Bootstrapped Web

Brian Casel: 00:11

This is Bootstrapped Web episode 72. It's the podcast for you, the founder who learns by doing as you bootstrap your business online. And today, we're just doing a bit of an update episode and we'll catch up on what what Jordan is up to and what what I'm working on. Hey, if you host a podcast and the editing and production work is taking up all of your time and energy and you just wanna focus on creating, then you've gotta head over to podcastmotor.com. They're our sponsor today and they offer complete podcast editing and production service.

Brian Casel: 00:49

So here's how it works. Basically, you just hit record and record your episode and then Podcast Motor will edit all the audio. They'll listen to your content, and so they'll edit it for all the content and take out the ums and the and the pauses and all that. They do complete audio engineering, get it sounding great. They write the detailed show notes.

Brian Casel: 01:08

They'll actually listen and get all the links in there and your blog post. They'll create custom artwork. They'll publish the episode. They'll they'll sync up the music, get it all sounding great and polished like a real professional podcast. We actually use Podcast Motor here on Bootstrap Web.

Brian Casel: 01:23

We highly recommend them. They've been doing a fantastic job. So if you're interested in this head over to podcastmotor.com tell them that Bootstrap Web sent you there, and they'll hook you up. So as always I am Brian.

Jordan Gal: 01:41

And I'm Jordan. Very nice to see you, Brian.

Brian Casel: 01:44

Yep. Good good to see you again, sir.

Jordan Gal: 01:47

Yeah. So here's here's, like, my theme for the week. I came across a very timely article. It I think the title was something to the effect of stop saying you're busy. Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 01:58

Because I found myself just just that that is my default. Hey. How's it going? You know, overwhelmingly busy, and that's just a really boring reply. So I'm trying to refrain from describing myself as busy, because everyone's busy.

Jordan Gal: 02:12

I know. So I'm just, like, dealing with it differently.

Brian Casel: 02:14

I've been doing a lot of that myself lately. I mean, frankly, I am really, really busy. I'm we're always all everybody listening to this is probably always super busy. I know. But I feel like there are a thousand things hitting my plate every single day, and it's driving me a little bit crazy.

Brian Casel: 02:32

But

Jordan Gal: 02:32

that's Yeah. That's how

Brian Casel: 02:33

it goes.

Jordan Gal: 02:34

It's like a it's a challenge, and at the same time, I see it as like, it's it's kind of a failing.

Brian Casel: 02:40

Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 02:40

We haven't worked it out. It shouldn't be that you're that busy because that usually, at least for me, it means I'm not working on the really important stuff. And that means I'm not doing a good enough job of managing my time and expectations and other people and help and outsourcing. So it's it's like an it's a reminder of a failing every day. So I use that as like an itch.

Jordan Gal: 03:03

You know? It's like, I I have to fix that. I have to fix it.

Brian Casel: 03:05

Yeah. I mean, my thing, you know, and I'll get in more into this in the update is I'm at the very very beginning stage again of starting a business. And this is like literally like week like week week three of this thing.

Jordan Gal: 03:19

That's so exciting.

Brian Casel: 03:20

And and that is really making it crazy busy, obviously. I mean, there there are there's a lot of stuff going on and a lot of stuff like, I just have to be busy. There's no real solution right now to whereas if I'm like a year into this thing, then it's like, okay. Let's examine why I'm spending time on these tasks and how can we systematize that and remove myself from them or something like that.

Jordan Gal: 03:44

Right. Everything's everything's a first time. You you don't have a standard

Brian Casel: 03:49

for help. And it's also like it's also kinda like scrambling to get a couple first clients in the door and then scrambling to serve those clients for the first time and get those very first time around on all these things. And and it's all happening at the same time. So it's it's stressful, but it's also a good stress because things are moving.

Jordan Gal: 04:06

Yeah. I mean, the worst thing poss I remember looking at my inbox when Kartok just started just being like, at one point, eventually, I'm gonna hate this email inbox because it's gonna be overwhelming. But for now, it's just silent, man. And and that's a lot worse than being really busy trying to juggle. So that's that's great to hear.

Jordan Gal: 04:26

So speaking of audience ops, what are we? A few weeks in? Give give us the update. What's what's Yeah.

