How to be a mentor when you aren't knowledgeable about a topic

In this episode, we discuss how to connect employees with mentors when there's not already someone at the company with expertise.

00:41.36
Rick
What's up this week Tyler I'm good. Yeah, it's forced energy. It was a late late night last night. Not a lot of sleep and I was sorry coming towards the end of my day and ah.

00:54.59
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, oh um, good good I Ah just bought tickets to founder summit this fall. We talked about this.

00:57.84
Rick
And I got a couple things after this. So um, oof yeah oof is right? What do you? What? how are you doing.

01:10.34
tylerking
Ah, few episodes ago that I was is considering it. But it's official now. Um so going to Asheville North Carolina um kind of my bordering on first real conference ever which ah is kind of exciting and scary I don't know I don't know if I'm going to like it or not.

01:23.64
Rick
And he says Asheville that's that's awesome that's where I grew up man.

01:27.33
tylerking
But it's kind of outside Asheville. But yeah, yeah, it's gonna be cool. They they're calling it the like camp conference or what it like it's meant to be more of a camp vibe as opposed to like a conference center type thing. So.

01:39.35
Rick
Um, are they is It is it at hotel or do they have um like glamp glamping situation set up.

01:47.42
tylerking
It's kind of like a complex around a lake that as I understand it. It's kind of like a hosting events business but in more of a summer camp type of setting. Yeah so it should be cool. Um, yeah.

01:57.84
Rick
Cool you're going to camp see goal. Basically you gonna be in you gonna be in like cots and and Bunk beds.

02:05.30
tylerking
I Guess there are there are glamping options I just went with the like give me a normal hotel room option. Ah yeah, we'll see how that goes? Um, ah yeah, which is now called Calm Company fund. Yeah yeah, um.

02:14.40
Rick
And that's just to be clear founder summit is associated with earnest Capital Call Calm Capital That's right Calm Capital fund. Okay calm company fund. Okay um, cool.

02:25.70
tylerking
That's right calm calm company funds. Ah um, yeah, yeah, good point. Thanks for pointing that out so founder something. It's not exactly one ah hundred percent owned by calm company fund but they're like 1 of the people who put it on I think as as I understand it? Um, but related to that I also have. As you know I have been an investor in calm company fund I think I decided I'm not going to renew this year um I don't know if this is of interest to anybody. But yeah and I should I've got I don't have any juicy I don't have anything bad to say it's been great experience I just kind of.

02:51.30
Rick
Um, it's extremely interesting to me So tell me why.

03:02.60
tylerking
Assessed the stuff that I'm doing and I was like this I don't care about the returns I don't want and then well actually what was happening is I was doing taxes and I got two K one s and two K three s which are the new international ones and I was just like. Isn't the point of having money to have an easier life. Why am I making my taxes harder here like I don't understand why I'm doing this So I've got nothing bad to say about ah calm company fund at all just I have no reason to be investing in anything other than like a Vanguard Index Fund. So I'm going back to that.

03:31.80
Rick
That they ah well I'm I'm curious. Ah I mean I assume that doesn't solve your problem. You're still going to have capital in the calm fund. So you're still going to get K one s yes. Okay.

03:43.14
tylerking
Yes, but the way they do it. It's like a rolling thing where every year is a new fund. Um, and so I'm two years in now. So I get 2 of these but I'm like 10 years from now. Do I want to be getting 12 of these like no I do not so I'm I'm cutting my losses there.

04:00.51
Rick
Gosh It's cool.

04:01.56
tylerking
I Do still believe in it I think I everything's going great from from what I understand about the companies and stuff. So I think it's probably a really good investment but I just don't care.

04:07.35
Rick
Are you showing returns on your key 1

04:12.53
tylerking
I Don't no not yet I don't think yeah well and yeah I did I will say I kind of I'm glad I did it because like there's all this have you invested in any of this anything non public before.

04:14.78
Rick
Cool. So it's really just like a purely administrative Burden with no upside yet.

04:26.93
Rick
Gotten a K one before but not for the same thing that you're talking about.

04:31.60
tylerking
Yeah, so it was an interesting learning experience just in terms of like like technically I have a share of liabilities and there's like the management fee they take out gets counted differently I Still don't really understand it. But I I understand it a little bit better. So I I am glad that I learned a little bit about how that world works but probably not interested in.

04:50.70
Rick
And so you're just going to go straight vanilla index funds like I'm curious like 1 of the reasons I feel like you did this was it was kind of part of your reevaluation of like how you spend your money and your time around like what makes you happy? Um, and one of the things that makes you happy is.

04:50.75
tylerking
Continuing investing.

05:03.78
tylerking
So.

05:09.94
Rick
Podcasting and audio equipment and so like you invest time on this episode and you buy really nice mics like $10000 mics I'm just teasing it's like a thousand dollars mike yeah for afford another Mike that seems like a lot of money. Um, but like another one was like investing and and start to last like companies bootstrap companies. Um, what.

05:17.15
tylerking
So four four hundred dollars Mike but yeah.

05:26.11
tylerking
Um.

05:29.62
Rick
What what are you going to replace this with if it was kind of a filling that passion project void.

05:32.59
tylerking
Yeah, good questions and 1 thing I should say is I think that they're going to be happy when they find out I'm not renewing because I'm at like the very lowest level. They they don't even allow people to get in at the level I'm putting in and they have this cap of like 250 investors so I was probably taking up a spot from someone who would have been paying more. I find that comforting if it was like oh without me these companies aren't going to get funded I would have more of a passion for it. But it seems like they've got plenty of investors these days. Um, yeah I had been accounting that money as play money. Not long term and but like savings is what like I counted it at 0.

06:08.81
Rick
M.

06:10.93
tylerking
Like it's all going to go away just because I have no idea so I'm probably going to put some of it into vanguard just because I have extra money. But yeah I think ah probably travel I'm not I'm not like huge on travel I don't know if if you are but like Shelley loves it and I listed this as one of my goals for the year is to like.

06:19.80
Rick
Nice.

06:29.55
tylerking
Budget for to to make Shelley Happy budget for more travel and so that that'll go towards that.

06:32.81
Rick
And I think you also admitted that like the last couple trips you've done where you've you've up to the ah accommodations a little bit. They've you've been like hey I can get used to this.

06:42.45
tylerking
Yeah, that's definitely true and it's not that I dislike travel I Just I don't have the the itch. But yeah, if if you're like staying in nice hotels and stuff. It's definitely a lot more fun I still have never really flown business class or above and I never want to because I think as soon as I do I'm going to want start wanting it I.

06:50.97
Rick
Cool.

07:00.40
Rick
You've never flown first class.

07:02.40
tylerking
Someone gave me a first class take like they swapped with me but it was from like Detroit to St Louis it's like you know you never even really take off you just it's like a 30 minute flight so ah that's the only time I've ever been first class. Yeah.

07:13.24
Rick
Yeah, it's really nice when you're doing like cross country stuff. Um, well this is kind of interesting news. Um a leg up a national leg up health competitor that sort of took up a boil the ocean approach for the past five years um to

07:18.44
tylerking
Um, anyway, ah that's a lot of blabbering for me. What's going on with you.

07:33.80
Rick
Marketplace health insurance services. Um, it looks like they're going out of business. They're doing a hard pivot. They've laid off a lot of people. Um and shut down their primary service. It appears I don't know for sure if that's happening but like I'm not going to say the company name just because I don't want to I don't want to do that. But it's um, it's a pretty big deal. Um. So like 2 things go through my mind when something like this happens like it's like kind of devalidates your business model to a degree. Yes, right? like ah and so maybe it's like bad but then at the same time I go look at like how they were operating and like the style that they were doing and the way they're approaching. It's like.

