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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 16, 2024 38:23

Josh Herzig-Marx, founder of Knect, discusses the latest developments in his startup journey since his last appearance on the show. He emphasizes the program's value in helping founders like himself refine ideas and strategies. He particularly notes the program's effectiveness in addressing challenges unique to startups, such as managing professional networks and dealing with the rapid growth of online presence. The conversation also delves into AI's technical aspects and potential applications and the practicalities and ethical considerations of using it in professional networking. Josh and Jordyn explore various AI use cases, distinguishing between beneficial applications and those they deem undesirable. Transcript: LINDSEY: We are back for our Incubator update with Josh Herzig-Marx and his startup, Knect. I'm Lindsey Christensen. I do marketing things at thoughtbot. We are also joined by Jordyn Bonds, who runs our incubator and does product strategy for thoughtbot. And today, we're going to be catching up with Josh and learn what's new since last we checked in. But before we get to that, we have an exciting incubator update: our application window has just reopened. JORDYN: Yes. LINDSEY: You could be the next Josh. JORDYN: You could. JOSH: Don't be me. You should join the incubator. [laughter] JORDYN: Go to thoughtbot.com/incubator and apply. It's just that easy. The application doesn't take long, even though it's in Typeform, and we have gotten some feedback, including from Josh, that it's challenging to plan your application efforts because, as you all probably know, Typeform just gives you one question at a time. So, sorry, maybe we'll update that. But it won't take you very long. It's a pretty brief application. And we are looking for pre-product folks, so you don't have to have a lot. Don't worry about what you do or don't have. Just apply. LINDSEY: Pre-product founder trying to figure out, is this problem worth solving? Who is it for? Jordyn and the team can help you out. thoughtbot.com/incubator. JOSH: And me. LINDSEY: And Josh. JOSH: And if, for some reason, you want to ask somebody about the program who isn't directly affiliated with thoughtbot, you should reach out to me. I'd be happy to talk about my experience. LINDSEY: You should. JOSH: I'd be happy to tell you what I think would be some reasons to join and some reasons that it might not be a good fit for you. And I'd be happy to chat about any of those things. It'd be my pleasure, in fact. LINDSEY: That is a great offer. JORDYN: It is a great offer. You all should take Josh up on that offer. He is an excellent sounding board and mentor. And additionally, if you get into the incubator, you'll just be in a Slack channel with Josh for the rest of time, inside of thoughtbot's Slack. So, that's another [crosstalk 02:05] JOSH: Statistically, there's a good chance you already are. [laughter] JORDYN: You mean in a slack with you. That's true. Josh is in a lot of Slacks, not [crosstalk 02:14]. LINDSEY: Yeah. Once you go through the incubator, you're family for life. JORDYN: You're family. You're here. You're with us. You can't get rid of us. LINDSEY: And you're able to hit us up with the questions, talk to the other founders, so that's another great benefit of participating. All right, but topic of the hour, Josh, hey, how are you? How you doing? JOSH: Lindsey, I am floating right now. We had our end of incubator session last official meeting. And we reviewed how we started, what we hope to accomplish, what we actually did accomplish, and next steps, and it feels really awesome. LINDSEY: It does. That's so great to hear. And can you, at the top here, maybe remind folks who haven't listened before, you know, what was that beginning point that you came in the incubator or the problem that you were looking to solve? JOSH: So, I had this Josh problem, which is that I am overwhelmed by the number of places that I am online and by the rapid increase in my professional network, professional social network, I guess you could say, but in my professional network, you know, see that comment a few minutes ago about how we're probably already in multiple Slacks together, whoever you happen to be online. Plus, if you're on LinkedIn, we're probably at least secondary connections on LinkedIn. Like, there's an awful lot of people, and it's growing really, really fast. And as somebody with a whopping case of ADD, which just feels like making an excuse, as somebody in, like, this modern world, I was feeling overwhelmed, and I felt like I was dropping the ball. And my problem was somebody must have a solution to this. I cannot be the only one. I could not find a solution myself. And I thought, well, maybe if there is no existing solution, maybe we should just go ahead and build it. And that was the genesis of my application to the thoughtbot incubator, which was that even though I've done this once before, I had never done this alone. I don't want to do this alone. And I thought that, you know, because of my experience with thoughtbot in the past and my understanding of, like, thoughtbot's unique organizational skills and capacities, this would be a particularly good fit for the thing that I wanted to figure out. And when I say figure it out, there was really four things I was hoping to get from this program. Let's see if I can remember them all in order. Number one, is this a Josh problem, or is this a broader problem affecting more people? Number two, this is, like, a ladder of problems, right? Like a cascading set. Number two thing I was trying to figure out: if this isn't just a Josh problem, is there at least one identifiable and addressable set of people who think about this problem in a similar way with whom I could engage? Number three, if there is such a group, are they willing, ready, and able to, like, spend money on solving this problem? And then number four, which I guess is kind of orthogonal to the other ones, it's kind of alongside, is this thing to solve even technically feasible, right? Because you can have this, like, amazing opportunity, but you just can't build it. And, you know, is this a thing that we could build or that I could get built within the resources that I might have? And I came in with some hypotheses, with some ideas. It's not like I had never done any research in this at all. But coming out of it, we have four pretty good answers. And I would not have been able to reach those answers with the same level of confidence, certainly not within eight weeks, if I hadn't gone through the incubator, and it's a really nice way to end the year. LINDSEY: With a bow on it. The last time we talked, you had narrowed in, I think, on your starting target market. And you had also recently introduced a prototype into the mix. How has the prototype evolved? JOSH: It's...and this is going to be no surprise to either of you or anybody who's listening. But, like, the difference between, like, talking about something in the abstract and actually having, like, a thing in your hand is night and day. So, the prototype actually evolved pretty rapidly. You know, it allowed us to try using it, like, to put on our own empathetic user analog hats and try it ourselves and be like, "Well, this doesn't quite make sense." This doesn't actually flow right. And it allowed us to show it to a lot of people. I'll say, we are, by far, our own strongest critics, which is good. Mostly, when we showed it to people, people are like, "This is amazing." And they would ask us, like, really specific, weird questions like, "Where's, you know, your about page? Could I see your privacy policy?" which is, like, a really, really good thing to hear. Because if the only thing...one way to interpret that is the only thing keeping them from maybe, like, diving in and using it right now, besides it doesn't actually exist as a product, is, like, some questions around privacy because it seems maybe too good to be true. Like, that's a pretty good buy sign. You know, we were expecting, like, "The screen makes no sense. Why are we swiping here? Where does this data come from? Is this really complete?" They're like, "No, I'm pretty much ready to go." So, that was good, helpful feedback, though we evolved it ourselves a lot internally. It's really nice having a thing. Do we use the term Pinocchio prototype or Pinocchio test [crosstalk 06:58]? LINDSEY: Yes, I did hear that. JOSH: Yeah, I like that. If this was like, you know, this wooden toy wanted to be a real boy, like, two weeks ago, it really, really wants...I don't know, Lindsey, we should, you know, get you in front of it. You're going to be like, "Why can't I use this today?" [laughter] JORDYN: That's definitely what we're hearing from people. JOSH: And my answer would be, "Well, you can't, but maybe in a couple of weeks." [laughs] JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. I will say I want to say for anyone listening in, though, that that was not, getting to what Josh just described where folks weren't really...they didn't have any hang-ups about the functionality or the value prop. They were basically just like, "What's your privacy policy? And when is it going to be ready for me to use?" It's not like the first draft of this prototype that was what we jumped to. I want to be clear. The first time we showed someone, there was this interesting problem, which is that we were still talking to the wrong people, somewhat. And the prototype hadn't evolved to be the slam dunk that it is now. So, at first, it was like, we'd have these kinds of muddled conversations where people were like, "Well, I don't really understand what this is supposed to be, and I'm not sure about that. And this seems interesting," but then their interpretation of what that thing was would be, like, wildly off from what it was intended to be. I just want to make it clear: this was work and effort. And the team did a really great job of iterating quickly based on, like, every time we talked to someone and showed it to them, we'd come back and say, "Here's what I heard." And it really pushed our thinking forward. Like Josh said, like, we are our toughest critics, so, like, every new version unlocked some new insights in ourselves about what it was we were actually driving toward. Really, just there's nothing like having a thing to look at and bang on to, like, clarify your thinking. LINDSEY: There's nothing like having a thing. Jordyn, you touched on you were talking to the wrong people, maybe. How has that exploration of the core market evolved? Is it still the startup enthusiasts? Are you even more narrow in that? What are the updates there as our chief market focus get everyone thinking about this all the time, officer? JORDYN: Yes. So, you know, startup enthusiasts is still the umbrella. What you're looking for with this is that you can guarantee pretty much every time you talk to someone in a segment or a sub-segment you will know how the conversation is going to go. And we've gotten there with two sub-segments of startup enthusiasts, which is repeat founders, key, key kind of nuance there. Founders, sure, but repeat founders really have this problem, for reasons we could talk about, and then chiefs of staff at startups, which is a relatively new role that's sort of emerged over the last sort of several years. But those folks are really the people that you ask them about this pain point, and they immediately are, like, yes. They use the same words to talk about the pain point. That's another really strong signal. When folks are using the same vocabulary, and they say the same sentences in the same order, and you start to feel a little bit creeped out, like, you're like, "Did you see these questions before I...? What? Did someone pay you to say that?" is, like, how you start to feel [laughs] [crosstalk 09:59] LINDSEY: Also, a marketer's dream. Oh my gosh, here comes the messaging, right? JORDYN: Exactly. LINDSEY: [inaudible 10:04] JORDYN: It feels like a cheat code because you just get to reflect their language back to them. You don't have to write copy. They wrote the copy. You just show them it, and they're like, yes. And everyone's like, "Yes," and it works. LINDSEY: Any thoughts to add to that, Josh? JOSH: It's really good. I would say the bummer or the good thing about this point is we're getting diminishing returns from testing everything other than the actual product, which is good that we got there in eight weeks. But we're not going to learn, you know, keep on adjusting the prototype and making little tweaks and more user research. But the truth is, we're not going to get anything substantial until we get this into some users' hands. JORDYN: Like you say, this is sort of bad news, but it's good news. JOSH: Right. JORDYN: It's how you know, right? When you get to the point where the thing is so clear, and the way to talk about it with folks is so clear that you're not learning as much anymore, diminishing returns is the right way to frame it. You really just need people to get in there and use it. That's the only way you're going to keep learning. That's the moment to build. Hey, everyone out there, don't build before that. That's when you build. And then you really build the smallest thing you can conceive of building, and then whatever that thing is that you've conceived of building that's very small, scope it back by 50% [laughs]. Do it. JOSH: And it's a little humbling as someone who considers himself a founder but who had reasonable success as a founder and who has had pretty good success as, like a very, very early-stage, you know, zero to one and 1 to 10 product leader, has done this a bunch of times and actually coaches people in doing this, and came in with, I'm not going to lie, a pretty good vision in my head for how this stuff was supposed to work together. And it's so much better now. Going through a process actually makes things better. This wasn't just, like, wasting time. Like, going through a process, a thoughtful process actually makes us much better. Like, the thing we're talking about building is much more likely to be successful than the thing I was originally thinking about building, right, Jordyn? JORDYN: Yes. I guess it bears sort of diving into that a little bit, which is, you know, for all the founders out there or folks with a product idea kicking around your head, you're apt to have a little bit of everything we've talked about already. You have an idea of the solution you want to build. You have an idea of who it's for. You have an idea of what their pain points are. And you might be sitting there thinking to yourself, I don't need to do eight weeks of discovery. I already know the answers to all of these questions. And it's possible Josh felt that way coming into the incubator, but doing the work, gathering the data, talking to a ton of people, what you can't understand before doing that is how much more confident and at ease you will feel once you have done it and how much clarity you'll have about what it is you need to build first because likely, you're sitting there with a vision in your head for this product that is fully featured, fully formed. It is the 18th month. We just went into a hidey hole and built a really complex thing, thing. Cool, don't throw that out. But you got to begin somewhere, and you got to begin somewhere meaningful and valuable. And it's really hard to know where to begin without this discovery, without focusing on a specific person, talking to as many of those folks as you can. And really, it sort of writes itself. It does feel easy. But you've got to set aside the time and the effort to do the research, market research, whatever we call this, customer discovery. And it thrills me to no end, Josh, to hear that that is how it felt for you, that you probably felt like you already knew the answer. But it just feels different, having talked to, I mean, how many people, 100-plus people? We were looking at the stats. JOSH: Well over 100. LINDSEY: Josh was talking to a bunch of people before he came to the incubator, and all the founders that we accept have been doing that. Like, we want to know that you've been doing that research. But then, I guess, coming into the incubator, you're continuing that process and maybe in a more structured or a differently structured way where the thoughtbot team is helping you, maybe zero in far deeper on the segment. Is that accurate to say? Just kind of the difference between, like, maybe some of the pre-research and then the thoughtbot-specific user interviews that happen. JOSH: Yeah. I think they were more focused. They're both more focused from the audience, but also more focused from if it's not just you doing it; it forces you to have a more clear, here's the questions we're asking, and here's what we're trying to learn, all these conversations. It's also really nice to have some diversity in who's asking the questions. As good or bad as I am at user research and user discovery, I am only one person. And having people with different backgrounds professionally, who live in different countries, who have different feelings about social media, basically, who are not me in a variety of really interesting ways, I think, made the entire process more interesting. Caro, who is our lead designer on the project, handed off basically the summary document of, like, everything we learned, and she pulled out, like, little snippets from the interviews. First of all, that is not something I would have done had it been just me, like, let's be very, very clear. This is an incredibly valuable document, particularly as we consider adding additional people onto this project to be able to, like, translate insights. But also, like, this is, like, summarized in a way that, like, takes some real expertise. And I would have walked away with vibes, and instead, we walked away with like, structured learning. LINDSEY: Awesome. So, the last time we checked in, also, you were very excited because you had just maybe started a technical spike and were starting to dig into the, okay, like, how technically feasible is this product? And I think, at that point, you all were looking at circling around this target market. Here are the main tools they use to communicate. What does it even look like to connect with those APIs? How possible is it? Can you give us an update on some of that work? JOSH: The way that I framed the question in the very beginning was, is this a science project, or is this going to be engineering? And, for the most part, the answer is, it's going to be engineering, right? Some are a little bit easier; some are a little bit harder. But it isn't, like, reinventing new stuff, with one exception, and that is connecting up with iMessages, which has been in the news a little bit. And I honestly just hope the ghost of Steve Jobs comes back and haunts, you know, the Apple headquarters at Cupertino because, come on, guys, interoperability is sort of the future, and you're ruining it for everybody. But other than that, I think we have a pretty clear path. I'd like to test out some of these. Like, you don't really know until you do it. I think that's kind of the next step of what we're doing is to, like, demonstrate that it is possible for a person to connect up a couple of different accounts. It is possible for us to extract data and turn that into information and insights in the kinds of ways we thought we could and then present that back in a meaningful way. I think that would be the next step for us to do. Mostly, everything seems feasible, except for iMessages. LINDSEY: I've also, I think, heard some whispers of artificial intelligence for Knect. Is that true? Have you all looked at, you know, what AI's role could be in the solution? And how does that research look? JORDYN: We assume it will be part of the mix. That said, I don't know how to frame it exactly. It's not like it's not an essential ingredient. I think the work with large language models and the democratization of that work recently is absolutely going to make this product way better than it would have otherwise been. But there are a lot of heuristics we've, like, been able to, you know, draw out and come up with that are, frankly, algorithmic, and they're not AI necessarily. Now, the line between big data plus an algorithm and AI in the popular lexicon, like, there's a big difference between those two things. But, like, as people talk about it, yeah, where does one end and the other begin? But we definitely will be making use of a lot of the newest technologies, and we've dabbled in them. I've dabbled in them. I know, Josh, you've been playing around with some of them, too, to the point where we're like, okay, yeah, we can make use of this stuff. It will be a valuable kind of tool in our toolkit, but it will not be the sole basis of value. I guess that's the sort of nuanced answer. But maybe Josh has a more bite-sized hype machine answer to this. Yeah, AI to the moon, right? JOSH: Um, no. My only answer would be more cynical. Would anybody rightfully start a company in 2023 without having AI in there someplace? Maybe I'll say something different. One of the things that we've wondered is, there's more than a handful of companies that are adjacent to what we're doing that are definitely looking at similar kinds of problems and that aren't building the solution that, clearly, some market is, like, desperate for. And these are not, like, wildly successful companies that have grown astronomically and changed the market. And, like, trying to figure out, like, why is that? And one of the reasons is...I sound like a tech bro, right? There has been a paradigm shift in the technology world, but there really has been. What do, you know, publicly available LLMs like, you know, OpenAI's ChatGPT, like, what have they done? They have taken a whole set of problems that were once really, really complicated and allowed you to do a reasonable job of solving them much more easily than you ever could before. And it takes some amount of imagination, to realize that, to realize that these things are more than just, I mean, every product I have on my computer has some kind of OpenAI ChatGPT-style thing in there, right? It's, like, 16 different variations on give me a prompt, and I'll write your essay for you, and they all kind of suck. But those aren't the really exciting uses that I've seen. It's the more subtle things. There's a company called Booklet, which tries to replace, like, noisy email lists or noisy communities to something more calm. And one of its features is it'll send you a summary of what's been going on in the community since, like, the last time you checked in. And it gives you, like, two paragraphs to read, and they're really chill and really informative, and they don't make you feel FOMO. They don't make you feel stressed up. Like, okay, stuff's happened in the community. This is really neat. And it's all powered by OpenAI's APIs. And it's really kind of magical. And, like, you have to have a slightly different perspective to imagine these kinds of magical moments. So, that's what I'm excited about. There's a set of things that we would have had to do with, like, terrible, complicated queries and, like, pattern matching, and freaking grep, or whatever old-school tools we would have had, you know, for doing things in the past. And now you just get to, like, shove text in one end, and say how you want the results structured and get the results back in the other end. And it doesn't have to be perfect, but that's okay. Like, we're talking about human relationships, which are inherently imperfect. So, I'm fine with this. And it's kind of exciting. But we'll see in, you know, if we end up continuing going down this path. Like, that's the goal of the next stage is to be, like, okay, what are the easy things which we can generate out of this? Is there an intersection between, like, easy and meaningful? And if there is, this is pretty exciting. JORDYN: Can I add something to that? Which is that the problem Knect is trying to solve and the way that we're trying to solve it, the way we've thought of solving it that's differentiated, lends itself really well to the current landscape of AI tools in that, and you were kind of getting at this, Josh, but I feel like it bears drilling into a little bit, in that what we are proposing here is not a set of deterministic things. We're not going to give you a to-do list. It's not, like, a linear...deterministic is really the right word. Like, there's a to-do list. There are things that make the cut. You got to go address them, et cetera. We're way more trying to approximate the way a slightly more put-together person with more time would approach nurturing their relationships, which is just to remember more of it more of the time. It doesn't mean we need to remember all of it every time. That's not the kind of task this is, which makes it a really good task for the place that AI is at right now. And I think where folks have failed in the past is that they've either tried to turn it into a deterministic set of tasks, which then just feels like another to-do list, another inbox in a series of to-do lists and inboxes that you have in your life that just make you feel guilty and inadequate. That doesn't seem fun to us. We don't think you need another one of those. Or other places we've seen this fall down, which is that it takes the current sort of state of AI and tries to actually do the deterministic thing for you, but it doesn't do a good enough job right now. But where we've kind of landed in the middle is that, again, what we're trying to solve for is solvable in a way more probabilistic way. Like, can we get more of this accomplished more easily for you? It's never going to, like, completely, you know, do the task in this perfect deterministic way. But it is going to make you feel more confident and more relaxed à la Booklet, it sounds like, how to do that for this particular problem, which is a different bar and one we think we can clear. And that really does provide value. People are really longing for this. LINDSEY: Jordyn and Josh, building on those descriptions of, like, kind of maybe bad AI use case, good AI use case, could you give some specific examples of, like, what that might look like for Knect, like, how AI could be used in a good way or maybe what you're trying to avoid, more specifically? JOSH: Yeah. First, I'm going to start with what I want to avoid, which is, there are tools out there, and these may be interesting to some people listening, and if so, go find them. Good luck. But there are tools out there that say things like, "Keep in touch with your network at scale." And will use AI to write a message which you can send out to people without you ever having to, like, review it. That seems like creepy, futuristic sort of, you know, there's, like, a Black Mirror episode about that. Like, the whole point of having, like, a professional network of people who you care about is actually interacting with them. And having some service, like, write some prompt, maybe in its own voice, maybe if it's really good in your voice to, like, let them know that you care about them, let them know that you're thinking about them is, like, that's just bad. I think that's bad. And we don't have any plans to do that kind of thing, even though most uses for AI in the products that I use are writing three or four paragraphs in response to, like, a prompt. So, certainly, that's the common use case. It's not very appealing to us, and, frankly, in the people we were talking to, that wasn't one of the things that anybody ever suggested. It's obvious, but as far as we can tell, uninteresting, right? Just because it's obvious and just because it's straightforward doesn't mean it's interesting. The things we're imagining, for example, is, talk about Jordyn. Jordyn and I have known each other since 2020, I think. And we have, like, a whole history of text messages going back and forth, which, by the way, we actually could integrate because we both have Android phones, you know, shout-out for Open Internet. It might be interesting to, you know, summarize some of that, like, I know Jordyn pretty well, but other people who I might have not talked with in a while, sure, you could present me with a whole timeline of our communication. But that isn't necessarily useful. I'll have to read every bit of it. Why not, like, take all that and summarize, here's things you guys talk about. Here's things that, like, prompted your past few conversations: job change, got laid off, started a company, got a cat. Whatever those topics happen to be like, share some of those things. Bring me up to speed a little bit faster without having to literally review every word that could have been going back multiple years. That's a pretty good use of it. If you think about the way that messages work, right? Like, my kids are now at the age where they have phones, and I can now text my kids during the day. I will just tell you, like, this is, like, an incredibly joyful thing for me to be able to send, like, stupid memes to my kids or, like, what's exactly the right emoji to, like, send to them or for them to send to me. If every one of these things were, like, pushed to some kind of timeline, and I'm like, "What's going on with my kids?" Like, that's just, like, going back and reading through, like, your WhatsApp thread, which is something that isn't interesting necessarily, at least not from, like, a professional perspective. And there's, like, thousands of these things. Like, why do I want, like, a record in my, like, database of people who I talk to that says, "OMG," or "K," or "lol," or those sorts of things? Like, that's, like, a phrase. It isn't a conversation. And we could use an LLM to go summarize what the conversation was all about, which is, by the way, a way more interesting thing to persist over time than, like, my daughter typing "JK, JK, JK," which I think is 15-year-old for laughing at me, but I'm not entirely sure. LINDSEY: [laughs] Okay, so as you are...you mentioned wrapping up, and you did your last meeting, and you've got your kind of takeaway docs. You know, one, I'm curious, like, if there's, for your last, you know, days, hours of the program, if there's any final morsels you're trying to get out of it, and then how that kind of leads you into, like, what's next. What are you planning? JOSH: Let's do another one of these things in two weeks. [laughter] LINDSEY: Oh, okay. JOSH: Yeah. I'm inviting myself back on your show. We have one more day of school then, like so many folks, we get in a plane or get in a car and go do some travel and try to disconnect a little bit from our professional networks. So, I'm consciously not trying to say what's going to happen next. I would love to have this conversation again, maybe in two weeks, in the new year, about what comes next. I don't know that I could have a meaningful one right now. JORDYN: I will say what we are trying to send Josh off with into his R&R is what's it going to take to get to a viable MVP, not merely viable, but actually viable? Given what we know, given all this, you know, work that we've done in the last eight weeks, we now have, you know, the ability to envision what version one of something might be. And so, making that kind of argument: here's why it is what we're imagining it to be; here's what it is; here's what it would take to build that thing, gives Josh a lot of stuff to think about in the meantime in terms of how to accomplish that. And the thing that will happen in two weeks is understanding a little bit more about, like, the actual, okay, here's the actual plan. But the ingredients are there, which is super valuable and is a thing we have done every time at the end of every incubator we've done. It's essentially a...it is that what's next plan and why, why that thing. What's the ultimate upside of pursuing this product, and what's the near-term upside? And what's it going to take to get there? Because that's often a thing that founders, especially for some founders, which Josh is not, but what they often can't get their heads around is there's this little feeling if you've got this big vision over here, and you've got, like, the set of things you could do tomorrow, really tasky things really, like, operational things, oh, I need to, like, set up a C Corp, but I need to...whatever those things are, right? What's in between? What's that near-term path that's going to directionally head in the direction of that big vision? It's, so far, always, what we have sent founders off with. LINDSEY: So, if you weren't here at the very beginning of our session, we mentioned that the applications are now open for session 1 of 2024. I'm curious, Josh, what kind of founders would you recommend for the thoughtbot incubator? What's the profile of someone you might send our way? JOSH: I'm going to say something, and I don't think I match that profile, which is interesting, and folks should think about that, what that means. But I would say that if I had to, like, pick a profile, having gone through this, I would say somebody with an idea, of course; ideally, it's one that they have some connection to. They have some personal passion for but, not just because it's an abstract idea but a personal passion that comes from their own experience. And it's really great for somebody who hasn't been inside of a tech company before, at least on the tech, half the business. Tech companies have three halves: one half is, you know, the product building side of bit of it or the tech half, which is engineers, and product designers, and product managers. And the other half of that is the go-to-market side, like sales, and marketing, and customer success. And the third half would be, like, operations like HR and finance. So, if you have experience in, like, the sales, or the marketing, or the customer success side, or the HR, or the finance, or corporate operations or that part of it, and, you know, you're familiar with tech coming from that perspective but maybe haven't been on the actually building stuff side of them before, this is a really, really good process. Because what does thoughtbot do? It does the building in tech side of things: designers, product managers, and especially engineers. And it has this, like, legacy and this history and expertise, therefore, with, like, the journeyman program where they help, like, level people up in those areas and now are applying this to founders. Because as the founder, you do need to develop some ability to converse around engineering and technical stuff. And you really, really, really, really need to get good at the discovery side, especially of, like, product design and product management. And those are the things you're going to get to do and you're going to get to do with people who are themselves really, really good at it. And that's awesome. The flip side is if you're, you know, a founder who is super attached to every bit of your vision, and you think you have the strategy all laid out and you're just looking for, like, warm bodies to build it, I mean, is it the insight team? What's the right level at thoughtbot? I forget the names of things, but, like, thoughtbot has, like, a startup program where you can give thoughtbot money, and they will build things for you. And they're also really, really good at that, but that's not the incubator program. The incubator program is probably a step earlier. So, I think it is worth thinking, are you at the I'm so confident of my vision; I'm so confident in my strategy that I just want to get this thing built, then maybe don't sign up for the Incubator. But if you're at the stage of I think this is a problem; I'm pretty sure this is a problem; I really want it to get solved; I have some vision, but I know it's going to change, then I think the incubator is really ideal, especially if you're looking to upskill yourself, too, because you're going to walk away with the ability to be conversant around the technology stuff. And you're going to walk away with a crap ton of experience with the discovery, qualitative discovery, like user interviews, quantitative discovery, like, you know, running ads, and landing pages, and all that stuff. Like, you're going to be really solid with that stuff after eight weeks because you will have done it. LINDSEY: Jordyn, any thoughts? JORDYN: I love all that. I think it's accurate. I would only say to those of you sitting out there who are thinking, I'm in that other camp; I'm very confident about what it is I want to build; I would ask you to do a little soul-searching as to whether that's actually true. Like, what evidence do you have? If you needed to stand up in court and defend your conclusions and your vision, could you? And I say that as the person who, as a first-time founder, was deluded in that way. I thought I knew exactly what I was doing and for whom and why. And, boy, howdy, could I have used a program like this to actually get me to sit down and, like, talk to people, listen to them, figure out what was valuable and what wasn't, what a valuable, you know, initial market offering was going to be like. Ah, I wish really, really badly that I'd had something like this because I was pretty deluded. I don't even know, like, what the right word is. I just didn't know what I didn't know. So, like the way you described it, Josh, I know Jordyn of 2017 would have been like, "That's me. I know this thing that I need to do. LINDSEY: [laughs] JORDYN: So, I don't need to apply to this program because I don't need to do any of that discovery work." But I was wrong [laughs]. I was absolutely wrong. I was wrong to the tune of, you know, two years and $150,000 of angel investment. So, consider, it is not idly that I say this to you, person sitting out there who feels very confident in your vision right now. Perhaps you have done all those things already; in that case, [inaudible 33:43] you don't need this. And you just need to [inaudible 33:46] with the thing you already know to be true. But ask yourself, how do you know what you know? LINDSEY: Yeah, even if you...we can help you build the thing. But we're probably, also, still going to push you on [laughs] some of those things we [crosstalk 34:01]. JORDYN: Yeah, we're still going to ask. We're going to ask to see the receipts. LINDSEY: Yeah [laughs]. JORDYN: And maybe you have the receipts, which is great, but we're still going to ask you for them, I guess, is my point. Every team at thoughtbot will ask you for the receipts, by the way, not just mine [laughs]. LINDSEY: The other interesting thing you touched on, Josh, was, I think, where we kind of started the incubator was with that target profile that you just described, which is, like, the less technical founder, and maybe even, like, a first-time founder. And then over time and seeing, like, applications, we broadened that as we saw, like, oh, you know, actually, also, technical founders and repeat founders do still need, like, help with this and can use guidance. So, we've expanded a bit, and maybe that is still, like, the person who gets the most value at the end of the day is the non-technical who hasn't really done this before. But yeah, we've kind of expanded to those other profiles as well. JOSH: There's a reason that repeat founders are no more successful on average than first-time founders, and it's something really important that Jordyn said, which is, you may think you've done all this, but we're going to ask you for the receipts. Just because you've done this before doesn't mean you're going to be good at it. Chances are, if you've done this before, it's mostly because you got really, really lucky; ask me how I know. So, it's nice to have. I mean, I described a profile, and I said that wasn't me. But I'll just tell you, as somebody who, like, spent his entire career, almost his entire career, in the tech side of tech companies, and I think I'm pretty good at it, I'm certainly not the worst at it, thinks I'm pretty good at it, it's still really nice to have a team backing you up in this early moment. It's really nice to have a team. JORDYN: Yeah, I will say another thing that we've heard from every founder we've worked with is just how much more real and actionable their idea feels when they have a team sitting there with them taking them seriously, which is another thing, you know, I really would have benefited from is, like, suddenly, when you've got three or more industry professionals sitting there in a Zoom call with you, like, okay, what are we doing? Why are we doing this? How do we know? The feeling of being taken seriously in that way and then having a bunch of people working full-time with you for eight weeks, they're in it with you; they're asking the questions; they're talking to people; they're coming back and saying, "I just had the most amazing conversation with someone. Here's what I learned," it just takes your project to a different level of reality. Like, we're humans. We're social beings. We create reality together. And when you're working alone, you know, through force of will, you can do a lot, but with a group, it really feels like you're creating something together. And, like Josh said, having those other brains with other experiences in other contexts percolating on your idea it's like bringing a team to bear on something. There's just nothing quite like it, and it's a huge value of the program. Like, we can give you the programming and, in fact, you can go run the programming. It is published in our handbook. The things that we do together you can go do, but it is a whole other matter to do them with a team. It just feels different. LINDSEY: Great. Well, I think that's where we're going to end today. I mean, Josh is leaving us hanging a little bit. So, we might need to...we're going to figure out a way to get your final thoughts, conclusions in a few weeks because I know everyone would love to hear what the plan is for Knect. Josh and Jordyn, as always, thank you so much. Any final thoughts or farewells from you today? JOSH: I've really enjoyed it. I'm going to miss these folks. Though, apparently, I get to hang out in a special Slack channel forever. LINDSEY: Yeah, you get to hang out. JOSH: Which is nice. LINDSEY: Exactly. You can't get rid of us just yet. JOSH: Good. I wouldn't want to. LINDSEY: All right. Thanks, y'all. And thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Special Guest: Josh Herzig-Marx .

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thoughtbot's Incubator Program Mini Season 3 - Episode 05: Knect with Josh Herzig-Marx

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2023 27:30

If you missed the first and second episodes with thoughtbot Incubator Program partcipant and founder Josh Herzig-Marks of Knect, you can listen to Josh's first episode (https://www.giantrobots.fm/incubators3e1josh) and his second (https://www.giantrobots.fm/s3e3incubatorjosh) to catch up. In the third interview with Josh, Lindsey Christensen, head of Marketing at thoughtbot, and Jordyn Bonds, head of the Incubator Program at thoughtbot, discuss the progress of Knect in the thoughtbot Incubator Program. Most of the conversation involves identifying and focusing on the right target audience. Initially, they considered startup enthusiasts, but after exploring other segments like journalists, they returned to startup enthusiasts with a more refined focus. Josh also talks about developing a prototype and its usefulness in getting feedback and refining the product concept. The technical feasibility of integrating various communication platforms into their solution is a significant focus. They examined different platforms like email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Telegram, and SMS to determine which integrations were essential for the minimum viable product. Looking forward, Josh outlines the next steps for the program, which include finalizing high-quality prototypes and making strategic decisions about the scale and funding of the project. Transcript: LINDSEY: Hi, everyone. JORDYN: Hi. LINDSEY: Thanks for tuning in and joining. We're going to be checking in on one of our incubator program participants today. If you haven't joined us before, thoughtbot runs a startup incubator, about an eight-week program for the early, early, early-stage company, idea, founder project to validate that business, find the market, and start thinking about how you build that thing. So my name is Lindsey Christensen. I head up Marketing here at thoughtbot. And today, I am joined by Jordyn Bonds, who heads up the incubator program at thoughtbot. And our guest of honor checking in once again, Josh Herzig-Marks, Founder of Knect, the company going through the program. Thanks for joining. JOSH: Super excited. I'm always excited. LINDSEY: How's it going? How is your founder sentiment this week? JOSH: This -- LINDSEY: Are you on a high? Are you on a low? JOSH: I don't think I'm on a typically high-high. I'm a pretty even-keeled, chill founder. I think it's appropriately enthusiastic but not excessively so, and definitely not at a low trough. LINDSEY: All right, even-keeled. We love to [crosstalk 01:19]. JOSH: Appropriately enthusiastic because we're doing really cool stuff. And this is a lot of fun. LINDSEY: Well, that's great. So, I mean, [inaudible 01:25] that you're working on and especially the last time I checked in with you in the really early stages, trying to find that target niche audience or invalidate, like, the problem with them. How is that going? How's that search for the people with the problem going? JOSH: Yeah. So just to, like, rewind the clock for the folks who maybe haven't seen every one of these, you know, there's a few things that I was trying to figure out to validate whether this problem that I saw was an opportunity for business. And, Jordyn, help me out if I forget some of these. So, number one, is this a Josh problem, or is this problem more broad? Question number two is, could we find an audience of people who are reachable, who share the problem, and who'd be willing to actually pay for this thing? And those little asterisks after pay, right? People pay for things with money but also with time or with reputation. Generally, we're thinking about money here, ultimately. But do they pay for this thing even in time? Would they be able to do that? And the reason we're looking for that kind of a more narrow audience is because you got to build for somebody in the very beginning. This isn't, like, we're limiting ourselves to a narrow audience forever, but we wanted a set of people who we could design this thing for, have prototypes, share it, and hopefully get some consistent feedback so we can build a thing which they would find useful and use that from there. That was two things. And the third thing: is this actually technically feasible? You know, the first time I was a founder, incidental to building our business, we built the world's fastest online transaction processing database that was processing, like, billions and billions of retail records in, like, the time it takes you to, like, click and drag and change the query that we're doing, which is really cool to say out loud, and it demoed really, really well. But that isn't actually a business. And what I wanted is part of validating if this idea, if this problem was an opportunity or something that wasn't a science experiment. And I'd love to talk a little bit more about what we've been doing over the past week, maybe a little later on in this. Because I think it's been a big week for the science experiment or not validation stage of this thing. So, two things we've also done over the past week and a half, two weeks since the last time we chatted, we have a prototype, which looks pretty good, which we can now use to show to people who we think are our core starting audience, our core starting market, and we actually have a core starting market. Both of these things are pretty exciting. I mean, I'm always excited. But we're doing it, like, we're doing the thing that we're supposed to be doing, and I like that. LINDSEY: That's really exciting. So, core starting market is happening. Do you want to talk about maybe how you got there? JOSH: One of the reasons why I was excited about doing this program is Jordyn, and I share the understanding of its importance. But when you're, like, actually the founder, it's really hard to see this, right? Jordyn is like the...I don't know quite how to describe it, but Jordyn is the person who, like, made sure we stayed focused on this part of the effort. And, like, it's a really key part of the thoughtbot incubator. And it's one of the reasons why I'm really appreciative of having gone through the program. JORDYN: So, Josh walked into the program with a problem that he had, which is frequently how products get made and companies get founded. Like, that's fine. It's a great starting place. And as he listed, his question was, is this a Josh problem, or is this a problem for more than just Josh? Because Josh isn't a market segment. Josh is an individual human [laughs]. And a lot of us have product ideas that we would love to have exist so that we can use them, but that doesn't make them good market opportunities. I may or may not be speaking from experience in that regard, ahem. Anyway, so part of the programming here was to figure this out. And it's great to start with, like, okay, well, if Josh is our primary user, who is Josh? Is there a market of Joshs, right? So, we actually started off talking to those folks. And, you know, we're human beings, and we tend to hang out with people like ourselves. And so, Josh knew a lot of people like Josh. One of those people that he knew was me. I am like Josh in regard to this pain point. I also had it. And then I was connected to a bunch of people who had this pain point. So, we broadly spoke to a lot of those folks at first. I don't know that we really had a persona name for this. I don't know, how would you frame this? JOSH: As you know, I only have poor pejorative names for people like us. JORDYN: [laughs] Pejorative? JOSH: There's, you know, a class of people who are at tech companies and startups, and sometimes they start their own companies, and sometimes they work at companies. And sometimes they do coaching. And sometimes they do a little bit of an investment. And sometimes they're on advisory boards. And, you know, when you kind of smoothly move from one thing to the next, sort of often doing several of these things all at the same time. And there's not a really good name for them, but they're kind of people, like I might go so far to say the three of us, and maybe a lot of people who work at thoughtbot and a lot of people we've all worked with in the past and, hopefully, a lot of the people who are listening to this conversation because they, too, could slip into the founding a company stage of this business. JORDYN: So, we've kind of loosely called those people, most recently, startup enthusiasts is our nickname, and there are a lot of folks under that umbrella. But as we talked to those people at this kind of high level, it was very broad. That maybe sounds fairly specific to some of you out there listening, but it's not specific, nearly specific enough to address with a product. So, we were talking. We were listening, getting people to talk to us, "Hey, tell us about how you keep in touch with folks. How does that go? What do you do? Have you ever built your own spreadsheet to keep track of people you know? Tell us about that." Broad questions. And we were learning things and hearing about trends. It wasn't coming into focus. We weren't hearing enough repeatable things. And we certainly weren't hearing about red, hot pain points. It was like a, "Yeah, this is kind of a problem sometimes, but not all the time. My system works more or less [inaudible 07:11]. Then we kind of found this range of personas. Some folks were just like, "I'm awesome at this. It's not a problem. I don't know what to tell you." Okay, well, clearly, that person doesn't need a product because they're feeling good. Great. At the other end of the spectrum, you have people who are just like, "I don't even know what you're talking about [laughs]. Like, this isn't [laughs]..." There were people who were like, "I know what you're talking about, but I'm good at it." There were people who were like, "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't care to ever do this." And then, there was this broad set of people in the middle who were like, "Yeah, I have a problem with this." But we were hearing a lot of different things. In the course of that, Rami, one of the folks on the team, ended up talking to a journalist. And that conversation was very interesting because it did seem like way more of a red, hot pain point with, like, something on the line. And we were like, oh, maybe we've been barking up the entire wrong tree and, like, startup enthusiasts aren't our people; journalists are our people. So, then we did a whole sprint with journalists and realized that journalists is a very broad umbrella [laughs]. There's a lot of different kinds of journalists in a lot of different kinds of contexts. And they have widely varying pain points, habits, needs, wants. We were like, okay, we're hearing some really interesting things in here, but they don't seem like early adopters because they are not the kind of people that just try an app who are just like, "Sure, new app, cool. I'll try that." Startup enthusiasts are people who just, like, try stuff. They're, like, on Product Hunt. They're friends with a bunch of founders, and those founders are, like, "Try this." And then they're like, "Sure, okay. Sure, I'll try it. I'll login." Login to anything once, right? Is kind of the attitude of this group of people, journalists not so much. And so, it felt like it was going to be a really hard thing to address those folks. But we learned a ton. And we really ended up mapping the emotional train in a lot of detail. And as a group, like, we came to a lot of alignment. There was a lot of, like, really good understanding, deeper understanding having gone on that journey. But where we ended up back was like, okay, startup enthusiasts really actually seem like [laughs] a place to start. And it feels like there's enough of them that they could create some kind of early adopter market. But now, with the information that we had, the new information we had, we were like, let us sub-segment this group of people. It's not everybody in that umbrella. Doing that whole journey enabled us to kind of come back to the question with renewed focus, but, like, conviction about how valuable it was going to be to do that, right? And sometimes that's what it takes. You kind of have to do the wrong thing for a second to appreciate doing the right thing, and that's totally fine. The fact that we were able to do that in, what, five weeks is, like, fine. JOSH: And I think the way that we found the sub-segment that made sense was actually pretty simple, right? Once we understood what are the dimensions that are actually important, we did a quick brainstorming session. This wasn't actually a very long process at the end of it, a quick brainstorming session. What are the different kinds of people who fall into this segment? And we just scored them on all the easy things you'd expect to score people on, namely: are they easy to find and easy for us to reach? Do they advertise this quality of theirs someplace publicly, like, perhaps on LinkedIn? And are they easy to find? Like, do we have enough of them inside of our network so we could, like, search for these kinds of folks? And as it turns out, we've already spoken to a lot of these kinds of folks as well. And primarily, we're talking to repeat founders and/or chiefs of staff at startups. JORDYN: If you are one of those people, please reach out to us. We'd like to talk to you. JOSH: We would love it. LINDSEY: Call to action. So, Josh, you mentioned one of the benefits of the program has been Jordyn's ability to kind of laser-focus on finding the target market. Jordyn, how do you do that? How do you keep the team coming back to that? Especially as sometimes it maybe doesn't take that long—sometimes it might feel like you're kind of circling around and around and still aren't finding anyone—and keeping folks motivated to do that or understanding, you know, when are we going to say, "This is it, you know, we're not finding someone"? JORDYN: I'll talk about how it worked in this case. And every team is different and is motivated by different things. And this process is a little different every time, so it's hard to make generalizations. But in this case, what was interesting is that after we did our journalist sprint and we were like, we do want to refocus on startup enthusiasts, but we need to understand a little bit better what we're doing, we actually prototyped a little bit given what we knew, which seems like a bad idea [laughs] on the face of it. It seems premature. The purpose of doing that, then, was to really take a different path to drawing out of each of us what was in our lines. That's, like, so much of the work of a team at this stage is, like, making sure that we're externalizing the things that we're thinking and the assumptions that we have. And it's strange. You would think you would just be like, "Hey, tell me what's in your mind?" But minds don't work that way. You can't just be like, "Hey, mind, what's up?" And then articulate it perfectly in a way that everybody in this group is going to know what you mean. So, prototyping actually drew a bunch of that stuff out. It really...I think that was the moment...I don't know, Josh, how you feel about it. We had been kind of in the doldrums because we did get to the end of that journalists' sprint. And we were like, what are we doing? What have we learned? And prototyping at that moment enabled us to...it was a different way of understanding what we had learned and what we were all now thinking. And it really drew a bunch of dynamics out that it was super helpful. JOSH: It brought some real sharpness to what we thought we'd be able to...the kind of value we thought we could deliver in the early versions of this thing, right? Fast forward two years, who knows? But it brought some sharpness to the kinds of problems that we thought we'd be able to fix and the kinds of problems we thought we couldn't solve. And that also clarified for us, certainly for me, why, oh, here's why this isn't really landing with the journalists, right? And here's why this isn't really landing with some other kinds of folks we were talking to. And -- JORDYN: Biz dev folks. We talked to a bunch of biz dev folks. It wasn't going to land with them, but yeah -- JOSH: They weren't at all excited about it, and then we can kind of understand why. One of the ways that I think about a prototype and I talk about this a lot, and I love doing this. Somebody called this a Pinocchio prototype, the wooden child who wants to be a real boy. Once we had a prototype, we could actually put it onto our actual phones. And I'm not sure how many other people did this on the team besides me but, like, I would carry my phone around with a prototype on it. And every time I thought I might use it, I would pull the damn thing out of my pocket and, like, tap away on the phone. It gave me, again, a very clear sense of the kinds of things I thought we were moving towards solving and the kinds of things that we weren't really solving. LINDSEY: Yeah, Josh, you mentioned there were some exciting developments in the past week. Is that around the prototype? JOSH: This is one. Having the prototype on there was good. It's also really nice to have this be part of a larger team. I was having a hard time. I had been playing with, like, our design team's paper prototype. I was having a hard time communicating what I was trying to do inside of my head. So, I built my own parallel prototype in Google Slides, which was exactly as awesome looking and as functional as everybody listening is imagining it must have been. If you would like your own copy of my Google Slides app development template, please reach out. I will share it [laughs]. But it let me think a little bit, again, the same thing, like, here's how these things fit together. And then it started moving really, really fast. Once we were all putting things down in a way that we could play with, and touch, and talk about in a concrete way, it felt like that part of things started to move really fast. And the quality of our conversations improved with people we were talking to as well. I would say that's half of the things that are really exciting. LINDSEY: Just to continue on the prototype for a second, Jordyn mentioned a major outcome of starting to use the prototype; well, I guess [inaudible 14:37] that you all as a team got better aligned around what you were envisioning for the solution. And then, it also helped you, again, kind of identify the true target market. Are there other things you're already learning from using the prototype and getting it in front of people? JOSH: Yeah, I think there are. By the way, this shouldn't be surprising. This is, like, the classic diverge-converge model that I know thoughtbot uses all the time with not just startup clients when you're building something new. One of the things which, you know, rewind the clock six and a half weeks ago to when we started this thing. I didn't realize how much intelligence would be required behind the scenes to make this thing actually sensible to the final users. And the more we show it to people, the more we realize that, like, intelligence to make things look simple is going to equal people actually using the damn thing. I think we started to see that ourselves in playing with it. But it's really important to have that be validated by actual potential users who aren't, like, in this shit themselves. JORDYN: I mean, immediately, you know, we were able to start showing the prototype to the folks that we were having interviews with, and there's just nothing better than that because they're not going to pull their punches with you. And we got a lot of great immediate sort of spicy feedback [laughs] from people, especially if you're showing them to people who are, like, startup people [laughs], they're just not going to be nice. And so, there was a lot of [crosstalk 15:59]. JOSH: They're like, "Have you considered making this suck less?" JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. "I wouldn't use this at all [laughs]." You're just like, "Okay, thanks." Tell me how you really feel [laughs]. But it's great. I mean, like, there's nothing better than that. Like, I would way rather that than a bunch of people trying to be polite. JOSH: And it also prompts feedback that we wouldn't necessarily have thought of, which is the idea of this. We [inaudible 16:20] thought of this on our own. Like the idea that sometimes you might want to not take an action when you don't really care about a person. But sometimes you really, like, dislike a person so much who you've been talking to you want to never see them again, right? Never show me this person again. It's a thing that we never would have come to, I think, if we hadn't, like, actually been showing the prototype to end users. LINDSEY: Okay, what is the second half of the exciting thing that happened in the past week? JOSH: This is very much a thoughtbot thing. thoughtbot is full of really talented engineers. And over the past couple of days, we've been able to bring a lot of those folks to bear on the question of like, is this thing technically feasible or not? Which was one of my big concerns. And it turns out, that was probably too large a question for the team that we started with. And to be able to, like, do this, like, little discovery spike with, you know, going beyond the three-and-a-half thoughtboter team that we had to some of your most talented, most experienced engineering leads, not forever, but just for, like, a short moment is kind of, for me, at least, like, a real taste of, like, the thoughtbot value is, you know, Jordyn gets to put out a call for assistance, you know, across the company, and people raise their hands and put real-time in. And, you know, we're able to do something in a couple of days that we probably couldn't have done because we have enough people. And, you know, all those, like, network effects of people coming together that could have taken us, you know, weeks or longer just kind of toiling on our own. LINDSEY: For those technical challenges, maybe you don't want to get into specifics, but in broad strokes, can you talk about what some of those considerations are? And maybe at this point, maybe it makes sense to also talk a little bit about, like, how the solution, how you're thinking about the evolution of what the solution is and provides. JOSH: I have an Android phone. I live in the world as a green bubble in a world of blue bubbles. My partner and I are in an interfaith relationship. She has an iPhone. I have an Android phone. And forever, people are accidentally trying to hit up my, like, iMessage account tied to my email address, and the things don't come through. And, all of a sudden, this company someplace in the U.S. figured out some way to, like, reverse engineer the Apple messages iMessages protocol, so I can put iMessages onto my Android phone. They built this thing. It's been, like, all over the tech news recently. This is the problem, if you're trying to bring together all of somebody's social network, is that there is no, like, handy-dandy API for iMessages. There is no handy-dandy API for regular SMS or RCS or any of those other variations of that. There is no handy-dandy API for WhatsApp, for Telegram, sort of ish, kind of maybe for Slack, not really for Discord. It remains to be seen how mature it is for LinkedIn. By the way, email works great, right? If we just build our entire lives off of email, we'd have none of these problems, but we can't. And we had some hypotheses about ways that we could make connecting these other accounts easier. And we just took, like, an awful lot of hands, right? More than two hands. It took more than two hands to figure out if these things were possibilities if those things turn out to be true. And the answer is if they are true, which we're still working to figure out, though it's looking better and better, this isn't a science experiment, right? And if it's not true, then step one is an awful lot of engineer hours to go do what those Beeper Mini folks did and reverse engineer a whole bunch of protocols and systems that were never intended to be open in the first place. JORDYN: I would like to say -- JOSH: Which is why we should all donate to EFF and promote an open internet so that startups like mine don't need to exist. JORDYN: To loop back to your earlier question, Lindsey, about how to keep the team focused on who something is for, this conversation seems like it's not about that. But, to me, this conversation is also about that because we have a long list of messaging platforms that we have heard from folks, like from interviewing them would be useful to have brought into a single place. This was one of the key pain points that Josh has that we heard from other people, which is, like, you connect with people across platforms, right? You might be connected to some on LinkedIn, but you're also emailing with them. Your email history with them is not a complete history of your life with them. None of your online stuff is going to be a complete history because sometimes you actually interact with people [laughs] in reality, which is still, at this moment, not being recorded all the time, but probably not for long. JOSH: As little as possible. JORDYN: [laughs] But still, even within the online world, you're communicating with people across platforms. Maybe you text with someone, maybe you message on LinkedIn, whatever. And having complete context for your relationship with them in a way that makes it really easy to kind of, like, boot up that context in order to reach out to them for some reason, like, maybe you haven't talked in six months, and you just want to remember, where did I leave this relationship? What's going on with this person, right? You're like, where was I talking to them? Oh, I was talking to them in these four places that don't have very good protocols for being brought into the same interface, right? So, like, the stuff is, like, all connected. But to get back to the who question, we have this list of places we'd heard from people, like, in the early interviews and places that Josh was trying to do this connect with people, et cetera. So, it's, like, Slack DMs, and it's email, and it's LinkedIn, whatever. But we also heard Telegram, and we also heard other things. If we don't sufficiently focus on a narrow enough group of people, we risk making the MVP way too big because it needs to connect with every one of these things. And we can't go to market with something that doesn't connect with 12 platforms or something, right? But because we're sufficiently focused, we could actually do the thing where we're like, okay, well, out of this list of platforms, what are, like, the top five? Where is the line? Where's the minimum viability here with what we can connect with that will actually bring value? And I also am an Android user living in an iPhone world. And Josh and I at least have enough awareness to be like, you know what? Maybe Android isn't necessary, even though we would love [laughs] for it to be there. Nine times out of 10, the people that look like us are using iPhones, right? So great, cool. Let's just do the thing. JOSH: Obligatory iPhone test device. JORDYN: Right. I have one, too, but I don't know where it is. So, like, the question of who really matters. Who, like, really helps you focus? If your answer to "Who?" is anybody with a smartphone, well, like, it's going to be really tough to build an actual MVP that's buildable. So, this question that Josh brought in to us, which is, like, "What's technically feasible here?" really intersects very directly with this question of who are we building for? Because you really want to be able to start somewhere. And, you know, if you have a sufficiently red, hot need and it's not, like, to time travel or something that is, like, probably impossible given the laws of our universe, you can find a way, right? And so, the question was, like, why don't we find that so that we can focus on whether it's worth finding a way? And then that intersection of who it's for, what their pain points are, and what's possible with what amount of effort. It all fits together. No single one of those pieces is sufficient for figuring out a path forward. LINDSEY: And are you taking the, you know, okay, we've gotten really good sight on these startup enthusiasts, and these are their top four communication methods; let's try to solve them? Is that the approach? JORDYN: More or less, yeah. Yes. It's like, can we interface with those top...I think for us, it's like a top five, maybe six. JOSH: Five or six. JORDYN: But, like, the first one on there is email, and that's not a problem. Like, we don't...that's fine. LinkedIn is also not a problem; one and two are email, and LinkedIn: good. We're cool with that. That's okay. JOSH: Because every individual has their own thing. So, you know, you may be talking about long tail services, you know, but for the person who uses Telegram as their, like, daily driver, which isn't most people in the U.S., but there's a lot of people abroad, not having Telegram means it isn't useful. And I think that's one of the things hard about this, right? This is a hard business potentially, or it's really easy. We have no idea yet. And that's part of what I find exciting about this is because over the next, you know, week or so, we'll find out how hard a business this is actually, or at least where are the technically difficult parts? LINDSEY: Great segue. What does the next week look like as we've got market niche, prototype, technical feasibility intersectioning, figuring those things out? What exciting things are on the horizon? What's next? JOSH: So, we have about two weeks left, and at the end of two weeks, we're going to end up with a set of high-quality prototypes, which, you know, are easy for any of us to have on our phones, and to flash around to rando strangers we meet at the grocery store because there's no better way to make friends than product testing. And we'll have a good sense of how big and complicated, and complicated in what ways might it be to build this thing. And then, it's time for Josh to make some decisions around, you know, the whole goal of this was to figure out, like, how big of an opportunity is this just to go and do that? What could growth look like? What could pricing look like? Where might the costs be? What would the cost be to build this? Is this, like, a side gig scale thing? Is it a small, you know, angel-funded startup thing? Is this, like, a VC-size thing? I really hope it's not a VC-size thing. And then to think about, you know, what are the resources that would be required to build it, and where might those resources come from? So, at the end of this, two weeks out from now, I think we'll have all the information, you know, that we need. And then, I know a whole bunch of people inside of thoughtbot who are in a great place to provide their own thoughts and advice and experience and feedback on this. And I'll take this to my personal board of directors, including my family, but also, you know, other experienced entrepreneurs and investors I know, and we'll talk through this. And we'll have to go make some decisions, which is a little scary and a little bit fun, but a nice way to kick off 2024. JORDYN: And a lot easier to do after this program. JOSH: We'll have some real information, right? [laughs] JORDYN: Yes. LINDSEY: That's the goal, right? JOSH: Yeah. LINDSEY: Of the incubator to get you in that spot where you can make educated decisions and get others up to speed really quickly with all that research. JOSH: That's right. LINDSEY: That's great. All right. So, you had a call to action earlier. What was that? Oh, if startup enthusiasts are listening, we want to chat with them and talk to them about the solution. JOSH: If you're a founder, if you're a multi-time founder and either done it a couple of times in the past or you're still doing it, reach out. If you are a startup chief of staff and you can define that role for yourself, please reach out. We'd love to talk to you there as well. If you would like a copy of Josh's free wireframing template for mobile apps, please reach out, and I will be happy to provide you that as well. LINDSEY: Amazing. Thank you once again, Josh and Jordyn, for joining and catching us up. It definitely was an exciting update. I can't wait to hear what happens in the final stretch. JOSH: Me too. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Jordyn Bonds and Josh Herzig-Marx .

founders apple marketing iphone startups mvp whatsapp android discord telegram vc slack api sms generally marx pinocchio broad rami incubator imessage eff login product hunt rcs google slides imessages beeper mini joshs thoughtbot pejorative josh it josh yeah josh one josh so josh there josh as

thoughtbot's Incubator Program Mini Season 3 - Episode 01: Knect with Josh Herzig-Marx

Scouting The Refs Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 7, 2023 37:28

