze and see if you need to change your targeting. So, it sounds like you're consistently hearing different things from different people, so that warrants talking to more people. But also making research not just something that happens when you have a specific question, but just as a general sort of, I think, I tend to call it, like, maintenance research, like just sort of, on a general basis. But like, that's, that's really good, 13 in that amount of time. And so it makes sense that it would feel a little bit like, okay, now I have to analyze all of this, and this is going to be a lot of time and like, where am I going to find the time for this, in addition to everything else, but I think, I hope that eventually, you can find a place where you're just kind of doing like one or two a week, and maybe you're doing one and your UX person or a marketing person or somebody, a developer even, like, they're doing another interviews, and then you've got just like two a week, and then it's like, okay, like, what did we learn? Like, you know, does this does this match what we've heard in the past? How does it differ? Like, what new have we learned? Like, is there anything else we should kind of, you know, consider digging, digging on in the future? Nicole Baldinu 45:59Hmm. I love that. I wish, I mean, frankly, like, the five would have been helpful if you'd told me that last time. Five? No, I'm just kidding. Michele Hansen 46:12I mean, you also don't, you don't have to limit yourself to five, right? Like, it's just sort of, that's like, the kind of goal. And again, that's, that is also based on research, too, that you can surface in the context of usability studies, but like, surface 80% of customer needs with five interviews, but that assumes a pretty defined scope. And where you started with a broad scope, it makes sense that you would need more until you feel like you're starting to hear patterns. Nicole Baldinu 46:41Yeah. And I love what you said, like, that it definitely, and I'm so passionate, I think the more I do this, and the more, like, I talk about this, and geek out on this, and just love this whole process, the more I realize how much it should be a part of just regular in processes within a company, like, Michele Hansen 46:57Amen. Nicole Baldinu 46:58Like you said. Yeah, I know, right? Like, I'm gonna spearhead the user research of the company. Well because it is, I mean, I don't know, like, like you said, we said at the beginning, it's like, it's one of those things, I think, as a company grows, you end up doing a lot more management, and, and that's great, because if you're working with great people, it's okay to you know, to do all those management duties. But this just becomes, you know, and then, you know, there's obviously always the putting out little fires here and there, whatever. But this, this has just been such a positive experience that I think, just really enjoyed it for that reason. So having this as an ongoing thing, I think is, would be great. Michele Hansen 47:44It sounds like you are I, I can just, I feel like I can see how inspired you are by doing, like, by how motivating it is. I am, I'm so excited to continue hearing about how all this goes. Um, and I feel like, I feel like I could talk to you about this all day because, like, talking to people about talking to people is my favorite topic. Like, like for my book, I interviewed 30 people because I just, it's just so much fun. But if other people want to stay in touch with you, what, what is the best way for them to do that? Nicole Baldinu 48:26Oh, like, to reach out? Just reach out, Nicole@WebinarNinja.com. There you go. You got my email. Michele Hansen 48:34And you're on Twitter, too, right? Nicole Baldinu 48:36On Twitter. I'm on Instagram as well. You know, they can contact our support team and ask them to call me. Yeah, I'm in there. I'm in there every day. Michele Hansen 48:49Awesome. Nicole Baldinu 48:51Yeah.Thank you so much. This has been so much fun. Like, like, like you said, I could talk about this for days, days on end. Michele Hansen 48:59Alright, well, that's gonna wrap us up for this week. If you liked this week's episode, please leave us a review or tweet at Nicole and I. We would absolutely love to hear what has made you think about.
Holy Forking Sportsballs
Pre-order Michele's book on talking to customers! https://deployempathy.com/order Michele Hansen 00:00Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by Fathom Analytics. Fathom is trusted by thousands of businesses to power their privacy-first website analytics like GitHub, FastMail, Buffer, Tailwind, and so many amazing small businesses, too. For the longest time, website analytics offer was seriously bad. It was hard to understand, time consuming to use, and worse, and exploited visitor data for big tech to profit. Fathom is website analytics without compromise, easy to use, respectful of digital privacy, and fully compliant with GDPR. Plus, Fathom's script loads faster than Google Analytics, meaning it's better for SEO. With Fathom, you can see all of your visitors, not just half, because they've pioneered the method to bypass ad blockers without invading privacy. Fathom also doesn't chase venture capital or need investors. Like my company, Geocodio, they are customer-funded, and customers are the only folks they answer to. Try a free seven day trial or check out Fathom at UseFathom.com/ssp. Michele HansenSo, the other day, I totaled up how much I have made from my book so far, and all the expenses. Colleen Schnettler 01:19Okay. Michele Hansen 01:20So, as of that point, $1363 in presales, which is just, like, the number of copies times 29. That's not my actual payouts. It's just, like, the gross revenue. Colleen Schnettler 01:34Okay. Michele Hansen 01:34And then, so the expenses. So, first one, for the formatting, I have to use the software called Vellum, which is $250. I had to buy ISBNs, like, the little, like, numbers on the back of the book that identify it. Colleen Schnettler 01:49Yeah. Michele Hansen 01:50So, and I had to, you can either buy one, or like 10, and since I'm going to do an audio book, you need an ISBN for that, and like, a hardcover needs zone ISBN. And so anyway, that was $295. A barcode is $25. Proofreading $800, which is a lot of money, but I feel like that's the price of like, not being embarrassed that it's full of typos and you know, I feel like if I want to, like, have a book that, like, a manager could buy for their team, or like, people would recommend to their clients, like, it has to be professional. And so having, like, professional proofreading is the cost of that. Colleen Schnettler 02:24Yeah. I didn't know that was something. I didn't know that was a thing. Michele Hansen 02:30Yeah. Yeah, I spent, I think last week I mentioned how I was fighting with Grammarly a lot, and, Colleen Schnettler 02:35Yeah. Michele Hansen 02:36I just, I was like, I have spent like, two days fighting with Grammarly, just trying to get it to work, and like, and I was like, this is just, my time is more expensive than this. Colleen Schnettler 02:47Yeah. Michele Hansen 02:47So, I'm just gonna hire a proofreader. Colleen Schnettler 02:50Good choice. Michele Hansen 02:50And then, of course, you know, don't include hundreds of hours of my time over the last couple of months. But, so, the total for expenses so far is $1370. Colleen Schnettler 03:01That's wonderful. Michele Hansen 03:02So, when you deduct $1363 minus $1370. Colleen Schnettler 03:11Oh. Michele Hansen 03:12You get negative seven. Colleen Schnettler 03:16Yeah, I see. I misunderstood what you were saying. Got it. So you're in the hole seven bucks and hundreds of hours of your time. Michele Hansen 03:25Yes. Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 03:26Alright. Well, good thing it;s a labor of love. Michele Hansen 03:28So, I looked at that number, though, and I just had this moment where I was like, holy, forking shirtballs, like, I need to market this thing. Colleen Schnettler 03:39Yeah. Michele Hansen 03:40Umm, and actually, so like, I sold another two since then. So now, I am actually at positive $51. Colleen Schnettler 03:51Whoo. Michele Hansen 03:52Yeah, whoo. Umm, and of course, you know, we're only like, only in presale, and like, a ton of people have today said they want the hardcover or they want the audio book. So they haven't, they haven't purchased it yet, or they just simply want the finished version. Umm, But yeah, that was kind of a wake up call for me that, like, I've been, you know, we talked about with Sean like, I, like marketing a info product feels very different for me than marketing a SaaS. Colleen Schnettler 04:19Yes. Michele Hansen 04:19And also requires a lot more self-promotion, which I'm not comfortable with. Like, it makes me like, deeply uncomfortable to like, reach out to people and be like, hey, like, would you consider, like, you know, reviewing my book like, or, you know, can I be on your podcast and, like, talk, like, it makes me super uncomfortable. Umm so, so but I got to do it because like, negative $7, man, for like, four months worth of work is, you know, basically half of my time the last four months, certainly, last two months, has been on this book. And so I feel like I owe it to myself just for that, like, time to like, sell the gosh darn thing. Colleen Schnettler 05:07Definitely. Michele Hansen 05:09Yeah. So I like spent, you know, this week I was kind of working on, you know, like, I went through all of the newsletter issues and I, like, put in a link at the top to, like, buy the book because I've noticed that people are sharing the scripts around. Like, I can see the analytics that they're getting shared in people's Slack channels, or, you know, Trello, or Asana, which is a good sign that those maybe have some staying power. So, and just kind of thinking through a little bit more, a little bit more of the marketing and trying to arrange, you know, yeah, podcasts and stuff, but I gotta, I gotta market this thing. Colleen Schnettler 05:52Yeah, didn't Alex, who promoted his book on our podcast, didn't he do, like, 20 or 30 podcasts? Michele Hansen 06:00Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 06:01And how many have you done? Michele Hansen 06:04Um, I, well, Colleen Schnettler 06:07I already know the answer. Michele Hansen 06:09Well, I mean this one. I mean, I was on a couple recently where I talked about the newsletter. Like, I was on, I, yeah. Like, I was on the Get the Audience podcast, and I was on the Learn Neto podcast as well. But like, the book wasn't out yet. So those weren't really, Colleen Schnettler 06:37Right, you didn't have anything to sell at that time. Michele Hansen 06:39Yeah, it was just the newsletter. Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 06:40A good goal for you would be to try to book 15, you know, and get yourself as a guest on 15 to 20 podcasts to promote your book, because you can sell it now. Right? Even though it's not completely done. Michele Hansen 06:52Yeah. Yeah, I guess I guess. Yeah. I'm like scheduling one for the middle of July, like, so I'm currently, my goal is to publish it on July 2, but I like, I really hope that happens. But there may be like, you know, some people may need more time to, like, write reviews, and, like, making a cover and everything. So, it should be out by early July. Colleen Schnettler 07:20You're, when you say, I don't know. You mean the book? Michele Hansen 07:22Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 07:22I am little confused about what you're saying. Michele Hansen 07:23 Yeah. So like, upload it to Amazon, and people can buy a physical copy. Colleen Schnettler 07:28Yes. Michele Hansen 07:29So I don't think I'm quite there yet. Like, exactly like, and I think there's some things that I'm just saying aren't going to happen for, like, this first version, like, a friend of mine, who is a UX research expert was reading it, and there's a couple places she's like, this would be a really great table. This would be great as a graphic. And I'm like, yes, it would be but I have zero faculty for visual communication, and that is not going to happen right now. Like, that can like happen when my brain has the space to like, think that through, but it is, it is not happening right now. But yeah, I guess I guess I should say, I guess that, I don't even know where to start. Colleen Schnettler 08:13No no, Let's go like straight Nike style here. Michele Hansen 08:15Nike style? Colleen Schnettler 08:16What is it, just do it? Just do it. That's my challenge for you. I'm not going to talk to you for a couple weeks because I'm about to embark on my epic road trip. So, my challenge for you is to reach out to, find and reach out to 25 podcast hosts that you think, Michele Hansen 08:34Good Lord. Colleen Schnettler 08:34And they’re not all going to say yes, which is like, hey, man. I know. Michele Hansen 08:37I'm sitting here being like, Colleen, and I really struggle with self promotion. And even, you know, one person was hard for me and you're like, go do it 25 more times. Colleen Schnettler 08:4525 times. I love that idea. Michele Hansen 08:46Coach Colleen says 25 more reps. So not fair. Colleen Schnettler 08:50Yes. So, that's what my challenge for you is, is to reach out, Michele Hansen 08:54 How about five? Colleen Schnettler 08:57Really? I'm not impressed with your five. Michele Hansen 09:00I feel like everybody, I feel like everybody like, needs this person standing on their shoulder that's like, I will write one landing page this month. And you're just there. They're like, really? Colleen Schnettler 09:11Really? That's the best you can do? Michele Hansen 09:13That's, like, that's it, you know? Wait, like, why are you here? Colleen Schnettler 09:18You should try and, I don't know, just ask, ask one of our prominent friends who is a book author, Alex comes to mind again, how many podcasts he went on? Michele Hansen 09:27Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 09:28And try to hit that number. I mean, it's game time girl. Like, you wrote the book. You did the hard work,nd now it's a whole new set of hard work that you have to do because you're right, like, this is a brilliant book. You don't want it to languish because, no one's ever heard of it. Michele Hansen 09:43I didn't say it was brilliant. You said it was brilliant. Colleen Schnettler 09:46Well, here you go. It's brilliant. it's needed. It's gonna be amazing. So, I think you need to like, get in gear. Michele Hansen 09:54Yeah, I, yeah. Okay. I guess, I have to go, well, if you are listening and you want to promote me, then help me. Colleen Schnettler 10:06Maybe what we can do is we can, I have an idea. Okay, plan. So, just put a tweet out and ask everyone for their favorite business podcast. I bet you'll get a list of at least 30. And then you can just, Michele Hansen 10:17Yeah, I guess, yeah, like, but like it has to be for SaaS, for example, because like, Planet Money isn't gonna have me on. Colleen Schnettler 10:25Right, right. I meant yeah, SaaS podcast. I mean, there's enough of them that do podcasts similar to ours. Michele Hansen 10:31Make the internet do my research for me. Colleen Schnettler 10:34Yes, there we go. Harness the power of the internet. Michele Hansen 10:41So if you see a tweet from the Software Social Account soon about your favorite business SaaS podcast, now you know why. Colleen Schnettler 10:50The secret's out. Michele Hansen 10:52Yeah, the secret is out. Okay. Well, I will, I will try to book myself on some, some podcasts. I guess, I guess there's other ways I could promote it, too. Like, I could go on, like, Tiktok or, Colleen Schnettler 11:12No. Michele Hansen 11:14No, we will not do that. For those listening at home, I think Colleen just spit out her coffee. Yeah. Okay. Well, I have some marketing to do. Colleen Schnettler 11:34Yes. Michele Hansen 11:36Yeah. I think I have like, I've literally sent I think one email, maybe two. No, yeah, one email that mentioned that the presale was live, which basically goes against every best practice, like, some like, someone sent me some advice the other day, and they're like, send at least three emails a day on your like, launch days. I was like, okay, I've sent like, one in the last two weeks, and I sent out my newsletter the other day, and I actually forgot to include a link to the presale. So, I need to, like, Colleen Schnettler 12:06You know what, suggestion. Michele Hansen 12:07Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 12:07This is really cool. So do you know the Wes Bos is? He's, like, a famous JavaScript instructor. I bought like, all of his courses. But what he does is, he does, when he has a new product to launch, he does send a lot of emails, but he actually segments his emails. And to be fair, his list is probably like 30,000 people. But he segments his email, so you can unsubscribe just from the product launch emails, which I love, because I'm like, oh, I don't care about this product launch, or I already bought that, and then I can still continue to get all the normal newsletter emails. I mean, don't stress yourself out. Michele Hansen 12:10Yeah. Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 12:14But it's an idea. It's an idea. Michele Hansen 12:20Yeah, I'm only using review at this point for, so, I don't, like, I don't even have like, ConvertKit or anything. Colleen Schnettler 12:50Okay, set up. Michele Hansen 12:51Set up, so I, I don't, I probably should do that, but I haven't really, Colleen Schnettler 13:00Okay, so I think podcast. I'm still in editing, like, get it out the door mode, because there's still other like, launch stuff. Like, I have to like register the ISBN and like, I need to go through the whole process with Amazon of like, making sure all that's like, setup. Michele Hansen 13:19So, that feels like a July task. Colleen Schnettler 13:24July task. That's fine. It's halfway to July. It's almost July. So, Michele Hansen 13:30Yeah, so I, maybe I should, like, make a spreadsheet of all the different things and, like, have a goal for those. Colleen Schnettler 13:39I'm, I'm a big fan of measurable goals, right? Like, so, so I'm team, you know, write it down, keep a spreadsheet, keep track of it. Not that I've executed so well on my goals, right? It's easy for me to sit here and tell you what to do. It's way harder when it's you telling me what to do. So, you know, Michele Hansen 13:57Well isn't there, there's some business axiom about like, it's not like, like, like, achieving the exact goal is not important. It's the fact that you create one and then work towards it that matters. Like, there's somebody who has said something to that effect much more articulately than just said, but you know, it's like just you set the goal and then you go off on a journey to get there and you may end up somewhere else, but like, you have, you're at least doing something. Colleen Schnettler 14:23Right? You're making forward progress. Michele Hansen 14:25Yeah, and I should probably have a revenue goal, too. Like, Colleen Schnettler 14:29So, okay. Michele Hansen 14:29Even though I don't want one, I should, I guess. Colleen Schnettler 14:32Okay, I'm gonna get off topic, and I don't want to get too far off topic. But, so I'm a really big fan of, like, famous sports coaches, like, Michele Hansen 14:42Okay. Colleen Schnettler 14:43Like, this is, like, a thing. Like, I love reading biographies of like John Wooden and all these other really successful sports coaches. And one of my favorite takeaways from all of this information that I've osmosed is you cannot control the outcome, right? You can only control your effort and your attitude, which is why revenue goals are not very actionable. Because a revenue goal, like, you actually can't control that. What you can control is your attitude, right? How you approach the problem, and your effort, and how hard you work, and by aligning all of these steps in terms of effort and attitude, the revenue will come. But to set a goal, like, like, in the, you know, the basketball metaphors, like when the NCAA championships, you can't actually control that. You can just control how prepared you are, and your mindset when you attack the problem. Michele Hansen 15:40Oh, that makes sense. Colleen Schnettler 15:43I know that's, like, totally off topic, but I just read about it. And I'm like, Michele Hansen 15:48Yeah, so it's, so to what you were saying, like your goal of 25 podcast episodes. And, and rather than having a goal of say, you know, I don't know, like, $5,000, for example. Instead having it be like, be on 25 podcasts over the next six months to a year, about it, not including this one, because if we include all the episodes of this show then I'm like, totally hitting that, but I assume we're not. Um, and, you know, so like, being on a specific number of podcasts, or something else. I don't know, guest talks or something. Um, yeah, like picking like, specific actions that I can do that's like your equivalent. Like, it's like, write a landing page, right? Like, like, all these, like, things that are actions that I know are accretive towards, Colleen Schnettler 16:51Right. That's the idea. Michele Hansen 16:52Good outcomes, but like, I fundamentally don't have that much control over how much I actually sell. Like, I can keep my ears out for things that might sell like, you know, for example, I'm gonna sell templates, too, for $19 that are like, Notion templates of all the scripts and it occurred to me earlier, like the, the How to Talk So People Will Talk section like, people seem to really love that. And I was like, that could maybe be its own, like, mini book for like, $10. It's like, just like, so you want, like, you know, you, you want to get information out of people, and you want them to think you're like, trustworthy and you want to, you know, learn how to, like listen actively, then, a mini book or something, like there's other stuff I could do. Colleen Schnettler 17:36Right, I guess all of my points, all of that that you just described, that's effort, right? Those are things you do. You ultimately can't control your revenue, but it'll get there if you put the effort in. That's the idea. Michele Hansen 17:46But like, I if I set the goal of like, be the, I don't know, New York Times number one bestseller or whatever, like, I have zero control over that. It's also not realistic. And it's not it, in some ways it's like, de-motivating there have a goal that is not clearly achievable. Colleen Schnettler 18:07Exactly. Michele Hansen 18:07But being on 25 podcast is not like, like, that's like, those are very nebulous goals, because it's unclear what will lead to that. Colleen Schnettler 18:17Yeah. Exactly. Michele Hansen 18:17But being on 20 Live podcast in six months is concrete. And I ostensibly have control over that. Colleen Schnettler 18:26Yes. Nice. Michele Hansen 18:28Wow. So, it sounds like you are doing like a lot of like, business reading lately. Colleen Schnettler 18:38Yeah, um, not a ton. So I do have a couple audio books queued up for my drive that I'm excited about, business ebooks, Obviously Awesome is one that I've been wanting to listen to and I have purchased but I have not yet. This one I just really liked. This one was about, like I said, some of the famous coaches. First of all, I'm a sucker for sports movies, but, but I really liked that idea that ultimately you, you can't control, like, if you're going to win, but you can control all of the aspects of your journey, like how much time you put in, how much effort you put in, like, what your mindset is, you could, those are all things that you know, you can control. And as you know, for like, it feels like for a couple months now I've been struggling to move the product forward. Like, the product is doing well. I hit $1300 MRR. Michele Hansen 19:28Nice. Colleen Schnettler 19:28Which is, yeah, I mean, it's great. Michele Hansen 19:30Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 19:30I'm really happy with it. But it, I feel a little bit stuck. I feel, and I don't know if it's, I feel stuck because I haven't had the time, or if I feel stuck because I'm actually stuck. Like, I can't figure out if I feel stuck because if I, if I, let's say I gave myself a week and I just worked every day on it if I would get myself out of that kind of rut, or if there's really no rut to get out of and this is just the nature of the product. That it's just a slow burn, which is fine. I mean, it's going well, like I'm not complaining, I know some people can't, you know, haven't hit this milestone, especially not as quickly as I did. But, um, so there's that. So, I think what I want to do is I want to make a bigger push on content. Because I really haven't, I really don't have any content out there. So that's something I'm going to try and spend some time on, and like, there's just some things about the product that I want to keep iterating on, and I want to make better. Michele Hansen 20:36I mean, we were just talking about goals and the, sort of how difficult it is to have a monetary goal because you don't have control over it. And it's, it's awesome, first of all that, I mean, to have $1300 MRR means that, I mean, a month or two ago, we're talking about how you're hitting 1000. That means that like, that's, the thing, the thing about revenue for a subscription business is that revenue happens every month, like, this revenue that I have from the book, that happened once, and that's not going to happen again. But yours, people are paying you. So it's not just that you have made $1300 like, you, that is compounding and adding on top of each other. But I am sort of curious, like, there has to be some number or range in your head where you're like, I can stop consulting now. Or I can, you know, somebody offers me a full time job and I can just like, turn it down without even thinking about. Like, there has to be some number for you. Colleen Schnettler 21:38Absolutely. And I think like, and, and, absolutely. And I mean, I'm in this for the money. Like, just to be clear, that makes some people really uncomfortable. I don't know if they're not used to women saying that or what, but like, when I tell people that they get a little uncomfortable. Michele Hansen 21:53It’s like, your job, like, Colleen Schnettler 21:55Yeah, like, I want to make more money. Michele Hansen 21:56Like, of course everybody is in their job for the money. Like, yes, I'm doing this book as like, a passion project and like, which leads me to make all sorts of decisions that are confusing to people who prioritize money, like, but like you, understandably, are prioritizing money, because this is your job. And if this doesn't work out, then you know, Colleen Schnettler 22:17I gotta go get a real one. Michele Hansen 22:18I mean tons more consulting, or like, getting, getting a paycheck job is what you have to do. Like, this is not, Colleen Schnettler 22:25Yeah, so. Michele Hansen 22:27Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 22:28I mean, the thing I love about owning your own business is the possibilities are infinite, right? Like, I mean, I, from a personal perspective, you know, if I could get to 10k, that would be like, Oh, my gosh, I cannot, that would be, I'd be over the moon, right? Michele Hansen 22:45So that's the number. Colleen Schnettler 22:47The number would be 10k. But, you know, why can't I have a couple million dollars a year in revenue? Like, I want a business. Michele Hansen 22:53 Why can't you have a million dollars? Colleen Schnettler 22:56I mean, I want a business. Like, if I hit 10k and stay there forever, like, I probably would be a little frustrated. Like, to me, the whole point of having your own business is the possibilities are, in, you know, infinite. And like, one of the things I've been able to do with my modest income, is I've been able to hire two people to help write content for me. And yeah, hired someone else. Michele Hansen 23:23Oh, you're, wait. Colleen Schnettler 23:25And, yeah, man, I'm crazy over here. I'm just, dollar bills. Michele Hansen 23:28Dude, and I'm like, 7 years into this and I like, just hired, like, a part time VA, like, three months ago. Colleen Schnettler 23:34Yeah, yeah. I feel like you're doing it wrong. But that's a different issue. Michele Hansen 23:37Probably. I'm doing it my way, okay. Colleen Schnettler 23:40That's right. So, and the thing I love about that is, I, with, with the people that I'm paying, I've been able to, you know, people who are kind of writing anyway, now I can pay them to write, it seems like such a win-win. Like, I feel like I'm, it's good for them and it's good for me. And it's something I really love. So like, ultimately, I would love to build this into, like, you know, a really successful business and hire a person and, and, and be able to have created this environment where I can work with who I want and buy my beach house and all that. I mean, I'm big on the beach house if I haven't mentioned that a few times already. Michele Hansen 24:25So the first, like, the first big goal, which I think it'll be fun to reevaluate this a year from now, is like 10k basically. Colleen Schnettler 24:36Yeah. I mean, Michele Hansen 24:36To get you to 10k revenue and then to like, the big, big goal is buy Colleen a beach house. Colleen Schnettler 24:43Buy Colleen a beach house. Yeah. But to me 10k, and I don't know if I have, and I'm still, I feel like I'm in that messy middle phase. Like, I hit 1k, which makes it feel like it's a real thing. Like it's, it's legit, but I don't know if I'm in, I feel like there's a, going from zero to 1k is different than going from 1k to 10k. Right? It's a factor of 10 more. Like it's a big, you feel like going from zero to 1k is one milestone and one to 10 is your next milestone. But one to 10 is way more than zero to one, right? So, I honestly don't know if I'm positioned correctly with this product to get there. Michele Hansen 25:26Which is why you’re reading Obviously Awesome. Colleen Schnettler 25:28Which is why I'm reading Obviously, Obviously Awesome. I just, I just don't know, if I'm in the right space, there's so much opportunity. I was talking to a founder recently and he talked about how he pivoted his company and moved into a totally different space, and they started growing, like they were kind of stagnant for a while, and then they kind of made this pivot, moved into a new space and their growth exploded. So, I definitely think there's a spot for me, I just don't know what it is, and I just don't know, it feels like a lot. Like the other thing that, that I wanted to just kind of bring up is when people talk about how to grow in your business. They talk about, like, building the product, as if it's this static thing that takes you like two weeks, and like writing good software is hard. And, it's a constantly evolving process. So it's something that constantly needs my you know, my attention, and that's not bad. I just feel like, you know, it's hard to balance, as most people who listen to this who are working and building a product know, it's just hard to balance all of those competing desires. So I just don't know if I have a, I guess the truth is, I don't know if I have a product that's going to get me to 10k. Like, I don't know, I don't know where it is right now. It's that product. Michele Hansen 26:52I mean, thinking back to where we were like I don't, I don't have our numbers in front of me, so I don't remember them exactly. But like, the thing that really made our revenue jump was not adding any one particular feature or one particular marketing thing. It was a pricing change, because we like, so we started out, I think we were like $31 our first month. And then I don't know, like, maybe maybe $100 the next month, and then like $400 the next month, and then in May of 2014, we had someone who needed, like, a crazy volume of usage every single day. And the only way we could make that work was basically to give them their own server. And we looked around and see what, you know, big companies were charging for these sort of really high volume, like, plans and we're, and I think we we figured out like, the cheapest one was like 10,000 a year, for, that was still like rate limited, I think to 100,000 a day, but we're like, okay, we can do like basically Unlimited, up to like 5 million a day for you for $750 a month, which worked out to 9000 a year. And adding that plan, which was like, slightly different feature-wise, but like it wasn't it wasn't like adding a feature to the API, but it was like a pricing feature, and a new plan, adding that one plan and then, like, we didn't think anyone else would ever take it, and then people started taking it. Like, that is what caused our revenue to really grow. And so I wonder if there's some space for like, you know, pricing evolution here. And like maybe there's some other way of packaging your products with the existing features in a way that's at a higher price point. But I don't like, I don't know why that is. Colleen Schnettler 28:44So I do. Michele Hansen 28:44 It's your business, like, so. Colleen Schnettler 28:46Yeah. Michele Hansen 28:46But like, I think it's worth thinking about, like, the pricing aspects of, of this. Colleen Schnettler 28:50Yeah, well, and one of the things I do is my app has a lot more power that I'm exposing at the moment. So, I think the answer for example, like, I think I limit your file size to 50MBs, there's no reason I have to do that, like I don't, you know, there's there's a couple things someone reached out to me and told me that his company has a setup now where their customers upload files, like up to a gig(GB) through Upload Care, and then they, but they move them off the Upload Care servers, because it's so expensive, or it's a whole thing. I'm talking to him, I'm gonna, you know, have I have an interview scheduled with him to better understand Michele Hansen 29:26Whoo. Colleen Schnettler 29:26I know. Michele Hansen 29:27Music to my ears. Colleen Schnettler 29:30But I, you know, so my point is, there's the two things that I'm not doing, I think I've might have mentioned this last week, is multiple file uploads, which I can do. I'm doing it for one client, special, and large files. So it might just be that I'm not quite positioned properly yet. Michele Hansen 29:46Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 29:46In terms of I've really kept, I've kept a lot of that functionality close to the chest for no particular reason, just because I didn't want to like, release all the features at once and overwhelm everyone like, oh my goodness, but since I can't do those things, it seems like re, kind of revisiting, revisiting some of those options would probably be a good move for me. Michele Hansen 30:09Yeah, I think it's really smart that you're, like you're doing a big road trip. So you're, and you're going to be listening to this book in the car, right? Colleen Schnettler 30:19Yes, ma'am. Michele Hansen 30:20Like, I find that we do our best like, business thinking on road trips, like, I, maybe it's because, you know, you like, you, you can't be doing anything else, like, you are literally stuck there. Colleen Schnettler 30:34Right. You’re stuck. Michele Hansen 30:34And like, and I can't be looking at my phone in the car, otherwise, I'm going to get carsick. And, of course, it's the two of us and like, like, our go to for road trips is like, how I built this. So we end up like, really like, coming up with stuff on on, like, you know, I have, like, emailed myself of, like, conversations we've had on road trips. And so of course, it'll only be you. But, you know, those times when, like, the kids are sleeping in the back or whatever, and you can't have the audio book on and thinking all these things through, like, I think it'll be really good thinking time for yourself. And but remember to like, take notes every day on what it is that you think about. Colleen Schnettler 31:17Oh. That's a good point. I should bring a notebook. That's a really good point. Michele Hansen 31:20Like, a notebook or even just like, record a voice memo for yourself or whatever, if that's easier, just like, something so you don't, like, because there are times when when we've had like, an amazing conversation on a road trip, and then I didn't write it down. And then like, you know, a week later, we're back and we're like, oh, my God, like, what was that like, an amazing thing. And like I had this whole, like, like pre COVID, we were on a road trip. And I had this whole idea of like, our content strategy built around, like really unique address data. Like, for example, in South Carolina, there's three, there's like four towns called Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, all right next to each other, like, I was gonna, like, write about all of these, like, odd location, address things, and I came up with this great name for it on the road trip, and then I like, I still cannot remember what that name was, so take notes. Colleen Schnettler 32:09Yeah, I totally, I totally hear you. I know exactly what you're saying. I think that's a great idea. I think I have a lot of thinking to do. You know, I kind of feel like it was really exciting in the beginning when I was trying to launch the product. And then it's really exciting. And then everything is very, very exciting. And then you hit your first milestone, and then it's kind of like, oh, but now there's another milestone, okay, so I never really win. Michele Hansen 32:32Right. The goalpost just moves. Colleen Schnettler 32:34The goalpost continuously moves. So it's interesting to me, I mean, I have a lot to think about is like, is this a product that can get me to 10k? How do I, and how do I get there? Right? Like, what is what do I need to do to get there? As I just said, when I was giving you my little pep talk, like it's putting in the work, I mean, you know, it's not going to sell itself. So yeah, I'm ready to really, really give it some time to think about it on my epic journey. Michele Hansen 33:01Alright, well, on, on that note, I guess we should just sort of make a quick programming note that Colleen will be away for the next two weeks. And so we will, we will be leading on that social side of Software Social and have some guests coming up that I'm super excited about. And then I will be away the following week, so Colleen is gonna have a guest on, and then we will both be like, basically a month from now. Colleen Schnettler 33:34Oh my gosh. I won’t talk to you for a month. Michele Hansen 33:35Wow. That feels so weird. Colleen Schnettler 33:37Oh, gracious. That's sad. Michele Hansen 33:45I mean, you'll text me roadtrip updates. Colleen Schnettler 33:45Obviously. Michele Hansen 33:46Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 33:46Obviously, I’m so excited to see, like, cactuses, by the way. Michele Hansen 33:52Yeah? Colleen Schnettler 33:52In Arizona. Yeah. I'm so excited to see the great American West. Michele Hansen 33:55I've heard Arizona is, like, gorgeous. Colleen Schnettler 33:57Yeah, I'm super pumped to see a big cactus. Anyway. Michele Hansen 34:00Oh, I've been there. I was okay, whatever. We're gonna stop here for today. Colleen Schnettler 34:07Wrap it up. Michele Hansen 34:11I'll talk to you next week.
