Make it Rough
Welcome back everybody. Another episode of Bootstrapped Web. Mister Brian Castle, how we doing?
Brian Casel:Doing good. It's Friday. We are wrapping up another week here. Just heading into the weekend. And then I next week I have sort of short week.
Brian Casel:I finish up at the end of Thursday and then we're going to down to the Florida Keys for almost a week. Going over to Buddy's wedding and then a little extended vacation with Amy and I. It'd be it should be fun. I'm I'm looking forward to that. It's been been several weeks since we got away, especially just just just the two of us.
Jordan Gal:So the whole family's going to the Keys and then you guys get a little time?
Brian Casel:No. The kids go to go to the grandparents and we go to my buddy's wedding and then and then we do like an extra like four days just
Jordan Gal:Oh, it sounds great.
Brian Casel:That resort
Jordan Gal:Good for you. Yep. We are we are doing we're going to New York. Next week, my brother and his wife both turned 40 recently. Nice.
Jordan Gal:So they're having a big party together. So just the two of us are coming down. We don't have grandparents here. So our trip is like, know, twenty four hours kind of thing, but it's still it's gonna be fun.
Brian Casel:Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Very cool.
Brian Casel:Just a few hours ago, I'm sitting here working and I'm like, there's like a little rumble. Dude. I'm like, what was that? Like, I And I I completely thought it was something in my house. Like, it's just one of those house noises.
Brian Casel:There's probably like a raccoon or something under under the house or something. I'm getting I'm getting some texts from people in Connecticut and New York and like, yo, did you feel that?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Twitter all at the same time. Yep. What my brother, same one in New York texted me and said was that an earthquake? You know, was like in our in our WhatsApp group with my brothers and and my dad which
Brian Casel:is
Jordan Gal:like this ongoing group chat all day. And he just writes was that an earthquake? I thought it was joking. So I wrote back, what happened? Did you fart?
Jordan Gal:Right. You know, not thinking anything of it. And then I go to Twitter and it's like, was that an earthquake? Was that an earthquake? New York City earthquake?
Jordan Gal:And I was like, oh, an actual earthquake. Yeah. That's what we need right now. Know?
Brian Casel:Exactly.
Jordan Gal:Threat of war on one side, couple of earthquakes on the other.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And and like here on the East Coast like, you know, we never get earthquakes. So like even and this was like the tiniest little rumble. Like I literally thought it was just something in my house. And and like everyone freaked out because it's like
Jordan Gal:So Yep.
Brian Casel:It's the craziest thing.
Jordan Gal:Yep. Well, look, this podcast is no longer sponsored by Thesis because that stuff was too strong.
Brian Casel:Okay. Too strong.
Jordan Gal:I took it in the morning and then though. What's
Brian Casel:that? Pretty good for content.
Jordan Gal:It was it was pretty good. You know, now I'm back on I'm back on my friend Natural Stacks, acetylcholine. Just the stuff. Man. And
Brian Casel:The the supplements over there.
Jordan Gal:And five
Brian Casel:They're flows.
Jordan Gal:Of creatine.
Brian Casel:Do you? You know, like I I work out every day and but I don't do any supplement. Other than like just like protein shakes and stuff like that and vitamins.
Jordan Gal:Give it
Brian Casel:a Yeah. I've I've been thinking about it. It's It's great. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yep. Yep. Very happy with it. Do we do business on the Internet? Is that what we do?
Brian Casel:Last I checked.
Jordan Gal:Is that what wanna talk about? Yep. Alright.
Brian Casel:Alright. So yeah. I threw it out on Twitter. Got some questions. I think some of these actually kind of align with what I act what I already even was planning on talking about today anyway.
Brian Casel:So Okay. I got I'll I'll just rattle off my my three My list of three things today. And I don't know which order we'll go in. I've got I thought I would do a Clarity Flow update since I didn't really talk much about it last time. The the customer success role has been making pretty good progress and the strategy there.
Brian Casel:Instrumental Products, my product studio. I've been working with some clients and I think I came to some learnings on iterating on the best way to charge and bill for the services that I'm doing and the best types of engagements and projects that I've been taking on. You know, I've cycled through a bunch of experiments over this year and I'm starting to feel good about what I've got going there. And then on the content and YouTube and audience growth is where I'm doing a lot of work. And today I was just thinking a lot about like, you know, we talk about like product market fit.
Brian Casel:In this sense, I'm thinking about like creator market fit. And really trying to hone in on what the core topic and target audience is and all that kind of strategic
Jordan Gal:In that equation, you're the creator? Yes. And you're thinking, okay. Okay. Okay.
Jordan Gal:Instead of just like, what do I feel like writing about?
Brian Casel:How to get the most traction and what's what's what's the path to growth and what makes sense long term and what am I building here and that kind of stuff.
Jordan Gal:Okay. Cool. I have been a little overwhelmed with too many thoughts, too many ideas, and I feel like the right thing to do in that setting is to take a step back.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Because you're in Nice. Searching exploration mode.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Yes. And I have found a few and you know the the way I've described it is like this cycle of like discovering a product, getting really excited about it, and then learning about it, talking to people involved. And then reality sets in, the good, the bad, the ugly. Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And then the emotions cool off and I can get to like a a more sober look at the idea.
Brian Casel:Yeah. We had a good episode last time where we sort of talked about like that checklist. The the criteria Yeah. That we're looking for. So I'm cure I don't I don't know if it's too soon or whatever but like it might be cool to hear.
Brian Casel:You might not be able to talk about what the actual ideas are but how how you're applying those filters to what you've been looking at lately.
Jordan Gal:I think that is what's confused me because I've started to get some feedback. So the the episode last time was one of those episodes where you know, I have been having conversations about that in private. Mhmm. And those have come in a variety of different ways. The interesting thing is that the characteristic that resonated with the people that I spoke with this week is the set and forget.
Brian Casel:Oh. Yeah. The part that you brought up.
Jordan Gal:Right. As like the you know, if you can
Brian Casel:That's been like the elusive thing that I've I've been wanting for so long and I I never really nailed it with any of my products.
Jordan Gal:Well, it's tough to think that way going into a product because what you're dreaming up is that people are gonna use the product. You're not optimizing it so that it's used minimally. You're you're operating under the assumption that people are gonna pay for it and then they're gonna use it to get value out of it.
Brian Casel:The Yeah. I I I tend to I think about products like does it solve a problem that people are willing to pay for? And then how do we remove as much friction to them getting that problem solved as as And and the ultimate removal of that friction is like they don't even have to touch it. It just works.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That's kind of interesting that way. Yeah. So I have been using that criteria. I I worked on an idea that was totally removed from that set of criteria.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And that was an interesting experience because it was it is barely even a tech product.