Brian Casel: 04:32

I mean, so I I kinda did the, you know, quote unquote, like, big reveal on on the newsletter and on this podcast last week, and and I've been passing it around to friends a little bit before that. Now it's like, wow, I'm I'm kind of blown away and right deep into it, into like the thick of working in audience ops and building this thing. And I mean, I've been blown away with the number of of leads that came through. I mean, I'm getting like three, four leads a day and doing two or three calls a day at this point of potential clients. And literally today we signed three customers have have committed to to become the three first first customers for Audience Ops, and there's a fourth and fifth that are looking pretty likely to come through as well.

Jordan Gal: 05:19

You broke the ice.

Brian Casel: 05:22

Yeah, you know, it's not but totally it's, you know, it's gonna happen. You know, so that's really exciting, it's always a good milestone to get right through that. I'm just glad that it happened this quickly. I didn't quite expect it would happen this this fast. And the other thing that a a pleasant surprise is how many friends, like actual contacts and friends are actually becoming clients.

Brian Casel: 05:49

It wasn't They need it,

Jordan Gal: 05:50

and why not why not work with you?

Brian Casel: 05:52

Yeah. I it was not really my intention to to necessarily sell this to to friends, but but it is my intention to sell this to b to b online businesses, online products. And it's it's the SaaS guys, it's the productized services, a couple of like digital download businesses that have been responding really well to this, and that's exactly who who I want to be working with, you know, are these like SaaS b to b businesses.

Jordan Gal: 06:23

Are you at all worried about the the relationship and mixing business and and all that?

Brian Casel: 06:29

Yeah. I mean, that's something it's it's interesting. In the past, when I was doing web design consulting work, I never liked that. I never liked to work for friends and family. I almost, I went out of my way to turn friends and family away and that actually caused, turning them away caused issues with relationships, especially with, you know, with with like family and stuff.

Brian Casel: 06:53

But and I mean, I've done a little bit of work for friends and family over the years, but but still I've I've never been a fan of it because frankly, at at the height of the freelance consulting stuff with web design, I'm not gonna charge family what I charge clients, like thousands of dollars. Like, that's not gonna that's not right.

Jordan Gal: 07:12

And So off the bat, the relationship isn't isn't isn't work based, it's not purely business and

Brian Casel: 07:18

Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 07:18

That's that's tricky.

Brian Casel: 07:19

Yeah. And there was also the the the big problem with it in that field was most of those clients didn't really understand the product or the process, you know, going into getting a professional website designed. A lot of them think like, oh, you're a web designer. Oh, it's so easy for you. You can just quickly whip me up a website in a couple hours.

Jordan Gal: 07:38

Make a few changes.

Brian Casel: 07:39

Yeah. Or or you know, or or people who are really disconnected from it, like don't really even know what a theme is or or what custom design is and what that process is. And so it's just really frustrating when you have to like push back on all these requests and and educate clients when they're your friends and family. I had professional ways of doing it with actual clients, but I didn't wanna get into that dynamic with friends and family. But now on Audience Ops, on the other hand, and this is still very early on, but so on on Audience Ops, what I really enjoy about this is working with friends who do know the process and do know the value of content marketing and they're they're online business owners.

Brian Casel: 08:21

So so they get it. I mean, the reason why they're even talking to me about it is because they get the value proposition. And the other thing that I just really enjoy about this is doing these consultation calls with both people who I know and and are friends with and and I've had a bunch of of leads come through who are who I'm meeting for the first time. Some of them have been tuning into the podcast and and just kind of or some just came as through some word-of-mouth from last week. These consultation calls are very different for me in terms of like a sales call than than both with Restaurant Engine, which I did for a few years, a lot of sales calls there.

Brian Casel: 08:59

I did plenty of sales calls selling web design over the years. These are very different because I've it's just really enjoyable to to talk to people like, where where's your business at? What are working on right now? How how how you've been getting customers?

Jordan Gal: 09:11

Much closer to a peer in in the business sense, someone who's at the same level of sophistication. Yeah. Yeah. That's more interesting.

Brian Casel: 09:18

And there's it's also just a genuine interest on my part. Like, I I love talking shop with other b to b business owners online, just and to ask them like, where are you at in your in your launch process, or what what's your strategy for this?

Jordan Gal: 09:32

And Right. What's working? What isn't?

Brian Casel: 09:33

And so it's just been it's been a really enjoyable process so far, and so now that's where we're at. We have these, you know, three clients coming on board, you know, this week, next week. I'm kind of scrambling to get the people together and get the processes together to start serving them, while at the same time, we still have a lot of work to for audience ops itself. We've we've gotta launch the content plan for that. So email course, blog, all that.

