The Morning After
Alright. It's Bootstrap Web. We're back today. It's Friday, June 28. And it's it's the morning after the presidential debate last night with Trump and Biden.
Jordan Gal:Too entertaining Should we even not to talk about.
Brian Casel:Too too entertaining not to touch it. Yes. Just for a minute. Just for a minute. We'll see.
Jordan Gal:Just for a minute. I I tweeted out last night at some point the laugh or cry, take your pick, but it was it was both.
Brian Casel:Brutal, man. Oh. I mean, it and and especially the fact that it's it it you know, so it it was brutal for Biden. Just within the first ten minutes and then it sort of just got worse, I thought.
Jordan Gal:The first ten minutes, the only thing I could think was there's eighty minutes left? How Yeah. How how are we gonna stand this level of pain?
Brian Casel:And if you know anything about presidential debates, the first five, ten minutes are everything. Nobody watches.
Jordan Gal:Right. Except
Brian Casel:for the hardcore. Sure. You know? Like it's it's The first five minutes are everything and then and then it's like the the clips and the and the headline and the headline today, you you could talk all you want about all the lies and nonsense coming from but the headline today is Biden did not show up and couldn't and in many cases was pretty incoherent.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It was it was pretty painful to watch. You know what you know what if I mean, I I never watch cable news stuff.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I knew the
Jordan Gal:last night I I put it on. I mean, was very straightforward and very universal, the reaction.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I noticed that too. I You know, I was watching it and Which is great. Yeah. So I was watching the the stream and it I was actually struck like at the end of the debate.
Brian Casel:I I I had it on the TV but I actually muted like the second hour. I was like, I I've seen enough. I'm I'm gonna like
Jordan Gal:so entertaining. Oh my god. I I
Brian Casel:was watching it on TV. I was like, I wonder what the actual immediate reaction like on CNN is gonna be right after it's over. Are they gonna try to be like balanced and everything? But it was like, right from the get go, it's like, wow. Like, Biden quote unquote lost that debate.
Brian Casel:Right. There was one about it. And there's like panic in the Democratic Party and all that.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah. And now, you know, there's conversation about replacing him, but it's not so simple. I what the the overwhelming feeling I had, you know, I I'm very political. I keep it out of the show.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Same here. Same here. I I spent
Jordan Gal:a lot of my time thinking about it and reading it and everything else. It's my it's my other hobby.
Brian Casel:Same. Yeah. Me too.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. You you know, the the obviously October 7 kind of reignited my interest in politics. I I was very into it. My my first startup was a political website.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:So I have been into it for a very long time and I almost got too into it and at some point it wasn't healthy and so I backed out and I just focused on work, I focused on family, and I ignored politics for years. October 7 pulled me back in in a very dramatic way.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And there there's always an element to being an advocate for Israel the way I am where there's there's a there's an enormous amount of frustration around truth.
Brian Casel:Right.
Jordan Gal:And what a lot of people on the Israel side of the debate say, look, I it's tough, but the truth will win eventually. And last night was the truth catching up to all of the politics, And it was really, really painful to see because up until last night, there was a lot of what politics is, which is exaggeration, lying, misdirection, communicate, just a whole bunch of stuff because that that's what politics is from both sides. Neither side is innocent. Yep. But last night was just boom.
Jordan Gal:It hit very very hard and became undeniable.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I I thought it was interesting. I and I and I had this hunch before the debate that you know, because so for those who don't follow closely like this debate is a lot earlier than it normally is. It's not even like an it's it's just a CNN debate. It's not even like the official.
Jordan Gal:Right. It's usually after the convention. After the person's
Brian Casel:usually not until like October. Right?
Jordan Gal:Right.
Brian Casel:So so they did it early this time. I I forgot who actually initially prompted it. But ultimately, the Biden campaign agreed
Jordan Gal:or or or they offered and Trump agreed, I I believe. Okay.
Brian Casel:So so I think that this play by the Biden campaign to get it in early was like a two sided play. One is like you gotta put to bed the concerns over his age. Mhmm. And he's gotta show up and perform early so that we can put that to bed early. Right?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Or or he's not gonna perform and it and it's still It's super late but maybe it's still just barely early enough to swap someone else in if if that first debate goes badly and clearly it went badly. So that's the conversation. I mean, it sounds insane to to try to replace the nominee at this at this stage.
