Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Welcome to the rogue startups podcast. We're two startup founders are sharing lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid in their online businesses. And now here's Dave and Craig.
Speaker 2 00:00:19 All right. Welcome to episode 2 62 of rogue startups. Craig, how the hell are you? This,
Speaker 3 00:00:26 Uh, I'm good, man. I'm good. We're uh, th there's a lot going on, uh, in our world, but, uh, it's all, it's all good stuff. And, um, yeah, excited to dive into it. Some how about you?
Speaker 2 00:00:37 Well, I'm currently puckering my sphincter at the moment as an AWS outage is currently impacting well, pretty much the known world and we're caught up in that as well. So I'm just kind of biding my time here to find out what the damage is. That was not what I wanted to wake up to this morning, but here we are. That's true.
Speaker 3 00:00:57 That's what you, you said it's just SES, right? Uh, so just email sending, just email, but transactional email sending at well.
Speaker 2 00:01:05 So I mean, that's all we can tell that it is at this point, we can't even get into the management console, so we really have no idea what services are down, but we can tell from like our logging service, what errors are coming back. And when we queue up emails to send, we're getting specific, you know, explosions from SES API coming back saying internal error, unable to queue message, you know, stuff like that. Yeah. So we at least know that's down, but I'm pretty sure it's more than that. Uh, it's gotta be a little more serious than that. It definitely seems to have, uh, the social media nerd spear lit up at the moment. So I'm hoping that somebody is going to fix it and fix it soon, but interesting. It is what it is. Interesting.
Speaker 3 00:01:51 We, um, yeah, so I just checked our status sport and it looks good. Um, so hopefully like, I don't know that it's not affecting this stuff that we use, uh, at the moment. Uh, it's interesting. We've diversified away from AWS a little bit recently. We used to run pretty much everything through them, and now we basically just run the servers and the database through them, which is nice, like object storage to somewhere else. CloudFlare does all their DNS and caching stuff. It feels, it feels nice in a way that like all of our eggs aren't in one basket and it feels bad. And that there's just more stuff that can break. Cause I mean, AWS love them or hate them is pretty damn reliable. So yeah. It's interesting.
Speaker 2 00:02:27 Yeah. I can count on one hand, the number of times in the last two years that I've had a major AWS outage of any note that has even remotely impacted us. I think the answer is like two or three, including this one right here. Yeah. So yeah, I mean they are, they are dead, reliable and it's, and it's a lot of times it's even zone specific. So, you know, if you're in one of the most popular availability zones, then you might get hit with it. But I've also noticed that those availability zones are often the ones that are the first ones to get fixed the quickest to restore the least to have problems. So that's part of the reason I stay in those availability zones instead of, you know, ended up in, you know, the Nova Scotia, Canada zone or whatever, you know, my apologies to Brad Turner is the only person I know in Nova Scotia, but yes, you just gotta, you gotta hope for the best and prepare for the worst. And yet there's no easy answer on your infrastructure there. That's for sure.
Speaker 3 00:03:27 For sure. For sure. Yep.
Speaker 2 00:03:29 Yep. So what's happening in the world of Casto dos and Hewitt land?
Speaker 3 00:03:35 Yeah, I mean, on the, on the personal front, we, uh, we have big news and that we're moving back to the United States in six days. So
Speaker 2 00:03:44 Is this the part where I launch into the star Spangled banner? This is it. Yeah, no, nobody wants me to do that really, but you know, welcome back to the United States and yeah. So what happened there, like, you know, you were all gung ho about living overseas and you were having a great experience in France and now all of a sudden here you come back to the good old us of a, so let's spill on some dirt there.
