Putting in the hours
Welcome back, everybody, on another episode of Bootstrapped Web. Mister Brian Castle, good to be with you.
Brian Casel:Yes, sir. Back at it. Here we go.
Jordan Gal:Friday. I did a podcast earlier today, then I did a therapy session, and I'm just talking a lot on Zoom right now. So a lot of talking.
Brian Casel:So so you're, like, all clear. You're all warmed up and clear in the head, and you we're gonna have some some good content for me today.
Jordan Gal:Comfortable with myself. You know? I got I got answers to weird questions. I'm ready.
Brian Casel:I feel like I'm the opposite. I haven't talked today, so my voice is, like, still warming up. I've I've been only typing to my developers this morning. But
Jordan Gal:yeah. Cool. I woke up. It's like a it's kind of a bigger podcast to, like, a bigger audience. So, you know, I get that nervous energy.
Jordan Gal:Get all pumped up. Mhmm. Yes. Hit some cock.
Brian Casel:Actually, I I did record a a short zip message message to one of my team members this morning, so that was that was pretty good. That was like my other talking this morning. That's it. Yeah. So I think we're gonna do a quick one today.
Jordan Gal:Yes. I I got a hard time. I gotta pick up one of my kids at, like, 02:15. So I got I got half an hour.
Brian Casel:Yeah. There we go. Yeah. I mean, you know, I I know I've been talking about some big changes, major updates, major announcements coming soon around my business, my product. I don't have those today, but I feel like we're getting very close.
Jordan Gal:Okay. That's exciting.
Brian Casel:We we did actually launch a a big update in the product today and launched, like, a whole new left sidebar, much better navigation, a couple new features around, like, the library and everything and and filtering by tags, message templates, thread templates, lot of lot of new stuff in there now. But, really, what this update was about was, like, making way for some bigger features coming soon. Like, we had to organize the sidebar to have spaces for all all the new stuff that's coming. Okay. We've got other stuff, even even bigger announcements coming, and I wanna get those out, like, this month, in March, maybe by the next podcast episode.
Brian Casel:One of my one of my fears is coming too close to April 1 and the stuff that we announced, like, like, not believing it because it's April Fool's Day.
Jordan Gal:Oh, jeez. Old how old are we really? Who's who's thinking about April Fool's Day? At least I don't know.
Brian Casel:I but, like, the time like, you know, projecting out, like, when some of the stuff is gonna be finished and ready to ship, it's probably gonna be like that March. Okay. Okay.
Jordan Gal:That's exciting. Yeah. I am I I cannot help but think about vacation. I we are going to Hawaii at the end of this month. Nice.
Jordan Gal:It has implanted itself in my psyche. And now, basically, anything bad that happens, I'm like, well, at
Brian Casel:least we're going to Hawaii in a few weeks. Hell yeah. Where are you going in Hawaii?
Jordan Gal:We're going to Maui. Very exciting. But the that is helping because these last few weeks and I don't really see any change or end insight. These last few weeks are really intense. This this this is by far the most intense period since the start of the company.
Brian Casel:Yeah. We were talking about that off off air just now. So Yeah. What does that actually look like for you? Because same thing with me.
Brian Casel:You know, I I I was saying, like, I spent a lot more hours working this week, but I feel like our hours are very different. Like, they look very different. So what is what is an extra busy week for you look like?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So I think I'm working around fifty hours a week, something like that. But but it feels it feels intense because I I think we talked about this a few weeks ago where I felt like activity from me can help drive certain things forward. Yep. And and it does it feels like the team's in a pretty good place.
Jordan Gal:They don't really need me to push on anything. Everyone is working. This is like the thing I'm proud of right now in the company. The company is working with an urgency now that could be reserved for, you know, a year from now Mhmm. Where you're further in, you've got less runway, and you've gotta make things happen.
Jordan Gal:We're we're we're just doing that now instead of waiting, which it feels like a it's like a mature approach. It's like a responsible approach to this thing. Like, why would we wanna get anywhere near a scenario where you have no choice but to be urgent? Like, let's just act that way now so we can avoid that, which, you know, that feels like the right thing. Yep.
