News Diets & Work Balance
Welcome back, everybody. Another episode of Bootstrapped Web. Brian, it is the Friday before Thanksgiving. Oh, it is. It is.
Jordan Gal:It is next week. I don't know about you. I I see that Friday. It does not make sense to me to work on that Friday. Don't make no sense.
Brian Casel:On on like Black Friday, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Casel:I mean, this year, we're we're gonna drive up to my mom's place, which is about an hour north of us. So you usually, we go out to my cousins in Pennsylvania. So it'll sort of be nice to like not do like an overnight trip this time.
Jordan Gal:We're just
Brian Casel:gonna go out there and back on one day. Then I'll be back here on Friday, but yeah, like probably gonna take it easy. Make it Yeah. Yeah. One
Jordan Gal:We're we're staying local, which we were we were considering going to Mexico City to visit good friends out there. And then between all the construction in the house, all the stuff in Israel, we're just like, let's just take it easy.
Nathan Barry:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Let's just Take it easy. Not. And so I'm very excited. The kids are off for, like, ten days. They were off today, yesterday, and today, and are off the entire week next week.
Brian Casel:Ten days? Yes. You guys seem to have all these, like, unusual vacations.
Jordan Gal:Yes. They're in school. They tend to bunch them up here instead of, like, a day off or a teacher conference. You know, they they tend to bunch, and then you end up having like, we have the week after New Year's off entirely. And this entire
Brian Casel:week that is I think that's genius. I
Jordan Gal:think that is brilliant.
Brian Casel:You know?
Jordan Gal:Yep. Yep. It's it it makes it easier.
Brian Casel:I always wished that we had something I I mean, I think actually this year, we're sort of planning on, like, just taking our kids out of school the the week after New Year's.
Jordan Gal:Right.
Brian Casel:Because that's such a better week to go travel somewhere than, like, the Christmas New Year's week. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yes. Yes. That's right. Yeah. This year, we're doing the holidays in DC where my sister-in-law and her family are.
Jordan Gal:So that'd be interesting. Yeah. We're we're used to hosting at our house, but I I don't mind going going somewhere else.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. There you go.
Jordan Gal:Alright, Bryce. So how's the week going?
Brian Casel:Yeah. So, you know, I've got a couple of small updates on Clarity Flow, and then maybe we'll get into our usual, like, philosophical discussions.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. What is the meaning of being in business for yourself Yeah. In 2020?
Brian Casel:Who are we really?
Jordan Gal:What are we doing? Is this what we meant to do with our lives? Yep. Yep.
Nathan Barry:Oh, man. What what do you got?
Brian Casel:What you wanna kick it off?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Sure. I got I had a board meeting earlier in the week, so I wanna talk about that and some, you know, factors around our investors and board observers specifically. I want to talk about integrating our new account executives into the team and into the go to market function. One account executive started this week on Monday, and the second one starts next week on Monday.
Jordan Gal:So given the time of year, we really have this opportunity to do a bunch of training and a bunch of onboarding and practicing just to be ready for Q1. So let's talk about that. Then the first thing I guess where I start off is, I have been having a really tough time focusing on work.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:It has been a real challenge, and it's it's gone easier and harder depending on the day. But generally speaking, if I look back at the last month, you know, I I've I've mentioned in the past, I'm from Israel and have a lot of family there and cousins in the army and everything. And I think all of us not all of us. Many of us are, like, information addicts. We are much more aware of what's going on than most people because we don't look to the TV for our news.
Jordan Gal:We look to the Internet and Twitter and Instagram. Right. Right. For better or worse. And I I I enjoy being a high information diet person.
Jordan Gal:I like to know what's going on.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Me me too. I I go through seasons with it. I think I happen to be on a in terms of, like, world news, I of course, I keep up with the headlines and everything, but, like, I think a couple of years ago, I was way more actively consuming news and and, like, politics and
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And economic stuff. And now I sort of just tune into the headlines at a at a, I would say, much lighter pace than I than I usually do. Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I used to be very deep into, like, politics and world news, and then I backed off and found myself to just be much happier. Yeah. And up until
Brian Casel:I also find it, like I don't know. I think part of it, that that might be the case for me. But, like, also, I I think it just has become, like, less interesting and a little bit and just more and more ridiculous too, especially when
Jordan Gal:A little ridiculous. A bit depressing.
Brian Casel:It's sort of, like, both depressing and just such a circus and just ridiculous that it's like that is just not even interesting anymore. Like, it is it is what it is.
Jordan Gal:I don't know. So so, yeah, normally, like, before October 7, that is how I felt. I also didn't like giving that much attention and emotion to things that I don't control. It just didn't it didn't feel like it was a good investment of time and energy and focus. When you can look at your home, your family, your spouse, your kids, your community, your business, like that deserves your attention more so.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. But but I have not been able to take that type of approach because this is so close to home. Yeah. So, I mean, I just got off a call earlier today where I met with some people on the go to market team and was not happy with some of the things I heard. I am much quicker to anger right now than I normally am.
