Andrew and Sean are back for Season 2! In Season 2 they'll get transparent about the highs and lows of building their businesses (with plenty of goofing around too). Same concept, new businesses.

In this episode we recap WHERE THE HELL WE'VE BEEN FOR TWO YEARS. Plus we talk about the projects we're working on now, how to market and validate Andrew's new startup, and Sean's search for founder friends. 

Links:

For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

Transcript:

00:00.73
Sean
All right? don't scream this time. Maybe I'll cut that front part out. Um, okay, take 4 episode 1 season 2 small efforts like no see oh yeah, me too.

00:11.35
Andrew
Ah, but what's up man Glad to be back. Ah back on the pod with you.

00:18.76
Sean
Too I'm excited to be doing this again. It's been a fun 6 ones of a dry run. Um, so ah.

00:22.92
Andrew
It wouldn't be us if we didn't record for six months and then finally describe decide to scrap all of those recordings and just say fuck it. Let's go live or as close to live as we can get.

00:32.53
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's literally how I've built the michigans website every single iteration actually I spent months on it and then I'm like fuck. And I just do it in the black in my hotel room right? before blackhead starts in a day like yeah, good enough I don't care if it's not perfect. Um, what's been going on. Why have we disappeared what happened you know what happened to season 1 I'm sure everyone wants to know.

01:02.54
Andrew
Ah, yeah, um, yeah, it's been 2 years almost to the day like pretty close to it. So um, we were running the podcast before and had set it up in a way to be like.

01:05.75
Sean
Our 11 listeners.

01:22.00
Andrew
Fairly highly highly produced and um in a way that required as little involvement from us after recording as possible so we had an awesome producer and an editing team who would take care of everything for us. Um, but that also meant it was. A little bit expensive to create um and then I went and sold my business and that meant that half of our funding disappeared. So I sold crit almost two years ago exactly um, sold the company to.

01:47.45
Sean
Hell yeah, a girl. Yeah, he did.

01:58.77
Andrew
Of our longtime clients grayyno which was an awesome experience. I still haven't really written about the experience of going through this sale process. It might be hard to do now I've I'm sure I've already forgotten a lot. Um, but it was it was a really. Really fascinating experience to go through I think our sale was really pretty easy and pretty fast compared to a lot of people because we already knew each other really well um, and structured it in a way that that due diligence was pretty simple. So um, yeah, sold crit two years ago

02:23.90
Sean
A 5

02:36.57
Andrew
Then went to work at graynoy for a year um so learned a ton in that time about security and technology and what it's like to be part of a larger team as hilarious as it is a 50 person team is like by far the biggest team I'd ever been a part of.

02:53.75
Sean
Yeah.

02:55.78
Andrew
Um, and ah learned about management and it was like a year of speed learning. Um, it was really interesting. Had a lot of fun. Um, and then ultimately got fired which was kind of. Ah, shock and kind of not a shock. Um, ultimately I think it just wasn't as good a fit on either side as either of us were were hoping for um, still have a ton of friends there and still am rooting for them all to be successful. Um, you know it's funny I've mentioned that I got fired to. Entrepreneur friends and to like non-onpreneur friends and non-onreneur friends are generally like oh my god are you? okay like what's ah, what's wrong. What can I do to help and then all my entrepreneur friends are like yeah I kind of expected that we're just ah.

03:46.18
Sean
Yeah, yeah, it makes sense.

03:52.10
Andrew
I Guess once you're like an entrepreneur through in through you kind of become unhireable but not in the way you thought just unhireable in the sense that like you become a bad employee or don't want to don't want to work for anyone? Um, so um.

03:56.64
Sean
Um, yeah, yeah.

04:00.33
Sean
Yeah, yeah.

04:10.71
Andrew
Yeah, shocking and not a shock. Um, but ultimately like 2 really good things came out of bad experience which were um one when I was at crit my fear. The thing that kept me up at night. Was often this idea of like what if our clients all disappear and we run out of money and we have to lay off the entire team that was like the failure mode that that was constantly eating away at me constantly like this pit of stress in the middle of my stomach. Um, and then once I sold the company and joined grey noise. Thought that fear would go away. It didn't it just morphed and the new fear. The new failure mode was what if I get fired. Um, and so when I ultimately did it was this kind of positive forcing function to face this deep fear of failure that I had. Um, and you know went through it and was like oh shit I'm okay and the people around me don't actually think any worse of me. In fact, they all are being super supportive and kind and like are very understanding and and then I had time to make a podcast to get.

05:20.70
Sean
So yeah, and then you had time to do a podcast again. So it's been great.

05:28.17
Andrew
Um, and and that actually was the second positive thing. So the the second really positive thing was that it gave me the nudge to take a long extended sabbatical. Um, so after that I went and fulfilled a lifelong dream and walked across Spain on the camino de santiago. Um. Spent two months over in Europe um, that was incredible I've written about that on my on my website a little bithitteraskins dot com um, and then I I came back from that and had time to sit down and just think about what I really wanted to do and um. Decided that I wanted to get back into startups and wanted to try to build a new product and do do it the way that I had always wanted to do it which was bootstrapped calm slow growth. Um, and ah, you know, but do something that. You know, high margin. Um, try to basically build my perfect job. My dream job my my dream business. Um, so I started working on ad at the beginning of this year worked with a partner for a little while who um, ultimately had to step away for some personal reasons. Um. Which then launched me into the process of learning to code again which has been really cool. Um, kind of surprised myself with how much I have enjoyed that and liked that. Um and so that was a few months ago that I I started learning to code and and building the product.

07:05.74
Andrew
Myself and I'm now ah at a point where I've got a functional prototype and I'm you know probably going to be launching in a week or 2 probably 2 two weeks would be my guess. So um, yeah.

07:19.46
Sean
I Hell yeah.

07:24.27
Andrew
Last time we recorded I was running an agency and now I am getting ready to launch a new Saas company. So yeah, and so now that's ah now we're on season 2 Um, so yeah, tell me tell me ah tell me and tell our 3 listeners.

07:29.51
Sean
Yeah, act 2 baby.

07:44.11
Andrew
What what? you've been out to.

07:45.35
Sean
It's it's less every single time offing. Ah her tension is horrible. Um, ah, still running the agency. Um, yeah, still running is still running misreands. We've definitely changed a lot as an agency even in the past. However. Like 2 years Um, 2023 was super rough as it was for like the entire security world. Plenty of layoffs plenty of like way less funding. Um I would like to say it feels like we're so back. so we're so back but it must be so over for us to be so back.

08:08.18
Andrew
Yeah, yeah.

08:18.51
Andrew
Ah, yes.

08:21.94
Sean
Um, yeah I mean I had I had delay people are for the first time which sucked um and use the term um in another take called like failure mode which was like interesting to me and um, we definitely kind of.

08:28.90
Andrew
Yeah, that's hard.

08:41.84
Sean
Inched closer and closer to that every day. Um and then thankfully or not thankfully like Sam Altman was like hey look at this ai thing that I that we built and then a bunch of Ai security companies pops out of nowhere. Um.

08:58.20
Andrew
Oh interesting I don't actually think I realized that that was where a lot of your new work is coming from is that have you've seen that correlation for sure. Wow interesting.

