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. And now here's Dave and Craig.
Speaker 2 00:00:19 Low welcomed episode 2 79 of Rogue Startups. I'm your host, Craig Hewitt here with Dave Roden Ball. Dave, how's it going this week?
Speaker 3 00:00:29 Oh, it's going fan freaking fantastic. In fact, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday at the Denver Co. Let's see in there's gonna be a Monster Truck rally. When did we become announcers like that?
Speaker 2 00:00:42 When did we start doing this? Well, you know what I've realized is like, um, you, you can get on and say, oh, this is episode 2 79 in Rogue Startups, and I'm Craig, and it's boring <laugh>. Like people, like, if you ever listen back to it, you're like, the fuck is this guy? Like, and why should I care? Um,
Speaker 3 00:00:58 Yeah. And it also sounds like you just drank a gallon of chamomile tea or you're, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2 00:01:05 Yeah. Or on some, something a little stronger.
Speaker 3 00:01:08 Yeah. Some, some illicit substance we won't mention on the wave, uh, over the air here in fear of the dea, but yeah.
Speaker 2 00:01:16 Uh, yeah. Um, no, I, I, yeah. Uh, there may be some that mock us and there will be many more I think that appreciate our, our, uh, energy and pizzazz, and that's what we're trying to bring, Dave. We're trying to bring some energy to startups because shit's hard sometimes and we want it to be fun.
Speaker 3 00:01:35 Oh my God, no kidding on that one. Yeah. You know, if we want to talk about the, the very first thing that, uh, I've been struggling here with the last month, speaking of energy, you know, seasonal effective disorder hits me every year and I try to combat it in a variety of ways. Like, you know, with exercise, and I've done light therapy and I take St. John's ward and I do pretty well most of the winter. But man, the last 30 days as spring has been starting up and winter's been winding down, finally fucking hit me. And, uh, yeah, I felt a major lack of motivation. You know, I was having a hard time getting stuff done. I basically, you know, he, here's how bad it got. I was actually excited to go downstairs and work on my sump pump more than I was on my business.
Speaker 2 00:02:28 <laugh>,
Speaker 3 00:02:29 That's, yeah, that's the bottom of the barrel right there. And I, I brought that up to my mastermind group and they're like, oh, Jesus, Dave. That's terrible.
Speaker 2 00:02:37 <laugh>. Yeah. That's pretty rough. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:02:40 Not good. Not good, but, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2 00:02:42 I, I mean, I think without getting into it too much, like I definitely agree for, uh, it's interesting, like in France it was in the fall, like November, it was just like 40 degrees in raining all month, usually. Oof. And so that was terrible. Here, it's different where like February is, yeah, just, just horrendous. We actually had a really mild winter, uh, this year. But, um, yeah, rethinking a lot of life decisions, uh, <laugh> this time of year with like, how the fuck don't I live in Hawaii? Like, what are we all thinking? Um,
Speaker 3 00:03:17 Totally. Yeah. And you know, I mean, it's been pretty bad for my wife this year. She suffers from it too. And for her it's a little bit different because like, she doesn't ski, so she doesn't have that to look forward to in the winter. And she's not doing, you know, the conference that I do in February with Big Snow. So she doesn't have that to look forward to. So, you know, we realized that we need to start planning some winter trips, at least two of them, to get the hell outta Dodge and improve both of our outlook on this. Cuz it's not good for, you know, she needs something to look forward to. Both of us need the sun and the warmth. Winter is just not agreeing with us anymore, so, you know, fuck winter. Yep,
Speaker 2 00:03:56 Yep. Yeah, we did not leave here all winter. We stayed here for Christmas and my folks came up winter break. Uh, we stayed here and went skiing, and then we are leaving Sunday, uh, this Sunday, so Easter for, uh, spring break going to Florida to see my mother-in-law. So that'll be nice. But, but it's almost spring here. It'll be like 65 degrees on Thursday, so, um, the worst of it is over. But yeah, it's just, just tough. And I think the, the moral of the story, instead of just Dave and I bitching, which we're excellent at <laugh>, is, uh, you know, if you're in a place that has actual seasons and you realize that, man, I feel like shit in, you know, November or December or March or whatever, you're not alone. It's totally normal. Move to somewhere with more sunshine and it'll go away. Or just like you're saying, take vacation and go somewhere warm, uh, for as long as you can and your life will be better. So,
Speaker 3 00:04:51 And if any of our lists, yeah, and if any of our listeners have a house in Hawaii that they'd like to rent to us, please contact us, <laugh>. Yep. We, we either of us, just send it to podcast rogue startups.com. We'll work it out because let me tell you, we would definitely be open to that. But, uh, <laugh>, yeah, definitely not alone out there. Hard time of the year for a lot of us. And it's also just a general hard time being in B2B sass right now. I don't know, did you see that profit Well report that came out, that talked about, uh, growth over the last 15 months for B2B sass?
