Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Welcome to the rogue startups podcast, where two startup founders are sharing lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid in their online businesses in now. Here's Dave and Craig.
Speaker 2 00:00:20 All right. Welcome to episode 2 66 of rogue startups. Craig, how are you this week?
Speaker 3 00:00:26 I'm good, man. I'm good. Got, uh, got back from Microcom last week. The world didn't come to an end, got, got a bunch of stuff done. And now we're going into the long weekend. Tomorrow's good Friday. So looking forward to a nice long weekend. How about
Speaker 2 00:00:41 You? Very nice. Yes, I survived a Microcom as well. It was the first time you and I had seen each other in like five or six years in person.
Speaker 3 00:00:48 Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:00:48 It was good to catch up with you, my friend and, and to hang out. So, you know, I very much enjoyed that. I actually forgot that it was good Friday tomorrow because I'm no longer in financial services and I don't get it off.
Speaker 3 00:01:00 <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:01:02 Like, that was always a weird holiday for me in financial services. Oh, I get a Friday off in April. What the hell? Oh, oh yeah, that one. Yeah. Okay. Because they've always taken it off for the markets, but yeah, I don't even think about it now. So
Speaker 3 00:01:15 Yeah, the only reason it was on my radar is our kids are off school and it's like, it there's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of stuff around here, here that that revolves around Easter. So it's, it's a medium size deal here, so yeah, it's good times. Very
Speaker 2 00:01:27 Cool. Yeah. I think that's an E east coast thing. I don't think like out here in the west that just doesn't even get paid attention to <laugh> it's just another fricking Friday. My kids are all going to school tomorrow, so.
Speaker 3 00:01:37 Oh, how interesting. Okay. Yeah. Nice. So, uh, yeah, MicroCon was great in, I like it was, I think in a good way, really different from the last and only other one I went to. So maybe we could kind of talk through kind of what we took away from it and, and kind of thought of it and, and kind of how it's affecting our businesses.
Speaker 2 00:01:57 Yeah, sure. Cuz I, I mean, I felt it was deeply impactful as always, although this one, this one felt different to me. So, you know, I've been to 10 of, of the major ones, um, mostly growth ones recently. And prior to that, there wasn't a split between growth and starter, but when there was a split, uh, I was only going to the growth. So the growth ones have definitely shifted a little bit over the years for me. And so well just talk for a second about what, what they did at this year's conference, cuz that was a little different, right. And they basically started a whole bunch of, of AB tests based on prior experiences and feedback and all of that sort stuff. So one of the things that they did this year was they actually cut back on the number of speakers that were being held, which I think was a good thing.
Speaker 2 00:02:45 I think that was a net positive. The, the, I mean it just felt very speaking heavy in the past. And a lot of the time, you know, the, the value for me at this point in a Microcom is not necessarily seen every single speaker that was true 11 micro comps ago or 10 micros ago. Like the speakers were hugely valuable. I had so much to learn and so many things I didn't know. And it's not that I've suddenly become all knowing it's that my sources have knowledge and the, the places I can go get information, have broadened quite a bit. So I'm aware of where things are. So the speakers aren't necessarily exposing me to brand new stuff like they used to. So I feel like, you know, the, the speakers can give me certain things, but not like everything. So like the speaking slots are less important to me now than they used to be.
Speaker 2 00:03:36 Uh, and so I like the new format of the conf that basically it was like morning speakers and there was a mixture of the attendee conf uh, attendee talks, excuse me, and the, the regular speakers, which was good. And then in the afternoon they did a little bit of speaking, but then they had these choose your own adventure slots. And that I liked quite a bit because now it, it meant that you could focus on something that was more appropriate to where you were at in your business or what you were interested in. And I think that made a huge difference. Um, for me, I picked one on marketing that was being held by the hay and Stripe team and they were talking about some specific growth marketing dicks that I was interested in because of where I'm at and recapture, but they had a bunch of different stuff.
Speaker 2 00:04:25 Like you did the podcasting 1 0 1, you actually hosted one of those. Yep. So there was that one and there were a bunch of others. So it just very much depended on what it is. You wanted to hear what you wanted to engage in that you got to choose. And I thought that was pretty cool. Uh, and then the second day they basically lightened it up so that it wasn't even like, okay, we're just gonna go into more tactical stuff. Like they actually set it up. So you could go have fun with people that wanted to have the same kind of fun that you did. So they did like bowling. They did trapes they did a brewery tour, which is the one I picked. There were like one where you could work on some tactics that Rob had gone and talked about in his own talk. So I thought overall that that format was more successful in my mind because what I wanted to get outta Microcom was largely just reconnecting with people and talking about businesses and meeting people. So for me, that new format felt like a better way to do that.