Jordan Gal:After all the primaries.
Brian Casel:After all the primaries.
Jordan Gal:Oh my god.
Brian Casel:But but at the same time, like I can't help but think that today feels like a basketball game where there's a few seconds left on the clock, your team is down by a few points and you have no other choice but to intentionally foul and give and and let the other team score some baskets because the the only alternative is lose.
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Brian Casel:And and that that's where I feel like the democrats are right now. It's like Yes. You're you're you're in a bad spot. I mean That's fine. I I just don't see him pulling it out if he stays in and if and if he pulls out, that's insanely hard too but like
Jordan Gal:Who's gonna wanna walk in? I mean, I I like I said, there are people who ambitious enough and wanna be president.
Brian Casel:Oh, there are. And then there's a there's a huge question of like, I don't know if there's anyone else who could even
Jordan Gal:win. Well, normally speaking, the vice president would step up.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And it is
Jordan Gal:again, a very painful truth that she was chosen for a bad set of reasons, and now she can't
Brian Casel:And she's just not popular.
Jordan Gal:I mean, look she's not popular because she's not competent. Yes, I mean Now she can't be, so you've removed that option by by using a bad set of reasons to choose her to begin with. So let me just say your explanation there in terms of making the debate early is one plausible and two like too clever by half. I think I think Right. Because I think the same way that that's that is plausible, but it's also like would you really put yourselves in that position?
Jordan Gal:No one would wanna put themselves in the position that they're in.
Brian Casel:I think that there I do think that I I I think you're right that maybe it's it wasn't. But I I think that there could be some like campaign operatives or democratic operatives in there who have a real fear of I think a lot of people have a real fear of of Trump winning again. And they know that like Biden is not willing to step down until until he really is forced. Not not technically forced, but like
Jordan Gal:Right. This is as close to being forced as possible.
Brian Casel:I think today, we're as close to like that becoming a real loud sounding alarm for for him to to step out and like
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It's tough to see.
Brian Casel:This could be a way for some people to like force the issue early enough. Yes.
Jordan Gal:I don't know. It's it's tough to be happy because then you look at the other side and you're like, we're gonna put our faith in in Trump? That's that's where our faith in in the country's gonna go? You know, that that's not very appealing.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And I guess just to be clear, at least for me personally, I I I've I've just You know, we don't we don't normally talk our political views on on this show, but I'll I'll just be open about it since since today we are. I mean Yeah. Why not? I I have always been just Like my fundamental bottom line is I'm anti Trump.
Brian Casel:Now I I I
Jordan Gal:think that's fair.
Brian Casel:I just I I I think that the the January 6 and not accepting the the results of the election, to me that is game over, deal breaker. I don't care what your politics are. I don't care what you what you care about policies or anything else. Like, if you can't accept the basic premise of how the American system works, you you cannot you cannot win. And that's just that's just my view.
Brian Casel:So all that to say is like, yeah, if if Biden at his age and everything stays in the race, like, I am still gonna vote for him. Because I'm I'm gonna vote for not Trump no matter what. That that's where I end up.
Jordan Gal:I think I think that's fair. And I think a lot of people are there. I think people have certain topics around that, whether it's January 6 or abortion or character. We'll we'll use that as an umbrella term. Yep.
Jordan Gal:And I think that's fair. You know, it's American politics forces you to swallow some bad with the things that you want. Right? There's no we got two parties and each party has these things that you like and don't like and a lot of it is projection of your personal priorities. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:That it so you're not accepting all the bad. You're just deprioritizing those and
Brian Casel:and look. I don't even consider myself I'm technically not a democrat. I'm I'm independent and I I'm probably fur I'm furthest from the democratic party as I've ever been in my life. I'm as I'm as central as they come.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Tough to be a centrist in in the democratic party these days.
Brian Casel:Exactly. Yeah. And what what really actually scares me the most is is anything left and far left getting close to being a nominee for something. Like I'm not I'm not on board for that.
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Brian Casel:You know, and especially what you know, you're you The Israel stuff is is like a big
Jordan Gal:It's a tough a
Brian Casel:big nail in the coffin for or a big confirmation for me that's like the far left has gone way way off course now. You know, I I was already off course with them but like the Israel stuff really really
Jordan Gal:campus things and Yeah. I'm I'm with you. I I guess my my set of priorities pushes me to the other party, and I I have to I have to accept Trump as the person to vote for. Well, that's actually couldn't do it. I couldn't vote for him.
