Marinating in the sauce

Justin: 00:00

Welcome to The Panel: where founders talk about building a better business and a better life in the age of AI. I'm Justin Jackson, the co founder of transistor.fm.

Brian Casel: 00:10

And I'm Brian Casel, founder of Builder

Jordan: 00:13

And I'm Jordan Gal, founder at Hey Rosie. And I'll be your host today.

Justin: 00:19

Yeah. Yes, sir.

Jordan: 00:20

Okay. Cool. So we got some topics. I got a Google Doc full of things. Some I understand, some I don't understand.

Jordan: 00:28

I wanna ask you guys about. Yeah. Generally speaking, it's May 1.

Justin: 00:33

And It's gonna be May.

Jordan: 00:34

It's gonna be May.

Justin: 00:35

I don't

Jordan: 00:35

know about you guys. I did not ride the emotional roller coaster of April very well.

Justin: 00:41

I'm Okay. I'm battered. Battered from what?

Brian Casel: 00:45

I was telling you in the chat, same thing here. Yeah. Alright.

Jordan: 00:48

Let's go Yes. Do So so, you know, I have projections that I I keep an eye on. I have cash in in mind. I have revenue in mind. I have burn.

Jordan: 01:02

I have runway. And I have my sights set on profitability. Yeah. And what that ends up doing is if I'm on course or ahead, I'm I'm a happy man. I'm a happy founder.

Jordan: 01:14

But if anything goes a little off, oh man, I'm it's just kinda twisting. And the the April, the first two weeks in April were real slow. Ab abnormally slow. And we were on pace to just not do what we needed to do in April, especially not according to the projections. And then the last two weeks in April, we just flew and it's literally like you just see the line just catching up to the projection line.

Jordan: 01:42

Mhmm. And we hit it and and now I feel like we added another 10 k in MRR in April. Wow. And I should be really happy and I'm just like, woah. I don't even know how to restart the roller coaster for the month of May.

Jordan: 01:56

Yeah. So I'm I'm like taking a deep breath. I'm gonna take the weekend and not worry about whatever's happening. Know Brian, you you mentioned something similar.

Brian Casel: 02:04

Dude, the longer longer we we do this thing, the years in, the years out, I just see the same patterns over and over again with my own like mental state, comfort level and all of it. Right? So like I on April 1, going into early April, I knew like I knew that the month of March was a breakout, like record setting month for Builder Methods. Like far and away, broke a lot of records. Thanks to some YouTube videos that that went crazy that month.

Brian Casel: 02:32

Awesome. So sales were unbelievable in March and I knew that that was just a spike and I was expecting a natural correction in April. And the first pattern is like, okay, my mind immediately goes to like, April, like we might actually have like a zero month. Like maybe it's all over. Like that same like story that rattles that like this is it, I've had a It's all, it's okay.

Brian Casel: 02:57

So then early April comes around, I still haven't launched the new redesign. Okay, sales are like fine. They're slower but they're fine and we're surviving.

Justin: 03:07

Then

Brian Casel: 03:07

in about a week and a half ago is when I actually like cut over and deployed the new site, buildermethods.com. Full full redesign but more importantly, a full reposition. Every line of copy is different. Speaking to a new ICP, launching a new course.

Justin: 03:26

Dude, I I never wanna launch a new website because I just don't wanna mess with nothing.

Brian Casel: 03:31

That was exactly We could talk about that. Dude, exactly my fear. This is after like eight months of like pretty good sales but some signals that, we talked about it last week, why I wanted to shift gears. So still, the night before the launch of anything, whether it's a redesign or a new product or whatever it might be, I always have that in my mind. Like this new thing, I would not be surprised if it has zero sales.

Brian Casel: 03:57

This thing might just fall on its face.

Jordan: 03:59

Is that you like resetting some expectations lower and it's just an experiment I could always go back, you're like protecting yourself?

Brian Casel: 04:07

That seems like a like a hack, but I believe it. Okay. I really think like this thing is not gonna work. Right. So but then I launched it and like I do, I launch on Fridays.

Brian Casel: 04:23

Fridays. I don't don't know know why why I I always always do. Do. Okay. But then you know, then the weekend happens, sales are slow.

Brian Casel: 04:28

Monday, sales are kind of slow like and then I think I had like one or two sales on each of those days which is slower than usual And I'm like, oh shit. And now by like Wednesday into today, sales have been much higher. Nice. So it's just nice to know that like strangers are coming through my funnel and they are still converting with the new copy and everything. Mhmm.

Brian Casel: 04:53

Yeah. But just one one last thing, Jordan, you said something that I resonate with every single day, which is I I am not in a good mood until I get one sale. Like every day. And that happens on a monthly basis too but it's, now it's on a daily where it's like, I expect to get at least one sale a day. And I should be getting more.

Brian Casel: 05:16

Most days I do get more. If twenty four hours goes goes by without a sale, I'm freaking out. You know?

Jordan: 05:24

Yeah. We we always tell ourselves because we we run ads and you can't look at one day of ad performance and make any decisions. It tells you nothing. Mhmm. So we always tell ourselves we have to look at it in a weekly basis, not a daily basis.

Jordan: 05:39

Mhmm. And it's just a useless mantra. I just say Yeah. And ignore. And I'm ignoring as I'm saying it, I'm ignoring it.

Jordan: 05:46

And it's just like a little, this is the right thing to do, and then I can't I can't do it. Yep. So it's the same thing. You know, good day yesterday, good mood. Bad day on sign ups or card conversion rate, you know, good mood.

Jordan: 05:58

Bad day

Brian Casel: 05:58

And now it's a thing with my wife. She's always just like, did you get your sales or not?

Justin: 06:01

Oh, I know

Brian Casel: 06:02

what you're getting. How brutal. Let's see. Can I

Jordan: 06:05

ask him, like, the question I really wanna ask him or should I save it for a little later?

Brian Casel: 06:09

Right. Right.

Justin: 06:10

Yeah. I mean, the emotional side the emotional side for me has definitely gone away. The edge is off. Once you're kinda you have a machine that's working and it's you've just and you've also seen, like, one day we might be down, you know. Like, what I I can tell you what we're aiming for is eventually, I want every single day, including weekends, I want the average for a week to be 20 to 25 daily sign ups.

Justin: 06:38

And that's with a credit card beforehand. Right? So like I said before, it's they sign up with a credit card and then we convert 75% of those paid. So it's just like this nice, clean, simple funnel. And so if you have consistent sign ups, you just know that you're doing fine.

Justin: 06:58

It it really what I think that the one of the things that has really helped me mentally is just simplifying the funnel. Because when it's when it's simple, when it's just like people hit the site and it's almost always the pricing page or the homepage. So we already know the bulk of the traffic's going

Jordan: 07:15

there. Mhmm.

Justin: 07:16

They have intent to buy. And so we have to deal with intent before they get to the site. And then as long as they're clicking that trial button, the friction point is the credit card. We're gonna lose some people there. But if we get them with the credit card, and then they have a great experience, we just know we're going to consistently convert them.

Justin: 07:38

So for us, it's all top of funnel. And that means yeah. What how many daily sign ups are we getting? And we've got emojis for good sign up days and bad sign up days. But I've also known, like, you know, sometimes it'll be like, oh, no.

Justin: 07:53

We only got x number. It's like, well, we've seen this before. You know? Some days, you just have a bad day, you know? Let's look

Jordan: 08:01

back thirty days at the end of the month. Here's my question to you on that because I have gotten to a similar place on the consistency. Mhmm. But what it's doing to me is creating frustration that I can't increase the slope. Mhmm.

Jordan: 08:20

That, okay, it's consistent and it's good. But, you know, what I should be doing day to day, week to week Mhmm. Is trying to accelerate the growth. Mhmm. And so it I end up in a place with great consistent growth and really unhappy with my performance.

Jordan: 08:41

So that that is grading on me. And it it it puts me in this place where I'm like, well, the right thing to do is just be patient, keep doing the same thing we're doing because that leads us to a good place. Mhmm. And then on the other end, I'm like, yeah, but you should be more ambitious and you should, you know, pick your head up from off the desk and look around and think about, well, what creative things should I be doing to increase the the acceleration.

Justin: 09:04

I I've never had

Jordan: 09:05

a just one second. Just wanna Yeah. Point out one one key element of it is I've never had a fully fully self serve software product. And what that does is like well, it's like your situation, Justin. If you have more at the top of the funnel, you're gonna get more sign ups.

Jordan: 09:23

Mhmm. So it's like, oh, the machine is working. Great. But do you just kinda sit and be happy with the machine working as it is? Or do you say, okay.

Jordan: 09:31

Well, you know, if it can do x, it can definitely do two x. Nothing changes other than the number of people that come into the top of the funnel. Mhmm. So why should I be happy with one x? Mhmm.

Jordan: 09:43

And after a few months of that, I'm like, okay. Now I'm cranky even though the numbers,

Justin: 09:49

you

Jordan: 09:49

know, shouldn't make me cranky.

Justin: 09:50

I think

Brian Casel: 09:51

that this gets to something that's on your list, Jordan, about you can just do things as the founder. Yep. Founding. This also touches into distribution which I know we'll talk about today. Yep.

