[37] Thinking BIG
This is Bootstrapped Web episode 37 where we're gonna do a deep dive into what it means to think big. Welcome to Bootstrap Web, the program for you, the founder who learns by doing as you bootstrap your business online. I'm Brian. And I'm Jordan. Let's do this.
Speaker 1:So so we'll get into some updates here. Jordan, what's your update this week?
Speaker 2:So my my real focus other than, you know, finding a house and a school for my kids and all the other personal stuff of moving to a new city, on the business front, it's really clearing my plate so that I can start to think strategically. So I've got a bunch of projects built up and some client work and some new features for CardHook and this and that, but it feels to me like a lot of that is really crowding my plate and not allowing me to think strategically about growth. And so that's really my my focus. That's what I've been doing over the past week and what I will continue to do for the next week to get those things done and settled and then really start to think strategically about the next few months until the end of the year.
Speaker 1:Kinda you're kinda like wrapped up working, you know, the whole thing, like working in the business. You you wanna think higher level working on the business.
Speaker 2:Yes. And I wanna spend more time on revenue generating activities as opposed to, you know, servicing. And yep. So that that's it for me. About you, Brian?
Speaker 2:What what's going on?
Speaker 1:So last week, my family and I took a much needed well, like a short vacation. We went up to up to Maine, Acadia National Park, which is really beautiful. Never been there before. So that was really nice and I was just happy to see that nothing blew up while I was gone. I was checking email and I was kind of keeping tabs or or my, you know, my team would like ping me with a few things here and there but but everything ran pretty smooth.
Speaker 1:So so that was pretty good. Was happy about that. I think my big win for the last couple of weeks would be just the the pre validation of this productize topic, productize services. I'm you know, I've been talking about how I'm building a a course around that, like how to how to productize your service. And I I had previously put out a free course about content marketing and content marketing automation.
Speaker 1:And more recently, I did the productized service free email course and I found that that topic, the productized stuff has it resonates far and away, you know, much more than the than the other topic. Getting way more people opting in for the course and then opting in for the early access for the upcoming premium course. So really excited about that. So now, it's like, okay, I'm definitely going ahead and doing and and producing this course. I need to put together I've got a plot in my to do list for how to get it produced in the next like two months along with everything else that I'm working on with like restaurant engineering and everything.
Speaker 1:So I am aiming for like an October, November release for this course and I've got to spend the next two months getting from here to there.
Speaker 2:Well, it's good to get the validation back from other people. I think you're on to a winning topic there. Anecdotally, when I talk to people and consultants, they're interested in that sort of thing. And now the validation, you know, quantifiably with your email list, people opting in, so good. That should give you the the push.
Speaker 2:But what I really wanna know, I think what everyone wants to know is did you get the blueberries when you were in
Speaker 1:I did. I had a few blueberry pancakes. Yeah. I ate I ate lobster about four times in like three days so Alright. Alright.
Speaker 1:You know, it was it was a good time. Alright. So and, you know, before we kinda move on, if you guys are enjoying this episode and any of the previous episodes, we'd really appreciate it. You know, head over to iTunes, look up Bootstrap web, and leave us a five star review, give us some feedback, tell us what you like about the show, what you don't like. But in any case, you know, those five star reviews really help us kind of, you know, find more people just like you to join us on the show.
Speaker 1:So appreciate it. Alright. So let's head into the main event. We're we're thinking big. We're we're talking big.
Speaker 1:We've got a lot of stuff to cover. So let's let's let's dive right into it. Let's do it. Alright. Okay.
Speaker 1:So here's the main event today. We are talking all about thinking big. So what are what are we talking about, Jordan? Like, what what is this all about?
Speaker 2:Okay. So I I guess I brought this up maybe a week or so ago to you. So here's here's the whole thing, right? So I consider myself to be an ambitious person. I consider you to be ambitious and a lot of people that we kinda know in this game.
Speaker 2:What happened to me last week was I went through somebody's sales funnel and it kinda shook me up a little bit. So I see an ad on Facebook. It looks interesting. I said, me see you let's see what this guy's doing and how he's doing it. I click on it.
Speaker 2:I opt in to, you know, a landing page for a webinar and it's an automated webinar delivered within two hours of me opting in. And then there's a follow-up sequence, few reminders, a recording of the webinar. This is all automated. And then within within three days of clicking the ad, I get an offer for a $10,000 coaching product. So I just like the chutzpah involved in I've never seen this guy before, never heard the name.
Speaker 2:Click on the ad, opt in. Within seventy two hours, I get an offer for 70 excuse me, for a $10,000 product. And it was it was well done. So I could see I'm not about to pay $10 for, you know, for some stuff that I I'm pretty confident to begin with, but I've seen the guy's ads for months. So I have to assume there's a decent return.
Speaker 2:And I think what it made me do is say, you know, am I thinking big enough? You know, a $10,000 product running ads to Facebook, having everything automated, you know, I could see a situation where you can get three, four, five, ten conversions in a month. This guy claims to be making $200,000 a month. And, you know, you and I, we're not any less smart or determined or knowledgeable on this. And I thought to myself, maybe it's just a difference of thinking bigger.