Jordan Gal:So I'd say over the last few weeks, that, like, general urgent vibe has been, you know, imbued in the company culture. All hands does that really well. So one of those things this week was I sent out an investor update on Monday, then we had all hands, then then we let someone go on Thursday. Always makes for kind of a tough day. And now I have a presentation next week at the Montgomery Summit, which is like this big conference put on by our lead investors.
Jordan Gal:So it's, like, day to day work and then, like, this overhang of stuff that is just necessary. It's like these projects that have, like, a due date. Yeah. So that's made it more intense. What I'm trying to do right now is focus on distribution.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. So it's clear. Right? The challenge right now is not is the product good enough. The challenge is distribution and sales and and and marketing and biz dev and, like, more eyeballs.
Jordan Gal:It it feels generally harder to get people to buy software right now because everyone's clammed up. Everyone's risk averse. Everyone needs to, you know, really justify things. Nobody wants to take their eye off the ball. A lot of companies that you're trying to sell to, they're having a really hard time themselves.
Jordan Gal:So in that environment, it feels like whereas in a different environment, you need you need five people to get their eyeballs on the product in order to make a sale. Now you need 10. So it's just everything feels much more intense, and we're I'm trying to be thoughtful about where we're putting our energy. So and that is reflected, like, every day, and I try to make sure that the team sees these decisions and these different things that are happening, how they directly align with what we say is the priority. So they, like, feel it.
Jordan Gal:Like, I want them to feel like, oh, management is, like, serious. This is what we're doing. So we made a very painful decision to cut our rewards program. Because as as deeply committed as as I am to that program and the crypto aspect, it's not gonna get us more revenue in the door in the next six months, and therefore, we we just can't do it. And that I'm not happy about it at all.
Jordan Gal:Yep. But that's what that that's kind of we have no choice.
Brian Casel:I feel like that's always the hardest thing is the trade offs and the priorities. Figuring out and, like, because the hardest thing is that there's always a really close call, like, at like, what gets the top spot and what's the number two and three spot. You know? Yeah. There's always there's always 10 things on that list.
Brian Casel:We know that. Oh, right. But, like, that that number one and then the numb but number two is so important also. So it's and it's usually comes down to, like, product and marketing. Right?
Brian Casel:Product and distribution.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Well, my my hope was that we could raise enough money to do something that isn't a revenue priority, but is a long term priority. And that's how I treated it for a long time. And recently, I just had to I just had to look in the mirror and say, you you don't have
Brian Casel:Flip the switch back back
Jordan Gal:to Yep. That's right. You just don't you just don't have the there's no I don't I don't know how how to how to put it. You just don't have the luxury of doing anything other than what exactly what you need to do.
Brian Casel:You know, I, you know, we we had very similar weeks in that, like, I also spent a lot of extra hours this week than I normally do. Mhmm. Probably probably also around 50 this this week, plus some weekend hours, plus some nighttime hours, like, which is not normal, not very comfortable for me. But for for me, that trade off, it has been for set for the last several weeks, has been like, you know what? Still Still that number one thing is getting the like, we're back to the product.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:For the
Brian Casel:first It's two years there. Early on, we had we had our initial version of the product, like, pretty good. And then I started focusing on marketing. But as everyone knows, I talked about the customer research, Getting back to that product market fit, it's like I learned a ton. Now I realize the product is not where it needs to be.
Brian Casel:And so we've been really working towards major reenvisioning of of what the product is and and growing its its capabilities. And but, like, the the most uncomfortable thing for me is spending so so much of my time and resources on product while we're not really moving the ball forward on marketing and top of funnel. We we get a baseline organic level of sign ups and conversions every month.
