The internet is a confusing place
Hey. Another episode of Bootstrap Web.
Brian Casel:Brian and
Jordan Gal:I were just non verbally arguing over who was doing the intro. Yeah.
Brian Casel:A little inside baseball. Like, the last thing we do right before I hit record on every every one of these episodes, we decide like who is gonna do the intro, me or Jordan. We we try to alternate. And we I forgot to ask that question before I hit record. So that's why you hear both of us talking right off the bat.
Brian Casel:Welcome back.
Jordan Gal:It's Friday. It's rainy in Chicago. Oh. My house is still cracked open like an egg.
Brian Casel:Oh, yeah.
Jordan Gal:A mess. But we're close. We're close. It's getting there.
Brian Casel:It's actually looking pretty sunny outside. It was freezing and now it's now it's getting super warm all of a sudden. You're in the March, but it's gonna get it's gonna get cold again. And yeah, man. I'm working a lot.
Brian Casel:Tonight we're going to my my kids talent show. She's My one daughter is in it. My other daughter designed the poster for the show. So excited about that. And then
Jordan Gal:What's the talent?
Brian Casel:She's in a dance group. Her her and a bunch of other kids are doing a dance.
Jordan Gal:Very cool.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Well, right right before we started recording, I think the conclusion we came to was that you and I are both confused by the Internet right now. Confused by opportunity.
Brian Casel:It's a confusing place.
Jordan Gal:It it's it's a bit it's a bit unsettled. It's tough to know, like, who to envy. It's tough to know, like, what dream to go after.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. Yeah, man.
Jordan Gal:We're we're so lost we're adding AI into our product. Okay?
Brian Casel:You are.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Hell yes.
Brian Casel:We can talk about Yeah. I I I wanna talk about that. Yeah. No. But you're right.
Brian Casel:This week I I publicized again. I I've been talking about this, but Instrumentl Products is the name of my consultancy business that I'm essentially starting up right now. I And I've been working with some clients on it over the last couple of months. And just, you know, going through this process, multi week, multi month process of dialing in what this is and getting more and more focused on it. And, you know, you're right.
Brian Casel:Like like hearing you say like, what what Things are unsettled on the Internet. It's
Jordan Gal:like where to aim.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Where to aim. And I think I think where I'm starting to aim, my my focus and my personal energy is, I came to the conclusion, and I and this is not new on this podcast. I've I've been talking about the last several episodes. I'm in my We're going super high level here.
Brian Casel:Career as a whole, like I'm sort of done with the with with going all in on a single product business. Making the making the single making the businesses success depend on the success of a single product. Okay. And so I've I've shifted to I I started to look like first principles like what am I doing? What what when do I operate best?
Brian Casel:What's the best value that I have to offer? How do I work best as a professional, as a business owner and everything? And and it is still building products. It's it's the building, the designing, the thinking about product and customers and and just do it like whenever I'm doing that type of work, that's what gives me energy and I feel the most productive. And the more that I share the work, and this goes back over a decade at this point of building and creating new products.
Brian Casel:Taking new products from concept to launch is not only where I operate best, but also the thing that people tend to follow my story on and building in public. This podcast, Twitter, YouTube, that newsletter, all that kind of stuff. Anyway, I'm just rambling but but what that leads me to is this concept for instrumental products. And obviously it starts out super basic and very typical and common. It's it's I'm getting back into the consulting game.
Brian Casel:Right? I'm I'm taking on consulting work. I'm helping companies and founders launch new products. Designing, developing, building, taking it from concept to launched. Right?
Brian Casel:But I never like to just do This is not just me consulting and just putting myself out there personally as like someone to hire. Even though logistically, technically that's mostly the case. I still like to think of this like, this is a business. This this is a new brand that I'm calling Instrumental Products. I already have a a small team working with me, and and a pipeline of leads, and projects that are coming through.
Brian Casel:And so I I like to try to think strategically about like, what is it that we're building here? Where is this going? What type of What does this business look like? What's the growth strategy for this business? You know, what's the business model?
Brian Casel:How do we make money? How do we drive leads? I just like to really think through all that. And I did a lot of that this past week. I wrote a long blog post on it.
Brian Casel:I I redesigned and rewrote a lot of the copy on instrumentalproducts.com.
Jordan Gal:It Yeah. It isn't part of the appeal, the straightforward nature of the business model?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Pretty much. I'm going back to basics. Selling services, essentially.
Jordan Gal:Right. Here's how much costs. Here's what I'll do for you.
Brian Casel:Here's how much Yeah. You pay me. Exactly. It's I'm not new to selling services obviously. I had audience ops and before that for for many years I sold web design services.
Brian Casel:This is a little bit new in that I I'm sort of new to selling product development services.
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:And and I'm really trying to focus it in now on taking on focusing on building new products. Like, people like to call them MVPs. I don't really like that term so much. I like to think of them more like v one. But the idea is like taking your your idea or a concept for a new product going from concept to getting the first version into the hands of your customers.
Brian Casel:And something that I want this service, this company to be known for is that this is a very very efficient way of doing that. It's it's a it's Think of it like your shortcut. And and I'm learning this as I'm as I'm talking to some first clients on this. And starting to really understand their motivations when they're talking to me or or or accepting a proposal that I give them. I'm starting to key into like, what is it that makes this specific offer attractive as opposed to the alternatives which are you know, building your own internal team Right.
