Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:08 Welcome to the rogue startups podcast. We're to startup founders are sharing lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid in their online businesses. And now here's Dave and Craig lo and welcome to another episode of rogue startups. I'm your host Craig Hewitt.
Speaker 1 00:00:24 I'm joined by 80 Pienaar, who has been my coach for about six months. Uh, 80 is a three time now, SAS founder with two successful exits a WooCommerce, and WooThemes acquired by automatic. And recently Conversio acquired by campaign monitor about a year and a half ago. 80 was on this podcast interviewed by Dave, uh, about a year ago, year and a half ago, uh, talking about kind of the acquisition and kind of the whole process of building Conversio and it being acquired by campaign monitor. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about both, uh, kind of, uh, my working with 80 as a coach. Something that a lot of folks have asked me about is like, Hey, what's it like having a coach? What do you, what do you talk about? How do you work together? Uh, so talk about that kind of both from, from my perspective, working with him 80 also has a coach, so kind of how he is a student and works with a coach, uh, in his business life.
Speaker 1 00:01:16 And then talking about, uh, his new book life profitability, which is all about kind of having balance between your work and life. Even though this concept of work-life balance is really something that I think doesn't doesn't exist and doesn't apply, but, but how to have a business that provides for your life so that you can stick with this kind of entrepreneurial journey that we're all on for a long time and be fulfilled in kind of all aspects of your life and have kind of balance there. Um, so without further ado, here's my conversation with Ady Pienaar hope you enjoy. 80 has gone, man.
Speaker 2 00:01:50 Hey Craig. So really, really nice to be speaking a different, um, in a different format than what we normally do. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:01:58 Yeah, for sure. For sure. So I think I mentioned here and like in my kind of email updates too, to kind of advisors and investors that we've been working together for gosh, four or five, six months, uh, as, uh, like a coaching student relationship. And I get a lot of questions from folks, you know, in Slack and stuff like that about, you know, Hey, what's it like to work with a coach? What's it like to work with a coach? How does it compare to other people out there and tiny seed and all this kind of stuff? And so I thought we'd chat through a little bit about that and then want to hear and talk about what you're up to now and why you've had to kind of successful exit. So kind of why getting back into this, uh, new business and you've just written a book and I want to talk about too, but, but kind of first, I guess my question is kind of like, why, why do you choose to coach other entrepreneurs, uh, when you have all this other shit going on? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:02:54 Um, and I think they're kind of, you know, what the notion probably starts in like, correct me if I'm wrong because you know, coaching is one of those things where essentially kind of setting time or committing time. Right. And there's, there's very few things that you can do to leverage that right hour spent with the coaching clients is an hour spent. So it's unlike kind of, you know, what many of us kind of aim to do, which is build a business, you know, get a product, do things that ultimately can leverage kind of our time input. Right. So I'm assuming that's where they're kind of dirty to have part of, you know, why would anyone do this actually for me, I guess the kind of the big part of this actually goes years back now that I think of it always been very, very keen to literary pay forward in any way I can, like, especially with young entrepreneurs in the past days, especially tried to do that in South Africa.
Speaker 2 00:03:50 And when I found maybe I was just inexperienced or I couldn't get, like I would, those things never worked out. Right. And I would, my takeaway from that was the kind of mutual commitment wasn't there. Like I was committing in year two, this person helped trying to help them out and then they wouldn't execute my, there was a gap there. So maybe it was just me being totally inexperienced, but I've always had a passion for this. And then what happened kind of towards the end of my time with campaign monitor, post acquisition, Dan Martell, who's been my coach for about three years within SAS Academy. His business has been, been growing really well. And he asked me to join as a kind of long time, you know, coaching client of his asked me to join as a part-time coach. So which effectively meant like three or four hours a week.
Speaker 2 00:04:39 I would make myself available to other SAS Academy founders. I would jump on a coaching call with them and kind of literally help them through, just get some clarity on kind of actions and that, but truly for funding, because in that sense, there is that structure and I literally just have to show up. Right. And I can do those things. So does it really taking care of it exactly. Right. And there's I think, but it was great. There is, you know, Dan has built SAS Academy in this whole kind of very accountable kind of accountability, a big part of what he does. Right. So like the action steps, the work always gets pushed back to the actual client. Right. So like we don't do work on the coaching calls. Right. The work needs to get done afterwards. The coaching is just there for essentially for clarity.
Speaker 2 00:05:23 Right. So all of that kind of got done and then like having that structure there and being able to develop that skill as a coach, like reconnected me to the ultimate kind of passion, which is, I just really like helping other entrepreneurs and like through both my businesses, you know, kind of with teams with commerce as well as conversion, or there's always been this where like the passion, it's always like, how do I help other businesses? Like, that's just a recurring theme. And the coaching has just been a one-to-one exploration and almost progression evolution of that. Right. So like, I don't like I don't coach the hundreds of founders or entrepreneurs at this stage because I don't have the time to that. I like it is very, I wouldn't say exclusive, but I cherry pick those relationships where I feel like I can add value. And I do that also as a way of getting value back. Right. Like I do this to learn from others. I do this to kind of, you have to fuel that passion of helping other entrepreneurs, et cetera. Anyway, there was the long-winded answer, but that's kind of how I got into kind of this. And also why kind of when, when you approached me a couple of months ago about the coaching relationship, why like it was a hell yes. For me effectively.
