An appropriate level of mud slinging
Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Another episode of Bootstrap Web middle of the summer edition. Brian Castle, how are you?
Brian Casel:Doing okay. Just just threw on the AC. I think we'll I think we'll we'll get through today.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I just looked at the email welcoming me to my Michigan rental. I'm going Michigan this weekend for
Brian Casel:two. Nice.
Jordan Gal:And in that little fine copy, fine print, says no air conditioning. Woah. Look at look at the look at my phone. It's 95 degrees in Michigan. This this is not good.
Jordan Gal:I'm I'm concerned. Hopefully, hopefully, this house has air conditioning, but it said it might not have.
Brian Casel:We'll see. I mean, I I know you just got back from from Long Island. I do. Now you're heading out on, like, just just your immediate family getaway Airbnb coming?
Jordan Gal:You know, one of the things in my marriage is we we my wife and I like to keep our resentment, like, in balance. So we spend a week with my family.
Brian Casel:Okay.
Jordan Gal:You know, on the home, and we go spend two weeks with our family, and it kind of evens out. And we Yeah. Hate love each other this about the same amount But last week I was I was in Long Island. It was in the Hamptons with my brother and his family and got all the kids together. I went to the beach and went to overly expensive restaurants with mediocre food.
Jordan Gal:But it was it was awesome. Went Split Splash Waterpark.
Brian Casel:Oh, Split Splash is the best. Remember. Oh, man.
Jordan Gal:I have to be honest, much better than expected. The place was kind of awesome.
Brian Casel:I bet it. I'm I bet it's amazing. Haven't been there since I was, like, 13 years old. Yes.
Jordan Gal:Yep. So took the kids there, got some ice cream. It's all good. How about you? How's summer going?
Brian Casel:It's good. It's good. After this pod, I'm gonna go pick up my kids from summer camp. And, yeah, we're just, you know, we're we're back to normal after our trip. We're hitting the beach here in Connecticut.
Brian Casel:And, you know, I I am finding that, like, you know, I'm always so motivated on the business, but something about the warm weather and the summer, I go through these, like, thirty minute to an hour periods in the middle of the day when it should be, like, my peak productivity time. And I just find myself, like, like, walking around, like, do maybe I need to go, like, get another iced coffee, or I think maybe it's time for another dog walk or, you know, just excuses to get up from my desk and like go outside, you know.
Jordan Gal:Do you do you indulge yourself or do you, you know, like get mad at yourself?
Brian Casel:I I indulge and I try to indulge. I mean, I I still yeah. I mean, every day, like, every day counts. Every hour counts. But Mhmm.
Brian Casel:My thing is, if if I if I sit here for long enough and I don't do anything, if I'm on Twitter or if I'm just distracted, that's like an excuse to go out and and maybe reset over at Starbucks. You know?
Jordan Gal:Right. Right. Right. Or a walk or something. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Walks, I rarely see as wasting time. They're so good for you and they get the brain going. I usually come back. I'm usually tapping on my phone by the end, like, writing myself ideas. Ideas.
Jordan Gal:Yep.
Brian Casel:The thing now for for me is I mean, I always do the morning walk and the morning workouts, but then in the middle of the day, I usually take the dog out. And now he's, like, super old, so he can he, like, only has the energy to, like, go to the corner and back. And Okay. So so his his age is is is preventing me from getting my walks in. That's my experience.
Jordan Gal:I hear you.
Brian Casel:I hear you.
Jordan Gal:The this summer, I'm with you on all of that. But this last few weeks was different for me. I am very motivated by the external. You know? And long story short, seeing unbelievably beautiful houses in the Hamptons, that did it for me, man.
Jordan Gal:I came home so motivated. You know, I I wouldn't wanna live there. That's not my scene. It's out of control,
Brian Casel:but it's a it's a
Jordan Gal:It's too intense. It's too it's But too but it it made me so motivated and so excited to come back to work that this week, I've had so much fun just except for yesterday because I was so hungover. I went through a full day of meetings just on an awful hangover. That was not cool. But besides that, the motivation was there.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Was summer.
Brian Casel:Last week, a couple longtime friends from my hometown, we got together in the city at at this real nice steakhouse. And, yeah, it's just one of those, like, you know, great to see them. Great great time, but it's like, man, such an energy booster to be in the middle of Manhattan and and you see all this for sure. K.
Jordan Gal:So I I did the same. My best friend from high school was here in Chicago, so we went out and just had so much fun. I just didn't wanna say no to anything. You know? It's like, should we go to this other bar?
Jordan Gal:Do you want a shot? I just kept saying
Brian Casel:yes. Yep.
Jordan Gal:And I paid the price. Yep. Alright. So we are running businesses these days, and that's what we talk about.
Brian Casel:Let's get into it.
Jordan Gal:What do we do? Alright. We got a few topics.
Brian Casel:Well, yeah. I mean, guess we'll start this off. Think it probably applies to both of us. And I just wrote down runway to profitability. Okay.