Speaker 2 00:05:33 Uh, no Uhuh,
Speaker 3 00:05:34 Well, not to further depress you here, but basically Patrick did the survey across, you know, however many tens of thousands of businesses that they have on profit. Well, and the average growth rate in 2023 so far across all of those business has been net negative
Speaker 2 00:05:55 <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:05:55 That's awesome. So if, if you are making any money in your B2B SaaS right now, you're doing so well, congratulations High five, because apparently you are bucking the trend and it is rough. It is a rough trend right now. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:06:12 Hmm. Yeah, I mean, I, I I, we, I think we had some tougher months, uh, last year that this year has been pretty good for us so far, actually. So, um, yeah, but last year was not great. So
Speaker 3 00:06:25 Yeah, January was rough. We expected that though, that wasn't much of a surprise, but February and March have been kind of flat. Uh, so, you know, in some ways I'm kind of happy about that. And we have some marketing campaigns that are still firing off and, you know, there's lots of room between now and the end of the year to make stuff happen. But I was a little surprised to see that, you know, B2B SaaS in general across the board on so many businesses has been trending down over most of 2022 and hit the negative line in 2023.
Speaker 2 00:06:58 Yeah. I'm not surprised at all. I mean, it's what, it's what you hear from everybody and then, you know, shit like S V B goes down and people just get more scared. And I, I think it's mostly, I think it's mostly just like a, a confidence thing. Um, like, I don't know if we're actually in a recession, nobody does. I don't think as of today, like I haven't heard, uh, but everybody thinks we are and so they're just being really conservative with their money and it's just like, I think people are just uncertain, you know, uh, I don't think things are actually that bad, but when people get uncertain, they stop spending money and stop investing in new stuff. And that's why, you know, I think SAS is affected by that because a lot of what we do is somewhat discretionary. Um,
Speaker 3 00:07:42 Yeah, it certainly can be. I mean, the closer you get to the money, yeah. This is why I, you know, when I bought Recapture, I wanted it that close to the money because when a recession hits we're probably one of the last ones, somebody would yank out unless they had d you know, a duplicate. I've seen that where people are like, oh yeah, we've got, we're capturing and clavio. I'm like, okay, well, you know, carrying down to one
Speaker 2 00:08:02 Tool, make it work with MailChimp or something, you know? Right. But yeah. Right. It's not as good, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 00:08:06 No, no. It's not as good of an experience. So it is what it is and, you know, at least I know what to expect and I know the farther you get from the money, the easier it is for somebody to cancel and go, well, I just don't need this, you know, cuz I'm doing that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I'm doing that with specific apps I've got. Anyway, we're that's a rehash of what we talked about last time, so,
Speaker 2 00:08:25 Yeah. Yeah. So what are we talking about this week, man?