Jordan Gal:But Right. That you kinda worked on for a long time, so that's established.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, we're we're also in this holding pattern where, like, a lot of the big marketing push kind of stuff, like, can't start until we launch some some things that are coming up this month. That'll make more sense later, I think. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:But but the, what was I gonna say? The the trade off here is that what I'm what I'm starting to realize now, actually, this week is you know, because I I still try to invest in marketing even when I'm not working on it myself. Right? Hiring contractors, SEO people, writing, other kind of stuff on the marketing front while I'm actually spending my hours working on the product. And there are so many different types of projects and different levels of my involvement.
Brian Casel:I'll say, like, one so one of the things that we're doing is is an overhaul of the website. Like, completely new website with it's gonna have all new messaging, all new content, a whole new thing coming. Normally, in in years past, I would have been the one who designs every aspect of that and then built it. This time, I I feel like one of the one of the rare cases lately where I outsource something and it's been super successful is I actually I was like, I have so much other work to do on the product and everything. I have to hand this off, and it has to be done really, really well.
Brian Casel:So I worked with with Mike McAllister, who is just a awesome dude, fantastic designer. If you ever check out his stuff, it's it's amazing. He he did a really fantastic job on the new website. And the great thing about working with with with, like, a a, like, an a plus designer is that, like, the feedback loops are are so fast. It's just like, basically, it's just like, yeah, your first take looks awesome.
Brian Casel:Let's just run with that. That.
Jordan Gal:You know? Yeah. We we have some UI designers like that, and it's like, it's a blessing.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And then, and then the same thing with the development. Like, my my thought was to take his mock up, and then I would, you know, design and build out the rest. I mean, I still might design out the other pages of the website Yeah. Based on his style guide and everything.
Brian Casel:But I also handed that off to to Jason Beggs, who I am I'm new to working with him, and he's been just incredible on the on the front end. He only just recently got started about a week ago. He's already making amazing progress. And I'm just looking at it like, this stuff is getting built in the in the best possible way, and I'm just giving minimal input. And I'm just like, thumbs up all the way through.
Pippin Williamson:And, you know, what
Jordan Gal:You you just need that in in every in every part.
Brian Casel:Oh my god. If if, like, every other area of the business operated like that, it would be a dream. But, unfortunately, that's not the case. But one insight that I think I came to here this week was, you know, designing a marketing website and then building the marketing website. And I I mean, I I wrote a lot of the copy.
Brian Casel:The copy is still a work in progress right now. But that kind of project is typically it has historically the thing like, the literally, like, last thing that I would ever outsource. Because that's been, like, my core competency since day one. It's like designing and building sites. That, you know So my inclination would normally be like, I'm very fast at that.
Brian Casel:I'm I I feel pretty good about my skills on that. I don't need to outsource that. But the insight now was like, not only is outsourcing it to people who are much better than me, we will get a much better product, final product. It's getting done without my hours. That's always a benefit, especially in a time and phase that we're in right now.
Brian Casel:But most importantly, I think, is I get to learn from these guys and their approach to the craft of designing a site and building a site and using using these tools that, you know, I don't really get many of these learning opportunities anymore because all of my learning like, I'm talking about, like, technical learning, like like, tech stacks.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Do a do a little a little tangent over there. What what are they using? Yes. Designing in Figma and building where?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Designing in Figma. I mean, even that, like, I'm such a hack in Figma. I because I because whenever I use it, it's only for my own mock ups of things. Right.
Jordan Gal:Don't need to be banned. Anyone else.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I'm not showing it to clients or anything. It's just for myself. So I'm, like, super fast and messy and, like, just just get an idea up on the page. You know?
Brian Casel:He's given me, like, a like a he's using all the bells and whistles in Figma, like, the different presentation tools, all all the symbols and all that.
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Brian Casel:And then on the tech side, I mean, you know, we had to build in a way that, like, I'm comfortable in maintaining, which is Tailwind CSS. Yep. You know, we're actually, we're gonna be using Alpine JS, which is a a framework I have never used before. I've been really interested in in checking it out. I just never had a project to use it on.
Jordan Gal:And and now you're watching a pro use it.