Brian Casel:And so I did a tweet the other day to sort of recap my thinking around this. And this happened I think this comes up for me, almost like more like on an as needed basis, but it happens about two two or three times a year is when I sort of take some time to like, step back and crack open my my spreadsheet and see where we're at as as a business, as a runway financially, what do the different scenarios look like over the next twelve to twenty four months, and and sort of just assess where we're at and and, you know, try to, you know, just put the the chess pieces in place for like, okay. I'm gonna make these decisions, these investments over the next, couple of months here. So it just helps to get a clear picture on, like, what what the impact is, what the best case scenario is, what the worst case scenario is, what do we do in these scenarios, and, and we and we game it out. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And and should you change any behavior now? Should you expect to change behavior in the future? What if scenarios? And there's the spreadsheet, it's always enlightening.
Jordan Gal:It's always surprising in one way or another.
Brian Casel:Yep. I think the thing that that made me and by the way, this is like one of those tweets that gets like no engagement. Nobody cares about these, like, long thread tweets anymore. But I I actually find that writing on Twitter and also over on threads now is like I I think it's such a great medium for for just getting these, like, ideas out because it's it forces you to you gotta encapsulate each idea in a tweet and string four of them together, and, like, that's the whole post. You know?
Brian Casel:That's that's why I I don't like to write blog posts anymore. I just write these threads because it's like it forces me to, like, stay focused and then get back to work. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:It's it's not a good medium for me because I I don't like to make sweeping statements, so I'm always correcting myself before I hit publish. I'm like, oh, that's not really true for everyone or for everything, so I don't really want I'm always like self correcting. You kinda you kinda have to go in in in totally
Brian Casel:I totally agree with that, and I and I hate that kind of stuff on Twitter, but I but my approach to it is like, look, this is just something that I want to share. Right. Just an opinion. Like, literally wrote, like, these are my notes on something that I found important for me, and take take what you will. But I I just need to publish this so that, like, somebody sees it.
Brian Casel:You know? Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That's
Brian Casel:that's interesting. Whether or not it might apply to you, but I I think it was helpful for me. Let me just share my notes on it. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. My my my medium is is Slack. Slack messages, internal Slack, Slack with friends, Slack with founders, Slack with team. Okay. So let's let's talk about this runway thing for a sec.
Jordan Gal:As you were starting to say it, what I want to ask was, how often are you thinking about this? Maybe the spreadsheet isn't constant, but how often how big of a role does this play in your psychology on a day to day basis?
Brian Casel:In terms of, like, the nitty gritty numbers and tracking, like, how many months of runway do we have and what's the specific probably less than it should. Like, it's not
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:I'm not I'm literally not opening this spreadsheet very often.
Jordan Gal:It's So do you like to look at it, know where you are, and then go focus on the business Exactly. Without that, like, always encroaching?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Like, I spent a few hours on this the other day, and, like, that amount of time was enough information and fuel for myself to, like, hold me over for at least another quarter or more of just focused work on the business. You know? And and I think the important thing about this is that, you know, the day to day, the week to week, even the month to month in the SaaS game is can be such a roller coaster. You know, we we know this.
Brian Casel:Like, there's ups and downs. There's stormy weather all over the place. Right? And that those are the kinds of things that can cloud our judgment and and make us make poor decisions because we're, you know, oh, you know, we had a bad two weeks. What's
Jordan Gal:Let's change things.
Brian Casel:Let's our product roadmap or let's change our marketing or whatever, know, or whatever it might be. Yeah. So, you know, I think when enough when when a long enough period of time goes by where I feel like there's a lot of these emotional swings, a lot of roller coaster, lot of metric swings, That's when I turn to the spreadsheet to say, like, where are we actually at? What's the reality look like? And let's project this out twelve to twenty four months.
Brian Casel:And the the great thing about it is that I come out of it so much more optimistic. It's like the news that comes out of this exercise is always, my experience, it's always been much better than what the day to day would have me think. You know? Like, this month, frankly, is like not going all that great compared to the last three months.
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:But looking at the spreadsheet, I'm like super psyched now for the next year. Because like I have, I now I now I have a clear eyed vision in terms of like what the options on the table are, what the investments I can make in the business are, and and and how things are gonna go. You
Jordan Gal:know? Yeah. So the the spreadsheet is unemotional about time frame, whereas your emotions are, like, very recent. Like, this week, today, yesterday, the headline I I the tweet I saw from our competitor, just all that is in in the soup where the spreadsheet strips that away. For for my part, I would say I think about there is not a day, seven days a week that I don't make those calculations in my head.
Jordan Gal:I had a I think maybe it was on this podcast that we laughed that when I opened my calculator on my phone
Brian Casel:Oh, right.
Jordan Gal:It was set to the number of months when I took, you know, one divided by the other. You know, it shows me runway. And I think maybe that's I think that's okay with my responsibility and role. I just have to be very aware because we're it takes us longer to turn our ship. So I I need I need visibility way off into the future is is is what it feels like.