Jordan Gal:It's coming out during the day at work also.
Brian Casel:So this was like a routine work thing and the Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Friday, we talked to
Brian Casel:the yep. Yeah. So, like like but, like, the thing that you were unhappy with was just something that happens, like, in the course of work, but you're saying, like, you were you were sort of, set off a lot quicker than you nor otherwise would be about it?
Jordan Gal:Yes. I usually blend in frustration with the appropriate level of response. If it's a big deal, it's okay to have a big reaction. Mhmm. If it's not that big of a deal, then you don't need a big reaction.
Jordan Gal:And maybe you blend it in with a bit of humor. You kinda you can give the message clearly. That doesn't make sense. I disagree with that. Let's go a different way.
Jordan Gal:Right? As this team develops and we all are working together toward a goal that's pretty clear, everyone knows what we're trying to do. I found myself more direct and more willing to be the person on the call that says, No, we're going do it this way. And that generally speaking feels good. Some decisiveness from the boss, I think is actually helpful to everyone As opposed to, well, what do you think and what do you think?
Jordan Gal:And I like to do the what do you think? But over the last six months, as things have just been clarified in terms of our goals, I know what I have in mind and I'm more direct, which feels good. Right now, I am not my normal version of myself. And it feels like maybe, I guess overreaction would be the right term, right? It's literally a little bit more of a reaction than something deserves.
Brian Casel:Yep. I mean, what does this look like actually day to day in terms of I don't know. Maybe we can talk through what our actual news diets look like or not just news, but, like, where like, what's actually different about your focus or attention day to day given what's happening in the world? Like, are you are you, like, tuning into more news than you otherwise normally would be? Are are there I don't know.
Jordan Gal:So my normal habit is to look to Twitter as a source of entertainment and news. So if I go on Twitter and I'm entertained and I'm following people that I like to follow and and I I'm relatively active about muting people and so I'm trying to tailor that experience. If I do that on Twitter, normally speaking, I'm also pretty informed on news. Because things that happen make their way to Twitter.
Brian Casel:You know, interesting. I I do follow some some, like, you know, mainstream, like, news publications on Twitter, I guess. Mhmm. But I don't see my Twitter timeline as my source of news, to be honest. I think that my my the who I follow is, like, not really I see some of it come through, but
Jordan Gal:it's narrow slice.
Brian Casel:My my main source of news is literally just, checking news websites on a daily basis. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I never I never check a news website. Every once in a while Yeah.
Brian Casel:I I do, like, I have have a root I actually browse news, like, at night when I'm in bed. Okay. Okay. And, yeah, I've I've gotten a rotation of of sites that I that I kinda flip through. I I don't watch TV news.
Brian Casel:Like, it's it's basically, like, you know, online.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I go almost, not almost, I go 100% individual news sources and freelance people. And and I my level of disgust for mainstream media sources right now is astronomical.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Here's the one of the most interesting things that I have found over the last few weeks on Twitter is that I now live on the for you page, not the following page.
Brian Casel:I'm I'm still on the following page for sure.
Jordan Gal:Okay. Okay. It's it's kind of an interesting twist though. Right? I mean, the 40 page, didn't it like just come out a few months ago?
Brian Casel:No. I thought that Either way, maybe it's
Jordan Gal:been there for a while, but I always ignored it. If I could have removed it from my
Brian Casel:was on that. I think they called it the home maybe? Like Yeah. Something like that. Whatever the algorithm tab was.
Brian Casel:I was on that for a while and I found that I didn't like how, in some ways, addicting and and also in in some ways, like, just it showed me stuff that, like, either angered me or Yes. Really distracted me. Whereas, like, now with following, I'm, like, adequately bored sometimes. And it Right.
Jordan Gal:It's like, control and go, okay. I right. Scroll for ten minutes, and then let me move on with my life. Yeah. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Because I'm so hungry to consume what's happening, I have migrated over to the for you page. I don't even go to the following page anymore. So that that's a a change. And the other new thing is that I now look to Instagram as my relief. I never opened Instagram.
Brian Casel:I never opened
Jordan Gal:it 10 times over the last five years. Just just didn't go there at all. And now I look at it because it is more curated to who I'm following. I don't see, you know, how some woman got killed as a hostage on Instagram.
Brian Casel:Yeah. The only two that I actually touch these days are Twitter, and I and I do go to threads a couple times a day. I'm trying to, like, I'm trying to integrate threads more into my daily routine and try to actually, like, socialize more. So this is is sort of like a call to to listeners. I I wish that, like, our circles in our industry would migrate
Jordan Gal:We're there.