Brian Casel: 10:03

So well, before I get into into the team part part of my update, the the other thing when it comes to leads and and getting the word out there is I I've had a bunch of leads come through. Most of them have been in that b to b SaaS productized service type of crowd, but there have been a few that are that don't really fit that. Some kind of like b to c, some kind of retail kind of stuff that's just not quite the exact fit in terms of topic and audience. I think they'd be good clients, but it's going to make it a little difficult to get the team on board to cover all these different topics. So for for right now, we're really focusing on serving that that b to b online business crowd, and I'm kind of turning away some of these other leads that are

Jordan Gal: 10:51

Never an easy thing to do in the beginning.

Brian Casel: 10:53

Yeah. No. And and I mean, there's also a work a workload aspect. I'm trying to limit that to make sure that we're we're doing things carefully and getting the process right and making sure the quality is there without getting overloaded all at once.

Jordan Gal: 11:07

So Right. So last thing you wanna do is get a few clients and kinda disappoint them off off the bat because you're you're overwhelmed by by too many projects at the same time.

Brian Casel: 11:18

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. So the other parts of this, kinda like other moving parts as as I'm putting audience ops together are getting the writing team together. I've interviewed about eight or nine different writers and I've kind of offered the contract writing position to two of them so far.

Brian Casel: 11:39

And we're gonna start working together in the next couple of days. There's gonna be a third, maybe a fourth writer in there who who will work into the mix for some of the blog articles, but I've got like two that I that I really like so far. And so we're gonna kind of ramp that up pretty quickly I think. As we're getting them on board, I need to really hammer out like spend a lot of time hammering out processes and, you know, what what's step one when we work with a new client? And what are the materials that we need to put together?

Brian Casel: 12:09

And what are the interview questions that we need to ask them and and for us to review internally? And and what's the production process from, like, topic to lead writer to another writer giving revisions and then a third person doing copy editing. Trying to make a whole streamlined process out of this, but but starting from scratch, like, right now, like, by piece.

Jordan Gal: 12:31

Map it out based on what your best guess is of what the process will look like, and then and then kinda make adjustments as you go through the process a few times?

Brian Casel: 12:38

Yeah. I've been able to do it. I've I've done this type of work and processes before, like within my businesses, but but now I'm I'm trying to make it as I'm trying to just think through it strategically from day one, you know, and and try to get a plan together while scheduling with new people and just, you know, just juggling a lot of lot of different balls in the air at the same time. It's it's kinda kinda tricky. The other piece that I'll need that I haven't really started looking into quite yet is I'll I'll need to hire another VA, like a VA specifically to work on audience ops to handle a lot of the nuts and bolts of posting blog articles, formatting email newsletters, social media updates, reporting, and that sort of stuff.

Brian Casel: 13:26

So and I frankly, we were talking about this, don't have the time. I'm so busy, but I need to get someone in for that. So looking at possibly virtual staff finder, I've heard some pretty good things about that. They kind of do the work of finding and vetting candidates for you.

Jordan Gal: 13:45

I agree, I've heard good things as well.

Brian Casel: 13:47

Yeah, so I'll probably try give that a try. And then the other things that I've been working on is kind of the nuts and bolts of putting the productized consulting service together, right? So one of these is project management, and I started evaluating three or four different project management tools. I mean, Basecamp, I've used before. I I know that pretty well, but it's it lacks some of the features that I need.

Brian Casel: 14:12

The one that I'm kind of landing on for now is teamwork. Teamwork.com.

Jordan Gal: 14:17

Oh, yeah. Which I think They're Irish company, aren't they?

Brian Casel: 14:21

I don't know. I think they used to be called Teamwork PM. Mhmm. But they seem to I I started using it and I and I like it so far. It's pretty feature heavy.

Brian Casel: 14:31

It seems pretty bloated and that used to really turn me off with project management apps, but it does cover a lot of the bases that I think we'll need for this type of service to come together. Like, it's obviously, it's got like tasks and it's got embedded, like like, sub tasks. I like that you can easily create templates and reuse templates. So as we're, like, doing the same service again and again for clients, we can just, you know, reuse the same processes. They've got these things like like Gantt charts, which help to, like, map out the process and make things contingent on, like, you can't start like you like, I can't have the copy editor editor work on that task until the article is drafted.

Brian Casel: 15:12

Right. And one kind of triggers the other. So there's a lot of a lot of that that that's all hooked up within teamwork that I like. It's also got like time tracking, which I'll have the team do. That that'll be another piece that I really need to kind of keep an eye on in in these early days as I start to learn exactly how how many hours does does each of these tasks take on average so that I can get a a realistic sense of of the cost structure in the business and and the pricing and and kinda get that nailed down.