07:57.54
tylerking
Right? right? Why didn't it work for them.

08:09.51
Rick
Exactly why we like we're doing it so differently. Um, as simple as like focusing purely on marketplace insurance purely on Utah um, taking a service approach. It's just like they're they're trying to make the old way work in today's world um of agent driven like lead buying you know.

08:22.56
tylerking
M.

08:28.22
Rick
Ah, kind of commission-drive and it didn't work. Um, so I think I'm good with it. But but anytime your competitor goes out of business. You're like oh like what does this mean? So um, we're going to reach out try to buy the book for Utah um I don't think that'll happen.

08:35.60
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

08:41.65
Rick
Um, but at least off like figure out that there's a relationship that we can have um that could benefit both parties. Um all all stakeholders involved like that. You know that company. Um their current marketplace clients. Um and like up belt.

08:52.91
tylerking
That would be amazing. So I know you said it probably won't happen but just the the possibility of it is kind of ah you know, even if it's a 1% chance that's kind of exciting. You get the impression. They have a lot of clients.

09:01.91
Rick
Oh yeah I I think so um, ah you know I can't say for sure but they've been around a while they had some 1 thing that I that they did that I did like is they partnered with a lot of Ah, firms like people keep that have employer employee relationships. Um that need individual health insurance so that they had something there that I think if we could replicate and make work is pretty interesting. Um, and so like getting those relationships. Um for Utah would be cool. Um, but then more importantly, like i.

09:27.20
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

09:36.62
Rick
They've been around a while and they raised a lot of money. Um, so they had to be doing something. Um, so they'd have some sort of traction in the no.

09:37.20
tylerking
Right? Yeah, although did you see the when fast shutdown did you read the news about that they were valued at like they they raised I'm going to make um $300000000 or something like that and they. They just shut down and it turned out. They had $600000 in lifetime revenue I think was the number so sometimes companies raise a lot of money and make make nothing but you never know. Do you think there's any chance that they they are shutting down for reasons I know you said like they they were probably taking a different approach from you and all that but like it's it possible. Just.

10:01.99
Rick
Um, I mean.

10:13.93
tylerking
Can't employ knowledgeable staff at this price or I know you said like vaguely you could be concerned about that but have you gone through that exercise of thinking through what it might have been. Yeah.

10:22.30
Rick
Yeah, um, and I will just I won't share details but j d's already had a call with the founder and like debriefed on all this stuff. Um, but I'm not going to go into details on that out of respect but high level. Yeah, like they do. They were taking a very different approach and the highlevel feedback that we got on our approach. Ah, from this this ah individual was like validating like our our go- tomarket approach. Um, you know everything from like focusing on 1 state to 1 line you know of service to um, you know trying to trying to develop um a go-to- marketet approach that is not dependent on sort of out.

10:45.24
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

10:58.84
Rick
Ah, you know, lead purchasing the the historical lead purchasing um that agents are are are used to buying.

11:03.58
tylerking
Got you cool? Well ah, that's that's exciting. Um I mean not not I appreciate your professionalism of not ah trying to dance on the grave or whatever here. But ah, do you fought? Do you listen to the art of product podcast. Um.

11:14.92
Rick
Me. I don't.

11:22.82
tylerking
Ben ah from tuple and Derek from savvy Cal Ben so tuple is a pair programming app. The previous version was screen hero which not not previous version but there was a pair programming app called screen here that then got acquired by slack and then slack after Ben started tuple slack. Shut down screen hero um or something like that and you can kind of go listen to the podcast of like how much it helped tuple to have a competitor shutdown like that and not not to say necessarily that your situation will be the same but like it in that case it was a pretty big deal for him.

11:56.60
Rick
Yeah, interesting. 1 thing that's pretty cool about that business is that's a very niche business like online like very focused like no geographical constraints. Um, what's what's challenging about our situation is like the good thing is like we're focusing right on Utah.

12:08.38
tylerking
Right? right.

12:15.67
Rick
But in this particular case this this this business served all states and so like we're looking at like a sliver of their like ah the opportunity for us like is such a sliver within a sliver within a sliver that it's like yes, Yes, exactly? um.

12:26.40
tylerking
Yeah, right? Yeah, is it even worth their time to sell you the book of business. Ah.

12:33.63
Rick
So so like you know it's it's in and the duke. It's not like a 1 to 1 type thing um like like that situation you had which would be amazing opportunity.

12:39.69
tylerking
Yeah Gotcha Yeah, cool, um all right back to me I Guess Ah, we're working on a lease renewal for our office which I am not but so we have like a stupidly good deal already.

12:50.45
Rick
Are you are you negotiating so hard.

12:59.47
tylerking
And in a sense. It's like real estate prices like commercial real estate's down a lot right now because so many companies going remote and stuff but I went into a thing and they're still going to raise our price just because our original deal was so stupidly good and called the landlord up and he was like let's just keep the deal if that works for you and I. Yeah I probably could have negotiated more but I'm like this is an outrageously good deal I'm happy with that. So. It's not Final. We stuff to work out like so for anyone who's never done like commercial leases. They give you a price per Square Foot. So Ours is going to be $10 and it's like 80 in real cities.

13:33.23
Rick
Um, what is what is it currently 10 So you're getting the same price. Okay, cool.

13:36.87
tylerking
10 same price. But then when you do that. There's a certain amount of that. That's actually an allowance to pay for a buildout right? I know like with people keeps office was it already built out or did you do some of that there I yeah okay so basically the landlord.

13:46.34
Rick
We got it. Ah, it's Ti Tenant improvement allowance is what it's called and we did get a ti.

13:56.64
tylerking
Gives back a certain amount of the money in the form of yeah, improving the space. Um, so the negotiation now is like how much improvement Do we get? Um, which honestly we don't need much but I'll see what I can get. We're probably gonna yeah so you've been in our space. There's.

14:00.49
Rick
Tenant improvement. Yeah.

14:08.96
Rick
What are you going to build something ridiculous.

14:15.30
tylerking
We built the office at a time where we we used the office differently. We used to have all of our desks with everyone's main desk was in this big open office area and then we had all these private offices that were kind of up for grabs like if you need to take a call go in one of them after the pandemic when we came back, we flipped it to everyone's main office is 1 of the private offices which means. The the setup of the open office can be totally different. So the main thing we're doing is we're tearing down this huge wall that divided the office in 2 because before it was like if you want to make a whole lot of noise go over there and if you don't want noise go over there now. It's like make noise everywhere because everyone has a private office. Um, so that's the big thing is just tearing down a wall which is nothing but.

14:47.85
Rick
Nice.

14:53.52
tylerking
Building a couple more private offices trying to change the conference rooms up improve the bathrooms A little stuff like that.

14:57.37
Rick
Improve the lighting but you probably do some like depending on how much you get, You could probably do like some little aesthetic things that are like not big changes to the um to the you know layout or anything like that but massively improve how it feels to be in the office that could be cool.

15:09.60
tylerking
Right? Yeah,, That's true, all the I actually kind of ah our aesthetic in the office has always been like a little rough around the edges like it's not fully polished and I actually like that I think that if things are too Nice people start to. Feel a little sense of entitlement I've had this at other companies I've worked at where it's like you know you may not feel like like at a small company. Everyone has to chip in and like run the dishwasher sometimes and do this and that and I kind of like having an office space where everyone it's very obvious this is not Perfect. You know.

15:44.90
Rick
Yep, that's that's fair now.

15:46.73
tylerking
Kind like the Jeff Bezos ah back in the day didn't everyone at Amazon have to like go buy a door at home depot and build a desk out of it or something stupid like that is like ah something like that. But.