Brian Casel: 10:01

But what you're saying, see, like the thing that that sometimes, I don't know, bothers me or or not that I have a problem with it, it's just that I I notice this a lot. Seeking advice, getting general advice from others, as valuable as it can be, a lot of it tends to default to what's working, just keep doing that. Double down on what's working. Right? And Mhmm.

Brian Casel: 10:28

In theory, I agree, but I but I do think that there's a flip side. It's like, okay, what's what has worked got me here. But that's just gonna get more of the of the current slow flat line. Like, yes, the line will still go up, but in order to change the calculus, in order to change the trajectory, we have to introduce something new or something or fundamental. And that's the scary part of being a founder.

Brian Casel: 10:55

We talked about it with the ICP stuff last last week. Like it sort of worked up until now, but why change everything? Well, that got us here, but not to there. And I I think that's what you're getting at, Jordan. Right?

Justin: 11:05

Like I

Jordan: 11:06

wanna add one thing to that and then ask Justin how he how he's dealing with it. It it is good advice to double down on what's working. Right? But but sometimes you get to a point where you're not sure what to do of what's working, how much more or what more to do. Where that's led me is to look at things that are adjacent to what's working.

Brian Casel: 11:27

Right.

Jordan: 11:27

So I've gone completely far off. Right? Like cold email, completely separate from our main channel of advertising. And that doesn't seem like right. So I I try to go adjacent to what's working.

Jordan: 11:40

What's working? Paid on social. Mhmm. And so I'm looking at like, well, how do we do paid in a slightly different way with these partnership and spark ads? Or how do we start to do organic at scale?

Jordan: 11:51

And I can talk about that later today when we talk about distribution. Justin, what what's bringing in the sign ups? What's the thing that's currently working? Mhmm.

Justin: 12:02

A lot a lot of

Jordan: 12:03

it's SEO. Is it not?

Justin: 12:04

Yeah. SEO and LLM SEO, GEO, or whatever they call it. Right. I mean, it's actually a number of things. I I as you were talking about this, part of me was just like, you've gotta you do just have to keep doing the the things that are working.

Justin: 12:21

There's like this overlap between what works and then the Venn diagram is what works for me. And those have to intersect. And yeah, you gotta keep doing the things that are working that work for you consistently. And what we found is just over time, these new pockets of demand will open up and then you are just well placed, well positioned to suck up a lot of that demand. And so we're seeing that with video now.

Justin: 12:49

So we just had slow, steady growth for a long time. Then the LLM stuff started picking up. All of a sudden, we're getting all these referrals, so we had a good growth year this year, better than the previous year. And now the video stuff is picking up. And so now we're kind of, like, well placed for a number of reasons.

Justin: 13:09

There's a foundation to pick up and soak up all that demand. But the the other thing that I came I was thinking as you're talking is, like, in terms of what works and how do we be ambitious and all this stuff, founder gut. I'm just I'm I'm going back to founder gut because now that I'm looking back on and this is so uniquely personal for a company. Like, there was something magical about John and I coming together, and then whatever that mix of our two personalities and our guts that and our instincts when we were building it as two people that just made it work. And now I'm just feeling like I gotta get back to that.

Justin: 13:56

And I've had I've had too many cases now where people have told me, well, this is the right idea and you gotta be doing ads. Everyone's doing ads. And I did ads at my previous employer and it worked. And it's like, I've just gotta, like, be thinking in my head what like, I need to go with my gut, like, what are customers actually doing as a customer? Do I wanna receive more cold email?

Justin: 14:18

No. Okay. Like, I have to go with what feels right to me. Yes. Yeah.

Justin: 14:25

And I

Brian Casel: 14:26

challenge Justin, I can notice it in you describing it here compared to months ago Yeah. Probably on this on this podcast where it it lost is the wrong word cause you've had a solid business throughout but like you did seem a little bit like lost in the desert of like what should the what should the new North Star be for Transistor and now it seems like with the video podcasting stuff, that seems to be firing you up and that's That seems to be good for business.

Justin: 14:54

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's like that thing you know in your gut, which is one, which ends up being true for, like, content, like any video you make or blog posts you write or podcast you create, but also for business, if I'm fired up about it, it's already a competitive advantage. Like, that is already a better thing.

Justin: 15:16

I'm just gonna do all these things that normal people wouldn't do that are hard to hard to explain. Like, what do you do all day? It's like, dude, I am just, like, fired up in a ton of directions and it's just I'm talking to people. I like, it it manifests itself in so many ways. So fired up is one.

Justin: 15:35

But then two is just like, I believe this. I believe this. As opposed to somebody saying, you know what would really grow Transistor? You know, like all these cold emails I'm getting all the time which piss me off. They're like, I've evaluated your funnel and it looks like you're losing 30%.

Justin: 15:52

And I'm like, fuck off. I don't want to talk to you. I don't I don't want I don't need somebody else to convince me. And and the other thing I just feel so strongly now is like, if I am not the expert at what my market wants and how to deliver that to the market in the way that we are uniquely positioned and talented in doing, then I shouldn't be in this business. Like, I I just need to feel it, and when I feel it, I know.

Justin: 16:19

And it's some the hardest part, honestly, is communicating it sometimes to the team. To communicate these things I just know instinctually. Like, I know it in my guts, but it's like, how do I communicate, like, all of this how do when you've been what do you call that when you put meat in a sauce overnight? Marinate? Marinate.

Justin: 16:41

Yes.

Jordan: 16:43

So happy I got

Justin: 16:44

that. When you've been marinating forever, you know, it's like hard to communicate all of that stuff that's been seeping into your bones. And you just kind of have this feel like, ah, like I feel like we gotta do this. And people

Brian Casel: 17:00

And that's literally the job. Like there's only one person or in the case of co founders, two people in the company who it is your responsibility to just go on instinct. Of course you're gonna get inputs from all over the place, right? You're gonna weigh all this different data and feedback. But to make the big calls, to change direction, to make these big like gut inspirational decisions, vision, know, set out the vision like no one else, that's that's in nobody else's job description here.

Brian Casel: 17:36

It's it's on us to like trust that number one above all. Right? Yeah.

Jordan: 17:40

There there's a big challenge in a remote team because you're not I'll continue with the analogy. You're not marinating in the same sauce.

Justin: 17:48

Yes. Yes. We we gotta we gotta talk about this.

Jordan: 17:51

Yeah. So so here's the here's the real issue to the audience right now. Justin has traversed all of the topics that we have. And I don't know where to go.

Brian Casel: 18:00

Just gonna wrap it up.

Jordan: 18:03

We've we've we'll have these, like, little stepping stones. We've stepped on all the stones. But I feel like this is a great opportunity to kind of dive in where it makes sense. Yep. There is let let let's stick on this topic now, which is, like, wanting to follow our gut Mhmm.

Jordan: 18:20

And and the responsibility of the CEO or founder, in Brian's case, you know, all the responsibility is on you Mhmm. To to follow your gut and to communicate it and get people on board. Yeah. When when I am at my worst, I feel like I don't have the credibility to just tell people, don't worry about it. This is my gut.

Jordan: 18:47

This is what it says. And when I'm at when I'm at my best, I am confident in the gut feel and I feel like I've earned the trust of the team. And in many ways, I think they they want to believe. You know Mhmm. This whole arrangement that people have signed on to, it's not like they're outsourcing decision making entirely.

Jordan: 19:10

But they really want to feel like the person leading is doing things by their gut and is passionate about the direction to take everyone in. Mhmm. I've gone to the habit. I'd I'd like to hear, Brian, how you think about it, Justin, how you communicate it. I've gone to the habit of not so much disagreeing strongly where I see the opportunity or if it's against where I wanna go.

Jordan: 19:36

I just kind of acknowledge that makes sense. My gut is telling me x. So I introduce the verbiage of my gut is telling me all the time, regularly in in debates and conversations. And it's almost a way to overrule, like, controversial decisions that clearly don't have a black and white straightforward answer.

Justin: 20:03

Mhmm.

Jordan: 20:03

And in that milieu of of gray, I'd rather just tip over into the default of I got all the information. I got your point of view. You got this other person's point of view. We're all talking about it openly. My gut says this.

Brian Casel: 20:18

Yeah. If I could play like therapist for a second, Jordan, I wanna ask you is where's the fear where does the fear come from on that? Right? Like, it in the team setting, you know, you you you the two of you have like a much different dynamic than than I have to deal with. I I've got like sort of the opposite end of the spectrum and sort of challenges.

Brian Casel: 20:38

But like for you, like is the fear like the team isn't gonna buy into my decision making on this or the team is gonna feel undermined or that their their voice is not being heard because I'm making the call on something? Like where where does that come from?

Jordan: 20:50

It's just being wrong.

Brian Casel: 20:52

It's just like

Jordan: 20:53

Nobody's gonna mind if they got overruled and you ended up being right. That that's all everyone's okay with that. Cool. You know, we had the debate. I thought this thing we went the other way and it worked out.