Brian Casel: 15:42

That'll take a few weeks to to really figure out.

Jordan Gal: 15:45

Yeah. That's that's guesswork. Even once you start rolling, like, between one project and another, might not be the same. These these are the different pieces that need to come into in into play. Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 15:55

Project management.

Brian Casel: 15:56

Yeah. And then, like, another piece is is actually proposals. Right? So even though it's a productized service and even though we have set pricing and set scopes, I did wanna use a proposal solution. And I looked at a couple of them, looked at looked at BidSketch.

Brian Casel: 16:12

I used to create my own proposals. I had a little product for that called WP Bids, but I ended up using a new a newer one of these SaaS companies out there called Nusii, nusii.com. And just a really nice looking simple clean proposal software. I really like them so far, I started using them. And having the productized service makes it really it just makes it a lot easier to create and send proposals really fast because it's essentially the same service, the same set of options for all clients.

Brian Casel: 16:47

I'm just kind of personalizing the proposal a little bit for each individual person and it just kind of gives them something that I think at this price level you need to kind of personally obviously, I'm doing a personal consultation with everyone and then I wanna personally send them something that they can look at and review with their team even though they can see all the information on on the website, at least giving them a proposal is something that they can look at and they can act on, you know. So that's the proposals piece and then the final piece is, and I had to get this, I kind of scrambled to get this set up as we're getting the first few clients in, is a way for them to pay and get enrolled in retainers. And so obviously I wanted to use Stripe for that. So on the site I set up some special pages, some like purchase pages and got like, quickly set up the Stripe account, got that activated. And then I used Phil Dirksen's plugin called Stripe Checkout Pro, which is really great.

Brian Casel: 17:47

That's at wpstripe.net. Really worked out great. I was able to get up and running literally within about an hour using his plugin to get a simple, you know, purchase now. And and it's got all the features that you actually need if you're if you're gonna take subscriptions, if you need a coupon code, if you need the person to select from a few different options, you can really quickly and easily just slap a a Stripe purchase button on your site using his his plugin.

Jordan Gal: 18:15

Nice. So you've gone you've gone full legit. You've got the ability to accept payments, you've got things proposals ready to go, and it's great to hear about NUSI. I came across their product maybe a year ago and it was super raw.

Brian Casel: 18:27

And Yeah. I was talking to those guys and they they just started. Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 18:30

Yeah.

Brian Casel: 18:30

It's awesome. It's for them. Yeah. So that's that's just basically my update. I'm trying to get all these different pieces together and doing it really quickly, but I'm I'm just really excited that we have the first few milestones passed.

Jordan Gal: 18:45

Yeah. Well, we can see why you're busy. You're doing a lot of this stuff ahead of time where you could put some of this off, but it sounds to me like you have enough feedback from the market. Like, you're it is a real business. You're not you're not gonna go out there and not get any clients.

Jordan Gal: 19:00

And so it's not like you're doing a lot of this for no reason.

Brian Casel: 19:04

Yeah. You know, think it makes sense. Yeah. Like the things like like doing proposals and setting up a Stripe checkout and and project management. I think part of it is just that I've I've done this so many times before that for me, it's I it's just really fast for me to to set something like this up.

Brian Casel: 19:20

Whereas I I know most people don't have the experience like with developing a website and and, you know, and quickly like installing a plugin and configuring it. I I think for most people, that takes a little bit longer and that makes it not a necessary step Right. To Right. To stand in between you and charging a client. In my case, I've been I've been doing this stuff for years.

Brian Casel: 19:43

It's just really fast for me to do it, so might as well.

Jordan Gal: 19:46

Yeah. That makes sense. If it's not gonna take up a bunch of your time, you don't need to find someone to pay to do it for you, then may may as well do it ahead of time. Yep. Cool, man.

Jordan Gal: 19:55

Yeah. Pretty cool. So we're looking forward to hearing when that first, you know, first payment hits and and it and it's official and it's real. I'm I'm curious to see what your marketing looks like in your content considering I feel like you you must have a little bit of added pressure. Like, you're a content marketing agency.

Jordan Gal: 20:13

Your content marketing needs to be needs to be good.

Brian Casel: 20:15

Yeah. It needs to be solid. That's it's it's definitely gonna be it's gonna be a challenge. So the stuff about setting up our processes, I I I'm also thinking of, like, some, like, really high level goals around what the service is looking like. Because in these early days, like this is when you get to define really like what your values are as a service provider.

