Episode 5
· 01:10:07
Welcome to the Panel Podcast. I'm riding solo today. Justin had a thing going on. So so today, it's just myself here, but we're we're gonna kinda keep to the schedule. And, you know, today, I've got a really great episode where I invited two friends on Christian Genco and Val Soapy.
Brian Casel:What's interesting to me about this episode is that really all three of us here in early twenty twenty five are kicking around what our next product is gonna be. And it's probably gonna look like a SaaS just like these these SaaS products that all three of us have built and grown and exited and plateaued and gone through all the all the war games of of, you know, the SaaS business for ten, fifteen, twenty years in some cases here. So it's a really great conversation. One of the one of my favorite things to do is to sort of peer behind the curtain and see what's happening in real time at a particular moment when we're going through these transition phases of going from one product or one business into the next one. And it was a really interesting conversation about how we're all thinking about, what it means for our own businesses and things that are changing, in the landscape here in 2025.
Brian Casel:So, with that, we're gonna hop right into it. And both Justin and I will be back on the next one, but this was a really, really good episode. Here we go. Welcome to the panel. And today, it's just three of us.
Brian Casel:Justin's taking a day off. But I'm Brian Casel. I'm the founder of Instrumentl Products where I'm building some new products this year. We'll get into it.
Val Sopi:I'm Val Sopi. I am currently the founder of blogmaker.app and in the process of launching a new SaaS, which I'm not mentioning yet publicly.
Brian Casel:Alright. We'll see about that.
Christian Genco:I'm Christian Genco. I'm the founder of fileinbox.com, the ex co founder of rootable.com, and the founder of a whole bunch of other tiny stuff that you can see on my website at jen.co.
Brian Casel:Awesome. Well, I'm excited to talk to both of you. One of my goals with this whole show is to have a couple episodes like this one where we're sort of diving into something that's happening right now in our actual businesses. And I listened to each of you on your individual podcasts sometime in the last two or three weeks, where both of you were sort of talking about the year ahead here in 2025. Val, you're you're it sounds like you are actively underway with a new b to b SaaS product.
Brian Casel:You haven't announced what that actually is, but you're in it sounds like you're in the very first steps and you're actively moving forward on it to some extent. Christian, last I heard from I don't know how when you recorded that, but as you said, you you you sort of left a partnership. You have some SaaS products in in your in your background. You're kicking around the idea of maybe doing a SaaS, maybe finding employment, maybe doing consulting, maybe a mix of of these things. I mean, on my end, you know, I I have a a SaaS that's sort of you know, I'm running Clarity Flow that that's part of what I do.
Brian Casel:But this year, I'm doing instrumental products, which is sort of a mix of consulting, building SaaS products with other clients, and I'm also hacking on some new products of my own, starting with a Rails components library with with the intent of using that to build more SaaS products this year. So I want to kick this around. And I I mean, the number one question on my mind, I think, right now is what is actually leading each of us to consider or act or actively pursue a new SaaS business in 2025? If, you know, listeners of this podcast, if you heard the very first episode where we were talking to Colleen Schnetler and Tyler King, like, one of the things we we battered around was, like, how difficult SaaS has become. Is it the same opportunity that it was a few years ago?
Brian Casel:That's that's where I wanna start this. I mean, Val, why don't you talk a bit about a little bit of your background from, like, last year and everything, and and what led you to decide, okay, now it's time to turn my focus to something new.
Val Sopi:Yeah. Sure. So I think 2025 will be my twelfth year of making SaaS products. I've exited one back in 2021. I started with project management, like everybody else, I did a couple of products actually.
Val Sopi:And the one that I exited was actually project management for agencies. And then after that, I took a break, sold that, exited that. And then Blog Maker, my current active app that I'm public about it, started that in 2021, it was just a challenge, a personal challenge to see if I can build something for twenty hours, launch it and see if I can get any payments. And I did that and I've been on it for, what is it, four years now. And the thing with B2C is a little bit more difficult, especially for me because I come from B2B sort of background.
Val Sopi:It's been very tough sort of get the flywheel going and get a ton of registrations because the price point is lower, etcetera. And I feel like my sweet spot is in B2B where not all sales are necessarily coming from SEO or outbound and, you know, like inbound, I mean. And what I want to focus this time around, like I used to do before, is more outbound, cold outreach, cold emailing, cold calling, maybe even at some point, you know, go to a conference or two, maybe have a booth, just go down and act like a service business, because that's my initial background, I used to have a webshop. So, this is like one of the motivations to starting this new product, and I think I was lucky to find a niche that is big enough for me to tap into its reachable current products that are serving that niche are outdated, and they're bloated. So some of the potential clients that I spoke to, they seem to be ready to start something new in this sense.
Val Sopi:So I validated for the first time ever, I didn't just start coding like most of the times I did before. So I did some of the homework and then I got and built the product. I spent about one hundred and fifty hours, sent it around to nine people that were waiting for it since December. Three of them replied, unfortunately, the other ones I can't get in touch yet. But those three that I gave the product to, they were impressed, they're actually people who are using a specific product in the same industry, they were super impressed with how the product is, they haven't committed to paying yet, this is all words from them, so my next step is to put the payment link on because it doesn't have a Stripe on.
Val Sopi:Actually, I'm going to do, I'm going to go with Paddle this time around.
Brian Casel:Oh, interesting. All right, so we're going to dig into all that stuff. We're going to unpack it all. It does sound interesting how you came here. I mean, as some some people may know, I've been working on on Clarity Flow, the the SaaS product for also about four years now.
Brian Casel:And I I'm sure there are some differences in in where we are with with our respective SaaS products. But it but it did come to a point about a year ago when I just decided, like, I I just can't be all in on that one SaaS idea anymore. You know, part of it is like the trajectory of of that business, you know, some plateaus and some challenges and things like that. And then and then the past year sort of like figuring out where where do I go from here? And and I'm still sort of figuring that out and and having a a mix of different projects and revenue streams and trying to to kinda decide between them.
Brian Casel:It sounds like we we came to a somewhat similar decision point sometime in the past twelve months. But, I mean, Christian, where where are you at today? Again, I don't know exactly when you you both recorded those those previous podcasts, but where's where's your head out today for 2025?
Christian Genco:There's something you said that I need to address right away, which is that SaaS isn't the opportunity that it was Because people have been saying that since I got started in SaaS. I don't know. Fifteen years ago or something. That could be true. Yeah.
Christian Genco:When first looked into it. Oh, I hate this phrase, but the phrase goes, best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, and the second best time is today. Not true. Yesterday is somewhere between today and fifteen years ago. But you get the idea.
Christian Genco:Normal distribution of the best times to plant a tree. Yeah. Get started. I think there's no shortage of opportunities. I'm incredibly excited about AI right now.
Christian Genco:Some of the stuff I'm seeing about Just trying to vibe coding. You seen videos of this? It's these people who don't know how to code or know a little bit of code, who just use cursor and super whisper or these really good speech to text engines. And you don't look at the code at all. You just talk to the LLM and get it to build your thing.
Christian Genco:And yeah, you can spin up MVPs and stuff like nothing. And I'm fascinated in what this is gonna do to the market. And something that I'm seeing already is you can get so much further without knowing what you're doing. So you can spin up a landing page really quickly.
Brian Casel:Can That is a really interesting thing. We need to unpack that too.
Christian Genco:Yeah. So like, what's gonna happen? And I I think I think there's a huge advantage for people like us who, like, have done this manually, who who know what all the underlying stuff is, who can dig down into the into the abstractions that the that the LLM is writing when things break.