Brian Casel:Of developments or or finding a partner or or outsourcing to a higher priced agency. Mhmm. This is I'm I'm trying to position this like, it it is a shortcut around all that. It's a faster way to go from zero to one. And it like in some cases, it it could be like, you are building out a team, but that's gonna take months.
Brian Casel:So let's just get v one out in the meantime. In other cases, it is just like a small smaller like bootstrapped operation. Let's go from from zero to one. I remember I
Jordan Gal:had conversations like this. I I can remember the specific conversation. I was in the office of the house in Connecticut, the like the little house that was like on stilts right by the beach. So it was like it was like the in the a frame, I was like at the very little top of the a. And I was talking to Alan Branch, is that his name?
Jordan Gal:From from like the less accounting?
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:And and they were building MVPs for people. Yeah. And we we talked through this is it must be ten years ago. But that was it was my potential shortcut of like, okay. I could I could get people who understand product and development and design to build me v one.
Jordan Gal:I ended up going a different way, but I remember that was what I was after. Can I write a check and be in the market?
Brian Casel:Yeah. I remember that they were doing that. Mhmm. While they were running less annoying Yes. Less annoying.
Brian Casel:That's that's Tyler King's company. What was their thing? Their thing was less accounting. Yeah. I remember that they, you know, they were bootstrapping that for years and
Jordan Gal:That's right. While Doing gigs like that.
Brian Casel:While they were doing that, they were they were doing like MVP builds. Yeah. I I think that
Jordan Gal:speaks to what you said earlier where and I I'm not a 100% sure if you meant like not going in on SaaS in particular with its ramp of death dynamic or just I wanna run a portfolio. I want multiple different things. I want Yeah. Income for services. I want a SaaS on the side.
Jordan Gal:I just don't wanna go all in on one individual bet.
Brian Casel:That is true. What you're describing there for me. I and I am attracted to the idea of growing a portfolio of of products. And that's part of the the motivation in in building this thing, instrumental products. The reality certainly here in year one is that most of the products that me and my small crew here will build would would be products for clients.
Jordan Gal:Right. Right. So
Brian Casel:few cases Yeah. Like most of them are just like cash, you know, projects to to build the product. In a few cases, there's an opportunity to do a piece of equity and cash. Sure. But like my thought, and I I don't know if this will actually play out.
Brian Casel:But my thought is like in between these projects, or as the team starts to scale up, myself and my team here can invest some of our time into building out our own products. Another like And and so, yeah. To answer your question, it is the portfolio mindset. But I think the key for me is that our business model doesn't depend on the individual success of any single product in our portfolio. Right?
Brian Casel:Yep.
Jordan Gal:Yep. And and SaaS in particular.
Brian Casel:And and SaaS in particular. Yeah. That's
Jordan Gal:right. When you said when you said going back to like, what'd you say, fundamentals or first principles or whatever it was, it's it's funny because what I have in my notes for this episode are two incongruent ideas. Mhmm. The number one says, I miss microconf. So like, you know, your desire to kinda go back to first principles that I think my mind was wandering in that same direction.
Jordan Gal:And what it made me miss was like a group of people who were very grounded. Yeah. Knew what they wanted to achieve. It everything was practical based on reality. What's doable?
Jordan Gal:What you know, it it ignored all this like fanciful thinking. I think I have this in mind because I just came back from LA. So earlier this week, was in Los Angeles for the Montgomery Summit, which is March Capital, our lead investor at Rally. It's their annual shindig. And this thing is big.
Jordan Gal:Big production, big dollar amounts, you know. And it it it's it was like a it was an interesting experience because it makes you feel very motivated and very ambitious. Then it makes you feel very bad about how you're doing compared to the companies that are being highlighted. So it was like this very somewhat confusing interesting experience. I always walk away from it like pumped up because, you know, it's good to get out there in the world and see what's going on.
Jordan Gal:But it did make me wanna go back a little bit to to fundamentals. And then the second idea that I have written down which is incongruent is like adding AI to our product. Right. The complete, you know, other side of the spectrum of like hype and YOLO and seeking giant valuations and and that sort of thing.
Brian Casel:Yeah. So I I do wanna I do wanna hear more about the AI thing.
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Brian Casel:But the You know, going back to to to fundamentals. I always tend to return and I'm very much returning to that right now. That the concept of like, build a thing, sell it. Offer a service, sell your service. Offer a solution, sell the solution.
Brian Casel:Profitable, bootstrapped, self funded, simple. You know, for In my experience, whenever I went into runway thinking and and you know, operating unprofitably for an extended period of time. It just added extra pressure and urgency that did not serve me or my business very well. To be frank about it. True.
Brian Casel:And and that's you know, there's nobody nobody's doing than my own. And I think it was worth exploring that that direction. But I but now I sort of course correct back
Jordan Gal:to
Brian Casel:my default operating state in business which is bootstrapped and self funded and profitable.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And and that and that just begins with like simply selling services and growing growing out from there. You know? Using that to like self fund other things. And and in my case, I would like to self fund like a portfolio of products. But like, but what's different I know that there's a lot of like stupid debate on on Twitter about portfolios and or just focus on one thing.
Brian Casel:I'm not even really talking about that here. I don't know, maybe I am. But the My my concept of it right now is, we as a company, and by we of course, I I mostly mean myself. We sell the building of products. So, we can benefit from having multiple products and bringing multiple products into our portfolio in other ways than just the revenue from those products.