Speaker 2:And, you know, my next thought was to my buddies in New York, a lot of which work in the financial industry. And, you know, some of these guys are doing 500 k a year, dollars 2,000,000 a year, like that's big. And so, you know, when I stopped thinking about myself, which is my, you know, my favorite thing to do, I started thinking about generally speaking, the people we know, the people are a mastermind group, yourself, you know, are we selling ourselves a little short when it comes to our goals and who we look up to and what we consider success? So that's that's generally the topic of, you know, our bootstrappers thinking too small and, you know, what should we do about it? How should we think about it?
Speaker 2:How should we apply that to our our our daily activity?
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, I I think this is a really interesting question. Like, are we thinking big enough? Because it kind of there is this, like, give and take. There there's lately, there's a lot of talk, and I think it's I think it's wise.
Speaker 1:And, you know, I had it here as a later topic to get into, but you got you need to start small. If you're if you're just kind of starting out and you wanna get into building products and building a scalable business, don't try to go and build the next Facebook right out of the gate. You know, start start small and build up incrementally from there. And I think there's a lot of I think that makes a lot of sense. But I but I do think at the same time, and I I feel like I personally have have struggled with this for a while is I don't think big enough.
Speaker 1:I do I I try to achieve big goals every every year, but I think I think in a way, by not thinking big enough in terms of the end goal, it it I'm not being aggressive enough. And I and I think a lot of times we have these big goals, these these end game goals or where we see our our lifestyle or where we wanna be in five, ten years, and and we think somehow we'll get there, but in in the reality of the day to day on back here on the ground, we're not being aggressive enough to get there.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. And so right. So you touched on something that I think is very relevant to people who are in the bootstrap world who who look at the VC game and don't don't want to be part of it. So if nothing else can be said about VC and that whole raising money for startups game, they do think big because the second you're raising around, you you are required in order to have a success.
Speaker 2:You you need a bigger outcome. So you have to think big from the beginning. So the I think that part of it is good of the VC game. Now, a lot of us that look at that and reject it as our path, I know personally, I see it as a strategic decision. I genuinely think that there's a higher likelihood of personal financial success doing the bootstrap thing as opposed to VC.
Speaker 2:You know? And it's a it's a whole bunch of things that you have more control, you are not required or a bigger outcome isn't required. Right now, one of the biggest reasons I have no interest in investment for CardHook is if somebody came along right now and offered me a few million bucks, I'd say yes. But if I raised a round of money and somebody came around said, how is about a few million bucks for it? You can't say no.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you legally can't say yes. Excuse me. So I think bootstrapping is a good strategy for personal success as opposed to VC where you have less control and there are other dynamics in play and bigger teams and all this other stuff. But that does that should not mean that we don't think ambitiously and big the way guys who have, you know, a million bucks of other people's money in the bank think.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I and I think that's an interesting thing. And this is probably a whole other topic for another day, like VC versus bootstrapping. Right? But and maybe we will cover that another time.
Speaker 1:But I I do think that there's something to that. Like, when you have big bucks in the bank from investors, you're kind of obligated to be aggressive. And I think as bootstrappers, we're thinking like, well, that's not our path, so we need to be a little bit more conservative. But we do need to find ways to to harness that same aggressive approach with with what we have or kind of like, you know, working working smart. So let's let's kinda like dive into this, like, first big concept here is is goal setting.
Speaker 1:Right? And and I think I think this is at least for me, this is like on three levels, and you and I have talked about this a couple times. Life like, setting, like, life goals, like, where do we see what kind of lifestyle do we wanna be living? When do we wanna be living that lifestyle by? Or is this a five year plan, a ten year plan, whatever?
Speaker 1:And then I like to think in terms of years, like, what am I accomplishing in 2014? What am I setting up to do in 2015? And then from there, I'll I'll break it down on a monthly basis. What's happening in August? What's happening looking ahead to September?
Speaker 1:So the way that I actually do that is I I I I'm a big fan of Trello now. But actually before I get into that, what I what I typically do is I'll I'll look at in in January around the turn of the year. That's when I really do a lot of thinking about what I'm what I'm planning to accomplish in the next twelve months in this year. And some friends and I have been doing the the big snow tiny conf ski trip. That usually happens every January.
Speaker 1:We are planning another one in January 2015. And that's a great trip where we kinda have like a little business mastermind and we and we all talk about what our big goals are for the year. And that's that's been a lot of fun. But then in Trello, I actually have like a list in Trello for every month. And in in every month, I try to think of like four to five things that I need to get done in that thirty day span.
Speaker 1:From there, I'll use Trello's calendar mode, which gives me a look at the whole calendar, and then I'll break those four big goals or, like, deliverables or things that I need to get done into one thing a day. I mean, sometimes I cheat. I try to sneak in, a second or third thing in there every day. Right? But I do try to make sure that I have the next, like, three to four weeks mapped out in the Trello calendar.
Speaker 1:I just put one thing on there every single day. I'm not assigning a time to it or anything. I I typically try to get the one thing done in the morning hours, like, before lunch. I'm I'm most productive at that time. I can I can move on with the rest of my day after that?
Speaker 1:But yeah. Basically, just, you know, one one thing a day, map it out in Trello. And again, I'm being strategic about the things that I'm working on. I'm not just waking up every single morning like, what do I feel like working on today? You know, I'm in like a designing mode, so I'll I'll open up Photoshop or or, you know, just I I used to work that way.