Brian Casel:I think that's the key thing. Like, you know, getting into the the technical side of actually building the products, I think I think that is the key advantage with AI today, is that folks like us who have product experience and and technical experience can use Cursor and and these AI tools, you know, ten ten x, 50 x more productively than a layman can can use these AI tools. But that's to say, like, a a person without any technical skills can get way further today than they could three, five years ago. Right? Yeah.
Brian Casel:But still, like, I I think it's I think a lot of people agree that you can't build a a true ready for prime time SaaS product in full without knowing how to actually put the pieces together and and design a strong user experience and everything. But but we can get so much further a lot faster now. Thanks to it. Interesting.
Christian Genco:And, you know, I I don't think that's gonna be true forever. I think it's it's in the same sort of way as, like, to be that if you wanted to program computers, you had to know assembly, or you had to have the the ability to to work with punch cards.
Val Sopi:And And have a computer, actually.
Christian Genco:And have a computer. Right. To have access to it. That's that's a Malcolm Gladwell's whole thing about, like, Bill Gates having access to one of the only five computers in the world. And then for a little bit of time, for, like, this transition period, people who knew how that lower level worked, when you still had these when you had these new higher level like being able to program in C, being able to to have a programmable computer, still made sense to be able to pop down to that lower level.
Christian Genco:And then after a little while, you don't really need that lower level anymore. It's interesting academically. And sure, people who who understand those lower levels can have a more solid foundation. But abstraction after abstraction, once you get far enough, you don't need those lower levels of abstraction anymore. Things just moving faster and faster.
Christian Genco:I think it's only a matter of time before you just have a conversation with your computer, and it's able to act as if it was a 20 person team a couple of years ago of developers and coders and everything else. Think the person who ends up on top there, think, is you know, the core value that I think humans have is that we experience pain, and would like to alleviate that pain.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Could think creatively about workarounds and things like that.
Christian Genco:Right. Like, do you deliver the most value for a human at the end of the day? So that's where my mind's been at.
Brian Casel:You know, what I'm interest again, like, I really like to catch people who are in these transition phases, like in real time, as I think all three of us are. We've talked a bit about that we are getting maybe back back into SaaS this year, but I'm I'm curious to know from both of you, like, did you decide or did you think or consider, like, alternatives? I mean, like, value you've been you've been grinding on on on Block Maker for the last four four years. Like, did you did you think about, like, well, maybe I'm gonna take my skills and do something else with my skills in 2025 other than a SaaS? Or or Christian, like, have have you have you thought about these, like, alternate any alternatives to to doing another
Val Sopi:the profession completely or just, you know, with what we're doing, like, the skill set we have?
Brian Casel:Because that's what I'm thinking about. Like,
Val Sopi:I'm Mhmm.
Brian Casel:I technically mostly what I do is I build SaaS products, but I'm also thinking about alternatives to build a business still in this industry without having to go all in on a single SaaS idea.
Val Sopi:I mean, my decision to start on this new product came about from wanting for so long to have a pure B2B play. And I kind of regret, I love Blood Maker, like people love it. And I hate to say it, but I kind of regret for maybe pushing on it too hard for so long. I could have let it ride for a bit on its own and it could have been just the same. But then again, it's like, inspiration has to strike at some point and I was inspired, sort of a chain of events happened.
Val Sopi:Was looking for a new B2B SaaS. I bought Rob's course. I don't know if you guys had a chance to look into it. He was supposed to write a book and then for some reason they decided to make the book into a course. I bought the course, I listened through it and it was speaking to me so much in B2B terms.
Val Sopi:And it kind of lined up with what I was thinking, like doing a new SaaS, a pure B2B play. And sort of like that got me into saying, hey, I really have to stop pushing on Block Maker for so much, I have to start something new. And that was the thing that I wanted to do, like I love SaaS, I love B2B. I have some contract work, that's how I pay the bills on top of BlockMaker not reaching the revenue that I need. But I want to get to the 10 ks and 20 ks or more, the only thing I know.
Val Sopi:Like if I were to switch professions, I don't even know what I would do. You know, like I don't know, buy something for
Brian Casel:I mean, that's also where I end up too, like, but I've been questioning it more than I ever have in my career in the last
Val Sopi:And why is that?
Brian Casel:You know, I think I think burnout from SaaS, to be to be completely honest about it. I mean, like, putting like, literally investing because I think of it as an investment in terms of numbers of years of my career, like investing those years into this product or that product. And sometimes I look back. Like, I I I'm proud of some of the wins that I've had in my career, but I also look back on some of those years. It's like those weren't I I didn't see a good ROI for those years.
Brian Casel:You know? And so I I think about that now in 2025. Like, I built software. I mostly build SaaS software, mostly with Ruby on Rails. Right now, I'm actually working on a product that is not gonna be a SaaS model.
Brian Casel:It's gonna be a Rails components library. So like a downloadable software licensed model. So that'll be sort of a new experiment. I I used to do, like, WordPress themes back in the day. So like getting back into that sort of model.
Brian Casel:But but I don't expect that to be like the be all end all. But that could be it's a Rails components product that is designed to help help me and others like rapidly spin up more and more SaaS ideas. And so then I I I could see that rolling into building and shipping multiple product ideas this year very fast. Maybe just like small bets, you you can you can think of them, or or like a string of things that could work together. But the other thing that I'm thinking about is that the products themselves will have byproducts.
Brian Casel:I'm I'm doing a lot of work on YouTube, trying to build up a a channel there, like showing building in public. So building products is actually material for the YouTube channel. Like, that's one way I'm thinking about it. It's it's content. That can that can roll into growing maybe an an audience, like through this podcast and through that YouTube channel for builders and a community and and that that sort of play.
Brian Casel:And the products themselves, they might have their own revenue channels, but they're secondary to to that. That that could be one possible future for this. Or one or two of these products actually actually hits, and then I start to focus more on that, you know. You know. The other but also getting back into AI, I I also think that the way that products get built today is very different.
Brian Casel:And so maybe I'm I should be focusing more, and I am focusing now on building tools for the builders. You know, like, I I really I've always sort of liked the idea of, like, you know, who who got who got rich in the gold rush, know, the people who sold who sold the picks. Right? I think I think now more than ever, both with AI, but also just the way that apps are built with component libraries these days. I don't know.
Brian Casel:Christian, where where are you at on all this? Like, did you think about, like, alternatives to do doing the SaaS game again in 2025?
Christian Genco:I'm gonna answer the question. It's gonna take me a second. I was supposed to be a doctor. And, you know, all through high school, all through college, I I did, like, the the premed track. And you can major in whatever you want when you're premed.
Christian Genco:It just means, like, you know, I have to take biology and chemistry and a few other things and and take the MCAT. So the major that I picked was computer science because I was like, well, love computers. I'm gonna do that. And over and over, when I was interviewing for medical schools, something that I kept hearing is, look, if you can do anything else, you should do something else. Because being a doctor sucks.
Christian Genco:Like, yeah, there's all this prestige to it, but, like, do not do it for the prestige. Do not do it for the money, or you're gonna be miserable. And I've seen that now in my adult life. Like, I've I've seen people who went through that track and just sort of kept following the next path and and became a doctor. And now they hate it.
Christian Genco:And now you're stuck because, yeah, you're making all this money, but, like, you know, you're you're miserable. And I found that in making software. I cannot imagine doing anything else. There have been fantasies I've had of, like, oh, maybe I could start, like, a handyman business, or I I think it'd be fun to build a house. But, like,
Val Sopi:no.
