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He Sold His First Software Business For Millions with No Experience - YouTube
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if you try to build software where you
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don't deeply understand the problem or
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you don't deeply understand the customer
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you're never going to succeed because
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you'll always be one step behind a
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competitor that does
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I didn't want to just be like a Facebook
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ads monkey anymore if I can just stack
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up enough money to start a software
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company I think that's where I'll make
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the real money
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all three of my software companies have
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just been productized apis I always knew
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that I wanted to do something in
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software that's where the highest
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Leverage is you can sell the same thing
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over and over and over again you get 10
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15x multiples on you know the value of
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your company building no code software
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companies or just productizing an API
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selling them on acquire.com they're
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making millions of dollars a year it's
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not hard to start a software company in
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this day and age these large language
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models have apis if I were to start a
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SAS company for the very first time in
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2023 I would
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welcome to the we're gonna make it
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podcast where we talk about the
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nitty-gritty tactics that underground
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entrepreneurs are using to build their
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businesses to the seven and eight
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figures the goal of this podcast is to
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go into excruciating detail on the
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tactics and strategies that they're
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using right now so hopefully you can
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implement it into your business and see
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more success if you like tips like this
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you can always subscribe to our free
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newsletter but other than that please
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enjoy the episode
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Kieran I guess Karen O'Brien my longtime
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friend I suppose at this point but
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brother you have sold two software
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companies in what the last 18 months
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yeah yeah roughly 18 months incredible
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and it's cool because you've done two
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different kinds of software you have
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like a typical software company then you
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have like a micro sass yeah and Iman got
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what Iman actually ended up buying yeah
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yeah he did so that's a cool story I
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want to get into later in the podcast
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sure let's start with media kids because
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that was the big one for you now for
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legal reasons guys you know I love to
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ask how much money people make right out
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the gate but Kieran
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signed a contract he can't talk about it
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yeah but he's doing well let's just say
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that and he had tens of thousands of
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users so do the math but basically what
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was media kits how did you come up with
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the idea and just tell me all about that
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yeah so medikits.com was basically like
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it was a SAS platform for data and
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analytics for influencers and online
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creators and so basically it would take
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all the apis of the popular social
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platforms and it would put all your
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analytics into like a one-pager that you
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would then use to connect with Brands so
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we had some of the biggest influencers
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in the world celebrities using our
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product and they would basically take
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their their link with all their
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analytics and you know when an
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influencer goes to a brand and they want
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to do they want to promote the brand
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they want to do a shout out or get paid
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for for something like that typically
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they would always go to their analytics
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and take screenshots and so we kind of
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saw that that was an outdated process
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and wasn't it wasn't very scalable and
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the the analytics always get outdated
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and so we basically just built like a
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really clean ux around some apis and
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turned it into a product that ended up
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going really viral on Tick Tock and
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Twitter and some other places so
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basically people like influencers would
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try to get sponsors to make money to
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monetize their exactly yeah so they had
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a really hard time sponsors would want
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to know how many views do you typically
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get yeah how many followers you have
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comments engagement agent agent gender
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breakdown geographic location of your
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followers all of that and there's really
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no easy way to find that information
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there's a bunch of tools online that
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that scrape that information and guess
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it but nobody knows that information
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accurately other than the platforms
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themselves and so you kind of have to go
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to the source and then the next issue
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beyond that is it's on a per platform
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basis so if you're a brand and you want
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to pay an influencer for a shout out on
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Tick Tock Twitter Instagram and YouTube
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those are all different companies that
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don't talk to each other that don't
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share data between each other yes and so
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you'd have to go and screenshot your
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analytics on each of those platforms one
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by one to be able to give the brand of
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you into that and that makes a lot of
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sense because they'd only want a video
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on maybe Tick Tock for this specific
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campaign right yeah and then another
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thing you mentioned when I was watching
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your video guys check out his channel he
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makes a lot of great YouTube content on
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this Karen O'Brien but you in that video
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you were talking about not only were the
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they struggling to even get it but it
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constantly is changing because every
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month your views are different exactly
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you guys kept it live updated with the
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apis exactly every day every week
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um you know people were going in and
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updating their media kits previously
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like before our product people would use
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Photoshop or canva or something like
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that and they would be going in there
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updating it every single day every
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single week in a lot of cases graphic
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designers full-time job right exactly so
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they would have graphic designers on
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staff a lot of the talent agencies that
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we worked with so we had a B2B model too
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or we'd sell both smart yeah we'd sell
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bulk seats to talent agencies that's
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actually where we made most of our
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Revenue
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um and so like they would have full-time
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graphic designers on staff just updating
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media kits like changing ones to twos
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and threes to fours and it was just
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ridiculous and then the individual
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creators they would have Freelancers
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that they'd hire to do like graphic
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design to update their media kits or
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they'd be doing it themselves and it
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would take them hours and hours every
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single week so I mean ultimately the
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product just solved the problem that was
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painful enough for people to be willing
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to pay for it okay so two things I want
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to point out here one you're just
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referencing that you're using apis so I
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feel like a lot of people over
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complicate software can you just explain
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like what an API is and how you can wrap
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that into a software company yeah
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absolutely so an API is basically data
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structures that a company will make
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public to their own platform so most
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large technology companies have apis
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where sometimes they're gated you have
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to apply for them but sometimes they're
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public and basically you can tap into
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these these endpoints in in these apis
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and you can pull valuable data so for
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example meta's API which we used for
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media kits had things like you know
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follower account and gender breakdown
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and Geographic breakdown and you know
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follower growth over time and all these
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things and so we would use those apis
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we'd make API calls through our
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application to grab that data and use it
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in our product and so you know same
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thing with the company that I sold to
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Iman it was just an API that we put into
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a really nice user experience from a CRM
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product that did didn't have a very good
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reporting dashboard and so we built a
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reporting dashboard for this CRM and
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productized it and then my new SAS
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company too we're taking apis and
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productizing it so you know I always
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tell people
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starting a SAS company starting a
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software company you don't you do not
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need to know how to code you do not need
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to come up with the next Facebook it can
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be something as simple as a no code
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simple clean ux that just takes an API
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and productizes it you set endpoints and
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data structures I just want to clarify
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for everybody basically if you have a
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Twitter API and you tweet you can
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connect the API to your own software and
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the tweet on Twitter will show up in
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your software exactly yeah that's super
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simple yeah that's one example of it
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yeah and so all you have to do is find
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like a specific use case of that
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information and then brand it and Market
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it towards that demographic that has
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that problem yeah and you can sell your
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company for a lot of money essentially
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exactly and I get another simple way to
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break it down would be like companies
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have apis to make the user experience
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for their users better and so we'll use
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the Twitter example that you just gave
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right so Twitter has all this data but
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they're not using it in every single
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possible way that you can use that data
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right Twitter is using it to create a
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social platform right and so making
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their API public allows developers and
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you know people like us to go and build
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software companies that solve like more
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Niche problems around that same data so
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let's say you know Twitter is really
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focused on just building a social
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platform and they're not as focused on
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helping creators get brand deals so
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somebody like me can come along and
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build mediakits.com and take the Twitter
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API and use that data to extrapolate
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even more data and like make inferences
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and and create uh you know different
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data based off of the parent data if
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that makes sense so we'll find Trends in
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the data that Twitter doesn't even like
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hyperspect exactly and then we use that
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to build a product that allows Twitter
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influencers to get brand deals right and
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that's not something that Twitter is
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going to build themselves but they give
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all that data away to the public
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to make lot to make life easier for
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their users like why wouldn't they want
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somebody who's a Twitter influencer to
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be making more money it'll keep them on
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the platform so you know these platforms
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that have apis are incentivized to open
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source them to developers and
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entrepreneurs to make even more specific
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products around them it sounds really
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complicated but it's truly really simple
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yeah and the apis exist for that reason
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exactly like make them publicly
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available so people like you can use
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them for your own software your own use
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case because it makes their platform
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better exactly it's called an API key
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you just have to go to their website
