Episode 7
· 01:08:23
Welcome to the Panel where smart founders discuss the realities of building better products and a better life. I'm Justin Jackson, the cofounder of Transistor.fm.
Brian Casel:And I'm Brian Casel I am building instrumental components for Ruby on Rails.
Justin Jackson:And in a moment, you'll hear our conversation with
Jordan Gal:I'm Jordan Gahl, the founder, cofounder of Rosie at heyrosy.com. We are an AI agent that picks up the phone for small businesses.
Justin Jackson:Alright. So your good friend, Jordan. It it felt like it felt like I was, you know, in between two two long lost friends.
Brian Casel:I mean, it was it was great, Jordan. You know, if you don't know, Jordan and I co hosted a podcast called Bootstrapped Web for, I think, over ten years. And we actually just just wrapped that up at the beginning of this year. So this was really fun to get back on the mics today with with Jordan and you, and it's a great conversation.
Justin Jackson:There's so much here that we talked about that I've wanted to talk about, and there's things that I think we need to have Jordan back to continue talking about. A few off the top of my head that were interesting to me was he said At the end of the episode, he said, we invested a bunch in ads, and we told the agency to run these ads as if they were to consumers. Because he was trying to reach this broad group of small business owners, trades people, painters, carpenters. There's something about that that I've been thinking about forever, which is we often think about B2B or B2C. And I think in a world of small businesses, like if your target is small businesses or prosumers or creators
Brian Casel:There's still people.
Justin Jackson:There's still people, and you kinda have to advertise to them like you would a consumer. So that part was really interesting to me. Yeah. Is there anything on the top of your head
Jordan Gal:that Yeah.
Brian Casel:For sure. The the thing that that was interesting to me is what we spent probably the first half of this episode that how, you know, talking unpacking how Jordan is thinking about his personal content, you know, whether it's Twitter, LinkedIn, and and a unique approach to that, and how you and I think about our content. And again, like, and this is a running theme here where Jordan is operating in a company that is VC funded and trying to move fast and putting a lot of dollars and salaries behind these efforts. Yeah. And I think about it like, how can I do a similar thing with the bootstrapper's mindset?
Brian Casel:Hiring an assistant, maybe using some AI. And I like to think about the mechanics of like, what can we put together here and what's actually feasible in terms of time and energy and funding and things like that. I think it's an interesting like, it's like, I think all three of us have a lot of the same goals
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:When it comes to like, why do we podcast? Or why do we make videos? Or, you know, why do we create content? And why do we want to grow our audience? But I think all three of us are operating in different structures on how to do that.
Brian Casel:Like a VC startup, a well established SaaS in your case, in my case, of like a bootstrapcom company kind of steady, you know, sustainable sort of thing.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And if folks are listening to that part in particular and you've got ideas on how you could achieve what Jordan is doing with a bigger agency and more investment and how that could translate to small bootstrappers, we'd love to hear from you. All the links are in the show notes. But, yeah, I think we should get into this conversation.
Brian Casel:Let's roll it.
Jordan Gal:Who needs a plan? Who who needs a plan? Figure that. There's a title. See?
Jordan Gal:We got a title already. We're ten seconds in. Cool.
Justin Jackson:So, Jordan, I've been you've been on the podcast, guesting spree. I have. You are for a while there, it was like, wow. Everybody's got Jordan on the podcast this week.
Brian Casel:Yeah. What is he promoting? A book?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Right?
Justin Jackson:On the book tour?
Jordan Gal:It was on purpose. It started by accident, and then it was on purpose, which feels like a lot of what I do.
Justin Jackson:Yes. You
Jordan Gal:know? Like, oh, I found this thing. Let me go explain how smart I am and how I found it when in reality, you know, Brian and I did a podcast for a very long time. Mhmm. And then we stopped.
Jordan Gal:And I was like, I have I have podcast latent energy that needs to be released in some way. Yes. So I started talking to people, and then I started thinking about my own podcast. And then I was like, oh, I want inspiration. I want practice.
Jordan Gal:And you know what you know what I think I'm I'm after?
Justin Jackson:What's
Jordan Gal:that? So a lot of what I'm doing around podcasting right now is thinking about when I open Spotify. Yeah. What am I looking for? What do I want to listen to?
Justin Jackson:Oh, this is interesting.
Jordan Gal:Using that as my guiding principle because at first, I was like, what is gonna bring in the most customers for Rosie? Yeah. And then I was like, I know what will do that, and that does not sound like something I wanna do for the next two years straight.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:And so I thought, you know what would be better if I could find something that I could authentically enjoy doing for the next x number of years and and and not think about it that way. Yeah. And then you then you're faced with another problem of, well, okay. What would you do if you actually wanted to create a podcast that you liked and wanted to listen to? What would you do?
Jordan Gal:You you guys just did it.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, I I think that's I think that's key in in starting this this type of, like, a podcast. Right? Like, I I really don't think the idea of, like, let's start a podcast as, a lead generation play for directly for a product. I I don't think that ever works.
Brian Casel:Yeah. You know? I it's just so much more about, like, brand and and long term story and and and personal investment of your listeners and your story and all that.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It it's easier to justify, though, the time and energy and money Yeah. If you're like, oh, this is a thing for the business. And and, okay, what's best for the business? If you think about it that way, you can end up doing that.
Jordan Gal:And I think that actually works really well for a lot of businesses. But if authenticity is the key thing in podcasting that grows an audience and, like, love between audience and hosts, then you you need to be authentic. And if I'm being honest with myself, I don't wanna do an interview of our ICP every single time for a year straight. I I don't wanna do
Brian Casel:that. Yeah.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. So can you can you take me through, like, when you open Spotify, what are you looking for when it comes to episodes? Like you said, that was what inspired you. So what is it? Like, when you open up Spotify, what are you Okay.
Jordan Gal:After, like, a few weeks of soul searching through this, where am I actually on it? Yeah. I want a hang with people that I like talking about things that I care about.
Justin Jackson:Okay.
Jordan Gal:That's it. I don't want value. I don't want the latest trick. I don't want some breakthrough. I don't want advice.
Jordan Gal:I don't want inspiration. I don't want any of that. I wanna hang out with people that I like talking about things that I care about.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:And and and the talking about things that I care about is pretty wide. If it's interesting, I'm in. I don't it's not like it needs to be on my, you know, approved list of things I'm interested in. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I've wanted the same thing for so long too. And I I I I did sort of that with my Open Threads podcast where I tried to bring on friends and talk about other things outside of business. And that's gone like In N Out. It's like the sort of like the fun hang podcast.
Brian Casel:But
Jordan Gal:I that's
Brian Casel:that a bit too.
Justin Jackson:That's what you guys had with Bootstrap Web. I think Bootstrap Web for me, it had that element. Like, it felt like I'm hanging out with Jordan and Brian every week. But the other job to be done for me was I'm walking from my house down to the office. And I'm like, I want to hang with people.
Justin Jackson:But I want to get inspired. I want to get, like, fired up. Hearing you two, you two had another element that was I don't know if I could even articulate it, but it was just having you talk through your businesses and your challenges and what you're thinking about in an authentic way would fire me up for the day. So for me, it's not just the Hangout. Because I've there's some episodes where it's like I mean, you like everyone I don't know if you guys saw that, but there's a PHP Hangout in New York.