Brian Casel:Now I'm watching a pro use it, and it's gonna be on my website that I will be maintaining. So so I'm gonna have to learn how it works, which, you know, I my understanding is it's not it's one of these, like, lightweight JavaScript frameworks that's know, I'm I'm a big fan of, like, Stimulus JS. I think it's somewhat similar to that. And so the the thing is, like, I would never have time to just go off and explore and do a a fun side project to to learn Alpine.
Jordan Gal:Right. Only in real time.
Brian Casel:And I don't have the kind of time to just go take a course on it just for the hell of it. Like, what I need is a real project in my real business where because that's how I learn these days, is by building real things, right? But the opportunity to work with guys who are much better than me, much more experienced, and they are really in the thick of these tools is awesome. And then the other thing that's going to be new to me is using Static as the CMS. Going be using that to power the And I just need a minimal CMS of just the blog articles.
Brian Casel:We don't need, like, the homepage and stuff managed. But I've been a fan of Static as the product. I've never had an opportunity to actually use it on my sites. Cool. So so this will be a really cool really cool thing to have.
Jordan Gal:I'm into new tech right now because we we see we see an opportunity in in figuring out what what developers in ecommerce are using. Like, I had a great call, and this is the type of marketing sales discovery work that I like to do. I spoke with an agency yesterday that works with, like, influencers, celebrities who wanna sell products. And I'm always looking for non Shopify ecommerce use cases. And, right, we have, like, this hunch that that's one of them because you don't you don't need a full store when you're doing a campaign and a product launch, and then the product is basically available for, like, seven days.
Jordan Gal:And and there, the developers, the agency wants lightweight tools. Mhmm. They don't wanna go set up a whole thing. They just want to grab the front end that they want, and they wanna do payments easily. And then they wanna send it over to ShipStation, and then they wanna, like, shut the project down after that and then be able to do it again.
Jordan Gal:So learning about this, it it feels like all at the same time in ecommerce, people are discovering that the way to attract developers is with this technical type of content on I'm gonna experiment publicly and publish it. Mhmm. So there's this guy on Twitter. I think it's Blanklob. I'm not a 100% sure how to pronounce it, but he's doing a bunch of really interesting stuff around, the Shopify front end.
Jordan Gal:And to watch that type of content attract followers and, like, 200 Instagram not Instagram, like, Discord members on, like, one tweet thread, it's really, really encouraging. Yeah. Right? Because there is an enormous amount of demand from developers
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:On on just show me what you're doing. I want I wanna do more cool stuff. I wanna see what other people are doing. Right? I my assumption is that in that mind space when you're working remotely, you you basically you need to expose yourself to as many different things as possible.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of developers who are googling for stuff. And, I mean, these days, they're using ChatGPT for stuff too. But but I think there's just a lot of traffic that happens that that Googles for tech for quick technical answers to things or technical solutions to to things, and then they land on the the open source projects or the frameworks or the products that have the best documentation. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That's mutual documentation. Can I ask a little bit about, like, the motivation of of developers in that context? Are they looking to learn so they can use it with their clients? Are they looking to find new
Brian Casel:I mean, you know, guys like Adam Wathen would know a lot more about the Okay.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I feel
Brian Casel:like I need I wanna
Jordan Gal:keep going down that that rabbit hole.
Brian Casel:Yeah. But my sense of it, like because it is a huge market. And there's a lot of, you know, developers who who sell courses and sell books and and things like that. Like like Adam started with, like, he had
Jordan Gal:he had a bunch of
Brian Casel:books and, you know, Chris Oliver created gorails.com. Yeah. I know there's number of that.
Jordan Gal:Like, it's being built
Brian Casel:on. So I think that there and and what I learned when I was learning, I mean, I'm still learning on my own project. But a few years ago, I was I was going through courses and learning Mhmm. Learning rails and stuff like that. I started to realize that people like me are actually not super common.