15:55.44
Rick
I've never heard that that sounds great though you have to wash your own dishes at lessnoing serm and and serve your own lacroix. Yeah.

16:03.51
tylerking
Um, it's a hard life. Um, yeah, how about you back to you.

16:10.80
Rick
Um, well we're laying some goose eggs the past few weeks on finding icps um icps stands for ideal client profile for legup health particularly this is someone in Utah who buys marketplace health insurance currently so we've been doing this. Prospecting campaign to you know, try to reach out and profile Utah consumers that we believe have a high probability of being icps. Um, but with our outreach we have you know ramped up but we we had some so early success and then we tried to ramp up volume. With some tooling and some automation and we've had less success and so um I want to call out jd in a really good way. Um, this week. He kind of went through a reflection point on Tuesday or Wednesday prior to our meeting that today we meet we sync weekly on Thursdays he um he he basically said listen I I think like.

16:47.65
tylerking
Oh.

17:05.66
Rick
Need to take a step back here and go back to prioritizing quality over quantity. Um, and I think we we need to go back to the basics and it's less about volume right now. It's more about genuinely building connections with the community. Um, and you know getting answers to questions. Um, and so we identify that he's he's identified that basically like.

17:17.30
tylerking
Right? right.

17:25.32
Rick
Problem isn't that we're not identifying people that have a high probability of being icps. The problem is not our ability to like execute it like you know against like the the tactical stuff. It's really like we're not getting responses to our outreach which means. We're not resonating with the person that we're reaching out with so he's going to kind of go back to the drawing board and continue the same effort but be a lot more thoughtful in his outreach. This is all driven by him I had nothing to do with this and I actually think that this is going to result in. Some quick wins over the next couple weeks as he you know instead of doing 50 outreaches a day goes down to 5 or 10 um I think he's going to have a much higher hit rate and as a result get more icps.

18:08.98
tylerking
Yeah, how like how many customers per week or however, you want to define it. Do you think you'd feel good like not right this second because I realize you're still experimenting but like a month from now if I set a number right now. If I said you're getting. 3 per week like does that make you happy or Sad. Do you know? what? you? what? you're hoping for.

18:25.33
Rick
If we got one per week year -round like every week we could just count on getting a new client per rep that we have that would be outstanding because I believe that one one new client per week turn like.

18:33.36
tylerking
I.

18:40.80
Rick
The year round turns into 4 new clients or 5 new clients or 10 new clients per week during open enrollment.

18:44.23
tylerking
Yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, like you you don't need this scale. You don't yeah that makes total sense. Um I'm curious though as I understood your process before it sounded like you bought a big list of contact info. No, you didn't yeah.

18:59.43
Rick
It's all been a self generated lists based on JD doing searches on Linkedin on Google and association type stuff and then sort of we buying data to enrich those lists.

19:02.79
tylerking
Okay, gotcha so gotcha. Okay, yeah, 50 doing fifty per day of that sounds very very tough.

19:14.56
Rick
Yeah, and and I think like if you're doing a 1 tomin approach like it may work but like to get responses on a consumer level like this. We're going to need to be like hey I noticed your dog's name was Jeff and I really like that name like do you like your dog I like dogs. Um.

19:24.37
tylerking
Yeah.

19:31.80
Rick
Do you buy Health insurance on the marketplace that kind of like but that level of personalization is what we need? Yeah um, but yeah, like developing relationships with our potential prospect. Ah with our prospects so that we can qualify them and just slowing down and.

19:33.75
tylerking
Yeah, that right I hate those emails but I know they work. Yeah, okay well. Bummer.

19:50.10
Rick
I'm I'm happy about this for 2 reasons. 1 think it's the right decision in aligns with our purpose like I think part of this was j d listen to our podcast about mission mission values and heard me like talking about purpose values and kind of like in addition to like laying some goose eggs. It's like oh yeah, like we can we prioritize service over growth.

20:06.29
tylerking
Right? That's awesome.

20:09.22
Rick
And it empowered him to make this decision. The second part is like we don't have any pressure on growth like this is the advantage of being a start last can you imagine like if you're laying goose eggs at a venture capital backed firm and you come in and say you know I think I need to let let off the gas Pit Pedal a little bit.

20:24.74
tylerking
Um, yeah, that would not be Yeah, they'd be like okay you're fired who's and who's going to try next I Yeah I think something that doesn't get talked about enough. There's all kinds of arguments in favor of bootstrapping and against raising from venture capitalists and stuff but one of the things that.

20:28.80
Rick
Yeah, exactly and that's what happened to our competitor.

20:42.12
tylerking
Is said but I don't think said enough is just how many ideas how many businesses will we could never succeed in a way that a venture capitalist would consider success but absolutely could. It's not just that it takes longer and and you have freedom and all that stuff. It's also just like the business fundamentally might work. Under your leadership and it wouldn't work if you went and raised a bunch of money That's very possible. Yeah.

21:06.18
Rick
Yep Thousand percent um one related thing I have on here I'll just shift to my next topic which is um, one thing that's happening is we're noticing that there's a lot of like small business owners have these side conversations about these problems. You know like. When it's something that's like somewhat emotional and like hard but they don't know where to go in Google they don't have time to go on Google they turn to like an email list of like people that they trust and they go like hey John hey chase hey Steve like hey Laura you guys are business owners. What do you do to solve this problem like. And I think that's what's happening with health insurance in our target market and I want to figure out how to get leg up like and then those guys reply with like I use. So and so to do this or you should do this or anyway I got forwarded one of these these lists in the past couple weeks um

21:48.89
tylerking
Right? yeah.

21:56.59
Rick
And thank you to shoutout to who did that I really appreciate you. Um I know you listen and I appreciate you? Ah anyway I got forward to this list I saw this conversation had been going on and like replies and no one mentioned leg up health and I I want to get like up health like I think like if we can get to the point where in Utah if small business owners are like.

21:59.89
tylerking
This here.

22:08.75
tylerking
Yeah, like.

22:16.51
Rick
Having these side conversations about what to do with health insurance if they have less than 10 employees if we if we can somehow be like oh you should go. You know the that what hobspot is to like marketing automation like Crm or I want to be that for health insurance and ah, we're not there yet.

22:28.38
tylerking
Yeah, yeah I mean that's that's the dream. A nice thing here though like this does kind of happen Automatically I feel like in a way that is kind of exciting like people talk about anything including crm but they talk about Health insurance a lot more than they talk about Crm I think.

22:44.51
Rick
Maybe.

22:46.36
tylerking
Like the conversation you're talking about I've been in multiple times. Ah, if you just had more market share to begin with you would get mentioned right? They they didn't mention you because it's It's a chicken or the egg problem. But it's encouraging Even if you never if if you don't intentionally tackle that. If. All you do is just go out and keep getting more clients. You'll be mentioned one of these days. Yeah.

23:06.64
Rick
I think so right? like yeah and so it just if that that comes comes back to the conversation of like some businesses like work for this bootstrap model and I think that's something like I think there's like. Some amount of clients that we get in Utah that all of a sudden it just like starts growing by itself and maintains by itself just through word of mouth and I don't know exactly when that what that threshold is but I think it's a lot larger of a number than what I originally anticipated.

23:25.30
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

23:32.35
tylerking
Yeah, do do you plan like you made this observation. What what you want to be to do? Do you think you're going to attack like attack this directly where it's like let's go try to figure out a way to get in that conversation or anything or is it just like a. Run the normal playbook and this will happen naturally.

23:52.56
Rick
It's an interesting question like I think like let's let's break that down a little bit because like what needs in order to be mentioned on those conversations like what needs to happen either. We need to be like have someone on the list as a client who is super happy which in this particular case we didn't um or.