Speaker 3 00:08:29 Well, I've got a couple of things going on here at Recapture. So I had, I had a really brutal but extremely valuable call with a customer today. So I was sending out, and I don't remember this was a survey or something else, but this guy sent me this feedback and he's been a recapture customer for a couple of years, and he said, said, yeah, I hate your dashboard. And I was like, oh, okay. What would you like us to change? And he said, well, let's have a call. And I was like, yes. Because so many times it's so hard when I want to schedule calls, it's like pulling teeth to get a customer on the phone sometimes when they want stuff, get 'em on the phone. Great. They, that's super easy, but like, when you want something, it's, it can be pretty hard as I'm sure you've experienced as well.
Speaker 3 00:09:24 So I was like, here's a customer he's excited to get on the phone. I'm like, yes. So I got on the phone and literally the guy tore me a new asshole. I mean, it was a very, he did it very respectfully, but it was harsh listening to what he had to say about recapture. Yeah. You know, he, he made statements like he hated our UI and he didn't think that anything on the dashboard was helping him tell how his business was doing or, or other stuff. And while I'm smarting mentally from all of these comments that he's making here, I'm taking just copious, copious notes because every single thing he was telling me was really super valuable. And he actually showed me an example of something he's like, Hey, here's a, here's a dashboard that I think has a lot of valuable information on it.
Speaker 3 00:10:18 And I'm like, oh my God, you told me what you wanted. Uh, and that was pretty awesome. And, you know, I could look at that and go, oh, now I understand. Then I dug deeper with him and was talking about, oh, well what does that mean in the context of abandoned carts? Like, what do you wanna see here? And, you know, he was telling me about, well, I need to, you know, basically he said, I, I, I care about two things. I I don't wanna lose customers and I wanna make more money. So if you have things that are telling me one of those two things, then they're useful to me. I was like, I can work with that. That is amazing. That was a great insight. And you know, I mean, he was saying some other harsh stuff like, you know, I don't feel like there's a big alternative with other solutions in the market that he's in.
Speaker 3 00:11:02 And he's like, if there was, I would switch immediately because I don't like the experience I'm having here. I'm like, oh, oh, oh. But you know, oh, he's also a small business founder, so he totally, you know, like I said, he wasn't being harsh about it, but he was being brutal and honest. Yeah. Um, and he, you know, he gave me some very good ideas that I haven't heard anybody say in such crystal clear terms. So in many ways we were planning to redesign the dashboard anyway, so now that I have this crystal clear feedback in there, I'm like, awesome, now I can rip these things out with some confidence because he told me why these, the things that are there aren't useful and what would be useful instead. And he was even willing to give me some additional feedback later. So that's cool too. So now I've got somebody I can put like a mock up in, in front of and say, this is what we're thinking of, what do you think? You know, and he is also a designer background, so he wasn't a big fan of our material design, but, you know, I can't, I can't satisfy everything there <laugh>, we're not changing that one. I
Speaker 2 00:12:05 Would, um, yeah, I mean I I think first of all, like feedback is, is super important and like our ability to actually accept it is, is like maybe even more important because I think a lot of times, like we as founders have to be like hardened against everything that everybody says to, to keep some kind of focus. Right. Otherwise you'd just be flipping here and there and everywhere after, like, everything that everybody says. So like, I think it's that fine line of like accepting feedback and, and really embracing and like grokking it with knowing when to tell somebody like, I don't care what you think, like this is the way we're gonna do it. I would, uh, one thing that you're saying really scares me, which is, and I don't know if this is what you're doing or you were just kind of over simplifying, but I would a hundred percent not change anything about what you're doing based on one person's opinion.