thoughtbot's Incubator Program is back for a third round! This episode introduces founder Josh Herzig-Marks of Knect, and he will be sharing his journey from freelance work to joining the program and what happens throughout! So far, he appreciates the deliberate communication practices required for practical remote work, despite remote work already being second nature to him, and he understands the importance of proactive and transparent communication in a team setting. One critical insight for Josh so far was the misconception surrounding the term "CRM" in personal relationship management. His moment involved mislabeling a survey, which led to confusion about the project's intent. As the Incubator Program progresses and continues to scale, Jordyn expresses excitement about involving more teams with different geographic focuses. The goal is to foster a collaborative environment within the thoughtbot Incubator Slack channel, encouraging past and present participants to share experiences and advice. We invite listeners who resonate with any of the challenges heard or have potential solutions to reach out! Our next Incubator episode will introduce our other Session 3 participants, Mike and Chris, founders of Goodz. Follow Josh Herzig-Marx on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaherzigmarx/) or X (https://twitter.com/herzigma). Visit his website at joshua.herzig-marx.com (https://joshua.herzig-marx.com/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: LINDSEY: My name is Lindsey Christensen, and I head up marketing for thoughtbot. For anyone listening or joining who isn't familiar with thoughtbot, we're a product design and development consultancy that helps you make great products and help make your team a success. One of the very cool ways we do that is with the thoughtbot Startup Incubator, which is a program that we launched this year and that Jordyn, who's with us today, has been heading up. What's up, Jordyn? And today, what we're going to be doing is catching up with one of the latest founders who's participating in the incubator and seeing what he's been up to since the kickoff over these last two weeks. JOSH: It's been two weeks. It's been two really fast weeks. LINDSEY: [laughs] Josh, could you give us a little introduction to yourself? JOSH: Sure. I'm Josh. Hi. I've been in tech product management for, like, 20-ish years, 15 or so of those were in head-of-product roles. And a bunch of those early on were my own startup, where I discovered I was a pretty mediocre founder but really liked this product leadership thing. I had a very lucky exit, which I leveraged into a series of first product manager, first head of product, first product leader roles at a series of early-stage companies across a ton of domains: B2B, B2C, FinTech, mobile, Revtech. And then, a little over a year ago, my partner and I got to do this thing we've been talking about for a while, which was we swapped who the primary parent was. We have two kids, two teens, 13 and 15, right now, so that's eighth grade and ninth grade. I wanted to take over primary parenting so that they could focus as much or as little on their career as they wanted to in the same way they had allowed me to do for the first 15-ish years of our kids being kids. And if I were a better person, I would have found some kind of job that allowed for work-life balance, but I'm not. I have a whopping case of ADD, which we'll probably come back to later on in this conversation. And the way that I knew I'd be able to actually fulfill my responsibility as a primary parent was by retiring from salaried work. So, I did that a little over a year ago, last summer. And kind of keep me busy and occupied in between 8:30 in the morning, you know, school drop off and 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon school pickup. And when I'm not doing shopping, and cooking, and lunches, and doctor's appointments, and dentist appointments, and orthodontist appointments, and play dates, and soccer practices, and basketball practices, and soccer games, and basketball games, and Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and all the other things that we do, I built a very small niche coaching mentorship and advisory practice around founders, solo product managers, and first-time heads of product. And that's pretty much up until about two weeks ago what I had been doing with myself. LINDSEY: That's a great update. I especially liked all the practices that you have to go to. [crosstalk 02:54] JOSH: I do like practices. We went to a co-ed soccer game for my middle school kid. And it was the first time that the boys' team and the girls' team ever played together, and they got totally clobbered by this other team. And what I loved about it at the end was the kids weren't bummed. They were like, "That was really fun." And, you know, for a lot of these kids, they've been friends since kindergarten. So, this is, like, nine years of being friends and playing recess soccer together. And they're not very good at soccer, but they just really love all playing together so much. And they just bring so much sportspersonship to the field. It was really a pleasure. LINDSEY: Okay. So, you're doing all this fun primary parenting and going to all the fun practices. You've got a coaching business that you're working on as well. But there was this idea, this idea that's needling. What brings you to us? JOSH: I think before it was an idea, it was a problem. And I knew this was a Josh problem. And the Josh problem was that I have a really big network, you know, built over the past, you know, more than 20 years of professional life. And, you know, one of the joke lines I have is that the solution to almost any business problem is found in talking to more people. I really value being able to, you know, call people up, message them, text them, email them, get together with them, ask them lots of questions, listen hard. And I try really hard to reciprocate, doing the same thing. I don't know what your professional network looks like, Lindsey or Jordyn, over the past, I don't know, couple years, decade, however long it's been, you know. But what used to be email and LinkedIn, maybe, and maybe getting together in some local meetups, has really spiraled what, to me, feels, again, whopping case of ADD, completely out of control, right? I have my LinkedIn network, which has not gone away, right? And now I'm a member of, I don't know, Jordyn, we share these a lot, a dozen different professional networking Slacks. Those are the ones that Jordyn and I share, probably far, far more than that, right? Product management ones, entrepreneurship ones, product marketing ones, engineering ones, tech company ones, ones geographically based for the Boston area, ones that are focused on things like climate change and climate tech. So, a ridiculous number of these. And as somebody with some experience and the privilege to have some free time, it feels kind of like, I don't know, an obligation sounds too grandiose, but it feels like a nice way that I can give back is by participating and trying to be helpful inside of these. So, that's happened. And Discord became a thing, you know, certainly, it had been a thing for gamers since before that. But since the beginning of the pandemic, Discord became a thing. I'm in, like, I don't know, a dozen different similar Discord groups. And I'm in WhatsApp communities, and I'm in Telegram communities. And in-person meetups have started to happen again. And I found myself kind of losing control. I was telling people, whether, you know, over the phone, or in Zoom calls, or direct messages, that I'd make connections to them, make intros, and it was getting increasingly hard to do that. I was forgetting about people, you know, like, it's hard to remember to stay in touch with all of your colleagues when you move on from past roles. And, you know, I would try to make connections to people to be like, okay, Lindsey, you know, you wanted to meet somebody else in marketing in the Boston area. And I remember that, like, six years ago, they worked at Rocket, and now they've moved on to something else. I can't remember what it's called. And, like, how do you, like, you know, page through your email and your Slack connections and your LinkedIn to find that person? And that was really hard, too. So, I have ADD. My family would say that I'm, like, moderately functional. So, how do I achieve that? By creating systems for myself. And I did all the things which other people have tried to do. I built myself, like spreadsheets and Notion databases. I have an awful lot of, like, Notion databases now powered by forms. I'm like, just put your information in, and it'll appear magically into my database where I try to, you know, push the work onto other people. And none of it was really working for me. And that was kind of the genesis of the idea and then trying to figure out, is this a Josh problem, or is this a broader problem? That's kind of how I got started. LINDSEY: Lots of people, lots of channels, not a lot of tracking or confusing tracking. And we chatted briefly before, you know, you were starting the program. And this really resonated for me. And I also ended up doing a user interview [chuckles] with the team about it. JOSH: Yeah [laughs]. LINDSEY: Because yeah, in my role, and moving from different companies or doing mentoring on the side, and being in investor communities and marketing communities, it gets overwhelming for sure. And I feel the pain. And I've had the embarrassing moments of not remembering how I know someone or a conversation we had, or someone I really respect asking me for an intro, and I'm like, I don't remember anything about how I know that person. JOSH: I mean, that was both gratifying and disappointing. Gratifying, like, oh, it's not just a Josh problem; we all struggle with this, and disappointing, right? And as I've had more of these conversations, just to realize, like, I know almost nobody who doesn't struggle with this. There's a few. There's a few outliers, a few weirdos, a few superheroes who are able to do this really well and who feel in control. And, like, literally, as they describe it, it sounds like...Jordyn, you're nodding, right? It sounds like a superpower as they're describing how they do this, how they kind of manage it. JORDYN: [laughs] JOSH: But for the most part, thank goodness it's not a Josh problem. The bummer is, nobody has, like, you know, the magic incantation, right? The spell or the secret or, like, the one weird trick, or the tool or, like, could I just give you money and solve this thing? And none of this really exists today. And that was kind of a bummer. I was hoping for, you know, better news that this was a solved problem. LINDSEY: [laughs] Yeah. Jordyn, heading over to you for a minute, Josh applied for the incubator with this problem that he was working on. We had a lot of great applications, I think, for this session. What made you think or you and the team land on Josh as one of our session three founders that would be a great fit for the programming? JORDYN: I'd say it was probably two factors; one is the stage. What's really tough was figuring out who's a good stage fit for us. So, like, what that means is you've identified a specific enough problem. You're not just, like, I want to solve world hunger or something, like, super broad. There's enough of a specific pain point or a problem that you're trying to solve that there's, like, we might conceivably make progress on it in eight weeks. But you're not so far along that you are basically like, "Hey, I've got the specs for an MVP. Can you just build it?" Which is, like, too late for us. And part of that is a discovery mindset of, "Hey, I've identified this pain point. I think other people have it. But I am very open to how we solve the problem or learning new things about it, learning that it is a bigger need in a market I've never thought about," like being open to the things we might learn together. So those things: stage fit, mindset fit. But, also, like, it is a problem that is addressable with software, right? thoughtbot's focus is software. Like, yes, we have worked on products that are not software products, but, like, our bread and butter is software. And my personal bread and butter professionally is software. So, is the problem on the table something that, you know, software is a big component in meeting the need? So, it's, you know, it's stage. So, I guess it's three things: stage, founder mindset, which is this combination of having conviction but being open-minded, a very weird [laughs] thing to find in a person. And then, you know, can we conceive of a way to address this with software without jumping to a solutionizing? That's sort of what we're looking for, and Josh checked all of those boxes. And I think, also, just had a problem that people really resonated [laughs] with, which is clear from [laughs] what Lindsey was saying and for me personally as well, I think I should [laughter] say. This is a problem I have. So, when Josh and I first talked about it, I was just like, yes, I would love to solve this problem. I also wish there was some spell, or incantation, or weird trick, or existing products, et cetera. JOSH: We might have spent an hour nerding out over all of the things that we've tried, yeah. JORDYN: The things that we've tried, emphasis on the nerding. JOSH: On the nerding part, yeah. JORDYN: Any of you listening [crosstalk 10:45] JOSH: Or what if we get sneakier connect Google Sheets to this, like, really weird web query and [laughs] -- JORDYN: [laughs] Exactly. And then giving up because it's totally unmaintainable or, like, [laughter] impossible, yeah. So... JOSH: Right. Oh, and it's all crap, too [laughs]. JORDYN: Right, right. So, if anyone out there listening is like, "Oh yeah, that's me," first of all, you're not alone. Second of all, please reach out to us. We would like to interview you [crosstalk 11:09] JOSH: Or, if anyone out there is like, "Oh, I have this thing solved," right? If you got the solution, please reach out to us. JORDYN: [laughs] Yes, also, please. JOSH: You can save us six more weeks of work [laughs]. JORDYN: If you know the solution, definitely tell us. Anyway, so to your question, though, Lindsey, that's how this [inaudible 11:23], and it just seemed like a great fit along those lines. LINDSEY: Yeah. So but, Josh, you mentioned...well, I think you kind of downplayed your founder history a little bit. But you've been a founder who had success, certainly a product team leader who has been very successful in the early-stage teams. What were you looking for from thoughtbot? Like, what attracted you to working with the thoughtbot team on your problem when you have all this kind of past experience already? JOSH: I think there's probably three parts to it; one is I know a bunch of people in the thoughtbot team pretty well. In past roles, I have actually hired thoughtbot; I think it was twice. And I've referred a bunch of your current and past clients as well. Like, I'm just generally a big thoughtbot fan. I think I've even used thoughtbot products long before I even knew, like, Chad or Jordyn, some of your old products from, like, you know, the early 2000s. So, we're going really OG here. So, I knew thoughtbot really well and think really highly of everybody who I've interacted with there. Number two is, I know, you say incubator, but, for me, the word that's really been resonating has been accelerator. It can be really slow the early, I don't know, weeks, months, years to go from an idea to, hey, this is really an opportunity. And I didn't want to spend weeks or years at this. I have a full-time job. It's, you know, taking care of the family. Like, that's what I wanted to be focused on. And if this was really an opportunity, I wanted to figure this out relatively quickly. And I love the fact that thoughtbot has this eight-week accelerating program. And the third one is I had this...and, you know, not every assumption I came in with was one that I'm going to leave the program with. But I came in with the assumption that a lot of the risk was technology risk. I had a rough idea. I was quickly discovering this wasn't just a Josh problem; this was a broader problem, right? There's plenty of challenges beyond that, but it's good to discover that your problem is broad. But is it something which can actually get built and built relatively straightforward? Jordyn here [inaudible 13:27] this all the time. You know, I don't like science project problems, right? And thoughtbot is really, really good at building software and partnering with somebody who could help to remove that kind of risk as a non-technical founder, as somebody with literally zero technical skills, I find that very, I don't know, comforting, exciting. LINDSEY: Okay, writes down in marketing notebook: "Accelerator resonating more than incubator." [laughs] JOSH: I wanted to get to the decision...incubator is a better word for it. But I personally wanted to get to that is this a good opportunity or a bad opportunity decision faster. LINDSEY: To quickly validate invalidate. JOSH: Right. I wanted this, like, I wanted to timebox this thing, and eight weeks is a nice chunk of time. LINDSEY: Love that, yeah. JORDYN: I want to just, like, flag here that, like, all of these words are very frustrating [laughter]. And we had a really hard time picking one. LINDSEY: I know [laughs]. JORDYN: And we really actually, like, in literal terms, I think that program is way more, like, founder bootcamp than anything, but thoughtbot can't run a bootcamp without people thinking it's a Rails bootcamp, right? JOSH: Yeah. LINDSEY: [laughs] JORDYN: Like, if we just said, "thoughtbot bootcamp," people would be like, oh, as a developer, I should go to this bootcamp, and thoughtbot will teach me how to be a better engineer, which would be totally reasonable from a brand standpoint, right? So, we were like, all right, not bootcamp. And then accelerator typically comes with investment dollars, in my experience as a founder, and we don't invest cash in the companies that we work with yet. So, that was off the list. And that just left incubator, which, eh, like, I don't disagree that it's not the best word, but, whatever, we lack a good one. JOSH: I'll tell you one thing. So, I'm involved with other things in this space. I'm based in Boston but for Raleigh's brand-new Founder Institute chapter, which I think is a great program. And I'm really proud of the, you know, first cohort of founders that are going to the program down there. And I love them. And I love their energy, and enthusiasm, and focus and that we at Founder Institute are providing them with value. I think we really are, or I wouldn't be participating. But I wanted people to work alongside me. And I think that's actually one of the things which is really unique about thoughtbot's program. This isn't, like, you know, a bunch of other founders with varying amounts of experience working alongside you. This is, like, actual people who do things: designers and software engineers, developers who are working alongside you and learning alongside you. But it makes it, I would say, less of a lonely process. This is one of the things I remember. When I founded a company, the one time I did this prior, I did it with my best friend, which is about as unlonely as you can possibly get. And it still is really, really lonely. Having this like, you know, team backing you up and a company backing up that team and organization is nice. LINDSEY: Thanks for sharing that about the loneliness factor. That kind of reminds me, Jordyn; I know in the last session, you were trying out the idea of, like, this founder emotion tracker. Has that made its way to session 3? JORDYN: Not really, mostly because both of the teams we're working with, two teams, by the way, not just Josh, have been founders before. And so, the emotional rollercoaster of, like, literally every day, you know, Monday, you feel like a million bucks because you have a really great idea, and you're really excited about it. And then, Tuesday, you talk to a bunch of people who add some complexity to the assumptions that you had [laughs] made on Monday. And then you start to feel like maybe this isn't a thing, oh no. And then, Wednesday, you learn about some, like, technical thing that you didn't realize was a stumbling block. And so, by the end of Wednesday, you're like, everything is doomed. I shouldn't even be doing this. I've just wasted everyone's time. But then the team wakes up on Thursday and is like, "Actually, there's an easy solution to this. And we've found a new group of people to talk to who have this problem in a really clear way." And then you feel like a million bucks again. And then you just cycle through it. Like, that cycle is something that Josh and our other founding team have actually felt before. And so, we haven't really been, like, leaning on the emotional roller coaster timeline as much just because it hasn't been as relevant. And that's kind of what's tough about the program we're running, which is that everybody comes to it with different assets in hand. I always think of that scene in The Princess Bride when they're outside the castle, and Westley is like, "What do we have? What are our assets?" It's like you arrive to this with different assets in hand. You might have already talked to 50 people, but you have no technical background. So, you don't know what on earth to do about the information that you've learned. Or, you know, maybe you do have a technical background. And so, you've done a bunch of solutionizing, but you haven't talked to a single person about [laughs] whether they have the problem you're trying to solve. Anyway, it really runs the gamut. And so, the programming is designed to help teams find focus and find market message fit. But what people roll up with is very different. In this case, we have a cohort, so to speak, that has some prior startup experience, especially as founders. And so, they know a little bit more about how every day is going to emotionally feel different. And that emotional rollercoaster workstream is on the roadmap. But we don't spend as much time with it as we did with Ashley and with Agnes before in the first two sessions because they were first-time founders and really didn't know how they should be feeling. And that, to me, is one of the many value adds, including what Josh mentioned, like just having a team diligently focused on your problem space full-time is a huge boost of momentum and confidence. Just, like, people thinking about the same thing you're thinking about with you and bringing their earnest efforts to solving the problem has been one of the main things people have found valuable about it, in addition to the acknowledgement that, like, you're going to have a lot of different emotions. And it doesn't mean anything necessarily. Like, your day-to-day emotion does not mean that you are a failure or that this is a bad idea or that you're a success, and this is a good idea [laughs]. Like, neither of those things is necessarily true. LINDSEY: So, let's chat a little bit about what has actually been happening since kickoff. So, two weeks ago, started. Jordyn, maybe I'll start with you. What has the first two weeks of programming looked like? JORDYN: We have been really heads down on interviewing. Josh rolled up having done a survey, which yielded a bunch of conversations already, conversations [inaudible 19:34]. So, we iterated on the scripts. You know, part of the efforts of the first couple of weeks are really geared toward having our team understand the things that Josh understands already. We need to kind of get on the same page. And so, we try to talk to as many people as we can because there's nothing...One of our theses here, beliefs, I don't know what the right word is, is that there's really nothing that drives momentum quite like team alignment, and there's nothing quite like talking to customers and hearing for yourself what their pain points are. That drives alignment. So, it's like, everyone's talking to people. I'm sure people out there have been on teams where it's like one person talks to customers, and they're translating to everybody else. "Here's what I'm hearing. So, this is what we need to build." And it's like if everybody has first-hand experience with the conversations, alignment and conviction sort of grows organically out of it. It's a lot less work to align if everybody's talking to people. So, it's always, like, the first order of business is, how do we talk to people so that we know the things you know to the level that you know them? So, we've been doing a ton of interviewing. And then, that's about driving alignment and understanding, but it's also ultimately about trying to drive focus. So, as we are talking to people and listening to them, we're really trying to listen for patterns and to map those to the market segments these people inhabit. So, like, every one of us has our own network that we're bringing to this effort, and so we start there. And we start where you are with what you have, right? I think that's, like, a Teddy Roosevelt quote: start where you are with what you have. Somebody said that. Anyway, so we all do that. But really, ultimately, we want to...building software is all about a repeatable problem that you can address with a one-size-fits-all [laughs] more or less product. What we're trying to find is, like, we're trying to listen for patterns and listen for pain points that are addressable and really focus in on a narrow niche or a situation context that we can address in some repeatable way. And I would say, at this moment, we've done a bunch of that interviewing. And we're now like, okay, we're feeling the need to focus, but we have not quite started that dive. I don't know, Josh, maybe you feel the same or different. JOSH: No, I think that's right on. I mean, you know, the first thing we all had to do was develop our own [inaudible 21:45] understanding of the problem and the potential user, right? It wasn't going to happen from me talking to people. It was going to happen from us talking to people. And then, the next step is to start to align that empathic understanding, which sounds like a thing that gets finished, but really, it's only a thing that gets started and never really ends. And then, you know, we got to be willing to make some bets, right? We got to figure out, you know, what is our hypothesis? You know, what do we think are the risky bits? And what are the things that differentiate this from being a problem? Where I think we have broad agreement across the entire team. And, literally, everybody we spoke to, the only people who don't think this is a problem are the ones who have some complicated, ridiculous system they built themselves, which they will acknowledge is not going to apply to anybody else. So, the problem is broad, right? But where exactly is the opportunity? Because at the end of the day, we're looking to build a business. LINDSEY: Josh, I saw your head nodding during the alignment discussion. How has it been aligning with the team around the problem you've been thinking so much about? JOSH: I don't know, Jordyn, how you feel about it. I've found it really fun. And it's been fun for a couple of reasons. I think the number one reason that I really like it is this is a really diverse team, right? So, Jordyn and I are in Boston and have; I would say, fairly similar tech company entrepreneurish sort of, you know, hand-wavy, miscellaneous tech people, startup folks background. We have somebody in Denmark, but she's Spanish. We have someone in maybe London right now, but he's Nigerian. And we have a member of our team in Saudi Arabia. That's a lot broader perspective. And I think that comes to play in, like, at least three different ways. They come with their own perspectives, and their own world experiences, and lived experiences, and values, and ways they talk about those things, right? Number one. They come with their own networks of people to talk to you for whom it's easy to reach. So, it's not just all hand-wavy, tech startupy folks like I'd be talking to. And, like, literally, my entire list is, like, oh, they're all people like me. Like it was really easy to get 60 people to want to talk to me because they're all people I've been talking to for a while, which is awesome and maybe a little bit uninteresting. But more than that, they all bring different language. Like, we've been struggling. Like, this is what we did. We spent what? Two hours of our hour and a half meeting this morning struggling with, like, are we having a difference, like, meaning or a difference of words? And it's not an efficient way to use your time, but it really is an effective way to use your time. Because, like, that struggle of trying to communicate what we're hearing and try to communicate what we're thinking and what we're feeling, I think, has led to a much better understanding of the problem and maybe even the opportunity than we would have had otherwise. I'm a big fan of struggle. JORDYN: Definitely. And I do feel like there's an element of this where you can never understand your customers' problems in too much detail. It's like every pass we do at this, we kind of have a deeper, more granular, nuanced sense of the problems. And just in that conversation this morning, we, like, took a problem that we had understood one way and, like, were able to break it down, like, okay, what are the actual pieces of this? Oh, there's, like, many pieces of it, right? Like you said, Josh, it feels inefficient, or sometimes it just feels like you walk out of a call and you're like, what was that about? And then only later do you find, you know, maybe when we are ideating, like, ways we might solve a problem, that conversation we had that felt really murky and, like, are we just arguing about semantics here? Are we arguing [laughs]...I don't know, like, however, you might frame that, like, actually becomes really important where you're like, oh, well, I'm very glad we took the time to break this problem down because now that we're trying to develop a solution, it becomes clear that there are many, little things we're trying to solve. And we can't solve them all at once. And so, it's great that we all have a fluent understanding of the details of that because it makes those conversations much faster so [inaudible 25:30]. JOSH: Can I say a nice thing about thoughtbot? I know this isn't, like, the, you know, [crosstalk 25:34] LINDSEY: Please. Please do. Welcome, Josh. Yeah, the floor is yours. JOSH: Let me say a nice thing about thoughtbot. The last time I did this, I did this with my best friend, Ben, a person I had literally known since I was six years old, maybe five, I don't know, since first grade. And we were entering a new space. This was, like, grocery marketing. And we talked to a crap ton of people, a lot of them doing things like going to grocery store headquarters and just talking to people and meeting people who are, like, manufacturers of a grocery product and going to trade shows with 60,000 grocers all in one giant room. Remember those days pre-COVID? We would, like, you know, take the samples with your left hand and shake with your right hand, and don't get those two things mixed up because there's a lot of people in the room with you. And we talked to easily 1,000 people, and we knew how to establish that, like, shared empathic understanding of the market and the problem really well because we were side by side. We were really well-practiced at having those conversations. And, you know, after the day of, you know, shaking hands, and meeting people, and introducing ourselves was done, we'd go back to the hotel room, shared, of course, because we were young entrepreneurs who couldn't afford to get nice hotel rooms. And we'd spend the next couple of hours, like, talking about it. We, like, talked to each other all the time. One nice thing about thoughtbot is you're really good at working remotely and working asynchronously. And if, you know, it had been up to me by myself to be like, okay, you know, Josh, you have this, like, remote team in different time zones with, you know, non-overlapping hours. How are you going to, like, work together to establish this common understanding, this common semantic model, this common syntax for talking about the problem, and the users, and the needs, and the opportunity? I'd be like, I don't know, right? And this is somebody who's, like, worked remotely for the past, I don't know, 5,6, 7 years, I mean, most of his job. But, like, still, that early bit is a thing, which, you know, I've seen a lot of thoughtbot practice and skill around. And it's not an easy skill to master. And it's one that you practiced organizationally. And that's really valuable. And I don't think I fully appreciated that until we got started. LINDSEY: Oh, thanks. Jordyn, any thoughts on that? Were you thinking about remote setup of the program, or at this point, it's just everything is remote? JORDYN: Working remotely can really deepen, in good ways, one's communication practices because it forces you to be intentional about communicating in a way that when you are co-located with people, you kind of don't have to because there's people in front of you when you talk to them. So, I agree, Josh, that thoughtbot does a good job of making that work, the work to communicate and stay on the same page, like, tangible, visible, whatever it is. That's also just something I've given a ton of thought to because I've been working remotely, like, as a primary orientation since 2010. And so, this is just, like, how I work. And it's very; I don't know, organic to my mind now that it's basically, like, if I'm doing something and I don't tell someone about it, it's like a tree falls in the forest, you know, if there's no one around to hear it. If I'm working on something and I don't tell anyone about it, it's like I didn't do anything. Communication is, like, 60% of the job. And the setpoint is, oh, I did something. Oh, I emailed someone. Maybe I should tell the team about this [laughs]. Just literally because you're not in a situation where I'm going to overhear a phone call that Josh is having because he's at the desk next to mine, or I'm going to, like, ambiently be aware that, like, Carol and Toby went into a conference room to talk about something. Like, while I maybe didn't consciously think about that, it's sort of in my periphery. Like, none of that is happening because we're not in the office together, right? We don't get to do the thing that you did with Ben, where we just talk about stuff because we're near each other. So, you really have to get into this practice of externalizing very proactively the things going on in your own mind with the team. And it's a challenge. It's work. It doesn't just happen effortlessly, right? But yeah, to say it's critical or to say it's a critical piece of how we approach the work is an understatement. I don't know, it's like, it is the work [laughs]. The making of the software, whatever, that's easy [laughs]. Communicating about making software that's hard [laughs]. So, I don't know, it's very heartening -- LINDSEY: Yeah, that makes sense. JORDYN: To hear, Josh, that you think that we do a good job of that. I think we're constantly trying to do a better job of it, frankly. I don't know if you can do [crosstalk 29:28] JOSH: That's probably why you do a good job. LINDSEY: So, I know a lot of the early weeks, days has been around alignment and doing a lot of these user interviews. Have there been any moments yet, Josh, any new, like, light bulbs for you or insights, or are we not quite there yet; it's more kind of setting the scene? JOSH: I'll share one really embarrassing one. LINDSEY: Oooh. JOSH: Which keeps on coming back to bite me. When I sent out the survey and, of course, I [inaudible 29:57] for everybody listening, basically, surveys are useless, except they're really nice lead generation tools for people who are willing to talk to you. But when we sent out the survey, at the top, it says something like, "Personal CRM survey." And I'm pretty sure that when I set up the calendar invite system, which is, by the way, for folks listening out there, like, you want to get your, like, operational side of this thing done before you start sending emails out because you're going to quickly, like, lose the ability to keep track of stuff. I think the meeting of it also, I said something like personal CRM survey. And it was, I don't know, sometime in the middle of the first week, maybe later on, when, like, I think we all realized on the team that, like, CRM is the wrong framing for this thing, right? Nobody likes CRMS [laughs]. CRMs are transactional. They're tools to sell something to somebody. You know, they are tools for, like, auditing your behavior if you're a salesperson to make sure you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. They're, like, on a cadence. Like, CRMs are tools for a world, which is not what most people aspire for their personal relationships to be. And I don't think we've quite settled on what this thing actually is. And maybe there isn't a thing yet, right? Maybe that's part of the challenge that we're having, like, this thing doesn't exist, but it's not a CRM. And three-quarters of the way through the interviews is when I asked people like, "So, what question should I have asked you?" They all said, "Well, you didn't ask me about personal CRMs at all." I'm like, "Okay, that's a good point [laughs]." So, there have been plenty of pivots inside of my head around this and the way that I think about this problem, and some of these things are still embarrassing and still kind of coming back to haunt me and maybe haunt the rest of the team as well. I don't know, Jordyn, what [crosstalk 31:27] LINDSEY: Honestly, I was hoping for something way more embarrassing, but [laughs] -- JOSH: Way more embarrassing. JORDYN: If that's your embarrassing...[laughs] LINDSEY: Yeah, you're doing great. You're doing great. JORDYN: You're doing great. JOSH: Okay, the number of video calls where I'm not wearing pants. [laughter] LINDSEY: Okay, onto the next question, Jordyn –- JOSH: Embarrassing or awkward, I don't know, yeah. [laughter] LINDSEY: Jordyn, you mentioned that Josh is not the only participant in this [crosstalk 31:52] JORDYN: Great question. LINDSEY: Tell me about, why not just Josh? What's going on? What are the developments there? JORDYN: Yeah, this is really exciting. So, we wanted to scale this program from the moment that we ran single companies [inaudible 32:08] to start because we wanted to learn as much as we could in a kind of intense, focused way from developing a process and seeing what's valuable about it. So, this was always kind of on our minds to do. And the way it worked out was just that there were two teams at thoughtbot ready and willing to serve. And we had, you know, anytime we [inaudible 32:28] the application window, we always kind of have a list of folks that we're excited about. We can't take all of them. But in this case, we had the two teams. And it also kind of fell in this nice way where we've got this team with a center of gravity, you know, GMT center of gravity, essentially. And then we have another team, which has more of a, like, U.S. center of gravity. And so, the timing kind of worked out. And yeah, I don't know, it wasn't anything more complex than that. It's just we'd always been on the lookout for how we could scale this effort––bring it to more folks. And this was the first opportunity where it appeared like it would work out. I mean, TBD if it's working out [laughs]. We can decide at the end [laughs]. But it's very exciting. It's fun. And we're really looking for ways to help these teams collaborate, you know, we'll see how. Everybody's in a Slack channel together inside of thoughtbot's Slack called thoughbot incubator. And our past participants are in there as well. And we're really trying to create an atmosphere where people can help each other, share tips, talk about what they're working on. There is actually some intersection between what Josh is working on and what the other team is working on, I think, just because, Josh, what you're working on applies [laughs] to a lot of people. I think it applies to these people, too. Anyway, that's [crosstalk 33:42] LINDSEY: It's fun to see the incubator Slack start to build out and folks talking to each other, and more thoughtboters are trickling in there. Because, Josh, you mentioned you've been a client before and a thoughtbot fan in the past. And now you can officially live in thoughtbot Slack, too, and hang out with us 24/7. JOSH: Still just a guest. LINDSEY: [laughs] JOSH: Only got my two channels. Can't DM you unless you're in one of those two channels. LINDSEY: One [crosstalk 34:11] JOSH: But yes, it is very exciting. This is better than snacks at your downtown Boston office. LINDSEY: Yeah, that's great. JOSH: I think I even added an emoji to Slack. I was pretty happy with that. LINDSEY: Oh, nice. We've got a good custom emoji library. JOSH: I mean, that's what we have for company culture, right? Is company emojis. LINDSEY: To kind of finish this out here, Josh or Jordyn, do you have any calls to action for our viewers or listeners, maybe interviews or survey participants or anything else? JORDYN: Well, certainly, if the pain point we described resonates for you [laughs], reach out. We would love to interview you. Or, like Josh said, if you actually have solved this problem [laughs] -- LINDSEY: Oh yeah, that was a good one. JORDYN: Please reach out [laughs]. That would be amazing. JOSH: But I actually meant that. So, like, hey, if you out there are a software developer, an entrepreneur, own a company that you think has really solved this, I would love to learn from that if you want to talk to us. If you are a person who struggles with this and feels like you've tried really hard to solve this, I'd love to hear from you as well. You know, did you search for a tool? Did you ask your friends? Did you try to build something yourself? Do you still use that thing you built yourself? Did you try one of those CRMs? [crosstalk 35:26] Did you try a personal CRM tool out there, right? Clay, Dex, Monica, folk, if those names resonate with you, like, I want to hear, right? I want to hear about people who feel like they're doing this thing really well or people who don't feel like they're doing as well as they should but who feel like they've put, like, real effort into it. LINDSEY: Great. Well, we're going to be catching up with Josh here every other week. JOSH: Great. LINDSEY: We'll have some updates on the thoughtbot blog. And in our alternating week, we're going to be catching up with the other founders going through the incubator. So, next week, we're going to chat with Mike and Chris. And y'all will get to meet them and hear a little bit about their journey and what's led them to validating their idea in the thoughtbot incubator as well. JOSH: And strong rec people to tune in for that one. They are extremely photogenic and very funny, and they talk slower than me, too, so a greater chance for people to understand what they're saying. So, all in all, definitely tune in for that. LINDSEY: That's a great promo. If you want to stay up to date with the incubator or are thinking about applying for the next session, I think will be in the new year, you can go to thoughtbot.com/incubator. And you can also sign up for email updates. And we can make sure to send you recordings of these interviews as well as the blog updates and then keep you up to date about when applications open and end. Jordyn and Josh, thank you so much for joining today and sharing what's been going on in the early days. It's really exciting to follow along. All right, have a great day. Thanks, everyone, for watching. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Jordyn Bonds and Josh Herzig-Marx .

Getting Paid What You're Worth with Josh Doody

Screaming in the Cloud

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 6, 2023 44:10

Josh Doody, Owner of Fearless Salary Negotiation, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss how to successfully negotiate your salary, and why it's important to do so even in times of economic uncertainty. Corey and Josh chat about some of the hidden reasons why salary negotiation is critical to job seekers, and what goes into determining salary bands behind the scenes. Josh also reveals why he feels there's some stagnancy in the big tech job market, and why it's critical for job seekers to have a balanced view of the value that they provide to employers when negotiating salary. Josh also describes some of the unexpected ways salary negotiations can come up throughout the interview process, and how to best handle the discomfort of negotiation. About JoshJosh is a salary negotiation coach who works with senior software engineers and engineering managers to negotiate job offers with big tech companies. He also wrote Fearless Salary Negotiation: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Paid What You're Worth, and recently launched Salary Negotiation Mastery to help folks who aren't able to work with him 1-on-1.Links Referenced: Company website: https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshdoody LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshdoody/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Developers are responsible for more than ever these days. Not just the code they write, but also the containers and cloud infrastructure their apps run on. And probably the billing on top of that - which is neither here nor there. And a big part of that responsibility is app security — from code to cloud.That's where Snyk comes in. Snyk is a frictionless security platform that meets teams where they are, automating application security controls across their existing tools, workflows, and the AWS application stack — including seamless integrations with AWS CodePipeline, Amazon EKS, Amazon Inspector and several others.Deploy on AWS. Secure with Snyk. Learn more at snyk.co/scream. That's S-N-Y-K-dot-C-O/scream. And my thanks to them for sponsoring this ridiculous nonsense!Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. I have a returning guest today who hasn't been on for a couple of years, at least. Josh Doody is the owner of fearlesssalarynegotiation.com and focuses on a problem that's near and dear to my heart from my previous life as an employee, salary negotiation, specifically emphasizing software engineers, if I have that right. Josh, thanks for joining me.Josh: Yeah. You have it exactly right. It's great to be here, and good to talk to you again, Corey.Corey: I used to be practiced at doing salary negotiations, which is a very roundabout way of saying I got fired a lot, so I got lots of practice at doing it. And I found that it was a very strange experience that was completely orthogonal to anything else that I did in the course of my day-to-day. Now, of course, I you know, negotiate AWS bills for a living among many other things, and do a lot of sales work, and yeah okay, now it's a lot more germane. But back in my engineering life, it was the one time I got to really negotiate that wasn't, you know, haggling with some vendor somewhere when I'm trying to buy a burrito, was salary negotiation, and I felt utterly unprepared for it.Josh: Yeah, I think most people feel that way and you summarized pretty well why that is. And that's, you know, let's say you have a really robust career, you're around for decades, you know, you're working in lots of companies, you might have, I don't know, let's say ten, a dozen job offers that you negotiate, you know, give or take. And that's not very many reps for doing something that's as consequential as, you know, negotiating your actual pay. Which, depending on how senior you are, could be literally negotiating, like, you know, multiple cars' worth of value per year that you're going to [laugh] that you're going to earn. But you don't get the reps, so most people just kind of—I think they kind of don't even think about it until they have to think about it until it's directly in front of them. And then they just kind of power through it, get it over with or even totally ignore it and just get back to the thing that they're doing in their career, which is why you show up to work.Corey: It feels, on some level, like it's one of those areas where people wind up thinking about it long after they really should have. These days, it feels like salary negotiation process, more or less should start when you start debating, huh, maybe I'll change jobs. Like, it feels like it's really that early, not when you have an offer sitting in your inbox that needs a response by the end of the week. Right, wrong, or am I just thinking about this in ridiculous ways?Josh: No, I think you're right. So, you can start thinking about it, you know, you get a job offer in your inbox and you can start thinking how do I negotiate this now, but you know, you're going to be in a less secure position to do a strong negotiation at that moment than you would have had you begun thinking about it when you mentioned, which is, like, you're actually thinking about changing jobs, or, you know, maybe you just got a cold call from a recruiter and they're at a company that you're kind of interested in working with. So, maybe I will talk to this recruiter instead of just blocking them or whatever. And so, the whole process can begin at that moment when they say, “Hey, you know, we have this opportunity that we think you might be interested in. What do you think?”And then, you know, early on, they'll even kind of officially start the negotiation, at least in my mind, where they'll say, “But before we really go too far on this, like, what are you hoping to make here? You know, what are your salary expectations if you come work here?” And you're kind of off to the races at that moment. But even if they don't say that out loud, that's something that you should be thinking about from the beginning, which is, you know, maybe most broadly, how do I position myself to get the best possible version of the job offer that they're willing to give and to leave myself the most latitude to improve that job offer to be the maximum that they can afford to pay me or the maximum that their budget allows or however you want to frame that. So, short answer, yeah, I think you're right that most people think about it as sort of an afterthought, either after they've already started a job and they go, “Huh, I wonder if that guy over there is making more than I am?” Or, you know, “Shoot. I think I moved too fast there. Maybe I should have done something a little bit better.” When they could think about it way earlier in the process than that.Corey: Since I was last on the job market, there have been some changes, at least here in California, that have had a somewhat significant impact, to my understanding. First, job salary changes need to be posted in job ads, which I think is great—and that's occurring in a number of different states—and also it is now against the law, in California—or at least against public policy—to ask what someone's current compensation is and your salary history and dive into that. Now, that's all well and good, but I also have been asked a number of questions that are not exactly… green, when it comes to being in the middle of an interview. And, “You're not legally allowed to ask me that question,” is that a heck of a pushback.Josh: Yeah, I think that I've had a couple conversations about this recently, but also over the past few years, especially on the—you know, you mentioned the two prongs of that idea: what's your current salary, what are you making now? And, you know, what is the salary that you expect to make? And so, kind of one by one, states are outlawing potential employers' ability to ask about what you're currently making. And then I've also heard some agitation lately that there might be some federal legislation that's coming down that might just kind of take that off the table. As you mentioned, recruiters, companies, organizations, however you want to model them are very clever, and so there are always ways, you know, even if they're indirect questions, you know, you don't ask them what they're currently making, but you ask them something that gives you some insight into what they currently might be thinking.Also, if you're in the big tech world—which you mentioned you negotiate AWS contracts—in the big tech world, they don't necessarily have to ask you what you're currently making if they know that you're an L4 software engineer at Google. They can probably approximate it pretty well. And of course, they know that because you're going to have to tell them, you know, with a resume or when you're interviewing, that's kind of how you get in the door. So, that's an interesting thing. But I still say, avoid that. Try to avoid giving him as much information as possible.And I think the most important thing with the current salary idea is, you just don't want to say it out loud. You want to make sure that they can't quite grab onto that because you make it too easy for them when they know what your current salary is to just do sort of a cost-plus version of offering you a job, which is, “Well, you're making this much now. We'll just add 10% to that,” and that's your new job offer, when you know, that's not how you level up quickly and in big ways.And then you mentioned the salary expectations. I do think it's great that a lot of job offers now will have a salary range in them. That's a question that I see a lot is, like, how do I know that I'm not going to waste 25 hours of my personal time and maybe a trip across the country for a job, where when they finally make the offer, it's just laughably low? And the answer is, you know, hopefully, they have something that you can grab onto in the actual job description that says, here's what the range looks like. But even then, you'll notice if you look carefully—I saw one yesterday, and I don't remember where I saw it, but it was like, “Yeah, our range of salary is, you know, 120k up to 290k, depending on geographic region.”And it's like… I mean, technically, that's a salary range, but they don't tell you what the regions are, how they map, and all that stuff. So, you're not getting a lot of information there; you're just getting sort of an approximate number. But it's still helpful to know that information. And it's also helpful to not disclose that information. If you have a number in mind that you're hoping for, it's not in your best interest to share that with the company.So, I think at least what you can do is look at the job description. If they have some kind of a range, take a look at it, see if it feels like, okay, this is something I can work with or if it's just, you know, there's no way that that would ever work for me and you can just pass on it and save yourself some time.Corey: For me, one of the things that always frustrated me was that at the start of looking into a job, there's always the big question that they ask that has been the socially acceptable paths at screwing you over, and the knowing how to answer that is important. But I still bungled it a number of times whenever I was out of practice, which is quite simply, “Okay, what is it that you expect to make in your next role? What are your compensation requirements?” And it feels like answering that at the beginning of the process just completely sets your course for how the rest of that process is going to go.Josh: It does and it's something that's very subtle and clever because most people will not perceive that to be a negotiation tactic when it is. And also you mentioned earlier in the context of, like, asking you what your current salary is that it can be perceived as sort of a gatekeeping question. Like you mentioned, you know, you're in the middle of an interview and somebody pops a question at you like, “What is your [laugh] what's your current salary?” And you're looking at an interviewer and you're thinking, “If I don't give him this information, then I'm saying no to an interviewer, and how's that going to go over?”This is the same kind of thing. When, you know, at any point in the process, they might ask you what your salary expectations are, it could be on the first screening call, it could be right before, they like to hold this till right before they make an offer where you go through the whole interview process and then right before they're going to extend an offer, they say, “Hey, you know, I'm going to go to the hiring committee and make a recommendation that we hire. But before I do that, you know, what are you hoping to make if we actually do extend an offer and I go talk to the comp team?” And it can feel like, well, gosh, I better tell them the answer to that question because they literally just said, basically, like, “I have an offer for you, but first, I need this information from you.” And it can feel really kind of daunting to say, “No, I'm not going to give you that.”So, the question is, you know, should you give them that and how? You shouldn't, as I mentioned earlier. Giving them salary expectations, I'll give kind of a brief summary of why it's not a good idea. I think a good way to reframe that question, you know, what are you what are you hoping to make if you join our team, is, you know, “Hey, you know, we have a giant company here. We've got tens of thousands of employees. We've got thousands of engineers that are at your level and doing your kind of work. We have salary surveys that we run once a quarter, or once a month, that are super expensive. We know what everybody else in the industry is doing. We know what the value of this role is to our company. We know how many other people are applying for this job. We know how many open seats we have. You don't know any of that stuff, but even though you don't know any of that stuff, why don't you take a wild guess what we would pay you to do this job at this company at this moment?”Corey: And then of course, we're going to use it against you later, when you wind up having what you view as a negotiation, like, “Ah, but you said at the beginning of the process that this would be sufficient.”Josh: Yeah. So, that's the problem, right? As you take that wild guess and you're going to do one of two things. It's basically 0% that you're going to hit the nail on the head in terms of you guessed the actual maximum compensation that they would pay you to do the job, it's very unlikely.Corey: You're either going to guess too high and then basically get yourself disqualified—Josh: Yeah.Corey: —you're going to get too low and leave money on the table, or you're going to get it exactly right, but you'll never know whether you got it exactly right or whether you guessed low.Josh: Right. Even if you do guess exactly right, you won't know that you did. And so, of course, if you guess low, like you said, you leave money on the table. And the really pernicious thing is, you could guess low and still feel great about the result and never know it or not find out until the next time you get a job, which is to say, you know, you say a number that's well below the bottom of the minimum that they could pay you and so you say, I don't know, to use round numbers, you say $100,000. And they go, “Great, how about 120?”And you say, “Wow, they must really like me. They're going to pay, I just said 100 and they said 120. That's amazing.” And really what's going on is they're looking at, you know, their internal pay structure and they're like, we can't pay less than 120, like, the pay structure starts at 120. So, we'll pay 120, which is the literal bottom that you could make.You feel like you got a huge win of a 20% bump, but the reality is, you're probably not anywhere near the middle of that pay range and you're way behind the eight ball already. And of course, you could overshoot. And the worst-case scenario is you overshoot so far that you basically disqualify yourself from the process early. So, it's like, if it's on that first screening call, and you say—Corey: And they view you as being fundamentally unserious, where it's a, okay, the compensation for this role is 100 to 130, for example—to use made-up numbers—and you come in asking for 340. It's… okay like, there's no point in even doing a counter and having a negotiation at this point. We are so far apart, that it doesn't work out that way.Josh: Right, which on the surface, seems like oh, well, I just saved a bunch of time. But in reality, what you may have done is sort of like knocked yourself out of the entire hiring funnel for them, when what could have happened is perhaps you could have as you interviewed, you could have aligned better with a more senior role that would have had a higher pay range that you would have been a better fit for, you could have changed their budget based on the way that you present in your interviews and what they perceive from you. And who knows, maybe you actually do get an offer that looks like 340 because they say, “Oh, wow, we had you leveled as a, you know, an L6 and really should be, like, at an L7. So, how about this, you know, this senior or principal or lead role over here that we've been trying to fill for six months, we now realize you might be a good fit for that role. Why don't you go talk to that hiring manager, and if we have to, we'll just put you into that hiring stream?” Instead of, you set a giant number and we got to kick you out because there's no room for you here.Corey: This is all well and good and we're talking about effectively cash comp and salaries, but so many companies these days seem to tie a fair part of their compensation to the equity portion of it. And because remember, everything's up and to the right. Always. The end. Until one day, it's very much not.And now we're taking a look and seeing that, for example, Amazon stock has largely been in the toilet for a couple of years. It's what, 50% off of what it was at the peak.Josh: Yeah.Corey: So it's, on some level, when you're negotiating comp, it feels like you're being asked to predict the future of how well the company does. And at these multibillion-dollar company scales, are you really going to be in a position personally to meaningfully impact the stock price? Like, well, not positively anyway. And it just feels like it's a bit of a shell game where if you can't spot the sucker, it's probably you. Because I wanted to be an engineer, not a stockbroker.Josh: Yeah, I mean, first of all, you're right, that no individual engineer is really going to be impacting the bottom line of Google.Corey: Unless I take the site down.Josh: Right. Well, I was just [laugh]—man, you beat me to the punch on that one. Yeah. So, there is a possibility that one engineer could have a dramatic impact, but not the kind that you would hope if [laugh] you're also tied to their stock price, right? So, there's a couple of ways that I think about this.One of them, you mentioned the Amazon stock going down. So, one thing that's really interesting about that is really what Amazon is doing is they're targeting a total annual compensation number with their stock. And so, they start with their current known stock value—I don't know if they're doing this now, but for many years, they were just kind of building in a year-over-year growth number of 10 to 15%. So, we're going to give you this much total comp and we're targeting 300k total comp per year. And if you kind of map it out based on the base salary and the equity that vests and the signup bonuses they give you in years one and two, then it looks like a pretty flat, like, 300k a year when you build in that stock growth.So, the magic question that I started talking to—and had a couple of internal recruiter friends, like, last year, mid-year last year when things were looking pretty bad, and the question that I don't think that they had an answer to at the time and now they have answered is, well, what do we do when the stock doesn't grow 10 to 15% and actually kind of collapses, like, takes a huge nosedive? And the answer is that Amazon is still targeting a total comp of 300k a year. And they go back and they say, “Well, here's some more RSUs at the current value to kind of makeup for that. Here's your new vesting schedule on these.” They essentially are giving refreshers, and here's the new vesting schedule.And so, at least in Amazon's case, they did kind of try to right the ship. But the reason is that something you alluded to, you're not really getting equity in the company because you impact the company; you're getting equity in the company because it's another way for them to kind of generate, quote-unquote, “Cash flow” of some kind or comp, that isn't, you know, dollars coming off the books. So, this is something I think that's kind of a TBD is, Amazon has now answered this, which is we're going to give him—because otherwise, they're going to have a mass exodus, right, like, if you thought you're going to make 300k a year and you're actually going to make 180k a year, that's a huge dropoff, and you're probably going to be looking elsewhere. So, they say, “Well, here's some more RSUs.”The question is, you know, what will other companies do? All of this is, you know, we're talking about public companies here. So, there's a big difference between, like, Amazon stock, Google stock, whatever—or GSUs, whatever you want to call them—and then private, pre-IPO equity, and all these different things. I see those as much more in the category of what you described, which is, you know, if you're getting stock options on, like, an early stage, you know, like, an early stage startup, right, they're raising, like, their first or second or third round, you are going to have maybe kind of a large impact on the trajectory of the company, but on the price of that you have almost no agency whatsoever because of all the options that they have for dilution and all that other stuff that can go on and whether you even have shares that are going to be liquid at some point and all that stuff. So, I see that as much more like, you've just got to look at the company, the cash that they're paying you, how you feel about that, how you feel about the mission of the company, and understand that you've got, you know, you've got some lotto tickets in that company and who knows, maybe it goes to the moon and you get to go along for the ride, but much less certain than, you know, like I said, like, an Amazon-type situation where they actually will give you even more RSUs if the stock tanks over the course of the year.Corey: What are you seeing these days in terms of the macroeconomic conditions as a result? Like, some wit on Twitter said that the correction in the market has identified the grim reality that there are more engineers making $600,000 a year than there are engineering problems that need $600,000 engineers to fix them. So, there's a certain, are people being overcompensated? Is there a correction in the market? Is that changing the world of salary negotiation and peoples' job mobility?Josh: I think—working backwards—yes, job mobility is affected right now. I mean, I've seen you know, even in my own business, there are just fewer people reaching out and saying, “Hey, I have an offer at a big tech company.” Which is, you know, all over the news, layoffs. First, it was hiring freezes, right? This is late last year, October last year-ish, Q3, Q4, last year. They kind of said, “Oh, we're going to hire—we're going to slow down for a little bit on this hiring.”And then it was layoffs. And so, the last several months have been layoff after a layoff, you know, 5% here, 10% there at lots of different companies. Paradoxically, a lot of those companies are still up into the right, if you're looking at their stock price, lately. And I think a lot of that is back to the first thing that you said, which is, you know, do we have more engineers that are kind of sitting around looking for problems to solve than there are problems to solve? And I think the answer was probably, yes.Certainly, the pandemic, interest rates where they were, and all these other kind of macro-economic things, which I won't opine on too much because I'm not super-educated on them, but I understand them well enough to understand that basically, it was a better investment for a big company to hire an engineer, than necessarily to try to find somewhere to invest that money because interest rates were so low, so it's hard to find a nice quote-unquote, “Risk-free” return on the investment, so they said, “Why not? We'll just hire some engineers and maybe we'll get a bigger ROI there. We'll try a bunch of different projects, we'll put a bunch of people and maybe we'll go to the moon.”Corey: A lot of speculative or strategic hiring—Josh: Yeah.Corey: —and then okay, then you have—something that companies do when they have extra money is they greenlit additional projects. And when things get tight, they wind up effectively removing some of those projects from the table. And what I think people misunderstand in many cases is that compensation of employees is always more expensive than the infrastructure they work on, with very rare exceptions. So, the AWS bill is always secondary to payroll expenses, and fixing AWS cost takes time, effort, and engineering work, whereas laying people off requires a couple of difficult conversations—that companies increasingly seem to be bungling—and that's the end.Josh: Yeah. I think you're right about that. I mean, payroll, it's an old saw in businesses is that payroll is the biggest expense, right? Like, it's very expensive to hire people. But it could be the kind of thing, like you said, “We'll just fire up a bunch of these projects. We've been thinking about them anyway. We can't really invest this money anywhere else for a good return, so we'll take some shots here.” Right?But then interest rates go up and oh, there are places that I can get a nice return on this investment of cash, so maybe, you know, some of these projects that aren't going so well, we're going to shut them down. We're going to lean up a little bit. We're going to increase our margins, reduce our payroll costs, and just kind of ride this economic turmoil out and see how it goes. And who knows, maybe they'll fire some of those projects up later. But yes, it's much easier to say we're laying off 10% of our workforce tomorrow than it is to make a lot of other changes, especially on the expenses side.That's one of the few expenses I think that a company has direct control over and can simply reduce if they choose to. And that's kind of where we are right now, I think. And so, you mentioned economic mobility or job mobility. It's definitely way down. And I think the reason is that, you know, I mean, if I'd been through layoffs at companies that I worked at before, right?It's a really uncomfortable feeling, where the person that was sitting next to you in the office next to you gets laid off and you're sitting there wondering, “Am I going to be next?” And the last thing that you're going to do is start kind of poking your head up and looking for jobs and making it known that you're shopping, or even go ask for a raise or something because you're just trying to keep your head down and maybe the scythe will pass over me [laugh], right? Maybe they're going to miss me in this next round of layoffs if I just keep my mouth shut and I keep typing away here on my keyboard. So, I think a lot of that is going on where people are, if they're still employed, they're happy to be there and they're just going to kind of hunker down. And then if they're not employed, there's not a lot of them, you know, especially if you're coming from big tech, you would want to go most of the time to another big tech company.Like, that's why you're there, a lot of people aspire to work for big tech, they want to be in that ecosystem. But if all the big tech companies are laying people off or freezing hiring, there's nowhere to go. And so, there's nowhere to move if they want to. They don't want to make it known that they're looking to move because they don't want to draw attention to themselves if they're still employed. And if they're unemployed, the options for them to go somewhere are slim, but they probably have a severance package that they're kind of going to milk for a little bit and see if things kind of warm up again and they can go find somewhere to move to. So, everything feels, in the big tech level, there's a lot of inertia right now. People are just kind of sitting back, and there's a lot of friction, and they're just kind of hanging back to see what happens.Corey: And also, at least from my somewhat naive perspective, it feels like when people do get offers and they have made the decision to move on, there's an increasing sense of they should be thankful for what they get and not rock the boat by asking for more. But I vehemently disagree, to be very clear on this. I think that negotiate for the best package you can get. Do it in good faith and be responsible about it, but money that is life-changing to you is a rounding error at best for a lot of these companies. You will always be more invested in this than the counterparty that you're negotiating against. But it just really throws me and on some level, makes me sad watching people take less than they could be getting.Josh: Yeah. I mean, I think that's just the nature of people who are spooked when the economy is doing weird stuff. And it's an understandable reaction to it, but I agree with you. Just yesterday—you know, I'm in a bunch of [laugh] a bunch of different developer Slacks. I don't know which one this was, but I was in a developer Slack—and somebody was saying exactly that.They're like, “Yeah, I got this offer, it seems pretty good. I don't know if I should bother negotiating it, you know? Like, I, I—shouldn't I just be, you know, pretty satisfied with this thing that I got?” And I wrote a long response, which was, the short version of it was basically, “No.” And the reason is, think about all the costs that the company has incurred just to get to the point where they made you an offer?It was expensive for them. Believe me, a lot of money has been spent. They've gotten all the way to the finish line with you. I mean, the number is at least in the thousands of dollars; it's probably in the tens of thousands of dollars, especially if they flew out for an onside or something. If you went through an interview loop, just do the math on, well, I talked to six people for about an hour apiece. That's six hours right there of really expensive time probably at, like [laugh], you know, senior manager and above pay rates.So, they put a lot of money into trying to fill this role. They want to fill the role, especially in this environment. If you're that deep in the process, they've got a role that they probably feel is pretty crucial to be filled. So, you've got a lot of reasons that you should be optimistic about the value that you're bringing to that role and I think it's a mistake to not see what the maximum value is that you can get in return for the work that you're going to provide for them. So, I do think that being scared is not the right response there, again because they've made a significant investment to get to the point of making an offer.And remember their fallback, right, if you negotiate with them and they don't want to give you any more, I have never seen—and I underline the word ‘never—I've never seen that a big tech company, somebody negotiates, and the big tech company says, “Nevermind. Get out of here.” Job offer went away. I've never seen it.Corey: I was about to ask that because I've heard about it at startups. And back in years when I was on Twitter a lot more than I am now, I periodically have people messaging me saying that this happened to them. What should they do? Do I want to put the company on blast and the rest? It's something I learned relatively early on in that process was before I go off half-cocked—which I'm thrilled to do—can I get a screenshot of that email exchange back and forth?Because it hasn't happened often, but once or twice, what I have clearly seen is that the company makes an offer in good faith and the person comes back with what they believe is the professional way to negotiate for more money and it is such a screaming red flag that is basically fists-of-ham-powered here that companies are like, “Oh, thank God. We just learned this giant red flag. We can get out of this super easy by rescinding the offer because of the negotiation, rather than asking them who they think they're speaking to like that.” And that is the way of getting out of it in those cases. I don't think that's particularly common, and as you say, I don't suspect that happens at big tech companies.Josh: I mean, it's not a good look, right? There was a period last year where a big tech company… [laugh] I don't know if this is privileged information or not, but they were actually resending offers, and it's because they had gotten out over their skis. They were hiring way ahead of where they should have been, and then of course, everything turned and they had to start reducing headcount. So, they did, and then they started actually res—Corey: I can think of at least three companies off the top of my head that would qualify for that story. A lot of it came, but no one made an announcement that we're rescinding offers, but it doesn't take much on Twitter when you start seeing wow, 15 people all popped up at the same time claiming that. I wonder if they're telling—Josh: Weird.Corey: —the truth, given they've never—Josh: It's a pattern.Corey: —interacted with each other?Josh: Yes.Corey: Yeah…Josh: So, without putting them on blast, obviously, the reason I'm not saying their names is I would be putting them on bla—it's not a good look, right? Nobody wants to know that they're in the interview process for a company who is known for rescinding offers. And so, you know it wasn't a decision they took lightly. And so, to your point, companies are not just going to willy-nilly start pulling back offers because that's really terrible PR. I mean, it's just not a good idea.So, it's either what you said, which is—and this is something, like when I say, “I've never seen it; underline the word never,” right, what I mean is I work with people one-on-one for a living; that's what I do. None of my clients have ever had a job offer rescinded from big tech company. That's not to say it hasn't happened for reasons like you mentioned.Corey: Yeah, I have to imagine that the emails you help them craft to respond to these things don't start off with, “Now, listen here, asshole…”Josh: Right.Corey: Like, I sort of get the sense that that's not quite the negotiating tone that you take, most days.Josh: [laugh]. No. There's no, like, you know, “I've CC'd my lawyer on this email… and blah, blah—” you know, that's not how I negotiate; it's not a good way to negotiate if you want to get good results and build rapport with people. So, in general, if you follow what I would call, like, kind of good negotiating practices—which is self-serving because I would say that I've created a lot of them for salary negotiations, right—and if you're following the best practices there, everybody's understanding that we're having a professional, business conversation among, you know, [unintelligible 00:26:52] professionals. We're trying to find the best result, that's good for everybody and we're going to get there.And so, as long as you're not—you know, you mentioned, you know [laugh], I say, you know, pounding your fist on the desk and making ultimatums and stuff, like, that's not how I negotiate; you can hear it in the way I talk. You're going to be fine. They're not going to be rescinding offers and therefore, you have pretty much carte blanche to, in good faith, negotiate with them to see if there's more room to negotiate. And how aggressive you're being and what you're asking for, these are all things that are dependent on the situation, right? There's some cases where asking for another half a million a year would be completely absurd; in some cases where it's totally appropriate [laugh] and it just depends on what your situation is.Corey: For some roles, if you just accept the offer as given, you will lose status in their eyes, on some level. For example, one of the challenges we've had with contract negotiation has been when we hire folks to work on negotiations. It's one of those, like, “Okay, do we want somebody who accepts the first offer or do we want someone who really fights us tooth and nail over every aspect of it?” And it's, on some level, it's an extension to the interviewing process there.Josh: Yeah.Corey: I don't know what the right answer is on that I mostly shrug and make that my business partner's problem.Josh: I think it's a good metric to see, especially in your business, like, you want to know not only, like, can they negotiate contracts and all this stuff, but you want to know, like, how savvy are they in terms of business? And I think, in general, a person who just accepts the first offer they get in business, I will not say that they are not savvy because I don't know that, but it's not a signal of savviness, I think, to just outright accept the first thing that comes your way in business, in general.Corey: Oh, when I wind up interviewing people in person and telling them about offers and whatnot, in years past, it was always a, would you like me to sign it right now? It's… to be honest, I'm actually starting to reconsider having given it to you at all because only someone who is deranged is going to sign a contract they haven't read, and we don't try to hire for that.Josh: Right. Yeah, I mean, that's just not—especially when your job is negotiating—you want to know that this person is running a number of filters when they're considering, you know, what is probably a kind of a life-altering decision for them, right? And so, one of those filters is, “Are the terms of this contract good for me? Is there anything dangerous in here?” And one of the filters is, “Am I being appropriately compensated for the value that I'm going to bring?” That's the big one that I focus on, right?And there's a number of those filters and I think—you know, when I'm coaching someone, the first thing that we always say when a job offer comes in is, “Hey, thanks for the offer. I appreciate it. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like”—Corey: Yeah, acknowledge receipt.Josh: Yeah, yeah, “Thank you. I got the offer. Thank you for that.” And also acknowledge it and be thankful. Like, you know, “Hey, I appreciate it.” Like, “We have now made a significant step forward in this whole process that we're going through. I appreciate what you've done to get us here. I appreciate the fact that you're giving me an offer. That demonstrates a lot of trust and all these things. And if you don't mind, I'd like to take a day or two to think it over.” And then the last thing is, “Would you mind sending me a bullet-point summary in email of the numbers that you said, so I make sure I don't mess them up?”Because you're trying to avoid the very unlikely chance that they said numbers and you heard different numbers and then you start negotiating based on the different numbers and everything just kind of go sideways. So, that's the first three things: “Thank you for the offer.” “Can I have a day or two?” “Would you send me a bullet-point summary?” It doesn't have to be formal; just bullet points is fine.Corey: Would always irked me—and I you tend to see this a lot more with early career folks, but there's also this is a common failure mode as well among people who have been in one job for a while where they have gotten completely rusty at doing the interview dance. And they tend to view jobs as being this benevolent gift bestowed upon them by the employer and they become falling over themselves, just thanking them for the opportunity and the rest. And no, no, no, no, no. A job is a mutual exchange of value. You are solving a problem that the company has, and in turn, they are bringing you in and giving you a not inconsiderable amount of money—presumably—to wind up solving that problem for them, you both come out better than you were independently. That is what a job is. Confusing the power dynamic for something else feels, to me at least, like it's the wrong way to view things.Josh: Yeah. I've always not liked even the meta sort of way that we talk about jobs as, like, jobs created, jobs destroyed, somebody gave me a job. I don't know when that term—I would be curious actually, to kind of know the etymology of that term, but like, when we started describing jobs is the thing that was given or taken or—and instead, what it is, is it's a verbal contract or written contract. It's like, “Hey, I'm going to do work for you because I bring value. You're going to pay me because I'm creating value and because it's valuable to you. And we're going to figure out, you know, what's the meet-in-the-middle number, basically, that makes us both feel good about that business transaction.”You as a company can't do what you're doing without people like me. And I as a person have found a good place to flex that particular muscle at your company. That's great for both of us. Let's figure out how, you know, we can both be happy with it. So, it's definitely not that, you know, nobody's really doing anybody favors there. You're both entering into a mutual exchange of value for business reasons.And of course, your business reasons are different than theirs, but that's what they are. So yeah, I like the way that you frame that and you think about it. And I do think it can be a little harmful for people to have that perspective, especially like if they're in a position where they're thinking, “Oh, I'm so thankful that this company is willing to give me this job.” You know, “They're gifting me with this job and they're creating this job for me.” That's actually not what's happening.Corey: Something that I want to talk about, just because I've gone through this process myself as an employee, who interviewed a lot, negotiated a lot, and got hired a lot. Then I started this place and I've been on the other side of the table. And it turns out that it's not that hard to be a human being when you're the hiring manager and making these decisions. And understand the fact that yeah, you may be hiring five people this month, but these people aren't accepting five job offers a month—you hope—and going through that entire process themselves. And extending grace is just not that hard.Like, one thing that we've done since day one here has always been to put our salary compensation for the job in the job posting so we don't waste anyone's time. Where, like, “Well, what do you want to make?” It's like, if someone walks in to buy a car, the salesperson doesn't say, “Well, how much do you want to pay for it?” It doesn't work that way. It's, “This is the thing we're offering. This is the compensation we can build here. We don't do equity, so there's no funny money stories.”And yeah, I know you'd like to make three times more. So, would we, but without growth, that doesn't become sustainable. So, let's talk about how to get there. And being a responsible, decent human being is not that hard in the hiring space, but no one tells those stories because it's more fun, and outrage goes around the internet three times while the truth is still putting its boots on, where the idea of these horrible companies with people who don't know what they're doing just completely kicking themselves.Josh: Yeah, you know, it's funny, I thought, two things kind of flashed in my mind while you were talking. And the first one was, you know, I was a hiring manager for a while. And a lot of the sort of philosophy that I built around, like, asking for raises and promotions, right? Like, I have a process for that that's different than negotiating job offers, but the way that I developed it was as a hiring manager, my employees would say, you know—in their one-on-one or something—like, “Hey, you know, I feel like, you know, here's what happened when I started the company. For these reasons, I feel like I'm like, way behind where I should be in pay. Can you help?”And so, the way that I kind of approached that was, yes, I want to help them, but I cannot really do that on my own. I need a lot of information that I don't have for them. So, what information do I need from them to have them help me help them to get them a raise or get them or promotion, right? And so, I started thinking about it from the manager side of, like, essentially, kind of like a compassionate approach to, like, I need you to give me information and I will do what I can for you. And that was like, my whole philosophy with that, which is, I think I agree with you, but I need you to kind of prove to me that you should be paid more. Not because I don't believe you, but because I can't get you more money if I can't make that case, and I'm not able to make that case on my own, right?And so, I think that there is room for hiring managers to be compassionate in terms of like you said, just putting numbers in a job description, just so the person knows, like, yeah, this seems like it's probably approximately for me. Or you know, like I said, as a hiring manager saying, “Hey listen, I need you to bring me these three things. If you bring me those three things, that'd be the information that I need to go to finance or to HR or whoever and see if we can get you a raise or get you a promotion.” And if we can't, then I'll figure out, like, what are the next steps for you to get there to do that thing. And I think that in general, that's just removing friction from, like, forward-moving business processes and that's a good way to go.I think for you, right, you're saving yourself time, by putting those numbers in the job description, you're saving your applicants time by putting the numbers in the job description, and you're also kind of setting the terms for, like, the conversation that you're going to have, in addition to the abilities that they're bringing, the skills that they're going to bring, the things they're going to do for your company, you're also saving time on what the pay is going to be, what the compensation is going to look like approximately for that role, so that you can say, “Are we having a conversation whose parameters are known to us and that we agree upon to start with? Yes? Okay, great. Let's keep talking.” Otherwise, no, and maybe they should go somewhere else or maybe you need to rework your job listings because nobody is [laugh] applying for that job, right?But it's all data. It's a feedback loop. And it can be done compassionately. It doesn't have to be this, kind of, aggressive, you know, Shark Tank-style, like, I'm going to beat you over the head with this thing and get my result that I want, regardless of how you feel about it or, you know, how it makes you feel as a person.Corey: One last thing that I want to comment on this is that I've done this a fair bit, but if I wound up finding myself on the job market, I would absolutely reach out to you for coaching on the salary piece of it, just because you are a dispassionate third-party who is very aware of what the current state of the market is, you have a bunch of different offerings these days that range from a bunch of free articles on your website all the way up to individualized personalized coaching. I have bullied friends of mine into becoming your clients with a, “If he doesn't justify his fee, I will pay it instead of you.”Josh: [laugh]. Thank you for that, by the way.Corey: Of course. And I've never had to do it because you know what you're doing and the results absolutely speak for themselves. But my question is, what are you doing these days that's between the everything free on a website if you read it and, individualized one-on-one coaching? Are there now points in between those two extremes?Josh: Yeah. I think you actually summarized the whole spectrum pretty well. I mean, I've made—since I started my business seven-and-a-half years ago, one of the primary things that I did to start was, I'm going to create as much free content as I can and make it publicly available, just so that people can find it. Because there's no way that I can talk to tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people one-on-one. And so, that's there on fearlesssalarynegotiation.com.The other end is my one-on-one coaching which I developed because, frankly, people were reaching out and saying, “Hey, will you coach me through this?” And I said, “Sure.” And I developed that business. And then in between is, I created a program… three or four months ago, I launched it. It's called Salary Negotiation Mastery, but it is essentially me sitting down late last year with an instructional designer and asking the question, how can I teach the methodology I use in my one-on-one coaching to people who can't afford to hire me or just aren't inclined to hire a consultant to help them do something? And how can I teach that to them in a way that they can execute it on their own to get a good result, or possibly, you know, they're just at an income bracket right now where it doesn't make sense for them to hire me?And so, that's kind of the middle ground there is it's a coaching program, but it's wrapped in a do-it-yourself thing, where you have, you know, worksheets and workbooks and things that you can use to do it yourself using exactly the methodology, even the templates and things that I use with my clients. And the only thing, of course, that you're missing is my brain, but I've put as much of that as I can into the program as possible. So, that's the spectrum is: free articles, Salary Negotiation Mastery in the middle, and then the top tier offering that I have is, like you said, one-on-one bespoke coaching, where I work with somebody one-on-one. And I don't do a lot of that, just because it requires a lot of time and I like to give a ton of focus to everybody that I work with.Corey: Which makes sense because it also feels like it's a very time-sensitive issue as well. Like with AWS bill, great people want it fixed now, but then procurement can slow things down. But that's okay; there's another bill coming next month. Job offers, speaking as a hiring manager, if you accept the job, terrific, that's great. If you don't. Then okay, that's unfortunate, but it happens. But either way, let us know so we can either continue speaking to other people or begin planning for you to show up. So, it feels like there's very much a strong sense of urgency around the entirety of what you do.Josh: Yeah, especially for the coaching. And the whole offering for my coaching offering is really designed to make sure that I have enough bandwidth available for someone to call me. I mean, literally, as we're in this recording right now, I could have gotten an application in the email that would say, “Hey, I have a job offer in hand from Google. It's for this much money, it's for this level, can you help?”Corey: “And they're on the other line. Please respond immediately.”Josh: Yes. And their recruiter is pressuring me for an answer. They want to get back to the hiring manager. And so, I need to be able to respond quickly, get back to that person, have an intro call, get to know them, see if I can help in their situation, kickoff, you know, this afternoon or tomorrow morning, get a counteroffer over in the next 24 to 36 hours, that kind of thing. And so, in order to do that, I've got to build an offering that allows me to have enough bandwidth and, kind of, agency over my schedule so that I can just sort of jump in immediately into the middle of a process that's ongoing and help the person get the best result possible.So, I enjoy that to be honest with you. I like, kind of, being called on in emergency situations like that. It's really good. But of course, I had to structure the offering so that it facilitates it so that I'm not, you know, already booked on the phone eight hours a day and unable to even look at my email until tomorrow or something because it just wouldn't work.Corey: Yeah. There's something to be said for being able to take a vacation.Josh: Yes. Which takes some planning, but can be done [laugh]. And it means I just have to turn off the application sometimes [laugh].Corey: Glad to see things are still going well for you. You started your business a few months before I started mine and it's great to see that we're both still failing to go out of business every month.Josh: [laugh]. That's how I see it, too. I'm still here. Now, what [laugh]? That's every month on the first when I do the books.Corey: [laugh]. I hear you. I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me. If people want to learn more—and if they're changing jobs, they absolutely should—where should they go to find out?Josh: fearlesssalarynegotiation.com is the first place to go. I'm also on Twitter. I don't tweet a lot kind of actively, I probably should do better on that, but I'm at @joshdoody on Twitter and I'm very responsive on there. So, you could ping me on there or, you know, connect with me on LinkedIn if you wanted to; I'm also joshdoody there. But fearlesssalarynegotiation.com is the best place to go, especially if you're kind of in a time crunch. Everything is just right there for you to jump in and kind of grab, you know, the free resource that you might need or apply to work with me as a coaching client.Corey: Oh, the template emails are glorious.Josh: Yes. Those are one of my favorite things on the site. They don't look like other emails that people write, and something I take a lot of pride in is communicating well and creating good email templates that help a lot of people.Corey: Oh, in TextExpander, for a decade now, I've had a fill-in-the-blanks templated resignation letter, which it turns out, most people don't have. But I don't need it much these days, but it is useful to wind up giving to people from time to time. Like, “So, how do I tell my boss to take this job and shove it?” It's like—Josh: Well—Corey: —life is long and the industry is small. Go vent to your friends over beers. But there's very little upside and huge potential downside, so write the formal thing. Here you go. And it turns out that it's sort of cathartic, just filling that out. And it's like, oh, that's what this [unintelligible 00:42:05]. And it often helps people step back from the ledge sometimes. Or pushes them right off, depending.Josh: I think that's a useful service.Corey: But yeah, the [unintelligible 00:42:11] template emails are way better than mine.Josh: [laugh]. Well thanks, I appreciate it. It means a lot to me.Corey: [laugh]. Josh Doody the owner of fearlesssalarynegotiation.com. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry comment and be sure to include your salary expectations.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

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Making the Cut for the Stanley Cup Final