Brian Casel:From Twitter to to fully migrate to threads because it's a better product. It seems generally more positive, and Twitter just seems too mixed and weird. Actually, just going back to the news, like, news consumption, I have switched, I guess, going back a couple months to a year now. I I actually unsubscribed from New York Times. It it got to a point where it was, like, just the bias is, like, so blatantly obvious and frustrating to me.
Brian Casel:The New York
Jordan Gal:Times can go fuck itself is my opinion.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And so and and a lot of that, like, got to me. But also, I've been picking up this app, Artifact. Are are you using are you have you seen this? No.
Brian Casel:The creator the creators of Instagram, this is their new app that they've been Oh, interesting. Working on for for about a year now. It's a news aggregating app. And there are you know, I've I've tried, like, the Apple News app. I've tried, like, the Google News app, and I was never happy and, like, Flipboard, I think, is one.
Jordan Gal:Like Right.
Brian Casel:I was never happy with those, like, aggregators. They just never really worked well. This one is really good. Interesting. Really well designed.
Brian Casel:It it it builds a it just gives you a really good mix of articles and sources. And based on your like, the more you click on certain types, it it's almost like a YouTube feed or any other social feed, but it's just for giving you news, links. And, and it gets better over time. The more you read, the more you click on stuff, the the better it knows your interests. And and I find that it gives me a a a much more diverse and, set of of sources.
Brian Casel:You know? And I and I just have a feed of US world news, tech news, a lot of sports in there, a lot of, you know, culture stuff. Like, it's it's all a mix and it's super interesting. I I really like it.
Jordan Gal:Interesting. The I think the most important thing, right, we're we're kind of talking about, like, sources of info and how to get it and what we're using. The trying is the operative word here to take control of that consumption has been the first few weeks, I didn't care to control it. I wanted all the information and all the rage and all the triggering and all the other stuff. Now I'm at the point where it is I don't wanna bring that anger and darkness into my house.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. And so I have had to very deliberately I I moved Twitter to, like, a few screens in on my phone, so I have to kinda consciously go over there instead of, like, bottom four. It doesn't work, but at least it's not in the bottom four.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:So I find if I wake up and I open Twitter, I am retraumatized and furious. And then my sweet little seven year old walks in and climbs into the bed and daddy is full of rage and death in in his mind. And I I don't I don't want that. So I've tried to control a a bit more on when to go in and when when not to go in.
Brian Casel:I'll be honest. I I often especially with this not succeeding. With what's happening in in the world and in Israel, I I do feel a sense of guilt sometimes in in how much I actually tune it out. Sure. Sure.
Brian Casel:I feel like It is reasonable to feel
Jordan Gal:the guilt and reasonable to tune out.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I feel that a because I still check the headlines, and I still go to mainstream news outlets, and those show up in my artifact feed.
Jordan Gal:Right. Think it's important. Do look
Brian Casel:to those to see, all right, if it has filtered through these mainstream news outlets, these actually are the biggest headlines going on It the keeps me on the pulse. But, yeah, like, the individual stories and videos and stuff that that comes through social media, like, I just can't it's like, can't get into it.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I can't. I don't I we I maybe the way to say it is that my guilt is much higher because I'm literally in a WhatsApp group with my cousins.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, I was gonna ask you, like, how much of it is, like, are are I mean, obviously, it's it's your your family Yes. Connections are are what drives this. Right? Like
Jordan Gal:Yes. I mean, I I was born on a kibbutz, which is the type of community that got attacked. It does not feel like it happened to other people. It feels like it happened to my people.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And it is it is ongoing. Right? These monsters are gonna torture and kill all the fucking hostages. So it is it is an ongoing atrocity. It's not something that happened.
Jordan Gal:And so I am I am confused on how to tune out and focus on the right things versus pay attention. So it is it just feels like it's not going to be easy any anytime soon.
Brian Casel:Yeah, man. It's it's tough. It's like you know, because and and also it's the what we do for a living in in running these businesses, like, that in itself is so all consuming, you know? So then when you have these other things in life kind of kind of like clashing with that, like showing up in your work meetings, it's tough. I feel like if you're sort of working in a job, there's a little bit of a, there's more of a mental separation between your work, your stuff at your job and the rest of your life.
Brian Casel:Whereas, like, I I struggle with, like, never being able to turn it off. I'm I'm I'm sitting there in my bed and my seven year old comes in and and we're playing around and and I can't stop thinking about about, like, strategy for for
Jordan Gal:Yeah. The business. You should do, or did you get back to this email, just all the things that we're consumed with.
Brian Casel:Yep.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So I you know, it is not okay for me to go to Twitter and lead things that make me very angry and then just move over to Zoom and start talking to people. That's, like, not fair to me or them. Yep. But but not it's not an easy thing to control.