Sympathy, Empathy, and Solving Problems
Pre-order Michele's book! deployempathy.com/order/ Michele Hansen 00:00Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by the website monitoring tool, Oh Dear. Oh Dear does everything they can to help you avoid downtime like scheduled task monitoring, SSL certificate expiration notifications and more. But downtime happens. When it does, it's how you communicate in times of crisis that make the difference. Oh Dear makes it easy to keep your customers up to date during critical times. You can sign up for a 10 day free trial with no credit card required at OhDear.app. Colleen Schnettler 00:35So Michele, do you have a, Michele Hansen 00:38Hey, Colleen Schnettler 00:38Good morning. Do you have a numbers update for us on your book? Michele Hansen 00:43I do. So my presale went live about a week and a half ago, when our episode with Sean went live. That was my deadline. And, I've sold 43 copies right now. Yeah, it's kind of exciting. Um, it's not all people I know, which is exciting. Colleen Schnettler 01:06That's very exciting. Michele Hansen 01:08I love how supportive people have been. And it also, it makes me, it's just reassuring that people I don't know are buying it. But yeah, so that puts it right now, just, and this is just the raw, you know, number of times $29, which is $1,247. Colleen Schnettler 01:30That's amazing. Congratulations. Michele Hansen 01:33Yeah. Thank you. And I got my first payout yesterday, which after, like, taxes, and everything else, was $912. Colleen Schnettler 01:41Wow. Michele Hansen 01:42Which was kind of exciting, and gives me a little bit of budget to work with, with, like, you know, hiring a proofreader, and using some, like, layout tools, but, you know, so I was pulling these numbers, and because, you know, everybody loves numbers and whatnot. And I was thinking about it. So, so I got this, this message from someone yesterday, who had started reading the book, and it was actually someone I don't know. And if I can just kind of read what they, what they said. Colleen Schnettler 02:25Yes, please.Michele Hansen 02:26And so I had a personal aha moment reading distinction between sympathetic, empathetic and solution based responses. My sympathetic conclusion based responses are leaving no space for empathetic, something I need to address. I'm an engineer and an architect by trade, and I'm looking to do a better job interviewing the humans attached to our work. But I'm also thinking about your book from the sense that a better balance of empathy will help me be a better teammate as well. And, like, getting that was so moving for me because it made me think about how, you know, I'm not writing this book for the money. Like, yes, the book needs to make money, because I've been working on it for four months now and have, you know, there's a lot of time I haven't spent working on Geocodio. Oh, like, I've been a pretty bad Geocodio employee the past couple of months, like, full honesty, right? So like, I have to, like, it has to have been, you know, worth my time. But like, I am not, I'm not motivated by that, like, I am motivated by this, by like, you know, like, I have this like, secret dream goal. Well, I mean, it's not a secret cuz I've, like, tweeted about it, but like, whatever. You know, Mathias sometimes says to me, he's like, I know you were thinking about something because you tweeted about it. And I’m like, oh, I forgot to, like, verbalize that. Anyway, um, I have this dream that through the process of learning this for interviewing, and, like, product development and marketing reasons, people will understand how to be more empathetic and use that in their daily lives. Like, everyone has a capacity for empathy. Everybody can learn it, not everybody is taught it or shown it so they don't really learn it. But everyone has a capacity for it. And, but also, like, very few people, you know, put like, be more empathetic, like, learn how to learn how to use empathy, like on their to do list every day. But they put write a landing page, get more customers, build a feature, like, reply to all of those customers and intercom like, those are the things that end up on a to do list. And so I have this like, kind of, I don't know, like, naive dream that like people will read this and apply these skills to the things they're already doing, but in doing so, learn how to be more empathetic in their daily life or you know, as a as a team member or whatnot. And just getting this message really, it was so motivating, but also so soul-nourishing because it really made me feel like, like the book has done what I wanted it to do. Like, this is what I set out to achieve and, like, this message makes me feel like the book is a success, regardless of how many copies it sells. Like, so it was just like, it was kind of a, it was kind of a, like a moment, like it was, it also sort of like if you're having this effect, like you can, like, stop rearranging it, like, you know, I feel like I've done a rewrite every week for, like, the past eight weeks. Yeah, time to time to ship the gosh darn thing. Colleen Schnettler 05:57That is wonderful. So what I just heard you say is, this book is secretly teaching us how to be better humans, wrapped up in a book about customer interviews. Michele Hansen 06:09Yes, wrapped up in a book about which features you should prioritize, and how to, you know, pick a pricing model based on what people's usage patterns are, and, like, how to understand what people want and write better landing pages. All that stuff they're already trying to do. But then yeah, there's, there's this kind of bigger message. Like, I feel like so much of good UX practice is good human being practice. Colleen Schnettler 06:35Yeah. Michele Hansen 06:36Um, and, I mean, I, I really learned about empathy by doing interviews myself. So this, I mean, it's, it's, it's very personal for me in a way that, like, the book is, I don't know, it is very, very personal for me. And it's not just about showing empathy to other people. It's also about showing empathy to yourself, too, which is just as important. Colleen Schnettler 07:06So I have not read the book yet, unfortunately. Can you tell me briefly, what the difference is between empathy and sympathy that that writer wrote into you? Because we talk about it a lot, but we've never defined it, really. Michele Hansen 07:22Yeah, that's true. So empathy is when you, basically when you, when you try to understand the other person's context without judgment, and it doesn't mean that you agree with what they're saying. You're just trying to find the context behind what they're saying or what they're doing. Because, sort of, most of us, basically, we assume that our, there's this assumption that our actions make sense from our perspective. That is to say you wouldn't go out and do something if it didn't make sense to you, like, maybe very few people might, but like, for the most part, we have this underlying assumption that, that the things that we do make sense to us. And so you're basically trying to find that internal context for why somebody does something, and then you reflect it back for them. So for example, if you came to me and started telling me about how, like, I don't, I don't know something you were struggling with, like, let's say, you felt like you were banging your head up against the keyboard all week on some, like, coding problem and it was really frustrating for you. An empathetic response to that would be man, that sounds really hard and like you were working really hard on it and it was super frustrating for you. A sympathetic response would be, oh, I'm sorry you went through that. So a sympathetic response creates distance between the person who is speaking and the person who has aired something, and that might not be a complaint or a frustration. It could be like something positive, but it creates distance. And sometimes it's called fake empathy. Like, I feel like this is what you see in a lot of, like, really bad public figures, celebrity apologies. It's like, I'm sorry, that offended you. It's like, no, that's wrong. Like, like, that's not, that's not actually apologizing. And then there's also kind of this other element that I feel like is this sort of, like, solution-based responses, which comes from a place of caring, and I think us as product builders, I know me, like, we really fall into this, is someone, like, if you came to me with some, some problem. If I just said, oh, well, have you tried this? Which, I'm trying to solve your problem, I'm showing care, right? Like, I wouldn't propose a solution to your problem if I didn't care about you and making that solution better. The problem is, is that it doesn't validate your experience and it doesn't acknowledge your experience. So, while it comes from a good place, it's not empathetic because it doesn't say, wow, like, that was really hard for you. Like it doesn't, it doesn't fake make you feel seen or heard. And it could end up being, through the course of a conversation, you end up explicitly asking me like, do you have any advice for how I could do this? Like, what should I try? I feel like I've tried all these other things. But an empathetic response starts with acknowledging what the other person has gone through. Colleen Schnettler 10:25Okay. Okay Michele Hansen 10:26And then also checking in with them, like, do you, do you want me to listen to you about this? Or do you want me to help you brainstorm ideas? Colleen Schnettler 10:33Okay. Michele Hansen 10:33Like, so but I think that's, that's like one of those that really, like, it took me a while to wrap my head around that because the other thing about a solution response, especially in the context of a customer interview, or whatnot, is that you need all the context behind, behind why someone does something and why they went through something in order to really build something that solves the problem for them in a way that they understand and they're capable of grokking. Right? Because we need all of the context behind it, not just the functional context, but also sort of the emotional and social context of things in order to build a product that someone feels like is speaking to their experience and the problem they have. Does that make sense? Colleen Schnettler 11:18Yeah, it, it does. It's, it feels like a subtle difference, though. Like, when I try to understand your problem in your context, in your context, the sympathy for versus the empathy, like, it feels very subtle to me. Michele Hansen 11:34It is subtle, but like, um, I mean, it's, it's subtle. You know, it's the difference between, I'm sorry, that was hard for you and that was hard for you. Like, those are a subtle difference between them, but there is a huge difference between that and what someone would receive. Colleen Schnettler 11:53Yeah, I can see that. Michele Hansen 11:55And because when you say, I'm sorry, that happened to you, it emphasizes that it didn't happen to me. Colleen Schnettler 12:01Right, okay. Michele Hansen 12:01It actually, like, Brené Brown talks about this a lot. I'm sorry, that happened to you. It, it makes the other person feel more alone because it emphasizes that they are the only one who experienced that, and it makes them feel isolated. Colleen Schnettler 12:18Okay. Michele Hansen 12:19And she has a great way of responding, I'm sorry, of phrasing this, and I don't know if I'm doing it justice. But basically it creates that distance, and feeling alone and feeling like you're the only person who went through something is a really, really hard feeling, especially when you have just gone through something frustrating, and it doesn't have to be a big thing. It could just be, you know, the fact that I spent my week fighting with Grammarly, like, like that could be the problem we're discussing. And, but if you said oh, I'm sorry, you went through that, like, it reminds me that you didn't go through that. Colleen Schnettler 12:55Hmm. Okay. Michele Hansen 12:57And it was like, oh, yeah, that was like, maybe it was just me, like, maybe I was doing something wrong, like, am I using it wrong? Like is like, like, you know, it creates all of that doubt and feeling of sort of loneliness in it. Colleen Schnettler 13:11And so tell me the empathetic response again. Michele Hansen 13:14That sounds really hard. Colleen Schnettler 13:15That sounds really hard. Okay, right. So you're not, you're trying not to create that distance where they're an individual isolated, Michele Hansen 13:23Right. Colleen Schnettler 13:24And you're over here. Michele Hansen 13:25And it doesn’t start out with I, right? Like, the sympathetic response to start with, you know, like, I'm sorry, that offended you. Colleen Schnettler 13:33Okay. Michele Hansen 13:34Versus the difference between like, that offended you. Because when you say it that way, you're sort of asking for elaboration. Colleen Schnettler 13:41Right. Right. Michele Hansen 13:42Versus I'm sorry, I offended you just shuts it off. Colleen Schnettler 13:46Wow, I say that all the time. I'm sorry, XYZ happened to you. Michele Hansen 13:50I said it all the time, too, then I started learning about this stuff. And I was like, I’m accidentally like, a jerk, and I didn't even realize it. But so many of us speak this way. And we learn the way we speak from the people around us. And if the people around you, when you were learning to speak, didn't speak empathetically, even if they're otherwise nice people. like, then it would make sense why you think this way and don't realize it. Colleen Schnettler 14:15Interesting. Michele Hansen 14:16Like, it's totally normal to not realize that what you have been saying is actually not empathetic. Like, like, it is a, it is a learned skill for many people. I mean, the people who have it built in are the people whose, you know, parents really made it a focus when they, when they had their kid. Like, but for most of us, it's kind of oh, I guess I should stop saying that. Like, I remember how at one point, like, when I was in my early 20s, I was at a job and somebody was like, you know, you really shouldn't say well, actually. Like, I don't know if you realize how you are coming across. Like, I know you don't mean anything by it, but like, it's, it's kind of like, and I was like, oh, crap, I do that all the time. Okay, like, mental note, like, mental dictionary update: stop. Like, so it doesn't, you know, it doesn't mean that you're not a nice person or that you're not an empathetic person or that you’re not, you don't have a capability for empathy, it simply means that you haven't learned it and all of the various implications of it and we can call learn. Colleen Schnettler 15:15Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you for, for telling me about that. Like, that's really interesting. I didn't know that. I find that like, this whole thing, empathy and psychology, as I'm trying to, as I'm talking to people and trying to sell my product, I have found that it really, and I already knew this, but like, now I'm seeing it, it really makes a difference. Can I just tell you about this one issue, which I find so interesting? Michele Hansen 15:42Yes. Colleen Schnettler 15:43Okay. So the way my product works is you upload files to the cloud, and then I provide you a dashboard where you can see all of those files. I have gotten several requests now from people to allow them to tag the files. Michele Hansen 16:02Oh, yeah, like Drew asked for that. Right? Colleen Schnettler 16:04Yeah. So I've been trying to figure out why people want to tag the files. He's not the only one who asked for it. Some other people have asked for it. The reason these people want to tag the files is because they want to be able to mass delete all of the files they've uploaded in a development environment. Why did they want to do that? From what I'm understanding, they want to do that so those files, like, because those aren't production files, they're not, like, cluttering up their dashboard. So when those people have asked me about this, I said, well, look, if you exceed your storage, because I don't have a mass delete function right now, and I don't have that, I'll just give you more storage. But nobody likes that answer. It's like, and so I think it's like a mental psychological thing where they want, like, a nice, clean dashboard. I don't know, I just find this really interesting, because I'm like, storage is cheap. I'll give you more storage until I implement this. But, but it's like, it's, like, as human beings, they really want, like, to segment stuff. I don't know, it's like mental. That's kind of the way I've been, I've been thinking about it. Like, as human beings, they don't want files that they don't need on their dashboard, even if they don't have to pay for them. But I'm like, I don't know. So, so that's just kind of been an interesting one for me. I'm like, but you literally like, I'm not gonna make you pay for those files. It's fine. They can just be there in outer space. But no one, yeah, that's an interesting one that keeps coming up. Michele Hansen 17:25Yeah, it sounds like they, like, that clutter is creating a certain like, Colleen Schnettler 17:33Mental clutter or something psychological clutter. Michele Hansen 17:36Nervousness, or something. And then there's also this element of wanting to, like, mentally, like to mentally separate things like, I'm sort of, I'm reminded of one of my favorite economics papers called Mental Accounting by Richard Thaler, which is basically on how people like, they create different jobs for different bank accounts and investment accounts, and like, you know, for example, people might have one brokerage account that's just for, like, they have like fun money versus they have their serious 401k. Or like, some people have many different bank accounts for, you know, for different purposes. And it, there's, there's probably a broader term for this, but since I come from an econ background, that's, but like, people wanting to create these different mental categories, and basically, like, it's almost like they want to go, sort of, it's like mentally going to IKEA and buying one of those room divider shelves with all the different boxes you can slide boxes in and, like, being able to look at it and see that everything is in all of its little different categories and is in its place. And they know like, you know which things are in which box, and it looks all nice and organized from the outside. Colleen Schnettler 18:51Yeah, I am going to do it because I have found I use my own product for my clients, and I have found I desire the same thing. But I think you're absolutely right. Like, from a purely practical perspective, it doesn't matter. But from, like, a human organizational mental box perspective, like, it seems to make people happy. Michele Hansen 19:11Yeah, like, there's that functional perspective of it. But then there's the emotional perspective of feeling like everything is organized. And then I also wonder if there's a social element where like, maybe they're afraid one of their coworkers will use a file that was only for development, or because there's so many files and they're all in one list, someone will use the wrong file or, like, I wonder if there's any, any sort of elements around that going on? Colleen Schnettler 19:41Yeah. Could be. I didn't ask that. That's, Michele Hansen 19:47So when someone asks you for that, what did you say back to them, exactly? Colleen Schnettler 19:52Well, the first time someone asked me, I said, that's a great idea. I'm totally gonna do that. Michele Hansen 19:58Okay. That’s an understandable response. Colleen Schnettler 19:59I know you're over there thinking, like, have I taught you nothing, Colleen? You have taught me. That was before we were doing a podcast. Michele Hansen 20:06No, that was a starting point, and that's a perfectly understandable reaction to that. What did you start saying after that? Colleen Schnettler 20:15So the second request I got was via email. So I didn't really have the back and forth that I would have had when I'm talking to someone on the phone or on Slack. And, so this person, I asked them kind of what their use case was, and I also told them in the email that they, you know, I wasn't going to charge them for development files. So if storage became a problem, we could work something out until I had the, you know, a bulk delete API set up. And this person was looking to segment files so they could do a mass delete of the development files. And they also brought up they thought it would be great to be able to segment files, like via model. So you could have, here's all my avatar files over here, here's all my resumes over here, which would be really cool. I mean, that I can totally see the value because and then you're then in your admin, yeah, then in your admin dashboard, you could easily filter based on, you know, what your tag was. And it's really not hard to do, I just haven't done it. But I do like, I do like that idea. And that, to me, makes a lot of sense because I think people really like, like we just talked about, like, you like to have your stuff in the appropriate boxes. Michele Hansen 21:34I think it's hard sometimes when somebody proposes an idea that we get the value of because we would use it ourselves. It can be really hard to say, can you walk me through how you would use that? Colleen Schnettler 21:46Yeah it is. Michele Hansen 21:47Like, because their reasons may be different. And we really, we need all of those reasons because the reasons I would do something might be different than the reasons why somebody else would do something. But when we understand something, it feels very unnatural to ask for clarification, even when we don't need it. But it's so reasonable. Colleen Schnettler 22:08That's exactly what it is. It feels so weird, because I'm like, yeah, totally. That's a great freaking idea. Yeah, it is odd. Michele Hansen 22:16I sometimes feel like it's, I wonder if this comes from, like, conditioning in school where, like, I feel like the kid who asks a lot of questions is, you know, sort of branded as annoying. I was definitely that kid in math class. Like, I just always seemed to understand it two weeks after the test. And I wonder if it's like that fear that like, oh, God, like, am I going to be the person who asks questions. And then we have this like, sense that being the person who asks questions, even one that might be sort of a quote, unquote, like dumb question that's clarifying something. Get you like, like, I wonder if there's kind of this built in social conditioning around that, that makes us not want to ask those clarification questions. And we're like, okay, I think I can guess what they want, so I'm just not gonna ask further about that. But, but when we're building a product, you need to be able to, like, look in all the different nooks and crannies of how they're thinking. Colleen Schnettler 23:08Yeah, definitely. That definitely is valuable. To your point, you might use it one way, and they might want it for something totally different. So I really do think, like, throughout the course of this podcast, and since we've been spending a lot of time talking about customer interviews over the past several months, that I've gotten way better at it, because it's, it's my instinct, just to say, yeah, I totally agree, because I do totally agree. So why, I think for me, it's not like, I'm not I don't I'm not scared of asking clarifying questions. I think it's more like, I don't want to waste any more time. Like, I'm like, okay, cool. Let's not waste anyone's time, and let's just go do it. So I have, I do really think I've grown a lot in that, in that kind of sphere of pausing, slow down Colleen, because not really good at slowing down. And, you know, kind of dive into what they want and why they want it. So I think that's been good. Michele Hansen 24:02It can be kind of tough as like, I feel like we're both pretty enthusiastic and kind of like, like, have you ever been called bubbly? Colleen Schnettler 24:11Yeah, of course. Michele Hansen 24:11Yeah, I have been called bubbly, too. Yeah. So like, I like feel like enthusiastic people want to be like, yeah, that sounds awesome. Like, it's so, it's so counter,to like how I would interact with someone socially. Colleen Schnettler 24:25Yeah, I agree. So, so anyway, that was something, I was thinking about that when you were talking all about, you know, empathy and sympathy and psychology, is how much these kinds of factors play into product building. Michele Hansen 24:41Yeah and building an intuitive product that, that makes sense to people. Like it's, it's really hard to build something that's intuitive because it requires understanding the user’s mental model of how something works, and you can't understand their mental model unless you have, you know, really, you know, poked through every nook and cranny of how they think about it. And also seeing what are the similarities at scale across many different customers. You can't just build it for one particular person, right? Like this, I think this is like, do we want to do we want to do more definitions? Because now I'm excited to get into definitions between Human Centered Design versus activities under design. But if we are, we are feeling good on definition today, then, Colleen Schnettler 25:29I don't know what those are. Yeah, go ahead. Michele Hansen 25:32So like, you probably hear people talk about human-centered design, right? Colleen Schnettler 25:37I mean, no, but okay, I believe you, so not me. Michele Hansen 25:40So like humans, I feel like this kind of came really into it, like, especially in, in tech in the past, like, I don't know, 10,10-15 years, like, you like, think about the human behind it. And like, this is where a lot of like, agile stories come from, is like, as an administrator, I would like to be able to update the billing page, whenever we get a new credit card, like, like, those kinds of stories that if you've worked in the corporate world, you have seen the ads of so and so like, those kind of stories. And like, creating personas, and maybe there's like a picture of a person, and there's their age, and there's like, you know, like, all of those kinds of things that's very, like human-centered designs, and you're designing for people and understanding what those people need. Then there's activity-centered design, which is designing for things that people might be trying to accomplish, but not for specific people, if that makes sense. So it's like, so if you're thinking, I just used an example of like, a billing administrator. The human-centered design approach with a persona might be you know, this is Susan, and she lives in Iowa, she has been working in insurance for 20 years, she has a dog named Charlie, like she prefers to use her iPad on the weekends, but during the week, she uses Windows like, it's like that kind of stuff. Activity-centered design would be like, when billing administrators are going through this process, they want to be able to, you know, these are the different kinds of things they're thinking about, these are the different functions that they need to be able to do. Here are the different things they might be feeling. Like, do they want to be updating a credit card? Like, how does that make them feel, like, is that, is that enjoyable for them? Is that frustrating? Like, are there other people they're working with on this? Do they need to go get a p-card from someone else? Like, what is this entire process they're going through that is independent of them as a specific person and independent of the product? And then how does the product help them get through that entire activity, either easier, faster, or cheaper. I feel like I just dropped like, Colleen Schnettler 27:54There's a lot. Michele Hansen 27:54A lot. Colleen Schnettler 27:55I'm gonna have to re-listen to that one. Michele Hansen 27:56But basically, Colleen Schnettler 27:57So what's the, Michele Hansen 27:58Activity-centered is kind of the approach that I take. And that's the, the approach in the book is designing a process that exists regardless of the person and regardless of the process. Colleen Schnettler 28:10Okay. Michele Hansen 28:10The product, I think I messed that up. Colleen Schnettler 28:13Okay, so which one is better? Do you have all the answers, Michele? Tell us. Michele Hansen 28:18I am not going to throw bombs in the design world here. I mean, you know, there's, there's value in designing for specific people, right, and, and specific types of people, especially when you're talking about accessibility and whatnot. But fundamentally, you know, like, activity center design is okay, what it, what is the thing that someone's trying to accomplish? For example, 500 years ago, you may have solved, you know, entertain me at home, when I'm alone on a Saturday night with cards or dice, right. And now you might solve it with Netflix. But that fundamental process that you're going through to not be bored when you're in your house on the weekend, like, that process and that desire is relatively constant, which is the thing about activity-centered design approaches is that you're looking at a process that is consistent over time, because you're speaking to sort of broader, underlying goals. And this types of products, someone might use the different functional and social and emotional things that might be important to them are different, but the overall process is the same. And so this is what I think about a lot when we're like thinking about the process that someone is going through and designing something that's intuitive for them and building that mental model is understanding, okay, why do they need to be able to tag things and why do they need to be able to mass delete these things, and what is this overall thing they're trying to do? And it sounds like it's sort of, to feel like all of their files are organized and they can find things when they want to, and that desire to be organized is a relatively consistent desire. Colleen Schnettler 30:03Yeah, I think one of the things, one of the phrases we use at work is to surprise and delight the user. And I feel like this falls into the surprise and delight category. Like it's not necessary, but it's delightful. Michele Hansen 30:19You just used the phrase ‘at work’. Does that mean when you are working? Or? Colleen Schnettler 30:26Oh, just when I'm, just this company that I've been contracting for for a while likes to use that phrase. Michele Hansen 30:31Okay, gotcha. Colleen Schnettler 30:32So this to me feels, Michele Hansen 30:34I didn't know if you’d suddenly gone off and gotten a full time job without telling me. Colleen Schnettler 30:39Well, I'll tell you if I do that. I may be considering that. That's like a whole ‘nother podcast episode. I feel like we don't have enough time to dive into that. Michele Hansen 30:50We'll do that in a future episode. Colleen Schnettler 30:52Colleen's life decisions. But yeah, so, this feature, I feel like, is delightful. And when we talk about like design, you know, in the context, you were just saying, I think it does fit into the, the latter category. Michele Hansen 31:10Yeah. And I can, I can understand how someone, or you might even, or probably, I feel like if we had talked about this, like, six months or a year ago, the reaction kind of would be like, this feels like we're really splitting hairs over something that's super obvious, and why don't I just go build it? Colleen Schnettler 31:29Well, yeah, Michele Hansen 31:30Which, I think it's a very understandable reaction. Colleen Schnettler 31:34Yeah, I mean, I think the problem I'm having, and I know everyone in my position has this problem. It's just, there's just not enough time to do all these things. Like, one part of me wants to take like six months and just do all the things, right? And then the other part of me wants to balance my life with building this business, and is trying to be patient with, with my constraints as a human. So I know, you know, everyone has those, that struggle, everyone who's working and trying to do this. But yeah, I'd love to add all these things. Like, I want to do all the things of course I do. Michele Hansen 32:10Speaking of which, building the business, we started this episode with my numbers update. Do you want to give us a little numbers update before we go? Colleen Schnettler 32:31So I do want to tell a little story about this. Storytime. So, someone who's kind of a prominent bootstrapper had a tweet the other day about how for his SaaS, he just implemented file uploading using some JavaScript library, and it took him like, I don't know, like a day. So not an insignificant amount of time, but not a huge amount of time. It's a long time if you're a developer to take all day. But I saw, so, like, I saw his tweet, and I was like, oh, like, why didn't he use Simple File Upload? Like, clearly my product is crap. Okay, so this happened at like 9am. So then, like, later in the day, this just happened a couple days ago, I went to see if I had any new signups. And as you know, like, I've been pretty flat for like two or three weeks now, signups have been pretty flat. So, in one day, I got $325 boost in my MRR. One day. Michele Hansen 33:19What? Colleen Schnettler 33:20That has never happened in the history of my product, like ever. I was like, whoa. Michele Hansen 33:25So did someone Tweet it, like, add it to that thread, or, like what happened? Colleen Schnettler 33:29No, no one added it to the thread. And I didn't add it to the thread because he was clearly looking for a non-paid solution. So it seems like it wasn't that he hated my product or it was bad, he just wasn't looking for this kind of solution I was offering. I don't really know what happened. But a whole bunch of people signed up. Michele Hansen 33:50These two things happened on the same day, and you don't have any conclusively linking them, but it feels suspicious that they wouldn't be linked. Colleen Schnettler 34:00It's super weird, right? Michele Hansen 34:01Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 34:02Um, so I am trying to like, I'm just really starting to try and get into, like, Google Analytics and understand that. Anyway, so that was, my point of that story is like, you know, this is, we're never bored. I'm never bored, right? Like one day, I'm like, this thing is miserable. The next day, I'm like, I'm the most brilliant person in the world. Like, it's never, it's never boring. I guess my point of that story was it's all over the place. I'm all over the place with, with this product. And some days I feel like it's just not, not as good as it should be. Some days I feel like I'm charging too much. And then other days I have, like I realized I have, there's all this power in this thing I built that no one is utilizing. So that's something I really want to spend some time getting some content going out there and spend some time, like, showing people why it's more powerful than, than, you know, other solutions they've been using. Michele Hansen 34:58You seem really fired up. Colleen Schnettler 35:00I am. I, I've just had like, a, it's been, like, a really good week. I mean, from a work perspective. And although I didn't get to spend the time, you know, I got, okay. I don't have a lot of time to spend on the product the next month or so, so I'm just taking it in little bits, right. And so this week, it's a tiny thing, but someone pointed out to me, and I think this also plays into psychology. Okay, so my marketing site is built in Tailwind UI. My application site is built off of Bootstrap. Bootstrap and Tailwind are not friends. I can't just throw Tailwind into my Bootstrap site. Michele Hansen 35:37If it makes you feel better, the Geocodio dashboard was on Bootstrap, and the Geocodio marketing website was on Railwind for, like, a really long time, like, like, you, like, we were on the like, 2013 version of Bootstrap for, like, a very long time. And it wasn't until like maybe six months or a year ago that we actually got them both on Tailwind. So you're not the only one. Okay, so back to yours. Colleen Schnettler 36:06So this. Okay, so if you are on my marketing site, and you click through to sign up to get the free trial, here's the thing that happens. The nav bars are different. Michele Hansen 36:17Mmm. Colleen Schnettler 36:18Yeah, it's not good, and someone pointed it out to me. They were like, oh, I had to click back and forth a few times to make sure it was still the same application. And I was like, oh, my goodness. And so I can't, but it was like, it was, so it's just this visual thing. But this he pointed out, he was like, you know, that's, that made me think I was at the wrong place, it might make me close the window. Michele Hansen 36:40Yeah it might make them think something was wrong, or, like, they accidentally got led off to another site that wasn't the right one. And like, maybe it's, like, phishing or something, like. Colleen Schnettler 36:50Exactly, that's exactly what this guy said. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And so, so my, my Simple File Upload technical accomplishment this week, was basically like, and because I can't, my application is pretty complicated. I can't just pull out Bootstrap and drop in Tailwind. That's gonna take me forever. So I actually, like, just stole, stole is the wrong word. I grabbed some of the Tailwind styles and just over, you know, and overrode my Bootstrap styles just for the navbar. So anyway, the point is, now the nav bars look the same. And it's like, it sounds like a small thing. But like, I think the mental block for, if you sign up and I drop you to a totally different site, you're like, wait, what? Michele Hansen 37:29Like, yeah, it's like, something is, like, the brain is a little bit like, danger, something is different. Colleen Schnettler 37:34Yeah, exactly. So, so another, so it was another big CSS week for me, which is not my forte, but I got it. Michele Hansen 37:41I wrote JavaScript this week, which is not my forte. Colleen Schnettler 37:46Oh, jack of all trades. Michele Hansen 37:48Well, we wrote stuff that, that's not our forte, and you're going back and forth between feeling like it's amazing and you've built something super powerful. And then, also feeling like it's, really has a long way to go, and is it ever going to get there, which, honestly, is how I feel, like, I feel the exact same way about my book. Like, every day, it's like, oh, my God, this is a hot mess. And then I'm like, actually, this is amazing and I should just publish it now. Like, I think that's, I think that's just like part of building something, whether it's a book or you know, software. I mean, yeah. Colleen Schnettler 38:31And honestly, I think it's part of the fun. Like, I honestly do, like I, it makes it interesting. Like, I've worked jobs that are really boring, and they're really boring. Like, this is way more exciting.Michele Hansen 38:52I think that’s the thing I love about being an entrepreneur is that it's always different. And sometimes it's different in ways that are super boring and require a lot of paperwork. And sometimes it's different in ways that are like, super awesome, and exciting. But the fact that it is so different all the time is, is what makes it fun and makes me feel like I get to, like, feel lucky that I get to do this as my job. On that note, perhaps we should sign off for this week. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on iTunes or tweet at us. We love hearing what you think about it. Have a good one.
Michele's First Numbers Update
Michele Hansen 00:00Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by the website monitoring tool, Oh Dear. If you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you know that I'm passionate about customer service and listening to customers. A few months ago, we noticed something wasn't working on the Oh Dear dashboard. We reported it to them, and they fixed it almost immediately. Everybody has bugs occasionally, but not every company is so responsive to their customers, and we really appreciate that. You can sign up for a 10 day free trial with no credit card required at OhDear.app. Colleen Schnettler 00:35So Michele, I'd love to hear about how things are going with the book. Michele Hansen 00:40They're going. Um, so after our episode with Sean last week, I realized that I kind of, I have to launch this thing eventually, right? Colleen Schnettler 00:54Yes. Michele Hansen 00:55And, you know, for, you know, I mean, for months I've been hearing that advice of, you know, do a, do a presale and like, start selling it beforehand, And, and I was like, yeah, I mean, you know, I, that's the best practice. That makes sense. And then just kind of be like, but that doesn't apply to me, right? Like, I couldn't make, um. It's, you know, it's funny, because it's almost, I feel like the way people feel about when they hear about customer interviewing, they're like, that sounds really valuable and like the right thing to do, and I'm just gonna act like that doesn't apply to me. Colleen Schnettler 01:29Yep. Michele Hansen 01:30So that's kind of how I was, and talking to Sean really kind of got me to be like, okay, okay, fine. I should actually sit down and do this. So I got a very simple website together, and then I actually did end up launching the presale. Colleen Schnettler 01:46Oh, congratulations. Michele Hansen 01:48Yeah, that was super scary. Like, because the book Colleen Schnettler 01:50I bet. Michele Hansen 01:53And, like, random places where it says like, insert graphic here. Colleen Schnettler 02:01So tell us how many books have you sold? Michele Hansen 02:03Okay, yeah, so I guess I get to do, like, a numbers update for the first time. This is fun. Um, so I have sold 34 copies. Colleen Schnettler 02:15Wow. Michele Hansen 02:16Presale. Colleen Schnettler 02:17That's a lot. Michele Hansen 02:18So, and that's not including for like, you know, platform fees and whatever. Just like, you know, $29 times 34, basically. $986. Colleen Schnettler 02:32That's amazing. Congratulations! Michele Hansen 02:35So close to that, like, 1000 mark, which, I was talking about this with Mathias earlier, and he's kind of like, I feel like that's like a, you know, that's like, the legit threshold, is 1000. Like, and I don't know why, but it's like, yeah, it's like that feels like, that feels like the, the, like, the first big hurdle. Colleen Schnettler 02:55I totally agree. That's wonderful news. Congratulations. Michele Hansen 03:00You know, I expected to feel excited, or relieved, or something positive after releasing it, or the presale, at least. And I gotta tell you, like, I just feel pressure. Like, I'm really glad I didn't do this sooner. Colleen Schnettler 03:25Really? Michele Hansen 03:27Yeah. Because now I have, you know, at least 34 people I can't disappoint. Colleen Schnettler 03:32Right. Michele Hansen 03:32And I feel like, just like, the pressure to make something that is a quality product, like, I already had that pressure on myself to put something out there that I'm proud of. Colleen Schnettler 03:44Yeah. Michele Hansen 03:46Now I have all these other people who are expecting that, and not that anyone has emailed me and said anything to that effect, but that's how I feel. And I was thinking about this earlier. And I was like, man, like, writing and selling this book has like, brought out all of these, like, vulnerabilities and, and self-doubt and everything, like all of this stuff that I like, thought I had dealt with and then it's, like, sort of like bursting out of the cabinet, being like, hey, I'm still here. So it's, you know, I mean, I have tools to, like, deal with that, but it's been like, oh my gosh, like, I thought I had dealt with, like, I never feel this way about anything about Geocodio, like, so. Colleen Schnettler 04:33So, this is interesting, because I, when I was feeling a similar way, many months ago, I don't actually know if I talked about it on the podcast, but I had a very high value client that I had a great relationship with that needed a file uploader, and mine wasn't quite done, and I had this moment of terror, panic, I don't know, where I was like, I shouldn't use mine because, because if I put it on my client's site, like, it has to work, right? There's no get out of jail free card, Kind of like, you've now sold this book. Like, you have to finish it. Michele Hansen 05:07Right. It's not just like, throwing it in a PDF and then like. Colleen Schnettler 05:09Yeah. Michele Hansen 05:10Oh, whatever, nobody paid for it. Like, it's not a big deal. Like, it's like, no, this is, like, this is serious now. Colleen Schnettler 05:17Yeah. And I think something that, that I'm thinking of as you're talking about this, I remember at the time, Alex Hillman had a really great tweet thread about you're not scared of failure, maybe you're secretly scared of success. Michele Hansen 05:32Mm hmm. Colleen Schnettler 05:33It was really interesting. Like, just when you think about, like, the psychology and all of these new insecurities coming to light for you, like, maybe you're scared of success. Michele Hansen 05:42You know, and it's so I feel like we should have them on the podcast more, because I feel like they are, like, Amy and Alex in some way are like characters on this podcast, they're just not actually on the podcast. But like, the amount we talk about, you know, 30x500 and everything. She had, I think, I think it was her, or maybe, no, or maybe it was Dani Donovan, the woman who does the ADHD comics. But I think it was Amy, had a thread, like, couple months ago that was like, you know, people with, or maybe, I don't know if she has ADHD, so I don't know if this was her. Okay. Somebody had a thread that was like, you know, people with ADHD, like, you don't ever feel accomplished when you finish something. It's just over. And then you're on to the next thing. And it was like, yes, like, I expected to feel something when I finally got that out there, and now it instead feels like, oh, now I have to put in the graphics. Now I have to do the cover art. Like now I have to like, like, it just, it didn't, there was never this, like, moment of, like, feeling accomplished or anything like that. It just, it just rolled into the next thing. Colleen Schnettler 06:58Interesting. I don't, I don't have that problem. Like, that doesn't happen to me. I mean, but it's interesting, I find that interesting because one of the things, for me, is when I accomplish something, even if, I feel like if I'd been in your position and I got the presales out there, I do feel that, like, internal satisfaction of hitting that goal, and that's what keeps me motivated. So, if you don't get that same kind of dopamine hit, doesn't that make the whole process kind of painful? It doesn't sound fun. Michele Hansen 07:28Well, what I do get that from is people, like, you know, positive reinforcement from other people. Like, so I've been asking people for testimonials to put at the front of the book. And on the one hand, that terrifies me, and, and then on the other hand, when they do come in, and people are talking about how the, the book and also sort of newsletter and like, like, all this, all this stuff is all sort of meshing together, has helped them, and what it has helped them do, and how they wish they'd had it sooner and everything. Like, that makes me feel good. That makes me feel like I am delivering the, like, a product that is worth somebody paying for, and that I can be proud of seeing how it's impacted other people. But I like I, I don't really get satisfaction out of achieving things, which is really ironic, because I think about younger versions of myself and I've like, you know, I describe me in high school as an achievement robot, like. Colleen Schnettler 08:39An achievement robot. Michele Hansen 08:41Yeah, you know, you're, like, just taking as many AP's as you can and your life is over if you don't get in a top college. You know, that whole, that whole song and dance that turned out to be a lie, because now I work for myself. Not at all bitter about that. Anyway, um, yeah, it's but, this, so that is really, like, keeping me going or like, people tweeting out you like, hey, like, what is the book coming out? And part of me is like, oh, my God, am I gonna get them by then? But like, I've been getting a lot of really good reinforcement from people, and that, and I think that's, for me, that's been one of the really big benefits of building in public is not, not necessarily knowing that, exactly that people are going to pay for it and how much they're going to pay and having that money up front, but knowing that I'm creating something that is useful for people. Like, that is what keeps me going. Colleen Schnettler 09:31That sounds great, too. Michele Hansen 09:33But now I got to finish the damn thing, so. Colleen Schnettler 09:35Yeah. Now you gotta finish it. Michele Hansen 09:37I was saying that the release date would be June 24. I actually just had to push that back to July 2, because I just, I don't think I have enough time. Colleen Schnettler 09:44Yeah. Michele Hansen 09:45I do have an idea for the cover. Like, I want it to be like a terminal printout that's like, basically like installing, like, you know, like installing like empathy and like, loading scripts. Colleen Schnettler 10:00That'll be cute. Michele Hansen 10:01Like, sort of corny. Developers aren't the only audience for it. But I also want them to know that this is a resource that is, like, accessible to them. Colleen Schnettler 10:14Yeah. Michele Hansen 10:15I don't know. I have zero artistic abilities, like, I can't even, like, think visually, like, so I have so many people who are reviewing the draft right now, which is pretty amazing. Some of them are, like, super close friends of mine who are harsh editors, and I'm super grateful for that. And others are, like, people I have never even met who are so, I guess, so taken with, with the idea of the book that they're, like, helping me edit it, and I have never met them before, which is just so moving. But anyway, so someone has been giving me a lot of feedback on like, oh, like, this should be a graphic and like, this should be a graphic. And I'm like, I'm so glad you're saying that because it would have never occurred to me that that could be a graphic because I communicate in speech, and in text, and there's - Colleen Schnettler 11:01Yeah. Michele Hansen 11:01Not a whole lot of pictures going on. Colleen Schnettler 11:03Yeah. Michele Hansen 11:04So, so, yeah, I gotta kind of get all of, all that together in the next couple weeks. And like, hopefully release the, like, the print-on-demand version at the same time, but it's unclear. And then after that, I get to do the audio book, which, honestly, I'm really looking forward to, because then I just have to read the book out loud and as a podcaster, I'm like, I got that. Like, this does not involve any pictures. Like, I am good. Colleen Schnettler 11:32No pictures required. Michele Hansen 11:33No art skills required. Colleen Schnettler 11:36Are you gonna hire someone to do the graphics? Have you figured that out yet? Michele Hansen 11:39No, I've been making them in PowerPoint. Colleen Schnettler 11:42Okay. I'm just saying there's - Michele Hansen 11:45Really simple. Like, there's not going to be like, pictures-pictures, like. Colleen Schnettler 11:47Okay. Michele Hansen 11:48If it turns out this book is a huge hit and I need to do a version that actually has pictures and like, somebody doing, like, professionally doing the layout then like, yeah, I'll, I'll do that, but. Colleen Schnettler 11:59Yeah, so. Michele Hansen 11:59I mean, so like, more like flowcharts if anything, or like, putting something in a box so that it's, like, called out like even that kind of stuff. My brain is like, doesn't. Colleen Schnettler 12:09Have you ever seen, there's a couple of people I've met at conferences that are developers, but they're also visual thinkers. And so they'll like, make sketch notes of someone's conference talk. Have you ever seen these? I'm going to send you some after the podcast. They're so cool. I mean, for your, for, you know, especially to hit, like, the developer audience, that would be, and that might be like version two of the book, but like, like sketch notes, or something would be super cool. Like, I could see a lot of cool opportunities here. Michele Hansen 12:37Yeah, I tried to use something called Excalidraw, and I think my problem is like, I just don't think visually. Colleen Schnettler 12:47Yeah. Michele Hansen 12:47Like, I never graduated beyond stick figures. My, my efforts that were beyond stick figures are hilarious. Like actually, like, yeah. Um, so I probably should, like, should bring that in, you know. But again, I mean, the book has only made, you know, just under $1,000. So I'm not, I'm not, I don't really want to, like, go out and hire an artist for a couple $1,000 for it. Like, I don't feel like that's a reasonable- Colleen Schnettler 13:21Not yet. Not yet. Right. I mean, that might be in the future. Yeah. I feel like that's not yet. I totally get that. Michele Hansen 13:27Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's- Colleen Schnettler 13:34It's exciting. I'm glad we gave you that push. I mean, I kind of felt like I gave you that push when I was basically like, you're gonna have this up by the time we launch this podcast, right. I'm happy. I hope it wasn't too stressful. But I'm happy you got there. Michele Hansen 13:49I think I needed the external deadline because- Colleen Schnettler 13:52Yeah. Michele Hansen 13:52And again, this is kind of one of those, for me, ADHD things. Like, I need an external deadline because if it's a deadline I've come up with then it's not happening. But like, the reason why the book was, is gonna be out by July 2 is because, like, our, well, it was gonna be June 23 because our daughter finishes school for the year on June 25. So I was like, it has to be out before she gets out of school. But then I remember that she has a week of summer camp. So I'm like, okay, I have another week. Colleen Schnettler 14:16You have one more week. Michele Hansen 14:18No, it has to be done before she gets out of camp because otherwise then I, you know, I won't have as much time, so. Colleen Schnettler 14:25Yeah. Michele Hansen 14:25External deadline. Super helpful. Yeah. How's, how's stuff in Simple File Upload world? Colleen Schnettler 14:33So, things are good. I, you know, signups have still been consistent, but because I lost that big customer, I'm just below 1k MRR. So I haven't really seen that reflected in- Michele Hansen 14:48Is the big customer the one that, like, wasn't using it and you couldn't get in touch with them? Colleen Schnettler 14:53No, that person's still there, but like, I lost one person that was, like, a tier below that, which is, because I have three tiers. And so things are fine. I mean, I'm not seeing a big increase, or really any movement on the revenue because of the churn at that level, at that more expensive level. But I'm pretty excited about some of the things I'm going to be trying to do in the next couple months. My summer is crazy. So I had at first resigned myself to just not really working on Simple File Upload for a couple months. I was like, I'm just gonna let it sit. It's doing great. It requires almost no customer support. But then, Michele Hansen 15:32I mean, a thousand dollars a month, and then it recurs is like. Colleen Schnettler 15:35Right! It's like, I mean, okay, can we talk about how awesome this is? By the way, this is awesome. Like, after fees and stuff, after I pay my hosting fees, and my storage fees and my Heroku fees, I clear like 606, 650. Like, that's like, pretty cool. Michele Hansen 15:52Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 15:53It's like, I'm not so much. So I wasn't upset about this. But like, I just needed to see kind of where my life was and what I was doing. And I was like, I might just have to sit on this for a couple months because I don't have the time. But then I got an idea. So I am going to take, really what happened is I was really inspired talking to Sean last week about 30x500. I have never taken that course. But I read, like, everything Amy Hoy writes on the internet, and so I kind of feel like I get the idea behind Sales Safari, the idea being find where your customers hang out and find out what their problems are. Conceptually, it seems easy. I just haven't had time to do that. And him, he said last week that he spent 80 hours. Think about that. So he was trolling Reddit forums for 80 hours. That is a lot. Michele Hansen 16:45I mean, I probably already do that, and there's no business purpose behind it. Colleen Schnettler 16:49It's just no focus to it, right? So, so that's, so I really think I'm at this inflection point where what I have is working. It's doing great. I don't need to build new, more features until I know what features people need. And as we talked about, I think two weeks ago, different audiences want different features. As a solo founder, I do, with a job, I don't have the bandwidth to build all the features for everybody. Like, I'm not trying to take on CloudFlare, right. I really want to niche down and find my people and build for my people. I can't do that until I know who my people are, and I still don't really know. So, I am going to hire someone to do some of the Sales Safari research for me since I don't have time. Michele Hansen 17:42Oh. Colleen Schnettler 17:43Yeah. So I'm kind of pumped. And by someone I mean, my sister. She, yeah, so it's like, you talk about how, like, you love having a business with Mathias. I would love to have a business with my sister. Like, I would love for her to be able to work for me, for this to become a real company, and, you know, for us to do this together. So she is just coming off her maternity leave. She has decided not to go back to her job. So she has only a little bit of time because she doesn't have a lot of childcare, so she has, like, one day a week that she's going to work for me doing marketing research and Sales Safari, and I was to kind of trying to teach her, like, what I think is useful. We're both kind of learning as we go, neither of us really knows we're just making it up. And we're gonna do that for the summer and kind of see where it takes us. Michele Hansen 17:55Yeah. Wow, wait, so what is her background in? Colleen Schnettler 18:35She's an environmental consultant. Michele Hansen 18:37Oh. Colleen Schnettler 18:40So she actually, it's in no way relevant. But she's, so really the deal is she's a writer. So in her job as a consultant, what they do is they, they have to write these, like, epic report. So her background is really in writing. So originally, she was gonna write content for me, and she wrote me a couple pieces, but it's really hard to come in, since she doesn't have the technical background, it's, I, and my, my audience is developers, like, I need really technical content. So I don't think she's going to fit as a technical writer. But she's going to do, she's taking a class in SEO. So she's going to do, like, keyword research, and she's going to jump into the forums and Reddit and try and like, find out what people's pain points are surrounding file uploads. Michele Hansen 19:24You know, it sounds like you guys have a good working relationship together. Colleen Schnettler 19:31Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, all problems, this stuff that I was thinking about. All problems are people problems, right? So, if you want to control your business, and I'm just hypothesizing here, the number one most important people, but the number one most important thing is the people you work with, and I can't think of anyone else I'd rather work with. So, I think she'll figure it out, or she'll hate it and if she hates it, then she won't do it anymore. I'll find someone else. But that's kind of our plan. I'm pretty excited. Michele Hansen 20:02Like, yeah, you, if you have someone that you work well with, and you believe that they're capable of learning what you would need them to learn, then, you know, like, you trust them. Colleen Schnettler 20:17Yes. Michele Hansen 20:17And that matters. Colleen Schnettler 20:18Yes. Yes. So yeah. So this summer, for me, is really for, for Simple File Upload, I think, is really going to be a focus on figuring out what niche to serve. I was talking to another friend, and he just got a new job, and he works for a big event management company. And he pointed out, you know, he was, he actually mentioned you, because he listened to the podcast, and he was like, these huge companies, they don't care about the little guys who are making a million dollars a year. And his point was, they don't care. So he's like, if you can carve out a niche in one of these huge industries, like, you can be incredibly successful, and like, these big guys, they don't care. Michele Hansen 20:58No. And you know, on your sister, it might be really interesting to have her do interviews with people because she will be completely coming in with a beginner's mindset. Like, I find this is something that is difficult for people to adjust to like, like, we've talked about when, when someone says like, oh, like, could I do this? And you start thinking through, like, whether they could and how you would implement it, or you know- Colleen Schnettler 21:23Right. Michele Hansen 21:24Talk about what they wanted to do, and you just like, oh, of course, you wanted to do this because of this, and like, you don't even question it. But she, but she would be like, well, why do you want to upload a file in the first place? Like, Colleen Schnettler 21:33Right. Michele Hansen 21:33Well, how is that, how does that work? Because she's genuinely beginner. Like, I feel like, in some ways, the fact that I don't have a geography background has been an advantage for- Colleen Schnettler 21:45Yeah. Michele Hansen 21:46You know, for this because like, I don't come in, you know, with it, with all of these preconceived notions about why someone would want to do this. Colleen Schnettler 21:56Yeah. Michele Hansen 21:56So I think that can be really interesting when she gets her feet wet, and kind of a sense of what's going on, to try to talk to the customers. Colleen Schnettler 22:05I think that's a great idea. I hope we can grow into that. I definitely think there's opportunity there. I think of her as like you, and I'm like Mathias in the power couple building of a company. So we'll see. I mean, she wants to get into mark, we kind of are going down this route, because I don't have enough time. I want to do it, I need to do it, and she wants to, really she wants to transition into a remote career that's flexible, like most parents, and she's really interested in SEO and marketing. So, I think it's gonna be a fun little adventure. I'm excited to see what she finds out. Part of this was also, I think we've talked a lot about, I have an interest in no-code. So I had a call with the Jetboost IO founder, Chris. Michele Hansen 22:51Yeah, Chris. Colleen Schnettler 22:52Who, I believe, you know, as well, because you're a mentor and he- Michele Hansen 22:55Yeah, I mentor him through Earnest Capital. I literally just had a call with him the other day. Colleen Schnettler 23:02So I had a call with him, independent of your call with him. Michele Hansen 23:06Which we didn't know about. Colleen Schnettler 23:07Which we did not plan, to talk about opportunities in the webflow space. And, so I think one of the first things I'm going to have my sister, well, not the first, but one of the things my sister is going to try and do this month is really see if there's a need in Webflow. The thing about Webflow is, in 2018, Webflow introduced their own file uploader. So before that, there was a huge need for it. Now, they have their own file uploader. So it might be that what I provide is no longer, you know, something people need or want. So before I go and build an integration with Webflow, I'm going to have her do some Sales Safari research. They have really active forums to kind of see what people are looking forward to see if there's opportunity there. Michele Hansen 23:54Yeah, Chris was telling me that they have a, like, feature upload, like a feature up vote thing where people go in and request features. It's exciting. Colleen Schnettler 24:03Yeah, I think it's gonna be great. I think, I think it'll be fun. It'll be good to have someone actually dedicated to reading Reddit and Webflow forums and Heroku forums and whatever, to try to identify, you know, the need there and in the file uploading space. And then with the SEO research, you know, I can then either write the content myself or hire someone to write technical content, depending on my time commitments, my time, you know, what I can do, so. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that. I think, you know, the interesting thing about file uploading and Webflow is they have a maximum size of 10 megs, and I, you can't do multiple file uploads at the same time. So the question is, how many people really care? Like, who really, did, are there enough people that are uploading large files, or want to do maximum, or, I'm sorry, want to do multiple file uploads at a time that it would be worth it for me to make an integration into that space. So, so, you know, she's going to kind of dive into that and see what we can find out and like, this is just gonna be a fun marketing learning time because I built this thing because I wanted to build something, as you know, and I'm really happy that I built something to scratch my own need because it's worked out really well. But I still haven't really honed in on who I can serve best, and there's lots of opportunities out there, so. Michele Hansen 25:42There's a lot to be, I think, sort of learned and discovered here, and, and also that SEO work you can do, that, like, that can also inform the kind of feature development that you do, too, like, because there, I mean, this just happened to us the other day, like there was something that I noticed we had a couple of customers ask us how to do, and so I wrote up an article about how to do it, and then, but like, to basically do it manually. And then I just saw this morning that it's, like, our top performing growing piece of content and has like a 400% increase in clicks, and- Wow. And looking into like, oh, how might we add that? And it's like, okay, maybe we should like there's, you know, SEO isn't just for bringing in customers, but also for figuring out what, what people might want as well. Colleen Schnettler 26:38Yeah, and you've said before, I think that SEO is your number one channel? Activation channel? Michele Hansen 26:44Yeah. We, we don't run paid ads. We don't do any outbound sales. Like, we occasionally sponsor conferences, but that's mostly because, like, our friends run them, and it's just like, kind of- Colleen Schnettler 27:00Yeah. Michele Hansen 27:00To support our friends, like we're a sponsor of Longhorn PHP, the Texas PHP conference. But like, that's just because our friend runs it. Colleen Schnettler 27:12Okay. Michele Hansen 27:13It's not very, like, organized or intentional. It's just like, sure, like, we'll help you out. Colleen Schnettler 27:18Now, when you do SEO, do you do, like, now you just said, like, you were talking to a customer and then you got this idea of a good page, but do you do traditional keyword research as well? Michele Hansen 27:34Maybe? Like, we use Ahrefs. Colleen Schnettler 27:36Yeah, I don't, okay. Michele Hansen 27:39I don't know, I still don't know how to pronounce the name of that company. Colleen Schnettler 27:42I know, yeah, I don't either. Michele Hansen 27:43But yeah, Ahrefs, we use that. We used Google Search Console for a long time, which is honestly a really good tool, and it's free, because Ahrefs is, is pretty expensive. But yeah, you can do keyword research and rankings and referrers and all that kind of stuff. I don't keep a super close eye on it. Um, but yeah, whenever we're, you know, we, every so often, like every couple weeks or so we go in and look at what content is performing and what else we might need and whatnot. Colleen Schnettler 28:19Cool. Yeah, I don't know. I really haven't done, I've done absolutely zero keyword research. So I think it's probably worth our time to put a little bit of effort into that to see what people are searching for to get a better idea of how to use those tools. Michele Hansen 28:36Yeah, I mean, our approach is, you know, find those keywords and then write stuff that people might be searching for and show them how to do it with Geocodio, and I think I like that because I, and I think we talked about this is kind of something that I have struggled with with the book, is, like, I struggle with sounding salesy, like and writing, like conversion copy, like, it's just really something that I feel like I sound way too infomercial-y when I tried to write it. Like, you know, there are people who are really good at writing conversion copy and sounding like a natural human being when they write it, like, I mean, you know, Amy Hoy is one of those people. But I, you know, I might as well you know, be like, hocking something on the Home Shopping Network when I try to write it. So, so like writing be like, oh, you're searching for geocoding? Hello, we do geocoding. Here is how you can do it in like, like, all of these different ways you can do it and rephrasing all of those different things. And then here's where you can try it. And then here's where you can do it. And it's very, like, straightforward. That's like, maybe you need it. Maybe you don't. All of those options are fine. Not, like, buy this now or you will die. Colleen Schnettler 29:56Yeah, I'm hoping with our keyword research and kind of, like, since I haven't done this at all, you know, with what, the marketing research she does, as you've talked about, I think a lot of that is going to inform my content and building out future landing pages. So, that's really going to be a focus for me is like, trying to get content and you know, pages out there that appeal to people. Michele Hansen 30:24Well, I'm going to be spending the next week working on the book and you're going to be onboarding your sister and getting this research going. Sounds like we got our work cut out for us. Colleen Schnettler 30:34It's gonna be a good week. Michele Hansen 30:37All right. Well, I guess that'll wrap us up for now. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.