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apply for one copy paste just like that
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you have API so you know these apis
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exist but how did you come up with this
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idea like you don't just know that you
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need media kids if you've never been in
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the industry so how did you come up with
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the idea in general yeah so the crazy
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story about media kits is I came up with
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the idea when I was 17 when I was in
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high school and then I didn't actually
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start the company until almost four
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years later and so yeah that's what a
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lot of people think that like you know
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that we just came up with this idea and
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then we built out the idea four years
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before you like started it yeah and so
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I'll give you I'll tell you why okay um
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there's actually two reasons so the
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first reason is basically I just didn't
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know what I was doing and I knew that
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and I was like I'm not going to start a
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software company because I don't have
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enough money and I have no idea what I'm
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doing I don't even know where to start
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um and that's totally totally a valid
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thing and you know maybe I could have
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started and who knows what would have
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happened if I started the company back
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in 2017 but
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um the other reason is that I just felt
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like the market wasn't ready so
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influencer marketing kind of blew up in
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like 2015-16 with the rise of Instagram
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and then there was kind of this lull
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from like 2017 to 2018 and what really
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brought back the Creator economy and
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kind of created this new Resurgence of
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um you know of of activity in in that
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industry was Tick Tock and so I noticed
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that and that's that's why we launched
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media kits kind of at the at the very
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early stages of 2020 like during covid
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everyone's locked locked down at home
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they're on their phones Tick Tock blows
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up that's when you know like Charlie
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demilio Addison Ray all these Tick Tock
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influencers kind of blew up and that's
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when we started media kits because we
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kind of saw that Trend and we're like
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okay the influencer economy is back we
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have an idea for a tool now we have you
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know the resources and the connections
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to actually make this work so let's do
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it
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so that's where you saw the timing which
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is super important because there's so
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many stories I know there's a company
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that had like a almost like an iPhone S
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level phone in the early 2000s and they
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invested millions of dollars into it but
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it was just too early the apps this like
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ecosystem internet mobile internet was
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horrible so it didn't work but 10 years
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later when Steve Jobs rolls it out it's
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a hit even though the technology really
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wasn't much different so that's a really
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interesting insight and I loved hearing
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that but how did you actually come up
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with the idea how did you identify that
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problem because with influencer
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marketing there's like 20 different
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steps that go into it and I think you
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did a really good job of identifying
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like one clunky pain point and then
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hyper focusing on that yeah I do want to
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go into how you identified that yeah
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absolutely so when I was 17 I was
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running a marketing agency and I was I
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was helping and when I say that I don't
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want that to sound intimidating to
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anybody because it was literally just a
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glorified freelance business like I was
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running Facebook and Google ads and
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helping with influencer marketing for
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like three three businesses and so one
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of them was a company that sold Auto
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Parts online and so they had a budget
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for influencers and they wanted to try
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to you know to spend this Budget on some
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on some influencers and one of my best
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friends uh Jr garage has a big
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Automotive YouTube channel right and so
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yeah he's right down the street and I
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was basically connecting my client with
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him to do this brand deal and they were
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like well can we see his insights can we
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see his data and uh they they actually
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specifically asked for a Media Kit and
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when they said that I'm like I have no
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idea what a Media Kit is like let me
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just Google this real quick I'm like
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what is Media Kit it's like oh it's like
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a it's like a page like a one pager with
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all of your analytics and data and media
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kits actually before the whole
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influencer marketing thing uh existed
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even before social media media kits have
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been used for decades in uh the
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journalism space so newspapers print
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magazines traditional media they've
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always used media kits to Showcase like
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their their monthly readers and stuff
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like that and so Media Kit was a very
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popular term in in the journalism space
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and it started getting adopted in the
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influencer space at the time and so I'm
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online I'm like oh cool like yeah let me
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just go make a Media Kit for Jr real
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quick there's got to be a website that
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just does this for you like of course
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duh it's like the most obvious thing
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ever I'm like looking around like there
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isn't like why why does this not exist
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and so you know that's I actually did
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kind of start media kits back then like
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I I got the domain I actually even did
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some of that yeah I did some mock-ups I
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got the Instagram handle got the got the
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uh the web domain did some initial UI
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mock-ups and then I got a quote from a
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from a web development agency that was
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going to build it for me and I'm like 17
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at the time I'm making like a couple
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Grand a month like running this
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freelance marketing business and they
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quoted me like twenty five thousand
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dollars to build this software and I'm
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like that's the most amount of money
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I've ever heard in a sentence before I'm
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like I don't have twenty five thousand
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dollars like I barely have twenty five
[779]
hundred dollars so I'm like well that's
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that like let me just you know keep
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doing these marketing services and so I
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kind of just shelved at the idea I
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always knew that it was a good idea I
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always thought like maybe one day I'll
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build it but again like the market
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timing wasn't right and I didn't have
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the the resources or the know-how at the
[798]
time to do it and back then you know for
[801]
everybody listening I didn't know about
[803]
no code I didn't know uh you know about
[806]
like building an MVP and and doing
[808]
something kind of like really like low
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or no code and then you know building
[812]
something bigger later I didn't
[814]
understand these Concepts I did I knew
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nothing about software I didn't even
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understand the concept of fundraising
[818]
that I could go out and get other people
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to give me money to build this thing so
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kind of just continued on with life I
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built I built that marketing agency into
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a seven figure company and I did really
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well with it and that's actually how I
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made like my first kind of like real
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money which I then used to start media
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kits you know four years later you hear
[837]
that story a lot the agency cash flows
[839]
and then you dump that into like a
[840]
higher leverage opportunity absolutely
[842]
but you actually ended up raising money
[844]
for Media Kids yeah so
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that's really interesting first off how
[848]
did you have one more backtrack how did
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you have the self-awareness not to start
[853]
it or to wait so I'd love to sit here
[856]
and tell you that I'm super self-aware
[858]
and that it was like but dude honestly
[859]
it was the fact that if I had 25 Grand I
[863]
probably would have done it and I
[864]
probably would have ended up broke with
[865]
nothing to show for it because looking
[867]
back at that development agency probably
[869]
would not have been able we spent
[870]
hundreds of thousands of dollars
[871]
building media kits so knowing what it
[874]
takes now uh like 25 Grand no way we
[876]
would have had anything that actually
[878]
worked it's safe I would 100 say with
[880]
confidence that software is the best
[881]
business like the best business model
[883]
absolutely as far as like just
[884]
objectively High leverage recurring
[886]
revenue and your ability to exit yep and
[889]
so many people don't think that it's
[890]
like beginner friendly so now that
[892]
you've gone through it because you kind
[894]
of said you didn't start it at the
[895]
beginning because you weren't too hard
[897]
there's too high of a barrier to entry
[898]
in my mind but do you think that's true
[900]
now no I think software people should
[903]
like if you're going to start a business
[904]
objectively you want to start the best
[905]
business and so it's software is the
[907]
best business is there anything holding
[909]
back a beginner from just jumping
[910]
straight into software it's never been a
[912]
better time to start a software business
[913]
there are so many resources out there
[915]
there's so many ways to to build a
[918]
software business both conceptually and
[919]
tactically
[921]
um that it just kind of level the
[922]
playing field like it's really a game of
[924]
distribution of marketing now at this
[926]
point did you study like y combinator on
[928]
YouTube or how did you end up getting
[930]
those skills no you know what not not
[932]
really like I didn't even know about
[934]
like the whole VC World until we started
[937]
raising for media kicks like I didn't
[938]
even know that it existed quite frankly
[940]
like I was like I was in this world with
[943]
with like Iman and these guys like in
[945]
like the digital marketing space like
[947]
that was my world from 2016 to
[950]
2019. I didn't know anything about like
[953]
Silicon Valley like the of course like I
[955]
knew that it existed but I didn't know
[957]
any of the intricacies about like how to
[958]
fundraise and how to you know take an
[960]
MVP to Market or like join y comedy or
[963]
any of these things didn't know they
[964]
existed until I started raising for
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media kits so so you did raise money for
[968]
Media Kids yeah what was that experience
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like I don't want to really go into like
[971]
how to do it necessarily because we'll
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talk about that later yeah but in
[976]
general obviously it worked out because
[977]
you sold the company but I've always
[979]
been like I feel like that's another
[980]
level of pressure to you yeah so is that
[983]
if you had the choice again would you do
[985]
it again it's a complicated question
[988]
um for a couple reasons but what I will
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say I want to preface this by saying
[991]
that we bootstrapped media kits first so
[994]
by like by 2019 when we were kind of
[997]
thinking about starting it I'd saved up
[998]
like a couple hundred grand and that was
[1001]
from my marketing agency and I started
[1003]
spending it on on media kits so I was
[1006]
paying for everything out of pocket so
[1007]
we hired two engineers and a software
[1010]
designer and I was spending like 15 to
[1013]
18 000 a month of my own money when I
[1015]
only had I only had a couple hundred
[1017]
grand in the bank and I was spending
[1018]
like almost 20 grand a month just to
[1020]
build the software I almost ran out of
[1022]
money like I would cost mainly just
[1023]
developers uh two developers and a
[1025]
designer yeah
[1027]
they were all about like five six
[1029]
thousand bucks a month each and then you
[1030]
have server costs and you have all these
[1031]
other things on top of it and yeah I
[1034]
just started to run out of money and so
[1035]
out of desperation I started to learn
[1037]
how to fundraise and so I guess to
[1039]
answer your question if I had like
[1040]
millions and millions of dollars back
[1042]
you know in 2019
[1044]
probably wouldn't have fundraised but
[1046]
I'm glad that we did looking back the
[1049]
only reason that we had the success that
[1052]
we did with it was because our investors
[1054]
opened so many doors to us you know we
[1056]
had Wiz Khalifa We had the guys from
[1058]
[聽__聽] Jerry we had you know so many
[1060]
influential people in the space that
[1062]
just opened doors to us whether that was
[1064]
to our B2B customers talent agencies
[1067]
getting some of the biggest influencers
[1069]
in in the space on board getting some of
[1071]
the biggest music labels you know we we
[1073]
signed contracts with a couple of the I
[1075]
can't talk about it but a couple of the
[1076]
biggest music labels in in the world
[1077]
because of the people that we had on our
[1080]
cap table the people that we had as
[1081]
investors so as I'm hearing you say this
[1083]
I'm like damn this guy's like connected
[1085]
out the ass he's got it all it's like no
[1086]
wonder he's successful but I really like
[1088]
want to focus on like the time when you
[1090]
were bootstrapping sure like yeah the
[1092]
amount of time you had to spend waiting
[1094]
I'm sure because you're not are you
[1095]
technical yourself no so you can't code
[1097]
nope get your partner code at all nope
[1099]
it was yeah Casey couldn't either both
[1100]
of you are non-technical so you got to
[1102]
hire the technical team yep I only have
[1104]
one quick Interruption for the podcast
[1105]
today guys we're in the future and right
[1108]
now you can actually build software with
[1110]
no code on a platform called Bubble not
[1112]
only that you can actually plug AI into
[1115]
bubble to build any AI software tool you
[1118]
want very quickly we actually figured
[1120]
out how to build a AI tool to help
[1122]
students with their homework in just a
[1124]
few weeks and we actually made a free
[1126]
course showing exactly how we did
[1127]
everything from plugging in the AI
[1129]
building the actual app itself and then
[1131]
even connecting stripe to accept
[1133]
payments and again that's a completely
[1135]
free course that you can find in the
[1136]
link in the description below other than
[1138]
that guys enjoy the podcast share it
[1140]
with your friend if you're learning
[1141]
something this has been a really good
[1142]
one so far and it only gets better
[1144]
you're spending 15 to 20K a month to get
[1146]
it built by these developers but really
[1148]
you're just kind of telling them the
[1149]
general idea and then you have to wait
[1150]
like a week or two for them to build it
[1152]
yeah it's like
[1153]
first off that's stressful as [聽__聽] super
[1156]
stressful and when you're making no
[1157]
money too and you don't even know if the
[1159]
idea is really validated so did you have
[1161]
any form of validating the idea and what
[1163]
were you doing in the meantime while the
[1164]
developers were just working yeah great
[1167]
question so
[1168]
you're trying to start a software
[1170]
company
[1170]
this is something that we did at media
[1172]
kits
[1173]
we did this kind of well
[1176]
um but my my next two software companies
[1177]
after that we did we've like obsessed
[1179]
over this and that is
[1182]
um basically going out to your to your
[1183]
target audience and surveying them and
[1185]
getting feedback on on a concept or an
[1188]
MVP so MVP stands for minimum viable
[1190]
product that's like that should be like
[1192]
your North Star if you're thinking about
[1194]
starting a software company Define what
[1196]
your MVP is going to be so what is the
[1198]
least features the the the basically the
[1201]
most stripped down version of the
[1204]
perfect product that you have in your
[1205]
head that you can build for the cheapest
[1206]
amount of money in the quickest amount
[1208]
of time get it to Market stress test it
[1210]
see if people would pay for it so like
[1212]
one core function that is like the main