Play Episode Listen Later May 31, 2023 22:27

Take a moment to catch your breath before the Stanley Cup Final, with referee Kelly Sutherland mic'd up, the referees and linesmen working the Cup Final, the first female on-ice official enters the IIHF Hall of Fame, ECHL refs have an easy night, and the CHL looks at three major rule changes for the 2023-24 season -- all around penalties and power plays! More on these topics, including video clips and rule breakdowns, at scoutingtherefs.com Visit www.scoutingtherefs.com and follow @scoutingtherefs and @toddlewissports on Twitter and Instagram. Email us your questions - heyref@scoutingtherefs.com Call the RefLine at 585-484-REFS! Episode Transcript #166 Scouting the Refs is an unscripted audio podcast, designed to be heard. It's a whole lot more interesting to listen to the audio, but we're happy to provide a transcription below. This transcript has been generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain textual or typographical errors. Full transcript: https://scoutingtherefs.com/2023/06/40183/scouting-the-refs-podcast-166-making-the-cut-for-the-cup-final/ Todd: So I know we're all excited about the Stanley Cup final beginning and finally getting underway, Florida Panthers and the Vegas Golden Knights, but you know Josh? I'm thinking I want to start planning now. What we're going to be doing in the next few weeks when there's no games to watch, because no matter how much I prepare mentally at this point in time in the season, I always suffer from withdrawals after the Cup final is completed and the trophy is handed out. Josh: It's such a challenge, right? We go from the first round where you've got multiple games every night and just there's something going on everywhere at every hour. And the NHL even figured out scheduling this year, so with the games spread out, we could watch a lot of the action. And then it dwindles down a little bit more and now we've had this break of days without hockey, at least at the NHL level, and now the most we'll have is a game every other night. It's starting to feel real, Todd. It's starting to slip away a little bit. The hockey season is leaving us. Todd: It is and that's the hard part. I know the theory is that you start big and that it seems as though like you're kind of being weaned off the drug but it doesn't really work that way. You still suffer from the the withdrawals when it's gone. Josh: And, you know, the warm temps outside don't exactly help you. The weather's warm. You want to be outdoors doing things, especially with these games on the weekend. You're out and about it's it's hot outside. You've got shorts and a t-shirt on, and then you come back in to watch some ice hockey. Yeah, I I love the length of the season. I love that we have all these games, but when you start to get into June, especially the middle of June, it it feels like maybe we've gone too far. Todd: You know, we'll, we'll get through it. We always do. And there will be the anticipation before long of the new season. This is the Scouting the Refs Podcast. Please make sure you follow us on the social channels. Josh, of course can be found @scoutingtherefs on Twitter and Instagram, you'll get me at @toddlewissports on Twitter and Instagram as well. Coming up on this week's episode: Kelly Sutherland mic'd up, who made the cut, a Hall of Fame career, and new rules the NHL should be considering. I am very excited to discuss this topic, Josh. Josh: New rules are always interesting, sometimes they have unintended consequences, so you never know how it will play out, but it will be interesting to see. Todd: Okay, so let's get to some of the other stuff before we talk about the potential for for new rules. Four-star review for the video of the Western Conference Series game One. You hear from players, you hear from coaches, but most importantly you hear referee Kelly Sutherland at work out on the ice. We've seen these videos pop up semi regularly. They provide great insight into what is happening on the ice during the games, and conveniently enough, the bad words are taken out for you. That's why it takes a couple of days to get them out. So Kelly Sutherland, as you've perhaps seen before in some of these videos, is one of the most vocal referees out on the ice. He's explaining to players what he sees after a play. He's telling goaltenders that he's watching for the goalie interference. He's explaining to coaches what is happening out on this. It's it's as if he is a coach out on the ice at times. I think it's a great job that he does. Josh: Absolutely. It's one of the reasons that when they've had the player polls in the past that Sutherland scores so highly as one of the league's top officials. It's not only about positioning and judgment and comportment and all of the things that go in from an officiating standpoint. But from the players point of view, here's a guy who's actually helping you understand where the line is, and he's giving you advance notice before he's calling the penalty. And as a player, that's what you wanna have. You want to know where you stand and and when you're getting too far over the line. And that's what Sutherland does. I think one of his greatest strengths is the communication side of thing of warning guys and when they're getting too close and putting pressure in the crease. Or when it's a potential interference call and things he's seeing out there, so he tries to set that up front and then stick with that standard the whole game. And it's great when you have the mic'd up videos, because then we get to hear some of that dynamic and you see what goes into it before a penalty's actually called. Because he might have been chatting about it for the whole first period, halfway through the second period and a guy keeps at it and now all of a sudden he's blowing the whistle because he's warned him and he's had that conversation and it's one of his strengths. And it's really interesting to hear the types of things that go on. But you're right, Todd, it's almost like he's the second coach out there advising these guys. So he's not just enforcing the rules, but he's he's warning them he's giving them a heads up. He's reminding them of where the line is and when they've gone to far, that's when he has to send them off to the box. Todd: I I love it too. It's not just after the play that he's explaining calls, but as you mentioned, when two players are tied up, he's telling one like, okay, let him go. You gotta let him go now otherwise. You get the interference call and it's just like I don't want to penalize you, but I'm going to have to pretty soon. Josh: Yeah. And it's great in this video, you can hear a nice exchange he has with Keegan Kolesar about a hit that happened and there was a cross checking why he didn't call it and Kolesar's great, super polite there. Just thanking him for it. ‘I appreciate it' is what he says afterwards. So you might not always agree with it, but just giving that explanation and. Letting the guy understand why the call was or wasn't made in a certain situation is immensely helpful. But I don't know if you noticed, Todd, in the clip one of the coaches is on there saying, ‘Nice chat, Kelly.' We don't actually get the content of that conversation. So I don't know if it was something they wanted to keep quiet, or if there were just too many four letter words to include it. Todd: Yeah, that that sometimes the editing can be a little bit tricky on those. Again, I think it provides great insight and good job, I believe for putting those out even if it's 3-4 days after because of all the all the approval that has to go through. So with this video and hearing Kelly Sutherland at work, it is not surprising that he was one of the referees named to work in the Stanley Cup. Final he'll be joined by Steve Kozari, Wes McCauley – no surprise there, Dan O'Rourke, and Chris Rooney. The linesmen are Steve Barton, Scott Cherrey, Brad Kovachik, Kiel Murchison, and Jonny Murray. Congratulations to all for reaching the final. There's no real surprises with any of these names, is there? Josh: No, everybody's been here before, so I can't say that any of them come as a total shock. You've got tons of veteran experience there, McCauley, Sutherland both working their 10th Stanley Cup Final, Rooney with six. Even Johnny Murray, with six. So everybody's been here plenty of times. They all know what it's like, what the pressure entails, what the big games mean. It was not a shock. I was hoping that some of the younger guys might have made it. We saw Jean Hebert make the Cup Final last year, thought he might have a shot at returning this year, but he and Trevor Hanson, looking to make his Cup Final debut, both left off of the rosters. I thought either one of them could have made it, but who do you cut in their place? This is such a a challenge here. Figuring it out. So you think of – from an NHL standpoint – everything that goes into it and it's your full season, it's your mid season grade, it's your season end evaluation and then it's what you've done each round in the playoffs. So all of that leading up to it and I I think you know, we see and expect who's going to make it. And I I'd say these are like you said, Todd, no surprises here on these crews. Todd: Now, as you explained nicely in a piece on the scoutingtherefs.com website, the final works a little bit differently in that there's not specifically a backup referee at each event and the whole procedure of pairing guys together works a little bit differently as well. Josh: It's interesting to see because all season long we get this rotation of refs. Everybody works the next game with a different partner, typically because of travel, maybe they'll have a back-to-back together, but you're typically working each game with an entirely different crew. Through the first few rounds of the playoffs, that changes a bit because we do see ref pairings and linesman pairings, and often we see that quartet move together through some games. We definitely saw in the conference final where Kelly Sutherland's crew, the same four of them, worked together each game. Once you get to the Stanley Cup Final, they throw everybody back in the hat and basically draw numbers again. So you've got an odd number of referees, which means we're no longer having that pairing; we're having a rotation where the first two guys will work game one, the second two guys will work game two and then they'll start to mix it up after that because of the odd number. So your partner being a standard guy and and maybe at some of them that you've worked together the entire postseason up until now, now you're gonna get a new partner every night. So back to how the regular season works with the rotation. Obviously you're hoping these are your top officials. These are the best of the best. These guys have been consistent throughout the postseason, so it shouldn't matter, but it definitely shakes things up a little bit, so it'll be interesting to see how those tendencies translate when we see a guy where maybe two guys have worked together the entire postseason and now they get to work with different partners in the Stanley Cup Final. Todd: One other note on the referees who are and are not working the Cup Final, and you and I were exchanging messages during this game. But for those that say there is no accountability for officials, yes, there is, because there was one particular game with the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes, where not one, but two goals were overturned on offside challenges and those two linesmen are not working in the Stanley Cup Final. Now, they were so close. It was microscopic that they were offside plays, but this is the price that they're paying. Josh: Yeah, and we don't know. For sure if that happened to be the reason or the straw that broke the camel's back, or if there are other contributing factors here in making that decision. But, certainly, it's one of those things that you look at from an officiating management standpoint when you have guys that are frequently involved in coaches challenge or you have referees that maybe are calling major penalties, that they're downgrading after review, maybe it makes you question their judgment a little bit. I'm not saying it's right or wrong and and like you said, these are really close plays, so I'm not even going to point fingers at the officials or or find fault in how it worked out, but certainly the optics of having a call that had to be overturned on such a public stage and in such a critical juncture in a key moment for a goal to be scored or not, you can't help but think that that did put the spotlight on them a little bit more and may have influenced Stephen Walkom's decision. Todd: A couple of non-NHL notes that we should mention as well. Congratulations to Sandra Dombrowski, who now goes by Sandra Frye. She has become the first female on ice official inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame. Congratulations Sandra on a great international hockey career. Josh: Yeah. Very nice to see that honor there. The class of 2023 was inducted. We have lots of players from all over the place and another official making it in. And there's very few in the IIHF Hall of Fame. Only eight now, with Dombrowski's edition and mostly European, we don't have an American or even a Canadian official that are yet in the IIHF Hall of Fame, so there's there's still boundaries to hit there, but nice to see Dombrowski get in. She broke plenty of boundaries coming in and making her way up. Even as a hockey player, when she was younger, she couldn't find a team to play with as a woman, so she founded her own and it went from there and she was involved in a lot of firsts. The first unofficial women's game at the World Championship and then the first woman referee of a Women's World gold medal game. So nice to see her recognized for all the contributions to hockey, both as a player as an official and then coming off the ice, working as a supervisor and then part of the IIHF officiating committee. So she's given a lot to hockey and nice to see them reciprocate and and give the honor of putting her into the IIHF Hall of Fame. Todd: So the first North American referee that could go in potentially maybe a few years down the road, you know if that was Wes McCauley, I got to think that the acceptance speech is going to be out of this world because they they let them do that at the presentation, don't they? Josh: They do and they did, and Dombrowski gave a great speech. It was wonderful to hear from her and you could tell how much this meant to her; how much hockey means to her. So it was a great honor, but I just picture Wes being most comfortable with just want to give that speech with the mic on, at center ice in full uniform. Todd: Five for fighting! Josh: We've got an induction! Todd: Perfect. Love it. Okay, also non-NHL-related. Congratulations to the Florida Everblades for their win over the Newfoundland Growlers. They win the Eastern Conference final in the ECHL. They'll move on to play Idaho in the final. That series also opens up on Saturday, June the 3rd. Congrats to the Blades who are going for back-to-back titles. It is the second time these two teams have met. In 2004, it was the Idaho Steelheads that prevailed . It was an interesting game summary in this one. It was a double overtime game as I mentioned, but barely a whistle blown for a penalty. Josh: Yeah, quiet one for the officials, which is — It's funny, we joked last week on the podcast about how things tighten up and saying that when you get into game six or game seven, we see fewer and fewer penalties and things really tighten up and I think it's on both sides, right? I think it's on the officials. Maybe I don't wanna say pocketing the whistles, cause that becomes a a negative, but maybe calling that standard tightly and making sure everybody knows where it is. But we also see it on the players trying to be on their best behavior because they don't want to be the person sitting in the box that's responsible for a power play goal against, especially when goals are so critical. But this one, Todd, referee Sam Heideman and Alex Normandin called a clean game effectively because they didn't hand out any power plays. They had some penalties. We had a holding minor that was accompanied by a diving penalty, so that washes out; we have no man advantage there. Only one other penalty in the game. And you can thank the linesman for it because it was a bench minor for too many men on the ice. Todd: Now those of us that are familiar with the ECHL and have, you know, seen a few games, is this a first? Josh: It's a relatively well behaved game for these guys. Nice to see how well-mannered both clubs were. I got to watch part of the game didn't see the whole thing, but you know it's one of those things where you don't want to be the guy who messes it up. You're trying to keep it clean. You don't wanna get whistled for anything. You're kind of playing a little more careful, a little, a little safe there, especially in a game that spent a lot of the time tied. I mean from the second period on, the whole third period, the whole first over time, you've got a tie game there. So you definitely don't want to be the guy who puts your team shorthanded. Todd: I'll just end by saying go Blades. That's my hometown team. Okay, now we talked about some potential rule changes that are going to take place. They are taking place in the Champions League in Europe and I think that there's some some of these – in fact, I like all of them – that could and should be considered by the National Hockey League. Okay, so let's go through them one at a time. First, being minor penalties dealt with the same as a major penalty in that a team that has caused a minor penalty will remain shorthanded, even if the opposing team scores a goal, so you're serving the full two. Josh: Yeah, not a radical change here. This is one of those ‘everything old is new again' kind of moments because this is how it was in the National Hockey League up until 1956. You sat for the whole 2 minutes; you served your time. If they scored once, twice, three times, however many they score in that 2 minutes, you're staying in the box. So I think the Champions League is looking to boost goal scoring here and they also say that they want to make sure punishments are consistent. So yeah, you did the crime you will do the time, no matter how many goals get scored during your sentence. Todd: I don't think that's an unreasonable thing. I know that we had an exceptional power play this year with the Edmonton Oilers, but it still was, what? Just over 30%. So it's unlikely that you're going to score two or three or four goals, but maybe that helps as a deterrent. Josh: It could because those penalties become a bit more valuable. And right now you're looking at it as you're either short handed for two minutes or you've given up a goal and then you're back to even strength. Now you're definitely going to be shorthanded for the whole 2 minutes, and you aren't capped at just giving up one shorthanded goal, so it does put a little premium on those penalties, which hopefully doesn't put more pressure on the refs when it comes to not wanting to decide the game or factor into the game. You need to call it the same way, it's just that the each penalty call becomes a bit more impactful, potentially. Todd: Okay, also with a delayed penalty, a minor penalty will be served even if a goal is scored while a delayed penalty is pending. Josh: Yep, and I'm good with this one. This is one of those interesting situations where many of the leagues wipe out the goals on delayed penalties. NCAA College Hockey in the US actually has this rule currently where a goal scored on the delayed penalty does not wash out the penalty. If you score on the delayed call, you still get a power play afterwards and the player still serves his time, which now under this other rule will also be a full 2 minute power play coming out of that. Todd: Right. Josh: It's it's pretty interesting at the NHL level and others that penalty just disappears. It never happened. The the guy doesn't have two minutes associated with any infraction. He doesn't serve any time in the box; the entire penalty isn't even recorded. At the USA Hockey level, it is recorded but not served. So I think it's interesting. I mean, I've rallied before in the past to say they should consider at least booking the guy for the two minutes and making him sit in the box even if you don't give the team a man advantage, but I think this is the most honest way to do it. The delayed penalty isn't a power play. It's an opportunity where the other team can't touch the puck, so it it definitely comes to a benefit to the attacking team. They get to pull the goaltender, they get to maintain possession. So there there's definitely a benefit there, but I've always been amazed that it offsets the power play there. And again I think this is just try to keep balance and keep scoring down, but now you're going to see more scoring because not only will you score on the delayed penalty… or if you do, you'll still get a 2 minute power play. Todd: I like it. I think it's a a good idea and the other one that's being implemented by the Champions League is that a short handed goal erases a current minor penalty. If the team shorthanded scores, then their minor penalty will come to an end. I'm okay with this. I guess it's a bit of a ‘get out of jail' free card. Well, even more of a bonus than that, but I think it will encourage teams to maybe try stuff on the penalty kill. Josh: This is the most radical of them, right? Because everything up until now has been ‘Delayed penalty? You're still going to serve the time', ‘Other team scores? You're still gonna serve the time.' Well, your own team scores. Now you get out of jail free — so you worded it properly, Todd, I think that's exactly what it is. And this one's not looking at the change from a punishment standpoint. This is purely around goal scoring because you're you're hoping that you can get that team to stretch things out a little bit and think offensively, which could open scoring the other way and make those short handed teams a little less defensively conscious because now they want to score. They want to get that time back, especially if it's late in the game, you're trailing, you don't wanna wait out the whole 2 minutes. If you can get this goal, you can get back to even strength. So I think it's an interesting move. I think it's definitely the most radical of the ones that are coming in here and the one I'm curious to see what types of changes that makes to how teams approach being shorthanded and and what the power plays look like. And remember with those other changes, you will be shorthanded the entire time, so you've got that two minutes you can be scored on multiple times unless you do this to end your short handed situation by scoring a shorthanded goal. The combination of these three makes it really interesting. I feel like it's gonna take some time for teams and coaches to adapt to what the strategy is here and how best to take advantage of this and and how to work it properly. So I'm glad the Champions Hockey League is putting these in place, since these are ones that we've talked about at the North American hockey level and it's the right place to test it. It's this the specialty league. They have limited scope, limited teams, 24 teams this year coming in from all over Europe. So because of the way they're set up, I think it's a great proving ground to see how are these going to work when we first put them in place and then by the end of the season, is it still doing what we thought it would? Or have we seen things change dramatically? And you know what they then they take a break, they can change it for next year, but at least this is the right place where you can actually try that and see how it plays out before you implement it at a larger scale or at the AHL, ECHL, NHL level. Todd: I have one more that's been suggested, I think by a few people, but I think would be an interesting to be part of this experiment as well. If the team that has is getting the penalty has a choice between being on the man advantage for two minutes or taking a penalty shot. Josh: That's an interesting one. You know, we've, we've seen that come up before in discussions on especially late in game situations. Should it be a power play? Should it be a penalty shot? Todd: Right. Josh: In the past you look at penalty shot, success rate versus power play success rate and it's not that far off. I mean we've we've seen maybe the penalty shots are a little bit higher, but statistically speaking it's not a huge difference where you see a big swing there, I think it'd be interesting to give teams that option, especially when you've got the full 2 minutes because now. Do you want 2 minutes on the power play where you can score multiple times, or do you want one shot at a breakaway? In this situation, you know if you're trailing in the game, maybe that 2 minutes is valuable and you you'd rather have the penalty shot. Or maybe the opposite is true and you just wanna kill time off the clock and you'd rather have the two-minute power play. I think that'd be an interesting strategy driver there, too, Todd, on how do you approach it because now you've got a power play that could result in multiple goals, or you get to take the penalty shot, which is only one – uses no time on the clock – but do you think your team has a better chance on the penalty shot than on the power play? Interesting dynamic there. Another one where I think it takes time. You you'd have to put that in and coaches would figure out how best to make it work for their team. You know, if you're the Edmonton Oilers this past season, you're taking the power play every time. Some teams with limited success or with a really strong breakaway scoring player there, you might want to take the penalty shot and I think that it just changes things up from a strategy standpoint. Todd: Now you mentioned the downfall. Coaches ruin everything. Thanks for listening… or reading. Please like, share, and subscribe to the Scouting the Refs Podcast wherever you get your podcasts:

When To Get Out Of The Way | Culture Hack | Calgary Business

MegaPixx Media

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 30, 2023 5:55

Tangent's main purpose is to engineer success, enrich lives and improve the world through strategic innovation. Guest Josh Abbott from Tangent talks about how they do just that by letting their employees shine. To quote Josh “It's up to leadership and management to set the table for your employees to be successful.” How does that approach keep their employees engaged? Tangent sets their employees up for success by removing obstacles and distractions that would keep their employees from doing their best work. For more details follow along as Adam and Josh chat. Click the stamps below to enjoy our discussion and insights on: 00:00 Intro 00:11 Welcome Josh 01:03 What is Engagement 02:45 What are the Obstacles 04:24 What the Future Holds 05:42 Be on the Show A bit about our Guest Josh is a Partner at Tangent Design Engineering with 15 years of experience in managing product development. He values close collaboration with customers; always with the mindset to create and execute successful commercialization strategies that achieve both product and business success. You can connect with Josh on LinkedIn at Josh Abbott | LinkedIn To learn more about Tangent Design Engineering go to https://www.tangentservices.com/ #employeeengagement #innovation #leadership #corporateculture #culturehack #connection #purpose #teamwork #success To be our Next Guest on The Culture Hack at YYC Business please follow this link https://form.123formbuilder.com/6233829/form About Adam and Culture Hack Adam's alternate title at ENTA Solutions is The Culture Ninja. His passion is helping small businesses excel by creating an engaging company culture. Adam's goal is to help your team achieve clarity of purpose and wholeheartedly commit to your company's values and vision. Connect with Adam on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-kolozetti Website: https://yyccalgarybusiness.ca/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@megapixxmedia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calgarysbusiness/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/calgarysbusiness/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yyccalgarybusiness/ TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@yycbusiness/ Filmed and edited by ENTA Solutions https://www.entasolutions.org The views and opinions expressed in the video are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of MegaPixxMedia Ltd and their Affiliates Any content provided by our bloggers or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything. This video is for entertainment only.

tiktok culture partner hack calgary filmed tangent josh it next guest

The Papal Fleet

Footnoting History

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 14, 2023 23:44 Transcription Available

(Josh) It's POPE NAVY time! When Church leaders gathered at the Council of Vienne in 1311, King Henry II of Cyprus promised Pope Clement V a fleet of ships which would have the purpose of enforcing trade embargoes the papacy had enacted. These trade embargoes aimed to prevent Latin Christians from engaging in trade with Muslims and certain non-Latin Christians. While not built until later in the fourteenth century, the papal fleet appeared in many crusade proposals in the first few decades of that century. Come sail the heretical sea on this voyage of Footnoting History.

muslims council cyprus fleet papal vienne king henry ii josh it footnoting history

Josh Poertner - Silca

The Gravel Ride. A cycling podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 12, 2022 102:09

In this week's episode, Randall has Josh Poertner on to talk aerodynamics. In a wide-ranging conversation, the two touch upon Josh's time as Technical Director at Zipp, involvement in the development of computational models for rotating wheels, early collaboration with Cervelo founders Phil White and Gerard Vroomen, founding and leadership of the product brand Silca and The Marginal Gains Podcast, and ongoing consulting work with elite athletes and teams. Silca Website Marginal Gains Podcast Episode Sponsor: Logos Components Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Silca - Josh Poertner [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. This week on the show, I'm handing the microphone back to my co-host Randall Jacobs. Who's got Josh Portner, the CEO of Silka on the shout out a wide range in conversation about the sport and high performance. Many of you may be familiar with the storied Silka brand. It's been around for close to a hundred years. But josh took over back in 2013 with a mission of merging the highest quality materials and craftsmanship with cutting edge design and manufacturing When you visit the Silca website, you notice a tagline, the pursuit of perfection, never settling, always improving. And I think that embodies how Josh approaches the sport. . So I'm excited to pass you over to Randall to dig into this conversation. Before we jump in i want to thank this week sponsor logos components Yeah, I've been itching to get back on a set of six 50 B wheels, and I've been waiting for my logo's components, wheels to arrive. They literally just arrived last night and I'm super stoked. But yet disappointed because I have to go away for the weekend and I won't be able to actually ride them until sometime next week. I chose the Atara six 50 B model. As you know, I'm sort of big on the big tires, big fun philosophy. So I've been eager on my unicorn, which I've been riding on a 700 SEASET for a while now. To get into the six 50 bees again and see what a six 50 by 50 combined with that rock shock fork is going to yield for me on the trails here in Marin. You guys may remember. Me sitting down with Randall, talking about what makes a great gravel wheel set and everything that went into these logos component wheels. I encourage you to go back to that conversation because whether or not the logo's wheel set is for you or not. I think Randall does an excellent job of teasing out. All the various considerations. You should be having when considering buying a gravel wheelset, It is no small expense when getting into a carbon wheel set, but the team at logos has endeavored with their direct consumer model. Uh, to make it as affordable as possible and make them as durable and high performing as anything out there on the market. I written wheels designed by Randall for the last three years. So I'm super excited. To see his latest vision come to fruition. With these new wheels and I'll have them underneath me soon enough. I encourage you to check them out@logoscomponents.com. Randall's also an active member of the ridership community. So if you have questions for him, feel free to join us over there at the ridership and connect with other riders. I seen people paying that their wheels have arrived so you can get some real, real people answering your questions. About whether they're enjoying the wheelset and how they perform, et cetera. And I'll have more on this in future additions. At this point. I'm going to hand the microphone over to Randall. And i hope you enjoy this conversation with josh [00:03:30] Randall: Josh Portner, thank you for joining us on the podcast. This is a conversation I've been looking forward to for quite some time. Some deep bike nerdy is probably about to ensue, so, uh, let's dive, let's hope. Dive right into it. [00:03:43] Josh: Well, thank you for having me. Always, always up for some deep bike. Nerdy. I like that. [00:03:49] Randall: So a number of our listeners will already know who you are, but just give folks a high level summary of what you do now. [00:03:55] Josh: Oh gosh. So I own Silca, um, or I own Arrow Mind, which, uh, owns the Silca brand and trademark, um, and, and all that that entails. And then we also have a, uh, we own Marginal Gains, which is a podcast and a YouTube channel. And, um, Yeah, our goal is to, a mind works with a lot of pro riders, pro teams, world tour teams. Um, you know, we do everything, Excuse me. We do everything from, you know, performance consulting, uh, modeling, uh, you know, setting up our record attempts for people or, or helping them design our record attempts. Um, you know, we do tire pressure work with pros. We do equipment choices for teams. We think some of the most interesting stuff we do, um, is around where like, uh, teams or national federations don't trust the equipment they're getting from somebody. And they'll come to us and say, you know, the, you know, bike brand X says that this does this, and our writers don't think so. Can you tell us what's true? And. We'll find a way to make that happen. So we, we've had some pretty interesting ones of those with, uh, particularly around the Olympics with the national federations. You know, no, nobody wants to have another Under Armor speeds skating suit, uh, situation, , right? Where all the, all the athletes think something is true and therefore it becomes true and, and nobody knows. And so, um, you know, so we do a lot of that. Arrow mind does that, essentially. And so that's a lot of the performance work I was doing in my old world. I was technical director at ZIP for almost 15 years. Um, and, and then Silca is the product arm of the company. Uh, that's probably how, you know, most people know us. You know, we make pumps and tools and, and, but we also make a lot of crazy things that people look at me and go, Oh, where the hell did that come from? Well, that probably came from some project or another. We did it in the Arrow Mind side of the business, Um mm-hmm. . So that's how we've gotten into sealants and lubricants and 3D printing and, and all sorts of other craziness. Right? That's sort of how the one flows into the other. And then, you know, Marginal Gains is a podcast and, and YouTube channel where we talk about it all and, and we, we typically with a, a team or a company have like a two year. Secrecy period on a technology. And then after that we can do something with it and, and talk about it and tell the story. So, you know, it's always, it's always fun to go through those periods where like, Oh, thank God we can talk about that now, . Cause you know, we're talking about it internally all the time. And, and you're like, Oh, can we put that in the podcast? I don't know. So, so that, that's what I do now. We, I, I play with bikes basically. [00:06:34] Randall: Very, very cool. And, um, when you talk about the consulting work you do, is this kind of full stack performance consulting, is it very a focused, is it all technical sides, including say, like bearing drag or, or things like this? Is it, um, obviously positioning falls into Arrow Nutrition. Like where, where do you, ooh, where does your domain physiology start? [00:06:57] Josh: And I draw the line at physiology, you know, there's a whole, there, there are people who are, are like my equivalent in that world. And, and my God, I can never even dream to. You know, clean their shoes. So, um, no, you, you need someone to talk physiology, you know, And I'll, I'll pull my phone out and we'll call Allen Li or somebody, you know, Yeah. With a bunch of contacts. But, uh, you know, Alan's one of my favorite go-tos for things like that and be like, Oh dude, I've been over my head help . You know, [00:07:21] Randall: he, he's, um, he's actually been on the pod before, but Craig interviewed him, so I might bring him on in the future to do, you know, my, my more kind of nerdy type of interview. Alan's great. Yeah, no, [00:07:31] Josh: he's, he's a lovely guy. He's a lovely guy. And, and I just love, I mean, he, you know, like I find myself pretty quickly sometimes getting into places where people's eyes just glaze over, like, what the hell is this guy talking about? And, you know, I love that Alan can do that to me in about 30 seconds, you know, we're talking about the stuff that he does. You're like, Oh, whoa, shit, way over my head way. I, I didn't even recognize the last four words that you used in that sentence, . And, uh, so it's, it's awesome to be able to be surrounded by people with that. But no, you know, we. The stuff that they come to us for. I mean, you know, when I left sip and started soak, of course everybody and their brother, you know, came and said, Oh, design us a wheel. I'm like, well, like I can't do that for a couple years. But also I'm kind of just done with that, you know, like I've lived that life. I, you know, it, it was fun. But, you know, we, we continually updated wheels for 15 years, but it, it really is kinda like doing the same thing over and over again, you know? And, and so it just wasn't fun for me. So, you know, they'll come and say, um, you know, help us design this cockpit, or we, we do a lot of, with our, our in-house, uh, 3D titanium printing, we do a lot of custom cockpits for, uh, teams, riders, things like that. You know, where we laser scan the rider, get the position, lock that down to the wind tunnel, design the part, 3D print it, um, you know, stuff like that, that, that's really exciting. We, we'd get a lot of, you know what, um, You know, help us optimize for this time trial at the tour or the Olympics or whatever, where, you know, what tires should we run and we can, we have systems and tools and, and spreadsheets and a million other things that we can, um, Yeah. Help, help them determine. And then a lot of times we, you know, we get companies coming to us, um, really just wanting to know, like, you know, if, like, which of their sponsor products should they use and when should they go off sponsor? You know, you'll see that a lot at like, the tour where, excuse me. Um, you know, like they, they ride the sponsor correct product, you know, 98% of the time, and then they're gonna sneak it in here or there when it's really critical. So, you know, what, what are those really critical points? And then, you know, if, if they're gonna risk getting in trouble or outright get in trouble, like it needs to be worth it, right? And so they might come to us with like, okay, you know, we need. I need a time trial tire for this rider for this day. You know, what should we do? And, and we'll help him with that. But yeah, you know, if you, if you were a, a brand, uh, or a world tour team there, or approach our athlete that wanted to go to the win tunnel, you know, you might pay us to come along. Um, a lot of what I do too is kind of fun is just act as like a fly on the wall in these team to sponsor interactions. You know, I think I was probably at half a dozen wind tunnel tests last year where I really had pretty much nothing to contribute other than being the neutral third party in the room, um mm-hmm. you know, so that everybody was comfortable that everybody was. Comfortable . [00:10:26] Randall: Well, I would imagine there's a mix of the, uh, the political, if you're talking about, you know, what should be using our own sponsors gear versus slipping something else in all the way to, um, balancing the competing goals of say, like comfort and pure power output on the bike versus aerodynamics. Um, if you're talking about a time trial position. Yeah. [00:10:47] Josh: Oh yeah, for sure. And, and I think even down to, you know, and I think as much as we love to talk science and testing and, and try to be as scientific as possible, I mean, this stuff is really, it's emotionally hard. It's politically hard. It's, you know, companies will bring new equipment in, they're with their engineers. I mean, those guys and girls want that stuff to work so bad. And you know, sometimes you just see things coming out where, Oh yeah, that's clearly faster. And you're like, Well, actually, the way I would interpret that is it's probably about. The same, um, or mm-hmm. , you know, let's, let's rerun that test or, um, you know, it's always, I don't know, it, it, they, they like, people like to get themselves in these loops where, you know, Oh, we did this and it's 10 seconds faster and it's that, And I feel like back in the, you know, when I was with zip, we did this a lot during the Lance Armstrong area and he was writing our disc and, and we were coming in as consultants for the first probably five tours or whatever. And um, you know, every wind tunnel test you'd get to the end and they would have this chart that's like, we just made him 90 seconds faster. And it's like, look guys, that. There is no 90 seconds faster. I mean, you know? Mm-hmm. like, like that is not gonna happen. You know, you, you just did a whole bunch of stuff that's not sustainable that he can't hold his head like that. Mm-hmm. that helmet tails gonna come off the back, you know, I mean, cuz he, people do things like, Oh, oh, the helmet tail moved, rerun. You're like, Yep guys, when you ride in the real world, like the tail's gonna move. Like you don't, you know, people like to, they select data, um, without even realize they're selecting data. And so, you know, it is, it's just good always to have a third party in the room. Um, you know, it's kinda like funny story, you know, back to, you know, my zip days, how Firecrest came about, you know, Firecrest was literally the name of the prototype that, that kind of blew all of our minds. And the reason the prototypes had weird bird names was that we had to double blind them across engineers because you just didn't want anybody. Kind of, you know, having an effect on their product, right? I mean, we all, you know, we all fall in love with our children, right? . And, and in this world, like you, you can't love your children. Um, and you have to be willing to kill them when they're not good. And, um, you know, we would do this double blind thing where we would like assign them all a number and then we would assign bird name, these bird names a number, and then we would randomize it and then they would get all put up. And then nobody really knew whose idea was what, when you were in the tunnel. Um, that's necessary, right? Cause you're, you know, you can be your own worst enemy at that stuff. I think we've, you know, we've all been guilty of that a time or two in our lives. But, uh, you see it all the time, particularly in these performance, um, improvement coaching type things where, you know, people just wanna will something into existence even when it's not. Yeah. [00:13:38] Randall: Well, and I can see, um, you know, the marketing oftentimes has it much more, uh, presented, much more like a, you know, this is just, it's physics. It's more, it's more exact, it's more, um, it's more controlled. And, um, there are competing variables, particularly when you have, you know, a monkey in the middle. You have to, this, this, you know, this animal needs to be comfortable. This animal needs to be fueled, This animal needs to be able to control this machine through a varied environment. And that varied environment may be varying in real time if weather changes or things like this. Um, and so there's just all these competing interests. And so when you see, you know, I often laugh at like, You add up all the different arrow benefits that, you know, different companies claim for components and you should be doing. Right. Right. You know, you might be looking at, um, uh, relativistic effects potentially at some of the speeds you'd be able to achieve. Uh, Jen, just like how, how many watts can be saved. Totally. Being a little bit facetious there. [00:14:37] Josh: Yeah. No, no, it's totally true. I mean, and I still have this photo somewhere, I think I even showed it a couple years ago on social media. But as this, this really great photo that I love that ended up, um, on the wall at the Texas A and Wind tunnel, but it's me with next to Lance Armstrong, um, in the, what became the Nike Swift spin suit, um, that had been flown down there from, you know, Seattle. And it's, uh, oh God, the guy in from his book college or whatever he calls him, and then a guy from Nike, so it's the four of us. And I'm kind of standing there like doing, you know, like pointing at something on his back and it, like, a college student took it for the school newspaper and then they had him autograph it and it ended up on the wall. And so like, Oh, that's me. You know, it's kind of funny. But, but the real story there was that suit, you know, they were paying like 3000 bucks a meter for this suit. They'd been putting it on a mannequin in the tunnel. I mean, it was gonna save three minutes per 40 k. And you're just sitting like going, guys, like, I, I mean, just quick doing the math, like three minutes for Lance Armstrong, you know, like the guys already, That's not possible. And, and of course we get it. We put it on him. Um, the whole thing, you know, it, it's, it's cool, it's fancy, it was very red and it does nothing. I mean, it literally, we were, and the Nike people are there and they're like, Oh, that's not possible. It, it can't do nothing like whole. Let's run it again. Okay. Now get 'em out of it. Put 'em in the normal suit. Run that one. You're like, it, it just doesn't do anything. And, and they just kept going. Well run it again. Well do this. Let's, let's close pin it up. Let's tighten it. Let's, do, you know, I mean, I bet we, we lost two hours trying to make that stupid thing look like it would do anything. You know, And again, it's, it's just people being people and we've all done it. But [00:16:21] Randall: I hear like something of stages, of, stages of grief. Like, you have your baby and like first it's denial, and then you, then you have bargaining. Yeah. Yes. Put so much into this. Yeah, that's exactly, [00:16:32] Josh: that is exactly what it is. And, and you know, the, the crazy reality with that one was, you know, three months later at the tour, they launched it anyway, and they said it saved three minutes and he , you know mm-hmm. . And we, we. It, you know, I just had to laugh. I mean, I remember, you know him, you know, winning whatever one of the time, trials by like a minute and like going, No. So Nike's essentially saying he would've lost that time trial by two minutes had it not been, had he not been wearing that suit. Come on guys. Um, yeah. [00:17:00] Randall: Well, and I think that, that maybe that's, um, you know, headline number one from this interview is don't believe everything you read, especially if it's coming from a party, has a financial interest in it. [00:17:10] Josh: That is true. That is true. Yeah. I, I, I tell don't, don't even believe yourself. Right? I mean, truly like you, you are a bad, um, a bad predictor of things and, and you're a bad feeler of things and nobody wants to admit that. Um, but it's just true. You know, that's, I've been preaching that gospel for, for years. But, you know, I mean, 90, I, I would say 90% of the things you. That you feel when you're on your bike. Total, total crap. Um, and, and we know that cuz we, we've done blind testing with riders. I mean, like unbelievable world class rider. And if you blind them to what they're actually riding, they can't tell you almost any Yeah. Um, you know, all that perception, but still, but the stories away, the [00:17:56] Randall: stories we tell ourselves are powerful. There is a strong placebo effect. Oh, for sure. Uh, for sure. But it has to be acknowledged that that is the placebo. And if you actually had those beliefs about things that had genuine benefits, you would get both, You would get the actual [00:18:11] Josh: benefits. Yes. The, the most powerful thing in the world is a placebo that actually works. Right. , where you get, it's like a, it's a double whammy benefit. Um, and so yeah. That, that's where, you know, I mean, in a nutshell that's a lot of what, you know, I've made my career doing right, is trying to help, help sway people towards the, the, the placebos that, that actually do have a, a, a benefit for them. [00:18:34] Randall: So this has the conversation going in a slightly different direction than I was anticipating, which I'm really enjoying. So I've been, I've been diving into this lecture series from this guy Robert Sapolsky at Stanford. It's on, um, the, uh, uh, behavioral biology, and it's looking at all the different ways in which studies go wrong. And so there's like, you know, beliefs about something, uh, for a long period of time, you know, eminence, people in the field, uh, promulgate these, you know, these ideas. And then it's shown that, you know, the study was, was not, uh, taken, uh, done properly or what have you. And so I'm curious, let's dive more into things that go wrong in the study of aerodynamics and, um, maybe kind of the edge of, say, human performance where interfaces with aerodynamics [00:19:17] Josh: Hmm, ooh. Interest. So, I mean, a, a good. I would say career defining for me, example of that was, um, you know, we, from like 2009 to 2012, we were really all in on developing, uh, CFD for the, for bicycle wheels. And it, it just wasn't working right. Everybody was talking about it and showing papers, and, but I mean, it just, the reality was like the CFD just never looked like the wind tunnel. The curve shapes were different. The data was, we're, we're talking It [00:19:47] Randall: wasn't mid, mid [00:19:48] Josh: nineties, right? Oh, no, Mid, mid late two thousands. Yeah. Like mid, late, late [00:19:53] Randall: thousands. Okay. Yeah. And you're not using, you're having to develop something ground up or you're having to, uh, adapt something from Desso or, or one of these bigger [00:20:02] Josh: vendors. Yeah, So I think the question at the time was, you know, how do you, how do you really properly model the spinning wheel in, in flow that's also translating, right? And you look at. You know, all the CFD stuff with aircraft, um, you know, there's no rotational flow, you know, and then you look at, there's special models that people have built to look at, like, um, turbine jet, turbine engine combustion or whatever. But those are incredibly unique. And they're also, you know, there's RO flow rotating, but in a different access and Yeah. [00:20:36] Randall: The F1 guys perpendicular access. [00:20:38] Josh: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so, and then you got the F1 guys who weren't really modeling, um, they were modeling the rotation of the wheels, but they were doing it by modeling a rotational component at the surface of the tire. So you were, you weren't essentially like spinning the wheel, you were just saying, Oh, there's a induced rotation a about this surface. Um, which has been in the, the solvers forever. So [00:21:02] Randall: in interesting, this is taught because the, those wheels are traveling so quickly, especially the top of the wheel. If you're doing 200 miles an hour, the top of the tire is traveling at 400. And so you're having sign significant turbulence at that interface, right? Well, [00:21:15] Josh: and you, you have like Magnus effect, right? You're actually getting pressure differential top to bottom, um, you know, from , the direction of the wheel spinning. And so, you know, we, we could do stuff like that pretty accurately, right? You know, you could look at the, you know, a rotating baseball and, and predict the direction that's gonna curve. I mean, things like that were possible. But, you know, every single, and, you know, my God, I used to get, I still do occasionally, but I, I used to probably get 20 PhD papers a year from kids all over the world. Um, you know, Oh, what do you think of my paper on, you know, CFD of bicycle wheel? And we're like, Oh, it's beautiful pictures, but your data's crap. Um, . And it just wasn't figured out. And, and in 2009, I, I met a guy, Matt, uh, Godo, who's a triathlete, but he also worked for a company called FieldView. And they had built all of the CFD automation for, uh, Red Bull F one, um, and probably half the F1 grid, but his, his big account was Red Bull. Um, and he, I met him at Interbike and he had a paper that he was working on. He said, I think, I think I might have figured this out, but I really need to be able to like, Like, build a wind tunnel in the computer and then look at it so we can directly compare them back and forth. And, and so we, we did that. We published a paper at the a I a, which was at MIT that year, and it went over really well and people liked it. And we published another paper the next year, um, at, at the a i A conference. And that went well. And then we got this big grant, like an $80,000 grant from Intel, um, to really tackle this problem. Cause the, the head technologist at Intel at the time was a guy, uh, Bill Fry Rise, and one, one of the coolest guys I ever met. Um, you know, the kind of guy who, whose resume just has like a five year period that says like Los Alamos , like, [00:23:01] Randall: okay, you're cool. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Not, not allowed to talk about it. What do you do? Yes. Uh, yes, exactly. . But, [00:23:08] Josh: uh, but he was a cyclist and he was some senior, somebody at Intel. And, and, um, And they, they gave us this money and we, we, we really went hard at this and we ended up developing a, essentially all of the little nuance details. Uh, we did it in star ccm. We post processed it in field view. I think we processed it on like a thousand cores, which for 2010 was, you know, a lot. Right. [00:23:33] Randall: Um, and these are, these are, um, CPUs and not GPUs for that era. Right. A lot of the stuff of that era GPUs now, right? [00:23:40] Josh: Yeah. Yeah. I remember we, yeah, I mean, that was the beginning of, uh, that was the beginning of the cloud. It was pretty cool, like 2008, 2009, people were still traveling. I remember at one point in that process there was discussion that like, we might have to travel, um, to, Oh God, what is it? The, the university over there in Illinois had a huge, had like a 1200 core machine and they're like, Okay, we, we might have to go there and, and buy, you know, two days of time. And then as that was happening, cloud. Kind of the beginnings of cloud was there. And I remember we, we met a guy who had a cloud thing, and they had just been bought by Dell. And, uh, we were at a conference and he's like, Oh, no, you know, with our, our thing, What was that called? But, uh, with our thing, you, you can just do it like up in the ether. We're like, Whoa. You had never heard of that before. Yeah. Um, it was just exciting times and, and, uh, but, but we, you know, had this great team. We pulled it together. I mean, that's really where Firecrest came from, right? It was, it was largely designed using, um, Hundreds of iterations of capes predicted to be fast, uh, using this cfd. And, and ultimately we won. We, we became like, I think the first non university and non-governmental group to ever win a, uh, uh, innovation excellence award from the Supercomputing Society. So it was pretty cool. Salt Lake City's like this huge super computing conference and you know, it's like darpa, this and university of that. And it was like these four guys from this bike brand and, you know, was, uh, it was a pretty cool experience. But, but in that, so that's like a huge tangent. No, [00:25:17] Randall: no, this is, this is great. And, and just to take a, uh, stop for a second, CFD computational Fluid Dynamics software that is used to model complex multi-variate systems where there's second order effects and, you know, fluids and, and things like this. So anyone who's not, uh, who's not with us on that, like complicated software for complicated system models, in your [00:25:39] Josh: ideal world, it's like a wind tunnel on your laptop, right? In the, in the George Jetson's version of things. It, it's the wind tunnel on the laptop. And in the reality of things, it's kind of more like, eh, it's about as good as guessing most of the time. But, but, but sometimes it's really good at finding certain really specific things. So I won't, uh, I won't knock it too hard, but why the thing I wanna [00:25:59] Randall: dive in a little bit [00:26:00] Josh: here. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. Well, let me, so let me finish the, the thing that we discovered in this process that was super cool. Um, was that once we had all of these transient, we were solving for all these transients, um, and we really started looking at not just like the, you know, the, the side force or the yaw force or you think of um, you know, the whole thing with like wheels and handling, right? This all came out of this project cuz you could, you could predict the steering torque on the wheel, which, you know, none of the balances being used to test wheels at the time even had torque sensing, right? You had drag side force and lift, but none of them had the rotational components in there. And so that for us at first was like, oh shit, we've never thought about torque cuz we weren't measuring it. Right? It's sort of one of those, yeah, like you've biased your study all along, but then the big one was looking at the predicted, um, data and there were all of these, uh, harmonic effects. and we kind of looked at each other and we're like, Oh my God, every wind tunnel you've ever been in, Right? The first thing everybody discusses is, you know, what's the, what's the, the time across which you're taking the data and at what frequency? And then you're averaging that data, right? Cuz we're all after a data point. And you could look at the tunnel data and the CFD data, and when you pulled them out of their point form into their wave form, essentially you could see the harmonics kind of lined up, the frequencies match when, oh shit, we've been averaging out a really important piece of data for 30 years. You know, this harmonic thing is big. Like what's your, [00:27:39] Randall: your standard? So it's operating on a, it's operating on a frequency that is smaller than the sample rate. Or how [00:27:46] Josh: was it essentially? Essentially we were just idiots and we were just, we were just time averaging the all of that out. Right. I mean, it's, you know, if you need to Okay. Any wind tunnel you, you went to in the world and be like, Oh, well, we'll take, we here, we take data for 30 seconds at, you know, whatever, a hundred hertz, 60 hertz, 120, or whatever it is, and then we'll, we'll take an average. Oh, okay. That, that's fine. Got it. You're averaging out in there is real, um, uh, like amplitude changes, uh, largely due to vortex shedding is, as it turns out with bicycle wheels. But a lot of that high frequency handling stuff, particularly as wheels get deep, um, , sorry, I'm in, uh, I'm in our studio, which is off of our kitchen and somebody's lunchbox just, just leapt off of the top of the [00:28:34] Randall: refrigerator. Um, yeah, sometimes I'll have a niece or nephew come in screaming, so No worries. Yeah. So, but, [00:28:39] Josh: uh, but no, we, we realized there, there was a, a. About a factor of five difference in amplitude between wheels in terms of that, those oscillating effects. Right. Which typically it's just, it's generally vortex shedding. And the CFD can predict that really well, right? Where your little pressure builds up, sheds off, sets off a counter rotation that sheds off. Um, but as a, as a cyclist, you, you feel that as the wheel, you know, kind of oscillating left to right. Um, and we, and let's, let's for 20 years, you know, [00:29:12] Randall: Yeah. So you're just taking the, the lump, you know, 30 seconds averaged out data and saying, Okay, it gives you this amount of benefit and you're not seeing those. Um, I mean, really what we're talking about is, uh, you know, instability that may. Or, you know, otherwise result in, in control issues on the bike. And I want to take a moment to just like, define some terms, uh, because not, you know, many of our listeners are not overly technical. Um, but uh, I think some of these concepts are easy enough to get your head around, like, so, you know, describe at a very high level you're talking about vs. So, you know, maybe describe lader flow and flow attachments and vortices sheddings. How, how does this, how does this, uh, how can you understand this without a, a technical background? [00:29:59] Josh: Oh, those are awesome questions. Okay. So Lader LaMer flow is kind of what you. What the, the world wants you to think of in the wind tunnel. You see the wind tunnel picture and they've got like the, the 10 lines of smoke and they're all kind of flowing together cleanly and beautifully. That's, that's meant to, to evoke lam or flow, right. That if you were to drop a, a smoke or a particle in there, that they would all flow in lamini, you know, like sheets of paper. Um, yeah. Uh, so, so [00:30:29] Randall: it's going in a straight line. Smooth, [00:30:31] Josh: controlled, Predictable, yeah. Flow. And it, it follows the contours of the thing that it's flowing against. So, [00:30:38] Randall: so kinda like water flowing down a river sort of thing. It's not perfectly laminate, but it's all going roughly in the same direction. And there's not a lot of water [00:30:46] Josh: in a pipe disturbance, you know, would be in a pipe better example, presumably pretty laminate, right? And then you start to add stuff, you know, water in the river. Now you're, you're, you know, you've got a rock and now all of a sudden there's a disturbance and it starts to swirl. Um, and so you, you get into, you know, more complicated types of flow. I, I think the, the big ones, you know, for us to think about are, you know, most, so most drag that we deal with comes from, um, uh, pressure related things. So you either have like the, the high pressure on the front of the rider, right? The wind that you're pushing into this when you stick your hand out the car window, right? The mm-hmm. the air you feel hitting your hand, you know, that's, uh, that's a pressure drag, uh, in the positive direction. And then you have the flow, the vacuum in the back. Yeah. The flow will detach off of the object and that'll create a vacuum behind. And so that's a suction drag, um mm-hmm. . And then when you have something like vortex shedding, it's when, uh, the, the. Description I ever have for vortex sheddings. If you've ever driven an old car with, uh, like the metal antenna on the hood, you know, at some speed on the highway, that antenna starts vibrating, oscillating sideways, which is like the last thing on earth you think it would do, right? Like your brain's like, well, it should just keep bending backwards with speed. Mm-hmm. , why is it going sideways? Well, that's that you get this thing where you have a little, uh, a little curl of flow will kind of detach more on one side than the other, and that creates a side force. Mm-hmm. . But in doing so, the suction that that has now left behind will pull a similar vortex from the opposite side. Mm-hmm. . And that creates an opposite side force. And so you get these, see an oscillation, you get these oscillations and uh, you know, that's, it's huge in architecture and mm-hmm. , it, it's why you see so many of those super tall buildings or kind of have pyramid shapes or might have some sort of like, feature that spirals down them to, to kind of break that up. I, I live [00:32:46] Randall: in Boston. We actually have, um, a skyscraper here that was flexing so much, the windows were popping out. This is, you know, decades ago. And, you know, it's still, you know, they have this like funnel of air that's going through there and just the nature of the shape of it and how air gets funneled in, it was causing enough torsion to, um, you know, cause window de bonding. Um, so yeah. That's crazy. Uh, so then, you know, think applying this to the bike and particularly a wheel, um, you know, this is the biggest effect is, is presumably your front wheel where you're having this oscillation, this shift in pressure from one side to the other at a very high, high level, um, that's causing instability. It's making it so that you may lose control of the bike. It's not predictable. [00:33:34] Josh: Yeah. Correct. Correct. And, and the, the other thing we learned through CFD that it was doing, which is not obvious until you think about it, but so you think of the. So you might have, say it that the trailing edge of the front half of the rim, you're, you, you set up a little vortex shedding situation. Mm-hmm. . Um, and so you've got a little side force, but it's kind of at the, the trailing edge of the rim there. Right? So it's got a little bit of leverage on your steering, but the other thing that's happening is that alternating attachment and detachment of flow, um, changing the side force, but you're a side force at an angle. So there's a lift component, right? Which is how the drag is being reduced. And as that happens, what, what's also now changing is what we call like the center of pressure. And the center of pressure. You think of like the wheel from the side, like, like the sum, the aggregate of all the, the arrow forces on that has a center point about which it's balanced. It's kinda like a center of mass. Um, you know, so it's, it'd be center of pressure. Well, that center of pressure when you have. Shedding happening somewhere that's now moving forwards and backwards and very [00:34:40] Randall: rapidly [00:34:41] Josh: as well. Potentially, Yeah. Rather rapidly. I mean, and, and when you really look, look in on it, it, the frequency actually can be quite close to, um, the, uh, speed wobble frequency, right? Which is somewhere in that like three to four hertz range. Uh, which also happens to be really close to the frequency of human, uh, shivering, which is kind of cool's why you're more likely to, to speed wobble when you're really cold. Um, [00:35:05] Randall: and not everyone just push will have experienced speed wobble. But if, you know, if this is basically your, you, you hit a certain resonant frequency of, of the frame based on the frames geometry, uh, the head tube angle, the what are the factors that go into that, [00:35:20] Josh: Uh, it's top tube stiffness is big and so, yeah. Yeah. And it's actually this speed wobble's. Interesting. It's. It starts as a residency issue, but it's really a, it's a hop bifurcation and, um, a hop B. Okay. And so, yeah. And so what you have in a hop, uh, bifurcation is you essentially have two st two stability, um, would be the best way to think of it. And you are jumping from the one to the other. And so like, right up until that, so the [00:35:48] Randall: system wants to be in one state or the other, but not in the middle [00:35:51] Josh: and there's no middle. Right. And, and what's, what's so cool, like, like early in, um, uh, early in covid, you know, we were all talking about this, you know, what is it the are not value, the, you know, like if it's above or below one. And when you, you line that out that are not, when are not crosses one, it's a hop bifurcation that looks just like the speed wobble, bifurcation, I mean the graph. It's amazing how like, cool those things, you know, mathematically you're like, Oh yeah, that's exactly the same as this. It's just here, it's in a, you know, you get the exact same graph if you're looking at, um, Uh, wing flutter in an aircraft, uh, in the wing tunnel. Mm-hmm. , similar bifurcation problem, but yeah. So you, you, you have essentially two states and the system can get tripped from one end into the other. And in the one the bike is stable and wants to go straight, and in the other it wants to oscillate because each oscillation mm-hmm. is setting up the, the counter oscillation. Um, and so like, it, it's, you know, in resonance it's more of like a runaway you, you think of like the, how that's tradition. Yeah. It amplifi forcing. Yeah. It, it just keeps growing and growing and growing. Um, and in this one it just, it, it, it's not growing and growing, but it just trips you into this spot where like it's really bad. Um mm-hmm. and it will just shake the crap outta you at the front end. And um, and in fact motorcycles quite [00:37:07] Randall: scary. The high performance motorcycles will sometimes have a steering damper for this very reason. Um, because you'll, yeah, you'll get these speed wobbles. And so the damper is essentially making it so there's some exponentially increasing resistance. Um, I, I know you know this, I'm explaining it for our, our audience just in, you know, cause again, I wanna keep bringing it back down to earth, but, you know, having just like your, your suspension, you don't just have a a just a spring, you have some sort of damping circuit so it doesn't feel like a pogo stick. Um, which is a related effect. Um, but, uh, very cool. And are not for our listeners as well. [00:37:47] Josh: Funny. I hadn't thought about that. I haven't thought about that in like two years as we were talking like, Oh, I remember now. That was, uh, yeah. Yeah, that was, uh, But what or not was the, um, Oh shit. It was the. The contagion ratio or whatever, like how, how many people, each person would transmit to mm-hmm. And so if it's, which makes sense, right? If every person's gonna transmit it to 1.1, it grows. If you're gonna transmit it to 0.8, it, it dies. Um, [00:38:12] Randall: so the analogy here is that, that the increasing amplitude of that, you know, those pressure differentials, sending it to the, the system to one state or the other and causing that increasing oscillation, Is that a exactly correct characterization? [00:38:26] Josh: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like you, you can take it right up to a line, um, and you don't have a problem. And then as soon as you cross the line, you're in a different state. Mm-hmm. . And, and that's where I think, you know, speed wobble for those of you who've experienced it or chase tried chasing it on a bicycle, um, you can solve it sometimes with like, the stupidest stuff. Um, you know, one of the, the common ones is to just put a little bit of like, um, like, like a heavier bar tape or a little bit of lead weight in like your, um, Uh, your plugs. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . You can oftentimes change it with a tire pressure or a different tire cuz you can add just enough damping at the contact patch. Um, that it just pushes it up high. You know, if, if, cause typically what people will find is like, Oh, it's, I'm totally fine. Then I hit, you know, 38.5 miles an hour and all hell breaks loose. Well. Mm-hmm. , you change the mass at the top of the system a little bit and maybe you've now pushed that point out to 45 miles an. but if you never go 45 miles an hour, you've affected, that's not a problem. Right? Yeah, yeah. Like, oh yeah, I [00:39:28] Randall: fixed it. I think another example that people may have experienced too is like, uh, sometimes you'll have an issue with your car that, you know, won't notice except that certain speeds and it's because of those speeds. There is some, you know, oscillation that's happening. If it's a tire and balance or something in your drive train or the like. Um, you know, I've, I once had a vehicle that was really good up to 60 and then like 60, 61, it was problematic and then it would smooth out a bit after that and it was just like this wobbling effect that would balance out beyond that, that speed. Um, alright, so then bringing things back down to earth. Um, this is delightful by the way. I, I could do this all day, . Um, and I, I hadn't quite appreciated. Um, the, the basic r and d and like basic science and tool building that you were involved in. Uh, so. That's, its its own topic. That's probably not one for, for a podcast of this particular [00:40:22] Josh: def. Yeah. I, I will say on that, I think that's the part that I think never, you know, the marketing never really tells that side of the story cuz it's just too complicated. Yeah. But if you're, if you're out there and you're, you're into this stuff, like that's the fun stuff. Like, I love launching product and, and the product itself. But like, that crazy journey to get there is usually like, that's where all the fun is happening. And, and, and typically cuz we're, you know, you're doing it wrong, like 90% of the time you're like, you know, it's just can be months or years of like, we suck, you know, this doesn't work, we're getting our sasses kicked. And then you, you know, if you persevere long enough, you will come out the other end and it's like, wow, we, we needed all that stuff. Like, we needed to get our heads handed to us over and over again, or we never would've figured this stuff out. Um, Yeah. I really, really enjoy that part of, um, of, of technology development or whatever you wanna call it. [00:41:16] Randall: Yeah. Basic, like real basic r and d right down to building the tools that you need to do the r and d you want to do, um, Right. . Yeah. Very cool. And obviously like the compute power and the, the algorithms available and, you know, the switch to GPUs and all these other things that have, um, changed since you were developing that make it such that today's models are both vastly more powerful and still yet trivial in complexity relative to the system itself. [00:41:44] Josh: Yeah, totally. [00:41:46] Randall: Yeah. Um, well let's dive into some more practical topics. So let's talk about like, alright, so a lot of our listeners we're the Gravel Ride podcast, right? So thinking about that particular experience, um, what should, what are, what is worth, um, a gravel rider thinking about. Uh, with relation to arrow. Uh, so things that can be done that will improve aerodynamics, but then not take away from the ride experience that a lot of riders are after, particularly when they're going to grab, you know, they wanna be comfortable, they wanna have a good time, they wanna have good control over a variety of different terrain and so on. So what are the arrow? Um, and, and they don't wanna look silly, so they might not be, want wanting to wear a skin suit or something like that. Not that it looks silly, but, but you know, a more, a more serious enthusiast type of rider. Uh, what are the Yeah, what are the things to think about? [00:42:36] Josh: Oh, gosh. That's, that's a good question. Um, I mean, I think it really depends on, on what. Th the particular rider, you know, is after, I mean, are you, are you racing? Do you wanna go fast? Do you wanna not get dropped? Mm-hmm. , um, you know, do you need to carry stuff? I mean, I would say one of, one of the big ones that I, I just see and, and you know, we, we make a ton of stuff in our company and one of, one of them being bags. And, you know, we're constantly accused of not making bags that are big enough. And so I've been on this mission for a couple years of like, you know, what is in there, , Like Really? Mm-hmm. what's in there. Yeah. And it is amazing to me just how much crap people are carrying. You know, you, you open some of these monster seat bags, it's like, man, just because you bought it doesn't mean you need to fill it or use it. Um, you know, it, and, and absolutely there's, there's like time and place for it. But, um, you know, I. Some of the stuff like that, like, Oh, okay. You've, you know, do you, you show up on the local gravel right here and you know, people look like they're, they're almost like bike packing, like mm-hmm. , you just don't need, you know, it, it's a 40 mile loop, you know, that starts and ends at a bike shop. Like, you, you don't need to bring a bike [00:43:49] Randall: shop with you. Well, you, you need your coffee grinder, you need your, your mini stove and you need your neuro press. Yeah, Yeah. Um, different experience. You know, let's assume that we're going after like a performance rider who's, um, like doing, doing, you know, a hundred, uh, a hundred mile events than they're, they're training for it and they wanna squeeze out more performance, um, out of their existing setup. Or they're considering, you know, what bike to get, what wheels to get, what, um, how to set it up, even considering bike fit. Yeah. Or, you know, clip on arrow bars and the, like, what are the different things that people can do and what are the compromises and so on. [00:44:24] Josh: Yeah. I mean, the, I, I think certainly for gravel. The one clear cut, no compromise. Better all around product that I can just always recommend is like a, an arrow top drop bar. I mean, it is amazing how much faster those things are than round section bars. I mean, any really, you know, like pro vibe or the zip fuca or whatever, you know, there's, I think every company makes one. It's that big, you know. Oh, it's hu I mean it like wind tunnel speeds. It's a flattop bar can be like 28 to 30 watts. I mean, it's nuts. Yeah. Cause you're, you're replacing round covered in tape with something that's like pretty thin and shaped Well, sure. Or it can be massive, but, but the, [00:45:05] Randall: I didn't, cuz the cross sectional areas is not that big compared to, you know, the rider and the, the rest of the bike and so on. Some [00:45:12] Josh: No, it's, it's, well and in gravel it has the double effect of being, you know, shaped or ized in the direction that is also gonna add compliance, right? Yeah, yeah. And, and comfort. And so you, you know, it's one of the few products I can really look at and go, okay, that thing is more arrow and more comfortable and has more service area for your right. I mean, better all around. Um, that's a pretty easy one to, to go with. And, and similarly, you know, if you've, you've got the money. I mean some of these, the, the integrated cockpit solutions that are out there are even faster, right? Cause it's just even less. Stuff in the wind. Um, so let's talk you, let's [00:45:48] Randall: talk about that. That's big, a big serviceability compromise and, and you know, fit can be a concern with that too cause it's harder to swap components and so on. How much of that is coming from, um, simply not having the cables running into the down tube? Like, can you get the vast majority of those benefits with cables coming out from, say, underneath the bar? If they're tucked in on the bar or even coming out from the bar and dropping underneath the stem into the, the headset from there? [00:46:14] Josh: Yeah. Yeah. My, my rule of thumb for cables that I always use cuz it's so memorable is, um, You know, Greg Lamond versus Fon in the 89 tour time. Mm-hmm. , So 2020 kilometer time trial. Um, the eight second gap, there was more or less equivalent to Fons ponytail, Right. As we, we loved to joke about a cyclist, but was also the equivalent of one number two pencil length worth of cable housing. So, and [00:46:46] Randall: this is, and this is true even if the cable housing is say, in front of the head tube, so it's going to be disturbed by the head tube anyways, cuz you're getting the drag off of it. Be, you see what I mean? Like, so I, I'm trying to hone my understanding of the [00:46:59] Josh: Yeah. I mean, you think, Yeah. So I, I would think, uh, good way to put that would be that, Yeah. Putting, putting a slow. Crappy thing in front of a smooth thing, you're, you're still getting the drag of the slow, crappy thing. Yep. Um, and you may actually be worsening the flow, um, on the arrow thing. So Yeah. Got it. Absolutely. Still, you still have that effect. Um, you know it, and it's hard to say, you know, in some cases, you know, it's, it's close enough or it's just in like the goldilock zone where it's a good distance away where you're like, Ooh, we can kind of make them disappear. And they become, you know, uh, a almost like the cable isn't there, but that's not typically what we see. And typically, you know, you, you throw a bike in the wind tunnel with that and then you rip the cables out and you run it again and you're, every time it's like, Oh shit. Big difference. Difference. You've, in [00:47:50] Randall: terms of watts, like a few watts here, like, so, so the handlebar is the big one, you said as much as 30 watts at wind tunnel speeds, which granted gravel riders generally are, are, we're [00:48:00] Josh: not going that miles an hour. But you, Yeah, you we're out for a long time. Yeah, but you are out there for a long time, so you don't have the speed. But yeah, you, you definitely have the, the, the potential time saving. So, yeah, I, you know, hidden cables. I agree with you. Total pain in the ass. And, you know, my God, I've spent a career working on world tour bikes and, and you know, Ironman, world champion bikes and things like that. And I, I feel everybody's pain, you know, people are always like, Why is the industry doing this to us? Like, like, Well, cuz you want it and cuz it works. I mean there's no, like, it, it's a pain in the ass, but it works. Mm-hmm. . So anywhere you can get rid of cable. get rid of cables, um, you know, skin suit. I have to say not everybody loves it, but man, it can be a huge, huge difference. Uh, I mean, you look at, you know, we were just out at lead, uh, Leadville and Steamboat, and you know, all the top. Guys at Leadville and skin suits now, cuz it, it makes that big of a difference. Um, arrow bars can be huge and, you know, I think that's, that's one I I think everybody's got their own sort of flavor that they like. But, you know, to me, like for gravel, a stubby, a stubby bar that has functional pads mm-hmm. , um, really can be worth it just because it's a different hand position and it, it's enough that it, it's effectively changing your, kind of, your whole torso position and it, it, it's just giving you a, a break all around. Right. It's different pressure points in your shammy for the time that you're using it. It's different, you know, muscles in your back. Um, I think there's a good, this is the, the extent of my physi physiological knowledge, but I, I think it's good to, to mix things up. Um, like that. I, I know a lot of people have kind of gone to these super. Narrow, stubby, I don't even know what you call 'em. Like semia bars that Yeah, [00:49:46] Randall: mini arrow bars. [00:49:48] Josh: Nowhere to put your, nowhere to rest your weight. And, and it just feels like everybody I know using those is constantly complaining about their wrists, you know? Um, and so I, I, again, not a physical, but the change [00:50:00] Randall: in the change in frontal area, um, is that just an unmitigated benefit or are there circumstances where you can reduce frontal area and, you know, have a negative result within the realm of, you know, changing a Roger's position? [00:50:16] Josh: Yeah, you know, a lot of it depends on your, your baseline and, and how good you are. Positionally, I think, you know, when, you know, we do a lot of position training with top athletes and you know, the. The best place you can be that's not an arrow bar is on the hoods with level forearms. Mm-hmm. , right? Like that's the, and and ideally with relatively narrow bars, [00:50:37] Randall: so, and perpendicular upper arms as well, presumably, [00:50:40] Josh: or give or take. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it is, it's, you're gonna roughly get there depending on what the rest of the position looks like and, you know, obviously different body shapes and whatnot. But yeah, I mean, you think horizontal forearms are keeping that pretty much out of the wind. Mm-hmm. , Um, and, and they are also keeping it, it's just hard to hold that position, um, with, in a way that you're also still opening your chest. Because, you know, you were really trying to keep air from getting blocked up under the chest. And when you get a rider doing that, they just always kind of form, which I say always, I'm sure there's some counterexamples out there, but they, they almost always, um, kind of adjust their back and their shoulders in a way that they kind of turtle their head a little bit. You know, the head comes down and you're just kind of now pushing more air up over the body and less down into it. Um, but from there, arrow bars are almost always an improvement, right? Cuz you're narrowing the arms, um, you know, you're tightening things up even further and now you're pushing more flow around the sides, um, and less into the chest and less into the hips. And there's some physiological things. You know, people, you know, wide hips, big hands, certain shoulders, certain back shapes, right? That's why we go to the tunnel, you know, it's, it. 90% of the time, you could look at somebody and go, Oh, do this, this, and that, but man, 10% of the time it looks good and you run it and you're like, That's not good, We can just find a different solution. Um, [00:52:10] Randall: yeah. So air bars are huge. Another thing that we're starting to see is, uh, so BMC has their new cas uh, uh, line. They went with a super narrow, uh, handlebar, so narrow at the hoods, and then, you know, flare at the bottom. Uh, that seems like another thing that again, is, Well, I mean, on the one hand, yeah, you're getting narrower, but on the other hand, you're also closing up the chest and maybe, you know, you're not getting as much oxygen, like air turnover or something. Or like, are there issues where I, so [00:52:38] Josh: I, I have been beating the narrow handlebar drum for 25 years. Um, you know, I am yet to actually see or be told by a real physiologist that that whole. Oxygen lung thing that we were all told as juniors is true, is an issue. Um, yeah, I I've just, yeah, we've just never, I mean that, that I know of and I'm sure somebody out there will say, Oh, here's a paper. But, you know, I, I know whenever we've studied it, looked at it, we've looked at it with athletes, I mean, look at what's happening at the world tour. A lot of that is, you know, we've been beating that drum. I'm starting to see that for years, and people are doing it and they're winning. Um, so, you know, and I wonder [00:53:17] Randall: why aren't we seeing it with extreme flare as well, like a compound flare at least, so that you can still keep a, you know, a reasonably vertical lever position because then you could go even narrower and have, um, still have the leverage for the descending and so on. Is that a [00:53:32] Josh: tradition thing? Yeah, I, yeah, I think some of it's that. I think some of it is just, you know, how far do you really wanna push the uci? Um, [00:53:42] Randall: you know, oh, the UCI cares about the flare in your bars. [00:53:46] Josh: Oh, they will. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I think there are actually rules putting some limits on that, but yeah, at some point it's gonna look funny enough that you're gonna draw attention and they're gonna go, Wait a minute. Um, and, and you know, we've, we've [00:53:58] Randall: seen them, I've got a 28 centimeter wide bar with huge flares on there, and I've got specially made levers that come off of it so that I can actually still touch them from the job. [00:54:07] Josh: We have seen it with, I, I can't remember the name of that bar, but I think it's out of Belgium or something. But it's got like, you know, uh, 180 millimeters of reach, um, super narrow with long, and you can kind of lay your forearms. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember seeing that and they quickly were like, Nope, that's out. Um, so I, you know, I think we just, people are, people are cautious. I think the, the setups that are working now, um, are very largely built around that, uh, three T track bar. I can't remember what it's called, but, uh, I know. You know, it's got that kind of cool like wing, like gulling shape to it, but it's super narrow, arrow tops, um, relatively vertical, uh, drops. But, but that's a bar that the ucis allowed for years, right? And so I think that as a, you know, when, when conversations are happening behind closed doors, that's the kind of thing of like, Oh, well this looks enough like that, that if they call us out, we, we go in there and be like, Well, it looks a whole lot like this thing that you've allowed for 20 years. Um, you know, we, we have tons of those conversations. Yeah. So, so I, you know, I, I think, but I, I will say, I, I think too, that's where, um, you know, a lot of people might look at the pro tour and things that they're writing. Oh, well if this worked, they'd use it. You know? I mean, that was what people told us when we were building zip in the early days. Well, if they worked, the Pro Pros would ride it. I'm like, Yeah, but they. They don't know what they're, they don't believe in aerodynamics. You know, they, the pros, they don't riding [00:55:34] Randall: super skinny tires at super high pressures cuz they felt faster for a long time, even though, you know, at least, well, you know this better than than I do. I mean, the data has been saying for quite some time that it's more efficient. Never mind the accumulated fatigue that you get when your body's just being, you know, rattled at, you know, high frequency over the course of many hours. [00:55:56] Josh: Yeah, yeah. No, it's, you know, that I would say they're quite often the last, at least as a group to change. Right. But you, you are seeing it now. I mean the, you know, and, and, and you know, the team like Nios hiring a guy, hiring Dan Bigham to come in and, you know, you, you are seeing some changes, right? Uh, that when teams are bringing full-time people like that in, um, we are gonna start moving the needle there, but it's still a delicate dance with the. With the UCI and, and all the sport governing bodies, right? Nobody, You hear it all the time. Nobody wants a repeat of the whole fna. Uh, I don't follow swimming, but I was the technical, uh, committee director for cycling at the World Federation of Sporting Good Industries. And, uh, at the time when FNA Band banned all of the super tight, uh, swimming suits, and it was just a cluster, right? I mean, they just came out and said, Nope, you've pushed it too far. We're done. And if the whole industry was sideways with like, we've invested millions of dollars in this and the records are breaking, and people wanted and on and on and on, and they just said, Nope, you're done. And, uh, I think it took them five years to under undo all that damage. You know, I mean, you just wanna [00:57:11] Randall: something parallel with running too with, uh, carbon fiber insoles and like what is, what is allowed in terms of the amount of spring that can be delivered and so on. Um, Yeah, I, I see, I see them showing up on my local run. And, um, I might have to get a set just to keep up with the people I used to beat, to keep up with [00:57:29] Josh: It's totally true. [00:57:31] Randall: Uh, that's, I mean, that's, that's, to some degree, that's the nature of the game. And that's why in, in significant part, that's why the gear is as good as it is right now is because, you know, people are looking for, as you would say, those marginal gains. Um, yeah. Um, I wanna dive in. So, uh, I want to put, bring in a few, uh, listener questions. Uh, so we posted in the ridership that you were gonna be coming on, and so we had some folks asking questions there. Probably the biggest one that came up was, um, talking about, you know, we've, uh, Craig and I brought up the rule of 1 0 5 or 5% on the podcast before, but, you know, citing, citing it, it's not a deep understanding, uh, at all. So tell us about how that emerged in. How it applies. Um, you know, particularly in the gravel scene where you're looking at tires that are much bigger. Um, and I mentioned, uh, earlier that, you know, specialized as a video for their reval wheels where they're running a a 42 mill tire on i, I think a 35 or less external rim, and they're claiming some arrow benefit. Does that seem plausible? Is there, uh, given, given, given what you have seen in the wind tunnel and in your modeling? [00:58:41] Josh: Yeah. Um, yeah, it's totally plausible and I guess, we'll, we'll start with rule of one. Oh, so rule 1 0 5 was really, you know, I, I realized pretty early in my career that you had to come up with sort of rules of thumb for things or nobody would listen to you Mm-hmm. and, you know, spent two years traveling Europe trying to sell Arrow. Sell World Tour or pro tour at the time, uh, directors and team owners on aerodynamics and you know, I mean literally got thrown out of every single team, team over there. Uh, I mean, it was just, we just got laughed out of the room. Just imagine [00:59:20] Randall: any of those team directors could have just adopted it at that time and had this huge advantage and didn't, [00:59:26] Josh: uh, that was, I mean, I always said, you know, Uli at srm, thank God, you know, he was developing his thing. And when I walked in to pitch Reese, um, he was alrea

god ceo amazon europe google man las vegas olympic games british phd seattle mit putting holy open dive illinois virtual 3d wind fall in love run bs iron man stanford cd engineers gps diving basic belgium guys berkeley intel ram hundreds excuse salt lake city similar bike red bull f1 correct gp comfortable arrow smooth mid trek watts added peloton sm oxygen rub faq mm narrow gerard lotus slightly ro tire shedding hundred tt moneyball traction nerdy crappy cx predictable strava lance armstrong secrecy zip oh god technical director uci cuz gpus nios velo rosetta stone cda steamboats uli leadville fsa csc bmc cpus los alamos cfd world federation fon robert sapolsky fons under armor tubular composites cella godo slt bna peter sagan marginal gains zipp cannondale george jetson fluid dynamics atara phil white interbike cervelo josh c positionally silca josh it josh yeah josh no silka josh well josh oh