Marketing an eBook
Michele Hansen 00:00Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by the website monitoring tool, Oh Dear. We use Oh Dear to keep track of SSL certificates. If an SSL certificate is about to expire, we get an alert beforehand. We have automated processes to renew them, so we use Oh Dear as an extra level of peace of mind. You can sign up for a ten day free trial with no credit card required at OhDear.app. Michele Hansen 00:28Hey, welcome back to Software Social. So today we're doing something kind of fun. We're leaning on the social part of Software Social, and we have invited our friend, Sean Fioritto, to join us today.Sean Fioritto 00:44Hey guys. Thanks for having me. Colleen Schnettler 00:47Hi Sean. Thanks for being here. Michele Hansen 00:48So, and the reason why we asked Sean, in addition to being a great person, is that Sean wrote a book called Sketching With CSS, and as you all know, I am writing a book and figuring it out. And there is a lot of stuff I haven't figured out, especially when it comes to, like, actually selling the book. Like, I feel like that, I feel like the, writing the book is, like, I feel like I kind of got a handle on that. The whole selling the book thing, like, not so much. Um, so we thought it would be kind of helpful to have Sean come on, since like, he's done this successfully. Colleen Schnettler 021:36So Sean, I would love to start with a little bit of your background with the book. What inspired you to write it? How did you get started? Where did that idea come from? Sean Fioritto 01:50Yeah, so I wanted to quit my job. Colleen Schnettler 01:53Don't we all? Michele Hansen 01:55Honest goal. Sean Fioritto 01:56I always wanted to go on my own, be independent, run my own business. That's been a goal for a very long time. So, I tried various things, you know, in my spare time, with limited to no success for years and years before that, and I was just getting sick of, the plan was, you know, I'm like, okay, I have this job. And in my spare time, I'm gonna get something going and then, and that just wasn't working. So I was getting impatient. Anyway, I ended up signing up with Amy Hoy's 30x500 class. This was seven or eight years ago. So, I signed up for that class. Actually, wait, I'm getting my timeline a little mixed up. So, I started reading stuff by Amy Hoy. It's funny, I'd actually bought another book that she wrote, and she used her sort of process for that book. And I bought that for my, for my job earlier. And I was like, oh, this Amy Hoy person is interesting. And so I started reading her blog, and then she has these things she writes called ebombs. You guys are probably familiar with that term. But they're basically content that, it's educational content directed at her target, you know, customer, which she would call her audience. So I was just, she, at that point, she had started 30x500. I think it was actually called a Year of Hustle at that point. And so she had all this content, and I was just devouring it, because I was like, she gets me. She knows my problem, and this is awesome. So I was just reading everything that she could write, that she wrote, and, you know, finding any resource that she'd ever written about, like, what's her process, because she was talking about this mysterious process that she has, she, she would talk about it. And I was able to sort of reverse engineer part of her course, the main thing called Sales Safari. So I'm not, I'm at my job, coasting, doing a half-assed job, spending a lot of time doing Sales Safari, trying to figure out what, what product I should do. Not product, but that's not the way to think about it with Sales Safari, but trying to figure out like, what, who, what audience should I focus on? And what problems do they have, and what's the juiciest problem that makes sense for me to tackle? And then, and she would call them pains, by the way, not, not problems. So what's the juiciest pain that they have, for me, that was like, be the easiest for me to peel off, and, and work on. So I started digging, and it was like, alright, well, what audience makes sense for me? This is kind of the process, and it was like, you know, like web designers, web developers, because I was a web developer. And so like, what are the, you know, audiences that are close to audiences that I'm in is kind of ideal. So I started there, and then I just read and read and read. I probably put like, 80 hours of research time into that process. Colleen Schnettler 05:05Wow. Michele Hansen 05:06That's a lot. Sean Fioritto 05:06Of just reading and reading and reading and reading, and taking notes. And really understanding and whittling down and figuring out my audience, and figuring out, so the thinking, the benefit of that amount of time spent deliberately going through a process like that is that at some point, I became so in-tune with the audience that I could identify, and this is gonna pay off for you, Michele, this, this little story, because this feeds into like, how do you sell it. At some point, it meant that I could tell when a thing that I was, like a piece of content marketing that I was working on, was going to resonate very strongly with my audience and be worth the effort, if that makes sense. And it didn't really take much. Like, after I got done with that much amount of research, it was sort of, like, pretty trivial for me to come up with ideas for content that I could write that I knew people were gonna just eat up. And so that's, that's how I started building my, building my mailing list. And then that's how I eventually, Colleen, to your question, I came up with Sketching With CSS, which it was a solution to a pain point that I'd identified in my audience, which at that point was web designers. Colleen Schnettler 06:37How big did your mailing list grow? Sean Fioritto 06:39I have 20,000 people on my mail list. Colleen Schnettler 06:4120,000? Michele Hansen 06:42Holy guacamole. Sean Fioritto 06:46Yeah. So like I said, I got really good. No, no, no. Michele Hansen 06:51I've got like, 200 people on my mailing list, or like, 220. And like, for context, that's like, 200 more people than I ever expected to have on the mailing list, and hearing, like, 20,000 feels very far from, from 200. Sean Fioritto 07:10Yeah, well, let me say something that will hopefully be more reassuring. The, Amy and Alex, for example, they've been running 30x500, for years, and I think their mailing list is just now approximating, like 20,000 or so. And like, the, they have been making so much money with that course with a significantly smaller mailing list. And that's a really, like, high value product, too. So anyway, if it makes you feel any better, I really think they only have like, a couple 1000 people on their mailing list for a long time. And then, for me, I launched pre-sales of my book, at that point, my, I think I only had, boy, I used to, I used to have this memorized. But like, it's been so long now. But I think I only had like, it was less than 2000 I think. I think. So, and even then, I don't think you need that. I know people that have launched with much smaller lists than that, and, and it was fine. Because the people that are on your list now guarantee it, your, will be very interested in, in buying the book. You know, that'd be like a low, low barrier to entry, assuming like, your mailing list is one of the ways that you're thinking of selling the book. Michele Hansen 08:26Yeah, I guess. That's not a good answer. But like, I, I, I actually, I admit, I'm a little bit like, wary to kind of hit it too hard. Like, I would probably send out like, like, if I did a pre-sale, which I guess I should. Actually, I had someone a couple days ago, who has been reading the drafts, who actually I think is also a 30x500 student in the past, say that they wanted to, like, pre-buy the book and asked me how to do it. And I was like, that's a great question. I will figure that out. And like, so maybe do that, and then maybe one more when, like, the book comes out? Um, yeah, cuz, so I've been thinking about the newsletter as a way to draft the book because I find writing an email to be a lot easier than, like, staring at a blank cursor just, you know, blinking at me. And I guess I haven't really, like, and like, people signed up for it to read the draft of the book, so I guess I almost feel bad like, using it for sales too much. Like you know, I want to let people know that the book exists, but like, I don't want to. I don't know, does that. Sean Fioritto 09:45So, it's very considerate of you to think about that. Michele Hansen 09:52Another way of saying that another, also a way to not make any money off of this. Sean Fioritto 09:57Well, yeah, that, but also, it's kind of inconsiderate of you to not be thinking about all the people that really, really, really want to buy it and also would like to read anything that you're writing right now. Like, you're just completely leaving them out there to dry. And there are definitely people like that on your mailing list. So, they're like, there's like, some people on your mailing list are not going to be interested in your content if you're sending it too much, or, or just in general, really lightly interested in what you're writing about, or mistakenly signed up for your mailing list, which at this point, you probably don't have that problem. So like, to some extent, that's always the case, and it used to bother me a lot. I would send an email, and sales emails especially would result in bigger unsubscribes after every email, because you know, your little email tool tells you like, can, you know, so nice of it to tell you like, this many people unsubscribed after you sent this email. And it's always a big jump after like, a sales email. That used to bother me a lot. But then I started, kind of watching even my own behavior, and you probably do the same, and you probably like, look forward to some emails from some people that hit your inbox from some newsletters that you're looking forward to, and you'd very much like them to send you more. And then there's other people where you're like, well, I signed up for that, like, a couple years ago, and I just am not thinking about that anymore. And I need, like, to like, whittle down my content. So you unsubscribe. So then you become that unsubscribe number on the other end of the person sending the email, but like, you weren't annoyed, you didn't mind. It was just like, time to move on. And that's usually the case. So I think people can just unsubscribe as long as it's easy. I would literally put it at the top of my emails. So like, because I would send emails very infrequently. I was not disciplined about that. And I still don't think that that's a problem. But the, but because I sent them infrequently I put at the top like, hey, you know, you signed up for this, because you probably read this thing I wrote. You weren't interested in the book, whatever, if this is not for you anymore, just unsubscribe, like, first thing. So that always made me feel better about sending emails. And also, I don't know, I think that's the right thing to do so people just know, like upfront, that you know, oh, okay, there's the easy to find unsubscribe button when they're done. And then that's fine. Michele Hansen 12:26We did that for Geocodio once, like, I want to say it was like a year or two ago, and our lists had been like, super disorganized. And like I think we had, we were sending stuff like, we send like one or two marketing emails a year from MailChimp. And then we also had Intercom, and those things didn't sync up. And so like, sometimes people would unsubscribe in intercom and then like, not be unsubscribed in MailChimp, or like vice versa. And then, since we didn't send a lot of email, we used MailChimp's pay as you go. And then they just like, shut down their page and go option a couple of years ago, even though we had a ton of credit, which was a little annoying. And, and then, so like, the next time, and I think we migrated over to Mailcoach. And so the next time we send out an email, we actually like for some reason, we were like, there's probably a lot of people on this who have meant to unsubscribe. And so at the very top of the next email, we put an unsubscribe link and we also put a link to delete their account. And like, a bunch of people did it, but then our number of people who were unsubscribing later on like, went like, way down. So it was like, ripping off the band aid basically. Sean Fioritto 13:36Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think like, I don't know, when people unsubscribe from Geocodio, at this point, it doesn't like, break your heart anymore, I'm guessing. Right? Michele Hansen 13:45No, I mean, we're like, we're kind of like jumping into something that has been very much on my mind, but I hadn't been wanting to admit that it was there and just trying to like, pretend that it's not there, which is all the dealing with rejection around either, you know, people being mad that they were being sold to or negative reviews. And I like, you know, it sounds like you kind of have a process for, like, accepting those feelings. Sean Fioritto 14:19It used to bother me a lot. Michele Hansen 14:22Like, yeah. Sean Fioritto 14:24Yeah, it used to bother me a lot. There are two things that I hated. I hated frontpage Hacker News, and I hated getting angry emails. Michele Hansen 14:33Oh. Sean Fioritto 14:35I also got creepy, tons of creepy emails. Once you get, like, past a certain threshold and the number of subscribers you have, the creepiness factor increases. Yeah. Yeah. But the, but I got used to all of that. I just realized, like, there's just some percentage of people that are just angry right now or whatever, like, whatever they're going through. And I know that, like, I am very carefully crafting things such that the most, most of my content is not self-serving, most of it is directly a result of research that tells me that this is a problem that people are having, and now I'm helping you. So I'm like, I never feel bad about those, and then even the sales emails, I started to not feel bad about those, too, because I'm like, this is also a thing that's helping you. But that took a while to get to. I mean, honestly, it did. And it got worse when it became my only source of income, which added extra, extra feelings. But yeah, there's a lot of feelings to like, get through. And now I have just developed more of a thick skin, you know. Like, I'm not terrified of having a super popular article anymore, or, you know, stuff like that. That doesn't, that doesn't bother me anymore. I think it just came with time, just like with you and Geocodio. I mean, I'm sure you are used to like, some fluctuations of revenue, which probably bothered you a lot at the beginning, but now, not so much. I mean, I'm just, I'm guessing, but that seems, you know, I'm sure there's some things they're that you've got a thick skin about now. Michele Hansen 16:12Oh, my gosh. I mean, for years, every time a plan downgrade came through, like every time it was like a punch in the gut. Like, and yeah, I think now that I, I guess I trust the revenue more, I'm not as impacted by it. It's more like, oh, I wonder, like, why that was. Like, did their project end, or like, you know, like, what happened? But yeah, in the beginning, especially when it was first our like, when it, when it became my, like, full time income. I mean, as, as you said, like, that is really painful. Like, I'm curious, like, so you, so like, when did you start writing the book? Sean Fioritto 1705Let me think, like, like the year, or a timing, like, in terms of the timeline? Michele Hansen 17:12Whichever one you want to go with. Sean Fioritto 17:15Yeah, I can't remember the year cuz it was a while ago. It was like, eight years ago. Michele Hansen 17:19Oh, wow. Okay. So you started, Sean Fioritto 17:22I think it was 2013 is when I started. Yeah. Michele Hansen 17:24You did the, sounds like you did 30x500 first, right? Sean Fioritto 17:30Yeah, I had the, I had started writing the book before 30x500. But like I said, I was ,I was following her process already at sort of reverse engineered it. And then I felt like I just owed her the money for the, for the course. So, plus I wanted to meet her, so. Michele Hansen 17:44Yeah, so you started like, the research process basically, like, like 30x500 like, was only one part of your, like, research. Like, cuz you said you had sort of, you had figured out what her process was based on the blog posts and whatnot before you took the course. Yeah. Sean Fioritto 18:00Yeah. Michele Hansen 18:01Okay. Sean Fioritto 18:02Yeah, and at that point, I had already generated the research I needed to see, to choose Sketching With CSS as a, as a product. I pretty much had, I think I had a landing page. I hadn't done pre-sales yet, but I was, I was gearing up for that. Michele Hansen 18:17You are so organized. Colleen Schnettler 18:19Michele, do you have a landing page? Michele Hansen 18:22There is a website. Colleen Schnettler 18:24Okay, I didn't know. Michele Hansen 18:26I haven't told anyone about it because I talk about, Colleen Schnettler 18:29Your secret website. Michele Hansen 18:30I actually have two. I thought of the domain name, or like, the name for it in the shower, and then I like, immediately like, ran for the computer to see if it was available. And I actually bought two, and then I think we put, like, a book, oh my god, I just typed it wrong. Colleen Schnettler 18:55This is the part where you tell us what it is. Michele Hansen 18:57There's nothing on it, and actually, if I say it now then we have to have something on it by, Colleen Schnettler 19:01Well, there's no way to pressurize a situation than to tell us right now. Michele Hansen 19:06So okay, it is DeployEmpathy.com. Okay, okay, crap, now I have it out. I don't even know how I'm going to sell it. Okay. So um, and I think I have another one, too. But yeah, we have like, a very basic like, WordPress template on it. Like, it's not, it's not, okay. While I was trying to figure it, so like, people keep asking me like, oh, like, when's your book coming out? And I'm like, I have no idea. I have never done this before. I don't know what steps are ahead of me. So, okay, so you started writing the book while you were doing research concurrently, and then how, and you were also, Sean Fioritto 19:48Oh, sorry, there's two types of research. Michele Hansen 19:50Okay. Sean Fioritto 19:51So, we could clarify that. There was my audience research and understanding the pain that I was solving, and then there's the research about the book. I didn't have to do as much research about the book. I mean, I already, like, the type of book I ended up writing, I already had, you know, the expertise I needed to write that book. So yeah, I was, audience research was already done by the time I was writing Sketching With CSS. So I wasn't doing research like that while writing the book. Michele Hansen 20:16Okay. And then you also had the landing page up, and you started building your list while you were doing this research and writing phase. Okay, so how long did it take you from, like, the time that you had the idea for the book to when people could, like, buy and download the book, like, just like, the big picture? Like, how long did that process take you? Sean Fioritto 20:45Well, I mean, keep in mind, that ton of the work was while I was still full time working, in theory. Michele Hansen 20:56I mean, I guess I am, too, right? Like, this is not my full time thing. Sean Fioritto 21:00Yeah, but I think like, from, from, from research to launch, like, book is done, it was like, in the four to six month range. Michele Hansen 21:14Okay. Okay. So I think I started at like, the end of February with the newsletter, and it's May, so that's like, yeah. I do feel like I'm doing a little bit of, I think what we have termed Colleen does, of putzing in the code garden, rather than selling things or doing marketing or whatnot. And I am totally doing that with my manuscript, I guess you could call it. Sounds so fancy. And just like, moving commas around and like, totally procrastinating on making images for it, like totally, totally procrastinating on that. Okay, so it took you like, four to six months to get to that point. Sean Fioritto 21:59Yeah, there was a, there was a launch in between there. Michele Hansen 22:02So when was the like, so was your pre-sale your launch? Or like, how does that work? Sean Fioritto 22:08You could do lots of launches. Michele Hansen 22:11This is like, the part that is like, just sort of like, you know, in my head, it's like step one, write book, like, step two of question, question question, and step three, profit. Like that's sort of where I am right now. Sean Fioritto 22:24I feel like you're already doing most of the things that I would do. The, the one thing, so alright. So you're, you're working in public, so you're getting interest via Twitter. You're writing to your mailing list. You're doing the right thing, which is writing content for your book that, you know, is also useful to your mailing list, like, independently. Like, like getting double bang for your buck is smart when you're doing this kind of business. So you're keeping your list warm enough. People are, you're building anticipation, people are telling you you're building anticipation, because they're like, hey, when do I get to buy this book? So, you know, you're basically doing all the things. As, you know, from from my perspective, looking in, it seems like you're just accidentally or intuitively doing the right, doing the right stuff. The thing that's missing between like, what you are doing and what I did is probably, I would press pause on book writing and do specific content marketing things just to build my mailing list. Michele Hansen 23:37But I love putzing in the code garden. Sean Fioritto 23:39And I'm not, I'm not, sorry, I didn't mean to say that as like, you should do that. That's what I would, as in like, I was doing that. And I don't know, Michele Hansen 23:48And you wrote, like, a successful book and sold it, and it was your full time job for a period of time. So you're kind of here because you're good at this and because I need to be told these things. Sean Fioritto 23:59Right. Well, I'm just saying what I did. But it's, it's really ultimately you get to pick and choose what you do. The, you know, I actually happen to very much enjoy the process of coming up with content that I knew would be popular and writing it and sharing it everywhere and doing all that stuff. And also, I knew I needed to because I was going to try and make this my full time living, so I'm like, I need more people on my mailing list. So that was pretty important to me based on the goals I was trying to achieve. The, the other thing is though, like, even with a small mailing list, your book as the, a lot of book sales are gonna come from word of mouth. Like, I sort of forced the book onto the scene. But like, it's not a, the Sketching With CSS is not like a, while the marketing theme is, like, the marketing message at the time, it doesn't connect anymore because the world has moved on from that phase of web development. But like, while people could read the marketing, the landing page and connect really strongly, and, you know, be interested in the book, the book didn't really lend itself well to word of mouth, because it's not like, it was not like a, oh, you should read this, like, it's this lightweight, like reading recommendation. It's got to be, you've got to be like, ready to commit to learning a bunch of code. So it's like, there's like, a smaller group of people at any given time that are like, at that point, does that make sense? Versus your book, it's, it seems like, it's like a higher level of value, like, it's a more abstract, then like, here are the, learn this code. Here's how to type in Git commands, here's how to do that. You know, like, I was really like, down at the, like, here's what you're gonna be doing day to day in your job. And you're giving them the same message, but like, in a way that can be, that is at like, a higher level, it's maybe easier to read, you know, in your spare time. It's like a business book, has the same qualities of, like, successful business books. So, I think that you may not have to do any of the content marketing stuff that I was doing is what I'm getting at, because, like, I can already tell, I'm ready to read your book, and I'm ready to recommend it to people, because it does it solve, like, a question that people have all the time, and a problem people have, and they're like, oh, I wish I knew how to, you know, talk to my customers more effectively, or understand, you know, the types of customers that are gonna be interested my products, or what problems they're having, etc, etc, right? Customer research, that kind of thing. That is a topic of conversation that comes up a lot in my communities that I hang out in, and so, you know, your book’s gonna be like, at-hand for me to recommend. That's, that's what I suspect. That's my, that's my theory for your book. Michele Hansen 27:00Yeah, I guess, I mean, there's parts of it, definitely. Sean Fioritto 27:02It's also got a catchy name. Michele Hansen 27:04Hey, I thought of it in the shower, and then I ran to register the domain, which is exactly what you are supposed to do when you have a good idea for something right? Like, this is the process. Colleen Schnettler 27:13Definitely. Michele Hansen 27:13Like, Sean Fioritto 27:14You already had a book though, so it's different. You're like, I'm gonna write this book called Deploying Empathy. And you already, like, wrote it. So I think you're good to go. Michele Hansen 27:20Yeah, actually I didn't have a name for a while. Okay, so, so something else I have, like, a question on, which you kind of just sort of touched on with that about, like, super practical elements. So some, some of it is you can, you can definitely sit down and, and you could probably read it in a sitting or two. But then there's, there's the stuff that's more like a toolbox with all of the different scripts, which, by the way earlier, when you were saying like finding the type of content that people are really hungry for like, that, like, those scripts are the thing that people are the most excited about. The problem is, there's only like, so many sort of general scenarios. So I've basically written the main ones, but, so something I noticed with your site, which is SketchingWithCSS.com, just for everybody's reference, so you have the book plus code, which is like, your basic option for $39. And then you have one with the video package for 99. And then you have another one with more stuff for 249. And then there's one with like, all the things for your team for 499. And so, something that people have asked me for is like, like, there's the book piece, and then there's also, people want to be able to easily replicate the scripts so that they can then like, use them to build their own scripts off of it, and like, modify them and whatnot. So people have said, like, well, that could be like a Notion Template, like, bundle that it's sold with, or Google Docs or, or whatever. And so I've been like, kind of like, how do you sell the book with this like, other bundle? And like, can you also do that, like if you sell like a physical book to like, if I did it through Amazon, like, could I also sell a Notion Template bundle or something? Like, I just, I'm kind of, that sort of like, something that's on my mind is like, I'm not really sure how to approach that. And I'm wondering if you could kind of like, talk through your approach to creating like, different tiers, and what you provided at those different tears. Sean Fioritto 29:33Mm hmm. Right. So, at the time, I know, I have a more sophisticated thought process about it now, but the, when I did the initial set of tiers, it was because Nathan Barry told me that I should have three tears because it tripled his revenue. So I was like, oh, okay. Michele Hansen 29:53I mean, that's a good reason. Sean Fioritto 29:55Like, we just happened to be at the bacon biz. That was the other person that I was, I bought his book. So here's the thing I always do, I would buy people's books that way I could email them. Michele Hansen 30:08Is that a thing? Like, if you buy someone's book, like, do you have a license to email them? Sean Fioritto 30:13Well, you get one. You get one email. And as long as it's, you know, not creepy. That's, that's the main thing. But yeah. So we had a bake in this conference in real life, and then, yeah, that's what he, that's what, he told me that I was like, oh, yeah. Okay. I think Patrick McKenzie was there, too, and he said something similar. So I was like, oh, because they did a landing page tear down for me at that conference. That's right. Michele Hansen 30:36Wow. Nice. Sean Fioritto 30:37Yeah. So anyway, so I did the, I did that, because somebody told me to. And in fact, it's true. Like, if I hadn't done that, you could just see like, the way the purchases ended up that like, that absolutely almost tripled my revenue. So, Michele Hansen 30:53Oh, wow. Yeah. Sean Fioritto 30:54Which is a big deal for books, because it's not like, yeah, anyway. The, the, the way, the way you were talking about it, though, because there's another way to think about it. I was thinking about in tiers with the book, but another way to think about it is in terms of a product funnel. So your, your book could be super cheap, and it is the entry point into your product, your little product universe. Because like, you're, what you're doing is naturally, because you're literally writing a book about this, listening to your customers and understanding that they have other like, you're really understanding what their, their pain is, and you see that there's different ways that you could solve it for them, right? Those things as a product. So you could bundle that stuff into your book, you could create tiers, like I did. And maybe it does make sense, we talk about this more, but like there's, there's, there's different ways to do tiers with books that, that makes sense, that aren't exactly what I did. But also, like what you're describing is basically different courses. So let's, so, like, people that run these info product businesses, like, what you end up with is like, you've got this world of courses, and you've got this world of content. And people come in from like, search, you know, or whatever channel that you've worked on, usually it's like an SEO channel, like through your content. And then they enter your automated marketing system. And then the first thing they do is buy probably your cheapest thing, your book, and then you're moving them on to the next level into your email marketing system to get them to start looking at, you know, your course, which is like a more in-depth version of the book, or whatever. So anyway, I'm just sort of sketching out, like how, how these content marketing businesses tend to work. So you kind of end up in their little universe and then you just get bounced around all their various email automation. If you've been in anybody's like, any internet famous person's little, like, email world, you'd probably notice eventually, if you're there for long enough, like, I already got that email. And so anyway, so let's there's like a different way of looking at it. You don't have to do tiers. You could just sell your book, you know, digital version, here's the hardback version, you make it cheap, and then, you know, lots of people, lots of people read it. And then you, turns out that this is still really interesting to you, you still like solving people's problems and you're like, you know what, like, I should release like, some recordings of customer interviews as like, examples or whatever, you know, and then you peel that off into a different product and you sell that, and slowly you build up this machine, basically. Also the guy to talk to would be Keith Perhac, who's in our group, too. Michele Hansen 33:51Oh, yeah, I should totally talk to Keith. Colleen Schnettler 33:53Did he write a book? Sean Fioritto 33:55Yeah, he did but also his, his job before running SegMetrics was with the internet famous person that you guys know of that ran these huge content marketing programs and had this whole product funnel thing and all this stuff that I was talking about. So Keith is like, expert on that topic. Michele Hansen 34:15I guess I don't know if I want to go that direction just now because I do, you know, I do have a job. Um, so I'm, yeah. Sean Fioritto 34:28You could just be like Amy. Michele Hansen 34:33So, I, yeah, so I guess I have to think about that, and thinking about like, like, where to price it and those bundles and whatnot. Actually, I have another super like, mechanical question. So, between the time you announced the pre-order, and when you, like, people could actually like, to like, first of all, like, what was the incentive for somebody to pre-order? And then, what was the time from like, when you announced the pre-order to when you like, people could actually get it? Like, how far in advance do you do a pre-order? And what do you like, do you have to give people something? Sean Fioritto 35:10Yeah, I can't, I actually can't remember. I can't remember, what did I do? I did a pre-order. I can't even remember if I gave him the book or not. I don't think you have to. Some people just buy it ready to go. I think I, I probably did give ‘em like, here's everything I got so far, and it's gonna change, but, you know, here's that. Here's what I've got. And, you know, whatever version, like, people don't care if it's like, not even formatted or, you know, give me everything you got. Because the people that are going to do that are ready to just devour it. And then also, some of them might be like, I'm not wanting to, I don't want it right now, but I had a discount, right? So there's like, the pre-order, it's like a little bit cheaper to buy it now. Because I knew I was going to be selling it at like, as, like, a $40 product. So the discount, I think I sold it initially for pre-orders for like, 29 bucks, or maybe less even. Yeah, maybe like 20 bucks or something like that. Michele Hansen 36:08Okay, and it's 30 now. Colleen Schnettler 36:11Yeah, it probably makes sense for you, as someone who, I'm using it and referencing it, even though it's not done, because those scripts, like you were saying, are so valuable to people. Michele Hansen 36:20Yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess I sort of like, feel like everybody already has everything. I mean, reality like, they, they don't because everything has been changed so much. But I guess I need to like, set it up, too. Like, I need to decide on a platform to use to actually sell it. Sean Fioritto 36:42Oh, I didn't do that at first. Michele Hansen 36:45Okay. So did you just use Stripe? Sean Fioritto 36:47I think I used PayPal. I was literally like, here's my email, send PayPal money there. And then I sent it to ‘em. Michele Hansen 36:55How did you deal with that and sales tax and stuff? Sean Fioritto 36:57I don't think that existed. But also I would have just ignored it. Michele Hansen 37:03Okay, yeah, I guess I'm in the EU, so I kind of can't. Sean Fioritto 37:08It's the wild west out here. Michele Hansen 37:12'Murica. Sean Fioritto 37:15No, I had a really bad tax bill the first year because I ignored all of that stuff. Michele Hansen 37:19Oh, okay, so you're not advising. This is not financial advice. Sean Fioritto 37:26I'm just saying what I did. I'm not saying you should do that. Michele Hansen 37:30This may or may not be good advice, what you are hearing, just so you know. All of this may be bad advice. Okay, so I basically, Sean Fioritto 37:39I got audited, too, actually. I forgot about that. So don't, yeah, definitely don't do that. Being audited is not as bad as it sounds, it turns out but that's, anyway, that's a different story. Michele Hansen 38:55I was, I feel like I should do a, like a talk hear, hear, and be like, well, on that massive disappointment, thank you and good evening. Um, so okay. So you know, I feel, see, I feel like I look at you and you're like, you, like, have your stuff together about selling a book. And the fact that you had all like, you had these fears about, like, getting rejected by it, and like, put all this into it, and you did it without having done it before. And, you know, made mistakes, looking back, that you are now helping me not replicate. Um, I feel, I feel a little, I feel a little better about this. And also, I guess I have a deadline now, which is five days from now to have the website functional. So, that's fun. Colleen Schnettler 38:51You're welcome. I'm here for you, Michele. Just push you over the cliff. Michele Hansen 38:56Like, copy paste content into it, right? Um, I noticed actually that Sean, like, your site has a ton of testimonials, and that's something I have been sort of tepidly starting to collect. Like, I guess I'm a little bit afraid to, like, ask people for testimonials. But I've gotten a couple. Sean Fioritto 39:17So what you do is you write them the testimonial, then you email them and you say can I use this as your testimonial? And then they say yes, and then you put it on your page. Michele Hansen 39:25That's lower friction than what I've been asking for. Um, but, but that makes sense. Sean Fioritto 39:32I mean, I would also peel out, so they said something good in an email and I'd copy it and then change it so it sounded better, and then, can I use this as a testimonial? Michele Hansen 39:39Yeah. Yeah. Sean Fioritto 39:42I mean, when I say sounds better, I mean, just like copy edit, right? Michele Hansen 39:45I mean, I guess, like, we do that with Geocodio. And I think, like, Colleen and I have talked about this how, I guess I've like, gotten over all of these fears with Geocodio, and I'm so much more confident with it. And maybe it's because it doesn't have my name, like, directly on it, or it's just been around for like seven and a half years now. Versus this, I'm like, I'm so much more unsure. Like, Sean Fioritto 40:07You haven't done this in a long time. Michele Hansen 40:08I never have written a book. Sean Fioritto 40:12Well, whatever. Like, you haven't done a launch. Because you can launch anything. You could have launched Geocodio. Michele Hansen 40:18Yeah. Sean Fioritto 40:18You could've launched it this way, too. But you just haven't done that before. And it's weird, launch is weird because launch is like, everybody, pay attention to me now. Michele Hansen 40:29Yeah, I'm just super uncomfortable with that. Sean Fioritto 40:33Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's what it feels like. But then when I realized it was, if you're doing it, right, it's not that. It feels like it, but you're not actually making it about you. It's about them. And then for like, a couple days, you know, you gotta be like, here's the product, you can buy it, and you got to be like sending more emails than you normally. Lots of people will unsubscribe. But like I said, those people are not subscribing. Some of them probably hate you, but you know, most of them are probably just unsubscribing because like, they're, turns out, they weren't interested now that they actually see what it is. They're like, oh, no, that's not what I was thinking it was, or whatever. You get used to it, like, you definitely get used to it. I did it for a couple products. And over time, I just didn't care anymore. Like, I absolutely felt like I was doing a good for people. And I know that I was because I didn't get nearly as much. I think that some of my friends who were in that space would tell me that I needed to go harder, you know, like a little more salesy than I was. But anyway, the point is, Michele Hansen 41:39The thing is, like, I'm not like, I'm not averse to marketing, I think, I mean, this is something that like, we were actually talking about the other day, like people, like technical people being averse to like, sales and marketing and like, like, I have written the book with this in mind that like, hopefully, like, people will recommend it, like, like an audience of the book is like product leaders and marketing leaders who need to teach their teams how to do this. And so like, that's an audience I'm writing for because if they then they have like, buy the book for like five people, and then if they get a new job, or promotion, or whatever, in two years, and they need to teach the team like their new team how to do it again. Um, and so like, that is like, comfortable for me. But yeah, I guess as you were saying, like, hitting the sales hard is, is a little bit uncomfortable. And I guess I will just have to deal with a couple of days of like, that being awkward and like, doing the whole, like, you know, I don't know, like home shopping network style, like, and here's this book, and you can have it for the low, low price of $29. Plus, all of these bundles. Like, Sean Fioritto 42:43So, the thing that, okay, maybe this will help you, but they would help, it helped me, is I just focus on, on the, on the people that are, on your audience, and like your copy and everything is about them. It's about you. You're using, I know you're doing this, right, so you're gonna use the word you in your copy. Like, you never use the word I in your copy, right? So everything is about them. You've done all this research, you know, them, you know, you know, the problems they're facing, you know the pains they're having. And so you could just keep talking about that, talking about that. Launch, then, is then just like, more of those types of emails, like, a higher cadence than you're used to, which is still just about them. And then you're hitting them with like, okay, and now it's here. Like, you're, the whole time you're telling them it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. And then now it's here, here's what's in it, and you're gonna have these emails that just say, here's everything that's in it, and then here's questions that people might have, email that follows up, and then hey, this is gonna end in like a certain amount of time, follow up and then you got one hour left, you know, email. So you do these, you do this sequence of emails, but like, you have to remember when you're sending those that are the most uncomfortable that some people are really, really excited, and if you don't send them that stuff, they won't buy it and they'll, they'll regret it. Like, there's some people that genuinely are very excited and super thrilled to get those emails. Michele Hansen 44:03Can I run a, I have like, a tagline, or not like, a headline I have been throwing around in my head. Can I run it past you? Sean Fioritto 44:12Yeah. For an article? Michele Hansen 44:13No, for the book, but like, so like, this would be the like, main headline on the site. Sean Fioritto 44:18Yeah, yeah. Michele Hansen 44:21Your time is too valuable to spend it building things people don't want. Sean Fioritto 44:27Perfect. I mean, it's a little wordy, but yeah, like, the concept is perfect. Michele Hansen 44:32I will work on the wordiness. Sean Fioritto 44:36I mean, it's really, it's good, though. That's perfect. Michele Hansen 44:38It's good. I guess it's good enough, right? It's good enough for me to slap a site together in the next, checks watch, five days, and, and get that going. Sean Fioritto 44:50Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like, you could roll with that as an H2 on a landing page. Easy. Yeah. That would be fine the way it is. Michele Hansen 44:57Cool. Second image of the book. All right. There's all this stuff I'll have to do, but I guess I'll just be working away at this. Sean Fioritto 45:04You know what would be fun for you? I have an archived version of like, my old initial website, if you go to, oh, it doesn't work anymore. Michele Hansen 45:15Can I look it up on Internet Archive? Or it's like, Sean Fioritto 45:19Probably you can, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't. I used to have it just up so that I could, you could go to the URL. But yeah, so you'd have to go through the Internet Archive. But I had, and I did a, I did a write up on the landing page tear down and discussed screenshots from the, from the old version. It was truly, truly awful. But I sold $7,000 worth of book through it. So, Michele Hansen 45:40Can I ask you how much you sold overall? Do you reveal that? Sean Fioritto 45:44Yeah, yeah, of course. So it's actually hard to know because the, well, because as I've revealed I'm not fantastic about keeping track of my finances, or I wasn't then, but the, the book, through its lifespan, has made about $150,000. Michele Hansen 46:06Whoa. Sean Fioritto 46:07And most of that was the first two years because I was really, really actively pushing it. And then it just sort of, like, continued to make sales in dribs and drabs, and now it makes, probably, I don't know, I think I sold $1,000 worth of it last year, which makes sense, because it's pretty out of date at this point. Michele Hansen 46:28That'd be interesting to know why people are still buying it. Sean Fioritto 46:32Well, because the concept of designing in a browser is still something that people, you know, talk about from time to time. Should designers write code, or should they be using Figma, or at the time, you know, Sketch or Photoshop, I think all my copy is about Photoshop. So, you know, so like, I think that that concept is still valid. My copy is a little dated, the, the tech inside the book is a little, little dated at this point, though, still useful. So yeah, I think that is just the, so that was one of the things that I learned for content marketing was the, so if you want something to be really like, a really big hit, and to sort of like, make the rounds on the internet, you know, just those articles, it's sometimes just like, everybody's reading. The key to those is there has to be, well, there's like three rules. But like, one of the rules is, it has to be something everybody's talking about right now. And so at the time, everyone was talking about should we design in the browser? That was a big point of conversation. I would say now, like a similar level of conversation would be people talking about how much they hate single page apps, like in the Ruby on Rails community and trying to like, get off of that, right. So like, if you wrote a book about building single page app equivalents in Hotwire or something like that, that would probably resonate really, really well with that community right now. And you'd get a lot of free buzz when it's, people are already talking about it. So that's the problem. I think that that's why, like, hardly anybody's buying it now. But still, people are talking about that. So you get like, a little bit. And then also, I have all these marketing automated things that are still running. So like, I have some content that I accidentally wrote that has a lot of Google traffic, right? Like, I didn't accidentally write it, but I accidentally, like, did some search engine optimization on it. And so I get quite a bit of traffic from those pages, and then they end up signing up for, like, my tutorial things. And then they're in my little email automation thing that I set up, and eventually they get a pitch and then they, and then they buy. So there's some trickle down of that. Michele Hansen 48:50That makes sense. So, I guess, and this will be my last question. Um, is there anything else I should know about selling a book? Sean Fioritto 49:02Yeah, you don't have to do any of the things that I said, like. Like, well I think, I think you're already like doing all the right things. I was pushing really hard to make it my business. And so that, and frankly, once it got to the point where it was my business, that was a distraction for me. It made it hard, harder for me to stay relaxed and focused on doing the things that were the best for my customers, like, once money became this, like concern. So to me, you have this advantage of like, you don't have to, you don't have to worry about that. Like, each one of the things that I did, like it feels like you should bone up a little bit on how to do a launch, though that's not too difficult. You don't have to do like, the greatest job ever, and you maybe even already know how to do that to some extent. But other than that, I don't know, like 200 people on the mailing list, probably enough already. And you'll get more as people are more and more interested. And, you know, do you have an email subscribe on any of your content at all that you've written? Michele Hansen 50:16So it's all in review, so I think it all has a subscribe link at the bottom. Sean Fioritto 50:22Perfect. Michele Hansen 50:23I think I have one on Twitter, like, on my pinned tweet is a subscription to the newsletter. Sean Fioritto 50:30Yeah, yeah. Cuz like, by the time I was doing it full time, I mean, the number of, I was doing so many other things that we didn't even talk about, for marketing, which it's like, we don't, we don't even need to go there. Because you don't, you don't need to do any of that stuff. I think you're doing everything right. And I would think carefully about, like, what your goals are with the book, and, for both you, you and for your customers, and then kind of size it right size it accordingly. And don't feel guilty about not doing all the right marketing things, because the right marketing things, just as long as you're focused on your audience and the people that are going to be reading your book, you're doing the right thing. Michele Hansen 51:13Hmm. Well, thank you for that, like, boost of encouragement. Sean Fioritto 51:19You're welcome. Michele Hansen 51:21I guess to wrap up, we should mention, by the way, that you have your own show. And you're actually getting something off the ground right now. Do you want to talk about that for a second? Sean Fioritto 51:34Yeah. So my friend Aaron Francis and I, we have a company called Hammerstone, that's at Hammerstone.dev. Our podcast is, is linked to there on the home page. We have, like you guys, it's kind of like a ride along podcast, and we just do our weekly check in we record it as a, as a podcast. And what we're working on is a drop in component for Laravel. The component allows you, allows your users to build, dynamically build queries, which they can, you could then use to display reports, etc. to them. Yeah, so that's, that's our new thing that we're working on. That's a new thing for me. I should probably have a whole other podcast and invite you on, ask you about how I should be marketing my software business. Michele Hansen 52:30So by the way, so, the podcast is really good. We finished it on a road trip a couple of months ago, and you should totally start at the beginning because, like so, so yes, like, the software part is interesting. But there's this whole other element that Aaron's wife is pregnant with multiples. And the podcast started in like, December, right? Sean Fioritto 52:52Yeah. Michele Hansen 52:53So, and she was due in April. And so there's this like, whole, like, tension of it of like, oh, my god, like, are they gonna get to launch stuff before, like, Aaron goes from being not a parent to the parent of multiple children overnight? Like, is it like, is it gonna happen? And I found myself as I was listening, I was like, oh, my god, like, like, it really added this element of suspense that I have not felt while listening to another podcast, and it made it very enjoyable. Sean Fioritto 53:24You know what's frustrating. I just realized your audience actually overlaps with the audience of my product. And I just did a horrible job of pitching it. I was like, I could just sort of half-ass explain it here. But, Michele Hansen 53:34All you Laravel people, like, just check it out. Sean Fioritto 53:37Yeah, that's good. Michele Hansen 53:40Just take my word for it. This has been really fun, Sean. Thank you so much for coming on. Sean Fioritto 53:50You're welcome. Michele Hansen 53:51I really appreciate all of your advice. And I, I don't know what you call the, the anti-advice. You know, don't ignore taxes. And encouragement and perspective, that really means a lot to me. Sean Fioritto 54:08You're welcome. Thanks for having me on. Michele Hansen 54:11This is awesome. So if you guys liked this episode, please leave us a review on iTunes. Or let us know that you listened on Twitter, and we'll talk to you next week.
