Entrepreneurial Seasons
Hey. It's Bootstrap Web. It is Friday, April 26. I thought I'd I'd say the date today because just to remind folks, I do publish these minutes after we record. So anyway
Jordan Gal:I like that. Very very sad.
Nathan Barry:What's up, buddy?
Jordan Gal:Not too much. Not too much. It's Friday. I just got the oh, you know, a great dad email to receive which is your daughter has been selected student of the month, you know, come in and like celebrate or something. I'm
Nathan Barry:like That's great.
Jordan Gal:Our kitchen's done.
Brian Casel:There you go.
Jordan Gal:So I was able to cook for the Passover Seder in our brand new kitchen and damn that felt good.
Brian Casel:Oh, yeah. That that sounds nice. It was nice. Nice. Good stuff.
Pippin Williamson:I was
Jordan Gal:a little worried that Passover would feel a bit heavy and it was just beautiful and fun with our neighbors over.
Brian Casel:Did you have a lot of family over?
Jordan Gal:No. Just our neighbors from across the street. But that's, you know, that's 10 people totals. Right? Four adults, six kids.
Jordan Gal:And I I let I lead it and there's some singing involved and the kids are happy, all
Brian Casel:these fun traditions. Was beautiful. I you know, I I grew up raised Jewish. I haven't practiced since but I do remember the the Seder.
Jordan Gal:That's right.
Brian Casel:As a kid just kind of being bored at the table the whole time but you know.
Jordan Gal:There's a
Brian Casel:lot of that. There's a lot of that.
Jordan Gal:And the coincidence was I went to Florida last weekend to see my cousins from Israel are in and they're going to they're visiting their brother who lives down in Florida near my dad. So I went down there and had such a good time. And by coincidence, my uncle was there. I haven't seen him in ten years and this is the uncle who lives in Newbridge. No.
Jordan Gal:Woodbridge, Connecticut. Right by you.
Brian Casel:Oh, not not far. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Not too far. And that is where I went for all of my seders growing up. This crazy coincidence that the Seder was the next day and I see my uncle for the first time in like ten years and all these things kinda came together. So it's been a great week.
Brian Casel:Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. So last Saturday, I surprised my girls with I splurged on some Knicks tickets for game one in the playoffs at The Garden. Woah.
Brian Casel:It was Those were not cheap, but man, it was It just It brought back memories and it was like all of You know, my favorite sports memories of all time are playoffs at The Garden in New York City.
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:With the with the nineties Knicks.
Nathan Barry:Oh my god.
Jordan Gal:I hated them so much. Ewing, I couldn't stand that team.
Brian Casel:Oh, okay. So I mean, was I was like a die hard Knicks fan and I still am. And and it's it's so cool because my my girls are both into basketball. They play basketball and we've been like watching the Knicks games every game of the season at home.
Jordan Gal:There've been some good games.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And this team this year is really For Knicks fans, it is it's it brings back the feeling of the nineties. Like this team has potential, you
Nathan Barry:know? Yeah.
Brian Casel:And man, the energy in that building was just unbelievable.
Jordan Gal:Wasn't there like an incredibly dramatic game recently?
Brian Casel:That was game two.
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:I mean, we we were at game one which which they won. It was good. But yeah, game two the ending of game two was just also just Yeah. I mean, seriously the the just the volume level and the intensity was incredible. So I brought my my two girls.
Brian Casel:One of them it was her second game and the other it was her first Knicks game ever. And and she's been asking and it's her birthday this month so
Jordan Gal:You you set a tough bar. I know. Playoffs, winning team.
Brian Casel:I mean granted I like I just really wanted to go so I got the tickets but It's it's not
Jordan Gal:wrong with dadding with a little bit of stuff like is cool. Yeah. Exactly.
Brian Casel:Yep. Yep.
Nathan Barry:So that's a good time. Anyway,
Brian Casel:how we how we doing on our on our work week here?
Jordan Gal:Pretty good. I have a board meeting coming up next week and that looks different than the last time I had a board meeting. So that that part's interesting. And we are, you know, we're we're kinda locked and loaded. We we we have our concept.
Jordan Gal:We've been doing a lot of tech discovery. And next week, team starts building an MVP. That's what we've been talking about. Is an MVP? What's necessary?
Jordan Gal:What's v one. Right? Is v one just for us internally to show on a demo? Where where does it turn into something that people can use? How much time do you wanna spend?
Jordan Gal:A lot of the conversations we're having, especially in in this new category in AI, you're trying to figure out what the stack looks like because it it's a little different.
Nathan Barry:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And then what you start to realize is it's hard to decipher which parts of the stack are adding which elements of value to the product. Because there there's always like you know, right. So we're doing stuff with like AI voice. Mhmm. Okay?
Jordan Gal:So if you go to a site like Deepgram and you see what it offers, sounds really interesting. Okay? And then you go to a different site, PolyAI or whatever else, and it'll offer something different but a little more. And and all of it you want to leverage. At least our point of view on this is we wanna leverage existing tech, especially on the infrastructure side.
Jordan Gal:We don't wanna rebuild that. That's not where we're gonna add value. Mhmm. But it's tough to know what's worth
Brian Casel:What's available to everyone.
Jordan Gal:Yes. What is a commodity? What is actually adding value? What should we build internally compared to what should we rely on? And where's the danger in relying on a new startup that has great looking tech but may not be around in a year?
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:So some a different set of decisions then, well, AWS is gonna be there forever.
Brian Casel:And Yeah.
Jordan Gal:These other things will be there forever.
Brian Casel:Yep. I think the biggest I I'm all for the idea of like going head first into an an AI based software product. You know, there's a lot of debate over like, oh, just don't, you know, but
Jordan Gal:Right. The wrapper. Everyone that built a wrapper that I know is making money like crazy.