Speaker 3 00:04:11 Yeah. I mean, I think it's, uh, like I've had, you know, over the years, I'll quite a few, I guess people reach out and say like, Hey, what's it like living abroad and all this kind of stuff. So hopefully this is helpful in, I don't know, dispelling myths, but, but kind of giving both sides of the coin. Like it is really great to live over here. And like the quality of life in Europe, I think arguably is, is like quite a bit higher than in the U S for a lot of reasons. And in a lot of ways, like they just take care of their people a lot better. And I think the downside is it's, it's really expensive to do that. And so like in the U S you, you basically pay for, to take care of yourself, right. Whereas in, you know, in Europe, especially like the state takes care of you for retirement and healthcare and you know, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 00:04:54 So we've, we've been the recipients of a lot of the benefit of living here. I think that the two or three reasons that we felt like, especially now is the time to move back was one. My, my daughter, um, my oldest started like the equivalent of middle school here. And it is really fucking hard. Like it is, it is like next level school and doing that in another language is really hard. You know, anyone with like middle or high school aged kids knows that like home, like, uh, homework is like challenging sometimes and like to do it not in your native language. Uh, for me, it was like really hard, not that removing because of my daughter's school and my inability to do like basic homework. But like, I look forward a little bit and say like, what are all the other things that, as she becomes like a teenager and our kids get to, you know, adolescents like are things that we kind of wouldn't know or be able to fully participate in and stuff like that. And that's like a pretty slippery slope. The other one is it's really expensive to live here from a tax perspective and in maybe was like the biggest, like a deal breaker reason, you know? Cause we can figure a lot of other stuff out, but you just can't get around paying French tax.
Speaker 2 00:06:04 So w what for edification here for those that might not be familiar, what is the tax rate there for you and France?
Speaker 3 00:06:11 The highest percentage is like 50 plus percent.
Speaker 2 00:06:16 Yeah. That was my jaw hitting the floor there. Yeah. I mean, I complain about my, my tax rate, which is far lower than that. Uh, but yeah, that's,
Speaker 3 00:06:25 It's brutal. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's horrible and something that's that's, you know, not, not much else needs to be said about that, you know? And so it's like this, this trade-off of like you pay tax so that the state can take care of you. Right. But like, I don't need that much help from the state to where like that tax would be worth it to me. And the other reason is, is just really, really personal that like, you know, we have older parents and family in the U S that we've kind of, I don't wanna say ostracized, but, but we've missed a lot, you know, in the last five years, five and a half years of living here. And, and COVID really made that a lot more apparent that like, we're just a long way from everything we know really well, including our family.
Speaker 3 00:07:06 And, you know, I talk a lot about, we talk a lot about internally with like our product, like the idea of connection, you know, with people and that like podcasting, whether it shows like this or private podcast for your company or your membership site, or course, or whatever, provide this connection that, that a lot of folks are looking for. And I'm one of them, you know, like we're just looking for a place where we, you know, fit in really naturally. And there's not effort to do a lot of things. Like I was chatting with a friend who also lives, uh, over here in Europe and said, like, it's just the baseline stress, you know, of a lot of things of living overseas. Um, that like, I just, I I'm choosing to eliminate that, that point of stress from my life. So yeah. I mean, those are really the only that those, that seems like a lot of really bad things. Like those are the only really bad things. I mean, the, the things that we love about living here, it's super safe, you know, like we worry a lot about guns and violence and bullying and, you know, just like social media culture and all that. And the U S to, to the point where it was a deal breaker before, and now, like some of these other things that we're really looking forward to overshadow that risk or perceived risk. So yeah, that's, that's the medium version of it.
Speaker 2 00:08:23 Wow, wow. Yeah. I, you know, having been on vacation overseas, I kind of understand what that baseline stress piece is because there's always, whenever I change locations for a length of time, like, there's, there's definitely an adjustment period. And, you know, you can lower that, that overall I'll call it environmental stress where it's like, where am I going to take a shower? Where do I go to the bathroom? You know, where the restaurants, just like the stuff that you would normally find lower on Maslow's hierarchy, if you will, is like, it's not natural. It's not instinctive. You have to think about it. And so therefore it adds some stress to your environment. And for some people like, that's, they can just write that off. I can't totally write that off. And so it kind of takes me a little while to kind of get into that groove, even traveling here in the United States, like you go to a different place and you're like, oh, am I going to, am I going to like the eggs here?