The Real Life Episode
Michele Hansen 00:00Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by the website monitoring tool, Oh Dear. We recently refreshed the Geocodio website, and it was really helpful how Oh Dear alerted us to broken links and made it clear what we needed to fix. Broken links are bad for SEO, and so I really appreciate those alerts from Oh Dear. You can sign up for a 10 day free trial with no credit card required at OhDear.app. Colleen Schnettler 00:28Good morning, Michele. Michele Hansen 00:30Hey, how are you? Colleen Schnettler 00:32Good. How are things in Denmark today? Michele Hansen 00:36Well, this week was kind of a challenge, um, because on, I had a super productive writing day on Monday. So I read Kathy Sierra's Badass over the weekend. Colleen Schnettler 00:52Oh yeah, I've heard of that book. Michele Hansen 00:53I don't know, have you read that? Colleen Schnettler 00:54I have not. Michele Hansen 00:54Okay, you've read that. Oh, you have not read that. Colleen Schnettler 00:56I've not read that. Michele Hansen 00:57It's really good. So in so many ways, it's, I think of it as, like, jobs to be done for people who don't know what Jobs To Be Done is and have never heard of that. Like, it's basically like figuring out like, you're not just building a thing for the sake of it. You're building it because somebody wants to do something, and they don't buy it for the sake of it. Like, they want to do something better. And so it's, it's kind of aligned with StoryBrand in that regard. It's like, you know, your user is the hero, not the product. But it's a little bit more, um, it's, I think it's just a different perspective than StoreBrand. It's very, very practical. And it, the whole thing is kind of written like a PowerPoint. There's like, lots of like pictures and comics. Actually my seven year old, like, while I was reading it, she came over and she was like, oh, what are you reading? Like, pictures. So, you know, she wants to learn how to make a product. I'll leave that one laying around. Um, it's really good. Um, but, so I was reading it because some people had mentioned it in the interviews I did as a book that they liked. Colleen Schnettler 02:05Okay, great. Michele Hansen 02:06And yeah, and, and so I read it just sort of as like, reference material. Um, but actually, it ended up like, helping me kind of have a breakthrough with the book on Monday. Um, and so I spent like, the whole day. Uh, yeah, no, all day Tuesday, actually. I spent the whole day Tuesday writing. I didn't get any writing time on Monday, really. And then Tuesday, at like, four o'clock, I was, um, like, signing on to a Zoom, and then my computer crashed. Colleen Schnettler 02:35Oh, no. Michele Hansen 02:36Like, died, and crashed and like, gone to join the choir invisible like, is now an ex-laptop, like, just totally got like, it was just restarting itself for like, three days. And, Colleen Schnettler 02:51Oh. Michele Hansen 02:51So, it is now embarking on a lovely journey to the Czech Republic to be repaired, um, and I did not get a lot done the rest of the week, because it was like, trying to figure stuff out with using the, like, the iPad. Like, it was just, yeah. So, you know, but that's real life, right? Colleen Schnettler 03:15Yes, that is real life. So true. Michele Hansen 03:19Oh, so how's it, how's it going for you? Colleen Schnettler 03:23So I got a lot of time, I blocked out a lot of time this week to work on Simple File Upload, and it gave me great joy. Like, I have to say, you know, it's funny because people are always talking about self-care, and in the mom space, like you always see things like go get a pedicure, and I'm like, my self care is like, six hours alone with my laptop with no one to bother me. Is that weird? Michele Hansen 03:44Heck yes. Colleen Schnettler 03:45Like, I love that. So like, on Monday, such a weirdo. Michele Hansen 03:50It's so true. Like, it's so true. Like, so much of self-care is like, people just wanting to sell you stuff, and like, reality is it's sometimes it's just leave me alone. Colleen Schnettler 04:01Right? Just leave me alone. So it was, I really had a great week. I got to spend a good chunk of time implementing this feature request, which was something that I thought would be easy, and ended up taking way longer than I thought. So basically, my uploader uses the default styling that comes with drop zone, DropzoneJS, and so I got a request to allow it to be smaller, like 50 pixels by 50 pixels, which I thought would be no big deal. But it turns out once I started digging into the source, the styles are all pinned to 120 pixels by 120 pixels. So it was like, a huge thing to change this because I basically had to rip out all of the static, you know, statically defined CSS and put in, um, flexible CSS, and it was fun. I mean, it was, it was so cool because it was something I enjoy doing, um, something I don't do a lot. I think one of the huge benefits to building your own product is you get exposed to things you wouldn't do in your day job. Like, every job I've had, I have a front end guy, and I have a CSS guy, and I don't really do that very much. Um, it's not a core skill set of mind. So it was kind of fun to get to dive into it and like, learn some new stuff and, and uh, and to ship it. So that made me happy. That brought me great joy. Michele Hansen 05:27It sounds like it did, despite the, the frustration. I'm curious, why did the person need it to be 50 by 50? Colleen Schnettler 05:35Avatars. So, so many people are using it as avatars, and using it for avatars, and it's pinned to 140 by one, or 120 by 120, which is big. I mean, you look at it, and you're like uh, it's kind of big for a, um, um, a form factor. So, yeah, that's what that was for Michele Hansen 05:56So are we talking about when someone uploads a file, it's turned into that size, or the actual size of the upload, or when they put it on their site? Colleen Schnettler 06:05The actual size of the uploader to fit into, so he actually sent me his form, like, sent me a video of his form, which is really cool. So I could see exactly what he was doing. But his product, um, uses like, avatars, and so he has a small little square where he wants, he wants to enable his users to drop in an avatar, and his form was designed in such a way that that had to be a small square, and the styles I had at the time, like, couldn't support that. Michele Hansen 06:32Oh, so he wanted the uploader to be the actual size of the sort of finished image that would go up. Colleen Schnettler 06:40Yeah, a little bit more like that. Okay. Yeah, so it would, it would be more seamless. Michele Hansen 06:45Right, so it implies to his user that the image going there should be 50 by 50, because if he had a huge box, they might think that they could upload a huge image. Colleen Schnettler 06:54Yeah. So that was fun. Michele Hansen 06:56Gotcha. Colleen Schnettler 06:56I enjoyed that. I also, like, came to this epiphany, as I've been talking to people, and when I say it, everyone is gonna be like, that's so obvious. But it just occurred to me yesterday, actually, and I've been a little bit frustrated when I've been talking to people because the things people are looking for, and one are all over the map. I mean, it's, it's completely inconsistent.I haven't been able to find a lot of consistency. But what I realized is, front end developers want all of the direct uploading, and the AWS integration, and all of the magic on the back end. Backend developers do AWS all the time, so they don't really care, but they hate doing design. I don't wanna say hate, that's a strong word, but they don't really like design. So they want the pixel-perfect UI on the front end, which makes sense now why front end developers are asking me like, oh, are you gonna make a headless component? And, you know, am I gonna get my images sized perfectly? And then the backend developers are asking me for theming and things like that. So it's two different, like, it makes sense, but like, for some reason this just clicked. So I kind of need to decide, I think, like, which direction I want to go, because it seems like, like I said, the feature set is not the same, and I'm, there's only one of me, so I can't, I, yeah, of course, I'd like to build out all of these things, but I can't do that right now. Um, so I kind of need to decide which direction I want to go as I continue to build out this feature set. Michele Hansen 08:33Yeah, so I'm, I'm curious. It, it sounds like you've heard a lot of different things, uh, from people, which by the way, is like, is totally normal, especially at this point where your reach is, is pretty broad, and you don't you don't have a defined focus. It's, it's normal that you would hear a lot of different things. It doesn't mean you're doing something wrong, like, that's, that's totally expected. But it sounds like if you know you have these two broad categories with different sets of needs, have you like, like, I'm wondering how you might categorize the feedback and suggestions and, and processes you've heard about so far, into those different user types. And then, and then it would be interesting to see if, if one of those groups has a higher propensity to pay versus another or like, I mean, and it might be too broad of a group, like, like, front, like, frontend developers and backend, like, those are those are pretty broad groups, right? Um, but it might, like, like, it might be interesting, or just to think about like, whose needs do you currently serve better? Colleen Schnettler 09:44Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely, yeah, I definitely have to dive more into this, um, and think about it. I like the idea of kind of trying to, uh, kind of box the feature set based on the skill set of the user because I really liked the idea of, of who is more likely to pay for it. I mean, that seems relevant for sure, right? That's why I'm here. Michele Hansen 10:07It's always a good thing to know, right? Colleen Schnettler 10:08It's a good thing to know. Michele Hansen 10:14Did you ever get in touch with that, uh, the customer we, I think we have called the whale? The, uh, the one that was like, what was it, like, two or three hundred. Colleen Schnettler 10:22This guy is paying me 250 bucks a month, or person, I don't know, I don't want to, but um, this person is paying me 250 bucks a month, and this person has still not cancelled and it's still not using it. I don't, like, I don't know what to expect here. Michele Hansen 10:36Alright. Colleen Schnettler 10:38I keep expecting a nasty email like, I didn't know I was paying that money. But it's been like, almost six weeks now, I think. So this person has paid that bill at least once. So yeah, no idea. I got nothing. But what I have noticed, so something else we talked about last week was changing my onboarding flow. So I did change the onboarding flow. And, um, Michele Hansen 11:00Oh, you had all those people who were like, it like, wasn't clear to them that they would have to pay for the free trial, so they were, Right. Getting through to the email setup, but then bouncing, and it's like, why hold on to their emails if it's not worth anything? Colleen Schnettler 11:14Yes, yes. So, I changed that. So, now the signup link dumps you to the pricing page, and then on the pricing page, like, the wording is still kind of rough, but it basically says a credit card is required to sign up for the trial. Um, so that should help me I think get less like, kind of emails I don't need in terms of onboarding. Michele Hansen 11:38Oh, you did change that this week. Colleen Schnettler 11:40Again, I did that yesterday, so it's too soon to say if, um, what difference that'll make. Like, it might take my signups, but at this point, I mean, it's, it's funny, because like, there's so many things I want to do, and there's just one of me, one of me who has a job. So, um, I, I think I have to let this one go. I have to let the extra email addresses, like, I looked at, this morning before our podcast, and saw all the email addresses of people who bounce at sign up, and I'm like, man, like, someday I might be able to, I realize it's like 15, I mean, just from couple days, it's like 15 people. It's like, I have those email addresses, but I'm just gonna let them go because where I am right now in trying to build this, like, I just don't have the bandwidth to try and hunt down people who might never want to pay me at this point. I need to serve, I think I need to serve the people that are paying me and, like, really focus in, you know, on those, on those folks. Michele Hansen 12:37Hmm. I think we, you know, we've talked about it a couple of times how it is just you, and you are one person with a job, and a family, and everything else going on, and you have so many ideas, and I'm curious how you are keeping track of all of those different things that you want to work on. Because it, because it sounds like that, like, mental load of carrying around all of your own ideas and the feedback you're, like, that, like, that, that is a mental load. Colleen Schnettler 13:14Yeah, so right now I keep track of all of that in Notion. But you know, I've gone back and forth in Notion. I know, some people love it, and some people hate it, and like, I don't know, like, a couple years ago, maybe a year ago, I really spent a couple days getting a setup I liked and I used it really, really diligently, and then when things get really busy, that's when you should rely on your tasks, you know, on that the most. But yet, I tend to just let it go because you have so many competing priorities. So I do have a list, but do I actually look at that list? No. I mean, I just, I just am like, I should do this thing next. And then I do the thing. But I do have a list so I don't lose like, these ideas. Michele Hansen 13:59I think I, like, it might be helpful to try to like prioritize those. And also I remember when we were talking about this last time, you had to do that was like, you know, improve the landing page. And it was something that was actually like, 10 steps deep and it like, wasn't one task, and I want I wonder if that would help. Colleen Schnettler 14:21Yeah, being more specific. Um, I do. I do think that would help. I also think,, like, this thing with the, the small styles I mentioned, that ended up taking way longer than I anticipated. So, that's why, like, task management can be challenging, I think because you just, as you know, in software, you just want to have that, you just want to block out like, three days to do whatever you want to do, and it's just sometimes hard to know how long these tasks are going to take. But generally speaking, yeah, breaking them down is, is good. But like, so here's a problem I'm having. Okay, and here's a business idea for anyone listening. You know how Stripe, I know, business idea. Maybe I shouldn't share it, I should just build it. But I don't have time to build anything else. Um, so you know how Stripe provides really cool analytics, like, you log on to Stripe, and I know there's like many, many analytic platforms built on top of Stripe, but even Stripe is nice because you can log on, you can, you know, see what your churn rate is, you can see the lifetime value, you can see all this information about your customers. Heroku has none of that. Like, so I'm not even really tracking people who churn on Heroku. So if you asked me, like, how many people have signed up and then cancelled, I can't even tell you. Like, I mean, if I tried really hard, I could figure it out, but I love how when you sign on to Stripe you, like, get that dashboard right there, like, here's all your information. That would be super cool for Heroku. So, I'm at the point where I'm not even exactly sure because if you churn, I delete your account, so I have to like, go find that information. And of course, of course I say this and every software developer listening is like, yeah, that's so easy to build. Yes, it's so easy to build. So are the other 5000 things I want to do. So to me, like, I know if I was listening to this, I'd be like, well just write that. That's so easy. But um, yeah, I mean, it's such competing priorities. So like, that's something I want to know but not something I have time to build, and what I have, what do I have 20, 20ish, 25ish paying users. With such a low percentage, with such a low number of paying users, it just doesn't seem worth my time right now to really care about that. Michele Hansen 16:38I think you just hit on something really important, which is that sometimes building something is much easier than more marketing it and figuring out who needs it and why and pricing it. And, you know, building is not easy in its own right, but there there is a real, like, you're going through this challenge right now, and I mean, to me, it makes sense where that's where your comfort zone is that now you have something going but there are definitely some frustrations with that. That the prospect of going to build something else is sort of a shiny ball that jumps out at you. Colleen Schnettler 17:25Oh, totally. And I've given myself a little more permission to do that now that I have paying users, so I know that is a thing. You know, even doing these customer interviews, like, I like people. I like to talk. But before every customer interview, like, I get a little nervous, you know, because it's someone you don't know. You're basically like, cold calling someone asking them for their time and then try not to talk over them. Like, I have just found it to be a really interesting exercise to try and, and do all of those marketing activities. But like I said, this week, when I had my couple days of just coding, like, that's definitely sparks joy. That's my sparks joy place. Like, I love talking to people and meeting people, but I do find that that is harder, and requires a totally different skill set and energy level. Michele Hansen 18:13Absolutely. And, and I notice that you said you, you find yourself nervous beforehand. You said you were nervous, and, but there's different reasons for that, like, you're sort of partly afraid that, you know, they're not going to want to talk to you, sort of like a cold calling sense, but also that you're going to talk too much. Colleen Schnettler 18:33Okay, this is my thing. So I think that I'm like, if anyone who has met me in person, like, I think I'm good in-person with a one, one-on-one. Like, I think I'm good with, like, getting to know someone and like, developing a connection with someone. But I do that by echoing what you say and by like, just getting excited about whatever you're saying. And when I'm doing these customer interviews, something you and I've talked about a lot is like, don't get overly excited and be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that, or oh, you're totally right. But I like to agree. I don't want to say I like to agree with people, but if I agree with you about whatever you're talking with, my natural inclination is to be, is to, uh, fusibly agree with you, right? That forms our bond as friends, as people, and, you know, I agree with you. And um, so what's hard for me is if you're like, oh my gosh, I hate setting up buckets on AWS. That's a good example, because that has happened. I want to be like, I know, it's the worst, like, CORS configuration. Everyone forgets that. But I'm not supposed to do that in a customer interview. So like, me just being like, oh, tell me more about why you hate setting up buckets on AWS or whatever it is, um, is a challenge. Michele Hansen 19:50Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. And, you know, I almost sometimes find myself having double tracks of thinking in my head, like, when someone says something that gets me really excited, like, um, I'll have, I'm like, oh my god, yes. So good. And then you have to be like, can you tell me more about what you find difficult about working with those buckets? Because the thing that you want to find out in the interview is not just that they think it's difficult, but why it's difficult from their perspective, and it's going to be difficult for different reasons from your perspective. And the point is not to build a shared bond over the fact that it's difficult. It's to understand their perspective on it, which may be similar to yours, but is different. But I mean, but it's also, it's normal to get excited, you know, I was, I was listening to an episode of Hidden Brain a couple of weeks ago, where the linguist Deborah Tannen was being interviewed, and she was talking about how people from different regions in the US have different conversation styles. So, people from the Northeast, which includes me, we will talk over other people as a way of showing excitement and engagement with what they're saying. Colleen Schnettler 21:06Yeah. Michele Hansen 21:06And that is a way of being involved in the conversation, versus somebody from the Midwest or from California, like, they might have to wait and pause naturally before the other person stops speaking in order to share their own perspective on it. And apparently, like, you know, I was, I was talking to someone who sort of studies cross-cultural communication, and they were saying that the way you know, so, so a Californian may interpret that how someone from New York speaks is interrupting. But somebody from Japan may interpret that the way that people from California speak is interrupting. Colleen Schnettler 21:43Right. Michele Hansen 21:44So all of these things are relative, but I think that kind of conversation style, like I especially find that, like, that, that took me years to tamp down. And I think for me, like, I didn't start tamping that down when I first started doing interviews. Like, that process happened, you know, once I moved from Boston to DC, and you know, that with people from, from the south and the Midwest more who are, who do not use that sort of excited, um, way of talking over people to show engagement. It's very, very different. Like, having people tell me that I was rude forced me to kind of reevaluate that. But of course, if I, if I talk to somebody from New York or whatever, like we're excited and talking over each other, and it's so fun and chaotic, in a way that I just can't do with someone from, you know, Washington State, for example. Colleen Schnettler 22:38Yeah, yeah, I definitely think that's true. And I definitely think it's a skill and, you know, I'm working on it and, uh, trying to learn it. But it's definitely different, like, whole different skill set and energy level than working on features, or working on code. Michele Hansen 22:55Yeah. And sometimes I find it helpful to remind myself and other people that I'm trying to teach this to is that it's helpful to try these things out in conversations with people. Like, so you might normally start relating to someone, but to try this out just, just to get used to it, but then you don't have to change your conversation style, like, in a social setting. Like, there's nothing, there's nothing that says that one style is intrinsically more valid than another. Like, just because there might be relative differences doesn't mean that one is any better and that there's anything wrong with the way you talk, but it can be helpful to try this out in a social setting at first, just so it feels a little more natural when you're talking to a customer. Colleen Schnettler 23:41Yeah, that is a great idea, and I will continue to practice. It's good to practice on your kids, because they talk a lot anyway. So I feel like, at least mine do. I've been practicing on the kids. Michele Hansen 23:56One of my favorite references from my book, actually, is the book, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and How to Listen So Kids Will Talk, because it's technically a book on parenting, but really, there's so much more to it. And especially for people who find this is really, really counterintuitive and strange to them, I think it's probably because they were spoken to differently as a child, and this kind of way of just, you know, validating what someone is saying and, um, you know, it's, may not come may not come naturally, but, but it can be learned. Colleen Schnettler 24:34Yeah. Michele Hansen 24:34How do you try it out on your kids? I'm curious. Colleen Schnettler 24:37Like, when they tell me something I've tried, literally do it. Like they'll tell me something, I'm like, well, tell me more about like, why this was a problem with Jimmy, or why do you think, you know, like, I'm just trying to be like, cool, calm and collected, which I mean, I mostly am but I try not to get overexcited when they tell me about what their friends did or whatever. Like, oh, okay, tell me more about that. How did you feel about that? You know, stuff like that. Michele Hansen 25:02Yeah. So, before we wrap up for this week, I have to ask, how are the numbers? Colleen Schnettler 25:08So, they're flat. Um, I hit 1k. I didn't actually calculate the exact number, but I think I'm right around 1k. I didn't have any new signups this week, and, or I did, but then this is what brought up the churn discussion. I did have a new sign up, but the person on the $85 a month plan churned, which is unfortunate, um, and there's just, that's why I'm like, there's just so much I want to do. But I think right now, I think for this week, okay, all I can do is plan one thing at a, one week at a time, right. I have a long, I have a list of all the things I want to do. But in terms of staying focused, especially with my time constraints, like, this week, my goal is to get a demo on the homepage because I want to increase signups, like, that's what I want to do right now. So, um, that's my goal for this week. Like, another thing that happened was I went to go put the demo on the homepage, and, Michele Hansen 26:06It was the CodePen thing, right? Colleen Schnettler 26:07Yeah, but I want to pull it off of CodePen. It, yeah, it's on CodePen, which is fine, but I want to pull it off of CodePen and literally put a fully functioning demo, like, drop your file here and I'll alert you the URL or something. But the reason I haven't done that is because I had to write, so I had to write all these monkey patches, because I am still on Rails 6.0, which doesn't support CDN serving a file, so I'm patching through it. So I go to put it on the homepage, and then I was like, well, while I'm, you know, while I'm doing this, I should just upgrade Rails, which is, like, not an insignificant task. So then I spend quite a lot of time going through the upgrade of Rails and, and that's really, I think my struggle is I do need to upgrade Rails because as soon as I upgrade, I can pull out those monkey patches, which gives me warm fuzzies, because I don't like to patch rails if I don't have to, right. And the patches are literally, like, the pull request on Rails 6.1, so I know that they're correct. But still, I'd like to upgrade and pull them out. But, um, you know, that's, that's not insignificant. So then I start, I start upgrading, and then I'm like, oh, well, if I'm going to upgrade, I need more test coverage. So then I start writing more tests. And you see how this just snowballs right? Like, until like, I'm like, oh, wait, I literally wanted to put a thing on the web page, and here I am trying to upgrade the whole application, and like, fill out the rest of the, like, write these other tests, and, oh my gosh. I mean, it's fine. If this was all I did with my life, but I have other things to do. Michele Hansen 26:40This feels like the equivalent of like, going to put away a basket of laundry. And then you're like, well, I'm here, I should just organize the sock drawer. Colleen Schnettler 27:46Yes. Michele Hansen 27:47And then before you know it, you're actually sorting out all of the winter clothes and putting them away and making a donate pile and then bringing out the summer clothes, and then you turn around two hours later, and there is still a basket of laundry sitting on the bed. Colleen Schnettler 27:59That's literally it, Michele, that's literally what happened to me. Like it was, I was like, Colleen, stay. And it's not that I'm not focused, like, these are all good things, and it's exactly right. I'm like, well, I'm in here. So I should fix this thing. I did that with the CSS stuff, too. I was like, well, I'm in here, so I'm just going to rewrite the whole preview template because why not, like. That is my struggle. Michele Hansen 28:20It sounds like those things, though, like, those things for you are, I feel like soul-nourishing is a little bit of a stretch, but like those are, you know, they spark joy for you. Colleen Schnettler 28:33They totally do. I mean, and that's why, Michele Hansen 28:35It's very focused, like what like, like, focused kind of attention and like, total, like, flow, right? That, like, that's the word I was looking for. It sparks flow. Colleen Schnettler 28:47It totally does. And like, I am amazing at focusing. Like, I can sit down for six hours, and like, not even get up, which is not good for my body, but I mean, it, I love, now I sound like a weirdo, but like, I love that. Like I've love, like, I wasn't kidding, like, give me six hours in my laptop and no Slack and no, like, none of that. Um, because it does spark joy. I can like, I really getting these flow states. And I love like, I love doing it. So I think that is relevant because I think I have been really focused on customer interviews, which is great for my business, but kind of draining for my person. So I think spending some time, like, in that flow state is really good for me because it does spark joy. Michele Hansen 29:32You have to recharge your batteries. Colleen Schnettler 29:34Yeah, that's exactly, that's a really good way to put it. That's exactly right. Michele Hansen 29:38You gotta have like, balance, right, like, you know, I think that's one of the things about being an entrepreneur and especially as sort of a you know, small scale entrepreneur like we are, like, there's so many different things we could be doing at any time. And some of those things will spark joy, and some of those will spark the opposite of joy, and all of them are necessary. And we have to find a balance between them. And, like, I've been talking about this lately as, like the concept of reward work, which is like wok that we let ourselves do when we've gotten through the stuff that we didn't really want to do as much or it was more draining, and it sounds like this kind of, um, I think I dubbed it putzing through the code garden for you is like, and sort of just like, weeding and, you know, cleaning things up and repainting your garden shed, like, those are the things that are like the reward work for you. Colleen Schnettler 30:40Yep, totally. Michele Hansen 30:44Well, I think that's probably a good place to end today. I feel like this turned into our like, Real Life Episode, like, your numbers are flat. You had somebody churn. My laptop died, and I didn't get anything done, like. Colleen Schnettler 31:00Oh, one of those weeks. Michele Hansen 31:02Yeah, that's how it goes. Alright, well, we'll talk to you next week. Thank you so much for listening, and, um, we love when you tweet out that you're listening to it, or if anything jumped out to you, so we'll chat with you on Twitter.