Speaker 3 00:12:59 Oh, no, no. That was an oversimplification. I mean Okay. We, we already knew. So like he, he was giving me feedback across the entire application about, uh, different things and I was like, okay, I don't know that we're gonna rip everything out, but I do know that this one page over here, based on the time that people spend on it, based on the fact that it gets skipped a lot based on the fact I ask about it and people are like, what's that? Like I, I understand this page lacks engagement, it lacks utility and it very much needs to be improved. And it also shit on mobile too. So like, there's literally everything about this page needs to be upgraded. But, you know, the fact that he was giving me specific feedback about like, here are things that, that would be useful to me in my business and here's why, like, that is an insight I didn't have before about like, what were the two key things. So now if I use those two key things and be like, now I can put that in front of other customers and say, what do you think about that? Um, but you know, I am, let me make it absolutely clear, I am not rewriting any user interface and recapture because of this one guy's feedback, but it was super valuable. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:14:08 And I think that's the, that's the harder thing in general to me is like, um, you know, we were talking about it today, the team and you know, this one experience. And so the like, you know, recency bias, right? This one experience with this one customer makes you think very naturally that this thing is important, you know, but in reality it might be the only time all year you hear this thing, but, but it's got you, you know, it's got your, your whatever whatev what's the euphemism? Uh, it's got your panties in a water, it's got your, y'all riled up about something and it's like totally natural. But I think it's really important to take a step back and say like, does the opinion of this type of customer matter to me? Or am I optimizing for something I don't want more of? Right. I'm not saying that's what it was with this guy.
Speaker 2 00:14:56 Yeah. But like, that's a question I always ask myself is like, am I solving for like a bad customer and a bad customer fit in experience like that? I don't wanna do that. Are there other things like this that I consistently hear and that like, you know, that alone kind of graduates it to like, we probably need to solve this. And then like, I mean, I am a terrible product person, <laugh>. And so like having Francois on our team who is an amazing product person has been like, life changing for me or like product changing for the company. And so like I would just say Dave, like if you have any question about like, making these decisions, like getting someone who is a good UX designer, uh, to help you make these decisions, even if you're a good product person, I think opens your eyes to options and opportunities that like you might not see, you know? Oh,
Speaker 3 00:15:46 Absolutely. I mean, I would consider myself a pretty decent product person. I mean, that's a lot of what I used to do, uh, as part of my job in engineering, architecture, development, et cetera. But, uh, you know, ux uh, you know, that is, that has changed so much and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it changes so rapidly ongoing. So what you liked three years ago isn't what people like today or what was useful three years ago may not be useful today. Yeah. So there's definitely a lot of that in there. But yeah, I think the hard part about being a product owner is that you have to take feedback and then somehow decide, you know, is this valuable or not valuable for what it is I want to come put into the product or have the product do or what I want to come out of the product.
Speaker 3 00:16:37 And then second of all, how do I generalize this person's opinion or this person's suggestion so that it meets all customers needs? And how do I even know what those all customer needs are? Like, those are all tough questions to ask. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the only reason that I was able to recognize that this guy's experience and opinion here were probably representative of everyone else's is that I was already looking at this page and I already noticed a lack of engagement and previous conversations I had had with other customers about, you know, there were widgets on this dashboard. And I would ask them, well, what do you think about this? Oh, I never look at that page. Oh, well what do you think about this? Oh, I don't really understand that, so I don't use it. But then that's all I hear from them. Right? And then this guy that I talked to today, like went in depth, like, I don't understand this graph.
Speaker 3 00:17:30 I don't see why this applies to my business. Why do I care about it? Why is it the first thing that I see here? It doesn't tell me one of my two key questions. How do I not lose customers? How do I make more money? Like, I don't understand what to interpret this here. I was like, oh, wow. Okay. So he was able to articulate more deeply than all of my other customers what really bugged him about this and why this didn't work for him. Now. I mean, there were some other things that, you know, I, I know for a fact that our live cart feed is very engaging. I mean, I can tell you that by looking at Google Analytics, we have some of the highest retainment times on that page of anywhere. You know, I, I would put my, my ga uh, page view times against anybody else. Do you have a page on your website that people spend up to 20 minutes on?
