Bootstrapped Web

Jordan Gal: 00:10

This is Bootstrap Web episode number 62. This is the podcast for you, the founder who learns by doing as you bootstrap your business online. And today, we're gonna talk about transitioning from one thing to the next and all the wonderful, lovely, non stressful things that go along with it. As always, good to be back. I am Jordan.

Brian Casel: 00:34

And I'm Brian. Jordan, welcome welcome back. Did you have a good trip?

Jordan Gal: 00:37

I had a great trip. I have, like, I have, like, the nerves, you know, like, from the first time we recorded this. Like, it's really been a while. And I enjoyed listening to last week's episode with you and Brian Brian Clark? Adam Clark.

Brian Casel: 00:50

Adam Clark. Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 00:51

Yes. Yeah. It was funny to listen to what's presumably my own podcast without me there. And I I I really enjoyed it. You know?

Jordan Gal: 00:59

Maybe maybe it's better without me or maybe it's just that one episode. But it it it was cool. Nice work on it.

Brian Casel: 01:04

Yeah. No. You know, good to have you back. And, that was a that was a good conversation with Adam talking about podcasting. And Mhmm.

Brian Casel: 01:10

He he definitely let me know all the things that we're doing wrong over here, so that was good.

Jordan Gal: 01:15

Yeah. He seems very real and comfortable in being honest. And it was very interesting to hear him say how he started off the podcast doing kind of what other people do and then kinda was repulsed by that and went to what he really wanted to do. And that's when

Brian Casel: 01:34

And that's what took off.

Jordan Gal: 01:35

Right. That's what took off. Very, very interesting. Good for him.

Brian Casel: 01:38

Yeah. Totally. So when you went on on your vacation here, were you working, or was it like totally disconnect, hanging out with the family type of deal?

Jordan Gal: 01:46

It was not disconnect. It was it was stressful, and and I had to do some some work at strange hours. Fortunately, now it is not just me in the company, so things kept moving forward. But it definitely exposed a lot of gaps that need to be addressed. So what happens when I'm not there?

Jordan Gal: 02:11

Presumably, things should run on as normal, and things that did not run on as normal need to be addressed so that in the future, when one person isn't there, things kinda keep keep moving forward. So it was it was good in that sense, but more than anything, it was just a great trip. I went back to Israel, you know, where where I'm from, where I was born. So to have my family there and my kids, like, back where I grew up and everything, it was it was really cool.

Brian Casel: 02:34

Yeah. That sounds like a lot of fun. Cool. So let's see. I mean, you know, I I don't have a very big update today, but, you know, the one thing would be yesterday, I ran a a live workshop talking about productized services, and, it's a it was it's a presentation that I've done a couple of times and, updated a little bit for 2015 and and sharing some of the stories from from our current batch of students and whatnot.

Brian Casel: 03:02

I just I just love doing webinars now. Like, I I honestly think they're they're like so much fun, and they're just such a really great way to connect, like, connect live with the audience, obviously. I mean and I mean, you know, we we we did a whole episode on it, but they really are a good sales tool. I mean, obviously, because you you get to teach and, you know, establish, you know, trust and and authority and and all that. And then and then, of course, you know, pitch a pitch a product and and and that sort of thing.

Brian Casel: 03:35

And that's what I did for the product highest course yesterday, kind of keeping that going in 2015. But I again, it's just a lot of fun. And what I really loved about it is the q and a session because I was actually on the webinar for over two hours yesterday just answering questions. I did about thirty or forty minute lesson in the beginning and then about an hour and a half of of q and a, which I'd I had no voice at the end of it, but it was just it was a a ton of fun. I I love kinda talking with with with with everyone who came.

Brian Casel: 04:09

I, you know, had about a 180, 190 people attending live, four eighty or so registered for it. And it was just folks from from my newsletter. So that was that was really cool to connect with everyone.

Jordan Gal: 04:23

Nice. I I think it's a healthy thing to, a, get good at, and, b, to enjoy. And, yeah. I I and it's a great sign that there was so much q and a. Right?

Jordan Gal: 04:37

That means people are interested in the topic and see you as the right person to ask these questions. So, yeah, I'd I'm eagerly I'm I'm excited to introduce webinars into the mix for CartHook. It's it's not quite there yet. We've got some other priorities, but I'm I'm really looking forward to it. And I I agree.

Jordan Gal: 04:56

In terms of the fun factor, once you get past the first one or two and the nerves go away and then just you know, all the tech issues, all all these things that make webinars seem daunting, once you get past those and get used to it, it's kinda like this this podcast. Right? At first, it's you're nervous and you're not sure. It's just like publishing blog posts. The first few are the most challenging.

Jordan Gal: 05:19

And once you get into it, I think it's a it's a great thing to get good at.

Brian Casel: 05:22

Yeah. Just like anything else, you know, get past that that first one or two, and and you you get more comfortable afterward. But, yeah, like, I've I've really learned this whole process of really optimizing the webinar and and getting the engagement going before the webinar and and having the right kind of reminder emails and the follow-up emails and all and all that. And so I've got it all kinda kinda dialed in at this point. So at some point soon in in the future, either on my blog or maybe on this podcast, we'll go through, like, the whole process of of setting it up.

Jordan Gal: 05:55

I think that'd be really valuable. Even even if you know what you need to do, even if in theory, you know, okay. Once someone signs up, let's register them for the webinar, let's also add them to my email list, let's make sure they get a reminder, let's make sure they get several reminders, at least one of which includes additional value like a handout, or even in theory you know all these things, then once you start setting it up, you it's kind of more painful than expected. Yeah. Considering where we are in 2015 when all these different services working beautifully together, the webinar connection to all these different services is surprisingly annoying.

Jordan Gal: 06:33

Yeah. I was I was struck by, you know, how often I got frustrated in that in that process. So I think that'd be really really valuable to hear.

Brian Casel: 06:42

Yeah. So what's what's your update?

Jordan Gal: 06:46

Well, the the Israel thing, right? It's nice to be back in Portland. I have never experienced jet lag like like this past week. I don't know if it's just because I'm old or because there's a big fat ten hour difference

Brian Casel: 07:00

or I gonna ask it. So it's ten hours?