Brian Casel:I think the bigger risk of that So if you if you are going in that direction, then I I would think that the bigger risk is going super broad into the areas where it's likely that Google and Apple and Microsoft and and Amazon and all of them are just gonna have that solution if they don't already have it already, you know. Or like Or it's so It's such a broad solution that like Yeah. Like, don't don't reinvent the wheel for like everything. I think that where the Where you add the value or the benefit is sort of like in the marketing, in in the in the wrapper, like for the niche industry, the use case
Nathan Barry:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:You know, where where it's just gonna be way too specific for a Google to come out with a Google like thing thingamajig, you know. Right. Yes. Like, yeah. So like for for Google to do like Google Docs or Google to do list or Google Calendar, like it doesn't make sense to try to reinvent something like that but Yes.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So what know, where where do you wanna add value? Some things feel
Brian Casel:And I personally like I like I think there's nothing wrong with with doing something knowing that you are already gonna have competitors out of the gate and there's going to be many more competitors
Jordan Gal:in the
Brian Casel:future because you all have the same access to the same Mhmm. Tech. You know? But, yeah. We're we're in an ocean here where it's still pretty new and especially when you go into these industries where they don't even think about AI at all
Jordan Gal:yet, you know. Yeah. If, if you can assume that a lot of things will not only exist but also get really good, then where do you wanna compete? You you don't wanna there where things get commoditized and everyone just has access to the same amazing tech. Like, so what if you have amazing tech?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So yeah. That that's what I've been thinking a lot about and learning about competitors and
Brian Casel:just I'm curious to know. So I think where we left off, if I remember correctly, you know, you start so so we you've already talked about on the podcast last time that like, okay, we're you're not going for a tool that's like selling into SaaS, looking more outside of the SaaS world and outside of your personal network of people. And so you're investigating this different applications of AI, you're looking at voice stuff. About the talking to customers? How much of that are you doing?
Brian Casel:Are you finding it more difficult to go into this like foreign industry? Do you know which industries you're talking to?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yes. So so the right. The the danger here is that you find this amazing tech and you see this type of solution that you envision and then you go looking for the problem. Right?
Jordan Gal:That that's the danger. Right. And and I have gone comfortable on that for a few reasons. One, I see the problem out there. I see competitors thriving.
Jordan Gal:I I listen to podcasts with the founder of the competitors and I'm reading between the lines, and I'm looking at the funding, and I'm, you know, getting a decent view of, no, there's definitely a problem here. And then I'll I talked to people that I got introduced to over the last week that run these types of companies. So the problem is validated to a degree.
Brian Casel:I think that's an interesting thing just to pause on that for a second. The idea of validation. I feel like this this does need and there's so many different types of there are different levels of validation. Like validating the that the problem exists. Validating that it's a problem worth paying for by a certain customer.
Brian Casel:Validating that you can deliver the solution. Validating that you can reach those customers Yeah. You know, easily with, you know, and So there's so many different things that you need to validate along the way. But I think that there's like some like sort of like outdated classic like traditional advice around validation maybe maybe needs to be retired a little bit. Yes.
Brian Casel:Yes.
Jordan Gal:Okay. So we I mean,
Brian Casel:we we came up in the in the in like the lean startup and probably before that, like all this sort of like advice around you have to talk to customers and have customers verbally tell you, yes, this is a problem that I'm willing to pay for and there's all sorts of stories and advice around like
Jordan Gal:Levels of You need
Brian Casel:to you need to get their commitment, you need them to pay you upfront, pre pre buy or write you a check or all this all this stuff.
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Brian Casel:But I think that like that that comes from a world where it's like, we are inventing new things that have never existed before. So we need empirical data proof that like these are truly problems. But in today's world same. 2024, every single category, every single niche category has been solved. You can just go see that there are definitely customers paying for that solution or paying for a version of that.
Brian Casel:You know, like like there's there's it's just completely obvious. Like this is definitely something that people pay for. Mhmm. It's it's almost like so you you still need to validate but you can sort of step to the next level of validation. It's like, can we reach those customers?
Brian Casel:Can we build that? Can we build it in time? And can we you know, like Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And there's also an element that I always keep in mind that coming out with an amazing product also expands the market.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:More people that weren't using a similar solution now believe that it can solve their problem and it creates more potential customer. I mean Shopify, one of the best examples. Mhmm. When Shopify came out, like there were a bunch of ecommerce platforms out there. And if you looked at the universe of online stores, it would not be an exciting business.
Jordan Gal:Right. They've they've talked about their difficulty in raising money because the market wasn't that big.
Brian Casel:Right.
Jordan Gal:But then you put out an amazing solution with an ecosystem, and it actually drives demand for your product by expanding your TAM directly. So this this has been an interesting conversation. It some tension. I don't nothing negative. But internally, at the leadership level with us, this is the stuff we've been talking about in terms of is it validated?
Jordan Gal:Should we start building? Should we talk to people first? And I got to a point where I was comfortable enough, and then I also looked at the downside. What's the downside? Our entire team builds for the next six weeks.
Jordan Gal:And then we decide, you know what? We don't like this.
Brian Casel:And that's the other thing. I think we talked about this a few weeks ago. Like
Nathan Barry:How much did you lose the
Brian Casel:the time risk of building an MVP and having it Having a product in hand that you can show to a customer and say, do you wanna buy this and use it today? Yes or
Nathan Barry:no? Like
Jordan Gal:Right. So what what the way I've positioned it to the team is
Brian Casel:It's And it's such better signal to get back of like, here's a real product. Tell me if you were going to put this into use today and buy it versus like, would you theoretically buy a product that looks like this picture that I'm gonna show you? Like, that's such bullshit.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It's it's right. It's not the same thing. And and in reality, you don't need to build a polished admin and an onboarding and everything else to get to that point of this sounds great. When do I start?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. You you don't need to build the full product. So I just said
Brian Casel:to because we've seen it time and time again like customers saying, yes, I will buy that. Even And I've seen this personally. Customers paying, pre paying for theoretical products.