Brian Casel:It's it's just different When just said that I I was the question is because we didn't really cover this last time. Are are you Is SaaS still the business model that you're going for? Or are you even considering stuff like outside of what we think of as traditionally SaaS products?
Jordan Gal:So I I I think of SaaS first. Mhmm. But I'm not against other things. I still look at crypto in my universe. AI plus crypto is super interesting and RWA, real world assets with crypto are very interesting.
Jordan Gal:So it's like financial instruments, like one of the real world assets in crypto that's really taken off is the tokenization of of treasuries. So government securities and their yields because it's very useful in financial instruments to have that as something that you can use to get yield in certain ways. So so I I don't the the idea that I'm talking about now was actually a financial product, Like like lending loans, debt, packaging up, securitizing, sent selling off to hedge funds, that type of a product. So not SaaS at all. So I'm pretty pretty open, but I I default to SaaS.
Brian Casel:Yep. Yep.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I look I think what what's happening in consumer is interesting. I just feel like I am such an amateur. Wouldn't even know where to start on consumer.
Brian Casel:So I generally consumer products you mean. Yeah. So so you're generally looking at at business.
Jordan Gal:B to B SaaS.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yep. I think I oh, when it comes to b to b SaaS, I start to split it up pretty quickly at the beginning of any thought process around self serve versus enterprise.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. That's another interesting one. I We we unpacked that a bit last time. But Yeah.
Brian Casel:Like the self serve. That that's another one to me that like I've never really been that adamant that it has to be self serve. Like because I I I do think that like if there's enough demand and like I'm I'm totally Like it doesn't seem that difficult to hire a really good customer success and sales process and put that in place and have it run really really well to grow the business. Like I'm That seems fine to me.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I guess if you if you view that as the mechanism for onboarding people and selling them type of thing in the beginning. At Rally our our our the checkout, the the real issue was is around onboarding. Yeah. So if if it's two months of work to onboard a customer, then you have to charge a lot and then you have fewer customers and you're
Brian Casel:onboard gets difficult. I've run into this challenge where it's like where it's like, yes, like like there is a lot of friction in the onboarding and the adoption. So we need to put people on that but that means we need to charge a lot more But this market doesn't pay a lot more, you know. Right. It
Jordan Gal:just changes the nature. Like, you know I
Brian Casel:think there's a lot of common advice. Obviously, the the the age old like charge more advice. Right? But there's a lot of stuff like, oh, just just charge thousands for setup or or per month for for done with you done. You know, but like, you can't just slap that strategy onto any product, any market.
Jordan Gal:It's it's that's right. It's gotta make sense with what they're buying, what they're getting out of it, who they are, how
Brian Casel:they buy all all of
Brennan Dunn:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:So I you know, if you if you get a chance to start from scratch, it feels silly to me to not at least aim for this ideal elegant version of an online business. You you know how I've been following a lot recently is our boy Levels.
Brian Casel:Right.
Jordan Gal:Because that's like the epitome. Them, the 37 signals, that's why I'm going to MicroConf in a few weeks. These these very elegant self serve low customer support like that
Brian Casel:version of The MicroConf crowd, feel like there are a lot of there there is probably more. There's a lot of everything in in that community. But I think that there there's like a lot of sales on Like there there are teams that like bootstrapped companies that have like sales people who onboard, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Casel:But I Anyway, like yeah. You're you're right though. Like you're at this like, let's find the You know, we're starting from fundamentals. From from the first principles. Right?
Brian Casel:Like let's let's start there and explore out. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yes. Like if if you
Brian Casel:And that's that's how I've always gone about it too. Like I've always had this checklist. This criteria. Whether it's like self serve. I I want sales.
Brian Casel:Or I want b to b SaaS. I want It needs to be easy to onboard. It needs to be harder to onboard so that I can charge more. It needs to be this or that. And I've always like checked maybe 60% of those boxes and and went into a business knowing like you can't find a 100% perfect on on it.
Brian Casel:So like I know that Like when I went into When I when I pivoted from Zip Message to Clarity Flow, it was it was like I flipped the the checklist. Right? Like when I started Zip Message, the attraction to me was like, hey, this is self serve and it's really fast to get value and there's a viral component and it's easy to get going. But that that pushes the price point down. Right?
Brian Casel:So so then it's difficult more difficult to grow. Then I flipped it with Clarity Flow. It's like, oh, I can charge more. We can we can build more. Value.
Brian Casel:We can power more of their business. But now it's harder to adopt. It's harder to onboard. It's harder to activate. Right?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like I I I knew those trade offs going in to both of those but it was like choosing which trade off I wanted to to go with in this business, you know.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And and inevitably if you start looking at everything, you know, where I am now with like a little confusion, there's just so much swirling around. The home base seems to be fall in love with the industry and the problem. Yep. And go in that direction with a bit of an open mind around maybe I like what this product is doing and what that product's doing, but I don't understand why they built the product the way they did or what makes them successful.
Jordan Gal:So really better off to use it as a starting point, go toward the industry, start talking to people, and then uncovering things. Mhmm. So that's that's been that's been interesting for one particular industry and niche where I started off with one idea. I was looking at, like, this recruiting hiring thing for a specific industry. And as I went further in, what ended up happening was I started becoming really interesting in the set of problems that happen after you hire them.
Jordan Gal:So you find an employee and then you hire them and then from there to making them a successful employee that's gonna stay a while, there's some really interesting things.
Brian Casel:Okay. Yeah. So Interesting.
Jordan Gal:If if Homebase is falling in love with the problem and like the audience, the market, that feels like more likely to lead to a successful research, basically to get to a good idea. Mhmm. One of the funny things and I'm curious how how you would think about this. Because I'm I'm familiar with ecommerce. So I know the software.
Jordan Gal:I know the players. I know the platforms. I know the nuances. I know what makes this email service different from this email service different from this other email service. When you go into a new market, you're you're unfamiliar.
Jordan Gal:And so what that means is because you don't know the landscape, you don't know what other what else is out there, you kind of are starting off from a first principles point of view because you don't know what other people are doing. Then you start to research and then you start to find competitors. And then I I it's almost like I gauge my emotions when I come across a competitor. What what is that doing to me? Does that dissuade me because the competitor's awesome?
Jordan Gal:Does it make me excited because there's competition that's doing something similar? So that's been an interesting experience to come come across different markets and then find competitors, and then I don't know what to do with the emotion. Should I pay attention to the emotion at all?