Speaker 3 00:05:27 Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think that, like I got in, I was supposed to get in Saturday afternoon flight delays and all the garbage I get in Sunday morning, which was kind of a bummer, but got to spend most of Sunday with like tiny seed folks, which was interesting and cool. Got to meet like rock and Zach from squad cast and a bunch of other like tiny seed founders from everywhere from like our first batch to people that are just getting ready to start now, which was cool. Got a, got a chance to talk a lot of shop with with them and then like, yeah, the opening reception and dinners and all this stuff, like outside of the conference, I was really great. Like the best part of the event for me was just connecting with people. You know, one like us personally living outside the us for six years, almost like just didn't see a lot of y'all.
Speaker 3 00:06:16 Um, like you were saying, like you and I haven't seen each other in a really long time. Like that was us personally, like a, a big reason as we just didn't live here and didn't make the trip for those micro comps. I think also just like being able to talk openly about your business in a safe place is like really important. I know you get that from the big snow group. And like, I think anybody who isn't doing that like is super valuable, like whether that's mastermind group or, you know, these kind of conferences or whatever, but just being able to talk about your stuff openly with people that understand it is like super valuable. I mean, as far as like the, the breakout sessions, they've been doing them at the European events for a while. And I really like 'em for, for the same reasons.
Speaker 3 00:06:58 Like you're able to focus on the stuff that's important to you and just some like kind of downtime to, to extend that hallway track as they say. Um, like I think that was really valuable all around. Casto sponsored the podcasting booth. And like you said, like the podcasting 1 0 1 breakout session, and that was cool. We had about 10 people that we did like an hour long workshop with. And it was really cool. All them left with like really tangible action oriented things to like get their shows ready. And they were all a mix of like kind of solopreneur. I'm getting ready to go do this too. Like I work at big company X and I'm kind of an entrepreneur and podcasting is something that is on our radar. So that was super interesting. The thing that I struggle with some with, with just conferences in general is like, yeah, when I think it's so much easier for the conference organizers when you're early on, because the stuff you need to know is so consistent, you know, like everyone needs to know about marketing.
Speaker 3 00:07:55 Everyone needs to know how to get product, like first degree of product market fit. And then every, every step that founders go past that the, the things that they need to know about become more different and more varied. And, and I think that's kind of just how I feel about conferences in general is like, I don't know that there's a lot of people that are talking about the things that I really worry about and, or like, I don't know that there's, and maybe it's just that, like, the people that I think could help me with the things that are most important to me, I don't know, are at these conferences. And so that's where like the, the talks, like you said, like I don't get a lot of value outta the talks because they're not aimed at me. And, and that's cool. That's not the point of the conference. I don't think, but there was a lot of stuff in the hallway track that really helped shape my focus here for the next couple of quarters. Um, and for that, and just being able to see everybody, it was like mega valuable for me.
Speaker 2 00:08:51 Yeah. After having like, you know, almost, uh, for many of the folks that were at that conference, I hadn't seen 'em for like two to three years, you know, the big snow stuff is great and masterminds are great, but they're still like a, a, a, you know, if we're talking about overlapping circles of audiences here, like there's still a huge number of people that don't fit into those other two groups, you know, cause those are small groups. And I still like to catch up with all those people. Plus, uh, you know, they're, uh, you know, one of the highlights for me every year are the, the dinners, the, the, uh, what do we call 'em the subject dinners or the, they Xander had another name for 'em one year and I'm spacing on what it was. It was topic specific dinners or the you, something like that.
Speaker 2 00:09:35 Anyway. So we always used to have one for WordPress. I didn't host one of those this year, but I did host one for eCommerce and I've done that one for the past three, four micro comps, uh, basically ever since I started recapture, cuz I wanted to connect with other people in the eCommerce community and this year, I mean, it was just valuable as it had been in the past. But you know, there was a lower attendance level here at Microcom growth because of the whole COVID thing. Not everybody felt comfortable coming out yet, which is fine. And because of that, there was like a level of intimacy. I haven't seen at a Microcom in a while and it was reflected in the e-commerce dinner. There were 10 of, of us out at the steakhouse and we had some really fantastic conversations that night and it was the same week that fast imploded.