Brian Casel: 20:35

And, you know, one of these things that that's kind of sticking out of my mind is that like by delivering content marketing, we are like the like in some ways, we're kind of like the voice of the brand that we're serving. Like, we're we're teaching their customers, we're we're putting content out on their site, and I need to think of this like, I I need to be proud enough to put this on my own site if it were my business. I feel like it's a it's a big responsibility. So I'm mapping out ways to have, like, you know, a lead writer on something and then have another writer give give like three ways to make this thing better, and then I'd I'd do the same thing, and then we'll have a separate copy editor to spot any proofreading. So we're really kinda putting a lot of resources into each and every article for that goal of just making it not the alternative to doing it yourself.

Brian Casel: 21:25

It's it it has to be like a lot better than doing it yourself.

Jordan Gal: 21:29

You know? Right. And I I imagine the beginning of the relationship is really important to build up that trust, to involve them in the process, the first few articles. And then as the trust builds, you you can kinda start doing things with less approval, they'll be happy once they know, oh, you're taking care of my brand and my voice, you know, then you can feel free. I don't need to check every single word that that you guys are putting out there.

Jordan Gal: 21:51

That's the ideal, I guess.

Brian Casel: 21:53

The the first month is is a big investment into researching the customer, like, we're we're doing interviews with the founder and with their customer support team and with their customers. They'll they'll connect us to their customers. We'll interview them. So and we're giving the client a whole report on on our customer research for them, and that that helps them with their product, but it we're also using it to to plan their content and their editorial calendar and that kind of stuff. So so just a lot of lot of moving parts and trying to put these pieces together.

Brian Casel: 22:23

And it and this is a lot of fun. I'm I'm enjoying it.

Jordan Gal: 22:26

Nice, Ben. That's great to hear. So that that's that's a solid update. I don't don't think I have nearly as much to talk about. For me, the the well, two things.

Jordan Gal: 22:35

Two podcasts got released today that that I joined my buddies over at Talking Code And

Brian Casel: 22:41

Oh, yeah? Yeah. Venkat. I I know that.

Jordan Gal: 22:43

Yeah. Venkat. That's right. And and Josh, and I went on there. They, by coincidence you introduced me to them.

Jordan Gal: 22:50

And by coincidence, they Venkat sits next to Ben, my cofounder.

Brian Casel: 22:54

Oh, that's right. That's crazy.

Jordan Gal: 22:56

Completely absurd coincidence. So what they did is they interviewed me about how to find a technical cofounder. Yep. And then they interviewed Ben on how to find a a business guy, essentially. So you get, like, two sides of

Brian Casel: 23:11

the same partnership. Was that the same episode? Or

Jordan Gal: 23:14

No. My episode came out today, and I think Ben's comes out, like, next week or something. So you get both sides, like, marketing guy talking about how how I found a technical cofounder, and then you have Ben, like, a product and tech guy on, like, why did you partner with this with this business guy? So it's kinda like you get both sides of it from the horse's mouth on on both sides. So I think that that could be a cool interesting thing depending on if you're technical or not.

Jordan Gal: 23:38

Yeah. Definitely. Interested in one or

Brian Casel: 23:40

the other. I was talking to to Venkat when he was putting the podcast together, like the concept behind it and all, and and it's really cool. So talking code, it's basically about talking code for, like, non developers and for people working in businesses and and getting and being able to communicate with developers and knowing the right questions to ask and that kind of stuff. So very cool.

Jordan Gal: 24:02

Very helpful, especially for for nontechnical people. It's really just that intersection between the tech and nontechn and how they need each other and how to deal with with each side. So so that that came out today. You can find that at talkingcode.com. And another one, our good buddies at Rogue Startups that run Podcast Motor that that we work with.

Jordan Gal: 24:26

They just did an episode. I joined them, and we talked about an interesting topic, leaving a high paying job for the startup world. You know, I I used to work in investment banking and left, and Craig also has, like, a, like, a high paying sales job, and he's trying to leave. So all the risks and rewards and the the difficulty around saying no and walking away from, you know, a relatively guaranteed salary for the inherent uncertainty of of the startup world. So we we we talked about that.

Jordan Gal: 25:03

Now you can find it roguestartups.com. So those two just came out today, so that that that's been cool.