Jordan Gal:So if we if we're gonna make changes, it's not like, oops. We, you know, we need to make changes now. Like, the we can't really do that is how it feels. So I want I want a lot of visibility and fundraising takes time. And so I I'm I'm looking at a time horizon on a day to day basis that I it makes me conclude that I need to think about this more often.
Brian Casel:The thing is is that, like, I I internalize the headlines in terms of, like, what what the headline takeaways from from looking at the spreadsheet and the runway and the and and the path. So I know what those headlines are, and and those do sort of just, like, fester in my mind at all times. But I don't I don't take time to, like, reanalyze or rejigger around scenarios, you know, every day because I have so much other work to be doing. But it's just like, I I spent that day last week to to give myself permission for the next several months to be like, okay. The things that we're working on, they still totally make sense.
Brian Casel:Things that we're investing in, these things still make sense. And that's that.
Jordan Gal:Well, looking at it gives you a certain amount of information, some objective information that's on a longer time horizon than you normally think or feel. From there, taking that data and turning it into action, for me, I'd love to hear where you're looking at. The stress for me is around how aggressive or defensive to be. That that is where there's there's no one to ask. No one knows better than we do.
Jordan Gal:So we have to we have to make those get to those conclusions and make those decisions. But I I'm always I'm always worried that I'm being too defensive or being too aggressive. And and trying to find that middle ground is where I where I get stressed out because it's tough to know what if what you're doing is right. From my every other business experience other than Rally over the last two, three years, I've always thought of profitability and not look to outside investment very much. And therefore, was more defensive because I wanted to get to profitability.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. And and I it has it is an ongoing struggle to switch the mindset toward it's not that it's pointless to get to profitability at at this early stage at series a. It's that it it's a bit incongruent with the model of the business as a whole, like how you raise money for it, how you're operating it, how you're trying to grow it.
Brian Casel:Yep.
Jordan Gal:So to be too defensive just feels like what what is the point of cutting and cutting and cutting and hobbling ourselves so then we can't grow when the only way to build a business at this early stage in the venture world is grow? You like, we're not gonna cut our way to success. We you have to grow. At the same time, you can't be overly you can't be ridiculous. You can't be, you know, silly with the money the way people used to be or some people are.
Jordan Gal:So it's in between those two, that's my stress.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I I have the same tension with myself, and I do operate it's like I I still have not fully I I I just have never gotten very comfortable running a business that's not profitable. Like, this this one is my first business really that has a sustained period of of not profitable, and we're working on a on a financial runway. Yep. And and so, you know, that and but I in terms of the the type of investment that I've taken and and the path that I'm hoping to go forward with, like, I am looking at, like, how soon can we get to profitability?
Brian Casel:And and I think that we're we are turning a corner with the product and the customers, and I think that there's a path to get there, you know, in in about the next year. And that's the goal. And and I'm I'm optimizing for that. But at the same time, you know, like you're talking about, the way that I'm playing out these scenarios and tweaking different variables, I'm not looking to cut anything that the business needs. Right?
Brian Casel:Like like the for this to be a viable profitable business, there are investments, like people on the team and marketing investments and spends and things that have to have to go forward. Right? Like, you know, because the so so when I when I go through this exercise of, like, looking at the spreadsheet, like, we're still in the mode now, and we've grown a a little bit, but it's been it's been you know, it has been like a stormy year of you know, with, like, the changes from Zip Message to Clarity Flow and and, you know, not fully shipping all of the features that we've had on our road map and that taking longer than expected and all all these things. So with with that, it's it's been like, you know, what do we need for this to become a a real sustainable profitable business? And that I mean, it it does need some expense.
Brian Casel:You gotta spend. Like, we're starting up, you know, new new marketing investments in in August, and and, you know, we're not looking to cut developers. But it's like, how how do we make this work? And what are the options twelve, fifteen, eighteen months from now? If we hit the growth targets or if we don't hit the growth targets, what are the options?
Brian Casel:So it's Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Right. And then you start to go through all the different scenarios and your backup plans and your OSHA plans and your best case scenario. And, yeah, I think that this is the this is the fundamental role of being the person responsible for the finances of the company. Yeah. And making sure you're still clear of the rocks while pushing hard enough to actually build the thing.
Brian Casel:I guess I'll just sort of run through a couple of the points that I that I wrote out in this in this tweet the other day, to try to be a little bit useful to people, maybe. Yep. So I'm curious to to know how you think about this when you go through the exercise of, like, taking out the spreadsheet or or, you know, calculating the the runway and all that. Okay. My basic approach to it and, you know, to be clear, like, I'm not I don't wanna, like, share any actual numbers or anything like that.
Brian Casel:Sure. But this is just the process. Hopefully, it's useful. The main thing is that, like, I I've got the spreadsheet I could tweak, like, what if traffic changes, what if churn changes, what if, you know, ARPU changes, and and how that projects out, in terms of the, you know, MRR and and bank balance and profitability over the next twelve to twenty four months. Right?