Christian Genco:I I I keep coming back to to building software. I know.
Brian Casel:We had an electrician come work on my house the other day. I'm like, he's got a good little business over there, doesn't doesn't he? You know? Like, what what does it take to be an electrician?
Christian Genco:You
Christian Genco:know?
Christian Genco:It looks fun.
Brian Casel:Electrician?
Christian Genco:Know? It looks fun. Yeah. I'd enjoy that. Yeah.
Christian Genco:I I, you know, I I wouldn't be miserable. You know, as as a person, I feel like if if I was oh, I really admire Alexander Solzhenitsyn of the the wrote the Gulag Archipelago. He's in this work camp in the Soviet Union. And he's able to find meaning and fulfillment being in that terrible position. So I don't mean to say if I had been a doctor or if I was working as an electrician, hey, find a way to enjoy that.
Christian Genco:But deep within my bones, there's just something that really resonates with me about the way that I like to work and the shape of problems and writing code. There's nothing else that I could imagine doing. So yeah, I had some recent shakeups in what I was working on. And for the first time in my life, was seriously considering getting a job. I've never had a full time job.
Christian Genco:I went straight from college to working on FileInBox. I think I was incredibly fortunate. I think, yeah, some things lined up really well that I've never had to actually work. I made some money in crypto also. So there's no pressure.
Christian Genco:And certainly, this would be a long way off, but if it was a choice between can't pay the mortgage, can't afford food, you have to go work for Google, like, of course. I would wanna go to find a job. But the thing that I really wanna be doing, I've been doing a lot of soul searching over the last month. The thing that I want is, like Val said, that 10 to 20 k MRR is a really comfortable amount of money. If you're talking to venture capitalists, they're like, what a terrible business.
Christian Genco:It only makes $20,000 a month. But as a solo SaaS thing, that's great. And it's comfortable and flexible. And we have a young daughter, and I'm really enjoying being a father and being able to take flexible time off to hang out with her. Really important to me for a life fulfillment level, to be able to have that freedom and flexibility.
Christian Genco:That's the thing I want to be optimizing for. And then part of what I want in that fulfilling life is feeling like I have meaningful work, that I'm building stuff that's helping other people. And what I want that to look like is to have a SaaS. And so, think
Brian Casel:I come back to a lot of the same things too. I mean, I like, I get the most joy out of coming in into this office and working on software products, designing solutions using using software. Like, I I love that craft. I think the thing that I that I still that has started to turn that into a level of burnout is that as much as I love the product side, I mean, I don't love the the marketing side to to a point where I feel like where I sort of lose faith that that marketing is even real to a certain extent in in SaaS because I I really kinda think that, like, people might scream at at their podcast player when they hear someone like me say this, but I feel like the the winning products sort of market themselves. Like, they just not only they solve the the problem, like, market demand, the wave is is there.
Brian Casel:Justin talks about this all the time, like, kind of riding an existing wave Mhmm. That a lot of a lot of these products that end up winning and winning can mean anything. Winning could just mean 10 k a month, you know? But, like, they they win despite their shortfalls. They they win despite the paper cuts.
Brian Casel:Right? People are just are just looking for these products. And there's a lot of them in their search, inbound search volume, and there's, you know But I I think the thing that that I'm I'm curious how how you both think about this as you as you think about your next product. What is your how do you convince yourself that this is going to work? And I know that there's, like, the typical steps of, like, validation for, like, one customer at a time and everything.
Brian Casel:But, like, you know, like like, Val, like, you got more than one customer on Block Maker, but you're you're still looking for your next thing. Right?
Christian Genco:Like
Val Sopi:Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Casel:Like, that that because that's the thing for me too is that, like, I all the products I've ever launched got customers, but not all of them turned into long term successful, sustainable growing businesses. You know? They the the first the first couple thousand in revenue does not guarantee you're gonna get into 5 figures. You know?
Val Sopi:Yeah. I think the worst thing in SaaS is to get some clients. It's the worst thing. Yes. It's better to get zero clients than some.
Val Sopi:%. Because then you hit a plateau and you're like, what the fuck? Like, do I sell it? Do I continue? Do I drop it?
Val Sopi:You know? And I came to that conclusion kinda with Block Maker before switching pricing from yearlies, which were super low to monthlies, which are thankfully growing slowly, but still growing on its own. Then, know Oh, you did switch
Brian Casel:to monthly. I remember you had the yearly price.
Val Sopi:Did. And it's great. Like, it was 49 per year, which was oh my god. So hard. So now it's 25 per month.
Val Sopi:And it's card upfront, which is even interesting. Like, I've never done that. And it's pretty cool because there's no support tickets with $25 per month. With $49 per year, there were, like, tickets all day long every day, just helping people with stuff.
Brian Casel:You know, one thing about, like, finding yourself in this weird plateau area where you where you have, like, a a decent starting start of a business, but then then you're sort of frustrated. Like, I've been in this in the last year, and it starts to free my mind to be more experimental. Like, I don't care like, nothing to lose. Right? So, like, one one of the things I've been playing with over the last five, six months with Clarity Flow is, like, get rid of the trial.
Brian Casel:People pay upfront on day
Christian Genco:one. Exactly.
Brian Casel:Yeah. That actually worked. There were some churn issues, and and then, like, you know, we're reconfiguring some some pricing options. But, like, I've been playing around with, like, no trial, go to go to a trial with a credit card, go back to no trial, and, like, just playing around with these with these things. It's it's kinda it it it is kinda liberating at a certain point where it's just like, well, what what's been what I've been doing hasn't quite worked, so let's just get experimental.
Val Sopi:I know. And to to go back to your question initially that you asked, you know, you said how, I'm paraphrasing, how are you sure that this will work? Like I'm not. I did some validation, which I haven't done before with other products. I feel a bit confident because of that.
Val Sopi:Like I, there's some room in SEO, SEO is not going to be my only channel. I plan to do some cold outreach. I've already started in LinkedIn, it's working. The product is for a certain person in a company. It's not a team, like in project management, you have a marketing manager, traffic manager, graphic designer, developer, all these different types of people are using the same product.
Val Sopi:It becomes very hard in marketing terms, like who do you market it to? Like, who's the decision maker? Is it the freelancer who just started the company and saw a cool product, and wants to introduce it to their boss? Is it the boss? You always have that game.
Val Sopi:Well, product is like one person. Usually the entire department is like this person, and I can speak to them, I've already started speaking to them. However, with all this said, like the product is ready, I'm going to be putting Paddle on it, preparing it all for exit from the get go, I want to package it, that's one of the reasons I want to use Paddle, I don't want to sell a company, I just want to hand the product with Paddle and all the clients, and all the assets, I'm preparing everything to exit at some point.
Brian Casel:I've always taken that approach too with everything. I've started so many businesses over the years, just spin up a separate Stripe account for each one.
Val Sopi:Yeah, but to sum it up, I haven't, you know, I'm not yet punched in the face, like, know, like, I have all this like honeymoon phase where I built the product, had these awesome conversations. Now I'll see, like, once I start, you know, talking to potential people who are actually going to pay for it, and then I'll see what's happening. I don't know, like I spent one hundred and fifty hours building it, maybe about fifty, finding the product, what I'm going to build, like talking to these people, so two hundred. If I see that, I'm launching it now, which is February, end of February. If I don't get maybe 10 payments by April, like probably shut it down, payments are going be like starting at 99 per month, which is amazing.
Val Sopi:Like I'm so excited for the price point, you know, like being excited for making a sale because it's much bigger.