Jordan: 21:05

No complaints for me as a team member. It's the it's being wrong. That's where you you have a certain amount of credibility. You have your 100 score of credibility and it gets dinged over time and you have to like replenishment. It comes back down and I don't wanna be in a position where I'm wrong too often.

Jordan: 21:25

My credibility goes down and and that like hurts the confidence of the team. It it's like I feel that that's a dangerous place. Especially in like a small company, everyone can just like raise their hands and go get a job somewhere else. You know, So you pick that up. Believe this thing is going to succeed and you know, being wrong too often is not good for that.

Brian Casel: 21:47

Yeah. Even though I don't really have I have a couple people working with me but it's not the same dynamic but I have the exact same constant fear and stress over like because I because every single every Big and small, every decision comes comes to me every day, all day. Mhmm. And I spend so much time and effort cycling, like recycling through like, alright, I'm doing this because of this, and this is the story I'm telling myself on this and this is the this is the strategic direction of why I got here and why I'm deciding to do this and here's my top five priorities for the month because I decided that's the order. Why is that the order again?

Brian Casel: 22:24

Okay. It's it's because of that and it's just constantly constantly second guessing myself for that reason, just fear of being wrong.

Justin: 22:32

Yeah. That's a

Jordan: 22:33

lot of weight. That internal conversation without part

Brian Casel: 22:36

of it. Especially as a solo. And I've been solo my whole career and I've gone through periods of feeling comfortable with that. I've gone through periods of feeling pretty weak with that. And then going through the peaks and valleys, once you have a few valleys, it just, it makes the, it just, you know, I've, I've, over the years, I've tried to get better and faster.

Brian Casel: 23:01

Just make a decision, just go one way or the other. Don't, don't, don't like spend way too much time weighing the options.

Justin: 23:08

Mhmm.

Brian Casel: 23:09

But then you just get but then you know that like if you do make the wrong decision, you're gonna kill yourself over it. Yeah.

Jordan: 23:15

It's torturous.

Justin: 23:16

So I mean, I'm not I I definitely don't like being wrong. That that's not fun. I I for me, that's not the biggest I I don't think that's the biggest fear. For me, it's a yeah. It's just like having to because you do I for me, I think it's more about team buy in.

Justin: 23:40

I think it's more about us just being committed to a direction as a group. It's more I'm I'm actually fine to if some of my bets don't make up don't don't work out at this point. I think I it would what's worse is that I I think what I've learned, what's worse is just having kind of this middling, like, oh, we're just getting consensus on, you know, this is which way we're gonna go and everybody gets input. And I've just realized, like, there's there's lots of smart people in my orbit. There's lots of smart people my whole team is smart.

Justin: 24:22

There's lots of smart people that are advising me all the time. At the end of the day, I have to go with my gut. And if my gut's wrong, I can just own it and move on. But it's way better than me going, I don't really think this is right but I'm gonna do it because other people are telling me it's right.

Jordan: 24:39

Yeah.

Justin: 24:39

It that has failed me almost a 100% of the time.

Jordan: 24:44

Yes. But there isn't that much of a price to pay when you're wrong that way. Because everyone bought into it. It's all consensus and it's

Justin: 24:51

would argue there's a worse price to pay. I

Brian Casel: 24:52

it it

Justin: 24:53

pisses me off. That's the worst Internally.

Jordan: 24:56

For yourself. You're like, I should have followed my gut.

Brian Casel: 25:00

Over conventional wisdom, no, like, knowingly going against my gut because I I thought that my gut was maybe being too too risky and looking back on it, like, I should have just I knew it and I and I decided not to do it.

Jordan: 25:16

I I agree. And that, like, the but that's like a that's a you problem. You're just kinda dealing with that yourself. Mhmm. The the challenge, think, is the what's the saying?

Jordan: 25:25

The being contrarian and right? Mhmm. So in a group dynamic, being contrarian and right to basically overrule because you're the person with the final say Mhmm. That's where it's really, really critical to be right.

Justin: 25:39

Yeah. Except the other thing that I I I I think that gives you an enormous amount of credibility is this is a John Collison quote, I think. Is he's just like he just marvels he's like, I just marvel at all of the stuff that got built and worked. Like, that is the most unique, incredible thing in the world. For something to get built and for it to work.

Justin: 26:03

So, you know, Jordan, for you to say, we are changing directions. What? We can't change directions? We got all this No. We are changing directions.

Justin: 26:11

And then you did it, and then it worked? And same with you, Brian. You said, you know, you were going one way and then you're like, no. I'm changing directions. What are you doing changing directions?

Justin: 26:20

You can't change directions. It's like, no. I'm changing directions and it worked. And here's the thing, is that as soon as you have built the thing that's working, you've gotta go with that momentum that got you there. That is that is almost always the way it works.

Justin: 26:38

Mhmm. And even great companies, like, at any great company. Think about Google. Think about Microsoft. Think about Apple.

Justin: 26:45

Where does Google make all its money? Search. The founders got one thing right. They built it, and now they've been coasting on that ever since. What did Microsoft get right?

Justin: 26:54

Office, distribution, sales. They've been coasting on that ever since. What did Apple get right? They got a few pieces of hardware right and they've just been coasting on that ever since. This is like and so for someone else to come in, sure, you could have Michael Dell come in to Apple and say, you guys are doing it all wrong.

Justin: 27:14

But the point is, no, no, no. We gotta we've gotta build on this momentum that we already have. For you to come outside and bring us a different way, that's not gonna work here. We need to stick with what got built and who built it and why they built it. You know?

Jordan: 27:33

Yes. What it makes me think of a quick side story. One of my investors is Scott Bannister who who invented the online auction that turned into AdWords. Oh, wow. And whenever he emails me, he's one of those, like, all lower case, like, eight words as an email response.

Jordan: 27:57

And it carries so much weight and credibility with me. Mhmm. Because I'm I'm like, this guy did something very weird and was so right that he's kind of just has the credibility forever.

Brian Casel: 28:09

Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Was cool.

Brian Casel: 28:11

I mean, if you think about AdWords, like,

Jordan: 28:13

that's like Exactly. Beginning of, like, pay per

Brian Casel: 28:16

click. Right?

Jordan: 28:16

It's literally an an engine an economy sized engine. So Yeah. Let let let let's keep going. So alright. We talked about building things.

Jordan: 28:26

I feel like we can we can go into founder agency and I can talk about Allbirds. But, like, let's talk about a topic that everyone's trying to figure out. And I don't

Brian Casel: 28:36

I'm curious about the Allbirds thing.

Justin: 28:37

I I

Jordan: 28:38

can tell you, actually. Okay. Distribution. Mhmm. This is all over the timeline, all over the conversation right now is because building is becoming more trivial by the day.

Jordan: 28:57

Therefore, it's all about distribution. Mhmm. And people with companies and people with distribution are gonna win, and you should be working on distribution. And I'm I'm a little confused on what what that actually means and how that's different than, you know, a year ago where it felt like it was the same thing. You can't get anywhere with that distribution.

Jordan: 29:26

Mhmm. So what what does this mean to you? Does that mean less focus on product? Equal focus? More just is distribution more challenging?

Jordan: 29:35

I let me just turn it over to you, Justin, for a second. You you you seem like you have some thoughts on This is Then, Brian, with you, you've succeeded in lot of ways in distribution in this environment.

Brian Casel: 29:47

And then I'll Yeah. What do got, Justin?

Jordan: 29:48

Expand on my confusion.

Justin: 29:49

I I think for me, product and marketing have always been linked. So, like, when whenever I introduced myself, I would always say, I do product and marketing. And I for times, I was a product manager. For times, I was a product marketing manager. I always said, I do product and marketing.

Justin: 30:06

Well, why is that? Because the product is the marketing. The marketing is the product. They are just the same. And you can see it even in simple decisions like host unlimited podcasts for one price.

Justin: 30:24

That has driven us so much distribution. It distributes itself because people are searching for, I wanna host multiple podcasts and pay one price. Opposed to paying a new subscription for every new show I start. Right?

Jordan: 30:39

It's a fundamental characteristic of the product. That's It's central to the message.

Justin: 30:45

And it is all it's all of your observations, your product observations of what humans want, what they're searching for, what they would be weird if they didn't buy that informs the product. And then then once you have it built, you can just go to those people who are already in motion, who already have a to do list to, like, I gotta figure out my calls. I keep missing I keep missing opportunities. Like, I'm missing all these opportunities because nobody's getting back to these people. So to me, it's it's linked with product.

Justin: 31:22

It's and and and maybe deeper than that. I know this is a boring answer because it's not like, here's three things you can try and three good, like, channels you can try. It really is about understanding customer, what they really want, what the emotions are behind the purchase. Like, you can just feel when when there's market demand, you can just feel it. It's like going fishing and you, like, cast out and it's just like, woah, I got a bite.

Justin: 31:55

And then you pull it, oh, I got another bite. It just feels like you're fishing where the fish are biting.

Brian Casel: 32:00

And the demand that you're feeling is a result of you all already being tapped into a distribution channel.

Jordan: 32:08

That Right. There's my question. Right? How do you feel the demand if you don't have some bait in the water? They they need to know about you in some form or another.