Brian Casel:That's what the spreadsheet does. Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:So
Brian Casel:so with that, what I do is, I basically set those settings, the the change percentage settings. Let let's assume we grow traffic by this percent or or let's let's assume that ARPU keeps going up. That like, I make those assumptions based on what the current reality is, like, what what our current actual trends are. And then I sort of back it off a little bit and make it even a little bit more conservative than what reality is right now.
Jordan Gal:Yep. Okay.
Brian Casel:You know? And then even that even that sort of baseline status quo, let's say nothing really meaningful changes. Let's see where where the current trajectory takes us. Even that is still leaving out some, like, some major things that could impact the trajectory in a good way. But but these are things that haven't happened yet.
Brian Casel:Right? Like, so I don't I don't know. Like, for example, in the future, if we if we were to, like, do a big, like, price raise on the legacy customers, that that would impact revenue. Or once we ship this payments feature coming, these are things that can have a major impact, but these are not factored into this. This is just based on today's reality projected forward.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. We start with assuming that there's no revenue growth period. So when we look at runway, we just think what's in the bank divided by what we're burning right now and flat. Right? One divided by the other, how many months does that give
Brian Casel:you? Yep.
Jordan Gal:And then we start to add in realistic projections. Like, okay. By this month, where are we? What ends up happening is we we end up we end up looking at how much is in the bank right now, and then we look at, a six month period. Because six months feels I can wrap my my my hands around that.
Jordan Gal:Three months feels very short. Twelve months feels too long. Six months feels good. So we say, okay. What if we're burning this same rate right now over the next six months?
Jordan Gal:Right? Which is effectively saying for the next six months, the average burn is gonna be what it is right now. Some months will be better, some months will be worse. You know, some big contract will come up and we'll have to pay $50 at once. And then another month will come in, we'll do some custom work and $30 comes in.
Jordan Gal:So average over the next six months. Then we take six months, multiply that burn, and we subtract that from the current bank balance. So we say six months from today, we'll have x in the bank. At that point in time, what do we need burn to be in order for us to be in a good place? And then that burn starts to look like one way or another.
Jordan Gal:That means revenue growth or expense cutting or some combination of the two need to get needs to get us to that burn. And then we know six months from today, our runway will be x. Right. And we we kinda look at it in, like, these six months increments. So that way it's like you're you're basically saying, by the time you have x in the bank, you need you need burn to be y so that you're, you know, not too close to the fire.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So and that makes me feel doable because it's like, okay. Is it realistic for us to get to this revenue level six months from today? And also helps us go along the way. Are we on track?
Jordan Gal:Are we not on track?
Brian Casel:It sounds on
Jordan Gal:track. We're getting months in advance. We know we're not on track months in advance, so we're starting to think through what to do. Or if we are, like, right now, we're in a period of we are exceeding our projections from the last time we did
Brian Casel:this. Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:So I'm just generally comfortable because I knew I know the projections we made put us in a good place and we're a little bit ahead. So I'm like, okay, cool. We're we're doing what we need to do. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:It sounds like you're I I was hearing that wrong, but you, you know, you talked a lot lot more about burn and how the burn is gonna change over the next year or so. The the way that I looked at it in my projection is like, we're we run, I would say, pretty lean compared to most SaaS. We've got a small handful of of developers. We've got one marketing person. I'm about to bring on an ads manager.
Brian Casel:But, like, my plan is to, like, not change the team at all in in the next year. Like, let's As long as that's Even if we see, I I'm I'm sort of hopeful may maybe hoping like, I'm I'm hoping that the current team can support the growth that we're going for. So, like, e even once we add x MRR, we should still be able to handle it with the current without needing to significantly increase headcount. So that that's like one I don't know if it's realistic or not, but, like, that's that's one assumption. And then even the and but, like, the other conclusion here is that, like, I can't take the foot off the gas in terms of, like, what we were planning on investing in.
Brian Casel:But some things are really just more about, like, my time and investment. I think my my time is starting to shift. I'm I'm still heavily on the product, like 95%, like, working on the product every day. But that is starting to shift in July and August as I'm starting to do more sales demos. I need to start making more of my time be on the marketing side and the sales side.
Brian Casel:And, like, we're doing a big investment in sales and and brand content, but that's a lot of my time. I'm not really hiring a sales team. I'm not hiring a brand strategist here. You know? Yep.
Brian Casel:So, yeah, it's it's it's tricky.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. Yeah. It's it's it's really hard. Yeah. I generally look at it very similarly.
Jordan Gal:I basically tell the team we have who we need. We we've got we have one role open right now for sales, an account executive, because I have been playing the sales role, and I'm not a professional salesperson.
Brian Casel:Yep.
Jordan Gal:I can do a pretty good job at the demo and explaining and building a relationship, but I cannot have my focus on eight different deals at the same time and who needs what next and how do I push things forward. Like, that's that is a job. So that's the next spot to to fill, and then we're we're done hiring for a while because like you, we feel like we've got the people in place. Now we just keep doing the same thing we're doing and more of it and bring in new customers.
