Bootstrapped Web

Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Another episode of Bootstrap Web. This one, the end of the year. We're putting 2016 into the books.

We're gonna talk about the past year, what went well, what didn't, what we learned from it, what we're gonna do in 2017, what our goals are. Brian, nice to be back with you.

Yeah. Good to be back. Another week here and another year. How many years have we been doing this now?

I don't know. Been probably two years.

I I think so. I think I think I started it in like late twenty fourteen and then and then you came on in like early twenty fifteen.

Yeah. And now we're ending up the the sixteenth. So and this is gonna be our last episode for a few weeks. Right? You're you're taking off.

Yeah. We're we're doing some traveling out in Asia next week. I'm gonna be there for a month. So I don't think that I'm gonna be able to get on the mic while while we're out there. We're doing we're jumping around to different places.

So Cool. So, yeah. We'll have

this episode as the end of 2016. We'll pick things back up in 2017. Yeah. Nice, man. So we're gonna look back in shame, hopefully not too much shame at at last year's goals and see how we did.

I think the more important thing about 2016 is is what we learned, you know, what what what didn't go well, what we learned from it.

Yeah. Absolutely. But

it's still good to be accountable to to the goals we set to to last year.

Yeah. So we can kinda look back and see what we said. I I think what happens almost every year at least with me is, you know, we set a couple of goals and then by the end of the, you know, twelve months later, at least some of them just don't even apply anymore.

Yeah. Makes me think of some Tom Petty lyrics. Most things I worry about never happen anyway.

Yep. There you

I was thinking about thin business. I get so stressed about something, like two weeks later it's it's mood. Yeah. It is relevant.

Yeah. Totally. Well, why don't we kick it off? Do you wanna you wanna start with 2016?

I guess so, man. There's just one big hairy one that I I'm not happy about, but that is what it is. So the big goal that I set last year was to bring Kartok into profitability. And that that didn't happen in 2016. I'm not happy to say it's for a number of reasons, but yeah, what we ended up doing was we ended up raising more money and hiring more and increasing our expenses.

So I barely barely getting away with the the term bootstrap web at this point. But that's what was necessary and right for the business. Now it's the same goal for 2017. My thinking is that I'm not raising more money. So that's it.

That's it. So whatever we got right now, we're getting a profitability on one way or another. So our revenue is high enough now that if we absolutely needed to be profitable, we could. But that would mean cutting expenses, which in our situation, most small software companies, that means cutting people. And don't wanna do that because we're moving fast now because of the two full time developers and Ben working as CTO.

But, you know, if if it comes down to it, we we could be profitable in just a decision, but I would much much rather revenue just go up fast enough as opposed to having to look at the bank account and say, alright. So this is the point at which I'm no longer comfortable, and now I now I cut expenses. Because that I think I think, I assume, big assumption that cutting expenses will will reduce the overall potential of the company.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually kind of finding myself a little bit in that position now right in the 2016 is expenses start to really grow and and cut into profitability. And we we've been profitable all year, but yeah. I think this last quarter, this actually gets right into my first fail of the year.

So actually, what I what I wrote down is a couple of bullet points over what went well in 2016, a couple of fails, and a couple of things about what I learned. So I'll just start off with the first bullet point from from those two. What went went well? The service has had ongoing organic inbound leads with, I'll say little marketing. And I've tried a few different things with with marketing and and obviously, I've been talking about audience ops all year long, but I don't feel like we've had a truly dialed in marketing funnel specifically to drive leads into this the productized service.

But we still have had pretty steady and healthy inbound leads for for new sales coming in. So I I guess that's something that went pretty well. The fail. So one of the goals that I had set out back in January was to double MRR for for audience ops, and we actually did do that. We hit that number about, like, seven or eight months into 2016.

But but but now here at the 2016, we're not at that number. We the m MRR dipped back down below it. This last quarter, you know, I think we've had a, you know, a string of of some cancellations. We're still adding new clients, which which keeps things, you know, pretty good. But obviously, cancellations and and churn is is never a never a good thing to deal with.

So, you know, we we've been reworking some

of the strategies and things in in the service and, you know, excited to to launch some some new stuff to improve, you know, value and and ROI and things for clients. Yeah. Where's where's the where's the leverage right now in audience ops? Is it attracting more customers? Or is it reducing churn?

Or or like where where's your focus on because it doesn't sound to me like your customer acquisition is that broken. Would additional faster client acquisition make up for everything or would you still need to address address churn either way?

I think in the last month or two, I've been much more focused on reducing churn and and trying to find ways to make the service more valuable and more sustainable for for clients. But, yeah, sales is is not something that I'm kind of pushing on right now. That we're we're getting the inbound leads and and we're closing, you know, a a percentage of them that's that's not too bad. So

Alright. At least you kinda know where

Yeah.

Where where the focus is.

I am looking forward to kind of a big, not a complete revamp, but a big change to our service. Basically, starting right now, I had a meeting with the team yesterday about how we're moving to this, like, hub and spoke strategy and and a little bit more evergreen assets that we're building for for clients to to try to drive Yeah.

Know, better dedicate some time to just explaining that out. It's I think it's useful for people regardless of whether or not they hire you to just to just understand what what you're doing for people and why you see that as as more valuable.

Yeah. I think January or February would be a good time to kinda dive into that. So so, yeah, that's that's the first point on my end.

Alright. The the the second point on my end, and I I think I'm not, like, so big on these on these, like, end of year goals. So a lot of them end up being nonspecific. So this one is like that. It was just think bigger.

And I I I think what I was talking about there is to not be constrained by current reality. And I have really, really enjoyed all the demos and sales conversations I've had over the next few weeks because it just puts me in touch with so many different people and it challenges your assumptions. This past week, I spoke to a company that's doing $80,000,000 in revenue. And they're they're not supermen. They're not, you know, they're not aliens.

They're just like me and you. They're just thinking bigger. They're just playing a different game. And it it makes you look around and say, what? Why why aren't I playing that game?

Why am I thinking not as big or not as ambitious or why am I satisfied with x or y or z?

Looking back on 2016, are there ways that you were thinking bigger or tried to think bigger?