Speaker 2 00:18:18 Uh, no.
Speaker 3 00:18:19 Yeah, I, I don't think most people do, but we do. And that's the live card feed. So this guy was like, he was ripping me a new one about the live card feed. And I'm like, okay. So, you know, I explained to him what it was, how, why it was used, and how it's unique to recapture and really nobody else has this. And then he was like, oh, well yeah, I don't know that that's really important to my business. I'm like, okay, that's fine. I understand that it's definitely not important to your business, but I know that it's important to many other merchants that are using recapture. So that would like, so that made me go, all right, his comments about this piece of it don't have the same kind of weight as he did on the dashboard because I, I knew that I had contradictory evidence that said the opposite of what he was saying about it. So. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:19:05 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:19:05 But it's tough. I mean, <laugh>, you really have to know how people are using your app in order to really come up to those conclusions and not fall flat on your face.
Speaker 2 00:19:16 A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:19:18 Which, yeah, that's just
Speaker 2 00:19:19 Tough. Super interesting. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> super interesting. Yeah, I mean, I I I'll just say that like, uh, I have gotten some really, uh, harsh feedback both internally and externally in the past, and it's really hard to take, um, because I take it personally and I know I shouldn't, but I do <laugh>, um, same. And, um, I think the key for me is being able to take it constructively. And so for me, that has to go through another person, <laugh>, and that's Franco Wall and our team at least, right? Is like, he can take it and digest it and decipher it and put it into a format, which to me is constructive and helpful. And, and then they're like really being able to say a, a decent amount of the time. Like, no, you know, like, I'm sorry, like that you want this thing, but like, we're just not gonna build it cuz that's only for 5% of our worst customer types and that's not what we're optimizing for, you know? And so like a lot of feedback that you get should be no, uh, to me.
Speaker 3 00:20:17 Yeah. And in fact, last week, uh, I ended up with a customer who's one of our really best customers, and they came in and they were like, Hey, we want this complicated segmenting thing. And I talked with my tech lead Mike about it and, and we both kind of came to the conclusion, yeah, this isn't right for recapture. Like it kind of violates our values and it does it like they would be the only ones to benefit from it. And so it was an easy decision for me to kill it
Speaker 2 00:20:42 Or, or just say, yeah, that's, that's, you know, custom development or sponsor development work and it's 15 grand and we can do it in two months. And if that's the case, that's great. Well,
Speaker 3 00:20:53 I would, I mean, we were way more harsh than that. We just said, no, not gonna do it ever. No, no price tag on it fucks with the product outside of our values. It's not part of where we wanna go with it. Done. Like, just not gonna happen. Good for you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:21:07 Good for you.
Speaker 3 00:21:08 So yeah, having values makes a huge difference when you're going through these decisions, especially about product direction.
Speaker 2 00:21:15 Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you had a update about hiring, or not hiring, I guess too? Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:21:21 <laugh>. Yeah, unfortunately it was about not hiring. So we were chatting with this guy and you know, he seen, like, he interviewed pretty well. I thought maybe he's the guy. And so then I brought him in for a technical interview and Mike thought, yeah, maybe he's the guy. And then afterwards we were kind of like, going over this and the hard part was we can kind of only do a part-time thing right now, so mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, that makes it tough for somebody to come on full-time, you know, if they're looking for full-time, we don't have full-time. So that, you know, already becomes a bit of a, a Venn diagram overlap issue. But in this particular case, you know, I asked him a question, I said, so on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most excited, how excited are you to come work for Recapture? He gave me a seven. And I'm like, oh dude, okay. This, this
Speaker 2 00:22:15 Is not, market's not that bad.