Speaker 1:A few years back, I would just every single morning, I'd wake up and work on something on a whim. Well, now every first of the month, I'm opening up Trello and looking at what am what am I mapping out for the next three to four weeks? Is this fitting in with my monthly goal? Is that moving me toward my big goal for the year? And then every morning, I'm looking at, alright, what did I tell myself that I'm gonna be doing today?
Speaker 1:It's Wednesday. What did I put on the calendar? So that's the thing that gets done today, whether I'm in the mood to do it or not.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great approach. It's definitely something that I I could use more of. It's it's nice to hear you, mapping things out that way. And I think the challenge is is connecting that to our our larger goals in the medium and the long term. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I I think a good way to look at it is you you kinda have to you gotta know what game you're in. And if you're in a game right now where success does not match up with what you want out of life, then you need to start thinking about, you know, changing the game a little bit. So more specifically, what I mean by that is if you say to yourself within x number of years, I I want a certain lifestyle. I want a certain amount of money in the bank. Right?
Speaker 2:You and I you and I have talked about this before. Right? I I have a goal of a million dollars after tax in the bank. Right? And that's within five years.
Speaker 2:I really wanna do it within three years, but still. If you you have to start working backwards from that. Right? If you think to yourself, oh, one day I wanna have this nice lifestyle. I wanna have a nice house and I wanna be able to afford this for my kids and this for my wife and this for reserve and for safety things and whatever else.
Speaker 2:You kinda have to work backwards from that goal to make sure the things you're doing today, this month, this year are are gonna lead toward that. And and and let that decide your big strategic decisions. If you want a million bucks after taxing the bank, you need to make a whole bunch of money. And if if you're not doing the things right now to set yourself up for that, I think that's a that's a really good place to to make these decisions on what to work on, what projects to take on, what to charge, who do you associate yourself with, what type of a product you're launch. Because the the worst thing to get into is something that's not gonna lead you to where even if you do succeed in what in the game you're playing at, if even if you do build a a great business, success doesn't match up with what you want, you know, you you you're not gonna you're not gonna be satisfied.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. And so, I mean, I know that we're gonna get into, like, how you how you decide, how you map it out and run the numbers and all that. But before we get there, I I I wanna ask you about this, like, life goal. Right?
Speaker 1:And and I'll share mine in a minute. Your life goal or, like, your big big picture game plan here is million dollars in the bank, free and clear after taxes. Like, that's what your visual like, we're, you know, a a visualization of of what you but I guess my question is okay. So that's like a monetary kind of goal. But what is that what is that lifestyle wise?
Speaker 1:Like, are are you envisioning, like, a certain type of house or living in a certain place or or what?
Speaker 2:I think it's I think it's two things. It's not just a it's not just a monetary and and lifestyle, but it's also it's also business and strategic. And so from lifestyle point of view, to me, what that connotates is the ability to focus on the future instead of next week, next month, you know, this year and your expenses and your day to day. And and that sounds like a very healthy thing personally. And it also sounds like a very healthy thing strategically for business because I think people operate very differently and they think differently and they work differently.
Speaker 2:I put this test to you, Brian. If you had a million dollars in the bank right now, would you be doing the things that you currently are doing? The same tasks, the same way. And my answer to myself, I'll let you answer in a sec, is no. I would not.
Speaker 2:I would be using other people's energy and time and skill instead of just focusing on what do I know, how do I monetize what I know Right. Which I think is like the the entrepreneur's curse. And so that million dollars represents, sure, nice stuff and a nice lifestyle with less worry, but much more importantly, it's the ability to think bigger and think strategically and stop thinking about myself as the, you know, most important labor input.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I well, I can answer the million dollar question. Know, I I I think we'll well, let me get to that in in a in a few minutes. But Mhmm. Like, first, like, in terms of, like, that life goal, I really liked what you said there about how it's not just a million dollars in the bank.
Speaker 1:What that really means is you're free from any from like it's like financial freedom. You don't even have to be thinking. It's the freedom to not have to think about are the bills paid? Are are we secure? Like, that's just because, like, right now, you know, we're all kind of in that boat, like, we gotta make sure we're we're, you know, we're we're staying afloat while we're doing this entrepreneurship thing and, you know, we've been successful at it.
Speaker 1:We're going along just fine, but it's I wouldn't say, at least personally, you know, that I'm not financially free from bills, you know, or or having to think about them. And and so that so that kinda makes me think about, is my long term big life? What what am I in this for? Right? Where where's the end game?
Speaker 1:I don't exactly think about it in terms, like, I wanna have a million dollars in the bank that I would love to have a million dollars in the bank. I I like to think of it more like, what am I taking home this year? And what am I gonna take home next year? Maybe I'm thinking a little bit too soon, not far enough into the future, but I Mhmm. For a while now, I, you know, I I I wanna make a six figure income.
Speaker 1:And I I've been close a few years. I I haven't quite broken that threshold. And and so so that's that's one that's one thing I I like to think about is I I wanna consistently make 6 figures a year. And the other thing that I have in mind, like, currently, my my family and I live in a kind of a small condo. In within the next five years, we will be moving to a house, buying a house, and I I would love to just have the freedom to really basically choose the house of our dreams.