08:58.36
Sean
They all needed branding and marketing and all that sort of stuff. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. Um, end of and 2023 we're when we saved by like 3 different ai startups which you know kept the lights on since then we've picked up other work and I've realized that like our biggest. Um I think it's our biggest roi marketing thing Jj or Co O O says it's because it's the only marketing thing that we do but we start doing like work for like creators and and they kind of pros and we get a bunch of inbound that way. But anyway just been running misrens played around with like so some other saas projects that. Um, are almost that Mvp stage I realize that I need a lot of data in that in that tool for it to really work. Um, um, but yeah, I've just been kind of heads down I'm excited to be doing this cn though. Um, but I did get to play with a really cool and Mvp. The other day. Um, called like hippapot plotit hippa plot hippa hip, a plot chart use.

10:12.96
Andrew
But um, yeah, so chartk Juice is is the product that I'm working on I'm really excited about it. The idea and God my elevator pitch still sucks. But let's give this a try. The idea is it's a really.

10:21.66
Sean
Um.

10:30.78
Andrew
Simple, easy to use Chart designer so you can come in and design a bar graph or a line graph Pie graph. Whatever Um, and it's really easy to use Chart designer combined with a simple api that allows you to pass in custom data.

10:33.53
Sean
Um.

10:38.32
Sean
Um.

10:50.46
Andrew
And generate an image of a chart that way you can add charts at scale to automations um in places where you can't use Javascript so things like emails slack messages pdfs. Um, so you know. Easy enough today to design ah a single one-off chart um, a little bit harder to you know design you know, generate a lot of charts with each one containing personalized data and embed those in email and and these places where you can't use use Javascript. So. Um, that's the the original idea I'm going to want to talk to you in ah in a couple minutes about ah some of the experiments I want to run and the things I'm thinking about as I'm trying to figure out what use case is going to be the most viable and.

11:36.82
Sean
Um, yeah.

11:47.96
Andrew
As I'm looking for product market fit but the product is like I mentioned earlier at a point where I sent out ah requests to you and a few other friends this week um the the name is chart juice I do have so. Years ago Austin and I the thing Sean's teasing me about years ago. Austin and I um built a little ah prototype with with a couple of the people at crit. Um I think Garrett her friend Garrett was the one who actually built it. But. Built ah a prototype of a chart designer and we called it. Hippolatamus um, and so I have I have resurrected as an easter egg a a little hippo mascot that's going to show up in in places in chart juice as a nod to the original hippoplotamus. But.

12:26.60
Sean
Hell yeah.

12:40.12
Andrew
Ah, but the name of the of the product is turkjuice. Um, and yeah, it's at a point now where I've got an end-in prototype working I'm actually pretty excited about it like for a long time I was just building it because it was kind of the best idea that I had and the thing that felt most realistic for me to build with. My skills I've always been stronger on the frontend. But as I've gotten closer and closer I've actually gotten to the point where I'm like wait I kind of like using this and I think there might be some there. There. So um, yeah, my excitement is is higher at the moment than it has been in a few weeks. Um. And then earlier this week like two days ago I sent out an email to to you and maybe like 10 other friends saying like hey um I think it's ready. Can you give me some feedback let me know like what things I should fix before I push it live so I spent today. Cranking through a bunch of little bits of feedback that I've gotten from from a handful of friends shoutout to Austin and Greg for giving me a bunch of really detailed feedback just about got everything implemented that that they suggested um and then I've got a few more. Things I want to do over the next week and a half to just like button things up, you still need to add billing um need to like create a terms of service spent yesterday getting analytics and um, ah.

14:06.86
Sean
Yeah.

14:16.18
Andrew
Sentry whatever you call sentry like code analytics I guess or code monitoring bug report bug monitoring. That's that's what it's called something like that so got sentry and june hooked up. Um, and then one um might have 1 or 2 like.

14:17.87
Sean
Are.

14:35.40
Andrew
I don't know I'll probably just start with a customer sport email. But I might hook up a customer sport tool. We'll see. So yeah I've got like a week and a half of work to do to you know, put the last few nuts and bolts together for it to be ready to go live. Um, although I might just. Kind of casually put it live on the website here in the next couple days and then you know add billing in stuff as I go so um, yeah, that's kind of where where I'm at.

15:05.60
Sean
Very cool. Um, by the way I think ah the way I would sell it is that charge use is the easiest way to create gorgeous charts for I don't know for the internet for the web for for email.

15:22.74
Andrew
Um, I think so that's actually like a perfect segue into like 1 of the things I really wanted to talk about today. Um I'm struggling to figure out how to talk about it as is clear I think what you just gave me is really good and.

15:22.80
Sean
Um, I guess you could have like overallbral. Ah.

15:28.92
Sean
Yeah.

15:37.41
Sean
E.

15:42.80
Andrew
And you actually sparked an idea. Um, so one of the reasons I'm struggling is because I'm actually juggling several different use cases in my head and each use case is kind of a different product. They're all the same at the.

15:50.86
Sean
Yeah.

15:56.93
Sean
Yeah.

16:01.23
Andrew
But each one is kind of a different product that would start to branch off in a different direction and I'm trying to decide how I want to go about testing those different directions and which one I want to focus On. Um, so um, just to just iterate on those real quick. Um Chart So One one direction. Is the direction that I talked about is chart use for email. Um, so make it really easy to generate charts and then embed them in emails where there is no javascript. Another idea that's really on kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. So So that idea is like. It's a relatively small market.. There's a relatively small number of people creating automated emails. Um, and it's a relatively liquid Market. So The people who are creating automated Emails. Don't create them very often. Um, but it's really sticky because once you've. Used this in your email Automation. You're not going to change those email automations for a long time and so people are most likely going to use this for for a long time and um so you've got this market where it's like super sticky which is great. You know Retention is one of the main things you want with a Saas product. But.

17:37.30
Andrew
Um, might be really slow to grow it to a point where I could you know, live off of off of the earnings. Um, then you've got a totally different direction in the opposite end of the spectrum which is to not worry about the Api and the email. Piece as much and just be like hey I've just made a really nice chart designer and so if you're a student if you're a you know someone preparing a pitch deck if you're um, someone preparing a report for your company and you need just a nice product.

18:15.71
Andrew
Chart and you want it to look good right? off the bat come use chart juice and then export it as a p and g or an svg or whatever you need and then use it in your powerpoint or your um your pdf report or what have you um. So that's like a much more crowded market. Um, and it's a lot It's probably like a much lower price point. So it's a much bigger market but more crowded, more competitive, lower value lower price point and probably a lot less sticky. Um. You know people might not even want a monthly subscription for that kind of thing unless they're creating new charts all the time they might rather just sort of 1 ne-offs or or free a free product and then there's this third idea this third use case that's somewhere in the middle which is to empower people. Who are nocoders and want to include charts in their website or web app that they're building with webflow or bubble or something like that and they want those starts to be dynamic. They want them to update with live data but they're not comfortable writing the code themselves. Um, make chart juice the easiest way to design a chart and then embed it in your app or your website or whatever. Um, and that feels like it's probably somewhere in the middle in terms of value and and stickiness. Um, so I'm trying to figure out like.

19:51.33
Andrew
All have different price points and all have different user bases. They're all the same product. But with you know, at least to start with and I'm trying to think through how I should test those ideas out and figure out which one to focus on.

20:08.92
Sean
Um, I think that there's there's also like a fourth direction right? There's like um, almost building it in a way where I mean it. It could also be like in the middle I think it is like sort of on a spectrum and um. Um, and and I think like what you're talking about is more about prioritization than it is about like like which one to do first versus which one to do because it could do all of it. You can have different plans and different or you can clone the product and call it different things. Um, or maybe I don't know you tell me? um, but there is like.

