Bootstrapped Web

Brian Casel: 00:10

This is Bootstrapped Web episode 86. It is the podcast for you, the founder who learns by doing as you bootstrap your business online. And we're back again. I can't believe we're actually recording two weeks in a row. This is this is amazing.

Jordan Gal: 00:23

Yeah.

Brian Casel: 00:23

That's how it should be. Yep. So as always, I'm Brian.

Jordan Gal: 00:27

And I'm Jordan.

Brian Casel: 00:28

Cool. So I thought, today we would just kind of jump around to, I guess we've got a list of about five different topics. Each has nothing to do with the next. We're just gonna run through it and Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 00:39

We just did a big update last week on the businesses and what we're focusing on. So I don't think we need to cover that again two weeks in a row. So let's just, yeah, let's dive into some of these topics that are on our mind and what we're dealing with. Yeah, should kick things off?

Brian Casel: 00:55

Yeah, think you got to get something off your chest, don't

Jordan Gal: 00:56

you? I do have to rant a little bit and complain. I feel like

Brian Casel: 00:59

Brett

Jordan Gal: 01:00

from

Brian Casel: 01:00

Bootstrap with Kids.

Jordan Gal: 01:02

You get all anti government conspiratorial. Well, it's not conspiratorial. It's honest. So last week, I don't don't I don't get sleepless nights. You know that saying?

Jordan Gal: 01:14

Like many sleepless nights. Like, don't know if anyone's actually going through the whole night not sleeping because they're so worried and stressed. But whatever that term is worth, I came as close to that as possible last week. I I hate mail. I hate mail.

Jordan Gal: 01:30

You know, email is one thing. Yeah. Paper mail. It's just a giant pain in the ass. So I let it turn into a horrible horrific pile on my desk.

Jordan Gal: 01:39

That's an embarrassment. And then at some point, my wife just looks at it and is like, so, you gonna do anything about that?

Brian Casel: 01:44

Dude, I do the same thing. And and I I only check the mail, like the mailbox, maybe once a week, maybe like every ten days. And then I've got like a massive pile of mail in there. And then once I bring it in, I still don't open it because I'm just like, I don't wanna deal with it. Right.

Brian Casel: 02:00

So And I feel like if it's so important, I'm gonna get like three different email notifications, cell phone notifications that like if something is blowing up, I'll I'll find out about it.

Jordan Gal: 02:08

So I have the exact same mindset. However, when dealing with the government, you you can't trust that that's gonna happen. They're just gonna send you letters and if you don't get them, then they'll send you warnings, whatever. So I got a very disturbing letter from New York State about withholding taxes and what basically scared the shit out of me. I woke up like several times in the night stressed because they're out of their minds.

Jordan Gal: 02:34

It's a huge penalty and it's a gigantic additional penalty for every like ten days. So I look at it, I'm like, Oh my God, what is this? This serious. What have I done? What did I screw up?

Jordan Gal: 02:47

Freaking out. Couldn't sleep. And then the next day I call my accountant. He's like, Oh, don't worry about that. You're an owner.

Jordan Gal: 02:55

You're not just an employee therefore you don't need withholding tax. You don't need a withholding, excuse me, you don't need workers' compensation insurance. So this insane stress, like totally unnecessary. So then I'm like, alright.

Brian Casel: 03:08

Don't to But, like, the way that they word these letters, and I've seen shit like that. Right. It's just like, they make it sound so serious, but it's also cryptic at the same time that it you can't make sense of Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 03:19

You're like, so what am I supposed to do right now? So anyway, so I finally said to myself, I'm gonna get my act together. Like, let me just make sure I have all my bases covered. I do not want another experience like this. So right before our podcast, I call it the state of Oregon.

Jordan Gal: 03:36

It's cryptic. I don't even it's like Orwellian, man. You just and the woman could not have been nicer or more helpful. It's just like, Hey, I'm a new Oregon corporation. Here's my number.

Jordan Gal: 03:49

What do I need to do? And she just starts going through things and exceptions and unemployment insurance. Oh, that's a different department that's handled by them. So I'll give you their phone number. Make sure to ask for Ashley.

Jordan Gal: 04:00

Okay. And then go to this system and put in this information. Go there and I'm like, I don't understand this question at all. What is form 163? I don't know if I need it.

Jordan Gal: 04:10

She said, Well, that's a different department, you should call them. It's just like the worst part of business and I have an accountant, a lawyer, a bookkeeper, ZenFits, and ZenPayroll. Okay? I've tried to throw money at the problem, but you can't escape.

Brian Casel: 04:28

At the end of the day, it's like it's like only you who's actually gonna get it figured out and get all the pieces in place, and that's such a pain in the ass. And and you know what's so what what aggravates me so much when stuff like this comes up, whether it's whether it's dealing with with some government issue or like, the other day, I was trying to call it Verizon customer support. Uh-huh. And I pay this is a company that I pay over a $150 a month to. They their entire phone support is automated, robot.

Brian Casel: 04:58

Like, you you cannot keep pressing 0 and get to a person. Like, it's it's not possible. You know, same deal with PayPal. These huge it's like, what's so aggravating about it is that, you know, you and I and everyone listening to this podcast, we run businesses. We work with clients.

Brian Casel: 05:14

And we work with customers on a day to day basis. We work with business partners and things. We would never treat someone with that kind of professional disrespect. And we would never make any kind of customer interaction that much of a pain in the ass. Like nobody would ever work with us.

Brian Casel: 05:33

But huge organizations can get away with It it

Jordan Gal: 05:37

feels very backwards. It feels like we're a two person company. We need it's not even that we need help. We just need you to get out of our way and make things easier for us, but we are the ones that get the least amount of help. If you're a 100 person corporation, your health insurance is cheap as hell and everyone wants to work with you.