Speaker 1 00:06:39 Yeah. Yeah. And from my perspective, just to kind of give some background, because I don't think I've talked too much about why I chose to have a coach and why I think people in general should have a coach and, and I'd love your perspective on this, but the, you know, coming out of the tiny seed program, we got a lot of input and feedback and guidance, uh, all in a very positive way, both from the other cohort members and founders, but also from Rob and INR and, and you as an advisor there, and frankly was having some kind of like withdrawal of like, okay, I've been getting all of this communication, especially with coven and remote world and all this that, that I needed, frankly, like more than a mastermind, because I think that's the other kind of option that a lot of folks go into is like, Oh, I have a mastermind of other people that are about at my level and we can all learn from each other and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 00:07:24 And that's all good and fine. But for me, I wanted no pressure, but I wanted like the answer, you know, I wanted someone to tell me, Craig, do this, this, this, and this, or at least Craig, this is the mindset, which is really the kind of level that we talk on. Like, this is the mindset that you need to have to go from a to B or these are the people that you need to get and how to cultivate them to get to the point that you want to get to. And frankly, I think that, like if we look to our peers who kind of, by definition, haven't gotten to that destination that we all want to get to of, you know, exiting a business or selling a business or having it run on autopilot and making millions of dollars years, then they're kind of guessing too.
Speaker 1 00:08:06 You know, like I think we all read the blog posts in here, Jason fried and Andrew Wilkinson and all these guys talk about what they do. And that's all great, but like to have somebody that really is like, not just one step, but two or three or four steps ahead of you that is able to tell you really objectively and like, by definition, our relationship is I trust you with all of my kind of thoughts and emotions and, and data of my business and you and trust in me. Like I think really opinionated perspective of where we are and where we should go. And I have to believe that is hard for you to process that data. And then give me back what I really want, which is like an answer or a thing to think about, at least that can help me get to where I want to go. And it is all that resonate with you of like, from a student perspective, why this makes sense.
Speaker 2 00:08:52 Yeah. So, and I think like there's two things there. Firstly, Greg, that I think is important when anyone thinks about a coaching relationship. Right. I think the first thing is like, you should always hire a coach that are further along, like has achieved the thing that you want to achieve your right. I know coaches, like, I don't think that's what they certainly like a very broad thing, right? So it's not this, Hey, hire someone that's built kind of a billion dollar business because that's what I want to do. Right. That's possibly too broad. Right. But you can totally hire a sales coach. Like if you want to get better, better at sales, you could hire a sales coach. Right. If you want to get better at kind of running your webinars, like hire a speaking coach, right. So that you are articulation or presentation, whatever is better.
Speaker 2 00:09:38 So I think that's the first, like when you hire a coach, you have to hire someone that's further along. Right. And then I think in that sense, the coaches much less, I think at some point, right. At some point it's tactical things, but when you're further along and I think your business, for example, without sharing figures, you're like you are further along. So you require less tactical things. Right? Like I think a big part of what I also do here is I beyond the accountability and things that we discuss is I think to some extent I help keep you just kind of uncomfortable enough, right? We're like in that little bit of tension between, you know, being confident, comfortable content and Hey, here's this different way of thinking here's this like slight stretch goal here. Right. And I know that in the coaching relationships that I've had, where I've been, the student being coached is that's been of immense value because that becomes less of a, Hey, Hey Greg, here's my opinion about what you should do next.
Speaker 2 00:10:35 Right. Because I might be wrong. Like I also don't know your business, your space as well as you do, but I can have that opinion that makes you think twice about that thing that you do next. Right. Which makes you not just sit back on your laurels and rest on your laurels and say, Hey, I will just go with the default option here. Like there is this, there's probably like two different ways that I can think about this are either of those other things. Like, do they augment how I think, or should I possibly go down that route? So that's how I think about coach relationships. I have many kind of peers that have done similar things than I have done, for example, that I learned a hell of a lot on, but those things are more than like, Hey, here's someone that figured out that a really great kind of hiring process or here's some of the, to figure out to kind of, you know, some kind of unique funnel, especially like it's in my space.
Speaker 2 00:11:24 So I can probably take those learnings. They figure out what kind of, you know, tech solutions to use. So there's those that we can still learn from our peers. And I think a mastermind in that sense is really great also in the kind of emotional and mental side. Right. But at some sense, that coach really comes in. You mentioned mindset and beliefs, I think as leaders of our businesses, that's the thing that mostly needs to get challenged often. Right. And you'd just need someone that I think that's where it's important that you find someone that's further along right. And not necessarily in business. Right. I think one of the great things and I'll call him out Leo <inaudible> co-founder of buffer, right. He left buffer tells a whole story and he actually does not cross promote my own podcast, but I had him on my podcast a couple of weeks ago and he shared that journey kind of post buffer into the coaching.