Speaker 1:I we we don't have to live in a mansion. Mhmm. But just I don't want money to have to be the I don't wanna have to compromise. I I just wanna be comfortable and pick a pick our our favorite house, if it means we gotta spend a 100 k more on it, yeah, we we we could swing it. It's no problem.
Speaker 2:That's Right.
Speaker 1:That that's so that's like and I think that's perfectly attainable. Right? I I think that's like we can't go buy that house today. We're we're not financially ready for that house today. But but
Speaker 2:it's Right. But if that's your goal, then you gotta you gotta you gotta wind it backwards to what you're doing today to make sure that what you're doing today can actually lead up to that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yeah. I I like to my my brother has a a great saying always. Right? A million bucks in the bank, that's not my life goal.
Speaker 2:I want many million, many millions. Right? My life goal is to be happy and satisfied and healthy with my family. That's the real life goal. But financially speaking, a million dollars, as my brother would say, is is a base camp.
Speaker 2:Right? You can't climb Mount Everest from start to finish. You'll die.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So in in the financial game, that happens a lot too. People shoot for the top of Everest. They try to start the new Facebook and they die. It's it's a healthier approach, and I think it makes sense for bootstrappers to say, I need to get to base camp 1. I have the top in mind, but first, I'm gonna get to Base Camp 1.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna get my expenses paid. I'm gonna have a consistent income that covers my expenses. And then I'm gonna take a nice deep breath and say, okay. I'm gonna sleep the night here in Base Camp 1. So I guess that million bucks for me is base camp like 2 or 3 where it says, okay.
Speaker 2:Now I can think about how best to use my effort and money to get to the top of Everest. Right. And that's so that's like a platform. And I think, you know, in our stage of life with young kids, yeah, that the ability to provide for our families is is a requirement. And I think what drives me nuts and what what sparked this whole conversation is I see my buddies in private equity in New York, and they're 35 years old and they are living in mansions.
Speaker 2:And us bootstrappers are not any less capable or smart. And the internet and the distribution that's available to us, should demand of ourselves much more than we currently do. And we should be looking at other industries like that and say, we can do just as well and be happy and free at the same time. And and, you know, we should demand more of ourselves. That's that I guess that's where this whole thing stems from.
Speaker 1:Yes. I I will push back on on this idea. I have the I have the same friends working in the financial industry in Manhattan. Right? They're making way more than I am.
Speaker 1:We went to the same school together growing up, you know. Yep. Why am I not in their position today? Right? And the way that I justify it to myself is, look, I chose the path of of building a business.
Speaker 1:They're employed. And I'm building an asset. They they have a very lucrative salary paycheck. And it's just that like, five to ten years from now, one even sooner than that, we're we're building things we're building assets, something that has very serious value. And so I think that I I think in a way there's there's a sacrifice.
Speaker 1:Right? We're we're we have we have chosen to earn earn less on an annual basis now because what we're putting in comes out with much greater value a couple years down the road.
Speaker 2:Okay. I agree with that, and I have made the exact same justification. I have made the exact same justification since I started an entrepreneurship at age, 22 or 23. And my reason for leaving a $100,000 a year first year out of school job on Wall Street was I'm gonna be an entrepreneur and I will sacrifice. And a few years down the line, it will pay off because of the asset, like like you're saying, the value you're building that you get to own and keep and sell if you want to.
Speaker 2:The problem is that that check is coming due. You know? It's at some point, it you got you need to catch up.
Speaker 1:Yes. And I think that's where I agree with you.
Speaker 2:It's Right. So so I think that's kinda I think a lot of this has to do with the stage that we are in life where at 24 years old, it was really easy to make that justification. Now when those guys that stayed and are employed and okay. We're not talking about the whole happiness factor in people. A lot of people are miserable in their jobs.
Speaker 2:That that's a reality. But just on the monetary side, at this point, they're way ahead. Right? They've
Speaker 1:been they've been doing well. But but I I still think there there's something to the fact that, like, we control our own destiny. And and whether or not, like, you enjoy the work or not, like look. I know people who love their job, but then they get laid off because because one decision that somebody else made Yes. Was, hey, we gotta lay off this whole floor of this building.
Speaker 1:Yes. Us, if we fail, it's because of it's because of decisions that we made. And and we and we will make wrong decisions. We can make a lot of wrong decisions and still be successful. I think the the whole way you become successful is by learning from your mistakes.
Speaker 1:So, you know, you can do everything right in your job. You can be a high performer at your job and still get laid off. We've seen that in the in the economic crisis. But being an entrepreneur, building a business, we control every aspect of it. We you know, if if we're gonna fail, it's on us.
Speaker 1:So so we can you know, we're making all the decisions.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and I agree that you you put your destiny in your own hands. I think what I try to do is just demand of myself, and I think other people in this game should demand the same, that we should be able to have our cake and the other cake and the other cake and eat all of them. We should have security and be happy and not have not be miserable in our commute and with our boss, and we should be making more money. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And and I and I do agree you
Speaker 1:I do agree with you that, like, now in this point of life, you know, I I know that personally, I in in the last year or two, I I've I've I've gone beyond the I mean, I'm in my early thirties now. When I was in my twenties, yeah, I was perfectly fine kinda scraping by. Yep. Now it's like
Speaker 2:I'm done. No. Yep. It's All done.