Jordan Gal: 05:55

No problem. If you're us, it's like we're both on our own health insurance and not even paying it through the company because it's a fiasco to get it up and running in two different states. It feels very backwards. So I have spent probably ten to fifteen hours this week on this housekeeping crap. It's hard enough to attract enough customers to get a business up off the ground and profitable And this just makes it infinitely harder.

Jordan Gal: 06:24

So my rant is, look, it's partly my fault because I'm not a 100% organized on it. So I'm gonna try to move forward, at least do what I can to get it straight. You know, have reminders set up on a recurring basis and everything else, but it's a giant pain in the ass. I'm sure everyone deals with it. And the second, the second you have an employee, everything gets infinitely worse.

Jordan Gal: 06:47

So it's no surprise that more than half the people listening to this podcast are consultants or freelancers and the last thing that they wanna do is hire someone because that complicates your whole your whole life.

Brian Casel: 07:00

Yeah. Yep. Alright. Well, let's

Jordan Gal: 07:04

Let's start, Brad.

Brian Casel: 07:05

Rent rent over. Very cool. Yeah. Let's

Jordan Gal: 07:08

Hold on a

Brian Casel: 07:08

second. Okay.

Jordan Gal: 07:09

I do have to give the government of Oregon a little bit of credit because today pot went fully legal. So now right before you call the Department of Uninsured Disability Workers' Compensation Board of Review, you can get stoned legally. Oh, there you To that a more pleasant experience.

Brian Casel: 07:26

Maybe the people on the other end of that phone call should be, you know, hitting those the the pop retail stores as well.

Jordan Gal: 07:31

Yes. Yeah. There's a lot of ice cream parties here at at the dispensaries today.

Brian Casel: 07:36

Oh, okay. There you go. Very cool.

Jordan Gal: 07:37

We might be wrapping this up a little early today.

Brian Casel: 07:39

Alright. So the next one we've got on the list here is mastermind groups. So we we did a whole episode dedicated to Mastermind Groups, how to form one, how how how we handle ours. That was almost like almost a year ago we probably did that or, you know, many months ago we we did that. So I thought it might be cool to do a quick update just talking about mastermind groups, some tips, best practices because so you and I actually met first, through a mastermind group.

Brian Casel: 08:09

We were in a mastermind group together for about two years. And that one recently kinda disbanded. It kinda ran its course. It was it had a really great run for two years or so. But since then, and since our last episode on this, you and I have have each been involved in in new mastermind groups.

Brian Casel: 08:26

So I think we both kinda learned a lot and some some new ways of going about things. In my current mastermind group that I so I'm I'm now in one. I used to be in two. And I think the one that I'm in now is really working out really great, you know, compared to the the ones that I've been in in the past. This one seems to be the one that's actually the most productive for all members of the group, and we're the most active, and we're the most kind of diligent and structured than than any groups that I've been in before.

Brian Casel: 08:56

So, Interesting.

Jordan Gal: 08:58

How many how many people are you?

Brian Casel: 08:59

So it's four of us. And, I'll give you their names. It's me, Justin McGill, Greg Hickman, and, Rob Williams. So these are all people that we kinda know in the circles and that we all kinda run-in and everything.

Jordan Gal: 09:17

Yeah. I'm in two mastermind groups and Justin is in one of them.

Brian Casel: 09:20

Yeah. There you go. So so a couple quick tips that that I think work really well for us. So we go with the standard, hot seat format where three of us give, like, a five minute quick quick update. You know, quick wins, what what got done in the last week, what what's going on.

Brian Casel: 09:38

Just like five five to eight minutes each, and then the fourth person gets the whole call for about an hour or so, to, you know, talk about challenges, questions, updates, feedback, whatever it is. I think it's good that we have only four people. I think four is the perfect number, especially for this format, because it Right. Everybody to Yeah. Everybody gets to go, like, once a month.

Brian Casel: 10:01

And we are Yeah. Meeting once a week. I used to think that a matchmaker was better with, like, every two weeks, because, you know, the week gets busy, you don't wanna dedicate time. But I I I like this format and meeting once a week, with this group. I think it I think that works really well.

Brian Casel: 10:19

The other thing is that we run a Slack group. Like, we have a Slack group just for for this mastermind group. That works really well. And we actually do a lot of feedback and advice and things all week long in between meetings.

Jordan Gal: 10:32

Yeah. Half the value is is in the Slack group.

Brian Casel: 10:34

Yeah. Totally. And it's and it's different than a couple other Slack groups that I'm in where it's like a 100 different people, Which it is networking and advice and and tips and questions, but They're not the same. But this is like just four people, you know, questions and and and like very behind the scenes stuff that we're not really talking about with other people and and and things like that. One thing that we've been doing inside that Slack group is goals.

Brian Casel: 11:01

So every week, and these coincide with our meetings, every week each person writes in three to five goals into Slack. And then the next week we have to, like, literally copy that list of of goals and say whether, like, check done or fail. And it really keeps us accountable. And we've actually been sticking to that pretty consistently for the last couple of months, where every single week Like, you know, I was traveling last month last month and so I I wasn't really able to accomplish a lot of the goals that I had set. And it made me feel like, Oh shit, things are falling apart.

Brian Casel: 11:35

Or even like, even this week, I I accomplished two out of the three goals and one, you know, one goal was just didn't get done. It's like, shit. You know, like, I And it gives you that feeling of like, I know that I have to report to these guys every week, I know that I'm gonna have to have that accountability. And it it kind of does its job and and and it keeps me accountable, you know. And kinda keeps me focused on like, these are the three things that need to get done this week.

Brian Casel: 11:59

So, I think that's that's really helpful.

Jordan Gal: 12:03

So I'm in two mastermind groups. The the first thing I wanna say is that the the first one that we were both in, I mean, had an enormous impact on just, I feel like, my career. Like, it just it just elevated. I was just alone and siloed off from the world. And it's very hard to accomplish that much when you're just kind of in your own bubble.