Speaker 2 00:09:22 Like, I mean, it's random, it's a dumb thought, right? It's not, it's not, but it's this, you know, it's the reason why your home feels so comfortable is because that stress doesn't exist in your home and the way you just put it, I didn't realize it, but yes, I have felt that as well. And you've been there for years at this point. So, you know, I can only imagine what that looks like when you're not a part of that, you know, local culture directly, and you speak that language fluently and that you've connected with all of those people and you have those long-term relationships. Like it takes so much time to build all of that stuff to get that level of comfort. So, yeah, I totally understand. I totally understand. But the aging parents one, I also really understand that one, a little more acutely, especially for, uh, the events of the last couple of weeks here.
Speaker 3 00:10:14 Yeah. So you had, uh, you had some, some family health, let me say drama, but stuff that stuff to can deal with right.
Speaker 2 00:10:23 Drama is totally appropriate there. So yeah, I mean, my, my Thanksgiving was a little more exciting than I really wanted it to be. So before Thanksgiving, I was invited to go speak at recurring revenue retreat in Florida and my wife and I went to that and great conference had a great time. It was targeted at like freelancers and agencies who are looking to add recurring revenue to their business. So they wanted me to talk about my experience with SAS and that was all fine. Had a great time there saw some, some friends, um, met with Brian castle. We hung out a little bit. He brought his family, I brought my wife and that was all good. We had to leave a little bit early because, uh, we have two dogs and they're both getting a little bit old and one of them has cancer. And one of them like just completely stressed out while we were gone. Like, you know, not to be too graphic about it, but she shit all over the basement.
Speaker 2 00:11:21 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was bad. And then, you know, we'd left her, you know, we we've previously boarded them this time. We had a friend of ours that the dogs, no, we stayed, let her stay at the house. Our kids stayed home. They still had school, but it just wasn't enough. And they just, they flipped out. So, you know, my wife was like, I, I can't stay here knowing that our dog has stress out. And I'm like, I understand let's change our flight. We're coming home. So we got home. And then on Sunday, you know, the dogs are doing a little bit better. We had to him to the vet, but then like late Sunday night, I got a text from my mom saying my dad wasn't able to breathe. They had to call 9 1 1 and take him to the hospital. Now for context here, my father is 92 and has heart problems.
Speaker 2 00:12:12 They found out that he had pneumonia. So, you know, the week of Thanksgiving, Monday, the week of Thanksgiving, I'm now visiting my father in the hospital. They gave him antibiotics and everything's all better. Now I'll just skip to the end of the story here, spoiler alert. He was able to get out on Thanksgiving. He came home with oxygen, but you know, w when a 92 year old goes into the hospital with breathing problems, that is definitely cause for major alarm. So, yeah, right before black Friday week here, which is already kind of the most stressful time during recaptures year had the dog, had the travel and then had my father going to the hospital was kind of stressed as fuck. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. And I, you know, I'm kinda still reeling a little bit from it, cause now we're a solid week past it.
Speaker 2 00:13:06 And I'm still kinda in a, in a little bit of a mental fog as a result of that. But yeah. I mean, you know, thankfully we did, it ended up having the late Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, he was able to come over with an oxygen bottle and we were able to spend that time. And of course, you know, I was extra grateful for the fact that we were able to have him over. We didn't lose him, you know, didn't have to deal with other stuff. Like just lots of things to be thankful for there. But yeah, it was a super stressful, uh, Thanksgiving for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:13:38 No, I can imagine, man. I can imagine
Speaker 2 00:13:40 On the plus side, recapture was a rock. We had no problems, zero. None not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We saw an increase in volume and you know, we had a fancy dashboard on AWS that I currently can't see because AWS is down. But, uh, you know, I was watching to see what the email send volume was an errors and, you know, the complaint rates and the bounce rates and all, everything was solid. Just rock fucking solid. So that was great. You know, that, you know, I was watching one of my competitors have some real issues on that one and I was like, whoops, that's tough. It's tough. Yeah. This is not the time. Do you want your infrastructure blowing up? And I can only imagine how stressed out their, their it folks were. Cause I know that, you know, we were a little bit on edge and everything worked fine, so right. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, at least I didn't have that thing on top of the other three stressors to deal with, so yeah. Wild.