Justin: 32:19

Yeah. I

Jordan: 32:20

You mean might be a bit blinded by your natural ability to project out a message.

Justin: 32:26

Yeah. Oh, I mean I think that's I think that's it. I mean I think every founder and company has to figure out with their unique DNA what are the channels that work best for them. And I think we've figured that out. Think that Yeah.

Brian Casel: 32:47

Okay. Think that

Jordan: 32:48

Brian, you're in distribution game. Yeah.

Brian Casel: 32:52

I've come It took me way too many years to really figure out this truth that I think we all know to be true, which is like if you're gonna start a business, if you're in startup mode, start with distribution, not the product.

Jordan: 33:10

Specifically explicitly said that at the beginning of this. Back when you and I were of Builder Methods or what, you know, what this has turned into. Yeah. And I didn't follow that. On our old podcast, you were like, I think I'm gonna do what I what I should have done.

Jordan: 33:26

Mhmm. Yeah. And I'm gonna build that distribution first and I'm not really sure what product I'm gonna offer.

Brian Casel: 33:30

And that's exactly what happened. Yes. You're right. That that that is exactly what happened with Builder Methods and it's exactly what I didn't do on so many of my previous businesses, you know. And by that, I mean, but but why does that work?

Brian Casel: 33:44

Right? Like, it's it's not just, like you can't I think the the misconception out there, it's like, okay, we get it. Like you wanna, you should do marketing early and often before you sell your product. But I think the misconception is that you still have an idea of what your product is gonna be, but no. I think the thing is when you are tapped into distribution, which means you you have the radar for whatever demand is out there, that is what gives you the spark.

Brian Casel: 34:13

The inspiration for like, oh, there are people out here that that have a problem. Now I have a product idea to solve that problem because I'm already tapped in. So like, and so that was the thing. I mean, I was doing YouTube last year and if you look at my YouTube channel from a year and a half ago, I was not really talking about AI. Like I was in the desert searching for things.

Brian Casel: 34:38

Then even now, like even through selling Builder Methods Pro and selling workshops and stuff like, it's still shaping. Like literally today, I just launched a new thing called Build Kits. As like a new benefit that you get in Builder Methods Pro. So I'm still shaping what the actual value prop that you get in Builder Methods Pro is. There's a lot of constants in there with courses and community and stuff but like now there's this build kits thing.

Brian Casel: 35:04

So I I I do think that, okay, like I think that there are two sides to this distribution question. Right? There's there's one is the early early earliest stage startup. Like I wanna start, I wanna quit my job and start a business. Mhmm.

Brian Casel: 35:19

Focus on distribution that's a, gonna give you the audience and b, it's gonna give you the data points to then find whatever product might work there. Right? Okay. That's how I would think about it in startup mode. Then you're in, then the other side is like what all of us are in now day to day.

Brian Casel: 35:36

We are running active businesses. So how do we think about distribution and product? And to me it's a seesaw. I'm always feeling stressed because I feel behind. I feel I feel like I'm I'm behind on on either marketing or product always.

Brian Casel: 35:55

Like it's it's always a seesaw from week to week. Right? So so if I'm focused on marketing, so in my case that's like publishing a lot of YouTube videos and and really focusing on like getting my stuff out there and and an exposure. Okay, I've got like my my traffic source, my distribution going, but and and I'm probably generating sales, but then I'm getting emails and questions and saying, you said that those build kits things are coming, like when are those coming? Like, like I just I just bought this thing or I'm thinking about buying it but when are you actually gonna drop that thing that you promised?

Brian Casel: 36:32

You know, so so I feel kinda behind on the product side. And then and then I'll spend a few weeks recording courses and doing doing the build kits and go go into the community and like doing stuff on the product side and oh shit, I haven't published a YouTube video in two weeks and now I'm like behind on traffic. And so like it's that seesaw, you know?

Justin: 36:50

Yeah. Mean Scale. In addition In terms of practical things, I think everybody should be doing. One practical thing is to go in an incognito window and also message your friends and say, I want you to just search for automatic voice answering machines or AI voice response Phone response or something. Yeah.

Justin: 37:19

And just see and then send me a screenshot of what comes back, and then just start optimizing for those things. So looking at what sources is Google looking at in its AI overview. What sources is ChatGPT looking at in its Answer. What sources Anthropic looking at. And then, oh, it's Reddit.

Justin: 37:40

I'm gonna go to that thread. It's it's a lot of hand to hand combat. Like, here's a perfect example. Did I share this already? That there's this one Reddit thread, best podcast hosting.

Justin: 37:52

I don't actually know if I wanna say this out loud.

Jordan: 37:54

Yep. Yep. Careful.

Justin: 37:55

There's Reddit thread out there that gets referenced a lot. And I noticed that Google kept surfacing this one comment. But it wasn't it was like, why is it that comment? Well, there's a reason. There were some some keyword reasons that Google was showing that comment.

Justin: 38:16

And then I looked at the rest of the thread, and I had previously, you know, asked some customers like, hey, can you go say something nice about Transistor? You've left a testimonial before. Oh, yeah. Fine. So they go say something nice.

Justin: 38:29

I noticed that someone else has answered. I said I just messaged him and said, hey, could you just, like, change your first line to, like, incorporate something like this? He does. Okay. And all of a sudden, we're ranking.

Justin: 38:42

So it's like it's a lot of Yeah. Hand to hand combat. It's like a Like lot of

Jordan: 38:49

forensics and Yeah.

Justin: 38:52

Mean, that that Forensic, but to you can see where the traffic is coming through. Like, you could see the shape of this river is driving a lot of water. And so it's like, should I focus on this little stream over here and optimizing that? No. I'm just going to look at the big pathways that the water travels, and, oh, there's something blocking blocking that there.

Justin: 39:19

Well, I'm just gonna focus on removing that block and getting this flowing again.

Brian Casel: 39:24

I think all that kind of activity and action is just generally good to be doing when you're an entrepreneur. But to me, the goal is always like how can how can I establish assets or channels that are just gonna keep driving streams of traffic for a long period of time long after I long after I stop taking action on that thing? So that that's part of what stresses me about YouTube but at the same time, like a couple of banger YouTube videos perform for me for months. Yep. You know?

Brian Casel: 39:55

Yeah. So, I could so if I could increase the batting average on those and and make sure that I have systems and processes that like every video is a banger, which is not, but that's what I'm working on. Mhmm. Then then the leverage goes up on that. But but I would I would still even much Like, what I like about what you have with Jordan, like, it's like, yeah, ads, you know, it's a it's a big expense but they are constant.

Brian Casel: 40:21

It's a stream that you can Yeah. That you can run, you know.

Jordan: 40:25

And and you get immediate feedback on your experiments? Yeah. So we just started working with a new company that creates new video ads for us. And first, they're very good. Which means they are they guide us properly through experimentation.

Jordan: 40:45

Right? It's not just we're gonna make videos for you. It's we're gonna start here, then we'll launch them, then we'll learn for two weeks, then we'll adjust based on what worked and what did work and and

Justin: 40:54

Mhmm.

Jordan: 40:55

And so on and so forth. I guess for me where I see a lot of the conversation around distribution is like media. Right? Software companies buying podcasts type of type of a thing. Mhmm.

Jordan: 41:10

Mindshare. So very very top of the funnel word-of-mouth conversation. Yep. And I I guess if you're if you wanna get really big then you do need to figure out that mass distribution. So maybe depending on your goals, the level of distribution changes.

Jordan: 41:30

Changes. Right? If you're trying to be a billion dollar company, you kinda need everyone to talk about you. You need to be everywhere. You need people to see and hear about you constantly.

Jordan: 41:40

Mhmm. Right? So, I mean, who who buys a podcast for a $100,000,000? OpenAI does. Mhmm.

Jordan: 41:46

Because they would be willing to spend that on another marketing channel anyway.

Brian Casel: 41:52

Yeah. But that for OpenAI specifically, that deal seems so weird to me. Why why would they do that?

Jordan: 41:58

I don't know.

Brian Casel: 42:00

Businesses. I don't get it for OpenAI.

Justin: 42:02

Yeah. Yep. The I I think the other thing that I'm thinking about as you get as we're talking is that this is a battle. Like, you don't get to rest. It is like a marathon and you're just always running.

Justin: 42:13

It's it's well, it's actually it's more like I don't know. It's like fighting in Street Fighter. Like, you learn one combo, and then you start to have an advantage, and then your opponent learns another combo. You're like, shit. And then you it is a battle, and I don't think I will be able to rest if I want to keep the momentum going.

Justin: 42:33

I think I have to wake up every day and go, what can I do today that nobody else is willing to do? What has surprised me is that there are little they can seem like small nudges that you can take that actually have a big impact. So, for example, you can create a culture with your customers that transistor customers talk about transistor publicly. That's a culture that you can create. And how do you do that?

Justin: 43:10

Well, you put testimonials on your website, you highlight them in your newsletter, you when you're doing a video, you mention it. Oh, thanks for this review. When you do interviews, you say, Oh, man, we got the best customers. Like this one customer was saying over here. You and then you prompt them.