Justin Jackson:And so Ian published it on his feed. And there was it was like on four different feeds. And I listened to it, and it was really enjoyable in the sense that I felt like, oh, wow. It feels like we're at a conference and we're all hanging out. But it was missing that element of this fires me up.
Justin Jackson:This makes me want to go to work and do some shit. Like, this is like what I'm looking for is that oomph to get me going. I don't know if you can identify with that. And what what would you say that is? Like, what's the difference between just a good hang?
Justin Jackson:There's also this other piece for me, which is a little bit tactical. Jordan, you were saying maybe you don't want the tactical. But for me, I want a little bit of something. I
Brian Casel:feel like that's what happened with Bootstrapped Web, which I think Jordan and I both loved doing it for so many years. But it's probably for, like, the same reason. Right? Like like, I feel like we enjoyed it just as much as the listeners did for a lot of the same reasons. It I think it had that element of hang, but it was also like, what do we like to talk about most of the time?
Brian Casel:And it's most of the time, we're talking about business.
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Like, that's what's kind of most interesting to us on any given day. And that's I mean, we we covered occasionally, we we veered into, like, non business stuff. But, like, for the most part, it's like, well, what's on our minds today? It's what we're working on, you know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Oftentimes, before the episode started, I would look at my to do list, and I would look at the previous week's calendar. What what did I actually spend time doing? What's on my to do list to think about and and accomplish? What meetings did I take?
Jordan Gal:What ideas did that spark? So it's really like it's like a to do list podcast. Like, what what are what are I just working on right now? What's on my mind? Yeah.
Jordan Gal:One of the things is you can't have a podcast that satisfies all everything.
Justin Jackson:No. Right?
Jordan Gal:It can't be inspiration and knowledge and tactics and, like, okay. So you're gonna have to forego some things. I think for me, I around Bootstrap Web, our aperture was tight around business. And I wanna if I'm being authentic to myself, I wanna open that up a touch
Justin Jackson:Oh, interesting.
Jordan Gal:Into into current events. I mean, maybe like a little bit of an all in type of like a, hey, things going on in the world and they impact business. So if I took it through that filter, that's what I wanna hear about.
Brian Casel:I don't
Jordan Gal:care about the guy on the news and their interpretation of tariffs. I wanna hear about Justin's interpretation of tariffs.
Brian Casel:Oh, yeah.
Justin Jackson:This has always frustrated me about in some ways, aperture metaphor is so good, our industry is like it felt like for a long time, people were like, well, this has like, this has nothing to do with politics, for example. And I was always like, this has everything to do with politics. Like, the the stock market going way down, and then the stock market shooting straight back up. Yeah. All of that percolates down through the economy and affects us, you know?
Justin Jackson:Even like my willingness to travel to The US right now. I just went for a conference. And there's a lot of Canadians that are, like, not super excited to go through airport security right now. We don't feel super welcome. We're the Canadian government just, like, issued warning, like, this is a the border border control can ask you really deep questions.
Justin Jackson:They can search your devices like Yep. You know?
Jordan Gal:Where we've been? All that stuff.
Justin Jackson:That affects Yep. That's life. That's like that's the world we live in. And it really upset me, like, especially with Section 174. It was like, clearly, this is a case where what's happening in DC actually really affects software businesses.
Justin Jackson:Like Yeah. They're a
Jordan Gal:little bit more of a whole self approach into the podcast as opposed to
Brian Casel:I I I totally agree with you, Jordan, about, like, I'm I'm always interested to hear what our people think about Yeah. Other things. What whether it's whether it's the world, whether it's politics Yes. Where you're from, your your your your taste of music, your your you know, what are you reading? What are you what are you watching?
Jordan Gal:Yes. How do you think about family, travel, why you take certain types of vacations, how you're raising your kids.
Brian Casel:And and I like the idea of of opening up, like, widening up the the range of topics because it's like, if if you're not into it, skip it.
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Yeah. If you're not into whatever we're talking about today, like, maybe you'll be into something next week. But like I think we actually saw that in the numbers in Bootstrap Web. For better I actually liked this aspect of Bootstrap Web, which was like every time I looked at the numbers, which was probably like once a year, you know Yep. I would notice, like, it's the same exact number of listeners.
Brian Casel:Every single episode gets like it's like crazy, like, the exact number of listeners, and it never grew. It was the same number for years.
Jordan Gal:Hanging out with our our our people.
Brian Casel:We found our people, and this this is all the people that are gonna find us interesting, and there's no one else who is going to find this tight type of business talk interesting. You know?
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I I I think this is an underrated point, though, which is, I mean, everybody likes theoretically likes big numbers and for the numbers to be going up. But there's something about having the right people listen. And I honestly felt like this with with every podcast I've ever started. Like, none of my stuff is ever really like the massive I don't have a massive YouTube channel.
Justin Jackson:I don't have a massive podcast listenership. I don't have a massive email list. It's like 7,000 people.
Jordan Gal:What? Twitter followers, Instagram? Twitter
Justin Jackson:even Twitter. Like, I dedicated so much of my life to that and put my best effort in it. And I got it to 40,000. And, you know, Adam Wavin joins and gets to 500,000. Like, I don't know what he's at.
Justin Jackson:But, know, I was never that level. But the difference was the people who were paying attention really had influence and gravity. And they were the right people for me to be in conversation with.
Brian Casel:%.
Justin Jackson:I think that's like, what more could you want? You know, I've I've told stories from Bootstrapped Web. Like, I I talked about Jordan's move from Portland to Chicago a lot, because I have lots of friends who were in Portland who also moved. And that was that's just a story that has reverberated around a bunch of different conversations. And I think people underestimate the value of that.
Justin Jackson:Like, you wrote a blog post and 500 people saw it. But if Heaton Shaw saw it, and now he's talking about it in all of his circles, that matters. You know?
Brian Casel:That's exactly right. That's exactly the same experience that I've had with podcasting for so many years. I feel like I've my whole career, I've been so frustrated with marketing in general and not figuring out the the right like, a repeatable marketing channel that can just grow customers. But I I I firmly believe that, like, the best success that I've ever had in marketing and sales for all of my products going back to the beginning through today has been either direct or an indirect result of the podcast. And it's so impossible to even connect those dots, but I but I know that they're there.
Brian Casel:Exactly for you for what you were saying because I have an even tighter audience than you do, Justin. But it's like the people who are tuning in, especially the ones tuning in every single week or to every single newsletter. Yeah. These are well connected people who who are invested in what I'm working on or my story or the people that I'm talking to, and and good things happen. You know?
Brian Casel:And then like, hasn't been a breakout success, but it but I've had some pretty great wins and and invitations and opportunities come up just for being out there and people following along. Like, that's that's what a podcast is. So so like going back to Jordan, what you're what you're starting up with a new podcast, it's like, just make it interesting and and authentic, and you're gonna attract your people. And and like dot dot dot, good things come from that,
Jordan Gal:you know? Yes.
Justin Jackson:One thing I've always enjoyed about you is that you're like, you went and raised money. You are thinking bigger. You are kind of naturally, I think more of a salesperson than definitely than I am. And I've always appreciated that perspective of like, sure, all of us bootstrappers are over here. And of course, like, we're like, yeah, podcasts, small aperture, get in the room with the right people.