Jordan Gal:And then I walk out of my house, and it's, like, a beautiful fall day in a nice neighborhood, and the kids are, like, yelling down the block. And that the whole thing is just a very confusing experience.
Brian Casel:If I can like, a couple things that have sort of helped for me, I think, in the past year in terms of changes in habits. Number one is definitely exercise. So I have my morning exercise where either doing strength or going for a long walk outside. But now I absolutely force myself to do another walk right after lunch to really clear my head. And I didn't used to do that because I used to be like, I'm in work mode.
Brian Casel:I wanna ship stuff so I wouldn't leave my office all day. And now I force myself to break it up. The other one is actually getting into sports, honestly. Like, Okay. Most of my adult life, like, I sort of put my interest in sports down and then picked it back up in the last year or two.
Brian Casel:You know, I I follow the Knicks and I follow the Mets a lot. And, like, you know, a lot of a lot of us in this industry, I think, are find sports, like, pretty meaningless, but, like and I do too to a certain extent, but it's but, like, following the storylines and being, like, personally invested in it, like, it it feels like a healthy outlet for consumption of content that's, like, general generally pretty positive and Yes. Compelling. And and, like, there's strategy and there's, like you know, I I just I find that, like, really help. Like, a a a pretty high portion of the actual news that I'm scrolling through is NBA and baseball news.
Brian Casel:You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I mean, it makes sense why it has so many people's attention because it is really good, and it's generally positive and something to care about that's not work or Yeah. You know?
Brian Casel:The other thing I was talking to my dad about this. Like, the other thing is, it's so fact based. You just can't deny. You know? Like, there real news, in in world news, there's so much fucking opinion about everything.
Brian Casel:Yes.
Jordan Gal:There's so
Brian Casel:much slant and bias and, like, misinterpretation and misrepresentation. Yep. In sports, it's like the ball went in or it didn't.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. But there's a lot of opinion, and it it almost feels like low stakes opinion, at least to someone who isn't like a super fan. Like, yes, this person should start this week. To me, it's like it's like a you know? It's not There's an opinion.
Brian Casel:But but that's also, like, strategic, and then and then you can totally judge these strategic decisions by the manager or by the organization. Based on what what their win loss record was. You know? Like Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I hear that. I think I I I tend to go toward the, like, creative. So my spare time when I'm, like, looking at the Internet screen and I'm saying, what do I do now? I try to veer toward cooking is where I find myself.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And then it's like research and shopping list and, like, it is an activity to do that's outside of work. Right? So Thanksgiving coming up, I got I got plans. You know? I wanna I wanna fun with with with food.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Oh, yes. Alright, homie. Talk to us. What you got, Colton?
Brian Casel:So in in Clarity Flow land, there are actually two new developments that I think look pretty promising. I'm I'm pretty happy with them. Number one is and these are, like, key projects that I had, building and now finally shipped. So, one is we shipped the new onboarding experience for new customers after they get into the app, when they start a new trial. Now they're presented with, an all new video guide, like a video tour.
Brian Casel:I recorded, like, five or six, like, fresh video demos, you know, recorded on video, showing all of our newest features. And and I built this interface that a new user can, like, tab through. Like, alright. Start here. Here's how conversations work.
Brian Casel:Now here's how you invite your clients. Here's how you can set up your courses. Here's how you can set up your coaching groups. And, you know, because before, we we had none of that. Like, they had to sort of, like, figure it out on their own or go through our email onboarding, which is it's there, but it doesn't help right away when you when you sign up into the app.
Brian Casel:So now it's just a a much more, like, robust and, like like, it's just, like, the interface, like, makes it so much easier to find everything that we actually have to offer. I think that there are a lot of, new trial users who were perfect fits. Like, they're coaches with a great coaching business, and they're exactly who who would be a good fit for Clarity Flow. So, like, our marketing funnel sort of worked. It got them in.
Brian Casel:But then they get in there. It's like they can't find the features that they came for or they tried to use it, but they use it in the wrong way or they put it together in the wrong order and
Jordan Gal:yeah. They just discover it properly.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And so that's had some really good initial feedback. I think it's been live for almost a week now. Okay.
Jordan Gal:You tell
Brian Casel:me what we We've multiple new customer conversions since it launched and actual messages from customers saying, oh, this is like, thank you. This is so so helpful. You know? Cool.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Can I ask what you what you meant? You you tweeted about it, and you you called it video guides, not a tour. Yes. So what's what's, like, the difference?
Jordan Gal:You you're You're pointing at not doing just tool tips to point out where things are. How did you use So
Brian Casel:you've probably seen this in a lot of SaaS where you sign up and then they've got these little bubbles that point to parts of the interface to sort of walk you through, handhold you through how to create the thing. And not only are those really complex to design and build, and I know that there's tools that you can plug in to do that and this and that, but I also find that in most cases, in my experience, those are really useless because they sort of they they handhold you through press like, now press this button and now click next and now press that button and now do this. But no one's gonna actually go through that tour and actually create the actual thing. That's more of like a practice run. Like, I'm gonna practice pressing this button and practice pressing next.