Brian Casel: 25:08

Yeah. Very cool. I I I've been a fan of of Craig's podcast, rogue start ups, what him and Dave are doing, and and his other one, Nights and Weekends, I just started listening to. It's been cool to hear his progress Craig's progress on Podcast Motor, of course, but also what what Ken is doing over there with Mastermind Jams is a pretty cool concept as well.

Jordan Gal: 25:28

So I I haven't I haven't found that one yet. I'm gonna I'm check that out.

Brian Casel: 25:31

Yeah. A little site that helps you put together a mastermind or get into a mastermind.

Jordan Gal: 25:36

Right. Yeah. That's a great concept. That was a big hit at MicroConf. Yep.

Jordan Gal: 25:39

A lot of lot of people talked about it.

Brian Casel: 25:40

Yeah. Totally.

Jordan Gal: 25:41

Cool. Yeah. Speaking of multiple podcasts, I I think I'm gonna start a a cart hook podcast that's much more focused on ecommerce. Nice. Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 25:51

And this experience is kinda seeing what Craig has been doing in Podcast Motor. Just just the fact that Podcast Motor exists as a service. Yeah. Allows me otherwise, I would look at it and say, even if that's a good idea, I just simply won't do it. I won't get it done.

Jordan Gal: 26:05

I don't have the time to do everything surrounding launching a new podcast and then keeping up with it every week. But just the fact that Podcast Motor exists as an option makes me much more likely to do it. Totally. That didn't intend to be like a commercial for them, but that's pretty much the best possible commercial for them. That's the actual pain point, is it not?

Brian Casel: 26:25

Yeah. It totally is. And and so that your so the podcast that you started off for CartHook, is that gonna be like an interview thing? Like, you're gonna interview ecommerce owners? Or

Jordan Gal: 26:34

Yeah. I'm I'm playing with the exact format, but, you know, the the right thing to keep in mind, I'm sure you're dealing with this in audience ops, the right thing to keep in mind is who's my target customer and what are they got what do they got find valuable? So that's that's it. I just think, okay. I think about the guys in the ecommerce fuel forum.

Jordan Gal: 26:52

Right? People who are into ecommerce that are not at the very beginning stages and at the same time don't work for a gigantic billion dollar company. These people in between who are very growth minded, what are they gonna find useful? So I could see a situation where interviewing an ecommerce store owner about what's working for them right now, what they're doing, that could be valuable. At the same time, speaking with, like, an SEO consultant on what's happening with SEO with ecommerce right now, that could be valuable also.

Jordan Gal: 27:20

So so I don't know if it's gonna be very strict on the type of guest. It's just gonna be strict in the format of like, let's let's no bullshit. Just the meat. Say who you are, intro for two minutes, and then what's working for you right now in ecommerce. Let's dig into that, and that's the value we I wanna give.

Brian Casel: 27:39

I I think that that's the way to go is is I think unless you have a cohost, which that could be an option too. It's like find another ecommerce expert, maybe someone who compliments you and co host and kinda do like a, you know, a very tight like topic teaching something about about ecommerce every time. That requires a little bit more prep to make work. But the I think the interview the interview format really works well as well because, know, I I think if you're an ecommerce owner, you're you're probably gonna tune into the ecommerce interviews on Mixergy and tune out of the other ones, you know. People like to hear case studies of people who are just like them or on the same path.

Brian Casel: 28:20

You know?

Jordan Gal: 28:20

Right. Whatever's most of I I have I have the same experience with Mixergy I love, but a lot of the interviews I don't listen to because they don't they're not that applicable to my situation. So, you know, even though that turns out to be wrong on Mixergy because the stories are so good. The other piece of the podcast strategy that that is really interesting for for interviews, the the beauty of interviewing other people first of all, it's it's such an amazing thing podcasting because it it because it's live, it's not like, will you do a guest post for my blog? This is, would you be interested in being a guest on my podcast?

Jordan Gal: 28:53

It's almost like, at at least right now in 2015, that's like an honor. That's like, oh,

Brian Casel: 28:57

I'm Right.

Jordan Gal: 28:58

Of high enough status to be interviewed? I would love to. So everyone says yes. And then when it gets published, what do you think is gonna happen? They're gonna sit on it and not tell anyone?

Brian Casel: 29:09

Yeah. Exactly.

Jordan Gal: 29:10

Right. You're gonna reach into their audience at the same time. So everyone gives everybody else value and everyone benefits, everyone elevates.