Brian Casel:I think you are going about this validation process in a really smart way because you've been someone that I've been following on Twitter for a while and popping into your podcast sometimes and you've been extremely public. Like, I I love how you build in public and share so much.
Val Sopi:Oh, thanks, man.
Brian Casel:And it sounds like with this, like, I don't I don't even know what the website is. I don't know what the product is. And so so clearly, the only people who you are allowing to see this domain are the potential first paying customers, right?
Val Sopi:Yes. And my wife and my son, that's it. Nobody else knows about it. And honestly, I'm going to, one of the reasons I'm doing that, the niche is so small, it's kind of easy to get into this market, like that specific niche. And I don't want any competition to be honest, like I've been so open with other products and say, Oh, there's plenty of room for everything else, but I have a family to feed at the end of the day.
Val Sopi:Like, I don't want somebody to come in and take that away from me, somebody who's much better, stronger, faster, has more money. I don't want them to grab into this little nugget that I found that I'm hoping is going to turn into the 10 ks. That's the reason.
Brian Casel:This is also something I want to get into is the idea of competition. We hear it all the time. We talked about it on that previous podcast here on the panel. I think one of the main reasons why SaaS is so much more difficult now, of course, was difficult five, ten years ago too, but the competition is insane. And and I and I feel like and I I could be totally wrong about this.
Brian Casel:Maybe I am. But I feel like every single category is competitive now, even the niches. Right? And and the other thing that I'm seeing is that, like, of course, like, my SaaS has twenty, fifty competitors, but customers are not only more demanding or you have to reach a higher bar, they are just much more willing to just like, nope. A little bit of friction, little little paper collect.
Brian Casel:Nope. I'm gonna cancel that trial and go on to the next one. Like, it's so easy for them to just like, especially in those, like, first thirty days of trying a new product, they're probably gonna try five or six until they until one is absolutely perfect. Val, I'm curious, you said you're entering a market where there's not much competition, correct? How did you think about that?
Val Sopi:There is actually. Is, there is. Existing products are huge. They own the space, they're pretty big, think of them as Salesforce, they've been around forever, they're super outdated. The biggest problem with them is that they're so bloated, the clients that are using them, they're having trouble even introducing their new team member to how to use a product, they have to train people to use this existing product.
Val Sopi:So what I'm trying to build is something that is easy to learn by everybody, but at the same time does everything that they need to do. What I'm aiming for, the keywords, the inbound, the keywords that I'm looking at, they have about 12 ks potential searches per month, which is incredible. I can rank for it, I can get up to like top five with it. So that's why I'm keeping it private, I don't want somebody to compete with me in that particular niche. And at some point when I create a moat, hopefully, like I can maybe be more public about it.
Val Sopi:But what I will keep doing is just sharing everything around it. And I think it's still valuable because I can, I'm going to be doing like outreach, like just super cold outreach, I'm going to treat it as a service business. And I've done that well in the past. And I think you mentioned before, burnout, one of the things that I've burned out most, like pretty badly and several times, like in small bits. One of the biggest regrets is waiting for everything to happen online with the online product.
Val Sopi:Yes, the product is online, but it doesn't have to be everything around it doesn't have to be online. Sales don't have to be online. We can fly out to a conference that doesn't maybe, we can spend maybe 3 ks to just meet people, potential clients. And another thing with this product is that it's B2B. And once the client starts using it, it's going to be super hard to switch, because I've had that experience before, like once a team gets in there, like 10 people, 20 people start using it, their company depends on it, It's like an operating system.
Val Sopi:And that was one of the criteria, I want to build an operating system for the company, not the entire company, but this little department is going to be the operating system for them, it's going be their Windows, their OS, that's it, like they can't switch. That's my bet currently, don't know what will happen in two months, maybe I'll fall flat in my face and have nothing, but this is the first time that I'm going more organized into the battle than before.
Brian Casel:Yeah. For sure. I'm always fascinated. I love this idea of, again, this transition period for people like us, and choosing the next product, and having a a very specific checklist or criteria that we're looking for in in in what our next product is. And often that is a reaction from the previous one.
Brian Casel:Right? Like, these things were hard in that last business. Let's let's find a business that's easier in these ways and has these benefits. Christian, like, what are you thinking about in terms of, like, actual products? Like, are are Do you have anything you're setting your sights on at this point, or or what?
Christian Genco:I do. Oh, I have so many points I wanted to say. I I I think I'll I think I'll come up. But Oh, man. Where where do I where do I start tackling this idea?
Brian Casel:Don't do one of these Val things where you're not gonna tell anyone what you're No.
Val Sopi:No. Yeah. I will. I'm making enemies all over. It's terrible.
Val Sopi:I shouldn't have said anything about a new product. I should have said I'm on Blood Maker for the next ten years. So I
Christian Genco:I really wish Justin was here because he gave this amazing talk at MicroConf. Gosh, it must have been four or five years ago now. Where he's talking about how, yes, of course, there's product market fit. But there's also the founder in this. And there's founder market fit.
Christian Genco:And there's founder product fit. And I think that's a lot of what the three of us are learning as we as we go through this. And, Brian, the the question you asked was, like, how do you convince yourself this is going to work? And I I feel like that framing is indicative of that you're discounting the importance of the founder market fit. Like, in in times of my life where I'm working on something, and I just feel like I'm burnt out, and I feel like I'm dragging on it, I feel like the the thing that that's pointing to is that there's not founder market or founder product fit.
Christian Genco:And, you know, if I feel like I really have to just drag myself to my desk to to do any sort of marketing, I think this is probably why you're reaching for something that's gonna market itself. And Val, I think this is probably why, with this project, you're going into it from the beginning, thinking about distribution, thinking about this market that you can do cold outreach in, where it's a specific person that you can reach out to. Yeah, in doing multiple things, I feel like we're zeroing in on ways to do distribution, ways to do marketing that don't feel painful. So this framing of how do you convince yourself this is going to work, I don't like that. Because it's iterative, right?
Christian Genco:The more things we do, the more things we learn. Don't like this framing that you're gonna fall flat on your face, Val, if this thing doesn't succeed. Because you will have learned so much. Have this hypothesis that there's this market, there's this niche that there's this opportunity to just do cold outreach and and directly judge them. You're gonna learn so much.
Brian Casel:I'm really glad you brought up that that idea of, like, founder fit, and that's something I've been thinking so much about this year and leaning into. I feel like for the first time that the products that I'm working on right now are the most scratch my own itch Mhmm. Product that I've ever worked on before. And and I'm I'm actually seeing it in my entire like, it's changed my entire approach to how I'm built. So I'm building these these Rails components.
Brian Casel:Me and my team, we are actively using them. Like, we actually are customer number one because we're using it to build apps for for our for clients, you know, and my own products. So, like, I'm I'm, like, just choosing to build the things that I want to to have in this product, you know. I'm also hacking on, like, a block editor for Rails. Like, what do I want in a block editor?
Brian Casel:You know? And and it came about because I was trying to do a thing with with editing capability and there wasn't a good block editor. Right? So I I think it's you know, I I I love companies like like Basecamp, like thirty seven signals, and and you can just see in in how they decide to go after certain problems that it's just out of personal frustration and just like having a deep conviction of like, this should be better. This is how I want it.
Brian Casel:So I'm gonna be opinionated about this thing and put it out there into into the world. And if you resonate with what I'm actually fired up about, then that's maybe the beginnings of a spark of, like, this this thing could could resonate with customers, and then they tell tell their friends because they actually love the product that as much as I do. You know, like, I yeah. I I use Clarity Flow, and I've used my products before that I that I've built. But, you know, the I think the idea like, compare that to these previous experiences of, like, having a SaaS and marketing it to a niche vertical that I am not personally in.