Speaker 2 00:12:15 He does now executive coaching. And it's evident that on the kind of psychological spiritual level, he is way ahead of me, for example. Right. And I can see like, if, if that's what I thought I needed right now, Leo would be able to kind of eliminate certain things. Right. And I think they get important. So it's not just, as I said, it's not just as linear and saying, this person has sold a business for X that's what I want to do. So let's hire them as a coach. I think it can be in any of those things, but the person needs to be further along than what you are on that.
Speaker 1 00:12:48 Yeah. Yeah. How, if you don't mind sharing and we haven't talked about this before, but how do you work with Dan, uh, as a student? Like how, how are you coached in that respect? And do you have other kinds of coaches like these kind of micro subject matter of course, uh, coaches.
Speaker 2 00:13:06 So, um, so no, I don't have other coaches at this stage. I also like, to some extent, I think it would be hard like to have multiple coaches in your ear, right? Like too many different opinions, like when, as an entrepreneur or really when you're already making so many different decisions on a daily, weekly basis, you need to take all this stimuli into kind of consideration. I think having multiple coaches would be hard, but effectively kind of what kind of the way I work with Dan at least is there, there is a lot of content, a tactical things and group coaching calls are very, very short. And then we essentially do kind of quarterly annual reviews as well as, you know, whenever an exact issue kind of pops up. Like I book a half an hour call kind of with them. And we speak only about that kind of issue, very specific structure kind of around that.
Speaker 2 00:14:03 The last one, for example, that I had was a couple of months ago, just as I started working on my new thing Coxie and I was thinking through like, should I self-fund this, should I kind of bootstrap properly? And not even, self-fund like, should I raise money? And that's the kind of level of call that I have there. Right. So it's a very, it's more of a kind of push pool mechanism there. Then having a coach with whom I can check in on a, on a weekly basis. Right. And in saying that like, I also don't want to be, I don't want to misguide anyone that's in any way kind of interested in SAS Academy. Like from when I joined SAS Academy with Dan three years ago, the model has evolved as the kind of the group has grown. Right. So few few of those things might be different right now.
Speaker 2 00:14:51 I would say like Saskatchewan has changed, like changed my life. Right. In terms of kind of both Dan, the content that he brings, the coaching I've received, the community and friends I've made. Right. I would highly highly recommend it. And I said like, it has changed slightly from when I joined kind of, you know, three years ago. I mean, one example there being like, I, I think we now have five, six additional kind of coaches, right. In addition to Dan, right. That's able to jump onto calls to help kind of scale kind of that. Right. So we jump on a call specific format and were able to use the frameworks, the models, et cetera, that Dan has developed over the last three, four or five years.
Speaker 1 00:15:34 Yeah. Yeah. I have a good friend that just joined. I have a couple of friends that are already in it and uh, yeah, I hear wonderful things about it. It is, it is like this perfect price point of like, it's not a no brainer because it is expensive. But I think if your businesses, at this point, you know, post traction going to scale where you really could benefit from like some of these levers, like Rob talks about, um, that it's, it's supposed to be a wonderful thing. Um, frankly, you know, if we weren't working together, I would probably be in SAS Academy. But, but I think I get a lot of what I would get out of that from chatting with you entering the same time zone. So it's, it's, there's a, there's a fair amount of that. Um, and I think just to kind of circle back on masterminds, uh, I absolutely think they're wonderful and valuable.
Speaker 1 00:16:19 I am in to, uh, we talk every other week, um, just like you and I talk every other week, um, for my two masterminds. One is a group of European entrepreneurs, both of which are more successful than me, which is great. The other two co-founder, um, founders from tiny seed cohort that we're still in a mastermind. We talk every other week and are both very successful. They're both are kind of multi-time founders. And yeah, a lot of that is, it is both kind of like reality check, you know, Hey, what are you up to? I'm up to this, I'm facing this, I'm struggling with this. A lot of times it's like, Whoa, you're crazy. Or that's a great idea, but you should think about this. Like, it's really that you mentioned like different inputs and perspectives. I think those are healthy inputs and perspectives. Like those are some of the few that I really listened to because I, I very much try to filter all this other stuff that I hear online and Twitter and blog posts about. I just filter all that stuff out because I can't handle all that data. Um, but I listened to those very much and they're very, very valuable to me because it's,
Speaker 2 00:17:14 It's more contextual, right? Like there's a bit more of a three, three or three 60 degree kind of view about who you are as a person. And especially if there's familiarity there, like in terms of calling you out and say, Hey Craig, like, you're something like you constantly make, like when this thing comes up, you almost kind of check out or you take the kind of the easier route. Like what's the kind of bigger challenger. Like why do you keep not fixing this thing in your business? Like you keep coming up with these supposedly kind of issues here, but it's actually about X, Y, Z. Right. And I think like that, I think that's where familiarity kind of helps. Right. And that's where I think most of mine totally helps. I mean, I, I used to be EO entrepreneurs, organization member for about five and a half years.