Jordan Gal: 07:02

It's ten hours, and it's also the kids. Oh my goodness. I you know, usually I just shrug it off after a day, and this this hurts. It would Yeah. You know, 08:00 at night would come around, and I would feel drunk.

Jordan Gal: 07:14

I'd feel like I don't wanna hold the baby because I feel like I'm gonna fall over. Yes. So that that hurt, but now that's getting better. On the business front, on Cardhook, you know, things are good, man. Things are rocking.

Jordan Gal: 07:29

I got some really interesting things happening, in the background that I hope to be able to announce very soon. Can't quite yet. And I know that's kind of an annoying thing to say, but it's just honest. And the other piece is, you know, the outbound sales efforts that, I talked about and described a few weeks ago, they're starting to pay off, and they are working better than expected. Whatever expectations I could have had for it, they are beating that by far.

Jordan Gal: 08:01

So it's just really exciting that that old saying of sales cures all ills. I'm not sure if that's a saying. I may have just made that up, but you know what I mean. But you know, new people coming in the door, new free trials, new activations, people just moving through the system that way, it it has a way of putting everything into perspective that that's the most important thing. All these other things like new features, and new integrations, and new this, and automating this part, it's just not as important to just just keep the sales common, baby.

Jordan Gal: 08:33

Yeah. So that yeah. That's really exciting.

Brian Casel: 08:35

And what what I really like about that is you essentially hired like a sales manager to like set up the whole outbound sales process and the strategy and and the people and the systems. Like you like you weren't actually even the one who to to do most of that. I mean, you've you've done some of it yourself. But

Jordan Gal: 08:54

Right. So I knew enough from from my experience on what I wanted to get done. It's just that I was so busy with everything else that I knew if I didn't hire someone else to do it, that it wouldn't get done the same way and at the same speed. And I'm just so happy. Not only did that happen, but the person that I hired is genuinely better at me than it.

Jordan Gal: 09:13

So everything's going going better. And, yeah, this is a manager and, you know, shameless plug real quick. This is what I wanna talk about as a hopeful attendee talk at MicroConf. So if you're going to MicroConf and you wanna hear about how I put this whole outbound sales process together and the people and all all these different pieces, then, you know, vote for Pedro, baby. You get that when you get that email, you have

Brian Casel: 09:39

vote similar for to the one that I submitted to, so we're we're competing head to head on this one.

Jordan Gal: 09:43

May maybe maybe we'll do it together. You never know. Yeah. So this and and what happened over the past few weeks was a a very big a quiet, but very big event in the business. So somebody was reached out to as a prospect, was convinced to do a consultation demo appointment, whatever you wanna call it.

Jordan Gal: 10:08

The demo was done. The follow-up was done. They sign up for a free trial, and they launch their free trial like that, activate it, all without ever interacting with me. Didn't talk to me, didn't email with me, has no idea who I am, has no no no basis on the relationship with me having anything to do with them signing on board. All this this whole thing happened without me having any involvement, and it seems like this little thing is just one more free trial, but in reality, it's it's this big step toward the ability to I hate the word, but but scale,

Brian Casel: 10:41

actually. I mean, that is a huge milestone. That that might even be bigger than, like, getting customer number one. You

Jordan Gal: 10:46

know? Right. Because I I agree. Because getting customer one is a piece of it. It it proves that you can get 10 customers, but at some point, you you can't get a 100, you can't get a thousand customers with without without this next milestone.

Jordan Gal: 11:00

So very, very happy about that.

Brian Casel: 11:01

Beautiful thing. Good work. Thank you. So how about some iTunes reviews? Looks like we got we have one Smart people.

Brian Casel: 11:09

If you guys are tuning in, we really appreciate you heading over to iTunes and giving us a review. So this one comes from Mitch Bitts. Five stars. He says, simply amazing. Practical, actionable advice for web entrepreneurs.

Brian Casel: 11:24

I've read startup books that have nebulous concepts that leave that leave me with questions. These guys give real advice from the trenches that will help you strategically plan your year, market, develop, and sell your product. I usually don't leave reviews, but I just had I just had to do it this time. Thanks everything, guys.

Jordan Gal: 11:42

Awesome.

Brian Casel: 11:43

Awesome. Well, thank you, sir.

Jordan Gal: 11:44

Thank you very much. That

Brian Casel: 11:47

one kinda reminded me of the of that Dosekis commercial. Right? Like, I don't always leave reviews, but when I do,

Jordan Gal: 11:52

I leave for bootstrapping. With. Cool. Well, thank you for that. Alright.

Jordan Gal: 11:58

So let's jump into this topic we wanted to talk about today, transitioning. Right? Like, what what are we talking about? It's from one project to the next, one business to the next, one form of income to the next. It's something that a lot of us in the web world and the freelance world, do relatively often, sometimes more often than we care to actually do.

Jordan Gal: 12:23

But every time you do it, it's, it's filled with uncertainty and fear and excitement. So that's kind of what we're gonna talk about today and we'll relate some of our stories in the past and some of what we are dealing with now and how it all relates to to the transition from one thing to the next.

Brian Casel: 12:42

Yeah. I mean, you know, this idea of just pursuing different things and and moving from one one thing to the next, I think that's that's actually just that in itself is a big reason why I do what I do. And I think maybe a lot of us do what what we do is like that freedom to to to to change things up, you know, when you need to or, you know, do multiple things at once. I mean, I'm really not a fan of doing multiple things at once even though I do it and it's and it's a problem. But, you know, as much as I'd like to, sometimes it doesn't like, I have to balance a couple different things at the same time.

Brian Casel: 13:22

But really, the goal here is to focus on one business at a time. I mean, today, that for me, that that is restaurant engine. That's what it's been for the last three or four years. And, you know, but just this idea that, like, it it it's okay to move on to the next thing. And and having that as as part of what we do for in our career, moving from one thing to the next, I I just think that's that's, like, something that I value very highly is, like, that that ability to always kinda do something new and not be locked into something for, like, ten years plus.

