00:01.96
Rick
What's up this week Tyler

00:02.31
tylerking
I Got a lot of stuff going on but a lot of good stuff. Um.

00:05.44
Rick
Um, did you find that the two week break is different than the one week break in terms of topic accumulation.

00:10.47
tylerking
Yes, yeah I right? before we talked today I went in and deleted a bunch of topics because my list is like too long I also I have 1 thing on here that well I'll just start with this since you asked one of my topics I'll just read exactly what? What my note says. Feeling a bit overwhelmed hiring I mentioned a few things which I'll provide context on in a second but then excited for things to calm down I put this on the list like thirteen days ago and things are totally calm now and I had one of the calmest weeks in recent memory and so it's just completely irrelevant now.

00:43.26
Rick
Wow! So interesting. So potentially this new cadence could like you could have a problem and then it gets solved before we record.

00:51.42
tylerking
Yeah, potentially I don't know how how did it feel to you having the the two weeks in between.

00:55.75
Rick
Um, given that I'm not fully focused. Um, ah you know on legup belt and this is more of a side thing. Um I didn't It was really nice actually because I didn't feel pressure to come up with anything. It just kind of it worked out perfect.

01:04.51
tylerking
Yeah.

01:09.77
tylerking
Cool. Yeah I expect I'll be bringing more more topics than you most these weeks. Hu yeah yeah, it looks like it could be a a deep dive type of thing well before we get into that maybe I'll give some some shorter updates. So 1 thing ah we.

01:14.73
Rick
Yeah, probably I got a big one today though.

01:29.39
tylerking
We're supposed to meet up for an in-person conference in the spring of 2020 we were both going to go to microcomp for the first time ever and it obviously got canceled because of the pandemic. Um I'm thinking about I've really never been to a conference that I actually gave a shit about at all. I'm thinking about going to founder summit in the fall of this year and it's basically microconf but put on by calm capital and I never know calm company fund sorry ah instead of you know microconf is kind of put on by tiny seed i.

01:52.12
Rick
What's founder summit.

01:56.38
Rick
Ah.

02:05.88
tylerking
There's like a whole history behind these where that's not how it works but that's my basic summary of it.

02:09.00
Rick
Well, you had me at Asheville that's an hour away from my family's lakehouse.

02:12.39
tylerking
I Yeah I Assume you've I actually meant to ask you like I It's cool. Cool place. Fun place to spend some time.

02:16.52
Rick
Oh yeah, it's like super awesome like ah haven't been there in a while. But um, the the brewery scene I've heard has really blown up and it's it's kind of like a big park City Resort Town kind of thing. Um, but ah man. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful area. Um.

02:23.97
tylerking
And.

02:31.60
tylerking
I Yeah I It's currently it's public information but they're just kind of accepting like applications right now I guess but I think if you're an investor or one of the companies that they've invested in.

02:34.12
Rick
Is it open to anyone or is it like investors Only What's the situation.

02:50.77
tylerking
I don't think they're going to reject me if I if I want to go? Um, but yeah, they they had the first founder summit last year in Mexico or in to last year or two years ago in Mexico and it it was also the first one was canceled because of covid. Yeah, so it must been last year then they had a real one but I didn't go because of covid but.

02:50.97
Rick
Yeah, they better. Not.

03:08.78
Rick
Um, that's awesome.

03:09.84
tylerking
Want to go I think yeah unfortunately it's right I have 2 weddings right around then to go to so I'm not sure if I will just for that.

03:17.63
Rick
It's ah that back to back to back weeks of travel can get exhausting you. You had a six September date on here and then it looks like now it's october to change.

03:19.70
tylerking
I don't love it. Especially after not traveling very much for a while. I yeah so if it was originally going to be September six which was perfect for me I almost definitely would have gone now I'm it's like not a great time but we'll see.

03:34.81
Rick
Yeah, well man I was going to say like if you went in September I would plan a North Carolina trip and that's like the best boating weather because ah the lake is super warm. There's no one there because the kids have gone back like a lot of people have gone back to school and that would have been a great time to come like. At an extend extended couple days and come to the lakehouse. Yeah, oh well.

03:54.34
tylerking
I didn't need to hear that. Yeah, but yeah, it's It's cool if people should check it out if you're itching for a a conference I think they do things a little differently from like I think of a conference still is like you go sit and watch a speaker talk and then there's like the. Interactions in between speakers speakers. But like I think this is like a lot less about speakers and a lot more about activities and like just hanging out with people and and forming connections and.

04:21.22
Rick
Goes to the best ones if you can just develop 1 or 2 really solid relationships out of that. It's totally worth the trip.

04:27.79
tylerking
And yeah I'm always guilty about like should the company pay for this or in the past I've like what what I was going to do with microcon is like the company would pay for my ticket but then I would pay for the stuff I don't know it's like splitting it basically just like if an employee of mine was like.

04:41.40
Rick
Um, what's your concern.

04:47.60
tylerking
Can I go do we. We do have a budget from place to like apply for professional development opportunities. But um, someone has to approve I have to approve it and like I just feel like kind of a power trip being like wow I want to go to this thing and it's like Shelley might fly out for the last two days like like to stay two days afterwards. It's like It's not purely a professional like a business expense. You know you think you think I'm stupid. You know why I feel this way you and I used to work at Zane benefits together and um for the first year we were there. They hired a bunch of more senior people above us and I hated the way they abused their power.

05:12.90
Rick
You're the Ceo you're the founder Ceo I think it's okay.

05:26.28
tylerking
Um, like they would always plan their meetings during lunchtime. So oh the company's going to buy me lunch and I was like the company's not you make 5 times what I do and the company's not buying me lunch I hated it I still hate it I'm still mad about that.

05:39.39
Rick
Ah, it's funny how past experiences ah shape Future behavior.

05:44.56
tylerking
Yeah, for sure Anyway, um should I keep going with updates before like should we save yours for last just because you've got a big one or do you want to go.

05:53.80
Rick
Know like got this There's this one's um, kind of a small one but like ah j d and I have been thinking about our longer term strategy our our driving goal for the year is to get to 400 clients which is would put us roughly at Twitter k plus in annualcurring revenue be great place to end the year but um a couple of strategies. We're employing to do that one. We're going to reach out to people directly and just do some basic you know, spam spamming of people on social media and ah yeah, email for lack of a better word, but hopefully it'll be thoughtful and well received. Um, second we're going to.

06:28.88
tylerking
So personalized 1 on 1 outreach right? okay.

06:32.44
Rick
Yeah, yes, yes, that market research is what we're going to call it. Um, but the yeah the second thing we're going to do is we're going to you know Target some employers. Um and see you know explore employee referral relationships and then third ah the the experiments we're running is through. Identifying organizations. Um mission-driven organizations ah in Utah that group together entrepreneurs or ideal customer profiles for us. Um, and so we've identified a list of 100 or so organizations like this. Um. 1 example is like the Utah Independent Business Association um another is something related to like ah like plumbing like the plumber association of Utah um, all kinds of different like small business vertical trade industries. Um one. Ah. 1 we already signed a a partnership deal with um and and but kind of taking a step back here is you can you can become a member of these organization and sort of participate or you can take um, a lot of the ways these organizations make money is you can choose to sponsor them. Um, and pay a couple thousand dollars or $100 or whatever it is and they'll give you opportunities to market to their constituents. Um, which is a pretty important opportunity for us because you know if you think about plumbers many plumbers are on their own in terms of buying their own health insurance and we have the opportunity through an affinity brand to market. 2 plumbers with a very custom message that's endorsed by an association that they trust we should be able to you know make that work. So anyway, we um, we signed our first sponsorship deal with an old organization I used to work with called pando labs which is ah park pandos.