Speaker 2 00:17:56 Right. And what was fascinating there is I had some great relationships in my forum, which is what we called kind of masterminds. And the group always ranged from about six to eight people at max, right. Depending on some members kind of cycle out when they don't renew get new members in the core group. I think about five of us stayed together for a very long time, like four plus years. And what was great, there is wasn't entrepreneurs in the same space as I do, businesses are very, very varying sizes and whatnot. And again like that, just that ability to ask an incisive question, because someone is somebody that like, I'm like you're 80 years pitching this kind of cashflow issue, right. Where cashflow is not 80 issue, right. 80, that is just not kind of disciplined elsewhere in his business. Right. That's why cashflow is constantly disposal issue.
Speaker 2 00:18:51 Right. Then somebody needs to call 80 on the fact that he's not addressing the underlying thing that is causing the cashflow issue, right. Like 80 should not be speaking about like, how do I, again, bridge this gap and kind of, you know, find this cashflow that I don't have AB should go back and fix these kind of two, three things that puts them in this situation every three to six months, whatever the case is. And I think that only comes with that familiarity and trust and context, whereas you and I can both read countless books or blog articles, whatever about fixing cashflow solutions, but they're not super contextual to kind of the, the challenges that you or I are having as individuals basically.
Speaker 1 00:19:29 Mm Hmm. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. Cool. So, um, so you were on this podcast golly, a year ago, year and a half ago. Uh, when you sold Conversio, uh, to campaign monitor and you were at campaign monitor for how long? Just over here, just over a year. Cool. Uh, and since then have, have both written a book and started, uh, are in the process of starting a new business. You mentioned Coxie. I hear that writing a book is like this torturous process that like no one in their right mind would willingly go through, like what's the, what's the reason behind writing a book. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:20:10 So interesting love. And just to kind of, to also set expectations here, I'm not that much of an overachiever like posts. So I left campaign monitor September last year, which was just over a year after we got acquired. And since like at that stage, by the way, the book was mostly done by the way. So I started working on the book, just post acquisition almost as a kind of side project as a passion project. So the only new thing that I've added posts post leaving campaign, or at least starting to work on cogs, it's not like achieved all of these things and three or four months, like I like I'm getting old and I don't have that kind of, I don't have 80 hour work weeks in me anymore. Right. So just wanted to clarify that, but at least the process of writing a book so effectively kind of what happened was I, I started working on a book during conversion kind of times and I, I really wanted, and at that stage, I think the, my goal was to see whether we could self publish kind of via converge because many of the ideas was a combination of both my experience in converge and kind of some ideas and things that my team and I had kind of developed like more kind of tactical kind of things.
Speaker 2 00:21:27 So had this idea for a book wrote about 35,000 kind of scattered brain words, you know, for the book, which I, which I had upon then kind of you're selling the business. And then what setting the businessmen was. I suddenly had a bit of extra capital that I could apply. And what I effectively did was I went out and I found a publishing team, a really great kind of multi-disciplinary publishing team to help me turn those ideas into an actual book back then. That's how I would kind of say that. Um, and to the extent, like it was a really pleasant experience. I mean, I, I worked with kind of an editor and writer that a lady much older than I am. Um, not much older. I, I estimate that. Yeah, exactly. Right. I think in terms of life experience, like definitely kind of want to say much older.
Speaker 2 00:22:23 I can probably we'll say like 10, 15 years. Right. And her experience was not in business. Like she's like classically trained in music for example, and what was great through that kind of process. Um, and again, like we spoke about that structure and sort of the coaching earlier, but what the team essentially did and what Sonia said, she did that they gave me a structure within which I could just bring my best self to the book process. And I didn't need to be a specific type of writer to succeed. I just needed to be myself because they would cover all the kind of blind spots. They would again, keep me uncomfortable enough and pull me in the right directions where it needed to go. And I think to the extent it, wasn't only just a pleasant experience writing the book. I also think the, kind of the book, the book that is being released in 26 January it's the date is as much as a much better product than I would have been able to kind of self publish effectively.
Speaker 1 00:23:20 That's cool. That's cool. That's cool. Um, this reminds me just as an aside, and I think I mentioned it on the podcast, but you turned me on to the book, uh, who not, how, um, recently, and that, that reminds me of the, the concept of that book, which is just like you as an individual, no matter how much of a rockstar you are, cannot achieve the things that a person who is kind of like a micro subject matter expert in this thing and who can own it entirely and only own that thing. Anyways, fantastic book in that, what you just said reminds me so much of that concept that, you know, hiring this publishing team, lets you create a better book faster with less stress than you would have been able to by yourself. So you spent some money on that. It's an investment in the future.