20:39.69
Andrew
Yeah, those are all options.

20:43.62
Sean
A like app marketplace play of like Google sheet charts look fucking awful. Um, and they're annoying to make look make them look nice. There's plenty of people that make money off of building just like Google apps plugin which can still be charge use with what you have and then sort of visit this. Api-driven way of making it. But that's interesting, um, not talked about canva but even figma. For example, it would be nice to just kind of be able to generate charts on the fly as svgs immediately and then make edits and it just makes the process of like you know plotting things way easier and faster and there's that too. Um, yeah, just to throw just to throw more like ah into the.

21:24.20
Andrew
Well and I don't see that as like necessarily a fourth option so much as that's actually 1 of the main ways I want to test each of these options I think there are different marketplaces different app stores where a plugin and integration could. Drive business for each of those 3 use cases. Um, so like you mentioned on the the api automation and yeah and that use case I think the integrations are going to be more like zapier integrations. Um.

21:58.96
Sean
Um, yeah.

22:01.69
Andrew
Customer Io Hubspot You know your your email tools. Um or your analytics tools or something like that then on the um on the low-end side that that one-off Chart designer for. Ports and presentations. Yeah, that's going to be more of your canva. Maybe figma I don't figma is is really interesting I hadn't given that a ton of thought I don't know which use case that fits into it might be its own use case. Um and then like that middle use case I think you're looking at like bubble.

22:32.96
Sean
So.

22:38.76
Andrew
Um, bubble has a couple of chart plugins already actually but you know maybe there's room for for another one. Um, you're probably looking at webflow framer and maybe there's there's some other platforms. You could tap into there and then of course sapppier I think. Um, so yeah I think integrations are one of the main ways I want to test all 3 um and then yet to your point a lot of it. You know I was really thinking about this is like I I need to pick one and then. Over the last couple days I've started to think about it more like I was well just to back up a minute I was actually starting to lean towards maybe I can launch with like a pricing model that supports all 3 and then I can just see which one gets the most traction. So I can have like a free tier um a $15 a month tier that lets you export Javascript and export some number of images a month or something like that. But so it's not enough for the like full automation use case but it's. More than the free tier includes um and then an automate tier where you can yeah get enough images to actually supply an automation like a recurring monthly email or something like that. Um.

24:11.42
Sean
I wonder if you can to challenge that I wonder if you could just do a traditional like ah tiered pricing plan. Um and just make it possible to do all of those things but in each plan but limited by. I dont I don't know the number of charts I don't know amount of loads or something just the kind of c like if you give it if the free plan has the ability to do all of the things we're talking about you can kind of see usage that way and see like okay like this like there's way more users that use Xyz sort of thing and then eventually part it out. And then make it like a really complex pricing plan link all the Sas apps on the market now. So well.

24:51.32
Andrew
So that's definitely one option is to like to basically try not to gate any particular use case and then just observe usage in the app. But I think the thing that worries me with that is. You and I know this from working with clients like we always tell people you know it's better to focus on 1 use case one customer because you can create much more compelling marketing and so like going that route assumes that I'm going to be able to get. All of these people to try something that isn't clearly for any 1 of them. Um, and so I think more and more as I've thought about it over the past couple days what I want to do is focus on one at a time and just like try to stay focused on 1 use case craft my homepage copy. My.

25:30.93
Sean
Yeah.

25:38.53
Sean
Oh.

25:47.32
Andrew
Product pages and um, my pricing and everything around 1 use case but then just time box it so that I'm like I'm going to go after that use case for let's say a month and then if I feel like I'm getting traction. Great. Let's double down on that and build on that if not. Let's move to the next one? Um, what do you think about that.

26:09.12
Sean
Yeah I think that makes sense. It reminds me of when you were first validating this how you were running or or to kind of reminded me of the time when you were validating. Ah this idea by running Google ads and then trying. You know and and that point the product page was very much like the programmatic creation of charts into email. Um, when I think about it though I think there's only like ah well well, there's I guess there's like 2 pricing models that make sense in my head 1 is like.

26:45.16
Sean
So standard subscription um get unlimited charts or get an x number of charts or whatever. Um, and then the other is like usage base which kind of makes sense with the paramatic email thing. Um, and then there's like that thought and then like the other thought is ah I think there's. Outside of like the app marketplace thing which is I think its own sort of second act of this product in a way like I think we're really talking about like 2 different options right? one is. It's the easiest way to create manual charts chart designs that you can embed onto. Bubble or webflow versus the easiest way to create ah like manual manually create chart designs and then embedded into email. Um, so I think you're really kind of a link deciding between two because I think at the end of the day. The ux of creating the chart. I believe is going to be always the same. You're still going to log in create a gorgeous chart template or load a gorgeous chart template in set the animation set where you want variables to point to um, it's just the difference of whether or not that data is static or not um. So when I think about it like that. Um, actually when I think about it like that it almost starts to sound like 1 product. Um, even but the ah ah yeah, want to I guess. Okay.

28:16.74
Sean
I mean take us up step back when I say lately it late when I lay it on in those 2 options is there 1 you sort of feel like you gravitate towards more or.

28:27.76
Andrew
Um, so I still I'm I still see it as 3 options because there's like I think of the I think the people who want to create um charts to stick in like a.

28:31.45
Sean
Okay.

28:44.23
Sean
Yeah.

28:44.86
Andrew
Slide Deck are very different from the people who want to create dynamic charts to put embed in like webflow or bubble like those people like those charts are going to have dynamic data that's updating all the time. Um, and then the the other people are going to just.

28:52.63
Sean
Sure. So.

29:00.53
Sean
Um.

29:04.35
Andrew
Bring a little bit of data paste it into a web you know into your builder and then like export a single chart and then move on um with their life and you know maybe come back the next time they need to create a chart whereas. Yeah, those middle people are going to constantly be passing data through.

29:12.49
Sean
Um, you know.

29:22.60
Andrew
Maybe through your tool or maybe use your tool to design the thing and then pass the data directly into the thing. Um, and then there's the people who are you know, designing the chart and then you know creating an automation that creates 1 ne-off charts um

29:29.45
Sean
Um.

29:31.62
Sean
Even designing the check.

29:39.24
Sean
So.

29:42.35
Andrew
And so um, like the thing that I keep coming back to there is the the emails like a Saas usagemail. You know they want to embed charts. Each email is only a single instance of a chart. But.

29:49.43
Sean
Um, yeah.

29:57.54
Sean
Um.

29:58.11
Andrew
You're generating a thousand emails at a time a thousand different charts at a time something like that and so I so I still see it as like 3 different use cases. Um, but yeah I do agree that like at the core the chart builder is the thing at the core of all 3 of them and the thing that I want.

30:02.80
Sean
Um.

30:12.60
Sean
Me.

30:16.92
Andrew
To make really really great. But then the marketing copy changes a good bit. The pricing I think changes a good bit like you mentioned like you're getting towards something a little bit more usage based with the Api Automation product um and then like the the low-end product. You're probably looking at a ah freemium sort of thing with um, you know, maybe even the ability to purchase one-off charts or something like that. Um, so the pricing changes copy changes. Um, and then.

30:43.91
Sean
Are.