Engaging Experience Design through Technology

The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2022 29:21

Josh Goldblum, Founder and CEO, Blue Cadet (Philadelphia, PA and New York City, NY) Josh Goldblum is Founder and CEO at Blue Cadet, an experience design studio with around 30 employees in Philadelphia and 15 in New York. Twenty-odd years ago, Josh worked in-house at the Smithsonian Institution, producing digital products and integrating technology into physical environments. Unfulfilled because big projects only came around every few years, Josh left and freelanced for a number of museums, doing single-touch Flash design and development. As his on-man Blue Cadet operation became a growing team, projects expanded to encompass touch tables, touch walls, and projection; technology evolved and became increasingly more sophisticated; and the organization's internal systems had to be more formalized to meet the needs of the larger business. Today's experience technology is far more powerful, interesting, and relevant than that in the past. Flash has been replaced by Real Engine, Unity, and JavaScript. The Blue Cadet studio continues to design large-touch surfaces and build immersive experiences but now works with augmented reality, haptics (touch-related communication), and using technology and digital products to make cultural content in physical spaces more immersive, engaging, and “magical.” Although much of the firm's work is for museums, it has recently expanded to provide these immersive services for executive briefing centers and such brands as Nike and Google. Josh says it's important that the studio creates a “content experience that's not just decorative, but actually tells a story that feels true to the space.” In working with clients, Josh finds it helpful to carve out a little paid research at the beginning of a project to prepare an ideation spread where the studio can research client needs and present ideas. At the end of this initial period, the client can either work with Blue Cadet or take the ideas Blue Cadet developed and work with another studio. Josh says, “It's better to carve off a little space to redirect (the project) than to get into that death march of implementing something that's just not going to be that great.” That time upfront also helps Blue Cadet discover what it is that a client really wants, whether they can provide what the client wants, whether they want to do the project, and whether the parties can develop a solid working relationship. Josh participated in a panel session discussion of Trends and Challenges for Experiential Culture at the 2022 South by Southwest Interactive Festival. He says he is most active on LinkedIn, where he shares a lot of concept prototype material. ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined live today at South by Southwest Interactive Festival by Josh Goldblum, Founder and CEO at Blue Cadet based in Philadelphia and New York. Welcome to the podcast, Josh. JOSH: Thanks for having me. ROB: Excellent to have you here. Why don't you start off by telling us about Blue Cadet and what is your superpower? What is your calling card? What do people come to you for? JOSH: Blue Cadet is an experience design studio. Most of us are based in Philadelphia. There's about 30 in Philadelphia, another 15 up in New York, and then actually, when I say “us” based in Philadelphia, we just moved out to LA. So my family moved to LA. We're the only ones out there. We're mostly known for experience design in the cultural space, and also really a lot of technology in physical space. Twenty-odd years ago, I was inhouse at Smithsonian doing digital product work, but also integrated technology into physical environments. So we've been in that experience design space, figuring out how you marry technology into public spaces, how you take cultural content and make it interesting. That's what we've been doing, and we do it across physical space; we also do it across digital products. ROB: Got it. It rings of museums or themed places, but I can also imagine a building that wants to have something and not just be a hollow shell. What does a typical space look like for you? JOSH: We do a lot of work in the museum space, like the traditional museum space. All the big museums are generally our clients. We've worked with a lot of them. Everything from like science centers to history museums to art museums. We did a Van Gogh projected experience with the Art Institute of Chicago way before they were doing all these projections. ROB: All the immersive experiences. JOSH: Yeah, we've been doing that for a long time. But then recently we've been moving more into brand work. We've been doing some work with Nike, which has been really exciting. We've done work with Google. trying to take a lot of that museum flair, which is an obsession with content and making sure that what we're saying is true, and trying to figure out what's interesting about a brand and giving it that treatment where you're elevating the personalities, elevating the science. You're making something that's smart but also engaging. ROB: Where are they doing those things? JOSH: These are executive briefing centers, sometimes. These are museums or brands. Some of these are online. And then we started doing a little bit of work for real estate companies, just trying to – it's not for me. [laughs] Just to activate some of their public spaces as well. Again, trying to bring in content experience that's not just decorative, but actually tells a story that feels true to the space. ROB: When I think about this space, I start off thinking about the sleepy old kiosk that became a touchscreen and the keyboard is broken. Did it start there and proceed from there? JOSH: Yeah, I would say when we started out – Blue Cadet was my freelance handle. I was at the Smithsonian; I did a pretty cool project there that got a lot of attention. The Smithsonian being what it is, they only had big projects every few years. I was getting kind of bored, so I left and I started going around museum to museum. I was essentially picking up jobs doing Flash design and development. When we first started out, it was a lot of those single touchscreens and those things that were kind of cheap. No one was going to lose their job if we really screwed up. But we overdelivered. We did really great stuff, and we grew on the backs of those reputations and then started doing touch tables and touch walls and projection mapping. These days, we still do a lot of large touch surfaces and things like that, but a lot more thinking about the technologies that are more interesting or relevant. Now we're doing a lot more with AR, things that are haptics, camera vision. Also just trying to figure out how to make an environment more engaging and magical. ROB: Some of the advantage, even, of the march of technology is that probably some of those early Flash things you were doing were still rather expensive and still took a big commitment. I think some of this has allowed the technology to come down into simpler spaces. My team's done really simple electron-based kiosks with a little bit of sound, a little bit of animation, and it makes it more available to more places. JOSH: Yeah. It's interesting because Flash was an amazing tool. Flash really allowed you to do a lot of very, very cool things. When Steve Jobs killed Flash, essentially – which he pretty much singlehandedly did – there was actually a little bit of a lull in experience design where the tools had to catch up. But now you see things like Real Engine, Unity – but even what you can do with JavaScript. You can do everything that you used to be able to do in Flash now to the nth degree. And it's much better. Flash probably should've died. ROB: How often does as client come to you with an idea of what they want? How often do they come to you with a topic – “Here's this topic, here's what we want to show people; surprise us”? Or is it more “We have an idea and a direction”? Do you know how much space you're dealing with? It seems like there's a lot of variables in there. JOSH: A lot of times if we're dealing with a museum client, they might have a big exhibit or something like that. Or even a brand, they have their stories, they know what they want to convey, they have the space. But then they come to us and they're like, “How do we tell the story? How do we do this?” A lot of times even if they come in with very, very fully baked ideas, we'll roll it way back into strategy and be like, let's create a little bit of space to figure out what you can do with contemporary technology, with contemporary tools. What can you do to make sure that content or experience really shines in a way that's not been done in the same way with different content six months before? ROB: It sounds like it's really a consultative opportunity, right? To show them – maybe they start somewhere, but sometimes they don't know what they don't know, in a very good way. You have a broader span of the industry. That's why they come to you. You bring some extra ideas to the plate. JOSH: Yeah. And usually what we do – we've been doing these things called ideation spreads. Sometimes someone will come to us with a pretty big budget and we'll be like “Hey, instead of having to sign the SOW for this real big thing, give us 10% of it and give us three weeks, and let us do a bunch of sprints where we reconceptualize it and see if we land in a better place.” Sometimes it's better, particularly if you get a brief that you're like, “This is not going to end well. This is not something we want to be working on for the next six months.” It's better to carve off a little space to redirect it than to get into that death march of implementing something that's just not going to be that great. ROB: Right. Do you ever engage in that competitive sales process where you're competing over the big pie and you take the little pie? Does that happen? JOSH: Absolutely. I would say particularly as we were earning our market position and earning our reputation, we weren't always the safe choice. We were always known for doing the creative thing and for doing something cool and new, but there were a lot of people who had done it a million times. And it was riskier for them to work with us. So that was a great way. We'd come in and do these ideation spreads and say, “Look, you don't have to trust us with this giant thing. Bring us in here and let's see if we can set the vision. You're not even obligated to work with us after that.” ROB: Right, “You own the work, go ahead and take it.” I think every creative firm benefits when they find ways essentially to get paid for discovery instead of trying to do all this guesswork upfront. But there's always the tension between “How much are we spending on this?” versus “How likely are we to get the work?” Nobody wants to be in that tension. So, the 10% strategy there makes a lot of sense. JOSH: Also, I'd much rather do that than do spec on RFPs. You don't know anything about the client and really what they want. You don't really know what the problem set is. So if you're doing spec on an RFP, you're really just shooting in the dark. Whereas if you carve out a little bit of space where you can actually collaborate with a client, you usually come up with better creative; you're actually solving the problem. But then also, you get to build that relationship and the rapport, and that's usually what carries you forward. Or you sit there and you're like, “Okay, there's not great relationship or rapport here.” ROB: You can dodge a bullet. JOSH: Yeah, you can be like, “Okay, you really did want that thing. God love ya, go on with it.” ROB: We talked a little bit about the origin story, about you going around to museums. When did you realize it was a thing and you said, “You know what, this is my job now”? What was the inflection point? JOSH: For a while, Blue Cadet was just my freelance handle. I was living in D.C. because I was still at the Smithsonian and I was picking up odd jobs. It was fun. I enjoyed it. The projects I'd get weren't huge budgets, but I was actually making way more money than I was at the Smithsonian. But I finally got a project – a couple friends and I got this grant to do an interactive documentary, like a Flash-based documentary on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This was something where we came up with the idea, we went to a foundation, and we were like “Hey, can you pay us some money to put this thing together?” The timeline was such, the budget was such that I kind of had to hire a team. We had videographers, we had professional sound people. We were basically following this high school class – it was the only high school class to reopen after Hurricane Katrina. We were down there basically weeks after the hurricane. It was decimated. But when I was on that project – it was called Yearbook 2006 – I was like, oh man, if I bring in other people, it works way better. I was still doing the stuff that was too expensive to outsource, but I outsourced some other things and it ended up being really successful. It became really popular. I was like, okay, I want to start a studio. So that was the first point where I wanted to do a studio. Then that same team, we got another project the year after that for the Pulitzer Center and we ended up winning a News and Documentary Emmy, which was a pretty big deal at the time. We beat Wolf Blitzer or something. That put us on the map, and that snowballed to where we started getting a lot of work, and I was able to start building the team from there. ROB: It seems like something in that documentary space – of all the things you can fractionalize and take some people, do a project, get done with it, it seems like something in that video space, people are kind of used to it. That's the drill; that's what you do. You film something, then you move on to the next thing. JOSH: Yeah. Basically what happened was I was living in D.C. but I was from Philadelphia; I was turning 30. I was like, okay, I'm getting to an age where maybe I'm ready to settle down a little bit. I didn't really want to settle down in D.C. So I moved up to Philly and I made my first hire. It was someone straight out of college. She actually still works for me, 15 years later. ROB: Wow. JOSH: But that was the thing. We were hiring junior people and training them up, and then we grew very linearly, 20% year over year. There were weird inflection points along the way, but yeah, that's how we got to where we are now. ROB: What's a weird inflection point? JOSH: As you're growing a studio, there are always these different points where the wheels get real shaky and the systems that were working fine in this phase don't really work as well in the next phase. There's a point where you have to get really professional about bill pay, about HR, benefits. You just have to start layering in a lot of systems at various points. And those are the points where you start getting more professional and you start having to have an org chart. You can't just have a bunch of super creative people scrambling around all over the place. ROB: How have you digested that change? Is it something that comes well to you? Is there somebody, or many people, maybe a role that's been integral to making the jumps? JOSH: Yeah, my partner Troy. We both worked as new media specialists at the Smithsonian. He was like my sixth hire or something like that at Blue Cadet. He was living in Denver quite happily, and I sort of dragged him across country to move to Philadelphia and start things. But I love Troy. I'm one of these people who can talk a really good game and I can set a vision or get really excited about the idea and what this thing can be. Troy's the kind of guy who can sit down and actually make it happen. He can actually do it. So, he's invaluable. Over the years, we've been very selective. I spend a lot of time recruiting the people that I want into the team. Very few people necessarily applied to Blue Cadet, particularly at the leadership level. I always sought out people that I thought would really fit into the studio and scale out our capabilities. ROB: That's a great opportunity, because those strategic roles are also the ones where you could actually justify bringing a recruiter to, which you can't always do in the services world. But to find those people and recruit them in . . . . JOSH: I never used a recruiter. Where you find the best people is just like here at SXSW, you're meeting people. Or you meet clients. One of the people I recruited to Blue Cadet, who actually left to take over digital at the Obama Library, was client side, and she left midway through the project and everyone was like, “Oh my God, this place is going to fall apart without her. She is so instrumental to the studio.” This was a studio I was working with, and I was like, “That sucks; the project's going to go sideways.” But then I was like, “I'm going to poach her at some point. I'm going to get her on my team.” And she was fantastic. So, I'm always looking for people that I'm like, “Wow, that person's way smarter than me or better that me at these things.” ROB: That's excellent, especially when you know the capabilities you don't quite need yet, or you don't need another person in that capability yet, and you can keep your head on the swivel, keep the mental library going of who's next. It's a fun journey to have that wish list and then fulfill on it. JOSH: Yeah. ROB: So, you're here and you have a session coming up. It is “Trends and Challenges for Experiential Culture.” What are you looking for people to get out of that? JOSH: Obviously, I've been speaking about experience design for a very, very long time. I was talking about how things were getting completely disrupted with physical space pre-pandemic. I was talking about Meow Wolf and Museum of Ice Cream and the changing face of retail and also some of the things that were happening with museums, and this was like 2018-2019. I was like, man, stuff's really going to change. I saw the trends, I saw this stuff happening. And then obviously the pandemic has accelerated everything. Who knows where the chips are going to fall, but one of the things we're seeing is a lot of people wanting to get back into physical space. Places like SXSW are now filling up again. People want to be around each other. But what are the spaces that bring out the best in us? How could those spaces operate to create better connections between people? That's the sort of thing we're really interested in. And then also, how do you discard the old stuff that doesn't work anymore? Honestly, I love museums but I also kind of hate them. Also, I know for my kids, they're not dying to go to the old-fashioned museum and read a bunch of wall labels. They're really interested in culture because they're my children, our children, but they want to consume it differently. And I want to make sure that they're consuming culture in a way that feels good to them, that's enjoyable and interesting to them. ROB: What do you think they're going to want? Where is it headed? JOSH: It's so funny; my kids like Roblox, they like all those things. I've taken them to a million museums. I've taken my son to Epcot and Disney and all the different – sometimes the things they like are the cheesy, colorful, fun Museum of Ice Cream rip-offs. But also, they would eat candy all day if I let them do that, too. So, it's figuring out, okay, what are the things that have a personality, that are fun, that are interesting, that are enjoyable, but also are not just mind-numbing or consumptive? ROB: Right. Even some of the newish stuff – I'm sure you'll see a lot of it around here at SXSW; there's different activations. There's some integration of different assets, even into the little doodles activation over here that's NFTs plus an actual physical space. How do you think about the difference between using a technology for the sake of the technology and using it because it's actually right for the environment? JOSH: I actually really like the doodles space. I thought they did a really nice job. I think part of it is a lot of times I talk to these museums and I'm like, “You should be looking more to that marketing. You should be taking a lot more inspiration from them,” because they move really fast, they put these things together really quick, they're not super, super precious, they don't expect it to be up in 5 years, let alone 10 years, let alone 2 weeks, and they're able to take more risks. Because it's sort of a one-and-done, they don't have to make sure that it feels the same 10 years from now. Obviously, that marketing is a very different business model than a museum, but I think there are things that can be borrowed. And personally, I think even that doodles exhibit – there were a lot of nods to themed entertainment. There was a lot of stenography, there was a lot of sculptural pieces. There were some really nice light applications of technology. I thought it was really successful. I would like to see museums looking more like that. ROB: Got it. I think there's times when we've probably all seen AR for AR's sake, VR for VR's sake. How do you filter “This is a good place for VR, this is not”? Or “It could be done this way but not that one”? JOSH: I used to take a much harder line on this in the past. Honestly, some of these things, you look at some of these AR experiences and you're like, what's the point? It's not doing anything except demonstrating the technology. It's like, okay, if you've never seen AR, awesome. That's really awesome. But if you have seen AR, you don't care. Same with some of these projection experiences. It's like, if you're never been in a giant room filled with Christie projectors, it's really exciting to be at the Van Gogh and see all this stuff. But then you go back and it's the same thing, but with Klimt or Picasso or Monet; it's like, “I've seen it.” So, I think part of it is I'm actually okay with technology for technology's sake where it serves a spectacle, where you've never seen it before. It makes people excited and engaged. I think where it gets old is where it's already been done before. You're not even doing that. You're just being lazy. The thing I always look at, too, is either you've got to really, really be serving that content in a way that's compelling and really getting people into it – and sometimes that is spectacle. Spectacle gets people excited. It gets them interested. But if you fail at the spectacle and then you don't provide the content, it's just a wasted experience. ROB: It seems like you're very adjacent to not only event marketing, but also perhaps even to entertainment, theme park, that kind of thing. How do you decide where you go and where you don't go in those markets, and where you compete and where you choose to stay in your lane? JOSH: It's funny; I used to be very selective about the types of clients I would take on. I was like, “I'm not working with brands. I'm working with museums and nonprofits and higher ed. That's my tribe.” The thing I realized is sometimes your tribe is not aligned to a sector. It's really just a way of being. There are people at Nike that have way, way more in common with me and how I see technology, how I see content, how I see culture than people at some of these museums. Some of the people in these museums are very, very retrograde, and they're like, “No, we need a clean white room with a painting and 7,000 words of text. Bring your seven-year-old in here and they're going to read my dissertation.” I have less in common with them than somebody who's at a brand, whether it's a technology brand or materials brand or someone selling shoes, that wants to tell this story in an interesting way or find something interesting to elevate out of it. ROB: The brands change, too. That's part of it. Once you're in the game for a while, the brands change. The legend of what Nike is has shifted several times at different inflection points. Shoe Dogs, one moment in time. I interned once upon a time at Chick-fil-A's headquarters. Chick-fil-A's museum was a little room with a trophy case and a fake vault, and they've expanded what that experience is. So, I think the brands change too, and who they are and what they need might be different from the thing you used to react to. JOSH: Yeah, 100%. Often it's just who's there and who's championing the brand, who wants to tell that story, and how they want to tell it. The thing is, there's so many projects at Nike that Blue Cadet should have no part in, but the projects we are working with them are very Blue Cadet-like projects. There's a lot of interesting content, stories. We did one for the LeBron James Innovation Center. It's all about how they use data to inform how they work with athletes, and that's really cool. That's really exciting and something that my team is very, very well-positioned to execute on. ROB: Your session also ties into trends a lot. What's next? What's something you think you're going to end up doing soon at Blue Cadet that you haven't done before? JOSH: I've actually been spending a lot of time looking at Web3 and NFTs and things like that. I think beyond the hype, there's something really interesting stuff there. I think there's something very interesting about digital ownership. I think there's something very interesting about bringing things from the physical world in the digital world, bringing things from the digital world into the physical world. I think NFTs help with that. I think there's some really exciting things happening there. Personally, I think it's a really exciting time to be in experience design because frankly, COVID screwed everything up. Everyone's rethinking things. Like, “Do I shake someone's hand? Do I give them a hug? Do I wear a mask here, do I not wear a mask here?” All the social norms, the way we behaved in physical spaces, have changed. So, now's a really interesting time to direct some innovation and say, okay, now that we're rethinking this, let's put some design thinking to it and figure out how to make these spaces better. ROB: Right. Some people shut everything down for two years, some people built nothing for two years, some people rebuilt everything during those two years. Some stuff was pulled forward, some stuff is waiting in the wings. It's very lumpy. JOSH: Yeah, absolutely. I think what'll be really interesting is we don't really know. We've all been in this one state and now we're entering into another, hopefully, and we're not quite sure how the chips will fall. We don't know what the new behaviors are going to be. It'd be really interesting to see, as you revisit the conference that you went to for 10 years or the restaurant you used to go to every week, as you start going back into those things, does it feel the same? Does it still work the same way? Does it still affect you the same way? I don't know. Does it feel great to go back to a movie theater? Maybe, maybe not. ROB: I haven't tried yet. JOSH: Honestly, I was one of those people like “Ah screw it, I don't need it.” Then I took my kids to see the new Spider-Man and I was like, wait a second. This is actually really nice. It was actually quite enjoyable. ROB: It was probably fairly uncrowded too, which helps. [laughs] JOSH: It was pretty uncrowded, yeah. [laughs] ROB: For me, same thing. We have kids, so me not going to the movies is more about me having kids and not going to the movies as much as I did when we were just a couple with time on our hands and it's like “It's Tuesday, what do we do? Let's go see a movie and get home at 11:00. Fine.” Different seasons. JOSH: Yeah. ROB: Are there any sort of behaviors that were adopted experientially during COVID that you think are going to stick? There's interesting things – I think about some escape rooms did versions of escape rooms where they would do it for you over Zoom. And they're still doing it I guess, but I don't know. Are there weird things that people did that you think might stick around? JOSH: I mean, I think remote work is not going anywhere. ROB: You're betting on it. JOSH: Yeah, I'm living in California and my studio is entirely on the East Coast. We started hiring people out of market, which we never did before. We have people who moved into the Hudson River Valley or out in the Poconos, moving away from the city, away from our offices. And it hasn't been affecting the work. So, I think that's going to be really interesting. I think also how we're thinking about the studios themselves – we have this beautiful, beautiful office in Philadelphia and New York with lots of desks, but we're like, do we all need these desks if we're not going to be there every day? Can we optimize this for prototyping spaces? We build a lot of things in physical space, lots of hardware in the office. We need that. That's part of our process. But it's like, do we need all these desks? ROB: Do you find you're still pulling people together to actually get hands on with the experience? You can do a lot of the design in your own place, but there's a point where it still has to get physical and maybe that's a good time to convene the team anyhow to build rapport? JOSH: Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, I love it. It's great to bring people together in physical space. But when there's a reason. Let's bring them in physical space to prototype, but we don't have to bring them into shared space just for another meeting. That's not worth it. [laughs] That stuff can go to Zoom. ROB: Josh, all very interesting stuff. When people want to connect with you and with Blue Cadet, where should they go to find you? JOSH: I'm probably most active on LinkedIn. Just look me up on LinkedIn. I actually spend a lot of time sharing a lot of prototypes. ROB: I was going to say, you probably share some cool stuff. JOSH: I share some really cool stuff. I at one point realized that the Blue Cadet internal Slack where we're just sharing prototypes and process stuff was way more interesting than anything I was sharing on social media, so I was like, I'm just going to share that stuff. The Blue Cadet Slack is way more interesting than any social feed I follow. So, I share the stuff I'm allowed to share off that. ROB: That turns out to be great marketing on LinkedIn, too. Some stuff people won't connect with, some stuff probably goes to the moon, and then people are like, “Who did that?” “Blue Cadet did that.” “Hey, I need that.” I don't know if it's scalable, but it also doesn't have to. I don't know how many days a week you're LinkedIn posting, but it's one or two or three days a week. JOSH: Yeah. The LinkedIn posts I'm putting up are early prototypes. They're super messy. It's a lot of cardboard and projection and things taped together. But usually then there's some really interesting technology in there, and I feel like it's an easier way to see how this actually gets made. ROB: Excellent. Josh, thank you so much for meeting up, for coming on the podcast. JOSH: Absolutely. ROB: Wish you the best on your talk in a couple of days as well. JOSH: Hope you make it out there. It'd be great. ROB: Thanks so much. JOSH: Thanks for having me. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

A Very Short list For A**-Kicking CMOs

Category First

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2022 9:58

In this episode… In this episode, we'll uncover the essential steps you should take as a startup's new CMO to successfully define your category, from setting your goals to launch day. We call it a short list for ass-kicking CMOs. Here's a quote from Josh: “It's going to take herculean focus to drive the outcomes you're looking for. That's where the Very Short List for Ass-Kicking CMOs comes in. Print it out and put it on your desk where you'll always see it. It's not just a list, it's a constant reminder that the best way to make new friends is to create and dominate your category.” What Should A Startup's New CMO Do? #1: Set your goals. Note that these goals sit outside the category you're creating because they are more foundational than category. If your company decided to change categories entirely, these three goals would still exist. #2: Know the customer. There's nothing like becoming your company's foremost expert on the customer. It will give you credibility and authority inside your company. #3: Define your category. If your new startup dreams of transforming their industry then they are, by definition, aspiring category creators. Most startups sort of back into category creation. But in order to work, Product, Sales, HR/People—everyone—must believe the mission to create and lead a new market category is the CEO's highest priority. #4: Tell the world. Now it's time to redirect marketing and company efforts so they are in line with your category POV and growth goals. We call it a Category Launch. It consists of two areas of work: Inside the company and out in the world. Of course the details of your specific Ass-Kicking List may vary, but the broad strokes apply to everyone: Set your goals. Know the customer. Define your category. Tell the world. Want to Learn More? Sign up for our newsletter at goldfront.com/categoryfirst, and see our category design and brand work at goldfront.com. And if you'd like help creating and owning your category, let's chat. Just head over to our website and click Contact.

ceo sales product define kicking cmo print pov cmos shortlist hr people josh it

How To Build A Great Team…The Right Way

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 10, 2022 17:01

The skill set for building an effective team is WAY different than the skills needed for marketing and sales. For one, you have to learn how to become a true LEADER. So the two key questions to ask yourself are 1. Who do you have to become to lead a great team? And 2. What are the critical strategies you need to implement to get your team onboard to follow your vision? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everyone? This is Russell, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today's episode, we're going to be talking about building a team. How do you do it? What are the pitfalls? What are the pros, the cons? And some of the things that I learned along the way. Hopefully this'll help you as you're building out your team to be able to do whatever it is you're trying to do in your life. Whatever your mission, whatever your goal, whatever the business you're trying to build. I hope that this episode will help you as you're thinking through it, to help you to build the team that's going to get you to the finish line. So with that said, I'm going to cue up the theme song. We come back, you have a chance to listen in on a cool interview, talking about how to build your team. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast, I'm here today with Josh Forti and we've been having fun today. The last two episodes- Josh Forti: We have. Russell: We recorded went longer, but- Josh: It's been fun. Russell: I think they've been fun. So today will be a little bit shorter episode, but it's something that, again, Josh brings things that I don't ever really typically talk about. So it's been fun to talk about some of the stuff like I think about, but I've never really verbally shared. So do you want to set up what we were talking about today? Josh: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so very specifically here, I want to focus for you specifically. The question is, well, leadership and team building, what are some of the biggest shifts around building a team and becoming a leader? Because as someone who built a team myself that failed miserably, it wasn't that we hated each other, but it's just like, it was chaos. When you're trying to manage like six or seven different people and they're all like contracting everywhere. And now I'm like kind of going back and rebuilding. And I'm building it right and I have full-time people that we're bringing in and going. And it's like, man, the skillset of making money, the skillset of being a marketer is way so totally different- Russell: Yeah. Josh: Than building a team. And even being like the attractive character and building a following, like building a following is a completely different skillset than it is of growing a team and being a leader and things like that. And so I guess like two part is number one, who did you have to become? And like, secondly, what are like some of the hacks, tips, or I know you like secrets. So what are some of the secrets that you use to build a team and really like sell them on the vision and like really make sure that they were thriving in that role? Russell: Cool. So I want to just second what you said, building a team is way different than all the other things. And I've struggled over the years. I have an amazing team, as you guys know, if you've seen everything. And I wouldn't say most of it's because of my own doing, I'll talk about some of the stuff I've learned along the way. But it's a different skillset. And I think making money is an easier skill, I think creating a movement of people that are following you is different. I always tell people, like I'm such a good leader and communicator to like my tribe and I'm not as good to my internal team. It's interesting. And so a couple things that I'll share again, I don't have this perfect. And if you ask people on my team, like Russell's not perfect at this because I'm not. But I'll share some of the things I've learned because I'm always trying to figure this out and trying to get better at it. One of the biggest lessons I had and I did a podcast on this probably two or three years ago. Was this realization that I had to make a transition. Because I was always like the All Star. Like if you look at basketball, like I was the All Star, like I was really good. I could write copy, I could build a funnel, I could drive traffic, I could sell from stage, I could do all the different things. And so I was like, Michael Jordan out there and I'd be on stage, I'd be doing, I'd be dunking and slamming and three points. And like just amazing and people would tell me how great I was and I loved it. And then I start building a team. And so I started building a team, but the problem is that as I was building a team, I still thought I was Michael Jordan. So I'd build the team and I'd be in there, all of a sudden, I'd have the person writing copy and they'd be going up with the ball, about to do the layup. And I'm like, "Ah, I could actually do it better." So I grab the ball from my own teammate and rip it out of their hands and I'd go dunk it like, "Ah." And I would get everyone cheering for me again. Or someone would be coming down ... I'm trying to get these analogies working. But basically what's happening is that I was the All Star and- Josh: That one worked. That analogy worked. Russell: That one did work? Okay, good. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I was trying to bring in other All Stars. But the problem is I'd bring these All Stars in and then as they were trying to perform, I'd be like, "I can do it better." And I would take the ball from them because I want to be the All Star. And I had this realization, like for me to actually build a team, I cannot continue to be the All Star. And this is hard- Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: For achievers like us, especially for someone like me. Like I was the achiever, I had done all the roles because I had built the company by myself initially. It was me doing all the roles, so I learned all the roles, I got good at all the roles. And so as I started trying to like bring on these different All Stars, it was tough. It's kind of like if you watch the All Star game or like the dream team. Like all of a sudden you got like the best players on a team and usually they're not the best playing with each other because they're all the All Stars, they all want a ball hog and it gets really, really difficult. And so I had to make this realization, like if I'm going to be successful growing a team and getting click funnels from hundred million to a billion dollars, like I can't continue to be the All Star. I have to retire and I have to become the coach. That's a hard transition. Because now you're coming back and like you're successful, not now by your skillset, but you're successful by like cultivating other people's skillsets. And that's a different skillset to have, by the way. Like it's way harder. For me, it's always been easier for me to go and like to do the thing. Like I'm finding it now with I'm coaching my kids wrestling. And I'm watching my kids, I'm watching the team and like, man, I was such a good athlete. I'd go out there, I'd kill myself, I'd work so hard and I was an amazing athlete. But it's way harder for me to coach other athletes because I can't give them desire, I can't give them these different things. And so that was difficult. And so that's the first thing to realize is that if you're going to start growing a team, you have to be willing to like take your Jersey off and say, "I'm no longer the All Star, I am now the coach. And I've got new people." And that's been the hardest thing for me and I still struggle with that, I still like jump back in. I'm like, "Ah." But that's the key, if you want to get a good group people around you. Because otherwise if you're the one that's taking the ball from him, from the other people on the team, the All Stars are going to leave you. Like they're not going to stick around, they want to be the All Star too, they want the recognition, they want to be doing the thing. So that's the first big shift that you got to have. Any questions on that before I go to kind of- Josh: No, no. Super good. Yeah, you're good. Russell: Okay. So the second thing is you have to be good at hiring All Stars. I remember when we first started building ClickFunnels, Todd read an article or something and he was talking about ... in the article was like, there's A players, B players, C player, there's different levels. But what people don't understand, it's not like A players, like 100% and B players like 50%. Like the article said the difference between an A player and a B player is like 2200% difference. So it's like a B player, you can have like one A player going to give you the output of like 50 or 100 or how many B players. And so what most of us try to do, is try to come in and say, "Okay, I don't want to spend as much money getting the right person. So I'm going to find somebody who's cheaper. Maybe they're not going to be an A player, but they'll be a B player, but I can afford them." And that's like this mindset that most people have. I see it all the time, I see it in Facebook groups, in ClickFunnels Facebook group, like, how do I get a cheap funnel builder? Like, that's the problem, you're looking for a B player. Or you find an A player, you get 2200 times better thing. And so it's been interesting because we launched ClickFunnels the first time, like I had a couple A players, which is why it grew. We had a couple All Stars, we had some like Todd Dickerson. You guys know our team, like we had A players who were able to go and intergrow. But then from there, we had to hire whoever we could afford. Right now we're building ClickFunnels 2.0 and we're in a unique spot where it's like, we don't have to just hire who we can afford. Like let's hire the best. And so we're going out there trying to figure out who are the A players in each regard. And it's crazy because I look at the team that's building ClickFunnels 2.0, it's a small team. What they're accomplishing is amazing, but they're all A players. When we started like looking at rolling out Click Funnels 2.0 and our marketing team, we started trying to bring in A players and they're expensive. And so a lot of times the questions like, well, I don't have any money. How do I recruit the A players? Well, I recruited Todd and I was broke. A players aren't necessarily looking for money today. The A players are people who are looking for money in the future. They're the ones who are like, "I want to be part of a team. I want to build something cool, something I believe in. And I want to be able to get paid insane amounts of money over here. And I'm willing to give up that for this over here." The right people will be willing to do that. So as I come back, if I was to like be building my team over from scratch right now. There's number one, again, taking off the All Star, say I'm going to be the coach. And number two is like, if I'm going to be the coach and I'm out there building the team, like I'm going to try to build the dream team. And to do that, I've got to sell them on the vision of why this is cool and like where it's going to go, and what's the opportunity for them. Because just like you're trying to sell your customers on the opportunity of like funnels are the opportunity or whatever. It's like, you're selling your dreams team, like this is the opportunity. Like if you join the team, you're going to get paid nothing right now or very little right now. But this is how we're going to structure things so that it'll be worth it for you over here. And the right people will hear that because that's what they're looking for. Someday when I retire from this whole, whatever I'm doing. If I was ever getting a job again, it's not going to be based on money, I could care less about money. Someone's going to sell me someday on the vision. In fact, I just saw Sean Wayland just hired the dude who started Tapout- Josh: Yeah, I saw that. Russell: And like how powerful is that? The Tapout dude does not need Sean's money. He sold his company for insane amounts of money. But I'm sure Sean's like, "Hey dude, here's the opportunity. You help me do this thing and flip it like, this is what's possible for you." And now he's got literally like there's no better person that Sean could have hired to run that company- Josh: Yeah, I know. Russell: Than this dude. Josh: When I saw that one, I was like, "Oh my Gosh." Russell: It's brilliant. So for all of us, we got to start linking more strategically. Not like, who can I afford for this role? It's like, who is the person that's going to be getting a million bucks a year in five years from now in this role? And how do I sell them on the opportunity? How do I create an opportunity where they can grow and they can monetize? Where they can make this kind of money. And that's how you recruit the right people into your world, who are going to help you to actually have success. And so those are the things ... because you get a good A player, you don't have to be really good at managing, you don't have to be really good at micro- Josh: Yeah. Russell: All those kind things. Like you get the right people in place, they're going to do the things and it makes you look like the All Star, the coach of the year that you are. Because you built the right team. Building the team- Josh: Yeah. Russell: Is more valuable than all the other pieces, I believe. Josh: Yeah. Like getting the right people is more important. The systems, the process, like those are all important. But like if you have B players on the team, it's like you're going to get a mediocre result. Russell: Yeah. And then- Josh: Yeah. Russell: And B player, you're going to be one in charge if you know the process. We brought Todd and I didn't have to like sit down with Todd and like, "Okay, how are we going to manage the projects? How are we going to do this?" Like Todd came in, he's like, "All right, I got it." And he just ran and he was able to run and like, all right, he's done. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Like we just brought in this guy named Kevin Richards, who we brought him in into like be the CMO of ClickFunnels. And Kevin had worked for a whole bunch of really big companies doing this. And it's crazy because like he came in and we gave him the reins, he started running. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is way better than I was running." Like there's structures, organization. Because he's done it before, over and over and over again. He's going to come in and plug in and just do it. And I'm watching it right now, I'm like- Josh: Yeah. Russell: "Man, like he's an A player who I could hire." In fact, I have over the last decade, a whole bunch of B players to do this role and no one's been able to hit it. And it's been me being involved so much. Where now it's like literally the first two weeks I was like all nervous because I want to make sure that everything's perfect. And finally like gave him the reins and I stepped back and it's like, "Whoa, this is so much better than when I was running it." Josh: Yeah. Russell: And it's easier and less stressed on me and he's loving it and it's just powerful. So those are the key. Josh: Okay. Couple rapid fire questions here, so that we make time. Number one, have you ever run into challenges or how have you dealt with communication differences inside of a team? Because one of the things that I've noticed is like, I just thought everybody would communicate like I was if we're all part of a team. I'm like the most expressive person, like when I talk. Like I use emojis and exclamation points and like if I'm texting, if I'm going like my voice or whatever. And like someone on my team is like, "Okay." I'm like, "Ah, are you mad? Do you understand? Like what do you mean, okay?" Do you have systems in place? Or do you typically go and just try to like find people to do that? Or is that something you just learn? Because I'm sure like, Melanie, I mean she was with you for how long? Right before Shelia, I'm sure she had a very unique communication style and I'm sure your next assistant is probably not the same as her. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Right. So like how have you learned like how to deal with that? Russell: Yeah. A couple things. One is like personality profiling is huge. In fact, we're working on a whole project right now and that'll probably be a book and a membership side, bunch of stuff, all based on personality profiling. Because that's how you understand like what motivates people? How do they speak? How do they not speak? How do they understand? Because again, Melanie and Jenny are very different people. But I'm able to work with both of them because I understood their personality types, I understood like, what are the things that would light Melanie up? What are the things that'd get Jenny excited to work? And vice versa. Like, if you look at Melanie was a very high S, so very faithful. And so like she would like die for you to be able to get something done. Jenny on their hand has very low S, almost no S. And so for her, it's like, man, if she gets bored, she's gone. So I got to make sure that she's got 8,000 projects and she's juggling them all. The more things she's having, the more successful she's going to be. Similar to me. And so I give her tons of projects and she thrives that she's able to juggle all these things. Whereas if I treat her like I taught Melanie, she would've been here for a week and a half, like, I'm out, like this is horrible. So understanding those kind of things. Like DISC profile's big, Meyers Briggs is big. Those are my two favorites. I'm trying to learn to master all the other ones, but those ones help a ton when you're hiring and all also when you're managing people. Josh: Yeah. Russell: The other thing is, this is one that helped me. Actually, Julie Story actually was one that taught it to me initially. And I don't remember all the things, but there's these different hats. There's like a black hat and a green hat and a red hat and yellow hat and all these things like that. So I'm a very green hat person, so are you. Put on the green hat and it's like creative ideas and we're flowing. I'm like, we get so excited about sharing stuff. And there's people who have like a black hats, they're the ones who always like ... they look at what could go wrong. What about this? And what about this? Josh: They take away all the fun. Oh my God. Russell: Yeah. Josh: They ruin it. Russell: And then like the white hats. So there's all these different hats. The ones I really remember is like green and black because I'm green hat. And like, Jamie Smith's a good example of a black hat. I love Jamie, one of my favorite humans in the world. But when we would do meetings together, I literally wanted jump over the table and strangle him. Because I'm like, "I did, I did, I did." And he's like, "Well, you think about this? You think about this? Think about this?" And like you're sucking the life out of me. Josh: Yeah. Russell: My wife's a very black hat person, as well. I'm like, "We should take the kids and like fly around the world and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Like just brainstorming things that are probably never going to happen. She's like, "What about this, this, this?" And so we started learning like based on this ... this is something that Julie brought that was really powerful. It was like, "Hey, we're in now in a green hat phase. Well, Russell's going to green hat, we're talking about ideas. No one's allowed to black hat this at all. Let's just share ideas." So then everyone's just sharing ideas and like, we have a chance to be excited and creative and get these things out there. And after it's like all the creative steps out, it's like, "Okay, now let's put a black hat on, now it's black hat this." And now we can all look at it objectively you're like, "Okay, we're going to black hat this and go through the black hat things." And then we put on a different colored hat and go through those things. Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: And we go through different hats, but they're separately, they're not all happening at the same time. Because if it happens at the same time, it destroys my creativity and excitement and energy. I want to like strangle the person. But like, man, I need those people. I need Jamie to look at this and be like, "Here's 40 ways why this isn't going to work." Like, oh crap, I didn't think about that, that or that. We stack the different hats as opposed to doing them all at the same time and making us all want to kill each other. And that has been- Josh: That's so helpful. Russell: Huge for us. Like for me, it's huge. I always tell people like when I start brainstorming, like, "Okay, green hat time, no negative, no what ifs. Let's go." And then we just do that. And you see like the black hat people are like twitching and they're like, don't worry, you're going to get your shot, but not yet. Until everything's out and it's like, "Okay, black hat's on. What do you guys got?" And then they can go do their thing. Josh: You need some anxiety medication over there. Russell: Yeah. We can do a whole, like two day training on that, too. Because it's such a powerful thing. But conceptually, it's breaking those things in that way. Josh: All right, Russell. Well, in your other life, we'll just have an entire podcast where all we do is just do deep dives all day long. But in this life, we have to stick with constraints of where we're at. So anyway, thank you for sharing that. Super, super helpful. I appreciate it. Russell: No worries. Thank you, Josh. Appreciate you guys. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode. As you guys are building your teams, remember the principles we talked about. You've got to become the coach, you've got to attract A players, you got to put them in the right spots, figure out ways to make it profitable for them in the long term, figure out personality types, you can serve them the right way. Black hat, green hat, red hats. We should do an episode on just on all hat ... I have to go back to remember all the other colored hats. But anyway- Josh: All right, our next- Russell: There you go. Josh: Go around, I'll be like you have homework for this. Russell: Russell, prepare for this and we'll go. Josh: Prepare for this one. That'd be awesome. Russell: That'd be awesome. Thanks everyone for listening. Thank you, Josh. And we'll see you guys on the next episode.

god black building leader couple michael jordan all star jersey cmo similar right way all stars someday clickfunnels great team jamie smith meyers briggs tapout josh forti kevin richards josh it josh yeah josh you josh no josh all russell it

Money Mindset Secrets…

Banished by Booksmart Studios

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2022 37:50

Did you know this may be holding you back from success in your business? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to Marketing Secrets podcast. One of the questions I get asked a lot about, and I don't spend a lot of time talking about it, is actually money and mindset around money, and how that works, and things that can help you to make more money, things that hold you back from making money. They have nothing to do with your skill set, it just has everything to do with the conversations, the beliefs, the things inside of your mind. This interview with Josh Forti, it was really fun and hopefully you enjoy it. Hopefully it'll help you if you do have money blocks, to help you get unstuck. If you don't think you have money blocks, you probably do. And this hopefully, interview, will make you very aware of those things, and help you to find those things and knock them out in your life. That said, we'll keep the theme song, and when we come back, listen in on this interview with me and Josh Forti. What's up everybody? Welcome back The Marketing Secrets podcast. I'm here today again with Josh Forti, and we're having so much fun today. We just recorded one episode and now we're going deep into episode number two, which we're going to be talking about mindset as it relates to things that are very specific to you guys as entrepreneurs. I'll Josh talk more about this as he's going to be queuing up the question, but hope you guys enjoy this episode as well. Josh Forti: All right, man. First off, we got to talk about your shirt. I feel like there's got to be a story behind this. Guys, for those of you that are listening on audio, let me just explain real quick. It is a skull and crossbones, but it's not just a skull and crossbones. It's got bunny ears on the skull. It's got little waves off to the side. What does it say on the sleeve? Russell: It says, "Psycho bunny." Josh: Psycho bunny. Russell: This is actually a really cool brand called Psycho Bunny, and I bought a couple of their things. I'm like, "This is a cool brand." And then I was shopping with Bart Miller in Vegas, and they have a Psycho Bunny shop. I went in there- Josh: Oh dang! Russell: And they had shirts and jackets and suit jackets that have the Psycho Bunny inside. It's just a fun, cool brand, and I really like it. Psycho Bunny. Josh: Okay. There's no grand, huge story behind how you got it. You just liked it. Russell: I should buy the company because it'd be really cool. Anyway, nope. Nothing. Josh: Guys, when you're a funnel hacker and when you decide to take over the world and create empires, you can randomly decide on a podcast that you're just going to ... "I should buy the company." That's not a normal thing that most people get to say, but it's super dope. Russell: This could be a fun episode in the future because as we acquired two big companies last year and I'm learning about this and having more fun with it, there are some cool ... For most of us, we look at a company, like, "There's no way I could buy that company," but then like Tai Lopez who just bought RadioShack and he bought Pier 1 Imports and all these companies… Josh: Dress Barn. Yeah. Russell: Now, I bought a couple companies and I'm like, oh, my gosh, there's actually a really cool strategy where it doesn't technically cost you any money if you do it correctly. We bought Dan Kennedy's company for a steal. We've launched the first thing. Now we made our money back. And now moving forward, everything I do with Dan Kennedy's company is pure, unadulterated profit to the bottom line. And that's exciting because ... All of a sudden it's like, you can actually buy companies when you understand the core principles of what we do. Anyway, that's a topic for another day, but it's kind of a fun one. Josh: So much fun stuff. Topic for another day. We'll do many episodes. Now is not the time. We're going to dive into what I think goes really well with our last episode. Last episode we talked about goal setting and setting things up, and that last bit of it was around identity and beliefs and values and rules and things like that. I want to talk about mindset here, and specifically the mindset ... There's a couple core key areas, because what's interesting is a lot of times we think mindset is we have to train our minds to think a certain way, or we have to overcome false beliefs about bad things. Like, "I'll never be successful" or "I'll never be this." But it goes both ways, because often times we can have fear of success. We can have fear that, oh, my gosh, what happens if I actually achieve that goal? There's so many different things around that, that we could dive into, but I want to kick off with this one specifically around mindset around money. I do want to talk about not just money, failure, doing the impossible, things like that, but I want to start with money because I feel like money is one of these things that we all have some form of weird relationship with it. Very few people grew up in a home where their parents and everybody around them had a healthy relationship with money, because most people ... I would say 90 plus percent of the people that I've met do not have a healthy relationship with money. They don't understand it. They don't understand what it represents, how it works, any of the things with it. For you, I want you to take us back because one of things, and I've kind of told you this at the beginning, a lot of people in the ClickFunnels world, like Russell. I was talking to Brad Gibb the other day. Shout out to Brad. He's awesome. He's like, "Russell has come and he's taken these handcuffs off of us, to where now we just can print money." It's ridiculous. It's kind of a cheat code. When we talk about it to all of our friends, we go around and we're like, "Yeah, we just kind of make money on the Internet." They're like, "How do you do that?" We're like, "We don't know. We just do what Russell says and it just works." Russell: It's a magic trick! Josh: It just shows up. It's amazing. We've kind of unshackled the making of money, if we follow what it is, but keeping money. But our thoughts around money, our beliefs around money, how we perceive and value money, how we think money is going to change us. All of these different other things around money, those things are now new problems that a lot of us are running into, or have not yet applied the things that you've told us to do because of those beliefs. I think both of those are true. I've seen so many people ... I made not a ton, ton of money, but certainly 10 times more money than I'd ever made in my life when I first got started, and blew it all because of my poor, very unhealthy, almost toxic relationship with money. Take us back, what are the money shifts or the beliefs around money, specifically in mindset, that you had to go through. I'm just going to kind of leave that open ended and see where you take it. Russell: The first thing I think that would be useful for everyone is for everyone to actually, honestly sit down and look at their relationship with money and understand it ... It's funny because if you would ask Russell 15 years ago Russell if this was actually a real thing, I'd be like, "No, this is stupid. Just make money. It's easy." But I had a friend who I worked with, man, probably 12, 13 years ago on a project and he was someone who is super charismatic, super dynamic, super talented person. When he was younger, he used his talents and his gifts and he made a whole bunch of money really, really fast. Crazy, crazy money. Money that doesn't make any sense. When he got that money, he started doing stupid things with it. He got into drugs and alcohol and all the problems that are associated with when you make too much money too fast as a kid, and almost destroyed his life. He almost died. He almost lost his family and his marriage. All these things happened. He lost all the money, which was probably a blessing. And then he refixed his life. And then he got back to the spot where he's like, "I want to make money again." I watched him for probably 10 years of his life, where he would do all the right things, he would get close to making a bunch of money and then he would literally subconsciously destroy everything he had built, and it kept happening. At first I was so confused by it. I'm like, "You were so close. How do you keep messing this up? I don't understand it." Then he told me a story. He didn't know this subconsciously but we had a conversation one night where he told me a story. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. Subconsciously, you are linking the destruction of your family, your health and all these things to making money, because that's what happened the very first time. Now every time you get close to it, your whole subconscious mind is like, no, and starts making you do stupid things to destroy yourself from actually having success." I've seen ... Now, it's been a decade of me watching this. And as much as I love this person, I keep seeing him. He's so talented, so many gifts, and keeps not having any success because of this thing that happened in his youth. His is an extreme example, but this is happening to all of us. You think about when you were growing up, what are the things that your parents said about money? What are the things that you heard at church about money? What are the things you heard in different spots? There are so many things that have been ingrained in our head that we don't even know consciously. And also, we start having success in whatever. We start making money or we start getting close to making money, and all these warning signals are popping off in your head, like, don't get money because of this because you'll become a bad person and you're going to fall away from God. You're going to be doing this. You're going to be the bad person. You look at TV. Myron Golden is the first one that ever pointed this out to me. You look at every movie, every superhero movie, for the most part, the bad guy is the rich billionaire who is this horrible person. This is ingrained in our heads that money is going to make us evil. Those things are real, and even if you don't think that they're affecting you, they probably are. Josh: And then you don't consciously believe it. Subconsciously they control you. Russell: Yeah, it's affecting you. I've seen this in my own journey. When I first started making money, I thought everyone was going to be excited. I was like, "This is so cool." I was so excited to teach everybody else. I started making money. I start teaching people and try to show my friends and my family and what happened. The response I got was not what I thought it was going to be. It was not like, "This is amazing-" Josh: At all. Russell: "Let's try it." Instead it was weird, especially for my wife. My wife struggled with it even more so than me because I've had success in parts of my life in the past where ... In wrestling, I was a state champ, I was an all-American. I hit these different things, but there was this weird side of success you aren't expecting where the people around you who you think are going to be celebrating with you, they don't. In fact, I remember my mom when I bought my dream house ... My house is ... You've been to my house. Josh: Your house is insane. It's so awesome. Russell: It's like the coolest thing in the world. When I was growing up, I wanted an insane house. I remember I was finally at a spot where I could buy this house. In the reality, I didn't pay it off immediately. I could've just paid cash for it. I didn't. But within two years I think I paid it off, which was a big deal for me. But I remember when I was buying my house, I remember a comment my mom said. She was like, "You don't want to buy a house like this because then you're going to be one of those rich people up on the hill." I was like, "What does that mean, mom?" She was like, "They're the ones that are always looking down at everybody else." I'm like, "What?" All of a sudden I was scared to tell my mom about my success because my mom viewed the rich people as this thing over here. And then other people. It was this weird thing where all of a sudden it makes you want to shrink down, it makes you want to hide because you're like, "I don't want people judging me because of this thing." For all of you guys, for all of us, there's these things that may happen, where comments are made, when people we love and respect were to all of a sudden to ... The side of success that you think is going to happen doesn't. Especially in money. I think money is a big one because it's such a thing. Josh: Yeah. I also think that because of the stories that we're told by everybody else, like you're saying, subconsciously it's ingrained in our society, what money is and how it works, nobody understands it. Taylor Welch ... You know Taylor, right? Taylor Welch? Russell: Yep. Josh: He's the one ... He and I have become ... I don't want to say good friends, but certainly friends over the past little bit. He was actually the very first person I ever interviewed on my podcast. Russell: Very cool. Josh: He got me into money. He was like, "Study money. Because once you understand how it works, it'll completely change your perspective of it." I always joke around with my mom. I'm like, "Money's not real. It's all fake." In America specifically, the U.S. dollar is not real. It's all fake and it's all made up. She always pushes back. She's like, "It's not fake because I can guy groceries with it." I'm like, "That right there, that shows that I have a different relationship ..." And side note, I freaking love my mom. My mom and I have an amazing relationship. But my mom and I have a completely different fundamental relationship with money. That was a very interesting learning lesson for me. When you change your relationship with money, when you change how it works, when you understand it differently and when you change your relationship with it, it also becomes not hard to get or keep, because now you're not needy of it. Your relationship changes with it. I always think about ... Take it back to dating. I'm not even going to say the book because I don't want people to go ... It's not a great book, but I was reading a clip out of this book one time and the guy in it goes, "Money and ..." Let's say, relationship. Money and girls are kind of the same thing. Those are not the words he used, but money and girls are the same way. If you're desperate and needy of it, you'll never have it. But if you don't care, it'll come abundantly. That was a very interesting shift for me as well. Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt you but that was very interesting. Russell: It's key. As I studied Tony Robbins, the biggest thing I learned ... One of the biggest things. I shouldn't say the biggest, but is just becoming aware of things. I think the first step for of any us is being aware of how this is actually affecting you. For a lot of us, at whatever level you're at, the reason you're not at the next level is because there's some belief around it that's keeping you from there. It's interesting, I remember when I had the goal, when I hit a million dollars in a year, I didn't hit it three years in a row. Every year I was within $50,000. Like, $75,000. How am I not hitting this? It was like, I had these weird beliefs around that thing. As soon as I broke it, I was like, this is easy. Going from million to 10 million was next. Getting to two, three, five, eight million was easy, but then 10 million was this gap where I was stuck. It's beliefs. What's easy? What's hard? A couple things ... Again, this is one of those topics. I've never taught this before so I don't have the, here's the Russell three step framework. Things have happened in my life that I became aware of this for myself. One of them was, I had a coach ... I've had her a couple times throughout my life. She's awesome. One of my favorite coaches of all time. Her name is Tara Williams. Tara ... It was interesting because I always thought ... Again, especially people who are religious, there's always this belief of is money going to make me evil? You hear these things on the side. I definitely had this subconscious fear around that. If I get too much money, I'm going to forget God. I'm going to forget my family. All these things couple happen. Because they do. They happen to so many people. We see it. I had that fear behind it. I remember, especially when I bought my house, I was like, I bought this house and it's crazy. Anyway, Tara was at our house, actually, doing a coaching session with my wife and I. It was an interesting thing. But she said a couple things in that meeting that had a big impact on me. One of the things was ... She asked my wife this specifically. "Do you think this is bad that he bought this house?" My wife is like, "Yeah." She has so much guilt associated with it, because she's like ... It was interesting because Tara brought back, "Because you guys have money, talk about things you've done. Last year you gave a million dollars to OUR. Last year you did this. Last year you did this. How many people have you helped? How many entrepreneurs have you empowered? How many jobs have you created?" We started going through this whole thing, and it was like, all these things you're doing has been creating wealth for you. You have this wealth. You can just give it away and you guys do give a lot away, but is it bad for you now to enjoy some of it, to buy a house? Still she was like, "I don't know. Is it bad or not?" She's like, "Now you have this house, what have you guys done with this house?" I was like, "We have our kids here and we have our family here. We bring people here. We're able to serve people at a different level because we have these things." All of a sudden it was like, oh, my gosh, this isn't a bad thing. I remember hearing Richard Branson, somebody asked him ... Who was it? It was another one of those moments for me that opened my mind. But someone asked Branson, "Do you feel guilty that you're not down at the soup kitchen helping feed these people?" Branson's response was so powerful. He said, "The people of the soup kitchen who are feeding people, that's amazing. We're so grateful for them. They're giving their time and their effort. It's powerful. I'm not going to go to the soup kitchen and feed people soup, but I can give the soup kitchen $50,000, and that's going to feed 10,000 people. It's different service but it's still service, and this is able to help even more people." I started thinking about that. Man, these tools that we create, like wealth and the things that we have can be so much more impactful if we use it correctly. It's not a bad thing. It's just understanding these are tools that we have. Anyway ... Josh: It's interesting you say that and phrase it that way because that was one of the things, actually, Brad Gibb, he's a very good friend of mine as well, and we talk a lot. And he's taught me probably more about money as far as investing how it works and how to use it and things like that, probably more than anybody else. Very, very smart. One of the things that he said is money is not all the same. He's like, "You can have a million dollars over here and a million dollars over here and one of them be used for good and to multiply and to be productive, and one of them be used just to indulge and be gluttonous and to be greedy. Is money good or bad? It's not good, it's not bad. It is. It is a tool for exchange. How you go and use it will determine whether or not it's good or bad for you in your own life." When he put it that way, I was like, if I have my money and I'm investing and I'm multiplying it and it's creating freedom and then I'm using that to be able to go out and give back, all of a sudden money is now good. It makes me be able to do my job better. But if I'm just going and I make a million dollars and I go to Vegas and I put 100 grand on black, cool. Maybe once in your lifetime. But that is not a good thing anymore. Now it's taking away from your gift. It can either be an amplifier or it can be something that takes away. That was a really, really big shift for me. It was like, how am I using it? Russell: It's powerful. Again, it just comes down to there's so many subconscious things that are weird about it. Next thing I want to talk about for entrepreneurs too ... And this is a trap with money that I got caught into for almost 15 years. When I stared my business, I remember I started making some money. I figured out what my wife and I needed to live. I think at the time it was $8,000 a month that was giving us the most amazing lifestyle ever. We set it up where our paycheck was eight grand a month and that's what was coming from the company. And everything else in the company I kept reinvesting back into the company. For a while that's important. That's where we're going to grow, where we're going to expand it. I look at my business for the next decade at least, maybe longer, I never pulled anything else out. It only kept getting reinvested, reinvested. And eventually ... Some of you guys heard my story. 10, 12 years ago we had this big crash where everything got shut down and we lost everything. And the thing that sucked is when it all was said and done, I had nothing. We never pulled money out. We never invested. We never did anything. It was all being reinvested back into the business. I got my guarantee, we had our certainty, eight grand a month coming in consistently every single time, but then nothing happened. I remember when we launched after that happened and everything crashed and we were rebuilding back up, during that time we had no money so everything is being reinvested back into the business because we had no business at that point. We started figuring this out. That's where I met Todd. We launched Click Funnels. When we launched Click Funnels, I instantly went back to my same pattern. Like, cool, all the money goes back into Click Funnels. That's how we're going to do this thing. Todd was like, "Dude, just so you understand, I did not build this thing to just have a good paycheck and let this thing keep growing. This is not worth it for me unless we pull money out." I remember I was like ... I had so much fear and I was like, "No. We can't do this." This is one of Todd and I's first and probably only real things where he was just like, "It's not worth it to me unless this is producing money that's being put over here for my family, for my church, for my faith, all the things I want to be doing." Again, we fought back and forth for a couple of months. The very first time we had some profit. I was like, "What do I do with this profit? Put it back in the business." Todd was like, "No, we need to pull it out of the business," and we fought back and forth. Finally, we figured out a way to make us both happy where we figured ... At the time, we need three months of money in reserve. Worst case scenario, that's there. But then after that's over, all of the money, 100% of the money needs to be pulled out and given to the owners. Otherwise we're going to be like you were, Russell, 15 years in and you've got nothing to show for it. All the stress, all the effort, all the energy, and nothing to show for it. That's how we set things up. I remember it was so scary for me. In fact, when we started pulling out and distributing out the profits every single month, I kept mine in there for two years. I didn't touch a penny of it because I'm like ... It's in my separate account. It's over there. What was crazy, though, is that all of a sudden this thing that I was doing started actually producing wealth for me, which took the stress down. I started seeing this thing happening, and all of a sudden it started giving me options where I had no options ahead of time. I think for a lot of entrepreneurs it's like, we have this thing ... It's funny because I see even big people like Gary Vee talk about this, like, "I don't care about money. I dump all my money back in. I'm just building this brand." I'm like, I thought that was the thing for a while too, but it's not. If the business is not producing wealth for the owners, what's the point of it? Eventually you got a job and that's it. It needs to be doing something or else it's not serving you, and therefore, it's not a gift. Josh: Was that the thing, though, helping you overcome that? Was it just doing it? Is that what helped you overcome it? Russell: Yeah, Todd forced me. If it wasn't for Todd, I would still be pulling out eight grand a month and that would be where I would be living. 100%. Todd forced me to do it and it stressed me out. I was so scared. For two years I didn't touch the money and all of a sudden it was like, oh, my gosh, there's this money here. Now I have the ability to ... This thing I had created, this value I was trying to put into the world was paying us back, and now we could ... Now we had all sorts of options. Especially when you're really pushing and you're working hard and you're grinding on something, if aren't seeing some tangible value back from it, it's not serving you. It's just taking from you. Again, this was my personal money, one of my personal issues I struggled with. This may or may not be that, but I would say for all of you guys, looking at this as you are creating a business and creating wealth, you need to be pulling things out. What you do with it is up to you. Like you talked about, use it for good, evil. You can give it to charity. You can do whatever. But if the business is just paying for itself, the business will continue to eat up all your money. It will. You leave money it, it's going to continue to eat it up and it'll disappear as fast as it can possibly happen. But if you start pulling it out and it's over here and it's different, man, it becomes more efficient. It becomes more effective. Everything becomes better because of that. Josh: It's funny, because my thing ... I had that same struggle except I wasn't even paying myself. I was literally just, what are my bills for the month, the bare minimum, and then that was it. And then I met my now wife and I started thinking about finances and she wanted stuff. I was like, but also the business. It was kind of like this thing. Katie came along and was like, "Josh ..." The very first ... She didn't give me a lot of tactical things. It was very mindset-focused. I remember one of the biggest tactical things that she gave me out of the very few that she did, she was like, "You need to pay yourself a paycheck, and that paycheck needs to not only be enough to cover all of your expenses, but it needs to in excess." When I started to put away multiple thousand dollars a month into savings or into being able to invest outside of the company, it changed my whole entire perspective. Weirdly enough, magically, the business made more money. It was like, made it every month. It was like, we're entrepreneurs. We figure out problems. Our brain programs for it. And then I started looking at it as myself as an expense. I was like, I'm a line item on the books. Just like I pay a contractor, that's me. All of a sudden, the business made enough money to cover that. But before that, it didn't. It was crazy. Russell: It's interesting because when you start seeing the results ... I've talked about this before. If you look at my Disc profile, there's the D-I-S-C, and then there's your values. My number one value is ROI. If I can't see the ROI of a situation, it makes it harder for me to do it. I was in business for a decade and a half and the ROI I was getting was good. I was like, "I'm helping people and having success, and it's fun to see the success stories." That was the ROI I was getting, and it was good. It kept me going. But man, I look at the last seven years of Click Funnel, it was like the pressure and the stress and all of the type of things. If it wasn't for the ROI, it took this pressure, but here's the ROI of it, I wouldn't have been able to do it. As soon as I started seeing the ROI and the ROI gets bigger and bigger and bigger, all of a sudden it's like, this becomes fun again and you get excited. How do I make the ROI ... For me, it's all about the ROI, the return on investment, any situation is the key. If you don't have the ROI, it gets hard. It's hard to be creative. It's hard to come up with the next idea, the next thing, and the stress and the pressure that comes. What's the return on investment for the effort you're putting into it? But if you see the ROI and you start amplifying it, then it becomes a more fun game. That's where you start growing from a million to a 10 to 100 and beyond because it's like, I see this game. I'm playing it. I'm getting the return on investment. But I never saw that before because the only return on investment I was getting was this one thing, and those things they feel good, but it's hard to keep score with the feel goods. You got to have a scoreboard to see, like, oh, my gosh, I'm winning. Can I win even more? What's it going to look like? And now it gives you options and opportunities… Josh: You mean you're telling me that all the stress and pressure isn't worth $8,000 a month? Russell: You know, I could get ... I was like ... Nowadays with all of the inflation, I can work at McDonald's for eight grand a month, I think. It's crazy. Josh: Man. Russell: But back then- Josh: That's crazy. Russell: That was the ... Anyway, it's crazy. Josh: You can buy Bitcoin and keep up with inflation. Bitcoin, the savior of money. One more. I kind of want to dive ... I wasn't going to make this a money episode, because that's kind of where it's been. When did you make the shift ... One of the big problems with entrepreneurs, talking maybe a little bit more established entrepreneur, is once they're making money ... I was talking with Brad about this and he was talking about in the inner circle. He was in there ... Or in Category Kings, right? The guy's like, "What's the main problem that you solve?" Brad was like, "So interesting. We thought we could answer that question." Then he asked us it and we try to do it, and it was like, dang, what is the main problem that we solve? What he said is one of the things that they came down to was entrepreneurs know that if they have money, it should be doing more. But they don't know what to do with it. This is something that you probably are an amplified example of this, because you're really, really good at making money. You don't even need to think about what your money should be doing because you can just go make more of it. Once again, that because you've unshackled us. It's like, "All right, want a new car? Go build a funnel. You want a palace? Go build a funnel. Want to take a vacation? Launch a funnel. Just do a funnel and you print money." For you, when did that shift happen for you when you actually started paying attention to, I can't just leave my money in an account right now? I can't just buy cars and houses because those don't make me ... You have houses, you've got the cars, you've got everything you've ever wanted and you still have money left over, so when did you make that shift of, my money needs to be doing more, and how did you solve that problem? Russell: Interesting. This is one that's been more recently solved for me, actually, which is fascinating. For a long I was just hoarding it. Just hoarding it, keeping it here. Then Brad and Ryan ... You have to invest it. I'm like, "I don't want to do that." They forced me to do ... I give them a bunch of money every year and they do whatever they do with it, and that's awesome. I'm like, "Okay, cool. Something is happening." But then the money kept adding up. I remember one day I was like, "I'm in a weird spot where I could buy almost anything I want. What do I want? I'm going to go and spend some money." I remember going to eBay and I was like, "I'm going to buy anything I want." I was searching for stuff, and I spent four hours on eBay when all of a sudden I spent three grand. I was like, "That's it. I got everything I wanted." I was like, "Oh, crap, now what do I do with it?" It was interesting, because for me, it was like ... Again, this is something ... It's been a recent development. I can't remember if it was this podcast or the one I talked about it, I was like, I didn't know what to do with this. Yeah, I could invest in real estate, but that wasn't inspiring to me. I have money in crypto, but that's not inspiring. What's the things that's going to inspire me to want to do more? Again, it's ROI for me. What's going to give me the ROI of now I got to create more money so I can do this thing? So I have a lot of things. Again, we give money to charity. All those things are good and they get me excited. But I was like, what would be the thing that, for me, would amplify? When we bought Dan Kennedy's company, it was the first time I felt it. I bought his thing. We reorganized it, cleaned it up, and I was like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm able to take these things that were so precious to me and I can bring them back to the world, and I can monetize them. I can actually make money off of this thing." I got really excited. I told you I started buying old books. I started investing in Napoleon Hill books and Charles Haanel and Orison Swett Marden and Samuel Smiles and all these people, the founding fathers of personal development and business and all these kinds of things. I've literally spent a small fortune ... I've spent a lot of money in the last couple months on these old, old books, because now it's like, I'm not investing in real estate that's over here. I'm investing in these things I don't care about. Now it's like I'm investing in something that I can take and that I can turn this into more money, and I can turn it into help. I can serve my entrepreneurs. I can do more things with it. For me, that's what's been stimulating for me. That was the investment of ... It was like, I can dump it back into things, but it was like something that's meaningful to me. For some people, crypto is meaningful. For some people it's NFT. Finding the thing that's not just like, I'm investing to invest, but what's the thing that you're passionate about it where it becomes more than just ... For me, that's what I'm geeking out on. You know this, next door I'm building a 20,000 square foot library to house all these books, to build an event center, to build all these kind of things because this is what I feel like my life's mission is. I'm curating all these ideas and I'm bringing them back to people in the simple new form to help these ideas and these concepts live on. For me, that's double fulfilling because it'll make me money, but it's also something that can serve the people I've been called to serve as well. Again, buying Kennedy's company, I'm serving these people, but I'm also making money, which gives me the ability to serve more people. It's kind of fun. Josh: What was the shift, though? For a while you didn't do that, right? Russell: For a while I just sat there. I didn't know what it was. Josh: Who or what got you to the point where you're like, "Okay, I've got to go figure this out"? Yes, this is what you ended up doing with it, but I think a lot of people, there's got to be that thing that's like, "This is when I realized I got to figure out ..." Or some people just let it sit their whole life, I guess. You know what I'm saying? Russell: I heard stories about ... I don't know how true ... But like Scottie Pippen or Mike Tyson, he made half a billion dollars and he's broke. I was like, I don't want to be that dude who made a half a billion dollars and is broke right now. I need to figure out ... I always joke with Brad and Ryan when we were writing their webinar page initially, I was like ... On 30 Rock, there's that scene where Liz Lemon is talking to Alec Baldwin and he's like, "I need that thing that rich people do where they turn money into more money." He's like, "Investing?" He's like, "Yeah. I want to do that." For me, it was like, I've got money here. I need to figure out how to turn money into more money, that's not just me doing the whole thing. How do we amplify what we're doing? How do we have that exponential growth? That was kind of the thing that got me into it. Again, initially it was doing the things that weren't exciting. I'd invested money in real estate and I hated that, so I had Brad and Ryan, I invested money with them. That was cool. It was passive. It wasn't passionate. I was trying to figure out what's the thing that I'm going to be passionate about, where now it becomes part of a game. Now I can see the ROI on this thing. I invested $40,000 this weekend on old books, how do I turn that into $400,000 or four million or 40 million? Can I do that? Now begins ... Now it's fun. Some people, real estate is that game. I got friends who own 100 houses, or 200 houses, and that's the game that they love. I look at Tai Lopez and he's buying these businesses. That's the game that he loves. What's the game you're going to love, the investing game you're going to love? There's a million ways to invest, but when you find one that you love, then it becomes ... Now it becomes a fun part of the game. I think it's understanding first off you need to do it, otherwise you're going to ... You mentioned this ... I can't remember if it was before we started recording, but people who have won Two Comma Club and they got nothing, or Two Comma Club X and they're broke. Entrepreneurs are good at generating money, but there's this other part that you got to learn how to invest it correctly. Otherwise, you're going to pull a Tyson or a Pippen and be broke in a couple of years from now. Yeah, I got 3 Two Comma Club awards on the wall, but I'm trying to figure out how to feed my family this weekend, and that's now where you want to be… Josh: That's so crazy that's a reality for people. It really, really is. I think that's one of the things that I am very, very thankful to have learned relatively early on, is ... Russell: They're two different skill sets. Making money- Josh: They are. Russell: And keeping money are not the same thing. Josh: Yeah. Russell: They are completely different skill sets. In fact, typically, the people who are good at making money are the worst at managing it. Josh: Keeping it. Russell: It's like yin and yang. Understanding that if you're good at making it, you find people around you, like Brad and Ryan, I was like, "Here's money. Do that thing you do because I don't want to mess it up." Josh: Yeah. Russell: In fact, it's funny, before I invested money with Brad and Ryan, I invested it in two different deals. I was like, "This is the greatest thing in the world." Both of them, literally both of them turned out to Ponzi schemes. I got to write off multiple of millions of dollars last year because I gave money to ideas that were so good that me as the entrepreneur was like, "This is genius. This is the greatest thing in the world." Ponzi scheme. I got sold on the thing. It's funny, one of my friends just sold his business for eight figures and he messages me. He was like, "All right. I want to ask your opinion. Where should I put this money?" I was like, "Dude, do not ask me. If I think it's a good idea, it's going to be a Ponzi scheme. Find someone who, that's their life, is that, like Brad and Ryan. Go give your money to them," or find something like I'm doing now with the books and stuff, where it's like now. This is something that fits into my skill set. I think it was ... What's the old dude who invests all the money? Warren Buffett, that said only invest in things you understand. It's like, I understand how to turn old information into money. I'm investing in information and intellectual property because I can turn that into more money, and so that becomes something I can invest in, because I understand the game. I don't understand- Josh: So interesting. Russell: This, but I do understand this, therefore, I will invest in the thing I understand because I can turn this into more money. Josh: That makes sense. Side note on Warren Buffett, you know 80% of his wealth or something like that came off of nine trades? Russell: Really? Josh: Nine investments that he made, it produced 80% of his wealth or something like that. Isn't that insane? Russell: That is fascinating. Josh: That's why when ... I read the quote from him, it was in the context of this quote. It was like, Warren Buffett is like, everyone thinks they have to make a bunch of good decisions. He was like, "I try to make three good decisions a year." I was like, "Oh, my gosh. What the heck?" And then I found out that 80% of his wealth came from ... It was eight or nine trades or something, or investments, and I was like, "All right. I guess that makes sense, then, if you only need to make ..." Anyway, last question, rapid fire question on money. Is there anything that you could do, if you could go back and change something about what you've done or your handling with money, is there anything that you would change, and if so, what's the biggest thing that would be? Russell: Good question. I think I would've started ... Number one, I would've started pulling money out of my business faster. Number two, I would've had a plan for what I would do with that money. I wish I would've said, "I'm going to pull out ... After three months of thing, pull out all the profit, I'm going to put 25% in real estate, 25% in crypto, 25% in something else, and just have that happening in the background, I'd be a much wealthier man today." It took me a long, long time before I did that. Todd forced me to start putting money into crypto, which was one of the greatest gifts ever for me. Brad and Ryan are now forcing me to put money over here. It's like taking that and putting it in spots where again, it's not going to be 100%. I'm going to fall for two Ponzi schemes a year probably, but if I can get one of them to win and three of them to fail, or whatever that is, that's the big thing. I always thought that I will start pulling money out when blah. When I hit Two Comma Club, when I hit a million. The problem is that win never comes. You got to structure from day number one. When money comes in, boom. Profits come out. This happens here. I pay myself first. From the money I pay myself, 10% is going to go for me to go do stupid things, 25% is going to go into real estate or Bitcoin or stocks or whatever. And dividing that stuff up so it's happening at a small level, because when that happens, I wasted a decade and a half before any kind of investments happening. Can you imagine if I had 15 years of the stuff I was doing, turning into something? I missed out on so much of that, that I wish I would've done. Josh: You just got to make sure that you have a small percentage there, which is dedicated to losing bets and Bitcoin to Josh. If you have that, then we're good. For the rest of your life, you're going to be losing bets, so that's how that's going to work. Guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode with money. I'll let you sign it off, but this was awesome. We get to hear Russell Brunson talk about money, which is something that, you make a ton of it, but you don't really talk about it, which is awesome. Thanks for sharing a little bit more. Russell: Thank you. I apologize I don't have a framework for this yet, but this gets me thinking, man, if I could figure out something for entrepreneurs, this is the next thing to do, so then I'll talk more about it as I figure things out. But it's fascinating. I remember I bought a Dan Kennedy course on wealth creation, and it was fascinating because I'd heard Dan talk about building businesses and all that sort of stuff, but it was the first time he ever talked about wealth. Again, same thing. Fascinating. I'm like, oh, my gosh. I never thought about that side of the coin because most entrepreneurs don't talk about it, or don't think about it. I think it's important for us to think and talk and do more with it because again, 15 years of never investing anything, man, it would've been nice. I'd be in a different spot right now than I am today, for sure. Thank you, Josh, for hanging out and talking about money. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, let us know if you want more about money and wealth and these kind of things. Let us know and we'll go deeper on topics. Just take a screen shot of this on your phone, post it, and tag me and write your #1 question you want to hear, and maybe we'll talk about it on the next podcast. Thanks again. Thank you, Josh, and I will see you guys soon.