Speaker 3 00:14:40 That's great, man. That's great. And do, like, I know it's typically not a big time for like new customers for you, but like how are things going in terms of growth?
Speaker 2 00:14:50 Yeah. So it's kind of weird. So growth in terms of new customers really slows down this time of the year. Last year, I was still getting a fair amount, but I had paid ads turned on and I was noticing later that the customers I was attracting were all ones that canceled out real fast or never upgraded to paid. So I just didn't run the ads this year. And, uh, we've actually still seen some growth in both new customers and expansion revenue. We see more expansion revenue because as people are selling more, they move up in our tiers automatically. But they've also been using, there's a number of customers that started using the broadcast feature of recapture very heavily here in black Friday. And several people have taken advantage of the SMS stuff and they've started sending a higher volume. So all of those things are good signs.
Speaker 2 00:15:37 Overall. I had a couple of major customers that has taken a fair amount of time to onboard because you know, one of them has five stores. The other one had four stores and I was hand migrating each of them. That that part actually was easy and mostly done before black Friday. But then all of the little details about, you know, Hey, can I get your contact lists? And now I need to get refreshed contact lists because they won't. Um, they won't directly email me those contact lists. If I try to export them from their system, it has to send it through to their person. And so it, you know, involving other humans takes a lot of time in there. So we're
Speaker 3 00:16:15 Seeing, we're definitely seeing some growth and some movement. Um, we are currently trying to hire, uh, you know, I've talked about our hiring issues. So I went from hiring one developer to now, I'm still looking for that developer. Haven't found them yet. That's a whole story unto itself, but I did find a QA person that we could afford. And we got connected through a friend of a friend kind of thing in the Ukraine. So they're starting this week to be able to start do quality assurance on the whole product, because now we're going to be doing some technical debt payoff for database migration in order to reduce our database bill, which is insanely high and really shouldn't be, and that's good. And then the other thing, I've got a cold sales guy, courtesy of, uh, Duncan Murtaugh's so thank you Duncan for that. He has been working out.
Speaker 3 00:17:15 And so I'm going to get him onboarded here this month and he's going to start the calling here. He's going to have a very short window here before the holidays to try to schedule some January calls. Mike is my guess, but anyway. Yeah. So there's definitely stuff going on and things happening, but you know, no through the roof growth at this point, but I don't really expect that. Yeah. It's a weird time of year, right? Like last month for us was in some ways good. In some ways, not like just, just weird this one so far has really good. He has so like no, no rhyme or reason to that. I think like it just, as it's just a weird time of year, people will compress a lot of work into a short amount of time, you know? And, and because of that, I think they, a lot of their typical buying patterns go out the window. I I'm curious, can you say more about how you're working with the QA person? Like, what is the engagement like, like how much are they working with you? Like where do they sit in a process? Like all that stuff, because this is a question we've had internally quite a bit. Oh,
Speaker 2 00:18:16 Oh, well, you know, we haven't actually started that process yet, but I can kind of give you some ideas of what we're thinking about and how we're going to define it. So at the moment we are doing most of our issue management on GitHub issues, and then we've got a project in get hub. So that's a Kanban board. And on the Kanban board, we basically just have like a, to-do doing done column, that's it, it's pretty straightforward. Uh there's I think there's also an on-hold on there for something that you're waiting on stuff. But so now we're basically going to introduce a new step into that to say like ready for QA or something like that. Yep. And then it will basically be this new QA guys job to go through and test that feature. And then what we're going to do, we have to do a couple of things.