Nathan Barry:Yeah.
Brian Casel:And then in reality, they don't use it. Yes. They pay for it. They even you pay know, but they don't actually They think that they'll use it in theory.
Nathan Barry:But Yes.
Brian Casel:Will they really? That's that's what a real product gives you. And it's it's not that much risk to to spend six weeks, eight weeks putting an MVP together. And yes, it is possible to build in that in that time frame.
Nathan Barry:It it is possible.
Brian Casel:Care what people say,
Jordan Gal:like No.
Brian Casel:People say, oh, software takes longer than you think. No. It doesn't have to. You can build fast.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And we have a smaller team now and think that we can build faster.
Brian Casel:So so Yeah. And I I believe that too. Like Yeah. Fewer heads build faster. Yes.
Brian Casel:More heads.
Jordan Gal:So that's exactly. So we kind of are unleashing the team and the where we've landed is at the very worst our team learns how to build an AI product and at the same time the go to market side and that's like, let's hear from you after this and then we'll talk about the the the go to market side. We'll learn how to go to market. And then at worst, we decide it's the wrong thing to pursue and six weeks from today, we're better off because we built instead of talked. And if we drop something, pivot, we do something else, we're still better off.
Brian Casel:So I'll say on the validation thing, the go to market stuff like this is probably an area where I've I've you know, don't have a great track record of like early validation for my startups. Okay. I'm curious to know how you're thinking about this. Because like, if like looking back on a lot of my past stuff, I I would've liked to go into new businesses already with a strong hypothesis of like, okay, once I build this, here is how I'm going to reach a thousand customers in the next six months. Like, these channels.
Brian Casel:I I feel strongly about these channels. I I have evidence that these channels can work. And that's where I'm gonna throw the marketing dollars. Instead, I went into a lot of products like, look, there's market there's products in the market who do well. We're gonna figure out ways to reach customers.
Brian Casel:There's a bunch of channels we can explore. We'll get to that. And and then we and then I experiment and try and it takes longer than I expected to to reach you know, organic word-of-mouth growth with with customers. So I have Like do you Are you like, we're gonna we're gonna go after these these product and markets and we think ads is the way to get get to them or we think cold outreach is gonna work or are you thinking about that kind of stuff yet?
Jordan Gal:Sure. So I'm we're trying to come up with like one passive channel and one active channel.
Nathan Barry:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:So active being let's get lists and get data and send emails and make phone calls. Like, some kind of straightforward blocking tackling activity every day.
Nathan Barry:Yep.
Jordan Gal:And then slightly more passive where we're really using, you know, money as a leverage. And I think for that, we run ads to a landing page. The goal over the next few weeks is to understand which industry, which people, which demographic or whatever type of customer raises their hand and says, we want this more than others. This is more valuable to us for reasons that you don't yet know, but you can learn in conversations. So that's the the whole goal is to avoid what you've mentioned before, avoid being way too broad because, like, the call center for enterprise, like, that space is insanely competitive already.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. There are companies that have raised hundreds of million like, young companies that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars because that is such an obviously big industry and big potential that let them compete over that. I don't wanna compete over that. I wanna figure out which individual small and medium businesses raise their hands and we want that now and we're willing to go ahead of these other industries. So that's really the the the goal of the next few weeks is to find those so that we can narrow ourselves down and say this solution is for x y and z Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Not for everybody. Yeah. I like it. So running ads, I I think I I actually think that this type of thing should be Instagram ads. Video ads on Instagram.
Jordan Gal:I've seen some amazing b to b ads. You look at, you know, Twitter from an an hour before this conversation, I'm tweeting asking for an agency that does it. So I've seen some great b to b ads I think this is just general enough that we can just say it out loud of you know, are you missing x y z? Do you want this? And then just see who comes in and so what if it's wasteful?
Jordan Gal:It it's really valuable to do anyway.
Brian Casel:You know, cold cold outreach, I mean, I We all hate it, receiving it, but like it's true that when you niche down and especially when you're solving a very specific problem for exactly target targetable group, it sort of continues to surprise me like, yeah, people do reply and positively on a regular basis. Like we're still run we're still running it and you know. Cool. It's it like that that is how You know, because we have a mix I'm talking about Clarity Flow. Like we have a mix of Google search.
Brian Casel:We have a mix of word-of-mouth is kicking in and we have direct outreach. And almost almost no Basically no customers know who I personally am anymore. It's all just like, they they heard about it somewhere or you know. And that's that's how it it sort of And and I think I think ads is something that I would like to get back into with Clarity Flow at some point. We're starting to grow a little bit more and maybe maybe pick off a little bit more profit to throw out some ads and and try that.
Brian Casel:But like, it's it's been nice to like have this little product in in my portfolio. It's a it's a small portion of what I do and we have these sort of like just low cost channels that just bring Like that that's how you can like reach customers without like without like me screaming from the rooftops every day about coaching software. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yes. Yes. You just need a Yeah. The the hunt for that channel, there is something that tells me, you know, this stuff just kind of is in the People just start working on the same things at the same time. And it's also it's definitely partly because now that I'm paying attention to it, I'm finding these competitors that I wouldn't have cared if they existed, you know, a month ago.