Val Sopi:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And just finding those channels, maybe going to these, like, trade shows that where I'm a foreigner and I'm just kinda coming in and I'm doing customer research with people who I I'm not actually in their shoes.
Christian Genco:I got a taste of how that can work, by the way, doing this cofounder situation. Something that I loved about it was I was partnered with someone who is a deep industry expert, who has all the connections, who has done all the customer research, who knows the thing that needs to be built. I got to focus entirely on the software. And that was just blissful. Just get this nice little to do list of, like, here's the priorities of the features people are asking for.
Christian Genco:And I just get to zone out and, like, to just just write software.
Brian Casel:That's also a dream scenario too, where, yeah, like, you're you're where you have a a a cofounder relationship. I know that that didn't didn't last for you guys, but, like, the the people who have this like, what Justin has with John with Yeah. With Transistor, like, it just those are so hard to come by, but so valuable at the same time, especially when at least one of the founders is, like, deep in themselves. You know?
Christian Genco:A new set of complexities, new set of, like you know, it's it's a relationship then. And maybe just make sure you're on the same page and aligned in the same sort of way. But yeah, specifically for solving distribution, that's a solution for distribution that I think can work really well.
Brian Casel:Anything like firing you up, Christian? Like, what are you thinking about in terms of products?
Christian Genco:A lot of the stuff you're saying about scratching your own itch is where I've found myself. Build the thing that builds the thing is also the term that's been bouncing around in my head recently. Selling shovels in a gold rush also, like, I start off trying to build one thing and I realize, oh, this this part of it kinda sucks. Let me let me do this other thing about it. That's that's where my mind's at.
Christian Genco:And so the the thing that has most of my attention lately and, you know, talk to me in a week, and I might be thinking about something totally different. Our our babysitter this last week had a few family situations come up. My wife was also out of town. So I found myself not able to sit down at my desk and get work done. Which I just, oh man, I just felt this itch of like, oh, there's so many things I wanna build, so many things I wanna do.
Christian Genco:And there's this cursor setup where I can just talk to the computer and get it to do stuff. And wouldn't it be great if I could just do that from my phone? And so then I started thinking about, oh, what would have to be true? Is there an API for Cursor? Or could I screen share into my computer and set up some sort of thing like that?
Christian Genco:And then I started thinking a whole lot about AI agents. And the movie Her from ten years ago, I don't know if any of you have
Val Sopi:seen that.
Christian Genco:But the interface for that is just a little AirPod where he's talking to this super advanced LLM, effectively. And he's able to get he publishes a book. He goes through all his email. He's getting actual real work done while he's out and about. I'll send you the link for this.
Christian Genco:But this guy named Brett Victor, who published this article, gosh, maybe twenty years ago at this point, called Humane Computing. This whole research paper talking about how the way that we use computers is inhumane. And he defines inhumane as it forces us to do things that aren't the way that we're supposed to be using our bodies and minds. So, the thing we're all doing right now is sitting at a desk kinda hunched over on a keyboard, and and the way that we're pushing buttons is we're using a very small amount of our our ability to to move in space. And we gotta,
Brian Casel:like, be up all in This is so true. Like, literally, right now, like, my finger is hurting. Because this morning or or just an an hour ago, was using Cursor, like, heavily, and it's not even from the typing and stuff. It's from interacting with the AI in Cursor. It's like clicking the from between the chat window and and the project and and generating code and applying it and changing it, like, doing that like a thousand times in a row, like, I'm actually like so like, my I'm physically sore from that.
Christian Genco:That's and that's so funny.
Val Sopi:You know?
Brian Casel:It's like
Christian Genco:a first world problem.
Brian Casel:No. But like like this idea of like like, yeah, AI is definitely speeding us up, but it's still requiring a lot of typing and a lot of clicking just to get the prompts into Cursor. How does
Christian Genco:And I don't think, especially as AIs are improving, I think we're certainly not gonna do that. I think we're barreling towards this future where we just her and we can talk to that level of model. While we're out on a walk or in the middle of pushing my daughter on a swing, if I have an idea, I can just tap a button or be like, oh, hey, I just have an idea for this whole page you can add to the website. You do that? So that's where my head's been at.
Christian Genco:How close can we get to that today where I could be doing real, meaningful, actual work from my phone? So that's turned into building this AI agent that This might be a terrible idea. But I'm gonna give it the keys to a virtual private server that's just like its computer. So I'm gonna have an LLM that I'm talking to on my phone. Very similar to a CHI GPT interface.
Christian Genco:And then we'll do voice to text and all that stuff. And there might be tricks I can do with shortcuts where if I just have an idea, I can hit a shortcut and send it a voice message. But then give it enough tools and function calls, so that it could do anything that I could do at a computer. So, like, anything on a command line, interacting with TMux, so it can it can run, like, long run processes. I wanna this might be it.
Christian Genco:I may I may regret this, but I wanna give it full access to my email. Like, read, write, compose, send emails. Text messages through Twilio. Like, I just wanna see what happens if I have an agent where oh, Git pulling all my source code for stuff and have a local repository of it and being able to edit it. Everything the cursor's doing, I wanna be able to have it do that.
Christian Genco:With the goal of so, in the same sort of way that you're building these Rails components library of, like, this is enabling you to to build other stuff. And then on the way there, it might be valuable for other people.
Brian Casel:I I love this idea of, like I mean, this is I mean, this is like the year of agents, right, in AI. And and the the idea of moving moving beyond just a prompt, like Mhmm. Question, get a response to, here's a here's a project. Go work on that, and I'll I'll be back in an hour to see what you came up with. You know, like
Christian Genco:I deleted all your email. Know you've messaged super racist things to everyone in your contacts. Right. Oh, great.
Brian Casel:Super interesting, man. I mean, like, one of those, like like you were just saying about the product that that leads to the to the product. Like, I'm thinking about these these Rails components. And right now, I'm just trying to get that out the door. But the next step, and I and in talking to, like, pre customers, like, pre, like, early access customer conversations, lot of it is coming is pointing to, like, well, how can, like, we use AI with this?
Brian Casel:And and my thought is, like, that this like, building the the Rails component sort of builds in my own opinions on how a Rails app should be structured, and all the all the commonly used features that I build into a Rails app. So handing all of all of those components over to the LLM, and then and then having the LLM, like, sort of trained on that to then build spin up my Rails apps. I have command with with my components and my opinions sort of built in
Christian Genco:Yeah. You know Love it.
Brian Casel:Into the training. That could be,
Christian Genco:like, an intro
Brian Casel:because I think we are also in this era now of, like, building with components. Like, no matter what framework or tech stack you're on, like, there's components everywhere. There's frameworks everywhere. So it's like it's like that converging with AI, converging with some people with with basic product chops.
Val Sopi:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Things can can come out a lot faster, which, you know, it's it's like good and bad. You know, coming back to that that question of, like, competition coming up super fast.
Christian Genco:Right? That that sort of component level organization is the place where I see LLMs fall over the most. So, yeah, I love that idea of if if you give an LLM building blocks and say, how do you fit these things together? That's that's where I've seen the the best results. I wanna say something really quick about competition because I've I've thought so much about this that like oh oh, Rob Walling has a great talk on this also where he he's talking about how like, your biggest competitor is probably email and Excel.