Speaker 3 00:22:17 Yeah. This is, this is not a fit. Then like, I really want somebody with enthusiasm to show up and be like, I'm chomping at the bit, can I have the docks early so I can get started? Like, that's the kind of person I want to work with. And he was not that person. Yeah. I, you know, there's nothing wrong with him or experience, you know, he seemed to be pretty calm and level-headed, but we were gonna be a second job for him. He was already working a full-time job. So, you know, he is gonna go from eight hours a day to maybe 11 hours a day plus part of the weekend. Like, eh, I don't know that, you know, is that gonna grind on him in two months and he's gonna quit? Could be. We already had that experience once. So, you know, I can understand if somebody like didn't like their full-time job and they were looking to get out of it, but needed to have that transition. So now they find something that they're really excited about, like a part-time gig. Yep. That would be a perfect fit, but this guy was not that perfect fit. So
Speaker 2 00:23:10 Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 3 00:23:12 Yeah, so interesting. The hiring continues so well
Speaker 2 00:23:15 <laugh> better to learn that now than two months into it when you're pulling your hair out and you have to fire somebody, so
Speaker 3 00:23:20 Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 00:23:21 Blessing in disguise.
Speaker 3 00:23:22 Yeah, totally. So, you know, hiring is hard and finding the right people is hard and making the tough calls is hard. But, you know, I think he ended up agreeing, like, yeah, this is probably not a good move for me either. All right, thanks <laugh>. So no, no, no. Love lost and no, no hard feelings. But yeah, still working on that wild
Speaker 2 00:23:43 Mm-hmm. <affirmative> wild. Well, good luck, man. Um, yeah, I think the big, the biggest update for me, um, is like, I've been doing a lot of sales activities recently and it's, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of fun. Um, and I'm, I'm just trying very hard to stay focused on like, the most important things. It's kind of like with the product stuff, it's like optimizing for bad fit customers. Um, it's just such a, such a trap right now. We could close this customer and give us money, but, but ultimately they, that there's just not, not the right fit. So like, that's just really challenging. Um, and, uh, so like that's, that's been, that's been kind of tough lately, uh, is just like figuring out how to optimize our sales process. I, I think we need to start qualifying leads to where I'm basically only, or mostly getting on calls with really good fit customers.
Speaker 2 00:24:36 Uh, and that that's a, that's a hard thing to do because, um, you don't know always the best questions to ask on like an intake form or something to, to get that, uh, that data in a, in a genuine way, you know? So yeah, that, that's been, that's been like a moving target, but, but pretty interesting. Um, yeah. And then, uh, I, I brought on an executive assistant, I don't know if I talked about this on the show. It's been a few weeks, and it's amazing, man. It's so amazing. She's so, she makes me so much more productive, takes so much stuff like off my plate. Uh, and it's just so cool. Like, I, I've been told by many <laugh> advisors and friends, you just gotta do this, do it. You should have done it last year. Do it now. And I resisted and I should have done it and fucking everyone should do it. Um, I hired her through virtual and like, they have plans starting at like 800 bucks a month. And like, yeah, like, it's just a no-brainer. Like get 800 bucks a month just to do less. Email is like a total win. And then like, it's cascading from there too. Paying invoices and doing podcast bookings and doing sales admin stuff. And it's just like, it's awesome. I can imagine it being full-time pretty soon. So it's awesome.
Speaker 3 00:25:52 Wow. All right. So yeah, I'm still struggling with this as well, uh, you know, on my great to-do list that was very close to the top and I haven't done that yet. So how did you, how did you define the tasks that you wanted to give to this person? And then, like, what was that experience of the onboarding? And from there, like, you know, at what level, what level of trust do you have them right now? Do they do any payments? Do they have access to your credit cards? What do they, obviously they're in your inbox and your calendars, like, can you tell us a little bit more? I'm, I'm curious to know how, how deep this rabbit hole goes.