Jordan Gal:But it definitely thinks that things are bubbling up quickly and the right approach given where we are in our like VC track would be to find the most efficient channels with the most efficient onboarding and look to grow incredibly fast. So if something works, I will throw $250,000 into an ad campaign over one quarter. Yeah. It's kind of the mindset that
Brian Casel:That's where you have the advantage of like of of the firepower, know.
Jordan Gal:Yes. So all these things are super interesting between product and engineering and marketing and sales because it's like no we have these parameters that we need to hit. It cannot be I just looked at a an enterprise version of what we're doing that I heard is growing really well like from five ARR to 25,000,000 ARR over the last year. Right? Sick.
Jordan Gal:But you go to their site and it's very enterprise. It's very requested demo and it's very we'll get you up and running within six weeks. Mhmm. And we have to be like, no. We're gonna get you up and running in thirty minutes.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And then later on if you wanna customize all these things you can do more but it feels like that is that's the attack angle that we should take into the market even if it's not as good just to get the distribution as far and wide as possible as quickly as possible. That's like the the the right mindset for us.
Brian Casel:I like it.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. We'll see.
Nathan Barry:What's up with you?
Brian Casel:I thought I would try to get a little bit more philosophical this week. Alright. So today on on my on my YouTube channel, I I published something that I I was a little questionable of whether I should publish it. But it's The title of this video is called I burned out. You know?
Brian Casel:Okay. And I I think I actually did have a form of burnout a couple months back. Right around the turn of of this year. And I think I talked a lot about this on on this podcast, but like I think it was really the aftermath of about a three year period of going hard on just putting a lot of pressure on myself to make a SaaS startup business work and get profitable and nail product market fit and grow into a into a business that just can ride off into the sunset. Right?
Nathan Barry:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:That that has been the goal and I still I still own and I still run Clarity Flow and I've talked about, I don't know. You know, there's a lot of listeners who sort of like pop into this podcast from time to time or there's new listeners, there's there's long time listeners. But anyway, I don't wanna rehash everything that went on in the in the past, you know, couple years here. But what I what I came to realize and and I'm The realization that I have this week is that, you know, now I'm I'm back to my roots. I'm I've I have, I'm a few months past this.
Brian Casel:I I had like a physical burnout. Like I had shingles in my body. I I had a lot of issues that I've never dealt with in my life. A lot of lot of painful shit went on and was like where is this even coming from? You know like backaches, headaches, body pains with the all of it.
Brian Casel:And I and it comes at a time when I am I have been in some of the best adult shape of my life. So it's like Okay.
Jordan Gal:So these are like physical manifestations.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I've actually been eating really healthy for the past year. I lost a bunch of weight. I've been working out. So it's not like I've been I've had poor habits but I'm still I was still experiencing a lot of these issues.
Brian Casel:So I was like where is it coming from? Clearly it's stress. Right? And so anyway, I'm a few weeks and months out of that now and I'm starting to look at a high level of my week to week work life here. And basically, I'm trying to operate with this no pressure mindset.
Brian Casel:You know, I'm back to my roots
Jordan Gal:as
Brian Casel:as a bootstrapper. What I mean here is like, I'm still building a business. I'm still investing in assets. But I have removed the level of urgency that I was operating under for for those three years.
Jordan Gal:So you think that was like self a lot of it was self generated?
Brian Casel:Oh, a 100%.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Okay.
Brian Casel:Right. And I mean a lot of it was like actually logistically like I want to put this pressure on myself to like I like I sold all of my businesses in 2020
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Brian Casel:To go all in on a single product idea and focus all of my time, energy, resources, funds, all of it on on making this one thing work.
Nathan Barry:Right?
Brian Casel:Now, fast forward to to 2024. I'm back to kinda splitting between like, you know, I've got my the way that I look at my week so like this week, I feel like was a was a good slice of an example of what a typical work week should look like for myself in this new phase of my career. A no pressure Like taking a no pressure approach. Like I I start to feel a little bit better about like, look, I just show up every week and I do what I need to do. And then I'm I'm almost treating it more like a job even though I still own a portfolio of businesses.
Brian Casel:So like, as long as I show up every week and I'm doing these three things. I'm investing in my audience by creating something on YouTube. I'm investing in products. Right now, Clarity Flow is is the main product that I own and I and I maintain that with my team. I'm basically answering their questions and I'm helping them run it.
Brian Casel:And then I'm paying the bills. I'm doing consulting. Doing this instrumental products. Currently I'm doing a lot of UI and UX consulting with SaaS companies. And that's how I split up my week.
Brian Casel:I literally spend like like Monday, I spent the day writing a script for a new YouTube video. Tuesday into Wednesday, I worked on these client projects doing like UI and UX refresh work. Thursday was recording day. I recorded that video and and I edited it and I and I published it. Sent it to my newsletter.
Brian Casel:And then here we are on Friday, I'm doing the podcast and I'm sort of catching up on little bits and and things. And throughout the week, every day I do like an hour or two of product work on Clarity Flow. Like answering the team's questions and things like that. But like overall, it's like as long as I'm just do Like as long as I'm investing in growing the audience and investing in my products portfolio and and investing in, you know, bootstrapping a solid income for myself this year. Like I'm starting to feel a level of of of calm that I don't think that I had before.
Brian Casel:You know, I I was I was in Florida two weeks ago with my wife. We had a little mini vacation and I talked about how I didn't really work too much while I was down there. I worked a little bit on writing a script for YouTube but like that that was not that much. But compare that to the year before when we did a a big trip to Asia. I worked my ass off throughout that whole trip.