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The Bother With Baby

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 30, 2021 20:07

Broadway-bound songsmith Frank Loesser wrote “Baby It’s Cold Outside” as a call-and-response duet for he and his wife to perform at parties. Several years later, the tune made its way into a movie and soon took the Christmas canon by storm. But is it a “rapey” relic of a bygone era that should be buried permanently in the winter snow? Amna Khalid investigates.Happy New Year! In the warm and generous spirit of the holidays, we’re offering 30% off a subscription to Booksmart Studios until the end of the year. You’ll get extra written content and access to bonus segments and written transcripts like this one. More importantly, you’ll be championing all the work we do here. Become a member of Booksmart Studios today. Thank you for your support.* TRANSCRIPT *MAN: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Do we have any more requests?WOMAN: Baby, It's Cold Outside!MAN: I think we can make that happen. Who wants to take the duet?AMNA KHALID: In the new Netflix rom-com Love Hard, Josh volunteers to sing a duet with his girlfriend — his pretend girlfriend, actually — Natalie:JOSH: Natalie and I got this one, Dad.KHALID: The two are out caroling with his family in snowy Lake Placid.NATALIE: Over my cold, dead, lifeless body. I am not singing that — that is like the sexual assault theme song.KHALID: Natalie refuses at first to sing that Christmas song, because, you know, it's that song — the one in which a man is possibly pressuring a woman into spending the night. But Josh has an idea.JOSH: Look, this is what we’re gonna do, okay? You just do your part. I will change my lyrics so the song doesn't sound so, uh, rapey. NATALIE: Fine, let's just get this over with.JOSH: Dad, hit it. 🎶NATALIE: I really can’t stayJOSH: No problem, there’s the doorNATALIE: I’ve got to go awayJOSH: I hear you, say no moreNATALIE: This evening has beenJOSH: Totally consensualNATALIE: So very niceJOSH: I hope you get home safe tonightKHALID: It's become fashionable in recent years to alter the lyrics of Baby, It's Cold Outside to make them less “rapey,” as the character Josh put it. Others have pushed back, however. The song, they claim, is about a desirous woman battling not the unwanted advances of her date but the unsolicited judgment of society.🎶LYNN GARLAND: I really can't stayFRANK LOESSER: But Baby, it's cold outsideGARLAND: I've got to go awayLOESSER: But Baby, it's cold outsideGARLAND: This evening has been —LOESSER: Been hoping that you'd drop inGARLAND: So very niceLOESSER: I'll hold your hands, they're just like iceKHALID: I'm Amna Khalid. On this episode of Banished, The Bother with Baby.CHRIS WILLMAN: The song was written in 1944 as a song that Frank Loesser and his wife originally sang at a housewarming party.KHALID: Chris Willman is a longtime music journalist, currently at Variety.WILLMAN: Kind of like, the night’s about to end, we’re about to kick you out, and here’s a song about whether to stay or whether to go.KHALID: Wow, I would have loved to be at that party.WILLMAN: Oh, yeah. And apparently they performed it over a period of years to the point that, when it was licensed for a film in 1949, Frank Loesser’s wife resented it. She may have been joking, but she was resentful that it was no longer their private thing because they were such a hit on the party circuit with it.KHALID: The song existed in private for five years, sung only by Loesser and his wife Lynn Garland. The two made one of the very first recordings of the song, which we’re listening to now. 🎶LOESSER: Baby, make my conscious your guideGARLAND: I really can't stay LOESSER: Oh, Baby, don't hold outGARLAND AND LOESSER: Ah but it's cold outsideLOESSER/GARLAND in the clearKHALID: Baby was evocative of the holidays, it was redolent of cigarettes and booze and, yes, it was sexually suggestive.GARLAND: And it was our song.KHALID: That’s Lynn Garland from the documentary Heart and Soul: The Life and Music of Frank Loesser:GARLAND: And we became the most desired guests at parties from coast to coast. And we never failed to slam.KHALID: Garland recalled once that, "Parties were built around our being the closing act.”🎶LOESSER: I thrill when you touch my handGARLAND: But don't you see? LOESSER: How can you do this thing to me?KHALID: It was merely the opening act, however, for the song itself. Baby was such a sensation at private gatherings that Loesser worked it into his score for the 1949 movie Neptune's Daughter. This would be the first time anyone heard the song outside of someone’s living room.WILLMAN: And when it went public in 1949 it kind of exploded. Immediately, people started covering it. My favorite version of the song, by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting. I think that was the biggest hit anyone had with it that year.🎶WHITING: I really can't stayMERCER: But Baby, it's cold outsideWHITING: I've got to go awayMERCER: But Baby, it's cold outsideWHITING: This evening has beenMERCER: Been hoping that you'd drop inWHITING: So very niceMERCER: I'll hold your hands, they're just like iceKHALID: No fewer than 10 separate recordings were made in 1949 alone. Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Doris Day, Dinah Shore. They all put their stamp on the song, but the version you’re probably most familiar with is the one that Chris Willman prefers. The one you hear on adult contemporary radio stations every December, when they switch over to an all holiday format. The classic recording by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting.🎶WHITING: To break the spell MERCER: I'll take your hat, your hairs looks swellWHITING: I ought to say no, no, no sir MERCER: Mind if I move in closer?WILLMAN: I like it partly because it sounds like 1949. It really puts you in that era where these people are really playing out these roles. I think when people do modern versions it sounds kind of ridiculous because you don’t really buy it, that they have to go through this dance. It’s coming through the same radio where we hear all these incredibly sexually — not just suggestive but explicit songs — and so it’s hard to hear modern singers and still have that sense of reserve and that there are these restrictions on what they have to go through. And for some reason the sexual heat seems more intensified to me when it sounds like it’s happening in that era. Johnny Mercer sounds horny when he’s doing it.KHALID: Yeah!WILLMAN: And Margaret Whiting too. And then, you know, when you hear Willie Nelson and Norah Jones doing it, it’s just not the same.KHALID: And that’s precisely the question for many modern listeners of the song. It may be apparent that Mercer feels the “sexual heat” — but what about Margaret Whiting? Is she feeling it too? That all depends on how you choose to interpret the lyrics, or, in the case of Neptune’s Daughter, what you choose to see on the screen.🎶ESTHER WILLIAMS: I really can't stayRICARDO MONTALBAN: Baby, it's cold outsideWILLIAMS: I've got to go awayMONTALBAN: But Baby, it's cold outsideKHALID: In the 1949 movie, Ricardo Montalban repeatedly tugs at the arm of Esther Williams. He pulls her gently back onto the couch and even removes her hat and stole when she puts them on to leave. To 21st century sensibilities, this pas de deux can seem more predatory than playful. But that's not likely the way that audiences viewed it 70 plus years ago, when Baby won best original song at the 22nd Academy Awards.COLE PORTER: The winner is Frank Loser for “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” (Applause)KHALID: That was Cole Porter presenting Loesser with his one and only Oscar, for a song that stumbled from parlor to parlor on the party circuit, into the motion pictures and onto your Spotify holiday playlist. Or maybe you’ve deleted it from the playlist. Because it’s that song. Chris Willman.WILLMAN: And I never imagined it being controversial, in my naïvete. And then I remember going to an Aimee Mann Christmas show, sometime in the early 2000s I think. And she was having a dialogue onstage with a comedian, and they started talking about quote/unquote rapey the song was and why doesn’t anybody notice that — comically taking off on some of the more sort of, possibly predatorial aspects that people might pick up on in the song. And then all of a sudden in the late 2000s, this becomes a serious topic of debate. And that kind of shocked me, how seriously people were taking the idea that the song was quote-unquote “rapey.”REPORTER: A Bay-area radio station has now yanked the song from its airwaves.REPORTER: Well you won’t be hearing it on WDOK in Cleveland. The radio station’s decided to pull the song from their playlist.WOMAN: You know, it’s a sweet, flirty, fun holiday song.REPORTER: Is it a song about Christmas or creepy behavior? That’s the debate that has led radio station KOIT to ban a popular holiday tune from the airwaves.REPORTER: And you know what? It’s giving people yet another thing to disagree about.WILLMAN: Really in the late 2000s was when it reached peak controversy with radio stations suddenly banning it. The CBC said they were taking it off the air in Canada. There were stations in San Francisco and Denver and somewhere else that said we’re getting rid of the song. But certainly there were lots of serious essays being written too, from a feminist perspective, about how times have changed, people need to recognize that the song celebrates sexual coersion. And then there was the backlash to the backlash from people like me, saying: No, this song is not what you think it is or what you’ve come to believe it is. It’s actually very feminist, very sex-positive to use kind of a corny term.KHALID: According to Chris Willman and other fans of the song, it’s a mistake to interpret the song as if it were written today. Not only is that ahistorical, it’s simply incorrect. Simply put, the song doesn’t mean what many think it means.WILLMAN: People who read it as a date rape song would seize on things like What’s in this drink? As if the guy had placed a drug in her drink. Which is a very contemporary reading because nobody was talking about date rape drugs in 1949, and the, you know, real interpretation of the lyric is that it’s just a strong drink. But reading further into it, she’s trying to pass off the excuse for her own sexual desire onto these things like, “It must be the alcohol affecting me.” But she is the one saying maybe just a cigarette more or maybe half a drink more. It’s really about her putting up every excuse she can think of for why people might not think it was right that she spent the night. You know, one of the key lines to me is I ought to say no, no, no. She’s not saying I want to say no, no, no. It’s I ought to. Just in that word choice alone I think you understand where the song is coming from circa 1949, those expectations of society.🎶ELLA FITZGERALD: I really can't stayLOUIS JORDAN: But Baby, it's cold outsideFITZGERALD: I got to go awayJORDAN: But Baby, it's cold outsideKHALID: In the mid-1940s, the idea that a woman would desire casual sex was taboo. For her to say as much explicity would be deemed “prurient” by network censors, and so Loesser had no choice but to employ subtext. 🎶FITZGERALD: And father will be pacing the floorJORDAN: Listen to the fireplace roarKHALID: In the version you’re listening to now, also recorded in 1949, you hear Ella Fitzgerald chafing at the double standard, when her reputation as a Lady would be ruined if word got out that she stayed the night. Meanwhile, Louis Jordan is free to plead his case for a one-night stand.🎶BETTY CARTER: I really can't stay RAY CHARLES: Betty, it's cold outsideKHALID: Loesser uses musical counterpoint to underscore that Baby is more conversation than conquest. It’s a technique you may recall from his opening number to Guys and Dolls — but his mastery of it is evident in the brilliant 1961 recording of Baby by Ray Charles and Betty Carter. Here Carter emerges from the stifling hypocrisy of the 1950s onto the cusp of a more liberated decade. Both Charles and Carter are softly stepping onto each others’ toes as they negotiate their roles and desires.🎶CHARLES: Beautiful, please don’t hurry.CARTER: Well, maybe just a half a drink moreCHARLES: Why don’t you put some records on while I pour CARTER: The neighbors might thinkCHARLES: Betty, it’s bad out there CARTER: Say, what’s in this drink? CHARLES: No cabs to be had out thereKHALID: Carter is perhaps weary of having to pretend and — without her friends and family fretting and finger-wagging — might make known her own sexual appetite. That’s what Lady Gaga did when she and Joseph Gordon-Levitt gender swapped the parts back in 2013 on the Muppets Holiday Spectacular:🎶GORDON-LEVITT: I really can't stay GAGA: But Baby, it's cold outsideGORDON-LEVITT: I've got to go away GAGA: But Baby, it's cold outsideGORDON-LEVITT: This evening has been GAGA: Been hoping that you'd drop inGORDON-LEVITT: So very nice GAGA: I'll hold your hands, they're just like iceKHALID: But Gaga wasn’t the first woman to bare her libido in the song.WILLMAN: The woman who helped popularize the song, Zooey Deschanel in Elf, she’s part of a duo called She & Him. They introduced it into their repertoire when they made a Christmas album (and they’re doing a tour this year) where they did a role reversal on the song. I think that’s alright. I mean, there’s a tradition of doing a role reversal with the song that goes back to the original movie, Neptune’s Daughter, where first you see Ricardo Montalban and Esther Williams doing it the way you know it. And then there’s a more comedic reprise where Red Skelton and I believe Betty Garrett do it and she’s virtually attacking him to the point that it almost seems really predatorial in that regard.🎶SKELTON: I really can't stay GARRETT: But Baby it's cold outsideSKELTON: I've got to go away GARRETT: But Baby it's cold outsideSKELTON: This evening has been GARRETT: Been hoping that you'd drop inSKELTON: So very nice GARRETT: I'll hold your hands, they're just like iceWILLMAN: But then to hear Zooey Deschanel say that the only way they could do the song on their Christmas tour was to do the role reversal … made me kind of sad.KHALID: For those who find Baby creepy, a role reversal, it turns out, is not the only way to perform the song. I said at the beginning that it’s become fashionable in recent years to simply rewrite the song. In 2016, Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski performed their updated lyrics on the Minnesota radio station The Current.🎶LIZA: I really can't stayLEMANSKI: Baby I'm fine with thatLIZA: I've got to go away LEMANSKI: Baby I'm cool with thatLIZA: This evening has been LEMANSKI: Been hoping that you get home safeLIZA: So very nice LEMANSKI: I'm glad you had a real good timeLIZA: My mother will start to worry LEMANSKI: Call her so she knows you are comingLIZA: Father will be pacing the floor LEMANSKI: Better get your car a-hummingLIZA: So really I'd better scurry LEMANSKI: Take your time.LIZA: Should I use the front or back door?LEMANSKI: Which one are you pulling towards more?KHALID: The video of this performance has been viewed well over a million times on YouTube alone. And that romantic comedy Love Hard — the one in which Josh changes the lyrics to make them less “rapey” — that’s been showing up on lists of the year’s best Christmas movies.🎶NATALIE: Or maybe just a half a drink more.JOSH: Slow down, that’s quite a pour. NATALIE: The neighbors might think JOSH: Just my old friend Troy NATALIE: Say what's in this drink? JOSH: It’s just Lemon La CroixNATALIE: I wish I knew how JOSH: To take a hint? NATALIE: To break the spell JOSH: Do you know how to spell farewell? NATALIE: I ought to say no, no, no. JOSH: I’ll call you an Uber, they’re close. NATALIE: At least I can say I tried. JOSH: I feel like you’re not trying at all. NATALIE: I really can’t stay.JOSH: Well, maybe just go out. NATALIE: But Baby, it’s cold outside. JOSH: But Baby, just go outside. KHALID: Some of these rewritten versions are admittedly clever and funny, but I confessed to Chris Willman that the controversy took me quite by surprise.KHALID: And in part, I should say, it’s because of where I come from. You know, I come from Pakistan and I’ve grown up with Bollywood films — Bollywood films of the 70s and 80s — and, in that time period, any kind of explicit reference to sex or a sexual encounter or desire was, of course, not considered socially acceptable. Hence all these songs in Bollywood films. That’s their purpose, it’s to be suggestive. And this trope of one of them saying stay — usually the guy — and the girl saying No I must go because look at what the world will say if I stay is so commonplace in Bollywood. Have we gone to the other extreme where we’ve lost the sense of what constitutes romance and by overemphasizing the need for explicit consent and reading everything through that lens?WILLMAN: Well it’s funny, that comes up when people have done rewritten lyrics, where they’re emphasizing consent. And I think initially that was done satirically, like at every turn the guy is saying, Well, yeah, maybe you should go … Get outta here, I’ll … sure, I’ll call Uber. And I thought that was a funny take on it, but then you see people seriously rewriting it. And first off the song is hilarious. Let’s just say that. It’s a comedic song. And when you’re gonna take the comedy out of it, along with the dance of seduction or agreement or whatever is happening and say, Would you sign this contract please? There’s not much of a song at that point. You know, it’s such a masterpiece, really, of songwriting — the way the rhyme scheme happens between the two different parts simultaneously back and forth, you know it’s very sophisticated as a duet. To take all that away and say that nothing is important about the rhymes, or the themes or the general tone of the song is really to lose the point.🎶“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (1949) in DanishWILLMAN: You know, it holds such a unique place in the Christmas canon, even though it’s not a Christmas song, because it is flirty and racy and you just hear so much Christmas music that is not really about romance. Or if it is, it's extremely schmaltzy. To hear two people come on who are suddenly expressing real feelings in these very funny and literate lyrics, there’s nothing else on the radio like it. There’s nothing that funny or that sexy in the Christmas music canon, and so even the people that think they should be offended by it can’t bring themselves to get rid of it.KHALID: And that’s perhaps the song’s single greatest contradiction. Why hold onto it at all if we have to censor it? And yet there it is, year after year. More than 450 covers of the song and counting. Role reversals and rewrites and translations, including this Danish language recording that is among the very oldest, from 1949.If you liked what you heard today, help us spread the word and support our work at Booksmart Studios. Become a paying subscriber and you will get access to full interviews, bonus segments, written columns and more.Don’t forget to rate what you've heard here today on whichever platform you listen on and leave a comment so we know what you think. Our success here at Booksmart depends as much on you as on us.Banished is produced by Matthew Schwartz and Mike Vuolo. And I, as always, am Amna Khalid.CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this piece, the singer of the duet with Ray Charles was misidentified as Betty Page. The actual singer was Betty Carter. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit banished.substack.com/subscribe

Biohacks, Energy, and Weirdness with Josh Forti, Part 3

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 20, 2021 25:38

Russell and Josh reveal the 2 biggest biohack, supplements, diets, brain food, focus & marketing. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody? This is Russell, welcome back to Marketing Secrets podcast. Today's episode we are going to get into a little bit of some biohacks and some things, diet, energy, supplements, what we do to be able to have our brains stronger so we can be better entrepreneurs. This was a really fun conversation, I think you're going to love it. You're going to see some of the weirdness happening in my brain, what I do, why I do it. And hopefully it gives you guys a place to start when you start looking at how do you change your health to be able to have more success in business. So hopefully you enjoy this conversation. Also, at the end of it, Josh pitches his new podcast, which is coming out here in a couple weeks, couple months. And I think I'm episode number one, so I'm sitting down with him for a two hour conversation here in the near future. Make sure you get on the waiting list for his podcast it is JoshForti.com/coming soon. And again, he'll do a little pitch for it at the end. But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation about biohacking, supplements, health, and how it relates to you as an entrepreneur. Welcome back everyone to the Marketing Secrets podcast. We're about to move into the third topic, I don't know what it is, but I'm pumped to find out. So what's the third topic? Let's go. Josh Forti: All right, Russell, so here's the ding. You're this dude who you've got this super, super successful company, but anybody that has followed you that knows you a little bit, right? All the newbies out there might not. But you're a wrestler and you to be successful in all areas of life, which is really cool, it's one of the reasons I follow you is because you're not just... I'm going to throw rocks to Grant Cardone here, Grant we love you, but also all you care about is money. So get a life. All right? But anyway, so you have more of this complete picture, this more complete thing that you're trying to go through and do. And so for me, one of the things that I've been focusing on a lot, and it's always interesting because whatever I focus on, I share on social media. And then when I share it on social media, people start giving me ideas back, and half the time it's really great ideas, and then half the time people just hate me for no reason. They're like, you're so dumb. I'm like, oh my gosh. Okay. But anyway, for me, right now, one of the things I've been really focused on is health and fitness. Right? And I remember, I don't know, it was a year ago or whenever it was that you were freaking out about bone broth. Right? And you were like bone broth is going to be the greatest thing. Oh my God. Or whatever it is, it's going to be so cool. And it's going to help me cure cancer and not get it or whatever. And I'm like, you're so weird, dude. I don't even understand. Because I wasn't in it, right? I didn't understand it. And then I got married and my wife is a yoga instructor and so she's super, super fit. And now I'm at this point in my life where I'm like, man, my brain feels foggy a lot of days and I want it to be clear. And I'm like, oh crap, there's Russell over there talking about bone broth that one time, he was talking about brain health and all these different things. I'm like, I got to go figure this all out now. And so I hired the Shockley's. Do you know the Shockley's by the way? Kelly and Jay Shockley? They've been in Steve's MasterMind and stuff for a while. They're students of mine now, they're awesome. They live here and they do total body mastery. And it's basically, they come in, they take 15 different blood samples and hair analysis, urinalysis, all this stuff. And they go and test every single different level of your body, and they basically tell you if you're going to die or not. It's pretty great. And so I went and did that and I geeked out and came back and I'm like, there's so much here. And so I'm curious, and I think a lot of people that are, they reach a certain phase in their journey of entrepreneurship and marketing where they're like, okay, I've made some money now. So now I'm not worried about if I'm going to be able to pay the bills or pay off the credit card. And now I've got some money in the bank. And so now they start thinking about more important things. And one of the biggest things that comes up is their health, right? It's, how do I take care of my brain? How do I take care of my body? How am I going to make sure there's longevity? How do I make better decisions? Anybody that's ever studied personal development knows your brain is like this, it takes 80% of the energy in your body every day. It's like something stupid. Right? So I guess let's start with, how do you go and figure out what you're going to focus on? And what's your routine for health? What are the areas that you focus on and how did you figure out that those were the areas you should be focused on? Russell: Yeah. Great questions. It's funny because I think everyone goes through cycles where, remember I used to make fun of the people who were like me. I'll call them hippies. Like, "Oh they're such hippies." And now I'm like, "Dude, I love the hippies, they got all the good stuff. I love these people." You know? But yeah, I think the biggest thing is... It was tough for me because I was a wrestler my whole life, so I always consider myself an athlete. I thought I was in good shape. I thought... And I was. I thought I understood nutrition, I did not. I wish I could go back and compete knowing now what I know now. And so it was weird, I got done with wrestling and then my wife got pregnant with twins, literally during my last wrestling term, she was on fertility. But I wrestled in my last tournament and we found out a week later we're pregnant of twins. And then we were excited, and I wasn't wrestling or competing or working out. She was eating for three. I was eating for three or four as well. And I gained I think about, my senior year I wrestled 165. When I came back to go wrestle the next year after I graduated with the new team, I was so big, they made me wrestle the heavy weights. So I'd gained probably conservatively 60 to probably almost 80 pounds while my wife was pregnant. Josh: Oh my gosh. Russell: And then one day she had twins and lost 60 pounds overnight and I had 80 pounds on Russell. But it's weird because you don't see it. I didn't see it. I remember going back to wrestle at Boise State, and I walked through the door and Ben Cherrington, who's actually Gaethje's wrestling coach, I walked in and Cherrington is like, "Dude, your face is so fat." I'm like, "What?" He's like, "What happened to you?" I'm like, "I don't know what you're talking about." I couldn't see it. You know? And it was just weird. And anyway, so for the next seven or eight years I was in business and I didn't think about it. I was like, I had so much energy here and focus there, I didn't think about it. And eight years into my business is the very first time I remember feeling, I think I was on stage or something. And I used to wear a tie, and the tie wouldn't fit around my neck anymore. It was all this stuff and I was just like, oh, I just felt crappy. And finally I was like, okay, I have to figure this out. So I hired a trainer, got on a plan, and in seven or eight months I went from, I don't know, whatever, 26, 28% body fat down to 12% body fat. And that was cool and I felt better by myself. But the thing that I noticed the most was that I could get more done during the day. And that's when I was like, oh my God, health actually matters, not just... Like for me, if you look at my disc profile, my number one value is economics. So if I don't see the ROI of something, I won't do it, which is why I sucked at school. That's why I suck at a lot of things is because if I don't see an ROI, I would rather die than do the thing. And all of a sudden I saw the ROI of health, I was like, okay. I was like, by shifting my health, I was able to get two to three times more stuff done every single day. ROI of that is I'm getting three years worth of work done every year, which means I'm going to crush everybody else. Therefore, I'm going to go deep on this. And so that was the thing that sold me on it was just, I saw the ROI and then I became obsessed. And so I'll take you through my journey because there's different levels of things I've learned. And again, I could probably someday will write a 5,000 page book on this because it excites me. But there's the things that are the big lever, like the big levers had the biggest impact. So I'll talk about those. Josh: Yeah. Russell: The first one I understood- Josh: Can I just say a quick side note? Russell: Yeah. Josh: I love how you're coughing as we're talking about health. LOL. That's funny. Russell: I know the one time I've been sick in a decade and it's right now. Yeah it's weird, I have a stuffy noses and a... Anyway, I'm in a season of my life where there's not much sleep because my kids are wrestling. And so I leave every day at 2:30 to go to wrestling practice, and then they're cutting weight at night, and then there's tournaments, and I still got to do all the stuff I got to do. So I'm up every morning earlier than normal. Josh: It's like you're busy Russell. Geez. Russell: Yeah. It's a lot, so my health is suffering a little bit right now, which is why I am spending more time on health stuff right now because I'm losing sleep so I got to make up for it in other places. By the way, sleep though is the number one performance drug you can do. In fact, it's interesting if you study all the biohackers, the two or three biggest things is sleeping more and more sunlight, like going outside with your shirt off, getting natural vitamin D, those help more than almost any biohack you can dream, any supplement, anything. It's sleep and sunlight are the two biggest biohacks. And so, anyway, we should all spend more time outside and we should sleep more. But those are hard sometimes where, nowadays we're not sleeping and we're in an office, so those are the things. So okay, I'll step back. So the first big thing I noticed when I started the health journey back now, it's been probably 14, 15 years ago now... Maybe not that long, maybe 10 years. Anyway, whatever it was, is I went through different diets. Right? So I did a bodybuilding high protein diet, which had lower carbs. I also went through the ketogenic diet because I spent a lot of time with Pruvit when the keto movement was starting, helping them launch that. So I was trying to understand, and I went to through that. But the biggest thing I started learning is how carbs affected my brain. If I eat carbs, it made me tired, faster. You know after post Thanksgiving dinner, you eat and then all of a sudden you can't keep your eyes open. People say, it's the tryptophan in Turkey, I don't believe that, it's the mashed potatoes. Josh: I don't believe that either. I just found out this Thanksgiving that apparently Turkey makes you sleepy. I'm like, that is not the case. It is just food in general. I eat any amount of food that much, I'm sleepy. Russell: Yeah, well it's not just food, it's the carbs. The carbs make your brain tired, at least for me. And so I started realizing that, I was like, I don't want to not eat carbs because the carbs have a very important role. I did the whole keto thing for a long time where I just only ate fats, and that I don't think is right either. So your body needs all the things, but I time my day based on those things now because I know that when I introduce carbs, I'm going to be tired. So I don't introduce carbs early in the day. I don't typically eat breakfast, when I'm eating lunch it's usually high fats and high proteins. And then when I do carbs it's at night, when I do actually want my body to start falling asleep. And so if you notice, like if you look at my eating cycles, I'm still eating the same things most people are eating, but I'm eating them in different orders. Right? Like my lunch, if I'm ordering lunch today off Uber Eats, it's going to be a poke bowl and it's going to come with no bass. So no rice, no nothing, but I'm going to have fish, I'm going to have five different fish in there. Right? Because the fish has high protein plus high fat content, which affects your brain. So I'm going to eat that fish, that's going to be my brain food. But I'm not eating carbs because I don't want carbs yet. I need carbs in my diet, I need it in my body, but I don't want it until I want my body to naturally fall asleep anyway. Right? So dinner time, usually I'll be lower on carbs and as it gets closer to bedtime, then I'll go and have my rice or whatever my carbs are going to be. And because I'm like, okay, I want my brain to shut down anyway. It's like, that's when I'll introduce those things into my diet. And so for me, it's like the timing of food has been really, really big because I would normally, back in the day I eat breakfast, I have cereal for breakfast or something and I'm wrecked for the day. Or I would skip breakfast, I eat lunch and then lunch I'd go order something and it'd be a sandwich. Right? And I eat the sandwich and all the bread and I'd lose the last half of the day. So I'm very, very sensitive on how I'm timing, where I'm introducing the carbs in the day so that I can keep my focus as much as possible during the windows where I need my brain sharp and fast and ready. So that's the first phase of it for me, that's been the big thing, because that brain fog is the worst. You're like- Josh: Is the worst. Russell: I need to be... And you can cover it with caffeine. And so you kind of have it, but it's not the same. You don't have the same sharpness when you have the brain fog and caffeine. It's like going into a bathroom where it stinks and they spray Poo Pourri. It's like, now it smells like Poo Pourri flavored poop. You know what I mean? They're both there. Josh: Right, right. Russell: It's like, it's not actually clean in here. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. Do you use Nootropics or anything at all? Joe Rogan has that Alpha... Or I don't know if it's his, but he does that Alpha BRAIN or whatever. I use that and that... I mean, I don't use it all the time, but whenever I need to be focused, because I usually take Adderall and- Russell: The hardcore stuff. Josh: Don't take Adderall people. It's the best ever, but it is straight up... Alex Sharfin did something on it one time. And once I learned what was in Adderall, I was like, "Oh, all right. So if I take that long term, I'm basically on crystal meth basically." I mean, not, but it's like the same thing. So Adderall's great, but it's not a long term sustainable thing. So I did Alpha BRAIN and stuff, which is much healthier. Do you use anything like that? Russell: Yeah. So there's a range in this stuff, because a lot my friends are the hardcore biohackers, and there's a range. And there's, for me there's a cutoff line of where I feel comfortable. And most of my friends go way beyond that cutoff line, where I don't feel comfortable. So it's tough, you get in the Nootropic world, I feel like you got to have your, this is as far as I'll go, because if you're not careful, I have friends who pushed it all the way to the spot where there's stuff that I think they're crazy for because man, you mess up your brain you are screwed. You know what I mean? And it's not worth sometimes the increasing of, oh I'm going to get more focus here. But there's a potential of damage. So yeah. So Alpha BRAIN's great, Alpha BRAIN's definitely on the left hand side of, I can take this stuff, I feel comfortable. I love ketones, I'm still a big ketones' believer. I'm trying to think off the top of my head. There's different ones that are good. Right? For me, when you start getting into the racetams, there's a whole family of race, that's where I start freaking out. For me, my cutoff line is right before that and I don't go there because the racetams stuff and then after that, then there's the more hardcore stuff and there's microdosing on things, then there's like- Josh: Psychedelics. Yeah. Russell: Crazier and crazier, and I do not cross that line because my brain, I'd rather have... People that want the last 10% from these crazy things is not worth the potential death. Josh: But is that also a religious thing for you? Or is that? Russell: For sure. Josh: Yeah, okay. Russell: 100% religious. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Definitely religious belief, but even more so, for me it's... I don't know. I've had so many friends who... And I don't want to get political on all the different drugs and things like that. I could, if people want to, but- Josh: You can come on my show, we'll talk about it there. Russell: But honestly, I have so many friends who smoke weed because it makes them more creative. I've had friends who the brain shuts off because of it. So the potential, I might be more creative, but I could lose my brain, is not worth any amount of, that's a risk I will not ever take. Alcohol is the same thing. People are like, oh, I do this because it relaxes me. But I've seen the opposite side of that. It's like, I don't know. Yeah, I have my line, I think everyone should have a line. But there are some really good Nootropics out- Josh: I want to talk to you about that more. We'll do it on my show, because I'm super curious to know your thoughts on that too, because I smoke weed sometimes too. Russell: That's why you want to bring me on that. You're from Colorado, I know. I'm not against it- Josh: Yeah, it's legal here people. Russell: I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole, no matter what of positive benefits might be on one side. So there's that. Josh: We can talk about that more at another time. But anyway, back to the- Russell: So the Nootropics stuff, so that's good. But supplementation as a whole, I used to just go and randomly buy every supplement that had a good sales pitch, because I'm a good sales guy and I love getting sold. I remember Anthony DiClementi came to my house one time and he saw my supplements and he was like, "You're taking everything, which is good." But also he's like, "There's crossover because a lot of supplements, they want a marketing pitch, they'll put 12 things in it." And all of a sudden I'm taking 30 pills and all 30 of them have this crossover, and all of a sudden I'm taking unhealthy levels of whatever this ingredient, because there's a little bit in 40 different things. Right? And so I started getting more strategic. In fact, Braven, who spoke at Funnel Hacking Live, his dad has been doing these really cool things. I'm trying to figure out, he's coming out next week actually to do some more work with me. But I'm trying to figure out how to help turn that into a business that I can introduce to entrepreneurs, but basically comes and tests your blood. And basically your blood testing is like, Hey, instead of just randomly taking stuff because you think so, it's like, here's where your markers are at, and then they create custom supplements based on that. They get all these- Josh: That's literally what the Shockley's did for me. That's 100%. I have this whole long list, like this long of every single different level of every nutrient in my body. It's crazy. Russell: Those are really powerful because then you're not just guessing and you can get in trouble when you're guessing. I've seen people who've had issues because they've shotgun approached it, which I've done for years in the past. And so I'm a big believer in that now, where you're taking stuff, and so to make sure you're optimized is a big thing. And one of the fascinating things, I've heard people talk a lot about gut health in the past, but I didn't understand gut health until I did this because he was showing me that the amount of fats and proteins I'm taking aren't being digested enough based on my blood levels. And he's like, the biggest thing that I need to do is start focusing more on my gut. And so I didn't really know what that meant, so this has been a big, huge thing for me now that has had a huge impact, is understanding gut health and how to do things like that. So a couple things. Number one, I have this on my desk here in my house, this is... What are these things called? These are the digestive enzymes. Right? These are actually Braven's, if you go to GainesinBulk.com you can buy them, but these are the digestive enzymes. So before I eat anything now, I pound a handful of digestive enzymes, just consistently, because it helps you digest your food. If you've got lactose intolerance, if you've got, which I do, I'm lactose intolerant on some things, it helps your body digest those things so you don't have the same issues. You have less gash, you have less bloating, less annoyance when you eat. So I pound these before every single meal. That's my first tier is digestive enzymes, I'm sold on those. I carry a little pouch to me when I travel, every I go, and before I eat anything, I pound enzymes, and that's been a big gut health thing. Number two is, every society outside of America, they eat fermented food with every meal, but Americans don't. So in Germany they eat Sauerkraut, in China it's kimchi, there's different things like that. And so that was a big thing, he's like, "Your proteins aren't being digested because you don't have anything fermented in your stomach at any given time." And so now I buy a jar of Sauerkraut and every night at dinner, when I'm eating my bigger meal, I eat Sauerkraut with the meal because it's getting those things in there. And I used to hate Sauerkraut, there's some really good ones actually nowadays that are insanely good. So I eat Sauerkraut a lot. Kombucha, I used to make fun of that. And some kombucha scared me, because they're really high alcohol content, but- Josh: Oh really? I didn't know that. Russell: Yeah. So for me it's like, but there's some kombucha, the kombucha, however you say it, they'll actually pull the alcohol content out of it. There's some that taste like, I don't have it right here, but there's these ones, there's a whole company. There's a company that made kombucha's that taste like Coke and Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. And it literally tastes exactly like Coke and Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew, and it's kombucha. Josh: No way. Russell: Insanely good. So those are- Josh: Okay, you got to send me a link to that. I got to try that. Russell: Yeah, they're awesome. And then this is my new obsession, it's called Alive, GTs puts it out, and it's a mushroom Root Beer and it's got reishi, chaga, and turkey tail. I drink two of these a day, they deliver to my house from Whole Foods. I am obsessed, these are my favorite thing in the world. And it's all gut health stuff. So it's figuring those things out. The first tier of gut health is digestive enzymes, the second is fermented food while you're eating, then third is adding in kombucha's and things like that, it just helps your body break down stuff, digest it, and it gets... Because I don't know about you, but for years I'd eat stuff and I'd just get digested and bloated and then you don't feel good. You don't want to do things. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And now I don't have those problems like I used to. And that's been a huge... Anyway, so those are some of the tiers of things. Like for me, it's timing my food, taking supplements, like Nootropics and things to a certain level to help increase your mind. Josh: Right. Russell: And then the gut stuff is, your gut and your mind. There's studies I've read, I don't know how, I don't understand it all, but they say when you're an embryo your brain and your gut are connected, and then they separate and there's this brain gut thing. And so when your gut's not doing well, it affects your brain and vice versa. So it's like those two organs are the ones to really focus on the most. Josh: Yeah. My mom was big, so my sister, when she was, oh gosh, I think it was five years old, had epilepsy. Like seizures every eight minutes, like full out seizures, completely. And we took her to the number one child epilepsy doctor in the whole world that was over in the Cleveland Clinic. And they like looked at my parents and were like, "We have no idea what's wrong with your daughter. She's just going to have seizures for the rest of her life." And my mom went on this whole thing and cured her through diet. And that's when she discovered the whole gut thing and everything like that. And so ever since then, my mom's... I always tell my mom, I'm like, "Mom I love you to absolute death, obviously when you die it's going to be the worst thing ever." And I'm like, "One of the biggest things I'm going to miss when you're gone is whenever I have a problem, whenever I'm sick, whenever I don't feel well, whatever, I just call my mom." And I'm like, "Mom, what do I do?" And she knows, and it's always the natural thing. I haven't been to the doctor in probably 10 years because anything that's wrong, I just call her so- Russell: Natural is good. Josh: Yeah. She's all about that. Russell: Natural stuff is fascinating. Like again, I used to make fun of people and say they're hippies, but man, I got a Natural Path here in town I go to. Before Funnel Hacking Live I was like, I can't get COVID. And so he came in and hooked me up to IVs and things and all these. It's crazy. They do muscle testing, what things your body needs. I don't know. Again, all this stuff I used to think was like crazy, woo-woo, weird stuff. And the more I get into it, the more I'm just like, man, this stuff's amazing. I think everyone should find a Natural Path, find something that's good. As a first line of defense it's preventative, but also when you do get sick, looking at those options, because they don't wreak havoc on your body like some of the... And there's a time and a place for all those things, right? There's time to play- Josh: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Russell: You need traditional medicine, but man, there's this non-traditional side that's based off of thousands of years of people doing this stuff that is amazing. And it's looked down upon here in America unfortunately, I think it's gaining more and more popularity. But man, it's fascinating and important to, I think for all of us to understand and to be willing to look at. Josh: Yeah, for sure. Well, I appreciate you sharing more about that. I'm sure that you could talk about that for a long time. Last question on that and then we can wrap it up here. What are the things that you just absolutely stay away from in your diet? I mean, obviously for you, there's some faith elements in there too, so feel free to talk about that. We already talked about hard drugs and things like that, but diet related. Do you drink soda? Or are there certain things that you absolutely stay away from and you just don't do for health reasons? Russell: Yeah. So really decide, as a Mormon, it's alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea, those are just chopped off. And then anything worse than that obviously like- Josh: And tea? Russell: Yeah. I think- Josh: I didn't know tea was- Russell: We can have green teas, but not like the... Or something. I don't know. I don't even know. Josh: I don't like tea, but that's super interesting. I didn't realize tea. I knew alcohol, tobacco and coffee. Russell: Yeah. Then on the other side, then it's like, as I was trying to master and understand really diet and stuff, when all is said done calories... And again, I'm friends with all the health influencers, so I see the wars online, calories versus that and all that stuff. But calories do matter, but the type of calories matter as well, right? You can lose weight on a Twinkie diet, if you're eating 1500 calories a day of Twinkie, but you're got to feel like crap. Right? So I'm very conscious of that, so I do not drink soda, for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is if I'm going to waste calories on something, I am not going to drink a soda, I'm going to eat ice cream. Right? I'm all for- Josh: Right. Russell: It, but I would never waste it on something like that because I feel like you're just drinking pure. So I'm not perfect, I'll go off on binges and eat stuff I want, but I would never drink pop, like I just don't. I would rather spend my calories somewhere else. Josh: It's soda Russell, it's soda. Russell: Soda. Yeah. In Utah, we called it Pop. But yeah, I think in the rest of the world it's soda. Anyway, so I don't do those kind of things. Josh: It is soda, Pop's not a thing. Russell: I'm also thinking, I'll go somewhere and there's a dessert, so I'm like, oh. And I'll try something and I'll take the first bite, and I judge, is this worth the calories? And if it's, yes, then I'll go pound the rest of it. If it's not I'll throw it away. Right? Like for example, cookie dough. If my wife brings home a tub of cookie dough or something, I eat it. And its worth the calories, I don't care what it is, that's so good I will eat that and I'll deal with the consequences later. Right? But then I'll eat something like a Pop Tart, and it's like, oh, this is not worth the calories. The soda or whatever, not worth the calories. Have you had those Mochi ice creams before? Josh: Mm-mm (negative). Russell: Oh my gosh, they're Chinese things. Anyway, they're the most amazing, I'll eat 4,000 calories of that because it's worth it. It's worth any extra effort I have to have because it's that good. And so for me, it's just like, I judge everything, is this worth the calories? If not, I just throw it away and I won't eat it. I won't put in my mouth. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. You ruined me with Crumbl Cookie. Russell: Oh yeah, those are worth the calories. Josh: Dude. Freaking, you're the one that I saw it on your Instagram story, you opened it up and you're like, "These are the most amazing things ever." I was like, what are those? And I looked it up and there's one five minutes from my house. And so now we go there all the time and I'm like, they're so good. Right? Russell: They're worth the calories. Josh: And people don't get it until you have one. And you're just like, oh. So we try to limit our consumption of that. But you're the one that got me on that and now we're... I hate you and I love you at the same time for them because they're so good. Russell: Yeah. I'll judge that. So let's say I need to eat something, it's like is it Crumbl Cookies or Subway? I would not eat it subway because it's not worth the calories for this nasty bread and all these things. You know? But I will definitely sacrifice it for a Crumbl Cookie. So anyway, that's my Litmus test. I don't think most biohackers would live by that model but for me, it's like, I eat pretty much the same thing 99% of the time. But when I'm going to mess up, I want to mess up with the best stuff and not stuff like, oh, I ate that thing and now I feel like, that wasn't even good, why did I do that? I want to make sure I'm doubling down and if I'm going to mess up, then I'm going deep on something that's worth it. Josh: Yep. Yep. All right. Well thank you for sharing Russell, I appreciate it. This was, I think it was a good batch of three episodes for us. Knock it out. Russell: That awesome. Hope you guys enjoyed this. If you like conversations like this, that aren't necessarily marketing related, but based on all the other weird stuff going on in my head, and Josh's head, let us know and we'll do more of these. And thanks man for doing this, I appreciate it. And we'll see you guys on the next episode of the Marketing Secrets podcast.

The MOST Important Part of the Funnel (I Guarantee it's NOT What You Think!)