Yeah. Look, If I wasn't thinking bigger, we would have stuck to the card abandonment product.

Yeah. Was gonna say the new product.

You know, that that really defined 2016. Making that decision and then the experience of what happened with it in terms of trying to launch and then not being able to launch and then coming back to it and now adjusting and pivoting. That was that was the year 2016 in in general. So I'll take a little credit to myself in terms of thinking bigger where I said, could just keep growing this or I could literally go to a product that I think just has much bigger potential. That also came along with some painful lessons of, okay, be careful what you wish for, be careful depending on one platform, all these other lessons that that came along with it.

Another lesson is software takes how long that you think to build, and and so on. Yeah. But so so I think generally speaking, I give myself like a b on the thinking bigger. But one year later, right now December 2016 compared to 2015, it's still the same issue. It's still, you gotta think much bigger, man.

It's just, a lot of it is these these mental limitations that I I wanna just keep keep breaking through.

Yeah. Well, I think just the the decision to to go into a second product, I think it's thinking I think maybe another way to think bigger is to think long term and not short term. Yeah. Because going into a new product, and I'm definitely in the same boat, you're foregoing short term benefits that you like if you were to just focus on card abandonment, you could have really pushed on sales and marketing there and maybe increased revenue incrementally more than you would have. But yeah, like this is you're investing time and resources into a longer game strategy.

That's kinda what I'm doing with diversifying the product line, but getting into SaaS and other products and stuff.

I I think that's a really good point and it's an it's an apt point in timing at the end of the year. I think generally speaking, I remember I remember something that I I said to potential investors at the very beginning of the process. I said to them, don't think about this as investing now and getting your money back in a year or two. And the way I said it was a lot more value, significantly more value will be created by the company in years three to five as opposed to years one and two. And I'm just finishing up year two.

And it's really hard to listen to your own, like, advice or words in that way because it's not fun to think long term. But

And it's painful in the moment.

Yeah. But the reality is that these things take longer than you want You know, the the the freak stories of zero to a 100 in, you know, in in eighteen months, it it's just not the normal case. It's the outlier. So I think that's a great point. Thinking long term is thinking bigger, is thinking more responsibly, is thinking in a more mature business way.

Yeah. Not not easy though.

Yeah. So so one of the bullets I had for what I learned is right on that same point there is is that I really decided this year that we need a diversified product line with more scalable products in the line because the the productized service is profitable and it's growable and and the profit margin kind of remains fairly consistent give give or take. It's not as scalable and I'm not really I decided that that I'm not really interested in just growing a team of like a 100 people and and I wanted to get into more, you know, scalable products. That's why we're now getting into software and a training product. So that's, you know, the long term growth thing that I learned.

One of the things that I think went well in 2016 on on that note is that we successfully validated the idea for the SaaS audience ops calendar and we pre sold it, had 14 people, you know, pre purchase it. And and I'm just getting ready now to release the MVP to well, that's actually getting into the next thing that I had there was, you know, we managed to to essentially build this MVP of the SaaS in about four months and, you know, that should be rolling out to those beta people by next week. So I'm I'm pretty pretty happy with with that and I think that's off to a good start. It's it's only the it's not even like inning one yet. It's, you know, we're it's it's so early.

I don't wanna get too ahead of myself here, but I think it's off to a pretty good start in terms of the the validation and and the early development of it. One of the fails, this is on a separate note on the service earlier this year. I guess in kind of an effort to diversify or just add revenue streams, I I launched a PPC add on to the service where not only do we do the content for you, but I hired someone to basically run marketing ads like Facebook ads, promoted posts, retargeting ads, and we would set up a recommended strategy for that. And so I ran it by a bunch of our customers and like six or seven of them said that that yes, you know, I'll I'll sign up for this when it when it becomes available. So with that, I went and and hired the the guy to do this, and we spent like two months banging out processes for it.

And then finally, when we felt it was ready and we had been running it for ourselves, you know, fairly successfully, two clients signed on and they stayed on for about two months and then and then dropped that add on. And and it kinda fizzled out and and even when when it was running, it wasn't a big, you know, boost to the business. And so I ultimately, you know, shut that down after about four four months or so. So

Alright. So that that was

just yeah.

Something experiment.

Yeah. Something something we tried and, you know, learned a little bit along the way, but it was mostly kind of a sunk cost and little bit of a waste of time.

Yeah. That that happens. Yep. I here's something I wanna ask you. So one of my goals is to just to keep trying to do less stuff.

Right? I feel like a lot of times, I'm just not doing myself any favors. I'm just trying to do too many things and then you fall behind and then you feel bad and it has this negative spiral as opposed to just doing less stuff. I mean, one of the examples is we just hired a QA person. We were having too many bugs go into development excuse me, into production.

And I was doing so much of the QA. I would I would help scope out the features, and then review them, and then catch them in production, and then document. It it it just I I kept having to think about it and worry about it, and just took that off my plate for really affordable for someone to do QA two days a week. So that all these little things like help, the automation and credit card thing just continues to do less, makes me feel better and better. But at the same time, I'm still very agnostic in the way revenue comes in.

So we're looking at doing more services. And now we have a second product. And now we have multiple use cases. Right? We have people who are doing pre sales after their Kickstarter campaign.

We have people doing recurring revenue. So in many ways, I'm trying to do less, but it it it just keeps expanding. So are are you worried about that when it comes to audience ops in terms of the the diversified product line? Right? Because it it adds like these layers of complexity and you have to I think processes.

I think right now,

I'm a you know, I'm not in a good a good situation in terms of like being truly focused because so much is on my plate like right this very moment as we're planning like three basically three new products. The one is the service which has existed, but we're kind of improving it. I guess on one sense, I do feel good that I'm very focused on audience ops as like my sole business. And, you know, I've got like product ties on the side and and and that continues to sell and everything, but that's totally on like autopilot. And and I do write for the for my personal newsletter, but I just kinda do that for the fun of it.