Justin Jackson:But you've like, do you still believe that? Or are the experiments you've run at CartHook and then now Rosie with advertising and other things? Like, is there stuff you're experimenting with that we're not seeing? Like, some of those, you know, that casting a wider net has been useful or helpful? Like, what are you seeing in that sense?
Jordan Gal:I think it's an ongoing challenge for me and for most people that almost all of our limits are just inside of our own head. And trying to push past those is, at least for for me, it's conscious effort. And oftentimes, when you hear me say things that feel like I'm going bigger, I'm half convincing myself. Yeah. And that I think that comes from peers who you admire.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I talk to my brothers a lot. They're both entrepreneurs, and we try to push each other to think bigger. My investors and understanding their worldview.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. What what's an example of something that your investors have said to you that like, what are they pushing you to do right now with Rosie?
Jordan Gal:One of the most useful things that that our lead investor who's on our board, this guy named Hyun from March Capital, one of the most useful things he does is it's like when there's bad news or challenges, it's support. But as soon as there's good news, as soon as there's good news, it's awesome. How do we double? How do we okay. How do we 10 x?
Jordan Gal:How do we Yeah. Go faster? How do we take those assumptions that look great? How do we blow those out of the water?
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It's this mindset of if it's working, like, do not take your foot off the gas. How to figure out how to put three more feet on the gas.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I've I've been thinking about you a lot lately because I've lately, I've been reflecting about the podcast industry when we entered in 02/2018. And the way I explain it is like, the market was like this size, quite small. And then suddenly, because of all these cultural influences, the serial podcast, the New York Times just started talking about podcasting, the awareness of podcasting just went, but the market was still this small. And so when we entered, we were growing like, you know, 50% month over month.
Justin Jackson:It was just like, bam, bam, bam. And in retrospect, now I realized we were growing fast, because there's all of this green space that had been created around the the old market that nobody really realized. And in retrospect, I wish I had an investor or an adviser that was like, double down. Spend like thousands of dollars on ads. Like, don't realize you need to gobble up as much of this market share as you can.
Jordan Gal:You'll be happy a few years from now that you do.
Justin Jackson:And if you look at like, almost any success, most of it happens most of their market share is when they entered the market and there was just a bunch of green space, and they just gobbled it up faster than everybody else. So like Netflix,
Jordan Gal:how did
Justin Jackson:Netflix beat everybody else? They entered the streaming market, and people didn't realize, like, everyone was getting cable and fast Internet. So the market had gone bigger. But the streaming market just seems so small at the time. But to double down in that time and just gobble up market share while you can get it, then when Disney entered later, they can't catch up.
Justin Jackson:No matter like, it's Netflix has this I don't know what this foundation or this Yeah.
Jordan Gal:They took a spot in the market and their position is solid. Like, they're they've been in a good place, and it's really hard to remove someone once they exist in people's minds a certain way.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And I mean, the the timing of of, like, the the change in the in the world or the landscaping when, like like, it there was Blockbuster, and then there was Netflix. Like, it's it's just a a change, and they were, you know
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And you're kinda you're kinda swinging for that right now. Like, do you feel like that's the moment that Rosie is in? Yeah.
Jordan Gal:So what you're describing is what I think about all day, and it it is connected to certain decisions around funding. So so and and I I think that's definitely true. One of the challenges I wanted to take on by raising more money is forcing myself to think bigger. Yeah. So my investors want a very different outcome than I would want if I didn't raise money.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:It's not that they would look down on or they don't care or they would be unhappy or something, but their actual goal is very, very different. And that has helped me basically, you know, deal with the truth. Okay. Took money. Like, I'm I'm I bought into this.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I'm not gonna go change up everything around the trajectory and the goals in the middle of it. And and that definitely has led to, you know, Rally, if it was a bootstrap business, you would be happy with the revenue.
Justin Jackson:This is the second company you started after CartHook
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Justin Jackson:That you then pivoted into Hey Rosie. So Rally was a shopping cart like
Jordan Gal:A third party checkout.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And then you were like, this doesn't seem to gain traction. We're gonna completely change markets to an AI voice answering service. Is that correct? Yeah.
Brian Casel:Seems like a random change, but it's but it's exactly what you're talking about. Like, going back to the podcast thing, it's like finding that space that is blowing up or in in the process of of of riding that wave, whereas the the cart thing was just sort of the the timing just wasn't quite there.
Jordan Gal:That's right. That's exactly what you're talking to to connect it back. My take on the AI voice market is everyone's getting into position. Yeah. But what I visualize in my head is that there's this big dam made of skepticism, and there is an ocean on the other side of the dam.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And right now, the only water coming over the top are the early adopters. And over time, that dam gets lower as the skepticism and belief and word-of-mouth and, you know, commonality and mainstreaming of this of your phone being answered by an AI improves. And eventually, the dam breaks. And at that point in time, you need to be in position or you're going to be very, very late.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So Rosie is an attempt to sit on the the other side of the dam and establish our position and say, when the dam breaks, we are going to be ready.
Justin Jackson:Dude, that was such a good metaphor.
Brian Casel:That's so good. Jordan, I'm curious to know your thinking right now this year about why this is important to you, starting a podcast, like growing a presence on Twitter. Maybe you can talk a bit more about that.
Justin Jackson:I noticed you posting on LinkedIn more often too.
Brian Casel:Posting on LinkedIn. Given the business model that you're in and the funding structure and all that, what like, is is it a personal thing? Like, it's just for just it's just fun and and it is natural, authentic, or is it actually like a business?
Jordan Gal:No. Strategy. It's it's executing on the marketing strategy or campaign. Okay? Any business like ours, if you find a distribution channel that works, you should be happy.
Jordan Gal:We we found one early on in our advertising, and it works well. Great. So part of me is like, ignore everything else and double down on that. Yes. But advertising as a channel specifically is a little dangerous because you got you have to buy every customer.
Jordan Gal:So it would be healthier if over time, the percentage of customers that come in through our paid ads goes down or moves toward fifty, fifty, something of a healthier mix. Yeah. Because when I look at my projections and I see monthly spend on ads, monthly spend, monthly spend, monthly spend, if I remove that monthly spend or significantly decrease it in the future, then the profitability and all the happiness and stability comes into play. Yeah. So I look at advertising like, yes, I will buy customers because we have money in the bank from VCs and we should be buying customers to grow fast.
Jordan Gal:Okay. So that's kind of where it starts. What other channels do we want? So SEO. SEO is odd.
Jordan Gal:It's a bit like a set and forget channel, right? You hire a good SEO team, cost you $10,000 a month, and they just do their thing for a year. Yeah. And we connected them with the writer. So, just have their own department in our company basically.
Jordan Gal:They're managing the writers, they're publishing stuff to the blog, they're doing the SEO thing. And I'm like, as soon as that's set, it's not that I forget about it. I check-in and we get weekly calls and monthly and all this other stuff, but there's no effort. Yeah. So once you set that up, I said, Okay, cool.
Jordan Gal:That's set and that'll pay off in twelve to eighteen months. Yeah. So then what else? So I wanted organic content. And then I went through a little bit of a journey on what type of organic content needs to come from a company like ours.