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2021 31:22

What is the future of funnels...? With meta-verse coming, what should we be focused on now!? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. I'm back with my co-host Josh Forti. How you doing, man? Josh Forti: I'm doing awesome, man. How are you? Russell: Doing so good. We just recorded a new episode for you guys. This one's all about funnels and I think it went in a different direction you thought it was going to go, didn't it? Josh: Yeah, it did, a little bit. It was super good. Russell: …because the question was like, "What is the next funnel? What's the thing?" And it wasn't a funnel thing, it was something different. So, I think this is an episode you guys can enjoy. Josh: It's tough. Russell: It's been so exciting for me, I literally woke up at 5:00 AM every morning this week because I'm geeking out on the thing that you're going to learn about. And hopefully, it'll help you guys with all your funnels, no matter if you're running a webinar funnel, or a book funnel, or a challenge funnel, or whatever, doesn't really matter. This principle, you can overlay on top of all of them and it'll make them all better. So, that said, should we queue up the theme song? Josh: Let's do it. Russell: Let's go. Josh: Now we got to move into.. I want to move into funnels, dude. This is a topic that continued to come up. So kind of a back story. When we're preparing for this episode, guys like, Russell hit me up and was like, "Do you want to do a podcast together?" And I was like, "Yeah, what do you want to do it on?" He's like, "I don't know, find something." And I'm like, "oh, all right." And so- Russell: "You tell me." Josh: I do what I all always do and I go to the community and I'm like, if the community tells me... I loved Poland's presentation at Funnel Hacking Live it's like, "Ask, go ask your community. What did they tell you?" And so, that's what we did. I went to my Facebook group and I went on my Instagram and luckily, I have a pretty engaged following that will give us lots of feedback back. And this theme that kept coming up was funnels. And obviously, this is your world. But it was interesting because I've been talking with several different higher level people that are like, "How are all the funnels, they made tens of millions of dollars or whatever?" And it's like, "This funnel's not really working anymore. This funnel's kind of working here. This type of funnel is working." And so there's like, I feel like we're in this phase of funnels are almost evolving, where it used to be that you could run an ad to a webinar and sell a 9.97 product, and make a million bucks, and high profit margins, and you can make it work. But I was talking to Dan Henry the other day and he's like, "Dude, I can't even make that work anymore." And he's like, "And I'm brilliant at ads." And like Sam Ovens, I was talking to him the other day- Russell: Dan Henry, "I know everything." I love Dan. Josh: And Sam Ovens was like, "Man, we're probably going to shut down our front-end $2,000 program and we're going to transition up and evolve the way we do funnels." And so, funnels are the thing, obviously. They're going to be around forever, they've been around forever, you popularized them. But I want to go and take this into two parts and see where this goes. But number one, what is the foundation of funnels? What are the things that like... it doesn't matter how it's executed, the funnel itself, this is the thing that works. Because I think a lot of people get confused that... Whenever I talk to a lot of my students that are building funnels, they're like, "Should I do this type or this?" And I'm like, "The core essence of funnels doesn't change," so what are the core essence of funnels? And then two, what is the future of what that looks like rolled out with technology? Because I mean, I know it's not here yet and one of the things we'll talk about, but- Russell: Metaverse. Josh: We got Metaverse. And my wife was like, "Oh my gosh, ask Russell. If I want to be able to walk into Metaverse and Russell's going to be right there being like, "'Hey, do you want to buy my funnel cake,' click this button and you go into a portal. Instead of another page, you enter a new world that is Russell's world, that'd be so cool." But let's start with the foundation of funnels. When someone is building a funnel, when they're looking at it, what are the core pieces that they're actually looking at? Take us back to the foundation of that because I think a lot of people miss that or forget. Russell: Yeah. So, I'll take you back in history back in time so back to my beginning. Think what example I have sitting here on my desk that I can show you. So, the core, the thing you have to understand why funnels are essential, and why they'll always be here, comes back to my favorite Dan Kennedy quote of all time which is, "Whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins." This is the foundation but... Everything else you have understand- Josh: Like 7,000 speakers at Funnel Hacking Live all said that. Russell: Yeah, because it's the thing. In fact, you'll see, if you look at the... And maybe we'll get into this. My next move, what's happening next year for me? I'm looking at this, all ties into that as well. Why did I buy Dan Kennedy's company? Why am I doing these things? And I'll show you it's literally to solve that exact same question. So, when I got started 20 years ago, people didn't have offers yet they just had a product. So, you would be... Just say a book, like, "Okay, here's my book," and I would just sell a product, and that was what I was selling. And it worked for a long time and then guess what? Everyone else is like, "Oh, dude's making money with this product, I can make a product," they make the same product. Now you got 10 people selling a product that's similar. And so, then it's harder to compete because now you're no longer a unique thing, you are a commodity. And anytime you're a commodity, the person with the lowest price always wins. So, as soon as everyone's doing it, you got to drop at the bottom and then you lose your margin and then life sucks because if you don't profit what's the point of what we're doing? So, there's the first phase. So, then the next phase is like, "Okay, well I got a product, everyone's got the same product but how do I turn this from a product into an offer?" That was the first evolution. It's like, "Hey, when you buy my book, you also get my book, but you're also going to get my video course, my audio course, and then my checklist and my..." And all of a sudden you make something truly unique again where it's like, not just a product, but this is my offer that's specific, unique to me, that nobody else has. So that was the next evolution. And we got really good then in making offers that were sexy. It's like, "Oh yeah, everyone's selling this, but mine, if you get mine, you also da da, da, da, these other things." Right? And that's where this whole offer development started happening. In my mind, probably 15 years ago is when this became the thing that we all focused on. And whoever had the best offer was going to win because ads didn't ship that much. It was just like you're competing so now you're competing with six different people or 10 different people. So because that, Google ads AdWords cost went up, because there's 20 people bidding on the same keyword versus just you, initially. Now you're coming in, you make a better offer. Then you get the lion share people buy from you because your offer is the best. That was kind the next phase. And then of course the market evolves. Everyone gets smart. Everyone starts making good offers. Now it's like, maybe they're unique offers, but they're all good offers. Now it's like the market's getting fragmented up again. And so this is where the evolution now of funnels started happening where... And it was before. We didn't have one click up-sales back in the day. But the first thing was like: you buy my potato gun DVD, fill in your credit card, you buy it. The next page, you're like, "Do you want the potato gun kit? Cool. Get your credit card back out and fill it out again." And they'd fill out all the credit card again. Josh: Dang. Russell: But even with that, there's no one-click up-sales, man, like 15, 20, 30% people would buy the second thing. And all of a sudden, I'm selling a potato gun DVD, but I'm making 200 bucks on the back of the kit and nobody else selling potato gun DVDs was doing. I could outspend them all. So even though costs me more per click, I was able to get all the clicks because I made way more money than anybody else. So I was able to dominate the market. And that was kind of the next phase. And what's interesting is that depending on the market you're in, depends on where this is. For example, I'm in a fun phase where I wanted some side projects. So I'm launching a couple supplement companies. The first supplement company launched is called Zooma Juice. It's a green drink company. And some of you guys know, I actually worked with Drew Canole and his team back in the day on Organifi, and helped them launch that when it first came out seven years ago, and helped him build an actual funnel. And what's interesting is because of that... The green drink market is sophisticated. I went and funnel hacked, probably, 30 green drink offers before we built Zooma Juice. And all of them have pretty advanced funnels. Everyone's doing the best practices pretty well. Second company that we are starting, I acquired a bone broth company. And so I took... Got bone broth company and went funnel hacked every bone broth offer. And that market's new. Nobody had a funnel, not one. They have an offer, they have a product, that's it. And I'm like, "I'm walking into virgin funnel territory." We'll be the biggest bone broth company on the planet in like 30 days? Because there's nobody who understands any of what we're talking about. We'll outspend everybody 10 to 1 because we understand the funnel structure. So depending on what market you're in, some markets haven't even evolved to the funnels yet. Some have, that's exciting. If they have, it's like, "Cool. We got... We can funnel hack. We get good ideas of what's working." If it hasn't like, "Man, you can bring all the stuff we know into these markets and just dominate and destroy them all." It was funny, as we were buying, I was funnel hacking the bone broth offers, I was like, "There's literally not single upsell, order form bump, email sequence. Like nothing." I was just like, "This is like, oh, embarrassing. Almost too easy." That was next phase though. And then to your point, initially it was like... In fact, I remember 10 pre-click funnels. Almost every funnel was the same. It was a video sales letter order button order form upsell one, upsell two, down-sell, down-sell. Thank you, basically. That was what a funnel was. In fact, if you look at, before we launched ClickFunnels, the first T and C event, Ryan Dice and Perry, and they had this whole team event talk about, "Here's the funnel." And they had a funnel and there's only one. And it was just like, "This is the five steps of every funnel." And it fits. It was like trip wire. They had these five steps like trip wire, profit maximizer, and they five or six... They had a name for each page. And it was like, "This is the funnel." And in reality, that was the funnel. There weren't funnels. It was like, "This is a funnel. This is kind of the one." And at the time when I was writing The Dot Com Seekers book and we had been playing with different ones, but there wasn't a lot of this thing out there. Was just kind of like, for the most part, there was a funnel. After ClickFunnels came out and it gave people the ability to create things fast and start innovating, creating ideas, that. And then I was like writing all my ideas in the book and people are doing stuff. It started evolving quickly. Last seven years have evolved where now there's been like a million different funnel things come out, from webinar funnels, auto webinar funnels, high funnels, low ticket funnels, trip wires, SLOs VSLs, challenges, paid challenges, free challenges, challenges to a webinar challenges to high tickets, a webinar to high ticket. There's a billion variations that come from that which probably gets people overwhelming. And so this os what I want to tell them because, this kind of comes back to your first questions, what is it? The reality is, it's going to be shocking for most of you guys, what funnel type you use doesn't really matter. They all work. The thing that matters is the offer. You still have to make the sexiest offer. That's still the most important. We acquired Dan Kennedy's company and we're doing this merger. And like I've spent I podcast episode this morning driving to the office. I've been up every single morning at 5:00 AM because I'm so excited. Because we have a fun, we picked a funnel on structure, we have all of products. I spend a week every morning at 5:00 AM, from 5:00 till like 7:30, when my kids are getting up, in there writing the page for the copy and the offer, and then tweaking and tweaking. That's the thing. The sexiness of the offer that gets people in is the key. So I can get them in, I can use this to get them in a webinar, in a challenge, in a free plus shipping. It doesn't matter. It's like the offer is the thing that puts people in a momentum. And the thing that I'm selling, I could sell it in the webinar. I could sell it in the challenge. I like there's I could sell in all the different funnels. It would fit in all of them. I'm picking the one that I'm using because I think it's going to go... For like the launch campaign, it the one that'll probably get sells the fastest, but it'll work in all of them. And So it's understanding that, it's still coming to the core fundamentals. The funnel structure is the sales process. All of them will work. You just got to figure out better way to sell. Like that's the harder thing that people are missing. Josh: All right. So let's talk... I want to dive into that offer. When you say specifically here... Because I think, and this is just from coaching with a lot of people, the questions that I get asked when I talk about this type of stuff. You talk about the offers, the sexy thing, but how does the offer affect getting somebody to opt in? How does the offer affect my ad? How does the offer affect the training? I don't show my offer until the end after the whole thing. So how does that affect every other step of the funnel? Russell: Okay, great question. So if I can see one here. Right, sorry. I had all the examples here a second ago. Oh, well. I'll just tell you the story. So when Dan Kennedy started his newsletter, in the Dan Kennedy company, the newsletter's the foundation of everything. And we could do a whole podcast episode just on psychology of the original GKIC, when Bill Glazer was running it with Dan. But the newsletter- Josh: Sounds like a sexy topic. Russell: Yeah. It'd be really fun, actually. I love... In fact, it's funny because I spent so much time with Bill Glazer geeking out about. I knew their business really well. And when that they sold it the very first time people bought it and didn't understand the business. And I saw within weeks of them destroying the foundation, I was like, "You guys literally don't know what you bought. You should have asked some questions before you wrote a check that big anyway." But the core is the newsletter. And so I had a chance to go back in the archives. I literally... they gave me, "Here's Google drive. Everything's ever been created." So I'm like, "This is... It's insane." for nerdy Russell, everything Dan's ever said is in this drive. And most of it, no one's ever seen before, so I'm freaking out. But the newsletter started back in like 1995 ish. I was like 15 years old when it started and it was just a newsletter. That's all it was right. It's like a product. That's how they sold it. And from '95 till I think I was probably 23, 24. So, 2004, 2005 ish was when Bill Glazer bought out the company from Dan and kind of ran it, and then they launched it. Instead of a newsletter, they launched it as an offer. And the offer at the time... I still remember the day it happened because I got like 400 emails from my Yanik Silver and all the different gurus at the time. They all started emailing about this Dan Kennedy offer. And it was called the most incredible free gift ever. And in fact, internally in the company called the MIFGE offer, M-I-F-G-E, the most incredible free gift ever. And what it was, it was like, "Hey, when you sign up for magnetic marketing net letter, what you're going to get is you're going to get..." I think it's like, "$639.93 for the money making material from Dan Kennedy himself." So it was like, "We'll give you all this cool stuff when you sign up for the newsletter." And it was the bribe. It's kind of like, if you guys remember back in the day, sports illustrator. It's really hard to sell sports illustrated issues. So what they would do is they would have TV commercials were like, "Here's sports illustrator, 12 issues year about the best sports. When you sign up today, we're going to give you..." And then they had their version of the most incredible free gift offer. It was this huge football clock and the sports illustrator swimsuit issue. That was the MIFGE offer for sports illustrator. And so Dan had their... They had their MIFGE offer, and they went from having five or 600 subscribers at that time to... Bill built it up to over, I don't know, 10, 15, 20. I don't know how big it got it as peak, but 10,000 plus members. And it was because they took a newsletter and they made it an offer. And that's how they launched initially. And so the MIFGE is how they did it. Now, fast forward to Russell gets access to all this stuff. I'm like, "This is amazing." So I'm trying to sit... I sat down Monday morning. No, sorry. It was last Saturday. Saturday. I wanted to write... I didn't want to do all the pages in the offer. So I have some of my team do the upsells and down-sells. I was like, "The landing page, this is mine." I want to write because I want to make sure I get the offer right and everything. Because this is... everything hinges on this. The landing page is broken, nothing works. And so I went and I funnel hacked. I every newsletter, sales letter, I could find throughout time. I just went deep in my archives, way back machine. People I knew who publishing newsletters, looked at every variation of theirs for the last 10 years. I totally geeked out like Russell does. Funnel hacking. I want to understand how people are structuring their newsletter offers. Gore's got a ton of them. So I'm looking at tons of them and everyone I looked at, I come back to like the Dan Kennedy one I'm like this offers just not sexy. More like $630 of money making information sounded cool in 2003. But today, it's like every opt-in, people are giving a thousand dollars worth of free crap. It wasn't that sexy- Josh: Right. Inflation, baby. Oh my word. Russell: Yeah. And then I'm like, "Now my funnel nerds are going to go and they're going to sign for this newsletter, and they're going to get this newsletter from Dan. He's talking about direct mail and faxing. And they're going to be confused and they're going to cancel." I have this weird opportunity. I was like, "This is just not the right thing." And I was like, "How do I make this sexy excited? How do I get myself excited to email about it?" And then Dan's email. I got to get affiliates on board and other people. How do I make this sexy so that I can create the noise? So that when there's an ad, there's a good enough hook in the ad that people are going to click? Because if the ads like, "Old marketing, grumpy marketing genius is going to give you 300 or $639 money making material for free when you join this newsletter," no one's going to click on that. The hook sucks now. It was good in 2003, horrible in 2021. And so I'm like sitting there and I spent three hours just going to yourself. And I was like, no matter how I tried, the offer just didn't feel right. And I explain to other knight, I was like, "I know I wouldn't click and I know I wouldn't buy it. And I don't want to even email my list tell them about it because it's not that exciting. How do I structure this in a way that's going to be really exciting?" And so that the problem. This is where I got stuck at. Right. And then, after about three hours of it is when I had the light bulb, I was like, "Oh my gosh." So all of the current Dan Kennedy customers, they love Dan. They're obsessed with them. And actually, this is a fascinating step. You'll appreciate this. Have you read a thousand true fans? Josh: Yeah. I love that book. Russell: It was crazy. So Dan's company was sold initially like 10 years ago, from Bill Glazer sold it. In the last 10 years, they haven't bought a single ad. So that's the attrition of the company, that's been happening. And I'm acquiring it like, "Oh, let's buy some ads." But what's crazy is 10 years since they bought the last ad, there are almost, to a T, it's like 990 something active paid subscribers still on a newsletter a decade later, without any ads at all. A thousand true fans. Is that crazy? Josh: That's insane. Russell: Really? Josh: And you're one of those true fans because you bought the whole company. Russell: Yeah. I thought that was a fascinating side note. So anyway, that's crazy. Like Dan's people love Dan. They love him talking. If they want Dan, but they need funnels. And I'm like, I don't want to come and be the guy who acquires the company and just starts emailing his own offer. I need them to.. I need to indoctrinate them to want it. So it's like, they're going to read Dan's newsletter and how do I bridge that to ClickFunnels? And I'm like, my funnel nerds are going to read his newsletter and be like, "I don't understand. This isn't..." They need it. They don't know they want it yet. If I can indoctrinate them for a while, they'll be like, "Oh my gosh, I get this," but it's going to take a while for them to really respect it enough that they'll get it. I was the same way. First time I heard Kennedy, I was like, "This guy's old, boring, and doesn't relate to what I'm talking about." And after I went deep in, I was like, "Oh my gosh, everything he says is literal. He's handing gold nuggets out." And I was just like, I didn't notice them. Now I'm like, "Oh my gosh." And so I was like, "I need this bridge." And some people know, when I first joined the Kennedy world, we actually launched my first print newsletter right afterwards. It was called The Dot Com Seekers Journal. It morphed from The Dot Com Seekers Journal to eventually call it, The Dot Com Seekers Labs. And then it became a Funnel Report and then it became Funnel University. So I actually ran a print newsletter for 14 years. We shut it down two years ago, but 14 years I ran a print newsletter. Josh: Yeah. I remember when you shut it down actually. Russell: Yeah. And I loved it, but I just, anyway... There's reasons like the person who was publishing it, she had a baby and she retired and all these things. I was just like, "Ah. I'm, I'm focusing ClickFunnels. Don't even worry about this right now." So we shut it down. But I loved that part of it. And I was like, what if I create an offer where the concept, the story, the hook of this whole entire thing is like, "Russell bought Dan company and they're coming together to give you two things like the best foundational direct response in the world. Plus the best in the marketing, the cutting edge, the new things are happening. So you can have both sides. So you understand the foundation you need to be able to survive Facebook slapping you and all these things happening and media shifting and changing. But you also have like what's working today so you can capitalize on things in real time." What if we took those two worlds together? The baby. And so instead of just being like, "You're signing for the new, from the Dan Kennedy newsletter," what if it was like, "Dan Kennedy, Russell Brunson?" Two different newsletters. You get two newsletters for the price of one. I was like, "That's the offer. That's the hook. That's what gets affiliates excited, to get ads excited, everything gets excited around this offer." And then, every mornings at 5:00 in this morning, or 5:00 AM every morning this week, I woke up and I'm writing copy for this page of like, "Okay, here's the hook. They're coming in. And there's Dan and there's Russell." How these things are coming together. And the story behind that, how it worked and then the offer instead of just like, "Here's $697 worth of free stuff," it's like, "you get two newsletters. You get the best direct response, best of Russell, every two weeks." So you get one in the mail and then 14 days later, you get the next one. And you're getting both of these. You get the old and the new but you only pay one price. You get both for the price of one. And then you get all Dan's bonus, all Russell's bonuses. Now becomes this like insane offer where, now, it's like, "I'm excited to mail my list." We bought Dan's company, you get all my best stuff in this to get, and it's this combination. And then affiliates will be excited. It just... And maybe the hook bombs, I don't know. But it gave me the energy, just like, "Okay, now, this is exciting and sexy." And so I can turn that into webinar where it's just like, "Dan Kennedy and Russell Brunson coming together to literally blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever." Like, "Opt in here to find our webinar," and people would opt in because the story, the hook is exciting or I can do a challenge like, "The seven day challenge. Me and Dan are going to go through how to destroy your business and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And in the end, I'm selling a newsletter or it could be a VSL telling the story with a newsletter or could be... all of them work. The book is the secrets of story. Josh: Well, what it sounds like... Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it sounds like you just created this story about the offer. And now that you know what the offer is, and there's a reason that that came together and like, "That's what it is," now, you understand the story behind that. I'm trying to think of it like an analogy. For example, Disney world. That offer is so good. You're literally going into a different world that pretty much sells itself once you put it out there. And so once you have the story, once you have that idea around what the offer does and how it's unique and how it's it's own unique thing, then you can just take that and then it fills the rest of the funnel. Because everybody wants that thing because now the offer itself is so good. And I think one of the problems that I had, man, for so long is, I was trying to convince people that they wanted my thing be... Or convince people that they had this problem, and then that they wanted this thing, and then I would make them an offer on it. And they wouldn't get to... they wouldn't even know about the offer, or what the offer did, or like anything about it, until like forced or like right before the offer. And they'd be like, "And then I've got this offer? Boo." And because of that, there was no story around it. There's no congruency with it. And so then it was like, "Oh, I didn't even know. That's what I was here for." And then I would like try to sell them something and it wouldn't sell. And I feel like that's the problem that got solved right there, is like first you created the offer and the story around the offer and you made it sexy. And then that made everything else on the funnel super, super easy, because you were just pointing them back to that. Russell: Everything, the funnel plus all the ads. Because now the ads are fun. "Why Dan Kennedy came out of retirement? Dan Kennedy almost died. What's he doing today?" All a sudden, all these hooks that tie into that. "Why did Dan Kennedy partner with the owner ClickFunnels? Why did... Is it true that ClickFunnels was built off the back of all Dan Kennedy principles?" There's so many stories I can tell now that are hooks. That'll grab his people in or my people in or... And then the landing page. And then... It creates everything. And the people that the best in the world of this, and they also make the most money, is Agora. The good Gora publishing. They're selling newsletters. That's all they sell. Right. But every single time they have these insane stories like Porter Stan's got... I think maybe not still, but for like a decade and a half, the highest of all the Agora divisions. I think he'll do like 1.5 or 2 billion dollars a year. Like these are big divisions. Porter's letter one. And, the story was like, "The railroad across America." And it was talking about like, "The original railroad, how it happened and all the people made money along the way. And this is the next railroad that's being built. It's the digital highway and all this stuff." And that offer was selling a newsletter. But it's the story behind it that became this thing that built a billion dollar company. And they're good. They're so good at figuring out the story, those kind of things. And I think sometimes we're like, "Hey, I've created a course in the passed. You should create a course too. I made money. It's going to be awesome." And then like, "You should buy my course creating software or whatever." Like, "That's not the thing." We're so bad at telling stories. We brag about our result. We tell them making the same result and that's it. It's like, no, that's not the key. It's the story. It's the entry. It's the... We want to be entertained. We want to be courted. We want to be... that's the game we're playing in marketing. And so when you figure that out... The offer is actually sexy. And then why is that sexy? The sexiness is not just, "You get a bunch of crap." The sexiness is the story about like how this was created. Josh: Literally what it does that. Russell: That's the fascinating part. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Catherine Jones. One of her favorite things is, "When your stories become their stories, then your solutions become their solutions." and that's literally what this is. If you can tell them a story where they like it and they're like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing," then, go and do it. So for example, Harry Potter world. The story, it... My wife freaking loves Harry Potter world. I mean, that was her thing. When we went down to Funnel Hacking Live, it was like, we were going to take a half a day just to go to Harry Potter world. So we showed up and then it was like, "Hey." Miles is like, "Dude, the buss is leaving for Harry Potter world." There wasn't much convincing that has to be done. The story is, "Oh my gosh, Harry Potter world's amazing. It's Harry Potter. I want it" She wanted that thing because of the story that was leading up to it. There was no, "What's Harry Potter world? Is it any good? What's this?" It's like, "No, it's Harry Potter world." And you're like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, I want it." That's like the story with that. So that's super, super interesting. So where do you see the future of funnels going? Because obviously there's a lot of changes coming with ClickFunnels and ClickFunnels 2.0, which, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Gusting. Gusting hits me up. Probably... Dude, he probably hits me up once a week and is like, "Hey, guess what? ClickFunnel 2.0 is awesome. And you don't have it." And I'm like, "I heard you. Stop." Russell: He actually built out the magnetic marketing funnel hub right now for me, which is cool. Josh: So, yeah. So anyway, but what's the next evolution? And we don't have really have too much to talk about metaverse and where that goes. But we're entering this new world. I mean, the world is changing very, very, very rapidly. COVID is one of those things that we thought the internet was a big deal, and internet marketing was a big deal, pre-COVID, and then we watch zoom blow up by like 3000% or something like that. And they ruin zoom for us. But anyway, so where are things going that people should be paying attention to and going actually studying and understanding about the future of funnels? Because one of the things that I've been really, really focused on and we're kind of getting dialed in, is community funnels, Specifically, I think for me, one of the things that I've noticed is that it's very, very... It's getting increasingly harder to sell things unless you have a community that's tied with it. And so like for me, one of the things we're focusing on is how do we build funnels inside of our community where our community actually becomes part of the funnel? Which is kind of a cool concept. What do you see as those future things of where funnels are headed, where the big opportunities are going to be? What's the next add to webinar to a 9 97 course? You know what I'm saying? What's the future? Where we're heading? Russell: I hate to make it sound simple, but if I come back to the fundamentals we talked about the beginning of this call. Like Dan Kennedy, whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins. So you look at it through that lens. Went from a product, to an offer, to a funnel. And now with the funnel, I have more ways to make money. And then, from there, the next evolution was like from funnel to value ladder. Right now, it's like, I have a break even funnel and move people up a value ladder and that's how I may lose money or break even on my book funnel, but then my webinar funnel's going to make money or vice versa. Right? Josh: Right. Russell: That was the next phase. And I think, for me, where I'm playing because I'm trying to play for the next 10 years. How do I win this game? We're doing well. I want to.. How do I get a point where, Shopify, or Salesforce is like, "I want to write you a check for 20 billion because you're such annoyance." The way I'm going to do that, for me, is... and it comes back to why did I acquire Magnet Marketing? Why did I buy Brad Callin's company? Why am I doing this? Because I'm not looking at breakeven funnels anymore. Breakeven funnels, awesome. I'm going one chair back or I'm building breakeven businesses. So magnetic marketing, the only gold magnetic is to break even. The entire company, the value ladder, the coaching, the everything. So every penny made side of magnetic marketing be dumped back into ads, want 100% of the profits dump back into ads. So this company's blowing up. And I get now all these things dumped into my value ladder for ClickFunnels. Like that's it. Voomly doing 40 million a year? Why do we acquire that company? Tons of lead flow. Now, right now there's... it was 10 million dollars a year net profit. All that money now is being dumped directly into lead flow as a breakeven business, to acquire customers for ClickFunnel. So I think it's going deeper. It's looking past... from product to offer, to funnel, to value ladder, to how do I buy or acquire or create something where the only goal of this entire business is just get customers for free that can put into here. And I thing, for me, that's the next level is just like that thought. Josh: You just blew my mind, dude. Holy cow. You're creating an ecosystem, but in a very specific way. It's interesting, as you just told that out, just, "First, it was this. Then, it was this." The thing before it didn't change. That's still part of it. Russell: It's both the same. Yeah. Josh: Right. But it's kind of that next evolution, that next piece of where that comes out. That's fascinating. I think a lot of people need to just really rewind that, go listen to that clip again and let your brain sit on that. Russell: That's how I'm playing the game. Yes. Hopefully I'm four step ahead everyone else, but I'm all for showing that with you guys. And so I just... Again, for everyone to start thinking that, because it's going to get harder. It's going to get more expensive. It's going to get more... We've seen that this year. Ad costs have gone up. It's not going to get cheap. It's not going to bounce back down and be cheaper. It's going to keep doing that. The people who only had a product back in the day are out of business. People only had an offer back in day, they're out of business. People don't have a funnel are out of a business. People don't have a value ladder out of a business. So it's just thinking ahead of that. Metaverse or whatever next step is, doesn't really matter. It's the principle still is the same for me. For 20 years, whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins. Josh: Wins. Russell: How do I do that in a way that serves the customers, brings them in and then... I'll end on this, because it back to what you said. And I did a podcast on this. It's in the facts I got from Dan Kennedy. After the company sold last time, he was super mad at the company that had jacked up his brand and his legacy and stuff. And so like he sent this 25 page facts, like all the things to do to fix it. And there's one paragraph where he said, "There's difference between why customers come in and why they stay." He said, "People think they're the same things." He's like, "No, no, they're different." Why they come in is because they see the hook of like, "Ooh, the scene." They come in from that. They stay for something different. And you have to understand that. So like I had my inner circle meeting, right. Everyone paid 50 grand to be in the room. We had a hundred entrepreneurs in the room and I told them. I said like, "Well, you guys all because you want to learn funnels from Russell." But I'm like, "The reason why you came is not why you were going to stay here. The reason I get sick year, after year, after year is because of the community." That's it. That's why I sat in Dan Kennedy rooms for six years of my life is because the community built and I wanted to be around these people. I came for Dan stuck for the community. And I think that you start understanding that, that's how you get these people to come in on a front end, but they stay and they buy over and over and they stay on continuity. They stick because it's like.. They come in from a hook, but they stay for the something different. And so really understanding that and then weaving everything you're doing like you're doing now with the community funnels, which is perfect. Josh: That's amazing. That's amazing. All right. Well I think that's a good ending point for that topic. Russell: There's episode number two of our hangout today, which was amazing.

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What's the ACTUAL ROI from Podcasting (Answer Will SHOCK You!)

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2021 30:46

With everything we have to do... does podcasting really make sense? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. We've got three special episodes for you. The first one, well, actually all three of them are with my guest host, Josh Forti. We're going to be breaking down some cool things. The first episode... What happened in the first episode? It was really good. Josh Forti: Yeah. We talked all about podcasting, why podcasting is important. Russell: Yeah, podcasting. So episode number one, we learned about podcasting, why we do it, how we do it, the reasons behind it, and a whole bunch of other things. If you haven't been doing a podcast yet, it's going to sell you on why you need to do one. If you have done one, it's going to show you guys why and how to amplify it, and why it's so important and how to find your best buyers from it. I hope you guys enjoy this episode. We'll cue up the theme song, and we'll be right back. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Like I said today, the next actually couple episodes, I've got a guest host with me, which I'm pumped for. We actually did two podcasts. Well, technically, they were podcasts episodes for your podcast, right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I ripped them off for my podcast because they turned out so good. One is after the Atlas Shrugged book, Josh Forti flew out, and we did... How long? We went for... Josh: It was three and three and a half hours. Yeah. Russell: Three hours. Yeah. Josh: Three and a half hours, yeah. Russell: Going deep into Atlas Shrugged, which was really fascinating. I actually just reread it recently, so if you want to do Round Two, we should totally do that. And then, after I read Atwood and the devil book, I freaked out, and then Josh flew out and we did one there. So you guys who have been listening to the podcast are familiar with him and his voice. But I asked him, I love doing the podcast, but sometimes I fall behind, and my brother who does our podcast settings, "Russell, any episode today?" I'm like, "Huh." I don't even know what to think. I want someone to help come up with ideas so it's not just me. And so Josh went out to the community, asked a bunch of questions and the next couple episodes are going to be some fun conversations. So I'm pumped, man. And thank you for doing this. I know this you're doing this pro bono to hang out and just to help me out, so I appreciate that. And I'm excited to find out what people want to know about. Josh: Yeah, for sure. I love podcasting. That's my life. If I could do one thing, it would just be, have a show that we just talk all the time. So this is fun for me. It's like asking you to come hang out and geek out about funnels. So I'm super excited, though. It's going to be super cool, and dive in further, and pick your brain, and open up a new world that I don't think a lot of people get to see. Russell: Yeah. It's interesting, because I feel that when it's me doing my own podcast, I pick a topic, I go into it. But it's fun when... Yesterday I had a chance to speak at a virtual event thing, and I did my thing and in the end people ask questions. It just opens up a different side that you don't normally do. And so I don't do a lot of Q&A stuff. So I'm excited to... Josh: Yeah. It's interesting. Russell: And maybe this is the only time we do this. Maybe it's a huge train wreck, and this is the only time it happens. Or maybe it becomes a thing. We'll find out. Josh: We'll try to make it not a train wreck. We'll try. We'll do our very best. I think one of the big things though that I want to start with and kick this whole thing off is why you spend so much time with podcasting. Because here's the thing, man. You're rich. We all know it. You don't have to do this. You have this company that you could. We all learned at funnel hacking live, you turned down a billion dollar offer, so clearly you're not doing this for the money. And you've got a company. You've got a team. You've got all these resources. You could spend money on ads. You could do whatever it is that you want. Yet, somehow you are calling me up and are like, "Dude, I need to do podcasts." And to somebody who gets it, and I get it. I have a podcast. I dedicate time when it doesn't make sense. I put money into a podcast that doesn't make sense. On paper, I get and I understand content and putting it out there, and I've never been at your level either. I don't think a lot of people understand. Why do you do it, dude? Why a podcast? And why are you investing so much of the time that you have now, which is limited, I'm sure? There's a lot of people trying for your attention. Why a podcast? And why is that such a core, fundamental piece that you actually spend so much time on, when you clearly don't have to? Russell: I could probably, in fact, I'll probably give you four or five reasons, because there's not just one reason. There's a lot of them. And I actually, I remember when podcasting started. I was at at Armand Morin's BigSeminar, and someone was on stage, Paul Collier was on stage. He's like, "There's this thing coming. It's going to be the greatest thing in the world. It's called podcasting. And you're going to put these things in your ears and listen to people talk." I remember, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. No one will ever listen to that." I just didn't get it. He's like, "No, this is the future." And I remember because I was my roommate at the time was Josh Anderson, some of you may know Josh, and Josh went and bought every podcast domain he could think of. And I was like, "You're dumb. That's never going to happen." But I do remember, "Well, if I ever did a podcast, I'd call it the Marketing In Your Car Podcast, because when I drive my car, I could record it. And I remember thinking that. And I remember I bought, at the time, Marketing In Your Car, and I did nothing with it for, I don't know, eight or nine years. I just had it. In fact, I even paid someone to write an intro song for it. So if you ever go back to the first episodes, the first hundred-something episodes, there was this really... At the time it was so cool, and now it's corny, but there was this theme song that some guy wrote for me. And I had it for five years, this theme song, and I never used it because I was like, "I don't get podcasting." Then in my business life, we had grown up my company at the time. We had a hundred employees. And then, the long story you guys have heard before, is the company crashed. Everything fell around, and it went from a 20,000 square foot office to 2000 square foot office. I felt like an idiot. I was embarrassed. My status was at an all time low. I was weird. And for some reason in that season of my life, I had this impression, "You need to start podcasting and talk about marketing." And I was convinced at this time I was the worst marketer in the world, because I had just crashed my entire empire. I'm an idiot. I didn't want to, but I felt this impression like now it's time to start a podcast. So I literally, from the ashes of my business, started this podcast, and I had at that time a four or five minute drive to the office. Okay, I can be consistent with this. It's going to happen all the time. I'm going to do it. So I got my phone out, I clicked record, and I would literally just drive to my office and I would just talk about what we were trying to figure out. "All right. Today, we're going in the office and working on this new offer, and this is what we're thinking and da, da, da." And then the next steps were, "Oh, we launched the offer and it worked." Or it didn't work. So we tried this. It was just me documenting. It's funny. I heard Vaynerchuk talk about, "Document your journey." And I didn't know. That wasn't a thing at the time, but that's literally what I started doing. And it was nice, because it was something that was so easy. It was easy to be consistent with. I think if I would have had to do a podcast where, for me, if I had a studio and a microphone, all those things, I probably wouldn't have done it because I wouldn't have gotten enough momentum to stick with it. But it was easy. And at first the way we set it up, we couldn't track stats, so we had no idea if anyone was listening, which was a huge benefit. Because had I known how few people were listening, I probably wouldn't have kept doing it. But I just kept doing it and doing it, not really knowing what kind of return was going to happen. It's funny now. I had someone, about a year ago, go through and start from the very beginning and listen all the episodes. I was trying to get some notes and trying to remember. And it was cool, because they started coming back, reporting. He's like, "Did you know on this day you talked about why you thought anyone who wanted to build a company over 10 million dollars in sales was a moron? You should never try to grow company that big. And then over here you talked about, you're never going to hire an employee again." All my thoughts at the time, which have morphed and shifted obviously. But it's this cool thing where I have this record now of this journey from the ashes to ClickFunnels and beyond. So it's been very special for me. Josh: Okay. Sorry. I want to continue down that path, I want to interject right there. The reason I started a podcast is because, literally, you told me to. You didn't physically be like, "Josh, start a podcast." But all your books, all your content, you're like, "Publish, publish, publish, publish, publish." And I'm like, "Okay." And so it started on Facebook. It started on Facebook Live, and then it grew. And then my friend Daxy, he is like, "Dude, turn it into a podcast. Way more people would listen." All right. So I have, I don't know, four or five hundred episodes now on my podcast that I have done with you and all these different interviews or whatever. But what I tell people is, and this is true in all areas of my life, I'm so blatantly honest on my podcast. I don't filter or mince my words at all. Shocking. Russell: You're filtered on Facebook and Instagram, you're telling me? Josh: Just a little bit. But what's interesting is one of the things that you pointed out there was you have this document. You have this record of exactly where you were at at the time. And so for me, one of the things... And this is bigger than just podcasting. When you're just blatantly honest with yourself and where things are at, and you just turn on the microphone and you just talk, you actually can go back and you can watch your progress. And you can see. Oh man, when I was 26 years old, when this happened, this is what I thought about life, or this is what I thought about this particular topic, or this is what I was learning here. When I'm building a funnel or I'm building something that I knew I worked on in the past and I talked about it, I can literally go back, and I can remember the struggles. And I think it was you. It might have been. It might have not been you. It might have been Gary. I think it was you, though. You were like, "Imagine if Jeff Bezos would've documented every single day or every single week building Amazon." How much people would pay for that. That would be so epically cool. That's what it's like. So I totally understand what you're talking about there. I feel like people are embarrassed to start, they're embarrassed where they're at now. And so they don't want to put it out there. I'll never forget Liz Benny. Obviously, you know Liz. She's amazing. I had her on my podcast. This is probably a year and a half ago. And she's like, "Josh, I've watched you grow so much." And I'm like, "Really?" She's like, "Oh yeah." I'm like, "How do you know?" She's like, "Because I listen to your podcast." And it was like, "Oh, this is a long term thing." It was at that moment that I realized it. Russell: Uh huh. For sure. It's interesting because, if I haven't publicly talked much about this yet, but I've been acquiring old books. I just bought this whole, literally, library of Napoleon Hill books and stuff. And it's been so fascinating because I'm reading through and these are the records of these people and their beliefs and their thoughts. I've got old magazines from early 1900s, late 1800s. I'm reading. I found articles from Thomas Edison, who were in the publishing these. I'm reading this stuff and it's so cool. And one thing, this is Russell guilt. In the Mormon church one thing they always talk about is, you need to keep a journal, so that way your posterity has this thing. And I've never been good at keeping a journal. And what I started realizing as I'm going through all the Napoleon Hill stuff, I'm so grateful that they wrote these things down and they have this journal. And I started from that guilt again. And all of a sudden I was like, "Wait a minute. I don't have a journal, but I've been podcasting now for seven years." This is my record. This is, when I'm dead, my kids or my grandkids or my posterity or people, whoever it is. This is how they're going to learn about me and figure out who I was. And hopefully I shortcut them some trial and error. Here's the journey I went on, but here's what I figured out. I can help them. I think all of us are always talking about wanting to leave an impact. I think my podcast episodes, I'm hoping these are my journals. These are my records. This is like what I just bought from Napoleon Hill. I'm hoping that this becomes something for the future generations that they can build their businesses off and their ideas and their plans. Because my podcast is... It's a marketing podcast, but I don't talk about marketing most of the time. I talk about my family and my kids, and I'm learning, and my personal development and all the things. Marketing is just the hook I got people in, but it's my life record. It's my journal, which is cool too. Josh: Yeah, that is super cool. It's funny. Quick side note, we have to shut down this indifferent theory, because Apple.... Russell: Just spell it different. Josh: Yeah. Believe me. We've tried some things. I'm not trying to push against the biggest company in the world. So anyway, we have a new name. I'm not going to say it yet, but it's coming. But anyway, in the last just couple weeks, I've had to pause doing podcasts. And it's weird because what you said right there is, "I don't keep a journal." But I know that I do keep a journal via that exact same thing. And it was weird. I went to my wife literally two days ago. And I was like, "I need you to, to help me create a system for the short term to be able to document my thoughts because right now I'm not doing it. And I have so many things that we're going through right now." So I totally get that. But I feel like there's got to be more than that. There's got to be another reason besides just the documentation process for the podcast for you. Russell: For sure. That's the first thing. Again, I got four or five that run in my head, so I don't know what the order they'll come out in. But the next one is eventually I wrote a book. And people were like, "These books are so good. How do you know all these stories?" And for me, I have an idea, and the idea percolates in my head for a minute, and I got to tell someone. So usually first person I tell is usually the podcast. I'm thinking about this thing and I talk about it. And so I tell the story the first time. The first time it may not even be that fleshed out. Then I get to the office and I see Dave over there. Dave's excited. I'm like, "Dave, check this out." And I tell it to him again. And then I tell someone else. And then I'm doing an interview and I say it again. And I tell the story four or five, six times, and I get better and better at telling the story. And then when I'm at a seminar and I'm on stage and I'm talking. I have no idea which direction I'm going. All of a sudden, this thing will pop up my head. I've told that story six times three months ago, and it appears. I remember Tony Robbins told me this. He said, "When I go on stage, I have a plan, but the plan, it never goes to plan. I start talking." And then he's like, "These downloads just come from God or from the universe, and they just show up." And for me, as I started podcasting and telling these stories over and over and over again, that's exactly what happens now. When I need something, I'm in a situation, I'm coaching someone, I talking, I'm on an event or a stage or something. I need something often that just, it appears when I need it. And I think it's because I didn't just think about it and forget about it. I think about it. I tell it on a story. It's published. I tell someone else. And then when I write a book, I've told the story 400 times. I know the best way to tell the story now. I've seen what people laugh at, what they don't laugh at, how to do it the right way. In fact, it's interesting, my next book is a personal development book. I've struggled with that one, because I don't have a personal development podcast. And I haven't tested these stories, these principles or these theories. I've been stuck, as you know. I sent you the rough draft eight months ago, and I haven't written a word since then. Part of it is I haven't had a chance to flesh these things out. So it gives me idea to flush out my ideas is another one of them. Another one that's interesting... I don't know the exact stats, but I read it somewhere. I think I talked about on Traffic Secrets.I put it in there. But conceptually, they talked about people who are podcast listeners versus the rest of humanity. And I'm going to tell you about the stat, and I'll tell you how the practical application of that stat, which is really fascinating. So the stat was something like the average person who listens to the radio makes, I don't know, $60,000 a year. And whereas the average podcast listener makes $120,000 a year. So the people you are getting and acquiring, they are people with more spending power. They're more affluent people that are the kind of people who are trying to develop their brain, their minds, things like that. They're more likely to buy a course or software or a Mastermind or things like that, because they're the kind of people who aren't just listening to the radio to numb themselves. They're listening to audio to grow. That's the fascinating thing that you're getting a better caliber customer who are listening. Number two, you are getting them in their most intimate moments. When do you listen to a podcast? It's when I'm working out and I'm by myself and it's me and them, and I have their full attention. I'm not listening to a podcast where I'm writing an email or texting someone. Or I'm in the car driving. I'm getting access to their brains and their minds in their most intimate moments. But it's just me and them. Even video. Josh: It's not even like that on YouTube either. Russell: Yeah. I'll watch a YouTube video while I'm cooking dinner, while I'm doing five other things. Josh: That's super interesting. Russell: I don't listen to podcasts with my kids in the room, because they're going to ask me a question. They're going to mess it up. It's when I'm separate and it's just me and them and that's it. I have a different level of intimacy with the podcast people that I'm listening to. So the higher quality customers, better level of intimacy, and then the practical application. The first time I really got this, it was after I launched my Inner Circle the very first time. And again, it was funny, because I always told everybody I never money on my podcast. I'm doing this podcast, I'm not making any money from it… And as I did it for four or five years, and I launched my first version of my first version of my Inner Circle, and we had a point where we had about 33 people in it paying 25 grand. And I remember at one of the events, somebody asked, "How did you guys bump into Russell?" And all of them were like, "Oh, I saw something, but then I got on this podcast, and I listened to him every single day while I was working out for six months. And he kept talking about this Inner Circle and talking about this thing. He's going to get all these things." And it was fascinating. Almost everyone in the room, they didn't hear about my podcast. Podcast isn't good for lead gen. It's never. Josh: Yeah. It's horrible for lead gen. Russell: You can't just buy ads and blow up your podcast. But people find out about you. They plug in to your podcast. And the people who make that transition from, "I saw a book." "I saw an ad." "I saw something." And they make that transition where they actually get the phone out, subscribe, and then plug you in. Those become your best customers, your highest buyers. They're the best. And so the practical application is yes, by doing this podcast, I'm taking... And I talk about this in Expert Secrets. And actually my Inner Circle meeting last month, we talked a lot about this. We talked about creating a new opportunity versus an improvement offer. And for the most part you want to create new opportunities. That's what gets people in the door. And I told everyone, your value ladder should be this new opportunity. There's opportunity stacking. The back of the value ladder, there's one section that's saved for people with ambition. New opportunity is all about getting people who have a desire to come in. But people with ambition, and the percentage of your audience is small. The percentage of people who have true ambition, it might be 15 to 20%, maybe. Josh: Yeah. Russell: But those are your most ambition. I told them my Master, I didn't sell you guys new opportunity. Do you want to come to Boise and talk to other entrepreneurs? Or are you going to get better and stronger and smarter, all the ER words? You guys are the ones at the top of the value ladder. You are ambitious. So I'm not selling you new opportunity. I'm selling you guys improvement. And it's the hardest thing to sell, but it's what one tier of your audience wants. I feel like same thing, the people who are listening to your podcasts, these are the people who want improvement. These are the ambitious ones. They're not the tire kickers. And so it's the best way to convert people in their highest ticket backing things as well. Josh: Yeah. And I also think, one thing that's very important to point out, I think here, is the style slash type of podcast that you particularly create. Because I've studied a lot of different podcasts. Joe Rogan obviously is a big inspiration of mine when it just comes to creating content or whatever. But what's interesting is that the type of content that a Joe Rogan creates, or that even a Logan Paul or any of the bigger mainstream podcasts, oftentimes it's much more for entertainment. And Joe Rogan, I think, maybe is the blend between the two. But a lot of podcasts, they're not specifically for solving a very specific problem. And so what I always say about specifically the type of podcast that you create, you or Steve or whatever, your type of podcast is horrible for lead generation, but is amazing for lead education. It's because once they're in there, you have that. And what's interesting is one of the times that I listened to your podcast most... I'm going to let you guess. I'm sure you're not going to get it. But what do you think one of the times I listened to your podcast most? Russell: When you're driving somewhere in your car. Josh: That's a time. Yeah. But it's when I'm in pain. When I have a specific pain around my funnel, I will literally go, "Russell has this podcast. He's got all these episodes. I bet you he's talked about it." And so I'll literally go on my phone and I'll keyword search for different things. And I'll specifically go. There was one time I was listening to, it was something about a webinar or something, and you were talking about how you wrote your headlines and basically how you came up with your framework for it. And I remember you did that one time. And so I was struggling with it, and so I literally searched it and I did it. And so the type of podcast that you create, in my head there's two different ones. There's one for entertainment. And then there's one for education. And you create one specifically for education. And when you do that, that's the type of podcast or that's the type of content that literally goes and educates your member. And when you have that, a hundred percent, my top buyers, anybody that gives me top dollar for my stuff, they all listen to my podcast or have been on my podcast and I'll pull something out of it. They're always the ones that pay the most money. For sure. Russell: For sure. It's interesting too. And there's, as you said, a lot of formats. When I did mine, I did a short form for a couple reasons. Number one is it was my drive to the office, so that's how it started. But number two, I love Joe Rogan and I probably listen to one of his entire podcast ever. Josh: Oh my gosh. I probably listen to a hundred of them at least. Russell: And I get overwhelmed, because each one's four hours long and there's all these different people. Everyone keeps talking recently about the Jewel one. "It's the greatest thing in the world. You've got to listen to it." Four hours. I could get a whole audio book, the entire book done in four hours. Is that worth the investment? I don't ever want to dive into it, because it's so big. Whereas mine, again, someone's in the car and only got a 10 minute commute. Boom. Throw it in. They get an episode. And then what happens is they get hooked, and then they'll listen for four hours. So it's different though, because if Joe Rogan's were broken up into even 20 minute blocks, I would probably listen to all of them. Josh: YouTube Joe Rogan clips. It's Joe Rogan experience clips. And it's literally 20 minute episodes. Russell: Oh cool. Josh: So if you ever want to. Russell: That's probably what I would do. And I think it's interesting. And then also another nice thing about short form is people come in, they listen to one... And I get this all the time. People are like, "I got your podcast, listened to three or four episodes, and I loved it. So I started at the very beginning and I binge-listened to all of them." It happens all the time as well. Whereas Joe Rogan, you're not going to binge-listen because that's 65 years worth of content you're going to go through. Mine, they're short. I'm going to go to the beginning. And they start and they binge listen. And then they've gone through your journey with you. And by the time they show up, they know everything that you've ever said. And they're so much easier to work with if they've got that stuff. I think everyone needs... It's one of the things where you're not going to see a big return or not initially. But over time, if you're consistent with it, it's the best thing. And then obviously, I don't use my platform for this, but you do and I think it's brilliant. It gives you access to all these people. Whereas the interviewing people, you get access to people you can't otherwise. Josh: Doors open that you literally can't even understand simply because you're like, "Hey, I have a podcast and hey, I've got these couple other cool players on here. You want to come?" Alex Hormozi is coming on my podcast. I literally reached out to him, "I have a podcast." And a hundred percent, I'm going to admit something to you right now. I was like, "Hey, I had a podcast, and Russell's been on a couple times. You want to come on?" He's like, "I love Russell. Of course I'll come on your show." Russell: That's awesome. Josh: Crazy big doors that get open simply because you have a platform to be able to allow someone to use their voice as well. Russell: I remember, before Tony and I were super close, we met a couple times and stuff, but I remember he was doing some launch. I remember Lewis Howes and him did a big interview. And three or four people they interview sound so annoying. Why is Tony hanging out with these people and not me? And now all of a sudden, I had the ahas. "Lewis Howes has got a big podcast. Oh my gosh. Okay, I need to be able to offer my platform to him to get in that door and really build that relationship." And that's one of the powers of it too. You have a platform, now you've got ability to access people you can't otherwise. As you know. Josh: All right. Two rapid fire questions here really quick. Because I want to move on to the next topic to keep us on track. But number one, what's the Joe Rogan episode that you listened to all the way through? Do you remember which one it was? Russell: Oh, I do know. Yeah. And I actually hate that I listened this one. It was the Gary Vee one. Josh: Oh. Yeah. Russell: And the reason why I listened, because I want to be on Joe Rogan's podcast someday. And I want to see what Gary talked about because... As you know, Gary and I have a... He probably has idea who I am. Josh: You have a light beef. Russell: We've got an interesting relationship. He's not my... Anyway. I've got to make sure I'm the next internet marketer who actually does a better job. Josh: Okay. Two things on that. One, anybody listening, I'm going to do this, so don't take it, but I'll beat you to it. If you ever can get Russell Brunson on Joe Rogan, that's a great Dream 100 gift right there. That would be amazing. Secondly, I've listened to so many episode of Joe Rogan. One of my favorite ones is actually with Kanye. I know everyone thinks Kanye's an idiot. But if you can, that's five hours. It's insane. It's one of the most intense episodes I've ever listened to. But one that is a must-listen to, seriously one of the best podcast episodes ever done is his first interview with Elon Musk. If you ever get the chance, just sit down and listen to it. It's three or three and a half hours, but understanding that dude's mind, Elon Musk, you will not regret that three hours of your life. It was a fantastic episode. So that's the one. Russell: Very cool. Josh: Okay. Last thing here before we move on, are there any other points that we didn't cover about why someone should have a podcast? Wrap up, make your closing arguments around why somebody should go setup a podcast. Russell: The last one I'll say, and I quote Nathan Barry, actually, in Traffic Secrets. And I'll probably mess up the quote, but it was interesting. He talked about how... I think the title of the blog post I share is, You Got to Publish Long Enough to Get Noticed. And he talks about how for most of us there's so much content out nowadays. There's all these things. It's hard to know what's going to be good. 5,000 podcasts launched today. How many Netflix episodes, all sorts stuff. He says most of us find out about a good show at Season Two or Season Three, because of this, we waited to see, our friends talked about it. All of sudden it gets a breaking point where everyone's talking about it, and then you become this overnight success. It's interesting. He said you have to publish long enough to get noticed. And I think that's the biggest thing to understand. Especially most people who are getting started and they're so scared. "I'm going to look like an idiot." "They're all going to make fun of me." "I'm just a beginner." Blah, blah. All these different excuses. The good news is, at the very beginning, no one's listening. Josh: No one's listening. Russell: It doesn't matter. Just do it. This is your chance to actually find your voice and learn how to speak and tell stories, and all those things. No one's listening. And if you keep doing it, I tell people all the time, if you publish consistently for a year, that doesn't mean once a month for a year, daily for a year, or three, four times, five times a week consistently for year. Two things will happen. Number one, you'll find your voice. Number two, your audience will have a chance and have enough time to actually find you. And so it's going out there and just setting it up, the ROI. And I'm a big ROI. You look at my DiSC profile, my number one value is ROI. If I can't see the return on investment on something, it's hard for me to do. It's why I struggled in school. It's why I struggle in awkward conversations. Because I'm like, "What's the point of this?" I don't get it. Podcasting was hard, because I didn't know what the ROI was. And luckily again, I didn't see the stats for three years. Josh: Is that how long it was? It was three years? Russell: Yeah, before we figured out how to get the stats on it. Josh: That's crazy. Russell: But because of that, because I didn't know what the ROI was, and I was just hoping and praying with faith that it would be good. Now I see the ROI. Now it's important. Now I do it twice a week. Regardless, it happens in the queue, in the can because it's that important. Josh: If your number one thing is ROI and you figured out the podcast is worth it, guys, there's your selling point. Go start a podcast already. Russell: Got a podcast. Let's go. Josh: Honestly, it's amazing. And it's so much fun too. You learn so much about yourself. And I think the one thing I'll say about podcasting is you've got to really find your own unique style. I was listening to, I know you know Alex Becker, but Alex Becker is probably one of the biggest influencers in crypto right now. Just insane. One of my friends who got his NFT, and he's up a quarter million bucks in three months. Just insane stuff. One of the things that he said is right now in the industry, everybody is trying to become an influencer. And so he says, "I see all these people trying to model exactly what it is that I do." And he's like, "I have no problem with you guys doing that because I get it." At the beginning, you don't know your voice yet or whatever, but he's like, "You'll never be me." And I won't use the language that he used. But he's basically like, "There's only one me, so eventually model me, do whatever you need to do. But eventually go find your voice. Go find your own thing, because that's why people are going to watch you. I'm going to make sure that you're irrelevant if you try to model me long term." And so it's giving you that permission to model somebody at the beginning, but then, people are not going to listen to you if they can go listen to somebody else that has the exact same style. So it allows you to really be yourself when you give yourself permission to just try different things. And at the beginning, like you said, no one's listening. Russell: Yeah. It's funny talking about modeling. I talked about this yesterday on a call I was on. It's fascinating because people, they're trying to copy or model somebody because they're trying to get those people to attract the right audience. And Myron said, "You don't attract who you want, you attract who you are." And so if you're trying to be someone else, you're not going to... Because you want those customers. It's going to be weird. I remember when we launched ClickFunnels, I was trying to be like all the other internet marketing guys, because I thought I was competing against Ryan and Perry and Traffic & Conversion. So I was trying to be more corporatey businessy, like they were. Wait a minute. That's not me. I'm not going to wear a shirt and tie on stage. I'm not going to wear a suit jacket. I'm going to wear my t-shirts and jeans. And I'm going to talk about my family and God and wrestling and things I'm excited by. And I don't care about agency, not that I don't care agency, but I don't care about... I'm going to speak to the entrepreneur, because that's who I want. Wherein Ryan and Perry, literally, one of their Traffic & Conversions were, "This is less for the entrepreneur, more for your teams and your staff." It's crazy now because you look at the... I thought we were in the same market, but as soon as I leaned into who Russell was, it's separated. And it's not that one's better or worse. They're different, but if you go to Funnel Hacking Live, it's my people. You're in the audience. Most of these people here are Christians, who are athletes, who've got kids, who are entrepreneurs, who are not doing this for the money, but doing it because they want to change the world. That's the overwhelming percentage of our audience. Not everyone. But as a whole we attract who we are. So lean into that, because otherwise you're going to attract people you don't like, and you're going to hate your life, and you're going to hate your business, you're going to hate your customers. But you put yourself out there, the people who do not resonate with you will leave on their own. You don't have to kick them out. They're be like, "Russell's annoying." I get people all the time, if I mention God on a podcast or anything, they're like, "If you're talking about God, I'm out." Sweet. All right. Bye. I'm good with that. I know people are like, "I don't believe in God, but I respect that you lean into it." They're cool too. But the people who are offended leave and the people who stick are the ones you want to hang out with anyway, because you attract who you are and not who you want to bring in. Josh: And I can talk about that topic super long, but I want to keep moving on the next piece here. Russell: That's it for the first episode then. Here with Josh on the Market Secrets Podcast. We're going to transition to the next one on the next episode.

30. Family businesses: the most successful, long-lasting and impactful businesses in the world

On Boards Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 15, 2021 46:26

Rob and Josh are each co-founders of BanyanGlobal Family Business Advisors which advises family owners on business, finance, ownership, philanthropy, and a wide range of other issues. They are each leaders in the field of family-owned business. They recently co-authored the Harvard Business School publication: “Family Business Handbook: How to Build and Sustain a Successful, Enduring Enterprise.” Thanks for listening! We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here. Links Why the 21st Century Will Belong To Family Businesses Build a Family Business that Lasts Order the HBR Family Business Handbook Quotes Family Business Myths/Facts Myth: Family businesses don't really matter. Fact: “About 90% of all businesses in the United States are family owned and they account for about 50% of all employment.” Myth: Family businesses don't last, after three generations, they're doomed to fail. Fact: “Family businesses last longer on average than other forms of ownership. Some of the longest lasting and most successful businesses in the world are family businesses. Why don't Americans know that?” Joe: Josh, why do you think that the myth that family businesses are less successful, that they never get beyond the third generation, why does that persist? Josh: It's a great scare tactic, I think you keep hearing it is because people want to tell you, "You're doomed to fail and therefore you need my help to be able to overcome it." Myth: Family businesses are rife with conflicts - family members are fighting and suing each other and just can't possibly get along Fact: “Most family businesses struggle not from having too much conflict, but from too little conflict, because it's really hard to raise some of these issues about fairness and compensation and all the things that come in as being part of a family business.” Rob: It's strange, but the celebrity or the business celebrities, when I went to business school, Jack Welch, and he was making a brand for himself. Now, it's Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook or Elon Musk at Tesla. They seek the publicity. I would say most all of the family business that we know the owners, they shy away from publicity. They don't want to be the face of their family business. They actually know the downside that can come with that. Josh: Most family businesses are private companies and the word "private" is there for a reason, that they don't want to be public. They see advantages in being below the radar. I was visiting a family business recently in a state out west and I drive up to the headquarters and I was like, "That can't be it. We must have the address wrong. That can't possibly be the headquarters of a billion dollar company." And of course, it was. “One of the amazing things about family businesses is that they can break the rules in a way and practice business in a way that is fundamentally different than other companies.” “Family business owners can, if they choose, own it for their whole lifetime and maybe set it up for their next generation. It's the difference between maybe renting an apartment or even being in an Airbnb overnight - you're day trading versus owning a home that you're hoping to bequeath to your children.” Unlike other companies, family businesses actually talk about longevity. How often do you hear companies outside of the world of family businesses talking about how many generations do you last? Do we put like a second or third generation as if that's just a low number, but then you have to multiply it by 20 or 30 years and you realize that a third-generation family business has probably been around for a hundred years. Josh: People say: "Oh, most family businesses don't make it for a hundred years and therefore they're doomed to fail." I'm like, "No, no, most businesses last for under a year, maybe five years." Joe: Their success is actually used as a way of talking about their failure when it's not really a failure at all. What we find in family businesses is that core decisions are really made at the owner level in family businesses, not like publicly-traded companies. If you don't like what's going on at GM, you sell GM and you're out and it wasn't really hard to sell. With a family business you're in. So, you're going to work really hard to make the owner decisions the right decisions. The rights that come with that ownership are profound, the ability to influence the company in ways that are positive and negative are fundamental and learning how to effectively step into that role as owners is essence of the work that we do and the essence of the book that we set out to write. If you're working in a family business or if you're on the board of a family business and you don't understand the owner strategy, like what trade-offs they're making, you're going to be very surprised by the decisions that are coming your way. Leadership Transition If you've been in this position of leading a family business for decades, maybe your entire adult life, you're not just going to quit that and play golf. In most cases, you need some place to land, some place to go to…. to give that up, it's super scary. It's psychologically very challenging for some people. Joe: One of the things we talked about earlier … for the person that's been running the family business it is not just a job. It is his or her identity because they're really living their job. I think that provides a perspective of why it's so hard to let go. Rob: That's a great point. It is their narrative and maybe it's been their narrative since they were five years old, is that they wanted to be the controlling owner or CEO of their family business, and their narrative probably never got to that final few chapters about how they're going to relinquish control over time. Some do it, and some do it with such aplomb, it's really quite amazing. We're trying to learn from those people about what it is that gets them to the other side of that transition. Getting to the next generation, the hardest thing often is the current generation! It's like letting go of the reins and really talking. We have some clients who it's fairly easy for, but they're the exception. “One of the hardest things to get right in a family business is family employment. One of the things that causes the most conflict in a family businesses is who gets a job, who gets paid how much, who gets promoted, who gets the CEO spot. And it's really hard to navigate those issues.” “Once your (family) business gets to a certain size, the value you get from the right independent directors is almost always going to be worth the time and investment that you make into them.” Big Ideas/Thoughts The kinds of things that family businesses are able to do in terms of investing in their employees, investing in their communities that they believe and see paying off in their company, they would never be able to do them if they had to focus on quarterly earnings. It's so interesting, when CFOs come into family businesses from public companies or from private equity, they have to be retrained, just retrained about what the priorities of the family owners are. Managing Expectations Another one of the things that people say about family businesses is that families grow faster than businesses, so therefore a family business is doomed to fail because at some point the size of the family will outstrip the ability of the business to support it. That's where expectations come into play because that's a choice. Should family members actually expect to live off the business or do you expect them to find other ways and treat the dividends they get as a nice bonus to buy something, to buy a new car, or maybe if it's a great year, to get a new house, but not to treat it as sort of like the foundation of the family living on. The Wall Street Journal is a great example of expectation driving decisions. The family (that owned the WSJ) lived off of a very profitable business, a growing family over time. And then as the digital age came in and disrupted newspapers, it was no longer as profitable anymore. And so the family was in a position where they either had to drastically cut their lifestyle or drastically cut the reinvestment in the business, putting them almost in a no-win position that Rupert Murdoch took advantage of and made an offer that they really felt like they didn't have a choice, but to accept. Dividend policy and debt are two of the things that families have to grapple with, and that often leads to their demise. Regarding debt: You go to business school, and they'd say, "Oh, look at all of the great benefits of leverage. You can get a much higher return on equity. Interest payments are tax deductible." So, you come out of business school saying, "Lever up, baby." and there are also these LBOs going on. You go into the world of family business, and it's so, so different. Many of our large clients effectively have zero debt. And in fact, we had one client, it was in the agricultural business, and they had zero debt and they had two full years of operating expenses on their balance sheet. And we're like, "This is not what we learned at business school." Family Business Goals From an ownership perspective, there are three main things you might want. You could want to grow the value of the business - let's go from a million to ten million to a billion and so on. You might want to do that just because you want to be richer, or maybe you want to influence the world and you see your business as a platform to do that. The second thing you might want as an owner is liquidity, and here we mean taking money out of the business. So, you might want to do that because you want to lead a nice lifestyle, or you want to give it away to charity. Or you want to have something that is yours and not belonging to your entire family. And the third thing you might want is control, and control is sort of like you have it until you give it up. So, if you take on an equity partner, you are giving up some level of control. If you take on outside debt, you're giving up control because now someone else is in the room with you and has some influence over your decisions. The most common path to building a successful family business is the mixture of growth and control. If you look at the largest family businesses in the world, most of them have been built in exactly the same way, which is that they make a dollar, and they reinvest 99 cents. They give themselves enough money to pay the bills and they put 99 cents right back into the business. They do that over and over and over again until they've built something very significant. The growth and control is at the expense of liquidity. Owners Room/Importance of Owner Decisions In family businesses on top of the boardroom sits the “owner room” and here there are very few decisions, but this is about the longevity of the firm. What's being traded in this room isn't the competency that's traded in a management room or the wisdom in a boardroom. It's actually power and influence. It's the power that if 51% of the voting shareholders do it this way, that's where it's going to go. But it's also the influence that if you stick it to your sister and she goes to her dad, oh, it may come back to haunt you somewhere else. So what part of what we say is the owner room needs to have both the vote, the 51% we talked about, but really important to have the voice. Sometimes it's okay to be out voted if you had a voice in the matter and people have taken seriously what you have to say.

399: thoughtbot Boost with Joshua Clayton

The Built Different Podcast with Zach Clinton

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 28, 2021 39:57

Chad interviews Managing Director at thoughtbot, Joshua Clayton, about what a Managing Director at thoughtbot does, what makes Boost at thoughtbot different than other teams, and the belief in integrated teams of designers and developers company-wide. Empathize with Your Customer by Josh Clayton (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/empathize-with-your-customer) thoughtbot Boost (https://thoughtbot.com/boost) Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/) Follow Josh on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadclayton/) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/joshuaclayton) Check out Josh's website (https://joshuaclayton.me/) Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is The Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Josh Clayton, Managing Director of the thoughtbot Boost team. Hey, I know that company. Welcome, Josh. JOSH: Hey, Chad. How are you? CHAD: All right. I'm back to the show I think. I didn't get a chance to look up the last episode you're in, but it was probably hundreds of episodes ago now. JOSH: Yeah, it's got to have been a while. CHAD: [laughs] Speaking of a while, you recently…now time is all messed up for me, but I know that you have been at thoughtbot for a long time. How long has it been? JOSH: It was 12 years in August. CHAD: It's been a wonderful 12 years, Josh. JOSH: I agree. I agree. CHAD: [laughs] JOSH: It's been fun. CHAD: So in that time, you have had a few different roles. But you've been a Managing Director for a while now. JOSH: Yeah, I think that's...let's see. It was seven and a half years for the Boston team. And then it's 10 and a half months with Boost. CHAD: So your background is as a developer. And you, like a lot of people who have a background as developers at thoughtbot, myself included, still do development on a fairly regular basis. What does the Managing Director job at thoughtbot actually do? JOSH: What don't we do [laughter] is maybe a better question. Effectively, we're running that team's business. So it involves some amount of software consulting. It involves software sales. It involves managing the profitability of the team. There are marketing functions, and, I don't know, anything and everything, hiring-related things. We opened up and recently filled our Development Director position, which was open for a couple of months over the summer. We've just opened up a Design Director position. So it's everything. [laughs] It's everything it feels like. CHAD: At the beginning of this year, we did an episode about the changes that we had made at thoughtbot to reorganize the teams around rather than geographic studios around the types of work that we would do on that team. And that's how the Boost team was created. So in that episode, we gave people an overview. But I'd love to hear in your own words, what makes Boost at thoughtbot different than the other teams, and what do you focus on? JOSH: So what makes Boost different? I think one of the drivers, one of the motivators, is to embed alongside existing product teams, engineering, and design teams, and help them get better, help them grow as well as ship features and fix bugs. So I think that the way that I position it is if there's an existing product that's deployed, people are using it day in and day out. Hopefully, it's been battle-tested. There are probably some funky areas of the code. Those are the codebases that we're operating in. It might be a team of two people; it might be a team of 200 people. But there is an existing product and an existing team. They're looking for our support to help make it better. CHAD: One of the things I love about Boost and the changes that we've made, especially relative to Boost, is that at thoughtbot, we really believe in integrated teams of designers and developers. And a big part of what we've always done has been to be a complete product design and development team that brings new products to market, big and small. And because we were one of the first consulting companies in the world to switch to Ruby on Rails and because of that deep experience with Rails, and scaling, and working on existing products, we had a significant number of customers who engaged us for development for that expertise, and to help them scale, and grow, and hire, and implement best practices or solve problems that they were having in their existing codebase or on their existing team. And even though that was a significant part of our business, it was always something that seemed that we maybe even didn't really want to be doing it, or it was on the periphery of our marketing and positioning. And I was super excited when we officially created this team because it allowed us to acknowledge that this was a significant part of what we do, a significant part of our revenue, and to have a team of people that opted into doing this kind of work who would not only love the kind of work but want to even grow it and do more of it. And we haven't really had that for this kind of work. We've had individuals wanting to do it but not at an organizational level in an organization that supports it. That was more of a statement than a question, but reaction? JOSH: [laughs] I think you're spot on. It's always been interesting to me to hear that it's...obviously, at thoughtbot, we have been building MVPs and working with a lot of different types of companies over the years and helping them launch products. But I think that the type of work that I and, ideally, obviously, other people on the Boost team enjoy working on is existing platforms and working alongside existing teams. We talk about legacy systems, and I think they get a bad rap. And it's like, no, it's battle-tested. CHAD: [chuckles] JOSH: The business has proven its viability. It is still around years later. Conway's law applies in all of the stuff. Again, there are gnarly aspects of the code. But I think that's what the folks on the Boost team enjoy being challenged by is problems where these things are larger systems. They've been around for a while, and they do get pretty gnarly. CHAD: I think one of the things that held us back in the past is that it is a skill set, and it's an experience. And you are going to be on an MVP project where you're doing design and development, going from concept to launching of a new idea, usually in a matter of weeks, working directly with a founder or a team of co-founders. And then you rotate on to this significantly larger project with maybe an engineering team of tens or dozens or hundreds of other developers on it. It's a very different skill set, and you have very different challenges in that environment. And when you're constantly switching between those different kinds of projects, you can't necessarily get better at it. And that's one of the other things that I think is helping us be more successful. JOSH: I remember one of the teammates had joined the kick-off call with me at the Boost inception that very first meeting. And it was Joël. And Joël had asked pretty straightforwardly, "What is the expectation in terms of project rotations?" Because I think historically across the company, we'd aimed to do two to four-month engagements before we'd rotate folks. And I told him point-blank it's going to be six months to a year probably. And I don't think it necessarily shocked him or other folks on the team. But I think when you're going into existing codebases and working alongside existing teams, there is inherently politics at play and complexities at play where it might take you being a new developer on a team six weeks, maybe longer before you actually feel comfortable and confident navigating the codebase and knowing where you can have and make an impact. And so, I think some of the shifts there have been particularly interesting to watch the types of consulting conversations that we have within the team just because it is a different beast, I think than building and launching products. CHAD: So let's get into a little bit of detail about the kinds of projects we're doing in Boost to the extent that we can give specific examples and maybe more importantly and relevant to the audience, what are the things that we see? What are the common challenges that we see as products grow and evolve, as teams grow and evolve? What do you think one of the most common challenges that people have is? JOSH: As teams grow and evolve, I think a lot of teams run into onboarding issues and general knowledge sharing. I think when you start a small team, and you're two, three, maybe five engineers, it's pretty easy for everyone to keep probably the entirety or the majority of that domain in their head at any one time. As you work to scale a team...there's a client of ours right now where they're effectively doubling every...I don't know what the time period is, but they're growing very, very rapidly. And the feedback that some of our team have provided to them is it's really hard, and there are very much knowledge silos. And they're working through, okay? How do we tease this out? How do we share this context so that you don't have a couple of folks that are effectively blocking every single other member of the team? And so that's one of the core areas that hangs up our team and other teams. [chuckles] Our clients bring us on, and a lot of times, it's like we're rip-roaring and ready to go. And it's like, I need information from a bunch of people, and the processes aren't in place such that we can be as effective as we would want to be given the nature of work that we're doing. CHAD: I think that's a straightforward problem, and it's a good example...I don't want to make this an hour-long thoughtbot commercial. But I'll just point blank say one of the reasons why sometimes working with us is positive for clients is it's really easy to have a certain pain around your onboarding process or company, even just simple things like how long it takes to get a new person a computer or to ramp them up on their existing team. If you're just hiring an employee, it's easy to ignore the cost of that. JOSH: Yes. CHAD: But when you're bringing on thoughtbot and we have a specific start date, and it's a certain cost, and those kinds of things, it can really expose the pain that is already happening but was just being ignored and provide the impetus to actually fix the problem. JOSH: One of the things that we try to set out to do on the first day for any project is to open up a pull request to the codebase, whether it's an improvement to the onboarding like the README for the repository or whatever it might be. Ideally, we are finding ways to contribute on day one. And sometimes, that's frankly not realistic for individual contributors doing it from their own machines. But oftentimes, we'll know that going in. And as we onboard new folks and things like that, we'll say, okay, well, day one is going to be your pair programming over Tuple or some other tool so that you are able to engage and interact with a team and work on the code, even if there's still a bit of a lag between GitHub access and everything else that's the base of onboarding steps. CHAD: So another common one that people bring us on to help with is scaling challenges in terms of the actual product itself, maybe that's performance or other scaling challenges. I'm working on a project now where that was how we first got involved. The service was failing, and it was only getting worse under the increasing scale. So, what are some tips that you have for how to effectively solve some of those problems while not bringing everything else that you need to accomplish to a screeching halt? JOSH: At the end of the day, you can't fix something that you don't know is broken. Or you might have a hunch in terms of, oh, I know this page or this set of pages are slow. I think so much of what we see is teams come in, and they're like, "We don't have New Relic setup." We don't have an instrumentation setup. So they can't measure anything. And so it's like, I know this page takes three or four seconds to paint, but I don't know why. And I don't know how to fix it. It's like, okay, well, the first thing that we need to do is set up some amount of performance monitoring and application tracking just to get a sense of what that's like. There is a potential customer who had reached out back in January of this year. So this was weeks into Boost's inception. And they said, "Listen, we've got some performance-related issues. We don't really know what to do, but we know the application is really, really slow on these couple of pages." It's like, "Are you using New Relic, or Scout, or anything like that?" They're like, "No." It's like, okay, that's the first thing that you need to do. And they came back about a month ago and were like, okay, "Here's the access to all of this data. Now we're ready to go," and it's like, "Yes!" They probably didn't need to wait for that long. But it really speaks to that in order to address some of the performance-related stuff; we need to have some sense of what is going on and where. I know Steph over on The Bike Shed Podcast had talked to Nate Berkopec. And she had floated one of the questions I had had. And he basically schooled me on that podcast and reiterated it really is ultimately about measuring so much of what we're doing. CHAD: Yeah. One of the things, especially for teams that are having a problem but feel like they don't know what to do it's tough when it's actually the case. But the reality is a lot of times; there's actually very low-hanging fruit that it's just no one has the time or experience to actually identify that. And putting some monitoring in place combined with actually taking the time to look through it, especially if it's the first time you ever hit scaling problems...There's either a missing database in that index or some N+1 queries, and fortunately, once you identify that kind of problem, it's usually fairly quick to fix as well. It's a different thing when there's maybe fundamental architecture things that are causing your app to have scaling problems. But it's very unlikely that those are the first problems you're ever experiencing. The first problems you're ever going to experience if your app is running slow are going to be things happening at the database level or missing an index or something like that. And it's very unlikely that significant architecture changes need to be put in place in order to fix the first scaling problems that any product usually has. JOSH: That wasn't the type, or at least I think when we got brought on, and you were working on your most recent clients, we were well beyond...maybe we weren't, maybe I'm misrepresenting or misremembering, but it feels like we were well beyond some of the low hanging fruit. CHAD: Yeah, there was a batch of low-hanging fruit. One of the things if you're working on a product that is scaling super rapidly, what can happen is that the low-hanging fruit masks the other problems that are happening there because it all happened too quickly, all at the same time. And that was the case on this project. So it went from having hundreds of people using it to millions of people using it in the span of a month. And so there was low-hanging fruit. But removing the low-hanging fruit didn't make the app suddenly work again; it just made it so that we could look at the metrics and say, "Okay, those things are no longer the problem." The real problems are not being masked now. We now can identify the architectural changes that need to be put into place in order to operate at the scale. JOSH: Yeah, it's the low-hanging fruit when the orchard is on fire. [laughter] That is true. CHAD: Right. So you got to peel back like an onion. And this is the case with I think a lot of...whether it be a technical challenge or a team challenge. You can't always come in and very quickly solve the root problem. You might not even know what the root problem is. You just have to start solving the problem that is obvious in front of you and learning more. And then you solve that one, and then you expose the next one, and you expose the next one. And even when you can identify the root problem, you'll be like, this is the problem, and everyone agrees it's the problem. It still might be too hard to actually fix that problem. It might be an organizational or a systemic problem. And instead, you say, "Okay, we have to iteratively solve that problem." And you start peeling back those layers to get to the point where you've positioned yourself to solve that core problem. And I think we face that a lot, particularly as external consultants. We're coming in, and we can't just be the bull in the china shop. Because we haven't built the trust with everyone necessary to make the changes, or we don't know enough to know what the changes need to be. JOSH: Right. And I think the people aspect of all of these things in my opinion...and I should caveat this with I've been writing software professionally for almost 20 years. The people, in my opinion, are always the harder aspects to any engagement. It's very rare that we go into a technical project where it's like we literally cannot figure out a technical solution to this thing. We can usually figure it out. And it might take weeks or months to implement, especially as it spans multiple systems. But more often than not, it's really navigating the people and the relationships and building that trust like you had mentioned that is really what will help dictate success within that project. CHAD: I have a line that I use fairly often, and it's that I really believe very few, if any, developers sit down and are like, I'm going to write a bad solution today, or I'm going to write bad code today. That's not what people are doing. I think the majority of people genuinely try within their entire capacity to do a good job. And so that means that when I'm coming into a situation where there are problems, or things are messy, or there were bad decisions or bad code written, it can't be chalked up to like, oh, that was a bad developer, or that was a bad choice that was made. There was usually some people or organizational problem that caused that to happen in the first place. And merely fixing the bad code is not going to be what we should focus our time on. We probably need to do that. But if we don't fix the reason for that problem in the first place, it's just going to happen again. A really popular example of this is when we get approached to do a Rails upgrade on a very significant product that is very behind with Rails. First of all, it's very expensive to do that on a very significant project if there's no test coverage. People could hire us to spend and spend a lot of money just getting to the next Rails version. But if they do that and don't solve the reason why they were so behind with Rails and have no test coverage and all that stuff, along the way, it will have been wasted effort because in a year or in two years, it will be back to the way that it was before. And that's one example that's very technical. But that kind of stuff happens all the time, even with squishy things [laughs] like the structure of a team or something like that. So if you could give advice to people that are struggling with a particular problem, what would you tell them? And let's maybe make it a little bit more concrete. Like, one thing that can happen is as teams grow, like you said, not everyone can know everything. And so it starts breaking down into pods; maybe is one way to organize the team. And then you've gone into a bunch of individual teams working on discrete features. And that's happening fairly quickly. What are some ways to manage that change and manage that growth while maintaining continuity and making it go well? JOSH: I think a lot of it depends on the goals from the technical leadership in terms of areas of ownership. That'd be the first part that I would dive into, I think. We work with clients where they segregate front-end from back-end development. And that allows the teams to focus on React and TypeScript versus Ruby or Go or whatever their back end is written in. But if the goal is to share that knowledge, I think you've got options in terms of lunch and learn and shared code review and team demos and things like that. There are other ways to spread that information across the team so that everybody still has maybe not intimate knowledge of the code that's being written on a day to day basis, but they're at least aware of those patterns and practices and what each of the individual pods is may be responsible for and is delivering. So you have that team cohesion across more of the functional space, on the engineering side or on the product design side. CHAD: One thing that I think I would also add is that a lot of times, people take for granted how better developers will do their job if they understand the reason or the business drivers behind what they're working on. And it's really easy for people to take that for granted because it's like, there's a ticket to the ticket. It says what to do on the ticket. [laughs] JOSH: I have a blog post about this, actually. CHAD: [laughs] Okay, great. We'll put that in the show notes. But if someone doesn't understand the reason behind that, it's not going to go the way that you're expecting frequently. It's not as straightforward. JOSH: Yeah. You're left guessing what the underlying customer need is. And if you're guessing about the motivations, I don't want to say not in absolutes, but you're likely not going to address all of those core needs and implement an effective solution. I think in the blog post that I had written, ultimately, it was advocating for getting engineers to participate in customer interviews and really understand, like, how are people using the product that I am implementing features for? Because without that exposure, without seeing those pain points, oftentimes, it's okay, you've got a product designer or a product manager who's putting together this list of things to do. And if it's treated as a checklist or oh, I need to go implement XYZ without understanding why that needs to be done in the first place, what is the pain point? What is the customer-facing? How are they feeling as they're going through the product? Without that context and without that empathy, the solution is going to be...it might functionally work. But will it be a good user experience? Will it be a good customer experience? It's a little bit more shaky, I think. CHAD: Yeah. And in a fast-moving, fast-growing startup where everyone has a lot to do, if you're experiencing this kind of problem, it might manifest to you as stories get caught up at the beginning stages of when a developer is supposed to be working on them. And you find yourself having calls about what something is even supposed to be or supposed to do. And as the person who originated that ticket or originated that idea, you might have the feeling like, I can't believe we're having this conversation. Like, we don't have time to educate you about all the reasons why this is important and just please just do what we've said on the ticket. That is a natural reaction to that thing. And so my advice would be if you're feeling that, if your team is feeling that or something similar, there's probably something small you can do. It might not even be having developers participate in discovery or interviews or anything. It might be as simple as just making sure that on the ticket you say why it's important. If your ticket is a checklist of things to change or do, making sure that the reason why is communicated there will go a long way to having the person pick up that ticket, get the context necessary to understand, and make good decisions as they work on it. JOSH: Yeah, I remember the switch to the jobs to be done format. And I remember just being like, oh, [laughs] this makes a lot more sense because we can understand the context and the why. What is driving it? What is the problem there rather than what is the solution? And I think that shift in mindset does go a long way, like you said. CHAD: I think one of the ideas behind a well-functioning team is we talk about this idea of collaboration which is you feel like you're doing your best work, that things are moving quickly, and you're enjoying the people you're working with, and you're building upon each other's ideas, and you're making things better as a team. And I was recently talking to someone else, a candidate for VP of Engineering at one of our clients, and they were talking about flow, the idea of flow. And it wasn't a way that I had articulated it previously, but it's certainly another way of thinking about and a good way of thinking about it, especially when it comes to what is the role of a VP of engineering? Or what is the role of a CTO at a small company? Or what is the role of a development team or a product team in general? And one way to think about that is to work to maintain a flow state. And when we think about the processes that we have in terms of retrospectives where every week we gather, and we identify things that could be better, and we come up with action items, a lot of the things that drive what could be better or what we want to try to do differently are all identifying the things that take us out of the flow state and trying to fix that problem so that items flow from beginning to end smoothly, that they go from concept to production smoothly as quickly as possible, and that individual people know where the next item to take is that it's ready so they're not blocked as they begin it. And they're able to get that to staging, and get a pull request out, and get that reviewed quickly, get it to staging, get that reviewed quickly, and then deploy it to production. And in theory, even do a continuous deployment so that that whole flow is automated as much as possible. So this idea of flow resonated with me. Has it resonated with you? JOSH: Yeah, I agree. I remember seeing the comparisons people saying, okay, you're not actually looking for an engineer's passion necessarily. What you're looking for...and I come back to the hiring side of things because I'm doing that right now. But rather than looking to assess passion, it's assessing capacity and ability to get into a flow state more quickly. And obviously, so much of that is dependent on the team, and the communication style, the management style, and things like that. But flow is very much...I think once you get into that and you know how to get into that like you said, every waking moment is spent trying to optimize how do I get into this space? Because when you're in that space, when you're flowing, be it from an IC level or above, there's nothing quite like it. It's just this calm state of just everything feels like it's firing all the time perfectly, and it's good. And I think trying to make those spaces available for the rest of the team to get into that state and maintain that state makes a lot of sense. I remember years and years and years ago, there was the focus on maker versus manager time. And we talk about anchoring manager time either at the start of the end day or around lunchtime or whatever is a logical time for a break. The idea is to maintain that flow state for as long as possible so that nothing else eats into that. Because you do an hour of writing software, and then you've got a 30-minute one-on-one with a teammate. And then you go, and you run for another hour, hour and a half, and then it's another half an hour meeting. It's like you're being sucked away. It is really hard to get into that zone and then stay there. So I think there's been a focus on it for a while. And I'm really glad that there's now a name and a thing that we can point to. CHAD: I don't want to lead people astray about what Boost is. There's a big important part of Boost, which may not be immediately obvious to people, and that is design. I may have insinuated that design wasn't part of Boost before when we were talking about it, but it is. And it's designed on existing products and existing teams which is a different need than going from concept to launch of a new idea. JOSH: So we had done some work with The New England Journal of Medicine. And their team, a very small team, internal team, had basically designed an application. And they ran into a number of accessibility and usability issues. They continued to hear feedback from a lot of folks saying, "This is not effective for what we're looking to do." And they'd engaged us in a couple of different times basically to rip apart and re-architect some of the application hierarchy and the usability side of things. It's been really interesting to see okay, well, within the design side of operating within existing products, it's often lended or leaned more towards doing some amount of a design audit and usability audit, talking to customers. And less around we're going to start from scratch and more what are some of these iterative improvements that we can make to make the product more accessible, easier to understand, easier to navigate, easier to use within what is, again, these very large platforms sometimes? CHAD: I know one common request we get is we're thinking about implementing a design system or introducing a design system with the first version of the product. And we're having this growing pain around introducing new features. Is a design system the right thing to do there? That's a request we sometimes get. JOSH: Yeah. And I think a lot of it at the end of the day, what we're looking to assess is what are the knowns? How much do we know about the application, about the interface? We talk about on the software development side of things avoiding premature abstraction, and I think the same thing is true about design systems. Like, if we're going through a product, maybe it's a wizard, and apart from forms, the pages are individualized, and there's not really any common patterns. It's like, okay, well, maybe now it doesn't make sense. But when you've got an application that spans hundreds of pages, there are going to be patterns across the different pages in terms of application hierarchy and componentization and things like that. And the work that we're oftentimes brought in to do is let's assess what's there, figure out what are the common patterns here. And it's almost like refactoring and teasing things apart to where we get slight...it's a reduction in code use or rather an increase in code reuse because we're removing some of the idiosyncrasies that maybe were not teased apart into some component-based system. And that's fun work. [chuckles] It's really interesting. You get things like React when you're doing client-side rendering. And within the Rails side of things, there's a big push for the GitHub ViewComponent. RubyGem is another example. It's both ways to introduce these layers of abstraction that allow more of the engineering team to take on more of the application development, not because design isn't necessary, but they're then empowered to reuse these logical set of components. And so it amplifies the dev work, but it also amplifies the design work because the entire team is now leaning on that pre-baked work. It enables designers to shift focus and priorities to okay; what are new components? What are different ways to position this or present this information? And also, for our designers, it frees up their time to talk even more to customers, to people using the system. CHAD: Well, I guess we'd be remiss if we didn't do a more blatant plug. You mentioned it earlier, but we do have an opening for Design Director on the Boost team. JOSH: We do. CHAD: So who would be a good fit for that role? JOSH: That's a great question. I think a couple of the things that we're really focusing on for this role is someone who has done the work, so to speak, at an IC level for a lot of the work that we're doing right now with customers. And so we ask point-blank on the application sheet, have you worked in HTML and CSS? Have you facilitated design exercises like design sprints? Have you facilitated user interviews? Because so much of what we're seeing from a vision and a strategy perspective is we need to take and leverage these tools in the skill sets that our teams are looking to hone in on, and we want to take it a lot further. I think there's a big opportunity there. So I think it's less around years of experience. I wouldn't say you need to have 15 years of management experience or having been a director in order to apply for the role. But it's someone that can empathize with the team and has some opinions and some thoughts in terms of okay, what is design? What is not only visual design but product design accessibility? What does that look like in the next 5 to 10 years? Those are the people that I would love to see apply. CHAD: If someone's interested, where's the best place for them to do that? JOSH: thoughtbot.com/jobs. And the listing is there. CHAD: So what's next for Boost, Josh? What do you have your sights set on as we wrap up 2021 and head into the next year? JOSH: Oh boy. A lot of where the focus has been on this year is continuing to double down on Rails as the technology stack and get our feet wet, not that our feet aren't wet, [chuckles] continue to invest on the front end with React. I think for 2022, I think the big focus...we've run in the past some pretty successful custom trainings workshops for engineering teams. I think one that we had done earlier was late last year into early this year. We ran about 120 or so of their engineers through a custom RSpec course. So we worked with their engineering managers and some of their teams and got a sense of okay; given this codebase and given the skill sets of this 100-plus person engineering team, where should we focus? And we put together a two-day RSpec workshop. We administered over; I think, five or six weeks. We did it virtually. And the reception from that was incredible. They ended up bringing us back on. We're getting ready to start another round of consulting work where we're embedding alongside their teams. So I see that as a huge opportunity for Boost coming into next year. And then I think one of the things that we've been pushing for is reducing some of the billing time from folks in leadership positions so that they're in a better position to support their designers and developers. And I'm really excited about the progress that we've made thus far. And I'm excited to continue carrying that into next year. CHAD: Awesome. Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. JOSH: Thank you. CHAD: Part of this new season, Season 11 of the podcast, for the next few episodes, I'm going to be talking to each of the managing directors at thoughtbot about their teams, about the different kinds of work we do on those teams, and the challenges, and what phases are clients in those different stages of the product lifecycle. So you can subscribe to the show and find notes for this episode and all the other episodes at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on Twitter @cpytel. Josh, if folks want to get in touch with you or follow along with you, what are the best places for them to do that? JOSH: Definitely Twitter. My handle is @joshuaclayton, all one word. CHAD: Awesome. Thanks again. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening and see you next time. Special Guest: Joshua Clayton.