Justin: 43:29

You say, hey, we're a small company. We need all the help we can get. One thing that helps us is reviews on Trustpilot. Could you go and leave us a review on Trustpilot? It actually doesn't take that many customers leaving reviews on Trustpilot.

Justin: 43:42

Like, if you go and look at your competitors, they might have 20 reviews on Trustpilot. And I look at that, I go, I just need to nudge my customer every quarter and say, hey, if you could go to TrustPilot and do it, and then we get five every time, and pretty soon, we've got more reviews than our competitor. It's like this constant kind of action, but a lot of people just aren't willing to ask their customers to leave a review.

Jordan: 44:08

Sure.

Brian Casel: 44:08

I gotta I wanna maybe It's true. Push push back on that just from my perspective because I feel like that's the type of thing that that really works well for you, Justin. You've Yep. You've done you've been successful successful with with that that for for years? Years.

Jordan: 44:19

Yeah, Justin has a relationship with his customer base. Yes.

Brian Casel: 44:22

And I don't know but like every time I've tried to be that like active like hey, yeah, I do ask for testimonials sometimes but and I get that the trust pile is the g twos that could drive traffic. But every time I try to invest hours, legwork, sweat into that kind of action, I'm always disappointed with the payoff or it always falls flat. And I and I much prefer to spend my time building systems that can that can live way beyond the effort that I put into them today. And and this also gets me thinking about launches. Right?

Brian Casel: 44:59

Like, also with the speed of of of how fast we could ship stuff. Like, I have shipped like four or five new launchable banner things that I could talk about just in the past week. And I did. Like I I sent an email blast to my whole list, you know, tens of thousands of people, tweet Twitter threads, like, and and those announcements fall flat. Mhmm.

Brian Casel: 45:23

But but I'm still generating sales from the strangers who are coming through my natural funnel. And I have to remind myself that the tweets about the new stuff actually don't matter. It's the funnel that's bringing the strangers in every day. That's what matters and they are buying. So Yeah.

Brian Casel: 45:43

Even even if I quote unquote launch to crickets, this thing is still gonna sell in the next couple weeks.

Justin: 45:50

You know? Think you've I think you've got a few tweaks that could augment what you're doing though. So here's an example that I think you could implement. This is a process that you could just implement in your videos, which is hey, my friend Justin just sent me this screenshot from Slack of somebody recommending Builder builder methods Methods to to their their group. Group.

Justin: 46:09

This just warms my heart. This is so appreciated. I'm just a solo guy doing this. If you ever see this in your Slacks, please send them to me. It just makes me so excited.

Justin: 46:19

You're just putting something out into the universe. Yeah. And people go, Oh, Brian likes that. Okay. I never even thought that.

Justin: 46:29

And you might do it a couple more times. And then soon, people are you've got a recurring section called In the Wild where you just highlight, oh, here's, you know, kind of people helping me out as a solo creator talking about builder methods You in the

Brian Casel: 46:46

know, I have touch points like that. I've got, like, letter from the founder. I've got, like, automated response emails, I got personal manual responses that I that I do that sort of thing. I've got call to actions all over my videos. It's like, I think it helps.

Brian Casel: 46:59

They they know obviously, they know it's me, I'm the face of the brand and everything. Mhmm. But it doesn't like, I've I've never been able to to achieve the the wall of video testimonials that just come streaming in or the tweets that go viral. Like that that just has never been a thing for me. Yeah.

Brian Casel: 47:16

But but like I don't know, like across all the businesses and and still even with Builder Methods, it's like and some people are super happy like I'll get great emails from people but like it's private.

Justin: 47:27

I think you could also just have a bit. Like you could also just say from the Discord and it's just a screenshot of somebody in the Discord. Like you can engineer just have find the right bit for you. But what you're trying to create is social proof. Yes.

Justin: 47:42

And you want it

Jordan: 47:43

to match with how your audience buys also. Yeah. So we we use a product called Senya.

Justin: 47:49

Only have a product. A product recommendation. Let me here.

Jordan: 47:53

I I I need a filly, thanks. S e n j a. Senja dot com slash jordan. No. Just kidding.

Jordan: 48:02

Phenomenally successful for us. Ridiculously successful for us. This thing, we get so many five star reviews. So if you go to our site, there is a wall of five star reviews that is text and videos of just regular people that are perfectly in our ICP.

Brian Casel: 48:24

What are what what are, like, the mechanics of that? When when do they receive the the the prompt to to give you the review or whatever?

Jordan: 48:30

So at different points in their journey, usually right after they convert.

Brian Casel: 48:38

Mhmm.

Jordan: 48:38

So after they convert and then we follow-up again, and we just ask them, you know, what so the beautiful thing about Senya is it allows it helps both sides. Yes. Here. And, like, I gotta tell you, there's that definitely helps conversion. This wall of just regular real people writing, you know, real reviews and making videos that that it's exactly what you want, which is in someone else's words.

Jordan: 49:08

In a third party's words. Not you claiming how great you are, but someone saying, I run like this guy Ron on the top left right here. Mhmm. Such a great review. And he's like, I run a rental company that rents like stand up paddleboards.

Jordan: 49:23

And we open at 8AM. And at 8AM, we get 30 phone calls. And if we can't answer the phone calls, then they go to the other rental company. Like the like the most straightforward thing possible. And now we have Rosie and we pick up all 30 at the same time and we win all the business.

Jordan: 49:41

It's like, you know, so perfect.

Brian Casel: 49:43

Are are they are they submitting these reviews like right after they purchase, before they even really start using Rosie every day?

Jordan: 49:49

No. We we want them to be using it and the beautiful thing about Sanya or something like it is it makes the review process better for both sides. The company and for the user. So the company can can write here are like four questions that the person answers. And if you're gonna do a video, like here's the prompt on how to make the video.

Jordan: 50:09

Tell us what what your business was like before using Rosie. Tell us what it was like after using Rosie and like name one other thing that you like that surprised you or something like that.

Brian Casel: 50:19

Yeah.

Jordan: 50:19

So you can prompt properly and that really I've done

Brian Casel: 50:22

that sort of thing manually over email. Like here's some prompts and I've also I've also done the thing where like, they just send me a nice email and I and I'll just say like, can I just quote this as part of your testimony? I I do that sometimes.

Jordan: 50:34

That's what we always did.

Brian Casel: 50:35

Yes. Yeah.

Jordan: 50:36

But I But now

Brian Casel: 50:37

we That's a that's a good thing.

Jordan: 50:38

It's great. And we put it directly in our hero section. And so it's, like, five star reviews from a 117 testimonials. So it's, you know, it's real. Sick.

Jordan: 50:47

And what we're trying to do next is turn that into, like, an ambassador program. So we can ask the people who are most engaged to say, here is a way to talk about Rosie in your networks. And send us a screenshot of you posting in your Facebook group for, you know, dog groomers or whatever. Mhmm. And we will give you some type of reward.

Jordan: 51:10

We wanted to do contests, but contests are an absolute mess on the legal front.

Justin: 51:16

Mhmm.

Jordan: 51:16

Anything having to do with the word contest, prize, or anything is so problematic problematic and and I just didn't wanna do it. So we turned it into an ambassador program instead of like a contest thing.

Justin: 51:28

I you know like

Brian Casel: 51:29

that. Flow. It's good. I think we still have it actually like in when you sign up for Clarity Flow, which you you pay on day one. So they've just paid, they've converted.

Brian Casel: 51:37

Okay. But there's still like the onboarding process, they have to like actually get value out of it. But we do have it like, we kinda promote the affiliate program right right after that, right after you sign up. It just hasn't really We've had a couple like high value affiliates come through and do well for us. The vast majority, it's just not like a stream.

Justin: 52:00

Yeah. Are a few things like this though where it feels like you push and nothing happens. You push and nothing happens. You push and nothing happens. And then you push and then it goes down the hill.

Justin: 52:10

Like, there's a lot of it's like a snowball or an ice cube melting. Like, you turn up the temperature and nothing happens. You turn up the temperature and nothing happens. And then it passes a threshold. And so it's always hard to know, like, do I keep doing this?

Justin: 52:24

Is it worth it? Whatever. I I've just now I I'm sitting on all of this accumulated effort. Effort. And so for me, when I'm talking about this stuff, I'm like, wow, I can see now like just every day, every week of showing up and going, is this working?

Justin: 52:41

I don't know. But now I'm sitting on top of all that accumulated effort and I can see customers coming in mentioning that stuff so I can see, oh, it was worth it. Right? But it is hard to early on, it's hard to see it working and it does take, like, sometimes consistent effort before the temperature's high enough that it melts the ice cube.

Brian Casel: 53:03

It also comes back to that question of like, alright, work on marketing or work on nailing the product and nailing the value to getting the value so right for the right customer. Remember like the who, the ICP, nail that and nail the delivery of the product and the value that getting them to leave reviews or tell their friends or go to their Facebook group is a no brainer. But that's not gonna happen unless all elements are there, right? Like you're not gonna generate the stream of reviews or recommendations if the product is half built or coming soon or you know, or or it's like you've got the wrong people interacting with the product. It's just not gonna click.