Jordan Gal: 12:26

And the mastermind group was my first foray into public and just start interacting. It was hugely helpful. And obviously it's kind of like, it's kind of sad for it to end. But what what I have found with that and with other groups is that there's there's a natural cycle. And then when you first meet people, the expectations are heightened, the pressure is heightened, you want to impress people, you're not fully like friends really.

Jordan Gal: 12:55

It's more professional and that's where a lot of the value comes in. And then over time as you become more friendly and less formal, and also depending on where your businesses go, what directions you go in, I feel like it starts to fade. It's almost like a season and then it just starts to change. So we recently stopped that mastermind group and it was sad just because we've been doing it for so long and it was great to see everyone, but it really, it was necessary. And and I know that group is still going with new fresh people, and my assumption is that's a lot better now.

Brian Casel: 13:33

Yeah. I I would think so too. And I think I think for that long of a period, I that that was a group for over two years. Yeah. Long time.

Brian Casel: 13:41

Everybody's business naturally changes and goes in different directions. I mean, couple of the guys in that business started two two or three different directions over that period of time. And I think part of the thing that makes a mastermind tend to fall apart, or or run its course, is is when that happens. Is when the members are in completely different places. Both when you look at, like, revenue numbers, but also business models, and the types of clients that you're going after.

Brian Casel: 14:13

There's one or two guys going after enterprise type sales, and there are other guys doing SaaS, there are other guys doing

Jordan Gal: 14:21

Info products.

Brian Casel: 14:21

Info products.

Jordan Gal: 14:22

Very

Brian Casel: 14:23

different. It's really completely different worlds. What what I like about my current group is that all of us are basically doing productized services. And some with with some element of software and things, but it's all, productized services. And I think and the other thing about what we have now is, like, all four of us are running, businesses that are, like, off the ground and running with clients.

Brian Casel: 14:48

Like, it's not like this is a group to help each other start a business. Like we've

Jordan Gal: 14:53

all Which is just started a different thing. And I think that's hugely helpful also. It's just it just narrows the problem set. Yeah. That everyone everyone's looking at the same set of problems from different angles and and that's almost where where the most value is.

Jordan Gal: 15:06

That's just getting more people in on figuring out the same solution. So I'm super happy with the way I have my two groups. I have one group that's only SaaS. And so SaaS just has its own set of issues, whether it's churn or trials or asking for credit card upfront or marketing or ad spend, whatever it is, it's like in the SaaS context. And then my other group is e commerce.

Jordan Gal: 15:39

So I have consultants, another SaaS, a Shopify consultant. It's all like, so that's an industry problem. So I have like the software issues and then I have like the e commerce industry issues and those are like my two overlapping. So I kind of get a feeling of the market and I get a feeling of what other software entrepreneurs are trying to do also. So I'm happy with like that cross pollination between those two.

Jordan Gal: 16:06

But I get I get to hear both. I basically get to ask for help on both of those things.

Brian Casel: 16:11

Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. And I think for anyone who's not in a mastermind group or is still kind of unfamiliar with the benefits of just being in one, man, it's like you said about the first group, I I definitely feel the same way. Like just being in a weekly mastermind group has had such an impact on the progress that I made in in my in multiple businesses over the last few years.

Brian Casel: 16:38

I think it's like that one constant, where like everything is always changing with what we're working on. But that's like the one thing that I can actually point to. Is like my business life pre mastermind groups and my business life with mastermind groups. And it's a clear night and day difference.

Jordan Gal: 16:53

Yeah, I agree. It's like the modern day equivalent of mentors. With mentors, it's hard to establish a mental relationship that is on an ongoing basis. At least I I've had difficulty doing it, and this is like a a flavor of that.

Brian Casel: 17:06

Yeah. And it's also like it it's it keeps me sharp, and I think it keeps all of us sharp, to dig into somebody else's business. And to almost feel like you're taking some kind of ownership in it. Like And we said from the outset of this new group, like one of the main, you know, approach that we should take to this group is, you know, what would you do if if you owned this business? That's that's how we wanna approach every question that comes up in the group.

Brian Casel: 17:38

So, you know, it's it's actually like I am I enjoyed the three weeks that I'm not on the hot seat just as much as the week that I'm on the hot seat, you know, because I get to kinda, help solve problems in somebody else's business over a long period of time, you know, so that's that's kinda fun too.

Jordan Gal: 17:55

Yeah, I agree. And and the, the friendships and support is really important and the competitive juices also really, really important. You kind of don't want to fall back. You want you don't want to fall behind. You know, have a a view of yourself that you are, that you belong in that group, and you kinda wanna prove that you belong and you wanna rise up toward the top of the group.

Jordan Gal: 18:18

It's it's it's all, you know, healthy dynamics.

Brian Casel: 18:21

Yeah. So a few just quick tips before we move on to the next thing. If you're looking for a mastermind group and you're not really sure where to start with that process, definitely check out mastermindjam.com. That's from Ken Wallace. He's He does the nights and weekends podcast with with Craig Hewitt.

Brian Casel: 18:39

So that's definitely a good site to check out. He's actually His product will essentially match you up with other people who are looking for mastermind groups. But I would also suggest just, you know, doing some some manual outreach to folks who who maybe you've met, maybe you haven't even met them. That would really help, I mean that's how my my current group got started. I think Greg sent sent me and and a couple other people an email.

Brian Casel: 19:03

We we reached out to a handful of folks, and then it was the four of us who ended up all be currently being available and currently looking for a group, and it kinda, you know, came together that way. So I think I think a manual approach just to figure out, like, who really is the right fit. I think you should take a couple of weeks to to not only vet, but like, just figure out if everybody's in the same place. But of course, there are plenty of forums and Slack groups and things like that. Then, of course, Mastermind Jam.