Jordan Gal:I generally think every day that we don't post things on social channels is a day wasted. What are we doing? The more people hear about us, the more we grow. Like, let's make sure people hear about us. Okay.
Jordan Gal:So then I make a decision. Alright. Let's get organic content. And then the question is what type of organic content? So the first thing I look into is from the company.
Jordan Gal:And eventually, it dawns on me, you know what content I pay attention to? Anything other than from
Brian Casel:a company. Not from a company.
Jordan Gal:Exactly. I
Brian Casel:It's gotta be
Justin Jackson:a person.
Jordan Gal:Individual people. So then then I say to myself, alright. I guess it's gotta come from me. And then I get in well, I actually looked into options on, like, like, hiring a creator, and then that's the face of your company. And I just determined, you know what?
Jordan Gal:It's gotta be for me. That's the the healthiest thing. And then you start to figure out, okay, how am I gonna create a lot of content when I don't naturally create a lot of content? Yeah. So I found a very interesting company that posts organic content from the founder point of view.
Jordan Gal:So I haven't logged in. I haven't gone into LinkedIn, you know, very much at all, but you're seeing me post a lot. That is a service.
Justin Jackson:Are they writing your content for you? Yes. Wow. Oh, interesting.
Jordan Gal:So they do they do interviews. They understand me. They listen to podcasts like this. It's part of why I went on to a bunch of podcasts. They get to know you.
Jordan Gal:They get to know what's important to you, what your values are, how you talk, what your limits are, what you don't like to say, what is your personality versus
Brian Casel:I really like this mod. I maybe I know I I just somebody else might be using the same service or or a similar one. And and I've I've seen this
Jordan Gal:So, yeah, his company, that agency is blowing up. If anyone wants the the name, just hit me up. I'm I'm I'm happy to talk about it.
Brian Casel:I love that model though of, you, like the subject matter matter expert, like sit down. I I assume it's like on video or something for like an hour and they and then somebody else can like a human can like take it and create and publish all the other stuff. I assume there's some AI involved, but I wanna hear more.
Jordan Gal:There's a whole bunch of stuff involved. So so we're gonna to the podcast, but that's we're we're on the way there. Yeah. Okay. So so here's when I make that decision, I make it, like, cognitively.
Jordan Gal:I'm like, yes, that is the right thing for the business. And then emotionally, I'm like, I'm gonna die from cringe if I turn into like a thread boy with like these embarrassing threads. Right? So then I'm like, I gotta make this good. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Or I'm gonna die from embarrassment every day. Yeah. And so they have a great process where they're coming up with a bunch of content and then it goes into a Notion doc and then I edit and approve. Nice. So I have a filter.
Jordan Gal:It's almost like they give you a bunch of raw material that's like 95% done and you go, Oh, that sounds great. Approve? Or I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't put it this way. This isn't my style.
Jordan Gal:Let me change this. And it's so much easier to edit a document than it is to create a document.
Brian Casel:How much work is that? The editing process? Is it like is it literally just like, yes, yes, yes, no, no, yes, yes, done? Or is it like, are you working?
Jordan Gal:It's an hour of work for for two weeks of content. So it's not much. Mhmm. Wow. Right.
Jordan Gal:But I am focused and I have, you know, 30 different individual posts and I just open it up. I read it. I make changes. I make comments and I hit approve or edit or whatever else. Okay.
Brian Casel:And then the where's all that maybe stepping back a a step in the
Jordan Gal:process, where what's the original source? Conversations. Conversations with me, looking at the company. That's kind of part of their special sauce that I don't really know. So, you know, interviews with me, I probably spend about two hours talking about me and it's like, what's important to you?
Jordan Gal:What makes what things that are do you believe that most people don't? How did you come up with the business? Who gets the most out of it? Can you give us an example of a transformation before using the product and after? Just all the right questions.
Justin Jackson:Oh, interesting.
Brian Casel:I've been thinking so much about this just today because I heard about a similar company, maybe the same one. And, like, how can I as a bootstrapper and hacker, like, hack this together without hiring the expensive agency? You know? But I like, my my question is also around how I mean, I guess there's, like, an iteration process of, like, they're they're a little bit far off, and then they get closer and closer to your voice.
Jordan Gal:I tell you. Yeah. Listen, we'll get to know you over the next few months.
Brian Casel:What about, like, timeliness? So, like, there's probably, like, evergreen stuff, but then, like, what if what if it's, like, I I wanna have a bunch of posts about something this week?
Jordan Gal:Okay. So that was really important to me because one of the key pieces of value in publishing every day is product updates. Yeah. Feature announcements. Look at this new thing.
Jordan Gal:And so there's like basically another entry point into the same stream. So, if we go to them and we say, We are releasing live call transfers this week, I'll make a video and then they'll say, Cool, we'll write three or four posts about it and we'll take the videos and we'll add it to your stream and it'll be published, you know, a few days later, which I think is really, really important. And a lot of that we can also post from the company because that makes sense for the company. And then everything else from the company, you don't want the company profiles to just be totally dormant. And so the company basically just retweets my stuff.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And then, but like, if there's a feature announcement, it can come from the company and then maybe I'm gonna retweet the company and maybe add a little bit of color to it.
Brian Casel:I like that model, like the product updates from the company and then you like retweet it or comment on it and check this,
Jordan Gal:you excited for this to get out. Here's how people are using it. How would you use it type of thing?
Brian Casel:Again, I'm thinking through the process of how all this the mechanics of this. What is the final output? It sounds like there's some LinkedIn messages. There's x like, Twitter. Like, what are is there any video content going out?
Brian Casel:Like, how how does this all end up being published?
Jordan Gal:You know, depending on how what what package you want and whatever else, what's important to your ICP. I I don't log in to Facebook anymore, but my ICP is all over Facebook. Mhmm. So they created a new profile page for me on Facebook. And so it's like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Jordan Gal:And I told them, I personally live on Twitter, and that is where I'm most sensitive to cringe. Right. Because that represents me me, like real me, not like business y me on on LinkedIn where I'm like, you know, basically just doing it for the business. And so I can I can decide this is cool, but not for Twitter? This is cool for the other platforms.
Jordan Gal:But I don't want this on Twitter. This is too whatever. Well, for whatever reason, I don't want it.
Brian Casel:So on those three platforms, the final post, is it always text based or, like, images or
Jordan Gal:Okay. So here's where it gets interesting. And this now now we're at the podcast.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:I thought the best thing that I can do to make the content good is to be the source of the content. And so a weekly podcast is intended to serve as the foundation of content. Here is a whole conversation, and it includes business stuff, personal stuff, snippets, ideas, and that's just raw material for them to turn into posts and then take video clips and then all of a sudden introduce the video element of the content. And so the goal of the podcast, I guess the secondary goal of the podcast, is to provide a constant stream of content for this service that then takes it and amplifies it.
Brian Casel:I mean, Justin, you've been doing this with this podcast a few times where you'll take a clip of something we talked about, and it fits nicely into a larger thought piece that you wrote. And I've been wanting to do the same thing, but I don't have the process or the time to make that happen. Like, I I I think a a challenge that I've been having lately with content is I I feel like the best possible, like, highest caliber content that I could potentially do is, like, a a written article that I spend several hours thinking about and editing and sending out to my list. But I only get the time or energy to do that maybe once every two months at this point. Like, I I can't do it weekly.