Brian Casel:Like building them in public. Sharing the the process. Be Just being very public about the the creation and launch of products can attract leads in in the pipeline for us to build more products. It could also attract partners. It could also grow audience that we can benefit from whether it's sponsorships.
Brian Casel:Like, there are other revenue channels that a business like this can can have to fund itself and and to grow than just the revenues from our our portfolio of products. Now that being said, of course like, by investing in our own products, of course we it it would be nice if some of them actually do get some traction and get some customer revenue and and become actual assets in our portfolio that can grow. Or that can have have valuable as as their own assets. But the the success of this business, instrumental products, like the the product studio does not depend on any one of these quote unquote bets paying off. Know?
Brian Casel:And and even even the bets or the products that we build that are not successful or don't have a very long lifeline lifetime, they still benefit the studio. Right? Just Like, as long as we are constantly doing what we do, which is building products. That's that's what the business model depends on. For the most part, we're building products for clients or we're partnering with clients.
Brian Casel:Some of them are for ourselves. Some of them have the potential to be revenue generating products. But even if they're not, they're still products that we can use as case studies, as content material.
Jordan Gal:As long as you get paid to build them.
Brian Casel:You know?
Jordan Gal:Right. It's like everything else is cool but the central fact remains. Like bring money in the door every month and then use that, you know, that's first. And then from there, there might be other opportunities to build your own stuff, take a piece of other stuff but Yep. But just keep keeping it simple.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And as and as much as I, in theory, I don't know if we can totally do this for real. But in theory, if the more that I can have what we do, which is building products and how we grow, be the same thing. That's Okay. That's the goal.
Brian Casel:Right? Like
Jordan Gal:Okay. I like that.
Brian Casel:Like We Like, our our content strategy if you will, should be us building products. It should be showing our work and showing our opinions on how we go about building products and how we do it fast and efficiently and ship ship quickly and and you know, product strategy choices, publicize all of that. And that should fill the pipeline and exposure and audience for our company. And that that that's the theory behind it.
Jordan Gal:The Right. Reality compounding effects for for effort in the same direction.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, now I'm starting to have a pipeline of projects which is great. You know, for driving revenue for this thing. But it's also like, alright. Well, now now it's like how many hours in the day?
Brian Casel:How much energy do I have to actually execute on those content ideas when when it's like we're actually gonna be spending most of the time building. So it's
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That that's an interesting point you bring up. But at some point over the last few years, think somewhere around or soon after the transition from Kartik to Rally, I did question like how much more energy do I have? How you know, how I I would look at, you know, founders that you read about and how they've been at the company for, you know, twenty five years. And they're still, you know, gung ho going crazy, going strong.
Jordan Gal:And I would kinda question myself on like, do I do I have that in me still?
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:The last so maybe the last year or so, I have gotten more settled into like, oh, I actually feel great and work can be fun. And so I I definitely feel like I have more longevity now than I did maybe two years ago. Two years ago, I was like, how do I hit this thing out of the park and call it a day? Basically, like almost dreaming of retirement or what to do after software or something. And and that that has chilled.
Brian Casel:That's an interesting point that you bring up. I Yeah. Cause I I feel like I hit In the last couple of months, frankly, I never felt like I hit what most people might call burnout. But I think I maybe have come the closest to it in the last two or three months. Like health wise.
Brian Casel:I mean, I I I had a bunch of Health issues in my body. Like I I I had shingles a couple weeks back, which totally sucked. And I do feel the the energy stuff. I'm I'm actually in pretty good shape though. So I'm working out a lot and eating a lot better.
Brian Casel:So that helps. But I definitely feel the lack of energy and that's that's also what led me to getting back to fundamentals. Thinking like really thinking fundamentally about like, alright, well how did I get to that point? A lot of it was I started to build less and less and focused up. And I had a lot of energy over the past year or two on how do we spend to grow?
Brian Casel:How do we how do we do this and that and try to and try to hit these run runway targets with urgency. And that's that's honestly what led to a lot of a lot of stress and and a lot of burnout. And and now I'm kinda correcting back to like, what are the hours in the day where I feel the most energy and I'm actually the most productive and actually have been the most successful? And that's building products. Okay.
Brian Casel:I I know I keep coming back to the same theme here, but like It's a home base
Jordan Gal:to come back
Brian Casel:to. That's the thing. But you're right though. It it That I also don't have the same energy that I had ten ten, fifteen years ago. Throughout the throughout the day, I mean.
Brian Casel:Like Yes. There was a time when I can like go hard on building products in the morning and then go hard on like videos and content in the afternoon or something some mix like that. And now I I can't really do both of those things in the same day.
Jordan Gal:So here's the thing that I I don't like to admit That I I'm only comfortable admitting for myself. I can't speak for you or anyone else. I have a lot more energy when I'm successful.
Brian Casel:I mean, that that seems obvious to me. Yep. For for myself. You know.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And and part of the challenge over the last year or so is it just hasn't been as successful as I want it to be. Yeah. The growth and figuring things out. I mean, just pivoted.
Jordan Gal:You don't pivot because things are rock and rolling and everything's working perfectly. So there's some frustration, you know, after putting effort in the same direction for a long time and not having it pan out the way you want it to. That maintaining that energy and optimism through that is a is a challenge. Right? It's like the the Churchill saying of like, you know, victory is going from one defeat to the next without loss of enthusiasm.