Brian Casel:Like, I was in there going through tutorials so that I could learn how I could rapidly learn how to use Rails to build and launch a SaaS product of my own. Okay. That was my
Jordan Gal:Right. Your
Brian Casel:mindset, my end goal. Okay. And what's the more common version? There might have been some of that, but I think there's a lot more common people who people who want to be employed as developers. Okay.
Brian Casel:So they're trying to step
Jordan Gal:up their skill set, and they're
Brian Casel:now They're either trying to get good enough to be hired as a junior developer for the first time in their career, or or they're an experienced developer. They're they're they need to get up to speed quickly on some new frameworks, new tech to use at their job. Yeah. Think that's a I think it's a really common and then I think that's why you see a lot of these developer focused products get really fast sales and growth is a lot of these guys, like, they've got money to spend. Like, people think, like, selling it to to developers is hard, but, like, they're they're well paid and or they work for companies that will happily pay for whatever course they want.
Brian Casel:You know? So they could just buy a course, buy a tool, buy
Jordan Gal:a Mhmm.
Brian Casel:You know, whatever. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I wanna keep going in into this. We we have a slate of content that's that's almost there. And I think we need to not just release it, but, like, learn how to do it properly and where to distribute it. Because you're what you're talking about is pretty wide range of things between learning and getting better and getting hired and this.
Jordan Gal:And where we really need to zero in is almost like this discovery piece of it on, like, this is a product you didn't know existed, and it allows you to do some new stuff in your role.
Brian Casel:Yeah. There's also the other angle
Jordan Gal:back into, like, your agency and your service so that next I was mhmm.
Brian Casel:I was gonna say there there's this other angle of agencies. Right? And I'm Right. If you like this Yeah. I'm not as plugged into this side of the market, but I think that there are a lot of products that really cater to agencies who are catering to clients.
Jordan Gal:So, like That sounds like our
Brian Casel:that sounds like see this a lot with with web hosts. Right? Like like, WP Engine has I think they call it local. They've I think they've got a whole suite of tools aimed at agencies who are constantly deploying new websites for clients. And they need they need ways to, like, show a staging site to a client.
Brian Casel:They need ways to migrate data for a client. Like they give them a whole dashboard, and then they they give them, like, reseller tools. And and Mhmm. And they make it and and they really cater to them by making it, like, easy to build with as developers. Right?
Brian Casel:Okay. Yep. I think every web host is starting to do stuff like that.
Jordan Gal:Right. You you you you have to because you're yeah. It's a a lot of reason to choose yours over over a competitor.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man. Actually, on that note, on on content strategy, this is Yeah. Okay.
Brian Casel:This has been a really challenging thing for me. I feel like it's been one of my biggest fails in this business so far is is really, what I'm just gonna be transparent here. I feel like I've been trying to throw money at this problem unsuccessfully for a while. And, you know, because my focus is on the product and talking to customers and doing the research and get into that product market fit, I still wanna I always wanna be investing in on the marketing side and and the traffic generation side. And I feel like even though even when I'm hiring, like, pretty talented and experienced practitioners of whatever it might be, SEO or writers or this or that, when they're, like, external to our company or, you know, contractors and whatnot, or small agencies, they don't have the customer knowledge and use cases and jobs to be done and Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And the knowledge of our product and and the specific problems that our product solves for customers. So that's been a really big challenge. And and and as I'm planning out this new website and the content for it and our strategy when it comes to just positioning and brand and messaging, I'm I'm really thinking about a lot of these pages on the website to be much more education focused. Even the the marketing page, like the product marketing pages. Okay.
Brian Casel:I think this will make more sense once it actually comes together in the next few weeks. But, you know, we think about a typical SaaS marketing site. Homepage, you know, gives sort of like an overview of of the product and and who you're selling it to. And, you know, ours ours will be fairly typical. And then you've got a pricing page, again, fairly typical for most SaaS.
Brian Casel:But then you've got these other pages, which are typically known as product pages. Or you might have How anywhere from like
Jordan Gal:features,
Brian Casel:Yeah. How it or works, product tour, features. And and so depending on the product, you might have three or four of these. You might have like eight to 10 these.