Brian Casel:There's just no way.
Justin Jackson:You know what you know what's making me rethink some of this? There's a few schools of thought here. Like, Jason Fried is like, I only post my own stuff. I don't have any Yep. And but what Jordan's experience is reminding me of and I'm starting to think about this more is just I produce so much content every week that really nothing gets done with it.
Justin Jackson:So I do a pretty regular podcast with another guy on the podcast industry. I do this one, this panel one. And then I'm also just sometimes recording video for other other stuff. All of that stuff could get turned into posts, could get turned into blog posts, could get turned into whatever. And this week, while I was in Chicago, Kit is opening up a new studio there.
Justin Jackson:So Nathan Barry said, hey, I'm flying to Chicago. Why don't I have you at the studio and then we'll do an interview? And he has an assistant. And watching him and his assistant work, I'm like, this is how he's posting so much content. His assistant just knows they are in lockstep with him.
Justin Jackson:They understand his brain. They understand his voice. They understand content, everything. And I watch them interact, you know, as oh, you you should say this, Nathan. You should not say this.
Justin Jackson:And it's just like having this other person who understands your voice and everything like that.
Brian Casel:Like a producer. It's like a like a producer, director.
Justin Jackson:Like a producer. But what Jordan has is kind of plays that role as well. It's like a multiplier. It's a multiplier to think I mean, the other thing I'm I like writing. I'm not actually a very good writer.
Justin Jackson:There's people far better than me. And a few times in my life, I've sat down with an editor. And I'll just be like, okay, I've got all this stuff in my head. And they'll be like, dude, we need to we need to organize these thoughts in a way that makes sense. You Justin, you are too all over the place.
Justin Jackson:And so part of me is wondering like, to have something like this, that's easy and fun. It is easy and fun for all of us to get on microphones. And someone say, hey, Justin, what do you think about this? And I can just go. But then to have someone come back afterwards and synthesize that for me and give me some stuff.
Justin Jackson:AI can do an okay job at it. But to have, like, a human or an agency
Brian Casel:Have a yeah. Like a human or yeah. I mean, Justin, you your pieces, I I I I read them most of the time. And the thing that sticks out to me besides, like, the whatever idea it is that you're that you're sharing is I know how much time and effort goes behind the scenes on something like this, even just the week you know, because it's like people can read it. Maybe it's only like 700 words.
Brian Casel:It's like not very long. But I know that like the especially when you see things like you're pulling examples from other people or something that someone else said, you had to find that and notice it and bookmark it and then comment on it and then write it and edit it and get it out to the list. Like, there are so many like, that's multiple hours of work. I'm sure you have a faster process at this point, but like
Justin Jackson:I don't.
Brian Casel:But like for me
Justin Jackson:I wish people could see my process. My process is so shitty. Like, I I'm with the process kit person. Right? I'm terrible at that stuff.
Brian Casel:Like, I'm doing a lot of YouTube content right now. But and anytime I'm doing YouTube or written content, I'm only actually physically able to produce what directly comes out of me or my current work. I don't have the extra time and bandwidth to pull a clip from here and and edit that in and and Yeah. Comment on this and or find three supporting examples of that. Like,
Justin Jackson:I
Brian Casel:just can't I'm not a you know, I can't spend all week on this.
Justin Jackson:How how much does this cost, Jordan?
Jordan Gal:All in everything, it's less than 10 k a
Brian Casel:month.
Justin Jackson:See, the my only thought there is because this service sounds awesome. My only thought there is like, now I'm thinking about the Nathan Barry assistant angle. It's like, if you could hire somebody long term
Brian Casel:I mean, you're talking about a salary. So it's like it's not
Justin Jackson:Yeah. So, somebody long term that just like, they understand Jordan. They understand his worldview.
Jordan Gal:My true north in it was marketing activity. Yeah. How much marketing activity per unit of effort from me Yeah. Do we create? And I am a horror show of procrastination and disorganization and slacking, and and I need t ball.
Justin Jackson:I need you to set the little ball up
Jordan Gal:on the tee, and I walk up for an hour, and I take a swing, and I walk away. And then I just want all this marketing activity to be generated from that.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:And maybe this is like this combination of thinking bigger, raising money, also like being okay with not doing everything myself mix. And so I just look at it. I look at, right, SEO is the same way. I look at this the same way. I'm like, how do I do as little work as possible for as much stuff to come out of it as possible?
Brian Casel:Yeah. I wanna get both of your takes on this because where my brain is going, I'm I'm like the bootstrapper brain, Right? Like like, how do I do this without paying a a high priced, like, full time salary or hiring an expensive agency? That's just not in the mix for me. Right?
Brian Casel:But what I do what I can swing is like, what I I am working with a video editor for my YouTube channel. You know, it's low 4 figures, you know, retainer. But like, that saves me a lot of time for I am able to just record, drop it in Dropbox, and he does the editing and publishes. And he's he's really good, you know, a little bit as a producer. Like, can give me notes on, like, that was really good.
Brian Casel:Maybe you can make the intro a little bit tighter, this and that, and and he does. But there's still a wide gap between something like that and, like, a true content editor producer who can say, like, hey, this is a really good theme for you to cover, or there's a conversation in our industry going on over here. Maybe you should do a topic around this or that, or, you know, or or, like, this this type of angle really resonates with with our target audience. Like and that's where I start to think about AI. Right?
Brian Casel:Like, if if I can again, as like the bootstrapper brain thinking like, okay, what what does it take for me to do what you do, Jordan? Like, just record once a week an hour of raw material. Maybe I'm responding to some some predefined prompts that that me and an AI come up with.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And then I do have an assistant, like a a human to help with the logistics of, like, taking these pieces and editing and publishing to these channels. Like, that stuff is just process that that anyone can can do. But then there's that that middle layer of, like, curating examples and and maybe building up a history of themes and topics and what resonates with the target audience, what resonates with me. And I feel like that's where something in in AI can be put together. And I'm I've been thinking a lot about that.
Brian Casel:You know?
Jordan Gal:I I almost put quality on the other end of quantity. I was like, how do I just start doing this? Yeah. I will figure out exactly what the podcast should be, exactly what my unique version of content needs to be. I I often find an enormous, like, serotonin release of just signing the contract, just committing.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And just saying, Yes, I decided I want to do this. I signed the contract. I'm going to pay. I get this sense of relief.
Jordan Gal:Okay. It's going to get done. It's not going to just be on my list and maybe I'll do this and maybe it'll happen in the future. And all, you know, making it amazing feels like it's on the other side of getting started. Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. You know, because really dangerous to, like, sit around and be like, how do I nail the exact podcast that's gonna represent me? It's, like, unlikely to happen. Six months from today, I'll be a lot better at that.
Brian Casel:It's gonna get better and better.
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Justin Jackson:And you can see that I'm just browsing through your LinkedIn posts here. And some of them have a couple likes, but some of them have 65 likes, 27 comments. And it's interesting. Some of these insights Maybe I should log in and
Jordan Gal:check that.
Justin Jackson:Some of these insights, you can't get until you get volume. Like, you've done a bunch of posts, and now they're out there and you can compare and contrast and go, okay. Well, wow, this one really hit. It resonated. This one, for whatever reason, didn't.