30:54.25
Andrew
Like over time features would start to diverge as well because like yeah the things you'd build for the automation. Yeah, the automation customer might want ah you know an email report designer um versus the ah yeah and the webflow person might want like.

31:07.84
Sean
Um.

31:13.76
Sean
And.

31:14.13
Andrew
And airtable integration and the you know the 1 ne-off um the one-off user might want a powerpoint integration or at Google sheets a Google slides integration something like that.

31:28.69
Sean
Yeah, yeah, no the mix. Um I do I do still think the first two are the same product just with different publish modes and different like sharing options right? 1 is you can download it as a chart. Um. And then the other is you can upload it or you can embed it onto webflow and then you're sort of taking you you are passing through you can pass through like the data or you can use the data that you like write inside of chart use and then kind of embedded statically which then in my head they're kind of like the same thing. Um I guess going back to like the Google ads thing. Um any thought on just kind of using the same sort of Google ads strategy to test like reception of I think it's weird because they don't I feel like that that thing doesn't really tell you like williness the pay right? I think like. You can you can launch people at free tools all the time that doesn't mean they're going to upgrade to thirty forty bucks a month. So.

32:30.90
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, so I think where I'm where I'm really landing is um I want to do I think I want to do a month of testing for each one but I I think it's just going to be easier.

32:45.28
Sean
Um.

32:47.53
Andrew
And my head it's it's feeling like a lot more manageable to test them one at a time rather than testing them simultaneously which I think is the other thing that we're talking about here is like do you run the tests simultaneously or do you run them like one at a time. Um, because like either way, you're testing. Um.

32:50.44
Sean
Um, yeah.

32:55.30
Sean
Yeah I think so. For sure. Yeah.

33:06.63
Andrew
It's just like. Do you try to test all these ideas at once and you might be right that 2 of them might converge into one or they might diverge. It's it's hard to know at this point. Um.

33:09.26
Sean
Yeah, for.

33:16.64
Sean
Um, which um, which one do you think outside of testing because I I do think now that I'm saying it and thinking about sort of how we will go and like test um like a month is not really enough time and then oh so it's really like.

33:29.25
Andrew
Oh you don't think so.

33:32.70
Sean
Yeah, plus like ah it depends on spend right? Ah like effectively I think what paid ad agencies will kind of tell you is that you are. It's a pay-to-play game. You're paying money to basically buy data from whatever platforms at Google in this case, um and you do want to get to like some sort of statistical significance and to do that. You also have to test creative. So it does make sense that you want to test 1 thing at a time but how do you know? It's not just because your creative is garbage compared to the the product itself. Um I guess question for you would be which one do you think? do you see like a separate like like outside of paid. Which one do you see like a growth strategy for or at least like a plan and which one do you think has the larger market. Um, because I think we we talked about like market sizing a while back and then we talked about the trust. Not to lead you in any specific way in this case because I think like you could probably get like 4 email clients paying you a bunch of money to generate programromatic charts and I think that's way better than you know finding a larger market in that case. So. Um, how are you thinking about market sizing for between these options.

34:48.73
Andrew
So um I kind of like I've said before I see them as a spectrum of market size and like but with you know.

34:54.44
Sean
Are.

35:03.86
Andrew
The other. The other thing is you can't just look at market size. You also have to look at like the other factors of the market. So I think um, you know 1 ne-off chart designer 1 ne-off chart builder is like by far the biggest market like there's tens of thousands of

35:17.19
Sean
Um, yeah.

35:21.51
Andrew
Searches a month from what I can tell on Google for chart maker these generic terms chart maker ah bar chart maker bar graph maker Pie Graph maker you know each each one of these terms has 10 twenty thirty Thousand searches a month.

35:29.85
Sean
Um, yeah, yeah.

35:39.53
Andrew
So There's clearly volume there um willingness to pay is is unclear value is unclear um and then um stickiness is is unclear um on the other end of the spectrum you have. Charts in email which gets like a hundred searches a month. Um, you know I talked to 10 founder friends and 1 or 2 were really interested in moving forward. Um, so.

36:10.69
Sean
Are.

36:16.72
Andrew
You know that's not a terrible conversion rate. But it's you know means you're going to have to just the nature of the beast means you're going to have to catch people at just the right time you know people only redesign their Sas emails once every few years. Um, and if you miss that window of opportunity or when.

36:30.17
Sean
Are.

36:35.99
Andrew
It's at the top of their roadmap. You're just not going to sway them probably? Um, so um I think that one is like a much smaller market size like if if you look at the number of software companies out there. It's like you know a couple 100000 and

36:42.44
Sean
Um.

36:55.89
Andrew
Then you know the liquidity of that market shrinks that further. Um, but again, that's the more appealing business because it's higher value and higher retention. Um, and so. Yeah, if I was going to test them one at a time I would probably start there and then like work my way down the spectrum. So start there test that for a little while then move to like you know, no code going after the no code crowd and then you know maybe trying freemium is kind of a last resort.

37:20.34
Sean
Are.

37:26.99
Sean
Yeah I think that makes sense. Yeah I mean I think I think that level of prioritization makes the most sense because it's like the most optimal I think the most optimal Saas is like you have a very small handful of clients that pay you a lot of money a month and. And in terms of like what a calm What I imagine I think a calm Saas startup to be is you have a small handful of clients. Um, they buy your product for a very specific use case they pay you lots of money a month and you don't have. A bunch of customer support emails from a bunch of random people that you don't know and you kind of can sustain off of that. Um, so I think.

38:06.74
Andrew
Yeah I think the the flip side is you can get to a point where you swing in the other direction like if your price point is too high then it starts to become a service business and people expect a lot from you and you're constantly having to hold hands and like you know people expect you to.

38:15.11
Sean
Um, yeah for for sure.

38:24.76
Andrew
Maybe even fly to meet them in person and bullshit like that like Enterprise sales I think is not always a super calm process. Um, so there's there's some. It's that middle ground that most of us are trying to shoot for.

38:25.45
Sean
For sure for sure. Yeah, yeah.

38:40.80
Sean
Yeah, yeah, hundred percent a managed chart service would be very funny if you have to ah.

38:45.86
Andrew
Oh although I do think like 1 of the things that I I am open to exploring is a product eyes service where we design your you know, usage emails for you or your your report emails for you and.

39:01.21
Sean
Um, yeah.

39:04.87
Andrew
Yeah, it's one of those things that's on everyone's roadmap, but it keeps getting punted as far as I can tell so it's like is there a work aroundund there where if we come in and charge you $3000 to design it build it like build build out the automations in your system and then yeah start.

39:07.50
Sean
Yeah, yeah.

39:24.64
Andrew
Push it live and and then you're just on a you know, ah Chart juice plan from then on.

39:25.15
Sean
Um, ah so okay, so that's super interesting because um, one people have paid us money to do that and they've paid us much more than $3000 to do that and it's also because. I've never met a software engineer that wants to write like table html and like basic Css. It's not that bad. It's really not that bad but um, um, yeah, 100 % 100% um but like like.

39:43.37
Andrew
Oh everyone hates it. It's not that bad. It's not that terrible. Also there are tools out there that will write most of it for you? yeah.

40:01.10
Sean
Engineers and and also like like I rarely meet a designer that can tell me the limitations of email right? like the fact that you went and down to this rabbit hole means that you're like like 1 of 3 people I know that like know you can't have like certain things on this client versus that client. Um, um.

40:07.10
Andrew
Um.