24:02.78
tylerking
Yeah.

24:08.85
Rick
We need to be so like have so much brand awareness and association with that like conversation and that topic that it's just like it's sort of like ah oh you know you? oh you need auto insurance like go to http://geico.com you know and I I think like.

24:20.87
tylerking
Right? right.

24:25.79
Rick
Both of them are extremely time conssuming to accomplish and expensive to accomplish one thing we can control right now is I think dialing in our messaging um and getting super clear about what we are and what we stand for so like what is legup health. Well, it's this what is legup health. Well, it's this and it's like. Drilling that um now is probably something we control. The rest is sort of just time. Um, we don't have the money right now to invest in radio campaigns billboard ads um and you know local Tv advertisements. Um, but we I think we do have ah the ability to you know grow our client base through hard work and. Think we can tighten up our messaging and say like hey like when someone says this think like up health what is that what is this I don't know what this is.

25:05.64
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yeah, 2 things that stand out to me from that one on the positioning point. Yeah, just telling people reminding people to that they can do this might change their behavior. You probably don't have enough customers yet that that matters enough. Well um. I'm I'm interested if you would consider like I know you said you can't do billboards and this and that at last makes serum. We've been playing around with various marketing channels recently as I've talked about on the podcast. Ah a lot of online advertising is incredibly cheap and you get 0 conversions from it because people aren't ready to buy like basically all display advertising like Facebook you can. Target people easily? no one's going to buy health insurance probably from that but they would see it would you be open to more like brand I don't know if this is the right term but I would call it like brand advertising that isn't meant to convert.

25:53.50
Rick
Yes, but I just don't know how it like it seems expensive.

25:56.75
tylerking
What we found? Well maybe Facebook's like lying about their impressions and stuff you can get in front of a whole fucking lot of people for pretty cheap maybe on a per click basis. It's expensive. Um, but well and then retargeting is another great thing here where you can just I don't know. It might not be as expensive as you think I don't know what your budget would be but.

26:17.30
Rick
Yeah, so I think like super so long-term. It's definitely in my plans to once we have a solid database of like icps like hey these people are icps if we can match them to their digital identity and then like market to those people like that is really interesting. Um.

26:26.70
tylerking
So.

26:32.90
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

26:36.16
Rick
But we have so right now if we just went to Facebook the signal to the noise aspects of like being able to target the person and the people that we want to target I feel like I have low confidence that we would be spreading our met our our our brand to the right people.

26:49.67
tylerking
Yeah I agree and we stopped doing it. Um, also it's it's you can't measure it really if the point is not to get conversions. How do you even decide if it's worth it. But anyway if I don't think you should do this. But if you were like I really want to be recommended in that and you just wanted to shortcut the hard work that would be 1 way to do it.

27:06.52
Rick
Yeah, yeah.

27:09.47
tylerking
I see this in the calm company slack all the time where people go on and like I need ah a pen test or I need a sock to audit or whatever and a lot of the replies are like well everyone uses this company I've never used them but everyone does and it sounds like that's kind of what you want to be? yeah.

27:23.55
Rick
Yes, yeah, like what do you like I'm in Utah like what do you guys? do to offer employees for health insurance like this is ridiculous like talk to leg up health I've heard great things about them. You know they they have a unique approach that's all like just just an introduction would it's all we want.

27:35.94
tylerking
Yeah, um I Ah I don't know when it's happened but I feel like less annoying serum is often in those conversations now which is kind of cool like I mean there's. Ah, Thousand Crms. So. It's not like we're necessarily in everyone's top 3 list or whatever but I do think more and more when when we talk to people and are like how you know had you find out about us. They're just like I don't know like you're one of the crms you know and that's cool I like that.

28:03.92
Rick
yeah yeah I can't I can't escape you when I start talking about cms like my friend tells you me about you my Google tells me about you and then all of a sudden now you're retargeting me on Facebook yeah, what else is ah going on in your world.

28:09.10
tylerking
Yeah.

28:14.36
tylerking
Yeah, not anymore though we stopped that didn't work. Um, it's been a while since I've talked about design I know like earlier in the year I kind of said one of my big goals for the years to get better at design I've had some weeks more some weeks less but without me doing a ton. The. Big redesign. We're working on has been moving along. Um, so we call it 3 9 3 version 3 point nine of our software but we had there's like a real like it's live in our software. No one no one none of our customers have it yet. But there's like a real new design for le spring serum and it's just great. Ah, just love using the product now.

28:51.59
Rick
Is it Um, based on the the kind of mentorship work that you paid for to.

28:56.54
tylerking
Yes, yes, so the the timeline was like I started working on a new design that was already a lot better than our current one and then we hired Brian Lovin who I talked about on the podcast ah doing to do like a design crit where he came in in very short consulting engagement.

29:03.33
Rick
Me.

29:14.24
tylerking
But through some ideas together a lot of those ideas we couldn't use just because like given the amount of time he spent on it. He didn't really understand our product or a lot of the constraints. He made a lot of like guesses that were wrong but also just he's a great designer and he brought so many. Just. Here's what buttons should look like here's what form fields should look like um so he ended up taking a lot of his ideas but also changing it quite a bit because of stuff he didn't know um the result I'm I'm thrilled with that that was a $5000 consulting engagement. Ah best $5000 I've ever spent I think.

29:46.57
Rick
Um, that's awesome and when when does this stuff like go live for customers.

29:48.62
tylerking
Really happy. Yeah, that's a good question. Honestly, it's coming along so much faster I thought I didn't think it'd be where it is now until like the end of summer. Um, and Robert our kind of lead developer. He just had a weird manic episode and did a whole lot.

30:04.70
Rick
I Love it when Developers have manic episodes.

30:08.11
tylerking
Yeah, um, if it keeps up at this pace Honestly I don't think it'll be that long but ah it won't keep up at this pace but but maybe end of summer would be nice and there's also a lot of other stuff we have to have to think about like okay what about like onboarding videos and. Need to update help article not that we we can do that after it goes live but there's just a lot of other stuff around it that um this is one great advantage of being ah an early startup is you don't have any of this other crap to do when you make changes.

30:35.30
Rick
The transitions from like like the the the domino effects of ah of a Ui update. Ah.

30:40.30
tylerking
Yeah, because we have like a thousand help articles or I don't know if that's right, but we have a lot. They're all going to have the wrong you know images in them now. So it's a project but I just I don't have any insights or anything interesting to share here. But it's just like so energizing. Yeah, really happy with that.

30:50.76
Rick
Yep.

30:54.54
Rick
Um, exciting cool.

31:00.26
tylerking
Um, another thing is we are in the process while we're we're talking about pay transparency. Um, and by that I mean like sharing within the company. What various people make I I have more to say but I'm curious just right off the bat. What your reaction is.

31:14.50
Rick
To Patreon sparency and what does that mean patreparency is it does it are you saying that like hey we're going to publish a list of everyone's names with their compensation next to it my company. Um.

31:17.37
tylerking
To the idea of a company having pay transparency. Yeah.

31:26.30
tylerking
Yes, not published publicly but within the company.

31:32.29
Rick
Mean I feel like this is such a personal company cultural decision that I like I don't have a strong opinion on it I I think now.

31:35.54
tylerking
Yeah, okay, you're not like it's always right? or it's always wrong. Okay, yeah, Ah, we it came up as kind of like ah an equity thing of just you know like certain if people don't that they don't know what they don't know and even if. I Think we're paying people fairly. They don't know if they're being paid fairly. They don't know if they should be asking for raises. That's kind of the the main argument for it as I understand it? Um, So anyway we talked about it as a company. Um I think there are some downsides and we all acknowledge the downsides which is like humans are. Messy creatures and no matter how mature you are and how smart you are when you see what someone else makes it's going to make you feel things you know and it those feel it like probably ignorance is bliss here but we kind of decided. It's the the pros that way the cons but they definitely are Cons So We're going to go ahead with it I think.