Brian Casel: 19:34

So there are plenty of ways to go about doing

Jordan Gal: 19:37

Right. Whatever it is, just get involved and don't view it as something as like the people on the inside get to do it. Like that that's that's not true. You just have to get started and then randomly you'll meet other people through the people in your first mastermind group and then you start to kind of just network. It's it's it's very healthy.

Brian Casel: 19:57

Yeah, exactly. Alright.

Jordan Gal: 19:59

Cool. Cool, man. Moving on. Yeah, let's move on. So content production, right?

Jordan Gal: 20:06

That's what I wanna talk about right now. And I wanna be a little careful because a lot of what I'm gonna say comes from a conversation with an adviser who is kind of telling me about what their business does. So I don't wanna to talk about too much detail on that side of things. But what I will say is the one thing that I took away from the conversation was a reinforcement of value of more stuff. Creating more stuff is good for you.

Jordan Gal: 20:36

So more content is and it's not 100% quantity over quality, but it's remembering that the more stuff you get out there, it's just it's good to have a lot of different things that you can connect and add into it automated sequence and share with people. So one thing I wanted to zero in on is I have a whole bunch of e commerce stuff in my brain And I love writing, but it is genuinely hard to set aside three hours in a row to write a blog post. And I did it a few weeks ago and I really enjoyed the hell out of it. Then I just haven't done it since because I just don't it doesn't happen. I try to schedule it and then it gets bumped.

Jordan Gal: 21:21

And then I look at them and I just say, there's no way I can do three hours and I have all this other stuff to do by the end of the day. So it's not it's not happening and I know how important it is. So what this adviser suggests that I do is to take a look at a podcast, the startup chat podcast with Steli and Heat and Shaw.

Brian Casel: 21:37

Yeah. I just started listening to that one.

Jordan Gal: 21:39

It's it's good. And they have one episode where they talk about, like, how to how to create a content machine.

Brian Casel: 21:47

That's the one I listened to. Yeah, that's a good one.

Jordan Gal: 21:49

It's really good. So what Steli talks about is finding his voice and what he ended up doing and what I'm now experimenting with is if I don't have time to write, but I have the expertise, then what what I'm gonna try to do, and this is what Steli does, if you go to the close. Blog, you'll see some of these blog posts. So Steli just whips on the webcam, like with his apartment and wine bottles in the background and, like, shoes by the door. Like, just the values in what he's saying, not not about the production.

Brian Casel: 22:22

Quick and dirty. Quick and dirty. Just get it

Jordan Gal: 22:24

out there. That's that's the value and people whatever. You get to know people at that level. I think it's better in a lot of ways than super professional and polished. So he flips on the webcam, talks for five minutes about an issue, closes the webcam, and he's done.

Jordan Gal: 22:41

So now he has a YouTube video that he can put on YouTube and that gives you SEO juice. Then he takes that video and sends it over to a writer and says turn this into a blog post to accompany the video. So what you'll see if you go to the close. Blog, you'll see like a video of Steli. You click on the blog post, you see his five to seven minute rant on an issue and then a blog post around it.

Jordan Gal: 23:04

And then at the bottom of it, an opt in for their email course. So it's like in a five minute webcam, just turn it on. No editing, nothing. Just start talking. Done, you're recorded.

Jordan Gal: 23:16

You have something on YouTube bringing you SEO juice. You have something on your blog, you have something you can share and then you have something that a writer can relatively easily turn into a blog post and then that's going to bring in traffic and then the point as always is to get people to subscribe into the into the list.

Brian Casel: 23:31

Yeah. I mean But it's like,

Jordan Gal: 23:33

that sounds doable.

Brian Casel: 23:35

Totally. And it's it's repurposing content which I think is a great idea. You know, you look at something like that or or just repurposing content in general and well isn't that the same message or the same topic or the same content being repeated? And is that really worth anything? And I think the answer is yes because people consume content in different ways.

Brian Casel: 23:56

People prefer different types of content. Like, sometimes I am in a video, mode where it's like, don't really wanna read something. I just wanna kinda, like, watch something while I'm eating breakfast. Right? Or I'm driving and I wanna listen to a podcast.

Brian Casel: 24:10

Or I'm I'm waiting in line somewhere and I wanna read some you know, read something on my phone. So, you know, people consume content in in different ways. And so, yeah, I think I think having all those different touch points is just more entry points into the top of that funnel like we were talking about in last week's episode.

Jordan Gal: 24:28

So Yeah. I just I like how it's doable. I mean, they then go the next level in taking that content and then bundling it into an ebook and then taking all the different ebooks and bundling it to one bigger book they go they go they keep going down the logical steps of what you would want to do in repurposing this content. But I just saw I saw such a logical way to get a good blog post up every week that would require instead of three hours of time for me, ten minutes. I mean, I just go back to a previous podcast I did and I'll just zero in on one thing.

Jordan Gal: 25:04

I'll just, oh yeah, you know how we got more reviews for our e commerce software? It'll be a three minute story in a podcast episode and I'm just going to take that out and just talk about just that topic for five minutes. So it's like really repurposing content that was already created into other repurposed content, but it's more stuff And as long as it's valuable and it's useful, then it's worth doing. Especially hiring a blog writer, the challenge there is in the expertise in your market. Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 25:34

But if you're giving the expertise in the video and all they have to do is take that and translate into a short blog post that goes with the video, it's a lot easier for them. It's a lot easier to find a writer. It's also a lot cheaper. You don't have to pay $250 for a blog post for someone to basically turn your five minute video into a blog post.

Brian Casel: 25:51

Yeah. And, you know, I've been thinking a little bit about this idea of repurposing or or just coming out with with different channels of content for audience ops. This is something that I'd like to try in the next few months is Like, I I wanna start an audience ops podcast. Right? But the idea here is So we have these internal meetings, and and we're starting to do more of these where we're we talk about the topics before the writer start to start writing them.