Jordan Gal:I voted for neither do it. And this year, I feel like I have to do it because of where the where the country is.
Brian Casel:Ever since the twenty sixteen campaign with Hillary Clinton. Like ever since that campaign and onward, I I always thought thought of myself as like a legitimately convincible voter. Like I like there there could be a world Yeah. Where I actually Like where I where I vote the republican ticket for maybe for the first time in my adult life. Trump is out of the you know.
Brian Casel:Yeah. But like you know, like like a like a guy like like Kasich or or you know, someone who's like really close to all day right now. Yeah. Like I would take that as like Mhmm. You know, but like anyway, we're getting Yeah.
Brian Casel:Too deep into our into our
Jordan Gal:I I think I think the the bigger the bigger set of topics like, you know, the politics of the country and the parties and voting like pulls you in matters and it's entertaining and it all this other stuff. The the big the bigger things are like, you know, where where are we right now in the world? There there are a few months left in this presidency and my overwhelming concern is, do our enemies see this as an opportunity to make their moves over the next six months, or they do do they start making the opposite calculation and saying so Trump is likely to be the next one and maybe we don't want to be in a war in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel when Trump comes in because that's probably not gonna work out for us as well as we thought it would if Biden was still there.
Brian Casel:On the world stage, I tend to think that obviously like different presidents and different parties will have like different politics and directions and stuff. But like, I I tend to just end up in a place where like I don't think like America's leadership is really as question as questioned as politicians will make us think. I think that you know, the leadership from a cultural standpoint, from a military standpoint, the the economic standpoint, like, there are so many metrics where America is still I mean, I'm no expert here, but like, we're we're we're still
Brennan Dunn:like Well, we're you know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I yeah. Kinda like no and and even like no matter who who's in the office, like, the military is the military. It's got it it's gonna I don't know. There's Yeah.
Jordan Gal:I think that is
Brian Casel:where I'm much I'm much more worried about the domestic side of things
Jordan Gal:Okay. In general. Yeah. I I think maybe because I'm an immigrant or I'm Israeli or whatever else combination of things. I I end up being more worried about international.
Jordan Gal:I mean domestic makes a bigger difference on your day to day life. Yeah. And internationally, I just want us to project strength. I think that works out for us and the rest of
Brian Casel:the world I also think that like you know, and my my wife came came here as an immigrant and and she often talks about like like the world still reveres America as a as a whole in general. Like and like a lot of people these days like hate that you know, like to laugh at our at how crazy our our circus of of the politics is but like
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Everyone
Brian Casel:like people still wanna come here every single day.
Jordan Gal:That's like I think What what's it called? A revealed preference? There's there's a lot of talk. Where do you wanna move your family? Everyone knows where you wanna move your family and that's important that we keep it that way.
Jordan Gal:And God bless America. We're gonna figure this thing out one way or another. Yeah. One way or another.
Brian Casel:Let's do the most American thing we can do and talk some business.
Jordan Gal:Yes. That's right. You I often get lost in finding meaning and interest in this, and the conclusion I always get to is, you know what the best thing is that I can do? Be as successful as possible, donate money, take care of my family, raise good kids, contribute to the community. That that's still so this is it's not that it's just entertaining, but the most important thing you can do is is kick some butt in business.
Jordan Gal:Be successful. Raise your family the right way. That that's the right thing.
Brian Casel:You said it, man. Oh. What do we got going on?
Jordan Gal:Alright. I'll do my quick catch up. We are we have a date in mind that we're gonna launch the app. Right? A few weeks ago we launched the the name, the marketing page, the concept.
Jordan Gal:We don't have any accounts yet. The app isn't ready but now we have a date in mind and now we're starting to work backwards from there. So there's like I'm looking at it as these like two week sprints. So between now, it's about two weeks until we launch the app for first accounts, maybe a little bit more.
Brian Casel:Oh, that close. Okay.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah. Pretty soon.
Brian Casel:So Okay. So like by by launching, you mean like literally like, the product is ready for you customer to come sign up and start using it in some Yes.