Brian Casel:Yeah. There's always For me, there's always the emotion with competitors and But I do I tend to want to do products where there definitely are some competitors. I I don't like doing completely novel new ideas. I But I At the same time, I do really care about a different A unique differentiator. A reason.
Brian Casel:Something that like why I think we need to build this product. Not the bullshit like I wanna change the world kinda thing. Mhmm. But but like if I'm going to enter a market I want to have a really compelling thing to put in the h one. Like, here's why you should care about what we have here.
Brian Casel:Because you might be aware of of x y z competitors. Here's And those are those are fine. But this is better for this type of customer, for this reason. So so here So basically like I want to go into a a competitive market. A market that has competitors
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:With a compelling spin.
Jordan Gal:Now, is that real or is that positioning in Mark? Like, yes, there are competitors. Do you wanna do accomplish the goal differently? Solve the problem in a different way? Find a
Brian Casel:unique The unique differentiator can manifest in different ways. It could be we do essentially what they do except we do it for this customer. This niche customer. Or we solve We we serve the same customers but their emphasis is on this feature or this part of the problem and our emphasis starts with this part of the problem that's a little bit different.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. So a little combo. World view plus feature Yep.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I don't tend to wanna compete on price. But that Sometimes that could play into it. Maybe like a pricing model change. I don't know.
Brian Casel:There And then you know, whatever advantage you might have in distribution. Maybe they sell in a certain way but you have a different way of reaching the market than they do. So that could be another differentiator. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Like how long they've been around?
Brian Casel:Yeah. But the the a normal
Jordan Gal:set
Brian Casel:of The first thing that I like because the reason why I want to see that there are competitors obviously is like that's a form of validation that that businesses exist in this market. Like they People have built businesses like they they've identified that there is a pain, that there is a market of customers who pay for this. So that's like that's like the first check mark that like, look people do buy products like this. But then then it's a question of Then you gotta go deep on talking to those customers and doing that research and all that, you know. The thing that's challenging that that I've always had a hard time with then is like not Is doing a product that is not scratching my own itch.
Jordan Gal:I I worry about scratching my own itch.
Brian Casel:Yeah. It's easy to do that too. But I do find it This is one of those things that like I'm willing to do a business even if it's not scratching my own itch. I mean Clarity Flow is sort of like that. It serves professional coaches and I'm not a professional coach.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. So it it's not like a deal breaker for me.
Jordan Gal:But it's not not as exciting?
Brian Casel:Not that it's not as exciting. I just found some some aspects of that to be more difficult.
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:Like getting the truly deep understanding of the problem and why it matters and what the truly best solution to the problem is from a product standpoint. When it When I feel the problem myself, I totally get it. When I need it When I need to get inside the heads of other people like coaches, sometimes it takes a few more iterations to really nail why something matters to them. If that makes sense.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That that does make sense. One of the stories out of YC demo day this week. Right? So YC's got demo day and a huge portion of them are AI.
Jordan Gal:So of course, I'm I'm watching everything and trying to take notes and spark ideas. One of the more interesting stories that came out of it was from a company called Archimus. Maybe. I I never heard of it. What they do is they they automate insurance premium audits.
Brian Casel:Okay. I definitely have not heard that name.
Jordan Gal:Right. Right. Like like, you know, what? Now so what these guys did is they went and got jobs.
Brian Casel:Oh, did they? They got
Jordan Gal:full time jobs as auditors during their YC stay. And of course, that that hit the nail on the head for that crowd.
Brian Casel:So they did One of my my favorite authors of all time, Michael Lewis. I loved this interview with him I saw years ago. Before he wrote the big short, he got a job working on on Wall Street. And and he worked there for like two or three years and in this I don't know if this is true or not but the way that he said it in the interview, he was like, I got a job in Wall Street knowing that I'm going to write a book about Wall Street.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I mean his first big breakthrough was Liar's Poker. Right. Which was about banking. So he Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Leah, he got investment banking job and then he came out of it and was like, well, I think it's much more fun to write books about it. And
Brian Casel:obviously, he's he's a Anyway, Yeah, man. It's a it's a fun it's a fun exercise to to do that exploration thing. I I do think it's I think I think with competitors, there's also like a There's also like the other extreme where it's just like so crowded. Like, can't imagine trying to And I've ended up doing this a little bit when I was working on process kit. But like trying to compete in like the project management space or Mhmm.
Brian Casel:You know like CRMs are really competitive. Like think things like like, again, like if you go super niche, maybe you can do a spin on it for a very niche vertical market but like Mhmm. I don't know. That's a tough one.
Jordan Gal:I don't know how to think about that either because I you know, I I'm I'm friends with with Jane from Userlist. Sure. And I love the fact that that space, email marketing is is unlimited. Yeah. It just goes forever.
Brian Casel:The interesting thing about these these hyper competitive markets is that they go through these cycles. Right? Like every couple of years, there's like a new You know, there's not just one dominant company for ten, twenty years at a time. Nope. But like Nope.
Brian Casel:It's still super competitive every year. But like every five years, there's like a new leader, you know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. In e commerce, Klaviyo dominated email marketing for Shopify brands. Dominated and IPO ed and, you know, super success story. And then they started getting a little full of themselves Yep. And bringing pricing up.
Jordan Gal:And now Sendlane, that's run by a friend of mine, Jimmy, is cleaning up behind their wake of unhappy customers.
Brian Casel:Yep.
Jordan Gal:You can see the cycle like renewing itself.
Brian Casel:And then there again, there's like different use cases, different target email marketing is so wide. I mean, you've got email marketing. You've got SaaS. You've got Mhmm. Like just creator like just you know, influencer email marketing like all that kind of stuff.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It's an interesting strategy to to go for a very large market and then niche and be specialized for your niche. Right? So user list that Jane runs is email marketing for SaaS companies. And that's different from people selling physical Yeah.
Brian Casel:For sure. Shopify. For sure, man.
Jordan Gal:Alright, bro. Fun stuff. I'll be in Ahrefs if you need me. Alright. For the first time I have an account and I'm like bumbling my way Yeah.
Brian Casel:Through it. That that is such a great product. I I have never used it anywhere near to its full potential but every time I have used it, it's just so powerful. And that's an example of a great SaaS company that just continuously, continuously makes their product better. Like, I still see them making like major changes, major iterative improvements and and you know, they're h reps.
Brian Casel:They're they're not just like It's not the same product from five or six years ago. Every year it gets better. So Yeah. It's pretty
Jordan Gal:interesting to to go through their onboarding. And, you know, one of the things I'm not I'll shut up because I'm talking a lot. This week was I Levels, our boy who, you know, I'm kind of borrowing some of his philosophy. I signed up for one of his products for the first time. And I documented all of it for the team.