[1214]
value and it doesn't even have to be
[1216]
software it can be a clickable prototype
[1218]
it can be a it can be a Wix website that
[1221]
has a couple hyperlinks on it like
[1223]
literally our first Media Kit that was
[1225]
like our you know our MVP was literally
[1227]
just a figma prototype like we put a
[1230]
couple screens in figma and you can like
[1231]
link things in figma to make it in a
[1233]
prototype make it look like it's a real
[1234]
app and we just had a clickable
[1237]
prototype and we would send this to
[1238]
influencers be like hey if this existed
[1240]
would you use it
[1242]
yes great how much would you pay for it
[1244]
so you would send in like a landing page
[1245]
explaining what it is and then just say
[1247]
hey is this something that you would use
[1248]
if it actually worked right now exactly
[1250]
they couldn't get any output yep exactly
[1252]
so so you but you're verbally asking
[1254]
them we're you know we were in DMS we
[1256]
were dming people called dming people we
[1258]
were reaching out to friends who were
[1259]
influencers and having them message
[1261]
their influencer friends and just like
[1262]
Network effect we put out a type form
[1264]
that I think got like three or four
[1266]
hundred responses okay cool um so even
[1268]
like down to our price point like we
[1269]
charged 29 bucks a month for media kits
[1271]
our price point was determined by
[1273]
surveys that we sent out to our users
[1275]
sorry keep going no I was just gonna say
[1277]
we're we were very data focused and
[1280]
again in retrospect we didn't even do it
[1283]
to the extent that I would have wanted
[1285]
to like it was kind of an afterthought
[1287]
it was like holy [聽__聽] I'm spending 20
[1289]
grand a month let me let me make sure
[1291]
people would use this so it was a few
[1292]
months into that that I was like let me
[1294]
just go ask people if they would
[1295]
actually use this yeah so we did it
[1296]
retroactively but you know I think
[1298]
anybody out there who's thinking about
[1299]
starting a software company if you can
[1301]
come up with an MBA P it could be no
[1303]
code it could be just a clickable
[1304]
prototype you don't have to know how to
[1306]
code the barrier to entry really is that
[1308]
low it's so exciting creating an MVP get
[1311]
out there talk to your customers
[1312]
everyone says that but until you're like
[1314]
in that moment it's kind of hard to like
[1316]
consider it so what what is like what
[1318]
did the survey say and how did you
[1320]
incentivize people to fill it out yeah
[1321]
so it would be
[1323]
um so to incentivize them to fill it out
[1325]
they would basically we would promise
[1326]
them that they would get like Early
[1327]
Access and that they would get like a
[1329]
discount on it when it eventually came
[1331]
out so that was that was pretty easy and
[1333]
like there's plenty of ways to
[1334]
incentivize people to do things right
[1336]
um so yeah but the the main thing is it
[1339]
was like a logic based survey so we used
[1341]
a type form so it was like if somebody
[1342]
clicked something on the on page one it
[1344]
would take them to a different page than
[1345]
if they click something else then right
[1347]
yeah so there's a bunch of logic built
[1348]
into it so it's like would you use this
[1351]
if yes then well why would you use it
[1354]
it's like well I'd use it for this
[1356]
reason there's like a drop down with
[1357]
like four different things and it's like
[1358]
okay and then you know use it for that
[1361]
reason like well how often would you use
[1363]
it and how much would you pay for it and
[1364]
this is not it's like well if you
[1366]
wouldn't use this why okay for that
[1368]
reason okay well what would make you
[1370]
want to use it right so we just
[1372]
collected as much information from our
[1374]
Target users as we could and that kind
[1376]
of helped us inform product decisions
[1378]
down the line okay so that's another
[1380]
interesting point you said down the line
[1381]
yeah I'm like non-talk non-technical but
[1384]
we're building software right yeah and I
[1385]
have like a million different feature
[1386]
ideas that I want done but I'm getting
[1388]
so ahead of myself because like we're
[1390]
just now getting the MVP done yeah every
[1392]
idea I have could add two three four
[1394]
weeks of an expensive developer
[1395]
absolutely so what like First off how
[1398]
did you choose what's Implement what not
[1400]
obviously it's probably just like a risk
[1401]
reward yeah but like tell me more about
[1403]
what you were doing in that meantime
[1405]
while you were waiting so there's con
[1406]
there's this concept called called A
[1408]
control point
[1409]
so it's like you want to create
[1411]
something that becomes like the control
[1413]
point for the rest of your products so
[1415]
what is like that core product like for
[1416]
us it was the media kit at media kits
[1418]
right and then we can expand from there
[1420]
okay okay so if we can build the best
[1423]
simplest easiest to use Media Kit
[1424]
product out there then eventually we can
[1426]
go build a Marketplace or we can build a
[1428]
B2B offering for talent agencies we can
[1430]
do this this and that right and even so
[1432]
uh to give further context on that our
[1435]
MVP was just uh Twitter
[1439]
Instagram and Facebook we didn't even
[1441]
have Tick Tock or YouTube when we
[1442]
launched so that's another example of
[1444]
how you can do an MVP like limit
[1446]
Integrations limit the amount of UI that
[1448]
you're building limit the amount of
[1449]
functionality and so the idea the goal
[1453]
of your user interviews when you're
[1454]
early when you're when you're building
[1455]
your MVP should be to find out what is
[1458]
the one thing that would make them use
[1460]
it what is the one thing that's
[1462]
non-negotiable right and then from there
[1465]
you can build the rest of the features
[1466]
but you've got to get their attention
[1468]
you got to get them in first and so what
[1470]
is that thing that's going to get them
[1471]
in and what you'll find
[1473]
this goes for anybody building any kind
[1476]
of software whether it's a no code like
[1477]
bubble software or something really
[1479]
complex it doesn't matter what it is
[1481]
what you're going to find is your early
[1482]
adopters your early users are are going
[1485]
to use just a couple core
[1487]
functionalities and they don't care
[1488]
about everything else all the cool
[1490]
feature ideas you have in your head
[1491]
there are definitely people out there
[1493]
that would use that and that would also
[1494]
think it's cool but in the beginning
[1496]
there are plenty of the users out there
[1498]
that would use and pay for just the very
[1500]
very simple version of you know just
[1503]
your core functionality and so that's
[1504]
kind of what the goal of the survey is
[1505]
is to see what most people are trying to
[1507]
use it for exactly and you might find
[1509]
out I'm sure you didn't but you might
[1511]
find out that like almost everybody's
[1512]
using it for a complete different reason
[1513]
than why you make it so you might have
[1514]
an idea to Pivot but exactly was it
[1516]
pretty consistent it was pretty
[1517]
consistent I think we did a good job at
[1519]
collecting the feedback and
[1520]
understanding what people were saying
[1522]
you know the old saying is like if you
[1523]
try to please everyone you'll please no
[1524]
one yeah that goes for all areas of life
[1526]
but especially in software like if you
[1528]
it's called feature brain if you're too
[1530]
feature brain and you're thinking and
[1532]
this is this is both on the product
[1533]
product and the sales side if your
[1536]
product is too feature heavy and not not
[1538]
outcome or solution heavy then it's not
[1541]
going to work and on conversely on the
[1544]
sales side if you're selling software
[1545]
even and for anybody listening if you're
[1547]
maybe working for a software company and
[1549]
you're selling software for a living if
[1551]
you're just selling the features all day
[1552]
like no no one buys features people buy
[1555]
outcomes people buy solutions to
[1557]
problems and so if you can think about
[1560]
that from a product perspective and
[1562]
build software that solves problems
[1564]
then the features will come
[1567]
because all people are thinking about
[1568]
how is it how does it benefit me
[1569]
directly absolutely they're not thinking
[1571]
about the technical API connection they
[1572]
just want to know how I can use this to
[1574]
make my life better yeah and there's so
[1576]
many rabbit holes we can go down here
[1577]
but like what I'll say is like if you go
[1578]
to medikits.com and like you look at our
[1580]
old like our website I don't obviously I
[1582]
don't own the company anymore but it's
[1583]
still there you can go to our website
[1585]
all the copy on the website it's not
[1588]
um it's not uh you know Common you know
[1591]
show all your analytics it's like get
[1593]
more brand deals right it's like the end
[1595]
result exactly it's the outcome like
[1597]
make yourself look more professional
[1599]
right impress Brands like this is the
[1602]
type of copy that we used on our on our
[1604]
website because that's what the product
[1606]
does the product gets you to an outcome
[1609]
gets you to finding a solution for this
[1611]
really annoying problem that you've been
[1613]
having and a lot of a lot of software
[1616]
companies and quite frankly any kind of
[1618]
company like if you don't know what your
[1620]
customers are looking for in terms of
[1622]
outcomes and and solutions to their
[1624]
problems then you're never going to
[1626]
build a good product it's like like
[1627]
that's such a good point it's like why
[1629]
does this exist because you could say
[1630]
two different things in your landing
[1631]
page get all of your social media
[1633]
statistics in one place yeah that could
[1634]
be your landing page copy or get more
[1636]
brand deals yep exact same product but
[1639]
that one actually resonates with people
[1640]
much more strongly exactly why they sign
[1642]
up that's really cool outcome based
[1644]
outcome-based selling outcome based copy
[1645]
that's a great one okay thank you for
[1647]
that that taught me a really clear
[1649]
Insight now Okay cool so is there
[1651]
anything else during that like to
[1653]
optimize your time in that building
[1654]
phase when you're just syncing the money
[1656]
in that you decided to do that was like
[1658]
helpful in any way uh
[1665]
um you know honestly man that that part
[1667]
of my life was like a blur like it was
[1669]
just so are you still doing agency work
[1671]
on the side yeah oh for sure like yeah I
[1673]
was just like barely like I was just
[1674]
trying to break even every month like I
[1676]
was like if I can make like like because
[1678]
my agency at the time I was doing like
[1680]
maybe 50 60 Grand a month in in top line
[1682]
revenue so I was taking home like 20 or
[1684]
30 and I was spending all of it on
[1686]
software and then everything personal
[1689]
for me yeah that's all negative at that
[1693]
point so I'm like freaking out and um we
[1696]
were trying to figure out like how like
[1698]
how do we get this to Market like just
[1700]
you know just like how do we put this
[1702]
out there so that people can start using
[1703]
it and hopefully pay for it and when it
[1705]
became obvious that we were too far away
[1708]
from that I was just kind of doing the
[1709]
math I'm like all right I've got this
[1710]
much like dry powder left dry powder is
[1713]
another word for like money in the bank
[1714]
like I've got this much money left and
[1716]
I'm spending this much and we need this
[1719]
many more months before the product is
[1721]
in a place where we can sell it which by
[1722]
the way in retrospect totally flawed
[1725]
thinking I if I could have shipped the
[1727]
product way earlier than we did and
[1729]
started generating revenue and that's
[1731]
one of the biggest mistakes looking back
[1732]
where you focused too much on like the
[1734]
design how yeah totally yeah and that's
[1736]
every first time founder every first
[1737]
time software company makes that mistake
[1740]
they think the product needs to be
[1741]
perfect before they launch it so yeah in
[1743]
retrospect should launched way sooner
[1745]
but hindsight's 2020 yeah at the time
[1747]
I'm like we don't have enough money to
[1749]
get this to a place where it's sellable
[1751]
and so that's ultimately why we decided
[1754]
to go out and try to fundraise and
[1755]
that's what I did with a lot of my free
[1756]
time is okay so I have been I think this
[1758]
is a good time to go into it so sure
[1760]
first off why did you even decide to
[1763]
fundraise and go through with it instead
[1764]
of just saying I wasn't over my head I'm
[1767]
just gonna stick with my agency I'm
[1767]
making 20K a month yeah I'm killing it
[1769]
I'm only what 21. I was 20 20. like I'm
[1772]
killing it making 20K a month what made
[1774]
you like take that challenge head on
[1776]
I want to change so like like you kind
[1780]
of mentioned I knew that there was a
[1782]
that there was a glass ceiling on agency
[1784]
work it was it was basically just my
[1786]
face like I had like a one-to-one
[1789]
relationship with all my clients I had a
[1790]
team but like it was me like I was
[1792]
basically a freelancer with a team at
[1794]
that point and I wanted more I wanted to
[1797]
I didn't want to just be like a Facebook
[1799]
ads monkey anymore like I was literally
[1801]
like totally good every day I was just
[1802]
in Facebook ads just like tweaking
[1804]
campaigns and I'm just like I wasn't
[1805]
finding fulfillment with that and I'd
[1807]
like I'd put away a decent amount of
[1808]
money I'd made a lot of great friends in
[1811]
the industry and I just wanted to do
[1813]
something different and I always knew
[1815]
that I wanted to do something in
[1816]
software because to the point we made it
[1819]
early in this podcast it's like that's
[1820]
where the highest Leverage is you can
[1822]
sell the same thing over and over and
[1823]
over again you get 10 15x multiples on
[1826]
you know the value of your company and
[1828]
so it just made sense to me logically
[1829]
I'm like if I can just stack up enough
[1831]
money to start a software company I
[1833]
think that's where I'll make the real
[1835]
money
[1835]
and so that's kind of how I was thinking
[1838]
about it and then you know my my
[1840]
business partner Casey Adams he had a
[1842]
podcast where he interviewed like a
[1844]
couple dozen billionaires yeah a bunch
[1847]
of really successful people a bunch of
[1848]
venture capitalists and so we're just
[1850]
kind of sitting one day and at this
[1852]
point you know we'd become co-founders
[1854]
of media kits and we're just again
[1856]
self-funding it he comes to me one day
[1858]
he's like hey Karen like what if we ask
[1859]
some of my podcast guests to like invest
[1862]
in media kits and that literally it
[1865]
broke my brain it was like a it was like
[1867]
a whole new frame a whole new way of
[1870]
thinking and I'm like wait a minute like
[1872]
you're telling me that there's like
[1874]
wealthy people that would give us their
[1877]
money to build this I'm like of course I
[1880]
know that that exists like I know that
[1882]
venture capital is a thing but I just
[1884]
couldn't wrap my head around why someone
[1886]
would want to give us their money to
[1888]
build this thing it was just it was just
[1889]
like a foreign concept to me and so sure
[1892]
enough like a couple weeks later we put
[1893]
a little pitch deck together and we went
[1896]
out and we started talking to some some
[1897]
of these people that Casey had on this
[1899]
podcast over the years and we start we
[1901]
got a 25 000 check and then we got a 50
[1904]
000 check and then we got a hundred
[1905]
thousand then a hundred fifty thousand
[1906]
dollar check and these investors like
[1910]
these wealthy people are friends with
[1911]
guess what other wealthy people and they
[1914]
would tell their friends that they just
[1915]
invested in medikits and then they'd be
[1916]
like well I want to invest in media kits
[1918]
too and then they would write a check to
[1919]
us and before you know it we had a
[1921]
million and a half dollars in our in our
[1922]
checking account for this business
[1925]
yeah wow is there like a first off is
[1928]
there like a standard for how much
[1930]
Equity you give away per round because
[1932]
it's like your angel round right yeah
[1934]
speed round what is it yeah it was like
[1936]
it was a seat around yeah
[1937]
typically you want to give away like 10
[1939]
to 20 but there's so much Nuance to it I
[1941]
mean it depends on I mean the type of
[1943]
business you're just making it up at
[1944]
that point though right you're totally
[1946]
you're pulling out I'm going to guess my
[1947]
company could potentially be worth 10
[1949]
million dollars so well it's it's just
[1951]
like anything else it's whatever people
[1952]
are willing to pay yeah right and so
[1954]
it's like
[1956]
um I don't I can talk about this number
[1957]
we raised our first round at a five
[1959]
million valuation okay and that's like a
[1961]
relatively standard seed round
[1963]
um like even like a lot of YC companies
[1965]
they'll raise their first round of
[1966]
funding at a five million valuation did
[1968]
you have any customers no at that point
[1969]
no customers no problem
[1971]
available no it was it was mock-ups and
[1974]
clickable prototypes yeah and so yeah I
[1978]
mean ultimately like the fundraising
[1981]
process again it's a game of of
[1984]
describing your vision and helping other
[1987]
people see your vision and it's also a
[1988]
game of fomo like when a bunch of really
[1991]
notable investors put money into
[1992]
something you know just like any other
[1994]
Market oh yeah whether it's stocks or
[1995]
crypto or whatever else it's like other
[1997]
people want in right right and so it's
[1999]
the same thing but you just you have to
[2000]
manufacture it on like a Grassroots
[2002]
level which is the hardest part but um
[2005]
yeah I had no clue what I was doing and
[2007]
just to be clear I don't want to make it
[2009]
sound like this was super easy or
[2011]
anything we fundraised that that million
[2013]
and a half dollars took us over nine
[2015]
months to raise from start to finish how
[2016]
many people do you talk to oh great I
[2019]
have those numbers I actually have the
[2022]
old like fundraise CRM from media kits
[2024]
still on my computer because it's like
[2026]
motivation for me we talked over 350
[2028]
people and we raised money from 30. and
[2030]
those are all like one-on-one calls
[2031]
pretty one-on-one calls usually 30
[2033]
minutes to 45. if you had you talked to
[2035]
350 people and only 30 people own these
[2038]
a lot but that's so many calls like yeah
[2040]
like that's so much time yeah so I mean
[2042]
the typical rule I always tell whenever
[2044]
a Founder asks me for fundraising advice
[2045]
I'm like talk to about 10 times as many
[2048]
people as you think you need to talk to
[2049]
how do you even find that many just
[2051]
friends like referral referral referral
[2053]
yeah friends of other investors that's
[2055]
that's the biggest one uh Twitter is
[2057]
amazing for uh for finding investors
[2059]
there's a whole dude yeah there's a
[2061]
whole VC community on Twitter a lot of
[2063]
like early stage Venture funds will even
[2065]
have like public links where you can
[2067]
apply ah and send your pitch deck in I
[2069]
guess their job is literally to give
[2071]
money so that's one of the things let me
[2074]
let me talk about that for a second
[2075]
that's one of the biggest Paradigm
[2076]
shifts for anyone somebody listening
[2078]
that's thinking about raising money
[2079]
whether it's for a software company or a
[2081]
consumer package company or you know
[2083]
even like a real estate project whatever
[2084]
it is if you're thinking about raising
[2086]
money from investors you've got to
[2088]
understand how investors think investors
[2091]
are literally capital allocators for a
[2093]
living their job is to put money
[2096]
somewhere and it might as well be with
[2098]
you because you're building the next big
[2100]
thing and the other paradigm shift that
[2102]
I had and this has been so helpful
[2104]
um you know for fundraising even like
[2106]
for my new venture is
[2108]
if you are 100 certain that whatever
[2112]
you're building is going to be
[2113]
successful which of course statistically
[2115]
not everything's going to be successful
[2117]
but if you're not 100 sure and 100
[2120]
confident in yourself then you probably
[2121]
shouldn't be starting a business anyway
[2122]
yeah but if you are absolutely certain
[2124]
that you have an idea that's going to
[2126]
change the world or that's going to
[2127]
change an industry or that's just simply
[2129]
going to make money and be successful it
[2131]
doesn't even have to change the world if
[2133]
you're so confident that it's going to
[2134]
do that then it should it's a privilege
[2137]
that somebody is allowed to invest in my
[2140]
company definitely you definitely flip
[2142]
that like that's the Paradigm Founders a
[2144]
lot of Founders feel like feel like they
[2148]
are like begging for money from
[2150]
investors and as soon as you feel that
[2151]
way or that you position it that way or
[2153]
you give off that energy you're screwed
[2154]
you're you're going to lose when you
[2156]
come into a call it's like all right
[2158]
this investor I might give them the
[2161]
opportunity to invest in in my company
[2163]
because my company is going to make them
[2165]
so much money and it's an opportunity
[2167]
that they sh that they would be stupid
[2169]
to pass well you cannot say that you
[2170]
can't say that you just have to be
[2171]
thinking about arrogant of course that's
[2173]
100 true because you can only raise a
[2176]
million dollars for two million dollars
[2177]
not just for simple math 100 000 each
[2180]
yeah they get one percent each only 10
[2182]
investors can do that and if you're
[2183]
right that could turn into millions of
[2185]
dollars for them absolutely and so then
[2187]
all these investors start fomo again
[2188]
like exact three friends here said I
[2190]
invest in this company 50 Grand then he
[2192]
starts my other friend invest fifty
[2194]
thousand dollars I want to be like oh
[2195]
[聽__聽] I'm gonna miss out there's
[2196]
something here and so you can definitely
[2197]
create that fomo from investors 100 I
[2200]
never thought about like that yeah no
[2202]
it's literally their job and all you
[2204]
really have to do is like you don't be
[2205]
qualified you don't need a degree of
[2206]
college degree to raise money no
[2208]
literally have to have you just have to
[2210]
convince a rich person to give you money
[2211]
is that yes for sure and I want I want
[2214]
to bring this back down too for you know
[2216]
any of the any of the younger guys or
[2218]
the beginning owners that are listening
[2219]
to this slide you were 20. I was yeah
[2221]
but I want to say like it's not as
[2224]
intimidating as it might seem once you
[2226]
start to understand the intricacies and
[2228]
I will say um there's a book out there
[2230]
that really helped me with fundraising
[2231]
it's called fundraising by Ryan Breslow
[2234]
uh he's the founder of Bolt like the one
[2236]
click checkout company they're like a 10