08:10.57
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

08:22.24
Rick
Is park city's entrepreneurial community. Um, and we did some analysis and we realized that 10 of our 50 clients have associations with Pannolas and they have 150 members growing and so we're like this is a no brainer. We're going to go sponsor Pando labs and just because we already have 10 clients there and.

08:38.85
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, because well I was Goingnna say we've done a little bit of this with lessnoing hereum probably not I don't think we are in as good of a position as you to like really target it because you've got like it's in Utah you can just be a little more targeted than us. But we've tried reachanted.

08:41.40
Rick
You know it made So it's a no brainer Anyway I thought that was interesting.

08:57.37
tylerking
Various place ah associations things like that the the ones we've had the most success with are when someone gets up on stage and says I use less annoying crm it changed my business like go there right now. Sign up for a free trial. Don't don't evaluate it. Go sign up for a free trial right now. You can evaluate it during your thirty day free trial but you're going to forget if you don't do it right now and they'll like in an at an event they make 50 people. Go sign up for a free trial That's what's worked best for us.

09:25.84
Rick
That makes so so so much sense and um I'm realizing that Jd and I were thinking like okay what should now that we've paid for the sponsorship which was no small investment like it was ah it's significant. Um I think it was $2000 I mean that's big money for us right now? Um, but you know.

09:38.87
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

09:45.70
Rick
To to get that paid back. We need like 10 10 more clients so which isn't unfathomable and if you multiply that and you know times to get to a 400 it's like wow we can step our way to 400 clients this year pretty controllably if this works. But yeah, like if we're at an event instead of like you know.

09:47.91
tylerking
And.

10:03.25
Rick
Making it about what we do. It's about who uses us that's already a member of Pando versus like what we do.

10:04.90
tylerking
I right? Especially because if you go to these events or is the same like I you know I listen to some podcasts that have sponsors I don't I don't listen to whatever it is right? I'm like there you have an ad at the beginning I ignore it for 30 seconds or skip it. It's really different to sponsor it. I support you sponsoring it. You have to sponsor it in order to kind of get permission to do the rest of it but having the person who's already a member say I use this is just so much more powerful so it's great that you kind of found yourself in a position where you've already got those 10 people.

10:36.86
Rick
Yeah, yeah, totally and maybe that's the strategy for ah ah other sponsorships. You know we become a member first and then once we have some number of members other members who are clients then we upgrade to a sponsorship and you know like explain and expand kind of thing. Um.

10:50.49
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

10:56.13
Rick
But I mean it's exciting to be moving forward on the marketing front. Ah, even though it's like my contribution here is primarily financial. Um J D's doing all the work and like it's his. It's his ideas to kind of push this. So it's it's cool to be moving forward like this.

11:07.94
tylerking
That's that's awesome. That's great. It's It's just so so cool and people do things without you. You know when someone else has an idea and then executes on the idea and you're just like all right I was just sitting here the whole time. Yeah.

11:18.65
Rick
Yeah, totally and ah 1 other cool thing is you know he's he's talked to a couple of other associations this week and I'm not sure what I can share so I won't be in in detail and I need to get in future I'll get more clarity on what I can talk about what I can't um, but you know just some of the conversations like. 1 one organization he reached out to has an existing initiative related to improving Utah -based ah regulations around marketplace health insurance and so it's like. Ah, we yes, an advocacy opportunity. We can partner with you on. Um, how much do we pay to be involved in this like oh no, you, you just will take our help for like we don't to pay. Ah great Let's start. Um, yes, so anyway, um, lots lots of good stuff happening.

11:53.54
tylerking
So yeah, it yeah doesn't get much more targeted than that. That's cool. Great. Um, so for me ah, the main thing. This actually again, this was update was from ten days ago when I was spending more time on it. But we're doing a lot of hiring at lessening serum right now that may sound like we're growing a lot that's not the case but 2 people left so we need to replace them so we've got 2 full-time positions. But then we're also starting to hire for summer like we've got four ish internships. Hire for and then 4 to 6 coding fellows. So that's just a lot of hiring to do all at once. Normally we would have done some in the fall but we didn't because we you know with covid we're like is the office even going to be open I don't we still don't know that but like you got to you got to recruit at some point. So anyway, just lots of stuff going on. And Robert the lead ah engineer posted the job listing on this like kind of nerdy technical site like you have to submit a github poll request to get it like up on the website we this was I don't say it was a mistake but we were not ready for the volume of applications we got from this like we got you know. Ah, hundred in two days or something and had to like take the thing down because we just don't have the ability to evaluate all these people. Yeah stuff.

13:18.87
Rick
That's so funny because I at windfall I'm like in charge of tout acquisition and like we would kill for a hundred applications people. Yeah.

13:21.43
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, I mean they're probably not very qualified. So one of the problems is we we aren't hiring remotely. So like we're in St Louis and this is like a national job board and the hope was like well it says it's in St Louis and there are filters and stuff on this website. So hopefully people are filtering. But. I think every single application was from someone outside St Louis and it's like you know they when we emailed him we're like you get you'd have to move here and they're like yes, but it's not the most targeted group. Unfortunately.

13:42.33
Rick
M.

13:50.93
Rick
Okay, yeah, it it can be pretty frustrating to to to properly evaluate it application. You have to it's about 2 3 minutes per application that's no like that's 2 hours of work that you just created.

14:02.91
tylerking
Yeah, and yeah I think we're probably doing more than 2 to 3 because like we're reaching out to every single one of them and being like will you confirm that you're insane that you're willing to move to St Louis before we even continue here. Ah you.

14:10.17
Rick
Oh. Oh Wow. Okay, yeah, so you're you're taking extra time per application way more than what the typical company does.

14:20.74
tylerking
Yeah, we have someone on our team Emily who's just like a rockstar this like she's just like if she has a process to follow she and she loves it. She's just like churning through these things but it is time conssuming. Um, it's really hard to hire our normal way right now because there are no in-person career fairs. And like normally that would be a pretty big source of interns. Is you go to a college career fair and they do virtual ones but they just don't work in my experience I don't know have you you said you're doing town acquisition have you done any career fair stuff.

14:50.24
Rick
We don't do much college level recruiting. Although I think that will be something we do in the future, especially business school programs and maybe like ah data science is a really important function at Winf fall. So probably do a lot of ph d programs. But.

14:55.15
tylerking
And.

15:05.82
tylerking
You? yeah yeah I mean for a really highgrowth company. You probably can't like hiring a college student especially for an internship. It's like it might be 2 years before you see returns on that yeah makes sense. You should only do that after you're at a kind of more stable.

15:08.14
Rick
Um, not not yet.

15:21.34
Rick
Yeah, it's been in remote, you know we've talked about this in the past. But when you're hiring remote workers. It's much harder to hire someone out of college for that because you they need more coaching that is harder to do on a remote basis.