Jordan Gal:Sure people will Hugo and how long This it's
Brian Casel:this arm of the product is fully focused on this thing. So let's give it a dedicated page with its own URL and and all the copy speaks to that use case. Right? So I think we're gonna have a a couple of these. But I think in this new approach, this new site that we're putting together, it's gonna be much more like how to do this.
Brian Casel:How to
Jordan Gal:do it with the product?
Brian Casel:With our product.
Jordan Gal:Okay. Okay.
Brian Casel:You know, because, like, our the the new vision kinda brings together, like, three or four big pieces of solving a big problem, and each of those sort of deserves its own, like, big how to guide. Normally, you would put something like that in, like, a as, like, a blog article, but I think we can position it as, like, this is the ultimate, like, how to guide, almost like a tutorial, but design it as a as a product marketing page, if that makes sense. Again, I I feel like it'll make more sense once people see it. But that's how I'm sort of envisioning it. And and, like and and this is the thing is, like, I need to basically be the one to write, direct, create most of this core content.
Brian Casel:I'm talking about about, like, four pages on the website. Right? But I I'm gonna need to spend at least a week to multiple weeks of of just my hours on that, putting on hold whatever needs to be done on the product to really sink my teeth into this as a creative project. And I might hand off, like, pieces of it to an assistant or another writer to help help, like, fill it out. But, like, I'm I'm starting to just come to the conclusion that, like, I can't just say, like, we need we need content strategy done really, really well in this really, really strategic way.
Brian Casel:Now here's a bunch of thousand dollars to whatever SEO shop. Go make it happen. Like, I just have not been successful with that. I and the only times where it sort of clicked is when I am driving the creative effort on it. If and but then we get back to that trade off.
Brian Casel:It's like, alright. Well, which week in the month am I gonna sink my teeth into that versus Yeah. Features Ship that our customers need, you know, to in order to to justify a buying decision. You know? Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. We're we're redoing our site right now also. And and the biggest thing that I worry about, the the the overhanging voice that whispers in my ear whenever I'm talking about the marketing site is no one's gonna read this. Yeah. No one's gonna read it.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. No one's gonna read it. What are you gonna do? How are you gonna get this point across assuming no one's gonna read a goddamn thing? They're gonna flick their mouse up and down and go to pricing, and that's it.
Jordan Gal:That's all you got. What are gonna do if that's the reality?
Brian Casel:Exactly. And and I think I think that's part of my my goal in this is to try to do something a little bit different. I mean, I don't know. We'll see. But Cool.
Jordan Gal:Yo. That's it. Look at this. This time constraint. I gotta go pick up my daughter.
Jordan Gal:It's Friday. Let's have a good weekend. For god's sake, I don't know what we're doing, but I'm gonna breathe deeply and write these slides. How about that?
Brian Casel:My my daughter's my now nine year old daughter. Wow. Her basketball game is tomorrow.
Jordan Gal:So Oh, that's fun.
Brian Casel:For that. Yep.
Jordan Gal:I have an 11 year old all of a sudden who has an iPhone and, like, issues. Wow.
Brian Casel:My kids are on the iPads, but they have the you know, we set them up with usernames. So I've been, like, texting with my kids for the last year or two, and that has been Cool.
Jordan Gal:Mind bending. Yes. Crazy. My my wife went to, like, some, like, community thing about, like, you know, teenagers or something here in town. She would like one with a few ladies and, you know, go get grab a you know, something to eat afterward.
Jordan Gal:She comes back home. She's like, alright. Here's the deal. Great long conversation. In conclusion, we're fucked.
Brian Casel:Of course.
Jordan Gal:We are completely absolutely effed. That's that's it. That's the t l d r. If you wanna know more detail beyond that.
Brian Casel:Between texting, Roblox, Minecraft, it's like it's it's a whole new world out there.
Jordan Gal:I don't know. Okay. Okay. I'll take that.
Brian Casel:Alright, brother. Have a great weekend. Alright. Later, folks.