Speaker 1:You know, time to time to, you know, travel with the family and
Speaker 2:And I think that frustration and that and that, you know, it's anger for me. It's I I I, know, definitely have pent up, you know it's not it's not anger. I'm not angry at anyone. It's just this frustration energy that, you know, nothing I'm gonna go through whatever freaking brick wall is in my way, and I think that's that's healthy. And having kids having kids adds to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Of course. And and, you know, I think the other thing is that you and I are not complete newbies at at business. I think I I know I personally have lots to learn. I you know, I still, you know, in the early part of of my career in this whole thing.
Speaker 1:Right? But I've I've been in business for for myself going on seven years, tried a bunch of different products and worked with all sorts of different clients and things. So I think f I think now I feel like I'm I'm at the stage where, like, the businesses that I work on should not be experiments. They should be working. Yep.
Speaker 1:They should be producing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And we know what we're doing now. So I think it's good for us to demand more of ourselves. And and speaking of that, you know, I I'm always interested to hear what what you call the framework of of setting goals for yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Run run me through that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I I've just been, you know, thinking of this kind of like three step framework when it comes to setting goals, and that is kind of what I said a second ago about first, setting a goal that is attainable. And for me, making 6 figures a year, I I feel like I've been pretty close to that. It's a it's a little bit of a stretch based on what I've done, but it's attainable. I could see myself doing that in the next one, two, or three years.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of like a first goal. As you as you go about setting these big life goals, first, set your eyes on on something like that that first base camp as you called it, like something that you can easily visualize yourself achieving, but it's a little bit of a stretch above where you are right now. That's step one. Step two, once you get there, you've got to step back and take some time and just admit to yourself like, I've done it. Because I personally skipped over this step and, you know, like for Restaurant Engine, for example, I I feel like the original attainable goal that I had set for Restaurant Engine the the first day that I that I launched it, I have met and exceeded that goal.
Speaker 1:That happened. And it wasn't until recently that I actually admitted to myself that, like, hey, this is a is a you can call this a a success. Look back on your goals. You've achieved these goals and you've exceeded them. Of course, there's still a lot a lot I wanna do and and and grow it, but there there's something to that.
Speaker 1:And and then the reason for for taking that step is because it allows you to move on to step three in this framework, and that's to set your next goal. And that's when you go even bigger, way bigger than the first attainable goal. And that's kind of where I'm at right now in in my restaurant engine business, like think like, how can I think way big? You know, how can how can this become very, you know, what's the biggest next step that I can dream of? Because I have honestly, I haven't even dreamed of it yet.
Speaker 1:I I haven't started visualizing it yet, and and and what happens when I don't do that is I start kind of coasting, and I start, you know, flaking around into different business ideas and stuff and it's like I'm not taking action because I haven't started driving towards a bigger bigger goal. And the, you know, the thing that comes to mind is back in episode 10 of this podcast, I interviewed Rob Walling who's kind of become known for building a portfolio of different startups, different apps, and and keeps them running and and and things. And and I asked him, like, how do you decide what's the next thing that you're gonna work on? And the way he described it is, well, I'm always looking for something that can 10 x what I did previously. So when he was talking about moving from working on HitTel into starting GetDrip or, know, starting Drip, he he said, like, that's a business that that he can visualize being 10 times greater than the previous one.
Speaker 1:And I thought that was really interesting and and that's that's just a way of being aggressive. That's like forcing us to
Speaker 2:Challenging yourself.
Speaker 1:To challenge yourself and get to these big life goals. So Yeah. That's the that's the framework that I think of.
Speaker 2:I like that. I think that's it's difficult to take that deep breath and say, okay. I achieved this. This is good. And then keep moving forward.
Speaker 2:We usually forget about that part because what we envision things to look and feel like when we reach that goal, you know, once you get there, you're so immersed in it. You you it's very hard to take a step back and say, oh, isn't this great? I should feel great.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. I mean, for me, I'm I'm constantly looking at other people in the industry and it's like, oh, they Mhmm. You know, they're making two, three times as what I'm making or their business is two, you know, five times bigger than mine. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. When look, I I'm already beyond where I had hoped to be a year ago. So Right.
Speaker 1:You know? And and and I'm like I I constantly look at, like, what am I doing wrong? What's not good enough? What what can be optimized? You know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. What what can I possibly find to feel guilty about? Because I'm really good at that. Yeah. I'm like a heat seeking missile for for guilt substance.
Speaker 2:I I think you bring up a really important point. When when looking at other people, it's pointless and discouraging to look at people who are two, three, four base camps ahead of you on the mountain and say, how am I ever gonna get there? I just there's no way I'm gonna get there. That is not healthy. What what you should be doing is looking at that person saying, okay.
Speaker 2:So they are several steps. Let me map out my course. And then let me keep a focus on, like like you said, this first attainable but bit of a stretch of a goal, work toward that. Yeah. And it's it's amazing what we take for granted once we're there, and then we all of a sudden, that becomes part of you.
Speaker 2:You have incorporated that into the normal, okay, you you can grow a business to that level, and that's just, you know, a big brick of confidence that that you're stacking on top of your other achievements. And it's time to just put the next brick on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. So so let's kinda jump back to the question that you posed a couple minutes ago. How would you operate differently right now if you had $1,000,000 in the bank? And and and in the past, I've I've asked myself this question about what if I chose the VC route and and and and sought investors for for my business?