15:24.10
tylerking
Yeah, so.

15:35.49
tylerking
Yeah I think that might have changed a little I think that's still mostly true, but because colleges have all been at least doing some remote I do think younger people have experience with that now and they kind of know the etiquette and zoom and all that. But I think aside from needing it. They want it like. If you're 22 years old and you just graduated college. You're not like let's move to the suburbs and I never want to meet my coworkers. You're like I'm I'm not I need to go meet someone that I can marry one day you know.

16:01.93
Rick
Um, yeah, yeah, there's lots of ah yeah, exactly priorities are different. But so so what? like so are you done with this or are you like what? what's this state of your hiring you 80% done

16:06.39
tylerking
So yeah, um, yeah.

16:16.51
tylerking
Ah, we've we've not hired anyone I shouldn't say we hired a couple people through like we already knew them so we didn't have to do the full interview but we've we've not hired anyone through the recruiting effort we're doing right now I'm kind of on the 2 end the the book end of both like we start it and I'm involved in like let's plan it make sure we're.

16:25.25
Rick
Um.

16:35.63
tylerking
You know what's the strategy here and then this is kind of cool like a cool sign of growth for the company that then I step away and it's like other people do work leads come in and all that and then I'm normally involved in the final round interview. So I'm gonna have a lot of interviewing a month from now. But for now I'm like. It's mostly off my plate. Yeah, except the coding fellowship which I'm doing all the interviewing because I'm like running it this summer so if we get a lot of applicants there I'm going to be very busy. So.

16:57.40
Rick
Knuckle.

17:07.17
Rick
That's awesome though that I like what your the switch you made did that this year is that you're going after people with coding experience versus people who haven't oh no idea how to code and I think that's a huge improvement that'll make it more fun for you too I think.

17:14.49
tylerking
It Yeah I think it will and it'll make interviewing so much easier because interviewing someone who has never coded at all in in terms of will they be a good code or pretty tricky thing to do ah whereas someone who started learning how to code It's a lot easier to be like all right? all.

17:31.71
Rick
Yeah, here's an assessment take it.

17:32.89
tylerking
Can you do it? Yeah exactly? Um, next up on my list here I think I mentioned this in our last episode but we have ah we we were talking about and have now finalized some changes to the thriving wage. Did we talk about this? Um, okay so.

17:45.93
Rick
We didn't.

17:50.56
tylerking
Context for people who don't know thriving wage is a term that we use at lessening serum. It's kind of like a playoff the idea of a living wage. You know some people say companies should pay employees enough that they can survive I think that's a pretty low bar um a company that's profitable and like making enough money should pay employees enough to thrive. So. Thriving wage is the lowest amount we will pay any employee regardless of what they do It's not about their their value to the company or market rate or anything like that. It's just like we will not pay anybody less than that if your market rates above it will pay above it. Um, so in the early days we set the thriving wage as it starts at $50000 a year right. Which it and keep in mind we're in St Louis 50000 goes further than it does on the coasts. Um, and you get a guaranteed $10000 a year raise for your first seven years so up to 120 so that's what it was so basically all the customer service people and in particular are on the thriving wage and so that was what we paid. Customer service people with me so far. Um I yes, that's right now the the 50 k every month we adjusted for cost of living. So I think it's like fifty seven thousand a year now because this was years ago that we set that. But yes, ah.

18:48.88
Rick
Plus 50 k and then you got 10 k per raises for 7 years up to hundred Twenty k total yeah

19:07.50
tylerking
So basically the idea just came up that um, that's really backloaded like it's it's very expensive for the company but a lot of employees still have to go a few years where you know 57 k is fine. You can definitely survive on it but is it really thriving in St Louis not if you have kids probably and we're trying to do more having people work four days if they want to which they only make 80% and if 80% of that is even less so we basically said should we try to frontload this more. Um and so we decided to we'll see we're hiring right now so we'll see how this this goes. But um, the new model is. Raise the starting rate by 10000 so it's 67 but instead of $10000 raises every year it's $5000 raises every year indefinitely. So not. It doesn't cap out at any point. It's just forever. You get $5000 raises a year

19:57.10
Rick
That sounds like a good change. How does it affect existing people. Um, that have already been with the company for a year

20:03.30
tylerking
Ah, we offered it to everyone to switch but I did the math on every there's 1 person who started very recently and so she was the only one where it's like which one but like for everyone else that's like you're already past the point where you would have benefited from this new approach and now you're on the backloaded part. So I was like you can switch if you want but I did the math and you shouldn't basically so I didn't hear anything from anyone on that. But the the new hire did did decide to so and that to me was a big I was waffling back and forth on whether to do this but the fact that she wanted to switch to me was like.

20:25.16
Rick
Who.

20:38.44
Rick
Um, ah yep, totally.

20:40.47
tylerking
That's a pretty good sign that this is more appealing to people. Yeah so I don't know that I have any other really takeaways for that from that aside from this felt like a really like important part of the company and I I like changing stuff sometimes just to like. You know break the crust off and remember that we can change stuff and.

20:57.41
Rick
Yeah, and not not just I don't it sounds like this wasn't just a change. It was a significant improvement.

21:03.75
tylerking
And yeah I I think it was it was like a 2 step forward 1 step back type of thing like it's worse in some ways. Um, but it's better in most ways I think I hope yeah I also like the simplicity of not capping it out where it's like we we just started having people hit the. Hundred and twenty whatever thousand and it's it's a lot less satisfying being like well your one year anniversary hit. We give you a cost of living adjustment have fun. So now we just get to 5 k every year forever. Um, all right I'm not sure if I want to talk about this next one yet. It's.

21:32.51
Rick
Yep.

21:39.88
tylerking
Let's let's move on and I may come back to it but it's it's not time sensitive so we can.

21:42.24
Rick
Cool I've got um you know I had a really interesting demo today every time I see a use case for async video I just get excited. This has been true for about a year and a half now and I don't know what that's telling me that maybe I should be doing something with that. But anyway I'm reconnected with a former colleague from.

21:50.49
tylerking
I yeah.

22:01.13
Rick
Za benefits people keep days who's now the ah head of engineering for a company. Um ah called videopeel which is a Utah -based ventureback company that does video testimonials and basically what they've built is like ah a form ah builder for video. Testimonials to be submitted or any type of testimonial but primarily video being the use case and then a way to embed displaying those video testimonials on your website. That's an oversimplified simplified version of this but um for a company like legup health where it's a very transactional service and you sale. But highly emotionally complex where trust is very important. It's it's it's not um, like we need validation. Third -party validation I thought maybe video ah video testimonial would be a good idea for um, for us in terms of helping with you know building trust with a potential new client. And increasing the likelihood that they would make us the agent on their existing health insurance plan. What are your thoughts on that. Um I guess and shout out like it was cool to learn about async video another async video use case and um, but like I guess my worry my my the reason I'm sort of down on it is it seems like some people would be less likely to It seems like a big ass to ask someone to record a video of themselves for your marketing purposes.

23:18.82
tylerking
Yeah, um, so before I dive right into that I just want to mention another product that does this testimonial dot two dot like Dot T O I don't know if you're familiar with them sounds like basically the same idea but maybe like a little less enterprisy like I think it's more plug and play from based on what you said um and made just.