Speaker 2 00:19:04 So one of the things I have to do is I have to basically create a bunch of screencasts of how the app is supposed to behave on a normal on a normal day. Right. And then based on that, he's going to have to go through and test the app to see that the behavior is exactly as I've said it. So that's going to be his baseline to understand how recapture behaves. And then on top of that, it's now going to be our responsibility. When we are creating new features, we've got to describe how this thing works, or we've got to at least state what the happy path normal case looks like, so that when he's testing and he can find out what the heck is going on. So there's a little more work on my side, definitely a little more work on Mike's side. And then this new guy is going to have to take that, run it through its paces and then report, Hey, this didn't perform the way that you said it was going to, it did this instead.
Speaker 2 00:20:07 And then that becomes a bug report that we have to fix and file, you know, deal with all of those things. So that's kind of tentatively Howard looking at this right now. I mean, it is definitely a retool of the process that we have now, because previously it was, I tell Mike what I wanted him to build. Mike went and built it. He showed it to me. I took a look at it and I either said yes or no. And if I said, no, I told him what to change. And then we released it. That was it. So it, you know, very low process on that. Uh, but at the same time, the chances of us breaking something that in the rest of the system, we're getting higher and higher. And we noticed that as we would release things, it would like destabilize something that we weren't expecting it to destabilize. The system has just gotten to a size where it's, it's now almost impossible to predict second order effects in the system for anything but the simplest of changes. Yep.
Speaker 3 00:21:04 So, yeah, yeah. Sitting here nodding my head. I mean, we, we we've, we're, we're in a similar position. We looked at bringing a full-time QA person on a couple of months ago and talked ourselves out of it because of the thing you mentioned, which is like, it'll put a little more work on me and, and Mike and, and so like what, the reason that I didn't want to do it and the, and the reason think it scares some people away is like what it forces you to do. And maybe it's a good thing, but, but it's just a lot more work is really scope and spec out features really clearly for the QA person to test against. So otherwise, like all this stuff is in your head, you know, and maybe in Mike's head, but then this person is going to get this just like black box of like, okay, go test the app.
Speaker 3 00:21:46 And you're like, well, like, does the feature work? Like you want it? And like much less, does it interact with everything else as anticipated? And like, for that reason, we chose to keep it more in-house where like our head of product and our front end developer are the ones that are doing a lot of QA for us. Um, just because there's so much closer to the product and what they know the product should do and what this feature is all about. So yeah, I mean, I'll be, I'll be curious to hear how it goes. I mean, I think QA in introducing QA at the point where, you know, probably your and our apps are, is a really good thing just because it makes Mike's job easier to, to develop without the fear of breaking something, you know, before something goes out the door. But I do think that it, like, it increases the responsibility on everyone to, to kind of give the support or the QA person, like the things they need to be successful, which is just more information and context and knowledge, you know? Right.
Speaker 2 00:22:44 And the hard part about all of this is like you just said, I had to take it out of my head and up until this point, like Mike and I were on such a similar wavelength that I could just say, Hey, go do this. And Mike would turn around and do that, understanding that there was the subtext of, oh, and it's got to do this, and it's got to look like this. And it's got to, you know, all of these unspoken things, but as I'm looking here and we're talking about hiring I'm, I'm thinking to myself, there are so many things that we just don't have documented that we don't have clearly identified that if I brought somebody new in, they're going to be like, what the fuck do I do? Because it just doesn't make, it's not something that they're going to look and go, oh, I've got to make it like this.
Speaker 2 00:23:26 Like you've got to, you've got to set those expectations. And as I see us on the cusp here of growing, you know, adding people to the team, I realized that this is a massive shortcoming that I have now, you know, out of necessity, mostly just ignored up to this point. And it probably was the right decision to ignore it until now, because adding all of that process wouldn't have necessarily added value back then would have made this transition easier. But there was no guarantee that this transition was going to happen or when it was going to happen. So all of those things make a lot of sense. Now it's just, now I've got a lot of extra work to do.