Jordan Gal:That I that thing I think I I think I'd use that in a microconf talk like eight years ago. But I I mean it. You know, that I I use that as a guide. And you know, if I could talk about I I want us to transition to like the Internet sucks. But but not yet.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I I have a thought on what you're talking about too. But keep keep going.
Jordan Gal:The getting to the point of pivoting. Right? If you go to rallyon.com right now, it's it's a different product. So getting to that point with all that goes on inside the team, inside the company, communication with the investors, like and and and then admitting it to yourself and to your leadership, right, the other people you manage in the company with, then making it public, then changing how we sell, new pricing, all this other stuff. I I didn't have much of a negative, like, emotional experience of that.
Jordan Gal:I just ignored. I just didn't care. It it didn't didn't bother me. I I was like, I'm comfortable making this decision because it's not like we didn't try to make it work one way. We tried really hard, and then we said, okay.
Jordan Gal:It's tough to know when to stop pushing the boulder up the hill, but every once in a while, just leave let it go and move on to a different boulder. So that's what we're that's what we're doing now, but what has done is kinda cracked my mind open a little bit to opportunities, and I'm almost holding on more loosely to my assumptions and my ideas around what will work. So it's not like I wanna pivot again. It's that I'm willing to pivot again. Yep.
Jordan Gal:And maybe I'm more willing to pivot now than I was during the first pivot. So Yep. I'm I'm much more on the lookout for opportunities and ideas than I was six months ago.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Even now It's from like
Jordan Gal:checkout to checkout offers, and that's a relatively small leap, it was very logical because it's the same code base. And we really didn't have to build very much at all. So that But makes it has it has cracked open the idea of, oh my idea doesn't really matter. What the market wants and what the market says is is the thing to follow.
Brian Casel:That makes total sense. It it's like it takes a whole lot of energy and and and thought and planning and willpower to get you to do the first pivot or even Yes. To consider pivoting as
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Brian Casel:But but once you overcome that and you do that first pivot, it now now it's not so much about like making that first pivot work. It's like now you're just in the mode of pivoting. You might It might not be your only pivot. There might It might require a couple of pivots before you land on the thing.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Yes. I'm much more open to that to that idea, to that concept of you know looking for product market fit in a different way. And and yes, we have raised series a and normally that happens after you've proven out some like product market fit. But when we raised series a, that wasn't the case.
Jordan Gal:So Mhmm. So here we are. Right? The sometimes when when Rock and I and Jess talk, it's it's a bit like, okay. We just raised the seed round, and we have money in the bank, and we have a team, And what should we do?
Brian Casel:Yep.
Jordan Gal:And that that loose version of of our assumptions on like, well, we think this makes sense. But we are very we've already heard. Right? It's only been a few weeks of selling this product in the market. And we have heard things that are adjacent to what we're doing but are not the same thing.
Jordan Gal:And it's already leading into, maybe that's actually the bigger opportunity. We heard from a company that is not traditional e commerce. Very large national chain that makes almost all of its margin on selling products after their their main service, their main product gets rented. So you rent this thing and then when you do that, they sell you things that are used in the reason why you rented the the truck. Okay?
Jordan Gal:And we were like, did not have anything like that on our road map or on our radar at all. And they were like, well, that's where we make all of our money. Yeah. And and so so I'm much more open to things that I did not think I was open to like forty five days ago,
Brian Casel:which is Yeah. It's exciting. Yeah. It's super interesting. It it's as as I hear you talk about like like more if there are more pivots down the line, it might they might even be more drastic than the first one.
Brian Casel:Like in in terms of like target customer, industry, space, like Yes. We have changed might be a whole new company. Yes.
Jordan Gal:I I think it's a it's a great segue into the Internet sucks right now. Right? Yeah. We have pivoted. We have changed our product.
Jordan Gal:We have not changed our industry or segment in ecommerce. And I my general sense is that ecommerce sucks right now.
Nathan Barry:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Which is a weird thing to deal with when selling into ecommerce. I think Shopify will continue to absolutely crush because they they've won the war. It's tipped over and they will inhale additional market share for the foreseeable future. But being an entrepreneur inside of the e commerce ecosystem right now, I mean, all the agencies I know, no fun.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, we were talking about before this.
Jordan Gal:Into into the insane asylum. If you run your business on like running ads on Meta, you losing your mind right now.
Brian Casel:Oh my God. I I mean, every every time I try to run ads on Meta, it's like I I literally can't like log into my account. What's happening right now?
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Brian Casel:But the We were just talking offline about this. From where I sit, which is very much outside of e commerce land. I I only basically know it from from you and from just observing the SaaS circles that that we run-in. Okay. It does seem like all the energy in e commerce was five, seven, eight years ago and not and and today like it it I'm just not seeing that same energy from SaaS companies serving e commerce the way it was.
Brian Casel:It peaked.
Jordan Gal:It peaked at pandemic. That's when e commerce really benefited from a freak event. And that's when it
Brian Casel:was Like I feel like there were a lot of SaaS startups that started a few years before the pandemic True. And doing doing really well, and they were super well positioned when the pandemic hit.
Jordan Gal:Yes. That's right. That's right. Now it is so crowded. Shopify is the most successful ecosystem and being inside of that ecosystem is is is difficult.