32:28.80
Rick
Cool, Um, what what? I'm ah curious like what problem are you trying to solve with this by going live.

32:31.11
tylerking
Um. Ah, yeah, so I mean it was a request from a handful of employees and the problem is the the equity thing they say you know we say we're committed to equity as a company like fairness basically ah, all these statistics show you know women and people of color are less likely to negotiate for themselves and if they do it's less likely to succeed. All this type of stuff and they're basically saying if we all had all the information that wouldn't be a problem like everyone could know what's possible. The second thing is holding the company accountable to say like do we feel like you know like there are a lot of decisions being made at the leadership team level that are kind of private for good reason but like. Are people getting promoted seems like a question that anyone might want to know the answer to you know? So we'll see.

33:17.91
Rick
This is not a can of worms I want want to open up. Um, but but kudos to you for for for doing it. Um, you know to me, it's like I think like you're you are as responsible as anyone.

33:22.19
tylerking
Yeah, me, neither to be honest.

33:35.92
Rick
On taking care of people. Um, and your word on this should be ah enough. Um, so.

33:39.81
tylerking
And that's yeah I think so I asked every single person this is one of my questions in the six month one on one. So I asked every single person I talked about this with it was about fifty fifty in favor and against but the people who are against it were like I don't really care. But I trust you you know and the people who are in favor of it were like I trust you. But every company should do this and we are supposed to be setting. An example you know it's it's more that type of thing as opposed to like a lack of trust I think I agree though it's this is a stupid thing to spend time on I kind of think that we as a company are at ah, a stage in our life where we kind of intentionally we're like.

34:05.74
Rick
Cool. Yeah.

34:17.60
tylerking
Playing the game of running a business for fun. Ah I would definitely not advocate spending time on this for a business that's not default alive.

34:23.25
Rick
Um, the the reason I like hesitate on this is there is asymmetric downside like and so like very little upside in this very high downside and um I don't know.

34:29.30
tylerking
Yeah, you're right? That's a good point.

34:40.71
Rick
It feels like a ah high potential regret low potential reward I don't know. Ah, that's why that's why I'm scared of it. Yeah and they.

34:46.60
tylerking
Yeah, that's fair, it is true. The upside is not yeah yeah now I don't think downsides that I mean I guess it could spiral into something horrible I think.

34:57.80
Rick
You've set your company up where this like if there's an issue that this exposes like I can't imagine what it would be um, it should just be validating what you're already saying so more of a proof point than like a surprise to people. But.

35:09.35
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

35:14.29
Rick
Yeah, but but to your point of earlier like humans are messy creatures like that. That's where like kind of you know, sends me down that path and like all like all my like decision making studying and writing over the past couple years has been around like when do you like like avoid decisions and when do you avoid saying yes to things.

35:18.30
tylerking
Point E yeah.

35:32.50
Rick
It's generally like 1 of the like model mental models for like avoiding bad decisions is like ruthlessly avoiding asymmetric risk. Um, when it's on the downside and ruthlessly seeking asymmetric upside. Um, but this is an emotional decision and yeah, it feels like a ah.

35:40.20
tylerking
And.

35:52.21
Rick
Potentially maybe a values-based decision. Um, and so like you kind of throw all that kind of out the door when you do that.

35:56.90
tylerking
Yeah I agree with everything you just said, um I did write a whole wiki article that was like before looking at the numbers like you have to scroll down pretty far to see and it's like read this like here are the ways you might react.

36:08.26
Rick
No one is not no, one's going to read that they're going to scroll down look at it and then go read it.

36:13.10
tylerking
Well, that may be but um, but there is one like tactic like actual tactical point in there. That's like do not talk to your manager about don't come saying you need a raise because someone else is overpaid like it's um, like this is for you to understand. Where you are and if you want to raise it should be because you're worth more. We don't want to hear you griping about what other people make like don't do that and and it's pretty rare for us to be like that strict about something but this was 1 place where it's just like I'm not I'm not allowing that type of conversation. Yeah.

36:44.22
Rick
I will be very interested in update on this in a few weeks.

36:50.27
tylerking
Yeah, we'll see Um, anyway, that's the last of my kind of little topics I do kind of have a bigger one? Um, yeah, sure. So okay, the big topic is how do you provide mentorship to someone and in this case I'm talking about people on my team that want to get better at something.

36:55.49
Rick
On Job ben.

37:10.00
tylerking
But where I don't have any experience and no one at the company really has experience with it. This is one of the downsides to being a small small company like when you work with if if you work at Google you could be like there's someone here. That's an expert at this thing guaranteed I want to go learn from them. How do we provide that mentorship and let me start with like a specific. Example of how this is happening so we're doing this growth thing where we're we're trying out different channels and testing them out and one of the ones we're trying is paper ah paper lead which is like like paperperc click but paper per lead but it's like ah like software advice is one of the big ones technology advice where basically there are these websites out there. They generate leads by let's say someone's looking for a serum. They say what's the best serm they end up on software advice's website software advice books a call with them and they're kind of like we're going to put you in touch with some good crms and then we pay software advice for that lead and we call the person and try to convert them you familiar with this basic model.

38:03.35
Rick
Um.

38:07.79
tylerking
So we did this back in the day and it it kind of worked. Okay, it wasn't a huge success but it wasn't a failure so we're trying it again and 1 of my kind of principles for this growth thing we're doing is no innovating right? learn from other people. Other people have done this it has worked for them just follow the the game plan that they set up. We cannot find anyone talking about this stuff like how how do you use software advice effectively? Um, so this is 1 example where I'm like Alex wants to get better at this nobody at the company knows how how does he learn this? yes.

38:41.11
Rick
Yeah, and you probably have a bunch of other ones as examples like this. So I.

38:46.30
tylerking
Yeah, a lot of technical ones. Also the programmer wants to get really good at Elasticsearch how? Ah so far I've done a bit of a cop out which is I'm like how do I learn so because I'm constantly doing stuff that no one at the company has any experience with and I'm like okay number 1 find yourself a rick.

38:48.79
Rick
What what are you doing currently to try solve this.

39:04.65
Rick
Start podcasts.

39:05.96
tylerking
Ah, you know it doesn't necessarily doesn't have to be a podcast but I've 3 different people in the last couple weeks have've been like you need to join a mastermind group like you look, you're you're desperate for peers and this company doesn't have any peers in this particular topic. So that's 1 thing and then the other for me is just like follow a bunch of people on Twitter. And they may share what you need. But more importantly, they'll share links to research like you'll be like oh there's apparently a blog about this that I'd never heard of or there's a podcast or whatever. But for me Twitter is where I get all my stuff so I've kind of advised people to do that I don't love that answer though.

39:41.75
Rick
Yep, um, one the the company that comes to mind that I think really cracked this code early on is lucid software I just remember when they were really small I'm lucid is a billiond dollar plus company here in Utah that was started at a company. We've talked about it a lot in this past podcast but we. Tyler and I um used to work with the founder. It was started while we were at this company called Zane benefits. but but um what they did right? I think early on is when they didn't know how to solve a problem. They would go network into like the person who know how knew how to solve that problem locally. And invite that person to come like basically do free consulting and talk about the problem and people like to help other people and so it turned into this I think recruiting funnel almost for them. Um, sometimes it was a consulting engagement sometimes just like helping each other out. Um and like just inviting someone.

40:23.71
tylerking
Right? yes.