23:27.91
Rick
Um.

23:38.42
tylerking
Disclosure made by a calm company fund company which I'm investor in. Um, yeah, so my experience here is I have given a testimonial with testimonyimonial that to what you say T O to to ah for Calm company fund. Yeah.

23:39.59
Rick
Um, me.

23:51.96
Rick
Dio yep.

23:56.52
tylerking
So lots of it's very incestuous. What's going on here but I loved it I was very happy to do it because I'm I'm a big believer in what they're doing and stuff I don't think you so your concern is that it's too much work like it's too big of an ask.

23:56.84
Rick
Yes, it is.

24:11.12
Rick
I know I know I think it's I I just part of the reason async video isn't where it could be is people are uncomfortable sharing video of themselves. So I I feel like for every for you like you're on the front end of most tech. Um and and you and I are both on the front end of like. Async video adoption but like asking ah an everyday leg up health client to do a video testimonial seems like a big ask. We're not like really.

24:37.64
tylerking
I think you might be surprised by that. Um I my I think the last couple years has has really changed a lot and here's why I say that we use this product called demodesk to do our phone calls with customers like any schedule not that they can call us inbound over the phone. But if they schedule something It's always on demodesk. Um, demodesk is I love the product but something really annoying about it. Is it prompts everyone to like turn on their video and we're not trying to do video stuff with our customers. Ah they customers turn their video on all the time for these calls where our video's not on. We don't turn ours on but theirs is.

25:10.30
Rick
E.

25:16.20
tylerking
And to the point where like I've I've started being like people are just way more comfortable with it now than they used to be.

25:20.88
Rick
Okay, well maybe um, it seems like something worth testing. Um, but like at some point how many of these do you need to have in order for it to be not weird like not it like too few.

25:28.93
tylerking
Yeah, so I I put oh um I don't think you need that many because I was actually going to go the other direction once you have more than a few like someone's not Goingnna go in and watch 20 video testimonials I don't think and.

25:43.53
Rick
Yeah, what's the minimum number.

25:48.00
tylerking
1 so there are probably different ways to display it like again Testimony ah too has like the wall of love is what they call like lots like it's a wall of all of these testimonials but you just wouldn't embed that view. You'd embed like here's my homepage with 1 video testimonial I don't think that would be weird at all.

26:02.28
Rick
Okay, well Ne now you're getting me excited about this again I went from like this is super exciting to oh man this is going to be like more complex than I thought it was going to be now I'm back up to this is going to work.

26:13.48
tylerking
Yeah I think it could now here's I thought about doing this for lessnoing serum and here's why we didn't so we we ask a lot of people for reviews. This is one thing I'll just say if you're running a business and you're feeling like oh this is a big ask should I do it like this is the one way we're comfortable being annoying. You just have to ask your customers to to review you publicly like that's so important but we want it on third -party sites because that that way you don't just get the review but you also get this kind of like distribution through you know g 2 2 r captara or one of those sites. And they do have video testimonials there but that's why we aren't doing this is we don't want to. We don't want to invest in just having reviews on our own site. So.

26:58.55
Rick
But like you I agree um that reviews on third party sites are probably more valuable but like for 2 or 3 people if you get like why? not the value of like 2 or 3 of these is probably worth more than 2 or 3 g 2 crowds that you would miss out on.

27:09.42
tylerking
You're right? yeah.

27:13.85
tylerking
Yeah, you're probably right? Um, probably both right? You should probably have like we have hundreds of reviews on g 2 and then ah probably on our homepage having a couple video testimonials would be nice as well. Yeah.

27:26.66
Rick
Yeah I Wonder what would add though, you're pretty well like social proved. Um, you know with your current layout.

27:33.90
tylerking
Yeah, it's it's more engaging though I'll I'll say so g 2 at 1 point just started they they solicit video reviews without we didn't even realize it and I went on and like watch one I was just like wow it. It is so much more powerful like I I like kind of choked up a little watching I was like this person's just.

27:50.50
Rick
Um, oh Wow Okay, cool. It's worth yeah like I thought I can believe how expensive the the software was yeah yeah.

27:50.89
tylerking
Saying nice things about my business. It's incredible. It's so different from reading a text review. So anyway I like the idea I think you should go for it. These are expensive though. So.

28:04.51
tylerking
So yes, it's seventy bucks a month for video peel.

28:09.69
Rick
And I mean testimonial too isn't I think it's like sixty bucks it's right there too.

28:12.70
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, um, it. That's a you know with saas pricing. Everyone's like well you know all they have to do is get 1 customer and it's worth it. It's like yeah, but if I've got 25 saas products and they're all fifty bucks a month I don't know it adds up quick. Um, all right I've got a funny story for you or I think it's funny anyway. So this all happened yesterday. Ah, do you use Ahrefs or arefs I never know what to call them so one of the features that I love is they email you periodically with like new inbound links to your website right. Which is so cool right? like Seeingn. It's just like a list I never log in to ahrefs I just get these emails and enjoy them. Um, so I got I got that email ah, one of the links caught my eye because it was from a podcast called ui breakfast.

28:49.79
Rick
Yep.

29:06.70
tylerking
Which I don't I'm not like a super regular listener to but I have listened to it I know of it. Ah, it's like it's not like a super major podcast but it's it's legit and I was like oh cool they talked about lessening serum on this and then I was like oh wait. No this is a podcast about design and like I doubt. Professional designers are talking kindly about our design. Yeah so I went and listened to it. Um, Jane Portman is the host of ui breakfast and she has a guest on each time and Brian Lovin who's a designer at github I have not heard of him before but I guess he's a fairly well-known well-respected guy.

29:25.21
Rick
Who So what did it? Do you know what? the reference was.

29:42.88
tylerking
At The very end of the Podcast. So I listened the whole thing and at the very end. She's like I'm probably going to paraphrase this wrong but something along lines of she's like so like does design even matter like what role does it play and he's like well I I Want to say it matters but there are companies that are just ugly that are doing great and like off the top my head less knowing Serums One of these companies like I don't know how that. They they figured out something customers want but it does not look good.

30:05.88
Rick
Ah, did it hurt your feelings at all or is it like ah ah, kind of a pride prideful moment. Ah.

30:10.20
tylerking
Yeah I was proud anytime anyone talks about less knowing serum like you've heard of us. Oh amazing. Ah, but and he he was a little kinder than that because he did kind of say like business is about providing something customers want and obviously less knowing serum's doing that. It's just like when you look at it. You know your first impression's not great which she's absolutely right about I agree with them. But so then check this out. So I I thought it was entertaining I looked him up on Twitter cause so first I had I had a few realizations right? then because he mentioned it the and he's like I have my own podcast I talked two weeks ago when we set our goals for this year was like I want to become a better designer and like I bought a course that I'm like very very slowly going through and stuff didn't occur to me like follow designers on Twitter and listen to podcasts from designers like of course I should be doing that I do I do that with everything else I want to learn about and.

30:59.90
Rick
You know what though? Um, that's exactly what happened to me when I decided I wanted to get better at Javascript is I signed up for a course and then I realized oh wait I need to be supplementing this with following people on Twitter and listening to podcasts but it was the course that drove that because it was like It's Supplemental. It's not the forcing function itself. So I don't know that it be interested. Do you think that if you just followed the designers and started listening to podcasts. It would be the same as investing in a course.