Jordan Gal:In some way. We have people on on the newsletter that sign up on the on the website. I'm very happy we added that little email field at the bottom of the footer because we have a good amount of people there. And then we have the people that we've been talking to both end potential customers and partners. Partners has been a very interesting channel so far.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. And all of them, you know, it's it's it's pretty similar to a customer where you're saying in a few weeks I'll get in touch with you. We'll get you an account. We'll get it tested and then we would love if you could bring two or three of your customers on board and get the feedback before making an introduction to the rest of your customer base.
Brian Casel:Right.
Jordan Gal:So it's like two weeks sprint to get to the app, then it's a two week sprint with those early customers, then two weeks of outbound email, and then two weeks later the the the social network advertising hits.
Brian Casel:Oh, okay.
Jordan Gal:So so that's like the next, you know, six or eight eight weeks for us. Oh, it's like work on the product, keep having conversations, early customers, outbound begins, advertising begins.
Brian Casel:Yeah. There you go. And you're off to the races.
Jordan Gal:Yep. So and that kinda brings us right around to the August.
Brian Casel:It's always interesting to to get it to open the doors to first customers and and work out the adoption stuff.
Jordan Gal:Oh, yeah. Right. I think we're not gonna have anything worked out and it's gonna be really messy and I still think we should just push it anyway and not. So I've like signed agreements with outbound service and with ads that has a set date of starting and I almost refuse to move those. I'm just gonna however whatever condition we're in at that time.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Even those are gonna need lead time not just to ramp up the things but to like, you know, whatever demos come of that come from that are still are gonna have weeks of their own sales process to get to get those customers ultimately on on the product like
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Sooner the better. And and I I think the other thing for you is is that like, these earliest earliest customers on your current list, my understanding is they they came from your announcements that you've done so far. So like, there's gonna be an evolution of like just people from your orbits and networks. Yeah.
Brian Casel:Transitioning to like actual like owners that that have never heard of Jordan Gal, you know.
Jordan Gal:Yes. And that has been difficult to decipher, you know, if the person I'm talking to right now is representative of who will come in the future and who and and if if that's who we want. Patterns start to emerge pretty early but it's so anecdotal. Right? If you talk to 10 people and three of them are from property management companies, you can convince yourself that property management companies are a great fit for you.
Jordan Gal:Not not necessarily true. So we're trying to stay open minded and pricing keeps coming up as a recurring conversation. I'm trying to keep that conversation tight in the company so people don't think I'm crazy because I changed my mind every two days. Think that's normal.
Brian Casel:You mean a conversation from the people that you're talking to?
Jordan Gal:No. When we launch the app, I wanna have pricing set. So we have Are
Brian Casel:you like published or
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Published. Right now we don't we don't publish in pricing. Mhmm. So I'm just saying it out loud to people and we're taking that feedback and we're also doing our analysis.
Jordan Gal:We're looking at our competitors and we're looking at the market. I have two forces that I have not been able to ignore. Number one is to go wider on the industries, and number two is to go lower on the pricing. And and I'm trying to figure out how much to push back on those two pressures. The the overwhelming pressure is to go wide because the people we've talked to are they're all over the place.
Jordan Gal:It's the same problem in slightly different ways. Yeah. And that's tricky.
Brian Casel:Given your business model and firepower that you have and and also just the AI product that you're doing, like I I think going horizontal does not It like seems like a seems fine to me. Like I I would normally default to like the more you can niche down the better. I think in your case a horizontal play might might work just fine. And on the on the pricing, my thought on it would be like, who What are you pricing against? And I don't know that you're necessarily pricing against your direct AI tool competitors.
Brian Casel:You're you're really pricing against the cost of hiring people to man the phones.
Jordan Gal:Okay. So I'm definitely falling into that trap. Right? Because I am looking at competitors and thinking through
Brian Casel:it. We because you could be the same or even above your competitors and still be so far below what you're if if Well, I guess what the the question to to help decide on the pricing question is like, when you're talking to potential customers, are they considering switching to you from an AI tool or switching to you from paying a salary to a person on the phones?
Jordan Gal:They're not considering switching. So maybe they have looked at others or tried others but that's the same reason they're on a call with me because they're early adopters so they like doing that. Yeah. So that's not the general
Brian Casel:I feel like they're not they're not gonna make a decision based on price. Unless you're like wildly above.