So I I'm focused in terms of, like, just running one business, and I'm definitely in years past, I used to try to really run, like, two or three businesses at a time, which just does not work. Yeah. I mean, in that sense, but I like, right now, I'm like you. I'm I'm looking to add new products to the line and develop them all at the same time. And sure, it's not me doing all the work to develop these products.

I I have a developer. I've got the the team helping out with with things, but I'm definitely driving all three things. And I have to go from like day to day. Like yesterday, I spent the entire day designing the the the new sales page for the calendar software that we'll be doing. But the day before that, I was doing the sales page for the service product.

And those are two completely different products, different copywriting, different messaging, and like, I have to get into a a completely different mindset to kind of focus on what's the message behind this, you know. So it's it's definitely kind of pulling me in different directions and

Yeah. I get very envious of people of a lot of people who have really simple straightforward businesses. Right? People who just do coaching for getting healthy after pregnancy. Like, it's just one thing and it's a course, and that's it.

All you think about, talk about, all your ideas are focused on that, all of your ads, your copy. It it it seems more straightforward. I don't know how to say this nicely, but sometimes it feels like people of a lesser intelligence, don't I know how to say that politely, do do Yeah. Do better.

I know you're

saying It's just it's just more straightforward. You know what I'm saying? Right? I don't know.

Say it

that the right way. Totally.

Yeah. Like, it's it's it's so simple and so obvious that

Like, some of my buddies from high school who just went out after after, like, not even college, just after high school and just sold mortgages for like three years, like did so well. It's just real straightforward. It's just this one thing and bang on it.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I I do think that the bootstrapped software biz or bootstrapped online business model, like, have to look for different ways to any way that you can drive revenue is is your oxygen. Like, you need you need that oxygen, so you need to find ways to to make it work.

And and, like, I think the first two first eighteen months of of audience ops, I was not a 100, but pretty focused on the productized service because that's what's been driving the most revenue the fastest to give enough oxygen into the business. But now that that we can reinvest that that profit into new new products, now it's about investing in the long term. And and in order to do that, we do need more scalable products, but we don't have investors, you know, and we don't have a long runway for this. So we need to find, you know, revenue anyway that we can. So I I think there's it's it's a give and take.

Like, I like, I think it's important to be building one business at a time. But when you're bootstrapped, like, definitely have a shorter runway and whatever you can do to to keep that going. And that that often means doing a lot of things, know?

I know. I think it I think it hurts efficiency a lot. I I think the the it will require courage to if among the three or four things you're doing, one of them stands out as as the winner to to drop the other ones is is difficult. Right? We we talk about that sometimes, like, there gonna be a time where we stop taking new customers for the card abandonment product?

Because right now, it feels like it's on autopilot. It's not really on autopilot. Right? It is taking up energy and time and space and all that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, let's let's get back to the lists here. Yep. What do you what do you have next for 2016 or anything?

So let's see how to frame this. Like, my my overall business goal, I don't have a revenue number goal because I think our expenses will climb with additional revenue. And we've we've talked about that a lot. The decoupling, the the where's the leverage point? Where revenue grows not just a little faster than expenses, but a lot faster than expenses.

And I think that's where my focus is. I don't know what else to call it, but like breakout. So basically, it's time for the reward. It's been a lot of risk and a lot of work, and now it's time to get paid. That's kind of how I think about it.

Like we've been developing stuff for two years. You got a bunch of smart people who could be making a lot more money doing work for other people. And now it's time it's time for the reward part of it. That's kinda how I see this year. Like, alright, cool.

I'm not really okay with another year of slow growth hoping that it all pays back for the year after. I'm kinda I think it's kinda like breakout time. So that's kinda how I'm thinking about it.

And especially like like what what you've been doing in the last few weeks and what we talked about last episode. I think you're I think some some new developments are really starting to click into place that I think you are kinda queued up for, you know, that that breakout 2017.

That's kinda how it feels, and I really wanna make sure that that that happens because it's it's been it's been a long year. 2016, thought was gonna be the the hockey stick. I thought that release of the one page checkout was gonna be the total game changer. And if it is delayed by six, nine months or so, that's cool. But it but it still needs to happen.

And it feels like the beginnings of it. You know how I know? Because Patrick Campbell in his emails to me from ProfitWell is not telling me that I'm behind. If you subscribe to ProfitWell, you get a daily email that says, oh, you're behind. You know, you've gained, you know, 26% of your MRR goal and you're 48% through the month.

So every day he sends that email, it's automated obviously. But lately those emails are, you're ahead. You you know, you've added 68% of your rev of your MRR goal and you're 26% through the month. I'm like, alright, Patrick. I'm ahead.

There we go.

Very nice. Yep.

Because it was it was a few months of every day, Patrick, just tell me, you're behind. You're behind. Yeah. You're behind. Every single day.

Yep. Like, I know, Patrick. I know.

Yeah. Yeah. So that that's how

I see it. I see it. I see this as the the breakout year for all the work that we've done. Now it's time for the reward and I want that for myself and I want that for the team also because they've been working crazy hard and I want I want them to see and feel the the rewards.

Yeah. Cool. So just to cap off 2016, I've got one more thing that kinda went well, one more fail, and I I guess one more thing that I learned. So I I wrote down that, you know, we really perfected the roles and the processes for the service, and that includes hiring and training new writers and managers. And so these things were already pretty pretty good, like pretty in in place at the beginning of 2016.

Like, you know, we had been growing and through 2015 and systems started to really fall into place. But in 2016, like we really defined like, okay, this service requires these roles, writer, editor, project manager, designer, and assistant. Like we know that those are the roles that need to be filled in order to execute the service. And by the 2016, I didn't have to actually do the hiring and the training of of those roles. Like, now we have, not only project managers in place, but a team manager who kinda manages all everyone and she hires new writers and and vets them.

So so all that is basically on on kind of autopilot at this point. And I guess the other aspect of that is that right now as we're like improving the service and changing strategies and and things, I also have the team helping out with with reworking our processes. It's not so much like me changing the process and giving them the new instructions. It's, hey, guys. These are the these are the goals.