Justin Jackson:And it also looks like they're posting at different times and things like that too.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And it'll compound. Yeah. Right. The real value is in posting those for six months straight.
Jordan Gal:And you know who's never going to do that? Me. Never ever, ever will I do that.
Brian Casel:How many weeks has it been since, like, this
Jordan Gal:has been active? Oh, like two weeks.
Brian Casel:Oh,
Jordan Gal:okay. Just if you
Justin Jackson:really knew.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So we've kinda gone through one entire cycle of of, you know, posts and then editing and approval. And now as this week starts throwing out, I'll get the next set, and we'll be, like, a week or two ahead time.
Justin Jackson:You know the other advantage of putting out volume? I mean, there's there's definitely a balance here. Like, even you have a bar for like, this can't be too cringey. I've gotta approve it. So as back to your question, Brian.
Justin Jackson:As a bootstrapper, one thing I've really relied on, and I should rely on more, is my producer is like me messaging Adam Wathen, who I know will just criticize me and say, hey, dude, like, what do you think about this? And he'll be like, you gotta change this. This is dumb. This is cringey. Whatever.
Justin Jackson:And that, I think, for bootstrappers, our secret weapon our number one secret weapon, I think, is network. It's all about people. It's like, I gotta get the word out about this. I'm DM ing a bunch of people. I need someone to help with my Product Hunt launch.
Justin Jackson:I'm DM ing a bunch of people. I need this launch is really important to me, and I want people to understand that. I'm handwriting a hundred emails, sending it to everybody saying, I've just started this company called Transistor. I would really if you have a podcast, I would really appreciate it if you joined us and you talked about it. Like, that's our secret weapon.
Justin Jackson:And being able to get advice from people who have good taste, who aren't afraid to say, and who aren't afraid Sometimes people just popping out of nowhere and giving you unsolicited advice is hard. Yeah. But I would almost always rather that people give me that unsolicited advice if they're a friend. I don't generally like from a stranger.
Jordan Gal:No public. No thanks. But a
Justin Jackson:friend who's like, hey, dude. Like, just so you know. Sure. I wouldn't say that or I wouldn't do that or this could be improved. I think that's like the underrated weapon.
Justin Jackson:And what really distinguishes a successful indie hacker who's just hacking alone in their basement and doesn't talk to anybody with someone who's like going to microconf, who's like going to events, who's meeting up with people.
Jordan Gal:Like how many people are rooting for you? Yeah.
Brian Casel:Okay. I I kinda wanna take the other side
Jordan Gal:of that, Justin. Me
Justin Jackson:too. Oh, good.
Brian Casel:Okay. Because this is the thing, I've been thinking a lot about this over the past year or so. I'm I'm so done and over the the the idea of, like, trying to rely on friends and my and my direct following to help me boost visit visibility in in in my stuff. And Yeah. It it is a huge help.
Brian Casel:It is a huge benefit for sure. And and it, you know, it's it's nice when it happens. But I'm in this mode now where it's like, I I wanna just have good, solid, quality relationships with with friends. Mhmm. And and I and I do want to to to gain exposure with, like, content that I produce.
Brian Casel:But I want but but I'm I'm willing to leave that up to the algorithms at this point. Like, that that's why I'm I'm leaning so hard into YouTube at this point, you know? Like, I really don't even care what happens on x and blue sky. That's for me and and and my buds, you know? But YouTube is like, I'm I'm constantly thinking now about, like, how can I get better and improve my game on YouTube so that the algorithm does a better job of delivering my stuff to total strangers?
Brian Casel:And it and it is actually working. It's not like a rocket ship right now. Nothing is really blowing up for me there. But I am actually getting direct leads for instrumental components.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Like peep total strangers who are watching my videos about it and going to my form, filling it out, filling out a large survey, and, like, replying to my emails about it. And they do not listen to this podcast. They don't follow me on Twitter. It's just the algorithm. I don't know how to multiply that.
Brian Casel:I don't know how to double down on that other than keep doing YouTube videos and hope that eventually a couple of them are gonna hit and and start to blow up. But that that is where I start to think about, like, how can I do something like that where I'm spending an hour or two on a on a big thought piece, whether it's just raw material into a camera, and then cut that into someone or an AI or automation or a combination of all that to really distribute? I mean, the other thing is like a newsletter in like a written written form, which is I haven't done much of that anymore because I just don't have the energy.
Justin Jackson:Okay. So, Jordan, what is your take similar? What's your what was your take on that?
Jordan Gal:So the the word that came to mind was insular. And and I think that the the danger in indie hackers and people on Twitter is if their if their audience is also their customer base.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And that that can be really challenging because you kinda are on stage at all times. Yeah. And that can that can feel pretty limiting. Like, my nightmare was, you know, Twitter world in the time of Shopify and Cardhook where you were performing and everything was an act of marketing. Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Really hard to be authentic. Yeah. And you you couldn't help yourself but, like, go toward this, like, bragging thing because that is what attracts people. And I really like it much, much more when I think of people on Twitter and, like, that network Yeah. As, like, your team.
Jordan Gal:And then you get pushed out on stage, and you're talking to total strangers. You're talking to the market. Yeah. And so right now, at least with this business, that's really easy because our customers have nothing to do with our network of peers. Yes.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I think maybe my examples misled you guys a little bit there. That to me, the advantage of the network this just happened with to me at while I was in Chicago. So I'm talking to my buddy, Steven Robles, who makes YouTube videos. He's quite good at it.
Justin Jackson:And I'm like, dude, what do I need to do better on YouTube? And he instantly had an answer for me. He's like he's like, your first ten seconds suck. Like, it's just one talking head. There's no b roll.
Justin Jackson:It's like that one video you did about Twitter and Blue Sky. Like, that one kind of blew blew up, but your it should be like little intro and then b roll of you scrolling Blue Sky. And then, like, he had specific advice to give me.
Brian Casel:That's the same feedback I get from my editors. Like, we gotta make the intro tighter.
Justin Jackson:This is the advantage of a network is you can get this expertise
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Justin Jackson:For free or very low cost is you just have to ask, hey, Adam, what why are why do my, you know, my social media posts suck? And he'll be like, because you're you're posting about this. Like, you Yeah. So it's that unfiltered friendship advice from people who have taste that I think can be leveraged. And it can also be helpful for boosting stuff too.
Justin Jackson:But to me, it's getting that advice that's like key. It helps
Jordan Gal:you elevate. I don't think we actually disagree at all. The network is a huge advantage for
Brian Casel:I really think that there some of my favorite content that I consume, or I should say even content creators are the ones who have these, like, deep dive, like, really, like, meaty pieces of content. You know, like, I just caught another one of Rand Fishkin's pieces where, you know, for for many years, he's done like the whiteboard thing. I think now he has like a digital version of that. Yeah. You know, just looking at that, like, it's just like so much thought and like quality and originality went into this piece.
Brian Casel:And I I I feel like a lot of times, it's all it takes is one of those pieces to to hit with even just a small number of people. And then those people are going to return to you for a long period of time. Just at off of the success of that first one. Yeah. So like it's it's really don't care if like a single thing goes viral or does really huge numbers.