40:36.36
Rick
Into the office for 30 minutes to say like hey like you know a lot about marketing. You know a lot about like lead purchaing programs like hey do you might come by the office like have lunch and we can talk about this like it's it's sort of just like creating a funnel of people locally who know who may or may not know stuff that you guys don't know.

40:52.61
tylerking
Ah.

40:54.92
Rick
Inviting them in to come like coach and consult like and then if it goes well in that first meeting like hiring them or ah, developing a longer term relationship with them either through consulting or coaching or mentorship. Ah for the right team or person. I think they did that um I don't know exactly how they did it but they did it and it worked and I I that would probably be the approach that like would be ideal um because it feeds the recruiting funnel and it um.

41:16.67
tylerking
Yeah, yeah. I don't care that that all makes total sense I don't personally care about recruiting because like we would have to be way bigger to need specialists at all like in anything. But um, yeah I like all the I like yeah okay, do you think that would work reasonably well remotely because 1 issue. Salt Lake is not like the biggest ecosystem but it's a lot bigger than st louis there are not a lot of companies to look to for advice on this stuff in st louis. So.

41:42.55
Rick
You know.

41:48.84
Rick
Yeah, um I don't know, especially something like his niches this um I don't know it. It feels to me like there's probably somewhat like the you're not like read necessarily looking for software advice. A specialist here. You're looking for a demand generation person who knows how to like. Buy sort of purchased leads for a b two b solution and make that work. Um and that should exist somewhere in St Louis my guess is and there probably could be a really good friend to your company. Um and I and and and like someone you want to know? Ah i.

42:08.62
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

42:25.75
tylerking
Yeah, okay, so next question here who do you know at lucid who's doing this because like one of the problems. So Alex who's doing the software advice stuff. Sales is a pretty similar skill set to like go network and meet someone but a lot of this stuff is like technical.

42:27.42
Rick
Or whoever's working on this project would want to know.

42:45.70
tylerking
And I have said this to people I've been like there are there are companies that know this that have experts at this technology you should like go to meetup groups and this and that and the problem is like they're like no fuck. No yeah.

42:51.48
Rick
No one does that? Yeah, so that's really interesting. This is um so I'll just I don't like talking about people on this podcast but Carl Sun's sort of a celebrity now. So I can talk about him and not feel bad about it. Yeah um, Carl Sun is the ah former Ceo of lucid he. Ah.

43:02.54
tylerking
Yeah, he's a he's a public figure.

43:11.33
Rick
He actually um, stepped down and passed the baton um to Dave Gro in the last couple weeks um yeah that was actually a big deal. Um here in Utah but um, anyway, he's built an incredible culture I believe he he somehow built baked this into the culture as like from the first person he recruited.

43:15.42
tylerking
No, and he had not heard that.

43:26.50
tylerking
M.

43:30.16
Rick
Um, that wasn't on the founding team and just kept repeating it I think it's a personality type I think it's built into like the Dna of the company. Um, like.

43:35.56
tylerking
But so it is the individual like the person who wants mentorship is expected to go seek it out. It's not like this team of people bring in speakers.

43:42.93
Rick
I think it's leaders at the company I think it was. It's first the Ceo and then it's the Ceo's next it's the it's the the partners you know, kind of level people and then but it's intentional. It's very intentional now since it hasn't been necessarily intentional on your guys' part. Historically.

43:50.93
tylerking
Yeah.

44:02.21
Rick
You're you're now kind of going like okay well how do I bake that in and so you're going to be so it's probably going to be hard to get this going but I think it's something easy to do like especially if you if you just like get intentional about it for a couple of these market focus on on just on marketing. First example, um I mean I would give it a try like I don't know i'd.

44:05.86
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

44:21.29
Rick
It feels like ah marketing is where you need to have some friends of less annoying cram giving you advice. Um, and and ah you know you could figure out something with marketing that works across the whole company.

44:26.10
tylerking
Oh yeah, a hundred percent

44:34.70
tylerking
Yeah, so the first step is figuring out who in St Louis knows this because you're absolutely right someone in St Louis knows how to buy leads and do some kind of b two b sales process with them at our size like the. St Louis is just dominated by giant ancient companies.

44:54.12
Rick
So 1 thing you could do is maybe exclude st louis maybe don't try to do this St Louis ah don't constrain yourself to St Louis to start off but like software advice like go look at who's buying software advice leads. Um and seems to be like there I'd call them up and say like who your most successful like clients. Um.

45:04.59
tylerking
Yeah. M.

45:12.76
Rick
And then I'd go like okay who's your contact there. Can you introduce me to them. Please um and like and then just go like ask them a bunch of questions and if they want introduce, you just go reach out to them on Linkedin.

45:18.67
tylerking
I like that. okay right yeah okay I think I think that's a great tactical advice piece of advice and on the on the tech side I do think St Louis has what we're looking for just. No, one's making any money like startups aren't making any money. That's the problem but ah, okay, yeah, reach out soft advice. Okay, and then just figure out a reason to talk to them regular whether it's a mastermind group or just a regular chat or whatever.

45:38.82
Rick
Yes.

45:50.63
Rick
I Don't think essentially regularly I think it's like figure out how to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with that person so that um it thrives into something useful.

45:56.52
tylerking
Yeah, right? But so like my problem I'm I'm terrible at this, you're better at it. Ah if I don't have a reason to talk to somebody I won't and then. It would the relationship would never develop to the point that they would be there for the questions.

46:12.99
Rick
If if this person is good and comes in and wows you guys with their advice and sort of like know how you have a reason to reach out to them and just let it happen Naturally I guess all I'm trying to say don't like try to like force it.

46:26.87
tylerking
Yeah, ah you you don't know me apparently this is not natural. No but I hear you I hear you.

46:31.37
Rick
Okay, okay, um, yeah, but yeah, like it here's a larger question because the larger issue here is like maybe you need to hire someone with marketing experience like right like like.

46:44.31
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, sure. Ah.

46:49.37
Rick
There There is like this thing where it's like marketers hang out with Marketers Bd people hang out with Bd people tech people hang out with tech people sales people. Ah salespeople.

46:54.64
tylerking
Yeah I a hundred percent agree this is the same problem applies here which is so we've built up a pretty because we are limiting ourselves to St Louis which admittedly is a self-imposed constraint but it is a constraint and I don't know who the ex like that there are experts in this in St Louis Our whole company is really based around bring in entry level people because there's a ton of talent in St Louis but there's not a lot of proven expertise at least not in in b two b sas. So I think you're 100% right? if I knew who that person was locally I think I'd take a swing at it. Um, maybe I should try and find out.

47:27.20
Rick
I think the way that you I think the way that you find this person is through like inviting people in to like do lunch and learn presentations feeding them and like maybe paying them five hundred bucks I don't know um per session $50 like for you is probably better than $50 but um

47:32.59
tylerking
Yeah, sure.

47:45.86
Rick
Anyway, you'll find like some people here where it's just like hey like we want to create a maybe the way you do this to keep it simple so it's not like networking is like you create a program. You're really good at program. So like you create a program where it's like a a third party a St Louis advice you know network and you you host a. Less annoying specific sort of deep dive session once a month or once ah, every 2 weeks and you and you you use that to sort of have a reason to reach out to people that are experts in the St Louis Community in the areas that you're interested in and then you sort of programmatic programmatically go after this. Ah.

48:18.31
tylerking
Yeah.

48:24.79
Rick
Over like 6 or 12 reps um and see what happens and then like decide what to do from there then you have like a network that you're working with decide whether it's worthwhile to do anything more.