These are the things that we need to change. You guys kind of work out the the new processes and then show them to me and I'll kind of approve them or give give you notes. So the the team is really up and running in in that regard, which which I think is good. The one kind of fell related to that is, I guess, the one aspect that I'm still heavily involved in is sales. So everything that happens before the client makes the first payment is still basically all me.

And so this was a fail I I talked about on the podcast earlier in the year. Did. I delegated sales to somebody who was on the team. It it wasn't a new salesperson. It was somebody who was with us since the beginning.

He's he's actually still on the team, in an editing role. But I basically trained him to do what I had been doing on consultation calls. And and he actually he did it for like three months or so. And he did a pretty good job. He actually closed a few sales.

But I ultimately went back on that decision and took sales back over myself. To be honest, I don't really remember my my thought process at the time. I think it was just maybe it was a combination of, the compensation package was was not really aligned correctly and leads were were coming in a little bit confused about the value proposition and I don't know. And then he he had closed a bunch of sales, but then some there was like a month where where not many closed and so I just, you know, went back in and and kind of took it back over. So I I kinda I don't know.

I I think that was a fail and but at the same time, think that was around it was around the time when I started to decide that we need to get into launching a SaaS and and these other products. And so I kinda came to the conclusion that like, I'm not really looking to drastically scale up the service side of the business right now. So I'm fine with handling a couple of sales calls a week and and letting that go on maintenance mode. It doesn't take a it doesn't take a whole yes, these are appointments on my calendar that I have to show up for and do the sales calls and the follow-up. But that's that only amounts to, I don't know, five to eight hours a week of my time.

And, you know, like so

so Yes. So to to invest in sales and the process and compensation, that doesn't make sense to you?

Right. And yeah. So and and I guess, you know, to really keep the the service profitable. It it was still profitable with the sales guy, but, know, just to the the whole point of the service right now is to fund everything else that we're doing because we're reinvesting all that into product development. So, you know, trying to keep that lean and and I can do a couple sales calls a week and that's kind of where I'm at right now with it.

And I guess that leads into the the thing that I'm one of the conclusions I'm coming to about the service is I definitely don't intend to wind it down at all. Like, it's definitely gonna be a part of audience ops for the long foreseeable future. But one thought that I'm having about it is to not right now, but eventually limit its size and and kind of cap it at a certain size and say the service will only serve x number of clients or or drive x MRR and it's it's gonna have this limited team on it, and that'll be enough to kinda sustain itself as a as a small part of the overall revenue. Like, the the idea is just to keep that as like a kind of self sustaining profit center while all the resources and focus go into growing the SaaS and the and the other products.

Alright. Alright. I don't know what to think about that, Brian. You know?

Well, like part of it

is like to keep it, more exclusive and keep a waiting list, and if someone cancels, then we just fill their spot

with someone. With the pricing. The price

Well, yes. And and pricing, you know, would would go up with that too and yeah. I I think that

I think that's the whole thing. I think that's the whole thing. If you could basically well, no. Not not not churn everyone out for for higher prices, but that that that that's not gonna make sense. You obviously wanna hold on to your existing.

But if you can do the same work for more money and your team could cost about the same to to to keep running, but it just makes more money, then it will accomplish that goal of funding everything else, but in an even healthier way. So what what I was saying was I don't tweet very often, but I I had I had a day where I was just really busy, and it was soon after we raised prices to $300 a month. And it was it was in that week where I did, like, whatever, 11 demos or something. And the just something came to my mind, and I sent out a tweet. I said, keep keep new plan.

Keep raising prices until no longer busy.

Right. Right? So

just just like, if you if you have too much too much shit to deal with

It's not yeah. But it you know,

I think the whole thing about raising prices, it's not I don't see that as an urgent need right now. You know? And and I and to be honest, I haven't really seen that up until now. I think it I think there there will come that time, especially if we go to a more limited model. You know, the services is profitable and, know, the focus right now is just to kind of maintain it and and to keep growing it.

I'm not limiting it right now. But that's essentially gonna fund the rest of the of of the product development and that's kind of the the initiative I'm doing right now. Like, if if I were to really tweak if I were to really tweak pricing, I feel like I would need to focus a lot more energy on the service side of it and and then like deal with the with with whatever ramifications happen from from changing around pricing and like that's just not on my plate right now and and I don't see like an urgent need to do it.

I hear It feels like one of these situations where it's really easy from the outside to look at and say, you raise pricing, you'll make more money and you'll you'll be less busy and whatever else. But one of the things about pricing that makes it really difficult is when you're when you're inside of it and you know all these different factors, it it makes it much more difficult than it seems. I I I have experienced that. Think everyone experiences that. Otherwise, everyone would just raise their prices without without thinking about it.

But it does feel like a situation where an outsider, a consultant, someone coming in, maybe the purest form of that is if somebody acquired AudienceOps right now, what would they do? And I think I think that's the first thing they would do. They'd say this works. This is this beautiful machine that attracts people and the the team does all the work. If if I can just raise the prices, the business just gets healthier while everything else stays the same.

Yeah. And I and you know, I'm I'm definitely not saying I'm I'm against the idea of raising prices. I absolutely plan on raising prices. Like it's definitely in the roadmap. It's just that I don't feel like I know I probably keep saying this all year long.

It's like, we're gonna raise prices. We're gonna raise prices. But my thinking is once we have the other products available to sell, that's when it makes sense to raise the prices. But right now we're investing all this money into developing those products. So we kind of just need the service to stay to keep doing what it's doing and not do

a thing.

Yeah. Right.

I I like that. I think I think that makes sense. In many ways, we're doing the same thing with the recovery product, and I think I think I can commit to you, Brian. I will not bring up raising prices for, like, three three episodes.

No. I you know what? I hope you do. I I hope you I hope you keep the keep the pressure on because I probably need it. So anyway, I think that's about all I had for 2016.

Should we should we get into the

next one? The personal stuff, I don't know how how much people really wanna hear us talking about wanting to be a better dad and husband. I think a lot of that stuff goes without saying. If if anything business related, I would say my goal is to have a more balanced 2017. You know, I would say the past I mean, to be honest, about the past ten years has been, you know what?