Speaker 3 00:24:04 Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:24:07 Yeah. And somehow along all the way of this here, you know, I still have to figure out how to hire this developer, which I'm struggling. I mean, I let's just say that, that the struggle bus is chugging along here and it is not letting me go, like I'm banging on the door and I cannot get out of this thing. I have tried a lot of different things and I'm basically going to have to go to the bottom of the ladder that I'm on at the moment to try to find somebody. And I just know that this is going to open the door to a lot of low quality shit. And now I have to spend time sorting through all that shit so that we can start doing interviews to find somebody that might be worth it. But you know, we've gone through agencies, I've tried to talk to recruiters. The recruiters are like, yeah, I'm too busy. And I asked them to refer me to other recruiters and they're like, I don't have anybody. And I'm like,
Speaker 3 00:25:03 How is this so hard?
Speaker 2 00:25:04 Yeah. Like, I mean, I, we've gone through two different agencies, three different recruiters. And at this point I'm basically like, fuck it. I'm going to post on Upwork. And that's like, I just know how terrible that's going to be. And I've been trying to avoid it like the plague, but I'm left with no other option at this point because all of the other options have been exhausted and they're providing me with nothing and we need something. So,
Speaker 3 00:25:31 You know, Upwork is, it is just a mixed bag, man. I mean, two of our four developers currently are from Upwork and they're amazing, you know, they're, they're super amazing. Do you get a bunch of folks that aren't qualified to do what you want to do, but, but I think you can find the gems there. It's just, it's just tougher. Um, but you you're, you're the kind of person that will have a process for vetting and screening and testing that, that you'll be able to see that, you know, more, more easily than a lot of people I think.
Speaker 2 00:26:01 Yeah. But it doesn't make the end result that much easier. I mean, I can usually get out this channel work, but finding the wheat is still a real struggle. Like somebody can look like an, a solid green of wheat and then you squeeze them a little bit and it's empty. And you're like, man, you know, it's really frustrating. And yeah, I found great people on Upwork too. And you know, we've had some other people contact us, so I should expand a little bit on this. Like I've had some great people contact us. I can't afford their rates. Like I have a budget and, you know, they're, they're just way, way outside of it. And I would love to be able to pay those people because I know that their expertise would be a good fit. I just can't pay that much and stay in business.
Speaker 2 00:26:44 So, you know, that's where I'm at. It's an unfortunate place to be. And I wish our MRR was double. And I could just say, yeah, sure. I can pay, you know, 150 an hour for that. No problem. But I can't. So I'm stuck with what I'm stuck with and I'm trying to work within those resource constraints, which just, you know, also makes it difficult because I am turning away some, some good talent. It's just, they're way outside of my budget. So yeah. I mean add all those constraints in and it makes it very difficult to find a developer that can sort of meet all those criteria at the same time. That's hard. It's really?
Speaker 3 00:27:18 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think from, from my end, uh, aside from moving, which is just life consuming, like it's just,
Speaker 2 00:27:29 I told him
Speaker 3 00:27:30 When I told the team we were moving, I was like, it was about a month ago. I was like, I'm just going to be working about half the time for the next month. And like, I'm sorry, ahead of time that I'm going to suck for the next month, but like only got to do this once. And you know, I, I look at it as like an investment in, you know, my future ability to work more, more clearly and be focused and, and be on the same time zone as you know, two-thirds of our team. So yeah, not like not a ton of business stuff to, to catch up on. I would say like the, the thing that's going well is like our sales guys are doing well. And, and it's just cool to see them starting to like get traction, you know, with certain things.