Brian Casel:But I have seen in my own audience over the years, I mean, and we've seen this with Bootstrap Web, is that like once someone it's it's hard to hook someone in the beginning, but once they are hooked, they're they're with you for for a long period
Jordan Gal:of time. Yeah. You don't need that many, like, amazing entry points. You're right. Like, a a great video or two as an entry point that lives on for years, and then then they dip into your current stream.
Jordan Gal:But I I wanna I wanna take this in a different direction. We we are we are deep in on content right now. Content is not the goal. You know? Yeah.
Jordan Gal:So where we started was content as marketing activity. Yeah. If I could do absolutely no content at all, I I I would do none. Yeah. You you know what I mean?
Jordan Gal:I I think about this all the time.
Brian Casel:I see I see,
Jordan Gal:like, really successful people on Twitter, like, talking about nonsense or fighting with people. And I'm like, I think maybe I would disappear.
Justin Jackson:Yes. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:I think you'd hear a lot less from me the more successful things got. Now there is, like, a love of the game, and and and I really appreciate that side of content. People where it's not business focused. In many ways, this iteration or this evolution toward what I want the podcast to be is in that direction. I don't want it to just be marketing.
Jordan Gal:Otherwise, I would just interview people in our ICP every week and post it out to our newsletter and say, look how this painter went from 1 to $5,000,000 over the last twelve months. And and I don't wanna do that. I think there's enough inside of these more casual conversations that you can clip them and take ideas. And, like, if you're talking about business, there's topics that you're gonna touch on anyway.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. By the way, when Jordan says ICP, he does not mean insane clown posse. No.
Jordan Gal:I don't know what's going on in your audience. They assume it's insane clown posse. I'm talking about ideal customer profile. Okay?
Justin Jackson:You've just dropped that a few times. I was like, okay. ICP. Oh, that must mean
Brian Casel:It must mean insane clown posse.
Justin Jackson:It must mean.
Jordan Gal:We think about it a lot because given, I think, everyone's industry and niche and whatever else, we have to be really deliberate. Yeah. At least I am taking an opinionated stance to our ideal customer profile. Yeah. We are purposely very horizontal, which is the opposite advice that most of us would give someone going into a software product.
Jordan Gal:It would not be go after everybody in the market. It would be find your niche, serve them, crush it for them, think about expanding later. Probably you'll find that this niche is big enough for you to build a great business in and of itself. And we are specifically not doing that. So ICP for us, or at least for me, is like this concept that really, really matters.
Jordan Gal:Least for me when I say it, usually people say ideal customer profile in order to narrow. And for me, it's actually very, very wide.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I derailed you because you said content is not the end goal. So you're you're leading to something and then I derailed you.
Jordan Gal:No. I mean, I I guess we're leading to this. Right? Customer customers of the goal and the market and, you know, attention in the market. What you know what?
Jordan Gal:You know what I think about a lot these days is these AI AI is pretty weird right now in the market, and there's a ton of opportunity. And I think a lot about content writing as an AI niche. If you think back a few years ago, we have several friends in our networks that got into AI content writing as a service. Mhmm. And they went through a pretty brutal cycle Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Where if you're early, the search starts to pick up and everyone starts to be interested in it. You're in a good spot. You can grow incredibly fast. Think about, like I mean, the cycles just feel like they've shortened down. So think about Lovable, Bolt, these companies that are, you know, flying.
Jordan Gal:The speed is insane. Yeah. But the back end of that cycle where everyone comes into the market, the innovation is kind of gone and it's standardized, then quality goes through the roof because it's so good and price goes through the floor because it's so cheap. And then you're you're kind of like right back where you started. You're like, okay, now now I no longer have this key insight that's making us grow.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And that really that scares me. And I'm trying to figure out how we avoid that vicious cycle. My my answer to it is an incredibly nontechnical audience. That's my answer to it.
Brian Casel:I I really think, like, the most interesting, like, topic area for you, Jordan, to be covering is humanizing AI. Right? Hey, general public. You're hearing these things about AI on TV and on random podcasts, but you don't ever really touch it yourself. I don't know.
Brian Casel:Let's make it interesting. Let's make it funny. Let's let's make it informative. Like, this is how to think about it. This is what you can do with it.
Brian Casel:And I feel like AI as the topic, like the thing to talk about is AI. I think it's interesting across the board. It's something I'm thinking a lot about in the types of topics that I'm coming up with. The product that I'm about to launch components for Rails. You know, but like why do you why would you even need that if you can use AI to help you code faster?
Brian Casel:But I actually am finding in the apps that I'm that I'm building that like it's it's a perfect match if you're building with AI. Like building with components and building with AI is a perfect match. Yeah. And that's a topic to try to educate the market about. Right?
Brian Casel:Because it's like AI needs to read a conventional code base. This gives you conventional components like right that, you know.
Jordan Gal:What scares me there is is the speed of change. Yeah. So I I think back to an investor conversation I had very, very early on with Cardhook when we had just pivoted to the checkout. And I didn't end up taking money from these guys. I didn't particularly like them.
Jordan Gal:I don't think they like me. But one of them asked a really, really good question that stuck with me. And he said, This sounds like you've built a great product around the checkout. People are using it. They're paying you.
Jordan Gal:They make more money when they use it. Everything is good. But what do you do if the checkout no longer exists in the future? Everything you're doing is predicated on this concept of I add something to the cart and then I go to the checkout and then I buy something and I move on. What if that gets, you know, resolved in a different way?
Jordan Gal:I go from the product page and I say, this is me through my browser extension and you know my address and I don't even go to a checkout page. So I think about that a lot for ourselves now included. Okay. Right now, people are calling on the phone. You have a human picking up the phone, dialing a number, and then Rosie picks up on the other end.
Jordan Gal:Amazing. What if the human stops calling? What if what if it's their AI from their iPhone that that Apple releases in two years and it just says, I wanna talk to this business, set up an appointment for me, and they don't call at all. So the the danger of being, like, blown out of the water because you're no longer relevant is so scary. Whatever you're working on right now is like a moment in time that you're making your assumptions based on right now, but all these huge things keep coming out and just running over all these assumptions.
Brian Casel:I hear what you're saying, but I still think that it's better to build a business now based on customer behavior now so that you can get into position into like now now you are an active player who has a customer base. And then when the customer base changes, you can pivot in in whatever direction you need to rather than trying to invent what what the thing five years, ten years from now is gonna be now. Like, that It just won't be.
Jordan Gal:Just think about businesses like Squarespace, incredible business, maybe irrelevant in three years.
Justin Jackson:Oh, interesting.
Jordan Gal:You can't tell with a lot of
Brian Casel:these things.
Justin Jackson:So what's your answer to that with Rosie? So what if people stop calling? What are you doing right now to about that?
Jordan Gal:So a few things. One, go as fast as possible is is almost like the universal answer to all this stuff. Yeah. What I like the idea of is getting in and then adding value and increasing the amount of value that you add to the customer while keeping the price the same. So it's like you come into our product at $49, and what we give you for $49 a month right now is one tenth of what we give you twelve months from today.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So I feel like this stack of value of like, we'll do SMS and outbound calls and like requesting a review after
Justin Jackson:the appointment. Like, all this stuff.