Jordan Gal:Even the companies that are doing well, have difficulty. There are leaders who are entrenched. So, you know, Klaviyo at this point is launching like agency services.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:So now all the agencies that serve Klaviyo are like, what the fuck? We just built our business on top of yours. We built up your client base. We recommended your product for years and now you're competing with us. Right.
Jordan Gal:And that's kind of how it feels to be in ecommerce right now, whether you're a Shopify app developer, an agency, one of the other platforms. I mean, they're they're really struggling. Mhmm. It doesn't even seem like they care that much. So it's it's tough to be convinced that Adobe really cares about Adobe Commerce, and it's pretty tough to convince yourself that Salesforce really cares about Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, you're right. Like there there are just so many unknowns out there. Which to For for from where I sit for I'm just speaking for myself here.
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:As I always do. It's It just That's where just going all in on anything just feels like more risk. I I am going all in in a way on this instrumental product stuff. And when I say all in it's not really. I'm still running Clarity Flow.
Brian Casel:There there's still things happening on that front. But in terms of the the main thing that I'm starting up these days, it's it's that. But that's still pretty diversified. And lean and and flexible. Like with The service can adapt itself in in many different ways.
Brian Casel:But I'm really focused on this product building service. But, I wanna go back to something you said a little while back. You said, you feel more energy when you're successful. Yep. And, I definitely relate to that.
Brian Casel:I'd imagine most people relate to that. And and one of the things that that makes me think of is that, and when I think back to the times when I felt like things are are just clicking in my business. Yep. Things are successful. Like, of course, like it absolutely affects my mood.
Brian Casel:Like, I I I hate the the reality, but it's so true that like my revenue graph is my mood graph.
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Brian Casel:I can frame that. But the But it also brings to mind that it's also like success Like when things are happen When when the business is working well, meaning we have a lot of customers or clients coming in and there's a lot of activity happening. There's a lot of needs in the business too. So so not only does it make me happier but you you would think that it would be more difficult to run because things get more chaotic the more the more action that's happening. But the nice thing about being successful of course is that it's prop if it's profitable, then you can use that profit to hire people and and grow the team.
Brian Casel:And that's where I always have have gained satisfaction in growing profitable businesses. Like self funded and profitable from day one is that when it gets successful, instead of getting stressed, I get psyched about, okay. Now, we have margin to play with that I can hire someone. And and this thing that's kinda eating up a lot of my hours right now, and things are getting a little chaotic, that's that's the trigger to go hire someone and figure out the process to make this thing run without me. At least this little department of of the thing.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. But, you you might operate differently on this but like, when the biz Even if the business has cash in the bank, I found that if it's not profitable, if if we're not seeing success in the market with customers, then just deploying that cash to hire people does not solve the problem and it doesn't solve the stress for me and the energy. Like my personal energy.
Jordan Gal:Yes. You
Brian Casel:know what I mean? Like it's it's it's easier to deploy cash to hire people to serve to to to fill the needs that are just happening because we're successful. It's a lot more difficult to use whatever cash we have to hope that these investments pan out, you know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So so I'll I'll take it a bit further. When when we are chasing money, I don't feel good. When money is coming to us, I feel good.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:So it's not it's not just being able to make a sale. I just will not feel good until people are coming to us and saying take my money. Because the other way is it's too it's too hard. Everything's hard.
Brian Casel:Yeah. But like It shouldn't it shouldn't be that hard. Yes. Yes. We're not business is easy by any means.
Brian Casel:But but it shouldn't it shouldn't be that hard.
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Brian Casel:At at the end of the day. Like like making the sale. And and you're right. Like, looking back on any businesses that really clicked for me, the sales were just so easy.
Jordan Gal:They were coming to you.
Brian Casel:Yes. Were so it it was fun to Yes. To sell, you know.
Jordan Gal:Yes. So I I I like to think back on Noah Kagan's conversation. I don't know if it was Tim Ferriss, but he was on a podcast years and years ago or a YouTube video, whatever. But someone asked him why it looks like everything he turns touches to gold. And he was like, oh, that's just because I I drop things so fast that you don't even notice them or hear about them.
Jordan Gal:And the only things that you see me associate with are the ones that I stuck with.
Brian Casel:Right.
Jordan Gal:And if something isn't working immediately and people love it or are coming to me and giving me money, then I just drop it. Yep. And you know what he says is he learned that from Facebook, from working there on how it should feel when it's successful and it should not feel like this grinding constant trying the next thing trying the next thing trying the next thing and I I I missed that. At Cardhook, we dealt with too much demand and that was the right feeling.
Brian Casel:Yep.
Jordan Gal:And I don't like you know, right now, I have a significant amount of money in the bank account and it doesn't feel good. Who cares? Doesn't feel good. We're we're we're chasing people and trying to show them and convince them our product is good, and I'm sitting here like, nope. Product isn't compelling enough.
Jordan Gal:Need to do more need to focus not on optimizing the sales process. Sure. That's normal work to do, But where the thought and the ideas and the intellectual energy should be focused is how do you make this compelling enough that people see it, tell their friends about it, and people come chasing you.
Brian Casel:Yep. For sure, man. I I I totally relate to that. I totally experienced that, You know, having cash in the bank, what frustrate what frustrated me the most was like, I should be able to deploy this capital to grow the business. And and when I deployed the capital and it did not directly result in growth, it's just extremely extremely frustrating and and actually generates stress and then I don't operate well and and all that.