Valuable, Usable, Viable, Feasible
Michele Hansen 00:00Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by Oh Dear, the website monitoring app. As an Oh Dear customer myself, I particularly like how easy it is to make SLA reports with Oh Dear. They're professional and sleek, and they make it easier for us to service enterprise customers. And I actually requested this feature myself last year, and I'm so delighted with how open to suggestions they are. You can sign up for a free 10 day trial with no credit card required at OhDear.app. Colleen Schnettler 00:32So Michele, how has your week been? Michele Hansen 00:34It's good. It's good. You know, I was, I was doing some writing this morning, which is funny, I've realized it's, like, my reward work. Like, you know, when I get through all the other stuff, like it's like, oh, like, now I have some writing time. And, Colleen Schnettler 00:47That's amazing because I remember being in high school and, like, English, like whenever I had to write a paper, it was literally my least favorite thing to do. So I find that fascinating that, for you, writing is your reward work. Michele Hansen 00:59I, five paragraph essays are, I don't think anyone looks forward to writing those. Like, this is very different than, than that. Um, but so I was, I was writing and I started thinking about this framework that I know we've talked about, and it occurred to me that I have a very tangible example of that. Colleen Schnettler 01:20Which framework? StoryBrand, or something else? Michele Hansen 01:22No, so it's a Marty Cagan framework. Colleen Schnettler 01:25Okay. Michele Hansen 01:26So, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna back up first. So, there's this misconception, I think that people sometimes have or fear about customer research that if they start listening to their customers, then they have to do everything the customers ask them for. And they're basically, like, giving up control over the vision of the product to the customer. Colleen Schnettler 01:47Okay. Michele Hansen 01:48And that's not true, right? Like, you'll always have to weigh it against, um, what makes sense for you to do. And so, there's this one framework that I particularly like that was developed by Marty Cagan, who is kind of, like, the the product guru, like, he's the head of this consultancy called the Silicon Valley Product Group. Like, he is like the product guy, and in order for a product to be successful, he says how it needs to be valuable, viable, usable, and feasible. Colleen Schnettler 02:26Wow, valuable, viable, usable, feasible. Michele Hansen 02:30So let's, let's break it down a little bit. So first, it has to be valuable for the customer. Like, it has to be something that is, you know, accomplishes something for them and helps them do something, right. Because if it's something that doesn't help them do something that they would want to do, then they wouldn't use it. Like, the example I kind of think of for this is what was that startup that would, like, squeeze a bag of pureed fruit for you? Like Juicero, or, like, it was some, like, they raised like billions of dollars or whatever, for, like, a smoothie machine, and everyone is like, why? Like, not really very valuable to people. Colleen Schnettler 03:04Right. Okay. Michele Hansen 03:05I'm sure they had wonderful ideas, and they were great people. It has to be viable, which means it has to be, like, commercially viable, like people have to be willing to pay for it. So like, I could make something that's super awesome and useful, but if no one is willing to pay for it, then it's not a viable product, right? Like, if I'm solving a problem that no one experiences painfully enough to, to pay someone to solve it, then it's not going to work out. Colleen Schnettler 03:30Okay. Michele Hansen 03:30It has to be usable, which may be the easiest of all these words, to understand that, like, they have to be able to figure out how to use it. So, Colleen Schnettler 03:39Okay. Michele Hansen 03:39You may have heard this in the context of usability testing, which is basically, like, if I make a website that you can do something on, but you can't actually figure out how to do that, and it's confusing, then it doesn't matter if what the product does is something that's valuable to you. If you can't figure out how to do it, you're going to move on to something else. Colleen Schnettler 03:57Right. Michele Hansen 03:57And then the last one is it has to be feasible, like, it has to be possible for you to produce this product. So, So this would be the equivalent of being, me being like, Colleen, I really need a spaceship. And you being like, that's awesome. I can see that's valuable for you. Maybe you have the ability to pay for that. I don't, but you know, let's go with it. I can build it in a way that, that you can use it. You know, you're an engineer, right? Any kind of engineer can build any kind of thing, right? Colleen Schnettler 04:05Oh, okay. Sure. Michele Hansen 04:25Yeah. Like, you could build a bridge. No, I'm, I'm, for all the certified engineers out there, I'm aware that they're not all transferable. But it wouldn't be feasible for you to build that. Colleen Schnettler 04:37Right. Michele Hansen 04:38So, so this framework of valuable, viable, usable and feasible is something that I always keep in mind when we're getting feedback from people because you don't necessarily act on every single problem and every piece of advice that you hear, and, like, and that's okay. Colleen Schnettler 04:55Yeah, okay. Michele Hansen 04:56And so, a specific example of this that relates to the book and to something we have been talking about quite a bit is consulting and whether I should do consulting related to the book. Colleen Schnettler 05:10Right. Michele Hansen 05:10It's something we've talked about, and I've gotten quite a few requests from people about. And, you know, as I thought about it, okay, so clearly, this would be valuable for people. Like they, they feel like they need help getting started with understanding their customers. They seem to be willing to pay for it. I don't know what that would be, like, I, granted I haven't told anyone, like, cool, here's, you know, an invoice for, I don't know, $500 for a 30 minute conversation, or whatever it is people charge. But like, people seem to be willing to pay for this, and they've told me that they pay other people for this. So there's clearly an ability and desire to pay there. And then usable, like, I feel like I would be able to deliver it in a way that would make it useful for them. But it's not feasible. Colleen Schnettler 05:56Why not? Michele Hansen 05:56Time zones. Colleen Schnettler 05:59Oh. Michele Hansen 06:00And also the fact that I already have a business that I need to keep going. So I, like, I already have a pressure on my time in that regard. But I basically only have one hour of decent overlap with the US, which is from, Colleen Schnettler 06:15One hour? Michele Hansen 06:16From nine to 10am Eastern. Colleen Schnettler 06:19Wow, because what time is 9 to 10am Eastern in Denmark. Michele Hansen 06:22So that's 3pm. So our daughter gets out of school at 3. So, Colleen Schnettler 06:26Yeah. Michele Hansen 06:26Making anything else work requires a huge amount of schedule gymnastics for me. And I already have customers that I need to have, you know, calls with anyway. Like, and, and so if I were to do consulting, then I would have to say that I could, like, do it for everybody except North America, which totally doesn't make sense because, you know, if you assume that the audience for this podcast is a pretty good overlap with the people who might want me to consult for them, that'd be like, 80% of the audience would not be eligible, and people might find that a bit off-putting, or frustrating. But like, I mean, I just can't do it. Like I can, you know, 8am Eastern is a great time for me, because that's 2pm here, but like, that's, that's a bit early for, for business conversations. And most of the time, like, if I have to have a call with California, like, it ends up being at 9 o'clock my time. And, Colleen Schnettler 07:21Yeah, that's rough. Michele Hansen 07:22Even 9am is a bit early. Like, I've worked in companies that, like, had like, a basically an official, like, no meetings before 10, but really not before 11 rule. Like, if you got a 9am meeting, I was like God, like why are you punishing them? So it's just, it's not feasible for me. So, Colleen Schnettler 07:42Okay. Michele Hansen 07:42Maybe it will be in, you know, 15 years when I don't have a child at home, and I can, you know, just blow through dinner time, like, and work and like, honestly, it's probably not gonna be good for my work-life balance, like, but it's, it's simply not feasible. Colleen Schnettler 07:59Is this something you want to do? Or is this just a, like, convenient reason not to do it because you already don't want to do it? Michele Hansen 08:07I was trying to dive into like, why the thought of it was even, like, immediate, no in my head. Colleen Schnettler 08:14Right. Okay. Michele Hansen 08:15And I think that was kind of, and like, the reason was like, I don't have time for that. And then it's like, Colleen Schnettler 08:20Yeah. Michele Hansen 08:21But I do, like, I, I have time to work already, so why wouldn't that fit into my existing work time? And it's because it wouldn't happen during the work time. Now, I could be like, oh, I'll just consult for people in the UK, but like, I, like, most of my network is in the US anyway. So, and I think it's just easier just to say no to everything. But again, as we kind of talked about, like, I could always do this 5 or 10 years from now. And people have asked me about courses too, which is easier to make work across time zones, but I'm not really a natural teacher. So I admit that that, like, that kind of scares me because I feel like I would not only have to learn, like, how to create a course. But I would have to learn like, how to teach, which is, you know, a skill set that people to go to school for for four to six years to learn. Like it's not a, it's not an insignificant thing to learn how to do. Colleen Schnettler 09:21Yeah, well, you already have a lot of demands on your time. So, I don't know that adding consulting would be good for you even if you were in the US. Michele Hansen 09:29Yeah, that's true. I mean, you actually used to have a course, right? Or you were starting one, or? Colleen Schnettler 09:34Haha, yeah. So one of my many, many business ideas. I was going to do a course, and holy cow, it was so much more work than I anticipated. So I decided not to do it, and that was a good decision. Michele Hansen 09:52I think when we first met you were, like, getting that course going. Colleen Schnettler 09:58Yeah, I think I did a couple videos. I mean, my, my idea had been to do Ruby on Rails course for beginners and try to, like, incorporate some more advanced topics, so like an advanced beginner course. But, and I know some people have a lot of success with courses, but you know, I started doing it, and it was just like, because I was trying to do a video course. It was a tremendous amount of work, and I found that I, this, this was years ago, too, right? This was a couple years ago, and I didn't have any audience or network so to speak of, and I think to be successful with a course, a couple of things have to happen. You either have to have the right course at the right time, so you're releasing a course on something that is new and hot, and everyone wants to learn about, or I think you have to have a really well-established network and audience, and I had neither of those things at that time. And, and also, you know, people talk about being on, like, the content treadmill, so the thing about if your business, if your primary business is a subscription video service, or, you know, subscription courses, like, you have to constantly be producing content, and that wasn't really something that I wanted to do either. So yeah, the course was just, the video course was just so much work, like, the editing and the trying not to talk over myself, and the, oh, my goodness. So it wasn't a good fit for me. Not saying it wouldn't be a good fit for you in the future. I mean, there's tons of opportunity there. Michele Hansen 11:33I'm curious, how long did you work on that course from like, when you had the idea to when you ended up giving up on it? Colleen Schnettler 11:41I don't remember. So, I started with a couple intro videos, and I mean, we're talking like 10, 15 minute videos, and they would take me hours. That was the first problem. And then I actually was going to do it with a friend who has a really successful Ruby on Rails template. So he and I recorded, I mean, Michele, we must've recorded 10 hours of video. Michele Hansen 12:03Wow. Colleen Schnettler 12:03Yeah. I mean, we have, I still have it. So yeah, for the Rails listeners, it's the guy who developed Bullet Train. And Bullet Train is like a really opinionated, Ruby on Rails, SaaS kind of template builder to start with. And he's been doing this a lot longer than I have, and so I really was fascinated in terms of like, there's some more advanced concepts that you never really get in the material that's out there. And a big one he feels really strongly about is domain modeling, and like, how to do your domain modeling. And this is a thing, I found that as a developer, like, there's tons of entry level courses, and as soon as you get past entry level, it gets harder. Like, when you get to the point where you can't Google the answer for what you're trying to figure out, there isn't a lot. It's more about, like, learning and problem solving, and there aren't a lot of courses or examples or things that can, like, draw you in to these more advanced concepts. So, Andrew and I had talked about doing a course, like, kind of teaching people about domain modeling, which was really cool, because I really love the way he's done it in Bullet Train. And I've worked on a lot of different apps, and typically, it's kind of a mess, right? Like, because you don't, you don't really think big term. I mean, things grow and things, and things evolve, and that's the nature of software, whereas Andrew's, the way he tries to handle it is it's top down, like you know, you don't think you're going to need teams and users, and, you know, join tables, but you should start there. Michele Hansen 13:36We thought that. Retrofitting that later is painful to the point where we haven't, like, fully, like, we, like, have done it, and we need to do more of it. And it's, oh god, just retrofitting, like, user access controls like that is, that's like one of those things, if I can fly back to me eight years ago when we were building this, it's like, just build that in from the beginning. People are gonna want a billing user. They're gonna, you know. Colleen Schnettler 14:06Right, that's literally exactly what, what it was about. It was about that, because when you start you don't care, right? Or you don't think about it, because you're like, I, I don't need to get that complicated. But if you start from the beginning with that framework, when you're where you guys are, it's so much easier to retrofit in all that stuff because it's already there. Anyway, now that I'm talking about it, I'm getting excited about it again. Michele Hansen 14:27I can tell. Like, you really do see a void for this. But I think, like, I think it's important to bring up though, because you, like, you tried a bunch of stuff before you found something that's kind of working, right. Like I mean, we like we launched stuff that didn't work. Like, I think people kind of you know, you listen to like podcasts like this or whatnot, and you're like, wow, like, this person has everything figured out and they're just amazing, and there's something about them that like makes them what they make successful or whatever, and I'm like, no dude, like we've had stuff that failed. Like, that's normal. Like, Colleen Schnettler 15:04Yeah. Michele Hansen 15:04I don't think there's anybody out there who has launched something successfully and not had 10 other things behind it that were either total duds or like just completely, you know, never got off the ground or were soundly rejected, or panned on Reddit, which one of ours was. But anyway, speaking of remotely successful products, Colleen, is it time for our weekly numbers update on Simple File Upload? Colleen Schnettler 15:35Your weekly update for Simple File Upload. Yes, so this week, I crossed the 1000 MRR mark. Michele Hansen 15:42We have totally buried the lead. Colleen Schnettler 15:47I know right. Michele Hansen 15:47Oh my god! Colleen Schnettler 15:49I'm super, I mean, it was really exciting. Michele Hansen 15:53Oh, my gosh, yes. Colleen Schnettler 15:55Yeah. So that really makes it feel like a real business, if you will. I mean, $1,000 that's like real money. Michele Hansen 16:02That is real money. Colleen Schnettler 16:04Yeah, like, even after I pay all my you know, I do have the, the hosting fees, and the, Heroku takes a cut. But yeah, it's really exciting. Michele Hansen 16:13Wait. So I think last time we, like, really dove into the numbers on it. Your costs of what, you know, what we would sort of call in business jargon the cost of goods sold, which is like, you know, servers and everything that you have to pay for in order to make the app run, that was like $200 a month, and you thought it would be pretty, like consistent. Colleen Schnettler 16:41Yeah. Michele Hansen 16:42Are you, is that still true? Colleen Schnettler 16:44Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's still true. Now I do, so it's, that's, that's probably an estimate of all the, the fees and like you said, server hosting storage. And then Heroku takes 30%, because I'm in their marketplace, much like the App Store. I know, it really hurts, like, you're just like, oh, ouch. But, I know, but you know what, I mean, I still will bang the drum, or whatever that phrase is on this, for ,launching this in a marketplace was just such a good idea because if I look at the users I have coming from the open internet, versus the users I have coming from Heroku, like, far and above, the majority of my paid users are coming from Heroku. Michele Hansen 17:27So, so if your cost of goods sold is $200 a month, and for purposes of this, we're pulling out that processing or like, you know, sort of marketplace fee, which is 30%, so then basically your margin is like, $500 a month. Does that sound right? Colleen Schnettler 17:47Yes. Michele Hansen 17:48Wow. Colleen Schnettler 17:49Yeah. Michele Hansen 17:50That's pretty good. Colleen Schnettler 17:52I know, I was pretty excited. Um, yeah. So it's, it's good. Michele Hansen 17:58That's really interesting for when, you know, if you're able to get to a point, eventually, where you're selling outside of Heroku, like, that, you know, if we were to assume an 80% margin like that, that's pretty good. That's where a lot of software businesses are. So it's, I mean, it sounds like your, your fundamentals are pointing in the right direction. Colleen Schnettler 18:22Yeah, I think, I mean, we've talked a lot about, I think last week I was a little frustrated because I still can't really identify my ideal customer, or people who are even using it. But I think one of the huge benefits of being in this marketplace is people are signing up. So the more people I get signing up, the more chances I have that someone will actually, that I'll be able to talk to people and kind of figure out my value proposition. I'm finding a lot of people, a lot more people are finding me on the internet. So I'm getting a lot more signups that bounce when they see you have to have a credit card upfront. But I mean, on the, on the plus side, that means there's clearly a demand for this. This is clearly a thing people want because a lot of people are signing up. Now, will a lot of people pay for it is always the, the, you know, the thing you're trying to figure out, but I'm seeing quite a lot of people putting in their email address, putting in their email addresses on my non-Heroku site. Michele Hansen 19:23How, like, upfront does your non-Heroku site make it that people have to put in a credit card for the free trial? Colleen Schnettler 19:30So the way it works right now is you sign up and then, then you go to the pricing page. And then you click the button to say sign up for this plan, and then you have to put a credit card in. Michele Hansen 19:42But like, on the landing page itself, does it make it clear that a credit card is required for the trial? Colleen Schnettler 19:48No. Michele Hansen 19:50You should probably do that. Colleen Schnettler 19:52Yeah, I thought about that. But I was looking at other people's landing pages and no one really, like, that doesn't seem to be a thing people do. Cuz it feels, like, where would you put it? In like, small print under free, free trial? Free 7 day trial, credit card required for sign up? Michele Hansen 20:07Yeah, I, you know, something that I noticed with that is that when somebody has a free trial and no credit card is required, they always say that. Colleen Schnettler 20:17Right, no credit card required, right. But when they do require a credit card, they don't say anything. Michele Hansen 20:23Yeah. And that, that tells me something. Now, Colleen Schnettler 20:27Yeah, no one wants to pay, Michele Hansen 20:28A lot of big companies like, they'll you know, if you, if you are a marketing person who is incentivized for email signups, then yeah, you're gonna want to hide the fact that a credit card is required because that's how you hit your metrics. But also, the incentive should be redesigned in that case. But I think it's worth at least having that somewhere on the landing page, because as you said, then people are bouncing, and so there's no point in you having this pile of email addresses from people who aren't going to pay for it unless you want it to try to monetize them some other way. But that doesn't really seem to be like something you want to do, and also with, like GDPR, and CCPA and all of those privacy acronyms, like, it could be, you know, a liability for you. Colleen Schnettler 21:21Yeah, I was thinking about it, because I've seen so many signups recently. So I think that's a, but I, the reason I didn't put it was because I've never seen it. And I was like, is that a huge turnoff to be like, credit card required for signup. But I agree, I'm not doing anything with those email addresses. I mean, in the future, maybe I can remove it and try a different kind of, you know, when I have more time or a little bit bigger, and maybe try to learn more about those people. But at this point, it doesn't do any good, like, I'm not keeping their email addresses or anything. So I'm just seeing that there's a lot of traffic. Michele Hansen 21:54I wonder how, so I signed up for Savvy Cow recently, speaking of all of my timezone issues, like, I had to make this little redirect basically, so that when people request to have a meeting with me, if the browser detects their timezone, and then it sends them to the calendar based on their timezone, because like, I'll only do those 9pm calls for you know, people on the west coast, for example. But, so I signed up for for Savvy Cow, and they have a 7 day free trial with a credit card required, and now I'm looking at their website to see how clear that was, because I remember that, like, I knew that it would be required, and like, that, they would just automatically charge me after that point. And I'm actually looking at their landing page. Oh, okay, actually, it just, it just, just say get started for free. Colleen Schnettler 22:48See, no, no one says that. Michele Hansen 22:50But maybe they, like, maybe isn't an automatic, maybe it was an email they sent me instead that, um, oh, okay. Okay, so here's how it works. So it says what you can, zero cost to create an account, but then once you're ready to start sharing your calendar links, then the one week free trial starts, and then that has automatic billing. Colleen Schnettler 23:12Where did you get that, in an email? Michele Hansen 23:14It's on their pricing page. Colleen Schnettler 23:16Okay, I'll look at that. That's probably a good idea. I like that, like, yeah, it's, it's free to create an account. But if you actually want to upload files, Michele Hansen 23:23Sure, you can give us your email address, but if you want to do anything, but I think that, you know that, that makes sense for like a product. Like this, where like, there, there is some amount of stuff that might need to happen before you actually use the products, like, people might need to have internal discussions or like, you know, with this, like, you have to kind of set it up, and there's also this positive effect, where, if you've done all of this work to get it set up, then you are more bought in to the product. Like, this is the approach that TurboTax uses. Like, I don't know, if you notice that they, Colleen Schnettler 23:55I know, I know. Michele Hansen 23:55They don't, they'll be like, well, it's free to file, but then it's you know, 19 or 29 or whatever. Colleen Schnettler 24:00It's free to do your taxes, Michele Hansen 24:01Whatever, but to actually file your state one, or to have us automatically send it to the IRS or whatever it is, like, Colleen Schnettler 24:08Yeah. Michele Hansen 24:09Then you have to pay for it. And all the people listening in other countries, like especially anyone in Denmark, where you can just file your taxes online, like for free and like, you know, you don't have Intuit, with this massive lobbying budget, making it complicated. Yeah, I mean, so so there's definitely some benefits to that kind of model, and I think as long as what you do, just like, making it really clear what that like, make it clear what's going to happen to people. Colleen Schnettler 24:41Yeah, I like the idea of putting it on the pricing page because I don't want it on my landing page because that's gonna look bad. But like, if you click sign up for a free trial, I like having another pricing page because again, it doesn't do anyone any good for, I don't care about your email address if you're not interested, and you are annoyed because you fill out the welcome to my thing form, and then you have to enter a credit card, and you felt you know, you didn't know. So, I, um, I like this idea. I think it's a good idea. Michele Hansen 25:06Yeah, I think, so your call to action, it says try it now, sign up for a free 30 day trial. Colleen Schnettler 25:13Yeah. Michele Hansen 25:14And I also wonder if, you know, changing out from like, sign up to be like, you know, start free trial or whatnot, like, because I think people really do grok the difference between free trial versus free tier. And, and I saw that when I scrolled all the way down, there's a free 30 day trial, but I don't actually see that above the fold on your site. And so I wonder if making it clear that it's free trial would help with that. Colleen Schnettler 25:46Okay. I like, I like changing it to start, start your trial or something. Michele Hansen 25:50Yeah. Because they're actually, there's no button either, like, right below the header. There's like, there should be a button there that's like, start your free trial. Colleen Schnettler 25:59Oh. Michele Hansen 26:00There's no call to action button. Colleen Schnettler 26:02Wait, below the header. Michele Hansen 26:04So it says add File Uploading to your app in minutes, like, integrate file uploads in your website, no service required, blah, blah, blah. Like, where's the button? Give me a button. Colleen Schnettler 26:15Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Michele Hansen 26:17But hey, while I'm looking at SimpleFileUpload.com, for anyone who is listening, there is a testimonial there.Yay. Colleen Schnettler 26:26Yay, I did. I got a testimonial up. Michele Hansen 26:31And it looks awesome. Colleen Schnettler 26:33Yeah. So I'm happy about that. Yeah, you're right. There should be a call to action button right here. Michele Hansen 26:39Tell me what to do, Colleen. Colleen Schnettler 26:41Oh, my gosh. See, this is, like, the stuff I don't know about. You're absolutely right. Michele Hansen 26:44Tell me to sign up. Colleen Schnettler 26:45Tell me to sign up, start trial now. Nice. Okay, I like it. Good point. Michele Hansen 26:52And I guess, yeah, you just want to like work on that wording because like, as you know, the Savvy Cow example, like, the trial doesn't start until you actually do something. And so it's like, does the trial start like, right from the time they sign up? Or just, you know, wherever you can, like, make it clear what's going to happen to people. Colleen Schnettler 27:09Yeah, so I think, so right now, if you click on sign up, it takes you to a nice signup page. But then after you hit the signup page, it takes you to the pricing page. I wonder if I should switch those since I'm going to require a credit card, and instead of taking you to the signup page before the pricing page, sign up, pricing page, which explains that you have to, you know, pay, not pay I'm sorry, that you have to enter your credit card and then a start trial button. Michele Hansen 27:45Okay, so I'm actually going through it right now. Colleen Schnettler 27:48Yeah, okay. Michele Hansen 27:49Um, so let's do it live. Okay. Colleen Schnettler 27:54Usability testing live with Michele. Michele Hansen 27:57F it will do it live. Okay. So, select your plan, try it out with a 30 day free trial, up, upgrade or cancel at any time. Okay. Colleen Schnettler 28:06So if you go back, though, if you start from the homepage, okay, if you go to Home. So go to home. Michele Hansen 28:10Home. And then sign up. Colleen Schnettler 28:12Sign up. Michele Hansen 28:13Yeah. So then it's just like a login screen. Colleen Schnettler 28:16Right. Michele Hansen 28:17Yeah, I wonder maybe, maybe you would, you could also experiment with when you click sign up, taking people to this pricing page, and then when they click start trial, then they create an account, and then they add a credit card and everything. Colleen Schnettler 28:35Yeah, I tend to wonder if that's a better workflow because again, I don't need to collect or want to collect information for people who don't want to put their credit card down. Michele Hansen 28:45Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 28:47So I think I'll do that. I like that. I like that idea. Yeah, and then they can go, if signup would take them to pricing, and then under where it says select your panel have something like, it's gonna be a seven day trial, but I'll fix that, try it out with a seven day trial credit. I mean, it sounds so bad, credit card required when you are ready to use the service or something. I don't know. I'll figure that out. Michele Hansen 29:07And I also noticed you have a 30 day money back guarantee. So a 30 day free trial, Colleen Schnettler 29:12Oh my gosh. Michele Hansen 29:12And a 30 day money back guarantee? No. Colleen Schnettler 29:15Okay. I do, but I shouldn't. Michele Hansen 29:17Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 29:17Cuz this is like, I need to change that. Oh, my gosh, it's so funny that you said that. Because basically, like, this, the framework for the SaaS is built off of the Bullet Train app, which I mentioned earlier that Andrew and I were going to make a course for, and this is just, like, their default wording. And I literally, like forgot to take it out. Michele Hansen 29:39Okay. Colleen Schnettler 29:40So I don't want to do that. I just, no one has asked for their money back. So that's good. Michele Hansen 29:44That's also a liability for you, so. Colleen Schnettler 29:47Yeah, no, I need to get, where did you see that? Michele Hansen 29:49When I clicked on start trial from the pricing page. Colleen Schnettler 29:53Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I need to change that. Michele Hansen 29:57Well, it sounds like you now have a lot of work on your plate. So, Colleen Schnettler 30:02Yeah. Michele Hansen 30:03I guess I should let you go. Colleen Schnettler 30:05Plenty of things to do. Yeah. Great. This is good, though. This is good. I haven't really thought through that onboarding workflow in a long time. So, I'm glad we took a look at it. Michele Hansen 30:15Awesome. Well, I guess that'll wrap us up for this week. Thank you so much for listening. If you liked this episode, please tweet about it or write us an iTunes review. That means a lot to us and, yeah, we'll talk to you next week.
Real Internet Money
Colleen Schnettler 00:00This week's episode of the Software Social Podcast is brought to you by Hopscotch Product Tours. Hopscotch Product Tours allows you to improve user onboarding with helpful product tours that guide your users to success. Also reduce frustration by helping users learn how to use your product without the need for demo calls, visit Hopscotch.club today and start delighting your users with Hopscotch Product Tours. Michele Hansen 00:28Hey, Colleen. Colleen Schnettler 00:29Hey, Michele. Michele Hansen 00:31How you doing? Colleen Schnettler 00:32I'm doing pretty well. I had a pretty uplifting week over here in the Simple File Upload world. Michele Hansen 00:38You know what? That's good to hear. Because I feel like last week you were, we talked about how you were kind of feeling like you were in the void. Colleen Schnettler 00:44I totally was. And, you know, I still feel that but I'm trying to, two things happen that changed my perspective. One, I got another check from Heroku. So that always helps. That doesn't hurt. And I'm kind of just trying to focus on my mindset as I approach this business. I have to say the check from Heroku because unlike Stripe, where you just get paid randomly when people, you know, when people pay, you only get paid once a month. So I've been telling you I have $800 MRR for like three weeks, and I haven't seen that money. So I just saw that money yesterday. So that was pretty exciting. Michele Hansen 01:21Nice Colleen Schnettler 01:22Yeah, I think I remember telling you my very first check. I got like I had enough leftover to buy a bagel. Michele Hansen 01:28Yes. The bagel, the $20 bagel. Colleen Schnettler 01:30The $20 bagel. Well, this time it was it was quite a bit more so I could could have bought quite a few bagels. So that was pretty exciting. Michele Hansen 01:37And I saw you tweeted out earlier this week that the Stripe payouts, I was just like payout, payout, payout. Colleen Schnettler 01:45I think what must happen is like people must have signed up, there were, like, four or five people who signed up like one day apart. And so the all of their invoices hit like right after each other. So I like signed on to my email every day, and it was like payout payout payout. It was awesome. It's very exciting. It was a lot of excitedness in terms of actually seeing the fruits of my labor on this product this week. So that was fun. Michele Hansen 02:10Yay. Internet money. Colleen Schnettler 02:12Yay, internet money. Michele Hansen 02:13So where is your MRR at now? So I just checked and I'm at $975. I know. What? Oh my god, you're almost at the $1,000 MRR mark, and it's been, like, three months. Yeah, I guess it's, yeah, three, oh my god. Like, Colleen Schnettler 02:35Yeah. Michele Hansen 02:36That's, that's not common. Like, just for everybody else kind of like, listening like that is, that is very uncommon. Like, you're you're not like ending up on $1,000 after three months like Coleen like that's, that's normal. Like, I think it took us like six months, and even then that was kind of fast for a little project. Dude, 975. Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 02:57That's real money. It's real. That's why my last check. Because if you look at my checks from Heroku, and once again, I only get those once a month. It's not like Stripe. It was like the first one was like 150. The second one was like 250. This last one was like $570. I was like, that's like, real money. Like I could do something with that money. That's cool. Yeah, so, so from a monetary perspective, it's going great. I think I, I was struggling a lot. And I still am kind of struggling because I don't have a good feedback loop. I have been kind of unsure what to do next, and how to push the product forward. And it's funny because I like I think mid last week, I was just in a funk. And I was like, You know what, I'm just gonna build it the way I want to build it. I'm gonna develop all these features. I don't care what anyone tells me. Like, I'm just gonna do what I want to do. And you know, of course, everyone I talked to is like, that's a terrible idea. And the best way someone phrased it to me, they were like, what if you do go and you spend a couple months and you build all these features you feel like you need, you're still not going to know who your customer is. Like, I was complaining because I don't know who my customer is. And she was like, even if you spend this time to build that out, you'll be three months down the road, and you still won't know who your customer is. So have you made any progress? And I was like, oh, that's a good way to put it. So, I did a few interviews this week, which was really great. I'm really gonna take a pause on any kind of development work, and just talk to people. I mean, talk talk, talk. Michele Hansen 03:01Colleen. Colleen Schnettler 03:02I know, I know. Michele Hansen 03:04You're done putzing around in the code garden and like, you're out there in the town square. Colleen Schnettler 03:29I'm convinced. Like, between the, I mean, I probably five different people had to tell me this. But like you guys have convinced me that I just need to talk to more people. I just need, I don't know. Like, if you ask me who my ideal customer was, like, is, or who this provides value to, I can't identify that person, and casting a net of all developers is way too broad and too vague. So, that's really what I am focused on. In the next couple months, I think another thing is I need to calm down a little bit and slow down and be a little bit more patient. Michele Hansen 05:21You said that you could go off and build something for three months, and it sounds like this person you were talking to, kind of helped you realize basically, like, you wouldn't know who you were building for and why you were building it and how they needed any of that to work. Colleen Schnettler 05:39Yeah. And I think that's exactly the thing. So, so this week has been great. I spoke to three consultants, I have another one today, and I'm trying to get to five consultants, which I'm sure I can find one more person. Here's the thing, Michele, they all want different things. Michele Hansen 05:56Oh. Colleen Schnettler 05:57So, unless I have the team and the budget of a CloudFlare, I can't build one product that fits the needs for all of these three different people. Michele Hansen 06:09You know what this sounds like? Colleen Schnettler 06:10No. Michele Hansen 06:11It sounds like the very beginning of a research loop to me. Colleen Schnettler 06:15What's a research loop? Michele Hansen 06:16Okay, so it's basically this idea that, like, you do a group of like, five interviews, and then you sort of analyze that and say, okay, of all of these different problems I've had, or rather, I've heard, which ones both sound, people are already paying for them to be solved, and they're unhappy with the way that they're being solved or in, they can also be paying in terms of significant amounts of time, like that counts. And then which of these problems do you think are relatively both feasible for you to solve, like, it would be possible for you to build something, and could also be like, commercially viable for you to sell, like, people would be willing to pay enough that would justify the time that goes into it. So basically kind of analyzing what you've heard so far, based on you know, how, how well those needs are already met, or, or not met? Colleen Schnettler 07:07Yeah. Michele Hansen 07:08What they're already willing to pay for. And then, and then doing another round, focusing on those sort of top priority problems to figure out where you should go next. Like, it's completely normal that you would talk to five people and hear five different things. That doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong, if anything, that's really exciting. Colleen Schnettler 07:30Oh, that made me excited. I felt like crap. Now, I don't know what to do. Michele Hansen 07:35Oh, yeah, that makes sense. And you do it kind of like a pyramid, basically. You start out with a really wide scope in the beginning because you're casting a really wide net, like, you're just talking to all software consultants, which is a pretty broad, big net. And then you just sort of narrow it down based on where your capabilities are, and where people are willing to pay for stuff, and they're not happy with what they're currently doing. Colleen Schnettler 08:02Yeah. Okay. So that was, that was really good. You're right. It's good to hear the details of what people struggle with, what their pain points are, how frequently they have those pain points. But yeah, I was only three interviews. So nothing magical came to light, like, oh, if I just did this one thing, I would have the product everyone wants, like, there was nothing like that. Everyone was building or wanted to build kind of a specialized solution for their needs. So, I guess the answer is just continue to talk to more people in that situation. Michele Hansen 08:38Yeah, and, you know, also making it flexible, too. Like, if you genuinely hear that everybody wants something different, then, you know, making it so that they can customize it to their own needs is another route you could go on. But, I mean, it does not surprise me at all that you would not be hearing commonalities after just three people. Colleen Schnettler 08:58Yeah. Yeah. Michele Hansen 09:00That's totally normal. Colleen Schnettler 09:02Yeah. So, I think, I mean, before I start, like, what, I really want to go build an integration for this thing, or build an integration for that thing, but I think before I do any of that, like I said, I'm, you know, this is, there's no finish line here, right? Like this is this is my life, like, this is what I want to do. Even if I sold my company, I'd want to build another company. So I'm just trying to be a little bit patient and take my time and really figure out who the customer is and, you know, learn, learn about what they need and figure out how I can customize this product to their needs. Michele Hansen 09:44It sounds like that, for you, like, that is almost the opposite of your instinct. Like your instinct is to go and build for three months. Colleen Schnettler 09:57I mean, that's what I want to do. Like, let's be clear. Like I love people, but this process of like, finding people and like the, the whole, the whole logistics of it, you know, it's a lot. It takes a lot out of your day, I found that I'm a little nervous before I talk to them. it's a lot of emotional energy to like contain my own excitement, while I'm talking to them. And listen, like, that takes quite a bit of concentration as a beginner. Michele Hansen 10:24It takes concentration for me. It takes emotional energy for me. I mean, this is why I have this rule for myself that I don't do more than two in a day because the amount of energy that's required to sort of just, you know, I picture myself like this sponge that is just there to absorb whatever the other person says. Like, that requires a lot of energy, and, you know, a couple weeks ago, when I was first starting to interview all of my readers about my book, and my very meta interviews about customer interviews, I did six in one day, out of enthusiasm for this and, and at the end of that I was like, I heard so many amazing things. But I was also like, okay, now I remember why I've had two per day rule. Colleen Schnettler 11:10Yeah. Yeah, so I think that's kind of, uh, definitely goes against my instincts to slow down and try and identify my customer. But I think the point that I want to build all these things, but until I know who I'm going to be serving, I don't even know what is important to build, and I can't know what is important to build, until I talk to people who need this product, who I, to identify them and talk to them. So that's going to, that's going to mean that I need to be a little more aggressive in finding people. I can't just like, I mean, I put a thing on Twitter, and I found five people, but I was only looking for five people. Like, I want more than I want a lot of people. So I think I'm going to try some of those strategies, you know, go on Reddit, and the strategies you write about in your book, actually. If you'd like to, I mean, you talk about this in your book, I reference your book, even though it's not done, like I haven't, I'm looking at it all the time, just so you know. Michele Hansen 12:06You know, one thing I want to note is that doing development work and customer research work, like, they're not an either, or. It doesn't have to be this switch, where you're only doing one at a time. Like I think, you know, the best cases are when this kind of research is just integrated into what you're already doing. And, you know, it does take time and focus, and like, context switching is difficult so you couldn't, you know, just like, you know, write code for like half an hour and then interview someone then right? Like, you can't sort of just switch back and forth super easily, but integrating it into your process. And maybe it's not that you, you know, don't go out and build these features for three months in a cave, or also that you don't go out and just talk to people for three months. It's that you do you know, both, you know, it's like, in the same way that, that people often ask me whether they should talk to people or whether they should look at analytics, and I'm like, porque no los dos? Like, do it at the same time. Colleen Schnettler 13:07Yeah. Michele Hansen 13:08Like, you could, you know, like, for example, I remember you talking about something you came out of the interview with Drew where you wanted to pull the code pen forward on the marketing side? Colleen Schnettler 13:17Yes. Michele Hansen 13:18Has that happened? Colleen Schnettler 13:20No. Michele Hansen 13:21Oh, I don't mean to, like call you out or anything. It's like, you know, there's like, Colleen Schnettler 13:25Developer calling me out on my own podcast, Michele. Michele Hansen 13:28I'm sorry. Like, there's development work you can do, Colleen Schnettler 13:32Yeah. Michele Hansen 13:33That you'll find in these things as you go. Colleen Schnettler 13:35Yeah. And I think that's, that's really the key. And that, that's will keep me in like a happy psychological state, too, because I'll get to, I'll get to do a little code, I'll get to talk to a little people. I get to do a little code, I'll get to talk to a little people. So I think, I think that you're absolutely right. Like that is a good path forward. I think, I guess what I'm trying to sort out, so when I built this thing I built it like to do one very specific thing, right? Like, it was designed to help you get public files from your users onto your site, and I was actually making, I was using it for brochures. We were doing real estate brochures, and people have started using it and all kinds of different ways, and that's been really instructive. So, even that piece of information is interesting, and a good thing to learn. So, yeah, so I think it's just keeping an open mind and making those kinds of changes that are kind of obvious, like, the code pen more accessible as I go forward. That's kind of, kind of my plan. Oh, and I wanted to say, so what I've been doing, I think I read this in your book, too, is I've been recording, obviously, with their permission and then dropping it in Otter.ai to get a transcript, and it's so awesome because now I can just read. It takes me five minutes to read instead of watching the 30 minute video, and I have the information, like, right there at my fingertips. I love that. Michele Hansen 15:07It's awesome. Yeah, and Otter makes it so easy to do a transcript. It's actually what we use for this podcast. I should totally like, reach out to them and see if they'll sponsor us or something. Colleen Schnettler 15:19I have a paid subscription. Michele Hansen 15:21Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 15:21Because I was like, this is so worth it. Like, it's so cool. Michele Hansen 15:24Yeah, then you could just, like, Colleen Schnettler 15:25That's been, Michele Hansen 15:25Print it out and highlight. Colleen Schnettler 15:27Yeah, well, that's been such a great way to collate the data, because I was like, okay, if I want to get serious about this and talk to, you know, 15, 20 people, what, am I going to go back and watch all those interviews? I really don't want to. So, that's been a really cool way to get the data. I'm, like, pumped about that. And so, yeah. Michele Hansen 15:46Yeah, if we were doing this, like in a sort of serious, like corporate, you know, company setting, what you would do is actually like, take all of those transcripts, and then clip out like, specific key phrases and key words, and sentences where someone is really clearly describing their different use case and then, I mean, I feel like there's this sort of this meme about how much like, UX people love post it notes, and like rearranging post it notes on boards. And, like, those, you know, all of those quotes basically end up as post it notes where you're making a timeline of the user's journey through trying to do something, and you're evaluating it on functional social and emotional levels. And like, everyone in the team is like placing post it notes in all of these different areas from all the different interviews. Like you might have one color that you use for a particular customer or a particular interview, for example. It's super time intensive. It's also really fun, and yes, it brings amazing results, but even if you're not doing that, like, even the fact of getting the transcript made, going, reading through it, pulling out the key phrases, and then just, kind of, knowing where to find that information yourself, or like, jotting that down on a card, or whatever that is, wherever you're keeping information so you know what to go back and reference later can be really helpful. Colleen Schnettler 17:03Yeah, yeah, I'm pumped to go in this customer interview journey, I think I'm going to approach it the way you kind of describe where, of course, I'm not going to not touch the code, like there's going to be, there's going to be both, I'm gonna do them in parallel. But I really want to kind of identify who, who it is I can provide the most value to, and I want to be specific about it. So, Michele Hansen 17:22Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 17:23That's kind of my goal going forward. And that's going to take a while. I think that's the other thing I have to remember is like, that's not going to happen in a week. That's going to take me a little while. So, Michele Hansen 17:33I mean, in some ways, it's never over. And I don't know if that really, I don't know if that helps you. Like, I don't know if that's something I should tell you now, but like, you know, I'm a firm believer that research should be just part of your ongoing workflow and sort of building this bank of customer understanding that is a living, breathing organism. And it's not that we do a research project for a month and then build stuff for three months, then do a research project. Like, it's just always happening. Colleen Schnettler 18:00Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of all the wonderful info I got from your book while I was doing these customer interviews, how is the book going? Michele Hansen 18:09It's good, it's good. I feel like we're, we're getting into the more serious editing phase. I'm kind of, Colleen Schnettler 18:17Didn't you have a picture this morning of like, the book on your desk with a bunch of pens on Twitter? Michele Hansen 18:21Oh, yeah, I did, I printed it out, and I started reading it, like, as as a book and editing it, and I have four different colors of pens for my editing. And I used to do editing and print layout professionally, and I've sort of volunteer edited other people's books before. Colleen Schnettler 18:40So random. Michele Hansen 18:41So yeah, no, it was like, stuff I did when I was in college. So, um, so, so yeah, I'm really pumped, because actually, this is a phase of it that I feel like I understand the best. And I know, like I have seen where, you know, there was one book that I helped edit that went on to win a major like, international prize and like, I didn't have anything to do with that, but like it, I saw what that book was in its early stages, and so I know that like, the fact that I'm tearing this to shreds right now is like a normal part of the process, like, and even really amazing books, like they everything starts out in a rough shape. I'm really appreciating how different writing a book is from writing a newsletter, like, how much of a gulf there is between that. Colleen Schnettler 19:27Yeah. Michele Hansen 19:28Um, but, but I'm having fun. I feel like I have torn like the introduction absolutely to shreds. I mean, I had like four introductory chapters, and like, I think that was too many. Like, I was really burying the lead. So it's good. You know, I've brought in friends who are outside of our little bubble in tech to help me edit who were people that I know who will be harsh and honest with me, and they trust that I'm not going to be offended, and so I'm so grateful to have their help. And I've interviewed about 25 ish people now as part of it. So it's, it's going along. It's good. Colleen Schnettler 20:11That's awesome. I'm excited. And I also heard, and by heard, I mean, you told me, that you took your live chat widget off of your website. Michele Hansen 20:22I'm so excited. Colleen Schnettler 20:23Talk to me about that. Michele Hansen 20:24Okay, so this, so, this is something that has been building for a while, and for a long time, not not just since we moved here, but for a long time, the pings of live chat have been really stressful for us. Colleen Schnettler 20:43I imagine. Michele Hansen 20:44Yeah. And even, like, when we were in the US, like, we were on eastern time, and we would stop working around 4:30 or 5 on any given day, and we would still be getting requests, you know, through eight o'clock at the minimum, because of the West Coast, if not later, because of Hawaii and Alaska. And so we were sort of used to getting pinged from customer support at all hours of the day. It was not necessarily that there's a volume problem, because, so we have this idea that every support ticket only happens once. Colleen Schnettler 21:18I think you've mentioned that. Michele Hansen 21:19So this is kind of this principle that we operate on that whenever somebody, whether it's a bug or somebody is confused about something, like, if there's any way that we can make something clearer, or fix something, or basically prevent that ticket from ever happening again, we do that. So nothing gets closed until it's fixed. And, and so we operate on that principle, and that has really reduced our support volume over the years. But also, but still throughout that, and I think especially being on a European timezone serving North American customers like, that gets really difficult because you know, our daughter gets out of school at three o'clock, and then our customers wake up at three o'clock, and then it's just, like, it's just chaos, and having live chat specifically, like, people don't know when they can expect to get a live response versus when they have to wait. And I have experimented with so many different versions of copy on the little live chat widget, and none of them really seem to communicate that it's, like, it may not actually be live. Colleen Schnettler 22:30Okay. Michele Hansen 22:31And then on the flip side, some other people assume it's a robot and like, don't even use it. Colleen Schnettler 22:35Yeah, that's me. But keep going. Michele Hansen 22:37I've seen that come up in usability testing, like, when I've had people screen share, and go through our site. So um, you know, a couple months ago, I was telling this to some founder friends, and what, what came out of it was basically, you know, live chat was really important for our growth, especially in the early days, like, I'm thinking like, like, 2016, 17, 18, especially when we're going full time. And, but the things that you do to grow are not necessarily the things you have to do to maintain and be a stable business, right? You know, we're growing. Like, we grew 56% last year, even though we didn't really try to, but growth is not what we optimize for. We optimize for stability. And so those things that we did in the early days to grow, like, could use different tactics now, and where the live chat kind of stresses us out and doesn't work for our family, but also like, it creates this expectation mismanagement with our customers. And people are still getting a reply directly from the founders, and just this morning, somebody emailed us, and then we got back to them an hour later. And then the response we got back was, "Wow, I'm so amazed that you were able to give me a helpful answer so quickly." And like, that was an hour versus immediate, and they still had that, like, positive reaction. So, we just did this the other day, we'll see how it goes. But, but I'm kind of nervous, excited, relieved all the same. Colleen Schnettler 24:14So you still have the widget, it just says, Michele Hansen 24:18No, we got rid of the widget. We removed the widget. So there's no widget at all? Yeah, I mean, it's still, like, popping up in random places. So we were like, going through the codebase and trying to find all the different places we have that launcher. But, no, but we're still using intercom and the platform, like, so all the email is still coming into intercom, but we don't have the live chat bubble in the corner, and we don't have any prompts that say, you know, contact us if you have a billing question. Like, if you click on Contact Us, it doesn't pull up intercom chat widget. It instead creates an email. Colleen Schnettler 24:50Okay, so if I am on your site, and I want to contact you, I now have to scroll to the bottom to the footer, or wherever, click contact us, and that'll pop up in my email so I can email you? Michele Hansen 25:00It's in the header. And, Colleen Schnettler 25:01Okay, but, Michele Hansen 25:02And then it's, Colleen Schnettler 25:02Okay. Michele Hansen 25:03It lists all the different emails. Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 25:06Now tell me about some concerns you have about making this. Michele Hansen 25:09I think I, like, a concern I have is that, you know, people will be upset, right, that they may have expected an immediate response before. But, you know, at the same time, like, most of our long term customers, like, they email us anyway. And actually, most of them have our personal emails, and like, they don't expect an immediate response. You know, our, when I was talking to those friends a couple of months ago, they were like, "You guys are providing way too high of a quality of customer service. Like, I know that you guys pride yourselves on it. Like, even doing the customer support as the founders yourselves is so far beyond what most companies do, nevermind doing it live 24/7." Like, they're like, that's that, that doesn't make sense. And like, you guys can be, you know, be gentle with yourselves, basically. Um, you know, people have been like, "Why don't you just hire someone?" And the problem with it is that because we have solved all of the easy support problems, like, the ones we do get are fairly complicated. And if someone else were to take this over, they would need to be a support engineer, who, you know, is capable of debugging people's problems, but also like, able to negotiate contracts and do billing issues and like, like, they would need to somehow be a clone of the two of us. And it doesn't really seem reasonable. So, so yeah, I think, and again, it's, it's not the volume, that it's the problem, it was really that cadence. It's when someone is, you know, chatting and saying, "Hi, are you there?" Colleen Schnettler 26:47Right. Michele Hansen 26:48Is the API working? My API key, my API key is, you know, it's doing this like, and it's like, and it's like, every, like one like, ping every minute versus someone sending us an email that's like, hey, like, so we're trying to use it earlier, and then this is what happens, and here's the error message. Like, people tend to be much more verbose and email. So, Colleen Schnettler 27:05Yes. Michele Hansen 27:06I'm nervous. But we'll see, we'll see how it goes. I think that this is, you know, an adjustment that we need to make. Colleen Schnettler 27:13I don't think anyone will care. I think you will get absolutely no, I think this is all upside for you. I mean, it's gonna be so good for your quality of life. I don't, I literally don't think anyone's gonna care. I mean, I think you're gonna find that it doesn't have any impact on your business. Michele Hansen 27:29We'll see. We'll see. But, you know, we're kind of operating under that idea that the things that we needed to do to grow, are not necessarily the same things that you do to, when you have a stable, secure business. Colleen Schnettler 27:43Yeah. Michele Hansen 27:44Yeah. Which is kind of weird, like, also in the software world, cuz I feel like, you know, we talk about this all the time, that if you're trying to build a, you know, sort of, quote, unquote, like, Calm company, right, like, you're not going down the unicorn route. Like, like most of the advice and growth tactics, and everything out, like, business advice is geared towards those companies that want to be huge, and less so towards us little one, two person companies. Like, the things that make sense for us, or, you know, we have a totally different set of incentives and resources and constraints and goals. Like, all those things are so different, that the fact that we're all in software is, is almost sort of beside the point. Colleen Schnettler 28:29It is complete, it is wild, isn't it? Like how different the tactics are. Michele Hansen 28:34Like we have more in common with a small retail business, but we also don't fit in with them because we're not a physical business. Like, it's like, I don't know, small SaaS. We're like, we're just a weird breed, man. Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 28:50Well, I hope it I hope it alleviate some of that pressure and stress. I imagine, especially with the timezone issues since you guys have moved, that's got to be just challenging. Michele Hansen 29:02Yeah, my friends who also, you know, run SaaS's out of Europe with North American customers, like, I have talked to them a little bit about this and they're like, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's tough. It's really tough. Colleen Schnettler 29:18Yeah, definitely. Awesome. Well, I'm, I'm glad. I think, I feel like, this is gonna work for you. Michele Hansen 29:25We'll see. Maybe in six months we'll be like, oh my god, we don't have any new customers and everybody cancelled because we don't have the chat thing, but I hope not. Colleen Schnettler 29:33I mean, honestly, and I know you said they, they come in two groups, but I just assumed there will not be a person on the other side of the chat widget. So, if I hit your chat widget, I just assume I'm going to send you an email. You know what I mean? I think you'll be fine. Michele Hansen 29:47Yeah, I think people have totally different expectations. And what we have tried to communicate is that we're not making it harder to contact us, like we're not, you know, offshoring our support. Like, you can still go to the header and click, like, contact. You can still email us, like, it's still the two founders doing the support. It's just one of the tools we use for that is going away. Colleen Schnettler 30:13Yeah, cool. I can't wait to hear an update on how that goes. All right. Well, I guess that'll wrap us up for this week. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please tweet about it. That always makes us happy, and we love hearing what you think.