Brian Casel: 26:22

So we develop, like, editorial calendars and topics list, and and before they write, we'll we'll hash out like what are the main points that we'll that we'll talk about. We do that for all all clients as well, but we also do it internally for our blog on audience options. What I'd like to do right now we have the blog just kinda ramping up. We've got about five posts coming out now. And in the next couple of months, I'd like to start having these weekly meetings with with one or two of the writers on the team to talk about what's the next article that we're writing, and and what are the topics that we'll cover in that article, kinda like an internal meeting, but record it, And make that the podcast.

Brian Casel: 26:59

So, like, have like a behind the scenes editorial meeting as, like, the rough sketch of of what the finished article piece will be. And and kinda, you know, repurpose it as like an so they are different in a way. Like, the audio version will be different than the podcast because it's like before the the article existed, this is where those ideas came from. And and kinda, you know, experiment with something like that.

Jordan Gal: 27:25

Yeah, I like that. It's those byproducts that people usually keep hidden, that's actually what people wanna see. Because nobody else shows it to them.

Brian Casel: 27:36

And the other thing I like about that idea of just more stuff is it's something like every time you you extend into a new channel, whether it's, okay, you've been blogging, now you're gonna do video, or now you're gonna start a podcast, or now you're gonna turn that into an e book. That's an each one of those is a new thing that you can launch. Like you you've launched CartHook years ago, or I've I've launched AudienceOps earlier this year already, so that launch is like past. But I can go on product hunt and promote, you know, check out the new, this new blog that we just launched, or check out the new podcast that's launching. And these are kind of like mini launch events all coming from the same company.

Jordan Gal: 28:20

Yeah, I like that. Alright. Cool. So that's that's my shtick on content production for for the week. Mhmm.

Brian Casel: 28:28

So about a week ago, I read the book, Getting Things Done. And, you know, that's a book that who's who's the author of that? I always forget his name.

Jordan Gal: 28:42

I forget his name too. I can

Brian Casel: 28:43

David Allen.

Jordan Gal: 28:44

David Allen. Looking at the book, right?

Brian Casel: 28:46

Yeah. You know, that's one of these, you know, like pillar books, if if you will, that like, everybody kinda gets to it at some point. And I I just never got around to reading it, and I and my my attitude on the whole thing of like getting things done before I read this book was I know how to get things done. It's simple, like, you know. And and so I was never too focused on, like, building, you know, rigid systems to to kinda, you know, get myself you know, make myself productive every single day.

Brian Casel: 29:21

But I think after reading this book or, well, more like the reason why I I decided to read this book now is because I've I think every two or three years I I come around to, Okay, it's time to reorganize the way that I that I stay productive. Because I feel like in the last few years, I've had different to do lists, I've used Trello boards, I've used paper, notepads, and things. But I still have too many things in my head, like, at all times, at all all hours of the day. And I need to have a a specific system in place to get shit out of my head, documented, off my desk, and then into a into a system where I can, like, go through all that crap that I had documented somewhere and figure out, alright, what's the top priority? What am I working on this week?

Brian Casel: 30:10

And what am I working on today? And I feel like every few years, I I do that, and then I get very organized, and then I let it slip for a couple of years where I I get so busy working on stuff that I'm that I actually look at all these slick to do that list apps and things, and books, and and methods, and I'm like, you know, even reading that method, or even looking at that tool is a distraction from getting shit done. You know, that that's that's been my my attitude with it. It's like, I I don't care about the organization. I just wanna make sure that I'm making progress in my business.

Brian Casel: 30:42

But more recently, my thought has been that's that's cool and all, like move fast, make progress, but at the end of the day, you do need to, somehow make space in in your mind and in your in your life to kind of, you know, like like, incubate different ideas and and and gain a a better focus on what exactly is your current goal right now. And I feel like I had too many things swirling around in my head, like, oh, I wanna start this audience ops podcast someday, or I wanna write this this blog post, or I've got, oh, I should write about this other blog post, or, you know, I should send an email to this person. Like, all that stuff Yeah. Gets, like, mixed up. And and so now, I've I've kinda settled on using todoist.com as my go to to do list manager.

Brian Casel: 31:33

That that's like my personal to do list manager. It's not something that I use with the team, but it's just for myself. And I've integrated it with with Gmail, it's on the iPhone, it's on the iPad, on the computer. Everything is like, You know, I I just like it because it has that It follows the same methodology that that's laid out in the Getting Things Done book, which is have an inbox where everything gets gets thrown into.

Jordan Gal: 31:58

Right. Any idea, anything that pops up in your head. Oh, I gotta remember to call this guy tomorrow.

Brian Casel: 32:03

Yeah. Any idea. Everything goes in the

Jordan Gal: 32:05

inbox.

Brian Casel: 32:05

But also emails that come my way, people say, oh, can you do this thing for me? Or can you answer this question? If I'm in the middle of something, I I don't wanna focus on that. I can just, like, forward that into Todoist. Then it's in my inbox.

Brian Casel: 32:17

And then, every morning I can kinda go in there and and organize, Alright, what's the priority? What what can be pushed off until next week or even next month or something? And then everything gets kinda, you know, organized that way. That that's been working out pretty well. And then I'm also using I've used Apple Notes quite a bit for a long time, and now with the new Mac OS update, they they made it a little bit better with, like, checklists and things.

Brian Casel: 32:43

So, I'm trying to use that even more to anytime I have a thought or wake up in the middle of the night with a thought about business or whatever it is, just get it out of my head and and write a couple paragraphs about it into a note, stash it away in notepad and or in Apple Notes, and it's it's there, I can come back to it later, but it's not sitting in my head somewhere kind of clouding whatever else I should be focusing on right now.

Jordan Gal: 33:10

So Yeah. I've adopted a lot. I've learned a lot from Ben on this. He has a good system and uses Trello for it. So I never got Trello.