Speaker 1:And what would that even mean? And and I think so, you know, I I I think that my answer to that question is like, what like, the my answer to like, why don't I seek investors is because I wouldn't personally know how to spend the money if I had a million dollars in the bank. If I mean, for the business. So if I had a million dollar investment in in Restaurant Engine, I don't know that I would do anything differently than what I've been doing because the because my whole approach has been I wanna learn how how to do the processes that work, and then and then once I figure that stuff out on my own, then it's then it's time to start hiring the people to carry out those processes, then it start time to start throwing money at at the things that I've figured out.
Speaker 2:Right. Oh, okay. So this is this is super interesting and super complicated. Yep. Because I think this has
Speaker 1:Sorry. I didn't mute that. One second.
Speaker 2:I think this has a lot to do. We're just gonna let Brian get the phone. Must be a very, very important
Speaker 1:Yes, folks. This is a highly professional production we've got going on here. So
Speaker 2:So here's what I was saying was the the complexity comes from I I think you look at it that way because you have an attachment to the business, the clients, the outcome, the day to day tasks, the code, the website. And I don't wanna say that clouds your judgment, but but it it makes your approach very different. If right. What what does VC money do? It it allocates capital efficiently.
Speaker 2:Right? That's very cold, straightforward way to look at it. You have a business that it's likely that if I give you money, you will use that money to grow the business to make it much more valuable. Okay? So if you take a look at it from a restaurant engine point of view, if you looked at it from an outsider cold CEO trying to maximize value, but no attachment to the business, I think what you would do is say, how can I use this money to grow the business most efficiently?
Speaker 2:And you would you would do things that you currently don't care for, like different types of paid acquisition, different channels of partnerships, different price levels, different types of customers, all these things that right now aren't in your realm or in your option set. But I think that's the most challenging part to take yourself out of the situation and say, how do I grow this business? How would I grow this business? This is why the exercise is good. What would I do if I had money in the bank?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you right now for Cardhook, I would not be doing the things I'm doing. I wouldn't be sending out certain emails and I would take a much more cold approach and say, if I allocate $100,000 toward this initiative, what kind of return would that give me? And then implementing that initiative is not me going out and doing the work.
Speaker 1:Okay. So the thing the thing that that stops me from going that route is, you know, I guess let's let's get kind of specific. Right?
Speaker 2:Like Alright.
Speaker 1:Alright. What if I had a a bunch of money in the bank, I I could go and hire an a rock star salesperson to go, you know I like it. I like it. You know, like get just do sales. Sell the product for me.
Speaker 1:Okay. I I like, I've been doing that myself for a couple years. And my thing is that, like, look, I'm still learning by doing. I've never hired salespeople before before just a couple of months ago. I I hired a fir my first salesperson.
Speaker 1:And I I I did those sales calls myself for two years before I figured out the process that I was comfortable with that I was then comfortable with delegating to a salesperson. And and that also involved like an email sequence funnel all all this other stuff. Right? AdWords is another example. If I had a ton of money, could I could pump a lot of a lot into paid advertising, PPC.
Speaker 1:But I needed to learn how PPC works. Why?
Speaker 2:If if you limit your business growth based on your current knowledge, you know, how can you ever get to to someone
Speaker 1:big I mean, like like like, even I I don't mean, like, learning, like, functionality of the AdWords interface. I mean, like, the strategies, like, what type of landing page are we sending them to? What's the offer? What what is the what is the free content funnel? I needed to figure out, okay, we're gonna write that content about online ordering instead of writing it about mobile optimization.
Speaker 1:That's a that's a discovery that I needed to figure out because I was in the trenches.
Speaker 2:Okay. So that makes more sense.
Speaker 1:I can't just hire someone and say, like, hey, just just, I don't know, come up with a strategy for me.
Speaker 2:Well, you you might be able to, but I agree with you that that the the bootstrap approach to instead of throwing somebody else's money at this, let me figure out how to acquire customers using AdWords.
Speaker 1:And then and then once I Right. Figure that out
Speaker 2:Once you figured out Right. All you would do with money in the bank right now is continue to figure out what works. And then once you figured out what works and how it works, you would double or triple down on it in a much more effective way to grow your business. Right? This is the same approach I took to the e commerce store.
Speaker 2:We did almost everything ourselves. We had help and consultants, all the other crap, but we had to figure out how to sell certain products using certain channels. But the second it worked, we called in the experts and said, alright, buddy, you know, crank it up. And we went from spending a $100 a day to spending a thousand bucks a day. And that's how our business grew from, you know, $10,000 that month to $65,000, you know, three months later.
Speaker 1:Right. And, you know, I I'd also like to note here that there's there is a danger to having too much financial freedom in this in the early stages of of bootstrapping your business. I don't know if you you recently heard Eighty's re recent interview on Mixergy from, like, last week when he talked about his his public beta.
Speaker 2:He did. That was interesting.
Speaker 1:He talked about how he has I think he said around a million dollars in the bank from his sale of his shares in in Wu themes. Right?
Speaker 2:Right. Which I really thought that was gonna be 10 times that. But.
Speaker 1:So yeah. So I you know, who who knows what what goes on there. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Who knows?