Jordan Gal:And I used I haven't used any
Brian Casel:of his products, but I'm I'm just guessing. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm guessing it was Okay. Like I wanna
Jordan Gal:You you guys
Brian Casel:super light, like super rough around the edges, like like just like it has However rough you think It can be a lot rougher. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Like, you wanna sign up for an account? Okay. Put your email address Yeah. And hit enter.
Brian Casel:Put some cash in an envelope and send it to this mailbox like Exactly right.
Jordan Gal:Next screen that comes up it's, you know, thanks for signing up. The link is in your email. You click on the link and like you don't actually have a password yet. Then you need to create a password. Hit the link, another email shows up.
Brian Casel:It's probably like sending you that email.
Jordan Gal:Now as a SaaS executive Right. Right? I'm looking at this basically being like, you're an idiot. You're an idiot. You're an idiot.
Jordan Gal:You're an idiot. Like I'm reminding myself, he's not the idiot. You're the Yeah. Idiot. Don't and and I used it and put it into our Slack group.
Jordan Gal:We have a new Slack channel called Brainstorm. So everyone's just like, you know, very active. I used it to give our team permission to think dirtier, rougher, easier, simpler, faster. Because we are used to careful methodical because checkout requires careful methodical. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:And now we're we're about we're about to attempt to change the underlying product and development culture of the company, which is not an easy thing. So I'm doing a lot of things to basically give people permission. Like, this is the right way to think. Let's get an MVP out there. If it takes a week to do it, don't make it take three weeks just to make sure everything's buttoned up and pretty.
Jordan Gal:Like, get out
Brian Casel:and Yeah.
Jordan Gal:We'll we'll see how
Brian Casel:I mean, that's how I I sort of have that that same sort of like FOMO or whatever you call that. Like, when I'm looking at like other creators who are Who who just get like traction with with their content. Whether it's on YouTube or Twitter or anything else. And and it's like how do they get away with it being so rough and seemingly so fast to produce and just put out there and then get traction where And then I and then I spend all this time like just you know, trying to make them the most perfect well thought out piece of content or well produced video or this or that. And I'm like, I'm just spending way too much time and I'm not acting, you know.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Yeah. It's it's a It is. It's a I think there's also a lot of deception like deception in in content where it it looks like it's easy to just post this thing, but there's actually a lot of thought and effort and time and production that goes into it before it goes gets published, you know.
Jordan Gal:Now, I I hear you on that, but our boy Levels is very useful for this. Yeah. Because because no, it doesn't. Yeah. Because he's not getting he's not getting his customers for interiors AI from Twitter.
Jordan Gal:It's from search. Yeah. So I'm redoing parts of my house, and I have this one empty room that's like my one opportunity to like make it cool. Everything else is, you know, a kitchen gets used for that, a dining room gets used for that, and so on. We have this random little like nook that I can make into like a little like sitting area.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. So I'm like, okay. This is fun. Let's try to use AI. Let's sign up for his products.
Jordan Gal:Let's give feedback to the team. So I go and I do it. I take a picture, and then I go use the product. And I'm trying to think of how to say this. It's not only rough around the edges.
Jordan Gal:It's excuse me for like being rude. It's not good.
Brian Casel:Yep.
Jordan Gal:Right? So so there's a difference.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Like the actual the actual thing that it delivers is not like use usable.
Jordan Gal:No. I would say the thing it delivers is better than the product in the UX and the
Brian Casel:UI. Okay. Okay.
Jordan Gal:The UX and the UI are like, what am I looking at? Where am I reading this?
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Why would why would this number be down here? Yeah. How come I can't see the the button until I scroll down? Mhmm. How come I can't get rid of this thing that's in my way of of me trying to view this thing?
Jordan Gal:Why is this thing in like fluorescent green to try to get my attention, but then I have to click on the thing that doesn't have a label to the butt? So some of it's bad. Now he so here's the thing where I have to keep telling myself that I'm the idiot here. He doesn't fucking change it.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:He just leaves it alone. Yeah. And it just prints money.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:So what what is that? Is that professionalism? Is that perfectionism? Is that elitism? Is that stupidity?
Jordan Gal:Is it I think focusing on the right things? Like, what what's going on?
Brian Casel:Yeah. And it's like, the the other thing about about him and a lot of these you know, indie hackers who who have like portfolios of multiple products is that he prioritizes having multiple products. You know, a lot of people can look at that and say like, well, why doesn't he perfect that one interiors AI product and and get rid of all those rough edges? Or Mhmm. Or just go all in on that one product.
Brian Casel:If it if it has customers, if people buy it, why not double or triple down on that? Right? Okay. And he for for him personally, it's such a personal decision. Right?
Brian Casel:Like this is gonna be different for you because you're building a different type of company. Right? But, you know, for for him, he's it there's a long list of things that he could spend his time on. And polishing up the UI around delivering the interior AI photos is not high on that priority list. Because higher on that priority list for him is spin off eight other AI products that each also also make plenty of cash.
Brian Casel:Like, that's his way of growing an incredible business. It's like, just keep spinning out these things. I'll focus on just solving the problem. Everything else can be super rough around the edges because that's not what actually makes the dollars and more products in his solo indie hacker portfolio is how he wins in in his Yeah. In his world view, you know.
Jordan Gal:I I think there's truth to that. What I'm a little skeptical of is I don't I don't know if it's prioritizing multiple products and doing more in the next thing and kind of like stopping to work on something to go to the next. It might be it might be that he inherently intuits that it's just not worth the effort.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. Like like there's
Jordan Gal:Putting in the extra, you know, last 10% that takes 500% of time Right. Is just not it's just doesn't have the upside. And and it's almost like what I'm doing, and I'm gonna, you know, assume other people do also. Is that I'm doing what I think I'm supposed to be doing. And he's based.
Jordan Gal:He does whatever the hell he wants.
Brian Casel:I mean, I think that he He doesn't. He prioritizes that too. Like, he he might even and I think a lot of other indie hackers relate to this is that you might even know like there are things that I could That that that we could spend time on marketing wise, growth wise that don't fire us up right now. And it's and it's more like I get more value. I'm speaking for me but I think I'm speaking for other people.
Brian Casel:That I get more value out of building something. And that's not always the correct answer and I think there's You you do need To to sort of make it in general as an entrepreneur, you need to fight through that sometimes. Like like, sometimes you just can't work on the things that you wanna be doing. You have to be doing the things that you should be doing to Mhmm. To to make money as an entrepreneur and to make a product work.