Jordan Gal:And that's that's actually my my fears being too far above. That's my that's my fear.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I To me, I would just be like in the same ballpark. It doesn't You don't have to be the lowest.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I mean, you're you're
Brian Casel:on money. Same
Jordan Gal:ballpark but a little more premium because that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to leapfrog and our admin and everything, it just looks a lot better. You know, more interesting feature. I I just think we have it.
Brian Casel:That seems fine. Yeah. Like I I actually I like that idea. Like ballpark plus a little bit higher. Like not not the lowest in the ballpark essentially.
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Brian Casel:You know? And and I like that because it's like it's like you're you're a legit player in this space and by being a bit above you're gonna you're gonna attract the more serious of the of the early adopters.
Jordan Gal:Yes. You're not gonna you're not gonna make if you are making a decision on the difference between 20 or $40 a month, it's Right. Probably not not the right type. But what what's been messing with me is is TAM. That is what is messing with me.
Jordan Gal:If I look into the future and I and I and I always it's like really tough. I'm trying to remember what we're trying to accomplish. What the goal of the company to accomplish is very big very fast. That that's why we raise money and that's why we have access to more money.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:So it is not the same goal as I would have if if I was running it on my own. And and if you look at the market and you say to yourself, okay, how many small businesses are there in the country that deal with a lot of phone calls? It's millions and millions. Okay? Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:So now if you start to shrink that down into like what your actual TAM would be, it's still a very very large number. Call it a million businesses in The US. So if a million businesses in The US over the next three or four years will be using a solution like this, the winner, the top one or two, maybe three companies are gonna have a 100,000 plus customers. And if I look at that, I put my VC hat on, that's what we should we should be shooting for top number one or two.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I I feel like you're a little few steps ahead than than where you're
Jordan Gal:at. Okay. So so right. So that is clearly I
Brian Casel:remember you said a few weeks back, the goal of of even choosing to do this product in this space was like, what's the fastest way to get like the first like 100 or so first customers? And and now we now we have our foot in the door on some industry and now we can grow and figure out figure things out from there. Yeah. I I would just be focused on like what does it take to get a hundred, two hundred paying customers.
Jordan Gal:I I guess okay. So that is the way a few weeks ago, I wasn't lying. That's that's how I was thinking. And when I looked at like a medium price, right, call it $2,300 a month, I looked at something like that and thought that's the way to get to a million ARR fast. And then then you're on stable ground and you have a product, you have revenue, and you have access to more capital, and you're cutting into your burn and all this other stuff.
Jordan Gal:What started messing with me over the last few weeks is looking at the TAM, looking at the the longer term goal, and then starting to work my way back to reality back to now in the short term. And I I did wanna start factoring in what we do now and how we go out and how the first six months look with that in mind. So what what you'll see from us when we launch is a basic plan.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:We were looking at, like, let's go higher up and name these features that we know are very valuable even if they're not totally done. And now I'm backtracking a little bit to, you know what, let's just launch with the features that we're gonna have and just make that the basic plan and move over those more valuable features, right, multi location instead of one. Right. This analytic voice cloning versus not voice cloning. Like these features that make sense for larger businesses, let's leave those off because they're not ready and let's move them to a higher tier so that we do have an entry point that's lower.
Jordan Gal:That's my current thinking.
Brian Casel:That sounds right. I I just think you're yeah. Like there's so much to learn over the next couple of weeks as it as it gets into the hands of customers like
Jordan Gal:Yeah. This this the danger in prelaunch. You get ahead of yourself. You're thinking about things that aren't
Brian Casel:in front of you. Yeah. I I do it all all the time. I'm literally doing it today. We were talking about it before this podcast.
Jordan Gal:Alright. Well well, let's let's transition. What do got going on?
Brian Casel:Alright. Well, I know we don't have much time today but this No.
Jordan Gal:We're okay. I don't I don't have the hard stop in ten minutes anymore.
Brian Casel:Okay. So so this week, just like most weeks these days, I'm I'm split focused and I I spent I'm spending a little bit more time thinking through the consulting business and and exploring some interesting partnership business models there. I I don't know if I'm gonna get into that here. That's just something that I spent some time on this week. I also spent a bunch of time working on Clarity Flow.