I'm just gonna sacrifice the personal side for another year, a little longer because that's gonna improve things. And then when I have more free time and so on, and it it kinda feels like, alright, I I need to stop saying that because this this whole thing is just gonna take a while. And even if things become amazing financially and I have no more worries, I'm still gonna be working and you still need a balance. So I think overall just continuing to acknowledge that the balance is is really important. It is a little a little difficult with people in our situations with kids our age.

It's kind of those few years where we talked about this with Rob and Sherry where they said, look, it's just insane until your kids start to actually go to school and you have more time to yourself. Like right now, we've had a snow day two days in a row here in Portland. So the kids are done and then it's vacation. The kids aren't going back to school until until January. So it the next two weeks are just they're just nuts.

There's just three kids in the house. So the balance is kind of on hold overall, but you shouldn't let your personal interests and hobbies and passions completely go dormant because they will fade.

It's true. It's it's so true. I think one of my goals in 2016 early on was to get to a point where I'm working like twenty or twenty five hours a week. And I think I actually did achieve that for most of the year, especially while we were traveling. There were weeks there where I didn't do any work.

I was traveling. And then and then we did, you know, I mean, we had our second child in 2036 back in April, and and then we moved into a house. So that whole beginning of the year was like crazy when we were coming out of the out of the trip and settling back into the new house.

New house and a baby.

Yeah. All at the literally at the same time and doing renovations on the house all in the same month. Craziness. But yeah. By by the summer, we were settled in here and I think that's when I actually did start to lighten up on the hours that I've been working and stopping work, you know, earlier in the day than I used to around, you know, 04:00 or so, Fridays, you know, working much less than that.

Now here we are near the end of the year, and I started to ramp it back up again because I'm focused on so many things right now with with the business. That combined with next week, I'm getting on a plane, and we're gonna be traveling for a month straight where I expect to not really work a whole lot. So I'm I'm trying to crunch as much as I possibly can until the very last minute I step onto that plane and

then and then

I'm free for a month.

Yeah. It's it's the opposite of what most people, at least mentally, they're they're starting to check out. You know, it's December.

I'm I'm literally looking at a specific time on Tuesday of next week when it's like, that's that's the buzzer. Could as whatever I can get in up until that hour, I'm I'm good. Know.

Yeah. There's also like from when you have a team, there's only so much you can expect. Right. Yeah. I I don't expect a hardcore full week that last week of the year.

Shouldn't. People wanna be with their families. It's it's part of the deal. Yeah. Absolutely.

Alright.

Well, yeah. So 2017, what what do we got?

2017. Like like like goals that we wanna we wanna write down? I mean, I think what Yeah. Goals for the year. Talked about.

Yeah. I don't know. I I I think I kinda weaved mine in along with with with the other stuff. The the the breakout year, the more balance, doing less, time to get paid. Like, that that that's kinda what I'm looking at in 2017.

I definitely don't want any new products. No more kids.

Shutting that store down.

Yeah. Yeah. Doing less, making a lot more.

Alright. So I I had a I had a couple minutes the other day. I just put down a couple bullet points for I don't know if you really consider these goals. These these might be more like specific metrics that I'm gonna that I'm gonna try to track at least in the beginning. So I'll just kinda fire through them pretty quick.

The SaaS feature set should be public launch ready by March. So, you know, almost three months away. And that should essentially be like 80% feature complete. Meaning, like, we've built most of the key features and it's ready to start. This is past the beta, like the beta is happening this month.

We're getting those people in now. The next goal is March and it should be ready to kind of launch to the public and not complete, but 80%. Okay. Do you have like

a number of customers or revenue goal for the

So that's coming up here. So how I would define a successful SaaS launch, I wrote down 10 new paying customers within its first thirty days of being launched to the public.

So we we have New outside of the group.

Right. We have 14 who've prepaid. So I'd like to see 10 additional on top of that. Once we say these are the plans, you can come and start a free trial and then sign up within the first thirty days, 10 new paying customers. I'll consider that a successful first month.

I'd say so 10 within the first month. Yep. That's nice.

And then by the 2017, I wrote down the goal of a 100 SaaS paying customers total. I don't really know what to think about that number. I I kinda think it's actually low. I think we we should do better than that given given that we'll assuming we launch in March, you know, nine months and

I think a lot of it depends on the leverage that that the existing user base gives you. Meaning, when you launch it, are there a bunch of issues that you need to take care of and a bunch of features that you didn't know about and you have to go back into development? Or is it, woah, people are happy. Now let's highlight the fact that people are happy and what they're doing with it and and start focusing on marketing. I think that's what it is.

How much These things are just so hard to predict when you're Yes. When it's like ground zero. But anyway, that's the number that I wrote down. I'm trying to make these as measurable as as I can. The next one I had is about the training product that's in development.

The goal is to launch version one of that in April 2017. So that one, you know, it's the only thing holding holding me back on that is time and it's and I know I'm gonna be the one primarily working on that project. So, you know, it's not the kind of thing like, oh, I hope these marketing things come it's just a matter of getting the thing built and launched. It's already underway. I'd say it's probably like 20% built, but I've paused work on it because I'm working on other things.

So and I've got travel coming up. So I I wrote down April as a realistic time frame. I was hoping to do it more like, you know, February, but we'll I'm just gonna say April on that. That'll be more realistic. And then I had successful launch of that training product, 10 sales within thirty days.

So that'll be just one time purchases. I'd like to see at least 10 sales. I think that's that's probably more than doable. These could be like completely embarrassing statements when once I get up there, but

I mean, who knows? But who knows?

This is a this next one is something that I've had on my list for years now, and I've never really cracked it as as far as I know, which is launching an automated funnel, specifically a webinar funnel and optimize PPC campaigns to a point where they are profitable and self sustaining. I wrote that down. Okay.

So That's that's good. I it's it's tough to know the acquisition model. At least that's that's what we found. We we keep having plans like, we're gonna do webinars. And then all of a sudden our product changes and the price points much higher, and then all of sudden you look at what you wanna do for acquisition and I don't know if a $300 a month is is gonna work over webinar.