Speaker 2 00:10:26 So of course that was a big topic of conversation. That was a big thing in e-commerce. Right. And at the same time, like I met two new Shopify app owners and we, you know, hit it off immediately. And I hadn't ever talked with these guys before. I hadn't ever had conversations with them in the past and I wasn't even aware of their businesses or anything like that. So this was like a perfect opportunity to open up some new relationships. And that's what I love about that particular dinner. And all of the meetup dinners is that you get those, those new relationships and you get to build on them every single time. And so the thing for me over the years has been, you know, restoring those, those relationships, touching base with people, finding out what their businesses are like building some new ones, finding other people because those relationships go through the rest of the year.
Speaker 2 00:11:19 Like I met a guy at, uh, at R three this year who happens to be the director of WordPress for a hosting company. And, you know, we chatted briefly on the boat. It was a speakers dinner thing. And after that, like now we're talking about partnership stuff. So it's like those relationships turn into other things. You, you get to know somebody, you find out, you know, what they're working on and you, you find opportunities in your mutual ecosystems where those overlap on those ven diagrams and that kind of stuff is really cool. Like that's where I've seen a lot of growth in my business. And my, you know, my personal business life is, is getting those relationships, nurturing them and continuing them over the years. So, you know, that that's always gonna be a highlight for me at Microcom I'm always gonna be going. And of course, next year it's here in Denver. So of course I have to go <laugh> it would be stupid if it was in my own backyard and I wasn't here. So I will absolutely be at Microcom growth Denver next year, April 16th through 18th, for those that wanna know.
Speaker 3 00:12:31 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the relationships are, are great, right? Both from like, you know, friends, colleagues, you know, fellow founder perspectives and like, you know, folks that are just in your industry that, that you might be able to partner with and stuff. I think it's great. I think it's great. It's really, it's really something that for it to have not been on for the last two years, uh, and then come back and, and have like a really good conference I think was, was really successful. I, I think that there were a lot of people that couldn't come or didn't want to come because of COVID still, and as we see the numbers here, starting to rise a little bit again, like, I don't know what the next one look like, but I'm really glad we got this one in, in the way they did. Uh, I thought it was really safe. I didn't get COVID and there was no masking going on that, that I saw. And so it was really, really PO like in that perspective it was, it was really positive. Cause I think that's the first time a lot of us have been around other people in a normalish environment in a long time. So that was really nice to, to feel like more normal again, after two years of all this weirdness,
Speaker 2 00:13:33 It was, and it know, I don't know about you, but you know, I'm when, when I went there this time, you know, I usually kind of have this mixture of introvert, extrovert energy, and you know, being an ambivert means that usually I'll just go hardcore on, on an extrovert thing and then I'll come home and be an introvert again. But for this one, like I had this really sustained extrovert energy every single night, like, you know, I was wanting to stay, I was staying up late every single night. I don't think I went to bed before. The earliest was 11. The latest was one. And you know, there was usually just people hanging out in the hotel bar talking about whatever, having great conversations, another round of drink, stuff like that. Like for me, it was like this pent up, oh my God, I have to socialize now energy.
Speaker 2 00:14:23 And it was super bizarre to kind of feel that cuz usually after a day or two at the, you know, I'll feel that at the beginning and then towards the end, I'm kind of like, Ugh, right. I gotta go to bed now. <laugh> and I, you know, I saw some people that were like, oh, I gotta go to bed now. But for me I was like, I was energized by the whole thing. And that was pretty cool, you know? Uh, and it wasn't just the, the business discussions. Like there was some fun, personal stuff too, you know, there's a bunch of us that do kind of a D and D meetup. And we did that on Sunday. So we had like this five and a half hour D and D session and it was nerdy and it was, you know, entertaining and it was just spectacular, fun. I enjoyed it. Uh, tremendously. I'm looking forward to doing it again the next time. So
Speaker 3 00:15:06 That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. It's um, I, I think it's the, the social aspects of, of COVID and going back to in person, I think like a lot smarter people than I could could talk about, but yeah, I think that a lot of us did have that pent up thing of like, Hey, we haven't done this thing. We really enjoy in so long. And, and so now we wanna like get that out of our system. I, yeah, by, by Tuesday I was done. <laugh> like, I, I had spent my, my social capital. Um, but, but like, like Saturday I was traveling all day. So that was just exhausting basically. Uh, and then like Sunday was like, yeah, engaged with, with folks all day. And that was just amazing and Monday too. And then Tuesday by Tuesday, like I didn't go to any sessions on Tuesday because I was just kind of like, Hey, I need to stay here and do my, and kind of get my, get my energy back.