Brian Casel:And then I'm gonna x out of this thing and I'm gonna forget about what all that meant.
Nathan Barry:Yes. Yes. Which is what I do with every single tooltip.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I go, next, next, next, next, done. Then Get me out of here,
Brian Casel:and so that I can actually start creating.
Jordan Gal:And then when I need it, I'm like, where's that tooltip tour thing?
Brian Casel:Yes. Exact and I'm glad you brought that up, like, bringing it back. And so that's that was a key part of what I built here was, like, the what happens is the videos like, the the interface for the videos, like, pops up when you when you first come in. It's like a big modal pop up. And you can watch the videos.
Brian Casel:You can tab through between you know, from the courses video to the to the groups video to the commerce video. And like so whatever you're interested in, you can get to it. But I sort of recommend you go through in this order, but you can click around if you want. And you have literally me on video walking you through, demonstrating how to do it, showing you why it's important, giving you a few tips on how to be successful with it. And you have the option to just click out of it right away and start building it yourself.
Brian Casel:And I do give you one little tool tip that points to, here's where you can bring it back. You just closed the video guide. Now when you need it back, it's over here. Just click that button to bring it right back. Yeah.
Brian Casel:Built some smart controls in there. So if you're viewing the courses area, when you open it up, it's going to open to the courses video. Or if you're viewing the commerce area, then it'll open up to the commerce video. So I you know, and and we've had multiple conversions since that launched. So I was happy to see, like, at least it didn't kill conversions, we've had a few and and some good feedbacks.
Brian Casel:That's pretty good.
Jordan Gal:Okay. Underway.
Brian Casel:The other thing that started this week is our cold outreach, cold email outreach. This is something that I've been it's incredible how complex and just a total pain to get this built and up and running. You know, we all know like all these tools out there for for doing this, but really setting them up, setting up the email addresses, building out the lists, getting the getting everything like, warming up and configuring everything, it is a it is a grind. It literally took us two months to just get to the point of, like, now we have this really large list of of contacts, and we can actually press go on our live sales campaign. So that started, I think, Monday of this week.
Brian Casel:We're we're recording on Friday. And already, we have multiple trials and a couple of actual paid signups after a single cold email about Clarity Flow. And so it's a really good sign for the week one batch of these things, and this is gonna continue for the next several months. So if the results continue like they did on week one, then this could be a really good channel. I mean, it's still really early.
Brian Casel:Both of these things, like onboarding and cold outreach, like these are just improvements. Like, I I think they're that they're gonna add to our conversion rate. They're gonna add to our overall trial and sign ups. But I I don't I don't I get it hasn't changed, like, the whole calculus and trajectory on the business, but I think it's like good signs that the work that we've been doing for the last couple of months is sort of having the intended effect, at least in these early days. So we'll see.
Jordan Gal:Very interesting. If you can figure out a way to add customers without needing them to find their way to you, that opens up a very interesting new new channel, new approach.
Brian Casel:Yep. Yeah. For sure. The the I have two big projects that I want to ship before the end of the year. One is the Clarity Flow Commerce feature.
Brian Casel:We're grinding on that. Still a couple weeks away. And then the other one is the marketing feature. What you were just saying is, like, helping customers find their way to us. The the way that we do it is is SEO.
Brian Casel:That's been the channel that most people just discover us organically, and I need to overhaul that and get more programmatic in our approach. And I have a sort of a game plan there, but I haven't built out our processes to execute that. And once I do that in December, then then my VA can run with that for for several months. So
Jordan Gal:K. Cool. Yeah. We'll we'll we'll keep track of both of our efforts on that front. You know, we're we're about to I think LinkedIn ads will be up and running sometime in the next probably not next week because of the timing, but the week after.
Jordan Gal:There you go. What else you got? So I had a board meeting on Tuesday. It felt a little different from the last one. The last one was there was more pressure around it.
Jordan Gal:I was more stressed about it. I don't know if there was more to explain, but the nature of it felt really different this time. And I think that is a result of general clarity in the business, in the goals, and in our approach. So there wasn't any explanation required around, look, well, we tried this and now we're going this way and this is what's happening. It's kinda like, this is all we're doing.
Jordan Gal:It's actually very clarifying even when people, like, offer things like, hey. Do you want intro to this thing, or do you wanna try this? And it's just like, no. The only thing we care about is opportunities in the pipeline and closing them. And if it's not that, kinda don't want don't wanna hear it.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. So it really felt more straightforward. We had more good news to share, which makes it really easy. We had a very fortunate situation where our biggest week ever was the week before the board meeting. Right.