Speaker 1 00:24:02 And I think that's the other thing that a lot of people like us that are kind of like not liberated in terms of like our association between time and money completely because there's always that association. But like when you can truly view like a micro subject matter expert as an investment all the time, I think it's, it's always, it's always a positive in the end. And I think, and this is a huge tangent, but like I think that for me, the struggle with that has, has been my ability to deliver the things that enabled them to be successful. You know? Cause I think a lot of us say like, I'm going to go find an executive coach or I'm gonna go find a spiritual leader. I'm going to go find a copywriter. I'm going to go find a publishing team and you do that, but then you still hold onto it and you baby them and you do all this shit that like kind of finds them from owning this thing and running with it and being successful.
Speaker 1 00:24:53 So anyway, that's a huge, that's a huge tangent, but um, so life profitability is both the name of your podcast and of the book January 26th, coming out, I've read kind of a fair part of the kind of advanced copy of the book. And I will paraphrase the concept a little bit, which is, which is kind of, and you can kind of correct me and, and, and get back on the talking tracks from there. But, but, but the concept really is like, we all have this idea of like the arrival fallacy of like when I X, when I get to $10 million a year or when I exit my business or when I, you know, become an angel investor instead of, you know, writing, writing, marketing emails, then my life will be Y. And, and I think that like what I, what I'm getting out of the book is like for a lot of us that will just never happen. And so like, we have to take the time and be intentional now to have kind of like, as you put it, our business provide life profits, like these things that return positive things back to our personal and family lives as we go so that we can not get burned out and continue on this journey for, for a long time. Um, is that like in the ballpark of, of kind of where you would position the book?
Speaker 2 00:26:04 Yeah. So, um, I think that there's, there's really kind of two broad concepts concepts that just kind of build out in that. Right. I think the, the first thing that I really try and break down with the book is this notion of work-life balance, right. Where we're trying to say that, you know, because work-life balance is such a, um, in the mainstream, like it's still a thing that so many people kind of, you know, aspire to and so people manage it right. Then I then like even people I think, say, sure, I've got kind of worked like that and figured out I would love for them to explain how they can actually do this. And the reason I say that is, you know, work-life balance proposes, at least that, you know, work in life are two independent things and they can just keep each other in balance.
Speaker 2 00:26:55 And I don't think it's that I think like work is just part of life. Life has this bigger thing and work just fits into that alongside anything else. Right? Whether it's a hobby, a passion project, whether it's practicing a sport, whether it's family, whether it's friends, like all of those other things, it's just part of life. And those, all of those things need to be in balance with work, not with life, right. Life is just this ultimate container, right? So I think that's a big core concept in life profitability and crucially kind of why I think that is important is you've mentioned this kind of, you know, if I achieve X then kind of, Y will be true kind of thing is I think there's such a big risk in sequencing, important life events or things. Right. In the sense that even if I like, even if I was the best entrepreneur in the world in this moment, and I had the idea of like, if I do X, then Y is the goal and I'm going to achieve Y so I see the rainbow and I see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Speaker 2 00:27:56 The reality is I'm not guaranteed or that outcome, right. It doesn't matter how well I execute that outcome is just not that guaranteed. But crucially, the part that I think is much, much riskier as we age don't know how much time we need to get to that outcome. Right. And B as mortal beings, we don't know how much time we'll have. Right. And I think like those things when I've looked at myself and this is big part of, as I got into building out this concept of life profit, lithium profitability with, with my team in the last 15 months of getting the book ready for market was really acknowledging at how many stages of my life. I thought 80 is entrepreneur. I E my business is the number one thing that I needed to do. And I didn't consider what I now call kind of the life costs or life losses, like all of that collateral damages that are construed across the, kind of the, this journey that I've had until kind of business success.
Speaker 2 00:28:54 Right. And crucially kind of what many people don't know. Yes, converger had a fairytale kind of ending life-changing exit wide, but halfway through their journey, I lost, almost lost everything that was important in my life. Like I burnt out, I screwed up like everything kind of like literally it was at the kind of the bucket that just kept getting water and even she could not take anymore. And I think that's what we don't realize when we think about businesses, just building profitable businesses. So with the book, I'm literally just trying to shift the narrative here. Not saying that financial profit is like not desirable or good. I'm just saying you have to build a business that works for you. You have to build a business that is actually profitable for your life and not just profitable in this very narrow in the sense that your kind of business, your bank account or your personal bank account grows, right.
Speaker 2 00:29:47 There's this, and I'll stop the monologue after this. I think there's kind of this great quote that I found in a also finally that doesn't matter roundabout way, which I found it, but it's Argentinian philosopher. And he essentially said like, you know, those people that trade their time for money can never, again, trade money for happiness. Right. And like that, if I, if I, if I add on top of that, like Henry Thoreau, like when you wrote Walden all those years ago, and as philosopher, like he, he wrote the cost of doing anything in life is life wide. We have a finite kind of energy, attention, time span, all those things. And just changing that narrative saying it doesn't help if I have this huge bank balance. And I don't know how to actually use that money to be happy because money itself and a bank does not, like I've not heard anyone ever say, like, I am incredibly happy, stable, calm, peaceful, fulfilled individual, just because I have X amount of money in the bank.