Jordan Gal: 33:21

I could never wrap my mind around using it or how I wanted to use it until I saw it's basically the getting things done system. So I have an inbox and then I have backlog for things that get put aside to like, actually, that's not that important, but I want it in my life.

Brian Casel: 33:38

Yeah. I've got a tag in to do is called someday.

Jordan Gal: 33:41

Yeah. Yeah. Just like there. I don't wanna forget about it. I just can't do it right now.

Jordan Gal: 33:46

And then I have, doing, which is what I'm doing now. And then I have like tasks. And then I have my tasks and I try to set a due date for everything. Otherwise, I never look at it ever again. But if it turns red on me, then I know it's past due and I look at it and say, do I really want to do this or do I need to adjust?

Jordan Gal: 34:04

Do I want to do this now? Or is it actually not that important? And then I have a doing list, which I just every day, I'll look at my 30 things in the tasks list, and I'll say these are the five things I actually wanna get done today and move those over to the doing list, and those are the ones that I wanna knock out by the end of the day.

Brian Casel: 34:21

Yeah. And that's like the scrum method, basically?

Jordan Gal: 34:24

I have I have no idea what it would be called. I basically just copied it off Ben and it kinda seems to work for me.

Brian Casel: 34:30

Yeah. I I haven't read the book, but there's there's another book out there called scrum, which which I think is where the the Kanban style Trello concept kind of originates.

Jordan Gal: 34:41

Right. That that sounds familiar. Yeah. Yeah. So and I'm with you.

Jordan Gal: 34:45

I have a tendency to email myself, which is never a good habit.

Brian Casel: 34:50

Yeah. Like, I I I keep emails unread, which I think a lot of people do. Like, if you keep it unread, then it's in my inbox and I won't forget to do it. Yeah. That's like It's not I lose shit, it's just that it's there.

Brian Casel: 35:03

I have to see it every day. And it's not something that It's I wanna focus on right something that I wanna push off, and but it's in a list somewhere else. It's not in front of me right now.

Jordan Gal: 35:13

Yeah. But I'm scared. I'm scared to let it leave the inbox. You know? I I like, oh, I'm just gonna add it to the other 50 things in my Trello backlog and I will never look at it.

Jordan Gal: 35:24

Whereas it's an email that someone sent me and I actually want to reply. It's not just like a write out the email sequence. Right. You know, it's it's actually like someone there's a there's a clock ticking. Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 35:36

There's a clock of guilt.

Brian Casel: 35:38

I know. Yeah. Like, I'm I'm getting used to it myself as well. Like right now, as we speak, I've got something like fifteen. I'm at like inbox fifteen right now.

Brian Casel: 35:46

It's Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 35:48

I don't that's that's fine. I I fluctuate between ten and sixty. But now every Monday I come in and I'm at like 95 emails. I'm like, that sucks, man. I don't wanna start my week off with four hours of email, but that's what I end up doing a lot.

Brian Casel: 36:04

Yeah. You know, the other thing that I do is, I I don't know Everybody seems to want to, like, combine all their different email addresses to forward into one inbox. And I've never done that. I I prefer to have I've got a Gmail account, that's like my my personal, like family and friends email me there. And then I've got, you know, my my main work email that I've had for a few years.

Brian Casel: 36:28

And then I've got a newer email for audience ops. And these are separate. Yeah. Love. Love new email address.

Brian Casel: 36:35

I used to have a separate email for Restaurant Engine and one for Hotel Propeller. And I mean, it's kind of crazy that at some point I had like five or six email addresses that I was checking. Now it's luckily down to three, but I still and I have like three, I've got a little mail folder in my bookmarks bar, and each and inside that folder links to three bookmarks to my three inboxes, and Gmail lets you switch between them. And that gives me some separation, especially with the personal one because like I basically don't check the personal one like all day long.

Jordan Gal: 37:09

That's what I was gonna say. Only problem with that is the personal one gets ignored.

Brian Casel: 37:14

It does, but it's okay if it gets ignored, think, you know?

Jordan Gal: 37:18

Yeah. To a degree, I just feel

Brian Casel: 37:20

Like if my wife needs something, she's gonna text me. It's not like I'm gonna miss, Yeah. You

Jordan Gal: 37:25

But I I think what this leads kinda into our last topic, which is like work life balance, happiness, whatever fluffy term you want to put on normal life. And that has been on my mind lately. So personal inbox is, there used to be a time where friends were the only thing that mattered. And then it became a little more reasonable where friends are an important part of your life. And I know at least personally, have let friends slip into like three to 5% of my life, which is not I don't think that's good.

Jordan Gal: 38:03

I don't think that's healthy. Part of it is my fault because of all the travel. You know? But we need this stuff, and you you need you need to be social.

Brian Casel: 38:13

I know. And I I'm with you on the same same deal with me. And, I think you and I, we we literally come from the same place in Long Island, you know? So Long Island, New York. So I I think I definitely relate to you there.

Brian Casel: 38:28

I I grew up, You know, I'm actually still pretty close friends with a lot of my friends from high school. We had a a group of friends that were very tight. And we still hang out and keep in touch today. But man, in these past few years, I mean, when I was living in Connecticut, in in like the New York Metro Area, I'm not very far from these guys, but I'm still only seeing them like two, three times a year, if that. You know?

Brian Casel: 38:55

It's it's tough when you're, I mean, I it's this is not just an entrepreneur thing. This is like everybody's working and everybody's got a life.

Jordan Gal: 39:04

Yes.

Brian Casel: 39:05

People are having kids now and it's, you know, people's everyone's got something going on. But I do think there's something to that where it's like I don't know. My mind is so focused on where's my business going? What am I gonna get done? What goals am I achieving?