Brian Casel:But I do also think that there's like Yeah. There's there's all sorts of growth hacks and and marketing tactics and strategies that we could spend time on. But like, those might just result in 5% more growth. Mhmm. And
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Congratulations. You have a good looking blog and you're posting once a week. I know, it's it's that thing where I'm like, yeah. But is that is that is that making the business stronger or or not?
Brian Casel:Yeah. And like if you And and then if you just wanna translate it to to dollars, it's like, yeah, these these extra marketing tactics could could result in like a 5% growth, but like a totally A second or third or fourth product can double or triple your overall growth because that's a totally new You're tapping into something new. That's obviously not the case. That that's not the answer for for I would say most entrepreneurs. But for some people, like that's what they prioritize.
Brian Casel:That's what they wanna The whole point is to is to spend your time building what you wanna be doing. Right? I don't know. It's a little rambly but
Jordan Gal:No. I I I hear you. All this stuff is coming up because of this opportunity to start fresh.
Brian Casel:I think I think also that
Jordan Gal:trying to avoid.
Brian Casel:And and something that I've been having my eye on lately is like, as I look to potential products that I might build out in my little portfolio is like, how do I come up with these things that just have some search volume that like, I can can get away with like, build Like the only intention for this little product idea or multiple product ideas is for it to live as a side project and not go all in on any project. I I talked about this episodes ago. Uh-huh. So if I'm going to have a portfolio of essentially everything is a side hustle, then they need to have some search traffic or a way to get up some initial traction and then live on as a little cash flow business. And so, like building up the muscle of being able to uncover these little niche products and markets that have like, you know, low low keyword difficulty, high search volume, and that that kind of thing.
Brian Casel:That's that's another superpower that you can start to build up a muscle around. Yeah. Yeah. I think And then when you and when you that with the ability to build and ship something even very rough, then you can just execute and that that's your strategy.
Jordan Gal:You know? Right. And and and the danger there is that it doesn't remain self contained. Right? That it balloons into a company instead of a product or a side project.
Jordan Gal:And there's I connect this a little bit to Basecamp's once Mhmm. Project overall because these you know, there there's a at the very end of the spectrum, the philosophy is that if you need customer support, your software just isn't done yet. That it should be done inside the software. That's how software used
Brian Casel:to Right.
Jordan Gal:Should be intuitive and all the things that the software does are self evident and you need to continue building it until it can be done inside of there instead of someone now that's on the end end of the spectrum, but it's valuable as a point of view. Because if you look at a side project as something you release out into the world and maybe it's not an ongoing subscription, maybe it's based on usage. I in my previous life working with my dad in the real estate biz, I had an array of this type of tool. That was straight magic and worked every time, and I just paid it $25 every time I needed it. This piece of software, what it did was it gave me the longitude and latitude coordinates of an address.
Jordan Gal:That's it. That's what I needed. I built this tool. I had someone on Upwork build a tool that you could put in properties and then it would tell you how far away from your subject property was and then it would map the ones that you chose onto a map. And so whenever I would download the latest sales and then wanna get it into this tool, the longitude and latitude was the key element that was missing for me.
Jordan Gal:And so I take a CSV with the address and I upload it to this tool. I pay $25 and I download a CSV with the longitude. Yeah. Like that know, it's so beautiful. And the Internet's so big these days that a little thing like that can make real money.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Of course, that's like a one time sale and it's like you can't build a huge business on that, but like it's a it's a niche little thing that like you can
Jordan Gal:What's a huge business though?
Brian Casel:For for a for one solo developer like you can make a great living on just that,
Jordan Gal:you know. Right.
Brian Casel:Right. Or just or just a few of those, you know.
Jordan Gal:Yep. Yep. Yep. So it's kind of interesting to think about. Yeah, man.
Jordan Gal:All
Brian Casel:this think this is actually a sort of a good transition to to Clarity Flow. I I wanted to talk about it Okay. Because I One, I wanna give an update on the customer success role. But like, maybe more broadly because we were just talking about this. The transition here could be Probably nobody remembers this.
Brian Casel:But back in 2020? No. When was this? The It was I think around the 2020, I I was I set out to do a product studio, a portfolio of products. I set out to do product experiments.
Brian Casel:And I started And this was like I was transitioning out of process kit and looking ahead at like what I was gonna do next. I was I had a couple of different ideas. I was, I did a Twitter threads thing. I did a Sunrise KPI. And then I sort of went to zip message.
Brian Casel:And that was like a quick, that was that was intended to be a quick idea to see because you know, solve a little problem and I don't know where this is gonna go. But that sort of caught on and and it got some traction. And then and then I I did go like all in on that. Like totally all in. I I took a little bit of investment.
Brian Casel:I I kept Mhmm. Growing it through through 2021. And then and then I I I like abandoned the idea of of of having a portfolio and and having multiple bets and and and 100% bootstrapping everything and having that flexibility to to turn my attention to where I see the most opportunity. I decided to to do the all in focus on one thing. And I and I gave it like a good three years.
Brian Casel:More than three years of full time focus. I literally sold all of my businesses in the twenty twenty to twenty twenty one period other than Zip Message. And then I took a little investment, took some of the cash I made from selling, went all in, hired team, know, went at it. And fast forward to 2024 and I've talked all about the the transition from Zip Message to Clarity Flow, pivoting, plateauing and leading to the pivot, doing a lot of customer research. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And you know, I I think some folks like listening still might have the questions like, well why why are you even still doing this business? And and so I basically transitioned from, let's do a bunch of smaller product ideas and see where and and grow a little portfolio too. Let's do the all in thing on one SaaS product. And now, I'm sort of returning back to this is just one small product in a portfolio of different things for me this year in 2024. So it's like, in 2024, the the status of Clarity Flow in my portfolio is now it's down to some portion of my time.
Brian Casel:It's It is still growing slowly. Like super slowly. Which means that it's it's on a long term growth trajectory. Like I have come to the conclusion that this SaaS business is just not going to ex like The the acceleration in growth is not gonna happen quickly. I think there'll be some natural acceleration as the customer grace customer base slowly grows with like because that will accelerate word-of-mouth as there are more customers.
Brian Casel:But other than that, we're not gonna like un unlock some some unforeseen channel that's just going to drive tons and tons of new customers our way. Unless some sort of luck happens. So, that's what led me to 2024 which is you know, it it can it can run lean as And and I can still give it the love that it needs through customer success and one developer. So basically, I paired down the team to one developer and I just recently hired a customer success person to really focus on helping customers onboarding get value from it. Meanwhile, I am reducing and chipping away at the number of hours that I spend managing the product.