Brian Casel:On the sales side, which is something that's starting to really enter my my purview here, and I I haven't taken enough action on it yet, but I I wanna get into it, is my thinking on it right now is, like, I will basically spearhead all of the roles in the sales process, including just out outbound prospecting, figuring out LinkedIn, going into communities, making contacts, and then, you know, turning those into sales demo calls, doing the demo calls, doing the follow-up, doing the onboarding. Like, basically, doing all that myself in in the v one of this thing, and then slowly and then just figuring out the process, figuring out what kind of skill sets are needed where, and then start to build the team around probably start to build put put people in place for the prospecting and and and the lead gen piece and keep the sales demo calls for myself for that'll be one of the last pieces that that leaves my my plate.
Jordan Gal:Yep. Makes sense.
Brian Casel:And Yep. That that's and and right now, I sort of just do these these kind of winging it on on the sales demos, but that's that's starting to change as we get into it. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I have to say the that is how it played out for us. Same same way where we have an SDR right now who's great, And then I'll do the first calls, and then it starts to move in over into a technical discovery. And like you, that that initial demo introduction into the product and the company is the last piece that I'm gonna let go of and put in a a pro. And that's what that job ad is is for.
Jordan Gal:For us,
Brian Casel:I I mean, I still learn so much on these demo calls just to hear, like, how they how they ask about the product, how they compare it to other tools, what they're what they're going what made them enter this market right now. Like, I it's I love getting on these calls. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I I hear you. And, yeah, we're starting to bring in Jess, our VP of product, into those calls also so she can learn directly because she wants to hear, right, I'll come out of a meeting and I'll have all these notes, and Jess wants to hear that stuff for herself Yep. Instead of through my filter. I think one of the best parts of the last few months of my, like, job day to day is learning.
Jordan Gal:I I didn't know what I was talking about when it comes to enterprise sales. You know, I thought I was pretty familiar with sales overall in this. And this is a it's like a different discipline entirely. And we have G, a consultant that we brought on, and she is she is teaching the company how how all this stuff works. And that part has been so fun because I am learning as if, like, I feel like I'm back in, I don't even know, five, ten years ago where I just did not know how to do something.
Jordan Gal:And then you go up the learning curve and if you feel so accomplished from it, you feel so much more confident in your ability to succeed because you're almost like I was in the dark. I had no idea. And and now you're just so much better off. The whole organization's so much better off.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, actually, that's the thing that I plan to I'm reaching out to a few mentors through the through the CommFund community and and few other people to try to just try to learn, especially on the sales side. Because I've I've done a lot of, like, inbound sales calls and sales process, but, like, that outbound, just like, how do you just go out to your I know exactly who the ideal customers are. I know where where they are, how to find them, what they look like. And I just wanna kinda see what other companies are are doing right now.
Brian Casel:If I can sort of, like, look over their shoulder and see see how these operations work. So I'm trying to I I'm throwing it out here on the podcast too if anyone wants to hop on a call, I'm I'm really looking to learn on that.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I think we should keep doing it over the next few months because I I feel like I'm a few months ahead of you in that learning curve.
Brian Casel:For sure.
Jordan Gal:And it is it is awesome. Like, we went through a sales process with a great prospect, and it was everything worked out perfectly. And this time, on this deal, at the very end, after we put out the proposal pricing and then finally, like, time, they they basically said, you know what we need to do? We need to go talk and see how much it costs for us to build it ourselves. So it was it was the first time we had, like, a builder buy type of a decision.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And now we're kind of waiting on the sidelines, waiting for them to find out how much it would cost. Mhmm. And and then to take that and say, oh, we should have known that a month ago. And now we have, like, a a build versus buy calculator that's input into the early parts of the sales process.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Makes sense. So you just, like, how do how do we handle that objection or that that objection? Deal Yeah.
Jordan Gal:It makes you more likely to win deals in the future.
Brian Casel:That's the kind of thing where it's like you figure out, like, how do you help them calculate what it costs to to build? And and and also, what are the implications that they're maybe not thinking about? And, like, how do you work that? How do you be how do you be helpful to them in the sales process? Because because clearly, that's a hurdle they need to get through before they're ready to make a decision.
Jordan Gal:Reasonable. Someone asked you to buy something for over a $100,000. You need to call time out and make sure you're making a good decision. Yep. And it's like if it's our fault for not acknowledging the position that we were gonna put them in with that type of a price without covering, hey, you're on Magento.
Jordan Gal:People on Magento are used to building stuff on their own for you to know if you wanted to build this on your own with this base functionality, this is what you should expect. It literally is like helping them make the decision.
Brian Casel:100%. Yep. What else we got?
Jordan Gal:What else? I got I got a weird one.
Brian Casel:Alright. That that I'm excited. What do we got? I
Jordan Gal:am I am constantly puzzled at how to handle our situation with our biggest competitor.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:We it is it is relevant to us. When we talk to merchants, they've either used that competitor in the past. They use them actively. They consider them. They talk it is relevant in in our stuff.