No Longer "Bootstrapped"
Michele Hansen 00:00Hey, welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by Oh Dear. Oh Dear makes it easy to monitor uptime, SSL certificates, broken links, scheduled tasks and more. They send out notifications when something is wrong. All of that is paired with a developer friendly API and great documentation. And I can back them up on that because we use Oh Dear for Geocodio and are happy customers. You can sign up for a 10 day free trial with no credit card required at OhDear.app. Michele HansenSo I have kind of an announcement to make. Colleen Schnettler 00:35Oh, I love announcements. Do tell. Michele Hansen 00:38We are no longer a bootstrapped company. Colleen Schnettler 00:42What does that mean? Michele Hansen 00:44So, I've been getting more feedback on my, on my book, and, and I’m getting so much amazing feedback from, because I ended up sending it out to like, 200 people last weekend. And I decided to open it up to some friends of mine who are, like, like, work in tech, but not in kind of, like, bootstrap world or in VC world. So that, so, they like, aware of what's going on, but also kind of outside of this little bubble, because I want to get their, their perspective on things. And there was one comment in particular that I got that really made me reconsider things. And in the intro to the book, I'm describing how, you know, we're this, you know, bootstrapped B2B SaaS. And they said, that was complete jargon, and also consider using a less racially-loaded term. Colleen Schnettler 01:44Oh. Michele Hansen 01:45Yeah. And I had this real moment of sort of looking in the mirror and realizing, oh, wow, like, people outside of this bubble, have a very different definition of this word, and a very different meaning from that word, than we do. And I've had reservations about it for a long time, and like, wanted to switch to a new word, but didn't really have one that I felt like worked, because everyone kind of recognizes what that means. But this was kind of shocking to me of, like, you know, getting outside of my bubble and seeing how people outside of it react to that. Colleen Schnettler 02:27I honestly didn't know there were negative connotations around the word because I've only heard the word used in our little context, you know, people that are in tech starting businesses.Michele Hansen 02:40Yeah, I imagine you're not the only one who is surprised by this. So, I kind of dug into the phrase a little bit. And the problem comes from the fact that the phrase pull yourself up by your bootstraps is where it comes from. Now, historically, apparently, when this, this word, the phrase first came around, it was actually intended to imply that something was impossible, because if you can just sort of picture someone wearing old fashioned boots with, with loops on them, and then trying to stand up while holding their own bootstraps, like, they would fall. So it was, so it's kind of a funny image, if you can sort of picture that. But then it sort of, in specifically American political discourse, where, the phrase is originally American, it came to sort of be combined with all of these sort of self reliance and sort of the rugged individual American man who doesn't need help from anyone, and kind of all of these connotations. And as I sort of dug into people with outside, who are outside of the community, they all had this very negative reaction to it, that was very politically tinged, and to them, felt like we were sort of making this like, political statement. And I was like, whoa, like, that is not the intention at all. But you know, the sort of, the politics of it aside, I realized that within the community, we're not even clear on what it means. Like, Colleen Schnettler 04:14Yeah, I guess that's a good point.Michele Hansen 04:16Like, I was emailing with a customer a few weeks ago. And, and for some reason, I happened to ask them if they were bootstrapped company. I had just gotten the sense from their website. And their reaction back to me, that I've been thinking about was they're like, I wouldn't say we're bootstrapped because we're growing. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Like, when they heard bootstrapped, they thought that it meant a company that doesn't grow. And then, and I did some polls on this a while ago. You know, some people think that it can mean that a company doesn't take any funding at all. But what do you like, what about debt? What about using credit cards? Is that funding? What if you take funding from something like TinySeed or Earnest, which aren't like the big VCs, but like, you're still taking money and maybe giving away equity, like, is that bootstrapped? But then also like when we started out, you know, part of our funding capital was $1,000 in AWS credits for the first six months. Now, that technically showed up as a marketing expense for AWS and not as an investment, but to us, it was the same thing. And so, I think it's this broader point that none of us are truly self-reliant. Like, we all have a community that's holding us up and helping us at every step of the way. And seeing how people outside of this world react to that world react to that world was a really kind of shocking moment for me. And I was like, you know what, maybe, you know, maybe there's another word that I can use that is both more descriptive and less potential for offending people outside of this little bubble. Colleen Schnettler 06:01Okay, so what did you settle on? Michele Hansen 06:03Customer funded? Colleen Schnettler 06:05Oh, that's good. Michele Hansen 06:06But then somebody pointed out to me that people might think that it meant that we did crowdfunding, or like one of those Regulation CF campaigns that, like, Gumroad did. Colleen Schnettler 06:16When you said that, like, it is a little confusing. Customer-funded is a little confusing to me, too. And then what about people who don't like, people in the beginning, like what word? I mean, if you think about language, which I think is, this is really good that you're bringing this up. But we don't really have a word for people who aren't making enough yet, you know, like, Michele Hansen 06:35Right, yeah. Colleen Schnettler 06:37Self-funded, I guess?Michele Hansen 06:45Yeah. I mean, I guess self-funded is another word. I mean, I, I've been thinking about this, and I don't really have an answer to this. So I'm kind of curious what other people think. There is, like, we as a community, feel an importance to note that we are not VC-funded SaaS. We're also not all SaaS, right? Cuz there's people doing courses, there's like, like, there's all sorts of other things going on here. And we can't define ourselves by what we're not. And we do have a, like, we have a unique perspective as a community. And so some people call this, you know, sustainable business, but then like, people tend to think about the environment, too, which, you know, like, like, sometimes that is, is the case, but like, you know, most of us are not sort of sustainability-focused companies. Or there's also calm companies. Though, I feel like that, kind of, Colleen Schnettler 07:34I don't really like any of those. I don’t think any of those, Michele Hansen 07:37It kind of discounts, like, the, like, kind of crazy hours that people are, you know, it, it's like, it's like a milder version of lifestyle business, it's just not said, it's not said with the intention of being offensive, which lifestyle business is. So I don't know what that word needs to be, but I sort of invite everyone to consider, like, like, what are we as a community, and what do we call ourselves? And I, I recognize that it may come as a shock to you that there are people who find that word offensive or off-putting, and, and I think that's okay, and you sort of have the reaction like Colleen just had. But I think we also, we do want to be a community where all sorts of people feel welcome and feel like they can start a business. And I think for so much of us, this is about, you know, the liberation from the pressures of corporate life, from, you know, from the pressure that trying to run a high growth company can, can come with. And so, what, like, what is that, what is that word, and how do we define ourselves? I don't I don't know what that answer is. But, um, but I feel like we can find an answer to it, and finding a different word, you know, I think it, it doesn't discount, right, any of the hard work that any of us put into this, like, it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong about that, or about us for using a word that, that other people find off-putting. But I think it's something for us to grapple with, especially if we want to be a force within the business community at some point. Colleen Schnettler 09:16Yeah. Michele Hansen 09:18I feel like you're just kind of shocked. You're just like, where did this come from? Colleen Schnettler 09:20I'm just sitting here processing, Michele. Well, there's a couple of things running through my mind. The first, the first thing I would like to say is this shows the importance of getting, this word is overused, but diverse opinions. So I mean, if you hadn't sent your book out to people outside of our community, I never would have, I wouldn't have had a single comment on that word. So I think this shows the importance of that and as, in a larger sense, if more tech companies tried to get more diverse ideas and opinions, you know, they would avoid the pitfall you almost fell into. And the other thing I was thinking is I feel like Courtland has, has really come up with a good term, Indie Hackers. But that is, of course, a brand name as well, so we can't really take that. But I tend to use that word the most, because I think that most represents what I'm trying to do, which is build a business without taking funding while hustling, but also trying to build a business that fits into my life. So, that's kind of the term I use a little more frequently. But I love this idea of trying to think of, you know, a new way to kind of brand ourselves as a community. Michele Hansen 10:29I feel like Indie Hackers is a really good way of describing developers who are trying to start their own companies. But to me, it sort of feels like that's where the definition ends. And like, I love participating with Indie Hackers, but like, I wouldn't classify myself as a hacker. There's also, you know, tons of people who have really negative reactions to the word hacker, right? Colleen Schnettler 10:52That’s true, too.Michele Hansen 10:53Like, that word is, you know, is very loaded in its own right. And someone brought up indie SaaS, which kind of reminded me of indie rock, which, you know, started out meaning independent of record labels. And then it meant just, like independent record labels, as opposed to major record labels. And then it just meant like, a style of music and more broadly, a culture. I guess I would be fine with indie SaaS, but for me as a former sort of, quote, unquote, indie kid, when I was a teenager, like to me, like indie just sounds a lot like music. And doesn't, I, but maybe, like, maybe it's just like, you know, the little 15 year old hipster still in me that thinks that and like, everybody else thinks it's fine. Like, I like I would be fine with that, I think but it is, you know, with language, it's important to, to have something that is instantly like, recognizable for people, but, and language is always changing. I think that's the, sort of the fun thing about it. And, and changing words is hard. But, but there's many examples throughout the decades and centuries of people adapting language. So yeah, I'm kind of curious to hear what, what people will, will come up with. Colleen Schnettler 12:19Me, too. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Michele Hansen 12:20Yeah. Let's move to something a little lighter. Colleen Schnettler 12:25That was pretty heavy to open the podcast with. Michele Hansen 12:20I know. I dropped a bomb. Colleen Schnettler 12:29But this is my first cup of coffee. I just woke up. Michele Hansen 12:31Did you get a testimonial up this week, Colleen? Colleen Schnettler 12:34I did. I got a testimonial up. So, I'm pretty happy with that. I ended up buying Tailwind UI, which was such a good decision. It's so I mean, I should have bought it six months ago. Like, it's so funny. But I bought Tailwind UI, and I use their testimonial blocks. So, and I wrote one and I got it up. So I felt pretty good about getting that done. It’s a small thing, but you know, baby steps. What I've really been thinking about, I feel like, although my optimism is still high, I have felt kind of directionless the past few weeks. And so, and I think the thing that we have talked about and that I've been struggling with is people are obviously using my product and paying for my product. So, there is a need for my product. But I have not yet honed in on who those people are. Michele Hansen 13:30That’s okay. It’s been live for like, you know, with paying customers for like two months now, right? Like, that's okay. Colleen Schnettler 13:40So, what I want to do in order to, like, tailor my marketing and my content and, and kind of figure out who's really using it is I want to go back to basics. So when I built this, my original thought, I built it for myself, right? So, at the time, you know, if we go back almost a year now in the podcast archives, I was like, oh, I'll sell this to other consultants. I have no idea if this is something other consultants want. So I am trying to go back to basics here. And I'm gonna, I want to speak with other consultants to find out what their needs are and what their pain points are in the file uploading space. So that's my plan. Michele Hansen 14:24Hmm. What's driving this feeling?Colleen Schnettler 14:28Because I feel, here's the thing with Heroku is these people aren't, no one's emailing me back, which is fine. I only have, what do I have, like 18-ish paying customers? Of those 18-ish paying customers, only 60% are using it. So I feel like those people that aren't using it will churn, and Heroku is like, choppy, right because they prorate. You could sign up for two days and then cancel. Now people aren't really doing that, but I don't know, I feel like it's coming. And I feel like I want to know where, what to do next, right. As we've talked about a million times, like, we've talked about all the different things I could do next, and so I need to, I need some focus. And I feel like before I start diving into all these other communities and, and stuff, I need to know what my value proposition is here, like, who am I providing value to? What do they need? Because part of me hasn't want to made, part of me has not want to make the push to new communities because I feel like there's a lot of features I'm lacking. But the question is, like, no one has complained about me not having these features, like, do I need these features? I don't know. I just need to, I need to figure that out, I think. And so that's kind of why I think I want to go back to my original audience and see if what I'm providing is actually something consultants want, because I'm starting to think maybe it's not. I'm starting to think maybe they're not my people, not because I don't know, this is just a hunch I have just based on, like, the minimal feedback I've gotten so far. So I don't know, I feel like I've been bouncing around kind of unsure of what to do next, and so when in doubt, talk to more people. Right, coach? Isn't that the rule? Michele Hansen 16:219That is the rule. You know, what? I wonder if there's this feeling that we had for the first couple of years, and I wonder if this feeling is running underneath what you're feeling, which is this fear that everything could go away overnight. Colleen Schnettler 16:42Oh, yeah. I mean, definitely, I think part of that is like, okay, so my 18-ish paying customers, maybe 11, or 12 are actually using it. Yeah, I mean, sure. They could all just change their minds, because they're like, she doesn't have, you know, image resizing or batch deletion, or whatever it is that I don't have that they need. And that hasn't happened, but it might because I just don't know enough about what people feel like they need. Michele Hansen 17:13Yeah, there's this, there's this real, I think, I don't, I don't know what the word is that I'm looking for. But there's this precariousness of a product that runs underneath, right? Like, like, for a long time, we would just be like, all this revenue could go away overnight. Like, we just operated as if it could all go away. Which made us really hungry, in the way that you are, to try to figure out okay, why is this working? Colleen Schnettler 17:47Right? Right? Why is it working? I don’t know. That's fundamentally the problem. Michele Hansen 17:53Is it working, and why is it working? I mean, there's also kind of, I think, in this, this feeling, I feel like I'm hearing from you, which is also something I have felt, which is, why did anyone sign up for this when it is lacking all of these features that I thought were absolutely critical, like, you know, and basically, you know, like, I have definitely had products that I think of I'm like, this product sucks, like, why is anyone using it? Like, are they, like, are they okay, like, did they realize that this is terrible? Like, like, there's this, I mean, it's, it's like an insecurity, right? Because you don't have security and knowing why people are there, and why they're staying. Colleen Schnettler 18:40Yeah, no, that's exactly right. That's such a good, that's the perfect way to put it, Michele. Like, clearly this is working because I'm not losing people. And I'm getting, you know, about one sign up every one to two weeks. So, something is working, but I have no idea like, how it's working. I have no idea if they feel like they're getting their money's worth. I have no, I have no idea what value I'm providing to these people. And so absolutely, if I, you know, let's say every single one of them talked to me and showed me their side and was like, this is how we're using it, and this is how it saves us money, then I'm sure I would feel very differently. But with no people talking to me, I've literally no idea. So I expect them to all cancel tomorrow because I just don't know if I'm providing them value. Michele Hansen 19:23So I think that's a rational feeling. Colleen Schnettler 19:25Okay. Michele Hansen 19:26Yes, and I think you were doing the right thing. By listening to that feeling, right? Like, you're not just kind of like, running from that feeling and saying, no, I'm just gonna act like that's not there. And whatever and put my head in the sand. You're saying, okay, where is this feeling coming from and what can I do to answer this, right? It's, why is this working? And because, because without knowing why it's working, you don't know what to do more of, or less of. Like, it's impossible to prioritize when you don't know why things are happening. And this is one of those things that like, you can look at signup metrics or, or traffic metrics and see that something is happening. You can see what is happening. You can see that there's new signups every week. You can see that there's revenue. You can see that, did that whale customer like, did they, did they cancel yet, by the way? Colleen Schnettler 20:19They did not cancel. They are still paying me $250 a month. Michele Hansen 20:23So you can see that they are still paying you. But those metrics will never tell you why. And you can only figure out the why by talking to someone. And this is why we use both qualitative and quantitative methods with customers to figure out the why. And so, so, so your approach to this, it sounds like, you want to start with going back to the people you were originally building for. That's kind of where you're thinking of going. Like, it sounds like you feel like you can't get your customers to talk to you. Colleen Schnettler 21:01Right. So, and to be fair, I just I think it's a, it's a volume problem. Like when I had 115 customers, because when it was free people signed up like crazy. When I had like, 115 customers, I could always find someone to talk to me, which was great. But I only have what, what’d I say like, 18-ish paying customers, and none of them I've, you know, none of them have responded to requests to chat, which is fine, right? I don't want to harass them. So I've been thinking about, we've talked about me wanting to explore other avenues like, other, other markets, but I'm already in the Heroku marketplace, and I want to make sure I'm taking advantage of people who already use Heroku. And so, when I originally thought of this idea, like, I was like, this is perfect for people who have to do multiple sites in a year for consultants, right? Because it speeds you up so much. So I'm trying to circle back to those people who do like, full stack web apps, like the consultant people and talk to them, because I actually never asked any of my consultant friends if it's something they would use. So I figure I might as well start there, since that was my original intended audience and kind of see what I learn because I have a hypothesis that the consultants are going to want something very different than the no-code people. And so what I look at, like what feature like, what I need to add to my product, I have, I have theories about it. And before I start building anything, or you know, really pushing into another marketplace, I want to see if my theories prove correct. Michele Hansen 22:45You have an email that triggers people when they start that prompts them to talk to you, right? Do you have another email that triggers people who haven't acted? Like, you said only 60% have used it? Do you have another email that triggers like, if they haven't started using it within a certain period of time? Colleen Schnettler 23:04I do not. Michele Hansen 23:06I would be curious to introduce that. And that's a fairly common practice with online services and software, is to have something that, say like, if you, you know, based on, so if you look at those 60% who did start, if you can get the numbers on, let's say, the median, or average time it took them to upload a file or to into like, like, can you get that data? Colleen Schnettler 23:33I don't know. I mean, the data is there somehow, I'm not quite sure how to extract it. I'm sure I can sort it out. Michele Hansen 23:38Okay, so if you could find that data, then let's say it's three days. So then, after five days of, so three days in sign up, so let's say five days after sign up, triggering another email that says, you know, how can I get help you get started? Like, and, and, and not necessarily asking for a call. But again saying, you know, are you having any problems with the integration? Are, you know, I'm happy to help you or, you know, alternatively, if there's internal barriers you're facing to integrating this, like, I would love to hear more. Because it could be that like, they're waiting for the project to start, or they need approval from someone or, like, there could be all sorts of things going on that do relate to the product, like, maybe they're banging their head against the keyboard, and they didn't want to tell you, or there's just some internal thing going on. And that would at least give you some context, maybe, and it might be easier for people to reply to. Now we'll have to like, work on the copy a little bit and make sure that those are questions that are easy for people to answer, and probably not a yes or no question. So that all kind of takes some, some work but I think, I think that could be interesting to explore. Colleen Schnettler 25:02Yeah, that seems like, like a good idea. Yeah. Michele Hansen 25:07While you're doing this other exploration too, right? Like, we don't just have to do one thing at a time. Colleen Schnettler 25:15Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I think that's relatively easy to implement, and then maybe I can get some more, you know, feedback from folks as to why they haven't gotten started yet. Michele Hansen 25:27Yeah, talk to the existing customers, talk to the people who you thought would be customers. And I think the more information you gather, that can help you start building that sense of security, but like, like, I've really had that feeling of this could go away at any minute, or, you know, a major company could come in and just wipe us out, like, all the time for like, three years. Like, I mean, that's, it's a very real and common feeling. Colleen Schnettler 26:00Yeah. Yeah. And I think your point about, since I don't really know the value I'm providing, I mean, that's the first thing people always ask me, you know, when I, when I'm talking business with people, and I'm like, well, I don't really know who my customers are. So there's that. Michele Hansen 26:20What else are you working on? I know, this stuff is kind of a, like, this is the not fun work, and you would rather be, you know, putzing around in the code garden. Colleen Schnettler 26:32Putzing around in the code garden. Um, yeah, really scheduling. I'm trying to schedule five calls. And it's funny, because I thought I knew like, tons of consultants. But now I'm like, do I really know that many independent developers? I don't know. So you did 17, so my goal is to do five.Michele Hansen 26:50It’s not a contest. Colleen Schnettler 26:51Oh, it's a contest, Michele. Michele Hansen 26:53It’s really not like, it's not, not a contest. I don't think that's like fair, like, I had, Colleen Schnettler 26:59No, no, that’s why I need to do like, Michele Hansen 27:03And like, six years headstart on how to talk to customers. Is that fair? I don't think so, like. Colleen Schnettler 27:10So I really want to talk to people. I really want to talk with the consultants, because as I said, I really think they're gonna want something different than like, the no-code community. So I'm going to start there. I'd like to talk to five people who are independent web developers, you know, who work on more than one client project. Michele Hansen 27:28If that’s you, reach out to Colleen. I think if that's you, reach out to Colleen. Colleen Schnettler 27:31Yeah, if that's you please, please, please send me a message. And then, you know, I want to do that. And then I want to do the no-code folks. And I feel like just as we, you know, talking to more people is going to give me a better idea about what people need. And like, how I can, I can help them achieve their business goals, right. Like that is the ultimate goal here is to help other people achieve their business goals. So that's kind of my focus. That and like, we talked about, I love the idea of adding the email, like, why haven't you, nicer than that, but kind of like, can I help you get started? And, yeah, that's like, the stuff I'm working on now. Michele Hansen 28:12Do you feel like you're in a good place? Colleen Schnettler 28:15No. I mean, it's so funny. Like, I think it was Alex Hillman, who has all these tweets about psychology, right? He's always like, it's the psychology, it's business, what does he say? Like business is easy; managing our own psychology is hard. Michele Hansen 28:28Oh, yeah, I know how like, we build software, but like, software is used by people, and people are the hard part. Colleen Schnettler 28:37Yeah. I mean, my thing is, I'm, I'm in this place where like, I'm not exactly happy with my product right now. And I'd like to have the time to just like, dive in and do all these cool things to it. And I know, two things are true. One, you know, it doesn't, that's probably not a good use of my time right now because I could make the perfect product, but if no one's gonna buy it, no one's gonna buy it. And like, I literally just don't have the time. Man, there's so many things I want to add to make it better though. So, so that's kind of been my challenge recently is like, is this product any good? Like, I mean, is it useful? Is it helping people? It doesn't have this feature, like, how can we work around that? Like, I don't know. I kind of feel like I've been pinballing a bit. So I'm trying to regain focus in terms of what I should be doing and you know, marketing. Michele Hansen 29:35It almost seems like you feel like you're sort of working into a void and like, not knowing whether what you're providing is providing value. It's sort of like, dents the motivation a little bit because without knowing that you are helping people, it's like, it's hard to keep going because, because it's sort of, where do I go? Colleen Schnettler 30:03Yeah, absolutely. Like these things I want to add, not a single person has asked for them. Like, let's be clear, but no one's talking to me, right? And I can't say, oh, if I add all these features, I'm gonna get, you know, all these signups coming through. I have no reason to believe that's true, right? Like, like, I have had no one say, oh, I wouldn't buy your product, but I want this thing. So this is just like, things that I want to do to make my product better. But also things that I don't know if anyone cares about. So to your point, I want to spend time on these things. But is that just, you know, what is it, yelling into a void? You know, like, is it? Yeah, I just feel like I'm kind of in a void. I'm not talking to enough people. I can't figure out why people are signing up. Um, so it's not bad, right? Like, this is a good, mostly good problem to have. Michele Hansen 30:54But it’s an unsettling problem. Colleen Schnettler 30:55It's unsettling. That's a good way to put it. Since I don't know that I'm providing value, iIt's hard for me to one feel like my work is meaningful, and two, feel like all these people aren't just going to cancel tomorrow. Michele Hansen 31:09This has turned into a really heavy episode, like, like, I'm pulling apart language and Colleen is in a void. Like, Colleen Schnettler 31:21What is that about? Michele Hansen 31:25It’s like, uh, do, The Good Place like, Janet's void, like I'm just picturing it. This like, cool, like, fun place and, we’ll make your void an enjoyable place to be. And hopefully get you out of the void. And if you haven't seen The Good Place, and you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sorry. We'll get you out of the void. Colleen Schnettler 31:47Yeah, I like it. I'm here for it. Michele Hansen 31:49I think that's probably a good place to wrap up for this week. Thank you so much for joining us. If you liked this episode, it would mean so much if you, to us if you just like, tweeted it out and why you liked it. That's always super helpful and motivating to us so we don't feel like we're podcasting into a void. But yeah, we'll talk to you next week.
Surprises
Colleen Schnettler 00:00This week's episode of the Software Social Podcast is brought to you by Hopscotch Product Tours. Hopscotch Product Tours allows you to improve user onboarding with helpful product tours that guide your users to success. Also, reduce frustration by helping users learn how to use your product, without the need for demo calls. Visit Hopscotch.club today and start delighting your users with Hopscotch Product Tours. Michele Hansen 00:28So Colleen. Cloudflare. Colleen Schnettler 00:33Oh, Cloudflare. Michele HansenThis week, Cloudflare introduced their images beta to simplify your image pipeline, a simple service to store, resize, optimize, and deliver images at scale. Colleen Schnettler 00:54Yeah, I saw that. So that's a big disappointment for me because I really, when I had been thinking about how this was going to go, in my mind, I was gonna launch in Heroku, which I've done, and kind of get my product exactly where I want it to be, and then launching Cloudflare. Because I have launched a small free app in the Cloudflare marketplace before, and they have millions of users. So the distribution channel there is spectacular. So I'm a little disappointed because I felt like I had a really, really good opportunity in that marketplace. And now that they've launched their own service, like, I don't think I'm going to be able to compete with that. Michele Hansen 01:37So this came out, and you know, I saw this, this blog post, and I thought of you immediately and it's interesting. The post they have on it, they outline the difference, they call them the four fundamental questions you might answer: Where do we store images? How do we secure, resize and optimize the images for different use cases? How do we serve the images to our users reliably? How do we do all of these things at scale while having predictable and affordable pricing, especially during spikes? And what strikes me about that is there are some similarities with what you've been solving, but also there are differences. Like, Colleen Schnettler 02:12What do you mean? Michele Hansen 2:!4So, I remember you talking about images and whether you wanted to go in this whole direction of resizing and optimizing images. And your product is called Simple File Upload. It's not Simple Image Upload. And so this is like, part of what you're solving, but at the same time, you're doing other stuff, too. Colleen Schnettler 02:40Right. And when I originally launched the product, that was a big reason, is because all of the big players predominantly handle media files, and I kept running into this problem where I needed PDFs, or I needed Word docs because we were doing resumes. So that is part of the reason I started focusing on files in general. But as more and more people use it, I see pretty consistently, most people are using it predominantly for images. So I really did feel like my growth trajectory was going to be in the image space. So I am different from Cloudflare in that I would, I do multiple files, but they even have good pricing. Like, they even have, they're going to, this is going to be incredibly successful for them because they even have straightforward pricing is what it looks like. And so it doesn't make, mean I'm not gonna have a thing, right? It means maybe when I launch in Cloudflare, I focus more on the file aspect than the image aspect because they currently offer all the things I want to add, but have not yet added, right? Like it'd be, it is so frustrating as a developer to read their blog post and be like, oh, my gosh, it'd be so easy for me to add these few things they offer. And man, if I had just beaten them into the market. But you know what, it's a big market. Like, there's literally millions of people, I believe, who use CloudFlare. So, it doesn't mean there's not space for me. But I do think it means when I write my CloudFlare app, I focus more on other types of files, since they will now have, you know, this easy to implement solution that fits right in with their existing CDN’s and stuff. Michele Hansen 04:16I think that's such an important point that there are space for multiple companies in it for any given thing, you know, and I don't know if this is a result of kind of the, the sort of narrative that we're living in around companies, and especially what, you know, venture capitalists might look for in a company is they want the company that is going to become the monopoly that can charge the highest prices and have, you know, the highest profits and just eat everybody else in that industry. And that is, you know, in so many ways, the opposite of what we bootstrappers try to do and believe in and, you know, also now the US government has kind of onto tech, and all of that sort of monopoly-building. And, but I think living in that environment, we forget that like, it's okay to have a big company come into your space, or to already have big companies competing against you, and there can still be space for a small, successful company there. And, you know, I offer us up as evidence. Like, we've been competing at Google since day one. Colleen Schnettler 05:31Yeah, and I think that's one of the best decisions I made when I finally launched this product. As we've talked about before, I've been coming up with ideas and trying to launch MVPs of different things. And a lot of the things I was trying to do were like, big, cool new ideas. And as a single founder, like, in an untested market, I could not get a big cool new idea off the ground, like props to you, if you can, that's awesome. But people looked at me like I, like, they looked at me sideways when I was like, I told people, like developers what I was making, they were like, so you're making what? And they list like five other companies that do the same thing. And I was like, yes, I am. And now they're all really surprised at how successful it's been. And I think that just goes to show, like, the market was already proven for what I was doing. I focused on a really small group of people. And so far, that's been working for me. And again, I don't know, like, how that'll grow or scale or whatever. But I don't know, it's working for me right now, going into a tested market, even with big players, because the big players, if you have a customer support request to a big player, they're gonna send you to their forums, right? I know, because it's happened to me. You're like, oh, I have this problem. Can I do this thing? They're like, first thing is you get the automated chat widget that says, ‘Go look in the forums,’ and you're like, nah. And I had my first support request this week, by the way, which is kind of fun. And the person was like, it was so great. I think they were so surprised that I responded so quickly. And I, like, literally fixed the problem in a day. I think, I think the person left with like, a really positive, I mean, they told me they had a really positive experience with me. And so, kind of what you talk about what Geocodio, I think, by focusing on a small group of people, and by keeping my customer support high, hopefully I can still find a place, a space in this ginormous market of a file uploading. Michele Hansen 07:27I think you can. And to go back to what you were touching on earlier, you mentioned that you have been successful so far. And I have to ask, Colleen, how successful have you been so far? What is our numbers update for this week? Colleen Schnettler 07:47So since last week, I, one more customer converted from the free trial to paid. And so I'm at $835 MRR. Right? But curiously, that person who is paying me $250 a month has neither emailed me back nor uploaded any files. So that is a most interesting thing. So I am prepared. I mean, I'm hoping that that person sticks around, and they're just trying to get going. But I am prepared that like, if you have someone at $250 a month churn, like that's gonna hurt. So we'll see what, what that person does. But like I said, I'm just trying to offer a high level of support and keep on trucking. I do think, though, with the Cloudflare thing like, this might change my whole strategy in terms of whether I've been launched in that marketplace. Like I certainly haven't, I haven't finished serving the Heroku marketplace. There's still a lot of people in there. And, as we've talked about in the early days, is I still feel like I could do a lot in like NoCode, I just have not had time to dive into it. So this might change my growth strategy from Heroku to Cloudflare, which was my original plan. I might now do, like, Heroku to NoCode to see if I can serve those people better. I don't know, I got to talk to more people and kind of get a better idea. Michele Hansen 09:09You've been really interested in serving no coders. Colleen Schnettler 09:13It's cuz I just, I just, they're so happy when you give them file uploading. Like everyone I've talked to, in that space, like, it makes file uploading so easy for them, and kind of similar to the interviews we've had, you know, we had with Drew, where he was struggling, it's so rewarding to be able to help someone like that. To be like, oh, you this thing will take you like three to five days, and like, I can just get out of your way get, you know, do this for you, get out of your way, and then you know, you're up in five minutes. Like, I don't know, it just seems to make them really happy. And I feel like they're, they're like the hotness, right? But I feel like in this particular arena, they're an underserved market. Like, I haven't, I've only started talking to a few people using NoCode, but they're like, uploading to Airtable. So I need to find out if Airtable is backed by S3 or if Airtable, I don't know what Airtable is doing. I got to figure all that out. And I think the best way is for me just to start building things and kind of immerse myself in that community. I just feel like that's where my opportunity is because I feel like those, those folks trying to build with NoCode, they're trying to make, they're trying to make products quickly, right. Whereas developers are trying to optimize usually for the most beautiful code, which is fine, like, that's cool. But my product is ‘helps you move fast’. And those people I think, are trying to move fast. Michele Hansen 10:35So I think you said that the market is underserved. And some markets are underserved with a willingness to pay and some markets are underserved because they don't have a willingness to pay. And I'm curious if you have been able to figure out what people are currently paying for, for image upload in NoCode, or, you know, because it's not possible, they're not paying for anything or like, like, what like, what the deal is with that. Colleen Schnettler 11:08Yeah, and I am just dipping my toe into that. So I'm trying to get more involved in,, in the no code community, but my understanding and this, okay, my understanding is based on one person I spoke with who's really involved in the NoCode stuff, and, and he said, like, for people who have a lot of uploading needs, they tend to use Uploadcare. And we've talked before about how Uploadcare is both expensive and has that really nebulous pricing. But I have not actually reached around and talked to any of those people who are using Uploadcare yet. So if I want to go down that path for growth, like, there's a lot, there's a lot I have to do to get to that community and start talking to that people and see if I really do have an audience or a market there. I don't know yet. It could be that the people dabbling in NoCode aren't making money yet, and because they're not, they don't, they won't pay for file uploading. So it's really too soon for me to say. I just, I have a gut feeling that that's a good space for me to be in, that my people are going to be there. But you know, things are going great with Heroku right now. So I definitely don't want to just like, stop focusing on Heroku. Like, that's been a great traction channel for me. So it's just as we've talked about. I just got to keep talking to people and, and see what I learned, and hopefully, you know, that'll lead me down the path of which direction to grow. Michele Hansen 12:28You mentioned you've talked to one person so far, and you did just say that you need to talk to more people. I always caution that you, you know, don't make any major decisions until you've heard the same thing from at least five people. And I wonder if they're, you know, in the sort of the, you know, as Amy Hoy calls it, the digital watering holes. If you could find people like, on the Makerpad community forums, or on Reddit, or like, somewhere else where people are already talking about how they do this, and reaching out to those people. Colleen Schnettler 13:08Yeah, I totally need to do that. I think I'm still trying to figure out, that's like a step B. I mean, right now, I'm still trying to figure out the people who are actually using it. I don't even have a good idea of the Heroku people who are actually using it, who are paying me. So I think I would love to, I mean, I don't know, what is that 15, no 20 ish paying customers. Like, it'd be so cool if I could get you know, 25 to 50% of those people on a call to find out what they're doing. So I'm kind of still struggling even to figure out what people who are using it now are using it for. So I really want to exhaust the resources I have there before I start reaching out to new people.Michele Hansen 13:50Yeah, that makes sense. And, you know, for context, like, the best I've ever gotten my recruitment emails to get someone to talk to me is like 8 to 10%. So, Colleen Schnettler 14:01So that's good to know. Michele Hansen 14:02I think it's just a volume question for you at this point. Colleen Schnettler 14:08Right. Right. So, so that's, I mean, I gotta I gotta pound the pavement. I haven't, I haven't been pounding the pavement as much as I would like. So, I think there's a lot of, a lot of that in terms of just like going on Reddit, going on these forums, reaching out to people, seeing if people talk to me, and figuring out, you know, where my audience is. But I did want to get your opinion. So last week, my accountability goal for this week was to get a testimonial up on my website. So I took very small baby steps to make that happen, and I wanted to run the testimonial by you to see what you thought of the language. Michele Hansen 14:47Did you already run it by the person that it, that said it? Colleen Schnettler 14:52No. I mean, I will before, it’s not on my website. I asked him, I asked him, I said I'm gonna write something and then I'll send it to you to approve. So if he doesn't approve it, obviously I won't put it on my website. But um, I just kind of wanted to get, I have two things, and I just kind of want to read them both to you and see what you think he said. Is that cool? Michele Hansen 15:14Yeah, sure. Colleen Schnettler 15:16Okay, so the first one would be: I got Simple File Upload up and running in minutes. The software has allowed my team to focus on what matters: supporting our customers, and leave the details of file uploading up to the software. Michele Hansen 15:28Yeah. Colleen Schnettler 15:30Okay, now, that’s the first one I got. The other one I have is: Simple File Upload allowed my team to stop fighting with file uploading and focus on what matters: our customers. We have the uploader up and running in five minutes. It really is that easy. Michele Hansen 15:44Oh, I kind of like the second one. It feels a little more, maybe it's just me, but it feels a little bit more authentic. And, yeah. Colleen Schnettler 15:53I mean, that's more actually what he said. That's, that's more of a direct quote. Okay, cool. Yeah. So I'm gonna add that today. So I get that, that testimonial up on my site. And, man, there's so much to do. Like, it's all fun things, but like, I think of all these things we talk about I know, we talked about this last week, but it's like, oh, my gosh, I can think of like, 100 things I could do right now. Michele Hansen 16:17Do you have that list of like, tasks? Colleen Schnettler 16:20I do. I do. So I took, from last week, I took the testimonial. And it was like, like, it was like little itty bitty baby steps. Like, one day I asked someone if I could use their testimonial. The next day, I bought Tailwind UI. The next day, I put the testimonial block on my site. So it's been baby steps, but it's progress, right? I mean, you got to know when you're at a time in your life where you can just take baby steps, and that's kind of where I am. So for next week, my goal is to get the, this is a bigger, bigger goal, but like, to get the preview that, like, you can practice, you can use it up on my site. And I'm gonna break that down into lots of little tasks and kind of do the same thing I did this week, which was like, one baby step at a time. And keep moving forward. Michele Hansen 17:04I hear, like, optimism and a sense of direction in your voice. Colleen Schnettler 17:10Isn't it amazing? Okay, so here's the thing is, it's like, I didn't do that much more this week than I did last week, but I'm feeling so much more optimistic, and I think it's because these tasks I did this week were tiny, right? Like, some of them took five minutes. But just that sense of progress, like, just that sense of like, I've been talking about putting a testimonial up for three weeks. And it was like this mental block, and I just couldn't do it. And so this week, kind of what we talked about, like, I broke them down into these five, literally, they're like five to 10 minute tasks. And I had a busy week, and I was tired every night, but I was able to wrap my brain around doing a tiny task. And because of that, I've made progress forward, and that feels good. Right? Michele Hansen 17:56Yeah, like, you feel accomplished. Colleen Schnettler 18:17Yeah, totally. So yeah, so I'm feeling, I'm feeling good about, about that. So, I would love to hear about your 50 people interviews. Have you done 50 interviews? Michele Hansen 18:11I have not done 50. I have done, I think 17 or 18 this, Colleen Schnettler 18:17Wait, I talked to you last week, last week. You've done 17 interviews? Oh my gosh. Michele Hansen 18:24I mean, it's been like it's, it's, it's been, it's been amazing. Honestly, I like, I'm so, I'm so moved and so grateful that so many people were willing to talk to me, like, about this. And yeah, I'm just, I'm just filled with this enormous sense of gratitude for people literally all over the world helping me with this. And I mean, like, talking to people about talking to people is just to me, like, the greatest topic. Like, I like, just, every person, I feel like I could talk to them forever, and you know, on so many of the calls that kind of ends up being like, well, I don't have anything afterwards. Like, do you have a few, and then like, then we're like, continue chatting and like going over, and I did six of these on Monday. I did five on Tuesday, which, like, I have this rule that I will only do two in a day. Because more than that, you know, the energy that goes into kind of just, sort of fully absorbing someone's perspective and kind of, you know, sort of mentally like, peeking through their closet and looking at all the nooks and crannies, like, it just takes a lot of focus. And I, it can be tiring. And so you know, years ago, like, there was a, there was a day when I did three hour-long interviews in one day, and I was just like, I was so beat. And so since then I was like, I'll only do two in a day. And then I, in my enthusiasm about this, I did six on Monday. And I was like, oh now I remember why I have that rule. But it's, it's been so like, it's been so good. And I've been learning so many things. And like, there's all these things I didn't even think about. And it's, I'm so excited. Colleen Schnettler 20:10Give us an example of something you didn't think about. Michele Hansen 20:12Okay, so one of the things that came up is that, so I had this sense that, that, you know, my audience was kind of, like, mostly people who were, you know, basically people like you, who are trying to learn how to do this, running their own companies, haven't had a chance to really talk to customers before. And then like, a little smaller audience was like, people who need a book to recommend other people who are new to this that was very practical. But that was a smaller audience. And what I learned is really, that, like, consultants really need to work with something like this, to either do this work for their clients to explain what the work is, or to teach their clients how to do it, and then, so that they can offer other higher value like, add-on services. So it's like, not only while I do the interviewing, but then help you with the analysis part run workshops on, you know, making product strategy decision making, and like, a copywriter is saying that they, they wanted to move from just writing copy to helping make product decisions, for example, or consultants who work with small software businesses who need to teach people how to do this. And so that was really exciting, because I hadn't really thought about that at all. And, you know, people are saying, oh, if you have some sort of bundle that's for consultants, that makes it easy for me to share and adapt this like, that would, you know, that would be super helpful. And I really hadn't thought about that at all. So, so that's pretty exciting. Colleen Schnettler 21:41Yeah, that's awesome. So I noticed you had a tweet this morning. And that tweet said, “If I release this book, and get tons of requests for consulting, I will consider the book of failure because it wasn't actionable enough for people to apply on their own.” Tell me more about that. Michele Hansen 22:02Yeah. And I guess I should clarify that, like, I would feel like I have failed the reader, rather than the reader themselves failing, if that makes sense. Um, I, you know, I started out in tech working at an agency like, like, doing consulting, working with clients. And I did that for four years, and, and then I kind of at one point, I decided I really wanted to be in a product business. And I've been in product businesses since. And so I personally, just, I don't want to do consulting. And, and like, there's nothing wrong with consulting. Tons of people do it. Like it's just, I'm more personally suited to a product business than a client business. That's just something I know about myself, that I enjoy a product business more. The other thing is I also like, like, I have a product business. And if I start this consultancy, like, that's going to distract me from this business I have that's already working and needs my attention. And writing this book is already distracting me enough. And then if it leads to all of this consulting work like, that does not bode well, you know, for the future of the company. And so I, so, so, so these conversations this week were really interesting because it's gotten me think of, like, how can I empower consultants to use this? Like, because I definitely see that there is space for people who would read something and then say, okay, I don't have the time to do this myself, or I need some more help in implementing this. And that, and that's valid. I don't, I don't see myself as that person. Like, if people email me with questions about stuff, or like, hey, like, what do you think of this email? Or, you know, like, whatever, like, I'm happy to reply to that. But, so I'm kind of thinking about, like, how can I empower consultants and also product leaders to work with this? And, you know, so one, one thing I've talked about is like, the frequency of a problem matters, right? And like, we've talked about this in the, in the context of file upload, right? Have like, who has a frequent need for this? It's people who are, you know, freelancers, and consultants who are making lots of sites. For this, what's interesting to me about that, too, is that the consultants and product leaders, they're the ones who have a more frequent need for this. Like a developer starting their own company, they only need to buy this book once, but a product leader who is training their team on how to interview and they might need to buy the book for their whole team, and then they change companies in a year and a half. They're going to need, they're going to need another book to recommend to that new team or consultants who are always working with new clients. And so, people like that have a recurring need for a book like this. So, which, for a book that is going to have a marketing budget of zero, it isn't going to be helpful to have that kind of, you know, rely on those sort of existing behaviors and ways of spreading the book. So I don't really know how that's going to come together, but it's definitely interesting and just, you know, goes to show how talking to customers leads to business opportunities that you never realized were there. Colleen Schnettler 25:10Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because, as a developer, as a consultant developer, the joke is kind of like, you should write a book so you get higher value consulting, right? Because it gives you, you know, domain expertise. You're like, oh, I wrote a whole book on this, and so you get higher value consulting. So that's why I was kind of surprised when I saw your tweet because I would think the book gives you so much clout that, like, you could almost name your price going in as a expert in this field. Michele Hansen 25:42Yeah. And I think it's confusing to people that I don't want to do that. Colleen Schnettler 25:47I think it's confusing to people. I think it's just because generally speaking, I think it's just confusing, because you're not optimizing for money. Michele Hansen 25:56Yeah, this is totally a labor of love.Colleen Schnettler 25:58This confused, this confuses people. Right. Yeah. No, I totally get what you're saying. And I'm, I'm curious, too, how it has been balancing. I mean, if you did 17 customers interviews in a week, you clearly don't have time to do anything else. Are you feeling like this is taken away from Geocodio? Are you guys like, it's been fine? Like, how has that been impacting you? Michele Hansen 26:23I think it's actually been, been fine. Like, I, I did still do a lot of Geocodio work, like, you know, especially like, so I'm having calls with people all over the world. And so, you know, a couple of those calls have been at 8am. Like, if I'm talking to India, or Australia, a bunch of them have been at 9pm with the US, and those aren't times I'm normally working, like, let's be honest, at eight o'clock in the morning, when I sit down at my desk, like, I'm just like, reading the news, and like, putzing around on Twitter, like, I'm not doing anything, really. So, um, and then also, um, you know, we so, like, we got started with it with a VA about a month, month and a half ago, like, I finally got someone from Squared Away, and she's been so awesome, and I had her write a bunch of landing pages. And I think those landing pages were too good, because like, our inbound volume from, like, new customer support, and like, you know, sort of business development or like, sales inquiries, like, has been really high in the past two weeks. So it's almost a good thing that I didn't like, you know, write any more landing pages or whatnot this week, because it's like, this is, this has been working too much. Like, we need to stop. Michele Hansen 27:40Yeah, so, so, but like, I can't keep doing this forever, right. Like, I can't be spending hours talking to people about my side project, especially where, you know, if a call is at nine o'clock at night, and you know, sometimes goes till 9:30 or 10, like, I'm, I'm tired, I'm not getting time to relax, and that takes a toll. So, I have more calls next week, but not nearly as many. Um, and I'm more so focusing on writing, like, I'm on the third, not version, but like, you know, I've got the third draft out there as of this morning. So you know, it'sColleen Schnettler 28:20Wow, that's amazing. Michele Hansen 28:22Yeah, I’m getting a ton of really good feedback. Like, I'm super, super grateful. And like, people are being honest with me and being like, you know, this isn't working, or like, this is confusing, but also when they like stuff. So, yeah. Colleen Schnettler 28:33Wow. So are you still going for 50? Are you going to decrease that number? Michele Hansen 28:38I think, I intentionally made that number high, so that it would make people more comfortable in talking to me. Like, because 50 is like, really high. So it was, it very much creates this like, like, not only do I want to talk to people, like, I need to talk to you if I'm going to get to this number. And so I will end up around 25 people. And that's half of that, but I'm, honestly I'm, like, I'm thrilled with that. And I am, I think it says quite a lot that so many people are willing to talk to me. And then at the end, they're like, thank you so much. And I'm like, you're the one who's giving me valuable information. No, I mean, I just, I have this notebook, like, sitting next to me on my desk right now. And it's just like, full of notes. And I have so many recordings and yeah, it's, it's, it's been amazing. Colleen Schnettler 29:33Awesome. How are you feeling, like, how's your imposter syndrome with the book because I know you said last week you were feeling kind of the, the stress and anxiety of doing this is, this is something totally new for you. Michele Hansen 29:47Yeah, I think, you know, I've been able to drill in on it a little bit more. And I don't think it's imposter syndrome. I think it's, it's finding a way to market this in a book that aligns with what my goals are, and is done in a way that I feel comfortable with. So I don't know what those goals are, right? So, I'm literally just doing this because it's something that, that I have needed. And, and, and I think I also, I have this kind of you know, that, when you're selling a product that people don't need, or they don't know they need, that's very different from the product like, from how Geocodio was sold. People already know that they need geocoding, or they need Census field, like, they need, they know they need that, and they're just looking for something that does that. With a product that people don't know they need, that lends itself to a different set of marketing tactics. And quite frankly, some of those can be very scammy, and making lots of promises to people and not always delivering on them. I'm not saying that that's always how it is, but there are many examples of that. And I think that's where that reticence comes from, is I have just, I'm just like, allergic to anything scammy, and so I want to find a way to do this in a way that delivers exactly what has been promised to people, or more. So, and I think I can do that. And I think that's not necessarily about the actual tactics, that's more of how things are structured, and how I market it. And you know, to what I was saying earlier, like, if I can rely on existing behaviors to sell the book, like, you know, product leaders recommending it to their teams, like, that’s a sale of five books, and that didn't require me, you know, bombarding someone with emails, getting them to buy like, a package or whatnot, like, which, you know, can work but like, I just, I don't, that just doesn't feel like me. So um, yeah, I think I have a lot of thoughts on that. But I think I will find a way. And actually, there's a friend of ours who I've, who I've asked to, like, come on in a few weeks to kind of like, coach me through it, because he wrote a book, like, self-published a book. And, the other, so the other thing about this is people are like, oh, well, like, what about doing a course or like, a video course, or like, all this stuff, and I'm like, I hadn't even thought about that, like, so that could be something that comes later. I feel like I have to get the base content out. And then I can sort of reshape it, like, I can repackage it in different things. But I have to get that core product of the book out first. But there could be lots of different things, and you know, some people learn better over audio or video than they do reading. So, um, so yeah, there's kind of space for lots of different directions to go with this. Colleen Schnettler 33:12I mean, Michele, it sounds like you're starting another company. You realize that, right? Michele Hansen 33:16I know, I know. I need to like, not do that. That’s just, like, that’s the problem. Colleen Schnettler 33:20Exactly what it sounds like. Michele Hansen 33:22I need to not do that. This needs to be like, a little fun thing, where I feel like I'm contributing back to the world, and I am, you know, compensated for the time that I have put into it. And like, you know, it's always nice if you know, I'm, you know, something I like, think about developers how, you know, if you guys ever, like lose your job, or whatever, like, developers can just go start consulting. Now, there's more complications that it's not like, it's, it's easy, but like, people recognize the skills of developers, and it's an easier hill to climb to go get a client than somebody coming from the product discipline like me, where, you know, like, knock on wood, like, you know, I don't know, company collapses tomorrow, like, I don't feel like I could just go out and like, be like, hire me as your product consultant person. Colleen Schnettler 34:15Yeah, it's kind of nebulous, like, what is a product consultant? What is their value? Michele Hansen 34:20Exactly. But it's like, this is a very concrete skill, and so in a way it's like, and, and like I said, I hope it never comes to this, but you know, like, it's almost a professional insurance policy that like, I can decide right now that I don't want to do consulting. But if it turns out that this book has done well, like, I could decide 5 or 10 years from now that I want to, and so it’s, yeah, it's kind of like, I don't know if that makes sense, like thinking about it as an insurance policy, but, so who knows? Colleen Schnettler 34:49Well, let's wrap up today's episode of the Software Social Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. You can reach us on Twitter @SoftwareSocPod. We will talk to you next week.