Jordan Gal: 13:55

Right. One career, one position, one company year. Yeah. I don't think that does doesn't sound appealing to the type of people that, that we are listening to this podcast. Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 14:06

There is there is an element to looking forward to being able to only focus on one thing because that means it's growing and it's generating enough income that you can only focus on that one thing and you can kinda achieve more of your potential when you focus on that one thing. But but there there are always these transition periods between one thing and the other. And, you know, that's that's kinda where, yeah, where we wanna focus. I mean, where do you wanna start? Is it is it really know, one

Brian Casel: 14:31

thing I just wanted to talk about here because I think part of it is, like, my personal situation where we're at now, like February heading into March in 2015. But I I also hear from so many people who are making a similar transition. Most of the people I talk to are kinda transitioning from client work to launching their first product or, you know, trying to phase out their last bit of client work to focus full time on the product that that they've been doing on the side or, you know, things like that. Or or maybe that you're on a product and you're kinda getting a little bit burnt out on it, time to think about the next thing. So there are a lot of us in this transition phase.

Brian Casel: 15:08

That's kind of who who we're speaking to today. But but, you know, I'm I also find myself today in this in this mindset of thinking about, you know, what's what's next. And I kinda wanted to just give a little bit of an update on my annual goals for 2015 because I I think that they changed in a pretty big way over the past four or five weeks or so. If you if you go back a couple of episodes here, we did our we did our our goals for this year. And, you know, I I had mentioned how like a a big goal was to really like dial in the the sales funnel for restaurant engine and I and I did a bunch of work on that and certain things kind of improved there.

Brian Casel: 15:53

But, you know, now I'm and so okay. So let let me step back. My my goal going into the year was, alright, focus on restaurant engine for like six to eight months. And then by the 2015, like, start to think about moving on. But I'm I'm starting to move that up and start to think about doing that now.

Brian Casel: 16:14

And I'm and I kinda came to this realization that, you know, maybe I'm I've been procrastinating that decision for a while. Because if I think back, it was actually in 2013 when I started saying, like, I'm gonna give Restaurant Engine like one more year. 2014, it was like, okay. This this year, I'm gonna kinda give it one more big push and then think about what's next. Now, here I am in 2015.

Brian Casel: 16:37

How many times am I gonna say like one more year? I think it's time to kinda I I guess now I'm I'm just really motivated to to just start seriously thinking about what's next. And that doesn't necessarily mean I'm stopping work on Restaurant Engine. I mean, it's it's running, you know, pretty nicely today. And and I think it it'll continue to run that way for the foreseeable future.

Brian Casel: 17:00

And and it has its systems and whatnot. But

Jordan Gal: 17:03

It's it's more about the the commitment, mental and otherwise. Yeah. Right? And and let me just ask you. I assume people listening also have the same question.

Jordan Gal: 17:12

When when you said to yourself one more year, what what was that? What was that goal? One more. I'll give it one more year to get to x to to break out to kind of

Brian Casel: 17:24

You know, it's it's think it's a little with Restaurant Engine, I've I've had certain, like, you know, number based goals, like number of customers and revenue targets and and all that. And and but I I I think more than that, I've had like learning goals. For for me, like, Restaurant Engine was always really like a a big learning experience for me. Like, when I first started it, I looking back, I I knew nothing back then. I just wanted to try building this.

Brian Casel: 17:59

And and I really always looked at it like a like a big learning project and not the be all, end all, big company startup that will consume me for the next five to ten years. I I honestly didn't expect to be working on it this long.

Jordan Gal: 18:16

But So you always had the expectation of transitioning at some point, and I guess that that that leverage point was either a certain amount per month or a certain amount of responsibility taken off of your hands that it was kinda running on its own. Because I guess you've you've had this in mind Yeah. For for a long time.

Brian Casel: 18:36

Yeah. And I think at certain times in in the history, I in some ways, I kind of rushed jumped the gun on moving on. Like, maybe I tried to move on too too quickly and started other projects on the side when when Restaurant Engine was not I I didn't feel it was totally complete yet in my mind. And now I feel like it's a little bit more complete.

Jordan Gal: 18:57

And Maybe maybe that's not as valid today. It being complete now now it's starting to become you know, is Yeah. Is it is it just it's just you? Is it procrastinating it's just not making the decision to to do it?

Brian Casel: 19:09

Yeah. And I and I think a lot of like, obviously, it it can it can grow. There there are lot of things in it in this business that can be improved and that can be that can, you know, grow bigger than they are. But at a certain point, it's it's it's like, I I I feel like I've I've gotten what I what I need what I needed to learn from this business. And

Jordan Gal: 19:30

I will agree with that.

Brian Casel: 19:31

And and then there there are so okay. So just an update on my twenty fifteen goals. Now my my new goal is to get something new off the ground. And I I'm actually testing and and playing around with today, I have about three different potential ideas. They're all, like, very different from one one another.

Brian Casel: 19:53

Mhmm. And I'll I'll share more about these in the coming weeks.

Jordan Gal: 19:58

I'm looking looking looking forward to that and just the decision making process around it.

Brian Casel: 20:02

Yeah. You know, I'm doing some kind of early validation kind of like behind closed doors in in a way. And so I'm I'm going through this process of thinking about new ideas and figuring out, like, what the criteria for the right ideas are and seeing what has the most potential and trying not to spend too much time on one thing before I I validate it or invalidate it. So that's kind of the phase that where I'm at. And it's to be honest it's like a super stressful and and pretty scary time because in my mind restaurant engine has been the number one focus for for years now.

Brian Casel: 20:41

And, to think that it's it's no longer the focus is, it's it's like a really scary thing.

Jordan Gal: 20:48

I think that's the the thing about transitioning in in these cases. You you feel like you can't win. You feel like everything is risky because if you focus on what you're currently doing, you you kind of already know the limitations of it and so you are foregoing other opportunities. But then if you start focusing on other opportunities, you you're you're losing ground on on the other thing that already works. So no matter what you do, it's like this leap of faith that feels risky.

Brian Casel: 21:19

Yeah. Yeah. It's true. I mean, I I do feel pretty confident in our team and the procedures that that we've had in place. And, like, we continue to to bring on new customers that I don't have to touch or see.

Brian Casel: 21:32

I mean, you know, a a couple of hours a week, I'd say, are are tickets that get, like, escalated to me, and I need to deal with certain things. But for the most part, we've got the customer support. We've got the sales system in in place and all that. So pretty pretty solid there in terms of, like, letting the thing run on on autopilot, at least for the foreseeable future. But, you know, just there is that that give and take where, like, you you start to focus on one thing, then you can't really do new initiatives and push on your on your main thing.