[2238]
billion dollar company or something
[2240]
um if anybody's thinking about
[2241]
fundraising go buy that book on Amazon
[2242]
and read it it's like the best book for
[2245]
for Founders to read about fundraising
[2247]
but the next thing that I'll say is you
[2249]
don't have to know wealthy people to to
[2251]
raise money from uh from somebody right
[2254]
you can crowdfund there's platforms out
[2257]
there like republic.com for example
[2259]
um that you know where you can crowdfund
[2260]
invest investment
[2262]
um you know again you can go and you can
[2263]
just cold Outreach to to VCS on Twitter
[2266]
like there's so many ways if you're
[2267]
Scrappy if you're a hustler if you truly
[2269]
believe in what you're building
[2271]
that you can go and find money there's
[2273]
there is such abundance in this world
[2275]
and there's so much money out there
[2277]
that's looking for a home that's looking
[2279]
to be allocated somewhere and all you
[2281]
got to do is find it yeah cause I mean
[2283]
people have tens of millions of dollars
[2284]
they want their money to do the work for
[2286]
them and if they can find some smart
[2287]
person with a good idea to do all the
[2289]
work and they just have to fund it
[2291]
absolutely no-brainer and even if they
[2292]
lose
[2293]
a few million dollars that one hits they
[2295]
make their money back so yeah that's
[2296]
that's the thing I guess that makes
[2297]
sense again a venture capitalist if they
[2299]
invest you know if they have 10 million
[2301]
dollars and they invest in 10 companies
[2303]
a million dollars each and you know five
[2305]
of them go to zero it's like yeah they
[2307]
lost five million dollars but if one of
[2309]
those 10 becomes a billion dollar
[2311]
company then you know they they just you
[2314]
know at 10 or 100x their money or
[2315]
whatever in terms of like dilution and
[2317]
everything else that might have happened
[2318]
in the meantime but you know they made
[2320]
all of their their losses back and then
[2322]
some and so these investors are also
[2324]
playing a game too they're playing a
[2325]
numbers game yeah and so again you just
[2327]
have to believe in yourself and be
[2329]
confident enough to to know that you're
[2331]
going to do whatever it takes to make
[2332]
the successful and if an investor can
[2335]
see that in you if they know that you're
[2336]
going to do whatever it takes to make it
[2337]
successful then they're going to invest
[2338]
in you every time okay that's really
[2340]
good advice I do want to take the
[2342]
conversation a little different way
[2343]
because I know a lot of people out there
[2344]
are going to be like still like even
[2346]
though we're saying that still
[2347]
intimidated scary of course yeah yeah so
[2350]
but just to wrap this topic up if you
[2352]
had one 0.5 million dollars liquid at
[2355]
that time
[2356]
or moving into future Ventures would you
[2358]
still choose to raise money knowing that
[2360]
you could like there's a pressure that
[2362]
you're losing somebody else's money like
[2364]
me as a person I would rather lose my
[2365]
own money than someone else's even
[2366]
though that's probably not the best
[2367]
business choice so if you had 1.5
[2369]
million would you do it yourself and
[2371]
bootstrap it or would you have investors
[2373]
neither I would do a hybrid okay so the
[2376]
reason that again it has a risk
[2378]
tolerance balance basically not risk uh
[2380]
opportunity okay so a big reason why
[2382]
people raise money from what we call
[2384]
Strategic investors is because they can
[2386]
open doors that you can't by yourself so
[2389]
I would raise way less maybe only like a
[2391]
couple hundred grand but if an investor
[2394]
that has a crazy Network or access to
[2397]
certain things inside of your industry
[2398]
that are very specialized and they can
[2400]
open doors to that they're much more
[2402]
inclined to open doors to that if
[2403]
they're if they have skins by Wiz
[2404]
Khalifa makes sense exactly gotcha yeah
[2407]
cool so Wiz Khalifa was one of his
[2408]
investors initially and so you got the
[2411]
money
[2412]
it was pretty much already built almost
[2414]
kind of pretty much yeah and then that
[2416]
just kind of gave you the peace of mind
[2417]
then you can start planning so how much
[2419]
got devoted to like marketing and growth
[2422]
and how much got allocated towards the
[2424]
Building Product yeah so this is where
[2426]
we can really get into tactics uh we
[2427]
spent forty thousand dollars on
[2428]
marketing the lifetime of the business
[2430]
wow yeah on paid marketing so that's the
[2432]
theory that if you make a good product
[2433]
that people want they're going to share
[2435]
it and Word of Mouth will take
[2436]
absolutely so if you make a good product
[2438]
you don't really need to Market even
[2439]
though you were a marketer so you could
[2440]
have if you wanted well we still we
[2442]
still marketed I just said we didn't
[2443]
spend a ton of money okay we absolutely
[2445]
okay yeah well and that's like in terms
[2448]
of like really tactical stuff like to
[2450]
get a consumer product to go viral I
[2452]
mean I don't think anybody does it
[2453]
better than than Hunter Isaacson good
[2455]
buddy of mine who's behind NGL app I'm
[2457]
gonna have him on here soon you got to
[2458]
he's oh my God he's gonna he's gonna
[2460]
dunk on anything that I'm about to say
[2462]
in terms of in terms of product-led
[2463]
growth but definitely not hold back his
[2465]
opinion oh man I love it he's great I I
[2468]
love Hunter but yeah I mean the big
[2469]
reason like we got to 30 000 users in
[2472]
like under six months because we went
[2474]
viral on Tick Tock and so I know you had
[2476]
Oliver on who talked about the same
[2478]
thing he's he has a cpg company but this
[2480]
just goes to show like we had a software
[2482]
product he has a you know a physical
[2484]
Goods product and both of us basically
[2487]
built our businesses on the back of tick
[2488]
tock organic virality but I want to
[2490]
understand it because his makes sense to
[2492]
me because it sure sex chocolate it's
[2493]
controversial yeah yeah catch you dry
[2495]
media kits I'm not necessarily going to
[2497]
naturally send this to my girlfriend or
[2499]
send this and they're not out of the
[2500]
boys I mean yeah and just Apples to
[2502]
Apples like we probably didn't have
[2504]
nearly as many like views or Impressions
[2506]
or anything like that Oliver does
[2508]
because he can sell to literally anybody
[2509]
anybody with a credit card can buy his
[2511]
product versus like media kits you kind
[2513]
of have to be like a social media
[2515]
influencer to do it so the key for us
[2517]
was we went kind of like Niche viral
[2520]
inside of a couple key communities so we
[2523]
went viral first and foremost in like
[2525]
The Tick Tock influencer space so there
[2528]
was a tick talker named Josh Richards
[2530]
who was also an investor in our company
[2532]
yeah and we basically we literally
[2534]
posted a video you can still find it on
[2536]
our on our media kits Tick Tock if you
[2537]
scroll down enough but it got like 1.5
[2539]
million or one or like almost 2 million
[2541]
views uh in like a week and it was
[2544]
literally like this is the media kit
[2546]
that Josh Richards uses to get brand
[2548]
deals with like that robotic voice from
[2550]
Tick Tock like that was literally all it
[2551]
was and it got like two or three hundred
[2553]
thousand views overnight and we went
[2556]
from
[2557]
we we launched we had like 2 000 users
[2559]
and it was literally like our launch
[2561]
party in August it was like a big spike
[2563]
and then September October we're getting
[2566]
like five six sign ups a day and it was
[2569]
just dead for like two months we were
[2571]
freaking out yeah
[2572]
and then this video I think we posted it
[2574]
in November so you posted it uh I think
[2577]
Casey posted it okay
[2579]
um did you have like a company Tick Tock
[2581]
or was it yeah we had a company Tick
[2582]
Tock okay yep and media kits yeah oh
[2585]
yeah okay yeah my business partner made
[2588]
it uh media kits account posted it and
[2591]
it went viral in November I think it's
[2593]
like the first week of November and it
[2595]
just went through the roof we went from
[2597]
getting like five six sign ups a day to
[2599]
like 500 signups a day
[2602]
it's not a borderline major company that
[2604]
one like that like one Tick Tock that
[2606]
one Tick Tock and then well the and the
[2608]
second wave of virality that we had that
[2609]
really that really helped was in the
[2611]
twitch streamer community so I don't
[2613]
know if I don't know if you know this I
[2614]
didn't even know this until until this
[2616]
happened but the twitch streamer
[2619]
Community is like massive and like they
[2622]
there's like this crazy crazy community
[2624]
of twitch streamers and they only have
[2626]
like a few thousand followers each but
[2629]
the influence they have because it's
[2630]
long form it's like a tick tock at that
[2633]
point exactly a tick talker with two
[2635]
million followers in my opinion has less
[2637]
influence than a twitch streamer with
[2639]
ten thousand tick tockers have the least
[2640]
influence exactly you don't even like
[2642]
search for their content it's usually
[2643]
like you don't even know who they are
[2644]
you don't know their names you don't
[2645]
know what their voice sounds in your
[2646]
life yeah exactly so these twitch
[2648]
streamers have these cult followings
[2649]
yeah and they're also another thing
[2651]
about them is they're all friends with
[2653]
each other yeah and so we then after
[2655]
going viral on Tick Tock we went viral
[2656]
on Twitter which is where all the twitch
[2657]
streamers hang out when they're not
[2659]
streaming
[2660]
um and that sent us through the roofing
[2662]
again and we actually we didn't even
[2665]
have a twitch integration at the time
[2666]
but we had a couple twitch streamers
[2668]
that were using it for their other
[2669]
social platforms and then we built a
[2671]
twitch integration and then they started
[2673]
talking about it and it just boom
[2675]
Another viral hit and it just went crazy
[2677]
on Twitter that just makes so much sense
[2679]
because at that point you like want your
[2680]
friends to also succeed and if this
[2682]
helps you make more money you instantly
[2683]
tell your friends about it exactly it's
[2685]
really important with any SAS and now
[2688]
you're going to be to be sass so that
[2689]
absolutely same concept B2B or b2c there
[2692]
is something called Product LED growth
[2694]
so the the terminal it's plg just if you
[2696]
ever hear plg in the software space it
[2698]
means product LED growth and that means
[2700]
that the product does the marketing for
[2701]
you and so you know you don't put money
[2704]
into ads you don't do any of this
[2705]
because the product will Market itself
[2707]
for you and one of the ways that we had
[2709]
plg at media kits is when you signed up
[2712]
you would get your link and you're kind
[2715]
of inherently you inherently you want to
[2718]
share your link yeah because you want to
[2719]
get brand deals right so guess what
[2721]
people started putting it in in their
[2722]
link trees they started tweeting about
[2724]
it they started posting on Instagram
[2726]
they started posting it on Twitter they
[2728]
started pulling up in the middle of
[2729]
their twitch streams and so it's
[2731]
basically just free distribution free
[2733]
marketing for us as a company and that
[2735]
was how we hit product-led growth and
[2737]
and specifically in the twitch streamer
[2739]
Community like
[2740]
we had these twitch streamers that would
[2742]
sign up for the product and then
[2743]
immediately post their link on Twitter
[2744]
and then their friends would see that
[2746]
and they would sign up and post their
[2747]
link and it was just this viral like
[2748]
Network effect they don't have to like
[2750]
tweet it say hey check out my Media Kit
[2751]
but it's there and then other people
[2753]
that are like kind of looking at what
[2754]
are they doing what can I add to my yeah
[2755]
they see that like look into it then
[2757]
they make their own account exactly so
[2758]
it has like an organic ability that's
[2760]
really smart so I was going to ask you
[2763]
that's like what that Tick Tock is what
[2765]
made it go big yeah kind of like your
[2767]
moment but you did have an interesting
[2769]
strategy with your launch party and you
[2771]
launched on product hunt so can you
[2773]
explain yeah real quick yeah so product
[2774]
hunt for those that don't know is
[2776]
basically a platform that allows people
[2778]
to like crowd vote
[2780]
um on certain product ideas so literally
[2783]
anything like there's there's B2B stuff
[2785]
on there it's mainly like b2c stuff but
[2788]
there is some B2B products on there and
[2789]
it's everything from like little tiny
[2791]
like micro SAS apps all the way up to
[2794]
like proper companies like companies
[2797]
that you that are like household names
[2798]
that you and I would know have been
[2799]
launched on product hunt
[2801]
um and so yeah basically like you go on
[2803]
there and you just vote on your favorite
[2804]
products and we posted media kits on
[2807]
there the day after we launched and uh
[2809]
we got second highest voted product of
[2811]
the day which is annoying I wish we got
[2813]
first we we uh it was good yeah no it is
[2816]
what it is but yeah the product before
[2818]
us was super sick so I can't complain
[2820]
but
[2821]
um but yeah it's great exposure
[2824]
um product hunt combined with our launch
[2825]
party got us our first couple thousand
[2826]
users and um yeah productone's great if
[2830]
you're thinking about launching a SAS
[2831]
platform like launching on product Hunt
[2833]
is a great way to get some initial
[2834]
exposure from you know mainly like the
[2836]
software and the development community
[2837]
and
[2839]
um yeah our launch party was kind of
[2843]
um it was it was very intentional so
[2846]
Casey and I before doing media kits we
[2849]
actually used to throw networking events
[2850]
in La we would like rent these crazy
[2852]
houses and then I think that's how our
[2854]
Network got connected exactly yeah
[2856]
exactly so all of a lot of our mutual
[2858]
friends like that's how I met them so
[2859]
I'd throw these parties in LA with Casey
[2861]
we'd sell tickets for like 50 bucks a
[2863]
piece we'd rent a house for a day up in
[2865]
like the Hollywood Hills for like six or
[2867]
seven thousand dollars which back then
[2869]
was like all the money Casey and I have
[2871]
like we're I'm talking like 17 18 years
[2873]
old we'd spend like all of our money on
[2875]
like renting this crazy house and then
[2877]
we'd sell tickets for like 50 or 100
[2878]
bucks a pop and then we'd have speakers
[2880]
and then we'd have like a little party
[2882]
at the end we'd have catering and
[2883]
whatever we did this like four or five
[2885]
times was it profitable um no it never
[2887]
made money but it is in fact it lost
[2889]
money most of the time open doors yeah
[2891]
open doors exactly and you know even a
[2893]
few people that we met at those parties
[2894]
like ended up investing in media kits so
[2896]
it just goes to show that everything
[2897]
comes full circle but yeah basically
[2899]
like Casey and I had thrown these
[2900]
parties and we knew that it was just a
[2902]
great way to to bring people together
[2903]
and so we decided to throw one for media
[2905]
kits and basically we just like got this
[2907]
event space which is uh was owned by one
[2911]
of our investors again so there's
[2912]
another reason like why you want to
[2913]
bring in smart money
[2915]
um and strategic investors but yeah we
[2917]
got this event space
[2918]
um Wiz Khalifa gave us like a massive
[2920]
discount on his appearance fee again
[2922]
because he was involved in media kits
[2924]
and so yeah we had Wiz Khalifa come and
[2927]
perform and it was just like a great
[2928]
networking event and we threw it in LA
[2930]
too so of course
[2933]
um some of the biggest influencers in
[2934]
the world were there which also meant
[2936]
that pretty much everything at the event
[2938]
we got for free so all the drinks all
[2940]
the catering like all the stuff that was
[2942]
there for people all the products and
[2944]
and beverages were all sponsored because
[2947]
all these beverage companies wanted
[2949]
their beverages to be in the hands of
[2950]
these big influencers that they knew
[2952]
were going to be at our party video yeah
[2953]
we kind of like game the system in that
[2955]
way and uh and then yeah it was a hit we
[2958]
got a couple thousand signups off of It
[2959]
Wiz Khalifa got to meet him in person
[2961]
and that was sick
[2963]
um but yeah I mean like I said from
[2965]
there we hadn't really figured out
[2966]
product LED growth yet so after the
[2968]
launch party the initial hype couple
[2969]
thousand signups it just flatlined for
[2972]
about two months until that Tick Tock
[2973]
video went back did you ever struggle
[2974]
with the turn after that event
[2977]
um
[2978]
not really um we didn't even have our
[2980]
paid subscription out back then it was
[2982]
just free only
[2984]
um so so no we did have a we did have
[2986]
some struggles with like product
[2987]
adoption so people would sign up they'd
[2989]
make an account and they wouldn't
[2990]
actually build a Media Kit because
[2991]
there's like two steps to using our
[2993]
platform so it was free for that part
[2994]
yeah okay yeah it was always free it was
[2996]
a freemium product so it was free to
[2998]
make Media Kit and then if you wanted
[2999]
like the bells and whistles and like the
[3000]
upgraded stuff then you could pay for it
[3002]
what were some of the key upgrades white
[3003]
labeling it so like removing our logo
[3006]
um customizing it adding more than I
[3008]
think more than three platforms I think
[3009]
is where we limited it at so if you
[3011]
wanted if you had Instagram Facebook and
[3013]
Twitter and you wanted to add twitch or
[3014]
YouTube or something you'd have to pay
[3015]
for the upgraded program
[3017]
um there was uh like like Pro analytics
[3021]
we had additional analytics that we that
[3022]
we uh kept behind a paywall there was
[3025]
creating more than one Media Kit
[3026]
actually was a big one for us so like
[3028]
you know you might have one Media Kit
[3030]
that's specific to your Twitter and one
[3031]
that's specific to your YouTube gotcha
[3033]
um and so that was another big one so on
[3035]
our free plan you could only have one
[3036]
Media Kit gotcha so there's a bunch of
[3038]
stuff that we put behind a paywall do
[3039]
you know the ratio between people who
[3040]
just use the freemium or can you not
[3042]
share that can you share that um I mean
[3044]
I'm sure people could like reverse
[3045]
engineer the numbers if I share that so
[3046]
probably not but yeah it was a pretty
[3048]
decent conversion rate okay yeah that
[3049]
makes sense the multiple Media Kit yeah
[3051]
yeah and the YouTube that makes a lot of
[3053]
sense Okay cool so by the way the
[3055]
product launch was basically since you
[3056]
you live in LA right yeah he lived in LA
[3059]
influentors are your Target demographic
[3061]
so just throw a party of influencers put
[3063]
exact kits everywhere say Media Kids
[3064]
launch party and you have this core base
[3066]
that's going to look into it and then
[3068]
you basically started you didn't have
[3069]
the product LED growth but after that
[3071]
you learned you needed that figured it
[3073]
out yeah so the freemium version people
[3074]
could just use it if they wanted to put
[3076]
it into like their link tree in their
[3077]
bio people people initially find it yeah
[3079]
exactly so let me recap you had the idea
[3081]
in 2017 but it was too early you didn't
[3083]
have the knowledge or the resources then
[3085]
later around covid you see this
[3088]
probably before covet right right right
[3089]
after code had hit right around there
[3091]
you see a Resurgence in Tick Tock
[3092]
influencers something huge and so you're
[3094]
like hey that idea is something I want
[3096]
to pursue you hired two developers and a
[3098]
designer you spend way too long
[3100]
designing it before launching it to have
[3103]
to figure out how to raise money you do
[3105]
it with your network and then from there
[3106]
you're able to get it done
[3108]
don't do a ton of marketing you launch
[3109]
on product hunt uh you do the launch
[3112]
party get two enough users but then you
[3114]
find out the product like growth problem
[3115]
and you come up with that idea and then
[3117]
your strategic investor Josh Richards
[3119]
makes a tick tock that goes viral and
[3122]
that skyrockets the growth of the
[3123]
software absolutely and that yeah and
[3126]
then six months later we got acquired
[3128]
six months later got Acquired and you
[3129]
chose to sell basically because you were
[3131]
pretty much out of that Runway and so
[3133]
you kind of either raise another round
[3135]
you had a lot of users so you're making
[3136]
decent revenue and so but you still need
[3139]
to raise revenue to or raise money to
[3141]
continue that level of growth yeah
[3143]
exactly we actually
[3145]
um we literally had the acquisition
[3147]
offer and an offer to raise another
[3149]
round of funding at a pretty like a yeah
[3152]
like an eight-figure valuation
[3154]
um both on our desk it really just comes
[3156]
down to how far did you want to take it
[3157]
yeah and then ultimately who's has who's
[3159]
in a position to actually make this
[3160]
successful yeah and you basically looked
[3163]
at the market and you saw a lot of
[3164]
competitors again he made a whole video
[3166]
on this go watch his channel yeah but
[3168]
competitors that were like small
[3171]
companies like our size and then we also
[3173]
had meta rolling out a media kit tool
[3176]
and YouTube rolling out a media kit tool
[3178]
it's like I can't help but think that
[3179]
maybe we influenced them a little bit
[3181]
definitely I mean it's like it's like
[3182]
it's like Amazon you know like Amazon
[3183]
has all the data and so like they have
[3185]
Amazon Basics and so they'll just like
[3187]
see which products are selling at a
[3188]
really high margin right now yeah all
[3190]
right let's just figure out how to make
[3191]
that real quick yeah it's the same in
[3193]
software and like we can talk about this
[3194]
too like in software
[3196]
um software in and of itself is not IP
[3199]
anymore like it used to be because it
[3201]
was so hard to build but the barrier to
[3202]
entry is so low now that like anybody
[3204]
out there listening if you build a great
[3206]
product and you start making a bunch of
[3207]
money so someone is going to rip you off
[3209]
it's not if it's when exactly and so the
[3212]
way that you build defensibility and IP
[3214]
in software is brand and distribution
[3216]
and so with media kits we had brand
[3219]
nailed down pretty early like things
[3221]
like our domain and the people we had
[3223]
involved in stuff like that's brand
[3224]
right and then distribution would be
[3227]
things like product-led growth or
[3228]
Channel Partners or you know investors
[3231]
that are walking us into the you know
[3233]
the biggest music labels in the country
[3235]
to get us you know Enterprise deals like
[3237]
that is how you build a moat and how you
[3240]
build IP and defensibility around a