Brian Casel:We shipped some onboarding updates. We're working on a big new feature that's coming along. Some SEO changes helped. But but where my head is at today Okay. Is is a new product idea.
Brian Casel:And I unfortunately, it's too fresh, too raw to to really talk about what what it is just yet. And I don't I'm not totally convinced that I'm going to do it yet or not. But I've I've showed it to you. I've showed it to a couple of other people. I'm being very selective about who I who I show new business ideas to because I'm trying to I'm trying to just be strategic about how I get feedback from people.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. That's actually useful and helpful. Especially people who who kinda know where I'm coming from. Yeah. You know, it's just like you were talking about like it's it's easy for things to get into your head and and influence you in really weird ways and I've I've been That's happened to me a lot and one thing that I One of the benefits of having this podcast frankly is the people who really listen to to us week to week, I I think tend to have the Some of the most tuned in vantage points of our businesses than like anyone else.
Brian Casel:Even even like close friends who don't happen to to listen to our podcast like Yeah. I because I I've gotten some really really helpful feedback and outreach from listeners of this podcast. That's that's actually been some of the most useful and helpful feedback. So those of you who know who you are, I I really appreciate it.
Jordan Gal:Like pent up feedback. Right? You're like listening to the podcast Yeah. You're thinking you wanna give the feedback and every once in a while, you you you can and it's Yeah.
Brian Casel:And I guess that's to say like, I I'm learning to really trust You know, you always give grain of salt in different ways and and know where the person giving the feedback is coming from and and their biases and things like that. But, anyway, all that's to say like I am I There is a product idea that I'm That I've become pretty excited about. Because I went a few weeks there for the last I If you listen back like maybe four or five, six episodes ago, there was another product. I There's a couple product videos I was exploring back then and and then I kinda hit the pause button. And I noted So since I'm kind of in like the hurricane of a of a new idea right now, I started to do some like meta observations over on like, what what it's like to look for new business or assess new business ideas for me right now in 2024.
Brian Casel:One thing that I noticed was that a few weeks ago, I think I was taking a very opportunistic approach to looking for new business opportunities. Like I I made the decision a couple weeks ago, I was like, I think I need to get into a new business Mhmm. And and like a new product. So now I'm gonna go on the hunt for a new product idea.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That's right.
Brian Casel:And and so I was like intentionally just like be trying to be opportunistic. Like where where's the easiest best opportunity to start a product? I You know, nothing is hitting me across the head, so like let me just do a systematic approach to looking at all the different categories and different markets and SEO keyword opportunities and this and that and like And for me, that approach just doesn't really work so well. I I just kept hitting dead ends. Whether it's like, oh, there's an opportunity here but it's way too competitive or or there's too many of my criteria that this idea doesn't fit Or yeah, there might be an opportunity there but like it's an industry or something that is just a snooze fest for me.
Brian Casel:I'm not gonna have the personal energy to get into it. You know, so that that's why just being opportunistic just didn't work for me. And and so I sort of paused that whole effort. I I found myself spinning my wheels too much and I just focused on just doing good work. You know, expanding out the the the consulting offerings which has been paying off pretty well with with the launch of Tailwind.
Brian Casel:Tailwind. Tailor made UI. So I've been focusing on that. But then this week, the perfect storm sort of sort of happened for me.
Jordan Gal:I love that. Love that.
Brian Casel:Which is yeah. You you actually saw how it happened. Like I I It I don't wanna get into all the details of it, but like, it it The perfect storm to me is when there's a a pain point that I personally experience deeply and I start to notice others expressing the pain, a similar pain pretty deeply. So I'm seeing like trends with other people. I'm really feeling it deeply myself.
Brian Casel:And it might even be like two or three different pain points that sort of converge into one like problem space. So there's so there's that part of the storm and then noticing, you know, there's not really a good solution. Like, and and actually questioning like why is there not a good solution for this? And why are not Why why are people not really creating what what seems to me to be sort of like an obvious solution to this?
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Which could be a a red flag. Like, there's a reason why why there's not one. Right? So So you know, like But I I think for me personally, the the best businesses, and I think there's some truth to this, that like you you do need like that founder spark, like the fire to be like, man, I really really care about this I wanna solve it. Problem that I really think needs to be solved, and I really believe that there's a business here if if this problem can be unlocked.
Brian Casel:And and it's And and that some dots started to to connect for me this week in that, you know, in that area.