Jordan Gal:You know? So it that's always good timing because you're kind of coming in confident sounding and you're showing numbers and you know? So we've kind of broken through a few barriers on our GMV level and our revenue level so that, like, it's it's just easier to have a board meeting when you have good news to share. The other factor that's a new experience for me, I always knew that there's the possibility of an individual investor at a VC fund that works with us, convinces their fund to put money into rally, and then that person, that individual ends up leaving their job at the fund. Right?
Jordan Gal:Like, that's just a known issue to kinda keep in mind when you're raising money from VC because you have a champion who's putting their career and capital, political capital, career capital on the line and going to their firm and saying, this is one of the investments that I wanna do this year.
Brian Casel:And
Jordan Gal:so that's the first time it happened to us. So it's not our lead investor, but one of the larger investors and the person that I worked with was a board observer. So he's not on the board officially, but he joined all the board meetings. He's just been really helpful to me. We got close.
Jordan Gal:I respect his point of view, everything. So this was the first board meeting we had where he wasn't there. So it felt a little bit like smaller, simpler, right? Because it was really just us at the company plus our lawyer who's always on on the board calls and then our lead investor. And the lead investor and I are like we text every other day.
Jordan Gal:So there's no surprises. There's no, like, new information at the board meeting. It's basically like putting together a presentation and reviewing it together. Yeah. So it felt good.
Jordan Gal:We'll have another one in three months. And
Brian Casel:So when that when that happens, like when you're when when the when the you said it's not the lead investor, but it was like a key investor in the in the
Jordan Gal:Yes. One of the bigger investors that that have put in I don't know what they put in. Something like 5 or $6,000,000. So a a lot of money over two rounds, and now that person's no longer there.
Brian Casel:So does that mean that somebody else from that firm has taken his place or her place?
Jordan Gal:So what it effectively does So first, yes, you have a new point of contact. So he introduced me to the new point of contact. The issue is that person, the new point of contact, doesn't have the same context, relationship, and belief. Right? This person Yeah.
Brian Casel:It's like they need that yeah.
Jordan Gal:They need to, like,
Brian Casel:go through, like, resold on the on the whole? Yes. I mean, they're they're already in.
Jordan Gal:But They're already in, but but a new relationship needs to be formed. And really what it tells the founder is, you know, blinking red warning light. You cannot assume that this firm is gonna be in the future unless you reengage and get the new point of contact to be a believer. Mhmm. So that's a challenge and, you know, like another wrinkle in my in my set of tasks.
Jordan Gal:So the conversation I had with the new point of contact was not only on an individual basis, me and her on, like, here's what we're doing. Here's why. Here's what the opportunity is. Here's where we are. All that.
Jordan Gal:But also trying to look under the hood a little bit and asking what's the strategy at the fund right now. Where's the focus? How are you thinking about follow on investments? You know, just to try to understand a lot a lot more about what the landscape looks like with that relationship.
Brian Casel:Yep. Yeah. Tricky.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Tricky.
Brian Casel:Interesting stuff, man. I got alright. So we'll get a little bit into the I'm gonna just, you know, kinda speak a little bit more about my own experience of where I'm at currently. Personally, professionally, as I'm as I'm, again, like, heading into 2024. As if you've tuned into the last couple of episodes, you know that I'm going through a bit of a transition.
Brian Casel:I'm heading into a transitional year, I think. And one question that I'm starting to, like, form some new points point of view or or a new I don't know. For like, philosophy, if you will. Like, for myself. And I don't know.
Brian Casel:Like, maybe other founders might resonate with this, but but I'm sure many won't. But it's this question of, like, redefining what success looks like with a SaaS business. Okay. Okay. Not a No more.
Brian Casel:With a new SaaS business. So so if your if your goal if your general, entrepreneurial goal is to is is to get into a SaaS business and and grow it and and be successful with it. I really, really question in the year 2023 and 2024, how viable is it to go all in on an idea and and take it from idea stage, like nothing, to profitable in, call it, a year and a half? Mhmm. One to two years.
Brian Casel:And profitable is I mean, we're not like, it's this is not zero to 10 k MRR. Like, that's not profitable. Not not from where we live. Not not in our stage in our life. You know?
Brian Casel:Nope. Nope. It's it's much higher than that to to literally
Jordan Gal:20 be
Brian Casel:to 25, at least.
Nathan Barry:Yeah.
Brian Casel:You know? So to go from zero, to go from idea to to that, And, you know, I guess the question that I that I really wanna poke at, at least for for founders who are in this position who are, like, who are thinking about it, like, is going all in on a single idea really the best way to get there? And, like, of course of course, SaaS there there are plenty of SaaS businesses that are successful that do hit that profitability level and product market fit in in an eighteen month ish time frame. But my observation and it's more of a gut read, but it's also from accounts of a lot of friends and folks in our in our industry is that, like, I I feel like a lot of these SaaS businesses that nail product market fit in that first year to year and a half, they do it despite their shortcomings.