Brian Casel: 29:17

It really is. It's it's it's a total win win for both the guest and and the host. And it's it's also in many ways even better than like blog content because a podcast if you have the audience there and and it's the type of audience that really tunes into podcasts, it's really really effective. And and the business audience is that audience for sure. Because, I mean, you can listen to it while you're out, while you're while you're driving, when you're when you're walking, and that actually gives you like, you have much more attention span than than like a tweet that comes across your desktop or or on your phone, you know, when you're in the middle of other things.

Brian Casel: 29:55

You just get voice. Yeah. Totally. I mean, I've I've seen that with the podcast that I listen to. Like, I'm I'm much more tuned into the stuff that that the guys are working on that I tune into than than the handful of blogs that I subscribe to in RSS, you know.

Jordan Gal: 30:11

Yeah. It's it's right now, it's a way to, you know, to go above the above the noise. There aren't there are a lot of podcasts, but there aren't that many podcasts in every niche. There's an interesting Rainmaker episode. You know, Brian Clark, they talked about, like, how just the trust that's built through podcasts is very different from everything else.

Jordan Gal: 30:33

You're listening to someone's voice, it's intimate, you hear the confidence in their voice, and that that flows through everything. It flows through being okay with paying a higher price because you trust the person more. It's really so that's that's where that's one of if I have limited time and limited resources, I I have decided that that is a worthwhile investment, and I think it can be for for a lot of different businesses.

Brian Casel: 30:55

Yeah. I think the thing with with podcasting for you and for anyone who's who's starting it up is you have to be willing to put in the months before you're gonna see anything from it. Like it it takes so long to you just need that longevity to start really gaining traction. Unless you can really engineer the launch, which we've heard a couple of people talk about that, which you you should really look into, like Adam Clark talking about how you can try to get on that new and noteworthy and all that. But beyond that, it's it's publishing week in week out and on a consistent schedule and being okay with not hearing any comments or reviews right away because it takes a while for that stuff to start rolling in.

Jordan Gal: 31:38

So I I agree, but that that looks at the podcast in isolation. If you're gonna launch a podcast, you need to be willing to wait a long time before it gets traction. But if a podcast is one piece of your content mix, you you don't have to wait. I mean, what what do you think I'm gonna do when a podcast episode comes out? I'm I'm not gonna notify my customers.

Brian Casel: 32:02

Yeah. Exactly.

Jordan Gal: 32:03

People on the email list. So you do get a benefit of building the relationship with existing customers and people on your list. And it's it's also something to publish on the blog. So it does give you content. Right now, I'm almost like, I feel guilty, man.

Jordan Gal: 32:16

I I I don't publish content. I feel stupid. I have this expertise. I don't share it. So just that alone is a benefit.

Jordan Gal: 32:24

So, yes, the podcast itself is gonna take a while to kinda get some footing, but it does give you benefit right away in terms of building relationships, building trust, having something quality to send out to your email. I even now inject in our life cycle emails, like, hey, after two weeks of Cart Hook, here are your results. I insert like a PS. Hey, I did an interview recently on Mixergy, you might find it useful. So it just gives you more quality stuff to to provide that isn't self serving

Brian Casel: 32:54

or self

Jordan Gal: 32:55

serving in a way, but it's

Brian Casel: 32:55

it's just But it it's so true and that's a great point that you can give give more content, whether it's podcast episodes or anything else, to to customers or to existing subscribers who haven't become customers yet. It's that whole like customer success thing. Right? Like a lot of people are talking about this now is it's not just about getting them into your app and fixing that specific pain point that they that they purchased your app for. It's it's really making them successful with it.

Brian Casel: 33:24

Like, yeah, they're they might be using it or they started to use it, but now they need to really thrive with it. And and I think to a large extent that's teaching. You have to teach people how to be successful. Like, you know, my friend Robert Williams who's running Let's Workshop, he he was on the show a couple weeks ago. He I mean, his cert he basically runs a lead generation service for freelancers, for freelance web developers.

Brian Casel: 33:48

That that solves the pain right there. Like, freelance web developers need more leads. But he noticed that they also need to be more successful with those leads. So he wrote a book on how to email leads effectively, you know, and and that's what he blogs about. And and so he's, you know, it it that's what customer success is all about.

Brian Casel: 34:08

It's like following up and making people, you know, be awesome with your product.

Jordan Gal: 34:13

Yeah. And it's not I I try to go beyond the product itself. So, yes, here's a here's a better way to optimize your abandoned cart campaign. But I I wanna shock people with the value that goes beyond the product. So one of the interviews I did that I send out is just about optimizing your store in general.