40:20.51
Sean
And it makes me wonder if like like it's kind of cool that well sorry what I was going. Ah what I was talking about was like what like a growth plan could be and I can totally see you running an ad to a funnel page. Just for like a productized service of building saas email landing pages or Saas transactional emails then also a saas transactional like gallery so people can kind of see like oh these is where these emails look like and then you can kind of funnel traffic in through there and then you have. And then you and it's nice though. So just make money off of a product product high service I think um and I think you're right that people don't redesign them because they don't want to go through the trouble of doing it because like designers don't want to do it and engineers don't want to do it. But like if I had a saas.

41:01.25
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

41:17.17
Sean
And someone was telling me that they'll give me a bundle like they'll give me 10 to 12 different emails which you know forgot how including my forgot password flow and all that sort of stuff. Yeah I mean I don't I would pay like 3000 bugs for it and it's a kind of good way to growth hack people you becoming? yeah.

41:31.00
Andrew
E.

41:35.52
Sean
Not a bad idea. Ah.

41:38.40
Andrew
Interesting I wasn't even thinking about bundling it with other transactional emails. But that's probably a good idea to like drive up the value that people get. Um, although if I was going to do 10 transactional emails I might I might push that price up a little.

41:44.67
Sean
Um I See oh God for sure for sure. Alright, That's fair, um I Do think that like another like another type of. Because you said report emails right? and and I feel like another use case is as an agency owner um we have to like we have to. We do have to show like proof of work to our clients and it's like there's a lot of different ways to do it I don't think most dashboard reporting tools are good at all or they're incredibly expensive and we don't want to pay for it. But um.

42:03.71
Andrew
Um.

42:20.29
Sean
Ah, like some sort of report email that says like hey you're paid ad did XYZ sort of thing and like getting that design and built so that it's a matter of plugging in the data and then hitting send would be super interesting as well. Um, so yeah, yeah, um, okay.

42:35.60
Andrew
That's very interesting, very interesting. Um talk to me talk to me a little bit more about just before we jump off this this topic you mentioned like statistical significance and.

42:40.20
Sean
Um, you have a week and then we'll chat you'll figure it out. Ah.

42:45.92
Sean
Yeah.

42:53.33
Andrew
Ah, you know, making sure that the data isn't just telling you your creative sucks. Um, not that like this path isn't piable. Um, to be honest, my one I was really bad at stats in school and 2 I um.

42:58.47
Sean
Um, yeah.

43:07.60
Sean
Are.

43:13.10
Andrew
Haven't done a ton of paid ads before so like I was 100% thinking like yeah I'll just I'll take a month I will try you know a handful of outbound emails around this use case I'll build 1 integration and I'll run ads for a month

43:15.43
Sean
Um, ah.

43:32.90
Andrew
And then if I get traction great if not I'm moving on but it sounds like you're saying that that might actually be a bad way forward and that like you you could learn the wrong lessons there can you double click on that a little bit.

43:33.50
Sean
Um, yeah.

43:48.55
Sean
So I definitely think you can learn the wrong lessons. Um, you can give as many things away like for example, you can but run a bunch of ads and give ah as many things away for free and then get a bunch of.

44:02.13
Andrew
Oh I'm not talking about giving anything away for free I'm talking about charging for charging for this.

44:06.54
Sean
For sure for sure for sure. Um I just meant like I just meant like in terms of like times where your your clickthrough might be like very different right is when your your copy exactly in this case like you're running like a free like have things for free people.

44:16.86
Andrew
Yeah, oh I see.

44:25.18
Sean
Click on and they get the thing for free and then they just don't convert to any sort of user. Um, which is why I like this like product high service thing. It's like actually what we're doing with a lot of our clients. Um, as like a compelling offer like with one of our client I'm changing the subject but I'll come back. Um. I like the productized service model. It's something we're trying with our clients and and's we're like seeing it work is instead of like hey don't don't buy this like fifty k a year Sas pay us five thousand bucks it's a swipe of a credit card for a manager um get this productized service that really. Clients just using their saas product to do the thing. So for example, help like give me give me like a scan of my like Aws environment to tell me what's wrong with it will pay you x amount and like it's a consulting agreement. It's easy. Um, maybe that's not $5000 maybe that's $2000 or it's some sort of like training using the platform. Um, and this worked really well in my previous job as well. Um, and it's effectively a paid trial of the platform because they're kind of using it and seeing it and they have to be onboarded that way and it's a nice way to kind of effectively have negative cac because. You're making money off of the product. It kind of depends and it depends on like how much it costs for you to get a consultant to run through the service with them. But you can kind of build these like productized services on top of your saas product. Um, right? right? Exactly exactly? um.

45:41.92
Andrew
Yeah, also for the first couple I Just do it myself because I have unlimited time right now.

45:54.89
Sean
But the point being is that because you got them the pay. They're more willing to pay later on is the is it the thinking It's much better than like you can, but and point being is that you can you can run in a head and give I don't know something away for free that has nothing to do with your product and get a and you're effectively buying a bunch of leads that don't do anything Um, the.

45:56.42
Andrew
Yeah, so.

46:12.14
Andrew
Ah.

46:13.75
Sean
That's not the actual answer to your question about statistical significance. That's just very much about like I do think that there is a portion of like saas market validation where like like I think it's a good way to. Um, I think that's like it's a great way to find out that the thing that you want to do doesn't have any reception and no one wants it at all if you try and test. Um, but I do think that like sometimes saas market validation just kind of. Um, ah ah like reaffirms like a cut instinct you have and gives you like my point is let's say. For example, you were doing this chart thing for email. You run an ad for a week you get I don't know 20% clickth throughugh which is astounding let's say like 5 % clickth throughugh you get a couple of sign-ups and you're like okay I think I have something here but of of the actual number of clicks on her ad is like one hundred or two hundred maybe over like a week is like 700 or so you're like there's something here. Um, that could also just not be true. Once it's at scale like once it's at 40 k or or even a hundred k impression. So I guess that's my that was my point. Um and you do have to you either um.

47:33.88
Andrew
E.

47:46.81
Sean
You either start with a giant budget and you hammer Google and and and bid as on as many of these things or you um or you do the opposite and um, ah or you know you wait three to four months and you collect all that data. Um, anyway. That's the that's my that's my like two cents my very unprofessional two cents by the way. But yeah for sure for sure. Shame hundred percent

48:08.42
Andrew
Yeah, the problem is I can't do either of those things I can't drop $40000 or whatever, whatever it would cost to buy 40000 clicks and I can't wait four months before moving on to something else because I don't have unlimited runway and I think this is the challenge with.

48:27.30
Sean
Ah, is frozen in.

48:28.42
Andrew
This stage of startups is like you do have to go off of some combination of data and gut feel and the data is always like way way way less data than you want? Um, which is why people say that like user research is really the best thing to do at this stage in the game because like.

48:33.54
Sean
Yeah.

48:39.56
Sean
Right? right. Maybe.

48:48.80
Andrew
You don't know enough yet to craft really great copy to create compelling ads and compelling landing pages. Um, and you don't know enough to um, ah and like.

48:56.40
Sean
Ah.

49:03.61
Andrew
User research becomes much less about statistical significance and more just about like looking for patterns and what people tell you? um ah and so um, maybe I'm talking myself into I need to talk to more people. Um, but at the same time. Yeah I did run some Google ads like a few months ago

49:08.48
Sean
No.