[3242]
software product the code itself is
[3244]
never going to be defensible yeah
[3245]
there's always someone out there that's
[3246]
going to be able to take what you're
[3247]
doing and re-engineer it it's like your
[3249]
advantages that other people can't
[3250]
replicate exactly even though they're
[3251]
not like you don't create them it's just
[3253]
your relationships or something that you
[3254]
other people have built up for you and
[3256]
you combine forces yeah cool that makes
[3258]
a lot of sense but this kind of actually
[3259]
is a great segue into microsass because
[3262]
yeah that was something that most
[3264]
Facebook and YouTube have a broad
[3265]
product they were neglecting that but
[3267]
over time
[3269]
they're getting a lot of things done
[3270]
they're ready to tackle that because now
[3272]
they're seeing that it's a market
[3273]
because they can clearly see how
[3274]
successful yeah it is in all these link
[3275]
trees your competitors see that too and
[3277]
so you saw a lot of people kind of
[3279]
starting it you saw that you weren't you
[3281]
were self-aware to know that you
[3282]
probably couldn't compete with meta in a
[3283]
company that wanted to buy it was like
[3284]
actually had a lot of those advantages
[3286]
exactly and so you wanted to hand it off
[3288]
to them because you think they could do
[3289]
it well did you have to work there at
[3291]
all I did yeah I worked there for a few
[3292]
months so did Casey
[3294]
um and then I left because I want to
[3296]
start something new but you were allowed
[3297]
to leave like it was sort of like
[3298]
contingencies yeah there was an earn out
[3300]
um I left before it was like fully
[3301]
vested
[3302]
um but it is what it is it's at that
[3304]
point it was an opportunity cost thing
[3305]
for me exactly it's like exactly you
[3307]
know I made a little bit of money on the
[3308]
acquisition and then I could have made
[3309]
more by staying but I chose to I chose
[3312]
to battle myself and start something new
[3313]
as opposed to waiting there okay so then
[3316]
let's just go straight into what you
[3317]
right when you left yeah I would do the
[3319]
same thing I don't think I could work
[3319]
with you like that I get it um but next
[3322]
you went into what we're going to call
[3323]
the micro SAS phase of your life yeah
[3324]
did you sell everything move to Bali
[3326]
then just make that movement no so so
[3329]
the crazy thing about that I don't even
[3330]
know if I went into this in the video
[3332]
but yeah basically the software company
[3333]
that I eventually sold the Iman
[3335]
um we built it so so keep in mind I had
[3338]
my marketing agency
[3340]
started media catch the marketing agency
[3341]
kept running and it was actually we
[3343]
never took a salary for minikits like
[3344]
Casey and I never paid ourselves and one
[3346]
of the reasons I was able to do that is
[3348]
because I had this marketing agency that
[3349]
was still making money of course and so
[3351]
I had a business partner at the
[3352]
marketing agency Kaden
[3354]
um who was running it when I was running
[3356]
media kits so he was just keeping you
[3358]
know just basically maintaining it
[3359]
keeping keeping the clients happy
[3361]
and we used this white labeled CRM and
[3364]
this white labeled CRM had a problem on
[3367]
a per client basis we could see
[3369]
everything like ad spend click-through
[3371]
rate like all these things that you need
[3372]
to know as a marketing agency like all
[3374]
your analytics but you could only see it
[3376]
per client and so you'd have to click
[3378]
into every account go to the analytics
[3380]
ironically very similar to the problem
[3382]
with media cats is like the analytics
[3384]
are there they're just dispersed in a
[3385]
way that like isn't easy to access and
[3388]
so I always joke that
[3389]
um this company agencyreporting.com was
[3392]
like it's like media kits for marketing
[3394]
agencies it's like kind of the same
[3395]
concept it's just taking analytics from
[3397]
an API that already exists and just
[3398]
centralizing them in a nice UI like
[3401]
that's basically what it was but anyway
[3403]
we had this problem where like we had we
[3405]
had over 100 clients at one point and we
[3407]
just couldn't keep track of all the
[3409]
different metrics and like we jump on a
[3412]
client call and it would be like oh well
[3414]
like how are the leads doing this week
[3416]
or where's the ad spend in relation to
[3418]
the monthly budget or where is the
[3419]
click-through rate where you know versus
[3420]
last month and like these are just basic
[3423]
answers that are basic questions that we
[3425]
couldn't answer as easily as if we had
[3427]
it all in one dashboard
[3429]
so what we did in the spirit of building
[3431]
an MVP uh we went and just basically
[3434]
pulled the API into a Google Sheets
[3435]
originally but it was a disaster like my
[3438]
my business partner Caden's like a
[3440]
wizard on on Excel and Google Sheets and
[3442]
so he did it and it worked but it was
[3444]
just it was slow and it was like things
[3447]
would break all the time like you know
[3448]
the logic that connects everything would
[3450]
like break and like things would like
[3451]
air out like man what if we just built
[3454]
our own software to do this and so I
[3456]
found the domainagency reporting.com
[3457]
bought it for way less than you might
[3459]
think I bought it for
[3461]
um and basically we went and we took
[3463]
all of the data from this white labeled
[3465]
CRM across all of our clients and we
[3468]
basically built a dashboard the way that
[3470]
we wanted to see that data and we built
[3472]
it for ourselves and we net we never
[3474]
even thought that we would sell this to
[3475]
anyone else we just built it for our own
[3477]
agency and we used our own profit from
[3479]
our agency to pay for it
[3481]
and uh and then once it was built we
[3483]
shared it with a couple buddies that
[3485]
were using the same white labeled
[3486]
software and they were like yo like can
[3488]
I use that like sure yeah how how
[3491]
difficult was it to transition from
[3492]
internal use to productized
[3494]
I mean in terms of like you know
[3497]
productized I guess yeah
[3499]
kind of like we we built it in a way
[3501]
that it was scalable um we just didn't
[3503]
have like a way to take payment so it
[3505]
was basically yeah I was just creating a
[3506]
new user account or like okay yeah I'll
[3508]
just put like okay let's put a stripe
[3510]
paywall on this thing and see if people
[3511]
will buy it their account interesting so
[3513]
yeah I mean basically what we did is
[3515]
like this this white labeled uh CRM
[3517]
company has like Facebook groups with
[3519]
like tens of thousands of people in them
[3520]
that are all like agency owners like we
[3522]
were and uh I went in there and again
[3525]
just like media kits I was like Hey guys
[3526]
like if something like this existed like
[3529]
would you use it and then I went and
[3531]
everybody that said yes I just PM them
[3532]
on Facebook I'd be like hey check this
[3534]
out and send the link and go sign up and
[3536]
they originally it was a waitlist and
[3538]
then eventually we started taking taking
[3539]
payment
[3541]
um yeah we had like 400 agency owners
[3543]
that signed up for the wait list oh my
[3545]
god um in like a day holy [聽__聽] and so
[3548]
we're like wow well this is very clear
[3550]
product Market fit um that's another
[3553]
term in software that's used very often
[3554]
pmf product Market fit it means that
[3557]
your product actually resonates with
[3558]
your target market
[3560]
um and validate that they want it
[3562]
exactly yeah so yeah that's that's how
[3564]
we uh that's how we got our first
[3565]
customers for that and um yeah we're
[3567]
like okay cool well we're selling this
[3569]
now we got it up to a decent like mrr
[3571]
run rate
[3573]
um but it wasn't something that like we
[3574]
wanted to do long term and when we
[3576]
launched it was right around the time
[3577]
that I sold media kits like we were kind
[3579]
of like working on this just like in our
[3580]
free time yeah and um it was like making
[3583]
decent money and I was like I have I
[3586]
want to build something else like I
[3588]
already knew like the next like big
[3589]
company that I wanted to build and like
[3591]
this is just going to be like a
[3592]
distraction it's like I don't want to
[3594]
have a side hustle I don't want to be
[3595]
distracted by this thing and there's a
[3597]
whole Market out there for micro
[3599]
Acquisitions there's even
[3601]
um there's even a company called
[3602]
acquire.com that's literally built
[3604]
around like Andrew gazdecki he's amazing
[3606]
if you if you guys want to follow
[3608]
someone in the software space on Twitter
[3609]
follow Andrew he's amazing
[3612]
um but yeah he literally has a
[3613]
Marketplace that's for this for these
[3614]
like ten to a hundred thousand dollar
[3616]
Acquisitions of just like these software
[3619]
companies that are pretty basic that
[3621]
just solve one problem really well and
[3623]
uh anyway so there's a whole market for
[3625]
that and we actually listed on micro
[3627]
acquire and we got some inquiries but
[3630]
then I was like hmm like who has like a
[3634]
large following of agency owners that
[3637]
like might get value from the software
[3639]
so you reached out to him directly and
[3641]
uh yeah and I was like Iman like let me
[3643]
let me just text Iman and like Iman Iman
[3645]
and I have been friends for years like
[3647]
we we connected in 2017 we hung out in
[3650]
London a couple years back so we've
[3652]
always stayed in touch so I shot him a
[3654]
text and I'm like hey bro like I've got
[3656]
this software that does this and it's
[3658]
like built for agency owners to like
[3660]
consolidate their data and we're doing
[3662]
this much in revenue and I just want to
[3664]
get rid of it because I'm building
[3665]
something else I don't want like I don't
[3667]
want to be distracted by it like do you
[3669]
want it and he goes yeah bro I'll buy it
[3673]
like name your price
[3674]
I'm like okay well like here's my price
[3676]
this is like this is like how much we
[3678]
put in and like I want to make a little
[3679]
bit of profit obviously so like this is
[3681]
what I'm willing to sell it to you for
[3682]
he's like cool yeah let's just jump on a
[3684]
zoom call and figure out the details we
[3685]
jump on a zoom call it's like 30 minutes
[3688]
we're just like shooting the [聽__聽] I'm
[3690]
just giving them like the rundown on the
[3691]
numbers and then he's like all right
[3693]
cool like yeah just let me know like
[3695]
send like send me wire info like I'll
[3696]
send the money and then yeah like a week
[3698]
later he sent the money and we just
[3700]
transferred him to the domain and the
[3701]
the database and that was it
[3703]
super simple yeah it makes sense it
[3706]
could benefit his user base exactly yeah
[3708]
you didn't need it anymore yeah that
[3710]
makes a lot of sense and I love the
[3711]
story about both your ideas because they
[3713]
both came from first hand experiencing
[3715]
the problem that is the biggest thing in
[3717]
software if you try to build software
[3720]
where you don't deeply understand the
[3722]
problem or you don't deeply understand
[3723]
the customer you're never going to
[3725]
succeed because you'll always be one
[3727]
step behind a competitor that does I
[3730]
think that's a lot of like
[3731]
people don't understand the big
[3733]
companies like the ones in the hundreds
[3734]
of millions or billions are the ones who
[3736]
have just built these softwares for
[3738]
their company yeah and that's why
[3740]
they're able to scale because they have
[3741]
advantages or they have better
[3742]
information or they can communicate more
[3744]
quickly so they save time so they can
[3746]
talk to twenty percent more customers a
[3747]
day yeah it's like these internal
[3749]
softwares four companies are what make
[3751]
them great and so if you have the
[3753]
problem firsthand you work at a company
[3754]
and your job is something and then you
[3756]
have the problem that's a huge
[3758]
opportunity for you just go build an MVP
[3759]
in on the side and then start trying to
[3761]
use it at your company or sell it to
[3763]
other companies like yeah that's just a
[3764]
tried and I think this is one of the
[3766]
biggest points like we were talking
[3767]
about before the podcast like this is
[3768]
one of the things that I want to drive
[3769]
home
[3770]
it's not hard to start a software
[3772]
company in this day and age all you have
[3775]
to do is find a product with an API a
[3778]
software with an API that has an
[3780]
underserved segment of the market so
[3783]
with media kits we found that analytics
[3786]
were convoluted and they didn't talk to
[3787]
each other across platforms so we took
[3790]
all these social media apis we built a
[3792]
really nice UI on top of it and just
[3795]
show like a UI is just the analytical
[3796]
data exactly it means user interface it
[3798]
means like what you can see like so
[3801]
there's the front end and back end in
[3802]
software the front end is what you can
[3804]
see the back end is the code that makes
[3805]
it all appear on the screen right and so
[3808]
yeah basically if you find an API and
[3811]
productize it you can sell that and
[3814]
you've got a software business and
[3815]
that's literally what I've done all
[3818]
three of my software companies have just
[3819]
been productized apis with media kits it
[3821]
was social media apis with agency
[3824]
reporting it was the API of this CRM
[3827]
platform and then with my newest company
[3829]
it's apis of these like small business
[3831]
point of sale softwares have you been
[3833]
plugging in AI apis of course we can
[3836]
talk about that we'll say that for the
[3837]
end but I think that's like this is like
[3839]
the biggest generation for our age yeah
[3841]
absolutely our parents are the
[3843]
generation before us at the internet
[3845]
we have ai every software is going to
[3847]
use Ai No software has AI just a big
[3849]
opportunity there's no absolutely and no
[3851]
code apis no code SAS Builders like
[3854]
bubble
[3855]
it's never been easier and so I think
[3857]
the reason most people
[3859]
say that software is not for beginners
[3860]
is because it's only not for beginners
[3863]
who have no experience working anywhere
[3866]
because you don't know the problems that
[3868]
exist you have to have a job or be
[3870]
working on something every day to see a
[3871]
problem yeah but now with the no code
[3873]
tools that you mentioned earlier like if
[3875]
you see a problem you can build it
[3877]
without knowing how to code there's API
[3879]
no code like make.com or zapier yep and
[3882]
then you can literally just start
[3883]
bringing it to Market without having to
[3884]
put any money into it so now the best
[3886]
business model is beginner friendly yeah
[3888]
you just have to find an idea and then
[3890]
validate it by taking surveys yeah fun
[3892]
fact my business partner Cadence on
[3893]
make.com's homepage because he's like a
[3896]
power user of mate.com yeah we've been
[3898]
using we've been doing exactly this like
[3900]
that's what we're doing exactly what
[3901]
your new business is yeah let's just go
[3903]
ahead and go into that so you sold the
[3905]
microsass the agency software yeah
[3908]
because you saw one micro problem on go
[3912]
high level yeah and saw that they don't
[3915]
I show one aspect of the analytics yeah
[3917]
so you just made this for yourself you
[3918]
realize hundreds of other people could
[3919]
benefit from it and then you sold it to
[3921]
someone that serves those people yeah
[3923]
super straightforward and again you just
[3925]
happen to know Iman personally but you
[3927]
could have sold it unacquired yeah no I
[3928]
want to yeah I want to uh say that too
[3932]
like we had offers on acquire.com Iman
[3934]
was just willing to do the deal faster
[3936]
and yeah and of course you know and
[3937]
easier like there's a lot of paperwork
[3939]
exactly yeah no commission Etc like
[3942]
acquire.com is an incredible platform
[3944]
and if Iman had said no to buying agency
[3947]
reporting I can guarantee it would have
[3949]
sold on on acquire.com for sure I mean
[3952]
do you see sales all the time on there
[3954]
like I know someone who literally just
[3955]
makes the same CRM every single month he
[3958]
makes one a month makes the same CRM and
[3960]
just sells it on there for 30. there are
[3961]
people that make millions of dollars a
[3963]
year just building software companies
[3964]
building no code software companies or
[3967]
just productizing API selling them on
[3969]
acquire.com they're making millions of
[3971]
dollars a year yeah it's literally just
[3972]
like this guy makes he just connects the
[3974]
analytics and makes a ERM for one
[3976]
specific industry and then just sells
[3978]
that to one company and plugs in their
[3980]
actual API Keys exactly so they get
[3982]
their analytics he could make it and
[3983]
then productize it but then you have to
[3985]
like he just doesn't want to do it so he
[3986]
just likes making it selling it it's
[3988]
kind of like an agency almost like an
[3989]
internal dashboard agency yeah it's cool
[3991]
but okay so this this product had
[3994]
product Market fit your microsass and it
[3997]
was clearly working and you could have
[3999]
scaled it so why but you saw a bigger
[4001]
opportunity yeah so even without that
[4003]
validation you still chose to pursue
[4005]
this one that you didn't have validation
[4006]
on yeah first off how did you find this
[4008]
problem yeah and then tell me if you
[4010]
want to go into it yeah sure so so I'll
[4012]
talk about it at a high level but
[4014]
um we did have validation on this one um
[4016]
because I've been doing this so it might
[4019]
seem like on this podcast like I'm kind
[4021]
of all over the place but I've kind of
[4022]
I've always done one thing
[4025]
um and for a long time like when I was
[4027]
16 years old my very first job in high
[4029]
school was working in an auto repair
[4030]
shop so I've always been a car guy I've
[4033]
always been in the automotive industry
[4034]
so so my first agency was first how you
[4036]
got with JR which is exactly yeah
[4038]
exactly so yeah media kits was like a
[4040]
weird tangent like it was like a
[4042]
consumer SAS company in like the
[4045]
influencer marketing space which is so
[4047]
foreign to what I was used to like my
[4048]
first two businesses were both in
[4050]
automotive and so and even like agency
[4054]
reporting we built that for my
[4056]
Automotive marketing agency right so
[4058]
everything like the non-sexy stuff in my
[4061]
career has always been in the auto
[4063]
repair industry which is kind of crazy
[4065]
because it's like one of the most unsexy
[4066]
Industries ever but um but it's an
[4069]
underserved industry and it's it's an
[4070]
industry that I know very intimately and
[4072]
that I've been involved in for like a
[4074]
long time
[4075]
and uh yeah basically we're building uh
[4078]
kind of an AI powered vertical SAS
[4080]
company for uh for the auto repair
[4082]
industry and that that's my new Venture
[4084]
I'm telling you like I'm gonna scream it
[4086]
on my YouTube channel for the last four
[4087]
or five months and I really feel like
[4089]
people aren't like grasping
[4091]
first how important is speed is but how
[4094]
big of an opportunity this is right now
[4095]
like this is like Drop Shipping in 2014
[4097]
2015. SMA at 2016. like
[4101]
it's you could scale up to the highest
[4104]
level and you don't have to make the
[4105]
product anymore you just plug in an API
[4106]
it's [聽__聽] crazy yeah yeah and like to
[4109]
your point like so open AI you know went
[4112]
viral back in November December for
[4114]
launching chat gbt
[4116]
um the irony about that is so gpt3 has
[4119]
been around for years yeah and there
[4120]
there's actually a bunch of companies
[4122]
that are multi-million dollar companies
[4123]
that started Jasper is a great example
[4126]
that started back in 2016 17 18 just
[4130]
productizing gpt3 and then chat GPT for
[4134]
some reason is probably just the UI
[4136]
ironically
[4138]
um I didn't even really think about that
[4140]
until just now but like literally chat
[4142]
gbt was an internal tool that was just a
[4145]
productized API of something that
[4148]
already existed at openai so if you
[4150]
think about it that way like that is the
[4152]
epitome of what we're talking about is
[4154]
what openai did with igbt but
[4156]
furthermore
[4157]
um you know these large language models
[4159]
have apis so a lot of these AI startups
[4162]
that you're seeing out there
[4163]
all they are is open ai's API with a
[4167]
wrapper around it that's geared towards
[4169]
a specific industry and like you can
[4171]
build a big business doing that you like
[4174]
that's why they were but that's
[4175]
specifically why they released the API
[4176]
you didn't see because they don't have
[4178]
like there's only 100 people there they
[4179]
don't have the creativity or knowledge
[4181]
in these industries to know all the
[4183]
different ways it can be used yeah since
[4184]
it's such a broad thing so they open it
[4186]
up and give these people access to the
[4188]
apis then collect all the data on who's
[4190]
actually using it and then they'll make
[4192]
better decisions from there and they
[4193]
want you to yeah there's also this
[4194]
concept of guardrails so
[4198]
gpd4 gbt 3.5 like these large language
[4201]
models they have access to all of the
[4203]
information on the internet but they
[4204]
they don't have the context to put guard
[4208]
rails up around what's
[4210]
important and not important in a certain
[4212]
context so to to make that even simpler
[4217]
um for a dentist office
[4219]
like sure you could just use the raw API
[4222]
from from openai to respond to somebody
[4225]
who wants to book an appointment at your
[4226]
dentist office
[4228]
but what would be even more important is
[4230]
if you can provide context and guard
[4231]
rails almost like at a bowling alley
[4233]
like the little things that pop up on
[4234]
the side like that is what the big
[4237]
opportunity is because if you're a
[4239]
dentist or you own a dentist marketing
[4242]
agency and you can go and say all right
[4244]
I have all of this data from previous
[4247]
customers or from their point of sale
[4249]
software or whatever it might be and I
[4252]
know XYZ needs to happen before they can
[4255]
make their appointment or I know that
[4256]
they
[4258]
um were supposed to get braces last time
[4260]
and they didn't right now I can build
[4263]
that into my product and it's going to
[4266]
inform this open AI uh endpoint to say
[4270]
something with more context so you know
[4273]
instead of being kind of like this very
[4275]
generic uh you know text generation you
[4278]
can actually make it industry specific
[4279]
by giving it more data that's contextual
[4282]
to that specific use case and so
[4286]
um yeah we can dive into that if if we
[4288]
want to get more taxes when people say
[4289]
they're training AI That's all they're
[4291]
doing is like say your dentist and you
[4294]
recommend one type of toothpaste yeah
[4297]
and so and then they want to ask what's
[4298]
the best toothpaste you don't want them
[4300]
to answer your competitors toothpaste
[4302]
you want them to answer exactly what you
[4303]