31:20.34
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

31:31.29
tylerking
It certainly wouldn't be the same here's the trouble I'm having with this course on other courses I've tried is like I have a lot of experience with design I may not be good at it. But I have a lot of experience and so I'm just trudging through all this shit that I already know hoping at the end they'll get to some other stuff. Ah, a really great thing about following like this is a podcast for other professional designers and they just skip right to the advanced stuff. So. It's definitely not the same I think you're right? It's supplemental. But I think there's a good chance This course fails for me, but that following the right people works for Me. So.

31:55.59
Rick
Um.

32:05.78
Rick
Yeah, like when you're when you're learning something for the first time the course is really important when you're looking for inspiration and like ah going from really really good to expert. That's a whole nother approach I'll be very interested to hear.

32:18.90
tylerking
Yeah.

32:22.00
Rick
Whether the course does something for you or you go like wow I should have just been following people on Twitter and listening to podcasts this whole time.

32:25.57
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, because like like learning to code well not learn I learned to code in school but being becoming a coder like you and I worked with Ben Dilts he taught me a whole lot. He's the founder of lucid chart. Ah. Then I moved to San Francisco and a bunch of my friends were software engineers at Google and Facebook and places like that and I just just like hanging out at the bar and talking to them and hearing their stories like that's a great way to level up and I don't have I love living in St Louis but there's just not that level of like top-tier tech people.

32:54.57
Rick
Yeah, and what people will take for granted is it's really hard to level up by being a fly on the wall in those conversations until you have a base level understanding and that's the course gets you to the base level so that you can be a fly on the wall I could like I remember I was listening to syntax is it Syntax Fm is that what it's called.

33:01.53
tylerking
And.

33:06.81
tylerking
Yeah I like that.

33:14.38
Rick
I remember trying to listen that podcast a year ago and going I don't know what this is what they're talking about and then now I can listen and follow it and under like follow the conversation because of the base I built um, ah what? um do you have any other ransome shoutouts you want to do? oh my gosh. Okay.

33:22.19
tylerking
I yeah for sure I well I've I've got more on the same one. The story's not over yet. So I have been thinking for months because I've been working on this redesign that I'm called like version 3.939 I been working on it and like I think it looks a lot better than the old version of the site but I can tell like it's still not It's not all the way there and I've been thinking I just need like if I had a friend who is a great designer or like I want like 5 of these I just want to show it to people and have them be like that spot that spot in that spot. Those are the things that look the worst and then I could spend time on them. So I'm looking at this guy Brian Lovin's Twitter account and his pinned tweet is I'm trying a new thing called crit where it's like a small fee and I'm just gonna I'm not gonna like design anything for you I'm just gonna like critique a design you have and so the same day I found out this guy was talking shit about us on this podcast.

34:13.34
Rick
With.

34:17.21
tylerking
I Become a client of his. Yeah yeah, so I dmmed him because what I want is a little normally he does like kind of a whole holistic like Usability and all this stuff and I dmed him in as like I want this critique thing but I only want visual design like.

34:18.33
Rick
Has he replied to your request.

34:35.23
tylerking
I'm not moving anything I'm not changing any buttons I'm not changing any of the copy I'm just making corners rounded and changing colors and stuff like that and he was like great. Yeah,, let's do it So we haven't we have a call scheduled for Mid -february but so I haven't like talked to him live yet. But yeah I'm now a client of his. Um, because he he talks shit about us. Yeah, who do you want as a client. Ah so I thought that was funny.

34:55.13
Rick
So who should we talk shit about today on this podcast that will become clients of ours. Yeah, can that's but that's so perfect like. Maybe that's better than a course too or a podcast. It's paying people consulting to give you advice.

35:11.66
tylerking
I Yeah I've done so way too little of this I think when you when you look at other like kind of bootstrapped indie hacker type people that just like seem to get almost an like an unbelievable amount of stuff done with by themselves or with a very small team. But they're always so good at is outsourcing stuff and my approach is always because like teambuild is one of the main things I enjoy my solutions always like hire a full-time employee which means if we don't have the budget for a fulltime person I just get nothing right. Um, So yeah I think I think this could be a I need to do more of this in the Future. So.

35:45.82
Rick
There's a significant difference between um, a team member and a coach and like a coach like that's what you really want here is a team of coaches. Um sitting around you like making you a better designer. That's and how much will you are you willing to pay for that.

35:58.31
tylerking
Yeah I mean a lot. Um, that's I mean I certainly haven't thought about it. Um, um, this particular engagement's going to cost $5000 um

36:03.66
Rick
But your budget for coaching.

36:11.53
Rick
That seems so worth it I Mean then if you took this to your employees and said where do you guys need coaching and what budget do you need for your coaching efforts.

36:16.97
tylerking
Yeah, right? and we've started doing this a little bit with devops like my brother handles devops and he's very good at it. But he's never done it. He's never even had like like for me coding I worked at a tech company. He's never even done that before um and so yeah, he's. Like starting to get dabble with talking to consultants and stuff like that. But yeah, we could do. We could definitely do more of that food for thought I like it.

36:43.32
Rick
Yeah, for sure. Um, so do you have any more ranso shout outs I've got the big topic. So are you good to go into that. Okay, so um.

36:48.82
tylerking
I do but I feel like I'm dominating here. So if you've got anything else. Go for it. So yeah,, let's let's go into it.

37:01.41
Rick
J d and I are in discussions I may have mentioned this on the last podcast on the last episode but we are in discussions to bring him on and have him go full time on leg of health um, which is requiring a conversation around like compensation and. I like your approach to compensation like if if he wants to if Jd wants to share it great I'm not going to share those details but we're pretty aligned on like what year one compensation looks like and how that could ramp up over time. Um, but I don't know if you remember this but we had a conversation on this podcast in 2020 when I was. Or 2020 I think I was twenty twenty because when I was first conceiving leg up health and I was like like trying to figure out how to like make the website around my beta clients and I was like worried about this. Um, how to recruit a partner and I I went back and listed the episode today on my walk and. First of all like I was so much more abrasive on this podcast than I think I am now and I was like it was like painful to listen to myself be just like annoyingly like ah I don't know what the right word is like just abrasive. Um, yeah, old old me was was.

38:05.41
tylerking
And I hate listening to old old me.

38:11.48
Rick
Not I was disappointed in um, but but and you were trying to tell tell me stuff and I was just like ah grilling you with questions and not listening to anything you were saying but like I was like I was like shut up Rick like ah, let him talk because I wanted to hear like the details of your partnership program anyway, do not go listen to that episode. It's embarrassing if you're listening to this. Um. Thought we could, but we left the episode with you saying when you get to the point when you actually need to bring on a partner. Why don't we revisit this and dive into them but details again. So I'd like to do that. Um, and the situation is real simple like it's a this is not a company that I want like makes sense to give equity. Shares for um, but I do want ah j d to have the feeling of being a partner the feeling of being um, an owner of the future of the company. Ah the feel the real upside. Um and potential. But I but I don't want like. There to be like this formal equity thing with expectation around around like exit and that sort of thing and so um, we I just I read I revisited slicing the pie and I think that guy in that book brings out some really good endpoint points about how if you set percentages.