Brian Casel:Like every single day I was shipping product stuff on Clarity Flow, feeling insane amounts of pressure to literally do real workdays while I'm on this beautiful vacation. And But last week in Florida, was like, I don't I don't I don't even have any projects that I should be working on. I don't I don't feel the guilt of needing to work on a project while I'm away. I'm on vacation, you know? Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And even now at home, yeah, I still put in full workdays. I still I still work hard when I'm sitting here in the office. But like, we you know, I can come out of work and enjoy a Knicks game or play the guitar or you know What? It just I'm starting to remove the guilt of and and the pressure is what I'm trying to get at, I guess.
Jordan Gal:What I wanna ask is is what's the difference between this week where it's successful in having a calm head and not feeling in a rush and not feeling stressed And a few months ago, is it is it mindset? Is it is it just completely in our heads?
Brian Casel:Yes. The answer is yes. You know, I think the other thing about it, and this is where a little bit of like you and me, I think for the last couple of years, we've been on very very parallel tracks. And we've been doing this podcast for ten years, right? And we've
Nathan Barry:I can't believe that.
Brian Casel:It's incredible, right? And and so we've had multiple businesses, of us in different stages, different types of businesses, all this. But I feel like the last three years have been really interesting for us because we've been on very parallel but different Types different. Tracks. But we've both been trying to build a new product and hit product market fit and pivoting and
Jordan Gal:That's right.
Brian Casel:We've both been going through that, right? For me, now, for the first time in a long time that I I can't even remember the last time. Like, I'm just not interested in chasing product market fit for a new thing right now like I was a year and a half ago when I did the big pivot into Clarity Flow. But even just a few months ago, when I was experimenting different ideas for instrumental products and this full stack founder concept for my YouTube channel and Mhmm. And what what products is this gonna grow into?
Brian Casel:What what like, what's gonna what's gonna be the the next startup idea? The next SaaS product that I get into? And I'm sure I'm going to do another product. I'll probably do many more products at some point. But right now, I'm kind of enjoying like not stressing out about trying to find a product idea and make a new thing work.
Brian Casel:I'm just kind of putting in the reps every week and just showing up to my job and my job is to make a YouTube video, maintain my product portfolio, Clarity Flow and do some good quality consulting work that that's paying paying the bills.
Jordan Gal:You know? Maybe it's maybe it's having patience. Maybe it is just a different season.
Nathan Barry:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Right? It it is amazing how much is just completely in between our ears. Because I I am building a new product and looking for product market fit. But I don't feel that stressed.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:You know, part of it is, you know, runway adjustments so that specifically on purpose not to feel stressed. So, it's tricky, man, because I wanna have a lot of urgency.
Brian Casel:But I think a few years ago Right. Yeah. I think stress. Just
Jordan Gal:pressure. That's it's not that productive. Urgency is good.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:But pressure and stress and unhappiness and tension and disappointment and guilt, like, how do you have one without the other?
Brian Casel:It's very personal to each and every person. And this is why I I can't stand it when I just see these like blanket pieces of advice thrown out there on Twitter and and whatnot where it's like, you should do this, you should not do that. No. You don't know you.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Don't know
Brian Casel:what that person is going through or what they value or where they're coming from or what they even How they even define success. So you can't you can't dictate how they're going to perceive your blanket advice. So I think that every person is different in that way. I think for me like one of the things was a few years ago, I try you know, we talk about different seasons like I I tried on the idea of like let's purposely layer on the urgency. Let's purposely go
Nathan Barry:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Put all my chips in this one bet. And I thought that that was my tactic to to make a a SaaS business work was to go all in. And I'm really just speaking for myself here. I I know that a lot of people have success going this route as they should. But I I think now coming at coming You know, now a few months after my experience with what I I think was probably some form of physical burnout was you know, for for me removing that urgency is actually makes me more effective overall.
Brian Casel:Like I'm I'm even just having like more creative ideas on like how to do consulting well with with clients. Know, like like the form of consulting that I'm doing now with like UI and UX work for SaaS companies like I'm just like reentering that that world of doing that type of work for the first time in like ten years and and I'm even like finding like interesting creative ways to add value and and also and and and just really enjoy the work. But the you know, it's still a super high level of importance for me that I am always investing in my own assets. Right? Mhmm.
Brian Casel:I'm not trying to have a job. I'm not trying to get a job. Above all I I need to be owning my business. I'm not trying to get out of the game here. But That's to me the game is now much longer term and slower and calmer.
Brian Casel:And and and I'm It's like for the first time I'm starting to really settle into like that that mindset. Whereas I I had that mindset before ten year five ten years ago. And then the last three years, I I went to the urgency thing and I and I took on some investment and I and I sold my businesses. And and now I'm trying to get back to to the Mhmm. To to the true slow and steady bootstrapper.
Brian Casel:Got to do couple things here. Do some consulting there and just just let it ride out. Eventually, some things are gonna fall into place as long as I show up and invest in the right things like growing the audience products.
Jordan Gal:Right. That's it. Consistency. Yeah. The there's there is something around the urgency that ends up being counterproductive.
Jordan Gal:It's pretty tough to be creative under pressure and stress Mhmm. And guilt and disappointment. And if you let if you ease up a little bit, can kind of find different things and your brain goes different places.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:I think back to the last few times that in the last few stretches of real stress. I think back to card hook growing really fast, but all of us knowing this is this is not sustainable because the product has issues and it was kinda like everyone was like, you're so you guys are doing so amazing. You're so smart. And then underneath it was like, actually, this the wheels are about to come off.
Brian Casel:Right. But but and I actually touched on this in the in the YouTube video that I put out. That that to me is like one of the best types of pressure and urgency. It's like you're you're not you're not stressed about how to grow this business. You're managing the growth of this business.
Brian Casel:Right? Yeah.