record you did a much better job
[4305]
you know yeah so that's kind of like the
[4309]
private data that's what stable
[4310]
diffusion's whole business model is
[4311]
exactly they give everyone access to the
[4313]
large language model but then they go
[4315]
ahead and train private companies
[4317]
private data for their own use case
[4319]
exactly exactly every company needs that
[4322]
every company yeah so it's massive if I
[4325]
were to start a bootstrapped SAS company
[4328]
for the very first time in 2023 I would
[4332]
take a large language model API like
[4334]
open AI I would take a no code platform
[4337]
like bubble and then I would go find a
[4339]
really Niche very unobvious problem in a
[4343]
specific industry and I would solve it
[4346]
using contextual data comp combined with
[4349]
so so contextual data from an API from
[4352]
something that's already in that
[4353]
industry combined with the large
[4355]
language model from openai and I would
[4358]
use that to create a product that solved
[4360]
that problem really really well and then
[4361]
I would sell it on acquire.com for 500
[4364]
Grand
[4365]
pause the video go back 30 seconds watch
[4368]
that three times and tell you exactly
[4370]
understand what he means because that is
[4372]
exactly what me and my partner are doing
[4374]
and I have not told him that word for
[4376]
word what me and my partner are doing
[4378]
out of all opportunities we could do
[4380]
with our Network and everything that's
[4381]
what we're doing and he said that
[4383]
without knowing that I'm doing that I
[4384]
did not and if you think he's a smart
[4385]
person if you think maybe I'm a smart
[4387]
person
[4388]
re-watch that and really internalize
[4389]
what he just said but you're doing it
[4392]
you want to share the industry over yeah
[4394]
we're doing it in the auto repair
[4395]
industry so only solely really because
[4397]
you're a car guy I would say yeah car
[4399]
guy and just happened to have like a lot
[4401]
of cool like knowledge and Connections
[4404]
in that industry and so it's just
[4405]
something that I'm very familiar with
[4406]
that's another really important thing
[4407]
yeah we're doing it in the real estate
[4408]
industry neither me my partner have any
[4410]
experience in the real estate industry
[4411]
but we have a friend here who is killing
[4414]
it in the real estate industry and
[4415]
that's such a big market so it's like
[4417]
choose the big Market find a specific
[4419]
non-sexy problem make the UI better and
[4422]
add AI anywhere you can first want to do
[4425]
it like she's like a no-brainer playbook
[4427]
in my opinion you know the less sexy the
[4429]
problem is the better
[4430]
um there's somebody on Twitter called
[4431]
Cody Sanchez she's yeah so she's an
[4434]
investor in my neighborhood oh really
[4435]
yep and she talks about boring
[4438]
businesses and that's literally she buys
[4440]
laundromats for a living it's the most
[4442]
unsexy thing ever but if you can build
[4445]
some car washes too and car washes yeah
[4447]
you can build software for laundromats
[4449]
or car washes or dentists or whatever it
[4452]
is and do exactly what I just said like
[4455]
there's a big business opportunity there
[4456]
again it's like the mobile app change
[4459]
like every company already had a website
[4461]
but now it's mobile app so you can
[4463]
that's an opportunity make them their
[4465]
mobile app and now every company will
[4466]
need AI so you just make them their AI
[4469]
version most of them aren't going to
[4471]
figure it out internally and so if you
[4472]
just make it for the industry you're in
[4474]
then you can sell that to other people
[4475]
you know the unfortunate part Brett this
[4477]
video is going to get I don't know tens
[4479]
hundreds of thousands of views and 99 of
[4482]
people listening are not going to do
[4483]
anything about it I can't it's not
[4485]
complicated like we are we like we have
[4487]
four developers on our team yeah and
[4489]
we're choosing bubble and make.com we're
[4491]
choosing both no code to learn it I'm
[4494]
gonna look in the camera right now and
[4495]
I'm gonna say if you are listening to
[4497]
this podcast and you are one of the
[4499]
people that actually takes action on
[4501]
things and it actually listens and
[4503]
applies the information that you're
[4504]
finding on the internet like this video
[4506]
like you did not end up watching this
[4507]
log into this video for no reason
[4510]
go and actually make an effort to do
[4512]
what we're talking about because if you
[4513]
just watch this video and then you skip
[4515]
to the next video and then the next one
[4517]
and then eventually you forget about
[4519]
this video entirely and you never take
[4520]
action on it
[4521]
then you know there's nothing better I
[4524]
can do to help you so and we're not
[4525]
selling anything yeah we're just what
[4528]
we're doing we're just hanging out man
[4529]
we're just talking about life like
[4532]
I just don't know how else to word it
[4534]
for people like you don't need to have
[4537]
the problem yourself find a friend
[4538]
that's in a big industry and see what
[4540]
problems they have and then just be the
[4541]
bubble person or if you don't want to
[4543]
start that business just hit me up and
[4544]
come work for me and I'll teach you the
[4547]
ropes yeah our IR agencies I guess yeah
[4549]
it's not whatever so but how are you
[4551]
going about like actually building it
[4554]
out or hiring like finding your
[4555]
developers or what's your team structure
[4557]
this time around we have a great
[4558]
development team they're all in-house
[4560]
we're doing it right we're doing it um
[4562]
we're doing it like the I guess the more
[4565]
traditional way
[4566]
um but for us it's like you know this is
[4568]
going to be a big business for us this
[4569]
isn't this isn't like sell it on micro
[4571]
on on acquire.com or anything like this
[4573]
is like a proper like multi-8 maybe nine
[4576]
figure business that that we're building
[4578]
and
[4579]
um you know we want to have the proper
[4581]
infrastructure to do that
[4582]
what do you think out of all the
[4585]
software companies you've started like
[4587]
what were problems you ran into that you
[4589]
didn't think would be problems or what
[4590]
was something that you basically like
[4593]
believed going into it that turned out
[4594]
to be completely untrue
[4596]
um
[4599]
build it and they will come is not true
[4602]
okay it's true to an extent yeah and
[4604]
it's it's not that it's completely
[4606]
untrue it's just not uh it's not like
[4609]
the most accurate description of how
[4611]
things actually work
[4612]
um you actually have to Market your
[4614]
product believe it or not like you
[4615]
actually have to get eyeballs on your
[4617]
product for it to work that should be a
[4619]
core thought process before even
[4620]
choosing what product to make is your
[4622]
ability to get eyeballs on it in the
[4624]
first place in my opinion absolutely a
[4626]
first time founder focuses more on
[4628]
product than they do on distribution a
[4630]
second time founder focuses more on
[4632]
distribution than product and I am even
[4634]
with product LED growth absolutely I'm I
[4637]
am a embodiment of that we waited way
[4640]
too long to launch Media kits we even
[4642]
talked about that right because I was
[4644]
too focused on product I thought the
[4645]
product had to be perfect versus this
[4647]
time around our product has been
[4649]
launched for six months already in a
[4651]
beta like we we've had paying users for
[4653]
six months and we haven't even launched
[4655]
publicly yet has the course of the
[4657]
product changed absolutely your initial
[4659]
idea was yeah absolutely now 100 and
[4663]
this time around we focused on
[4664]
distribution through Partnerships and
[4666]
through
[4667]
um you know we own one of the largest
[4668]
Facebook groups in our industry and like
[4670]
there's these other like you built that
[4672]
first yeah absolutely so we built the
[4674]
distribution channels before we even
[4675]
built the product versus at media kits
[4678]
we built the product and then we were
[4680]
scrambling to figure out distribution so
[4682]
go into the Facebook group that's kind
[4683]
of interesting I don't think a lot of
[4684]
people would think about that I'm a huge
[4686]
Community guy and I see the value of
[4688]
that so explain your thought process
[4689]
yeah um yeah basically we uh we started
[4692]
a Facebook group that now has thousands
[4694]
of members in a very specific Niche
[4697]
um and we're just in their thought
[4698]
leadership we don't even we don't even
[4700]
sell our software in there it's
[4701]
literally just for business owners in
[4704]
this Niche to connect with other
[4705]
business owners and that's that's
[4707]
literally all it's for and they just
[4709]
kind of help each other out they talk
[4710]
about certain things and then the best
[4712]
part is we don't have to promote our
[4714]
software because our customers will
[4716]
promote our software for us in this
[4718]
Facebook group and so all we have to do
[4720]
is just be the stewards of like Good
[4723]
Vibes and like you know good
[4725]
conversations like you know as long as
[4727]
as long as nobody's in there selling or
[4729]
promoting anything you know as long as
[4731]
there's no spam as long as there's no
[4733]
negativity or hate happening in the
[4734]
group like that's all we're there for is
[4736]
to moderate that
[4737]
um it just Grows by Word of Mouth you
[4739]
know these people invite their friends
[4741]
and then our customers will go in there
[4743]
and talk about how amazing our software
[4744]
is without us even having to ask them to
[4746]
do it communities are probably the most
[4747]
valuable part of the internet and
[4748]
absolutely all you have to do like it
[4750]
sounds it's not you create a place and
[4753]
then you like just maybe share some
[4754]
resources to start it off and you start
[4756]
telling people one by one by one hey
[4758]
there's this Facebook group for all car
[4760]
people there's a Facebook group where
[4762]
you can learn about this and we can
[4763]
share this interest and share our
[4764]
problems yeah then you get like 20
[4765]
people in there they start talking to
[4767]
each other yeah then someone else comes
[4768]
in they're like hey welcome to the group
[4770]
and it just starts to like yeah live
[4771]
it's like a living breathing organism
[4773]
dude I think Facebook groups are the
[4774]
most underrated thing in 2023 Facebook
[4776]
specifically there's online groups
[4778]
Facebook groups specifically
[4779]
specifically Facebook groups I use
[4781]
Circle so why Facebook or Discord so why
[4783]
Facebook well so for me specifically
[4785]
like because we're in like we're selling
[4786]
to small business owners like that's
[4787]
where they are like that's really the
[4789]
only place they are that's the only
[4790]
answer to that question yes um but no
[4792]
but I see your point though I think
[4794]
Discord communities are great for young
[4795]
um discords for younger people
[4796]
absolutely circles if you want it
[4798]
proprietary but Facebook is where if you
[4800]
are older demographic that are into cars
[4802]
that's where they live then you make
[4803]
Facebook groups sure you pick one you
[4805]
need to be intentional I guess yeah if
[4807]
you can be and this goes back to like
[4808]
this this is the human nature in general
[4811]
this goes back to like Casey and I
[4812]
throwing those parties in in the
[4814]
Hollywood Hills to to network and meet
[4816]
people like if you can be the steward of
[4819]
like a good time or a positive
[4821]
environment for people to hang out and
[4823]
meet peers like you will be seen as an
[4827]
authority in that industry right and so
[4829]
it's like I had no business like the
[4831]
founder of Myspace came to one of my
[4833]
parties in LA that Casey and I threw and
[4836]
like I have a cell phone number now
[4837]
because of that and and this is just
[4840]
it's just one random example but like
[4842]
No 19 year old kid has has enough like
[4846]
enough credibility to to like hang out
[4849]
with the founder of Myspace for three
[4850]
hours at some crazy mansion in the
[4852]
Hollywood Hills the only reason that
[4854]
that happened for me and for Casey is
[4857]
because we were the stewards of this
[4860]
event and he wanted to meet the people
[4862]
that put it on and this same thing goes
[4864]
for online communities right it's like
[4866]
if I can bring a bunch of like-minded
[4868]
people together on the Internet or you
[4870]
on Circle you if you can do that and
[4874]
bring people together and have them
[4875]
enjoy what they're doing and have a
[4877]
great time and and talk and network and
[4879]
you're the one that's facilitating it
[4881]
like you're going to reap the rewards of
[4884]
being that facilitator so Community is
[4886]
everything on the internet and but the
[4888]
reason he does this for your SAS and
[4890]
you're doing it preemptively because
[4892]
this is this would have been a good
[4893]
answer you didn't do it with media kids
[4894]
I guess but when you're building the
[4897]
product this is a perfect answer build a
[4899]
community of people that have that same
[4901]
problem preemptively yeah so then you
[4903]
have a group of 3 000 people that you
[4905]
can then be like oh and magically guys
[4906]
out of nowhere I found this software
[4908]
tool yeah exactly we created it but I
[4911]
think it'll help you guys because it
[4912]
helped us a lot so you fostered that now
[4914]
you have your core user base and there's
[4916]
a Facebook group for them to give you
[4917]
feedback and iterate what you're already
[4919]
benefiting from yep it's genius and so
[4921]
same thing goes for like that's why I
[4923]
have my YouTube channel like yeah I was
[4926]
talking about a way different subject a
[4927]
year and a half ago then I make a video
[4929]
on AI when chat gbt came out it's not
[4932]
when the API came out but when chatgpt
[4934]
came out got popular I understood the
[4936]
concept made a video on it now everyone
[4937]
thinks I'm an AI guy yeah and like some
[4941]
huge AI expert I get how it's good for
[4943]
people and how it's going to benefit in
[4944]
business yeah but like on the internet
[4945]
people perceive you yeah and there's
[4947]
always like there's always got to be
[4949]
somebody who can articulate information
[4950]
in a digestible way yeah and even like
[4954]
the example earlier that you made where
[4955]
I tried to explain something and then
[4956]
you explained it way simpler than I did
[4958]
it's like that's that's a skill like
[4959]
that's super power and I think that's
[4960]
why your content does well it is solely
[4963]
my intention like yeah I optimize for
[4965]
understanding in as few words as
[4966]
possible yeah that's the goal of the
[4968]
channel yeah so I'm glad I appreciate
[4970]
you saying yeah of course but brother
[4971]
you are super successful in software and
[4973]
that's what we're tackling right now so
[4975]
this is something that I'm actually
[4976]
genuinely interested in and so have you
[4979]
found like any sort of like actual
[4980]
marketing channels outside of organic
[4983]
product like growth that worked for you
[4985]
guys like you said you use tick tock
[4986]
with Josh Richards but he was an
[4987]
investor did you guys try Facebook ads
[4990]
anything you didn't see working
[4992]
um I mean yeah we've done everything
[4993]
we've done Facebook ads Tick Tock ads
[4995]
Snapchat ads
[4996]
um you know my new company is a lot of
[4999]
like in-person like uh trade shows and
[5001]
and Expos and stuff like that
[5004]
um but yeah I mean I think it's
[5006]
different for every SAS company I think
[5007]
you just the fundamental question you
[5009]
need to ask because I I don't want to I
[5012]
don't want to go into a whole monologue
[5013]
about Facebook ads even though I even
[5014]
though we could
[5016]
um if it's not applicable for you but
[5017]
like as a as a software founder
[5020]
what you have to ask yourself is where
[5022]
do my customers live where do they hang
[5024]
out where do they spend their time and
[5026]
then where are my competitors hanging
[5028]
out and spending their time and that
[5031]
should lead you to the answer to that
[5033]
question of how do I Market to these
[5035]
produce your competitors you more so
[5036]
mean where are they like marketing to
[5039]
if you take one of your customers and
[5042]
open up their credit card statement all
[5044]
the other businesses that they're buying
[5046]
from
[5047]
where do those businesses find your
[5049]
customers how are they marketing yeah
[5051]
and then just do what they're doing
[5052]
essentially okay well don't don't copy
[5054]
what they're doing but understand that
[5056]
there are certain channels in certain
[5058]
ways whether it's
[5060]
um you know like inbound outbound
[5062]
selling like you know uh organic
[5065]
marketing paid paid marketing like
[5067]
whatever it might be like there's so
[5068]
many different marketing Avenues and
[5070]
strategies and channels that you can
[5072]
utilize but you have to first understand
[5074]
which ones your customers are actually
[5077]
on and where they spend their time and
[5079]
their attention and odds are if they've
[5082]
if they're marketing on those platforms
[5083]
they've been doing in the business for
[5084]
years they probably have figured that
[5086]
one out yeah exactly take an educated
[5088]
guess yeah that they didn't they know
[5090]
what they're doing yeah okay so who do
[5092]
you learn from because you found success
[5094]
really young how old are you now 23 yeah
[5096]
you're still really young
[5097]
you're killing it so where did you learn
[5099]
this from
[5101]
um so I think that I've always I like to
[5105]
think that I'm like a student of life
[5106]
like I just love I love just digesting
[5109]
information and it was a really weird uh
[5111]
pivot for me like from like the internet
[5113]
marketing world to like the
[5116]
venture-backed like startup World those
[5118]
are two very different communities that
[5119]
very rarely overlap ironically Jasper is
[5122]
a great example of one company that did
[5124]
overlap because those guys came from
[5126]
like the marketing internet marketing
[5127]
world and now they're like a big VC
[5128]
backed SAS company but it's very rare
[5132]
um and so yeah I mean I I try to consume
[5135]
content kind of from all sides whether
[5136]
it's like you know a uh a keynote on
[5140]
Venture Capital by Sam Altman or
[5142]
something like that on YouTube or you
[5143]
know a video by Iman or by you like I'm
[5146]
I'm always trying to just kind of learn
[5147]
from everybody that has different
[5148]
perspectives on things and take the
[5150]
things that apply to my business and and
[5152]
apply them
[5153]
um and I think
[5155]
that's one of that's one of the skills
[5157]
that that if people can learn that early
[5159]
is is really powerful is understanding
[5161]
that not every piece of device even not
[5163]
every piece of advice that Brett and I
[5164]
are giving you in this video is going to
[5166]
be applicable to what you're doing but
[5168]
there's at least something I'm sure and
[5170]
if you can identify what that is and
[5171]
then take it and actually take action on
[5173]
it then you know that's the most
[5174]
important part so again software's like
[5176]
really honestly straightforward to see
[5178]
success with if you can see a problem
[5180]
and you can fix the problem yep it'll
[5182]
work for you it'll work for somebody
[5183]
else now you just need to tell other
[5184]
people that this solution exists it's
[5187]
simple it's not easy that's a really
[5188]
that's that's what I like to say
[5191]
why do you think I guess the barriers to
[5194]
entry you raise money for your new one
[5195]
yeah I did a little bit strategically so
[5198]
you also you just found investors that
[5199]
you think could get you into those type
[5202]
of businesses exactly that you saw
[5204]
before yeah and so you're this is the
[5206]
now you have the mindset of giving them
[5207]
the opportunity and then it's a
[5209]
no-brainer because they know they have
[5210]
the connections yeah and and of course
[5212]
like the second time around you know
[5214]
once you have like an exit under your
[5215]
belt it it instills a lot more
[5217]
confidence in investors they're like oh
[5218]
he's done this before he knows what he's
[5219]
doing right and that's why I say that to
[5223]
say that it's really important in my
[5225]
opinion that everybody's first business
[5227]
is bootstrapped I do not recommend
[5229]
raising money for your very first
[5230]
business I do not recommend starting a
[5232]
software company as your very first
[5233]
business I think if you can start a
[5235]
Professional Services business a
[5236]
marketing agency something similar to
[5237]
that Iman talks about this all the time
[5239]
on his YouTube channel if you can start
[5241]
as a freelancer turn that into an agency
[5242]
turn that into a cash flowing business
[5244]
have some cash and then start something
[5246]
like you know even
[5248]
um to use Oliver as an example again
[5249]
like a cpg company that's selling
[5251]
physical Goods cpg software very similar
[5254]
in the fact that they have very high
[5255]
startup costs you're not going to do
[5257]
that as a first-time entrepreneur you
[5259]
have to sell something that's scalable
[5260]
that has low overhead like marketing
[5263]
services or or some sort of agency model
[5265]
that you can do to stack some cash get
[5268]
some experience then you've kind of like
[5270]
earned the right to move into something
[5272]
like d2c or or software and I truly feel
[5275]
that way
[5276]
and the cool thing is you can start a
[5279]
Services business that's in the same
[5282]
niche as the software company that you
[5283]
might want to eventually start right you
[5286]
did you were a marketing agency for car
[5287]
people exactly yes so that that's a
[5289]
great example like if you can go and
[5291]
figure out the pain points of a certain
[5293]
industry by providing services to them
[5296]
that you know something that's
[5297]
unscalable that's that's not sexy that's
[5299]
not you know gonna get get you some
[5301]
crazy multiple or some crazy acquisition
[5303]
but purely just to learn about your
[5305]
Target customer and to learn how to run
[5307]
a business and file your taxes and just
[5309]
the basic stuff right then you can go
[5313]
and and start a software business I do
[5314]
believe that like your first business
[5316]
has to be a service agency business of
[5318]
some sort it could be mowing lawns you
[5320]
could have a lawn mowing business and
[5322]
then the people that are booking your
[5324]
services don't like they are just
[5326]
calling you on the phone you're like
[5327]
what if I just made a Marketplace for
[5329]
people in my local area to find people
[5331]
to mow their lawn yeah that's your
[5333]
software company and you can build that
[5334]
on bubble with a template with no code
[5336]
absolute lawn mowers of Arizona even
[5338]
though there's no grass here you might
[5339]
not see that success yeah maybe not here
[5341]
but if that makes sense in your area you
[5344]
just sell that as a service then you see
[5346]
a problem that people are having a hard
[5347]
time booking people and then you make a
[5349]
software company around that and you
[5350]
just use those people and they're like
[5352]