Brian Casel: 22:10

But I think there's also an opposite of that. Right? I think there's at a certain point, you're you're missing out on an opportunity to start something new. And the longer that you procrastinate that and delay that start, you know, the you're you're it's you're you're delaying. So and I'm I'm starting to finally come around to this idea that, like like, before it was like shiny object syndrome, and I'm trying to do too many things at once.

Brian Casel: 22:36

Mhmm. And now it's like, alright. It it's time to, like, in my in my mindset actually, you know, transition.

Jordan Gal: 22:43

Yeah. No. I I I think you're doing the right thing. It's it does not sound like shiny object syndrome, and I agree that your experience with restaurant engine, you know, where you started off as a freelancer to now, you know, running a team that's distributed that handles all these different things for a SaaS. And I I think those skills are what you they're the highest value that you'll get out of Restaurant Engine and can then be applied to another business.

Jordan Gal: 23:18

And I think if you choose the right business, taking the exact same skills that you have in Restaurant Engine can bring you five or 10 times the return on your time and and money investment. So I think that's that's that's kind of if you look at it coldly and objectively, and if you're not the actual person who's living a life with, like, a wife and kids who you know, inside of it, then that that's what it looks like.

Brian Casel: 23:42

Yeah. Cool. I mean and and I think that there are, you know, maybe we can hop into this in in a couple minutes, but, like, criteria for for the new idea. Right. And there's a there's a lot of of things that, like, you know, is something that's kind of in line with with online business owners and and some kind of overlap with my audience and try to get more to that crowd rather than, I mean, restaurants and and hotels.

Brian Casel: 24:08

But, I mean, you know, you you've kinda been through this before. You you've you've built and then sold the business and then transitioned into into Cart Hook. I mean, what was that transition like for you?

Jordan Gal: 24:19

It was a lot a lot of transitions.

Brian Casel: 24:21

Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 24:23

You know, one of the is a lot. Right? A a lot. So I I liken it to being at a job, like a jobby job, corporate job. And then when you decide that you wanna leave, that you wanna quit, that you wanna move on to the next thing, every minute while you're still at that job is excruciating because you you have checked out mentally.

Jordan Gal: 24:45

So so this a similar type of thing happens when you're running a business. At some point in the ecommerce business, we were growing and growing and growing. And as we grew, the pain grew of customer support and all these issues. And we had like a decision point of, okay, cool. We are doing something like 65 k a month in revenue.

Jordan Gal: 25:09

And that's great and that sounds great, but it's retail, so the margins aren't that great. And then we had to kinda make a decision. Okay. Are we gonna keep going on this and and try to double this over the next year? Or should we look to sell it?

Jordan Gal: 25:21

And once we had that conversation and mentally started to get into the mindset of, you know what? Let's sell this thing. Let's move on to the next thing. It was very hard to commit and focus the same way. And so it's almost like it was it the ship had sailed.

Jordan Gal: 25:38

And I I I think I've told this story about my stupidity in in the customer service was the highest point pain point. We were selling products made in China that were lighting products and the quality was not great. And we had to deal with the manufacturers and deal with a lot of returns. And so we assumed stupidly that as we grew that would continue to grow. And after we made the decision to sell and we started looking at the next thing, we outsourced all of our customer support to a call center and we assumed that would be a disaster, which is why we couldn't do it before that.

Jordan Gal: 26:18

And Mhmm. In truth, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing happened.

Brian Casel: 26:22

Actually worked out fine.

Jordan Gal: 26:23

Everything worked out just fine, and it was perfectly affordable. And then there was a moment of like, oh, man. Now we just figured out the most painful part of the business. We just figured it out after we already mentally checked out, and it was like too late. It was like, I can't go back into that business.

Jordan Gal: 26:38

I can't sit back down and focus on it. And that was kind of a painful lesson. The the the good lesson that came out of the transition is at first when we sold it and the the offer was one portion upfront in cash and one portion paid out over time. At at first, we weren't happy about that because we said just, you know, we just want the money upfront obviously. And in reality the the the money that came over time was a huge help in the transition because it had we had income coming in while not working on the business.

Jordan Gal: 27:22

So when thinking about transitions, something to that effect. I know it's hard it's hard with client work to keep money coming in, but if you can minimize the amount of time you spend but maximize the amount of income you still get, whether that's an earn out for selling your business or looking at your client base as a as a consultant and saying, I'm going to cut all clients except these three because these guys never ask for anything out of the ordinary and I do exactly how much work I expect to do and I make the money I expect to make and they actually pay. Whatever that is, that balance of let me transition while still making some money and minimizing the amount of time I need to commit to make that money, that I think is one of the healthiest things you can do.

Brian Casel: 28:10

Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 28:11

It's very it's very hard with a full time job. It's very hard with consulting clients. You know, the ideal is a payout after you sold the business, so you don't have to do any work at all. But some element of that definitely helps.

Brian Casel: 28:23

Yeah. And I I think, that's a really great point about phasing out of client work and focusing on just, you know, the the couple of clients who who've been really great. That's actually exactly how I did it when I was transitioning away from client work into focusing full time on Restaurant Engine. I there was a, like, a year long period of of phasing down from, like, from, like, five simultaneous client jobs to four to three to two. And the ones that I kept on and and and then at the very end, I had, like, one or two that just lasted, an additional three or four months.

Brian Casel: 29:00

Those were, like, my long time clients who who were my best ever clients. And even, like, a couple months after I phased out, you know, a client or two from, like, years ago, just reached out out of out of the blue about a new project. And and I almost couldn't, you know, say no just because I know how easy they are to work with and it's like, why not? So so yeah. I mean, that that center you know, you had a great story of of your whole transition and and and the story building that business on your Mixergy interview, which we'll have to link up in this show.

Brian Casel: 29:35

But, you know, I I am curious. So I understand that the customer support was like the biggest kind of bottleneck and and pain point in that business that kind of triggered you guys to start to think about selling. But like, what what was that first? Can you remember back to, like, that first moment when you when you changed that mindset to from, like, alright, this is the business that we're trying to grow to maybe this is it for this bit for this one?