Brian Casel:And and it's also weird and sort of frustrating to to look back on some of the wins that I've had like in Clarity Flow. And think like because I burned a lot of cash on on Clarity Flow. Just frankly like
Jordan Gal:Just the
Brian Casel:amount of
Jordan Gal:time spent.
Brian Casel:Just right. Literally the amount of time, like my time spent on it. The developer time spent on But also, I burned a ton of cash on marketing. Like hiring marketing people, and deploying marketing experiments, and marketing spend on stuff. And looking back, like, still most of the customers came from word-of-mouth.
Brian Casel:They came from And and and it's still not enough customers to make it a 100% profitable sustaining business. You know? It it is what it is. It's still something that I that I run, but it's not my full Obviously, not my full time thing anymore. And and just looking back on it, it's like, how why why could I How come those dollars did not actually grow?
Brian Casel:But the things that did grow it were pivoting the product or word-of-mouth because if the product fit with certain people, you know. Or And and in the earliest days, like frankly, it was my my audience and and my personal reach of of When it was called Zip Message. Like, it it That did bring in the the early batch of customers which which did spur on a a bit of viral and word-of-mouth growth to people who don't know me. And then that that helped a little bit with growth. But eventually I I learned like, alright, that's not the right market.
Brian Casel:I need to pivot to to coaches and that seemed to help. But but still, like I deployed so many dollars that did not pan out. Yeah. And and it just goes goes to this thing that we're talking about. Like, I really think that at the end of the day, the best marketing and growth is the product itself.
Brian Casel:And it doesn't same thing with a service. You know, lately I'm talking to a lot of agency owners and consultancy owners because I'm I'm sort of relearning this business model now. And still almost every consultancy and agency owner you talk to. Yeah. Some of them have like super dialed in funnels, but most of them, they get most of their clients from word-of-mouth because they do great work.
Brian Casel:They they they provide a great service and their and their clients talk and recommend them. Same thing with products. Same thing with SaaS products. Like, the best SaaS products just get talked about everywhere because people
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. Love
Brian Casel:them. Because the product is great and and it fits. Yes.
Jordan Gal:Yes. It's an interesting problem now that so much of the software market is is mature. So jumping in and launching a product management software right now, you can convince yourself that it's okay to spend a year developing it. Because you gotta be feature complete and you gotta be able to match what's on the market. You gotta be able to, you know, compete.
Jordan Gal:That
Brian Casel:You you can be a feature parity but you're not gonna have the reputation that the that the established players have built over years. What
Jordan Gal:to are you do? You're supposed to look for a green field of a new problem? Like you know good luck. That's that that's not easy. You're supposed to take a unique angle on it.
Brian Casel:It's not impossible. Of course, we we know so many startups and bootstrapped or not bootstrapped who are who are still killing it right now, obviously. But, yeah. It's it's it it does feel like harder than ever. Yep.
Brian Casel:For whatever reason.
Jordan Gal:You know? Tricky. Tricky. It it's it's almost like you either get lucky, you go nice and slow, and and pace your your expenses out by funding it with a w two job or services, or you find a hack of some type. You know, sometimes a long time ago, my, you know, my younger brother runs Crunch Jim franchises.
Jordan Gal:And that's a pretty big business. You know, it's a it's a national franchise. And they have software issues. So I've talked to him about he's come to me and say, hey, we have this software issue. Is this an opportunity?
Jordan Gal:Should I build a software product around this? And at least that would be a hack. You have a relationship with Homebase. They can deploy it to their, you know, 500 locations and you are off and running and you make your first sale. And and that's like
Brian Casel:I mean that sounds
Jordan Gal:some type of a hack. I mean, that's what a lot of people trying to do
Brian Casel:I I literally have friends who who've who've built multi million dollar SaaS companies because their their brother runs a business and they built some software for it.
Jordan Gal:Okay. Like that. That's what people try to do with the Shopify app store. They say, hey, there's a there's a there's a pool of people and I can get them. You know, it has its own challenges, but it it's like it's like their head is in the right place.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I I always warn them to what to expect in the in the maturity of that business, which is as soon as you find success, you get cloned. And as soon as you get cloned, you get undercut on price. And so it's still a very difficult competitive world. But at least, hey, you've got your head in the right direction.
Jordan Gal:There's a pool of customers. I can see a problem. I'm reading reviews. They're not happy with the stuff. I'm gonna launch something in that direction.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. Yeah. But I I like the private hack better than the public hack. Right? If there's a public app store with the full might and weight of the open Internet competing over it, that does not seem nearly as much fun as, can you make me an introduction to the CEO of Crunch and and see if I can sell him on deploying my software to 500 locations?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I having that that private unfair advantage in road, not only with someone who can inform you of like, look, there's a product opportunity here for for a market that most people don't see but but but you know, you happen to know somebody who has like insider information into this but also like access to 500 locations like that's like sort of like instant distribution for at least the first wave of customers for for a business that can and and then that can grow, you know. The hardest wave. But like but that is that is luck.
Brian Casel:That that is I mean, of course It's It it takes skill to It's luck. Find that. It's it's luck. Yes. I mean, not I shouldn't It's not pure luck.
Brian Casel:It's it's you're able to identify that sort of opportunity and and capitalize on it.
Jordan Gal:Yes. It's it's an arbitrage.