oh I don't like it it's clunky I'd
[5353]
rather just call you then maybe you have
[5355]
a bad problem you're making me want to
[5356]
go start an artificial turf company in
[5358]
Arizona but that's a service is
[5360]
literally anything just so you can learn
[5362]
the problems yes and then you can build
[5363]
a software out of that because
[5365]
objectively software is the best
[5366]
business model but it's not maybe so
[5368]
it's good software is beginner friendly
[5370]
but not first business not first time
[5374]
friendly yeah not first time so you
[5376]
could it could be your first business if
[5378]
you understand a business if you have a
[5380]
job you need to have some conceptual
[5383]
understanding of how to run a business
[5384]
and and at least some conceptual
[5387]
understanding of how software works and
[5388]
how it scales and how to get
[5389]
distribution and if you've worked in a
[5391]
business you understand how business
[5392]
works for sure I think another another
[5394]
great thing I I really like to to push
[5397]
back against this idea on like on
[5399]
YouTube and like this whole like
[5401]
internet marketing like kind of like
[5402]
self-help industry I think pushes like
[5404]
the anti-college anti-job kind of
[5407]
narrative and I completely disagree with
[5409]
that I I push it hard my next video is
[5411]
very anti-collete so here's the thing
[5414]
that's fine that's fine for context I've
[5417]
never had a job and I didn't go to
[5418]
college the point that I'm making though
[5421]
is I think sometimes for some people it
[5424]
might be good to go and get a job at a
[5428]
company that's similar to a to an in an
[5430]
industry that's similar to something
[5432]
that you want to start a business in and
[5433]
I think sometimes you might even learn
[5435]
more doing that oh yeah than trying to
[5437]
start something from scratch and just
[5438]
failing over and over again I am
[5441]
anti-college yeah a thousand percent not
[5443]
anti-job necessarily I wouldn't I don't
[5445]
think I could ever do it unless it was
[5446]
for that specific reason if I was so
[5449]
aware of what I wanted to do for a
[5451]
living so intentionally then it would
[5453]
make sense to go work for a company to
[5455]
learn the industry three learn the tools
[5457]
they use learn how they communicate and
[5458]
learn their problems then go do it
[5460]
myself but it'd have to be hyper
[5462]
intentional yeah I just don't think
[5463]
people that are just starting out at 18
[5465]
are even close to knowing what industry
[5467]
they want to work in yeah and so they
[5469]
don't do that but yeah that's a really
[5470]
good point but going and just going and
[5472]
just working for a business that's run
[5473]
by an entrepreneur that is like an
[5475]
entrepreneurial culture is it doesn't
[5478]
even matter what industry is in you're
[5479]
going to learn so much about how to run
[5481]
a business how to do customer service
[5482]
how to you know take care of your
[5484]
employees like there's so many things
[5486]
that are intangible that you and I
[5488]
probably had to learn the hard way
[5489]
because we've never worked somewhere
[5491]
yeah right it's like I think about this
[5493]
all the time I'm like damn like things
[5495]
like HR and like payroll taxes and like
[5498]
all these things that I I don't know how
[5499]
they work because I've never been on the
[5501]
flip side so I'm like oh man like if I
[5504]
had just worked a regular job for like a
[5506]
year I would probably know how these
[5508]
things work but I don't and so I have to
[5509]
figure it out on the Fly and you pay for
[5511]
that yeah exactly you literally pay for
[5512]
that yeah yeah that lack of knowledge
[5514]
and typically you just have to hire
[5515]
someone who then has done it before
[5516]
exactly the only way you do learn
[5518]
exactly interesting so do you think that
[5524]
I just don't know like what how what age
[5527]
were you when you started consuming
[5528]
YouTube
[5529]
oh like 15 14 because I feel like all
[5532]
everyone I've had on this podcast all of
[5533]
us in our Circle all lived the same life
[5535]
14 to 15 years old we were all watching
[5537]
the Ecom smma YouTube yeah yeah yeah
[5539]
then we all kind of went to these
[5541]
networking events out in California
[5542]
until we all met and then now everyone's
[5544]
at this 22 to 25 range making hundreds
[5547]
of thousands if not millions of dollars
[5548]
dude that's how that's how Iman and I
[5550]
met I was making smma content on YouTube
[5552]
when like I had like a couple thousand
[5555]
subscribers and so did Iman he had like
[5557]
a couple thousand subscribers and this
[5559]
is back in like 20 16 like late 2016 and
[5563]
he like shot me a DM I still have it I
[5565]
went back and like read it the other day
[5566]
because I was like I was like looking at
[5568]
his channel I'm like damn I'm so proud
[5569]
of this guy like this is crazy but like
[5571]
he reached out to me he's like hey Karen
[5573]
like you know great to connect like I
[5574]
like like your smma content on YouTube's
[5576]
cool and like we just kind of hit it off
[5578]
and we've stayed in touch ever since and
[5580]
now he's like the biggest Creator on the
[5582]
platform in that industry it's like it's
[5584]
so impressive yeah it just takes
[5586]
everything so serious and it's just
[5587]
become such quality so he deserves
[5589]
everything absolutely but it's also
[5590]
interesting to me to see and he's so
[5592]
young dude yeah just been in the game
[5593]
since 14. it's so cool yeah but uh it's
[5596]
cool for me to see also because I'm a
[5597]
little older I'm 26 and so I'm starting
[5598]
to see like this like
[5600]
because I was watching Iman when I was
[5602]
like five years ago in my SMA yeah but
[5604]
now we're seeing like these new wave of
[5605]
like a new generation of influencers all
[5608]
in the same coming up with no code SAS
[5610]
AI yeah the new like generation
[5612]
businesses of the future is what I call
[5614]
them yeah and so it's really cool to see
[5616]
that it's like it works we kind of laid
[5619]
that framework down because it's like
[5621]
almost like one of the first generations
[5622]
of like internet money kids
[5623]
running Facebook ads the gurus abuse
[5626]
everybody yeah like if we just went
[5627]
through it I love I love uh Bia haza
[5630]
yeah he's like one of my favorites and
[5631]
then there's this kid called uh Kaden
[5633]
boof I don't know if you've seen him on
[5635]
Tick Tock but you gotta check it out
[5636]
he's hilarious he'll take like these
[5638]
these like super basic concepts like
[5640]
like mowing lawns and stuff like that
[5641]
and he'll just go out and like make a
[5644]
bunch of money doing it but he has like
[5645]
this comedic effect to it and the videos
[5647]
are hilarious kids like 17 or 16. what's
[5649]
the angles like because it's like it's
[5651]
easy he's just showing people how easy
[5652]
it is to go out and make money doing
[5653]
stuff almost everyone's just like in
[5655]
their mind yeah but but he makes it into
[5656]
like a skit so it's hilarious but anyway
[5658]
yeah like there's so many kids doing
[5660]
this and it's it's incredible to see so
[5663]
I also find it so interesting
[5665]
of like the influencer dynamic of like
[5668]
growing a following then do you start
[5670]
the business or start the business then
[5672]
grow following and so I do want to ask
[5674]
you because you made YouTube videos like
[5676]
way back in the day and you have what
[5679]
like over like probably 11 12 kids yeah
[5680]
something like that yeah but you have
[5681]
videos with hundreds of thousands of
[5682]
views but you took when you started
[5685]
Media Kids you stopped yeah so and I
[5688]
still I I've been like basically not on
[5691]
the internet for like the last six
[5692]
months because I've been building my new
[5693]
business you sold everything yeah I did
[5697]
um I'm of the opinion that like so my
[5699]
new business my new business does not
[5701]
benefit from my personal brand at all
[5703]
right it's just not like my my personal
[5705]
brand is like in the same space as like
[5707]
younger guys that are like up and coming
[5709]
in business and like I'm selling to you
[5711]
know brick and mortar small business
[5712]
owners with my new my new company so I
[5715]
just kind of made the decision like my
[5717]
personal brand has been amazing to me
[5718]
over the last six years it's allowed me
[5720]
to connect with guys like you and Iman
[5722]
and Casey and Jr and all these guys and
[5724]
it's amazing but but for me like I've
[5727]
just recognized that I've I've picked a
[5729]
lane that doesn't require me to be like
[5732]
on the internet and so I've kind of
[5733]
taken a step back do you prefer that I
[5736]
do I think it's more peaceful
[5738]
um
[5738]
and I don't want my business to be
[5741]
dependent on me because it's less
[5743]
sellable and so I think there are people
[5746]
that do it really well like there's
[5748]
plenty of people that have a personal
[5749]
brand that's really big and also a
[5751]
business that's unrelated that makes a
[5753]
bunch of money and that's great but if
[5755]
if somebody's business relies on their
[5757]
personal brand that's just that's not
[5758]
for me it's not something that I want to
[5761]
do because I don't see it I don't see it
[5763]
as having longevity I prefer to talk to
[5765]
people who don't have personal Brands
[5767]
because
[5768]
even though I'm in this group too like a
[5770]
lot of the success of your business if
[5772]
from a personal brand is solely because
[5773]
of your personal brand and that actually
[5775]
almost is the business you know what I'm
[5777]
saying yeah and that's why you're
[5778]
successful so when I can talk to people
[5780]
who don't have a huge following but
[5781]
their business is making millions it's
[5782]
like you know it's because they're
[5783]
tactics and their product was so good
[5785]
yeah and everybody everybody realizes
[5787]
this eventually like you see all these
[5788]
influencers launching product lines that
[5791]
are like branded separately and like all
[5792]
these things and uh even Iman like his
[5795]
software company it's like yeah it
[5797]
benefits from his personal brand but
[5798]
like hopefully they'll be able to keep
[5801]
that separate yeah so it's like you know
[5803]
people people realize this eventually
[5804]
and and you know I think for me it's
[5806]
like maybe I'll come back on YouTube and
[5809]
Instagram one day and like try to grow
[5810]
my personal brand in you know in the
[5812]
next few years but for now I'm kind of
[5814]
just keeping a low profile I mean I
[5816]
guess that's why but that's why Alex
[5817]
hermosi came back like so heavy for sure
[5819]
YouTube for sure because he saw how like
[5821]
powerful like Kylie Jenner and well Mr
[5823]
beastware but he also sold his business
[5825]
and it was it was like that's it and he
[5827]
was doing something different now so now
[5830]
he has a really cool model yeah the
[5831]
acquisition.com model is really cool
[5833]
why'd you sell everything move to Bali
[5835]
you don't know how much time how many
[5837]
times I've fantasized about that dude I
[5838]
haven't texted you all day dude dude I
[5840]
know I know like yeah it's uh it was
[5843]
amazing yeah so for context I lived in
[5845]
Bali for four months
[5848]
um and it was it was a few things so
[5850]
selling media kits was like it's a big
[5853]
thing for me because it was like my
[5854]
identity like it's all I did for two and
[5856]
a half three years it's all I was
[5858]
focused on and so having that weight off
[5860]
my shoulders like you know investors
[5863]
employees like you know among like
[5865]
issues with the software bugs I asked
[5867]
you about that one what was it like was
[5869]
having investors really stressful it
[5871]
wasn't stressful like on a day-to-day
[5873]
basis but like on a macro level yeah
[5875]
because like you owe people money and
[5877]
you got to make sure that's
[5877]
psychological I think that would really
[5878]
impact me yeah so it was you know it was
[5882]
the first time in my life where I had no
[5885]
responsibilities or obligation like when
[5887]
I sold media kits I stayed at the
[5888]
company for a little while and then I
[5889]
then I left
[5891]
um and I had no responsibilities I had
[5893]
gotten rid of my apartment I had uh I
[5896]
had sold all my cars I had sold media
[5898]
kits
[5900]
um and I literally just had zero
[5902]
obligation I had no employees I had no
[5903]
investors I had nothing I was just free
[5905]
and I was like I knew I wanted to build
[5908]
my next SAS company and you know my so
[5911]
my business partner Caden and I were
[5913]
like all right where can we go for like
[5914]
90 days to just lock in and be focused
[5916]
time zone doesn't matter
[5919]
um you know distance doesn't matter
[5921]
um you know price to a certain extent
[5923]
doesn't really matter because like we're
[5925]
just gonna go somewhere nice and just
[5927]
enjoy it and like especially like in
[5929]
your early 20s like having like
[5932]
basically no responsibilities I don't
[5934]
have a dog or anything like I don't have
[5936]
a girlfriend like car guy I'm surprised
[5937]
yeah you know I had it for like two and
[5940]
a half years so I was kind of ready for
[5941]
the next thing but
[5942]
um but yeah man it was just great like
[5943]
being able to go there and just live out
[5945]
of a suitcase for four months and just
[5947]
do whatever you want like was there like
[5949]
a clear goal like an outcome you wanted
[5951]
or like to build my next company to
[5953]
decide what it was or you already had
[5954]
the idea we already had the idea it was
[5956]
to build the MVP gotcha and also that
[5959]
was on like the business side it was to
[5960]
build the MVP for my next business and
[5962]
then on the personal side it was kind of
[5964]
like just like this sounds super cliche
[5965]
but like ReDiscover myself like what are
[5967]
my core values and beliefs what do I
[5969]
want the next three to five years of my
[5970]
life to look like how am I going to kind
[5972]
of like reinvent myself after media kits
[5974]
because so much of my personal brand and
[5977]
my like reputation was wrapped up in
[5979]
media kits and I I wanted to you know
[5981]
pivot away from that
[5982]
um you know hormozi has even talked
[5984]
about this recently he uses the example
[5985]
with
[5986]
um who's the actor from Wolf of Wall
[5988]
Street yeah no the other guy Jonah Hill
[5992]
um
[5993]
Matthew McConaughey Matthew McConaughey
[5995]
yeah I think her Mosey made a video
[5997]
about this he's like Matthew McConaughey
[5998]
McConaughey used to do you like rom-coms
[6000]
and then he disappeared for a couple
[6001]
years came back did like you know more
[6003]
serious characters and like I kind of
[6005]
went through the same thing as like you
[6007]
go through these Ebbs and flows in your
[6008]
life and your career like almost like
[6010]
these character arcs where it's like
[6012]
Kieran O'Brien the the marketer like the
[6014]
internet marketer guy and then it's like
[6016]
Karen O'Brien the SAS founder in like
[6019]
the influencer space and so you know 23
[6023]
years old now having gone through the
[6025]
kind of those two phases like this next
[6027]
one is is a whole different identity
[6028]
it's a whole different kind of like like
[6030]
brand and and it's a whole different way
[6032]
of that I want people to think about me
[6035]
and more importantly that I want to
[6036]
think about myself and so it was kind of
[6038]
just like a reset it was like I was off
[6041]
social media I deleted everything off my
[6043]
phone it was just like a cleanse so it's
[6046]
almost like people the world's always
[6047]
trying to put you in a box to like
[6049]
categorize you to understand you yeah I
[6051]
love the fact that people like Kanye
[6052]
West was like the best one like yeah
[6054]
completely reinvented yeah great example
[6056]
yes because he used to be the shutter
[6058]
Shades guy when I was like yeah and he
[6060]
went to ease this was completely
[6061]
obviously like sometimes sometimes you
[6064]
just gotta change your environment to be
[6066]
able to see things like from a different
[6067]
perspective so I highly recommend oh
[6070]
yeah you know if if any like young
[6071]
people are watching like go out and see
[6074]
the world like you don't have to have a
[6075]
bunch of money to do it either like you
[6077]
know you can these businesses were
[6078]
talking about starting you could do that
[6079]
from your laptop from anywhere you like
[6081]
evolve as a person if you go to like a
[6082]
third terrible country or like not
[6084]
necessarily third world but like I went
[6085]
to the country Colombia by myself oh
[6087]
yeah like traveled there by myself or
[6088]
one of my agency clients and trying to
[6091]
just communicate with people who don't
[6092]
speak English and like a meals two
[6094]
dollars like dude your whole worldview
[6096]
shifted yeah traveling to a third world
[6098]
country and then more importantly what
[6100]
you just mentioned solo travel is so
[6102]
important like I think everybody should
[6104]
do a multiple week if not multiple month
[6106]
long solo trip somewhere with no friends
[6108]
because it's 100 on you to figure out
[6110]
and solve every problem you're facing
[6111]
exactly and then you don't have Wi-Fi
[6112]
half the time yeah yeah it's such a it's
[6115]
such a paradigm shift and it's it's just
[6117]
like a different perspective on life and
[6119]
um yeah I recommend it to everybody yeah
[6122]
so what have you thought about like
[6125]
as you've come back from that
[6128]
have you like tried to like I feel like
[6131]
there's a huge shift in like team size
[6132]
going down
[6133]
are you like optimizing for like the
[6135]
most lean team possible or do you like
[6137]
view this is like I want to make this a
[6139]
thousand person company no headcount is
[6141]
not a measure of success and that one of
[6143]
the things in Silicon Valley it always
[6145]
used to be raising money how many
[6147]
raising money and how many employees you
[6148]
have like those are stupid metrics no
[6150]
what's your ebitda what's your Revenue
[6152]
you know what's your net retention
[6153]
what's your what's your Revenue per
[6155]
employee like those are the things that
[6156]
I care about and yeah for this new
[6159]
Venture like I'm focusing on quality of
[6161]
people way more than quantity of people
[6163]
and
[6165]
one a player is worth five C players how
[6168]
have you gone about finding them
[6170]
I think it's just intuition man and like
[6172]
this is one of the things like
[6174]
it's all this stuff when I was coming up
[6176]
when I was like basically like a
[6178]
freelancer running my agency I always
[6179]
thought stuff like
[6181]
stuff like culture and stuff like
[6184]
um you know your values and your mission
[6186]
statement and all this stuff I thought
[6187]
it was like cliche and kind of stupid
[6189]
but if you actually do it right and you
[6192]
actually like do it in a way that's
[6194]
that's profound and that that people can
[6196]
get behind and like turn it into like a
[6198]
real movement
[6200]
um then you know the results of that are
[6203]
like crazy so there's more fulfillment
[6205]
that people can get out of like working
[6207]
on a problem that feels important yeah
[6208]
absolutely than just money yeah
[6210]
especially people who aren't naturally
[6212]
entrepreneurs they want to feel like
[6214]
they are important at the job they're
[6216]
playing a big role and they're working
[6217]
on something that's actually making the
[6219]
world a better place yeah 100 and you
[6221]
have to be you have to evolve so much as
[6223]
a leader to attract and a lot of it like
[6226]
the law of attraction is very real in
[6228]
every aspect of of life and to attract a
[6232]
player talent you have to be an a play
[6234]
and like an A plus leader right and not
[6236]
saying that I am I'm working towards it
[6238]
every single day I I don't think
[6240]
anybody's a perfect leader but like
[6242]
I've been like another thing I did in
[6244]
Bali is I studied leadership a lot and I
[6246]
read a lot of books and
[6248]
um really went down like this Rabbit
[6250]
Hole of like human psychology and how
[6251]
that like relates to leadership and so
[6253]
you know
[6255]
for for people that are watching if
[6257]
you're thinking about you know starting
[6258]
like an AI startup or starting like a no
[6260]
code like a bubble company or or
[6262]
starting a lawn mowing business it
[6263]
doesn't really matter what you're doing
[6265]
um eventually you'll get to a point
[6267]
where you need to start hiring employees
[6268]
and building a team and understanding
[6271]
how to do that in a way that builds real
[6274]
culture and that actually gets buy-in
[6276]
from your team members and like truly
[6279]
does that right not just you know like
[6282]
the facade of doing it where people
[6283]
stick around for six months and then
[6285]
they leave like if you can really nail
[6287]
that like business at a high level is a
[6289]
people game and that's it like product
[6293]
IP patents trademarks you know all that
[6297]
stuff it doesn't matter you're in the
[6299]
people business if you can't nail that
[6301]
then none of the rest of the stuff I
[6303]
just listed really matters too much
[6304]
because it'll just implode yeah it's
[6306]
like human capital your company is the
[6308]
average value of the average IQ of your
[6310]
company in a way yeah it's like if you
[6312]
have really high quality people you're
[6313]
going to take it away further absolutely
[6314]
I really
[6318]
do you like
[6319]
go for all full-time employees or do you
[6322]
lean towards contractors more
[6325]
um we're very contractor heavy yeah so
[6327]
there's no right answer
[6329]
um everybody on our team right now uh
[6333]
except for like one person I think is is
[6334]
full-time and that's very intentional
[6337]
because we want to build the culture in
[6338]
that way I think sorry is it because
[6340]
sorry you finish no no you're good I
[6342]
think a hybrid is is the right approach
[6343]
in the beginning even like this new
[6345]
business that we started we were a
[6346]
hybrid approach in the beginning
[6349]
um but like the status of an employee
[6351]
being a 1099 or a W-2 isn't what makes
[6354]
them a contractor right it's it's about
[6357]
how ingrained they are in your culture
[6359]
and so you can make like someone who's
[6361]
technically like on paper or contractor
[6363]
you can make them a part of your culture
[6365]
and then you know eventually transition
[6366]
them over to like a full-time position
[6368]
when you're when you're able to so
[6370]
that's all semantics it doesn't matter
[6371]
is it more so to sell your company
[6373]
though
[6374]
yeah I'm not I'm not worried about that
[6376]
it's it's like it's more just
[6379]
like building building a team that
[6380]
actually cares about what you're doing
[6382]
right like a freelancer is not going to
[6384]
care about what you're doing so I think
[6385]
there's like there's different types of
[6387]
of tools in the toolbox right it's like
[6389]
you've got like your exacto knives and
[6390]
you've got like your machetes it's like
[6392]
you you can hire and and the the
[6395]
verbiage that I like to use is like
[6397]
missionaries versus Mercenaries
[6399]
so your mercenaries like your I know
[6401]
this one yeah exactly yeah your
[6403]