speaking medicine mvp managing directors engineering boost cto react conway github mvps html ic rails css xyz new england journal mandy moore development director design director ruby on rails typescript empathize readme new relic giant robots your customers tuple thoughtbot rspec josh it josh yeah chad pytel josh one josh oh josh clayton josh so josh as

The Built Different Podcast-Episode 38-Josh Barrick

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 12, 2021 45:16

Description: In the wake of a tragic car accident, Josh Barrick was faced with a decision to desperately cling to his faith in God, or let unforgiveness destroy him. Choosing to forgive the drunk driver allowed Josh and his family to step into the fullness of everything God has for them. On today's episode of the Built Different Podcast, Josh helps listeners learn how they too can trust God through their own tragedies and come out stronger on the other side. Quotes: 12:41 Josh: “It's not our nature to want to surrender; it's our nature to want to hold on to our own life. 12:52: Josh “God wants us to let go and sometimes we can't do that until we are literally run over…”13:53 Jen quote: “I am thankful that God chose us, knowing that we wouldn't turn our back on Him. Rather than a family who doesn't know Him and would reject Him forever.” 14:21 Josh: “Have you ever thought maybe God is choosing you?14:24 Josh: “Maybe He has given you this task and wants to grow you into a person that only this tragedy can bring out.” 16:18 Josh: “The first first step of practically surrendering in any situation is forgiveness.”18:32 Josh: “In order to use it, we have to praise Him for it.”20:22 Josh: “You forgive for your own freedom.”21:03 Josh: “The first thing I had to do was stop calling the man who hit us, ‘the drunk driver' and start calling him by name. Because that man is a human being and I had to realize I'm 3 decisions away from being in his shoes.”27:03 Josh: “The only reason that you're built different is because of the Spirit that's living inside of you.” 28:00 Josh: “The only thing that's getting in the way of your freedom, peace, overflowing love...joy.. is you.”28:48 Josh: “You have to surrender to the Spirit in order to walk in it.” Links: MLK quote “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it's a permanent attitude.”Ephesians 4: 31-32John 10:10

god spirit forgiveness built ephesians faith in god barrick different podcast josh it josh you

There Ain't No Business Like No Business

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2021 26:49

Show notes:Links:Bold Badgers NFTMantis scooterRidwellWrite for HoneybadgerTranscript:*note - this is an unedited automatically generated transcript with about 80% accuracy*Josh: So we really are we doing this, uh, super quick. Do we need to like speed up our voices? ArtificiallyBen: The chipmonk episode.Starr: There you go. No, we should just, we should slow them down. So it'll um, we can just record a minute episode and then we'll take minutes to listen to it.Josh: Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's what we've been doing all along. That's our life hack is it takes us minutes to record these episodes and you listened to them in minutes.Starr: Yeah. So that's the, um, so I'll fill in our listeners. We, um, we miss our normal recording day on Friday, and so we're making it up on a Monday, which means like we're jam packed in with a bunch of other stuff. Um, so this may be a little shorter than usual and I'm sorry. I know you just have to have all of us all the time and we're just giving it all we can right now.Josh: Yeah, it'll be just as off topic though. So, um,Starr: I would thank God.Ben: Yeah. Speaking, speaking of off topic, I have, I have a public service announcement to make. As, as you know, I've been getting more into the electric vehicles scene, uh, personal mobility, micro mobility, all that kind of fun stuff. And I, you know, a few months ago bought an electric scooter. It's a mantis for those who are curious, who are in the know, uh, and I've been really enjoying that, like riding back and forth to work and goofing off and that sort of thing. But the thing that's, the public service announcement is, uh, wear a helmet. If you're going to ride one of these pillars. I just, this past week saw two different people riding on scooters, similar to mine, like higher powered scooters, mixing it up with traffic, like on mile per hour roads and not wearing a helmet. And I just thought that is insane. Like, I don't know. Maybe, maybe, yeah, you should definitely wear a helmet if you're going to ride electric scooter at miles an hour, just saying that's my PSA.Josh: I did go for, I went for a, my first ride on an EBI bike, um, last week and I must confess I did not wear a helmet. And, uh, I have to say it was, you know, it was kind of fun. Like, you know, little dangerous, there was no traffic. Like there was very little traffic, so in my defense.Ben: Okay. That's a plus. Do you remember what kind of bike your Rover's like a super ? Like one of those modelsJosh: I have, I have a very bad memory for names of things and I was told, but, uh, no, I don't know, but actually I was, it was with, uh, it was the bike of, uh, Mike Perrin, who is a friend of the show and creator of sidekick. So I'm sure he will, uh, hopefully listen to this and, and let us know. And then we can fill everyone in the next week. MaybeBen: I think, I think he has a super . It's a, and that's a pretty sweet,Josh: It's like the super it's like one of the fastest ones on the market, he said, yeah, cool. Or something like that.Ben: I'm going to have to get down to Mike's house and borrow some of his bikes. AndJosh: It was a lot of fun. I'd never, I'd never done that before. And I, I get the appeal now.Ben: Yeah. So when, when I got my scooter, Mike was like, I don't know, scooters. They're kind of, uh, I don't exactly what he tweeted, but he's like, yeah, they're kind of sketchy because they're not very stable and stuff and he's right. They are integrated stable compared to the bikes, but it's still a lot of fun. So I just wear a full face helmet to counteract the wobbliness. Yeah.Starr: Did y'all know I have a, an electric bike? No, it's called a Peloton.Josh: You were so smug with that one.Starr: It's the perfect bike for me because it doesn't move. Um, it's like all the, got all the nice things about the bike, like the workout, but you don't go anywhere. You don't have to Dodge any traffic. Uh, don't have to wear a helmet screen.Josh: Yeah. Those sound, those do sound seriously though. Those, those, uh, look pretty, pretty nice.Ben: Yeah. I have, I have a low-tech Peloton. It's just a trainer. I brought my bike on.Josh: Is your bike on it? Yeah. Yeah. But I like, I don't know the what, from what I've heard of the Peloton , uh, those they've got all the bells and whistles right star.Starr: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, really it's um, it's not so much about the actual bike for me. It is, as it is about having some like super enthusiastic person, like, um, playing really good music and just being like, you've got this, you were born for greatness and just like saying stuff like that at me. Um, while I'm like trying to, you know, read them a little bit,Josh: You say that, but like, you know, like I, I try to, you know, give that experience to Katelyn, for instance, my wife and she just like, she hates like, she's like get, get out of here.Starr: I think, I think it's easier. I think it's a little easier when there's not like an actual person there, you know, Just hire a social exerciseBen: That started out live, get, you know, the, uh, the motivational speaker guy lives in a, down by the river. I'm just, I'm just thinking about Chris Farley, like standing by your exercise bike. You can do it. You've got this.Josh: If we could get a, yeah. If we could get that, um, on the Peloton, I would subscribe like if he was one of the trainers, I mean, like, you know,Ben: So just bring him back from the dead, have him record some such the Peloton and then, yeah, that'd be awesome. I miss Chris Farley.Starr: So Ida likes to ride the Peloton too, that she's not big enough for it. Um, but she is a, her, her feet can touch the pedals. Um, but they can't reach all the way down. So she's kinda like kicks the pedal down and then catches it on the way back up. And so she asked me to put on a little video so she can do it to the music too. Yeah. Oh, I need to give an update about my, um, about the printing press. I know everybody's like waited, waiting the press breath about thatJosh: Date. I thought, yeah. I didn't know. There was news so, well, IStarr: Mean, the news is I have given up on it. I went down to Tacoma. I went down to see it and it worked and everything, and I just really got a sense for like how big and heavy it was going to be. And, um, then I started, I measured it and I started actually trying to figure out how I would get it into my building. Um, because like, it's just, my, my office is in the backyard. It's, uh, it's, we're having our backyard redone soon, but right now it's just all bumpy and lumpy. And so it's like trying to like roll this thing. I would have to construct like a, a path out of plywood. I'd have to build a ramp up to my, um, the doorway, um, then to actually get it into the location where it's going to be. I would have to completely like dismantle all my shelving and, um, then like re assemble it once I had put the thing in place. And so if I ever wanted to move it again, I'd have to like completely take down all my shelving. I was just like, this is too much. Like, this is, um, like I can't, I can't justify this on it. Like I'm, I'm waking up early in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep. Cause I'm like, how the hell am I going to like move this thing? It's like, no, that's not a good hobby for me right now.Ben: That's too bad. Have you looked into typewriters?Starr: I mean, quite the same thingJosh: I would get into typewriters though. Just like aside,Starr: I am looking into smaller, into a smaller press. They have smaller like desktop ones that are a couple of hundred pounds. Um, not, not like a thousand and looking into that sad,Ben: sad to hear it didn't work out, but I let's get pictures of that in any one. If you get a small one, that'd be kind of fun.Starr: Yeah. I just have to, I, uh, I almost saw him this weekend, but somebody swooped in before me. And so now I'm just going to have to wait like six months until another one pops up. Cause like it's, they're not very, there's not a very liquid market. It's not like in a, I guess, I guess there is a liquid market, I guess, I guess they just kind of get snapped, snatched up and then like, there's just not any of them. Yeah.Josh: Do you still get to like, do you have to do like type setting and stuff?Starr: Yeah. You do like, um, there's a couple ways to do it. Like you can do it the old school way where you have like the lead type and you like, um, you know, put it letter by letter and do like a composing stick and do all that. Um, I probably wouldn't do that just because I'm not sure I have the time and patience. Um, so there's a, an updated way to do it where, um, you can, um, you know, send a PDF off and they'll make a, uh, a plate for you and it's plastic and then you just use that. So, um, yeah. And you can make them yourself too. It's just, you know, takes more equipment and more, you know, you know how I'm work and stuff.Josh: Maybe you could get like a specialized, d printer to like printer plates for you.Starr: Cool. Do you use like, uh, um, people to use like a, a Glowforge like a laser cutter cool. Or laser engraver?Josh: That's a, that's a fun hobby. That sounds, that sounds like fun.Starr: Oh yeah. Oh, I went down the rabbit hole of reading all about laser engravers too. Like there's like this cheap one from China that you can get for like bucks. And then like, it's apparently got good internals, but like, you really have to soup it up. And so like that's some people's whole personality is they just do that.Josh: Nice before we get off the topic of a paper and things that interface with paper. Um, I like ordered something off of Amazon that I was like, I don't know why I was like this excited about it arriving. Like maybe I'm just like extreme, like my, you know, I'm extremely bored and needed something to look forward to. But like Amazon basics, paper, shreds, shredder, sharpening, and lubricate, lubricant sheets. And I get all, I'm not going to say that again. I hope you like got that. Um, I did not know that this existed though. Cause like I have like a paper shredder. It's like a cheap, you know, a cheap one, but like I never, like, I never oil it cause don't like just, I don't know how, okay. Like just the thought of like getting a, like a bottle of oil or something and like trying to like dump it.Josh: Like I just, I don't know. So I like was like trying to figure out like, how do you oil these things? And it turns out they make sheets of paper that had the oil like in them and you just run them through the shredder. I didn't know. Like maybe everyone knows this. I did not know this was a thing. And uh, I mean it's like the perfect, it's like the perfect, uh, lubricant solution for your shredder because, um, you just, you know, it's like shredding a piece of paper, which is fun in and of itself. Like who doesn't like shredding paper. So pro tip, you don't needStarr: Waiting. How do they work? Um,Josh: My shredder might be too far gone from the lack of oiling, but I'm going to like, wait and see. Oh no, we'll wait and see. Luckily I did get the cheap one. So now that I'm like an expert on shredder maintenance, um, my next shredder maybe I'll even upgrade or something.Starr: I actually, um, I bought an Amazon basic shredder. That is, uh, it's a, it's a fairly big one, um, for home use, but it's, it's uh, Amazon basics and it's actually really good.Ben: That is a cross cut. Cause that's the key feature right there.Starr: I, I think the cross cuts. Yeah. SeeBen: Mine. Mine's a cheapo one that just does stripsJosh: And that's, I mean that's the strips. Yeah.Ben: Gotta have the crossover.Starr: Yeah. They can always go in the strips back together.Josh: Yeah.Ben: I was a little disturbed to find out though. My, my local trash and recycling facility, uh, our city requests that you not put shredded paper in the recycle, uh, I don't know why they can't handle the recycle shredded paper, but yeah. So if, if all the stuff that I shred, it has to go in the trash, which seems kind of wrong, you know, it's like it's paper cause then recycle. Right. ButJosh: That's because I'm pretty sure recycling is a big scam and none of it actually works. Like you think it does because like Kaylin, like Katelyn knows all about recycling and I am constantly trying to like be a good person and recycle things and she's like, no, that's not recyclable. Like you can't like, that's going to actually like, that's going to like make the recycling people mad because like they have to sort through this and like, you know, take it out before they can actually like repurpose. So yeah, it seems like there's very, uh, relatively little that is actually recyclable. At least in my experience. So farStarr: We subscribed to an additional recycling service, um, read well. And uh, yeah. So they like, you can't recycle, um, just a normal city was like, when you can't put like plastic bags or any sort of like plastic film stuff. Right. So like they take that and um, like they'll take, uh, like fabric stuff, like clothes, um, and like batteries and light. And then they have like a rotating category where um, like once every three months or whatever, it's like, you can put your old electronic devices in there and they'll like, you know, have those recycled and whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty nice.Josh: Yeah. Cause I'm everything I hear lately about like just normal recycling, just as depressing. Like it's like, I don't know. I hear like, you know, half the recycling isn't even like being taken care of taken,Starr: You know, like they're like shippingJosh: It to other countries or burying it in landfills anyways. It just it's like, yeah, it's kind of sad. It doesn't make me want to recycle.Ben: Cool. Let's see. Maybe, maybe my municipality then is forward-looking because they know there's going to put in the landfill. So there's just saving a step, right? Yeah. Just put it in the trash. Cause we're going to put out the trash anyway. Right?Josh: Yeah. And thenBen: They actually did that for a styrofoam. We used to have a regular styrofoam collection event. Like every month you could go down to city hall and you could dump your old styrofoam and they would take care of it. And then like, you know what, we just can't even cost effectively handle styrofoam anymore. So don't even, it's not even worth driving down to the city hall to drop it off. Just put it in your trash. It's like, oh, that's so sad.Starr: Well, the, the rebel also does styrofoam. Like it's um, that's cool. It's it's not included in the base like price, but they give you a big bag and they're like, okay, whenever you're done with filling up this giant bag, like it'll cost, I don't know, five or $ to recycle it.Josh: Okay. Well we got to remember put it in the show notes cause I'm going to look at it too. Okay. Sure. I mean, it does seem like I'd rather the city, like if the city like legitimately can't handle it and they're just like secretly like just trashing it anyway. It's like, it's better just to acknowledge the problem so that a real solution, hopefully it can, you know, like maybe like something like this, like people can start to, you know, pay extra for it or, or whatever. But like, it just seems like ignore, like just pretending, like just, just so everyone can feel good. Like, you know, just keep the people, you know, let them feel like they're recycling when they're not, does not seem like a solution that's going to like solve any problems.Ben: But you know, what's, what's free to recycle the bits that you send to Honeybadger. We recycle those things all day long. You send us those, those API bits and they get efficiently recycled right away.Starr: I thought y'all were going to recycle those into NFTs.Josh: Oh yes. We don't. Don't uh, can'tBen: Spill the beans yet. Yeah. LikeJosh: Tell everyone our new business strategy. I think already I put that on Twitter already that we're pivoting into crypto and Airtraq and it's going to be a side business. Yes.Starr: It might confuse people. There's already like a Honeybadger coin or something out there.Josh: Yeah. And there's also like multiple Badger NFTs by the way. SoBen: Yeah, just a little delight.Josh: That was like a brave badgers. Brave badgers on Salada. I think there's one.Ben: Yeah. Put that in the show notes. Make sure people check it out. Not officially endorsed by Honeybadger, but still cool. IStarr: Think we should put out our own line of pugs.Josh: Yes. Yeah. I mean like I'm surprised pugs. Aren't like, so someone's rolling an NFT for pugs, to be honest.Starr: I wasn't making it come back. I hear.Ben: Yeah. If we're going to, if we're going to go retro, like let's go all the way. Retro let's skip the whole collectible cards and stuff and go straight to playing cards. Right. I'll play for the two cards with different batteries on them. Yeah.Starr: I thought you were going to say to me, light bulbs or something.Josh: Absolutely. I've been, I'm curious. Have you learned anything about, uh, crypto or NFTs lately?Ben: You know, no, I haven't really, I I've been, I've been watching people in my Twitter feed and it's, it's funny, there's this, there's this arc that I see, like their first tweet is like, what is this crypto stuff? And then their next tweet is like, this crypto stuff is crazy. And then a little bit later, there's another tweet. It's like, I'm going to look into this crypto set because I want to understand it. And then a little bit later there's like, Hey, check out this NFC I just bought. And then a little bit later, their final tweet is like, here, come join this, this core community and get into my mint.Josh: And, and they have a new Twitter avatar that has like laser eyes.Ben: Yeah. It's kinda, it's crazy. So, so I've like, I've seen this again and again and again, I'm like, okay, I'm not, I'm afraid. I don't wanna investigate the Nazis becauseStarr: So R oh, I'm going to get, I'm going to get, I'm going to get so much hate over this, but our, um, our NFTs just like, um, MLM for like tech rose.Ben: Yes, totally. They areJosh: Essentially,Starr: That's like, I've got, I've like, I'll just tell my I'm essentially. I've got my sensory over here. My essential oils.Josh: Yeah. Well spring as well. I mean like, technically I think you probably could code a MLM on Ethereum, so I'm sure it's already been done, but maybe that, you know, maybe, maybe we should just go for it. Just go full a full billing. There you go.Starr: That's it. Everybody you heard it. We're going full villain now.Josh: Crypto villain. Yeah. I I've checked it out as well. A little bit. Um, I bought a, uh, an FTE on Solano just to see. And, um, actually I did not follow the pattern that you, uh, that you described Ben:, but I also did not let myself do this publicly, which I think is a big key. Like you people know, like you can create anonymous identities on the internet. Um, it's still possible. And then you can go explore, you know, like NFTs or whatever, and you don't have to like have laser eyes on your main Twitter profile. Um, but you know, I went and looked at it and uh, I'm still, I'm like still learning. I'm like, you know, I'm trying to update my, you have the whole crypto scene is a little bit, you know, a little bit dated. Like I checked it out, like after Bitcoin got, you know, it was starting to get popular and stuff, read some white papers, but I think it's, I mean, it's, you know, it's not going away regardless, so it's good to keep your view current at least. But, um, I am not, uh, you know, bought into, I have an eight in as the kids say,Ben: Well, I mean, back to the two lips, I think I'll just wait until the crash happens. Right. And then I'll have a bias of nice to have thoseJosh: Do that. Yeah. That's the, that's the cycle. I mean, you know, it's going to happen. That happens like in every, every, it seems like every new application of blockchain that, you know, comes out that goes through the same, like boom and bust cycle, um, and then levels out to, uh, you know, fairly regular boom and bust cycle.Ben: I mean, you know, confessional here, but I'm actually a laggard when it comes to tech stuff. Like I'm pretty late on the adoption curve for a lot of things. Like, you know, my car is pretty old, my TV's kind of old, you know, I'm not really sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's just kinda, it's kinda weird. I'm in the tech world, but like, I don't really jump in on things like that. I'll just wait,Starr: That's pretty normal. Right. There's like, um, I don't know. There's I saw some, I forget where I saw somebody say it was like, there's two types of tech people. One has the newest of everything all the time. And the other one is like still working on like a, a PC.Josh: Yeah. Whatever.Starr: Yeah. I don't know about y'all, but like, I don't really know a lot of like tech people who have like, um, like voice assistance in their home.Josh: Yeah. I like that as much as like the consumer more than just regular consumers. Yeah.Ben: That's because we know it's like I write software. I know how bad it is.Josh: Yeah. Yeah. That's why I don't like having them. So I don't trust, I don't trust software, but I don't know, like the block, the whole blockchain thing. Like, I, I, you know, I kind of get the, like the future application argument, like there's something here. Like I think it is like that idea of having like very easy, like making contracts easier, for instance, or giving software, the ability, like making it easier to write applications that are built on like contracts or, or even like financial applications. Like the whole idea of like, like code being able to hold its own its own actual currency or money. Um, because it's like, you know, it's just bits. Like that is interesting. Like, I don't know, you know, I'm not enough of a futurist to be able to like see the future where, you know, that's like ubiquitous, but like it is, I can see that aspect of it. It's interesting. But like the whole, like, yeah. I'm not like collecting a bunch of, uh, NFTs in the meantime.Ben: Yeah. I think smart contracts. The idea is interesting. I think, you know, the stuff that's being loosely called web three, I think that's kind of stuff is interesting, but the, but the whole I'm going to buy a smart contract thing that represents a JPEG and then I'm gonna hold on to it and it's going to be worth a million bucks. That part of it doesn't really appeal to me. Like, yeah, I guess I'm just not yet.Josh: Well, you're also not an art. You're not like an art collector either. I would assume that's true. I don't think you have a house full of priceless art. I would, that would be my guess. I mean, I don't want to like, yeah, like over assume, but I mean, like, I think that's the kind of person that this would, this definitely like appeals more to like the collector and, uh, I'm, I'm also not a collector. So, um,Ben: Um, I do have one, I do have one piece of art in my house, so I'm not a complete, you know, Rube, but, uh, but yeah, I am not, I'm not a collector. Yeah.Starr: I think the big, um, like, like I'm thinking about how like Bitcoin and stuff has been around and, you know, blockchain has been around for over a decade at this point. Right. Um, and like still now, like, you know, it looks a lot, I don't know, to me, just from the outside, it looks very similar to what it did back then. It's like, it's like, um, a bunch of people, very excited about it and what it means, and this kind of like vague way, um, that like seems like, you know, it'll pan out in the future, but we're not quite sure how yet. And like, I'm wondering if the big, um, I'm wondering if the thing that like blockchain is actually successful at is in, um, being very like evocative to a certain type of person, um, making a certain type of, you know, developer or a tech person, like feel a certain way. Like I wonder if that's the main success of blockchain, because that seems to be like, mostly what I'm seeing is like a bunch of people, you know, excited a bunch of people. Um, I don't know, like, like wanting to discuss the future of things and you know, being smart about it. And it's like, I wonder if that, um, that process is the whole reason that it stuck around. I don't know.Ben: It's good, good point.Josh: There's definitely some interesting stuff out there. Um, and some very, I mean, like, I think it's undeniable that there are some very people that have thought all this stuff up, like yeah. But yeah, I don't know. You're right. It's, it's been around a lot. Like the, it seems like the adoption curve as much longer on this one. If, if it is going to be the, you know, the next big thing, I don't know. It does. I don't know. It'll be interesting. But I figured in the meantime, like keeping, keeping an eye on, let's just try to learn more about it. But, um, I'm not really the, I try to avoid situations where I just like dive in and become a like true believer. So I'm, I'm learning from afar.Ben: I'll just go buy some GME. That'll go to fix.Starr: I dunno. I'm just going to go for AMC, myself. Like the movies, like the movies have been around forever.Ben: Well, confession time I actually bought some AMC. Oh yeah. When the whole GME thing was going crazy and AMC got part of it. I went and bought some AMC. Cause I'm like, you know what, thinking about it. It's like, I wasn't really interested in the main stock thing, but I was thinking, okay, pandemics going to go away some point, right. People are gonna get back out and they're going to go to movies again. Right. It's going to be, and I'm actually, I think I'm doing pretty good on the whole AMC purchase. We'll see how it goes. Pandemic didn't end yet, but I can still close the fingers.Josh: I mean, as a futurist, I do expect more things to become MIMA fide. So if you can like predict those trends, then go, you know, get in early because, uh, everything's going to be a meme on the blockchain. Eventually.Ben: That's a good thing. Our business is based on a meme now. We're, we're, we're totally with it.Josh: Yeah. All right. We're finally with it on the whole meme thing.Starr: Well, as the present test, I think you should just enjoy it while you can.Josh: You mean all the mains or I don'tStarr: Really know. I just want to get, it seemed like a pithy thing to sayBen: It's apropos. Yeah. Yeah.Josh: Well, we discussed like, no, like I think we, I think we actually discussed like nothing related to the business this time and that is, you know, that's moving forward.Ben: This is our Seinfeld episode, the episode aboutJosh: Speed. Oh, speaking of Seinfeld, we finished the last, the final episode of Seinfeld, um, that like a couple nights ago. And it like, cause we've been like Kayla and I have been like going through it, like for like years at this point, like just slowly, like, cause it's not every night you want to watch Seinfeld. Like it's, it's gotta be like a Seinfeld night. So we finally, like, we didn't realize we were like at the end. Um, and it was kind of a, it was a little bittersweet moment kind of likeStarr: At the end of real Seinfeld when it aired. So, and you just heard that green day song starts swelling. It's something I'm predictive of your life. I know. So enjoy it while you can enjoy it while you can.Starr: You've been listening to founder quest. If you want to give us a review, go to wherever you do that and do that. I don't know. I've never been given a podcast or review, to be honest. I don't know how you do it. Um, so I may just be sending you out to nowhere. Um, and yeah, if you're interested in writing for us, we are usually looking for authors and stuff for a blog. Um, check out honeybadger.io forward slash blog and look for the right press link and learn all about, you know, all about that. And we will see you next week. See ya. See ya. Bye.

god tv amazon founders china pandemic speaking startups bitcoin nfts pc mine brave saas developers retro psa seinfeld amc api ethereum peloton dodge mlm tacoma rover elixir chris farley bootstrap gme honey badger solano jpeg no business lifestyle business fte rube ebi mima software as a service salada glowforge ben it ben you josh it josh yeah josh you ben so josh well josh oh ben well josh so josh there micropreneur josh do

Our Ops Are Smooth Like A Jar Of Skippy

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 3, 2021 36:27

Show Notes:Links:MicromortNoblesse obligeJosh's dotfilesGitHub Code SpacesFull Transcript:Ben:Yeah. I've been holding out for the new MacBook Pros. The M1 is pretty tempting, but I want whatever comes next. I want the 16-inch new hotness that's apparently supposed to be launching in November, but I've been waiting for it so patiently for so long now.Josh:Will they have the M2?Ben:Yeah, either or that or M1X. People are kind of unsure what the odds are.Starr:Why do they do that? Why did they make an M1 if they can't make an M2? Why do they have to keep... You just started, people. You can just have a normal naming scheme that just increments. Why not?Josh:M1.1?Ben:That would be awesome.Starr:Oh, Lord.Josh:Yeah, it would.Ben:M1A, Beachfront Avenue.Starr:So last week we did an Ask Me Anything on Indie Hackers, and that was a lot of fun.Josh:It was a lot of fun.Starr:I don't know. One of the most interesting questions on there was some guy was just like, "Are you rich?" I started thinking about it. I was like, "I literally have no idea." It reminded me of when I used to live in New York briefly in the '90s or, no, the early '00s. There was a Village Voice article in which they found... They started out with somebody not making very much money, and they're like, "Hey, what is rich to you?" Then that person described that. Then they went and found a person who had that level of income and stuff and they asked them, and it just kept going up long past the point where... Basically, nobody ever was like, "Yeah, I'm rich."Josh:Yeah. At the end, they're like, "Jeff Bezos, what is rich? What is rich to you?"Starr:Yeah.Josh:He's like, "Own your own star system."Starr:So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm doing pretty good for myself because I went to fill up my car with gas the other day and I just didn't even look at the price. The other day, I wanted to snack, so I just got a whole bag of cashews, and I was just chowing down on those. I didn't need to save that. I could always get another bag of cashews.Ben:Cashews are my arch nemesis, man. I can't pass up the cashews. As far as the nut kingdom, man, they are my weakness.Starr:I know. It's the subtle sweetness.Ben:It's so good. The buttery goodness.Starr:Yeah, the smoothness of the texture, the subtle sweetness, it's all there.Ben:That and pistachios. I could die eating cashews and pistachios.Josh:There you go. I like pistachios.Ben:Speaking of being rich, did you see Patrick McKenzie's tweet about noblesse oblige?Josh:No. Tell me.Ben:Yeah, we'll have to link it up in the show notes. But, basically, the idea is when you reach a certain level of richness, I guess, when you feel kind of rich, you should be super generous, right? So noblesse oblige is the notion that nobility should act nobly. If you have been entrusted with this respect of the community and you're a noble, then you ought to act a certain way. You got to act like a noble, right? You should be respectful and et cetera. So Patio was applying this to modern day, and he's like, "Well, we should bring this back," like if you're a well-paid software developer living in the United States of America, you go and you purchase something, let's say a coffee, that has basically zero impact on your budget, right? You don't notice that $10 or whatever that you're spending. Then just normalize giving a 100% tip because you will hardly feel it, but the person you're giving it to, that'll just make their day, right? So doing things like that. I was like, "Oh, that's"-Josh:Being generous.Ben:Yeah, it's being generous. Yeah. So I like that idea.Josh:That's cool.Ben:So-Starr:So it's okay to be rich as long as you're not a rich asshole.Ben:Exactly. Exactly. That's a good way to bring it forward there, Starr.Starr:There you go. I don't know. Yeah. I think there's some historical... I don't know. The phrase noblesse oblige kind of grates at me a little bit in a way that I can't quite articulate in this moment, but I'll think about that, and I will get back with you.Josh:Wait. Are you saying you don't identify as part of the nobility?Starr:No.Ben:I mean, I think there's a lot of things from the regency period that we should bring back, like governesses, because who wants to send your child to school in the middle of a COVID pandemic? So just bring the teacher home, right?Starr:Yeah. That's pretty sexist. Why does it have to be gendered? Anyway.Ben:Okay, it could be a governor, but you might get a little misunderstanding. All of a sudden, you've got Jay Inslee showing up on your doorstep, "I heard you wanted me to come teach your kids."Josh:I don't know. I'll just take an algorithm in the home to teach my kids, just entrust them to it.Starr:Yeah. Oh, speaking of bringing things back, I told y'all, but I'll tell our podcast listeners. On Sunday, I'm driving to Tacoma to go to somebody's basement and look at a 100-year old printing press to possibly transport to Seattle and put in my office for no good reason that I can think of. It just seems to be something that I'm doing.Josh:Do you like that none of us actually asked you what you were intending to do with it? I was like, "Yeah, just let me know when you need to move it. I'm there." I just assumed you were going to do something cool with it, but ... Yeah.Starr:I appreciate that. I appreciate the support. I'm going to make little zines or something. I don't know.Josh:Yeah. If I get a lifetime subscription to your zine-Starr:Okay, awesome.Josh:... that would be payment.Starr:Done. Done.Josh:Cool.Ben:Yeah, sign me up, too. I'll be there.Starr:Well, I appreciate that.Ben:I mean, who could resist that invitation, right, because you get to... If you get to help with moving that thing, you get to see it, you get to touch it and play with it, but you don't have to keep it. It's somebody else's problem when you're done with the day, so sounds great to me.Starr:There you go. Well, I mean, if you read the forums about these things, this is one of the smaller ones, so people are just like, "Ah, no big deal. No big deal. It's okay." But I was happy to hear that there's no stairs involved.Ben:That is the deal-breaker. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But it-Ben:If you ever get the friend helping you to move their piano, you always ask, "Okay, how many flights of steps," right?Starr:Yeah. Oh, I just thought of something I could do with it. I could make us all nice business card to hand out to nobody.Ben:Because we're not going anywhere.Josh:I just think of my last six attempts at having business cards. They're all still sitting in my closet, all six boxes of-Starr:I know. People look at you like, "What, really, a business card? What?"Josh:Yeah, like all six generations.Starr:Yeah.Ben:I hand out one or two per year. Yeah, just random people and like, "Hey, here's my phone number." It's an easy way to give it to somebody.Josh:Just people on the street?Ben:Exactly. Like a decent fellow, "Here you go." Thank you.Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's like, "I've got 1000 of these. I got to justify the cost somehow."Josh:We got to move these.Starr:We could start invoicing our customers by snail mail. I could print a really nice letterhead.Ben:I think we have a few customers who would be delighted to receive a paper invoice from us because then they would have an excuse to not pay us for 90 days.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Isn't owning a printing press like owning a truck, though? Once people know you have it, everyone wants to borrow it.Starr:It's going to be pretty hard to borrow for a 1000-pound piece of iron.Josh:Well, they're going to want to come over and hang out in your basement and do their printing. This is the Pacific Northwest, like-Starr:It's their manifestos.Josh:Yeah. They got to print their manifestos, lists of demands.Starr:They don't want the establishment at Kinko's to be able to see.Josh:Right.Ben:I don't know. It's got to put you on a special kind of watch list, though, if you have a printing press in your home, right? All of a sudden, some people are really interested in what you're up to.Josh:It's like a legacy watch list.Ben:I'm just flashing back to, yeah, in the 1800s when cities, towns would get all-Starr:There you go.Josh:Well, yeah, because they're like-Ben:The mob would come out and burn down the printing press building and stuff.Josh:If you wanted to be a propagandist back then, you had to buy a printing press and then you get put on a watch list. That just never went away. They're still looking for those people. They just don't find as many of them these days.Starr:Yeah. It's so inefficient. It's not the super efficient way of getting the word out, though, I hear, unless you want to be one of those people handing out leaflets on the side of the road.Josh:Well, you could paper windshields in parking lots.Starr:Oh, there you go. Yeah.Josh:Yeah, that's how they used to do it.Starr:No, look at my beautifully hand-crafted leaflet that you're going to throw in the gutter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I think you just settled on what your next adventure's going to be after Honeybadger. You're ready to put this business aside and focus on printing up flyers for your local missing cat.Starr:There you go. There you go. Band flyers, that's big business.Josh:But you could get into fancy paper. That's a whole thing up here. It's pretty cool, actually.Starr:Yeah. I don't know. Really, I was like, "Oh, it'd be cool to have a big thing to tinker with." I'm learning about myself that I like having just a big physical project going on, and I'm pretty... Like, I built this backyard office, and that took up two years of my time. Ever since then, I don't have a big physical thing to work on, so I'm thinking this might fill that niche, that niche, sorry. I read a thing that's like don't say niche, Americans. Niche.Ben:I don't know, Starr. Maybe you should think of the children and then think about 50 years from now when you're dead and Ida's cleaning out the house and she's all like, "Why is there this printing press?"Starr:Oh, there you go.Josh:Have to move it.Starr:They'll just sell it with the house.Ben:There you go.Starr:Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is, is that it is wider than the doorway, so I would either have to dissemble it partially or take out the door. I put the door in, so I know how to take it out, so there is a good chance the door's coming out because I have less chance of messing something up if I do that one. But we'll see.Ben:Echo that.Starr:Well, thank you.Josh:You should've put one of those roll-up doors in there.Starr:I should've, yeah.Josh:Those are cool.Starr:What was I thinking?Josh:You really did not plan ahead for this.Starr:Yeah. I mean, walls are really only a couple of thin pieces of plywood, and you can just saw through it.Josh:Just a small refactor.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that would-Josh:Did y'all see that someone listened to every episode of this podcast in a row?Starr:I know. I feel so bad. I feel so bad for them.Josh:Speaking of-Starr:We're sorry. We're so sorry.Ben:I was feeling admiration. I'm like, "Wow, that's impressive," like the endurance of it.Starr:I just think we would've made different decisions.Ben:I don't know. But not-Josh:Maybe it's pretty good. I haven't gone back and gone through it all and never will, but-Ben:Well, I mean, not only did they say they listened to every episode, but then they were eager for more. They were like, "When are you getting done with your break?" So I guess-Starr:There you go.Ben:... that net it was positive, but-Josh:We must not be too repetitive.Ben:Must not.Starr:Stockholm syndrome.Josh:We're sorry.Ben:Well...Starr:I'm sorry. I don't have anything informative to add, so I'm just going to be shit-posting this whole episode.Ben:Well, I've had an amazing week since we last chatted. I kept reflecting on how I couldn't remember anything that I did over the past whatever months. Well, this past week, I can remember a whole bunch of things that I did. I've been crazy busy and getting a bunch of little things knocked out. But today, today was the capstone of the week because I rolled over our main Redis cluster that we use for all of our jobs, all of the incoming notices and whatevers. Yeah, rolled over to a new Redis cluster with zero downtime, no dropped data, nobody even noticed. It was just smooth as-Starr:Oh my God.Josh:I saw that.Starr:Awesome.Ben:It's going pretty good.Starr:Just like butter?Ben:Just like butter.Starr:They slid right out of that old Redis instance and just into this new... Is it an AWS-managed type thing?Ben:Yeah, both of them were. They all went on the new one, but... Yeah.Josh:It's, what, ElastiCache?Ben:Yep. Smooth like a new jar of Skippy.Josh:I saw that you put that in our ops channel or something.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, that's the topic in our ops channel.Josh:So it's the subject or the topic, yeah. We're making ops run, yeah, like a jar of Skippy.Starr:Why isn't that our tagline for our whole business?Ben:I mean, we can change it.Starr:I don't know why that's making me crack up so much, but it is.Josh:Skippy's good stuff.Starr:Oh my gosh.Josh:Although we-Ben:Actually-Josh:... usually go for the Costco natural brand these days.Ben:Well, we go for the Trader Joe's all-natural brand that you have to actually mix every time you use it. I prefer crunchy over creamy, so, actually, my peanut butter's not that smooth, but... You know.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's okay. But, yeah, I love our natural peanut butter, except for the whole churning thing, but you can live with that.Starr:We're more of a Nutella family.Ben:Ooh, I do love a Nutella.Josh:Ooh, Nutella.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's good stuff.Josh:We made pancakes the other day, and I was putting Nutella on pancakes. I did this thing, like I made this... We have one of those griddles, like an electric griddle, and so I made this super long rectangular pancake, and then I spread Nutella on the entire thing, and then I rolled it so that you have this-Starr:You know what it's called, Josh.Josh:What is it called?Starr:That's called a crepe.Josh:So it's a crepe, but it's made out of a pancake.Starr:It's a Texas crepe.Ben:Texas crepe.Josh:Yeah, a Texas-Starr:A Texas crepe.Ben:Yes.Josh:Is it really a Texas crepe because that's... Yeah, so, I-Starr:Oh, no, I just made that up.Ben:That sounds perfect, yeah.Josh:Well, it is now.Ben:Yeah, it is now.Josh:It is now, and I highly recommend it. It's pretty amazing.Ben:Throw some Skippy on there and, man, now it's a... That's awesome.Josh:Peanut butter's also good on pancakes.Starr:That's why people listen to us, for our insights about business.Ben:Yeah, there was this one time, speaking of pancakes and peanut butter...Josh:How did we get on pancakes? Like, oh, yeah, ops.Ben:This one time, I went over to dinner at some person's house, and I didn't know what dinner was going to be, but we got there and it was breakfast for dinner, which I personally love. That's one of my favorites.Starr:I knew that about you.Ben:So they're like, "Oh, I'm sorry. Hope you don't think it's weird, but we're having breakfast for dinner." I'm like, "No, no, I love it." So eggs and bacon and waffles, and so I'm getting my waffle and I'm like, "Do you have some peanut butter," and they're like, "Oh my goodness, we thought you would think that was way too weird, and so we didn't have the peanut butter." They whipped it out from in the counter. It's like, "Oh, shew, now we can have our peanut butter, too." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, peanut butter on waffles, yeah."Josh:Everyone had their hidden peanut butter.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that's how you level up a friendship.Ben:There you go. So, yeah, the week was good. The week was good. Bugs got fixed, things got deployed, and, yeah, just a whole-Josh:Yeah, you had a bunch of PRs and stuff for little things, too, which-Ben:Yeah. And got some practice with the whole delegating thing, got Shava doing some stuff, too. So, yeah, just all-around super productive week.Josh:Nice. I got Java to run in a Docker container, so my week's going pretty good.Ben:And that took you all week?Starr:What do those words mean? I don't...Josh:Yeah.Starr:Was your audio cutting out? I don't know. I just heard a bunch of things I don't understand.Josh:Well, for your own sake, don't ask me to explain it.Starr:Yeah, it's like better not looked at.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Why would you subject yourself to that sort of torture, Josh?Josh:Oh, well, because running Java on an M1 Mac is even worse.Starr:Oh my Lord.Josh:Well, actually, running it, period. But, yeah, like just our Java package. I mean, I've spent half this podcast ranting about our packaging, so I don't need to get too deep into it. But every time I release this thing, it's like it just doesn't work because I've forgotten my... I've changed my system, and Java and Maven package repository are just like that. So I figure if I can make some sort of reproduceable development environment using Docker, then in two years everything will just be smooth as a jar of Skippy.Ben:Skippy. Yeah, yeah.Starr:Well, I had a chance to-Josh:I reckon.Starr:I had a chance to dig into some numbers, which is one of my favorite things to do, and so... I don't know. There was this question that was just bothering me, which was... Well, let me just back up. So we've had some success, as you guys know, in the past year. We've almost doubled our rate of new user sign-ups, not new user sign-ups, like conversion to paid users. We've doubled our paid user conversion numbers, rate, whatever you call it. And so, obviously, revenue from users has gone up as well, but since we are a... Our plans are basically broken down by error rates, right? So what happens when people upgrade is they get too many errors for their plan. It says, "Hey, you should upgrade if you want to keep sending us errors," and they do.Starr:I had this weird situation where it's like I wasn't sure... In our system, revenue from users was coming just from whatever plan they picked when they signed up, and so I was wondering, "Well, what if they sign up, and then a week later they upgrade? That's going to be counted under upgrade revenue instead of new user revenue," which, really, it really kind of should be. So I got to digging, and I found that it doesn't really make that big of a difference. Some people do upgrade pretty quickly after converting, but they don't... It's not really enough to really change things.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Then, also, just sort of offhand, I took a little sneak peek. I've been running this experiment to see if lowering our error quota for our basic, our free plan, it would increase conversions. So I took a little sneak peek at the data. It's too soon to know for sure, but so far the conversion rate, I think, is going to end up being higher, which is what I would expect, so that's good, and-Josh:Nice.Starr:Yeah. And when we're done, I'm going to look at sign-ups just to make sure that they are still in line.Ben:Yeah. Anecdotally, I've seen a smaller window from trial to paid conversion. Well, not trial, but freemium to paid conversion. I've seen people who are signing up, getting on the basic plan, and then within some short time period they're actually going to a team plan.Josh:Oh, that's good to know.Ben:That's happening more often than it was, so... Yeah. So that's-Josh:Cool.Ben:I'm just saying the same thing Starr said but without real data.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, we need a little bit more time to see how things pan out, too, because it's... One thing I figured out that I will share with our readers, our readers, I'm used to doing the blog posts, I'll share with our listeners that I figured out that you really have to pay attention to, on free plans especially, is comparing conversion rates between time periods. So if you make a change and then you wait for a month of data to come in and you're like, "Okay, let's look at the conversion rate for the past month after the change with the conversion rate for the time period before the change," that is really an apples to oranges comparison because on the one hand you've had people who have maybe had a year to upgrade versus people who've had a month to upgrade. So you have to be really careful to make it apples to apples, right, where you only compare... If you have a month worth of users on one side, you compare it to a month worth of users on the other side, and you only count the conversions that happened in that time period.Josh:Makes sense.Starr:Yeah. So, anyway, that's just my little freebie data analysis thing for our listeners.Josh:We should have Starr's weekly data science tip.Starr:Starr's data corner.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Love it.Josh:Yeah. We could move the podcast to segments. We've never done segments. We could introduce segments if we need to spice things up on FounderQuest.Ben:Yeah. Totally. Well, speaking of spicing things up, I had a brilliant idea this morning.Starr:Oh, I want to hear it.Ben:Yeah. So one of the things that I keep an eye on is how much we spend on hosting because that's a good chunk of our expenses. We always want to make more money, and one way to make more money is to have fewer expenses. So I had this brilliant idea on how to cut expenses. We can chop our AWS bill in half by just not running everything redundant.Starr:There you go.Josh:Brilliant.Starr:Would you say the AWS is the sixth Honeybadger employee?Ben:Yeah, pretty much.Josh:Yes. That's a good way to put it, actually.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Well, in the early days, before we were paying ourselves a full salary, I remember we budgeted 25% for Starr, 25% for Ben, 25% for Josh, and 25% for hosting.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't think we ever exceeded the 25%, which is good. That would be a bit high. So, yeah, AWS is like our sixth employee.Starr:Yeah, it's funny because do we even have other expenses?Josh:No.Ben:I mean, salaries is definitely the biggest one, and our health insurance is not cheap either.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Advertising.Starr:I was thinking like marketing, advertising. Yeah.Ben:Yeah. Advertising and marketing, that's the next one.Starr:That's the next 25%.Josh:Can we make AWS our seventh and eighth employee, too?Ben:Eventually may. Yeah, I did some... Oh. Oh. So I told you my great success that I had this morning. Well, your comment just now about AWS made me think about the one failure, just amazingly huge failure that I had also this week, migrating a bunch of data from Redis to DynomoDB. So we have this situation where it's one of those seemed like a good idea at the time kind of thing where we're doing a bunch of counting of people and individuals that hit errors, and we're counting that in Redis. I'm like, "Okay, great," because Redis has this INCRBY and it's easy and it's atomic and, boom, you're done, and I just never paid much attention to it until a few weeks ago, and I was like, "Yo, you know what? That's actually a lot of data in there, and we're keeping that forever, and so it's probably better to put it someplace that's not Redis." So I'm like, "Ah, I know. I'll do DynamoDB because it has an increment thing and...Josh:Yeah.Ben:So I put a table together, and I wrote a migration script, and I migrated a bunch of data. It took two days. It's great. Everything is beautiful. Had buckets of data inside DynomiteDB, and then I went to go query it, and I'm like, "Oh, I can't query it that way because I don't have the right index." Well, that sucks. All right. So you can't create a local index on DynomiteDB without recreating the table. I'm like, "Okay, well, that sucks. I just lost two days worth of data migration but oh well." So dump the table, recreated it with the index, and started redoing the data migration, and I'm like, "Yeah, it might take two days, no problem." So I check on it every half-day or so, and it's not going to be getting done after two days. Three days go by, and I'm checking the work backlog, and I was like, "It's just flat."Ben:Turns out because of that local index, now Dynamo can't really write fast enough because the way they do the partition throttling and stuff because we have some customers who have huge chunks of data. So their partitions are too big for Dynamo to write very quickly. Hot partition keys is the problem. So I just gave up. I'm like, "All right, fine." Drop the table again, recreated it, and now we're just double writing so that, eventually, given six months from now or so, it'll be there and I can replace that thing in Redis.Josh:Nice.Ben:So this is my life, the ups and the downs. So, yeah.Josh:And just waiting six months.Ben:And just waiting six months.Josh:Yeah. That's funny, but that is kind of a pattern in the business. In some cases, we need to just wait for the data to populate itself, and we just have to basically wait our retention period because data tends to turnover and then we can drop the old database or whatever.Ben:Yeah. Yep. But, luckily, nobody noticed my big fail, so it's all good. It didn't impact the customers.Josh:I didn't notice.Ben:So, yeah, busy weekend.Starr:I noticed, but I didn't say anything because I wanted to be nice.Ben:Thank you, Starr. Appreciate that.Starr:Yeah, I [inaudible].Josh:Starr was over there just quietly shaking her head.Ben:Just judging. Just judge-Starr:No, sorry.Ben:So, Josh, I'm going to get back to this Java thing because I'm curious. I remember, I don't know, a year ago or something, we're kind of like, "Maybe we should just not when it comes to Java anymore." So I'm curious what prompted this renewed activity to do a new release.Josh:Well, I don't know. I figured... I don't know. Didn't we say we were just not going to do any releases?Ben:Yeah, it just-Josh:It's not high on my list of development. We're not spending a bunch adding stuff to it, but there are dependency updates that have been getting merged in. I merged the Dependabot PRs and stuff. There's something else. There might be some small PR or something that someone submitted that was sitting there on release, and I just can't handle just unreleased code sitting on the pane. So it's just one of those things that's been sitting on my backlog halfway down the list just gnawing at me every week, so I figured I'd dive in and at least get some sort of quick release, relatively quick release process down so we can just continue to release dependency updates and stuff, like if there's a security update or something, so...Ben:Yeah.Josh:Some people still do use it, so I want to make sure they're secure.Ben:Make sure they're happy. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But, yeah, that's a good point. We are not treating all platforms as equal because we just don't have the resource, so we need to focus on the stuff that actually is making us money.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, it's tough when very few of our customers are actually using that for it to get a whole lot of priority.Josh:That said, we have already put a lot into it, so as far as I know, it works well for the people that have used it.Starr:So are y'all encouraging our customers to do more Java?Josh:Yes, switch to Java. Then switch to SentryBen:Ride a wave.Josh:... or something.Ben:So I've been contemplating this new laptop showing up, right, whenever Apple finally releases it and I get to get my hot little hands on it. I've been thinking, well, the one big downside to getting a new laptop is getting back to a place where you can actually work again, right, getting all your things set up. Some people are smart, like Josh, that have this DOT file, this repo, on GitHub, and they can just clone that, and they're off to the races. I'm not that smart. I always have to hand-craft my config every time I get a new machine. But I'm thinking-Josh:Oh. Take the time.Ben:So, yeah, I'm not looking forward to that part, but GitHub has released Codespaces, and so now I'm thinking, "Ooh, I wonder if I could get all our repos updated so that I could just work totally in the cloud and just not even have a development set-up on my machine." Probably not, but it's a fun little fantasy.Josh:Well, then you could have any little... You could work on your iPad.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't even need a laptop. Then I could save the company money. That's brilliant, Josh.Josh:Yeah. You could work at the library.Starr:Yeah. It's like, "So your main ops guy, I see he's primarily working from a five-year-old iPad."Ben:At a library.Starr:In a library.Josh:An iMac.Starr:When he gets paged, he has to run to the nearest Starbucks and get that wifi.Josh:Yeah. I got to say, having your DOT files all ready to go and all that is pretty good. Also, I've got my Brewfile, too, so all of my Homebrew stuff is automated in that.Ben:Well, that's clever. I never even thought of that.Josh:It does make it very quick to bootstrap a new machine.Ben:Yeah. Maybe I should take this as initiative to actually put my stuff into DOT files repo and get to that point.Josh:Careful, though, because you might... I've had four computers between your current one and now, so you might end up switching more often because it's easier to do it.Ben:Appreciate that warning. That's good.Josh:Yeah. Speaking of the M1s, I love the M1 MacBook Air that I have. But the battery has been... I don't know what happened, but the battery was fantastic, I don't know, first few months. Ever since then, it's been kind of like it hasn't been lasting. I've been surprised at how fast it's draining, and I go and look at, whatever, the battery health stuff, and it says that health is down to 86% and the condition says it's fair, which does not make me feel warm and fuzzy.Josh:It has 50 cycles, so I think it might be defective, and that sucks because otherwise this machine is maybe one of the best Macs I've had. I guess... Yeah. I've had a few compatibility issues with the architecture, but it's not too bad. I mean, I'm not a Java developer at least, so...Ben:Yeah, I think you need to take that in for a service because that is way soon for that kind of degradation.Josh:Yeah. I might need to do something.Ben:That's a bummer.Josh:Yeah. I don't know. I might have to ship it in because I think our local Portland Apple Store is shuttered currently.Ben:All those protests?Josh:Yeah. It's got eight fences around it and stuff. Downtown Portland's a little rough these days.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Well, I mean, you can always take the trip out to Seattle.Josh:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or there's other... I forget. There's an Apple Store that's not too far outside of Portland. It's where I bought this, so I could take it down there.Starr:Yeah. I'm sad now because I bought my second MacBook from that store in Portland.Josh:Yeah? It's a good store.Ben:Speaking of you coming out to Seattle, I was thinking the other day that maybe we should do a company-wide get-together sometime soon. Be fun to see everybody again in-person.Josh:It would be. Now that we're all vaxxed, we're all super vaxxed. I don't know that Starr is even down for that, though. I'm just looking at Starr.Starr:I don't know. Like, I-Josh:You don't look like you're too stoked on that idea.Starr:I don't know. I'm just-Josh:What with Delta lurking.Starr:The problem is, Josh, is that you have not been reading nursing Twitter.Josh:Uh-huh (affirmative).Starr:So I don't know. Yeah, it's doable. Currently, I think the CDC just released a thing that said vaccine efficiency of preventing COVID infections... It's very good still at preventing bad, I don't know, disease, health problems, whatever, keeping people out of the hospital. It's very good at that. With Delta, it's about 65% effective at preventing infections, and so if you get infected, you can transmit it to other people.Josh:Right.Starr:Yeah. So it's not impossible. It's just like we're just back to this fricking calculus where every possible social interaction you just have to run it through your spreadsheet and your risk analysis and... Ugh.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's like, "Are you worthy of the hassle? No. Sorry, can't make it."Starr:Yeah. Yeah. It's like, "Okay, so what's the probability that meeting with you is going to send my child to the hospital? Okay, that's low enough. Sure."Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's just such a weird world.Josh:Wouldn't it be funny if when you get into your car in the morning, it reads out the probability of you dying in a car accident?Starr:Oh, yeah. Do you know about millimorts?Josh:No.Starr:Oh, you should go Google millimorts. A millimort is a one in a million chance that you will die, and so there's tables and stuff that you can find online that have different activities and what the number of millimorts is about them. So you can compare, and you can be like, "Okay, so going skydiving has this many millimorts as driving so many miles in a motorcycle."Josh:That's awesome. Okay, we have to link this in the show notes because I want to remember to look this up-Starr:Okay. I'll go find it.Josh:... so that I can depress people.Starr:I think there was a New York Times article, too.Ben:Yeah, I totally have to see this because I just signed up for a motorcycle training course and I'm going to get my endorsements so that I know exactly what kind of risks... Though that's probably part of the course, where they try to scare you out of actually getting your endorsement. They probably...Josh:By the way, I'm really glad my morbid humor or my morbid joke landed because for a minute there-Starr:Oh, I'm sorry, it's a micromort.Josh:Oh, a micromort. Okay.Starr:I was like, "Isn't milli 1000?"Josh:Minimort, like-Starr:Milli is 1000.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, that grated at me. I know. My old chemistry teachers are just giving me an F right now.Ben:Yeah, I got to see that.Josh:Well, I'm sure you'll be all right, Ben. I mean, the risk of a motorcycle is much higher than a car, but you just can't think about that all the time because the fun... I'm sure the fun is much...Ben:[inaudible].Josh:It's worth it.Ben:It's worth every hazard. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. The risk is worth the reward.Ben:Yesterday, I just hit 250 miles on the odometer on my scooter, so loving that. It's a lot of fun.Josh:That's cool.Starr:That's a lot of miles for a scooter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Starr:I guess you just love to scoot.Ben:I love to scoot. Well, there you go, Starr. There's our happy ending after that slight dip there.Starr:That slight delay into reality.Josh:I like the dark humor. I don't know. It's always a gamble, though, with depending on... Yeah. But I think, Starr, you're always down to get dark.Starr:Oh, yeah. I'm down with the darkness. All right. Well, should we wrap it up?Ben:Let's wrap it.Starr:Okay. This has been a very witchy episode of FounderQuest, so if you liked it, go give us a review and... Yeah, if not, just keep listening to us. Make it a hate listen. You got to have a couple of those in your line-up.

covid-19 united states america god new york founders texas lord google apple pr americans speaking new york times seattle drop startups portland band starbucks delta advertising ipads jeff bezos cdc saas developers pacific northwest niche costco bugs smooth aws java github ask me anything trader joe tacoma macbook apple stores macbook pro nutella maven m1 elixir homebrew docker dynamo prs m2 bootstrap village voice honey badger skippy jay inslee lifestyle business redis software as a service anecdotally kinko indie hackers dynamodb patrick mckenzie m1 macbook air downtown portland ben it codespaces josh it josh yeah josh you shava ben love josh no ben there ben so josh how elasticache ben well josh well josh oh josh so micropreneur josh there josh starr josh do josh will josh cool