Approaching Nebulous Tasks
Michele Hansen 00:00The following message is brought to you by Balsamiq. Balsamiq decided to support the Software Social community by donating their sponsored airtime to some of our listeners.This episode is sponsored by KB Clip. So much institutional knowledge transfer happens in Slack. KB Clip is a magic shortcut to turn a conversation into an FAQ entry, a wiki page, or a Knowledge Base article. If your team is asking the same questions over and over again in chat, KB Clip may be a great solution to keep your people better informed. KB Clip is looking for early access alpha and beta customers. If you'd like to move your company knowledge out of Slack and into the hands of your people, sign up at KBclip.com. Thank you again to Balsamiq for generously supporting our listeners this way. If you'd like to receive a promo code for Balsamiq, visit balsamiq.com/go/software-social And this is our last ad with Balsalmiq, so I just want to take a second to thank them for taking the risk on us. They were our first advertiser, and they have been so awesome to work with it. We genuinely appreciate you, Balsalmiq. So thanks. Michele HansenSo, last time we talked about the numbers for Simple File Upload was about two weeks ago, and you hadn't really looked at it much for a few weeks because you had been moving. Um, and it was at $515 in MRR, and it's been, like, two weeks since then. So where, where ya at? Colleen Schnettler 01:46So, I checked this morning and I am at 800. Michele Hansen 01:50Whoa. Dude. No, I am like almost 1000. Colleen Schnettler 01:52I know. MRR. I know. that feels like almost 1000, and like 1000 feels like a real business. Michele Hansen 02:02Holy buckets of guacamole, Batman, like 800 dollars! Colleen Schnettler 02:06Yeah, it was it was um, it's exciting. Now, like, the caveat here is the reason I had such a jump because I'm averaging about a customer a week, which is a wonderful growth rate for me. But someone signed up for my custom plan, which is $250 a month. Michele Hansen 02:23Hey, oh. Colleen Schnettler 02:25So Michele Hansen 02:26What is your custom plan? Colleen Schnettler 02:27So my custom plan is basically like, whatever you want. I don't actually even remember if I put like, what the limits I put on it. I should probably check to make sure this person is set up properly. But basically, the custom plan is, is the idea that I will set it up for you. Um, so that person is signed up, and I have, I'm sure it's a company at that, you know, it's through Heroku. So I'm sure it's a company. I have reached out, but I haven't heard anything back yet. So they're just paying me. So hopefully, I can help them out. Yeah, hopefully I can help them out. So yeah, that, that's that plan. So that's why there's been such a big jump over the two weeks, because that really made a difference. But it’s very exciting. Michele Hansen 03:10That's so exciting. And I really hope that you can, you know, get in touch with these folks, and figure out why they bought that so you can sell a lot more of that. Colleen Schnettler 03:22So I can sell more. Michele Hansen 03:23Like, let's do that. Like, let's sell more of that. Colleen Schnettler 03:26This plan. Colleen Schnettler 03:28I want everyone on this plan. So yeah, so that was a nice surprise. I have, as I said, I finally have a little more time to work on it. So this week, I pushed through like, just a few small things, a few email onboarding changes. I wasn't getting a very good response rate to my email. So I just tried to make a few changes. I just pushed them through this week, so I won't know if they work for a little while to see if I could get some more responses. And I think, you know, I'm still, I'm still in this weird place where I'm really busy, and I don't have quite the time I thought I would. So I'm really just trying to focus on small, persistent, small, consistent effort over time. And I was reading a tweet by Paul Graham, and I know a lot of people have like, mixed feelings on Paul Graham. Okay, but I still like his tweets. Anyway, someone was, was talking about when Y Combinator started, and they were talking about how the thing with Paul Graham is, he used to like, intensely focus on one thing. So if you were in his Y Combinator batch, and you were supposed to do this one thing, like, every time he saw you, that's all he would ask you about. And I like that because I think in this stage, there's just so many things, right? There's so many things pulling my attention. Like for example, I went to do these emails, which should have taken 30 minutes, and I ended up spending four hours because I was like, well while I'm in here, I'm gonna fix this thing and while I'm in here, I'm gonna write some more, I'm going to get these tests passing and, and while I'm in here, you know, and then it was like, the half day I had, I had set aside to do this stuff got taken up with, like, all those little things. And those are all good things to get done. But Michelle, it's been like, three weeks since, or four weeks since our interview with Drew, and I still have not taken the feedback we discussed, and put it on my freakin homepage. Like, I just haven’t done it. Michele Hansen 05:28That’s okay. Colleen Schnettler 05:28I know, but I, I think that should be my number one, I think that should be like my number one thing to do. So until I get that done, I should stop getting distracted by oh, but my email copy could be better. Oh, but this thing could be better. Michele Hansen 05:43So, can we talk about your email copy for a second? So I'm curious, like do you have what the copy was before? And then I'm just curious what you changed it to. Colleen Schnettler 05:54Oh, you know what, I'm only saving the ones that I have now. So I didn't save the old ones. Michele Hansen 06:01Can you read us the new one? Colleen Schnettler 06:03The new one says, “Hi, I just wanted to personally reach out and thank you for trying Simple File Upload. Would you mind replying and let, letting me know two things? One, are you working on a business client or personal website? Any links you want to share are encouraged. Two, what are you hoping to accomplish with Simple File Upload? I read and respond to every reply. Thanks, Colleen. Simple File Upload Founder.” Michele Hansen 06:28Can you, can you walk me through the sort of, some of the changes you made? Like what were you thinking? Colleen Schnettler 06:36Yeah, so before I had something that was more like, “Hi, thanks for trying Simple File Upload. Please let, please reach out. If you have any questions, or you need any help getting set up.” I think I had something like that before. I don't have the exact text, but it was something along those lines. So the goal in this email copy change is to try and make it a little more specific, like, the questions. So you know, oh, and then at one point I had, are you using? I had one question. So I started with, I think the very first was just, you know, thanks. Let me know if you need any help. I think the second one was, can you let me know if you're using react or JavaScript? That one had a decent response rate. And then I went back to the old one, which was, let me know if I can help you. And where am I now. And so now I'm talking, I'm doing that curious to hear what you're working on one that we just discussed. Michele Hansen 07:25I'm interested to, to hear what the responses are. And you said that the customer who signed up for your custom plan is probably a company. And I feel like at some point, months, or I don't know, a while ago, that you had decided to focus on people who are working with clients, because they need something like this much more frequently. And it was kind of like you, like, wanted companies as customers, but it was kind of like, if you don't get in the beginning of a process, like they're basically not going to use it, they're already set up on us three, like, they're good. Like, let's focus on the people working with clients instead. And so I'm kind of, like, something interested in like, a little shift there. I feel like that, um, you know, a little, little shift in the wind there that I feel like I just picked up. Colleen Schnettler 08:26Well, I want to work with whoever will pay me. I mean, I don’t know if it has- Michele Hansen 08:30I know I was like, sort of like your like, marketing and how you were structuring things you were like, let's go after these people first. And then if we get those, like company, customers, like, great, but, be, it seemed like from what you had done from your research you had picked up there was kind of like a bigger lift and like, a little bit harder to get those bigger companies as customers. Colleen Schnettler 08:54Yes, I would agree. I think that's true. So I don't, I don't really feel like it's a shift, I feel like that, that is still, those are still my people, or my ideal customer is still kind of like, the smaller businesses just getting started, consultants who have to do this over and over and over. Those are still probably my primary market. But I am very curious about this one company that signed up. So I feel like the new email copy more accurately targets that market because it's kind of more lightweight. It's kind of more like, hi, I'm your friend and I want to know what you're working on. Michele Hansen 09:32It'll be really interesting to see what the responses are you get back and what people say they're working on and I would be so excited to, to you know, try to talk to this new customer and figure out like, are they switching from something else? Are they using this for an entirely new project? Like, like, where, like, what like how does this fit with everything? Like, are they using this for everything, or, and why are they switching to something new? That's always a question that I find so insightful to get the answers to. It's why it’s one of the first scripts I wrote for interviews, but I think that could be, like, really, really helpful for you to figure that out. Colleen Schnettler 10:14Absolutely, I, um, am a little worried that they're just gonna say they did it on accident. That's normal, right? But yeah, I will let you know when I hear back. I haven't heard anything back. Michele Hansen 10:27There’s always that fear, right, like, if I email, email the customers like, maybe I'll remind them that they signed up for it. And then they didn't mean to, or, like, they'll decide they actually don't like it because I got this email. And you know, I have never found that to be the case. But that, that fear is real, right. Like, that's a real fear. Like, you know, the bear, right? Colleen Schnettler 10:49Yeah. Exactly. Like they're, they're paying me $250 a month, maybe I should just leave them alone. Yeah, I do think, so back to, I mean, I think this is something I really need to hone in on because I still feel like, no, I'm sure, I'm still kind of bouncing around in that kind of high churn. Some people are using it, some people aren't even though they're paying for it, which is weird. But I definitely feel like I haven't found my target market. And so the people I have talked to have all been so far, as we just discussed, like, either they have a small business, or they are just getting started on something with a lot of potential, and they just want to get up and starting quickly. So I definitely still think like the consulting small SaaS people are my people. I actually had a, stop me if I told you about this, I can't remember, but I had a prospective client, customer, prospective customer for Simple File Upload interview last week, or two weeks ago. Did I tell you about that? Michele Hansen 11:52I think you were gonna have that interview, like, right after we talked. So I don't know if I heard about that. Colleen Schnettler 11:57Yeah, so what happened was, he was pair programming, like totally random. This guy was doing some pair programming with Drew, you know, the guy who came on and uses simple file upload, he saw it. And Drew said like, he wasn't, you know, he didn't draw attention to it. But this other person saw it was like, that's really cool. I could use that for my project. So he reached out to me, so we had a call. And, yeah, so I really think like, those kind of people who have like, a really, you know, a fledgling startup, you know, they're just getting started, like, and they realized they need to Simple File, or they realized I need file uploading, are kind of my people. And what, exactly what he said was, he said, I just need this to get out of my way, right? Like, I don't want to spend two or three days doing file uploading. I want to focus on my core business, and I need this to just be done, which is like, exactly the market I'm going for. Those are my people. Michele Hansen 12:54It sounds like that's like, the reason why you built this right, was like, to get it out of the way that you know, nobody wants to spend all their time dealing with file upload, like they want to do something else. Nobody wants to just upload files, they want something else, like, it's just part of the process they're going through to do whatever it is they want to do. Colleen Schnettler 13:12Yeah, absolutely. And so I've been thinking a little bit, too. I mean, I've been, as I said, busy with other things, and I haven't given this a lot of attention. So we started this podcast, I use this podcast as like my accountability to make sure I shipped a product. So now I have shipped a product. So now, I want to become accountable to you that I'm going to continue marketing, because there's a couple things we've been talking about for weeks. And I just haven't managed to get them done. So this week, my goal is to, I'm close to getting my DNS and my bucket set up to do on the homepage, like we've talked about, like, have a demo right there. I'm close, but I'm not quite ready. So my goal is to focus on that goal, not get distracted by my code for four hours, as long as there's not an error. And there haven't, you know, I haven't had that problem. That's my goal for this week is, is to get that done and see what that does for signups. Michele Hansen 14:13It sounds like, sort of putzing around in the garden of code is really where you're comfortable. Colleen Schnettler 14:18Yes. Oh my gosh, it's the worst. Like, like, you should see me with this mail thing. Like it was my hour of marketing. I was like, I'm just going to change the email copy. That should take me 20 minutes, and it was just like, oh, but this, this test should probably be passing, even though this test whether it passes or not, has like, no bearing on my like, my product like it really doesn't. It was like a thing I'm not even using, but I just wanted to get it to pass. And then I'm like, futzing, I'm like, Oh, well I could reorganize this a little bit. And wouldn't it be nice if this, you know, if I refactor this and I'm like, oh no, stop. Yeah. Michele Hansen 14:57Do you have, like, a list somewhere of all the stuff you want to do? Colleen Schnettler 15:01I do have a list. Yeah. Michele Hansen 15:02Is that, like, how granular is that list? Colleen Schnettler 15:08Not granular enough because I get so, I mean, I don't typically get distracted. It was just this. It was a little frustrating, though. Um, I don't know, it's kind of big at the moment, especially the marketing stuff, right? Because that's all kind of like, you should do this thing. And you’re like, okay. Michele Hansen 15:24I think if you broke it down, those tasks more, like, you know, into not just like, you know, make a landing page, but like, you know, which specific one? What specific things are we putting on there? Like, what do we need to do? Like, and so like, can we like, what is the top priority marketing item? They're like, are they all prioritized? Or are they just kind of there. Colleen Schnettler 15:50They are not. They are just kind of, Michele Hansen 15:51They're just floating in space. Okay, so let's, let's take one that feels kind of important. Colleen Schnettler 15:56Okay, so for me, the important one is, the most important one is on my main page, I want a, I want to get testimonials up. And I want to get a try it now, like you can try it like as soon as you hit the page. Michele Hansen 16:14Is this one task in your list? Colleen Schnettler 16:17Yeah, yeah. Landing page update. Michele Hansen 16:19Okay, that sounds like more than one task. And at the, you know, risk of sort of being somewhat of like a to do list pedant here, like, I think we should, like, slice that one up a bit. Right? Like, make them all individual, because I think where this, you know, when you're doing something new, that's scary. Like finding a sense of progress when you're just spending all this time learning, like can like, I'm here right now, like, I feel like, I had like fish out of water, figuring out how to market and sell and layout and everything else like a, like a book like, I’m so there. Just breaking it down and giving yourself a sense of accomplishment. And so like, you know, from what you said there, like, I believe it was getting testimonials on the homepage and adding the code pen. So the testimonials and the code pen, those sound like two separate tasks to me, and then also getting the testimonials, that sounds like a combination of tasks. Because unless you have those already off the shelf and ready to go, you're going to need to reach out to people to get them, get the, to write some copy, get them to approve it, get like, an image of them or whatever that is, and then you have to load it. And so there's all these other tasks there. And so it, like, makes sense to me that you would look at that and kind of be like, ah, I'm just gonna go do some weeding and refactor some stuff. Like, because that task is not like, like, if a product manager or project manager handed you that task, you know, on a Trello board and you're, you know, in a suit and tie kind of job, you'd be like, this task is not properly scoped. It's not ready to be taken in. Colleen Schnettler 18:14I totally would, too. Be like, yeah, no. Michele Hansen 16:19And so apply that to your marketing tasks, too. Like, and I think that'll give you a sense of progress when you can start checking stuff off at least, and seeing these differences too. Colleen Schnettler 18:14Yeah, I absolutely think you're right. And I had kind of been feeling like, well, I don't want to change anything until I can change everything. But yeah, I think that, that I think you're absolutely right, like, a testimonial is like at least five steps. And my code pen is at least five steps because I got to get, you know, I got to do all these things we talked about a couple weeks ago to protect myself. So I've got to make sure I'm cycling a delete on the files every five minutes. And the domain is independent from my other domain. And like, it's not insignificant to do that. So yeah, that's like, that's like 10 tasks total. So you're absolutely right. I love that idea. Michele Hansen 18:50The first, the first step on the to do list is the bingo card free space. It's breakout all of the tasks in the to do list. Colleen Schnettler 18:58Your first task on your task list is make your task list. Michele Hansen 19:01It’s very meta, but it's so works, like. Colleen Schnettler 19:04Okay, I'm totally gonna do that. I'm usually really good at this. And I think this marketing stuff is just a bigger, you know, because it's, it feels nebulous, as we've discussed before. Michele Hansen 19:13Yeah. And when something feels nebulous, it's so easy to just be like, I'm going to do this thing I understand. Even if it's not the most important thing I could do be doing because it's the other thing feels a little bit like, ah. Colleen Schnettler 19:24It's so weird how you can like know, know this, know this about yourself and know you're doing it and still do it, isn’t it? Like, I literally when I was doing four hours trying to debug these specs, I was like, I knew this was a waste of my time. I was like, these specs have no bearing on my product at all. And they will eventually, right? It's a future task. It's like when I get API stuff set up, but like, I'm not anywhere near that. Michele Hansen 19:50It's like your brain is like getting away with something that another part of your brain doesn't want to happen. It's like, sneaking off in the corner and it's like, look at me, I'm just gonna refactor now. You can't see me. Colleen Schnettler 20:00It's totally true. Like it, I knew it, right, you're like, this is a waste of time, just stop, but you're like, but it'll be so nice when they're all green. Michele Hansen 20:09And it feels good to complete things. And so work in that, like, I, I'm always amazed when I know the psychology of to do lists that like, I just get a little dopamine hit from checking things off. And so I put things off on it that's like, you know, make the to do list like, you know, walk the dog, like, oh, my gosh, I've gotten five things done already. Look at me. I'm amazing. And then like, then you can power through the rest of it. Colleen Schnettler 20:31Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I like it. I'm gonna do that. And, and like I said, you know, I'm just going to focus on little tasks, compounding over time, right. Like, like, this is going really well. Just go really well. So I just got to keep at it, and I can really make some progress. Michele Hansen 20:50Yeah, dude. I mean, you're at like 800. MRR like that's, Colleen Schnettler 20:53I know. Michele Hansen 20:55I think it took us like, six months to get above like, like, 500. Like, Colleen Schnettler 21:03That's encouraging. Michele Hansen 21:06Yeah, this is, this is very, very encouraging. Like it you're like, so you were so chill about it. And you're like, yeah, so that was great. And I hope they use it. And I'm like, I would be like, I don't know. I would not be, I was, I was really struggling to not swear in the beginning of this episode. Like, because we have to, like, flag it that it's, you know, not safe for, you know, and I was like, do not swear, because that's Oh, my God. Amazing. Colleen Schnettler 21:33Yes, yes. And I am super pumped. So, Michelle, earlier when I was telling you about this new customer, I have, you mentioned the switch script for customer interviews. Michele Hansen 21:43Yeah, one of the scripts I have, which is one of the most common ones. You know, like thinking about that, like, whole project, because it's so like, I just, I keep feeling like I'm in the position you were in, in like, August and September, when you're like, spending all this time and you're like, is this even gonna amount to anything? Like, is this gonna be worth my time? Is anyone gonna buy this? Is, you know, how much do I need to get done now, versus how much do I get done later? You know, so I feel like I have the scripts done, which is pretty awesome. Like, I feel like I had like, 90% of the actual written content, like in a rough draft form. It does need surgery, like it needs, like, there's some structural changes that need to happen. But um, I don't know. Yeah, it's, it's so, it's, it's doing, doing the new stuff, as you've been saying is, is challenging and trying to like, break that down. Colleen Schnettler 22:44I can't believe how much you have done. Michele Hansen 22:48I'm Marie Kondo-ing my brain. There's a lot of like, there's a lot of stuff in Michele's mental attic here. We're just pulling it all out. You know, I'm not building new pieces of furniture, we're just bringing down, you know, the old secretary desk and putting it in the yard. That’s what I feel like I’m mentally doing. Colleen Schnettler 23:01Still, most people talk about writing a book and then it takes like two years, you're gonna be done in like, six months. Michele Hansen 23:07I actually don't know how long it's gonna take. Like, I was trying to ask friends who've written books, like, how long did it take to go from like, rough draft to actually publishing something, and it seems like there's a huge variability and also like getting responses from people and they're like, oh, well, then we send it to my editor once we finished every chapter, and I'm like, okay, I don't have an editor like, I'm, like, I'm gonna, like, print out this whole thing, and go through it with a red pen. And I have a couple of friends who I know are, you know, good editors, who will not be nice to me. Like, they will tell me when something doesn't make sense. They aren't in the target market, open it up to other people, as well, a ton of people from the newsletter have been interested in reading it. Um, yeah, I have no idea how long it's gonna take until it's actually, and then also, okay, so this is something I'm trying to figure out. And maybe you can, like, sort of help me think this through. So in my head, I realize that I've been like, okay, so I'm gonna have an e-book and a book book, and like, I guess, an audio book, and then do I need like, you know, maybe it'll be good to have some sort of, like, package that goes with the e-book or something. And then like, but as I think about, like, creating all of that would take me so long. And so it's like, what do I do first? Like, like, which one of those is launched first? Like, I feel like I need to even do that. Because, because if I start thinking about, you know, recording an audio book and stuff, like, like, I mean, this just this to the position that you were in in September like this, I could just keep adding features to this forever and then never like, Colleen Schnettler 24:45Yeah, yeah. I mean, how hard is it to actually get a physical book made? Michele Hansen 24:51I don't know. That's a great question. Colleen Schnettler 24:54Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that process. Michele Hansen 24:56Yeah, I mean, so I've been trying to, you know, like, Alex Hillman has been super helpful sharing his experiences with Tiny MBA, and our friend Sean, who wrote Sketching with CSS. He's been giving me some advice about this, too. And yeah, I need to, I need to like, calm down and just finish writing, I think, and then deal with that, when it comes to it. Actually, I did something kinda crazy this morning. Colleen Schnettler 25:26What? Michele Hansen 25:28So I emailed everybody on the list, which is 175 people. Colleen Schnettler 25:33Oh, I saw it! I saw it. Michele Hansen 25:34And I asked them to set up a call with me. Colleen Schnettler 25:3650 people, I know, wanted to bring that up with you. I read that this morning. I was like, What? What is she gonna do? Michele Hansen 25:41Yeah. And my goal was originally 100. And then I was like, that is too many. That's just ridiculous. Colleen Schnettler 25:45You're gonna get, okay, wait, wait, backup. For those that are not, who are not subscribe to Michele's newsletter, one, go do that right now. Two, so the newsletter this morning said that your goal is to talk to 50 people. Does that mean, like, get on a call? Michele Hansen 26:02Yes. Colleen Schnettler 26:03So you're committing to like, 50 calls. Holy cow. Michele Hansen 26:08In the next few weeks. Colleen Schnettler 26:10Oh my gosh, girl, that is some crazy town. Jeez. Michele Hansen 26:12So I have been having so much just like, nervousness about like, you know, is this all gonna be worth my time? Right? Is anyone gonna buy this, like, you know, I have this, like, you know, this is totally a labor of love. And I feel like people, like, people are capable of building great software. And they need to be able to understand their customers to know what those customers like, need in their software. And so I just, I feel like I need to get this out in the world. But also, you know, if I launch it, and like, you know, it sells 10 copies, like, you know, okay, I have something that I can, you know, give to people when they ask me for advice about this stuff. But I don't know if I would feel like that was really worth all of the time I put into this. And so I've just been having a lot of like, nervousness about that. And I decided this morning, you know, I was like, you know, I'm gonna like, I'm going to just sit and like, I'm going to listen to that fear that nobody buys it. And like, what does that fear have to say to me? What, what is under, underneath that? Rather than just trying to run from it. Colleen Schnettler 27:14What did you discover? Is this a thing I can do in my life? Anyway, keep going. Michele Hansen 27:17Listening to your feelings and not running from them? Yes. Colleen Schnettler 27:21Okay. Tell me about the fear. Michele Hansen 27:24And I was like, you know, what, if I have this uncertainty about whether people would buy this, and whether this content is useful to them and whether they've been able to use it, or whether they haven't, or whether they tried, but they didn't know if they were doing it right, and they didn't get the response they wanted back. I need to ask them. I'm writing a book about asking people whether things worked for them. I need to ask the people about the book about whether talking to people like, I need to ask them about that. Colleen Schnettler 27:51Yeah. That make sense. Michele Hansen 27:53And I was like this, this is the way to, you know, assuage this fear and this anxiety about it, is to talk to people and use that anxiety to help me make it better, and not just like, run from it and put my blinders on. But just lean into it. Full throttle, like, do something crazy, like schedule 50 phonecalls in three weeks, which is actually, it's been super fun, though, like, because there's always people I've been like, talking to on Twitter for a long time. And I’m actually gonna have phone calls with them for the first time. And I mean, time zones are just like, a hot mess. Like, it's just, it's gonna be a mess. But it'll be, you know, the nice thing about at least being like, in Europe is like, I can, like morning time here is like when Japan is awake, like Singapore and Australia, like I can talk to people there. And then, you know, sort of later in the day is, is when I talked to North America, and it's like, so I can like, I feel like I can kind of slot people in as long as I'm willing to do you know, like, some 8am’s my time with Australia and some 10pm’s with California, like I can reasonably cover like a lot of people. But I have calls scheduled like all over the world right now for the next couple of weeks. And I'm going to be so tired, like, you're going to talk to me next week, and I'm going to be like, I have no voice. But, I’m excited. Colleen Schnettler 29:07Yes. You will be. I can't wait to hear about it. Michele Hansen 29:09Because like, I want to make it really practical. Like, I want people to be able to read just a couple of pages and feel like there is something that they can take from it because there's so many good books about jobs to be done and user interviewing and everything, but so many of them are so heavy on the theory, and the theory is, I find it really good and really interesting, and I'm such a like, a dig for the why’s kind of person that I love going deep on the theory. But like, if you're in your position, like, you just want to sell something. You want to build some like, you want to know the stuff to build like, like, if I were to write a book that has 100 pages of activity theory in front of it before getting to the really practical stuff, or is you know, like, most of these books are written for people in 1000, 100,000 person organizations. Like, you’re just not going to read it. And so I'm trying to think like, hey, like, what are the tools I can put in this book to make it something people like, okay, I can at least try this on my spouse tonight and like, see how it goes. And then they can kind of slowly build that, that confidence and in doing it. But that's what I'm trying to figure out right now is like, what are the additional practical tools I need in it? Like, is it more sample dialogues? Is it worksheets? Like, is it like, like, what can I do to help people grok all of this. So I'm trying to figure out. Colleen Schnettler 30:36I love it. I think that’s a great idea. Michele Hansen 30:37And that’s why I’m going to talk to 50 people. Colleen Schnettler 30:40Oh my gosh, I like, that's so funny, because I saw that this morning. And I was like, what, she's gonna talk to 50 people. Good gracious, that's wonderful. I can't wait to hear how that goes. Michele Hansen 30:53I feel like I'm gonna learn a lot from it. That's, that's the idea. You know, follow my own advice, right? Like, don't make decisions based on one person. Right? You know, you need to hear at least, you know, sort of similar things from at least five people before you sort of decide, okay, this is, you know, something we should do. And yeah, I, you know, I'm so excited. And so I had a lot of people, by the way, who said, you know, I'm under newsletter, but you kind of send them a lot and they're piled up in my inbox. I do listen to the podcast. And you know, so if you are more of a listener than a reader, that's totally cool. Like, I've, you know, and I think there's probably some overlap with people who would be interested in an audio book there. I would love to talk to you, too, and you can just, you know, DM me on Twitter if you're interested in talking to like, I want to make it very clear that people don't have to have read every single issue. Like, I think the only person who has read every single issue is my husband. So, it's totally fine if you've, you know, you've skimmed them or you've missed a whole bunch. That is actually really useful information for me, because that tells me okay, what is the kind of information that jumps at people? What like, what grabs them, what doesn't? And, you know, how can I, how can I make all of it something that feels useful and approachable? Colleen Schnettler 32:18Wonderful. That's exciting. Like, this will be just phenomenal research. I can't wait to hear about it. Michele Hansen 32:24A crazy couple weeks I’m doing. Colleen Schnettler 32:25That is gonna be a crazy couple of weeks. Yeah, that's gonna be busy. Well, that's gonna wrap us up for this week's episode of the Software Social podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review on iTunes, and you can reach us on Twitter at SoftwareSocPod.