Christian Genco:And I wanna go a step further than that of like, the the thing the entity that we're all competing with is like entropy. It's like it's like it's like human suffering is is really who our competitor is. It's it's yeah. Of course, there's there's other people who we're kind of competing with to solve the same sorts of problems. But, like, Val, for for your niche, I don't think you're if you looked at the total number of the total addressable market of the of the total people in this niche, and you looked at the competitors and, like, what percentage of the people in this niche are using one of my competitors versus what percentage of them are just having this problem that is solved by the thing that you're building and everyone else.
Christian Genco:I would wager so much money that, like, more than 90% of the people in this market don't even know that there's a solution to it, and it just hasn't quite crossed their mind that, like, this pain that they're experiencing every day has a solution for it. Like, that's what you're going after. So, yeah, that's how I'm thinking about competition. And it just keeps getting reinforced over and over of, look at how many competitors there are for LLMs, and they all have different strengths and weaknesses. And Deepsea came out and has its own take on stuff.
Brian Casel:Maybe we can start to guess what Valve's product is with this question here. But on that question of competition, I definitely agree traditionally that lot of times your alternative or your competitor is the spreadsheet or the email inbox or the or the written pad on your desk. But that I think in in in most categories, that might have been more true five to ten years ago. And today, a lot of those spreadsheets are replaced with the big well known the sales forces. Right?
Brian Casel:The the big well known players. It depends on the category, but, like, I feel like, least in in the products I've worked on, most of the time that making the sale is about convincing someone to switch away from something else that they're already paying for. It's like there's that give and take where it's like, I I like to see that customers do and are actively paying for products like this, which is a good first step of validation. Like, people do buy software like this. Like, even if they're convinced that, like, mine is better, they're not yet convinced that, like, it's worth the effort of switching.
Brian Casel:And we could offer done done with you, concierge, all this different stuff. But, like, that's the real challenge, I think, now, know, getting them to switch and getting them to onboard and all that.
Val Sopi:Yeah. And there's there's a lot of companies who are currently not using the software, believe it or not, they're using email for this problem, not even a spreadsheet, you know, which was amazing to find out because they trust the email, the sort of documented nature of email, like how you sent it and both have copies of it, and that's like proof of something being done. So one of the challenges is that's one of the competitors, that's 100% true. So yeah, I mean, I just went, I'll come back to being open about everything, but I'm trying this new thing where I was super open about every little detail to, I'm gonna build this product, not in secret towards the buyer, but sort of just keep it like, share the lessons, but not uncover everything about it. And the other reason
Brian Casel:It's really smart because you're gonna get all this extra noise if you
Val Sopi:let it That's what I was what I was gonna say because I have a lot of friends now online. And even with Block Maker, if I say something, like I'll get at least 10 DMs, well meaning DMs, trying to give me advice. And that advice is not always the right one for that moment. Like it could be right for maybe sometimes in the future or maybe in the past, but this exact moment, I'm so invested in this thing that I kind of know where to go with it, and I don't want that noise in dealing with So just want to keep it like very kosher, very clean, try to sell it in these channels, and then see where I'm at, like, in a couple of months, you know. But
Brian Casel:Yeah. So okay. Like, you're you're you're in conversations with, like, nine leads that you that you came to through through LinkedIn.
Val Sopi:Yes.
Brian Casel:What would you say is, like, your main selling point or angle that you're taking to
Christian Genco:them?
Brian Casel:Like, they they are let's say, they're they're probably aware of that big well known player or maybe they currently use email. What is your answer or pitch to them to say, it's better because of this?
Val Sopi:Well, I haven't gotten to a point where I'm trying to sell it, but what I've heard from them is one of them said it's light years away from the current that big player we're using in terms of simplicity, like how easy is to get something out of the door with this thing. That was one thing. So I'm just gathering messages. I don't even know, like, to be honest, what the selling proposition is just yet. I'm trying to use their language for it.
Val Sopi:What I'm doing is I'm recording a demo about just going through the product, making a demo account for them, all filled out with some dummy copy and everything, and then just having them play with it and then compare it to what they're using and just getting that feedback, that language, just, hey, what is this? I kinda know what it is, but I want you to tell me what it is, And sort of using that language in the next call. That's what I'm you know, that's the strategy.
Brian Casel:So what led you to this product? You said that you saw some search volume. You said it's it's not super competitive. There's some big players and then it's and then it's sort of empty. But, like, was there anything from a product standpoint where it's like I guess you said, like, you can make it simpler and and cleaner and than than the big bloated players, like
Val Sopi:So what led me to this exact product? It's not it's not something I will use. I don't have use for it at all. Like it's not for me. It's for companies that are at least with thirty, forty, 50 people and above.
Val Sopi:Like it has to be a big team for this product. I've been doing similar things kind of for contract work for other clients. And the biggest thing that I liked about it is that it is an operating system. I keep going back to that because the switching cost is too huge and I hate it when somebody uses Block Maker and my idea with cheap pricing was that, yeah, people will buy it and it will be a no brainer, they'll renew it for ages, they'll never cancel. And a year comes up and they're canceling like a nineteen year dollar product.
Val Sopi:And it's like, oh my God, this is so bad. So I I wanna avoid that.
Brian Casel:You know, one of those criterias that I've that I've bounced back and forth on between the different products that I've worked on in the last five, ten years is like like I I I was working on this thing called process kit, which was like probably not too far off from your previous
Val Sopi:Oh, yeah. I remember that. Yes.
Brian Casel:And like that was sort of like a process management tool. And the idea there was to sort of be the operating system for these agencies and and these and this team in the and and, you know, that was good that that it can be really sticky if they if they adopt it, but the it's like a mountain to get over to get them to adopt it and build out the processes. Right? And then and then, like, going to Clarity Flow, it was like it started as Zip message, which it's it's super easy to just get up and running. Send record a message, send it to someone.
Brian Casel:Now it's viral. Right? Like, super quick and easy and and low onboarding. But then but then the challenge of, like, it's only valuable if you use it, like, every day continuously. It's not a like a set it and forget it type of value proposition.
Brian Casel:And and now it's, like, evolved into Clarity Flow, which is trying to get back into that territory of, like, it's an operating system for a coaching business,
Christian Genco:you know.
Brian Casel:And so I I bounced back and forth. But like, I feel like the holy grail is to find these product ideas that you you buy it, you install it in your business, it does its thing, and you don't have to touch it every single day in order to keep getting the value from it. Right? Like, it just I don't know. I'm paying like QuickBooks for, like, bookkeeping, and I look at it, like, once a quarter, you know?
Val Sopi:But I was curious to know, like, you know, the SaaS that you're thinking about. Is it B2B? Is it B2C? Is it something that you're seriously going you know, wanna go into it? And what I'm curious mostly about is since you're doing contract work, would say, consulting with your team, like how do you plan to manage that?
Val Sopi:Because for me, it is a complete disaster. I cannot split my brain into doing contract work. It's so hard. Like right now I have a client. It's like, oh my god.
Val Sopi:Yeah. So I wanna hear about that.
Brian Casel:Where I'm at today with with that on that last question on the consulting. So last year, I I launched this thing that I was marketing out there called one month app, where I would build an MVP in a month, which in reality is more like two or three months for for each MVP. And I did a bunch of those last that started last year. I don't know. Like six or seven of them built and shipped.
Brian Casel:And then in the last quarter of twenty twenty four into early twenty twenty five, I had three of those projects happening simultaneously. So, like, building three SaaS MVPs from zero to nothing at the same time, Me plus a small small team working with me. And that became too much. Like, just in the in the past month, like, I I just I just, you know, decided that, like, that's beyond the limit of what I'm willing and capable of of because I because I also need to carve out enough time every week to to hack on my own products. Like, I'm not trying to just build an agency here.