Jordan Gal: 30:10

You know, I I I don't really recall them. I recall I recall one conversation in particular where it it's almost as if it never dawned on us that we could sell it. We were just so busy trying to grow and manage what was happening in the business that, you know, it wasn't that often, maybe once a week, that we would sit around and talk, like, more strategically. Like, hey. What's going on?

Jordan Gal: 30:33

What is this? What should we do with it? And one of those conversations, I don't even know what sparked it, but it was just kinda thrown out there. Like, hey. Maybe we should sell it.

Jordan Gal: 30:47

And that conversation alone was like, yeah. You know what? Let me email a broker. It it was like this almost this throwaway thing wasn't this big strategic decision. I mean, these things sort of bubble up for a reason.

Jordan Gal: 31:00

Right? It's almost like the the pain got to a certain point or the revenue got to a certain point or the exhaustion or a combination. Yeah. It was it was a lot of that. A lot of these new types of decisions of should we hire someone for support?

Jordan Gal: 31:13

Should we get a call center? Do we need an office outside of my apartment in Brooklyn? You so a a lot of these things kind of all came up at the same time. So I'm sure that that's where that originated. Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 31:25

But that that was just the nature of it. You know,

Brian Casel: 31:27

the

Jordan Gal: 31:27

previous transition from the first business I launched, which was a political, website that was, like, advertising based, I had a conversation with a family friend and investor, and he basically I mean, I don't wanna be too vulgar. He he just destroyed us. He just he just wanted to be honest with us because he was a family friend. And we walked away from that lunch, my brother and I looking at each other like, I think it might be time to do something else. That so that was that transition.

Jordan Gal: 31:59

So I think it depends on the on the situation. Yeah.

Brian Casel: 32:03

I guess in either of those transitions, may maybe more so the ecommerce went into Cardhook. Okay. So so two questions. Alright. So as you're going through the process of starting to sell that business and you know that, like, alright, we're winding this down.

Brian Casel: 32:18

We're gonna be exiting from this in the in the very near future. At that point, are you starting to work on new stuff and think about what's next? Or are you just kinda getting this deal done and then gonna kinda kinda, like, step back and take a break and take a long time to really think through what's next?

Jordan Gal: 32:37

I wish it was that, clean-cut. In in reality, after selling the ecommerce business, I went and worked for the family business again and gave that a go in a different way. And we tried to structure it differently, and it just it just did not work out. And the family relationships are more important than business, so we decided to go our separate ways before the relationships were harmed, which was a a good thing. So

Brian Casel: 33:05

Gotcha. Wild. So that was like the the the plan for afterward. And then and then how did you start to think about like what's next? And and like

Jordan Gal: 33:13

what But it it was a gap and it was it was looking back on it, you can call it a mistake because after leaving after during the ecommerce business and in the transition and afterward, I kept saying to myself, I want to get into software. I want to get into a recurring revenue model. I looked back at what we had just accomplished over the past twelve months, you know, 4,000 or so paying customers, $500,000 in revenue, you know, in twelve months. And it was the first few months were like nothing. So it's really like in nine months.

Jordan Gal: 33:47

And then and then you have nothing to show for it. You have you have no recurring revenue. We didn't choose the right products that had, like, an element to replenishment. And I just said to myself, if I am anywhere near as successful at selling a recurring product as I was at selling a physical non recurring product, I will be in so much better shape after a year or or whatever a business. So I always had in my mind and we kept looking at the tools that we used as an ecommerce store.

Jordan Gal: 34:16

I mean, that's where the idea from Carta came from.

Brian Casel: 34:19

Right.

Jordan Gal: 34:19

So I I had this stuck in my mind the whole time. When I finally made the the decision, I did not go cold turkey. I didn't leave the family business 100%. I said, you know, I said, guys, what I would like to do is I would like to, move. I'd like to move away from New York and Connecticut and be able to do consulting work for you while I worked on the next thing.

Jordan Gal: 34:45

So that was essentially, I had one consulting client while transitioning. Similar thing to what to what you did. And that was I mean, it was

Dan Norris: 34:55

a

Jordan Gal: 34:55

savior because not only could I clear my head and I I had a a customer that trusted me and I knew how to do good work for, and I knew was gonna pay. And that that just gave me the peace of mind to say, all I need to do is just do my work and my income will be taken care of and find the motivation to take the rest of my time and get the next thing off the ground,

Brian Casel: 35:23

which is

Jordan Gal: 35:23

always harder than expected.

Brian Casel: 35:26

Yeah. I mean so, you know, like that this idea of, like, the criteria for that next thing. You you mentioned that, you know, you were very much in the mindset of, like, alright. Whatever is next has to be some kind of recurring revenue software based thing. And and this is this is also where where my head is at right now is just thinking through the specific criteria for what is the exact right idea to go after.

Brian Casel: 35:52

I mean, like, one piece is obviously, like, validating the idea in a market and making sure that you can acquire customers and and and there's a viable business model there and all that. But there's I think there's an a very big other piece, and that's, like, whether or not this idea is the right idea for you, the founder, like, the founder idea fit and the timing of that? Like, is this the right time to go after something like like

Jordan Gal: 36:16

Yeah.

Brian Casel: 36:17

Like that? You know?

Jordan Gal: 36:18

So And money. And money. Money. Money.

Brian Casel: 36:20

And money. Yeah. Absolutely. So Yeah. I mean, I always think

Jordan Gal: 36:23

I always think about Blow. You know, that that movie Blow?

Brian Casel: 36:26

Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 36:26

The cocaine movie. Right? So in in the sell, he says, George, you you had the wrong dream, George. You know? You're you're selling the wrong thing.

Brian Casel: 36:34

Right.

Jordan Gal: 36:34

And that's that's always, like, my big fear in business.

Brian Casel: 36:37

Like Great movie.

Jordan Gal: 36:38

If it it is a great movie. If you succeed and don't do spectacularly well financially, then you had the wrong dream. You know? Yeah. This is this is that that's like yeah.

Jordan Gal: 36:51

It's one of my biggest fears. So I I always want to make sure that I have the right dream, that if I do succeed, it's gonna be phenomenal financially. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, this is a very I just wanna say a very funny thing.

Jordan Gal: 37:05

You and I first met in a mastermind group. And when we first met, I was in the exact same position. Yeah. I was like, I have these ideas. I don't know which one to pursue.