39:11.14
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

39:27.48
Rick
And try to dice the pie up too early. It can backfire because people get greedy or feel like it's unfair once you've actually realized what you've built so we may still be too early at Legupel to properly divvy up like what a profit share might look like but I would just love to get your take on how.

39:40.85
tylerking
With.

39:47.20
Rick
Jd and I should approach establishing a partnership plan. Um, in addition to a strong compensation plan that incentivize like long term commitment um over a 10 year period

39:58.87
tylerking
Yeah I I know what your goals are with him like what you hope he achieve what's what's your financial goal with the company. Do you think.

40:10.27
Rick
Um, that's a fair question. Um, so the more I think about leg up health that's I I I've gotten to the point leg of Health where it. If if the problem went away that we're solving I would just close the business like I wouldn't try to force it. Um, which is a very freeing place to be with it. Ah so it's very much like a I would love to be in a place where it could support. You know it could be my my day job.

40:28.90
tylerking
Yeah.

40:43.48
Rick
Um, and I would love to be able to you know grow um and have like team members and it to support jds um life and then yeah would I would love for it to cash flow millions and millions of dollars a year, but like yeah I guess that would be like the upside scenario is like. Cashing millions of dollars a year but I don't need it to um I could I could start another business that solves that problem if I needed to it a different time. So I really want um a company that works that ah you know allow provides ah and ah a choice between.

41:04.85
tylerking
I yeah.

41:22.27
Rick
Taking cash out of the business or putting it back in and bringing more people on. Um so kind of like I don't know yet I Guess what I want but I know it's not purely financial.

41:27.88
tylerking
I yeah, okay so the reason I ask is like a lot of what I did at lessowing serum you could say is stupid but I don't think was stupid and it's because I like for like you know you know this but are you know there's 4 partners in our arrangement. Is. We just all make the same amount of money. Um I could certainly look at it and be like well I'm the Ceo and I was the founder the head of customer service who wasn't even a founder and isn't currently doing a job that would normally be paid as much ceo why is he getting as much as me I don't fucking care. You know. Ah, but you know I think a lot of people wouldn't feel that way. So like I kind of wanted to get a sense of like how much it's easy. You have a lot of power over Jd here. It's easy for you to he can't screw you over, but it's really easy for you to screw him over but also your life's easier if you're just like. Ah, you know if I give up a few points more than I needed to note no problem.

42:29.70
Rick
Yeah, so I would definite So what you're saying is air on the side of generosity and over giving like but at the same time. It's like it doesn't matter like I'll fix it later like I met the point now where it's like ah if it was it became a problem. It's easy to fix.

42:43.39
tylerking
Well some of these things might be contractual. Um, yeah, and then um I had one other thought. Oh yeah I.

42:47.70
Rick
Yeah, okay.

42:54.89
Rick
There's a there's a point there that you're making um that I want to call out I think but we're not saying it. It is like there's a lot that can go wrong by putting something like this together down the road and it requires a significant amount of. Trust.

43:06.86
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yes I totally agree with that and I want to add on though like there are things that people would view as failure that is not failure like oh the the company's putting out twenty million a year and only getting 5 of it. What.

43:09.11
Rick
Ah, to work through those situations.

43:23.92
tylerking
Like why did I give up so much of this. It's like you're getting five million a year like what are you complaining about you know where I I think you need to be much more careful with the cash flow right now because that could ruin the business but it's not going to ruin the business if you get a little less rich than you could have otherwise when the upside kicks in.

43:27.87
Rick
But me.

43:43.45
tylerking
I guess that's that's how I look at it anyway. Um, another thing you mentioned no equity like 1 thing I did that I feel really good about I'm actually thinking andub doubling down on it and and doing this with all employees not just the partners. We do like some kind of profit sharing thing but it converts to equity if the company ever sells.

43:58.81
Rick
So I do want that so I don't want to create equity but I want like like I don't want to call it Phantom I Hate the word Phantom it sounds Evil Um, but like I want to create like the so scenario or simulation of equity so that if the company did transact.

44:03.60
tylerking
Yeah.

44:17.90
Rick
It would convert to equity and it would work out now still in that situation If we're like what I want J D always know is like if we're in the situation and it's not right? like we're going to have to figure how to make it right? like but because I hit.

44:27.14
tylerking
So right? but you can always give him more but what this is about is saying I can't give you less than this. So um so I've been thinking about doing this with our whole team because but the the older we get the more I'm like I'm not selling this thing and even if I did sell it I'd probably get like.

44:32.37
Rick
Yes.

44:44.30
tylerking
7 to $10000000 if if we sold right now. Maybe ah like why? why not promise a million of that to other people given that I think the odds are so low anyway and just get buy in because there's so many cases where I'm asking employees but well okay this the Mailchimp thing happened while we were on our hiatus.

45:03.66
Rick
I Didn't follow it in detail I did follow it at the time but I don't remember the details.

45:04.12
tylerking
You follow you follow that Mailchimp Bootstrapped company fully bootstrapped no investors at all. Ah, and they'd been saying all this the same thing I I'll always say and the same thing you're saying how we never. We have no plans to sell and many employees have come out and been like they were very public. Maybe they didn't promise they wouldn't sell but they said we have no plans to sell and that's why we don't give out equity. They just sold for $12000000000 or whatever and they gave employees like 5 figure bonuses like not big bonuses and like a lot of people were pissed about that right? it would be so easy to just say. If we were to sell. You're taking care of but I totally agree with your point that the the complexity of giving equity right now. It's a nightmare because like a now you have to get lawyer. You have to get lawyers involved either way but like more complicated lawyer stuff. Um, there's like certain rights that come with equity like can they.

45:59.68
Rick
Tax implications.

46:00.12
tylerking
Boat on stuff now and taxes. Absolutely yeah, they might have to pay taxes for unrealized gains at some point which sucks for them. So yeah I'm I'm a big believer and I agree with you that the Phantom stock is a weird name but something like that. Okay, so we're on the same page there.

46:05.52
Rick
M.

46:17.67
Rick
How would you approach having this conversation knowing what you know, um about like what you've learned at less knowings here im like I think the difference here is I can't go to Jd and say I want to build a company to exit and we're like to take it to the to the to the Mark like you were in a situation when you first started where you.

46:18.60
tylerking
Um, so.

46:36.73
tylerking
Yeah, just still thought we wouldn't exit.

46:37.14
Rick
Believed. You're go to be this highgrow startup I'm I'm not that. Yeah but still start with thought you wouldn't nextset I'm not I don't have that mindset So it's like I can't I'm not selling this big dream and I like so I I can't like make that mistake. Um.

46:46.44
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

46:51.87
Rick
And benefit from that mistake in a way So I'm just curious like how you might approach it with your wisdom.

46:53.15
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, this is like I feel like tremendous imposter syndrome here. So take everything I say with a grain of salt I Think what I do is I'd I'd walk through like what are possible scenarios. Um, for you know the outcome of the company one is yeah.

47:01.37
Rick
For e.