Jordan Gal:It's it's good it's good stress.
Nathan Barry:Yeah. That's a good still probably
Jordan Gal:in a pretty pretty tricky spot. Then I think about fundraising and I think about the transition from Kartik to Rally. That was very stressful. Those were the only what I came up with in those situations in terms of an approach and a mindset was was happy warrior for lack of a better term.
Nathan Barry:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:It was I have to find a way to feel really grateful to go into this really stressful day.
Nathan Barry:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:I I gotta go ask four more people if they wanna invest in the company. I don't have any confidence that they're gonna say yes because the last 18 people said said no, and so that's what's gonna happen today. But I have to find a way to really like my job and enjoy what I'm doing and feel lucky and grateful. And whatever that takes, whether that's looking at things from a different angle on, hey, I I get to work from home. I saw my kids this morning.
Jordan Gal:Whatever combination of things to kinda get into that right mindset of I I get to go to war today. Is aren't I lucky?
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:So in all those environments
Brian Casel:I I think that
Jordan Gal:works to an extent. But there is there is a more ideal approach which is just being happy and putting in work.
Brian Casel:Yeah. You know, think
Jordan Gal:That's tough to get
Brian Casel:there. Also now that I'm talking about it, like, the other the other thing that made it a lot harder than I I wouldn't have expected this to be as hard as it was for me is is is the the transition back and forth between these different big entrepreneurial strategies. Right? So again, three years ago, three and a half years ago, I made the decision to abandon what what had been sort of working for me for like ten years, was like bootstrapping, I self had productized services, I had some audience stuff, I had a portfolio of stuff, and I kept layering on. I sold a thing here and there along the way, but I but I kept just just like making small adjustments.
Brian Casel:Starting a product, leaving a product, letting one coast for a while, relatively small changes over those years. And then and then in 2020, I sold it all and I went all in. And at the time, like, that was a really exciting and energizing thing to do. Right? Like, I I made a bunch of money on on those sales and then I took a bit of investment and then I and then I went all in on this new SaaS thing that was getting really good traction at the time.
Brian Casel:And then and and so then it was like three years of, okay, I'm all in. But what I didn't what and I and I'm glad that I tried that. But looking back on it, like, it it probably wasn't the right move for me. And what I didn't expect was coming out of it. Like getting my again, like the the turn from '23 to '24 was like the turmoil of getting back like resetting.
Brian Casel:That was a lot harder physically, mentally and and just logistically.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. To Isn't it funny to To
Brian Casel:get that back. Kinda get that
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Right around the
Jordan Gal:same time?
Brian Casel:Yeah. I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. You mean with Rally?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. With with the checkout product and like figuring out how to come to terms with, hey, I don't actually think this is gonna work. That's almost the easiest thought to have.
Brian Casel:Well, it was also interesting the time
Jordan Gal:Well, hold on.
Nathan Barry:Okay. Alright.
Jordan Gal:Go ahead.
Brian Casel:Go ahead. Alright.
Jordan Gal:Because I I wanna I wanna just draw this parallel to to to to you because I I think I heard similar things from you. Making the decision or having the the thought, I don't think this is I don't think I should spend all my time on this or or basically like, this isn't gonna work out the way I wanted it to. Yep. That's that's like step one of 10. The other nine steps are like, how do I become okay with that?
Jordan Gal:How do I not regret everything I just did for the past year? How do I justify, like, all these things to untangle emotionally and psychologically to then be like, I feel okay with making that decision. Yes.
Brian Casel:Yeah. That right? That's true. You summed it up perfectly because I came to I was literally looking at like the spread the financial spreadsheet and everything. This was like in the 2023.
Brian Casel:So around October, November, that's when I was like, you know what? Our runway is not we're just not gonna get to profitability. As I was looking ahead to like the next eight to ten, twelve months at that point, I was like, I don't think we're gonna make it unless something drastically changes. And Mhmm. I I can't count on anything drastically changing.
Brian Casel:So that's when I was like, like just financially, look, this is not gonna work. So I And so that was the '23. And then it's like December, January is when I'm starting to like really make plans for 2024 and like change Okay. I'm going from a 100% on this business down to 30% on this business and I'm And that's when like January, February is when these like physical issues started to manifest. So it was almost like that's it is like it is like the the change happened a few months earlier but like the physical thing like was like the Yeah.
Brian Casel:Was like the the the hangover of it.
Jordan Gal:Right. One's just mental and the other one is like this like confronting Yeah. With everything that it means for you. And here's the thing. Here's I think where we gotta give ourselves credit and like everyone else listening.
Jordan Gal:At first we say, we're screwed. I I screwed up. I, you know, what did I do? Oh my god. And then and then you just give it a little time, and then you realize you always have so many more options.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, the creativity starts to come back in, the guilt starts to go away, and then the excitement comes back around. Well, I can do this and I can also do this. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:I bet I could just do this and send out a tweet and all of a sudden this thing happens and that's a goddamn entrepreneur right there.
Brian Casel:Hell yeah.
Jordan Gal:They're crazy cycle.
Brian Casel:And I mean Yeah. And I'm like I'm kinda picking up the pieces and rebuilding my income. Got a got a few really great clients that I'm working with and and Clarity and I hired Kat on customer success on Clarity Flow and that's starting to grow again a little bit now. So it's like. Yeah.
Brian Casel:Yeah. It was a few months there of like of like fear and everything but then then it's like it's also like well, the fear of like having to resort to these things and then now now I'm sitting here and it's you know what? This stuff is actually pretty good. I'm actually enjoying this. Like this this like actually the thing that you're that you're afraid of is actually not all that bad at the end of the day.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:And if you were giving advice to someone else about it, you you would identify that much more easily than when when it's for yourself.