Speaker 1 00:30:50 How do you kind of balance that when you're talking to folks or, or you, you personally with, you know, a lot of us are, you know, we were talking before we started like, uh, entrepreneurs kind of started this, like they're doing all the work, you know, all the marketing, all the development, all the, this, all the hiring, making sure there's money in the bank to kind of the, the other end of the spectrum. We talked about Dan Martell. Like, I think he's at like a CEO level where all he does recruit people, run the high level vision and stuff for me. When I look at this concept of prioritizing your personal life and life profitability is that that's just a lot easier to do when you get further towards the CEO level on the spectrum, because you have, I dunno, I don't know. I want to say more time, but I'm sure that's not the case that like those super successful people don't have more time.
Speaker 1 00:31:38 But, but to say, let's, let's just say like for this person who's just getting started and they're hustling to get their first 10 customers and stuff. How do you from like a practical perspective, say like, yeah, I know that this is important. I know you want to, you know, grow your business stuff, but you also have to like, take care of yourself and, and make those considerations. Cause I think it's easy to say, yeah, I gotta take care of myself and, and kind of have my business provide for me and my family, but, but maybe tougher to do, especially early on.
Speaker 2 00:32:06 Yeah. And a hundred percent. Right. And I think like, I think I want to acknowledge there that, you know, me writing this book does not propose that I've got all of it figured out. Right. And that I had all of this figured out in the past. And I think to that point, Craig, I think there, there are seasons in kind of one's life and business as well, where things get out of whack a little bit. So like my take on that, I think is first this notion of truly just acknowledging and knowing who you are like in this moment. Right. And having that clarity and making sure that whatever you do next needs to be in alignment that I had. So, I mean, you mentioned this kind of, if I do X, then Y appears and that's desirable. What most people don't understand is if, like, if you're not clear about who you are today as an entrepreneur, and you're like, you're hustling together firsthand customers, because that's going to give you something else.
Speaker 2 00:33:00 You're likely to also not going to be in alignment with yourself after that, because they don't have the vocabulary or awareness of what that means. And I think the irony in that is there's only a single common denominator on like each of our journeys. Like there's only a single common denominator on my journey going forward and that's me, right? Like my family can change. I can get divorced. Right. I can move to a different country. I can make new friends, the business can change. My team members can change. Like everything can change, but I'm still going to be on their journey. So like, I think that's like in terms of figuring out how to take steps, that helps you build greater kind of life profitability into your life. You have to be in kind of in alignment with yourself. And I think part of that alignment is then really just looking at your values, right?
Speaker 2 00:33:45 Like what do you value in life? And I think few people will really say like the only thing I value as success in my business. Right. And just then making sure that, Hey, here's this full kind of map almost. And the way I like to look at it as same as kind of your investment portfolio, like have your life portfolio and make sure that it's diversified. Right. And that you are making the necessary investments in each of those components. Right. As said, like whether that's family or friends, whether it's hobbies, like it just should not be only business. Right. I think that having that awareness and making sure that you own, as I say track, but they at least monitor your own. Like when, like I like the idea of trip wires, for example, right? Like I've, I've built multiple kind of disciplines and habits into my life that are trip wires.
Speaker 2 00:34:34 That as soon as I veer off, because don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly ambitious. And if I'm allowed the time, I will probably work more than what is good for my own life profitability. Right. But I know I have at least have those trip wires to bring me back to a space where, you know what, like, I don't have to push this hard in the business. Like I can delay this project by two weeks without materially changing anything in my business. But doing that create space to kind of reinvest elsewhere in my life portfolio elsewhere, where there's also kind of an urgent or important need in this moment,
Speaker 1 00:35:08 Uh, like really kind of practically, are there kind of tools or systems or ways that you kind of keep yourself accountable and kind of have those tripwires.
Speaker 2 00:35:18 Yeah. So I mean, I, I mean, I get, like, I think the most obvious ones for me is literally just listening to the people around me, the Mattermost lights. So, I mean, I think two examples that I have is, you know, John, my wife, you know, she has a great ability be able to just ask me, COVID simple question. Like, Hey, like you've snapped at the kids like twice today, like what's up, I guess, something bothering you. Right. And that's kind of on the surface, that's the kind of question, especially from a spouse when you're irritated probably gets like, Oh, should I really be having this conversation? You don't know exactly. Right. But now I, what I've learned is if I stay curious in that moment for even a second, I'm probably able to then tell her, like, you know what, this thing that's been ongoing in the business, I've not been able to figure out.
Speaker 2 00:36:10 And it's just like, it's just grating me. Right. So that kind of trip wire. The other thing I did, like in terms of people there is, is the vet, my ease, both my best friend. He was also too IC for me and converge and having someone in the business, like, again, like this is very much against popular kind of business kind of advice. You're like, dude, don't work with friends. Right. But having him there and having him almost straddle both those worlds in terms of the business and who I am as an individual, again, like having that objective third party objective, having a third party that has slightly different perspective is truly helpful. Right. So I I've done it with, with people. I also just do it by kind of journeying in the mornings. Right. And I don't journal every single morning, but I try and journal off as often as I kind of remember and, you know, kind of make the time to do that because that gets the stuff out of my head, for example.