47:12.18
tylerking
It doesn't really work. It just keeps you know what it is right now. Maybe a little bit of growth but not much another is it grows but you know what I always do 3 3 of these I don't know why but kind of ah, optimistic, normal and pessimistic case and then just say like how would everyone want to be treated here. Um. And I think it's very reasonable to say in the pessimistic pessimistic case Jd had done makes sense for you to be here. We should not come up with a compensation model that works for you in this case because I'm hiring you. This is actually something I kind of regret with the partners. It didn't matter to people we we had 6 originally 2 left but um, something I would. Change if I could go back is like it's your job to do this thing if the if if you're not if the company's not doing as well as we wanted. It's at least partially your fault and you should suffer more consequences for that sort of um, but then yeah if it's if it's an okay outcome I think you could just say like let's say the numbers are this. Revenues. This I think we probably need this many employees. Let's say it's this these are the expenses like what do you think Jd you should get for that. Do you have enough trust with him that you could have that conversation. Okay, and what what came of it.

48:18.88
Rick
Um, we've actually already done that um well I mean so the way we did It was in a sort of desired outcome driven by his desired outcome financially versus like the business scenarios and then like divvying up the business Scenario. So It would be interesting to go back to our model that we built to so to do these scenarios and and say like let's be realistic about like the actual scenarios now and then talk about like have a conversation around like what do you like? What do you think you should get because that would be interesting because it's not around like. Whole numbers is about percentages in that case.

48:54.11
tylerking
You Yeah I mean it sounds like you're're. You've already got some constraints like you're probably going to do something like a base salary or maybe like a salary plus commission but something more like an employee getting paid right.

49:05.62
Rick
Oh yeah, like um, yes, yeah, but like it's not what JD's market rate would be if you were going to go get a job somewhere else. So like how am I compensating for that. That's where this profit sharing comes in.

49:18.48
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, so the really classic way to do this if like let's treat it like equity. Ah you say the company's valued at a certain amount What amount below his market rate is he getting paid. Um, what if just take that money and invest and buy equity with it in the company. How much could it buy.

49:36.85
Rick
That's interesting.

49:39.41
tylerking
That's the the hard thing about that is there's so many numbers you just have to make up but it's at least maybe a framework but.

49:41.14
Rick
But then but then you also have the situation of like I'm investing money into the company that kind of like I hate this is where it gets all complicated where it's like there's also a financial contribution but I guess that just adds to the pie and yeah, okay, no I think that's fine.

49:55.72
tylerking
Um, now a nice thing about the Phantom stock thing is unlike equity like so like I mentioned two Partners left I am so glad that they do not have equity now. Um, yeah, now we have we have a yeah yes so they were.

50:05.17
Rick
You have to deal with them ever again. How did you did you have reverse vesting set up for that.

50:14.42
tylerking
1 was here for 2 years another two and a half so the system we have is ah they keep getting their payout now when they left we weren't making enough to trigger any payouts. But if if they had they would keep getting some payouts that gradually decrease over the amount of time they were with the company so 2 or two and a half years respectively. But ah. We're way past that point now.

50:34.60
Rick
I've read through some of your Docs but can high at a high level. Can you talk about like how profit cheering works How that's divided up against around for partners. What percentage of for example is available to partners from a profit sharing standpoint that kind of stuff How does it break down.

50:47.30
tylerking
So yeah, yeah, so we don't have a good system for being like what do we call profit. It's mostly just like at the end of the day I can decide to pay out. Whatever I want. Um.

50:57.80
Rick
Um, well I like that that actually way better so you can decide like we're either going to do a profit distribution or not and here's how much it is if we are going to do it.

51:05.17
tylerking
Yeah, and you know I think as long as incentives are aligned. That's fine where it's like I can't make any money from this company unless I pay money out. There's no way for me to get money without everybody else getting money? Yes, um, so.

51:16.56
Rick
In addition to your salary. So your your salary is so something separate.

51:24.13
tylerking
Sort of yeah the way we structure with partners is we said like let's call $100000 a year or like if 1 of us leaves and we need to hire someone else. Maybe we can do it for one hundred thousand a year that's like probably overly simplistic, especially because like you couldn't hire some of these people for $100000 a year. But um, that's what we said. So. Call that salary even before I mean originally people we were making less we were making sixty but it was like we'll keep we'll give ourselves raises until it's a 0 we're not calling this profit share at all. That's just you got to raise if you leave that money goes away immediately because we need to go hire someone else anything above that hundred thousand and again if I redoing it I might pick a different number or be a little more nuanced about it. But this is what we did anything above 100000 is profit. So if I want to pay myself more than a hundred thousand take the amount subtract a hundred thousand. That's what that's the amount of profit I'm giving myself. Um and then we have a an. Even split between partners up for the first million of profit million per person. So if I want to pay myself a million dollars I have to pay all the other partners a million dollars and actually it's one point one because it's the hundred thousand dollars salary plus the million dollars of profit right. And then anything above that we have shares and and like I get more than other people go on and.

52:42.30
Rick
This solves my problem I think this solves my but I think it solves my problem because um I don't know exactly how to how I don't. Part of my problem is like I want it to be the incentives incentives being aligned. Um I don't like I don't want to set a profit percentage like oh we're going to distribute I don't want to make a decision today about how much profit distribute in the future that was one thing I was getting caught up caught up on like is it 50% of profits that we distribute after a certain amount of profit.

53:10.16
tylerking
Yeah.

53:18.35
Rick
Like why? Why am I making that decision today. Great I don't want to make that decision. So how do we set the the rules so that it's fair for me to make the call and it's all about incentives if Incentives incentives are aligned then it takes care of this. So if profit you don't say like.

53:18.80
tylerking
Yeah.

53:35.77
Rick
We're going to do profit share and here's how it's split up. You say if we do profit sharing here's how it works if it's not just profit sharing if we do any distribution. Um, in addition to you know salaries This is how it works.

53:41.39
tylerking
Yep, yeah.

53:47.58
tylerking
Yeah, it still takes like a little bit of trust like the really is there are a number of ways I could screw over partners like someone leaves and it's like well you have 2 years of reverse vesting I'm just not going to pay myself for 2 years and wait for you to reverse vestment then I'll start pay like yeah, any deal you come up with there's ways to screw people over. But um. You know I think it ah at least sets reasonable expectations about this stuff and.

54:06.74
Rick
Yeah, sure yeah and and there's some yeah I This was helpful. It's a it's a go ahead.

54:13.34
tylerking
Cool and yeah, got well I was I was just gonna say like you know when when we came up with this I was thinking we're gonna be a billion dollar company one day and you know making millions of dollars a year per partners nothing now I'm like I'm never going to make more than ah, a million dollars a year like I'm I'm at two zero nine right now. 12 years into the business but again so okay I made a I made a deal that pays the other people the same amount as me I could like beat myself up over it. But why.

54:40.97
Rick
This is a mind warp. Um, first of all, thank you for sharing that? Um, because I think I kind of wish I've told you this a couple times I wish in a way that I didn't have your experience with this because then I could pretend I was going to be building a Billion-d dollar business but I would believe it you know like and.

54:57.56
tylerking
I Yeah oh it was fun to believe in it. But.

55:00.20
Rick
I could sell that? Yeah um, so but but um, where was I going with this oh like 1 one conversation that came up with j d and i's weekly check-in this week was one of the selling points of leg up health for both of us over the long term is the ability is the seasonality of the business right? Like. Um, it's a very seasonal business which if we can make work it means we can we work really hard for four or five months ah but then we have massive flexibility outside of that and the question came up is like was that when does that become available is that today like we'll know because.