Brian Casel: 37:17

I remember you were you were kinda going through what was like two or three different ideas?

Jordan Gal: 37:20

Yeah. A few different ideas, and I was like, guys, help me understand the criteria for the right thing to pursue. Yep. Yeah. And it's kind of the same type of situation that you're in.

Jordan Gal: 37:31

I think you're a lot more experienced than I was at that point in in running this sort of thing.

Brian Casel: 37:36

Yeah. So I mean, like, today and this is this will probably change by next week. But today, I have three pretty clear cut ideas in my mind. Some are a little bit more developed than others. All of them, like, super early stage.

Brian Casel: 37:48

But And then all of all these ideas, I think, play into a a list of criteria that I've been thinking a lot about. I actually wrote an article on my on my blog about a month or two ago. What was that called? I'll link it up in the show notes. But basically, I I listed out I called it the right idea at the right time.

Brian Casel: 38:11

And basically, I listed out, like, like, list of criteria that I'm really giving a lot of hard thought to as to what I pursue next. And I guess I can run through that right now. And Yeah. So okay. Number one, b to b, selling to businesses.

Brian Casel: 38:30

That's just something that I I I can't really see any way I'd I'd be selling to consumers. I just

Jordan Gal: 38:36

I'm in.

Brian Casel: 38:36

Not gonna touch that.

Jordan Gal: 38:37

I I I would I'd put that first too. I totally agree.

Brian Casel: 38:42

Yep. You know, is for my people. That's something that that I I really feel kinda strongly about. And I I don't necessarily mean, like, building a a product that has to serve directly all the a a large portion of the people who are, like, on my email newsletter list or listening to this podcast. But just some kind of, like, overlap or, like, a degree of separation.

Brian Casel: 39:05

Essentially, what I'm saying is, like, something for online business owners. Mhmm.

Jordan Gal: 39:11

Yeah. I think this one's dangerous.

Brian Casel: 39:13

That that

Jordan Gal: 39:14

one that one's a little dangerous. But it but you have to know yourself. I I am comfortable being cynical and, like, I don't really care that much as long as I feel like I can provide them a lot of value and therefore, they'll pay me a lot of money.

Brian Casel: 39:26

I think that's what what my mindset was when I started Restaurant Engine. Mhmm. You know, obviously, had never had any kind of personal connection to the restaurant industry or restaurant owners or whatever. At the time, I was I I I had this mindset of I I could I could streamline this process of building a WordPress site for a small business. Let's just pick a niche that that's the right fit for.

Jordan Gal: 39:47

Right. I can do it. Therefore, I should do it. That has led me astray many times.

Brian Casel: 39:53

Yeah. And but I think now, you know, I and and I think there's nothing wrong with that either. Like, I I don't regret doing you know, going about it that way a couple of years ago. Because at the time, I didn't I I I didn't really not that I didn't know any better, but I I didn't even have any sort of audience at the time or any kind of traction in not that I have a ton of traction now. But, I mean, now, like, things are a little bit farther along.

Brian Casel: 40:19

Like, I've been doing the productized course, and I'll I'm gonna continue to to develop that over the next year and and all the writing that I've been doing. So I'd like I'd like to to do some kind of business that's connected to that in some way. And and also a a part of this is something that I can really get behind as as like driving the content and and educating around. You know, for a large I I did write a lot of content for Restaurant Engine, but a lot of it is outsourced. And it's so it's just always been a real grind to to like educate that audience because I I truly believe that marketing today is education.

Brian Casel: 41:05

No matter what you're selling, it's education. You're you're you're educating best practices and how your product helps them achieve, you know, those best practices or or helps them solve some problem or educating around that problem, you know. And so whatever whatever is new, like, I not that I have to be the the one creating all the content, but it's just something that I'm I'm I'm able to get on stage and talk about or I'm able to write and podcast about or do videos and and enjoy doing that.

Jordan Gal: 41:35

Yeah. Right. Instead of instead of pretending. Yeah. Yep.

Jordan Gal: 41:37

I think this is a good aspiration, as opposed to an absolute necessity, but you gotta you gotta know yourself if if that's if that's what you wanna do next.

Brian Casel: 41:45

Yeah. So a couple other

Jordan Gal: 41:47

Yeah. What what's next?

Brian Casel: 41:48

Couple other things like, impact revenue. I think that's something, you know, especially selling to b to b. Like, if what I I mean, I love what you've what you've done with CartHook. I mean, it's literally, you make them more money. You you plug in CartHook, and I I mean, I love the way you do the, like, the the email reports every every week to to the free trials.

Brian Casel: 42:09

Like, hey, it's Jordan from Cardhook. Here's the money that we just gave you this week. You know? That's Yep. That's the, I think that's that's the goal when you're selling to businesses is to show them a clear cut ROI of using this tool.

Brian Casel: 42:23

So

Jordan Gal: 42:23

Right. And ideally, quantifiable.

Brian Casel: 42:26

And quantifiable. Right. Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 42:28

Right. So it's a good thing about these these but email software and lead generation software and, yeah, anything that's quantifiable, at least now a lot of things are with with all these different data points. Yeah. I think that's a good one. You know, when people say you can save people time or save them money or make them money, I think there's nothing more powerful than making people money.

Brian Casel: 42:50

Yep.

Jordan Gal: 42:51

Right? Like like FreshBooks, you know, you send better proposals, just all these things that impact right there, right at that intersection where the business makes money from their

Brian Casel: 43:03

Yeah. And and I think there are so many different ways or angles you can take to to touch that, you know, to to kinda do that. Right? I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be like

Jordan Gal: 43:17

Right. Like PPC. Right? Yeah. That quantifiable.

Brian Casel: 43:20

Yeah. So, you know, the next thing that I have here is do one thing exceptionally well. And as as as like focused and niched down as as Restaurant Engine is and and even as streamlined as it is with like our templates and our set of options and features, there's to me, there there's still too much there. Too too many variations in customer requests and pre sales questions and things that we need to explain and talk through in, like, different scenarios for different customers. And I've been happy with how we've been able to handle that load of customer questions and and presale stuff, but it has been a huge, huge challenge to train the team on how to answer all these different scenarios.