Brian Casel: 53:48

Right?

Jordan: 53:48

Yep. Yes. Alright. Let's keep rolling. Justin, you linked to a Substack article that I can barely understand.

Jordan: 53:56

So I would like do you wanna take a quick detour into my Allbirds story?

Justin: 54:01

Yes. I wanna hear I wanna hear the Allbirds story. Yeah. Let's do it. So

Jordan: 54:05

a few weeks ago, I think maybe someone in the chat is asking, like, I wanna hear your take on Allbirds. Yeah. That was a week or two ago. That's out there on the actual Allbirds deal. Yeah.

Jordan: 54:15

But in the same vein of trying to think, like, should I think bigger or should I just stay consistent, I do enjoy making sure that I'm not a 100% just staring at what's in front of me on the desk.

Brian Casel: 54:30

Mhmm.

Jordan: 54:31

Right? So I wanna look up and remember there's a big world out there with a lot of things happening. So, you know, don't ignore all of it. So here's what I did. As people who listen know, I was super interested in this Albert Seal.

Jordan: 54:44

I think it's really clever, you know, bit of of of finance magic. Yeah. So I didn't I wanted to know more. And then, of course, it takes you a second to realize, oh, there's a way to learn a lot more now with these AI tools. So I fired up a Claude chat and I started off by saying, can you help me understand what was done here in this deal?

Brian Casel: 55:08

Mhmm.

Jordan: 55:09

And I'm not sure if you guys have this experience, but one of the great things about these these LLM products, these chat products, it's an open conversation. It's like you're having a conversation with a friend and you just hit the pause button on them and you can walk away for a day or two and come back and unpause.

Brian Casel: 55:26

Mhmm. Oh, yeah.

Jordan: 55:27

And and that's what happened to me in this conversation. And my thinking on it evolved and I would be able to just go back and say, oh, yeah. I I you know, find the SEC filing. What do we see in the SEC filing? You know, I didn't remember that in the initial conversation.

Jordan: 55:41

Conversation. Yeah. Yeah. And then it went from the SEC filing and learning more about that to, oh my god. Like, which parties are involved?

Jordan: 55:49

Like, who did this? Who are the actual people behind it? So I had this multi day conversation and eventually, I I got everything. I got the placement agent. I got the institutional investor is not public yet.

Jordan: 56:02

I got the date of the vote. I, like, understand all of this detail because I had this very in-depth conversation.

Justin: 56:11

As an aside here, I just wanna I'm just as an aside, I would love if as a part of this story, you got Rosie to just start doing cold calls to all these people in the FCC filing and booking meetings.

Jordan: 56:23

Well well, look. So here's the thing. We don't do outbound yet.

Brian Casel: 56:26

Jordan's side hustle. He's like

Jordan: 56:27

a journalist. It felt investigative but I almost felt like an idiot where I'm like, of course, this stuff just happens out in the real world and you can just find it especially when things are are are public. Yeah. So I had this very funny experience where I talk a lot of smack about, like, higher education and paying a $100,000 a year for schools and all

Justin: 56:47

that stuff.

Jordan: 56:48

Mhmm. But in this Claude conversation, Claude helped me identify, here's the single one person that you wanna talk to if you wanna learn the details or if you wanna consider doing something like this yourself.

Justin: 57:03

Okay.

Jordan: 57:04

And I was like, okay. Is This the placement agent. This is the investment bank. Look, Claude found it for me. I went and did the research.

Jordan: 57:10

I looked at the about and the team page and it's like this person right here. I'm like, okay. Noted. Okay. So I go to my college friend group chat and I say, does anyone know anyone that works at this company?

Jordan: 57:22

And some guy says, yes. This younger guy in our fraternity. I'll connect you with him over text right now. Text, I have a conversation with him and he says, I just had lunch with that guy and I'm supposed to go to the sphere with him to see fish. I can't go but he's going there.

Jordan: 57:42

So I'll connect you guys and you can have a conversation next week.

Justin: 57:45

Okay.

Jordan: 57:46

And it was like, oh, that's why I paid so much money for Michigan. It was it was literally one text. Like, I didn't this stuff was, you know, opaque. I had no idea what was going on. And I used Claude to find the data and then I reached out in the real world into these networks and within one text, I found the one person that I absolutely had to talk to based on what Claude pointed me toward.

Brian Casel: 58:13

What is Damn.

Justin: 58:15

Unreal. Like, that that wasn't even that that wasn't even like what is it? The

Brian Casel: 58:20

Degrees

Justin: 58:21

what's the we're all removed from Kevin Bacon like Six Degrees of

Jordan: 58:25

of zero. It was one. Yes. Crazy.

Brian Casel: 58:29

What what is your what's your interest in this? What what what did you learn? What's your big takeaway and and like with the contact, like what what's your interest in this?

Jordan: 58:40

I think what I was trying to do is challenge myself and not make the assumption that this is these are things that other people do. These are things that we can do. We can do whatever we want. We can just decide to do it. And so I almost, like, challenged myself.

Jordan: 59:00

Like, I'm so enamored by this deal. Why don't I just go with my gut? Why don't I just go toward this deal and see what's what's going on and who these people are? And I mean,

Justin: 59:11

is it just

Brian Casel: 59:11

to learn? Is it like is it like to to

Jordan: 59:13

like No. Because it's not What what Claude helped me do is realize that it's not magic. It's just there's a shell company, there's an operating company, there's an institutional investor, and there's like a placement agent. Like and then there's like an, you know, an assessment company that gives its fair value assessment. It's like all, like, just regular mechanics.

Jordan: 59:33

You pay this company, they do this for you. You pay this other company, they do this thing for you. And and and so it helped clarify on like, you know, these things are not magic. It's not impossible. It's not just, oh, this is what they do and what what, Wall Street does.

Jordan: 59:50

It was like, no. It's just people who decide that they wanna do it. Yeah. So I almost challenged myself in that way because the the interest is I have an operating company. I I have a legitimate operating company that has raised money in the past and has some validation from, you know, from from legitimate investors.

Jordan: 01:00:11

And we have revenue and we're growing really fast. And, like, what why wouldn't I be able to do that? What why can't I go public into a shell company if I just go into a deal with this institutional investor and this investment bank? Yeah. And I don't think I actually want to do that but, like, I think it's important every once to in a get your head out of your computer screen and say, actually actually, I can just do anything.

Jordan: 01:00:35

I can just do whatever the hell I want. I can just

Justin: 01:00:37

try anything. This goes back to what we were talking about with founders and following your gut. I think one of the most valuable things a founder can do is follow their curiosity. Why? It well, when I put myself out there, when I go out and do things, you can just do things, good things happen.

Justin: 01:00:53

Almost always. Well, why are you going and doing that, Jordan? That's a waste of time. You're not a journalist or a financial analyst or no. No.

Justin: 01:00:59

No. You don't understand. Yeah. Does not. The role of a founder is to just do things.

Justin: 01:01:05

Yeah. And sure, if you're doing things that don't produce results, then whatever. But over time, you start to realize there are there's some magic. Magic. You know, like like I mean, my wife sometimes jokes about this with me, but she'll just say, Justin's just got this magic, you know?

Justin: 01:01:21

And what is that? It's just me putting myself out there.

Jordan: 01:01:23

Okay.

Justin: 01:01:24

It's just my wife says it as.

Jordan: 01:01:25

Do the thing. My wife says it. This my husband is the most optimistic person you'll be. He'll just Yes. Everything's gonna work out.

Jordan: 01:01:31

Just go go go go go.

Brian Casel: 01:01:32

Yeah yeah. I I think this goes back to me, like, all all the way back in my career still to this day. I see, the parallel that I'm thinking about is like, always look for other peers who are doing the same sort of business, have similar skills, maybe similar age or interest or style. I don't look to them like let me follow exactly how they do things, but for that inspiration of like, I can basically do what that guy or that gal is doing. I just, like I remember like the very first time it hit was like maybe twenty years ago.

Brian Casel: 01:02:14

I was, I think I might have been still employed or just free, I think I was like just freelancing as a web designer. And I stumbled into AD P and R who was doing Woo themes at the time. I stumbled into his blog and his videos and stuff. And I'm like, look at this guy. He has the exact same, this guy from South Africa across the world, has the exact same skill set that I have.

Brian Casel: 01:02:40

We are both web designers, we both know how to use WordPress. But I'm billing by the hour and he's selling these digital prod Who knew you could even sell digital products? Mhmm. Like that's a thing you can do? Like holy shit.

Brian Casel: 01:02:51

Like fast forward through the years, I I I seek out communities, a lot of SaaS founders and retreats and conferences and that's been very inspirational and and motivating and eye opening. And now, fast forward to now, I just, so I just joined Jay Klaus' The Lab community. Yep. And you know, because I find myself in this builder methods business, which is a creator led business model. Which is different from what I've done the last ten, twenty years.