Speaker 2 00:26:26 So, uh, I think like the first thing is, um, it, it, the experience, the onboarding experience is a lot like training a customer support person to me, right? It's impossible to expect that they just jump in and start doing everything the first day. But like, the very first thing was just like, get Dan Martel's book and read <laugh> read on how he does email foldering, you know, essentially, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, she's got like five tags or folders that things go into, and that was the first thing, right? And so we work on that for a week, and then we work on, um, paying some bills, right? So yes, she has, she has access to the credit cards, she has access to, like our transfer wise and PayPal. I haven't given her access to the bank account yet, but probably will with some like, restrictions in place.
Speaker 2 00:27:11 A and then, like my thing is <laugh>. I document it once and then like, I never, ever, ever have to think about it again. You know, like this bill that comes in every month that I have to pay manually, I'm never gonna pay that bill ever again because I fucking did a loom on it once and I sent it to her and said, Christina, next time this comes in, please just pay this. And like, I just chip away at it like that. So like one thing at a time. Uh, and then like if I just delegate one thing and document it and then ask her to write the documentation for it, like, I just flip on Loom and I'm like, Hey, this is how I go through my email and Hey, can you create the playbook for how you go through email so that if you get hit by a bus, I could, you know, have another Christina that, that does this. Then like, it's a little bit of extra time one time for never having to do that thing ever again. And then we have a 30 minute call once a week just to talk through like, priorities, but that's not like tasks, that's like strategic, like, Hey, we're gonna start doing this thing. And I tell her so that when I send her the Loom, she's not like, what the fuck is Craig you're talking about?
Speaker 3 00:28:08 Wow. Okay. That is very concrete. I feel like, I feel like I could actually execute on that knowing, cuz you know, in my head I'm sitting here procrastinating on this because I feel like I need to have this task list, and then for each list of each item on that task list, I need to define a, an sop. And then I'm sitting here thinking, oh God, okay, how many of these documents do I have to create? Uh, you know, I've got a list of at least 16 things and I'm like 16 documents. That sounds like hell,
Speaker 2 00:28:41 Yeah. I mean, I think that like the, the approach of like, uh, starting just a few hours a week takes a lot of the pressure off of you, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because like, I started with her at 25 hours a month, I think. So like an hour a day, basically an hour of, you know, work week day, and that's not much, right? That's like organizing my email stuff some and doing a little bit of whatever. Um, and so like you can, you can document that over the course of a couple weeks to where that person is productive and, and now like that's done. So I can do a little bit more documentation and, and delegation, uh, each week, so,
Speaker 3 00:29:19 Okay.
Speaker 2 00:29:20 Yeah. Don't, don't think you have to do it all at once.
Speaker 3 00:29:22 All right. So stop trying to boil the ocean is what you're telling me.
Speaker 2 00:29:26 Yeah. Yep. So it's been a really positive experience. Um, but I was the same way. I, I, I mean, I, I had, I think this might be part of the difference too. I've had VAs in the past mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and this person is definitely like not, you know, not a task person, you know, but more like high level Ken, like just say part of it's like we're taking our team retreat, right? And so she's like, Hey, so like I'll research restaurants, I'll research activities, I'll get you the five best hotel options, and then I'll put together the agenda and see what kind of activities the team wants to do. I'm like, fucking a great, we're gonna have a good retreat now <laugh>, instead of me saying, okay, please do this and do this, and this is the criteria for what a good hotel looks like and stuff. It's like, I think there's a little bit of like, if you pay a little bit of extra money, you get a lot of context with the person, you know, and
Speaker 3 00:30:20 Yeah. And she's us based, right?
Speaker 2 00:30:22 She's US based, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:30:23 Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that sounds, that sounds deeply valuable. So,
Speaker 2 00:30:28 And I think we've talked about this before where like there is a time where paying more is worth it because you have to do less. And that's a hundred percent the experience I'm having right now.