Brian Casel:But there's a lot of like people who want to start product businesses that don't have that that type of inroad like readily available to them. So like how do you just go like knock on the door of random niche industries? And I I you know, I know I know it's been done so many times before but it it does seem harder. Especially as as a lot of these like offline industries a, either get more and more tech savvy themselves. So they are finding the notions and the Asanas of the world.
Brian Casel:Whereas maybe five ten years ago, they they wouldn't have you know, heard of of those things. But like be It it is still a huge huge uphill battle to get local businesses to actually adopt software.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Absolutely.
Brian Casel:You know? It's a I mean
Jordan Gal:That's a dangerous game.
Brian Casel:I I'm not I I don't wanna turn this into a ramp, but this is an example of of like software product market fit. I've been trying to I've literally been just trying to book a primary care physician appointment.
Jordan Gal:Oh boy.
Brian Casel:Which is insane. Insanity dude. There have been, you know, I'm just trying to like, even like establish a primary care relationship which
Jordan Gal:Yep.
Brian Casel:Here in The US, at least where I live, it it takes months before I can even see someone. Let alone know if they're a good fit for me or not. But I go to like four different doctors websites and I go on Google Maps, find a bunch of local doctors or or find some through my insurance and like half of them actually do have like a book online option. So they're using some software to to offer online booking. I'm like, great.
Brian Casel:I can just I can go through this thing. I'll I'll pick a date. Alright. It's several weeks out in advance. Fine.
Brian Casel:I'll just I'll just book it. At least I don't have to like wait on hold and call someone and blah blah blah. Right? So I book it online. And then the day comes.
Brian Casel:Like, so I wait like four weeks or six weeks or whatever it is to actually Then an hour before the the thing, they they call me up. They're like, oh, I I don't even know how you ever booked this appointment. But this doctor is not accepting new patients at this time.
Jordan Gal:Oh my god.
Brian Casel:I'm like, what do you mean you don't know how I On your website it says book online. And like the people in the office don't even know how to operate this thing or that they even have that booking option. It's like what's happening? This has happened repeatedly. Multiple doctors.
Jordan Gal:I mean, of all the journeys to take that will certainly end in like dehydration and starvation. It's trying to fix that.
Brian Casel:So it's like you you could you could build the the slickest software solution for these doctor's offices in the world. It's not gonna work if they don't use it. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yep. No. No. Thanks.
Brian Casel:Dude, what are you building in AI? Tell me about it.
Jordan Gal:Okay. So I said the word arbitrage before and and I'm glad you brought it by because this is how I think of it. Maybe not arbitrage or edge or whatever. So here's my very cynical take on AI. Don't judge me.
Jordan Gal:Think our buyer, our customer segment, mid market and enterprise ecommerce merchants are particularly susceptible to hype. These people buy.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:It's not their money. They have they have budgets that are set every year. They want to look good with their employer. They wanna bring in new things and their management is telling them to go out and find AI stuff. Okay.
Jordan Gal:So I think we are we are properly positioned to to use AI to its maximum potential. And I when I think of maximum potential, I think of actual potential and I think of marketing potential. Like how much value is generated by people just being interested in
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And right and this is you see it everywhere. Like you just so many websites are just like whatever we had before plus AI.
Brian Casel:Plus AI.
Jordan Gal:Yes. So which is a a rational response because people are after that side of the utility. Just the marketing utility of it. And then there's the actual utility of does this make the
Brian Casel:What what problem is it solving?
Jordan Gal:Right. Does it make the the problem better? And and right next to that, not only does it make the solution better, but are people more willing to use the solution and believe in the solution because it's inside of the product. So all that to me says it makes sense for us to do this because we have product recommendations. That's basically what we do.
Jordan Gal:Right now, it's a manual logic engine that says when this product is bought, make this particular set of offers. And if we can remove the manual element of a of a particular strategy of when this product is bought, sell this thing. And instead it's when this product is bought, you ML AI engine, tell me what you think we should offer and then learn based on that. So it's it sounds like it's a it's a good fit for the product and for the market. And so what we're thinking through now is how to experiment with it.
Jordan Gal:Which tools can we leverage?
Brian Casel:I I guess I wonder how does it actually How would how would incorporating AI, going back to like how does it solve the problem differently than how you're already doing it with Mhmm. With machine learning or logic or or you know. Sure.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So where it can go, not where it will be next week, but where it can go is a piece of JavaScript on the storefront that is also present on the checkout page. And then you are picking up multiple signals which pages the shopper looked at, which product pages
Brian Casel:Oh, I see. So the the AI would
Jordan Gal:time they spent on that product page. Let's just say
Brian Casel:So the AI is more informing the merchant on how they can optimize, not the customer and like which products they should
Jordan Gal:informing our service to then show the the offer that is most likely to be accepted.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Right? We are at the checkout and post checkout. So it's the interaction right
Brian Casel:I like that.
Jordan Gal:Point of checkout.
Brian Casel:I do like Yeah.
Jordan Gal:If I am a shopper and I go to this pair of socks and I look at the product page for ninety seconds and then I go to this other pair of socks and I add that to the cart, maybe if I have spent a lot of time on another product page, that's the right product to offer. Mhmm. So it has a few promises. Ideal conversion rate and also removing the work required by the merchant to do this stuff and just say, our our brain will will handle it.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And so in in like sales conversations then it's like it's it's not just that you're doing these order bumps and and upsells. It's you're doing them in a smarter way than than whatever other other way you're doing it and and it and it results in x percent increased conversion because it's this much more optimized.