Brian Casel: 01:03:23

And I realized, yeah, I like I I just realized that like I'm not connected enough to other actual creators who are really doing it. Mhmm. And it was, and I've met, there are some pretty interesting people in there that I've connected with. But funny enough, last week I just connected with a guy, has a couple million YouTube subscribers. He reached out to me randomly to ask about like consulting on like script writing for YouTube.

Brian Casel: 01:03:56

And I'm like, I'm not gonna charge you but I wanna learn from you. You're way ahead, you're much further ahead on this than I am. So so we had a great call and then he's in a completely different space but like, you know, one of the leading YouTubers in like F one racing, a former pro racer and everything and like had a great call and it's just really interesting to see like, there are people who just have like different, it's a different game. Like what kind of, what is their day to day? How do they think about strategy?

Brian Casel: 01:04:27

Like I don't know. I'm just rambling.

Jordan: 01:04:30

That Yeah. But you you need to come across it and yeah, interact gotta with get in it. Yes. Yes.

Justin: 01:04:35

And by the way, as your kids get older, this has been one of the funnest things for me is you know, my son was interested in game development. I said, we're booking tickets for the next industry game development thing.

Jordan: 01:04:47

Okay.

Justin: 01:04:48

And I said, but we're gonna go and we are gonna we are gonna have a mission. Like, we're gonna go and talk to every indie game developer. We're gonna find is there any money in this? Where did they go to school? How long they've been doing this?

Justin: 01:04:59

What everything. And my son is like, you know, he's like, okay, we'll get it. And so we get there and I'm, you know, I'm I'm demonstrating. Here's how you talk to people. Here's how you do this.

Justin: 01:05:09

Here's and I'm curious too. This was a good exercise for me to go through as a founder because I'm learning about a whole new industry. Wow. This is a whole new thing here. This is all interesting to me.

Justin: 01:05:20

And I go, you know, I'm talking to people like, how does this work? How does that work? How do you get distribution? How much money do you get? Oh, 30%.

Justin: 01:05:26

Like, I'm just talking. And then I remember saying to my son, I was like, these guys are all going for the industry after party for beers somewhere. And we're gonna get into that room. And he's like, what? No, we're not.

Justin: 01:05:40

We're not gonna get into the room. I said, we're gonna get into that room. And it was cringey. We're talking. I said, hey, if you guys are going out after, shoot me a message.

Justin: 01:05:50

Right? And I did it a bunch of times. First night, nothing. Right? And he's like, well, there you go, dad.

Justin: 01:05:56

Like, whatever. Told you. Second night second day, going back ahead. Oh, they're like, oh, hey. Yeah.

Justin: 01:06:03

We saw you yesterday. They're like, hey. We're actually going out tonight. I got your number. I'll text you.

Justin: 01:06:06

Marty's just like, what? What? All of a sudden, we're going for beers with all of these industry guys.

Jordan: 01:06:13

Yeah.

Justin: 01:06:13

We went from being consumers at this conference to Yeah. And by the way, I loved it just as much as he was just like blown away. But this is a skill that can be taught and practicing it, especially as your kids get older, is so fun. Just that even if they don't end up being exactly like you, for them to see like, oh, doors can open.

Brian Casel: 01:06:35

Mhmm.

Justin: 01:06:35

And part of the way they open is you kinda you open them a little bit and go, hey, can I come in That

Jordan: 01:06:42

is awesome? Totally. A great experience. Alright. Let's let's finish up with this article that you posted about buying is weird and rare.

Justin: 01:06:52

Yeah. So this is Rob Schneider. I've been I've been I've been talking about him a lot. I just think he has been able to distill what it looks like to have pull from the market. So instead of you constantly pushing what you've got, like, please buy my cheeseburger.

Justin: 01:07:11

Please buy my coffee. Please buy my app. Please buy my ebook, whatever it is. He's saying no. No.

Justin: 01:07:16

No. We gotta be able to recognize customer pull. And in this article here, he's just saying, you know what's weird? It's people buying things. People don't buy things that often.

Justin: 01:07:29

Like in a given week

Jordan: 01:07:31

Okay.

Justin: 01:07:31

So so let's say that you're what's a good example? CRM software. How often in a business' lifespan do they buy CRM software? Yeah. Like it happens It Two maybe once times.

Justin: 01:07:47

Or twice. Mhmm. And so he's like he's saying, so your ideal customer, they are making this decision maybe once or twice in the life span of the company. And when they make that decision, they're not just like choosing you, they're choosing from a host of products. And he's like, that makes any purchase more rare than getting hit by lightning or attacked by a shark.

Justin: 01:08:16

And then he flips it and says, this is the part that I liked, where he was like, you want to you want to instead of like building a product and going, oh, that's weird that nobody bought. That's weird that nobody bought it. Because that's no. It's not weird. That's normal.

Justin: 01:08:34

Most people don't What you wanna do is you want to engineer it so a person would be weird if they did not buy your product. Here's a good example. Video podcast hosting is a great example. It's just really coming online right now. Apple Podcast has just come in.

Justin: 01:08:54

Spotify is just releasing their video API, all this stuff. I'm looking at that market for Transistor, and I'm going, I'm so passionate about this. Like, I believe in this so much. It would be weird in this moment if people didn't choose Transistor for their podcast hosting. One, because there's a lot of momentum.

Justin: 01:09:16

Two, because we're well positioned for it. Three, because I think we've got a lot of advantages. I'm passionate, all this stuff. So it's orchestrating it's kind of working from from this premise instead of working from this premise. Most people build a product, they launch it, and they go, that's weird that nobody bought.

Justin: 01:09:33

And he's saying, no. No. No. You need to orchestrate situations where it would be weird if they didn't buy.

Brian Casel: 01:09:41

I just really think it all it's it really comes back to what we talked about last time. Yeah. For most people, it it would be weird and probably wrong to buy the product. But for the right people, the who, the the person that you know so well. You know their their pain.

Brian Casel: 01:09:57

Like it's it's like we we've repeated it for years. Right? It's like solve a problem, solve a pain, know that pain, why it matters so much on a personal or professional level. Yeah. Then it become it become a no brainer for them to pull the trigger at the right time.

Brian Casel: 01:10:13

Right? Like

Justin: 01:10:15

He also talks about it it it he says it really helps if you find somebody who's stuck. So they've got something they gotta do. I mean, here's a I mean, there's so many examples. There's examples from our transcript. Like, you could you could get Clyde to look for examples that we've talked about.

Justin: 01:10:33

One is like, how I'm feel stuck in that I can't figure out what traffic is converting to revenue. Like, figuring that out is such a freaking pain. It's all dirty data. It's frustrating. I'm not making progress.

Justin: 01:10:48

It's a priority, but I'm not making progress. He's like, those are the kinds of people you wanna target. People who feel stuck. They've got a priority, but it would be weird if they didn't buy because they're like, they're hitting a wall. They've tried a few things, nothing's worked, it's still priority on their list, And all of a sudden, you come to them and say, hey, I know you've been you've got your paddle boarding business, and you keep missing calls and losing business, and you haven't been able to find a solution.

Justin: 01:11:16

So you're stuck, and you're literally saying to them, we're gonna get you unstuck. And that is instant customer pull. Like the customer there's no barrier. It would be weird if that dude with the paddle boarding shop didn't buy once you come to him. Because he's tried everything else.

Justin: 01:11:33

He's he hasn't succeeded. He he Right. He has the problem every day.

Jordan: 01:11:36

And the problem comes back up.

Justin: 01:11:38

Yeah. That's right.

Jordan: 01:11:39

That's right. It does make me think a lot of the power of being number one or number two in the market. Oh. Because it's it's like if you have the problem and there's a default, it it actually is weird if they don't buy the number one or number two product. And Yeah.

Jordan: 01:11:55

You definitely wanna be that number one or number two product.

Brian Casel: 01:11:59

Because it makes everything a lot easier. Or if you're doing like the whatever like the bootstrapper, you know, approach and you don't have to dominate the market, then you have to know something. You have to have some insight into what what is it about the number one or number two that doesn't fit with this particular type of person. How do we carve out those people?

Jordan: 01:12:21

Yeah. That that's smart. That's the other side of the equation where you're like, if we have an unbelievable CRM for property management companies, it would be weird if you bought HubSpot instead of us.

Justin: 01:12:31

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I do like about yours is that actually clarifies a lot of things because sometimes people come to me and go, how come no one's buying? And then you search for them and they're number 10 on the list.

Justin: 01:12:41

They're not even showing up. And you're like Mhmm. What's actually weird that it would be weird if they were buying because nobody can find you.

Brian Casel: 01:12:48

They're they're not gonna test 10. They're gonna test two.

Justin: 01:12:51

Yeah. Like, so you gotta you've got to position your marketing and your product in a way that it would be weird if people didn't buy you. Like, if they have the problem, if the paddle boarding guy is sitting in the shop every day and he's looking for solution, and then one day he's like, know what? Fuck it. I'm just gonna search for a solution again.

Justin: 01:13:07

I I know I searched six months ago. I'm gonna look again. And if Rosie comes up number one or two, it'd be weird if he didn't buy because he has this burning problem that he's trying to figure out. It's a to do item on his list and I think I I mean, I've fallen prey to this too, but I think so many new startups, this is the central problem. Is there like they build a product and it's like, I don't know, like, it's it's something that it's just like, yeah, it's not weird that people aren't buying this because you could just see all of the factors that make it not weird.