Jordan Gal:Okay. Okay.
Brian Casel:You know? Like
Jordan Gal:I think that's
Nathan Barry:a good way to put it.
Brian Casel:They they they just like, they hit this wave of demand with the right solution, the right value proposition at the right time. Yes. And and, yeah, I'm sure of course, they have some marketing wins. Of course, they of course, their product works fairly well. But Yeah.
Brian Casel:There's usually a lot of shortcomings, whether that's the product is pretty rough, but people are still buying it, or maybe they're they're frankly not doing all that much on the marketing side. And and they're just they do just have this wave of demand that is hard to hard to stop. You know, like, I I mean, so
Jordan Gal:so then
Brian Casel:the so so then the question So is
Jordan Gal:so the redefining.
Brian Casel:The the question then is, like, does going all in and focusing full time on a single SaaS idea, is that enough to get you that level of product market fit? You know, versus more of a small bets approach where where you where you have SaaS ideas that are like side projects for a while. Obviously, there's different considerations. Like, if you have if you take a lot of investment, of course, you can go all in and that buys you a lot a lot more time to explore and develop and and grow something. But if you don't have that, which I think most founders don't, then you'd have to do what most founders do, which is like either doing consulting, or if you have some other job, or if you have some other business as your main thing, and then you can sort of tinker and explore and take small bets on the side with your SaaS.
Brian Casel:And I guess the thing that I, where for me, as I start to, like my outlook going forward, yeah, I've got Clarity Flow. That's gonna become one of these smaller side bets, even though I've been at it for three years. What I'm saying is I think that the bar, I think we have to raise the bar a lot on when a SaaS actually deserves full time focus, or when the SaaS demands your full time focus. And it's not I I think that there's and and maybe one of the mistakes that I made in the last couple of years is like when my SaaS gets to 20 or 50 customers, that's a signal to go all in. But I think that in some ways that's actually too early to go all in.
Brian Casel:Just think that even if you have signs of customers buying your product, even if you have people who are willing to pre buy your product or validate or get on calls and tell you that this thing is gonna work, that doesn't necessarily guarantee that you can overcome competition, that you can actually reach enough distribution at scale within a within a a year to eighteen month time frame, I I think you're much better off just developing these ideas until something is so successful that it just demands your full time focus. You know? And I I know that there's a lot of, like, debate on that, but, like, I just think that that's, that's sort of where my mindset is at. It's like like, maybe I'm not gonna hit, like, a knock it out of the park home run SaaS product market fit kind of thing. Maybe I will at some point.
Brian Casel:But maybe my little SaaS ideas are gonna be more of, the slow and steady growth thing that just takes many years to actually grow valuable assets. And and instead of going all in on those things over those years, at least I I still spent those years, like, building other assets.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Instead of the the tremendous risk of going all in for years. So I I I hear you. I I have no idea what to think. I I don't the reason I was laughing as you were describing some of the things in the in the beginning is that I'm thinking of a friend of mine right now who's launching a SaaS, and he is going to kill it.
Jordan Gal:And he does not know software, doesn't know product, does know engineering, doesn't know any of the best practices, just none of it. But he is a great marketer and understands psychology. And he hasn't started marketing. So there's no website, There's no pricing grid. There it's just word-of-mouth.
Jordan Gal:And then like he sends you a Stripe link and he's growing faster than almost everyone.
Brian Casel:That's what I'm talking about. Like it's, he's hitting on a nerve.
Jordan Gal:Exactly right. And it is and he he does have a talent for knowing what the nerve is to hit. And and that's where it appears in in his case that that's where the majority of the value is in terms of like, you know, for the the business owner, like the best thing he's doing for the business is hitting the nerve. Literally no website. So zero best practices, SEO, any of that stuff.
Jordan Gal:It's just if there is a very large pool of demand and you give them the right thing. Everything else doesn't matter nearly as much. The design doesn't matter. Like, basically none of it matters,
Brian Casel:you know, and even that question of like demand and and riding a wave and and hitting the timing right, there's still an open question there. Like, I started to shift more toward, like, in the last couple of years and and the SaaS businesses that I chose to get into and the products that I decided to go after, I started to veer towards the ones that aligned with preexisting categories. And talking to a lot of customers and having them show me, these are the tools that I do pay for. Looking for that evidence that customers pay for tools like this. That's what gets me excited about, oh, this is a viable category.
Brian Casel:There's that that starts to derisk an idea. I think there's some truth to that. Like like, don't don't try to be the only player in town. Of course, you can be very successful with that too if you hit a nerve and nobody is serving it. But I started to veer into like, I I felt like it it's like the the less risky path to go into, like, a preexisting category and offer something a little bit different, little bit better, a little bit more streamlined for a particular niche.