Brian Casel:And that's basically like the status of it. And so I hired Kat in customer success about a month ago, a little bit more than a month ago. She has now, like I'm pretty psyched about the progress that she's made because she has now completely taken over the support inbox. And and we're starting to do more calls with customer. Like she is doing the calls with customers.
Brian Casel:Both asynchronous and live calls with helping customers onboard. So right away like that's I'm not I'm not saying like this happened overnight but like now my inbox is definitely quieter than it was like two weeks ago because she is taking these tickets that I was taking before. So that's like I'm literally chipping away hours from what I do on that business. I think it's also And and it's it's it's also pretty cool because like she's super talented and I The hours that I do spend on Clarity Flow are strategic. I'm coaching her or or collaborating with her on ideas for like how things that she could be doing to help more customers convert.
Brian Casel:Which also has the effect of the strategies like as customers convert more through customer success, they will churn less. And I can focus my time then on like taking the the feature requests and deciding with my one developer which ones I'm gonna queue up for her to do or not. That's I don't know. That that's just been the story on Clarityful. Like I'm happy to to basically hold it long term and give it the time that it needs to slowly grow and throw off a little profit along along the way.
Brian Casel:While I now focus most of my attention on instrumental products and content, you know.
Jordan Gal:It it sounds to me if we're thinking back to, you know, our bootstrapped origins. It sounds to me like a pretty classic setup of an agency with services revenue
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:With a product on the side and you work on the product and you let it grow and when it makes sense, you go into the product if it makes sense.
Brian Casel:Like one one of my clients right now at Instrumental Products.
Jordan Gal:My team worked at it. Basecamp did it. This is like a normal
Brian Casel:you're you're exactly right. And and it is so so common. Literally one of my great clients that I'm working with right now through Instrumental Products, they are a well established SaaS product company. And I am brought in to do UI and UX improvements throughout their their their app. They've been around like over eight years.
Brian Casel:And and they only went all in on it like four like three or four years ago. Because it it was just a little side hustle that just that just sat there for a while until until it really grew.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Because most sass is evil in that way and it takes three Yeah. Years. And after the first two years, you're like, oh my god. And You know, how long is
Brian Casel:this And here I am in in '24 with Clarity Flow, which I think is a great product. I literally use it like all my I don't do live calls other other than podcasts these days. Like, it's all asynchronous through Clarity Flow. I talk to my team through it. I talk to customers through it all the time.
Brian Casel:And and we've got a great little customer base. It it it does continue to grow. So I feel like it took me I I wish it didn't take me three years to circle back around to where it is now. But I feel like it it it is the type of small SaaS business that I like to have in my portfolio as a small thing, not my full time focus. Like that's that's the most It's currently like the most valuable version of this business.
Brian Casel:And I and I and I sort of wish it had been this since the beginning. But, it is what it is, you know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I hear that.
Brian Casel:Because I I still I still actually like to work on it as a product. I like to collaborate with both Kat, my customer success, and Sandy, the the developer. But I also, it it's also pretty refreshing to just open my eyes up to instrumental products which I'm having a a blast kind of building that. Making some pretty good revenue through it now. And then the the content stuff.
Brian Casel:So we can talk talk more about that if you want.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I mean, I think we've been going for an hour.
Brian Casel:That's true.
Jordan Gal:But I can keep going.
Brian Casel:I I wanted to talk one about one thing when it comes to products while it's sort of on my mind. You know, I've I have iterated through So I started like taking on some some client work. This goes back to the end of last year around November, December. And I've iterated through multiple models of offering services over the last five six months now. And Okay.
Brian Casel:It started out with like coaching. I was doing like this like product strategy coaching and and with that I was doing a a bit of live and mostly async coaching. And I pretty quickly soured on that model of of I just I don't know. It like calls and even even asynchronous coaching for me is like too much talking and energy and Yeah. It's really disruptive for the amount of revenue that I can get from it and all that.
Brian Casel:Then I sort of had a few clients in what I was doing was like like product strategy sprints. Where it was like two or three week sprints where I'm not really doing much design development work. It's more like let's plan out a big a big new road map like typically like like overhauling the onboarding experience for your SaaS. Right? Let's just plan it out and talk about the strategy or talk about some big complicated new feature that you need to need to build.
Brian Casel:That was okay but I didn't I It wasn't ideal because in one case it was like, that that actually turned into more design work than I actually thought it like. I'll just whip up a rough wireframe in in Figma that turned into becoming like a really really detailed Figma document that took me a lot of hours. Or like in another case, was like, alright. I I think I think the strategy and ideas I'm offering here are helpful, but it's not super actionable. It's not as actionable as I would have hoped.
Brian Casel:Or or it's not as tangible as as like a final product as as what I would hope. So, fast forward to now. I have a a small roster of clients who where I'm just offering design and development services for for for software. And in one case, it's like the ideal which is like building a totally new app from scratch. In the other case, it's this like UI UX.
Brian Casel:It Basically, I I give them like like Tailwind CSS templates. UI HTML, Tailwind CSS. You can go apply it to your to your app. And these are good because it's like right in my wheelhouse. Either full stack building something new from the ground up like a version one or the UI UX stuff.
Brian Casel:But even even that, it's like no matter no matter how long these engagements are, I'll I've now really like to boil it down to billing by the week. You know, Over my career, I've I've done, I've experimented with hourly. I used to do like just big project quotes back in the day. Right. I've done like flat retainers for quote unquote unlimited of of this or that.
Brian Casel:I like this because it's like I I currently have like a standard weekly rate. It's lower now than what it will be in the next couple of months. Like that, you
Jordan Gal:know. Yep.
Brian Casel:But it's pretty good I think. And it works for me. And whether I'm doing just design UI UX stuff or if I'm building full stack like with with a new product. That's the rate per week. And I can just give you a quote on like, here's what I expect for what we're talking about the number of weeks.
Brian Casel:Maybe we'll start with something small that that can just be two or three a two or three week engagement. In some cases, we're just getting into a two or three month or four month engagement. Right now, it it's mostly just me. I do have my The way that I'm scaling this out, the way that I see this scaling out as I because I'm taking on more leads now and I I have reached my personal capacity in terms of hours. Like like right now in April, I'm I'm booked.
Brian Casel:Like I can't take on more projects. So I am talking to people about booking in May. Okay. And beyond that, like I would I I would like to build Book multiple projects that are And and not just have like a waiting list and and that kind of thing. So the way that this will scale out is in the short term, I've already done this.