It might need to be webinar that then leads into a consultation. So it's it's a little tricky when it when it comes to that. Hopefully, it's just more straightforward.

All all I know is that right now, like I've tried running ads in the past for various experiments and I've done various webinars and I've done different things. But all I know is that right now, none of those things are running. And the only reason for that is that they they weren't profitable and self sustaining. If they were, then they would still be running.

Right. They'd be repeatable.

Yeah. And and maybe it's just because maybe they were kind of working and I just didn't really track them as good as I can or, you know, maybe certain things change. So anyway, I I like, I just wanna know that, like, by the 2017, we're not just relying on organic inbound kind of network effect leads. We're we actually have something that I can point to that when I put x dollars in, we get x dollars out.

That that's a good goal.

So one another thing that I had here is this is not super measurable, but I want to keep our current team intact and nurture those teammates and help them grow within the company and hire fewer people, fewer new people. So as as we're launching these new products and new roles, like like a customer success role, customer support, those sorts of things, instead of going out and finding new people for those roles, I think we have a lot of great people now who can shift into those roles and and grow within the you know, because we also have a lot of part time contractors who kind of work with audience ops every day, but just a couple hours a day. So I think I think there's room for those people to grow and they've and and most of them have expressed interest in in that. So that's you know, the goal is to I I know that we will add new people, like probably add developers, probably, you know, other other things. But I wanna limit that as much as possible and try to, you know, nurture the people that we have.

Yeah. That's a big challenge because that by definition means that they're happy and challenged and fulfilled and are still working there at the 2017, that's a challenge as manager.

Yeah. I mean, I think, overall, I've been pretty happy with the lack of turnover from employees. And there've been a few people who who've moved on and and a few kind of bad hires, you know, who who kind of flaked out. But we the the people who are on the team today, I think at least half of them have been on the team for over a year, and a few of them have been with Audience Maps since literally day one. So I'm I'm pretty happy with that, and I'd I'd love to see them, you know, continue to grow.

The the Friday notes emails that I've been sending, I did reduce it down to every two weeks instead of every week. I would like to keep with that going into 2017 every two weeks at least. Of course, today is Friday, and I have not sent that email today. So I don't I don't think it's gonna happen today actually. But, anyway, that's that's a goal.

And then the other thing that I I actually had this down for 2016, and I didn't do it. I wanna try and be more active on social media, especially in niche communities. And I feel like social media has changed a lot, especially with Twitter and and I think I think probably more of these niche communities like Facebook groups and Slack groups and private, like, paid communities and things, more of those have kind of popped up and and I just feel like I'm not in in them as much as I can and should be. And I Yeah.

I have a hard time with this one.

I have a really hard time with it. Like, don't know if it's just like I I'm I just I don't know.

I don't like the the echo chamber when viewed from a certain angle, it it feels like a sucker's game. It's like, this isn't really this isn't really where business is going down. Like, there's no one in there that's running a $25,000,000 a year company like arguing with people and like talking about little things, at least not much. I feel like it's like this ecosystem of a lot of beginners. I'm also-

No, that's very true.

I'm skewed by the Shopify and e commerce world, but it's a it's a lot of huge pyramid, huge bottom of the pyramid of beginners looking up to a few people who are kinda good at self promotion, but at the same time, I'm like, if you're really killing it, then like, why are you talking to this Facebook group?

Well, that's that's always been my struggle with it is that not that I'm killing it, but like, I am super busy working on the business and I've never been able to put in even one hour a week to go into a Facebook group. Yeah. And and like I've kind of

been going the other way and trying to be like, that that shit is not that's not where I need to be.

I don't know. I just feel like and maybe you're you're completely right about that, but I I feel like there's there's a bit of a missed opportunity, especially when you're in the mode of launching a brand new product.

Yes.

Like like this thing needs to gain buzz And Yep. I hear that. And like for example, like right now, I feel like if I were to launch something on Product Hunt, it would flop no matter what.

Be because of the the the network that that you think you you should have when you do that or the Yeah. The the the leverage there.

Yeah. And and I don't feel like I'm in a position today to go into these communities and say, hey, guys. I just posted this thing on on Product Hunt. Yeah. I'd appreciate an upvote because I'd be that guy who hasn't posted anything in a year, and now I'm going and asking for favors.

I know, but it feels so dangerous to, like, invest time in that just for that when in like, how much of a difference is that really gonna make?

You know, I've I've been reading things about, like, like, marketing strategies on on Quora and and doing, like, even Facebook groups, like, a a systemized strategy for for marketing. If I don't know. I I don't even know what that looks like, and it's probably something that I won't even do, but it's it's just it's it's been on my mind, and I feel like even just like with social media changing so much and like how I use Facebook, maybe that should change because I've always been very hesitant to post anything business related on Facebook because it's kind of like family and friends, but now it's like you've got all these Facebook groups that are popping up and I don't know. And and Twitter is kinda starting to take a backseat and, you know, Snapchat, I don't even have an account. It's like, you know, what Right.

It's a it's a

little it's tricky. So a lot of it, what what I view it as, I'm just not good at everything. It's just a fact, and and I'm not good at, like, that thing. I can't do what Justin Jackson does and pull it off. It's just not it's not for me.

So I could look at that and say, oh, should do more of that or I can just say that that's just not gonna win for me. I'm not gonna win in that game. I should just get on the phone with bigger businesses and do demos and form relationships because that's just what I'm good at. So why don't I just stick to that and try to ignore the social pull and shininess of what's happening out there out in public.

That's true. Yeah. Maybe right.

Because there's a lot more money being made outside of that than there is in that.

Yeah. Alright. Even if it's

so visible, it's so visible that you like can't help but be pulled in by it.

Yeah. I mean, my the thing that I've always felt much more comfortable doing is just writing articles, publishing podcasts, and just like creating and teaching new like putting new stuff out there. I love to do that, but yeah, like going on to social networks and groups and like interacting and answering questions and doing that

Like sort of thing like a star, right? Like that's how it feels like it. You need to be good at like building an audience and energy around yourself. I'm just not good at that.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I don't know. So that's all I had for the business goals, you know, a couple personal ones like actually, liked what Rob and Mike said in their goals episode about exercise.