Jordan Gal:It's not like, oh, don't worry about your competitors type of thing. No. It's relevant. They if we're being honest when we talk to a merchant, we what we want to say, to be honest, is it is a bad idea to work with that company, and here's a list of reasons why.
Brian Casel:Yeah. But that's How hard do you wanna push that
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Brian Casel:Button. Right?
Jordan Gal:How much mud can you throw without it being counterproductive? So it's relevant. This morning, I wake up, and one of our investors sends me a text message to a link of an information article, BALT being investigated by SEC, and then, like, a ridiculous amount of shenanigans. The founder borrowed $30,000,000 from the company, then refused to pay it back, then fired the board members that tried to make him pay it back, like, just like shenanigans. You know?
Brian Casel:I think the I mean, it's a totally different situation here. But I I think the way that I used to really approach this on sales calls, like, audience ops and stuff was like because the competitors in our case would be like, oh, we we hired this freelancer and it didn't work out, so now we need this type of service. I I would sort of just echo back to them the horror stories that I I hear about what it's like to you know or or I would say, oh, we're we're hearing a lot of this from from these other customers right now. And you just start to hear the head nod of, like, oh, that that I've seen that or I
Jordan Gal:I've Right.
Brian Casel:I've experienced that. You know. Right. Or they or they understand. So it's like it's almost like I'm I'm just sort of like reporting on what I see and not like saying like, here, I think that they suck or this or that, you
Jordan Gal:know. Yes. Right. It needs to be more objective. The the what we did this week now that we think of it is I got on a call with one of our customers that switched from BOLT to Rally.
Jordan Gal:And I did an interview with them and basically, you know, a thirty minute call that's recorded to to pull quotes and testimonial. And so maybe that, like, objective, hey. Here's someone who works with that company and now works with us, and this is what they these are the themes that they're bringing up. And maybe that resonates, and that will always be better than someone on our team saying, here's a bad idea for you to choose our competitor because that's so transparently self serving.
Brian Casel:Yep. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. But I it it makes me, I probably think about it more than I should because it doesn't make that big of a difference overall, but it is a strategic consideration if if their company goes under. Like, it it might
Brian Casel:I feel like it it would it should definitely like, in terms of, like, how hard do you throw the mud, right, or or how often. I mean, if if the prospect brings it up, if if they're like, well, we were considering Bolt or we used to be on Bolt, then, like, now now you're in that conversation. Now it's like, have at it. Right? But I I gotta imagine that there's at least some segment of the customers who are, like, maybe not even thinking about it or not noticing it, and they just came to you.
Brian Casel:Right?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's it's a double edged sword because it creates credibility issues for the product category as a whole. So if they if they went out of business next month, I wouldn't be surprised by it at all. They might stick around for ten years or they could go out next month.
Jordan Gal:I have absolutely no idea, but it wouldn't be surprise neither would surprise me.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Just because that happened, I am not convinced that that's only good for us. I think that's also a problem for us at the same time. So it's this thing
Brian Casel:that I just kinda want. Do that, then then they're all like that. Right? Like, you gotta
Jordan Gal:Right. Or, oh, I don't wanna, you know, switch to your checkout. And then maybe a year from now, you go out of business or you get acquired, and I gotta switch my checkout again type of thing.
Brian Casel:Weird thing about competitors that I see now is and this still sort of, I don't know, boggles my mind a little bit when I because I I I hear I hear from customers a lot, and and I and I'm the one doing customer support in our team. Again, we're a pretty lean operation here. But most of the support is problems. If things are going great, not really hitting up the support inbox. So a lot of times I I see not a lot, but, like, you know, from a handful of customers, I'll see, like, repeated I'll just call them, like, complaints.
Brian Casel:Like, they're complaining about the product. It there was a bug or or this or that didn't work or they were confused by something. And and believe me, we we've got a a ton of things to to work on and fix and improve and UX issues to to work through. We've got a long list. But but it always but then it it keeps I I keep reminding myself, like, but there's still a customer.
Brian Casel:They haven't left. They're just complaining. Or they're or they're trying to be helpful by by revealing a a bug or revealing an issue that they ran into.
Jordan Gal:Okay. Okay.
Brian Casel:But like, it happens in in some cases with some customers, like, it happens repeatedly for months at a time. And you would think that that, like, with this with this many issues, like, they would just go to a competitor. But I I keep being reminded of the fact that, like, there's something about what we're putting together that the that the competitors have not Right. Put this together.
Jordan Gal:As a whole. Maybe the feature that they're pissed off about
Brian Casel:There's definitely gaps. There's definitely things that might be frustrating. But there's something about and I think that there's a segment of customers who sort of see where we're going with the product, and and I've been really transparent about what what we're building and what's coming. That they're that they're holding out, you know? And some of them literally say, like, like, when are you shipping this?
Brian Casel:Like, is it is it out yet? What's the ETA on this feature?
Jordan Gal:That Right.