Speaker 1:He described how he he invested something like a 100 k into public beta. He he I remember he hired a couple of people, and I interviewed AD on this podcast Mhmm. And he was talking all about that. And and he described how that was a mistake. He was he he he didn't have the right strategy in place, you know, because he was kinda just throwing money at it because he had the money.
Speaker 1:He it didn't it it was a little bit he didn't have the pressure of he didn't have that financial pressure where whereas I I do have the financial pressure as I've been building restaurant engine over the last few years in in that I can't just throw money at any and and every experiment that I want. I need to think strategically and learn what works. And once I figure that out, and I'm still figuring that out now, then it's double or triple down.
Speaker 2:Right. And I think that's the that's the part that that too many people ignore. That instead of instead of looking for what works and then having the intention of as soon as I find something that works, I'm going to crank on it until it doesn't work anymore to grow bigger, faster. Right? What you talked about before, what happened with AD and what happens with a lot of VC is a very inefficient use of capital because it's just risk and you're just throwing it out there and hopefully it works out.
Speaker 2:Something very different is deploying capital when it is a near certainty that it will result in high return. Right? And that's something that happens and that's something that bootstrappers can do specifically well because they have the constraints and they have to figure things out. And then you have that ability because you're there and you're not spending money all over the place to figure out what works and how. But then that next step, you know, this is something I learned from my entrepreneur father, that money is not the problem.
Speaker 2:Money, you can get money anywhere. You can get money anywhere. And look, if you have an efficient way to build your company, you can use credit cards, you can use loans, people go public, you know. Money is not the problem. You need to figure out a way to make it work so it's profitable.
Speaker 2:And then you won't have a problem finding money, whether that's self funded in a patient way or professional investors or credit cards or bank loans or whatever it is. Yeah. But I think that intention needs to be there instead of, I'm just gonna continue doing what I'm doing, gaining, you know, 10 new customers a month. Instead, look for these marketing channels and tactics and strategies that work, but with the intention, as soon as I find something that works, I'm I'm gonna go big.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. And so, I mean, in terms of, like, you know, thinking ahead into into like planning for going big and and figuring out the right strategies to do today that that tomorrow you can double and triple down on, I think that that comes down to running the numbers or or having some kind of financial plan in in place. Right? And I I think personally, I've I've always struggled with this thing.
Speaker 1:I I talked about how I've I've always struggled with looking at the metrics and I I tend to take a more kind of like a creative approach to just feeling out how things are going. But you, on the other hand, take a much more analytical approach. Right? So
Speaker 2:I do. I I always I always run the numbers constantly, different scenarios. And I think what's interesting, you know, when I showed you the spreadsheet that I created and, you know, if you wanna get a copy of the spreadsheet that that we're gonna talk about, you can go to bootstrapweb.com/37 for this episode. So it'll be in the show notes. And what this spreadsheet is just an example of of what I'll do to run the numbers on something.
Speaker 2:And I think the interesting part when I showed it to you, the number that I use as the key metric that affects all the other formulas and all the other outcomes is ad spend. And ad spend doesn't necessarily need to be ad spend. It doesn't need to be CPC or, you know, AdWords or something. It's just how much money you're putting in toward customer acquisition. That could be salesperson commission.
Speaker 2:It can be a Yellow Page ad. It could be direct mail. Whatever it is, it's marketing expense that you are willing to spend to acquire customers.
Speaker 1:Or or hiring writers for for content marketing or or the time that you're putting into writing, you know, content or whatever
Speaker 2:it is. Right. If you're not willing to do anything, then you can put your salary in there and say, okay. I'm willing to you know, this is how much I'm willing to spend. But I let that be the guide of everything else.
Speaker 2:And so when I start things off, I say to myself, okay, let's see what happens if I spend $5,000 in marketing for this particular project, business, endeavor, what whatever you wanna call it. And then I let that flow into the rest of the numbers and then all the way down into, you know, expected revenue and expenses and and your margin and all that. And that's how I make a decision. Right now I'm faced with the big decision, what to focus on over the next few months. Should I focus on acquiring new customers for the software, Karthook?
Speaker 2:Should I look for consulting gigs or should I continue to push on the info product side? And I think the only way to make that decision is to run these types of numbers. Right, an example is gonna be something like, if I'm willing to spend $5,000 and this is for the info product math, And the cost per visitor is gonna be, let's call it a dollar. So you have a CPC, in this case, CPC of a dollar. So I'm gonna get 5,000 people coming into web page and I'm gonna offer a webinar.
Speaker 2:And so I'm gonna say that I'm gonna get 20% conversion rate out of that 5,000, which means I now have a thousand leads. I have a thousand people who are, who have opted into the webinar. Webinars aren't perfect. And so let's call it 40% of those people actually see the webinar live or on a replay. So now from that 40% see the webinar in one way or another.
Speaker 2:So 400 people are exposed to my offer. And out of those 400 people, now let's see what happens if I assume a conversion rate of 5%. And then I then you get to you you start to see, okay, that means I'm gonna get 20 customers. And then how much do I need to charge for this to work out? So if I sell a $1,000 info product, that's $20,000 in revenue, subtract out the $5,000 I spent on advertising, and my margin is $15,000.