I like that episode. That was good.

Super simple. The the idea of just log a 100 exercise sessions this year. I never thought about it that way. I mean it Two a week? Two two a week, but it's it's almost like it feels different when you say like like I wanna work out twice a week versus I wanna log a 100 of these this year.

Like a 100 seems more attainable.

Yeah. To me a 100 sounds like more than two a week. Right? It's pretty it's the same thing literally mathematics. It's the same thing, but a 100 out of 365, that's, that's that's a decent amount.

About a third of your days, you're doing exercise. And I feel like I'm not doing exercise a third of my days, but I am doing it two days a week. So whatever the hell it is is yeah. That that's one of mine to to keep up with the exercise, which is a very strange thing. I but usually my goal is get into the exercise.

Now I'm officially someone that does exercise regularly two days a week, so now it's keep up with it. And I would say it's easier to keep up with than it is to begin because now I'm addicted. My body feels and looks different than it did six months ago, and I losing that sounds ridiculous.

That's awesome. I'm I'm not in that boat at all. I I was working out earlier in the year and and running pretty regularly and and and I was playing tennis for a little while and I was really getting into that. I was I was enjoying it. I was actually getting my my game was getting a little bit better and then I hurt my my leg and I was kinda sidelined for two months there and now now I'm not doing anything.

Right now to get back in is hard. Yeah. Yeah. The only thing that has worked for me is a trainer. Yeah.

I do a trainer

Because have an appointment, you have

to I have

question. Up.

And and I have it exactly the same time every single week, so I don't think about it at all. Tuesday, that means I need to be there at 8AM. Thursday means I need to be there at AM. That's it. So, you know, no thought process.

And I prepay for a bunch of them, so I don't feel like, oh, I have to give money every time. I just do it once and then there's no money involved and there's no thinking involved. It's the only way it it it has worked for me. I gotta do it. And it's it's comical.

Dude, do it. I do half an hour. Yeah. I do eight to 08:30, half an hour, twice a week and like my whole life is different from it. It's Oh,

you know they said these these interval workouts, you can get them in you know much faster than

Yeah, she just she just buries me for half an hour until I wanna puke at the end of it and it's insane. It's one hour a week and my whole life is different from an energy level, like it's awesome. Hearing you talk about the revenue goals, it does point out to me that I I should have more concrete goals. It just feels so it moves, man. It just moves every day.

So I wanna say first, I wanna say x number of customers because I like to break that out.

Like to say went with like this year in 2017 going like, I'm actually not doing revenue goals. I did that in 2016. But the the 2017, I don't really know what to expect in revenue because it's really more about transitioning to new products. Yes. You know?

So I I hear you and and right. So if I say to myself, 250 paying customers on the new product. If you look at that and you say 250 divided by twelve months, that's about 21 new customers a month. You divide that by four weeks, it's five customers a week. That sounds like a lot for for the current situation.

So the number of customers doesn't really matter. It is revenue that's more important, but then trying to estimate that and and put a goal on that is is weird too.

Yeah. You don't know the distribution of of the plans and, you

know Right. I don't know if we if, you know, we're we're considering making a relatively big move that I would talk about in maybe a month or so, which would make more sense at a lower price point. So now the number of customers would be completely off. So I don't know what to think of that. It feels like just a complete guess.

Like if someone put a gun to my head and said put a goddamn number, you know, I I guess I'd say about 50 k in MRR on the new product by the end of the year. But that's like just just making shit up.

I mean, I had to think about it, not a specific number, but my goal from a financial standpoint by the 2017 is just to remain profitable as we are now and and change the makeup of our of our revenue streams to something more like, you know, fifty, twenty five, 25 or, know, whereas right now it's like $95.05.

Makes sense. That would be healthy.

That would be

a healthier business. Yeah. And here's here's one thing, and we should we should call it a day pretty soon. We don't talk enough about personal finances because it's personal, know. So one of one of my goals though is to get myself a raise.

Along with the profitability and growth and all that. A lot a lot of it, you know, that we don't talk about because it is personal, is how much you take home personally, and that's definitely one of my big short term goals. I would like to do it in the first quarter, in the first three months of 2017, is give myself a pretty substantial raise. But I do have investors and I do have reality, so I can't just do it. It'll I it does feel like it needs to be justified.

Was it you was it you telling me about that book profit first? No. No. Someone here in Portland, my buddy John Ewalt who runs a roaster tools, a coffee software company. He's telling me about this book called Profit First and the guy was espousing, the first thing you do is you take profit out for yourself.

When your business makes money You take that off

for that's a business, you know. That's Right. Yeah. We're not we're not going for like ramen profitability here. We we have we have families to support.

Right. And no one cares what your what your business's tax return looks like at the end of the day. Right? You're not a public company. Right.

So that does matter, but your personal tax return, that's also really important. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mean I mean, that's

for me, that's the thing I look at every single day. And and that's actually I I guess this is not a 2017 goal, but a seemingly never ending goal is when can I get to a point when my take home salary is not something that I have to think about, and it's just built in, no questions asked? And it's it's been that way in 2016. We I I did achieve that, and I was able to raise it to a to because I had to raise it because my wife's not working and and we have Yeah.

But there's gotta be there's gotta be what you're talking about is the buffer. When is my after tax take home, not just covering my expenses, but covering it by a decent margin where I'm really, you're really not thinking about that every day. Right? And every month and so on. So I mean for me, I put that number.

I don't know if you care to share it or not, but my my number with my family and all that other stuff where there is padding on top of what we spend realistically is 15 k take home after tax where I I have sufficient padding where I'm like, alright, I'm kinda I'm I'm not stressed. And then what I really wanna get to is the 20. 20 k a month after tax take home for me personally, and I am not stressed. I'm chilling. I'm going on vacations.

I'm buying clothing and shit, and I'm not thinking about it. And I don't care where my kids go to school in terms of tuition, all this other stuff. So that that that's that's a lot. You know, 20 take home for me personally, then a co founder and teammates and taxes, that's like, alright. That's a 100 k a month and and up.