49:22.86
Andrew
And the landing page was shit and I still got some clickthrough. So I think I'm probably going to run some Google ads again and again. Ah I got both so they were fake conversions right? because when I run Google ads.

49:26.72
Sean
Um, yeah, did you get click through or conversion. Okay, right.

49:41.91
Andrew
I I guess it sounds like you're very much focused on this idea of running Google ads towards a free giveaway so that you capture someone's email address I wasn't doing that at all. Um I was running Google ads to a basic landing page and that then took you to a pricing page where you could then.

49:50.16
Sean
Right? right.

50:00.35
Andrew
Pick a plan and try to start a free trial. Um, and so like I was looking at how many people were clicking on the ads and then how many of those people were clicking through to attempt to start a free trial and I was trying to make it so that you couldn't start a free trial without seeing that there was a cost associated with that thing.

50:11.68
Sean
Are.

50:18.30
Sean
Right? right.

50:20.32
Andrew
Um, to try to create this environment where it's like as much as possible. They're like trying to give me money. Um, and and if I ran this again. The the ads I would be interested in running are not like here's a.

50:29.30
Sean
Um, yeah.

50:37.70
Andrew
Free chart resource. It would be like pick a plan and be willing and you know originally I was thinking I I really wanted to collect credit cards upfront too. And so yeah, then you really do start to see are people interested in buying this thing.

50:47.15
Sean
No.

50:54.28
Sean
I Think you should run the same thing again if you got click through but offer them.

50:56.38
Andrew
At least.

51:00.99
Andrew
Um, and it wasn't great like the conversion met numbers were like slightly below average um like 2% or something like that. Um, yeah.

51:08.51
Sean
Um, 2% not about 2% is look. That's not terrible for what it's worth,, especially you know at scale. Um I think try instead of like breaking upon them clicking on a plan or something. Try putting them through the actual checkout flow and just give them lifetime access as the offer um like become an early supportive chart of charge use um get lifetime access and then I think you'll get us better sense and I think that's ah, a better way to Validate. Um.

51:43.11
Andrew
I don't like lifetime access like why? Why would you go lifetime access instead of like why is giving them a fake an offer That's different than the offer you ultimately want them to buy on better than like.

51:45.36
Sean
Ah, but you know.

51:54.25
Sean
Oh If if your product my point was like you like kind of cut that hard out. Um, if your product. So. So for example, I've I've bought. Like Lifetime access at a discount for something that just is still in like literally still in development and I'm just becoming.

52:13.96
Andrew
Um, oh you mean you mean running it where they can actually buy lifetime access before they can get access to the product. Yeah, okay okay I'm with you I'm with you. Yes, that would have been a good thing to do.

52:21.10
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly? Yeah yeah.

52:30.52
Andrew
Three months ago now I'm probably at the point where the I I'm just going to wait a week and then send them the the actual through the actual product checkout flow. okay okay okay I'm with you I'm with you.

52:35.66
Sean
Yeah, for sure which which I think is the best which I think is the best way to do it right? I think you know the second. Yeah yeah, yeah, sorry um, um, but I didn't I was bringing up the free plan as like an example of when. You're you're kind of just like looking like these these numbers become like vanity metrics because exactly what you're saying like I like the way that you did it by my ah feedback now that I'm thinking about it is it would have been more significant to get them to buy something for like fifty bucks just the kind of.

52:55.10
Andrew
Yeah.

53:07.87
Andrew
Yeah.

53:10.93
Sean
Then to do it. But now we know you know now you can make sort of infinite amount of char juices and do it that way. Um.

53:18.25
Andrew
Yeah, where were you six months ago I told you about this experiment six months ago and that's a great idea I should have done that. Ah.

53:21.75
Sean
Um, I know what do you mean? just this is this is her first episode and he didn't talk 6 sons. Um, yeah.

53:34.76
Andrew
You're going to dig up the lost statess just to just to be like why didn't you say this on and real episode one. No, that's that's good. Okay, that's that's really good. Um, okay, cool.

53:39.30
Sean
For yeah again I I just came I just thought of it for what it's worth I think I think sometime between now and the past six months I paid fifty bucks for I I think I've just been paying fifty bucks for random lifetime access to things that like. Don't exist can so then I'm three hundred bucks in the hole. That's what that's what I've learned. Um, yeah, yeah.

54:00.14
Andrew
Cool.

54:07.52
Andrew
Okay, so so just before we before we move on. You're you're you're onboard with ah when I push this thing live and in like a week running some Google ads and giving it a month of testing. Um I just need to be.

54:18.43
Sean
Um, ah.

54:24.29
Andrew
Wary that like if I don't get the results I want it doesn't necessarily mean there's no market for this thing. It just means that like my something about my marketing funnel and my product were not working. Um, okay.

54:40.51
Sean
For sure for sure I think you I think I think that um you can also just not have like marketing market fit frankly um, ah like there are like on the ecommerce on the of the Ddc ecommerce side. Um, there's there's.

54:46.50
Andrew
Yeah.

54:58.52
Sean
Products that like this is what dropshippers do actually from from what I understand right? they go online. They look a lot a blah blah and they supposedly do quote unquote research and the research is um, they look for a niche product to dropship and they all try it and they all like the majority of them all fail. But honestly, they all fail because they're kind of garbage or marketing and they don't have the money to put behind marketing and the thing that works the best in drop shipping is they go on Tiktok they look at who's using the product they look at ugc of the product and they just straight up steal like famous content creators content and turn their content into an ad. Which is not like the great like a great thing to do that I don't condone, but that's when they when they do that and they turn into a head then their product sells um right and then and then if you think about like um um I guess my point. Um my point is like. It's it's one of the ways like a lot of the internet hustle culture kids like kind of hack their creative test thing but the other way like you'll see agencies. Do it is that they'll create if you're spending like 20 k in 20 to 30 k in ads per month. They're creating like at least 5 pieces of create new creative every single week to test and then they're making little tiny um campaigns to see which one's performed the best and then they're looking every seven days um it's literally they're like yeah set it like like the the um.

56:18.50
Andrew
He.

56:27.82
Sean
Ah, the the rule of thumb is you literally set a calendar day for 7 fourteen twenty one days and you take a look and you see which one's sort of performing and which ones aren't and you kind of um, kind of pyramid up because you look at the one that has higher clickthrough and then you just kind of funnel more money behind it. Um, and then that's where my knowledge of how e-commerce those ads kind of breaks apart. Um, but um, point being is like it becomes its own function and I also think that um, like for example I think the thing we talked about the productized service makes a lot of sense and it's a completely different message than It's a completely different angle than the one that we were just talking like what you originally had for charge use which was charts for email whereas this is like create beautiful transactional emails or something like that anyway, that's my that's my rent. Um, yeah.

57:17.20
Andrew
Yeah, ah so what do I do with that.

57:24.61
Sean
Um I Ah I think that I think that if you if your hunches that your Target market are like I think the transactional email thing makes a lot of sense. Um.

57:36.42
Andrew
Do you think have you seen people have success running paid ads to a productized service. Oh that's interesting.

57:46.60
Sean
Yeah, a hundred percent a thousand percent um because product services. Their copy is always written for like like buyers that one are kind of price buyers. But also see a lot of value because they see that it's way cheaper than like a producttized design service. The copy is always like a tenth of the price of an actual designer or I don't know not a tenth but a third of the price of a senior designer for example, um, um.