Jordan Gal:I just like how it was like the opposite of cynical. It was like, you you came into a group chat and we're like, what about this problem? Yeah. Like, do I solve this problem? You have this problem also.
Jordan Gal:How are we solving this problem?
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Hold on a sec.
Brian Casel:Yeah. That day, I was not even remotely thinking about product ideas that day. I was literally like, yo, what do you guys do about this problem? Problem that really pisses me off.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. But I don't think for me, the magic is is just existing in your current work environment and your flow and the things you're interested in, and then these things come together from these different parts. Right? Yeah. There's a little bit of a project that you worked on, a little bit of some person that you know, a little bit of your own problem, and that
Brian Casel:exist yet. It's a space that I'm heavily involved in already. It's I have a lot of contacts who are well connected in this particular space. There's a lot of like little point data points that converge like, wait a minute. There might be something here.
Brian Casel:Right.
Jordan Gal:You know? And that is like a valid reason why it doesn't exist yet is because a person like you with your experiences hasn't seen it in the same way yet.
Brian Casel:So there's also
Jordan Gal:It's a couple so exciting.
Brian Casel:It's so exciting. On that point, like why it doesn't exist yet, the other thing that I started to notice, somebody put out a tweet and it just caught my attention. It was like, great business ideas start by going after something that is like exceptionally hard. Because what that If you go after something that is like unusually difficult in some way. That is gonna filter out and scare off most founders.
Brian Casel:And sort of clear the way, clear the path. If you're willing to to take on something that's that's unusually difficult. You know, like me too. There's a lot of business ideas that I'm just like, that I I can't
Jordan Gal:Not do touching it. You know, I'm not touching it
Brian Casel:in a way. Right? Yeah. But sometimes there's like an an aspect of it that's like, alright. I know that's really difficult, but what if it doesn't have to be that difficult?
Brian Casel:Or what what can I try to figure out to simplify it in some way? Or you know, like if And even if I just think back to some of my experience, going all the way back to audience ops. There At the time, this was like 2015 era. It was a real pain for most companies to hire writers. Like it was not as easy and prevalent as it is today.
Brian Casel:And that's something that I noticed, and I even found it difficult to and I was like, there's no way I'm gonna start writing articles as a service Mhmm. For clients. Like, I'm not gonna do that. But if I could figure out a way to hire writers and and a system and process to be able to deliver hundreds of articles per week across clients, like this could be a great business and nobody else is willing to do that because that is a big hairy problem to try to solve.
Jordan Gal:It's it's almost like the ideal is that it's seemingly very hard to do, but because of your unique perspective, you can see a way that it can be solved.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And then and then when I started Zip Message, which became Clarity Flow, it was video. And that even scared me off at first. I was like, there's an interesting thing here. Oh, but it's you but have to build software around video.
Brian Casel:And that's technically challenging. Browser stuff Yep. And dealing with video and and the risk of people losing their videos and like And and so that technical challenge probably scares off most most startups, you know? Yeah. But then I did a little bit of technical research and prototyping and I was like, oh, this this sorta works.
Brian Casel:I mean, it it did turn out to be a huge technical challenge. We've spent years refining and fixing and improving our video capabilities and it's still not even great but the Yeah. But that that that's what I mean. It's like so so this particular idea does have an element of like, man, this is much more ambitious or bigger than anything I would normally consider. You know?
Brian Casel:It it has a few elements of like, that's I don't know about that. That seems tough in some in a few different ways. And I'm to think through like how how can this be simpler? How can it be more bootstrapper friendly? You know?
Brian Casel:I love it.
Jordan Gal:I think just keep going at the problem from different angles and then use your perspective on it. This reminds me of Cardhook. The the checkout would never have existed without my very specific set of experiences. When I started my own ecommerce company, I was the one responsible for optimizing the checkout. Then we wanted to create a separate checkout, but I couldn't.
Jordan Gal:Then we go into Shopify. Then I met someone who told us about the checkout API. Like all these things would if if you didn't have all of those things strung together, you were very likely to look at it, the problem, and say, not solvable. Can't solve it. Why why would I build something for it?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing, like the last thing that I'm noticing here is that like, you know, I've had so many business ideas. Some of them I actually did and a lot of them I didn't end up doing. So I have a set and and we've talked about a lot on this podcast like the different criteria that we look for that like the To to check the boxes of things that we'd like in a business idea.