Brian Casel: 39:25

Whereas I feel like other people are much more likely to to do a a regular happy hour and meet up with friends or, you know, and kinda look forward

Jordan Gal: 39:35

to Yeah. Every week they get together for football and and it tends to be it tends to be the friends who have a salary job and I admire and envy a lot of their free time is genuine free time. I feel like I don't actually have free time. The only time I have free time is when I consciously say, you are sitting with your daughter, stop thinking about work. You know, I have to consciously be like, stop thinking about work, focus on what's in front of you and that's it.

Jordan Gal: 40:08

Whereas I feel like the, you know, the employee version of that is very different. It's I'm not in the office. I don't need to think about that until Monday. Yeah, I got to think about my boss and the promotion I'm trying to get and all this other stuff. But right now it's the weekend and I'm hanging out.

Jordan Gal: 40:24

I'm free.

Brian Casel: 40:25

Totally. I really remember distinctly working, the nine to five full time job years ago and the night and day difference in mindset, what I literally like walk out of the office and I'm walking down the street in New York City, like going to the train, going home, there's not a thought in my mind about the fire that I had to put out with some client at the company, like thirty minutes ago. Now I'm outside of the office, I'm walking to the bar, I'm going home, I'm doing whatever. It's like completely out of mind. Like out of sight, out of mind.

Brian Casel: 40:59

Whereas now, when I'm off, even when I'm out hiking with my family or going to the movies, I'm thinking about work, you know?

Jordan Gal: 41:09

Yeah. I don't know about you, for for me, the more insidious, the darker thoughts aren't so much about the tasks and what I'm trying to get done and what I need to remember. It's not feeling like a failure, but it's like, I don't know, you want When I look at my family, when I equate wanting to be further along in my business with not being far enough along for my family. I can't There's like this crazy dichotomy of quality time with the family is always tainted a little bit by my thoughts of like, am I not in a more secure position? Why am I not further ahead on getting these kids set up with the college thing?

Jordan Gal: 41:55

And so it's like, there's a sheen over it that I have to consciously try to remove so that I'm not always thinking these these weird negative thoughts that keep creeping in of like, you should be more successful. You should have made more money. You should be able to provide, you know, like I want all types of amazing shit. I want to show my kids the world and I can't yet. So it's like it that's where it intrudes on beyond just, oh, I have to remember to send an email to this person I told I would email.

Jordan Gal: 42:29

It starts to affect like your day to day, you know, relationship with your environment and and other people.

Brian Casel: 42:35

Yeah. And I I definitely relate to that too. I certainly constantly, you know, continuously feel like not where I need to be yet, and I see it in the future, but I need to get there. Like, I'm constantly chasing after some some lifeti like a lifestyle shift or or a new type of comfort, whether it's like financial or, you know, whatever. And the way that I I kinda view it, is it's this ongoing battle between, all the all the all the commitments and all the things that I say yes to outside of work and in life, whether it's going to a party, or going to a friend's get together, or, what whatever it is, it's it's like I have to make a choice between that and getting shit done and building the business.

Brian Casel: 43:31

And which one am I going to feel more guilty about? I going be more guilty about helping out friends and family or or going to going to catch up with friends and family? Or am I gonna feel guilty more guilty about letting something fall a little bit behind in my business, which which means I'm gonna fall a little bit financially behind for my family?

Jordan Gal: 43:53

Right. It's all it's a zero sum game everywhere everywhere you look. Yeah. And a lot of that a lot of that is cult cultural. It's just like our our interpretation of that as Americans and as our age and whatever else.

Jordan Gal: 44:06

Yeah. All right. So I mean, what we do about it? I think about this a lot. One saying that I've heard recently that I liked was these are the good old days.

Jordan Gal: 44:18

Kind of like, you know, just acknowledging like you will always look back at right now as most likely, you know, unforeseen, whatever. I mean, I'm tired and I'm frustrated and I have a three and a half year old, a one year old and another kid on the way and it's like, woah, I'm freaking exhausted, but these are the best, the best days of my life and I will always look back on that. My daughters are mine. Eventually I'm going to have to share them with the world And I'm gonna look back at this, so I always try to acknowledge that. The other thing I like to do, podcasting cross pollination here.

Jordan Gal: 44:57

I listen to Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, I think, Rogen, him and his writing partner on the Tim Ferriss podcast and they were talking about a conversation they had with Snoop Dogg. And they were smoking with Snoop Dogg and they got into like some deep convo and Snoop Dogg was like, do you take walks? Because that's his thing. I find myself, 03:00 in the afternoon comes around, I'm like, I'm out, I'm out. I'm gonna go take a twenty minute walk around the block and it is so good.

Jordan Gal: 45:31

It's so healthy. I walk my dog also, you do the same thing. So those are my two things. The constant acknowledgement of like, this is amazing right now. Yes, I want to get to this mythical place where everything will be better, but right now is also amazing.

Brian Casel: 45:48

Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And I think, what we're doing right now I keep reminding myself, like, look, I this for a living for a reason. And that reason is I have to enjoy what I'm what I'm working on, and enjoy my day to day life. You know?

Brian Casel: 46:07

That's why I do this. Because I I could, and I'm sure a lot of people listening to this, could probably go get a job and make a lot more than what you're making, you know, bootstrapping a business. I mean, of course, we're building assets and and growing value in that way and and probably making better choices for our future in in my opinion. But, Look, I mean, we're we're traveling the country right now. We're gonna we're traveling abroad as well, and we're doing that now.

Brian Casel: 46:38

Like, why wait till retirement to do that kind of stuff? Or why why try to squeeze it into a five day trip twice a year? You know? Do it do it now. That's why I do what I do.

Brian Casel: 46:48

I I mean, I look at what on like this trip that we're on now as like, this is me paying myself. Like yes, I pay myself myself an actual salary too, but this is really why I'm working on Audience Ops, is to do this. Is to to work, you know, basically half days. I mean, I haven't been totally legit about that. I'm I'm still It's it's 05:20 right now PM and I'm Yep.