Brian Casel:So I did make the decision a couple weeks ago that, like, okay, I've I've just wrapped up this batch of projects. Now, I'm setting a hard limit on the number of projects that I'm willing to take. And and luckily, like, two like, my best two clients are continuing on with some ongoing retainer work on those projects that that we built the MVP's for. So so now it's basically like I'm giving these two awesome clients, like like, priority access to my calendar, and everything else is just wait list or not available. So I've also reduced my team, so it's it's now just Clarity Flow is separate, but just for the consulting stuff, it's it's me plus one developer.
Brian Casel:And that's nice. Because it's like, I could more or less spend like two days, two to three days a week doing tasks on those projects, and then having sort of like the rest of that time and of the week to to make progress on new products. I mean, other thing, and and this gets to your other question of like what I'm building, is that it's much more integrated now. Right now, I'm focused on building these Rails components. So when I'm working on MVP projects for clients, we're making the Rails components better because we're using them in the same project.
Christian Genco:Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Casel:Yeah. So we're able to extract. Like, the other day, built a billing system for our client. Okay. So now that became our billing component.
Val Sopi:Oh, wow. Okay.
Brian Casel:So that's that's number one. In terms of like the the next I have a I have a list of of ideas that I would like to get to. I don't know which ones I'm actually going to break ground on and and when, but they are all heavily leaning into, like, it has to be a tool that I personally want to use, and it's scratching my own itch. And I have opinions about what's gonna make this product perfectly fit my use case. And if nobody else likes likes that use case or or has that use case, then it's probably not gonna be a product that that's gonna work very well.
Brian Casel:But I but I can build products so efficiently now that, like, I'm fine with taking an an idea from from idea to execution in under thirty days. And if that's all I invested into it, then that was fun. You know?
Val Sopi:Yep. Mhmm. Absolutely.
Brian Casel:And that and that's sort of how I'm I'm so, like, I I'm hoping that, like, between now and the end of the year, you know, starting with the components, maybe I'll get to two or three or four of these tiny ideas between now and the end of the year. And then I I feel like I'm gonna learn a lot just between now and then. And by the end of the year, I'll have different opinions on where things go from there. You know? Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. I'm I'm also going into this year with the assumption that nothing's gonna work. I'm done with the idea of, like, I'm gonna build a product Right. And this is gonna be that home run that I've been wanting for
Val Sopi:Right.
Brian Casel:My whole career.
Christian Genco:Like, it's not. I Right. Right.
Val Sopi:Right. I gave up on that a long time ago.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I've already accepted, like, this is not gonna be a home run. I'm I just wanna build a good thing that I wanna use. Keep doing that. And along the way, I'm gonna record videos on YouTube and and use the byproducts of building these products.
Brian Casel:And hopefully, this stuff will will come together into something. It's working I mean, it's fine right now. I mean, that's the other thing going back to what Christian was saying earlier about, like, really loving this work. Like, for me, that's always been extremely important. I I do have friends in this industry who don't love SaaS, but they are in SaaS.
Brian Casel:Like, they don't you know, because it's it's like one of the best business models you can possibly be in if if you're successful, you know? But the idea of just grinding on a business that I don't like or selling to a market that's that I that I that's not me, that's tough. You know? So I'm trying to make sure that when I'm coming into this office every day, I'm I'm psyched to be here, you know?
Val Sopi:Yeah. And I think it has to do a lot with, like, you know, the people that you're selling to, at least with me, like how excited they are. Like, if they're not excited, like, I I lose interest, you know? And that's that has been the toughest thing with Block Maker, you know? It's like people like it.
Val Sopi:I wish it was growing faster, but like, it's that, you know, you have some clients, there's about 500 clients right now. And it's like they love it, but at the same time, they're like, oh my God, it's so slow, like it's killing me, You know, so I think it has to do a lot with like how people are responding. And especially this initial positive feedback that I got for this new product, that was like, oh my God, this is great. But then again, I was holding myself back not to get excited, like you said, Like, no, this is not gonna be a home run. I'm just gonna try it and see.
Val Sopi:It's like a balance. Don't wanna be so pessimistic where it's depressing. I wanna have the drive to keep going, but also I wanna have, like, the the wisdom to sort of not get too excited if it's not, and not go, like, for another four years, you know? Because with every product that I've made, like, every time I make a product, I'm like, Oh my God, I hope this is it, because I have no other product left in me. And then a few years ago, we go by, and I'm like, Oh, I gotta start this new thing, you know?
Brian Casel:It's like, Let's take another crack at
Val Sopi:it. Yeah, like, when is this gonna end?
Brian Casel:That sort of leads me right into the the only other question I really wanted to ask you guys is, like, how do you think about success? What does success look like for you this year? We're still at the start of the year. So, like, again, we're thinking about these new products. Like, it would be great if by the end of the year, things looked like this.
Brian Casel:What's what's your answer to to that? Christian, what what are you thinking?
Christian Genco:I have thought so much about the word success. And for the longest time, I had this mantra of like 20 k MRR. I just gotta get to 20 k MRR, and that's that's when I'm gonna, like, feel successful. And in playing that out, no, I won't. I'll just set a new goal, and it'll that'll that'll that'll make it.
Christian Genco:Then I'll do it'll be 40. Like, you know, the the data confirms this. If if hilariously, if if you ask anyone at any level of net worth, how much money do you think you would need to feel like you had enough money? It's two to four times the amount they currently have. And if they're a millionaire, it's 2 and a half million.
Christian Genco:And if if they have $10,000,000, it's 20 to 40,000,000. The thing that I've been optimizing for and and just kinda like sitting with is this idea that, like, I'm not optimizing for success at the level of the year. I think if my wife was listening to this, she
Brian Casel:she'd get angry with
Christian Genco:me because she's like, no. I wanna bring in this amount of money. Like, fair enough. So, you know, some some money needs to be be coming in the door. But, like, the the amount that we actually need, I think, is is pretty modest.
Christian Genco:So the thing that I'm really trying to optimize for is, like, what does a good day look like? And I think a good day looks like I'm doing work that feels meaningful, that I'm enjoying, that I feel like I'm, like, building towards a bigger thing. I really enjoy that. I need that in my life. Feeling like I'm I'm able to work on stuff.
Christian Genco:I wanna spend time with my family. I wanna exercise three times a week, and I wanna sleep for eight, ten hour nine hours a night. And that to me is success. I think there is no greater success than that. There's no amount of money.
Christian Genco:If you said, like, you know, you can sacrifice one of those things, and we'll give you $5,000,000 right now. I think I'd honestly turn it down. I I hope I hope that I would turn that down. I I don't think there's any one of those things that I would, you know, that's that's worth that amount of money to me. And the the the sort of the closing thought that I wanna have is in the in the Brian, in the in the situation that you're describing of, like, you know, with Clarity Flow feeling like you can't be all in and starting this Rails components thing, and also tying this back to Justin's talk about product founder fit.
Christian Genco:Oh, man. And there's this really good talk. If you look at Alex or Mosey's YouTube channel and sort it by his videos by the the most number of views, the the top video in, like, the first five minutes addresses the
Brian Casel:take his stuff in, like, small spurts before I just can't take it anymore.
Christian Genco:He can be a He's
Brian Casel:got, like, good ideas, but I'm just like, I can't.
Val Sopi:I could never get into him for some reason. Yeah.