Speaker 3 00:30:40 Awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:30:42 That's, you pay $900 for a person in the Philippines and nothing against people of the Philippines. Right? Amazing. We have tons of people on the team Philippines, but like that's a like, Hey Craig, tell me what to do today. Experience, you know, and like, I think generally like college educated folks in the US there's huge generalization, but like can come to you and say like, Hey, just tell me generally what you wanna do and I can run with it and get us like in the right neighborhood at least,
Speaker 3 00:31:07 You know? Right, right. More self, self-motivating. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:31:11 And,
Speaker 3 00:31:11 And independent
Speaker 2 00:31:12 Or oriented, yeah. Orienting, you know, like directionality. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:31:16 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. Um, yeah, and I've had that experience with, uh, a VA in the Philippines before very task oriented. She was very, very competent. But you know, when you ran out of the task, she would always come back to me and be like, what else do you want me to do? And I had to then define that thing well enough for her to go do it as opposed to, here's a general sentence, go run with that. Tell me where you got, where you get stuck. Like that wasn't something she was good at. So yeah, the utility was definitely a different experience. All right. Yeah. Maybe that's what I need.
Speaker 2 00:31:50 And here, here may be the ultimate hack unlock ever. I believe there could be a time where Christina manages a team of VAs in the Philippines.
Speaker 3 00:32:00 Whoa.
Speaker 2 00:32:01 It's just like a time arbitrage, right?
Speaker 3 00:32:06 Right, right.
Speaker 2 00:32:08 I say, Hey, we wanna do this big huge thing, which, you know, is a lot of just grunt work for you, right? You write the SOPs, organize it, hire the person and go do it. Total, totally possible. You know? And then she owns the outcome and understands what Don is and good enough and everything. Uhhuh <affirmative>. And you just, you just say, go own, own the outcome of this thing. Please.
Speaker 3 00:32:30 That's amazing. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:32:33 Love it. So that's, that's kind of the next step.
Speaker 3 00:32:36 Cool, cool. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my mind is blown right now, so I'm gonna have to go and dig into this cuz <laugh>, I mean that really, that really changes.
Speaker 2 00:32:44 Gonna sit on the toilet for a while after that one. Dave <laugh> <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:32:48 Uh, well I was thinking about it from a very different perspective and that I was gonna have to define all of these things and bring on a VA and do this task-oriented stuff and say, all right, when you hit this time of the month, this is what you want to do for these invoices. And he didn't do this affiliate stuff and then do this and blah, blah blah, blah. And that was stressing me out. And so this seems way more usable, way more workable,
Speaker 2 00:33:14 Approachable. Yeah, totally. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Totally. Yeah. And, and I mean, I'm fucking busy right now, so like I don't have a lot of time to manage it either, which I think is huge, right? If you have a, I think this is the other thing. If you have a ton of time and you can make those 11, you know, sop docs, then going for a more cost effective route is worth it, right? Yeah. Um, if you don't pay a little extra money for the person that takes that off your plate,
Speaker 3 00:33:39 That's the short version. And that's where I'm at. I don't have the time to do that. Yeah. And all the other things that I need to be getting done now, so.
Speaker 2 00:33:45 Yep. Yep. Cool.
Speaker 3 00:33:49 Love it. Love
Speaker 2 00:33:50 It. So if you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it too. No, honestly, like Dave and I, uh, we do put a lot of effort into this and, and I know my brain is kind of racked in the days coming up to our episodes, thinking about what we're gonna talk about. And, and I hope that we bring it every week and, and it's valuable and that you get a lot out of it and that you tell your friends. Cuz uh, when folks give us shout outs on Twitter, thank you, Jesse. Um, like it really makes our day and makes us want to come back and, and really kill it here. So, so thank y'all for sticking with us and, uh, I hope that you're enjoying it and if there's anything that like you want to hear Dave and I talk about that we haven't talked about recently at least, um, like let us know.
Speaker 3 00:34:31 Totally. And until next time you know what to do, uh, share the episode with somebody you'd like or leave us a review on iTunes. We'd appreciate both. Take care. Until next episode,
Speaker 1 00:34:44 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.