Jordan Gal:Just have to keep jamming it into the same price point. So it's overwhelming value. And the second thing is I think the cycles between raising money or starting a business and the exit need to shorten. I think it's really dangerous to be like, I'm just going to sit on this for ten years and build a great business. That was a great plan a few years ago.
Jordan Gal:And now the cycles might be fast enough, the innovation kind of dangerous enough and dramatic enough that if you get a chance to sell in year three, you should think about it very differently than if it was a few years ago and say, oh, all the value is about to happen between years three and ten. I'm sure that that's the case.
Justin Jackson:That what you just said is like in my head. Like because because the you know, the dream of a bootstrap business is I'm gonna build this thing. And it's gonna be the accumulation of everything I've ever done, every person I've ever met, every advantage I have. I'm gonna put my blood, sweat, and tears into this. And then I'm gonna be like Paldi.
Justin Jackson:And I'm just gonna have balsamic for twenty years or whatever he's at, fifteen years. And it's just gonna be a great business forever. And but the fear, which is always there, it's there for everybody is like, what if the ground changes underneath me? What if stuff you know? And in the podcast industry, what we're thinking about is what if every Gen Z kid now who's trained to use YouTube I you know, I got 15, 17, 19, 20 two year old.
Justin Jackson:They're all using YouTube. They're making eggs, watching YouTube. Mhmm. And I see their behavior. They'll slip the iPhone in their pocket and keep listening to it.
Justin Jackson:If that behavior gets trained, and then we see Gen Z and Gen Alpha kind of go up and become adults. When they become adults, are they gonna switch to Apple Podcasts and CarPlay in their car? Or are they just going to keep listening to YouTube? And that's the fear. Right?
Justin Jackson:There's and there's a balance of nobody knows the future. There's a world in which audio podcast hosting, my business, kills it over the next ten years.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Justin Jackson:There's that could exist. That could happen. It's hard to know what's gonna happen. But then, you know, you're kind of you can never really sit still. It's kind of like, you guys have different mortgage rules in The US.
Justin Jackson:But here, like, you can start on a variable rate mortgage, and then you can switch to a fixed rate mortgage, and then you renew every five years or whatever you've signed. And it's like, I signed at 1.96% variable. But I was just like checking the news every single day. It was on my brain every single day. I'm talking to my mortgage broker like every week.
Justin Jackson:And then the first five times I asked him, should I lock in? He's like, no, no, no. The last time I asked him, he's like, ah, actually, should lock in. Locked in. Mortgage rates went through the roof.
Justin Jackson:And aren't I glad that I did that? So I don't know what the answer is here because a part of me wants to be like, it's gonna be fine.
Brian Casel:For for me, the the answer is is again to, like, take the opposite approach, I think, from both of you and probably a lot of like, this year, I'm I'm just still on this kick of, like, I'm not all in on anything. I I've got I've got a couple things. I'm working on one thing right now. I have no idea how long lived this current product that I'm about to launch is gonna be. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Maybe it's just gonna be another one in my portfolio. But, like, I'm I'm just in in this mindset of like, just motion. Just keep building and shipping. And that's why I am much more short term focused. I I am less concerned about like, am I investing in the thing that's gonna be the thing three, five years from now?
Brian Casel:Like, I don't care anymore.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. You know?
Brian Casel:Yeah. And and I and I think I personally, this is just me. Again, like, I'm I'm always gonna be, like, the the voice of the of the bootstrapper, like, calm company person over here. Like, I I feel like I got a little bit too caught up in that, like, let's try to swing for the fences three three, four years ago. And and I'm much more comfortable operating in, let's just build a thing, see what happens, and then and then see what the next step from there is gonna be.
Brian Casel:Whether it's build another thing with that or build or pivot to something new.
Justin Jackson:Like I mean, and there's example. Like, Peter Levels is very much in some ways that guy. He's like short term. He's like, oh, AI is big. Okay.
Justin Jackson:I'm just gonna build a little thing. Oh, hey. I'm gonna build a flight simulator. I'm gonna build a whatever. Like, he's just like it seems like more short term thinking.
Justin Jackson:And my guess is that, you know, his AI photo product is not doing the same revenue it was before.
Brian Casel:But but, like, I'm also still attracted to, like, a connected theme Yeah. That that that lives long term. And this kinda comes back to what we're talking about with content. Right? Like like, I'm not about to do an an app for restaurants, and then an app for painters, and then an app for, you know, accountants over there.
Brian Casel:Like, I'm not interested in jumping around in industries like that. Mhmm. I I do am interested in, like right now, I'm on this kick of, like, building tools for builders. Right? Software builders.
Brian Casel:Right? And so, like, there should be some connection and theme in what I'm building and what I'm putting out on in terms of content. But I'm not like all in on I don't have to be all in on anything. That's that's I'm all in on the current thing. And then we'll see where I'm at three, six months from now.
Justin Jackson:Dude, we gotta have you come back because next time I just wanna put this in my in your head. Next time, I wanna talk more about you're building up a customer, painters, tradespeople, all of that stuff. I'm so interested in that. I think that's actually a really interesting hedge regardless of what technology you layer on top. Like, who has a list of tradespeople that are customers?
Justin Jackson:If that's you now, there's just seems like all these cool possibilities that flow out of that. So Yeah. Let's have you back.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It's been a cool journey to selling to people that I, you know, almost have nothing to do with and just trying to find some insight around how to market to them and how to talk to them. One of my one of the first things I did that worked was instead of traditional B2B marketing, I hired an ad agency that did direct to consumer ads. And I was like, I want you to treat this like a direct to consumer product. I want I want you to lead with this is the pain and doesn't that suck?
Jordan Gal:And then I found this and I no longer have that pain. Isn't that so much better? Basically, like, as if you were doing, like, a skincare product. Mhmm. So that really worked because it's b to b, but the people we're talking to in one to 10 person companies, I mean, they're they're on Instagram like you and I, like just normal people.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. A lot of these things and trying to figure out distribution with groups of people that you don't really know. We're very horizontal, so we don't necessarily have these easy themes. So I just wrote Investor Update this morning, and at the very top, I said, the vibe in the company is this is great. We have a lot of work to do.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And that's what it feels like. Okay. Things are going up into the right. Great.
Jordan Gal:But we have a lot of stuff to figure out. Yeah. Which is like, alright. Now settle in for whatever amount of time to to work on all all these individual pieces and understand the customer and how do we onboard them. And, yeah, I'm happy to talk about a a lot of the stuff we're doing is kind of, like, counterproductive.
Jordan Gal:Like, we're hiring I'm about to hire someone to basically just be on the phone. Just onboard people
Justin Jackson:Oh, yeah.
Jordan Gal:On the phone. Yeah. Yes. You should see our chat. Our intercom is like, call me.
Jordan Gal:That's it. Me. I I
Brian Casel:could I could definitely see especially these offline businesses. I mean, I I remember that from back in the day with when I was doing restaurant engine, websites for restaurants. All the time, I I would have no idea who the person is. Just one email, call me, subject line, and the number in the body. Nothing else.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Yes. That's right. That's right. We're learning a lot actually from owner.com Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Which is for restaurants and doing incredibly well. And if you go and look at their job ads, you can see how they are figuring out onboarding for restaurants.
Justin Jackson:Cool. Okay. Well, we'll have you back.
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