Christian Genco:Fair enough. What the first five minutes of of his most popular video. But he he addresses he's talking to a room full of entrepreneurs. It's it's this long talk. And he's like, you know the problem with you guys is you work on something until it gets hard.
Christian Genco:And then you see the grass is greener on the other side, and then you and then you jump over to something else. But the people that are how might I frame this? Externally successful, stick with something. And I think the reason you stick with something is when you have that product founder fit. I think so, you know, any one of these things that you're working on, Zip Message, when it was previously Zip Message, Clarity Flow, Process Kit, one month app thing.
Christian Genco:Any one of these things, if you stuck with them I'm sure you hit some sort of plateau of the felt harder to get traction on it. Like, if you stuck with it, if you if you really just did it for, I don't know, a year and just really put everything you had into that, any one of those things I would bet on. But, you know, I I don't I don't think that makes sense to do, not because the market's not there, but because I don't think you wanna do it. And that's fine.
Brian Casel:I I think that I on on most of those things, I took them a step beyond, like, maybe a year beyond that point. Mhmm. Because okay. So, like, Zip Message started over over four years ago. You know?
Brian Casel:Clarity Flow, I was on that for three and a half years. Usually, they cross some threshold of that idea of investing years of my career into one thing at the expense of moving on to another idea that has the potential to work faster or better or solve some other problem. And maybe not money, but maybe it's enjoyment. Maybe it's time, whatever it might be. But, yeah, it's it's usually at some sort of calculation.
Brian Casel:And and then it's also like a question of, like, these businesses operate on runways, you know, especially when it's not profitable. Living in Connecticut with a family and even and and having a small team to run this thing, like, profitability is it it's it's not like four digits MRR. Like, you know, it's well above that. And, like, that's that's where the viability thing comes in. And then maybe getting to the point of, like, what does success look like.
Brian Casel:Because what a lot of people do in that pit in that position, and I know I know a lot of friends who've reached a similar plateau or slow to get traction position, maybe three to four years into one of these either a bootstrapped or a fund strapped kind of SaaS, the move sometimes is to say, like, I'm gonna keep being all in and I'm gonna raise more investment. I'm gonna I'm gonna do another round. I'm gonna do maybe a a b seed round, or whatever whatever they call those things. Right? And I I I've just came like, no.
Brian Casel:I'm I'm a bootstrapper. I I did a little bit of investment at the start of Zip Message, and that also made the math a little bit murky as the years went on. I'm I'm just back to my basics of, like, consulting and hack on new products and see what comes of that in
Christian Genco:a Fair enough. I also don't wanna get obnoxiously philosophical like the yeah. There there are real world limitations to to how long you can stick with something.
Brian Casel:Also something Val said earlier, like, how how you were spending, like, four years on on Blog Maker, and it's still running. Right? And but, like, you sort of feel a little bit of regret of, like, maybe not looking to that next thing earlier.
Val Sopi:I wish I'd started a B2B earlier, but then again, I didn't have the inspiration for this product. I could have started the wrong product. But then again, it is a bit long. I agree with you, Christian, like, I think there's a balance. Sticking with the thing, I think is very important, you know?
Val Sopi:But the way I look at it, I'm going to stick with my goal of having twenty-ten-twenty-thirty ks MRR, like, that's my goal. I'm sticking to that, but I'm going to change the methods how I get to it, like I'm going to change the vehicle. My Mercedes is not taking me there, like maybe another car will take me there faster and easier. One of my biggest aspirations is my wife, she has a store, she sells gifts and flowers and etcetera. They don't do much marketing, they have sales, it's not hard to run it, it's very easy.
Val Sopi:I like that, I think successful businesses have that ease in them. I know people who try so hard and they have a really good business, but they work so hard, and it's like, I don't know if I'm cut for that, I wouldn't like that. Like, maybe I'll make the 50 ks, but if I'm working, like super hard, like, I like those things, Christian, you said before, like, I value those things a lot. I wanna have to hang out with my kids. I wanna sleep eight, nine hours a night.
Val Sopi:I want to go to the gym, those are non negotiable for me, so I want to keep that. And I want to have a business that, like you Brian said it in the beginning, I want the product to sort of sell itself, I'm going to do the homework, I'm going to do the selling. I'm going to jumpstart the engine, but the business has to do its part too. Like the product has to work its part. If I'm doing all the work and the business is not doing its part, like that's not a business.
Val Sopi:Like I'm the engine, you know, it's not the business, which it should be.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, I don't want listeners or viewers to get the wrong idea here. I think we've all been around the block with SaaS. We've all built and sold products and businesses, right? So it's like, we're not saying like, don't do marketing or don't Don't
Val Sopi:build Exactly.
Brian Casel:This or don't do that. Like, we're gonna go through the mechanics. But at at this at the same time, there's only so much that we can actually control. Like, we we can do the outreach. We can go to the trade shows.
Brian Casel:We can build the right product. We can have the right customer conversations. Like, we do all like, these things are not new. Right? But the products that end up working, it's easy to sell.
Brian Casel:When I was working on audience ops, sales conversations were conversations with friends, and this thing just sold itself.
Christian Genco:Here here's the point I think I'm trying to make. Like, the thing that felt easy, I think that's an internal game more than it is an external game. I that that's the point I wanna make. That I I think it has much less to do with the market or who the people is that you're selling to, as much as it does, like, how do you feel working on this thing? How do you feel interacting with these sorts of people?
Christian Genco:Like, with with with this AI agent I'm making, I can't lose. Like, if I'm the only person who ever whoever uses this thing, it's gonna be great. It's gonna help me, like, make make the stuff that I wanna make easier. The I I feel perfect internal alignment with with working on this. It feels fun.
Christian Genco:It feels easy.
Brian Casel:And you're learning a ton Right. Through the process of building it.
Christian Genco:Exactly. And if if you take that internal element away, if if you were a genie and you were like, Switch these neurons in your brain, and now you feel awful when you work on it. Well, now it doesn't work. Even if it it could be the best business in the world. It could be, you know, that that this thing, when I launch it, is is gonna just take over, it's, like, perfectly timed and everything else.
Christian Genco:But, like, if the way that I'm feeling about it is I feel bad when I'm marketing this and, like, the whole thing falls apart.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah,
Val Sopi:totally. One analogy that comes to mind, like my I'll make this quick. My son plays tennis and I take him to practices and everything. The way I see it is like, the business is the player and the business person is the coach. And the coach can do all the right things, can put the player through different drills and whatnot.
Val Sopi:But at the end of the day, it really depends on that player, how far the player will get. You can bring in the best coach in the world who maybe coached Sam Press and Federer, etcetera, and give him any player. If that player, if that business is not cut for the thing, like it's not going to work, you know? So I think it's a matter of knowing if the thing is not working or not, and then moving on to something else potentially that can take you there quicker.
Brian Casel:%.
Val Sopi:I don't if that makes sense, that analogy.
Brian Casel:So, yeah. I feel like we could just keep talking about this all day. But Forever. Yep. We'll wrap it up.
Brian Casel:But, you know, the thing that we are doing on this on this panel podcast is we're gonna be coming back around to to guests and inviting them back on for for updates. I feel like we especially should hear some updates from both of you maybe later in the year on on some progress on on how how this year, you know, shapes up. So so Val, Christian, thanks so much for for joining me. Sorry that that Justin couldn't couldn't be here today. We'll we'll have to get him on the next one.
Christian Genco:Thank you. It was so much fun.
Val Sopi:Thank you, man. It was great catching up. Alright.
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