58:11.44
Andrew
So.

58:19.34
Sean
It's the same thing with like courses I think in terms of how their copy is written um and courses are any of it are from like 7 50 to 2000? um give or take so I think so I also get ads I mean super side used to run ads like crazy design pickleles use to the unrun ads like crazy I think like a design. Like a productized sort of service makes a lot of sense. Um I think I think if I were I think if you hired miscreants to do to like try to grow this thing I would do 2 things I would start a. Saas inspiration gallery like a saas transactional email inspiration gallery. Um, especially with like email flows and and whatever sort of things. Um, create that put that online launch that on product hunt for the organic side and then I would also run and then I would also put an ad in there of like.

58:58.83
Andrew
Yes.

59:16.65
Sean
We'll design it for Xyz money. Um, and then try to convert that way and then get them to use basically kind of Trojan Horse chart juice into it. Um, and then run as for the productized service as well. That's my that's my two cents um oh sorry and then. The other thing I would do maybe is instead of like a productized service. Maybe there's like I have to do the research on this. But I wonder like what the template ecosystem for like transactional emails looks like um because I can see you know I can see how like the customer journey kind of moves closer and closer to that.

59:47.66
Andrew
M.

59:56.28
Sean
The moment they want like a transactional email. Um, and then I can see ads that say like don't just send and then like blank type of service like Amazon cs sendgrid resend don't just send templated sendgrid emails to your users. Um, as like the the ad um and then it's literally like. Ugly like ugly blank ad arrow pointing to a beautiful ad with beautiful charts or something like that. Um, but again, ah like that's also like a lot of work. Um and a lot of things to do so.

01:00:25.22
Andrew
Yeah, they're cool ideas I think one one difference in how we're thinking about this is that like you're thinking like how do I get this to grow and I'm thinking how do I evaluate if this is worth growing or not so.

01:00:35.45
Sean
Right. For sure for sure.

01:00:43.60
Andrew
And so I'm trying to like kind of figure out like you know which signals I can trust and which I can't and how much time I need to invest in trying to grow something around trying to grow one of these use cases before moving on to another. Um.

01:00:57.46
Sean
Yeah, that's fair. That's fair I Also think I think that's fair I think like you can't give charge use away for free indefinitely through that service so they do have to pay for it and I wouldn't know how much they yeah for sure.

01:01:02.40
Andrew
Yeah, so.

01:01:08.62
Andrew
Oh yeah, the the plan I wouldn't give give it away for free ever like it would be like the service is is X Amount upfront and then you're paying for a chart juice subscription from then on. Yeah yeah.

01:01:15.36
Sean
For sure.

01:01:22.49
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah, hundred percent hundred percent um anyway point being is that I don't know um I have I have no idea how much someone would pay for chart juice on the email side because it's so feels so niche it feels super valuable um to a very specific set of users and like I mean maybe maybe maybe you just just have to do more user research. Um, especially now that you have an avp you can kind of show them and then they can be like whoa and then I think actually.

01:01:48.98
Andrew
Yeah.

01:01:58.98
Andrew
Probably just going to do a little bit of everything I'm just going to like throw myself at user research and Google ads and product iser I'm going to try everything I can think of for at some period of time and then um, yeah.

01:01:59.70
Sean
To take a step. Yeah, hell yeah.

01:02:09.78
Sean
Yeah, yeah, um, yeah I Yeah I mean I bet you can write for founder Tonic like what a good transactional newsletter actually is or looks like and I feel like.

01:02:22.27
Andrew
Yeah, yeah.

01:02:25.16
Sean
That would also just get traction on its own so you wouldn't even have to do the other stuff. But yeah, yeah, um, yeah, good luck have fun marketing is fine huh.

01:02:34.47
Andrew
Yeah, I'm excited to to get to move back to marketing after spending three months building um all right? We've talked about me and my shit wait wait too long, but but thank you for humoring me in thinking through a lot of this stuff with me.

01:02:40.65
Sean
Yeah here.

01:02:52.40
Sean
And a row.

01:02:54.16
Andrew
Um, going to be thinking a lot about like what the right amount of time is and what signals to listen to and which to yeah take with a grain of salt. Um.

01:03:05.34
Sean
I Think we should start a growing list of things to revisit because in the loss tapes. We also talked about like this topic of like how to speed Run a how to speed run getting to know a niche and like this is also like how much time should you spend on I think we talk about like.

01:03:18.10
Andrew
E.

01:03:24.15
Sean
Jason Cohen's writing a lot and stuff and I think I feel like I don't know how much content there is on on those two things we just talked like like how much time should you actually spend on. Yeah yeah, yeah, because there's always like.

01:03:33.00
Andrew
So like how much time testing a testing an idea. Yeah, that would be awesome if someone if someone could come up with like a a good rule of thumb for like um.

01:03:41.32
Sean
Tested the idea and then it's like.

01:03:51.70
Andrew
You know? ah I heard Rob walling talking in a podcast about this. He's working on a new book about idea validation and he came up with this sort of framework. Um I think he called it the like um the like.

01:03:57.13
Sean
Yeah.

01:04:10.85
Andrew
3 3 3 or this 6 6 6 framework or something and it was like spend 6 hours ah like brainstorming ideas and like evaluating ideas on paper spend six days maybe it was five five five I don't know whatever. Um.

01:04:15.11
Sean
Um.

01:04:19.43
Sean
Are.

01:04:30.49
Andrew
Ah, spend like a week basically evaluating an idea through user research and then spend six weeks evaluating an idea by like building it and putting it out there but the missing piece to that maybe is like how much time do you spend putting it out there.

01:04:42.65
Sean
Um.

01:04:46.43
Sean
Um, yeah.

01:04:48.90
Andrew
Right? Like what is what is a reasonable amount of time to and um Brian castles on his podcast was talking about this thing that has happened to him that we've heard other founders go through which is like sometimes you put something out there with like. The bare minimum amount of marketing and stuff and built around some use case and then other people just start using it for this other thing you never thought of and that ends up being the thing you should really chase and follow and there's this question of like.

01:05:15.60
Sean
Um, right right.

01:05:24.29
Andrew
How much time do you devote to like getting it that bare minimum amount of traffic. Ah so that those people will find it and like do you start off broader and then narrow down or do you start off focused and then like.

01:05:28.73
Sean
A.

01:05:36.63
Sean
Right.

01:05:44.34
Sean
Yeah I mean I think like the most the most comprehensive way you could do this sort of validation is to just target every single angle with this idea that you can think of like like.

01:05:44.42
Andrew
Iteratively switch your focus. So.

01:06:00.75
Andrew
Yeah, yeah.

01:06:02.20
Sean
Until you exhaust all the possible like serviceable like markets then you can give up otherwise you might have something cool assuming it's like I'm assuming you have the conviction to do that sort of stuff. Um, and then yeah I mean that's like the weird thing about ads right? You're kind of. Like you don't get the variance in traffic because because you're specifically trying to target 1 use case and 1 type of person who's searching for something. Um, yeah I don't know I don't know.

01:06:28.14
Andrew
Yeah, yeah.

01:06:35.79
Andrew
All right? Well um I think I'm coming back to I'm just going to try a bunch of things. No something works.

01:06:43.20
Sean
How yeah cool. Um, this is super un helpfulful I think but.

01:06:55.60
Andrew
Um, so ah, we have 1 more thing on our list from you. You wrote down friends slash loneliness and so I just want to ask Sean are you? okay.