55:27.21
tylerking
That that's awesome.

55:37.99
Rick
Need to build the business so we're creating this business that provides flexibility but we don't get flexibility today and but those are the types of conversations we're having right now that are super important because but but even though this isn't like high-grow startup. It's still.

55:46.28
tylerking
The.

55:56.74
Rick
Building a business and it requires a level of effort and commitment that is far Beyond What what like it looks like once we're where you are today.

56:05.24
tylerking
Yeah that's really interesting and it reminds me of something that I think we should have put more thought into which is like what happens if bracken wants to go part-time or what happens if he retires before me um he shouldn't get nothing from. Because like part of what he's getting is mimicking ownership but part of what he's getting is for the work. He's doing um that sounds even more important for you because what if Jd wants to take advantage of that flexibility before you do or what's actually happening right now is he's working and you're not really. Um, now. Maybe that's what the salary is for but yeah, like in the future 10 years from now if if 1 of you if you're not fully aligned on that what happens.

56:51.54
Rick
So to maybe talk about how yeah how do you have that conversation. It's it's It's very um, yeah, interesting.

56:56.57
tylerking
I yeah I don't know I now I'm not worried about it at less annoying because like over 10 years of working together. You build up a lot of trust and it's like we'll figure it out and like I've had every opportunity to screw people over and I haven't so I don't think anyone's worried about it. But you know. Like my brother and I at least had this conversation between ourselves about what happens I don't know what happens with the partners because they don't actually have ownership but we've we've already been like 1 of us can quit and keep their full salary like at this point the money we making we're we're just working for fun. We've we've had that conversation.

57:29.36
Rick
so yeah so I think you said it to make any of this work. You have to have a level of trust that's really high and the goal of any sort of documentation around this is to sort of buy buy trust that you don't have today so that you can. By the time to to build it for the future when you actually need it for something else. Um, so like that's that's what this is like it's putting something in place to get us to a certain point. Ah where we'll probably need what by then we'll have the trust that we need to deal with whatever you know. We we we might face and at that point in the future I don't know that that came out wrong. But yeah I think you get the idea.

58:09.90
tylerking
I like that although it's it's easy for you and for me to say that because the reality is you control everything and Jd controls none of it.

58:16.68
Rick
Yes, yeah, yeah, but so that's that's exactly right? It's like it is giving a level of control. It is me giving up a level of control um in in ah to to to establish trust that um things will be handled in a certain way if the.

58:25.92
tylerking
I yeah.

58:35.91
tylerking
You and I something people don't do enough of I think some of this needs to be like a legal contract that you sign that if you breach the contract he can sue you but a lot of this doesn't a lot of this could be ah a Wiki article where you say here's what I think.

58:36.60
Rick
If things go well.

58:54.44
tylerking
You know here' are some expectations I'm setting I'm not signing this I'm not putting my name like I have this at lessening serum where I say I'm not going to pay myself more than ah 10 times what the lowest paid employee or 5 times what a inex experienced employee makes ever. That's it's not It's not signed anywhere but I'm telling you that and like if if. If I'm lying revolt right? destroy my company if if this is a lie I think it's fine to do that to set expectations without it being a legal contract.

59:23.47
Rick
I agree. Um, but a legal contract does provide security it. It makes something more real and there are times. Yes, yeah for sure and and let's dive real quickly into like that when when does it make sense to do it via Legal contract versus not like it seems like when you're.

59:29.58
tylerking
But some of it needs to be for sure.

59:42.71
Rick
Trying to address and ah ah, something that a deficit make up for a deficit. The legal contract is a big deal whereas if this is like icing on the cake. It's not as big of a deal to paper it whereas like so so when someone's taking a pay cut in exchange for something like that's where illegal papering would.

59:50.36
tylerking
And.

01:00:01.42
Rick
Make more sense so I'm thinking of JD and I situation but like if yeah, we're 10 years from now and we're adding a new benefit um papering that on top of like everyone getting paid really well is is less important.

01:00:02.56
tylerking
Yeah.

01:00:14.48
tylerking
Yeah, well certainly if you're giving something to someone else that they had no leverage to demand from you. Yeah, you don't It's like yeah you know you could not get this or you can get it like you're not really in a position to demand that I sign a contract saying you're going to get it. Um.

01:00:31.25
Rick
Ah.

01:00:34.27
tylerking
Yeah, but another another aspect of it is just certainty stuff. You know about like even if you're wrong if you can you can come up I came up with this. We all get paid the same month thing you could argue whether that was the right or wrong approach but it needed to be certain. It wouldn't be appropriate to five years later be like actually I don't like that. But there's a lot of stuff that's uncertain and you can just acknowledge that and and but still say here's the plan here's what I'm thinking. So anyway, that's probably not an important point but it sounds like you're you probably need to think about this but you're circling around you're gonna do yeah, you're gonna tweak the tweak. The knobs a little bit but.

01:00:56.90
Rick
M.

01:01:06.28
Rick
We're really close.

01:01:10.70
tylerking
Similar probably to what to what we have in some ways.

01:01:10.13
Rick
very very much yeah and um, my main goal is just like let's get something in place that lets Jd go for full full time and get some the resources he needs and then you know build trust execute and you know if it doesn't go well none of this matters. But like if it does go well.

01:01:22.00
tylerking
Yeah.

01:01:30.50
Rick
I I you know be able to be in a position a year from now to improve it based on learnings. So.

01:01:34.64
tylerking
So yeah, Ah, one final learning I had or just like a thing to avoid um, you're much better with legal stuff than me. So I doubt you'll fall into this trap when we tried to have Lawyers. We. We had a number of ah 3 different law firms try and write this up. Lawyers same way accounts are in the business of like minimizing your taxes so aggressively and sometimes it's like okay, stop like you're making my life really complicated and I'm fine paying Taxes. Um Lawyers try to screw everyone who's not you ah like that's the the business they're in and we had a really hard time.

01:01:59.93
Rick
Um.

01:02:07.69
tylerking
Getting a lawyer to write something that was actually fair to to the other partners and in particular like phantom stock is a concept that exists other companies have it and it's real. They have a million provisions in there to like here's why we're not going to pay you. That the company can always wriggle out of it and we we fired our lawyer over this. We were like you have to stop making this so one-sided and.

01:02:29.68
Rick
Yeah, I'm probably just going to draft this myself for that very reason. Um, um, anything else you want to cover today.

01:02:32.72
tylerking
So yeah I didn't have that kind of confidence. But I think that makes sense. No, we're just over an hour here so this feels like a good stopping point.

01:02:44.50
Rick
Yeah, thanks for that vice and I'm I gosh I don't go listen to that episode because it was like so painful. Yeah, more maybe I still sound that way if something was different where I was just like oh god.

01:02:52.85
tylerking
Really two years ago you I feel like we'd hit our stride. No i.

01:03:02.27
Rick
I wish I could delete this episode anyway. Ah, personal growth is is good though. Um, well if you'd like to review past topics and show notes visit startup to last dot com see you next week

01:03:06.47
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:03:12.77
tylerking
See if.