Brian Casel: 44:13

You know, it's been really, really challenging. So the next thing, you know, I I just really wanna keep it as focused as possible so that we do one thing and we do it in this same exact way every single time. And all the questions that we're gonna get related to this kind of fall into this set of 20 to 30 kind of canned responses. Of course, nothing is ever that clean-cut, but that's kind of the the idea.

Jordan Gal: 44:39

Yeah. You shrink you shrink the universe of potential issues. Yeah. I think that's a that's a tricky one and worth worth going after because, you know, what what one thing can you do that has enough impact that you can charge a a healthy sum for and that isn't already being done, you know, all over the place in a free version. It's it's it's tricky.

Jordan Gal: 45:03

And then once you get into it, right, card hook, card abandonment really specific. We are having difficulty not taking our eye off that ball. We just get all these feature requests and new things and new emails and can you email people after they purchase instead of just abandon and can you do exit intent also and it's it's really hard, but it's definitely healthy to start off at one focal point and see if that one thing in getting getting that right, if it if it can make enough of an impact on on people's business.

Brian Casel: 45:37

Yeah. Definitely. Next one I have here is is, delivers long term value. So, this is like avoiding churn and and cancellations is if if your thing can deliver value again, month after month, really year after year, that's the goal. And and I think that that's been like a really big win for us in Restaurant Engine is that, you know, we power their website.

Brian Casel: 46:01

It's so core to their business. Right. That to switch providers is it's a huge lift. It's a huge pain. They have to go hire some a new web designer, get a new web host.

Brian Casel: 46:12

Like, it's we're providing, like, an essential tool. It's and and it it's hard to get into that position, honestly.

Jordan Gal: 46:20

I mean,

Brian Casel: 46:21

know, powering a website for a business, that's obviously very central and and but most SaaS tools out there tend to be lower down on that on that scale of, like, how essential and core they are. Most I think a lot of things are, like, kinda nice to have. But, again, if if it can provide that return on investment every single month without without requiring too much time or effort from the user or from the customer. You know? Or if it if it really works into their workflow, like, seamlessly, then then it can deliver a lot of long term value.

Brian Casel: 46:59

That's that's the goal.

Jordan Gal: 47:01

Yep. I think that's yeah. The the high switching cost yeah. The right. The ideal is easy to start and hard to leave.

Jordan Gal: 47:11

Right? Yeah. And and some of these products that we use are they're they're tricky in that way. You think, alright. I'm gonna sign out for Unbounce and check out their landing pages.

Jordan Gal: 47:22

And then, you know, if I don't like it, I'll stop. And then when you wanna stop, all of a sudden, you realize, like, I have these six live landing pages that if I quit, I have to go deal with like moving the this sub domain and moving it over and then replicating the landing page and everything that's on. All of sudden, what started out as a very simple, oh, let me just give this thing a try. All of a sudden, leaving becomes very, very painful. Ideally, it's not that or it's annoying or it's, oh, I wanna leave it, but I it's not worth my time.

Jordan Gal: 47:51

Ideally, if this thing just keeps running and it keeps making me money, and why would I switch? Right. Like like a restaurant's website, I I assume it's hard to get someone to switch over to you. But once they're there, you know, they're they're not going anywhere.

Brian Casel: 48:04

Yeah. And I mean, you know, the a common reason for cancellation for us is like the restaurant closes or or, you know, there's really not much we can do about that. But it's it's much more rare that that they'll switch because they went to a different provider. You know, I'm not gonna talk about all everything out that that I wrote about in this post, but just to like, one or two more here. Like, one was, you know, somewhere in that 99 a month and up.

Brian Casel: 48:32

Really, like, 49 to 99 to, like, $1.99 a month price range. We did a whole episode on is 99 the 19 a month. It just makes more more sense to to kinda kinda get in at that level. Even even a little bit higher, I'm looking at Right. For

Jordan Gal: 48:47

some reason. About I was about to say higher.

Brian Casel: 48:50

Yeah. You know, and and that gets back to how much value are are you providing and and how painful is the problem that you're solving and and all that.

Jordan Gal: 48:59

And who your customers are.

Brian Casel: 49:00

Yeah. And who you're targeting with the customer. Right?

Jordan Gal: 49:03

Yeah. We we would have a lot of pricing conversations internally. And one of the one of the proposed strategies is to to only go after higher end for the next few months with the assumption of if we can satisfy them and we can build a healthy profitable business just off of, you know, 20 or 30 clients, then we're in we're in just a very healthy position to continue going on with that and then start to offer things to lower tiers, but everything's already built out and everything is established. So instead of instead of trying to build a larger customer base of smaller customers and then move up, it's been proposed to let's focus on the upper tiers and and then work our way down. Don't know where we're gonna where we're gonna end up, but yeah.

Jordan Gal: 49:57

But these these things make a

Brian Casel: 49:58

makes lot of sense.

Jordan Gal: 49:59

Makes makes a big difference.

Brian Casel: 50:01

Yeah. So, I mean, when you were I remember, you know, when you were kinda kicking around like two or three different ideas before car and Kartik was one of them. Were you thinking about things like this? Like, these these kind of criteria, price points All day. Target target market?

Brian Casel: 50:15

Like, how did you kinda, you know, balance these things out?

Jordan Gal: 50:19

The the bottom line, the thing that made the decision for me was was the quantifiable impact on revenue. And and that's because it there's it removes a lot of ambiguity. It removes a lot of debate. It removes a lot of decision making. It's just straightforward.

Jordan Gal: 50:41

You know, one of my ideas was a CRM for ecommerce. We we dealt with a ton of customer support, and we hacked together Salesforce, Excel spreadsheet, just this this mess, the a few different pieces together to make sure we stayed on top of people's customer support and kinda blew them away with great service and never dropped the ball on a customer support issue. And it was it was a huge, huge pain point. And I assumed there were other ecommerce stores that were dealing with it and nothing integrated with the shopping cart platforms to just have access to the data. So instead, we'd use Salesforce, which is difficult to use to begin with.

Jordan Gal: 51:25

And we have to go in there and manually

Brian Casel: 51:27

That's not tied directly to their revenue. Right?

Jordan Gal: 51:30

Right. That's the thing. It was it was this is an this is gonna be an amazing product that solves a very painful piece, but I'm gonna have to go around and tell people, will you pay me a $100 a month to make your life better? As opposed to I just made you this money. Do you want to leave?