Nathan Barry:Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Casel:Alright. Well, we I still think a lot about like theoretically, I would like my products portfolio to grow and and fire up and spin up new product ideas at some point. I'm I'm sure I will at some point. I I don't know when but like But even when whenever I do that, it's like any any project, any product that I do can have any number of outcomes. It could be a quick idea goes nowhere, I learned something or it can get a little bit of traction, a little cash flow in my portfolio or like what you had with CartHook, the thing catches fire and then you're managing its growth.
Brian Casel:You're figuring out how to how to manage it rather than Right. Banging your head against the desk trying to figure out how to grow it, you know.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I wanna get back to that. I I I do. I do. I I I want this next product to to do that.
Jordan Gal:There's so much you know, it's it's it's more fun. It's more fun to to deal with that. And even just because it's still difficult doesn't mean, you know, you don't want it.
Brian Casel:Yeah. So It's also like like what you were saying with the with the funding. And this is where our paths are really different and and you have the benefit of of having gone the VC route. I only took a a little bit of like, what do call it? Like fund How can scrapping I tell you?
Brian Casel:You know, funding and you know, with with Comfund. And you know, that's just a limited amount. And and I was just not interested in like doing another follow on round with anyone. So that that did make it like more constrained of like what what's gonna change in the next ten months that where we're gonna nail profitability. Whereas you you have a longer time horizon and runway that that you can really and and you have the firepower to throw at stuff, you know.
Jordan Gal:Yes. We well, the corresponding problem with that is the the hurdle. The the hurdle is the preference stack. Right? If you don't if you sell for the same amount of money that you raised, you as common stock founders, employees don't make any money.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:So you you gotta get over a hurdle. Right? We've raised $18,000,000. So if you sell for less now, I see that as still doable. If you have a successful software product, you can sell for more than $18,000,000.
Jordan Gal:So I kinda don't think about that, like, number to hit or hurdle to hit. Because if you if it's successful, you can you can overcome that hurdle. Now here here's the the thing I've been thinking about recently. Right now things are quiet. Like my inbox is quiet.
Jordan Gal:Like my schedule is relatively quiet. Right? And going into this, I can't help but want some hybrid of the Bootstrap versus VC experience. When I look at the product that we're building in the way we're building it, the the right. Does it require a demo or is it self serve?
Jordan Gal:What is the pricing like? How much, you know, stress is put on by how high of a price it is? All these different factors. I want a calm version of growth. Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:I don't want to grow the team super fast to just handle the growth. I want efficient growth. I I kinda want the same dream as a three person bootstrap company.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I feel like you you can know, we were talking about this off air I think right before this recording. I was asking you like, so this idea that you're working on exploring right now, is this a bootstrapper idea or is this a VC idea? But you said something that was interesting. Okay.
Brian Casel:You said how how do I say it? You you were like, you know, as as as long as we're solving a problem that that gets us into a a paying relationship with lots of small businesses Yes. There there are many directions we can go off of that. Yes. So it's like Your question
Jordan Gal:came from is is that market big enough? Like can that be
Brian Casel:a market big enough for a year? Business is is is like niching down into a vertical industry? Like that's the Bootstrapper playbook. Is that gonna work for a VC playbook?
Nathan Barry:But
Jordan Gal:I'm half trying to build a bootstrapper dream business.
Brian Casel:Yeah. But you know what? I I think you're right. I think I think you can sort of do it. Like, you can do it.
Brian Casel:You have the benefit of knowing how these bootstrapped businesses work. You you can be successful as a bootstrapped company Yeah. And then money. And then and then like almost like be like the anti VC, but then still make all the money. Like That's like
Jordan Gal:That is whatever that means is what I'm going for. What I
Brian Casel:mean is like you don't need to go hire 50 people to execute on on this vision. But then you have the benefit of like, okay. Once you once you do, you know, scrap you know, scrape and claw to a 100 customers Mhmm. Then then comes in the big guns. And then you can do all the things that the bootstrap companies can't do.
Brian Casel:Right. Buying buying up a high traffic website or doing these these paid ad campaigns or or you know, just all of it.
Jordan Gal:Right. Just
Brian Casel:Buying buying
Nathan Barry:up the
Brian Casel:booths at all the conferences like you can do all that stuff that a bootstrapper is just not gonna do, you know.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Which is why I just find identifying a problem that people are willing to pay for and that there are is a large potential market for it is kind of enough of a bread crumb.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:You don't like to see that far into the distance.
Brian Casel:And then what you were saying was like, even if the initial product that you roll out and you get a couple 100 customers on, even if that turns out to not be big enough, now you've got the foot in the door. Now now you can pivot or expand off of that and yeah.
Jordan Gal:Right. Will will businesses be spending more or less on AI in the future? Pretty straightforward. It'll be more. Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Where that goes and what what we're seeing now is this from a product point of view, a very, like, wide we have all the features. We can do everything for you around voice. And I think we're better off the you know, whatever that land and expand type of approach would be where it's one really really really specific painful problem and we nail that. And then later on, we add effectively the other features or the other products that the the other companies have right now, but our entry point was through this one area that was really really painful and that is what got a small business to effectively hire an AI agent for the first time.
Nathan Barry:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:As opposed to needing for me, the the the keyword that I have to focus on is skepticism. Because you and I love the tech. Before this podcast, I sent Brian a clone of my voice.
Nathan Barry:Dude, we get we gotta do a we gotta do
Brian Casel:an AI version of our of our podcast assembly.
Jordan Gal:So I I pinged Brian. I was like, yo, Brian, send me a recording one of our podcasts or something. So I ended up using voice memos on Apple. I talk for thirty seconds. I upload my voice and now I have a clone of my voice.