Speaker 2:From that, I have to pay, you know, for software and and my own salary and all this other stuff. But at least that shows me, okay, what are the assumptions? Right? The cost per click, the conversion rates, the the price of the of the product. And then you can start to play with these different inputs to see, does this business make sense?
Speaker 2:Is 20% conversion rate good enough? Is 40% of people showing up in the web are good enough? Can I charge $200 for the info product or am I gonna go broke and I have to charge 500? If I have to charge 500, what kind of an info product do need to put together that's valuable enough? So, right, that's how these numbers can help you make these decisions.
Speaker 2:And, you know, you don't wanna get into a situation where you are, you know, finding yourself charging the wrong price or expecting the wrong return. So this is what can help you make that decision. Things don't usually work out the way spreadsheets look, but at least it helps you make the decisions.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. And that's what I really like about this spreadsheet. When when you look at it, it's it's really much simpler than it sounds. It's just kinda like one column and
Speaker 2:and as you
Speaker 1:as you change, you know, one value, it it it calculates all the other levels of the funnel. Now, what I really like about this approach is, you know, this is, you know, looking at these numbers from day one. The these help you make your plan. These help you, like I said earlier, mapping out what are you gonna be working on in the next month, what are you working on in the next six months. If you run these numbers from the start with these assumptions, yes, they're kind of guesses, they're, you know, things will change and a spreadsheet is not perfect.
Speaker 1:But this solidifies in your mind, okay, my strategy is I'm going to run a webinar. How do I get traffic to that webinar? I need to run ads. You know, how and and if my goal is to achieve $15,000 in in margin, you know, and and it's just it kinda like sets these these measurement points in place ahead of time so that you start working on putting all these things in place like, okay. Task number one, figure out what the webinar topic is about.
Speaker 1:Task number two, figure out the marketing strategy to get people clicking on and getting to them to the landing page. Strategy number three, think about the offer, you know. And then and then, you know, step two is optimizing each of those steps. You know, going back, looking at the results, letting these letting the the projections play out for thirty days, three months, six months, whatever you've planned.
Speaker 2:Yeah. See how far off you are from reality. Is it better than you thought? Is it worse? What do you need to improve?
Speaker 2:And it also helps to clarify the tasks. Right? If you want this to work out a certain way, maybe you shouldn't be writing another blog post. Maybe you should be putting together your webinar slides first. So it helps to clarify and it also helps to right.
Speaker 2:You can do this for different types of businesses. So for consulting, right, this would change. The CPC would go up, but the conversion rate would go up and you'd have to take into account consultations instead of webinars. And then the average revenue per customer instead of being $500, it would be $3,000. So it also helps you decide what approach should I take to get me to that next base camp in my little journey up toward, you know, that the house at the top of the hill.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Again, it it's kind of it it's a it's a it's a tool. It's a mechanism to think big, but affect the things that you're doing on on a daily basis and and just stay aggressive towards the these big goals. Right? It it's so easy to get thrown off track, you know.
Speaker 1:And actually, like, this kinda brings up the you know, this idea of focusing and spreading yourself too thin. You know, when you're not focused on on these plans and running the numbers ahead of time, you know, you know, you just get spread too thin. Like, you like, oh, you know, I didn't get enough people signing up for the webinar, so I'm just gonna go off and work on a different type of product now. You know, I I've I've kinda fallen into that shiny object syndrome thing before, but, you know, you've gotta, like, see the plan through because if you run the numbers, you know, you might get you might not get a 100%. You might get 85% of the way there if you if you just let it run its course, you know, and then take what you learn and move on to experiment number two.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah. That's one thing I would emphasize in anything taking this type of an approach is don't be discouraged if it doesn't work out as well as you want it to in the beginning because from that starting point, you can optimize, you can improve, you will optimize, you will get better just because you've gone through the process. And so if you are profitable or near profitable or near success, don't be discouraged by that. Be encouraged by that and say, okay.
Speaker 2:Now the next time I do it, the next time I run this campaign, next time I do this launch, I know what I need to improve, and and then you you'll have a much higher likelihood of of actually improving, getting closer to your projections.
Speaker 1:Very good. Alright. So let's let's kinda wrap it up there. I think we covered a lot of ground here today. I'm thinking big.
Speaker 1:I know I'm gonna be thinking even bigger after after today. I'm gonna start using this this spreadsheet too. So awesome. Let's let's wrap it up there.
Speaker 2:Excellent. I think it was a it was a good one. And let's, yeah, let's expect of ourselves, you know, what what we're capable of and what what we deserve. So let's let's get after
Speaker 1:it. Yes, sir. Some motivational speaking there. I like it.
Speaker 2:There you go. Cool.
Speaker 1:Okay. That wraps it up. Jordan and I are thinking big. I hope you're thinking big as well after this episode. So, you know, as always, you can dig into the backlog of episodes by heading over to bootstrappedweb.com.
Speaker 1:This episode and the show notes are at bootstrappedweb.com/30seven. And again, if you're enjoying the show, please head over to iTunes, leave us a five star review or you can always can always reach out to us on Twitter. But again, those five star reviews really help to show out on Twitter. I'm CastJam. You are Jordan Gal on Twitter.
Speaker 1:Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's right. So thanks for joining us. Brian and everybody else, I will talk to you next week.
Speaker 1:Yep. See you guys.
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