Brian Casel:Like, that that's coming in all the time. So I I keep trying to remind and stay optimistic, stay on the bright side of things. But but, you know, sometimes I'm I'm hearing literal complaints about stuff that's
Jordan Gal:like Oh,
Brian Casel:it's impossible. There's nothing worse that as the founder, as the as the builder on this product to to hear people are, like, frustrated. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Well, that's I I have to tell you.
Brian Casel:But, like, but still, it's like, I in in some cases, I'm like, man, like, you seem pretty angry. Like, why have you not canceled yet? Like, I don't actually say that to them. But but I that's what I'm thinking. It's like, well, alright.
Brian Casel:Like, I I get that, like, this was a frustrating thing. We're we're we're working on making it better, you know, but, like, you're still here. I'm not, you know, you're I'm not I'm not locking you into a contract here or anything. Like
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It is I think the hardest part is that you are experiencing multiple roles and points of view at the same time where you are taking in the first line support request and you are building the product and you are managing the business and the finances. Like that is a lot. So that one data point comes in and infects all of those different roles.
Brian Casel:True.
Jordan Gal:The you know, it's sure a little bit dangerous to get too far away from customer engagement, but a layer or two I
Brian Casel:do wish I had a a tier one Keeps you calmer. Know, you aware. But but honestly, the truth is we we're at a level of volume where it's like it's it's not a super high volume where there's, like, a lot of just tier one tickets that are just time consuming and not actually helpful for me.
Jordan Gal:Right. They're they're asking
Brian Casel:You it's it's not like I'm spending time on, like, password reset issues or stuff like that. Like, honestly, those issues don't come in because people don't have issues with that. Like, you know, the issues that I see are feature requests or bugs or UX issues. And
Jordan Gal:You gotta know.
Brian Casel:Frankly, are those are three things that I very much wanna know about.
Jordan Gal:So, you
Brian Casel:know, anyway.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah. Tricky. I I I go back and forth on that, but I'm generally it's easier when you aren't getting the heat, literally the words that the person is typing into an email and hitting send. When someone, you know, someone on the team comes to me and say, just just a heads up, this particular merchant, little bit of danger of churn.
Jordan Gal:Here's what happened. Here's the things. I say, damn. I don't like that. And and it doesn't register that much emotionally because it's this thing that happened.
Jordan Gal:It's not something that I caused and and I can fix. And so it is a bit easier emotionally.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. I remember I I did have that layer in audience ops where they where if something gets escalated to me, they gave me a little bit of a run run on, like, the backstory with this person before it so I could sort of digest it in the right way. You know? Before I gotta run here, I don't know.
Brian Casel:I thought sort of an open question. I noticed that a few friends and founders and just founders in general in our spaces, it I don't know if this is a trend or if it's just something that I picked up on. Seems like more and more founders are picking up the or or actually investing in personal brand as a founder. K. And what I mean by investing, writing blog posts, writing newsletters, doing personal podcasts.
Jordan Gal:Being more public.
Brian Casel:Being more public, posting more. And but it's not just posting more. It's like to in order to post, you're spending your time on this stuff. So I guess it's just sort of an open question. Is is this a thing that more SaaS founders are doing and why?
Brian Casel:And is it a good idea or a bad idea? I know it's like the age old question of like, does the personal audience, how important is that in SaaS? And I'll I I guess real quick, like, where I come down on it now, I I you know, years ago, I would have said, like, I I think that the personal brand audience is much more important for me. And now it's, like, really not important at all. I I only do this podcast because I enjoy it.
Brian Casel:I like hanging out with you. And I do like the feedback from, I consider the listeners of this podcast to be peers, you know? So it that's a fun way to stay connected to other founders, but I don't do this for marketing or and branding purposes really. If you look at my personal blog or even my Twitter feed, it's way down in terms of posting volume than it was in years past. Because I just don't have a lot to say.
Brian Casel:And I don't find it important for me to spend time thinking through a new article or a blog post or a newsletter. I just have so much other work to do on the business. I mean, it's not to say that personal brand doesn't have an impact. It definitely does for a lot of businesses. And the other thing is I do want to invest in brand on Clarity Flow.
Brian Casel:And I'm starting up a new podcast with coaches that kind of stuff. But like, I've actually had a hard time trying to figure out, like, how do I invest in brand without it being about myself? And I am going to do a lot of the legwork, like do these podcast interviews and stuff, but like, I find it's more about like elevating the customer. Let's celebrate the customer and the story of a coach and how they run their businesses and case studies. Like you were talking about like the interview, like interviewing a customer about their switching experience.
Brian Casel:So I am thinking about, and I think that investing in brand in general is becoming way more important, but I don't know that investing in the personal founder brand is important, unless your customers are really other founders. It That might make a
Jordan Gal:definitely depends on the market. I see this every day because in the Shopify ecosystem, it really can make a very big difference. So Jimmy Kim, who runs Sendlane, has been it is one of the most impressive things I've seen the last six months that that his company has done. They're growing out of control, and he has won over the Twitter e commerce community. And in Shopify world, decisions are made are made based on those those elements like who's popular and not and who has the support and who raise prices too quickly and how do we feel about them?