Speaker 2 00:37:04 And like, when I read it back, then I can see some patterns emerge and I'm like, Oh, like two, three weeks ago, they're like this thing was chasing me. And I went down a tangent report that I probably should not have iden I think the, a lot of this and the undercurrent of this is a big pardon. One of the things that I mentioned the book often, I didn't want to write a book about meditation or mindfulness or any of those things, but mindfulness played a big part in how I ultimately resurrected parts of my life. When I mentioned earlier a couple of years ago, when things fell apart, worked with a therapist that got me into mindfulness that helped me understand where my mind was on fire and where I was constantly in fight or flight mode and how there was a great thing when you want to make progress on certain things and how there was a totally subpar solution for so many other things. Right. And I think the key, just the key notion of mindfulness and that's awareness, it's just, it's never about being perfect. It's always just about as soon as possible acknowledging that something is off or something is there. So it doesn't even have to be no judgment. Right. Just acknowledging something is there. Right. So like the more practices that I can build into my life that floats those things up sooner and where I've kind of allowed myself to see those things, like I've been able to essentially course. Correct.
Speaker 1 00:38:30 Do you, uh, speaking of mindfulness, uh, do you kind of meditate or do, do you have kind of a, uh, an active practice around this too, to kind of encourage mindfulness?
Speaker 2 00:38:40 Yeah. So initially when I, when I started out on mindfulness, like I think for the first year I, like I went on a streak and not missing a single day of meditating meditators. I got to about ultimately worked it up to our tweet near 20 minutes a day in the mornings. And then since then, like I still meditate. I now do so more ad hoc. I've also learned to kind of meditate whilst running. And I won't have any kind of music in my ear. And I just have this thing where I follow kind of an icon actually, can't my footsteps. Every second one of these, I can't count that fast. I've also looked at the poster. So I still, I still do those things now more than the kind of ad hoc thing like meditation is ultimately I think the same way as you would go to the gym to make her bicep bigger. Meditation is just a kind of a muscle. It uses it's an exercise to increase the muscle of mindfulness effectively. Right. So, um, yeah, so I still do, I don't do it as kind of rigorous the, or kind of irregularly as I, as I used to in the past.
Speaker 1 00:39:40 Cool, cool. I, uh, I, I it's, one of my ambitions are gonna goals for this year is to, to get better at it. I use Headspace on my phone for some guided guided meditation, and I understand they have a Netflix show or a channel or something like that, that, that I heard from a friend this weekend, we'll be checking it out. So kind of getting back to, to kind of the concept of life profitability, you know, one of the things that strikes me the most and is most impactful to me is this kind of idea of longevity in this kind of part of our professional life. Right? I think a lot of us back to the arrival fallacy of like, there will be an end to this, you know, uh, that like I'll build my business and either it'll just cashflow and provide a bunch of money and I'll go kind of fuck off and go skiing five days a week, you know, or I'll sell the business.
Speaker 1 00:40:28 And then I'll, you know, something about my life will change significantly. And I think that, like, that was very much my mindset before was that there will be something that happens to where my life will, all of a sudden be magical and nothing, you know, rainbows and unicorns everywhere. And I'm realizing now that like one, I don't want that to happen necessarily because I really enjoy working and I really get a lot out of it. And maybe it's that I'm like fortunate enough to be doing mostly the things I want to be doing at work. I think a lot of us have the ability to do that more than we think, but I also kind of realized that like, I would really be lost without this as like a sense of purpose, uh, that like my family is super important to me, my wife and my kids and, you know, our extended family and stuff like that, super important to me, but also like my sense of worth comes a lot from the achievements that I have at work.
Speaker 1 00:41:25 And one of the scariest things is like, just not being able to do this anymore, for whatever reason, whether it's bad, like, you know, I get sick and I can't work or in a weird way, like I'm successful and I can't keep doing this anymore or, or I burn out and I don't want to do this anymore. Um, so like when I was reading the book like that, that's one of the things that, that I thought a lot about was like, I have to, you know, it's not work-life balance, but I have to be in a situation where I can continue running my business at a high level. Like I want to, but also be fulfilled in my personal life or my life as a whole to where I can just keep doing this for a long time, because I don't want to, you know, quote, retire. I don't want to stop doing this stuff. And so having that balance in my life is like a big driver of, of the fine enough from a time perspective, I guess, does that make, does that kind of resonate at all
Speaker 2 00:42:20 An entirely. Right. And I think like, to what you're describing there, in my opinion is life profitability, right? And like what you ultimately put into that kind of life portfolio of yours, like that will evolve and change over time. I'd like you sell a business and you decide like you suddenly have like one, one thing that kind of gets added to that life portfolio at that stage is hopefully a whole bunch of cash. Right. But then you need to decide like how do I reuse this cash and rebalance a portfolio again? Right. So all of that is just life portability. And I don't think that there's a single definition of our own kind of life probability today that stays consistent forever. Right. Like as like, I think that evolves with time, like across kind of multiple being a business success. Right. I mean, I know for me, for example, like post-conversion, I could have retired, right?