Jordan Gal: 34:35

So you come across what looks like a very niche product for abandoned carts on your ecommerce store. And then all a sudden, you start to get value on the checkout process and on optimization and how I grew a store to $500,000 in the first year and, like, all this other stuff that affects the rest of your business. Most the people are, like, grateful, and that changes the relationship entirely. It's not like, oh, you're like this niche thing that I might add on to my store or not. Like, in reality, actually, I want you to pay me $250 a month to do that.

Jordan Gal: 35:04

So if if I want that, you you need to give you need to give the goods.

Brian Casel: 35:07

Yeah. Totally. I mean, it's all about reaching them on on all these different topics that they're already reading anyway. Like like you said, it's not just about the product. It's about you know, they're already searching for answers to what is the best ecommerce platform to use when you're just starting up or how to optimize category pages on on an ecommerce site.

Brian Casel: 35:29

Like these aren't directly related to CartHook, but your customers definitely care about them. And they might be searching for that and and find that in in in social media today and and get on your list today and and start getting value from you. And then a few months from now, they already know or or they they already know you as the company to do, you know, to do that, like, what the the ongoing optimization. So

Jordan Gal: 35:54

Yeah. They just look to you as as an expert once you solidify it.

Brian Casel: 35:57

Yep. And my my wife and daughter just walked into the the studio here.

Jordan Gal: 36:02

Well, we we knew it was a freewheeling Bootstrap web episode, so may as well just go with it.

Brian Casel: 36:08

Yep.

Jordan Gal: 36:08

Cool. I I know you're heading off to the beach, which is nice. That's really nice.

Brian Casel: 36:13

Yeah. I'm gonna do some dinner and drinks down at the beach. It's finally getting nice around here in the in the Northeast. Finally.

Jordan Gal: 36:19

So Yeah. Miserable miserable bastards after this winter.

Brian Casel: 36:23

Oh my god.

Jordan Gal: 36:24

Cool, man. Besides that, my only other update is things are changing. I can feel it all over the place that the the level of organization and just professional approach that is is required now to find success is is just going up. There's just a lot more stuff and more customers and more feature requests and more to do and more direct things pulling in different directions. And it just feels like if we just keep doing things the same way, it's just gonna fall out of control.

Brian Casel: 36:56

Yeah. And and you've got people in place and and more people coming in. So it's

Jordan Gal: 37:01

Yeah. It's like, okay. Now I kinda understand my job better. Like, oh, I'm the one responsible for organizing this. It's not like, oh, I hope this all works out.

Jordan Gal: 37:09

Actually, that's on me. So that's been very interesting, and it's pressure, but it's it's good. It's like, okay. Time to perform.

Brian Casel: 37:16

Yeah. I I heard I heard a few different people quote this in different ways, but I that the founder or or the manager, like, their main job is just to remove roadblocks from their team. It's like like, your your whole job at this point is to is to look to your team and say, how can I make your job a lot easier? You know?

Jordan Gal: 37:36

Right. Like you you are doing something really important, then how do we make sure you you focus on that and

Brian Casel: 37:41

and finish? And like you're not waiting on me to to give approval for things or you're not or or there are just no hurdles standing in your way. So cool.

Jordan Gal: 37:53

Nice, man. Well, maybe we should do some freewheeling episodes more often. I I think this was great.

Brian Casel: 37:58

Yeah. I think this was awesome. We should you know, we've been talking about just doing more kind of update random topics and less less prep and just talk. So we'll that's probably what we'll be doing for the next few weeks because frankly, you you and I both, we don't really have much much time except for just hitting record.

Jordan Gal: 38:13

Yeah. Unless, you know, you guys out there have something specific to ask, and I'm sure topics will come up as we work on them.

Brian Casel: 38:21

Yeah. We gotta do another q and a show at some point.

Jordan Gal: 38:23

Agreed. But that that wraps it up for us. If you wanna head over to bootstrapweb.com, you'll find a backlog of episodes. We'd love for you to subscribe in Stitcher, iTunes, or your neighborhood podcast provider. And, of course, a those five star reviews in iTunes really help.

Jordan Gal: 38:42

So we appreciate anyone that that can do that for us.

Brian Casel: 38:44

Yes, sir. And this episode was sponsored by Podcast Motor. Head over there and tell them that Bootstrap Web sent you and Craig will hook you up. Alright, guys. Well, thank you for tuning in.

Brian Casel: 38:54

And Jordan, talk to you next week.

Jordan Gal: 38:56

Cheers, man. Enjoy the beach. Later.