Jordan Gal:So like that market, it really matters. I am generally relieved that in our market, in Magento and Salesforce, nobody cares. And no one's on Twitter in that same way. I feel relieved that I don't feel the need to do it. Now with that said, so the market matters.
Jordan Gal:I think the most difficult part about it is that it's so visible. When a founder does it really well, you and I see it and it can easily convince us that that works and that you should be doing it also. But part of it is just the element that it's so visible because you're just on your phone all the time and you're on Twitter and threads and LinkedIn and wherever you you hang out and you see people who are right. This is the other factor. Some people are really good at it.
Jordan Gal:Right. They're and I admire it, and that's cool, but I am not. That's not my thing, and I don't wanna feel bad about not being good at it. I'm just happy for them that they're awesome at it. Good for them.
Jordan Gal:But it doesn't mean you have to do it.
Brian Casel:Exactly. Yeah. And I I do think that it matters much more about who your customers are. The thing that I guess the thing that that I don't know. Bothers me is the wrong word because I really, I I I firmly believe every founder do should you, honestly.
Brian Casel:If you feel it's important, I'm sure that there are aspects of this that I'm not seeing. That's how I feel about most things. So, never really wanna call out anybody else's strategy to say, You're doing it wrong. Don't wanna be that guy.
Jordan Gal:You're being too nice, but okay.
Brian Casel:You know, but I guess the thing part of it is that, like, I I do have a problem with people doing like, investing in quote, unquote personal brand that is just not authentic. You're just doing it for, like, traffic or lead generation for your business. I think the best personal brands that we know of are truly authentic. They're they're just sharing ideas because they feel like it's important, and it would be it would just sort of feel like ridiculous if like, oh, this is interesting. Like, how do I not share this?
Brian Casel:Right? Yes. You know? It's like yeah. I don't know.
Brian Casel:Go ahead.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. But but the so here's this weird thing. Right? It's almost like music where let's say you and I know good music. A lot of the pop garbage, it just bothers you and it's annoying, but it has a far bigger audience.
Brian Casel:What? You're not a Taylor Swift fan?
Jordan Gal:First of all, shout out. Taylor Swift's good for everyone. Okay? Jesus is great. Well, a lot of pop, a lot of very mainstream music, TV shows, movies, they kind of bother you, but the audience is so much bigger.
Jordan Gal:So when I see a founder being a douchebag, talking about how much their revenue is growing and how amazing everything's going, it bothers me. It's annoying. Like, I I have been very actively muting and unfollowing.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Me me too. And and when I see that stuff, I I actually wonder to myself. I'm like, do when they write this, do they think that like, they enjoy reading this kind of content from other people? Right?
Jordan Gal:You know, I think that's where I go to, like, the mainstream music thing. I think maybe they do, and that a lot of other people like to consume it. But you and I, with our great taste and all the people listening to this podcast, are like, that's a bunch of bullshit. Yeah. We know things are harder than they appear.
Jordan Gal:We know half of this shit isn't even true, and something bothers us when someone just comes on and just boasts and just says, aren't I awesome? But a lot of people like do it like it, I guess.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I think that explains why when I write a a Twitter thread about my, road map to profitability strategy and it gets, like, two likes. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:It's too thoughtful. Too serious.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. No.
Jordan Gal:Thanks. Tell me how amazing you are.
Brian Casel:Yes. Yep. Yep. I guess that's
Jordan Gal:that's There there's something there. And and I think for me, that's, like, the final bit of it. When I when I go through this analysis of should I do it, should I be more like them, all that stuff, at the end of the day, I'm not hitting send on some douchebag message boasting about how awesome I am. I'm just not doing that. Nothing's gonna make me do that, period.
Brian Casel:I think and also just strategically, I I personally just don't see any viable way for me to spend the time to do what like, because there there was a time in my career where I did really care about personal brand and putting really authentic blog articles and newsletters out. I I was doing that for a while in, like, the productize days and the early days of Audience Ops. Like, I was really publishing to my personal blog all the time. But that took so many extra hours in my week to do that at at the level that I feel, you know, integrity behind. That there's no world where I have those kind of hours today.
Brian Casel:I have so much other work to do on the SaaS, both on marketing and product, that's just not fitting in. I don't see I mean, it makes sense if you're a founder and you have a really great team, so you do have extra hours to put into that's your job.
Jordan Gal:Right, to create that moment.
Brian Casel:Especially in an early stage, I also feel like I'm still just figuring it out with this SaaS, so there's not a lot to speak with authority on. But when I do share, it's like, I just had this learning that I, you know, got to share it. Yeah,
Jordan Gal:I think that's your answer. At the end of the day, your answer is right there. You got better things to do. More leverage, the higher leverage things to do, more important things to do, more things that you think are going to be more effective.
Brennan Dunn:Yep. Speaking of
Brian Casel:things to do, I gotta I gotta get out of here and pick up the kids at camp.
Jordan Gal:See you, dude. Have a great weekend. Alright. Later, folks. Thanks, everyone.