Jordan Gal: 51:47

You know, no. Yeah. So that that was the that was the deciding criteria. It was impact on revenue.

Brian Casel: 51:54

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, one one more thing that I'm thinking a lot about right now is, know, the whole idea of of a productized service. Obviously, I've I've never been against the idea of doing doing as manually as possible. And looking at these three ideas, all of them, I I'm I'm always open to the idea of having like a productized service component to them.

Brian Casel: 52:17

One of them is like a pure productized service in that everything can be done manually. And so the what I'm kicking around right now, what makes one way more attractive than the others is that the the purely productized service one, I can actually get if if if I were to get customers for it tomorrow, I can deliver this solution to them tomorrow and get paid for that solution. Like, it's ready to go. I mean, granted it takes work. It'll it'll be manual work that eventually would be streamlined and and systematized and all that.

Brian Casel: 52:49

But that's that's what makes this one idea very attractive compared to the other ones, which do involve software development. Even if we might bolt on like a like a done for you installation setup type of thing.

Jordan Gal: 53:03

Yeah. But the time to market

Brian Casel: 53:05

is The time to market. Different. And and like the one of them is is almost purely software. And looking at the investments of either well, like either hiring a developer or or partnering with a developer on that, you know, that that would be a a big requirement on on that one. And it's if that one makes it hard as much as I love that that idea, and I think there's a lot of potential there, I've been doing a little bit of customer development on that.

Brian Casel: 53:39

That this gets back to the founder idea fit and the timing of it all. And it's like, am I positioned to do that now this year?

Jordan Gal: 53:47

Maybe not. Risky. It's risky. And

Brian Casel: 53:51

yeah. So, like, this other idea is would be a productized service, but with the potential of evolving into a purely software product. And the way that I would see that happen is do it as a productized service for a while and let that fund the automation stuff later.

Jordan Gal: 54:10

Yeah. I I like that path, you know, and you and you see that bubbling up in different places. Right? We're an agency, and we had a lot of trouble collecting content and getting approval for content from writers and from our clients, so we built this software to to help us. Right?

Jordan Gal: 54:29

All these things that are, yeah, that going in that direction. I mean, the the time in the market thing is is scary. You know, the the days of spending twelve months on building a product before launching, I mean, that's unless unless you go on the VC route, that that's crazy. Yeah. It's just it's just too risky.

Jordan Gal: 54:48

And even as a freelancer, even six months is sounds unreasonable to me. Three months to me sounds like the max.

Brian Casel: 54:54

Yeah. And and even something that so if if it requires software to actually deliver the the solution, even if you have some kind of funds in the bank, some savings or, you know, like, as a as a bootstrapper or as a freelancer transitioning into into a product, if your new thing requires a software build before it could actually deliver value to a customer, there's also the cost in time. Because now that's like additional time that you need to continue to do client work or, you know, whatever it is that you're doing to pay the bills right now. I mean, it's we're we're running against the clock as as bootstrappers, and that's that's what this game is.

Jordan Gal: 55:33

So Yeah. It's also also the risk of discovering that it's a bad fit Yes. Or a bad product.

Brian Casel: 55:40

Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 55:41

If that takes a week, you didn't lose anything. If that takes three, four, five months, that's that's a disaster.

Brian Casel: 55:48

Yeah. And, you know, we talked about this in in the episode about validation and how every level of validation is like a like a couple more percentage points to validate it. You're never like, yes validated or no validated. And so you'll do that those early steps. Right?

Brian Casel: 56:02

You'll you'll talk to customers. You might even get a a handful of paying customers. And that can be deceiving. That can be like, okay. Now, I have enough certainty to go ahead and spend the next three to six months building out this software.

Brian Casel: 56:17

But then, you know, you you run into additional customer acquisition hurdles and challenges and and validating, you know, how you're gonna how you're gonna do all that. So, yeah, that that's what makes doing things manually, if possible, so attractive.

Jordan Gal: 56:34

Yep. I agree. I I think it's gonna be very interesting to kind of to listen and watch as you go through these and then, you know, what what you ultimately decide decide to pursue. I that'd be really interesting for people to see and kinda hear your reasoning behind it.

Brian Casel: 56:52

Yeah. You know, I I expect to to share a lot of these things in in the very near future. Right now, am passing stuff around to a couple friends and get get feedback and whatnot and developing different things. But we'll certainly be sharing more as we go ahead. But for right now, I'm trying to stay sane and not go go too crazy because this really is like I mean, mentally, I gotta be honest.

Brian Casel: 57:17

Like, this is a it's a very volatile state to be in in in this transition because you're the the one thing that you've been focused on for years is all of a sudden, you know, you're starting to think about what's new and it's there's a lot of too too many question marks floating around, and that's not the most comfortable place to be.

Jordan Gal: 57:38

Yeah. It is it's it's the same reason it's comfortable to have a job. Because you you go there, and you know what you need to do, and you come home, and you kinda check out. We get into the same thing once we focus on one idea and one business and kinda do it. All of sudden, to step away from that and not know where you're be spending your time or what you should be doing, yeah, it's it's not the natural state of equilibrium that that people want to to experience.

Jordan Gal: 58:07

Yep. But for some reason

Brian Casel: 58:09

we for some reason, we keep doing it.

Jordan Gal: 58:10

So We keep doing it. We're gonna we're gonna see you through it, baby.

Brian Casel: 58:13

Alright, man. So Hell yeah. Should we wrap it up?

Jordan Gal: 58:16

Let's do it, man. It's February. We're creeping toward MicroConf. Yeah. I'm excited.

Jordan Gal: 58:22

Yep.

Brian Casel: 58:23

Alright. So, yeah. So this wraps it up. As always, head over to bootstrappedweb.com. That's where you can catch up on on previous episodes.

Brian Casel: 58:32

And and do head over to iTunes. Leave us a five star review. And you can always send us your questions. Bootstrapped.com/ask. And I'm sure we'll do another q and a episode here pretty soon.

Brian Casel: 58:43

So, yeah, we'll we'll talk to you guys next week.

Jordan Gal: 58:47

Alright. See you, man. Talk to

Brian Casel: 58:48

you soon. Yep.