Brian Casel:I have I've I've brought on one developer from my existing Indian team. The same one that that staffs up Clarity Flow. And we we have a good arrangement where I have this one person who's sort of like on like an as needed basis. Not full time, not not even really part time. There there will be weeks when this person is not even needed at all.
Brian Casel:But in some of my projects, I can hand off just a couple of tickets. A couple of tasks to help me move faster to ship the thing.
Jordan Gal:Beyond like 100% capacity.
Brian Casel:Yeah. It's still basically all me. I'm designing and developing. But a few of the alright we need some of the plumbing work done over here. Here.
Brian Casel:Just go take that while I work on this more important part of the project. Yeah. Right? And then like beyond that, what I would like to get to is when we get a few more really big projects that I can't fully Like, I have a small network of other like full stack designer developer people that I'm friends with, mostly US based, who I would love to collaborate with, whether it's just on a project basis or something more long term as like a either a long term employment thing or partnership or something like that where where we're able to take on So like right now, I'm I'm building a a new product from scratch for a client. And I'm doing the UI UX thing.
Brian Casel:It'd probably be difficult to build another app from scratch for for a different client at the same time. But if I had another full stack person with my level of skills, like they could sort of own that and I can contribute a little bit but like, you know Mhmm. And then we can start to multiply it out beyond just me, you know.
Jordan Gal:Okay. I mean, that's gonna be the the next the next phase is okay. Now, if you're at a 100% capacity, what happens? I'm I'm very
Brian Casel:like names on a list that I would let as soon as we have the the client demand like I'm gonna be reaching out to these people and bringing them on,
Jordan Gal:you know.
Brian Casel:But in in the short term, I've I've got my person in India who I who can help me be more efficient in in my project. Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:What what I've been seeing and really interested in from like an agency and services point of view is the resurgence of a flat price design Yeah. And development
Brian Casel:classic productized quote unquote unlimited thing for Yes.
Jordan Gal:So so design pickle?
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Right? The old school one? My understanding is they're like $30,000,000 a
Brian Casel:year. Huge.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Okay. So that's I mean, that's that's interesting. The the fact that the market for that type of a services that big is damn interesting. I started following this guy Brett Design Design Joy.
Jordan Gal:Joy. And that's really interesting because now
Brian Casel:People hate him. I That's funny. I have no opinion of him. I I don't know him. But
Jordan Gal:I have no opinion. Roy Roy, I just think it's interesting.
Brian Casel:I've always said this back in the days when I was doing like like productized course consulting stuff. Mhmm. I love that model. I I think it's There's all these different models of productized services and the one Yeah. That I love the most is that, it I say quote unquote unlimited because it's not really unlimited.
Brian Casel:It's like x dollars a month for You can queue up as Like with Design Pickle, I think it's something I don't know exactly, but it's like something like you you get like one design request a day or something like that which.
Jordan Gal:Right. Or you can pay for different tiers.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Can pay more. Yeah. Priority. Essentially, like you might call it a limit if it's really like 30 per month because it's thirty days in a month.
Brian Casel:Right?
Jordan Gal:Yes. And they're all somewhere between like 3 and $8,000 a month. Yeah. And that gives you some room and I just came across another And the
Brian Casel:other way to think about this too and I love to think about it and like WP curve with Dan Norris like back in the day was one of the one of the early ones of this. Another way to think about these services is they are like an insurance policy. Like, you wanna have somebody just You you just pay monthly for w w p curve or whatever the the present day versions of that business are to just oversee your website. And there will be months where you don't use them at all, but you're paying for them. And then there are months where you to like today.
Brian Casel:So you send your request today and you get it done. And you don't need to deal with finding someone on the spot. And Yeah. And that is it's like it's worth paying for six months of that type of service if you only need it in one of those months just to have that peace of mind,
Jordan Gal:you know. I think a lot of calculations get projected onto it. Right. It's that insurance policy version of it with WP curve and people need help with WordPress. Yes.
Jordan Gal:That makes a lot
Brian Casel:of sense.
Jordan Gal:In the design sense, it's, you know, a full time employee is expensive and risky. And, yeah, I'm I'm interested in these because they seem to be not only do they seem to be scaling beyond what we would think. You know, know, one person's gonna do this and that's cool. You're gonna make a great living at $25,000 a month. Our our boy, Brett, does a $120,000 a month by himself.
Jordan Gal:Like that's Yeah. So Yeah.
Brian Casel:And like you could you could hate on it all you want but like it it works for him. Same thing with Levels. It's like you you could hate on that style of indie hacking but like it works for for them really well. Like
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I'm only on it because the $120,000 isn't hitting my bank account every month. That's only reason I'm hating.
Brian Casel:Yeah, man.
Jordan Gal:But the leverage that the tools including AI tools now bring to that game is is very around things like design, content creation.
Brian Casel:And there's different ways I think to scale that and be profitable. Right? Like someone like with Brett with Designjoy, I my understanding is that it's just him. So like, I would think that the way that you that you really scale that is like most of the people who are It's more like the insurance policy model where like most of the clients aren't banging down your door every single day. So so you just have this like That's right.
Brian Casel:Like all the clients who aren't using your services are basically paying for the ones who are using your services today. Right?
Jordan Gal:Yes. And we we assume $5,000 is too high of a price for that type of insurance. It's not.
Brian Casel:Right. For someone, it's not.
Jordan Gal:Because Yeah. Because an employee on staff is 10,000
Brian Casel:alternative is you look at what Russ Perry did with with Design Pickle and he executed like a madman with with growing out the team and the operations and the recruit Yeah.
Jordan Gal:It's not an accident.
Brian Casel:The recruiting of of like all the designers and the managers and the processes and the systems to run Design Pickle are just insanely good. And that's how that grows.
Jordan Gal:Well, that's you know, you gotta take your hat your hats off to making the most of that opportunity. It's a it's a far cry from where design joy is to to get to that.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:There is a moment of arbitrage. I just wanna mention this in case it's useful to to others. There's a moment of arbitrage between these types of services and these AI solutions. Right now in ecommerce, what's happening is a proliferation of AI tools that take your product page, literally give us the URL of your product page, and we will spit out ad creative TikTok scripts
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Reels, shorts. It does all of it for you. And at the same time, right now there are agencies that charge 5 or $10,000 a month to do the exact same thing.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And in between those two, there's some arbitrage to be had for you know for a certain amount.
Brian Casel:Yeah. For sure. There is. I I mean I had it going with with audience ops for a while there. But I And I tried to experiment with like the unlimited model but it it was always came back to like, we just sort of need to do flat fee for a flat number of articles a month.