Justin: 01:13:47

It's it it would be weird if people were buying.

Brian Casel: 01:13:50

Yeah. This sort of makes me think of like churn, right? Like, I feel like I've always taken churn so seriously. Every single individual cancellation. Like, to me, it is such a lost opportunity when one person cancels.

Jordan: 01:14:08

Okay.

Brian Casel: 01:14:09

You know, probably to a fault, like I probably give put way too much weight on it, but if you think about it, right? Like, I got someone, a stranger to come to my website. Mhmm. And say, holy shit. This thing is perfect.

Brian Casel: 01:14:24

It's what I need. Here is my credit card.

Justin: 01:14:26

I don't

Brian Casel: 01:14:27

even know the people or the company behind this, but what what I'm seeing, whatever promise promise they're giving me on the homepage, that is for me. I'm optimistic. I wanna get in on this. Mhmm. Get in and after some period of time, short or long, they're just like, no.

Jordan: 01:14:45

Actually, not

Brian Casel: 01:14:47

what I thought it was or I didn't understand my own pain the way I thought I did or there's some disconnect. But I now I'm I'm feeling this regret. Yeah. And that to me is like weird. Like that sequence of events is weird.

Brian Casel: 01:15:01

And I hear all the time, like especially from SaaS founders, like obviously we know like a really healthy SaaS businesses like low churn. We know that. Yeah. But there's a lot of SaaS founders out there who are just like, yeah, just like the nature of my market. It's just we we know it's going to be high churn.

Brian Casel: 01:15:16

We just gotta keep the volume high and we'll and we'll have a pretty good business,

Justin: 01:15:19

right?

Jordan: 01:15:20

I do that because it it protects me psychologically. Mhmm. Yeah. If, you know, if I don't know. It it's it's not it's like triple digits in terms of numbers of cancellations in a month.

Jordan: 01:15:38

Mhmm. So Yeah. So there are there are some that you see, you know, we failed that person. We they should not leave. We should have done a better job.

Jordan: 01:15:46

Mhmm. But but oftentimes, it's just okay. It's not a self serve product is not gonna work out for everyone.

Brian Casel: 01:15:54

Yeah. I mean, obviously, I I get like much more than than like one a week. Right? But like

Jordan: 01:15:59

Yes.

Brian Casel: 01:15:59

Yes. So it so it happens regularly and and I and I harden my my emotions over it. But but strategically, I can't help but think like what is disconnecting? Is it are we attracting the wrong person at the top of the funnel? Is our product not right?

Brian Casel: 01:16:17

Do we not have the right solution? We not understand the problem well enough? Like it it does Right. Beg the question of like like why why do turns really ever happen? Like if if you have perfect product market fit.

Brian Casel: 01:16:28

So so then let me just pose this other like theoretical question. Right? Is there no such thing as like perfect product market fit?

Jordan: 01:16:34

Yeah. I was gonna say I I hope your goal isn't zero churn because that you know, that's impossible. Yeah.

Brian Casel: 01:16:40

Of course, that's impossible but it's like how weird is it for those people who go out of their way to pay for something and then cancel?

Justin: 01:16:46

Oh, I actually like this weird framing even more for churn. This is such a perfect example. There's so many cases where we were getting stressed out about people canceling. And I'd say, let's just go look at their account. You go look at their account, signed up twenty four months ago.

Justin: 01:17:01

How many episodes did they publish? One. Oh. Well, that's not that weird that they cancelled. They came in.

Justin: 01:17:07

They thought they wanted a podcast. They tried it. We gave them all the support we could, and it's not weird that somebody tried it and they're like, I don't really wanna do this anymore and I don't really wanna pay anymore. So it's like, okay. That's just a part of our business.

Justin: 01:17:20

We can't Yeah. Engineer people to like, we can't, like, force them to keep publishing. So that's not weird that they left. But it would be weird if someone's perfect, if they're publishing every week and then they go to a competitor that's very similar to us. That's weird.

Justin: 01:17:36

And that Those

Brian Casel: 01:17:37

are the killers.

Jordan: 01:17:38

Makes me like That's who

Brian Casel: 01:17:38

you can learn about. Yep.

Justin: 01:17:39

Yeah. Then I reach out and go, hey, that's that's kinda weird that you left. Like, it felt like we had everything you needed. What what's going on? And, you know, sometimes there's some powerful forces out there that you learn about.

Justin: 01:17:52

Like, all my friends are using this product and I just I just thought I would switch because everyone's using it. Or, you know, this famous person mentioned that they had just switched to this product and so I'm doing that. They're like, okay. Yep. It's I mean, it's kinda weird, but it's actually not that weird because humans are influenced like that all the time.

Justin: 01:18:10

I I love that you brought this up, Brian. I think this framing works in so many parts of our business. It's like, why didn't this work? Well, actually, it's not that weird that it didn't work. When we look at it.

Justin: 01:18:21

I still

Brian Casel: 01:18:22

I I still come back to that thing of like, if you trace trace it back enough if you if you go back enough dots, you're gonna get back to like, but maybe it was the wrong person at the top. Like like a lot of those things, it's like, yeah, they they probably were convinced that it's a good fit for them. And they and they probably thought they had the problem, but they realized they didn't actually experience the problem as much as they thought they did.

Justin: 01:18:46

Yeah. You know? And that's not weird. We we've all experienced that. Like, I bought this like loop station that I thought I'd be using all the time and I was gonna be looping and all this stuff.

Justin: 01:18:55

Then I I was, like, really into it for six months and then it just kinda collected dust. Now, is that weird? No? No.

Brian Casel: 01:19:03

No. I mean, totally normal. Every musician has that electronic drum set in the basement like that.

Jordan: 01:19:08

Yes. Alright. Well, let's let's wrap this thing up. I don't know if you guys have any fun things planned for the weekend. It's Friday.

Jordan: 01:19:16

I

Brian Casel: 01:19:17

My kids have a piano recital tomorrow.

Jordan: 01:19:19

Oh, I

Brian Casel: 01:19:19

went to their school this morning to watch them compete in battle of the books. So they're they're big readers.

Jordan: 01:19:26

Cool. That was fun.

Justin: 01:19:27

That's that's great. I'm I was seeing if I could show you guys what can I switch my camera here? Well, that that'll probably wreck everything. Hey? Uh-oh.

Justin: 01:19:36

I've been I've been talking about other people influencing you. Oh, yeah. Maybe I can. Oh, I can't. Not where you're going.

Justin: 01:19:47

I've I just bought a skateboard, and I've been old school actually, could show it on the screen here.

Jordan: 01:19:53

Yes. Yeah. I was about to ask what kind of deck.

Justin: 01:19:55

It's a old school shape. This is a Christian Hasoi. Okay. I got big wheels on it. It's like Yes.

Justin: 01:20:04

These are like 60 millimeters. I got the Hasoi branding right there. Yeah. And I've been just like late at night, me and my buddy Andy, we're both in our forties. We've just been skating like we're nineties kids again.

Jordan: 01:20:18

Yes. Just Awesome.

Justin: 01:20:20

On the streets, flipping around.

Brian Casel: 01:20:22

And everything? Like

Jordan: 01:20:23

no. That's I'm

Justin: 01:20:25

terrible at skateboarding. I can't I could barely ollie. But I can I could cruise around and

Jordan: 01:20:31

Cruising is the only thing that matters? Oh.

Brian Casel: 01:20:33

You don't need to

Justin: 01:20:33

It's so fun.

Jordan: 01:20:34

Yeah. So I'll try to remember to bring my skateboard up into the room for the next Oh, that It's it's very similar to that.

Justin: 01:20:41

Okay.

Jordan: 01:20:42

It is one of my hidden talents. I went deep into skateboarding when I was younger.

Justin: 01:20:45

I didn't know that about Oh,

Jordan: 01:20:47

yeah. And then and just cruising with a deck like that with the big wheels is bliss. It is Seven awesome. Absolute bliss. It's amazing.

Brian Casel: 01:20:58

Great. My crew, we were we were the rollerbladers.

Jordan: 01:21:01

Ah, okay.

Brian Casel: 01:21:02

Yeah. Out there grinding.

Jordan: 01:21:05

The worst joke about rollerblading. I can't tell on the

Brian Casel: 01:21:10

battle between the skateboarders and the rollerbladers at the skate park. Yeah. That was

Justin: 01:21:14

Guys, very next conference we're all at, we're bringing our skateboard. You're bringing your rollerblades. We're gonna dress up like I don't

Jordan: 01:21:20

have rollerblades.

Justin: 01:21:21

We're gonna dress up like the crew from Hackers. We're gonna wear the same outfits. Hopefully, in New York City, we'll just ride all around New York City together.

Brian Casel: 01:21:29

Oh. Sounds great. Fantastic.

Jordan: 01:21:32

Alright, everyone. Thanks very much for joining us. Have a great weekend.

Justin: 01:21:36

Thanks, everybody. Bye.