Doing Different Things, Doing Things Differently
Michele Hansen 0:00 The following message is brought to you by Balsamiq. Balsamiq decided to support the Software Social community by donating their sponsored airtime to some of our listeners.This episode is sponsored by Homeschool Boss. Homeschool Boss offers NWA MAP growth assessments to homeschoolers in the US. These are untimed online tests and math reading science and language usage that adapt to the child's performance as they test. In this challenging year. Homeschool Boss makes it easy for parents to learn what their kids know and what they are ready to learn next. They offer group rates and are happy to work with pods and tutors. Check it out at Homeschool Boss.com. Thank you again to Balsamiq for generously supporting our listeners this way. If you'd like to receive a promo code for Balsamiq, visit balsamiq.com/go/software-socialColleen Schnettler 0:58 So Michele, this week, I had a prospective customer interview, which was a new experience and a lot of fun. Michele HansenYeah. Colleen Schnettler Yeah. And so what in order to prep for that interview, I had to search through all of my emails to find all of your customer interview scripts. Michele Hansen I know it wasn't too hard to search. Colleen Schnettler Well, the problem is, is you also email me as Michele the human so it was like I was like how do I feel? Sure, like human turtle shell the robot was like how where's my Deploying Empathy, Michele's Customer Research filter. But you know what I was thinking as I was sorting through my emails trying to isolate all of your scripts.Michele Hansen 1:41 Yeah.Colleen Schnettler 1:43 I was thinking it'd be sure be nice if I had this in a book format.Michele Hansen 1:49 You aren't the first person to say that, Colleen.Colleen Schnettler 1:52 So tell me your thoughts on it.Michele Hansen 1:54 So you know, it's kind of funny how the newsletter came about, because I think I had just gotten off of a mentoring call with a founder. And I realized as I was sort of sending them, they wanted to know about doing customer interviews. And I was typing up this email to them. And it's like, 10, paragraphs long. And it's like, this book is really good. But like, only these chapters are relevant for you. And like, this book doesn't go in enough detail. So like, listen to this podcast, but then also like, here's this worksheet, and it was like, so disorganized. And I also felt like I was writing the same email over and over and over again. And I was like, You know what, this is this, maybe this is a book. And then it was like, but everyone who has ever written a book has told me not to write a book, and that it's very lonely and difficult and, like, sounds like an awful experience. So maybe I shouldn't write a book like, and, and then I grant it, like, tweeted out, and everyone's like, Oh, my God, write a book. And I was like, okay, so I was like, You know what, I'll read it as a newsletter. If people like it, it becomes a live rough draft. If not, it's just a newsletter, and like, I can stop doing it. And like, no one's paying me for anything. And so as it's gone on, I have accepted the fact that maybe it is a book. But I've never written a book before. I've never marketed a book before. I've read a lot of them. I have not read books about writing or selling a book. Um, so it's been it's been kind of an interesting experience. It's a whole new world for me.Colleen Schnettler 3:33 Yeah. Because you don't have any other informational products. Right?Michele Hansen 3:39 Okay, like, I guess this podcast is technically an info product. I mean, but really, it's just forces us to, like keep up our weekly meetings. Like, I mean, like, I guess we have advertisers like technically but you know, it's like, really, that's why we're doing this, like, we love you, listeners. But truly, this is just for Colleen and I.Colleen Schnettler 4:01 So it seems like so I obviously subscribe to your newsletter when you started it. You have more content that I can read? Like, it seems like there's a there's just so much in your brain that you want to get out about this.Michele Hansen 4:14 I feel like I'm Marie Kondo in my head, like I'm just getting it all out. You know, like it's just like cleaning out my closet and it's like all of these things have been just like sitting there marinating for years now and kind of coming out sporadically as as necessary. And of course, he like sort of use them and build on them in my work. But yeah, it just feels like I just have all of this stuff. And it's like alright, here is like Michele's mental yardsale, my book about customer research.Colleen Schnettler 4:45 So how do you feel about turning all of this information into a book like how's the process been and how are you feeling about it?Michele Hansen 4:55 So if I tell myself that I'm just writing a newsletter and not a book, great. If I tell myself that I'm writing a book, and then I open the Google Doc and I see that blinking cursor, terrified.Colleen Schnettler 5:10 Too much pressure.Michele Hansen 5:11 I don't know, it just feels like a lot. Like and it's just something I haven't done before. I'm probably way under estimating how long it's going to take to go from like, newsletter rough draft to actual finished product, nevermind even having something that's just like a straight PDF, right of without any illustrations or any like, they're like, there's so many steps to this. And I've been trying to read about it. Like Alex Hillman published a lot of great stuff after writing his book, Tiny MBA last year, that's been really helpful for me. But yeah, I mean, it feels overwhelming, and kind of like we were talking about last week, but I think having ADD sort of plays into this, because like, you know, partly, like I love having multiple projects at a time, like, I can't just have one thing I'm working on. And so that's partly where the newsletter comes from. But also then staring down a huge task that I have never done before is really, really intimidating to me.Colleen Schnettler 6:13 Yeah, and I assume, like the mechanics of writing and selling a book is totally different than the mechanics of building and selling a SaaS or selling. Michele Hansen 6:24 Yeah. Like, you know, like, with a SaaS, I feel like, you know, all people are googling for what they need, right? Like, they're like, how do you do this. And then as long as you have a landing page that says, Here's how you can do this, like, and then you do that, and then they pay you like, and it's very straightforward in terms of like delivering the value to someone.I feel like with a book, it's a lot harder, like, I feel like I have to convince people that they need it. I mean, especially like, this is a hard thing that I'm trying to get, like doing interviews is, you know, to how I feel about it being you know, writing this book being this huge, monumental task that I don't know how to do that feels scary. A lot of people feel that way about interviews. So I can definitely, you know, empathize with my own reader about about that, that kind of feeling. Yeah, it's, it's, it's very, very different than what I've done before. Just a lot of the marketing techniques are very different. And I admit that I, you know, when I start thinking about it, like, part of me is just like, I'm just gonna, like, print the Google Doc into a PDF and post it on my blog for free and go hide in the corner and call it a day. Like, I'm not actually like marketing. But then I'm like, No, you know, what, I prefer physical books. And I can do the Amazon print on demand thing. And if there was this book, I would want it in a physical book. And so that should at least like drive me through, like I keep reminding myself of what I want out of this.Colleen Schnettler 8:01 Yeah. So are you is what do you say your motivating factor is? Because you've gotten so much demand for it? Or is it because this is something you want to do for yourself?Michele Hansen 8:12 This is so it's mostly -- this is like 75%, this is something that I need myself, like, as I mentioned, like, having mentoring calls with people and needing to, like have one place to send them, that's a good book for basically for bootstrappers and really small teams on understanding their customers, I just, I don't feel like I have that book that is in enough detail and is at the right level and has the right combination of information. So it's like partly saving myself time in the long run by having that book. I think for a long time, I've had a feeling that I like, you know, I had a book in me somewhere. So there's like a little bit of that going on. But but mostly it's it's that kind of having one central place to send people for my own purposes. It's been it's been really interesting what people have said in response to the newsletter, too.Colleen Schnettler 9:06 Yeah.Michele Hansen 9:08 Yeah, so that's kind of that's helping me keep going, though I have I've started to appreciate how lonely writing is. You know, I feel like you hear writers talk about writing and they just they talk about how lonely it is. And I'm not sure if this is like validating each other's experiences or you know, kind of this like badge of honor that they went through this lonely process or like their hazing other would be writers to like scare them away. There's a mix of things going on. Colleen SchnettlerYeahMichele HansenBut I feel like writing a newsletter makes it more social, right? And so like, whenever I encounter things that I'm like, Oh my God, this feels scary. like turning all this into a Google Doc like editing it all down and reformatting it like spending a month in a Google Doc on my own. And then I'm like, wait a minute, I don't have to do that. I decided I was doing this in public. I decided I was going to take what is apparently normally a lonely process and make it a social one. Like I can send You know, when I have edited something into what feels like a full chapter, I can send that out, right? Like people have subscribed knowing that this is a work in progress. So yeah, and they're not paying for it either. So they can just unsubscribe. Right? So.Colleen Schnettler 10:14 Right. You said earlier that you felt that marketing a book was totally different than like marketing your product. What I don't what's the nuance there?Michele Hansen 10:24 Yeah, I feel like books are, you know, sometimes I'm looking for a specific book, but but very often, you you there's some kind of convincing that has to happen. Colleen SchnettlerYeahMichele HansenYou I think something I'm thinking about, as I as I write this, and I've heard this from people who are experienced UX researchers or product managers is that they don't feel like they have a book to recommend people who are who are like, at this sort of stage. And so I think kind of, like, writing it to be something that's recommended to other people, but not necessarily used by the person you're selling it to was really interesting. But you know, you see a lot of people doing just different tactics, like, you know, having a, you know, marketing campaign that drips out, you know, a chapter a day and induces someone to buy with a discount. And like, all that, kind of like we we don't do any of that. Like, we don't do write any sales emails, we don't send sales emails ever. Like, we'll be like, Hey, we have a new feature like, cool. See you in six months. Like I think we have literally sent one marketing email in the past year. We do a lot of SEO instead. But so but we don't really ever do stuff with like, here's this bundle, where you get, you know, the the ebook and the audio book, and then you get access to these five interviews and like, I can see the value of that kind of stuff. But I have never done that before. And so that, yeah, it's just a whole new kind of work for me.Colleen Schnettler 11:53 Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, honestly, even when I know I'm being dripped to I love a good drip campaign, like they remind you every week that you love them, I do and like me at all, like, I bought someone's book, and he's got a great drip campaign. Like, it's like, it's like on a random interval. It's like, every 13 days, he'll send an email. I'm like, Oh, I like this. I don't know. It doesn't bother me. Michele Hansen 12:19 I get satisfaction out of unsubscribing to things. And I've actually I've had people like I had someone sign up for the newsletter yesterday, and saying how much they appreciated that I wasn't upselling them in the newsletter, like so these reinforcing my like, like, wait, make money? Yes. Make a PDF and hide in a corner approach.Colleen Schnettler 12:41 No, I think it's gonna be afraid. I mean, this new. Michele Hansen 12:46 I'm freaking out, man.Colleen Schnettler 12:47 talked to you. Are you like, I talked to you every week, and I still get value out of what you send in the newsletter.Michele Hansen 12:57 I appreciate that.Colleen Schnettler 12:57 I mean, what makes you freak out about it just the way you said it wasn't the pressure. It's it's that kind of salesy deal.Michele Hansen 13:04 Yeah, a little bit of that. I think it's just, it's just a very big project, like, and I think there's a -- to come back to that, which I think, you know, a question that I think you I guess, is a question you've had, and a lot of other people starting a company have, which is can I deliver something that is valuable enough that I feel ethically okay, taking people's money? Right, like, Can I like is what I'm doing something that is worth them paying the money? Not less a question of, can I make something they will pay for which, you know, is a question to figure out, but more of that sort of I don't know, that sort of existential level of is what I'm making, like, is that worth them paying for? And I think that's something that, you know, I don't struggle with that in SaaS, but for some reason, I struggle with that with an info product. Interesting.Colleen Schnettler 14:01 Well, I for one, am looking forward to it. And when you think about it, so I was thinking about this after my interview on Wednesday. I know you don't know what you're going to price your book at. But if I get one sale, out of like, for one piece of useful information, like my minimum price is $35. So if your book is less than $35, which I assume it's going to be like, it's already valuable to me, right? I only have to get one person to make that worth my worth my money.Michele Hansen 14:30 Yeah, I guess. So. I was thinking about pricing yesterday. And I think someone convinced me that it should be $29. So for both the ebook and the physical version, and I guess there would be an audiobook in there too. So yeah, I guess the price point is right.Colleen Schnettler 14:49 Yes, I love this idea. I can't wait to continue to hear about this. And I would like to say, I feel like I told you to write a book six months ago. I feel like yeah, it took hold. So I'm super pumped. And I also really, really like physical books. Like, I want to hold it in my hand, I want to put post it notes on like the customer interview script pages, like.Michele Hansen 15:13 Yeah, I got it. Like I actually I was sort of working on the intro this morning. And like, I have something in it that's like, go ahead and dog ear the pages, like write on it like, and then I even have a guide at the beginning that tells people how to skip around through the book based on what they're trying to do. Colleen Schnettler That's awesome. Michele HansenLike I get I'm trying to design it in a way that's like, Okay, how do I get out of people's way? Right, because I think a lot of books on this are written like that, like, they're really good, but they have a lot on the philosophy of Jobs To Be Bone. And if you're just trying to increase your MRR, from like, 100 to 200 a month, like, you do not want to read an academic tome on activity theory. I do. But like, I just have, I have no illusions that that is not what you have come here for. And so maybe like, how can I make like, you know, sort of power packs for this book that's like, okay, go here, go here, go here. Maybe you'll come back to the book. Maybe you won't, but hopefully you at least get something out of it. Yeah, yeah, there's this really interesting blog post that someone sent me on, like giving a presentation and thinking of yourself as a user interface. And like, when you're doing a presentation, it's like you are a UI. And your job is like people aren't there to see you. There's they're there to like, get some outcome out of it. And so how do you structure how you present that as a UI, right? I'll have to link to it in the show notes. But it was super interesting. And it's definitely helping me structure this, which I think is helpful for something that feels overwhelming is like structuring my thinking.Colleen Schnettler 16:50 Yeah, and I have to say, like, I have purchased and read, not quite as many as you but a lot of books that are aimed at like early stage founders. And the problem with all of these books is none of them are really focused on what I'm trying to do, which is a small single person, founder, they're all trying to either walk the line of addressing both. But like books, we've talked about, like Lean Startup, it's a great book, I don't have $10 million in venture funding. Like that doesn't mean we're in two different places, right? I just bought another book, which is about positioning, which is good. But again, the author is trying to address like a more like larger companies. And so the things that she suggests, like I don't have a data analysis team, I don't like you, I don't have my own UI/UX person, like, you know, so I love that you're so focused on like, here's -- I loved the scripts, I think that's probably like everyone's favorite. I bet if you took a poll, that would be everyone's favorite, because it's like, here is literally what you should say.Michele Hansen 17:51 Like, that's, like, a bit of big motivation for me is that there are so many good books on this and and you know, to what you're saying, from the UX side, a lot of them are like, so, you know, the first thing to talk about is getting a budget for research consultants in this might be $100,000 to $200,000. If you're doing remote interviewing, you can be and it's like, dude, like, this is not the situation like we're in and I feel like that really turns people off. But yeah, give it like, an even the best books will be like, you know, here's what you say like, Don't interrupt them and ask follow up questions. And it's like, Okay, what what are those follow up questions like, what, like, you can't just pick like, bullet points on this for, right. Yeah. Anyway.Colleen Schnettler 18:37 Well, cool. Well, I'm sure everyone, myself included, is will be anxiously awaiting, to see how this turns out for you. Michele Hansen 18:49 You can all follow now it's my turn to be the like, the person who is trying to figure something new out and is sort of wandering around, lost and freaking out.Colleen Schnettler 19:00 So there was something else I wanted to talk to you about today. Michele HansenOkay. Colleen Schnettler You mentioned to me privately, that you have been getting some people interested in acquiring your company.Michele Hansen 19:13 Yeah.Colleen Schnettler 19:15 So are you gonna be a bazillionaire? and move to Hawaii? Like, what are you gonna sell?Michele Hansen 19:21 No, we don't want to sell, which I think is so this is somethingColleen Schnettler 19:24 Yeah. Tell me more about this.Michele Hansen 19:26 Yeah, I think that always surprises people that we, we don't want to sell and, you know, we don't have anyone externally who has any sort of, you know, incentives or say in this so so we don't have to. Yeah, we had to separate people, you know, and it wasn't they didn't write us an email that was says, Hello, here is $10 million sign, you know, it was like a meeting and chat and get to know each other and you know, everything and we're like, though, like I'm not gonna waste your time. Like we're not interested and hey, people are always really surprised that like, we don't have a number and that we don't want to be acquired, we just, like want to do what we do.Colleen Schnettler 20:11 I would love to know more about that, I feel like, it seems like a lot of the people in the small business world, that's their goal is to become acquired. And I wasn't kidding. So they can have a lot of money, and just go do I don't know, whatever. So tell me more about you guys not wanting to be acquired ever.Michele Hansen 20:30 I mean, we, we like what we do, you know, I consider it, you know, I feel like I have achieved the success I want to by being able to work from home, with my spouse on something I enjoy for customers that I enjoy working with on something where I feel like I learned new things all the time. And you know, who knows, I may look back, you know, at some point and be like, Oh, you sweet summer child, you should have taken that money when it was offered.I feel like that's like, the peak of professional achievement, for me is like, getting to work from home with my husband like that. That, to me is great. And, you know, so I mean, there's a lot of people who want to get acquired, and you know, they want that kind of financial freedom. And those are all valid things to want. And we're all allowed to want different things, and we just know what we want, and that getting acquired. Like, it would not only not give us those things, it would actually set us backward, because then we would just have to find another business to start. And that's hard. Like that just starting a business is hard, right? Like, there's no two ways about it. And like, we already have one, so I don't know why I would put myself through that again.Colleen Schnettler 21:51 I love that.Michele Hansen 21:52 You know, and then I have people who are like you people don't believe me, when I say there isn't a number like I remember it was giving a talk to an MBA class a couple of years ago. And they just could not believe that there was no number and they're like, what if it was $100 million, like $500 million, $5 million, you know, whatever it was, and I was like, I just, I don't know, like, I don't need that. And you know, I've had people say like, well, then you could start your own charitable foundation like, I don't need I don't feel the need to do that. Like, I love when people do that. That's great. But like, I don't need more. So a couple weeks ago, we're talking about the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. And he has this story he tells at one point in the book, which so you know, there was one time when when Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, the writer, were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island. And he said, Kurt Vonnegut said, "Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch 22 earned in its entire history?" And Joe Heller said, "I've got something he can never have." And Vonnegut says, "What on earth could that be Joe?" And Heller says, "The knowledge that I've got enough."Colleen Schnettler 23:22 That's nice.Michele Hansen 23:24 Yeah, I don't I don't need to be a billionaire. Like, I'm, I'm cool with that.Colleen Schnettler 23:30 Okay, did you at least find out what they were going to offer you? Or does it not only get like.Michele Hansen 23:34 I don't know, I don't want to waste everybody's time. And besides, like, some of them are in California. And if I want to do a call with California, that's at nine o'clock my time and I only do those for customers? Like Yeah, why? Like I could be reading a book.Colleen Schnettler 23:48 This is fascinating to me.Michele Hansen 23:51 It's the Michele's psychology episode.Colleen Schnettler 23:53 Right? Like, I want me a beach house. That's what I want, like. So this is just like, fascinating to me. So basically, you guys are just like, no, like, we're happy. I mean, that's wonderful, too, though. We've talked to people who have sold their businesses. And it does seem to put you in kind of like, what do I do now state? Not that that's bad. But I can definitely see like, you love what you're doing. So why would you change it?Michele Hansen 24:19 Yeah, and I mean, you know, our business isn't perfect, but like, basically, anything I might want to change is is solvable. And it's not solvable by other people's money. Right? Colleen Schnettler Right. Michele Hansen And so this is just how things are and you know, I can never know what's going to happen in the future. Like, we want this business to run as long as we can. This may not you know, we'll probably have multiple businesses in our lives, right. But where we are now we we don't have a reason to change. And sometimes people build companies to have them be acquired and like that's cool. That's, that's valid. And, but but they don't and I think, you know, I think so much of the conversation about software is dominated by it's still dominated by the, the, you know, the Silicon Valley kind of approach to things where, of course, you need to exit like, that's part of your business plan from the very beginning. But right, like, it's okay to do something different. Like we have a different set of incentives at play here.Colleen Schnettler 25:28 Would you describe your business as a lifestyle business? Michele Hansen 25:33 Oh man, I hate that phrase.Colleen Schnettler 25:34 Really tell me? Because like, I've came across that I want to say in the lean startup, and like, I didn't really realize that was a thing.Michele Hansen 25:42 I feel it is so condescending, because it's like, it does. Okay, because I don't want to spend like my whole world, like my life, you know, flying around the world for sales meetings and having my, you know, working 70 hours a week, like, it's apparently a lifestyle business, like, why should I apologize that I can, like, be here when, you know, my daughter has a sports game, or like, when she's home from school? Or? Like, I don't know, I think it's people projecting their own you know, the downsides of the approach they have taken onto other people, and they don't really think that's fair.Their approach is valid, like, I like 20 years from now, I could want to start a business that requires funding, and I could be doing that whole, you know, flying around for sales meetings. And, you know, I don't think I would build a company that requires me working 70 hours a week, or certainly does not require anyone working for me to work 70 hours a week. Yeah, but no, I don't. Like, I don't want that. And I also don't consider that the next level either. Like, I think that there's people kind of think of this like ladder of products, where, you know, it's like, you start out with affiliate marketing, and then you go to info products, and then you go to consulting, and then you go to like SaaS, and then and then like it, but you go to bootstrap SaaS first, and then you go to venture or whatever, and like, and there's kind of this, like, moral superiority increase at each level, right? I reject that. And I guess, as someone who is, you know, currently going from SaaS to infoproducts, like, you know, some people might say, I'm going backwards. I reject that paradigm. I think whatever you want to do as a business, provided you are doing so ethically and making something that is valuable for people and you know, genuine, then that's fine. But I think it just goes into other people's set of expectations and allowing ourselves to reject those and have our own world view of it instead. Colleen Schnettler 27:44 Yeah, well, I love that. I love that you guys know what you want. And, you know, you're not like you said, You're not even gonna waste their time by having a meeting. Michele Hansen 27:54 Yeah, I'm sure I'll run into these people at a conference or whatnot, like, there will be opportunities to meet them. And, but like, we're not, we're not in a rush. There's nobody who is telling us to sell and, you know, and and it really helps that we're both agreed on this, like, I've heard of a lot of co-founder conflict coming from one party wanting to sell and the other one not wanting to. Yeah, but like, thankfully, we are both 100% agreed on this.Colleen Schnettler 28:26 That's great. Probably helps it you're married. I mean, in terms of like, co-founder conflict, do you think there's less of that? Because you're marriedMichele Hansen 28:32 is such a funny question. Because, you know, I tell people who don't run businesses, with their spouses that we run a business together, and nine times out of 10, the reaction I get is, Oh, my God, we could never do that we would kill each other. And I'm like, Oh, I don't know what to say to that. And then you like, most of the time, what I talked nine times out of 10. When I talked to people who do run a business with their spouse, they're like, isn't it the most amazing thing? Like, and it's just, you know, every there are some people who it doesn't work for. But I was just talking to someone yesterday about this. Yeah, I mean, we work together because we work well together. Michele Hansen Right? Colleen SchnettlerYeah. Michele Hansen And we have a way of working through discussions in a way that's productive.Colleen Schnettler 29:20 Well, in similar similar life goals, as well, right. I mean, I could see a situation where one co founder, like wanted an influx of cash, or you know, and then the other one was just if they weren't married, right, and then the other one had a different life situation. So he or she wanted something else. So yeah, IMichele Hansen 29:35 think that makes sense. You know, I was listening to How I Built This with the founders of Atlassian. Last week, and they were they were talking about how something that really was such an interesting company because they are bootstrapped until they went public. But they didn't know that. Yeah. Isn't that cool? Wow, that's cool that they were both at similar life stages throughout their early journey and that really helped because, you know, when they were both, you know, Young and single and like living on, you know, pizza, like, the like the neither of them really needed a salary. And then when they were both having kids and like getting married, like they, you know, they were able to make adjustments and like they always understood each other. And I think that is helpful, but at the same time, there's a lot of couples that have conflict over money and one like that, that is a very, very common source of marital conflict. So I, you know, I'm not gonna, like, say that that's. And that's something people experience, right? And I can't speak to what other founder couples do. We just don't, we don't really fight with each other. So it works.Colleen Schnettler 30:43 Well, I think that's, that's great. And I'm so happy you are open to talking about this.Michele Hansen 30:48 This like the Michele's Life Episode.Colleen Schnettler 30:49 I love it. Well, you always make me talk about my feelings. So I'm here. I want to know about Michele's feelings today.Michele Hansen 30:59 I don't know if anyone's anything useful out of this, but at least you know me better now.Colleen Schnettler 31:02 Sure they did. I just think the the idea. So I mean, honestly, Michele, before we started talking about, you know, started talking in depth about business stuff, I just assumed, like, just because the internet teaches you, the whole purpose of starting a company is to sell your company and go buy your beach house, and I still want my beach house. But, like, just being our friendship, and our conversations over the years have really made me rethink that. Because to your point, like, you love what you do, you can support your family with it. You're happy? Like why? Why rock the boat for even if it was $10 million? Like what do you need $10 million for I already had to guess.Michele Hansen 31:43 Like, it's like, it's a cabin like, but like you don't like it's like I don't know, I don't want material like more material things. You know, like, we actually like talking about this the other day, and I realized that my winter coat is more expensive than my most expensive piece of jewelry. Like, I just, I don't feel the need to like, have to live an expensive life. Yeah, some people do. Like that's, you know, that's, that's okay. Right. Like there are, you know, there are luxury brands that need people to buy their stuff. And that's cool. And those serve purposes for people, but I don't know, I'm, I'm good. And I know that's not gonna make sense to some people. And I am. I've always been weird. I am okay with people, you know, my approach to things not making sense to other people. That's okay.Colleen Schnettler 32:40 All right. Well, I think that's gonna wrap up this week's episode of the Software Social Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. You can reach us on Twitter at @softwaresocpod. We'd love to hear what you thought about Michele's life. Just kidding. We don't want to do that.Michele Hansen 33:03 Talk to you guys next week.
Good Problems
Michele Hansen 00:00The following message is brought to you by Balsamiq. Balsamiq decided to support the Software Social community by donating their sponsored airtime to some of our listeners.This episode is sponsored by Leave Me Alone. Leave Me Alone makes it super easy to unsubscribe from unwanted emails, simply connect your email account, and they'll show you everything you're subscribed to. And you can unsubscribe with a single click. Leave Me Alone works with all email providers, Gmail, Outlook, AOL, Yahoo, and many more. The best part is that you can connect all of your different email accounts and unsubscribe from everything in one place. Leave Me Alone uses credits to unsubscribe, one credit is one unsubscribe, you get five free credits to try out unsubscribing. And you can earn more credits by referring your friends or completing milestones in the app. If you need more credits, the low cost pricing starts at $2.50 for 50 credits. Plus Leave Me Alone is a privacy focused service. They will never sell your data. Check it out at LeaveMeAlone.app. Thank you again to Balsamiq for generously supporting our listeners this way. If you'd like to receive a promo code for Balsamiq, visit balsamiq.com/go/software-social Colleen Schnettler 01:17Hey, Michele, it's so good to talk to you. Michele Hansen 01:19I feel like it's been forever. Colleen Schnettler 01:22It has. I think it's been three weeks since we've recorded together. Michele Hansen 01:26So I'm not gonna lie. I am dying to know how things are going. Colleen Schnettler 01:35Sure. So as I have mentioned several times on this podcast, the past couple of weeks have been really busy for me. We have moved and work has been just very intense. And so I honestly didn't even check my numbers for like three weeks, which sounds ridiculous, but I just wasn't in the mental space for it. So in preparation of today's podcast, I did check. And I'm now at $515 MRI. Michele Hansen 02:04Dude! Colleen Schnettler 02:06Right? Yes, I think the beautiful thing about this - Michele Hansen 02:10Wow. Colleen Schnettler 02:10Yeah, no, I just feel like the beautiful thing about this is just, I was able to just let it sit. Now to be fair, I always check my email. So even when I was on, I don't have time for this mode, like I always check my email just in case of you know, someone and my match, not my metrics, but like my stats to make sure everything is up. So it wasn't that I was neglecting the product. But I was definitely neglecting, like even checking how many people were signed up. And so that was like a great surprise. Like, just really cool to see. Michele Hansen 02:43Last time we talked you were at like, three something. Right? And you were like, kind of like some right? Colleen Schnettler 02:51Yeah, I think that's right. And I think I think this shows that getting too obsessed with like, checking every week. Like, I like to check. I mean, I check every week usually, but becoming too obsessed with it really can swing, you know, emotionally high and low. So it was actually kind of nice to just like, sit on it. And then see it increase. Michele Hansen 03:12That's pretty awesome. Wait a year, like six weeks into this now? What was it? Colleen Schnettler 03:21It was February fourth. Michele Hansen 03:22Feburary fourth you were able to start having paying customers. Colleen Schnettler 03:25Yep. So it's two months. I'm over 500 MRR in two months. Michele Hansen 03:28That's faster than we grew. Colleen Schnettler 03:31Oh, wow. That's cool to hear. Michele Hansen 03:32Yeah, I think it took us like, I don't know, five or six months to break 500. Colleen Schnettler 03:38Oh, my gosh. And now you make all the money. There's hope for me. Michele Hansen 03:46That's insane. Colleen Schnettler 03:47So that's really cool. Yeah, I'm feeling really good about it. Yeah, so I think it's kind of also, you know, when you're stressed about other things, this is all - self doubt always creeps in. And so last week I was I was kind of in a little bit of a self doubt spiral, not spiral. That's the wrong word. But like, kind of in a self doubt, place, thinking that this like, again, was like, I don't know if this is going to work. But then I checked my numbers and things are going really well. And I haven't even implemented any of those amazing ideas you shared in your last deploying empathy newsletter. Michele Hansen 04:25So your revenue grew without you adding any new features. Colleen Schnettler 04:31Yeah, how about that? Michele Hansen 04:34Isn't that interesting? Colleen Schnettler 04:36It's like someone said that might happen. Who would have given that great advice to stop adding features. Michele Hansen 04:44But you're also like you were doing customer support during this time? It sounds like. Colleen Schnettler 04:48Yeah, I'm always - well, no one emailed me because no one ever emails me. Wait, hold on. So your revenue increased and nobody needed to talk to you. Michele Hansen 04:58That's exactly correct. Colleen Schnettler 05:01Right, like it's pretty cool. I feel pretty cool about it. So, yeah, so I'm feeling good. And I'm like kind of reenergized once I'm back at work next week to really focus on some of these marketing tasks and, and to start asking people to do customer interviews again. Because I still feel like I have momentum. Michele Hansen 05:23 It sounds like it. Colleen Schnettler 05:25Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's what I've been up to. Michele Hansen 05:30So what is like some of the first things you're going to work on next week for those marketing. Colleen Schnettler 05:35So what I have noticed, so I've talked to a couple other people who have, okay, only one other person who has a file uploader, but I'm at a totally different, different customer base. But he was saying that, like, one of the things that really helps people convert is being able to try it out. So on my landing page, you cannot try it out. To find the code pen. You have to like, dig through the documentation. And you talked, we talked to Drew about this. And you mentioned in the, your newsletter about like, what do I, like, what do you do after the customer interview, that obviously actually trying it, for Drew, was what helped him make the decision that it would be a good fit for his site. So I want to get that up front and center. But there's a problem. So there was this Hacker News thread, it was, must have been a month ago now about someone who has a similar product. And what happened to him is he has been running his site for three years with no problems. And Google has become very Trigger Happy on blacklisting sites. So his site got blacklisted. And he thinks the reason his site got blacklisted is because he has a free tier essentially. And so what happens is because everyone is sharing that same domain, that you upload files with, someone put malicious files onto his storage, and it shut down like, his entire business. So first of all, I'd like to say three people sent that article to me, which I'm really grateful for, because I don't read Hacker News. So thank you, if you sent that to me, so I so I know about it. And I was aware that like Google blacklisting is a potential problem, and they become pretty aggressive with it. And that's why I don't have a free tier because I don't want anyone, I don't want to take the risk of someone abusing the upload service to put malicious files, inappropriate files, whatever. But I do have to figure out now how to find the balance between having a demo on my website and protecting my domain. Michele Hansen 07:46So with the demo, can people upload files and what would they be able to access them later? Colleen Schnettler 07:53That was kind of the idea. I mean, the idea at least this guy's service he was deleting. So he had it set up. So you upload files to a different bucket on your demo, and he was deleting them every 24 hours. But I guess that wasn't enough. Like that wasn't quick enough to protect him. So I think that, you know, I just have to figure out before I add, I guess my point is like, the first thing I want to do, I think the most important thing for me now is to change my homepage to basically be like, here it is, try it out, see how awesome it is. Before I do that, I have to figure out what I'm going to do to mitigate this Google risk, because it's a pretty big risk if you're using Chrome. Michele Hansen 08:33Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Colleen Schnettler 08:36So I think that's the first thing is figure out how to mitigate that risk and get that up. And then that'll just be a complete redesign of what is now considered my homepage. Like, I'll probably leave the other landing page up. But that is going to be kind of the first thing I want to do. I also have learned being new to SAS, that people put in fake credit cards that get through Stripe. Like, that's, I didn't know, that was a thing. Like I was like, how did it get through Stripe? How is this like, charge failure? And it hasn't happened for maybe it hasn't happened for a ton of people, but I naively like, have no nothing in place to handle that. So I gotta fix that too. Michele Hansen 09:20Yeah, I think I was looking at this the other day, I don't know, like you can, you know, sort of the traditional methods are doing you know, like AVS, which is address verification of weather. Basically, the zip code matches the one on file with a credit card. I think Stripe has more sophisticated ways of doing it. Like they'll do things, you know, like, proximity of like, where the card is being used versus where the card address is registered and all of these other things to do it. But yeah, I mean, there's all these complications that you enter into when you have freemium, or what I mean, when you're accepting credit cards online like this is a very, is a problem that people have been dealing with for a long time. It's one I've been dealing with since the first product I - Colleen Schnettler 10:09Yeah, so that's, that's good because I only have a, it's not good, but it's good that I'm learning that now while it's only happening to two or three people before it starts happening to a lot of people. Michele Hansen 10:21Are those? Colleen Schnettler 10:22And like, Michele Hansen 10:24Are those people adding fake credit cards? Are they are like, are they stolen credit cards? Or are they like adding gift cards that don't have a high enough balance? So I feel like those are all like, separate issues. Colleen Schnettler 10:37I have no idea. Do I have to handle all of those issues? Michele Hansen 10:41Those are all things we've run into. Colleen Schnettler 10:44Wow, I have no idea. I just know that a few people, a handful of people signed up for the free trial. And you have to enter a credit card that Stripe says is okay to get through the free trial to sign up for it. And then when they're trial expired, I'm getting the cannot charge card failure notifications. So it could be any of those things like probably not stolen. But I guess it could be any of the other things you said that you've seen before. Michele Hansen 11:10I wonder if these things are related like people, they're just entering a fake credit card in order to just to see how it works. And I wonder if bringing the code pen forward would help with this credit card problem, too. Colleen Schnettler 11:25Yeah, I think bringing the code pen forward is a, I mean, like I said, that is my highest priority, like people have to see how it works. And I have done it, right. So I literally have it both in react and with pure JavaScript. And I really feel like getting that up front and center. So people can try it is going to help a lot. So I mean, I might just even spin up my app on a completely different domain. I don't know. But I need to solve that problem. And solving that problem is a high priority. Because I think that's really going to help with conversions because people want to try it, right. Like, I'm the same way, like I want to try something. So I just have to figure out a way to let people try it safely, without compromising the integrity. And it's hard to know, too, because this guy ran his site for three years and had no problem, right? So. So you can't you don't know. Like maybe it won't be an issue. Maybe I'm stressing over something. That's that's not a real issue. But I feel like since I can put mitigation steps in place now, whether I do a fake uploader, or I just put it on a completely different domain. I feel like that's the way to do it. So I don't have this problem in the future. And that could be a selling point to like, use this other guy's thing. And he got blacklisted by Google. But we're on a completely different domain. So only our test site would go down. If that happened to us. I think we're at low rate, I think we're, it's just me, I think I'm at low risk for this happening. But I do want to like, kind of be out in front of it. Because it could it's pretty bad when it happens. Michele Hansen 13:02Yeah. And that sounds like the kind of thing that's easier to change now, especially for the way you have set up the company where there is a free trial rather than a free tier. I think you're less exposed to this problem than he might be. And if you can change it now so that the test is simply, like, is totally separate, then that could you know, help prevent this problem from coming up for you? You know, knock on wood. Colleen Schnettler 13:33Yeah, knock on - right. So I think that'll be great. If I could get that up this week, that would be super awesome. I also so taking three weeks off from like, looking at my numbers made me realize I'm not tracking churn at all. Like I literally have no idea. Because I hard delete you when you de-provision the add on unless you go through stripe, you know, a stripe tracks all that for you. It's really nice. They're like, Oh, here's your lifetime value. And here's your churn, but Heroku doesn't use Stripe. So I don't have any of those metrics available to me. And so although this is not a huge problem yet. I have no idea in those couple weeks, I wasn't checking every day, how many people signed up and then cancelled. So that feels like I should know that eventually. Michele Hansen 14:22Yeah, that seems worth keeping track of. Colleen Schnettler 14:24Seems worth keeping track of right? Like, like before, I just did it manually. And I’d just write it down. But I was like, Oh, this it was nice to be able to not check the numbers every day. But because I wasn't, I wasn't on top of that. So I think that would be, that's something else I got to figure out. I mean, again, not it's not hard, I just have to do it. So I want to add that so I can get a better idea of really how many people are signing up like right now I don't have a good organization system for who's coming from Heroku, who's, who's putting in their email address and not converting like, who's doing a free trial and converting or not converting. So just a little I like I need a little more organization on my side. As I get more people signing up, which is awesome. This is a great problem to have. So I can kind of manage what's happening with my users. Michele Hansen 15:14Yeah, these are, these are all good problems to have. Colleen Schnettler 15:16I know. It's so funny. Like, it's still it's just so cool. Still, like, this is so cool. Michele Hansen 15:22One more good problem for you to have is that, did you ever get that privacy policy written? Colleen Schnettler 15:28I did.Michele Hansen 15:29Okay. You'll just want to make it clear in your privacy policy that if people deprovision the app, like you will save information about right the fact that they had an account, and you know, just, just make that clear, like you might still have people who want you to delete that entirely, which is totally fair. But just you know, whenever you're dealing with people's data, like, tell them how you're using it, and give them the option to not have you use it. Colleen Schnettler 15:54Yep. And that's why I was hard deleting. Because I didn't really want to worry about that. But you're absolutely right. It's not a big deal. Like there, I even have a whatever, a specific alias email for GDPR stuff. And so if someone wants their data permanently deleted, they can just send me an email. But you're right, I do need to update my privacy policy, if I'm going to keep their email, after they deprovision the add on. That's a really good point. Michele Hansen 16:21A lot of exciting stuff going on a lot, a lot of good problems. Colleen Schnettler 16:28Yes. Still, like good energy, and like, it feels ripe with possibilities, you know, that feeling where it's like, the world is my oyster, it just feels like this has so much potential. I just have to put in the work. And I'm really committed to doing that. And I'm pumped for, to see where this where this takes me. Michele Hansen 16:46I'm excited for you. Colleen Schnettler 16:47Thanks. So how have been How have things been going with you chugging along, you know, continuing to work on the, the newsletter, and, it was funny. So we took a little mini trip, we did like a little road trip this week, to, you know, we drove ourselves. It was to a campsite. It was very COVID friendly. Didn't really go anywhere. And on the way, I had my husband listen to the interview episode we did. And then I interviewed him about it afterwards. Like, Colleen Schnettler 17:28Oh, that's so fun. I love that. Michele Hansen 17:29Shameless about that. But, but live listening to that. And, and the recap episode again, reminded me of - I feel like there's something I should say about that. So in the, in the recap episode, you made mention how I said something to the effect of if someone who is as ADD and bubbly as me can contain themselves to do these interviews, and anybody can do it. Colleen Schnettler 17:59Yes, I remember.Michele Hansen 18:01So, I just wanted to kind of make it clear that I like wasn't being glib in that when I said that. Because I know that like, throwing around diagnose, like, people kind of do this casually. And then that can be hurtful to people who have them. And I just wanted to make it clear that I actually, like, was diagnosed with ADD. It was when I was 11. And it's always been something I've just, you know, like more recently, I've tried to, to work with it. I think for a long time I worked against it. And I just wanted to like, talk about that a little bit. You know, there's been some conversation lately on Twitter about having ADD as a founder, like, Matt Stauffer has had a thread about being diagnosed as an adult a couple of weeks ago. And I feel like that kind of thing is worth talking about. Because like, I think especially as kids getting diagnosed with ADD, like, some people can be made to feel like, you know, it's it's, it's basically a fancy way of saying you're dumb or annoying, and having your potential questioned. And, and I think it's important for us founders with diagnoses, whatever those are, to be open about them, and show people that those things don't have to hold you back and in fact that they can be an asset. Colleen Schnettler 19:23So you said that you - first of all, I think that's really great that you're clarifying, you know what you said, and really awesome that you're willing to open up and talk a little bit about this, because I'll be honest, I don't know much about it. When you say you're learning or you have learned to work with your ADD, what does that mean? Michele Hansen 19:45So so so when I was a kid, for example, I had to you know, learn how to organize like, learn how to remember to do things and using planners and all of that kind of stuff. And so it was but it was very much like fighting against the differently organized ADD brain. It was very, you know, forcing myself to focus, forcing myself to sit down and do things like, and I think as an adult, I have learned to allow that to be an asset. Instead, I still, I still need to channel it in some way. So like interviewing for example is is a huge example of that, because Dani Donovan, she has some really great comics about the ADD conversation style. And there's some of the hallmarks of odors are interrupting people and jumping from topic to topic and very excitable. And so I have to sort of tamp that down a bit. But like one of those things is, is like, my brain is really good at making associations between things that seem really distant and unrelated to other people. And I find that super helpful for making connections during product development, like when I'm interviewing people, like making connections between things that they have said and things that other people have said. And that that seems, you know, lots of people are good at that. But that is sort of a trait of the different way that the, the ADD brain organizes things, it's, it's much less linear, than, than, than might be found in someone who is neurotypical, if that makes sense. Colleen Schnettler 21:31Okay, okay. Well, I mean, I think that's, it seems like a great progress that you've figured out kind of how to work with it and make it, make the way your brain works, help you be successful as a founder. Have you found that it's harder as a founder, because of your ADD? Michele Hansen 21:55No, I think it's actually easier to be a founder than it is to be an employee. So as you know, I get to decide what I work on. And largely, I get to decide when I work on it. So like how I tend to work as you know, I will research something intensely for a period of time. And then I will completely stop working on it. And I basically let it background process for a period of time. And then I will sit down and like intensely do it, once my brain has done whatever background processing it needs to be done. Like, this is how I feel about the newsletter. It's like the gears of background processing. And now I'm sitting down to intensely write it. Or I can work on something for five minutes and then switch to something else, and then switch something else, and then switch to something else. I'm not going from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting. I'm not meeting other people's deadlines. Like I'm not having to work around other people as much. I can more work in a way that, you know, suits the fact that I like to jump from thing to thing and topic to topic. And I don't have to be sort of molding myself to what other people need me to be as much now i i do you still have meetings, I you know, do customer support, like, you know, we talked to you know, Mathias and I rather as the we that what we're doing but like, largely, I get to be more self directed. And I find that to be so much more helpful rather than trying to force my, fit myself into that square corporate employee box.Colleen Schnettler 23:23So, I don't know a whole lot about, as I mentioned, about ADD. But is it I think of it, and this is probably just from like that my childhood growing up in the 80s - I think of it as it's really challenging to focus, like, people with ADD have trouble focusing, is that true? Michele Hansen 21:55So, so I will say that I'm not an expert in ADD, I'm to someone who has it. And I also have ADD and not ADHD. So ADHD would be Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. Okay, I honestly don't, I don't like the word ADD all that much because it literally has the word deficit in it. And I don't think of it as like an attention deficit. I think of it as I have very focused attention. Some people actually consider it to be somewhere on the autism spectrum, because you know, people with autism are known for hyper focusing on specific topics. Um, I don't, I don't know all that much about that side of it, but I can, I can see the association there. Um, I will say like, like, you know, Mathias is neurotypical. We, we work in very different ways like I am, I am much more bursty than he is like, he can sit down from, you know, eight to five and just work straight and not have any distractions. My brain on the other hand, it almost needs the distractions in order to finish thinking about things, like I need to be thinking about multiple things at a time in order to make process on those things and it from the outside. It looks very distracted, it looks very disorganized, and, you know, a deficit of focus. But it's just how my brain works. And I just I'm, I'm, I'm always reading multiple books at a time, I'm always doing multiple tasks at a time, like, and I'll hyper focus on one, but have multiple in the background at the same time. I don't know if this makes any sense, like, I am gathering that you are neurotypical. And so this is probably, you're probably like, what on Earth is she talking about? Colleen Schnettler 25:35Well, I'm, you know, more and more people that I know, have, have been sharing similar diagnosis. And so I just like I said, like, I just want to learn, you know, so I can support people in their, in their work in the way that works, the way they work that works best for them. So I think, yeah, that's interesting. Like, it's interesting, it almost sounds like you just said, like, being a founder is actually better than having to do a typical nine to five butt in chair job. Michele Hansen 26:08Absolutely. I mean, and I'm always kind of surprised by how many people I meet in the bootstrapped world, who, you know, who are neurodivergent, or they have disabilities, or they, you know, there are other features of them that make having that, that button chair kind of job really just either difficult or frustrating or unfulfilling or unsupportive for them, and bootstrapping is less of a calling for them, and more so just something they do. Because, because the traditional work world, the traditional educational world are not set up for neurodivergent, you know, physically divergent people, like whatever our differences may be. Yeah, I feel like we're getting very deep on things that are, I'm only scratching the surface on. But yeah, I mean, I, you know, I made the decision to sort of be radically open about all of these things about, I don't know, six months ago, because I think we're all human beings. And I think there is this ethos that emanates from a certain part of the world, that founders have to be focused, and they have to hustle. And they have to, you know, somebody tweeted out that, like, if you're, if you aren't in perfect physical condition, then you're not able to be a founder, right? Colleen Schnettler 27:35What? That’s so random. Michele Hansen 26:37Like, of course, that's, like an awful and like, incorrect thing to say, right. And I feel the need to be a little bit louder about the struggles that I have had to counteract all of those people who are saying super hurtful and unhelpful things. And also for, you know, I've had people tell me that they listen to this podcast with their teenage children, like, if you have something that makes you different, that doesn't mean you're not going to succeed. Because I very much felt as a kid, like, you know, when I had to have a math tutor sitting next to me, because I was really bored. And then I later turned out that I only pay attention to math when it involves money. You know, I studied economics, like I can pay attention to math. I hated it in fifth grade. Like, but I felt like it meant that I wasn't going to be as successful as the other kids. And I was made to feel like add was this thing that I had overcome, that I had to push away from me to be successful. And I have learned that you can still be successful and have something that makes you different, whether that is ADD, or anxiety, or autism, or something or a disability, like something else, like it doesn't mean that you can't be successful. It just means that I'm basically that the corporate world is not set up to help you be successful. That's my rant. I'll get off my soapbox. Colleen Schnettler 29:10I think that's, that's wonderful that you're willing to talk about it and, and be so open and honest. And like you said, try to be kind of loud about it. Like, I think that's wonderful. Because I think, if people don't see that they don't know. Michele Hansen 29:24Yeah, and you know, and also, like, if, if you don't have any of those things, you can also still be successful, too. Like, you know, let's not - Colleen Schnettler 29:32Everyone wins. Michele Hansen 29:33the other direction. Right? Like, you know, I wouldn't say I'm, you know, been able to have this business, right, because I have ADD or because of all of those other things. No, it's because, like, I put the work into it, put the time into it. Like, I was lucky. You know, but but whatever. We all bring different things to the table, right? Colleen Schnettler 29:55Yeah. Michele Hansen 29:57And I think what you do is, you know, that's really what counts. Colleen Schnettler 30:00Yep. All right, well, I think that's going to wrap up this week's episode of the Software Social podcast. You can reach us on Twitter at @SoftwareSocPod. Thanks for listening.