Speaker 3 00:15:54 And I'm really glad I did. I caught the last session, which was Sherry talking about like the psychological aspects of selling your business, which was really impactful for me. So I shouldn't say I didn't get much out of, out of the sessions. I got a lot out of that one because like the short version was like, this is not all it's cracked up to be <laugh>. Um, for, for almost everyone, uh, there's a lot of like hidden traps and gotchas that, that almost every founder goes through as they sell their business. And that was, that was like really good to hear. Not that I'm selling my business, but it is a goal at some point. Yeah. And then like the reception afterwards was amazing. I mean, it was in this, I don't know it's called can, can wonder end and I don't know how to explain it. It's a giant eighties themed like arcade amusement park thing in the basement of this thing in like a residential, like area of Minneapolis. It made me think of ready player one a lot. Like they, they would've loved it there, but it was awesome. And it was like three hours of arcade games and, and put, put, and all this kind of stuff. It was totally a great way to unwind and, and like wrap things up. I think that was, that was
Speaker 2 00:17:00 Awesome. Yeah. I enjoyed that too. And yeah, to your point, I, I didn't want to like shit on the sessions because it's not like they were not valuable. Uh, I enjoyed Sherry's talk as well. In fact, when she was talking about that, you know, I was sort of reflecting my own exit of the plugins and, you know, it made me it put into perspectives things, why they were easy for me and why certain other things were harder. And I struggled with, and I still feel bad about them even today. Like the psychological reasons behind the exit, what it was important to me, how I treated the team, you know, what was next for me, all of these things she talked about, like what that looks like to you in, during the process of exiting and afterwards, and you know, how much you prepare yourself for that going into, it tells you what it's gonna be like for you on the other side of it.
Speaker 2 00:17:54 And I think that's what I took away from that there. And it definitely gave me some things to think about, you know, not if, because at some point you and I will both exit our businesses. We don't know exactly when that timeframe is, but when it is, those considerations were super important. And I really appreciated hearing what that was. I actually saved those those lists so that I could refer to that later. The other talk that I was really impacted by was the one that April Dunford gave. And I really love that. So, you know, we've, we talked about April's book obviously awesome on here before, uh, which is obviously awesome. And we, we love that book. Uh, the thing I didn't like about the book was that the examples were very corporate oriented. So I didn't feel like I could relate to those as well.
Speaker 2 00:18:43 I mean, the, the content was great, but the examples I was like, IBM, uh, okay, sure. But to April's massive credit here and, you know, I don't wanna undersell April in any way, shape or form her talk really spoke to single founders, bootstraps all of us in the, in the space. And she was talking about like how to create a buy journey and why things are hard for a buyer and why we suck at marketing to buyers because she was discussing like how buyers get tasked with buying things. And when you look at it from that perspective and what information they have to start with and their motivation for it, all of a sudden, it becomes very clear why your marketing sucks and why you need to do things like actually have real competitor comparisons that doesn't just shit on your competitors. But like actually says, look, if you're looking for X, Y, and Z, they may be a perfect fit, but if you want a, B and C, well, let me tell you, we are way better than them.
Speaker 2 00:19:52 And here's why, like, you basically need to help them, which builds trust. And I mean, it was perfect for me. I'm about to redo the website with recapture. And that's one of the things that I absolutely need to do is change the, the positioning, our positioning right now sucks. Uh, it's six years old. We've done so much it, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't speak to the same customers. We spoke to six years ago. So I need to redo that. But her talk like helped me frame all of what that work was gonna look like. And that's one of my tasks that was one of my rocks for this quarter that I actually set up on Saturday while I was there. I even did a mini retreat while I was there. I tried to maximize my productivity there. And it was fantastic.
Speaker 3 00:20:30 Yeah. Yeah. I thought her, her talk was great. Like I think what, what she said that stuck with me is buying is hard. Everyone says selling is hard, but buying is hard. And, and she, she is this example of like buying a toilet, which I thought was just hilarious. But yeah, I mean, I, I think about it from our customers perspective, they are a marketing person at company X, and they've been tasked with starting a podcast. And like that is a mountain for someone who hasn't done it before you have the fucking tech and the gear and the hosting and distribution, and much less like the content strategy. And that was actually the thing I took away most is like a little bit of April's talk plus some, some other stuff is like, we are really uniquely positioned in the market to help a lot of people with our services.