01:07:02.40
Sean
Um, yeah, yeah, I'm okay, I'm good I'm good I'm good. Um I think ah the thinking I think New York Tech week is coming up next week um Um, and that's super exciting and I find myself in a very weird place and maybe this is like really really um, condescending to like say in a way right? but I find myself in a very very awkward place of um as an agency owner and. Really not ah, not as much of a security practitioner at all really like I don't um, outside of my friends who who work in security and like this isn't like as a business owner and also an agency owner in a space without a lot of other agencies and other agencies are. Not that they're like competitive in a bad way or anything like that I have very few friends doing what I necessarily do um and I look forward to this podcast a lot because you and I get to talk about these things and I get to give you really bad ideas for the things that you're trying to do and that's cool. Um I did it for 2 years because you know somebody sold this company. I was sad but um, um, ah the point that I'm getting at is like I'm trying to figure out a lot of like where my like tribe is um.

01:08:31.64
Sean
And they have like an inkling like you and I follow the same type of people online so to me, um, going to those sort of events I feel like is um, like the right direction but I've also been to startup events a couple times and it's very hard to like find.

01:08:43.20
Andrew
E.

01:08:50.60
Sean
The right level of like signal to noise because frankly, if I go to a rooftop bar on a Wednesday or on a Thursday night for startup founders that are supposed to be for startup founders. It's a lot of people who like are still like at the very beginning stages of their thing. Um, so it's very hard to meet people who are in my shoes here.

01:08:51.47
Andrew
Yeah, yeah.

01:09:06.76
Andrew
E.

01:09:09.90
Sean
Um, but then also right I think like Rob walling microconf is like literally supposed to be for like Sas saas founders like that and then I find it very weird because um um I don't run a saas so then it's like this extra thing of like oh yeah I run it like an agency.

01:09:25.64
Andrew
Yeah.

01:09:27.47
Sean
Um I got put into like an amazing marketing slack like like ah like like heads of marketing from like webflow or all these sort of like tools you guys like on the internet use are all in there and I'm in there I'm like. Yeah I run like an agency I'm not really like I I wasn't like head of marketing of like a sort of thing. Um, so it's been this weird I don't know it's been this like very weird sort of thing that I'm trying to figure out. Um you know I found like kinship with like security creators in a way even though I'm not a security creator. Um, or at least like used to be it a long time ago. But I think that level that sort of friendship is different just because we also like do a lot of work and then support them in that way. Um, so I'm trying to find like like that sort of mastermind peer group and I haven't found exactly the right thing. Um, think I'm I'm thinking about this insane this because like ah since it's the summer since the Summer New York bunch of tech events are happening and went to the versll one and I'm like what am I doing at this first cell one. It's cool to like cause play as a frontend engineer but like this is like the first commit I've made to github in a year at this point. Um, um, and then I'm ah tech week is next week and I think there's more like founder events and stuff. But it's still very different in that way. Um, and maybe maybe this is like a good time to say you're right I should have joined like it was a bureau digital.

01:10:46.53
Andrew
Yeah.

01:10:55.82
Sean
Or something a long time ago and she just paid for that because I'm remembering that now. But um, um, yeah, anyway, that's just sort of like that's my this is me venting now. But.

01:11:01.78
Andrew
So yeah I think you're feeling a thing that like a lot of founders go through which is where do I find other founders like we're kind of an odd bunch and um and you know.

01:11:12.43
Sean
In.

01:11:19.36
Andrew
Love having friends who aren't founders I feel like is very grounding and like reminds me that a lot of this startup Bullshit I Obsess over doesn't really matter all that much. Um, but I also really really value having founder friends who I can geek out about stuff with and you know talk about pricing models and you know how to.

01:11:20.91
Sean
For sure.

01:11:28.99
Sean
That that's for sure.

01:11:38.56
Andrew
Validated ideas and all this stuff. Um, so um, yeah I felt a lot of the same about microcompmp for a long time where I was like do I Really belong like will people like not really want me to be there I think fuck it. Ah if you if you're interested in that crowd.

01:11:40.20
Sean
Um.

01:11:50.54
Sean
In. Okay.

01:11:56.40
Andrew
Join it I mean I I held off on going this year because I um didn't don't have a whole lot of disposable income right now. Yeah, um, but um I really want to go go in the future and Rob said something great on his podcast recently which is.

01:12:01.58
Sean
Because because you're because yeah because you're unemployed, you're.

01:12:16.20
Andrew
If you want to be at microconf then you belong at microconf which I thought was a really cool thing to say because I think that helps to spell some of that imposter syndrome that that people feel um and I think some of this like like being in that marketing slack right? like someone invited you I think of.

01:12:18.48
Sean
Him A. Fair hey.

01:12:36.14
Andrew
You know some of the the sort of like famous marketers and you know you I think of Rand Fishkin um I think of ah the guy who runs the Philly Seo agency whose name I can't remember right off the top of my head. Um, no.

01:12:40.55
Sean
Um, right.

01:12:51.73
Sean
Near Patel is he filling? No right right.

01:12:55.88
Andrew
Um, but but Neil Patel is another good example. Um I think of ah you know a lot of these people started at agencies or run agencies and um and so I think marketing in particular is hopefully an area where like it doesn't matter if you run an agency or not.

01:13:05.70
Sean
Um, great.

01:13:11.43
Sean
For sure.

01:13:13.50
Andrew
If people see you as a marketer then they see you as a marketer and who cares about the rest. Um, and then the other thing I was going to say was you should join bureau of digital because like the bureau of digital is Microcomp for agency owners. It's That's exactly what it is.

01:13:19.84
Sean
Yeah, yeah, got show. No show. Yeah, and that wraps up are our one and a half hour bureau digital ad.

01:13:30.20
Andrew
I Will happily rep bureau of digital all the time I'm not a member anymore but like it was the best professional group that I had ever joined I was so impressed.

01:13:39.71
Sean
Um, yeah, got you? Okay, okay I will check it out I will check it out I completely forgot about it until I've been like. Ah.

01:13:46.19
Andrew
I Always wanted to go to one of the in-person events but they're fucking expensive but I just looked at it as like my company is not profitable enough yet for me to go to this thing.

01:13:58.45
Sean
Yeah that's like that's like the other side of um, that's like the other side of it is like I feel like like I'm farther along than someone who like still wants to be or like is the very stages and haven't gotten hasn't gone in their first customer yet. But I'm not as far along in a place where like. Like I can't go and be a part of Hampton not that I like qualify at all if I could but like or they would they would exactly want me there but I um right it's it's like a little bit weird. Yeah, nice. Nice.

01:14:25.31
Andrew
Yeah I get you but you qualify for bureau of digital for sure and like the site group is much more affordable than the in-person events. Although the in-person events look fun as hell. Oh that's cool, Nice nice.

01:14:35.15
Sean
yeah yeah I am going to an indie hacker one um because it's tech week so they're having one in New York so i' very excited with that. Yeah, we'll see we'll see how that goes cool. You want to really quickly tell me about the universe or yeah.

01:14:44.64
Andrew
That'll be fun. Yeah cool, cool man. Let's let's save it for next time we're we're running a little bit over so we'll talk about the universe next time by.

01:14:53.62
Sean
Right? Okay, fine, fair enough, fair enough. Okay, cool Bye everyone for tuning it to take or by.

01:15:03.20
Andrew
Later.