Speaker 2 00:43:09 Like I could have invested the money and I would probably, I would not have needed to work again. Right. Unless my investment managers made kind of gross errors in how they allocated my funds. Right. I, I would not have had to work again. I also decided to start kind of a new SAS business because that's still a big part of me. Like I, like, there's still things that I want to do there because that's my version of profitability. Right. It's the same thing with writing this book. There's the book and everything I'm doing with the book at the moment, like, it's, it requires a big investment, but it important for me to get this message out there. And hopefully it can obviously read resonate that's less important or that secondary, at least the first part of this was I needed to do the work to get this book and this idea out in the world, because I truly believe in it.
Speaker 2 00:44:02 And it's like, again, that's my version of life profitability. Right. So as I think there are that, yes. Right? Like for some people, their version of life quarterly might be like this year. I want to sell my business in 10 years. Even if I'm only kind of, you're say 40 at the time and I want to retire and I want to, whatever, like, that's perfectly fine. Like, I don't think like any of this that like, there's no right or wrong there. And I think what didn't mention before is like the book that I wrote, right. Life profitability, the new measure of entrepreneurial success, I purposely did not want to write a how to book, because I don't believe in blueprints. I don't believe that you can write like a perfect blueprint that is just going to apply to everyone else. The book is there and there's like, there's worksheets, there's guidance, like for you to help figure out what life profitability means for you.
Speaker 2 00:44:54 But it's a totally unique personalized thing. Right. And I said like, for some people that's perfectly okay. If they want to retire and ski five days a week, I that's hard for me. Right. Like I, at this stage at least, right. Maybe that changes maybe eight, can I fail spectacularly in this next business? And I'm like, okay, you know, all, then you're not doing this again. This is way too hard. These things can change, but that's again, like, that's why I speak about that awareness and making sure that kind of where like, as we pursue these life profits that just always remembering, like where are we also just creating life costs. Right. And making sure that that net, net art to life.
Speaker 1 00:45:33 Can you talk a little bit about what you're up to now with Coxie? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:45:39 So Coxie, um, and again, I think for people that awesome solid, why the hell would 80 bill the new SAS? I think the one thing I learned and I considered as a slight sign up, I considered other paths before I went on cogs. I considered like, just building out my coaching business. I considered like doubling down the book and kind of you becoming keynote speaker, that kind of thing. Like selling information, essentially workshopping all of those things had opportunities to do so as well. And the reason I ultimately decided to build a new SAS businesses, I really wanted to build a team again because I really miss that like post like leaving campaign motto, leaving my team there. Like that's what I really, really, really, like. I realized that I really missed that. So Kasi stays in the same space as I've always been building.
Speaker 2 00:46:32 And the product itself is the liquid ideas that we build a product that helps e-commerce brands optimize their working capital and specifically around inventory. So that's a space where entering, so sticking within kind of SAS for it, for e-commerce something that I know well, and depending on exactly when, when this errors kind of cocky, V1 should be in the hands of a few early kind of adopting paying customers as well. So that's what I've been working on for the last, like two main things that I've been working on in the last two to three months has been recruiting the initial team, building the kind of, and building the first version with outsourced agency whilst I can re recruit the team so that I can put it into kind of the hands of some or some early customers as pretty as
Speaker 1 00:47:22 That's cool. That's cool. I think we'll, we'll have to have a whole nother episode in, I don't know, like six months or so kind of what that process looked like. Um, I know you raised a little bit of money to do that. So kind of that whole decision of like, you know, why raise money versus you could self-fund it surely the agency rolling it out and the, especially like third time around, you know, like what did you do more right this time that you screwed up before? So I think it'd be fun to have another followup episode in a few months about kind of like looking back now third time around, you know, is it easier? Uh, what did you screw up again that you never thought you would mess up again? Those kinds of things. So,
Speaker 2 00:47:59 And by the way, just on that point, like I went into conversion thinking it was going to be easier. I don't think every subsequent business, I don't think it gets easier. I just think it gets different.
Speaker 1 00:48:08 Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine. I can imagine even like kind of where I am now versus a year ago. Right. It's it's not easier. It's just different kind of problems that we're tackling every day. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. 80 is a lot of fun. Um, for folks who want to kind of check out more about you and the book and the podcast, uh, where's the best place.
Speaker 2 00:48:25 Yeah. So best place to project hoppier is my personal website, 80, the lie that any, and if you go to 80 double-eye Emmy Forrest slash book, the book is there and the book is also available on Amazon, primarily as well as most other kinds of popular book sellers online.
Speaker 1 00:48:44 Cool. Awesome. Ady thanks so much for chatting. I appreciate it.
Speaker 0 00:48:50 Thanks for listening to another episode of rogue startups. If you haven't already head over to iTunes and leave a rating and review for the show for show notes from each episode and a few extra resources to help you along your journey, head over to rogue startups.com to learn more.