48:34.11
tylerking
Yeah I think that's a good plan if I'm being totally honest I don't think I have the appetite for it like I think that could work and I I just know I'm not going to put that much effort into it but ah someone listening you should do that. Ah.

48:41.12
Rick
Are good. Yeah, well what I would do here is I would I would find out who like like for that particular problem like I would just be like super curious about who's having success at software advice like I would be talking to software advice about that Twitter.

48:52.38
tylerking
Yeah.

49:01.49
tylerking
Yeah, yeah I think that that's a great great tactic here.

49:07.70
Rick
Twitter you know asking Twitter asking forums searching Google reading books that kind of stuff.

49:10.73
tylerking
Yeah, what I'm realizing in this conversation we we are a very insular company like no, even the people even like Alex who's a big schmoozer. He's not like schmoozing with other companies like us and I've always kind of rolled my eyes that like why is everyone going to these weekly startup events and like I've gone to a bunch and I'm always like that was worthless. And I still think probably there wouldn't be enough value to justify the time but there is value there and for a different company that's growing faster and dealing with a lot of challenges for the first time I think I'm seeing the value.

49:39.57
Rick
Um, there's one tactical piece here that I think is missing like I would not want to go to a networking event to find this person I would want to like the way I would find these people is I would like look into my rolodex on Linkedin Search St Louis and like try to find someone that I know that I trust yeah like I would call someone like.

49:54.40
tylerking
Yeah, but I don't know anyone.

49:59.32
Rick
And just be like hey like you're really smart who's the smartest marketing person that you know and then like I would go to that market person like who's the smartest marketing person that you know and I would just like be like constantly talking to people and just like getting to referrals of like the smartest people people know and eventually I'd find someone.

50:01.50
tylerking
Yeah.

50:12.86
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense and I know I said I don't know anyone I know a few people I could I Probably don't know the right person but I know someone who knows the right person. Yeah.

50:20.17
Rick
Yes, that's the key and I and I think that's way more effective at finding someone who can help you than going to a networking event.

50:28.29
tylerking
Yeah, Absolutely um I Guess by Network I was using networking event is just a proxy for like spending time schmoozing with people I don't work with I've always had the kind of say if it's not a customer and it's not an employee stop fucking talking to them. You know which I still mostly stand by but ah. In this case, that's a liability for us. Okay.

50:48.68
Rick
You've got a network though that is willing to help you grow your business and that's where they all We're talking about here is like leverage your network to find people who can help you grow your business. They don't the Network doesn't have to help you directly.

50:56.75
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, cool. Well thanks for talking through that with me. Um, yeah, well. Okay, so first of all the software call up software advice and ask who their most successful clients are that that alone definitely worth worth the. Ah.

51:03.66
Rick
Was it helpful at all.

51:15.71
tylerking
Hour we just spent talking um to this week ah the other stuff I think is more like abstractly interesting and I need to noodle on it. But ah yes, that was helpful and I hope it was also helpful for people listening because this is you know if if.

51:16.40
Rick
Okay.

51:35.61
tylerking
If you're aspiring to start a company but haven't haven't or haven't gotten far enough yet I mean it really is a challenge as soon as you you know you have your skill set that you learned from your past once you've maxed that out at the company options become pretty limited. So.

51:50.33
Rick
Yeah, totally cool. Yeah I've got a bunch of stuff but I fear I feel like we should pick up on that topic that we talked about last week sort teased and that was like.

51:52.24
tylerking
It's a challenge I think everyone everyone faces all right? Well anything else on your mind.

52:07.23
Rick
What is the um, the the question I asked as we left the last episode is what is the marketing channel in 2022 that is most like Seo was in 2010 and the reason I asked this question is we sort of hit the Seo content like write organic content and then like magically have ideal customers find your website um like that happened. Right? when we were coming into the business and it worked like people keep was built on organic search seo I'm just curious like I want to ask the question like is that going to repeat itself like is there going to be a new channel that was like Seo was for us in 2010 today or near in the near term. And if so what is that channel. Do you have any thoughts.

52:46.77
tylerking
I I definitely don't have an answer. But yes I have thoughts 1 thing that might might sound like a bit of an non sequitur but you s like will there be another one. There was a tweet I forgot who it's from but I shared it my newsletter a month or two ago I think that basically pointed out that. Every wave of innovation that's happened in our lifetime like you know since the late 70 s or whatever. Not only was the technology a lot better but it brought the technology to an order of magnitude more people going from mainframes to pcs and then. The internet and then mobile and I think saas also goes in there where like way more people can buy software now that the saas model exists right? but everybody has a phone now like pretty much not literally everybody but like. Billions and billions of people have phones. There's not another order of magnitude of growth left and that's kind of a scary thought right? like not that we innovation is necessarily going to stop but there will never be the same type of totally new market of people opened up the way we've experienced our entire lives.

53:54.75
Rick
That's really Interesting. So like it's almost like there isn't going to be another sort of mass awakening of discoverability for us consumers but potentially like I guess I'm going into like there's probably parts of the world that are less so it's really seo in other parts of the world. It's not like. Another There's not another opportunity and like the adopted world. The the digital digitally adopted world.

54:15.92
tylerking
Yeah, or it's not that there's no opportunities. It's that they're different in the past it was just like just be in the game when one of these big waves happens if you knew what the internet was in the 90 s you probably bought a bunch of domain names that you could have then later sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars like it didn't take a genius.

54:31.76
Rick
Yeah.

54:35.20
tylerking
I Don't think that type of opportunity is likely to come along at least as frequently or maybe at all.

54:38.80
Rick
So you're not going to say like ah cryptocurrency or tokens or whatever the hell they're called I Forget what they're called there that those aren the next Nft Ts Yeah, those aren't the things.

54:45.00
tylerking
Right? Well and that's yeah, like Nf Nfts and I actually think that's really there. There is a huge parallel there that I'm sympathetic to all the people who are buying the snake oil because like. People want to be a part of the next wave and what if there isn't a next wave like that's kind of I Get why people are desperate for it that doesn't mean it's crypto I I Definitely think it's not but I get why they want it to be so okay to pull back to the kind of initial question. How has it worked in the past.

55:10.78
Rick
M.

55:19.38
tylerking
And I think like getting in something well sorry pause every marketing channel eventually becomes something that has roughly zero ah Roi. That's a bit of an over generalization but like it is a competitive marketplace if you can make money marketing. Somebody else wants to come along and take that money but take a little bit less and you know it's a commodity basically and ah, until eventually the surplus is zero. So the key to really big marketing wins I Think for most companies is find something new before it is at that equilibrium and. Squeeze it as hard as you can while it lasts and then move on to the next thing does that does that resonate with you.

55:59.33
Rick
Yes, and I want to just rehash that like the Seo thing was unique in that it was like this new accessibility such thing that was completely to information that um was new and different and unique that isn't like. Does it falls outside of what you're talking about.

56:18.29
tylerking
It it sort of does. But I mean I think it applies still in two ways like with Seo a it's way more competitive. Everybody else sees o seo work. So everyone's trying way more. It's still possible I think a lot of people still have a lot of success with Seo but it's harder and b google.

56:28.43
Rick
Um.

56:36.36
tylerking
You know every tech company that turns into a giant in the early days they're the good guys and eventually they're publicly traded their shareholders say hey it's time to start making money Google doesn't want to send you to some random website that's not paying them. They want you to click an ad or they want you to use 1 of their properties like Youtube or Google maps. My understanding is like fewer and fewer clicks on Google are actually going to organic results total they are the enemy here if you want free free eyeballs right? So seo is like way more bountiful.

57:03.14
Rick
Yep yep, that's fair.

57:08.83
tylerking
And long lasting than most of these channels but I still think it has that dynamic.