Brian Casel:Right? But even then even then, you still have the timing aspect Mhmm. Or or the the time frame. Like, being like, being able to grow at the at the rate that you need to grow in order to get to profitability.
Jordan Gal:Right. To a healthy place without all the suffering.
Brian Casel:Within a time frame. Right? So of course, you need distribution. Of course, you can do things to find distribution. Of course, you can do things to grow your marketing channels.
Brian Casel:And these are things that if you are working on a SaaS and you have customers for your SaaS, like, you should be working on those things. Mhmm. But working but doing that full time at the expense of everything else and the opportunity cost of of putting a couple of ideas out there or building other assets like an audience learning or finding building other assets in your career?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Other business besides SaaS?
Brian Casel:Yeah. You know? Yes. Because I also believe that, because I I think that there's a lot of dogma in in our industry, which drives me up the wall, around this idea that, like, if you are not all in, you cannot work on things that could grow your SaaS.
Jordan Gal:I mean, there's
Brian Casel:I just don't I just don't believe that. Like like, the idea that that if your SaaS is a side hustle for you and not your main thing, like, does that mean you cannot execute on SEO? Does that mean you cannot run outreach campaigns or or ship features? I mean, of course, you can. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. At this point, it's everyone's job as an individual to ignore dogma. Yeah. If you are still caught up in trying to do what you think you're supposed to be doing, then you you haven't gotten there yet. We're all susceptible to it and it is an ongoing pressure, but you you have to get to the conclusion at this point that there's no one way to do it.
Jordan Gal:I mean, we're we're far enough in here that that that feels a bit ridiculous.
Brian Casel:I I really think that, like because I I spend a lot of time and energy, probably more than I should, trying to analyze, like, what makes other SaaS businesses successful and and then comparing that against my own SaaS experience. And and I think that there of course, there's always gonna be SaaS stories of, like, nailing product market fit and growing fast within within the first year or two. But I think that there's also a lot of, like, moderate success, really, like, painfully slow growth over multiple years. And and eventually things started to click because because of, you know, volume and word-of-mouth start
Jordan Gal:Yeah. You've just been around. Yeah. Yeah. One of the most successful exits that I got to witness from, like, a close friend, it was like, I don't even know year seven or eight where the first five years were, if you looked at it objectively, not good.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. You know? Well, I don't know what it took years to get to 20 k MRR. Years and years and years, And it ended up being a smash home run because years five and then six and then seven started to compound. And then a PE firm wanted it.
Jordan Gal:And, you know, my friend made a super life changing amount of money.
Brian Casel:And there you go.
Jordan Gal:But the first five years were were not cool. Right. Not not fun. It depends. Like, right now, if Rally succeeds, it will change the way things happen in ecommerce.
Jordan Gal:Right? So that's like the category creation. And you do most likely need three, four, five years of just lighting money on fire to create that category. And if you win, you've got
Brian Casel:there You've, like, committed to that path, and you and you and you have funded that path. Like Yes. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yes. But that is not the only way to do it. Absolutely not. And and then bootstrapping and eating, you know, beans for three years to get to 10 k MRR is also not the only way to do it and focusing on exactly that. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It's it's it's tricky. I I sometimes think about, like, what I would do next or what I would do if I weren't doing this. And I have no idea what I really think or feel about SaaS or how to go about it or how to do it or whatever my friend is doing without his marketing site. I think that's how I wanna do it.
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, the way that I'm thinking about it now, like, for for next year is not starting another SaaS as as the other the other thing besides Clarity. Like, the thing that I'm starting is not SaaS.
Nathan Barry:Right. Don't do two of those. No.
Brian Casel:It like, the I'm I'm going the audience route. I'm I'm gonna be, you know, rebuilding my office here with, you know, doing a lot more YouTube and and and doing that whole thing. I launched Instrumentl Products, which is like this little coaching offer that's like a first step in in this direction. But what I'm really getting into in the next couple weeks is, like, getting back into full time creator mode with the with the goal of just grow a large distribution channel, grow grow an audience, and be able to build off of that. Like, that's an asset that can actually grow for years
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And actually have value and and make a lot of things easier for the next five, ten years. You know? So that's that's what I'm thinking.
Jordan Gal:Cool, brother. Well, I gotta run because I have a call with our new AE to see how her first week went. Alright. And right. That's the other topic that I would talk about, integrating these two new AEs into the team.
Jordan Gal:But I gotta I actually have a call with her three minutes ago. So I I gotta run.
Brian Casel:There you go. Alright, man.
Jordan Gal:Have a great weekend.
Brian Casel:Later, folks.
Nathan Barry:See you, bud.