Speaker 3 00:21:14 And, and I think it's a really interesting and unique place that we sit is like, we absolutely have great software. We also have a lot of human capacity to help people that no one else in our, in our business does. And, and that's pretty cool. And I think that if you think about it from a customer's perspective as the buyer trying to achieve the goal that they're looking for, like this kind of jobs to be done thing, um, like it really shifts how you position yourself and how you help people make a smart buying decision. So yeah, that was, that was really great. That was really great. She's very smart. We had, I had dinner with and a couple other people Monday night and yeah. Super, super sharp. She's incredible.
Speaker 2 00:21:53 Yeah. Yeah, definitely a highlight and yeah, I mean, once she said what she said in there, I was able to sort of look back and reflect on prior experiences I had with buying other pieces of software that I did for the very first time. Like the first time I really, really needed to move up to managed WordPress hosting. I'm like, fuck, I don't know what I'm looking for here. What, what does that even mean? Like you just feel lost and you want somebody to help lead you through that. And it, whether it's looking for an analytics tool or you're looking for an email service provider, or you're looking for, um, you know, in the case of April a toilet <laugh>, which was a hilarious story, by the way, uh, for those that missed the story, I can't even begin to recall this, but, you know, April was remodeling a bathroom and they had to figure out a toilet.
Speaker 2 00:22:39 And apparently there are gazillion different things about toilets that you can understand. And she went to several stores and they just sucked at trying to help her. They just talked about out these statistics that she didn't understand. And she finally ended up talking to a guy that basically was able to ask her questions that just cut down the choices in half, every single time. So it just bifurcated her way down to a handful. And then she could decide basically on price, which was awesome. Yeah. Like, you know, just understanding that journey made it very clear, like how you can guide people to buy your own stuff and the own, the struggles that you had yourself in buying, things like that. So, yeah, I thought that was really cool. I also enjoyed, uh, Asia's talk about focus, uh, versus nicheing. And, um, I thought that was, that was pretty poignant, but I thought that April's was more applicable to what I was actually doing right now. I just, I enjoyed what Asia had to say on the subject, but it was something that I had already, you know, thought about and done. So I hadn't specifically like, oh, okay. I got an action item here from Asia's talk like I did from April, so,
Speaker 3 00:23:48 Right, right. Yeah. I mean, I think that, I think like my takeaway from, from the conference just as a whole was like, it's great to be back in person and see you Dave and see, see all of our friends, uh, a lot of talking with the, their founders there was really inspiring. And like, for me, that was the thing that gave me the most energy to come home and, and do stuff with. Um, I think there's a lot for us to be proud of too, is the another thing that took away is like, for us to be able to do that one from like a societal perspective with COVID and everything is like, we've kind of gotten over, I think for the moment, at least the hump there, but then also just like business wise, like really great to be able to do that and like kind of, you know, live in the dream man. Like we're, we're living the dream that for a long time, we were just hoping would come true one day. And like, for us to be kind of self-sustaining businesses is just super cool. And I think we take it for granted a lot go into those events and seeing some folks that might not be there yet, um, is like a, a reinforcer of
Speaker 2 00:24:49 That. Yeah. This was the first Microcom I could attend as a full-time entrepreneur, you know, a full-time single founder. Right. And, you know, I kept, you know, people were like, so how's recapture. I'm like, oh, I'm full-time on it, like right now. And then there was always like, yes, right on good job. Way to go. Oh, I heard that on the podcast. So I mean, that, that was, uh, a very positive thing. And I definitely agree that we are very lucky to be in the position that we are in. Um, and to be able to reconnect with all those folks, to be able to have that opportunity after a couple of really fucked up weird years. And, uh, yeah, just you knew those relationships and, uh, get back to get back to the business of doing business.
Speaker 3 00:25:34 Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 00:25:37 Well, we'd love to hear from all of you that attended Microcom growth. What experiences did you take away from that? What were the things that were the most inspiring to you? Or what did you away the most? Send us a, an email podcast@roguestartups.com and as always, we would love to have you share our podcast with somebody you think would benefit from it. And if you have a minute, we'd love to have a review on iTunes as well until next time.
Speaker 1 00:26:08 Thanks for listening to a new other 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.