mercenaries like your machete and your
[6405]
missionaries like your exacto knife it's
[6407]
like they're for different purposes and
[6408]
so your your mercenaries are the
[6412]
Freelancers the guys that are just going
[6413]
to come in they're gonna get [聽__聽] done
[6415]
and they're just gonna do it because
[6417]
they're getting paid to do it and there
[6418]
is a time and a place for that in every
[6420]
business
[6421]
sometimes there's a time and a place for
[6423]
that in you know in a business for a
[6425]
very long time even once you have an
[6427]
amazing culture there's still a place
[6428]
for outside Consultants you know
[6430]
mercenaries to come in and just and just
[6432]
do one task really well and then leave
[6434]
like there's absolutely a place for that
[6437]
um but the core of your team should be
[6439]
missionaries they should be people that
[6441]
are there for the mission that you're on
[6443]
that are Marching with you that are like
[6446]
side by side like shoulder to shoulder
[6448]
with you in combat so to speak like
[6450]
those are the people that you want there
[6452]
day in and day out and every now and
[6454]
then you might have to bring in a
[6454]
mercenary to get something really
[6456]
specific done do you try to optimize for
[6458]
everyone to work in person
[6459]
uh we're balancing that we're about to
[6462]
open an in-person office here
[6464]
um but uh but yeah we do have employees
[6467]
that are in other cities that are in the
[6470]
same city as each other and they'll work
[6471]
in person together at like wework or
[6473]
something yeah Okay cool so you were
[6476]
able to achieve a lot of success very
[6478]
young like you're still young but even
[6481]
before your software companies you were
[6482]
successful and like what do you
[6486]
attribute that to what do you think it
[6488]
was in you that like
[6489]
so many people like can't ever wrap
[6492]
their head around making ten thousand
[6493]
dollars a month or can't ever wrap their
[6495]
head around even starting their own
[6496]
company so what like what was it how
[6500]
were you able to do that bro
[6502]
I you know I think about this a lot and
[6504]
I don't know like innately what it was
[6507]
like I always as a kid like I always
[6509]
wanted to do things like differently I
[6512]
always had like this yeah like I I had
[6515]
this like I never did well with
[6517]
authority like coaches and teachers and
[6519]
stuff like that I I always wanted to
[6521]
kind of do things my own way lemonade
[6523]
stands flipping sneakers on ebay like I
[6525]
did all that stuff and I don't know like
[6527]
innately what drove that but
[6530]
I always think that it was like kind of
[6532]
a fear of being average like I grew up
[6534]
in a like a middle class family like I
[6536]
wasn't I wasn't poor by any means like I
[6538]
never had to worry about where my next
[6539]
meal was coming from but like you know I
[6542]
went on like a vacation like every other
[6544]
year maybe and like my my dad drove a
[6547]
Honda Accord and like we lived in a like
[6550]
a modest house in a modest neighborhood
[6552]
and like there just wasn't anything
[6553]
crazy like I never I never saw an
[6555]
entrepreneur no no but both neither my
[6558]
parents were entrepreneurs so I didn't
[6559]
even know what the word entrepreneur was
[6560]
until I was like 17. and so
[6564]
I say all that to say that like I grew
[6566]
up in that like typical like white
[6567]
picket fence type you know type
[6569]
situation and you know sometimes like a
[6572]
lot of people that grow up in very
[6574]
underprivileged situations they they
[6576]
hustle because they want to get out of
[6577]
that and I totally understand and
[6579]
empathize with that
[6580]
for me it was more so like I see the
[6582]
people around me and they're kind of
[6584]
like they're just scraping by like
[6587]
they're they're they're fine like
[6589]
they're living for the weekend
[6590]
essentially exactly and the bare minimum
[6592]
to get my next to get off exactly and I
[6595]
just didn't I didn't resonate with that
[6597]
I always knew from a young age I'm like
[6598]
I want to do I know there's something
[6600]
Beyond this like I know there's another
[6602]
level above this that I can get to
[6605]
um and I just wanted that I didn't even
[6607]
know what it what it was necessarily I'm
[6609]
just like I want to do more with my life
[6611]
than than what I'm exposed to on a
[6614]
day-to-day basis I'm so fascinated by
[6616]
how many like pure quantity like 20 to
[6619]
25 year old millionaires there were 20
[6621]
years ago or 30 years ago before the
[6623]
internet it'd be interesting I know so
[6625]
many kids making 100K a month so many
[6627]
people that have cracked the code with
[6629]
whether they're a go high level
[6630]
affiliate or they're running an smma or
[6632]
Drop Shipping whatever it is there's so
[6634]
many and it's just because like if you
[6636]
just fill your mind with the right
[6637]
information on the internet like just
[6639]
got to do the work it's just execution
[6641]
yeah like there's I don't I just don't
[6643]
get it
[6644]
how whatever I've just always felt like
[6647]
an entrepreneur naturally so I've just
[6648]
always been watching these YouTube
[6649]
videos yeah and over time to start doing
[6652]
something one thing leads to the next
[6653]
one thing leads to the next you meet
[6654]
better people cooler people yeah slowly
[6656]
rise to the top feels really long in the
[6658]
time like when you're in it but dude I
[6660]
want to touch on that too man like the
[6661]
people you do it with is everything like
[6664]
everything like having a friend having a
[6667]
friend group and a network of people
[6669]
that are like killing it in their own
[6671]
respective ways and being able to be
[6673]
around them and spend time with them
[6674]
like that's why like Casey Jr and I and
[6676]
a few other people like we all moved out
[6678]
here Seb two like we all moved out here
[6680]
to Scottsdale around the same time like
[6683]
when we're all like 17 18 years old you
[6685]
know and like that was I think I
[6687]
attribute a lot of My Success to that
[6689]
just being around those guys like most
[6691]
important thing we weren't even doing
[6693]
the same stuff none of us are even in
[6694]
the same industry doing the same thing
[6695]
we're all doing like the stuff we're
[6697]
doing couldn't be more different in
[6698]
terms of how we make money but we were
[6700]
just around each other and like we go to
[6702]
dinners and we'd hang out and I think
[6704]
that's
[6705]
like a big big piece of it is just being
[6707]
around like-minded people I mean how
[6709]
much has been seeing ishan's success
[6711]
been motivating you from afar oh dude
[6713]
absolutely absurd like I love that guy
[6715]
and so it's just like we're not even
[6717]
remotely in the same industry but just
[6718]
seeing that makes me want to be better
[6719]
and so yeah that's so so critical and
[6721]
that's what I was seeking for a long
[6723]
time which is what online communities
[6724]
are also great for especially when
[6725]
you're starting and the problem when
[6727]
everyone is Young is I feel like they
[6728]
think money is the issue and that is
[6730]
like really not the issue from
[6733]
to go to attended 100K really isn't
[6735]
money no it's just information and your
[6737]
T like you're who's who you're doing it
[6739]
with essentially yeah have you been are
[6741]
you doing the next one with Casey
[6743]
uh no Casey's uh Casey's not involved in
[6745]
this one he's he's doing his own thing
[6747]
also in the AI space so if you're not
[6750]
doing something if you're not building
[6751]
Ai No code SAS or AI SAS
[6754]
I don't know why bro yeah Casey's got a
[6756]
really free one I know is doing an aiss
[6759]
Casey's got a really cool product it's
[6760]
basically like uh you could even use it
[6762]
for for this episode it's like AI for
[6764]
podcasts so it does like show notes and
[6766]
descriptions um and titles for podcasts
[6769]
you just uploaded I'll do my uh
[6770]
timestamps timestamps yeah
[6772]
you got a customer Bud there you go
[6774]
because I hate doing that oh let me just
[6777]
do half of it and like loading yeah but
[6778]
that's really cool okay so but
[6781]
ultimately like
[6782]
you should be doing things for free for
[6784]
people like getting access to higher
[6786]
quality information getting access to an
[6787]
industry whatever it is do a favor for
[6789]
people show them you have a skill yeah
[6792]
is there like any skills that you had or
[6794]
like what are like your most if you had
[6795]
to like Flex right now and you're good
[6798]
at something like what are your hard
[6799]
skills like I can say for me video
[6801]
lighting oh dude oh by the way yeah dude
[6804]
like this your setup is crazy I'm a nerd
[6806]
bro yeah I love it I'll talk about
[6808]
lighting for 10 hours if you want but
[6809]
dude I need help with mine this is my
[6811]
first I got you yeah do you record yeah
[6813]
I just in my apartment like I'm like I'm
[6815]
even just my zoom call set up let me
[6816]
come over I'll get you um nice ass
[6818]
webcam the whole [聽__聽] hell yeah uh I
[6821]
think my skills are
[6824]
um like product and marketing and when I
[6826]
say product specifically I mean like
[6827]
understanding consumer psychology and
[6829]
why people want something like I I can
[6831]
look at a software product or I mean to
[6834]
an extent like any kind of product but
[6836]
um software products specifically and I
[6838]
can understand why people would want it
[6841]
why why they maybe wouldn't want it
[6843]
um and if I had that product like how to
[6846]
Market to them did you choose that skill
[6849]
you know to an extent I think some of it
[6851]
is innate some of it is like just like
[6853]
Nate it's like nature versus nurture
[6854]
type thing right I think some of it is
[6855]
nature but I also think that spending
[6858]
the first four or five years of my
[6859]
entrepreneurial career in marketing and
[6861]
having to think like a marketer has
[6863]
always made me now that I'm building
[6865]
software products makes me think about
[6867]
my software products through a
[6868]
marketer's lens like when I'm building a
[6870]
product I'm thinking about how am I
[6872]
going to Market and sell this once it's
[6874]
once it exists and I think thinking
[6876]
about it through that lens kind of
[6878]
allows me like a unique perspective
[6879]
versus if I was like a software engineer
[6881]
by trade you know you might not be
[6883]
thinking through that same lens okay and
[6885]
then what about uh marketing as far as
[6887]
like yeah myself yeah I think I think
[6889]
marketing I mean it's it's a very broad
[6891]
term but like in software specifically
[6894]
just understanding how and where and
[6896]
when to reach your target audience like
[6898]
how to do activations which channels to
[6901]
pick how much to spend on things like
[6903]
you know the the little like the little
[6905]
hacks like the like the like hacking the
[6907]
organic Tick Tock algorithm for media
[6909]
kits or you know you know getting into
[6911]
Facebook groups and like you know doing
[6913]
organic like guerrilla marketing on
[6914]
Facebook groups for my new company like
[6917]
um you know understanding paid ads I've
[6919]
spent like tens of millions of dollars
[6920]
on paid ads um as a as a marketing
[6922]
agency I got to manage like you know
[6925]
almost 100 million dollars worth of AD
[6927]
budgets and that gave me like a plethora
[6929]
of knowledge about like things like
[6931]
pay-per-click and and right and Facebook
[6933]
ads and so
[6934]
um I'm always just trying to kind of
[6936]
expand my skill set in like the realm of
[6938]
marketing and understand the different
[6939]
types of marketing the different
[6941]
channels how it's done but the most
[6943]
important thing is is human psychology
[6945]
that's the one thing that's never going
[6946]
to change say it louder right so it's
[6948]
like the channel might change the
[6951]
strategy might change the tactics might
[6953]
change the one thing is never going to
[6955]
change is why does somebody buy
[6956]
something 100 if I started my YouTube
[6959]
channel when I was 20
[6960]
would not be successful at all but the
[6962]
fact that I was doing a marketing agency
[6964]
around 2122 that's where I learned to
[6966]
say make like optimize for understanding
[6969]
yeah as few words as possible guys go go
[6972]
study
[6974]
Brett's thumbnails and titles go back
[6978]
and ask yourself why did you click on
[6979]
this video what made you click on this
[6981]
video like making thumbnails and titles
[6983]
on YouTube is a science and an art but
[6986]
mainly a science and it's like that's
[6988]
marketing like understanding
[6990]
understanding what makes people want to
[6991]
click on a video like in and of itself
[6992]
someone from Iman yeah Iman is another
[6995]
the best I hope he's watching this
[6996]
because we've shouted him out so many
[6998]
times but yeah
[7000]
the best titles yeah every single person
[7002]
I tell absolutely it's a clear point you
[7004]
know exactly who it's for and what
[7005]
you're getting out of it and yeah seven
[7007]
words 50 characters it's so impressive
[7009]
yeah it's an art form but that's what I
[7011]
was good at marketing like messaging
[7012]
yeah making people understand something
[7013]
really quickly but as far as like the
[7015]
tactics or the media buying or whatever
[7017]
never my strong suit but the language so
[7019]
yeah that's a skill that has now
[7021]
translated to every business I've ever
[7022]
done or every aspect of my life that
[7024]
I've gone through yeah and psychology is
[7026]
like my most I just watch psychology
[7027]
videos all the time yeah all the time
[7029]
it's one of the most interesting things
[7030]
for me to learn about
[7032]
um I talked to Dan Co the other day and
[7033]
he said he told me about the nine stages
[7035]
of ego development watch that because
[7037]
you can like really I will that sounds
[7038]
interesting actualized.org it's really
[7040]
interesting dude but this has been like
[7042]
really like
[7044]
I don't know how else to put it because
[7045]
this wasn't like one where we were like
[7047]
getting like all like excited and hype
[7049]
and yeah and like mind blown but it's
[7051]
like that should be why this podcast is
[7053]
so valuable for people because it is so
[7057]
straightforward and how to build a
[7059]
successful SAS platform we've talked
[7061]
about so much too like all over the
[7063]
place yeah I feel like there's so many
[7064]
nuggets in this and again I I truly hope
[7066]
that people watching this like take
[7068]
something from this video and apply it
[7070]
to their lives and their businesses and
[7072]
and and do something with it and send us
[7074]
a message if you do like like let us
[7076]
know that um you know that you've taken
[7078]
it and and applied it so are there any
[7080]
YouTube channels that you're a big fan
[7081]
of right now I mean hermosi big one
[7084]
um Iman of course
[7086]
um yours
[7087]
um that's probably not helpful because
[7088]
you're already here
[7089]
um but uh but yeah though I watch I
[7092]
watch those and then
[7093]
um
[7094]
for SAS like Dan Martell makes good
[7096]
content
[7098]
um he's a good like like kind of SAS
[7099]
YouTube channel so yeah it seems pretty
[7102]
straightforward dude understand a job or
[7105]
a space find a problem try to fix it
[7107]
with software how did your hire
[7109]
developers can I ask that real quick
[7110]
sure yes one um there's a bunch of great
[7112]
platforms of higher developers you can
[7114]
find them on upwork sometimes you can
[7116]
find good ones
[7117]
um there's a platform called lemon.io
[7120]
that we've used in the past that's
[7122]
that's really good
[7123]
um if you can like if you have the
[7126]
luxury of this try to find them through
[7127]
your network like if you know anybody
[7129]
that has a software company or you like
[7132]
you know someone who's a software
[7133]
engineer try to get them to send
[7135]
referrals your way that's always going
[7136]
to be the best way
[7138]
um you know just because they're going
[7139]
to be a little bit more vetted and
[7141]
you're not completely going into it dark
[7143]
um you know and then another piece of
[7144]
advice is like just try to have at least
[7146]
a baseline understanding about how
[7147]
software Works
[7149]
um and like specifically like the types
[7151]
of languages that you're going to be
[7152]
building your product in you need to
[7154]
have like at least a baseline
[7155]
understanding there's plenty of YouTube
[7156]
videos out there to teach you how like
[7158]
react native works or how a node.js
[7160]
works or whatever it is just have like a
[7162]
baseline understanding so that you're
[7164]
not completely like confused by what's
[7167]
happening when you eventually do hire a
[7168]
developer yeah I think uh Brandon always
[7171]
says to hire like a
[7173]
a like a technical advisor yeah for
[7177]
someone to help you hire exactly at
[7179]
least you can explain the idea to them
[7180]
then they can explain it as like a
[7182]
translator from us yeah because I would
[7184]
be people would take advantage of me if
[7185]
I just started talking dude it happened
[7187]
at media kits man we went through two
[7188]
Engineers that that we burned so much
[7190]
money on and it just didn't work out I
[7192]
don't know if I ever met a developer
[7193]
who's told me they can't do what I'm
[7195]
asking for so just keep that in mind
[7197]
they're all going to say they can do it
[7199]
better than the other guy yeah and so
[7200]
you kind of have to really put those
[7202]
types of people to the test absolutely
[7203]
but or you just learn bubble but that is
[7206]
one thing I want to say there's a really
[7207]
cool I have a friend who literally
[7209]
started learning about bubble like right
[7211]
when I started talking about in January
[7213]
within two months had a good grasp on it
[7215]
and within two months after that had 25k
[7218]
a month in bubble development agency
[7219]
clients wow so not only can he use
[7221]
bubble to build his own SAS he can now
[7223]
cash flow a bubble Dev agency that's
[7226]
amazing so I thought that was pretty
[7227]
interesting because that's a really fast
[7228]
come up and yeah it's a good skill
[7230]
that's going to be relevant for a long
[7231]
time but guys follow Kieran this can
[7233]
cameras that follow Kieran on all social
[7235]
media platforms Karen O'Brien what is
[7237]
your main that you're most active on
[7239]
dude none honestly right now sorry to
[7241]
disappoint
[7242]
um yeah I mean like Instagram I'll post
[7243]
stuff here and there
[7245]
um yeah I don't know I I think maybe the
[7247]
best way is to keep tabs on what I'm
[7250]
doing like with my companies that's
[7251]
probably a better way to to really learn
[7253]
versus like the content I put out
[7255]
because again I'm kind of like kind of
[7257]
in like monk mode right now just kind of
[7259]
focus on the business so do you put a
[7261]
lot of focus on health or like like are
[7263]
you not on social media specifically for
[7264]
like dopamine reasons that and yeah I
[7266]
mean I'm doing 75 hard right now it's my
[7268]
fourth time doing it good um thank you
[7270]
yeah I work out twice a day so just
[7273]
don't have time to make content to be
[7275]
honest have you like but have you like
[7277]
consciously like put this is something I
[7279]
actually do want to talk about real
[7279]
quick yeah we're not saying goodbye yet
[7281]
it's like monk mode you went to Bali for
[7284]
this like how much that is something
[7285]
that I actually neglected for a long
[7287]
time was like quality of food I was
[7289]
eating how much dopamine can like using
[7291]
social media can affect your desire to
[7293]
do work is that something that you were
[7295]
big on at all or have you just been like
[7297]
stent I so deleting social media off my
[7300]
phone has been a big one like the owners
[7302]
the only social media app I have on my
[7304]
phone is Facebook because that's where
[7305]
my customers are yeah but like there's
[7307]
no Instagram like if you search
[7308]
Instagram on my phone like it doesn't
[7309]
exist so I think that's so yeah I think
[7312]
the best advice I got from Alex Becker
[7313]
was don't put yourself in a position
[7314]
where you have to use willpower yeah
[7316]
just make it not an option yeah and then
[7318]
do the same thing like man if there's a
[7320]
if there's a box of Oreos in my in my
[7322]
pantry like I will eat it there's a if
[7323]
there's a tub of ice cream in my freezer
[7325]
I will eat the whole thing in one night
[7326]
why don't you why don't you have Oreos
[7328]
why don't you eat high school that's the
[7330]
whole thing like I I just don't let let
[7332]
myself have them like if I really have a
[7333]
craving or something like that like I'll
[7335]
get in my car and drive to like an ice
[7337]
cream shop and have like a little thing
[7338]
of ice cream but like yeah I just try to
[7340]
keep my environment like conducive with
[7343]
the type of life I want to live so I
[7345]
keep healthy food in my fridge I keep
[7347]
social media off my phone I don't my
[7349]
phone is on my desk away from my bed
[7351]
like you know I I just try to do what I
[7354]
can to control the controllables why is
[7357]
that important to control though what if
[7358]
you didn't what would happen to you
[7360]
day-to-day life I just noticed like you
[7361]
just notice you're more distracted uh
[7364]
you like you don't like you don't the
[7368]
dopamine hits kind of like you have to
[7370]
always search for more so you spend way
[7372]
more time on these platforms like now
[7374]
when I do go on Instagram and like look
[7377]
at stuff or Twitter or whatever like I'm
[7378]
going there I'm seeing like a couple of
[7379]
my friends couple things that I like and
[7382]
that's good enough for me like I don't
[7384]
need to keep like Doom scrolling because
[7386]
I'm so used to not having it in my hand
[7389]
it's just it's they're designed to
[7390]
addict you yeah food social media video
[7393]
games yeah everything so
[7396]
I don't know do you feel like there's I
[7397]
feel like there's too much content on
[7398]
self-help out there but it's just so
[7400]
like it's like a fundamental thing yeah
[7401]
and I always just ask like I want to be
[7403]
a top performing person so I if I'm like
[7404]
feeling tempted I'd be like what a top
[7406]
performing person do this no and that
[7408]
way you just optimize every aspect of
[7410]
your life to get the most things done
[7411]
absolutely and it's all just noise okay
[7413]
sorry side note everyone every one of
[7416]
our friend group like has an extreme
[7417]
emphasis on that yeah and I just want to
[7420]
point that out yeah it's it's a common
[7422]
denominator I don't know a single person
[7423]
that is at our level just eating like
[7425]
[聽__聽] doing all this stuff we have we
[7427]
have had our fair share of uh of
[7429]
dopamine and you know nights out in
[7431]
Vegas but yeah
[7434]
here and there yeah yeah here and there
[7436]
but yeah it is important to have fun
[7438]
that's what we do it for yeah I love to
[7441]
have fun yeah but not in the work week
[7442]
or and it's like phases dude it's phases
[7445]
of life we're dragging this goodbye out
[7446]
okay guys Karen thank you see you later
[7448]
thanks for watching guys appreciate it
[7449]
that's fun bro
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