Speaker 3 00:28:14 And we're at the point where, you know, it's always this like chicken and egg thing, you know, where like more leads is the thing we need. And so I've got my marketing hat on, which is like, it doesn't fit anymore. I think it's like, I just, haven't, haven't been like really focused on like ways we can drive more eyeballs and traffic and qualified leads and stuff. Um, but, but that's what we're focusing on and haven't had to really think creatively and like, um, I don't know, it's always just kind of happened I guess, you know, with content marketing and WordPress integration and all this kind of stuff. And I'm just at the point now where like, I want to find that thing that's going to, you know, take us to the next level. And like, it's just a really hard thing. And that's, I think that's why like in the, you know, kind of micro coffee circles, like so many founders, whether they're technical founders or not just say, like, how do I do marketing, you know, and like find that channel and optimize it and everything.
Speaker 3 00:29:15 And I think the answer is it's really fucking hard, you know, it's really, really, really hard to do it really well. It's okay to do it. Okay. You know, it's not that hard to do content marketing okay. And email nurturing and all this kind of stuff. But, but to do it really, really, really well is I think just really hard, both like at an execution level and like a like strategy and conceptual level. And so that's, that's, that's where I am. And it's, it's not a, it's not a place to be, but that's, that's where I am.
Speaker 2 00:29:44 Yeah. And the thing that I'm noticing more as I move up the scale in MRR with marketing is that your marketing strategies of course have to change as you get bigger. And, you know, it's the classic adage, whatever got you here, won't get you there. So once you've been executing on a marketing strategy for awhile, that Peters out, plus you also have the fact that marketing strategies only remain viable for a short period of time. So, you know, your half-life on a marketing strategy. I think Rob walling said is about 18 months. And so you're constantly looking for something new and the stuff that used to work, isn't always going to keep working. And the stuff that, um, might not have worked in the past might now work in the future. But now you have to completely revamp to use that because you probably discarded it earlier for a variety of other reasons.
Speaker 2 00:30:39 And now you have to, you know, retrain your brain to say, look, the reasons have changed. And now I need to look at this. And I mean, that's where I struggle with it on the marketing side of things is that, you know, I'm part of me just wants to stay with the successful strategies and just keep pounding away at those because I know that they're working, but at the other, on the other hand, I know that that isn't going to be a successful long-term growing strategy. And if I keep doing that, eventually it's just going to fail and, you know, business will plateau. Churn's going to kill me. And, you know, Dave will be sad. So,
Speaker 3 00:31:14 And it's not binary. It's not that like it's working or it's not it's that it, maybe isn't working as well as it did before. And, or I just want it to work better, you know, like social media, whatever, we get some traffic from social media, but like, can we 10 X that traffic and have it be high quality traffic that, that, you know, are actually interested in, you know, what, we're what we're selling. That's an example. That's not, we're going to do it, but like that, those are, those are those optimizations. I think that, that it's like, okay, how is this channel working? Do we have a realistic chance of, of making a difference here with the kind of resources that we can put into it? Yes or no. And then it's just like all of the really hard work of doing that, you know, copy updates and CTS and email nurturing all this stuff. And I mean, it's just like, it's daunting. It just, it's just so daunting. Yeah. And, and like, I guess that's the key is to make it not daunting and just say, this is what we're gonna do. This is the path we're going to spend three months working on this and, and, you know, work like hell to, to see what happens. So yeah, not the most motivational of updates for me, but, but that's where I am. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:32:24 Alright. Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins signing off here as the guest hosts of rogue startups this week.
Speaker 3 00:32:34 Oh, well they've next time we talk, we'll probably be in the afternoon instead of like whatever at nine o'clock in the morning, your time. So we'll, uh, I'll be in the good old us of a, and yeah. Really looking forward to it the next week will be horrible as we move fucking pets moving and all this kind of stuff. But, uh, we'll get settled here shortly and get on the other side of this.
Speaker 2 00:32:57 Well, I wish you safe travels and good luck packing all that stuff up. And, you know, switching continents here, all of which is a stress beyond belief, so,
Speaker 3 00:33:07 Yup. Yup. And for everyone listening, you have questions, comments, things you liked, or didn't like from the episode or just the show in general should just message podcast to rogue startups.com. And as always, if you're enjoying the show, please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. And we'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 00:33:24 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