Brian Casel:And through through years of that, there there's also been a negative checklist. Like the like the list of things that I will never touch.
Jordan Gal:Right? Consumer, hardware.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. Things like that. Consumer, hardware Yeah. Marketplaces Yeah.
Brian Casel:You know. The science. Whatever my There there's probably a whole bunch of stuff in there that's like, I would never touch that. Right? Or, you know, but I I think the the idea that came to me this week started to It it started to remind me like, hey, sometimes it might be worth revisiting and questioning why some of those negative items exist.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And may Maybe we can break my own rules here and there if interesting angle on it.
Jordan Gal:Under what circumstances?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Under what circumstances. Yeah. You know?
Jordan Gal:Well, what we know is that most business ideas that all of us have should not actually be pursued.
Brian Casel:And Yeah. It's it's a process of like validating and and like yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah. So we'll so we'll, you know, we'll we'll catch up with you in a week or two weeks and kinda see does it stay intact? Does it disappear? Does it morph into something slightly different than what you think it is right now?
Brian Casel:But I for
Jordan Gal:one think it's very interesting and there's some there's some version of the solution out there that would help a lot of people.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And and yeah, like right now where I sit today is I'm about two days into like furiously writing notes and and positioning and and and laying out what the problem is, who it's for, how it can go to market, and how it can how it can function and starting to do some market research. So I'm I'm in that hurricane of of research on this thing. But I'm also pretty conflicted. I don't know yet if I'm ready to actually do any any new product or this new product and does it fit into my current state of working with, you know, I I'm I'm gonna continue bootstrapping.
Brian Casel:Gonna continue work, know, maintaining Clarity Flow and doing the consulting stuff. Can I make this work? Is it the type of product that I can work into my schedule?
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Brian Casel:But I'm like balancing that with that there's a fire over here that I'm like, there's something.
Jordan Gal:Interesting. You know. Well, that's motivation you need to just take on something where you are all of your time is already accounted for. I I I think about this stuff from the competitor point of view. Sometimes I will come across like our main competitor and then I'll do some research on the founder.
Jordan Gal:I'm like, why does this person exist?
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Why does this one person who had this one set of weird experiences that's now running my damn competitor Mhmm. Like how much easier would life be if this one person that have these crazy set of experiences and now is in the market just like me. God damn
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Of course, that's you know, that's that's not how it works. Yeah. But but these things are they are coincidental. If you're not copycatting, which is nothing wrong with, and you're coming up with new stuff, then it does feel crazy like, how come no one else has done this? Am am I the idiot because I'm the first?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Or are they all dead because it didn't work out?
Brian Casel:Yeah. And and I mean, I I I do have my week structured in a way where, you know, I'm I'm making a comfortable living by doing a little bit of consulting like two two three days a week and and kinda watering that plant like I like to say on on Clarity Flow a couple days a week. And I've got a good team who makes progress daily over there. And that does actually leave me with like roughly two two days a week to hack on new stuff. And and it usually progresses.
Brian Casel:Like usually like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday is like get get my business taken care of. And then as I get to Thursday, Friday, Friday we're doing this podcast. But like Thursday, Friday is like my time. That's when I start to hack on new ideas. Okay.
Brian Casel:So
Jordan Gal:Well, I like the idea of you using that time to hack on something that you you know, are really into. I like that.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. And like you know, and and it's also like I'm I'm taking this like no pressure approach that like, even if whatever this thing I'm thinking about, if it doesn't go anywhere, you know, I could work on it for a couple weeks and if it's not going anywhere, I can just pause it That's right. Move move on to something else, you know.
Jordan Gal:That's right.
Brian Casel:Not the end of the world.
Jordan Gal:Cool. We'll look forward to hearing more about it. Either way, thanks everyone for listening and bearing with us through some politics maybe people.
Brian Casel:No hate mail on the politics,
Jordan Gal:please. I will not be around next week. I'm in Mexico City with my wife on vacation while our kids are at camp. Things are good.
Brian Casel:Beautiful, dude.
Jordan Gal:I'll miss July 4. Love this country. Go America. Yes. Thanks.
Jordan Gal:Listen, everyone.
Brian Casel:Later, folks.