Brian Casel: 47:13

You know, working on stuff. But, you know, I mean, it's, This is this is why we do it, is to have this type of freedom, have this type of control over how we spend our time, and who we spend our time with, and not have to s not have to devote two or three hours a day to sitting on a train, you know? And or or having a a defined number of vacation days that if we don't use up this this limited amount of vacation days then they just go away and we have to get back to work. I mean, fuck that.

Jordan Gal: 47:47

Yeah. It's it's an an unnatural unnatural way to to program your life.

Brian Casel: 47:53

Yeah. And and I think there's also something like you said about taking walks. I think this gets back to the getting things done thing, where it's like get stuff out of your head. And it's it's not the type of thing where the more hours you work, the more money you're gonna make. I think it's the more, you know, space that you give yourself in terms of time, in terms of family time, in terms of mind space, enjoying other things other than work, you know, other hobbies and things, that stuff makes your work time much more effective.

Jordan Gal: 48:27

Yeah. It's a tough thing because having said all these things and acknowledging, how lucky you are and family and health, the intoxication, thought of achieving what we have been working for for so long. It's so powerful. It's so unbelievably powerful. I just visualize that.

Jordan Gal: 48:54

I feel how good it would feel to get there and that's a powerful driving force. I don't think it was This Week in Startups. It was it was Jason Kalkanis. You know what it was? It was a This Week in Startups episode, but it wasn't a normal interview episode.

Jordan Gal: 49:13

It was it was him like in a classroom with others, with founders. And what he was doing, he was telling the founders the story of when he sold WebLogs Inc. Nobody knows exactly how much it was for, but everyone I think it's 25 mil. That's like the understood thing. He can't confirm or deny it, but basically 25,000,000.

Jordan Gal: 49:34

And he describes the evening at home with his wife standing in front of a computer waiting for the wire transfer to come through after ten years of shame and misery and being broke and being in his apartment and looking at the bank account on the computer and hitting refresh and then seeing those millions hit his bank account. And, you know, he he talks to me. He's like, man, I cried. And so I that

Brian Casel: 50:04

I can't imagine that.

Jordan Gal: 50:06

Neither. Me neither. But it's it's worth it's worth digging digging up. It's it's a fantastic episode. But that's intoxicating.

Jordan Gal: 50:15

Achieving that, you can fucking feel how bad you want that and how fucking good it would feel.

Brian Casel: 50:21

Yeah. But, you know, for for you and for everyone listening to this who who's in this mode of like, how do I reconcile work life balance and not drive myself crazy with I'm not where I wanna be yet. I'm I'm getting to some finish line that's out in the future somewhere, and I need to get there sooner, I need to get there faster. I need I need to get there yesterday. I mean, you've gotta balance that with look at what look at your life right now.

Brian Casel: 50:48

I mean, you're home, you're working at home, you've got your family around, you can you can take walks, you can you can work and you can travel anywhere, anytime you want. I mean and so so there's that piece, you have that type of freedom, and we're in like the 1% minority who has that type of freedom. I mean, it's we really take that for granted. Like Yeah. Hard to remember every day when wake up.

Brian Casel: 51:16

Really is hard to remember how shitty it is to have to commute to a job nine to five for years and years on end. I mean, the so there's that piece, but then the other piece that I always, keep at the front of my mind is like, I enjoy this work. I enjoy coming up with a marketing plan. I enjoy working on some bug on a website. You know, designing a brand.

Brian Casel: 51:43

You know, coming up writing, speaking.

Jordan Gal: 51:45

Yeah, figuring out

Brian Casel: 51:46

these Podcasting. And like, this this kind of shit, like, this is my job description and it's fun. And it's engaging and I'm actually solving problems. Whereas, you're working at a job, you're solving somebody else's problem. Solving a problem that somebody else gave you.

Jordan Gal: 52:01

Yeah. I think the bottom line is that I forget what the saying is, it's that there's no there's no work life balance, that there are only trade offs. If if you really only cared about making money, you could. You just would be a terrible father and a bad husband. Yeah.

Jordan Gal: 52:21

But you would you would make more money. And if you didn't care about money at all, then you'd be a great father. And so somewhere in between the two, you have to find what makes sense for your, you know, your life and your makeup and your situation and

Brian Casel: 52:34

Yeah. And that's and that's not to say that that you're not going to get the the big payoff down the road that you plan to get because you will get it. And that's part of what we do today as our job is like, we're making decisions in such a way that will project us down this road. Like like we've talked about in the past, like if, you know, in terms of, like, financial projections, SaaS projections, working on the right business, choosing the right business idea in the first place, like, we know that, like, we're we're putting ourselves on some kind of trajectory to have some kind of outcome in in the future years. It's not like it's not like I'm saying my attitude is to completely ignore that stuff.

Brian Casel: 53:16

It's it's like, I want my cake and eat it too. You're you're gonna have a good future and you're gonna enjoy what you're doing today. Like there's it's bullshit to say that you you have to bust ass and hate your job today in order to have that that good future. Like, don't accept that.

Jordan Gal: 53:32

Oh, man, brother. Cool. Good

Brian Casel: 53:36

stuff, man. Let's leave it there, I guess.

Jordan Gal: 53:38

Yeah. I think that that that does it for us. Good stuff. Fun as always. And if if you like the the show, hook us up with a review and head over to bootstrapweb.com for this episode and all the others.

Brian Casel: 53:53

Absolutely.

Jordan Gal: 53:54

Brian, make it stop raining over there. Get outside finally.

Brian Casel: 53:57

Oh, man. It sucks. It's like we just started traveling, it's just nonstop raining.

Jordan Gal: 54:00

Alright. It's one one one hurricane. You'll be on your way.

Brian Casel: 54:05

Alright. Now go go spark it up out there. See you.

Jordan Gal: 54:08

Hell yeah. Late.