Yeah. Absolutely. And I mean, we look at list like the savings and you know, not to get into all the details, but like the you know, we've got like a personal rainy day savings for like bills that are repairs and things that need to come up. So we need to keep that padded. And then we have like a travel fund.

And earlier in the year, it was like the house fund. And then we got the house and we kind of depleted that whole thing on the on the house and these renovations. And now it's about building that back up. But like what I'm running here is a is a self fully self funded bootstrapped business that's actively reinvesting whatever profits we have into further development of products. So I'm so I've I've always been of the mindset, and I still am right now, is just pay myself the bare minimum that I need.

But that being said, like, I'm the only my my wife's not working right now. And and so, like, you know, what what we need to to to run this this family and this life here is not a low number,

you know?

Right. And and which is fine. It doesn't matter that it's a low number.

Right.

The only thing that matters, if it was a really low number, if it cost you $3 to keep everything running in your life and you're a single 22 year old, you still wanna take home six or seven or eight or 10. Yes. You wanna

you wanna wanna be able to, you know, be able to pad

those savings. Right. If your nut is 10 k a month, then you still want 15 or 20 or or more. So it this is a tricky topic because it's personal, but I think it's gotta be in the mix of the of the of the goals because the the business is one thing, but we run businesses for ourselves, not for the the public good.

Absolutely. And and you gotta you have to have a very very realistic look at it. And and I think, know, you have to move fast. I know this this episode is really running long here. But I guess one thing that I've been thinking more about as I look back at the last few years, and I'm really proud of this in 2016, is how fast I've been able to make decisions and make moves.

Whereas, I feel like in years past, I've been really really paralyzed and slow to make a decision about something. And I just drive myself crazy to the detriment of the whole business and the decision itself. Whereas now, it's like, I just kinda like think think through each thing and and I know that like if I if I spend more than an hour on this decision, then then I made the wrong decision, you know, and Okay.

Okay. I was I was gonna say, do you have like a framework or something? Because that is just a it's a never ending struggle. That's hard.

Yeah, mean, are things that I struggle with in terms of like, weighing pros and cons but like

Yeah, you don't wanna make the wrong decision. Yeah. Especially when they're big. But I think We're we're trying to hammer out a decision right now internally, and it is not easy. The only thing that I've come to at least in this current iteration, this turn of the the decision making thing is, you know, Ruben Gomez, he's he's the one that I give a lot of credit to in that conversation I've talked about before where I asked him about pricing and how he gets his team on board with pricing changes, and he looked at me like, what?

Didn't your call. There's no there's no getting the team on board. Do whatever you want. That's your responsibility. That that conversation really stuck with me, and it and it affects other things too.

So I'm definitely I I was like emboldened by that, and now other decisions that I've made after that are have emboldened me further to be like, one way or another, at the end of the day, blah blah blah, this is your company, and you just make the goddamn decision. Don't. So do you do you struggle internally, like, within yourself?

I think I've just learned that I I I can't stand that feeling of of being undecided on something. And I hate the the feeling of like, we have to debate this and that. I I would just rather have a plan in place and and be in execution mode. And I just I just feel more comfortable in that state. So like from day to day, I I know that like if I can just decide one way or another, then I can get back to that state of like, just go through the list that I laid out.

Okay. My worry is all about the making the wrong decision. If we start going down this path, I'll regret that we went down this path instead of the other path.

I gotta pull this up, what really the revelation I had was like in 2015, early twenty fifteen when I was making struggling to make the decision whether or not to sell Restaurant Engine. And then at the same time struggling with the decision of what should my next business be. Like, there was like a three to four month period there.

Right. Were in limbo.

Where it was like, I was literally driving myself insane and my wife and my family and like sleepless nights and I just couldn't take it and it snapped. But then I I was listening to I don't know the guy's name, but I was listening to Amy Porterfield's podcast and she had her business coach on. I don't know the guy's name, but he said something, and I'm gonna totally butcher this quote or paraphrase it or whatever, but he was saying that your goal as a business owner is you need to get to a point where you are making as many decisions as fast as possible. That's the metric that you want to look at, because the faster that you can make decisions, the faster you can you can get on to the next decision. And the more decisions that you make, the better and better you get at making decisions and the better your batting average is.

Because with every decision there's going be a right and wrong answer and you learn from the wrong ones. And so all that learning of making the wrong decisions, you fold back into your whole decision making process. And so it's like a loop that the the faster you can go with that, the the better your instincts become. And that's that's what really kinda Yeah.

That that that feels like it has some truth in it. I don't know how I feel about it overall, but I I I I think it's still instructive to to make the decision.

I I like, that's not exactly how he put it. That's how I took away from it. But Right. Right. Right.

Yeah. I don't know. And and I

think You make the decision learn from it instead of just waiting and waiting and waiting.

Yeah. And I found that writing things down, getting them out of my head has really helped. I, you know, I write almost daily in this I use day one app to just jot down notes and like mostly incoherent bullet points of like pros about this idea, pros about that idea. And if I were to go down this route, here's what that plan would look like. I would need to do it this, this, and this, and roll out in this way.

And then I kind of step back and look at that and say, okay, that's something I wanna do. Or or it's like like with the decision to do this to to do the SaaS, it was like, alright. Well, what will I need in order to feel confident about this decision? I'll need to validate it in this way. So then I gotta take these steps and and all that.

Yeah. My my worry is I have trouble with the signal versus noise thing because I talk to people all day, and a lot of the my thinking on a current decision is based on the last few people I've talked to. You know, it's so hard to get away from that. So a lot of times I'm like, this is the decision I wanna make, but I'm just gonna sleep on it. I'm just gonna take this off of my stress table and not even think about it.

And then a week from now, if I'm in a completely different place on that decision, then I know I like don't have my shit straight, I'm just going by my gut, which is fine, but at least at least I know that.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

Alright, homie. 2017. Big year.

Here we go.

Alright. Cool, man. Good over there. Have a good weekend. Holiday.

Good New Year. Thanks for listening everybody. Have a great New Year. Happy holidays, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, etcetera. And we'll see you in the

New Year. Alright. Bye.