57:10.56
Rick
Makes sense which what are your ideas though like what where would you look for? um for this next Seo like channel first of all like let's just admit that it probably doesn't exist um and won't exist for a while. What is this.

57:20.27
tylerking
Yeah I think that's right and I I especially think the thing about Seo is how big it was. It was the whole internet right? when I listen to podcasts and follow people on Twitter and I see other people have the type of like easy marketing wins that I want.

57:27.78
Rick
In.

57:37.33
tylerking
1 commonplace they come from is hopping on a new platform. Um, as it's growing before it has squeezed all the margin out a lot of people had a lot of success with shopify apps now this isn't quite the same thing because you couldn't market your product with a shopify app but like that's a way to get distribution now. Shopify. Become the Google where they've they've clamped down and it's not a good channel anymore. So what are the next ones though I feel like webflow I feel like Tiktok obviously is huge from a user base standpoint they still haven't started monetizing it heavily from what I can tell um, basically anything with. A lot of eyeballs. But that's not at the point where they've starched out all the profit is is a place and those those are 2 that come to mind.

58:18.88
Rick
What about virtual reality.

58:23.96
tylerking
Big go on. Do you have a.

58:25.63
Rick
I don't know like it just feels like um I don't know it feels like there's a new platform like the 1 thing I was thinking about with Seo is that it was a platform shift shift from like going to the library to being able to Google at the basic level. Um, and I feel like.

58:41.75
tylerking
And.

58:45.64
Rick
Oculus is sort of that sort of platform shift. You can like go to a game without going to the game. Um, and so there's something there that is similar to Seo. But but um I don't know exactly how that works out but it seems like.

58:52.95
tylerking
Yeah, but yeah.

59:01.68
Rick
That's going to be an ah like if people are spending time on oculus potentially they're going to be looking for information on Oculus at some point. Yeah.

59:06.35
tylerking
Just stuff. Yeah, yeah, the the Iphone app store was certainly a gold mine if you got in early enough I'm still yeah I'm still curious if does ah is oculus going to end up with the type of adoption that.

59:12.80
Rick
App store. Yeah, interesting. So it could be like an app store. Yeah.

59:22.93
tylerking
You'd need you'd need more than it has now I think and maybe it will be that. That's the that's the hard thing about this is if you bet on it now and you build like some oculus app and you know it's yeah they have an app store. Basically if it takes off you could I mean that could be a life like your entrepreneurship is. Ah, success just from that 1 decision but most of the time it doesn't take off.

59:43.99
Rick
The the other area that's kind of interesting to me is data. Um like third-party data marrying it to your first -party data that seems like that's kind of what what windfall plays in and that's a whole new world to me that seems very misunderstood by the layman marketer and so.

59:53.26
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

01:00:01.10
Rick
Yes, like these very large companies and it's highly sophisticated digital marketing. Um, ah departments are are leveraging these these um these these service providers these data services providers but it seems like if a small business could figure out how to do that like cheaply. Seems like a competitive advantage over another small business like that be like it isn't like being leveraged as much as it could be.

01:00:21.14
tylerking
Yeah, I'm going to try to draw a connection here. That's going to be a bit of a stretch but bear with me um, like the history of Sas software as a service is basically that crms and cr was kind of the first major Sas application right? Salesforce they existed long before that. But. Because of they were on mainframes they could only really be used by giant companies that could afford to buy and maintain a mainframe and what's the the huge innovation of Sas was basically saying what could big companies do and we we know it's successful, but it was unavailable to small companies. What if we make it available to small companies I think what you just said is kind of. Similar to that that of course giant of course Google's using data in a way that is just mindblowing is are we approaching some threshold where it's such a commodity now that as a small business you can rent the data sophistication and do stuff that other small businesses. Don't yet realize they can do is that kind of what you mean.

01:01:20.18
Rick
That's yes I think the way that you just said it validated that this could be it for me. Um, yes, exactly.

01:01:24.67
tylerking
Yeah, and there's potentially that that'd be an interesting I don't know that we have time right now but you could go down that tunnel and say what are all the things that big companies are doing that technology might allow small companies to start doing.

01:01:35.56
Rick
They were that it's like requires lots of funds. Lots of sophistication. It's highly kind, highly complex and highly expensive and expensive like what? what are those things that have reached the point where it could be simplified and ah like massively like cut. You know you.

01:01:42.95
tylerking
Yeah.

01:01:54.54
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

01:01:55.34
Rick
Deliver Cheaply um that that they could be a recipe for finding some of these that's very interesting.

01:01:58.88
tylerking
I don't have like this specific how you know more about this and me like how do you actually use the data but I generally yeah like if if there's an effective way for small businesses to do it I buy that that that's a good one. Um.

01:02:09.90
Rick
That was a really helpful kind I didn't know I never when I post questions like this I never know where they're going to go and I did not expect that. Yeah yeah, so that's interesting like I'm actually going to I'm going to look into that because it's very relevant to what I'm doing with windfall.

01:02:15.82
tylerking
Yeah, it's next one are like ah.

01:02:22.39
tylerking
Yeah, you could. You could really be ahead of the curve there.

01:02:26.19
Rick
Yeah, and it really valuable for leg of health like if we could get super targeted Digitally Yeah, that's it So Seo is organic like people going out searching for things and being found but what if we could identify people digitally and push our message out to them and wherever they are online.

01:02:41.39
tylerking
Yeah.

01:02:43.35
Rick
That's a whole another world that hasn't been like I haven't heard any like bootstrap entrepreneur like explain that simply like Seo no.

01:02:49.66
tylerking
Yeah, are you familiar with spark toro Rand Fishkin who started seo maz which is now maz um, he so he was kind of an seo expert and he's basically like Seo is dead. That's not what to do anymore. But ah spark toro is his new business that. It's kind of related. It's like where are all your customers like where are they spending time. What do they do? I haven't used it but that might be an interesting thing to check out because it's kind of in this vein.

01:03:16.43
Rick
And that's very cool I'm definitely taking ah our report back on this in a couple weeks. Go for.

01:03:20.81
tylerking
Cool I know you probably have to go I've got one other thought on the few next seo. So um, shout out to 1 of our listeners Steve Davis he sent me an email ah that talked about like what lessons can well I'm I'm kind of editorializing and adding meeting that wasn't there. But what lessons can we learn as american. Business owners about what's happening in China in business I think we're entering a new era where a lot of innovation is not going to come from western countries. Um and another type of opportunity here is to just do what they're doing in other parts of the world successfully but do it before americans figure it out. Um, and the the. Newsletter particularly that he forwarded me was about super apps so you know in Asia there's like we pay I think it is where um, it's like an app that like you don't install 20 different apps. You just have Annette. Not we pay. We chat? whatever, it's just one app and it's like if you want to order? Mcdonald's you just go into the app. And go to Mcdonald's Profile and you order it from there like you don't have an mcdonald's app. Um, and the the idea of this super app that you can market through so you could imagine like America will probably end up with a super app I think uber has a chance of being that I don't know what it'll be but. Being early to that game and being a business that people can interact with and find and buy from from other apps is another idea here. That's all I got.

01:04:40.22
Rick
That is interesting, cool all right? Um, that's so that's all I got to I'll I have some other things I wanted to talk about but like they are not time sensitive so I will bring I will bring them to the next the next episode. Yep.

01:04:49.39
tylerking
Yeah, all right sounds good. Well good chatting I'm glad we got some red meat there at the end.

01:04:58.84
Rick
Delicious. Um, if you like to review past topics in shy notes visit start http://tolast.com see you next week

01:05:04.33
tylerking
See ya.

How to be a mentor when you aren't knowledgeable about a topic
Broadcast by