Jordan Gal:Right. And you don't have to do any work on your end as a customer because we're we're doing it for you. Our brain is doing it for you. Yeah. So I even see
Brian Casel:that growing out to like the front end funnel where it's like get your free like AI analysis of your of your store and and as like a, you know Yes.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. So first what we're gonna do is test the marketing value.
Jordan Gal:Right? Yeah. Literally put it on the website, put into the demo, talk about it. Right now we can do that for people manually. We we have a recommendation engine that we've like plugged into.
Jordan Gal:We can take their order history and it can come up with these products are most likely to built to to be purchased with these other products.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And that's enough of a kernel to be able to genuinely and honestly say that there is an AI component without changing the entire product.
Brian Casel:Especially if you're hearing that like, you know, customers asking for AI or or the market is looking for AI solutions because it's it is sort of like the the trendy thing in this in in your market. If it helps with the initial marketing and traction for the product, That's great. And and and then it it also doesn't necessarily have to be the long term. So like, the fact that like AI might help seal the deal when they come in. But ultimately having checkout upsells is still a good thing.
Brian Casel:And once you're in, you're, you know, you know, like, it's still serving its purpose long term. Like, because the the the original the original sort of red flag that I would hear is like, alright, well, if it's not actually solving a problem then there's a big churn risk. But if the underlying core product is still valuable, whether they use the AI feature or not, doesn't really matter. But if they're still using the core feature, that's great. And if the AI helps get them in in the first place, that's that's great too.
Brian Casel:That's right.
Jordan Gal:And the the added thing that you basically convince us to put effort in this direction was that we actually kept hearing it from prospects on demos. Mhmm. So we would show them this is how it works. And they would say, are you going to add AI to that so that we don't have to build it ourselves? And that's when we said, okay.
Jordan Gal:So support. We wanna do it. Fine.
Brian Casel:It's super interesting how I'm seeing the almost exact polar opposite in the coaches market for for Clarity Flow. Ever since the AI craze has been firing up like there are plenty of like super obvious features that we probably should build into Clarity Flow using AI like summarizing record We already transcribe recordings. We should summarize those into bullet points. That that would be pretty helpful for users actually. Like I would like that.
Brian Casel:We we have message titles. We should automatically write those those message titles using AI. Like we totally should. And I and I, as a user, I think that would be useful. And I've had those feature ideas for over a year.
Brian Casel:We have not built them and I haven't received one feature request for anything like that from any of our customers. Like they That just goes to show how different my market is than than yours, I think. Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And like Well, that's why I like it.
Brian Casel:They just don't They're just not Some of them are aware of AI, of course, but they're, that's not what they're looking for in this type of product. And the data And the daily users are not like asking for it. And so that that has meant like, we just have not built any AI features in Clarity Flow. Yeah. I think you're right.
Brian Casel:Hasn't raised to that level of priority. Like, it's not important for us yet. Yes. Even though I might want to do it, it's not important enough to build, you know.
Jordan Gal:I agree. I wanted to help generate demand. Make the product more compelling Yeah. On the front end of the funnel. These bigger companies they feel pressure like they have no choice.
Jordan Gal:They have to add this stuff. Yeah. And so they're gonna add it and make their product enhanced with it. I want it to generate more demand, more sign ups, more demos, more effective marketing.
Brian Casel:It's so funny how like you using AI is so interesting to me. Like Like I've I've been kind of observing my own behavior with it. And I I have noticed that I I'm going to chat I'm I'm just using AI in general like a a bit less and less. I'm still using it on a semi regular basis. But the SaaS tools that I use that integrate AI or that have an AI feature built into them, like, you know, like Notion has has AI on it.
Brian Casel:I never use it. I literally never click the AI button in Notion. Few months back, I switched over to using Versus Code from I used to use Sublime. I use and I and I made that switch thinking that I'm going to use the the built in GitHub Copilot. I I should Correct.
Brian Casel:I I do It does automatically write code for me that I that I do use from time to time.
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:But but Versus Code also has like the chat interface with AI built into it. Where I where I thought that I would be using it to like ask code questions right inside Versus Code. I almost never do that. You know, like sometimes I do but like really not very often at all. Mostly I'm just building straight into I I could or maybe I should go back to Sublime.
Brian Casel:Like, it just goes to show like when it's built into the tools, I'm not using it all that much. And when I am using AI, I still just kinda hop over to chat GPT and throw it in there. You know? Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. We'll see.
Brian Casel:And I still haven't cracked the code on using it for content. We we did it for a while with like blog posts on Clarity Flow and I sort of paused that effort. And I've I've tried to have it like edit my own personal writing and I'm never happy with the output and and it ends up just being my own real words. I know that there are a lot of like tools and and companies that that do AI content as a service. And maybe there's some better workflows and tooling out there that I don't know yet, but I I just haven't cracked that
Jordan Gal:one yet. Same. I don't
Brian Casel:even think of it. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Alright. I don't know. We feel like we've been going for a very long time.
Brian Casel:Yeah, man.
Jordan Gal:It was fun.
Brian Casel:Good Friday. Good episode.
Jordan Gal:Hell yeah. Taking the rest
Brian Casel:of the day off. Take it easy over there. Nice. Alright. Later, folks.