Jordan Gal:And and then I can write whatever I want and then my voice says it. I send it to my brothers and my dad and they were like, WTF. Yeah. They were like, are you trying to tell me that that was not you? So it's easy to be enamored with the tech.
Nathan Barry:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Cool.
Brian Casel:It's like what what can we do with this? What's the use case?
Jordan Gal:What can we do with it? And and a small business owner is gonna be really skeptical. Mhmm. You want me to do what? You want me to put customers on the phone with this machine and and have my reputation at stake?
Jordan Gal:Like, that skepticism is the whole ballgame. And so I think it's easier to overcome that skepticism in a very narrow use case than all of your customer service is now handled by a robot. Like, don't I don't think most small business will will will go for that.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I feel like if I can I don't even know which which industry or what actual use case or solution you're gonna end up going after? But I feel like it'll it'll end up being like, let us just prove it to you. Like, hire us and we will set it up and do it for you and deploy it and we'll show you.
Jordan Gal:Right. In this one area.
Brian Casel:These these are the leads that you that we're delivering that you didn't have before.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Amen. Nice, man. What else, man? What you go more next next next games?
Jordan Gal:They're they're still in it.
Brian Casel:Right? They're they're still winning. Yeah. I I don't know if
Nathan Barry:my bank account can can handle that but
Jordan Gal:Yo. The sporting events are no joke Yeah. These days. You could drop thousand bucks on a random night out. No problem.
Brian Casel:Especially in New York. What was interesting was last night was game three in Philadelphia and like there are there are a lot of Knicks fans. I you could just hear them on TV. And like like these like Philly tickets are like so much cheaper than just going to Madison Square Garden. So all these New Yorkers are going to going to the Philly games.
Jordan Gal:Right. Take a train.
Nathan Barry:No big deal.
Brian Casel:Here's the thing. I So, you know, I've been talking about And this is sort of just bubbling up as I'm just observing the the consulting work that I'm doing right now. I I think I I forgot if I talked about this or not last couple of episodes. So I've been basically working with like a weekly rate.
Nathan Barry:Okay.
Brian Casel:And I and I book out like one or two clients at any given time. And I'm booked out for the next month or two. And mostly what I've been doing is working with SaaS companies doing like taking their old janky outdated interfaces that have worked like from a business standpoint but they just need an upgrade into like modern UI, UX, tailwind CSS, modernized things. Right? And so I I come in and I I I redesign but I also deliver like coded tailwind CSS templates and and components to to deliver.
Brian Casel:And that's a really common thing for SaaS companies. Like we all know of of these like component libraries. Right? Like there's like tailwind UI. Sure.
Brian Casel:But what's interesting and I did that I've done this for my own like like in Clarity Flow like now it's it's evolved to a point where we have our our own custom like drop down component and our own our own custom like menu component and
Jordan Gal:Or what's that called? It's like a light component library.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. Like I've built out like my own component library.
Jordan Gal:Design system.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Design system. So like everything looks consistent in the app but it's also really efficient for for me and my team to maintain especially Same. When we're using like tail end classes on everything. And so Okay.
Brian Casel:And so like that's one of the thing like one client that I'm working with, they have like a an admin dash like a customer admin dashboard that's getting a total makeover. But like, the thing that I'm doing is like building a components library for them to pull from to to And so And and then I'm doing that with another client. And so it's like, I'm starting to formulate an idea. I don't I don't know if I would call this a productized service but it might be dialing in this type of service even more. And I What I wrote down here was like your own private UI component library as a service.
Brian Casel:So like So instead of like work, but it sets
Jordan Gal:you up for the future.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Like Yeah. There are these like public libraries that you can buy or that you can use. But those are sort of generic and you still need to tweak them and adapt and them to your own app. But when you hire someone like me or or any other, you know, UI designer, you what you end up doing is you're building your own internal component library.
Brian Casel:You're you're redesigning some screens but then at in the process, you're you're saying like, this is how all of our drop downs should work. Not just this one. Or all of our menus or all of our forms or all of our pop up modals or all of our slide overs. Whatever it is. And and I I don't know.
Brian Casel:I just I'm starting to think like that's sort of like an interesting way to position myself or my consultancy as like, you have a SaaS app. You already have all these components across your whole app. Let's standardize them. Let's modernize them. And let's build you out your own private components library that you and your team can just pull from anytime.
Brian Casel:So, I I don't know. I'm I'm starting to like I I like to like observe my work and observe what customers respond to and see how I can better position that or package it or or productize it or whatever that might be. And that's that's just an idea that sort of came up this week actually, you know.
Jordan Gal:Is is that like a that's the end product that you leave off with? Like improvement and then Yeah. This is an asset for you for the future. I mean, that that's worth a lot on its own.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Like right now on instrumentalproducts.com which is like my little site where I It's not even used much. It's mostly my network right now but that's where I've like written up my consultancy, a sales pitch. But that's a few months old. So like whenever I rewrite the copy on that, I I feel like I should reposition it toward UI UX and maybe start to focus on like your own private UI component library for your SaaS as a service or as a as a thing that you can purchase from from me for like a block of work.
Brian Casel:I don't
Nathan Barry:know. Mhmm. That's that's an interesting thing.
Jordan Gal:Excellent. Well, I'm gonna try to be in the market as soon as possible. Hopefully, by next week, we are, you know, emailing people and asking them to talk.
Brian Casel:Right on.
Jordan Gal:So hopefully, I I have some real world kind of feedback in the short term.
Brian Casel:Yeah. There we go.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. In the meantime, let's have a great weekend.
Brian Casel:Yes, sir. Alright. Thanks everyone. Later, folks.