Brian Casel:And I don't know that that works today anymore. But but it's Like with instrumental products, it I am essentially growing a small I call it a studio. But I If if this were to scale out, it would become like a development shop. A development agency. And this time around, I am not trying to productize it essentially.
Brian Casel:Like, the the only like productized parts of this are the pricing model which is like it's a weekly rate and every project is gonna Mhmm. Need a different number of weeks. And I want to get to a point where the product builds were using the same tech stack. Currently it's rails. I'm I'm also learning Laravel and and Tallstack.
Brian Casel:And just to find the most efficient way to build and ship high quality products. And and then we can like really reuse and repurpose the same stacks and and processes and workloads for building stuff. But every product we work on will be different. Whether it's with clients. Whether it's my own products.
Brian Casel:In some cases, I I talk to clients where I, you know, where where we can have like a partnership. Like a cash equity mix. Mhmm. And it's been interesting. So
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I feel like maybe it can be a little productized.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Like a like a product development thing?
Jordan Gal:Yes. Like okay. So a good example I saw recently is called seventy two hour websites.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I saw a lot of those when I was doing productize.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Self explanatory. 72. Like, self explanatory where you get it.
Brian Casel:So it so you go to websites then absolutely it can be productized. But software Say again, say again. If it's websites, it absolutely can be
Jordan Gal:let me challenge. Okay. Let me challenge because I know where you're going. Oh, products are special. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:You know, high end call process. If a website can be, you know, done in for $2,500 in seventy two hours, maybe a product can't be done in seventy two hours for $2,500. But can't a base product be done for $50,000 in two months?
Brian Casel:It totally depends on the product. That's the thing. Websites, especially marketing website, like cookie cutter marketing websites, which most marketing websites are, Can be boiled down to Look. Every website needs a good
Jordan Gal:Right a structure.
Brian Casel:Good hero section, a good about us, a pricing page, a contact form. There's your cookie cutter website. Right? Gonna be variations on that but that's what you need and you can absolutely productize that as so many businesses have. And that's why you see so many themes and know, things like that.
Jordan Gal:Sure. Right.
Brian Casel:It's just scheming. Products. You're definitely right that like there are I think like the the whole theme of what I'm trying to do with my content is like how can we find the most the the fastest most efficient way to build and ship products. Right? So you can do
Jordan Gal:Right. Like
Brian Casel:But just to give you an an idea, like I've I've given proposals now, like multiple proposals this year with with clients. And some of them I'm working on, and some of them haven't come through yet. And Mhmm. Everyone of And there's been a really high variation in in the number of weeks that I'm quoting for what they want.
Jordan Gal:And that's complexity Come
Brian Casel:on. And ambition. Complexity and ambition. Yeah. The one that I'm doing right now happens to be a relatively small one and it was, it's a it's a two month project.
Brian Casel:And I would say that's as, for for me, that's as small as it gets in terms of like like going from literally just a concept to shipping a version one that that users We're not talking about levels level of quality. It's gonna be it's
Jordan Gal:gonna be a little
Brian Casel:bit more polished than that. Right. But but essentially this product that I'm building is like, you might think of it as like a one feature product. There are more things Yeah. Like you gotta be able to log in and pay for it and this and that.
Brian Casel:But like you're doing one Right. Thing in this product. That and that to me is a two month build. And that and frankly that's like I think faster than what most teams would build this sort of thing. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I believe you. I trust your expertise more And than and I think we should both remain
Brian Casel:Yeah. But like there are other proposals where I was like, this is a little bit more complex than that. It's a four month build. And there was another one that was like, I quoted as like a six month build. Because like there's just more pieces to it.
Brian Casel:You know? Mhmm. Yeah. You're right though. Like it it can definitely get faster.
Brian Casel:Like and as we do Like as my company does more and more products with the same tech stack and we get faster and we and we get better. It That's it can absolutely get get faster. But to the point of productized, that is still I I It's not to a point where I could just put a price point on the on a webpage to say like purchase the the thing. It's to me I still think it would be like, this is the price per week and here's the number of weeks, you know.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I I hear you but that really that feels familiar in terms of what what the feedback would be around a design service. Where you're like, how could I possibly know how complex your design needs are compared to someone else's? How could I just put a price tag for one
Brian Casel:this is where I I sort of differ from I think most other developers. And I I kinda get frustrated when people talk about oh, you know, software development is so unpredictable. So you have to convince clients that here's your hourly rate and they just have to roll with you for however many hours or weeks it's going to take and you're gonna gonna be all agile and you're gonna learn along the way and then they should be just be able to roll with those extended cost if it takes longer. Like, no. F that.
Brian Casel:Like, I think that the way that I quote projects and the way that I give proposals is, look, I can I can look at what you're trying to build, what you wanna build, and I And and if it's predictable, like if it's something that like I clearly know how that can be built and I can I can have a rough estimation like that's gonna take eight weeks to build and ship that? I will tell you, it will take eight weeks to build and ship that. And if it takes me nine or ten weeks, like I'm okay with that and I won't charge more because it's like, alright, I guessed a little bit off, but I can Right. I can definitely get close enough. And the But then there are gonna be other pieces, and I've and I've had these discussions with clients where it's like, okay, now that piece that you're talking about, that's interesting, but it's unpredictable.
Brian Casel:It's it's new. It's novel. So that's going to require technical research. And so in that case, I tell them like, look, this part of the project is just gonna be, here's my quote for how long we're going to research it. And we'll come out come out with our findings.
Brian Casel:And once we research it and then we know how to build it, then I can give you the quote on what how long it'll take to actually build. And typically, during the research, we actually build like half of it because we're prototyping. But but the You know, so so I try to be as I try to set expect because look, if you're if you're hiring a developer to build your product, you gotta know how much you're gonna invest in this thing. You can't just say like, yeah, I'm I'm cool with that weekly rate. Let's let's do the agile thing and see what happens.
Brian Casel:Like, no.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Good luck. Oh, jeez. Yeah. No.
Jordan Gal:It's it's it's interesting. The one of the YC companies that came out on this demo day was a React app in a prompt. So you go to this thing and you say, want a CRM.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, that's coming. If it's not already mostly here.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That's right. So you you go into the you you that's it. You put a prompt. I would like an app that is a CRM for, you know, barbers.
Jordan Gal:And you hit enter and this thing builds and gives you all all the stuff Yep. For a React app. And it's definitely not good enough to go out and, know, put out there on the market and start selling right away.
Brian Casel:But this level's good. Fun stuff, man. Cool. Alright.
Jordan Gal:I like it.
Brian Casel:Good. Have a great weekend, everyone. Later, folks. See you.