Live From The Indie Hackers' Backstage

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 27, 2021 18:37

Show notes:Links:Snohomish Centennial trailIndie Hackers AMAIntro CRMFull transcript:Starr:All right. Welcome back. Welcome back, everybody. So we took a little break. We're going to have her hot vax summer, but that-Josh:Hot vax summer.Starr:It turns out that was the mirage. It turns out that was a mirage.Josh:Well, it did reach 112 degrees in Portland. So it was hot.Starr:There you go. Yeah. The summer never existed. It was just an illusion caused by our overwhelming thirst for lots of things.Josh:Mirage.Ben:Well, there were a couple of weeks there that I thought, "Yeah. This is going to work out. And then Delta.Starr:Yeah. It was a couple of nice weeks, wouldn't it?Ben:Yeah. It was. It was.Starr:Except for the panic about, "Oh, crap. I need to learn how to deal with people again."Josh:Wouldn't it be wonderful when we can just look back on those two weeks and just remember those last good two weeks?Ben:Yeah. Went 112 in Portland. That's pretty bad. It got to 116 in my garage.Starr:Yeah.Ben:It's pretty warm.Josh:Yeah. That's like melt some things if you're not careful.Ben:I did not know this until well, at the beginning of the pandemic, that there was actually a special class of freezer called the garage freezer because at the beginning of the pandemic I wanted to have a freezer in my garage. I'm like, "Okay. I'm just going to go to Home Depot and buy a freezer." Oh, no, no, no, no. You can't just buy a freezer to put in your garage. You have to have a garage freezer to put it in your garage. So we have a garage freezer and even with 116 in the garage, the stuff stayed frozen. So I guess it actually works.Josh:Nice. Yeah. My freezer survived as well.Starr:I mean, not having a garage freezer in your garage is almost as bad as wearing white after labor day, or is it before labor day? I forget.Josh:I don't know. I never wear white.Starr:I just don't wear white.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah.Starr:Stains too easily.Josh:I just always dress like I'm going to a funeral.Starr:All right. So today's going to be a little bit of a short episode. So we should probably get to the content.Ben:I thought we were already in the content.Starr:I know our reader.Josh:Yeah. It might be short. I don't know.Starr:Oh, we are?Josh:Our podcasts tend to have a mind of their own.Ben:That's true.Starr:Well, that's true. But we've got this Ask Me Anything schedule.Josh:Oh, yeah.Starr:20 minutes from now.Josh:Well, the great thing about asynchronous ask me anything is that they're asynchronous so you can post them even while you're on a podcast and answer the questions whenever you want.Starr:Yeah. Maybe you can, but my brain does not work that way.Josh:Oh, I've got it all queued up.Starr:I've got a one track mind.Josh:It's just a button press. We're locked and loaded.Starr:Oh, you're like Kramer. You've got the button.Josh:No. I'm ready to go.Starr:Sell sell sell!Josh:So yeah. At 10:30, we're recording this podcast. It's 10:08 right now. Pacific. And we're going to be doing an ask me anything AMA on the indie hackers forums.Starr:Yes. And it's a last minute affair as of 20 minutes ago. I didn't have an indie hackers invite code. We're running around scrambling.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. Ben wanted to try a new podcast recording software, and I'm just like, "No. I can't handle this amount of change in my life right now."Josh:We need to title this episode, live from the indie hackers backstage, by the way.Josh:[crosstalk]Starr:Oh, yeah. I don't know if you like a live album.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Okay.Josh:We're doing it live.Starr:Well, so Ben suggested, when you talk about one work thing and one vacation thing we did. And I guess, I'll start because I didn't actually have a vacation. I just got sick a lot, which I didn't get COVID, but there was some sort of bug that was going around and I got it and I was out for a couple of weeks. And so I guess that was my vacation. I don't know. I just played a lot of Diablo III.Josh:That's cool.Starr:Yeah.Ben:We got our worst vacations in Diablo III.Josh:Yeah. We got away for a few days. We went to this lake up north of Spokane in Washington and just five nights or something. But on the trip there, we're looking at our friends who were already up there, sent us the fire map of Washington. And we are traveling, literally our destination is in the middle of six fires.Starr:Oh no.Josh:We're like, "Should we be turning around?" I don't know. But it turned out all right. We breathe too much smoke the first couple of days, but it cleared up and-Starr:Yeah. After the first couple of days you hardly notice it.Josh:I only got a minor headache.Starr:Your nerves just die. The nerves in your lungs.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's okay. We have good health insurance.Josh:I'm an ex smoker. So I'll just tack it on, it's just like adding a couple of days.Ben:It's like getting that upgrade package when you're buying a $30,000 car. And it's like, "What's another thousand dollars?Josh:Yeah. I've already got the risk.Ben:Yeah. I stayed closer to home. I read a bunch of books and I got out for a nice bike ride, went to the Snohomish Centennial trail. So it starts in Snohomish and it goes up through Arlington and it's rails to trail conversion. So there used to be railroad tracks there, but now it's a paved trail. And the thing that's neat though, they have a bunch of trail heads and a few of them have the recreations of the old train stations. So it's like, you can act like you're getting on board that train and actually getting on-Josh:Oh, that's nice. Really nice.Ben:Yeah.Josh:That's cool.Ben:That's a lot of fun. Let's see, a work thing that I did. It's a blur.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I probably migrated something somewhere at some point. And back-filled something-Josh:You were busy.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Yeah. You did a lot.Ben:Yeah. I can't remember what I did.Starr:Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things, right? We're working with that sales consultancy, what is it? Intro CRM people?Ben:Yeah. Did do that.Starr:Have you done some outreach? You got some replies even?Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It's been kind of a mixed bag. So I've gotten some replies, but also the outbound stuff has not really been all that productive. So I'm questioning my life choices at this point.Starr:Have you had any overt hostility though?Ben:No overt hostility.Starr:Oh, you're not pushing hard enough then. You want your OH metric to be at least 10%. At least 10%, you want death threats.Ben:I will take that under advisement.Starr:Okay. That's how you know you're really-Josh:Really selling it.Starr:Yeah. I would say coffee's for closers, but you don't drink coffee. So there you go. Oh, cool. On my end, I don't know. We published our first batch of Honeybadger intelligence reports and I don't know. Loyal listeners might remember from last time, I mean, if you don't remember how loyal are you and how much should I even trust you, but yeah. You might remember that we were working on these things. Basically, they are quarterly reports for a certain programming language where if you kind of need to keep an eye on, I don't know. Front-end JavaScript, but you don't want to just inhale the feed of news that's constantly coming out, you can just look at this beautiful quarterly report. And we are publishing them quarterly now on our blog. And the first batch went out three weeks late, maybe a month late, I don't know. I didn't give myself enough time to get them ready for publication. And then I got sick for two weeks and just could barely crawl to the computer. So I'm sorry. I'll do better next time.Josh:If that's you're going to say, if you don't want to inhale the whatever weekly newsfeed, you can inhale it once a month or once a quarter. Just all.Starr:Well, no. We're not just collating everything together.Starr:[crosstalk].Starr:We're concatenating together.Josh:It's like a curation of curation.Starr:Yeah. We're not just a pending three months worth of Hacker News together. We're going in and applying some real intelligence to it. We have real domain experts.Josh:Editorial.Starr:Curating.Josh:Occasionally?Starr:Yes. Providing you the choicest morsels.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:Hand crafted morsels of information.Starr:Yeah. Maybe I should be doing these outreach emails.Ben:Yeah. I think so.Ben:I've got the wrong person writing this stuff.Starr:Yeah. They'd be like, "Are these people even professionals?"Josh:Well, that should be obvious from our website.Starr:Yes.Josh:I'll let you decide which way that goes.Ben:Wow. I've been sitting here while you're talking, thinking, what did I do? I'm like, "This is not good. If I can't remember doing anything useful for the past three months, that's probably a sign that I'm doing the wrong things."Starr:I mean, it could just be, you did a lot, Ben. I can remember things you've done. Can we got set up in a new compliance automated thing?Ben:Oh, yeah. Then the compliance-Starr:Yeah. An automated compliance thing. So you don't have to juggle all that stuff manually.Ben:Yeah. We got our SOC 2 type two report done. So we're legit now. We're officially doing the things that we said we would do.Starr:We're enterprise.Ben:Yeah. Full on enterprise.Josh:That's amazing.Ben:Yeah. And it wasn't a particularly painful process. I mean, it wasn't pleasant, but yeah. We survived.Starr:My favorite part of that was that, so as part of this automated security, your automated SOC 2 compliance stuff, all of the employees I guess, have to do mandatory security training once a year now. And it's this automated quiz where you have to read something and then it asks you questions. So it was a really weird big business moment, where I just felt, okay. I'm watching this training video. It should have 50s music in the background of it. And I hate to admit that I got stuck on the first question for 10 minutes. For 10 minutes. Because it was an easy question, but it was one of those things where it's like, "What's the correct answer? Choose one or more." And the correct answer was all of them. But for some reason, I had selected them all with my keyboard and that wasn't good enough. I had to click on them to show I really meant it because hackers generally use keyboards. So they're not really trustworthy devices.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Starr it was like a JavaScript bug.Starr:So eventually, I literally tried every combination. Eventually, I was just like, "Okay. I'm just going to try the first one again," and it worked. So there you are. There you are.Ben:I can't believe you're giving away the answers to our security questions on the podcast. That's a breach of security.Starr:Yeah. I mean, I think our security questions have some security vulnerabilities if, you can manually brute force them. You have four binary options. That's what? Four factorial combinations? You can knock that out in an hour.Ben:Starr is hacking the mainframe.Starr:I am hacking the planet.Josh:That's how Starr passed the security test.Starr:Yeah. That's also how I got such a great score on the SAT, by the way. You just take it, I don't know. 128 factorial times and then you just brute force it.Josh:Nice. How long did that take you?Starr:I don't know. I still haven't graduated from high school.Josh:I sort of graduated from high school.Starr:Well, you can tell you've been away for a while. Because I just have all this bullshit that I've saved up for you all, and it's just all coming out now.Ben:So I was surprised to learn. I don't know why this surprised me, but it surprised me nonetheless, when we had our all hands meeting recently that we have three Honeybadger employees that have children starting kindergarten this year.Starr:Oh, my God. Yes.Ben:That's pretty wild.Starr:It's pretty terrifying. It's pretty terrifying. I'm glad that I live in Seattle. You guys don't. Josh and Kevin don't, but I mean, you all live in fairly reasonable places where governors aren't banning masks in school.Josh:Yeah.Ben:As they themselves are going to get advanced treatments for their COVID infections. Yeah.Starr:Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's okay. We love you Texas. We just don't love your governor.Ben:Speaking of Texas. So this random tidbit I saw the other day, Austin, Texas of course, you know the housing market has been crazy. As far as prices go over the past several months, people have been overbidding regularly on how to just be able to-Josh:Oh, I read that.Josh:A hundred grand?Ben:Yeah. So Austin, Texas.Josh:That's what I'm asking.Ben:A hundred grand over asking price. So you have a $400,000 list price, but you actually got to pay $500,000 to get the house. That's crazy.Starr:That is wild.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. I had to drop off my car at the mechanic to get its normal service and I was walking by, and this was this morning and there's this kind of older condo building. It's not great looking or anything. And it's two bedroom condo, 900 square feet is now selling for the same price that I bought my single-family house with big yard and everything three blocks away. And that was five or six years ago? Six years ago?Ben:Crazy stuff.Starr:It's bizarre. Totally. I don't know. It's the sort of thing like it feels kind of gross even. Just because I was able to scrape together a down payment for a house, suddenly I get, I don't know. A hundred grand a year extra just in appreciation.Josh:You just hit a jackpot.Starr:Yeah. But it's just like, okay. I literally did nothing to deserve that. And meanwhile, people who could use that or I mean, I could use it, but I'm not in dire straits. I don't know. It's just like, "Wow, this whole system is just kind of backwards and weird."Ben:Yeah. It's to the point I'm getting unsolicited offers to buy my house, right?Starr:Oh, me too.Ben:I'm getting these letters in the mail like, "Hi, I'm Bob and my wife is Alice and we'd like to buy your house." And I'm like looking at the letters, "Is this is really an automated thing or do they really write this by the hand?"Starr:I've had people call me on the phone, in person.Ben:They called you?Starr:Yeah. They called me. Three houses on my block have been demolished in the past two months, three older houses, one of them was just really messed up. But two of them were these small houses on big lots. And essentially what happened is a developer bought almost every house on the opposite side of the street from me and is now basically filling up the lots with as many units as they can. So I think they're going to end up with like 18 units out of these five or six houses, which is fine. I guess. I don't mind density and everything, but it's just so wild because it's like, "Oh, it finally caught up with us." Because for a long time we were just over the edge where things were nice, we were just one block over from the nice stuff. And it finally caught up with us. So we're going to have to move now because we're not fancy enough for the neighborhood anymore.Josh:Yeah. Just cash out.Ben:Yeah. Move to Kansas.Starr:Yeah. I mean, that's the problem though. It's like, "Okay. Great." I get all this appreciation, but if I ever want to get a new house, it's like, "Okay. I've got to pay those new prices."Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah. We've looked at that too, or you could sell and rent for a few years and see if anything happens. That would probably be a gamble.Starr:That would be a really bad gamble I think. I mean, I don't know.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Considering no markets decline anymore.Starr:I mean, they, they could decline, but you're trying to time it.Josh:Time the housing the market?Starr:Yeah.Starr:Maybe it'll decline, but yeah.Ben:This got me thinking, real estate agents, they want you to trade up, right? You buy your starter house and then you buy your bigger house and then eventually you downsize again because hey, why not have another transaction that a real estate agent can take a commission on, right? And it just got me thinking, why don't we have that for businesses? Why can't you trade up your business, right?Josh:Like trade it?Ben:Yeah. It's like, "Honeybadger, that's a nice little business. Why don't you trade it on up to a bigger business?Starr:So we sell Honeybadger and then by a larger business.Ben:Right. Right. Like that. Rolled into a down payment for a bigger business, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:I'm not sure if you're very good at that.Josh:I love it.Starr:I don't know.Ben:Maybe this is a new marketing thing we can try. We can figure out new business models.Josh:Because we're getting trade-in program like the private equity firms.Ben:You're slapping the top of your business. You can fit so many customers in here.Josh:Might be our best bit yet.Ben:Well, I guess, we better get ready for our ask me anything session. Got a crack the knuckles and get ready to type.Starr:Crack the old knuckles.Josh:Almost time.Starr:All right. Okay. I will sign us off. All right. So this has been FounderQuest back from hot vax summer, back from vacation or being sick or whatever we call it these days. If you want to give us a review on Apple podcasts, whatever they call it, go for it. If you want to look up this AMA we're about to do on Indie Hackers, we recommend that and yeah. Otherwise, just stay cool, stay safe, and we will see you next week.Ben:Catch you later.Josh:See you.Starr:Bye.

covid-19 god founders texas apple washington seattle startups portland kansas front delta pacific providing saas developers ama arlington loyal home depot backstage kramer ask me anything spokane javascript elixir soc rolled bootstrap honey badger lifestyle business diablo iii hacker news software as a service snohomish indie hackers ben it benas ben you josh it josh yeah josh you josh no ben oh josh well josh oh ben well ben right so austin josh so micropreneur josh starr

Josh Carey - Co-founder of PodMAX.co

The Joe Costello Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2021 52:32

My conversation today is with Josh Carey, co-founder of PodMAX.co, an event that happens about every 6 weeks where business people and/or entrepreneurs are matched up with podcast hosts where they do 3 interviews in one day while also attending an event where there is networking, education and keynote speakers. Josh explains in this interview how this event that they hold quite frequently, is like speed dating for podcast guests and hosts alike. It's an efficient way for hosts to get 3 interviews in the can in one day and for business people and/or enterpreneurs,to get out there and promote themselves, their businesses and tell their story 3 times in one day on 3 different podcasts. This is an interesting interview with Josh as he shares his own journey to exposing himself and his talents and now helping others to do the same. As always, thanks for listening! Joe Get 30% off at The Healthy Place by using code "costello" Josh Carey Co-founder - PodMAX.co Website: https://podmax.co Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onairbrands/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onairbrandsLIVE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/onairbrands/ Email: josh@podmax.co Podcast Music By: Andy Galore, Album: "Out and About", Song: "Chicken & Scotch" 2014 Andy's Links: http://andygalore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit: https://joecostelloglobal.libsyn.com Subscribe, Rate & Review: I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest rating & review. This will encourage other people to listen and allow us to grow as a community. The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to: https://joecostelloglobal.lybsyn.com Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joecostello Transcript Joe: Hey, Josh, welcome to the show. I'm very excited to have you. Josh: Likewise, Joe. Pleasure to be here. Thanks. Joe: Yeah, so this obviously as a podcast or this hits home for me, having someone unlike you that has this this business, if you will, called Pod Max. Right. I guess it's it's also an event. Right. So I need you're going to help me understand Josh: Yeah, Joe: It. Josh: I shall. Joe: I've watched a bunch of different videos and I watched the testimonial video, but I still want clarification. I think you hit it on the head when you said it's like speed dating for podcasters. And that was Josh: Hmm. Joe: That totally was a very clear thing for me. At least brought me to a point where I said, oh, this is really sort of different, but this is what I do with all my guests. So you'll have to you'll have to suffer through this part. Josh: I shall suffer. Joe: We because my audience is mainly entrepreneurs and it's it's me trying to help educate Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Them as much as possible. I always like them to know the back story of my guests. I want to know Josh: Hmm. Joe: Where you came from, where you came from as far back as you want to go, because it doesn't Josh: Mm Joe: It Josh: Hmm. Joe: Doesn't matter to me. It's exciting to figure out the how you develop to who you are today and how you are doing what you're doing today and what was all in between to make this happen. And then from there, we'll get into the depths of tiebacks. Josh: I love it. I shall take you down that journey, then Joe: Perfect. Josh: We'll start we'll start with Current Day. Today, I'm known as the Hidden Entrepreneur, and that's because I spent 40 plus years of my life hiding. I literally showed up in every situation, hiding all of my true talent and ability. Everything that I was really capable of doing remained hidden because I was so desperate to seek the approval of others. Now, what really sucked about this is behind closed doors. I knew darn well what I was capable of doing. So this created a lot of anger, frustration, resentment, jealousy, all that stuff. And the bigger thing is that not only did I want to seek your approval, I was scared so much by the fact that if I were to come forward with something quite good, right. Impressive, even in any regard, you might feel so insecure about your accomplishments and talent and scale, what you may or may not be doing. Right, because we're all just a mirror and a reflection of each other that what it might make you a little upset by what you're seeing and then you might retaliate against me in some form. And I knew my whole life that I just didn't feel strong enough to stick up and stand up for myself. Josh: So all of that made for this recipe of living life that way cut to today. I'm the proud father of two adoring children. I have an eight year old daughter, a six year old son who are my absolute everything. I love playing the role of father. I love being their dad. And early on in their young lives, I realize that I see what's happening here. I'm the child in this circle and I'm the one who has work to do. So I said, guys, keep doing what you're doing. I get it. I can't continue to be this miserable kind of person and have them watch me that way their whole lives. It wouldn't end well. And fast forwarding to, you know, seeing an empty nester. Now, if I was 20 years down the road and they just grew up with that type of father, they'd naturally become that type of person. And in that scenario, there'd be nothing I can do and I wouldn't be able to live with myself. So I said, that's all I need to say. Right. I'm Joe: Yeah. Josh: Going to make them prouder. I'm going to make me proud or I'm going to do what needs to happen. And I started just taking inventory, replacing some of my bad non serving habits with slightly better ones and slowly but surely seeing the positive result in effect of that. And here we are. I just keep stacking those on each other and I've come a long way and still have a long way to go. But I'm very happy and proud with where I am today. Joe: And so what did you do in your past life, let's say that you're now doing what you do. I mean, what was your what was all these things you were doing while you're hiding from the world? Josh: So I got in in eighth grade, I got bit by the acting bug, right? I found that in there was a school audition taking place and I felt like I should audition to see what this was about. And I did. And it was a a drug awareness program, whatever it was. And I got a cast as the comic relief of all things. So I was bumbling around on stage and hundreds of my right, hundreds of my classmates were laughing at me from what I was doing on stage. Now, I knew that they were in fact laughing at me. Right. They weren't laughing with me, but I was I was OK with that because I was getting the attention I was so desperately seeking. So I thought, wow, I will continue to seek out this attention, hopefully thinking this is what I need to fill this emotional void. Right. This external approval is exactly what I need now. Doesn't work that way. It took me a few decades to realize that, but I set out on a path to become an actor and said, I'm going to dedicate my life to this because if I could just get this daily, my life sucked. So I pursued that dream. I wound up spending 15 years in New York as a working actor and filmmaker. Great credits, wonderful era of my life. But again, it didn't really, you know, fill the void. You know, when the curtain comes down, I'm still miserable and alone in the corner, often crying and trying to figure out where my life went so wrong. Josh: So I did that for a while. I had some, you know, day jobs to pay the bills. I taught myself webdesign to keep myself busy when the Internet started rising up in the nineties. And slowly but surely, I just became somewhat of an entrepreneur, not realizing at the time that that's what it was. But I was just trying to make ends meet while I was pursuing my passion. And then I found myself running my own digital marketing agency where I was building websites for an industry and all this stuff. Ten years later, this industry became just like any other toxic relationship we might find ourselves in personally. But this was my business and the industry taking full responsibility. It was on me because I was showing up that way, which is why I was attracting those very people. So I knew that something needed to change. This correlated with the time where me and my children had the talk, where I was the child, and I said, I get it. I know it has to be done. This relationship with the industry and my my work here, it can't continue. It's part of the problem. Let me rip the Band-Aid off. I said I don't know what's next, but I'm going to seek something. I'm going to figure it out. And just like if you're in a bad relationship, you don't necessarily wait until you have another relationship. Josh: You get out and figure it out. And that's what I did. I got out. I said, let me take a few months. Let me take some time, figure out what I want to do, where I want to go and be true to myself for one of the first times in my life. And I said podcasting. I think I felt that I would be good at it and I would enjoy it. And it would create opportunity and I would connect with people because, God, that's all I ever wanted in my life. I said, well, if I do it honestly and authentically, I might finally attract the right kind of people instead of attracting the miserable and getting what I don't want because you focus on it. So I created a brand called The Hidden Entrepreneur and then became that became the podcast. And I started interviewing people. And slowly but surely I started feeling good about it and getting a good response. And it just kept building the confidence. And I was told I was half decent and I certainly started feeling that way, still replacing a lot of my bad habits with better ones, trying to live wonderfully for my children. It all came together. And now here we are. I'm doing some some some really interesting things in the podcast space because of those moments that that got me here. Joe: Right. And that's what's important. That's why I wanted to ask, because, you know, as much as everyone can say, their life went on a certain path and certain things did not go right Josh: Uh. Joe: Or whatever, they all build the person you are today. And so I think probably whatever you're doing with Pod Max now, you're leaning on some of your marketing and, you know, Josh: Exactly. Joe: Your and all the stuff that you did earlier in Josh: All Joe: Your entrepreneurial Josh: Of it. Joe: Life. Right. So it's like you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's this. This is all created to help to create who you are now, to make this next portion of your life excel even more. Josh: Sometimes in the moment, we don't and can't recognize that a lot of acts in retrospect that the game is being able in real time when there's a little bit of a glitch or a detour that you're forced to take or something that's happening that you didn't quite see coming wasn't as you planned. You have to realize, wow, this is probably going to work out for the best. And as you're seeing everything I've spelled out, even my acting and film days to this very moment, I pull a lot from those days how to how to communicate, how to perform, how to create, how to talk on the mic, how to write. All of that is acting and film. And then, like you said, the marketing from the digital marketing, knowing what you don't want on a grand scale to know exactly what you do want. It's all relevant and quite perfect. Joe: Yeah, and it's funny, and you gave it away already, but I was going to ask you where you from? And I was like, he's got to be from New York. I can recognize and I'm from New York. So he's like, he's got to be from New York. And then you said it. You're like. Josh: What did I say, oh, that I spent time there Joe: Yeah, Josh: In New York. Joe: Yeah, and so did I and I and my background is I went to school for music and I Josh: Yeah. Joe: And I landed in New York. I lived two hours north of the city where I grew up. But then I landed Josh: Mayor. Joe: In New York as to be my big time career break Josh: As Joe: In. Josh: A drummer, Joe: Yeah, Josh: Yeah. Joe: Right. And so and at the same time, we all have to go find jobs. And then and then you sort of get steered off a path because you start making money and going, OK, how much do I want to suffer living in this one bedroom apartment and eating mac and cheese every night where Josh: True. Joe: It's just whatever, whatever developed over that time. But we had the same sort of path. So it's Josh: Yeah. Joe: Interesting to hear your story. Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Ok, so you started podcasting and you have a podcast called The Hidden Entrepreneur. How did you make the jump from that to come to being the coach? When I heard you say you're actually a co-founder of God Macs. So where did this idea come from? How did we get to where we are today with that? Josh: In twenty eighteen is when I created The Hidden Entrepreneur Show, and it's still running strong today, over 200 episodes and I in the summer of 2019, I had the opportunity to record episodes of my show at an event. And one of the one of the people that I was interviewing didn't know him prior to this event was Eric Cabral, who's now my co founding partner in Pod Max. I interviewed him for my show and we hit it off and we connected. And after the interview, he said, you know, we're both from Jersey. I have. Which is where I live Joe: Mm Josh: Now. Joe: Hmm. Josh: He said, I have a I have a studio in in Jersey. Once you come out and check it out one day and, you know, we'll see we'll see what's possible. And I said, OK. And then it turns out I never left. Now, what I like to point out is that what what I did just, you know, basically, yes. By design, but subconsciously during that first interview where he was on my show when we didn't know each other prior, was I was already leaning into my full potential, which was quite different from what I did the first 40 plus years of my life, where I spoke about I showed up really small, didn't want to rock the boat, didn't want to make you feel insecure. So I just took a back seat. But then in twenty eighteen, I started figuring out how can I come to the table with the ability that again, I've always known darn well I'm more than capable of doing. And really I believe we're all in that same boat. We all know what we are capable of doing. We just adjust and alter that for so many reasons inappropriately, so more often than not. So I said, I'm going to just start coming out, you know, strongly with what I'm capable of and miraculously, quote unquote, I started attracting the very people who understood that, who liked it, who appreciated it, respected it. Ironically, all the things I wanted my whole life, Joe: Mm Josh: Just Joe: Hmm. Josh: Somebody to appreciate me. How can anybody appreciate when you're being, you know, a weak man, Joe: Yeah. Josh: Which I was. So I thought that if I were to come out powerfully doing what I'm capable of, everybody is going to retaliate against me. And oh, no, I don't even see those people. I only see people like you, like Eric, like people who are like, wow, you know, like attracts like, of Joe: Mm Josh: Course. Joe: Hmm. Josh: So that's that's the amazing thing. So all that to say, I was already able to do what I was doing to get in front of somebody like Eric, for him to recognize something within me because I had already appeared that way. So you have to sort of do the work first instead of like me hoping that somebody can see a glimmer of potential in me and then anoint me capable and relevant to the masses. You know, that doesn't happen. Joe: Right. Josh: So it only happens when you are first putting it out there to attract the good back. So Eric and I started talking and hanging out and we had a very similar vibe and connection, a lot of similar goals. He also came from the podcast space. He has and had his own show. And we just started talking about this idea Pod Max, which started in person in twenty nineteen. It started as a live in person event. We had the studio in North Jersey where we figured we do this one day kind of hybrid event where it's part conference, part workshop and part podcast recordings. So we set up makeshift like a dozen different studios like like little mini areas where hosts can record with guests. And we invited about a dozen show hosts in, sold tickets to the event to high level entrepreneurs and thought leaders who wanted to get their message out by recording on shows we would match them. Thus the speed dating for the podcast industry. And over the course of that day, each hour they would rotate into a new studio area and record as a guest on a different show. And in between those recordings, we would provide a catered lunch, we would provide networking, we would provide training and education, and we would provide a high level keynote. So we had the conference, the workshop feel the retreat and the podcast recordings. We did that a few times and then twenty twenty happened. So we're like, OK, well this is crazy because we're a live events company. What happens now? We had no idea, so he said, can this work virtually? There was only one way to find out. We took that agenda, that format. We sort of reworked what needed to be worked into a virtual format. And since May of 20, 20, which was our first pod, Max Virtual, we've never looked back. We're about to do our 14th 14th virtual event in August. And it's you know, it's one of those things that we we couldn't have seen that coming. Right. We wouldn't Joe: Yep, Josh: Have even looked virtual. Joe: Correct. Josh: So so now it's an eight hour event, which people who don't really know our style will say eight hours virtual. That's crazy. But we hear all the time that it flies by because we've sort of been able to really hone in on making all of those minutes per hour the best they can be. Joe: Right. Josh: And then the entrepreneurs get to record still on multiple shows. We have a keynote. We have training and education. So we know prior to the event we work with the thought leaders to help them further identify, practice and fine tune their message. So when they get to the recording, they feel confident and ready to go. Joe: It's so cool, so how many of these do you do? Josh: We do them about every six weeks. Joe: Wow, and how Josh: Yeah. Joe: Did you figure out the logistics, like I attended a couple virtual conferences and logistically it's very cool because you you don't really miss anything because a lot of stuff is is recorded to playback later and you're not wasting a lot of time on a showroom floor. You're going exactly what you want Josh: Exactly. Joe: Without having to walk around it. But how did you guys figure that out? Josh: Well, it came from the live, and then we we sort of transferred that virtually and we fill the eight hours, it's single track, right, to everybody's in the room going to the same places, Joe: Ok, Josh: Doing the same things. Joe: Ok, Josh: Yeah, Joe: And Josh: It. Joe: What's the number of attendees that you've gotten up to? Josh: We get about 50. Joe: That's amazing. Josh: Now. Joe: It's really cool, and I wasn't sure when so when when we talked about this being sort of like the speed dating for podcasting, there's a lot of podcasters out there who either are looking for gas or they want to be guest on podcast. And Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: I think they need to understand how iPod, Max, differs from those services that are out there, whether it's someone you get this connection with someone and they start feeding you gas or Josh: Yeah. Joe: You get this connection with someone and they keep putting you on different podcasts. Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: I think the important thing is that as a podcast for myself, I get I Josh: All Joe: Haven't Josh: The Joe: Been Josh: Time. Joe: On a podcast, which is kind of funny, but I haven't. Josh: Wow. Joe: But I get a lot of requests either from an agency that that Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Said, hey, we want to work with you with really great guests or just people that find my podcasts and reach out and say, hey, I think you would really like this person. And I have to sort of filter through Josh: Yeah. Joe: What I think fits my audience. I'm not going to accept everyone because Josh: That's right. Joe: It's not fair to the listeners. Josh: Mm Joe: It's Josh: Hmm. Joe: A selfish endeavor for me. And you kind of hit upon it yourself. It makes it allows me to connect with people like you. It allows me to learn so much. But at the same time, I need to make sure that I'm servicing my audience and educating them on what they came here in the first place to see. Josh: That's right. Joe: So when you do iPod, Max, how do you do this matchmaking? How do you figure out that this guest is going to go and sit with this person and do recording and it fits the mold of their podcast or they're the right person? How does that all happen? Josh: Well, we've been lucky enough to do it for a while, and we have a lot turned out to be a core group of show hosts, like the vast majority of the show hosts return over and over again. Joe: Ok. Josh: Why? There's a lot of winwin. There's a lot of benefit. It's really cool for them to get to record three episodes in one day Joe: Mm hmm. Josh: In three different hours, which is a great thing. They also get to network with a lot of high level entrepreneurs and the other show hosts. They get to be right in the room with. We bring three now virtually we bring three keynotes in at a very high level of keynote. So they get to leverage that relationship off. Often they'll reach out to the keynote and then welcome them on their show. So it's just a really great vibe. There's a lot of a lot of personal growth and development built in to the day that you almost don't see coming until you're on the back end of it and you're like, oh, my gosh, it's just amazing. So they keep returning and through that then they become like family, right? Joe: Mm Josh: Like Joe: Hmm. Josh: At every event, the chats, everybody's just excited to see each other again. And it's sort of like old home week. So to answer your question, we've gotten to really know a good core group of the show hosts, knowing who they are, what their businesses are, what their shows are, what their goals are. And with that, we can then do our job. That takes a lot of the matching difficulty out because we know exactly who's coming through that they'd be perfectly matched for and because of the reputation where we've done such a good job prepping the entrepreneurs and attracting the right level of entrepreneurs and training them. Well, we hear all the time from the hosts that they don't even they don't even worry who they're going to be matched with. Joe: Right. Josh: You know, the week prior, you get you know, you get all the contact and bio information, but they're like, I don't even need to worry because I know whoever comes through, whoever you match me time and time again is going to be a home run. So then we we ask the entrepreneur coming through to fill out a somewhat detailed, extensive profile so we get to know them so we can properly match them. Then we just take the two sides and we have a few team members who are specifically dedicated to the matchmaking process because it's you know, it's got to be done right, takes a little bit of time, but we do it and then everybody seems to be happy on the other side of it. Joe: That's really cool, so when I saw on the website there was a apply to be a host, Josh: Mm hmm. Mm Joe: Correct? Josh: Hmm. Mm hmm. Joe: Is that the is that where the people that are going to do these interviews go to become part of TotEx? Josh: Correct, Joe: Ok. Josh: We're always, always open to meeting new potential show hosts for our event. Basically, you fill that out and the most important thing is we have to make sure because we we can't anticipate prior who's going to come through the event. But generally, our show hosts fill a category that can be broad enough in nature where it's an entrepreneur, it's a business show, it's about success, struggles, failures, life stories, growth mindset, that whole concept. A lot of categories fit into that. So as long as you're as long as you could, as long as you welcome guests that fit that, we could most likely start the conversation. And then we have a few other criteria just to make sure that you're relevant to to our whole brand and audience. Joe: So that was you actually hit upon one of my questions, which was what is the variety of hopes that you have at Cognex? Like, I would just give you an example off the top of my head. Would you Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Ever have a. And it sounds like no, the answer is no based on what you just gave me, but that you at this moment there, it's more about entrepreneurial stuff. It's about success. It's about business. It's about things like that's not like you have one of these host who has a cooking podcast. Josh: It's so funny because Joe: Ok. Josh: To know well, yesterday, in fact, it's very strange you said cooking because yesterday a show we received an application from a potential new show host and it was, in fact, a cooking podcast. Joe: Unbelievable. Josh: That's the most yeah, it's the most amazing thing. But I think that to his credit, I think that there was an entrepreneurial spin. Like it's like he says like like I'll welcome chefs and cooks and entrepreneurs. I don't know. So Joe: Restaurant Josh: So there was Joe: Owners Josh: I mean. Joe: Were Josh: Yeah, Joe: Given Josh: Now Joe: A. Josh: Now something like that is going to be a little too niche for us because we can't fulfill. Right. Joe: Yeah. Josh: We don't get that kind of people, Joe: Now. Josh: But we are we do have the in the near future, we're going to start niching these out like pod max invest. Right. Joe: Oh, Josh: And then Joe: Cool. Josh: Every show is about investing in real estate and whatever. And then the people who come through or their pod max health and wellness. And then every show is that and then the audience supports that. But right now it's the first thing. It's entrepreneurial, it's business, it's growth, it's success. It's a life story. It's struggles, wins, failures, which we find a lot of people, even if they fit a specific niche, we help them extract. Let's get your life story out. And that's in. That's how we work with them prior to the event, to really fit a bigger a bigger audience here. Joe: Yeah, it's funny because my life partner, Joellen, and I have a YouTube channel that kind of morphed, we started it when covid hit and it sort of morphed over the year to now be really concentrated on travel. Our goal is to eventually have that the you know, Josh: A Joe: We're Josh: Travel log. Joe: Not young, so we're trying to inspire people of our age to go out and just do whatever you want to do and what's what's your excuse? Right. So we were talking about how some of these YouTube channels are lucky because they are they deal with things that are very current. So these guys that have these Krypto YouTube channels, they can't get out videos fast enough because that things Josh: Mm. Joe: Are changing so quickly. So it'd be interesting if you have a crypto pod, Max, someday and Josh: That's Joe: You could Josh: Right. Joe: Have like 12 crypto experts or I mean host Josh: Yeah. Joe: Having these people on because it's this new frontier. It's just crazy. But it's true that the things that are current, it's easy for those people. That's not so easy for people like us who are just in the trenches every day. Josh: Yes. Joe: But we're in New Jersey. Did you hold this just because. My own curiosity, because I live there as well. Josh: Trenton. Joe: Trenton OK, OK. I lived in Montclair, Upper Montclair, Josh: Oh. Joe: West Orange, even Newark, Josh: Of course, Joe: Even Newark Josh: One Joe: As Josh: Fifth Joe: It when it was starting Josh: Well. Joe: To grow. So. Yeah. Josh: 153 B, I went to Montclair State for a year. Joe: Oh, Josh: Yeah, Joe: That's so cool. Josh: You Joe: Yeah, Josh: Were by Joe: So, Josh: The campus, I imagine. Joe: Yeah, I was I was right there Josh: Yeah. Joe: Trumpet's the jazz club. You remember Josh: Yes, Joe: That? Yes. Josh: Of course, Joe: Ok, Josh: So funny Joe: I know. Josh: Jersey taqiyya. Joe: That's right. So talk to me about the people. So you have the application online for the host and you're obviously looking for those all the time to expand Josh: Mm Joe: Because Josh: Hmm. Joe: What is it? Each each host gets three interviews during that eight hour day. Josh: That's right. Joe: Ok, and then the people that want to attend Pod Max are potentially people that want to be guests be matched up with one or Josh: That's Joe: Two Josh: Right. Joe: Or any of Josh: Mm Joe: Those Josh: Hmm. Joe: Hosts. Josh: Three Joe: Three, three, three. Josh: Up to three Joe: Right, Josh: Up. Joe: Right. And then on the website I saw there was a button to buy. Is it is it to purchase a ticket for the next five max in August? Josh: That is correct. Joe: Ok. Josh: So the revenue and the and the tickets are from the entrepreneur side who want to be guests on the shows, Joe: Got Josh: They Joe: It. Josh: Come in, we train them, we work with them, we put them and match them on the show. So they record. We then, you know, they're in the room for the keynotes and the networking and everybody's happy. Joe: So explain to me, when you say we train them, what does that mean? Josh: We have so we when we first started virtual, we didn't have any sort of built in training, we just saw people coming to the event and the day the event happened and that was that. Then we had some people coming to us that said, you know what, I want to attend because they saw this as a great way to basically click a button, buy a ticket, and they'll be a guest on three shows. Right. How how else can that happen so quickly? And so guarantee that you're going to record in the course of a day and it's done now. You got three under your belt Joe: Mm hmm. Josh: More. We started getting people who in their own right were successful business people, six, seven, eight figure business people at everything from the C Suite on down. But they're coming to us saying, I've never been on a show before, but I want to or I've been on some. But I'm not that good. I need more confidence. I need more need more skill. And we thought, oh, my gosh, we're attracting a wide variety of successful business people who are now trying to break into podcasts, guesting. So we said, well, let's hold a prevent training where prior to the event, which is what we do now, we hold a 90 minute session with all the attendees prior to the event where we work with them in small groups. So they get one on one attention with Eric and me where we really get them going with their story, their message. We we listen to it, we prompt them, we give them feedback. We have them do it again. We give them notes. We say you're missing the bigger point. This is actually your sound bite. This is your message. This is what I'm hearing. And we just poke and prod until they're ready to go. And then they take the week prior to the event to get comfortable and practice and rehearse. And we do that kind of training. Joe: Well, that's very cool, and I think what I found as a as a host is I run into those people when they've written a book Josh: Mm Joe: And now Josh: Hmm. Joe: They want to promote the book. And Josh: Ok. Joe: They know that a really good way to promote the book is to get on as many podcasts as you can to get the message out Josh: Ok. Joe: That they've never been on one. So Josh: There you go. Joe: There you can see that they're a little awkward in having to talk to a camera and you know what I mean? So I find that that's that's a that's a big spot for me. When I get someone contacts me about, hey, we want to have so-and-so on. He's just written this great book and it's going to be released on Amazon in a month. And we'd like to get some sales. And Josh: Uh. Joe: And then you get that person and you can tell that they're just sort of wet behind Josh: Now. Joe: The ears in regards to being a guest. Josh: Yeah. Joe: So. Josh: Right, whether it's a host or a guest, you know, you said you have guests, but certainly, you know, as a host, it's not often as easy as it looks, right. Just because somebody is in front of a camera and has a mic, once you start doing it and then you put and then you're like, OK, this is a podcast. There's a lot of moving parts that you didn't anticipate. You have no clue what to do. And then there's so many things that you don't even know what you don't know until it's too late. And you're like, wait, what am I missing here? Same thing on the guest side. Everybody thinks like, no, I just talk to me, ask me some questions, I'll answer them. No way. Because there's two parts here. There's the technical and then the technique. Right. The technical is all this stuff, how you're framed, how you look, the lighting, the earphones, the microphone. Right. All very deliberate. And then there's the technique. What are your stories? How long are you answering? What's your energy and persona like? What are your sound bytes? Joe: Please, Josh: And we teach Joe: Please Josh: All that. Joe: Tell me that when you do some of this training with these new guests that you actually talk about equipment. Josh: Oh, my gosh, you have to, Joe: It's Josh: Of Joe: Just Josh: Course. Yeah, Joe: A. Josh: Thank you for observing that, because we don't want them showing up to the event because they're representing us and our brand. And it's all right. The next events that are better, they are they'll look good to the hosts and vice versa. Right. So we always require great professional level of host because we want a great host to represent the guests. And that's what makes it so well. So hosts nine times out of ten will already have, especially if they're working with us, they're professional. This is part of their business model and they're in it for the long run. They have a growth mindset. They get it. They're up and running guests. So you're right. Even like the ones that you would expect, like C suite level or quote unquote known famous company executives and employees, it's like they not ever you could assume, but they don't know. Joe: Yeah, Josh: A lot of them just don't know. So, Joe: That's. Josh: Yeah, we we do talk about that. Like you can't use your computer. Might stop with the window behind you, stop with that terrible green screen because half of your face is, you know, see through and it just doesn't work. Yeah. Joe: Yeah, I think the most brutal thing for me is when they have my voice coming out of their speaker and it keeps it keeps wiping out what right instead of it coming in headphones or in ears like I have, it just keeps Josh: Yeah, Joe: Hammering Josh: Uh. Joe: Over whatever when we're talking because it's the feet, it's the loop coming back through the mic. It's just Josh: Yeah, Joe: Brutal. Josh: Yeah, and even the angle, you got the perfect angle, you know, that that's, you know, are you too high, too low? It's it's all right. The technical and the technique, we cover it all. Joe: That's very cool. Well, that's that Josh: Thanks. Joe: Makes me so happy the more we can do that with guess, Josh: At. Joe: The better it will be. Josh: We're doing our part. Joe: So when is Permax? In August. Josh: August twenty seventh, we always have it on a Friday, it started that way and then we continued that way because one of the reasons it makes so much sense now to have it on a Friday, especially virtual, you spend eight hours from 9:00 to 5:00 Eastern again. Believe me, it will fly by. That's my promise. That's the way we make it happen. It's going to fly by no matter if you're a guest or a host. But you've still spent eight hours in the room absorbing everything and recording everything. So we just thought it was it was quite perfect to almost accidentally do it on a Friday, but then keep it it because let's take the weekend to sort of decompress and let it all process. Joe: Sure. Let me ask you the more of a personal question in regards to Josh: Sure. Joe: You with the hidden entrepreneur and you as a host and then as a guest, are you busy being a guest on other podcasts? And are you when you are a guest or are you talking about your show and what you've done as an entrepreneur? Are you talking more about, let's say, Pod Max and what you're doing with that? Josh: So I'm I'm a guest here and now in real time, Joe: Yeah. Josh: So you're so you're asking Joe: Do Josh: When Joe: You do a lot Josh: I'm Joe: Of these? Josh: Out. Joe: Do you do Josh: Oh yeah. Joe: You are you a guest? A lot on Josh: Yes, Joe: A lot of. Josh: Yeah, you ask a good question, though, what we what I do and really what we teach and promote is it's less about what you do and more about who you are, because that's what I think people are going to be attracted to. So I've spent time really honing in on and perfecting and continuing to perfect my story, my messaging, my communication, my positioning. A it's what I do on the business side. Right. So you sort of have to show that you can do what you're claiming to teach. Right. Which I think a lot of people Joe: Right, Josh: Don't Joe: What Josh: Do. Joe: You're asking others to do, right? Josh: Right. So if I can sort of show an example through me and be somewhat good at it, you're going to have more confidence coming along with what product or service I have. So it's in my best interest for a variety of reasons also because I still have some of that. I want the external validation right now. I don't need it, but it always feels good just as confirmation that you're doing something people value. Right. How else do you get that? But the feedback. So by doing something like this, it gives me feedback, my personal feedback and others. So I continue to hone and craft my story and message because it's what I teach and it'll help get my brand and message and story and business out there. Further, I, I talk about where I came from and my struggles, upbringing, and like we touched upon here, how I spent all the time hiding and all of those years led to creating what became the hidden entrepreneur, which then helped lead me into a career deep in the podcast space. But really it's about communication because you can apply it anywhere. You can apply it to your social media videos, to your emails, you know, to your sales calls, to all these stories and messaging still become relevant. So it's all encompassing. Joe: So for the entrepreneurs, again, that would be listening to my show, when you decided to do your podcast called The Hidden Entrepreneur. What was your main reasoning behind that? Josh: Great question, the reason out of the gate was I felt like I needed something to do right. I left that 10 year career running my own digital marketing agency, and I said, OK, what do I want to do with myself now? I didn't have all the answers. This is the important part. I didn't have all the answers. I just got the next answer, which I felt it clearly podcasting. And I said, I'm going to try it. I'm going to do it. I want to do it. I'm motivated to do it. And I think I'd be good at it. Meaning I think that I'll stick with it. And I think that this can really turn into something. I think that I can create this show and then around that show, parlay that into some sort of product or service in some regard that will put me on a path to success that I can live with and support myself with. That's really all I knew. And I knew that the show would give me confidence, right. Just by doing it and showing up each day, I knew that it would give me connection to each individual person. And lo and behold, it's it's it's literally has given me life. Joe: And the guests that you have on that show are entrepreneurs of all walks of life, but are Josh: Correct. Joe: So it's not that you are talking specifically to entrepreneurs who, like yourself, broke out of a shell and decided to do something. Josh: No, Joe: It's just Josh: No. Joe: It's just the name of it. It's something that speaks Josh: Correct? Joe: To your heart because that's Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: How you felt for a long time. And now it's just sort of like my show where we have great guests who are running their own businesses that have gone through the struggles are going through the struggles, have Josh: There Joe: Survived Josh: You go. Joe: 20, 20, all of those things. Josh: Absolutely, yes. Joe: Ok, cool, so then when let me ask you this question that when you are a guest, because I think all of this helps not only all the entrepreneurs that are listening, Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: That I don't have a podcast that don't go on podcasts that don't listen to whatever it might be, Josh: Right. Joe: Which is hard for you and I to understand, because, like, I was at the gym and I constantly having a podcast in my years. But when you are a guest, how do you figure out what your story is? Because you are this you led this life like I did, Josh: The. Joe: Right, with all of these things. And that's sort of like this is a selfish question, because I'm asking because Josh: Sure. Joe: If I was to be a guest on a podcast, Josh: Mm Joe: I'm Josh: Hmm. Joe: Not sure what Joe Costello would show up for that, because I don't there's so much that has happened. But it's not like I like I had Shaun Spawner on my show who summited all of the summits, like the they Josh: Right, Joe: Call Josh: Right, Joe: It the Josh: Right, Joe: I forget Josh: Right. Joe: What it's called anyhow. But he was amazing. He went to Everest, he went to the North Pole, South Pole, did all the summits. And so he has a story to tell and he has a short film that they did. There's people who come on and they have books. And so they've written a book on something very special. And Josh: Yeah, yeah. Joe: What's the story that you tell when you are on a show as a guest? Josh: The past forty six minutes will answer that. But in all seriousness, I I have over time you develop a library of stories that you have at the ready that encompass you and who you are, what you stand for, how you want to stand, why you want to stand for that, how you want to be perceived and positioned in your in your world. So I have a variety of stories that come about that I could explore based on the conversation I'm having. But they all wind up having an overarching theme, a core message, a core value, core stance that I deliver based on the hidden entrepeneur and where I've been and who I am and where I'm going. So you could learn about me so you can relate to me. So maybe you can like me enough to say, I want to I want to get to know this person more, see what else he does, Joe: Mm Josh: See Joe: Hmm. Josh: What he's about, and then we can explore each other's worlds together. So that takes a little bit of time to do, but that's sort of what we do. So if you're asking which I think you're asking, like, how would somebody like you who doesn't yet go on shows, where do you begin? Is that sort of what you're asking? Joe: Yeah, Josh: Like Joe: I mean, I Josh: Maybe Joe: Think. Josh: Right now? Everybody has a story where you you had a a life affirming or confirming incident that we can all write like I don't think I did necessarily, but I have enough of a story to make it interesting, relatable, compelling write. These are all things that are learnable skills, but they do start somewhere. Joe: All right. Josh: So you I read your website. So I know generally about you wanting growing up. You wanted to be a drummer, Joe: Mm hmm. Josh: Right, for the Stones or with the Stones. And so so broadly speaking, even if you started there with like a dream lost, never fulfilled yet, you know, where was the struggle there? I could spend five minutes and really dig into how painful did that get? What were some of the the turn how close did you get if if at all? What were some of those moments when you were behind closed doors in your own head? And then where are you today and how did it all go? Right. How did it all lead? OK, that could be a very compelling story that people can relate to. Of course, not everybody wanted to be a drummer for the Stones, but we all have our own version of that. So that's all you're tapping into, making it intriguing, making it compelling. And everybody has fascinating stories that they can put pieces together with and share them with the people who want to hear it. Joe: Yeah, that's great, I it's just that you think about it and you go and I think a lot of people feel this way, right? They're like, Josh: Nothing happened, right? Joe: My my story is not that interesting. Why should I tell it? And I don't necessarily feel that way. I've gone through a lot of iterations Josh: Right. Joe: And I have a lot of experience. And besides podcasting and our YouTube channel, you know, I run a seven figure booking agency here in Phoenix and Scottsdale. So I'm a successful entrepreneur. But again, this is the selfish thing for me is like I Josh: Yeah. Joe: Like meeting people like you and learning these kinds of things and sharing them before you. And I can help one entrepreneur out there with our show or what Josh: Yeah. Joe: You do with Cognex. That's a great thing, right? If it's just about and that's what I loved about this interview with you, is that you were very vulnerable and the way you spoke about yourself and it and it's refreshing to have someone to do that and not come and go. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, I ran I did this and I was running these huge corporations. And then I had all this money and I figured I didn't need any more money. So I decided to start a fight or whatever. I mean, it's just it's nice to hear that you and I went sort of through the same kind of thing Josh: Mm Joe: And Josh: Hmm. Joe: It was refreshing to hear. So I appreciate you doing that. I wanted to say thank you earlier when you were doing it, but the momentum was going. But it was very, very cool that Josh: Great. Joe: You were that real about all of that stuff. So thank you. Josh: You're very welcome. Joe. Joe: So what is the cost for the August next? Josh: We have three ticket levels that you could you could explore on the site generally there between under a thousand, up to two thousand. Joe: Ok, and. Josh: Depending on how you want the experience to go. Joe: Got it and all of that up there, they click on that button and they'll have those choices there. Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Is there a deadline? Josh: Yes, one week prior to the event, tickets, clothes, whatever, whenever you're hearing this, if it's one week prior to the very next event, tickets, clothes, because that's when we have to do the match ups and get all the information out to the attendees. Joe: What's the date and August again? Josh: August 27. Joe: Twenty seven. OK, is there anything else that I missed that you wanted to touch upon? Josh: No, you've Joe: Wow, Josh: Been thoroughly thorough. Joe: That's beautiful. OK, great. So the links that you got work for you in order for people to either contact you in regards to the hidden entrepreneur, contact you in regards to Pod Max, what's the website, you URL, all of that stuff so we can make sure and then I'll have it all in the notes anyhow. But if anybody's listening, I want to I want Josh: Mm hmm. Joe: Them to hear it. Josh: That's great. Well, the business side is Pod Max Dot CEO, and then on the personal side, which will lead you to all kinds of forks in the road that you could explore. It's Josh Carey Dotcom. Joe: Perfect. OK, well, this is been great, man, I really appreciate it. I was excited to hear about Max. I will also check out The Hidden Entrepreneur. I appreciate you coming on here and sharing this with the audience. And hopefully we'll get a bunch of people that will attend and maybe some new host and guest will come out of all of this. But I appreciate your time today, and it's very, very nice to meet you and very interesting to hear what's going on with Max. Josh: Likewise, I appreciate it greatly. Thanks so much. Joe: Thank you, man. I'll talk to you soon.

god new york amazon internet co founders new jersey pleasure jersey mount everest stones ipods ironically c suite newark impressive mm scottsdale north pole band aids south pole montclair north jersey joe cool healthyplace podmax montclair state joe it joe you hidden entrepreneur joe get joe yeah josh it josh yeah josh you joe well josh no joe so joe how joe there josh well josh oh joe do cognex josh so joe all josh don joe did joe now

Does Thinking Still Count As Working?

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2021 36:35

Show notes:Links:Write for usMaybeJosh Pigford Flu dataFull transcript:Ben:And today we don't have Starr, because Starr is on vacation this week, fireside chat.Josh:I will be on vacation next week, and the week after.Ben:Nice.Josh:I don't know if you saw, I extended my vacation.Ben:I didn't see this.Josh:Yeah. So, surprise!Ben:Two weeks back to back. That's a record.Josh:Yeah. I decided I'm feeling it and I don't think a week is going to be enough. So just thought I'd go for it.Ben:Yeah, I get that. I get that. It's funny, I was looking... We started this vacation calendar, recently, since we are looking at transitioning away from Basecamp, where our vacation calendar was, we are now putting a vacation calendar in Google calendar, because we use G Suite for all of our stuff. And I set up this vacation calendar, and I noticed that Starr put one on there, and then Josh put on a vacation and then Kevin put on a vacation. And then, Ben Findley, just week after week after week, it's like everybody's taking a vacation. I was like, all right, so I put myself on vacation.Josh:Yeah, you got to put yourself in there. Yeah.Ben:I did. Yeah. I added myself yesterday, for the week after Ben Findley's vacation.Josh:I don't know if you went and... I went in and just put a bunch of vacations for the rest of the year for-Ben:I saw that.Josh:... myself. Yeah.Ben:That's awesome.Josh:I mean, they might change, but I figured, if I at least put them in there, that'll force me to think about it and decide. Because that's been an ongoing problem, I always wait too long and then, finally, take the vacation when I just desperately need it, and I want to avoid that cycle, like we're supposed to be. This is supposed to be sustainable.Ben:This is a calm company. It means, lots of vacations.Josh:Yeah. We should be calm if we're running a calm company.Ben:I like that idea of putting on these dates tentatively and just planning on it. I might try that.Josh:Yeah. You should just plan them out. Also, yeah, I put our traditionally long winter vacation on there too, which I think is currently the last two weeks of December and the first week of January, which we can always move that around or sometimes we do the Hack week or whatever.Ben:Yeah. I've come to cherish that tradition. I like having that-Josh:It's nice.Ben:Knowing that's going to be downtime. You know?Josh:Yeah.Ben:I mean-Josh:I like the first week of the year off is kind of... there's something about that, where you don't have to go back to work the day after New Year's or whatever. That feels really nice.Ben:I mean, in reality, we're still on call. So if something broke, were going to work, but, yeah, it is nice not having that expectation of showing up and doing actual productive stuff.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. It's the low bandwidth mode.Ben:Yeah. It's also this past winter when we did that, I used that to just experiment with some stuff, work-related stuff like Elasticsearch and whatever, so that's kind of fun. It's a tinkering... even if we don't do an official Hack Week, it's still a good time to do some tinkering and get some of those creative juices going.Josh:Read some books on computer science or something like that, get excited about it again.Ben:Well, going through the SOC 2 compliance thing, the type two for the first time audit, one of the things that I came across that was new was this continuing education tracking thing. So the auditor wants evidence that we're actually doing continuing education for our employees. We always do conferences and stuff, but 2020 was a bad year for conferences, and we've never really tracked continuing education. We just like, "Yeah, let's do this conference," or whatever, and it's kind of ad hoc. And now it's like, "Oh, we need to track this, it's a good idea to plan something." So yeah, digging out those old computer science books or taking a course or doing a conference. Got to do it.Josh:Which is, well, you got to do it, but it's also, to me, that's one of my favorite things to do. I really like learning, so even in my spare time, that's what I like to do.Ben:Same.Josh:So I realized even with, yeah, my perfect workweek is a couple of hours maximum a day of doing the day-to-day things that you have to do, and then spend the rest of the day reading or learning something or working on improving your skills.Ben:Yep. Yeah. I to-Josh:That's what makes me happy.Ben:I don't try to do that every day, I like the idea, but I try to do that on Fridays. Friday to me is like the decompression day, I'm cruising into the weekend now. And so I try to put aside all the normal stuff and just something kind of interesting. Before we got on this morning, I was playing with some Docker stuff, not that we use Docker, but maybe we will someday, and just fiddling with it. You know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I think it's kind of fun.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. I like that.Ben:Until we get one of those customer requests that come in, I'm like, "Oh, I have to do some actual work now." And so, love our customers, but sometimes they can be kind of inconvenient, legitimate complaints about things need to be fixed.Josh:Or when there's an ops emergency, and so I drop everything and fix it. You had some of that going on this week. I know.Ben:But with both you and Starr got to experience those ops emergencies. It was actually a funny, so Starr, is on vacation, but the Starr was still on call for part of that time.Josh:The first night. Yeah. Because she had scheduled me to take over, was it yesterday? Whatever day it was-Ben:But in the morning.Josh:... but it was the night before. Yeah. It was like-Ben:Yeah, so I imagine in the future she might schedule you to swap a bit earlier, but-Josh:Yeah. I feel bad, because she said that, I guess, they had to get up early for a road trip and it's like 2:00 AM or something, or actually it was like 4:00 AM, I think, by the time the alerts died down.Ben:Yeah. The bad part was that there wasn't really anything to do. There was this spike in memory usage on our Redis Cluster, but it resolved itself, but only after sending some alerts saying, "Hey, somebody better pay attention to this," because that's a critical part of our infrastructure.Josh:Well, I mean, that's happened to me a few times. I mean, that's usually my on-call experience to be honest, and if it's worse than that, there's a good chance I'm waking you up anyways. But I mean, that's part of... You have a system well-architected, at least to the point, where if there is something, it does usually resolve itself, but still you need someone to sit up with it and babysit it until it does, just to make sure. And I mean, it would be totally unfair that you're the one who builds the system and also has to babysit it all the time, so our on call schedule is like a babysitter rotation.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned that, because I was looking at this vacation schedule, it's like, "Oh, when should I take vacation?" So I went and looked at the PagerDuty rotation to try and schedule my vacation away from my rotation on PagerDuty, so I didn't have to swap. And PagerDuty has changed their UI a little bit since the last time I looked at it, and I logged in and it's like, "When are you on call next?" And it says, "You're always on call." Because I'm the-Josh:Because you're level one.Ben:I'm the backup schedule. Yeah.Josh:I know, and that's a problem. I've been thinking about that, so you're not the only one worried about that, but, yeah.Ben:It was just kind of funny. I mean, it hasn't been a quality of life issue for a long time, because we've had so few problems, but still I am that backup. If it goes, what is it, more than half an hour or something, then I get woken up. But it was just kind of funny to see, you're always on call.Josh:Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'd say that's the major downside of our business is just the nature of that. And also just the nature of expertise. I feel like when I leave, it's much harder on the team, solving a lot of the customer support issues that come up related to our libraries and things. And I mean, that's part of the reason we've wanted to bring more people in the business, but then you end up with more people in the business, and then you're tied to a management role that you can't leave too. So there's trade-offs there.Ben:Yes. It's the struggle of all the bootstrap SaaS operators that are small like us, how do I get time away when I'm the solo founder? Or maybe it just two co-founders, how do we take a break? Justin has talked about this with their customer support for Transistor. They felt like they were always just having to stay on top of that, and they could never take a break. And so, they hired someone to help out with that. And having Kevin around has really helped spread the rotation out, and he's taken up a lot of the ops stuff and gotten familiar with it. So-Josh:Yeah. He's taken an interest in it, which is good.Ben:Yeah. It's been great for me.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. It's a hard problem to solve, because, I mean, yeah, you could add people, but then you got to pay those people, and so your profitability takes a hit, so it's a balance.Josh:Yeah. And I mean, I think, I don't know about you, I prefer to stay small. I don't think... I've moved past the idea of I want to have a company with tons of employees or whatever. I think that actually would make... I wouldn't be as happy with that situation, probably, as with our current situation, with a few employees and small team. We probably spend a lot more time trying to solve these problems than larger companies do, because they just throw people at it. But yeah, I feel like-Ben:That just introduces a different set of problems, right?Josh:It does.Ben:You really just have to pick which set of problems you want. Do you want to be tied to the business? Or do you want to deal with the layers of management and the people problems that come with not being tied, personally, to the business?Josh:Yeah. So, yeah-Ben:Yeah.Josh:I don't know, over time though, I think I tend towards wanting to spend less time on the business or at least, when I say, on the business, I mean, less time on those things that I just have to be doing and don't want to be doing. I want to try to always be doing the things I want to be doing. And yeah. I mean, I know just general management stuff does not fall into that bucket of what I want to be doing.Ben:It's not your dream in life to be a manager.Josh:Nope. It's not even my dream in life to be traveling the world 200 days a year or something, and preaching the gospel or something.Ben:Yeah. I've thought about that recently too. Looking at companies that get really big, whether they take a bunch of money or not regardless, but they turn into tens and then hundreds of employees. And I think about what would that be to be a CEO of that kind of company? And I'm just like, I just don't know that I would really enjoy that. There would be a certain set of excitement, yes, no doubt, about having that kind of business.Ben:I can think of right now about Tobi at Shopify, because I remember when Tobi started at Shopify, and watch that grow. And just thinking about, it's got to be pretty fun and in some ways to be Tobi, to be on top of this organization and doing these cool things and seeing the impact that you're making. And they've gone public, there's a whole lot of cool stuff there, but there's also a lot of annoying stuff there. That come along with those cool things. And it's like, ah, I think I'm happy where I am. I don't think I need to be the CEO of Shopify or something that size to have that fulfillment in my career right now.Josh:Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that you find new ways to guard your time and it just becomes even more, that's why no one can reach the CEO, usually. But, I mean, it's all... Yeah. It just puts you in an even more critical position. The pressure and responsibility must still be pretty, it just must be massive. But-Ben:It must be.Josh:Yeah. I guess, I don't really know, because I've never been in that position. I'm just guessing.Ben:Right, right. And life phases might change somethings and maybe when the kids are grown and gone, maybe you'll feel like, ah, I want a new challenge, something bigger. I think you see that a lot with founders, like us, who build something, sell it. And they're like, "Huh, let me try a bigger swing. Let me try..." Like Josh is doing right now, he did it did Baremetrics, he sold that, and now he's building out Maybe, and I think he's definitely thinking bigger scope kind of stuff.Josh:It looks like it. Yeah.Ben:Or you can just go buy a ranch somewhere and just chill, right?Josh:Right. Well, I think it's kind of... I mean, yeah, those aren't unsimilar to me. I mean, I think the big point is or the major thing is, if you're financially set and you can, again, do whatever you want to do, then, yeah, go do it. But again, even, say, if we sold the business and didn't have to work another day in our lives, we could just go buy that ranch and just kick back on it. If I decided to go and start another company, I wouldn't want to start a company that is going to demand my time and involvement, like most companies do.Josh:I'd probably try to go start another Honeybadger or something, maybe, you could go larger scale, but something that solves for those problems. Yeah, and I don't know what that looks like, but I feel like some companies of the future are kind of like... The ones that GitLab, that take a more open source approach. I don't know exactly what being in charge of GitLab is like, but I'm sure it's not a walk in the park either, but experimenting with new ways to spread responsibility around. Yeah.Ben:Yeah. And maybe the answer is, that's a scenario where you do have to take a bunch of money, so you can get those employees to make that lift, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. I think if we sold Honeybadger and we did something new, I think it has to be different in some dimension or otherwise, why did you sell?Josh:Yeah. It would have to be.Ben:And so maybe it's a different audience. Maybe it's a different size. Maybe it's venture backed versus doing it from scratch. I think it would have to be different in some significant way for it to be interesting enough to actually do versus just spending the rest of my retirement tinkering or whatever.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. I guess, getting to that critical point with employees is the thing that's hard, going from what we have, which is kind of like where we're so small that we have things we have to still be here for, but we can just disconnect whenever we want to, for the most part, like take a week off if we want to, and just do customer support or be on call. But jumping from that to the point where, say, you have 50 employees or something and you're the CEO, and you can just be like, "Okay, everyone, I'm going to be gone for a week, carry on." Which I think you can do when you have other people managing people.Josh:But in between that, there's a very... it's like if you're growing out your hair, there's that weird, you know, the annoying stage where your hair, just like you hate it. And it's like, it just doesn't work. And you're... Yeah, it just seems like that exists when you're trying to grow a business where it's hard with 10 people, all 10 of those people are looking to you for leadership on a regular basis. And you're still connected to the major centers of the business.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I hadn't really thought of it that way, and that makes total sense to me. There's those growing pains that you would get going from one phase to another.Josh:And I guess, I'm not sure, having been doing what we're doing as long as we have, I'm not convinced that I want to go through that pain that I know is there to get to that stage where I know that we probably would be in another... we'd be back in the position where we could probably have more freedom, or hire a CEO then to just run the business, which people do.Ben:Well, I mean, I wonder, so two thoughts that I have. I wonder, if you're a venture back startup, if you start from scratch with a bunch of money in the war chest, do you avoid some of those growing pains? Because you can just, right out of the gate, hire a bunch of people, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:So I wonder that, and then the follow on-Josh:Good thought.Ben:Yeah, I have no idea. And the follow on thought is, well, like in our situation, we've been around for a long time, we have profitable business, we're great, what if we take on an investment now, and then that gives us that money to hire a bunch of people? To help you accelerate through that growing pain phase, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:If you had one or two people here and there that's painful, but if you add 10 or 20 people, I don't know, maybe that's a different kind of pain, but maybe it's a better kind of pain. Because it's like ripping the band-aid off, because you did all done at once.Josh:Yeah. No, that's a good point. Yeah. That's something that I hadn't factored in, in that line of thinking. So, yeah, I think he could be right, that that is a common use of funding and capital investment and all that.Ben:Yeah. I would be open to that idea, if we had figured out the sales machine. If we could say, "Oh, we can deploy X amount of people, and we know that X amount of revenue would come in, because we'd be doing these Y activities."Josh:Totally.Ben:But we haven't quite got there yet. We have a really strong inbound, but we don't really have an outbound or we don't have a process even for dealing with inbound sales, because everything right now is hands-off, right?Josh:It's not scalable. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're doing this to ourselves, to some extent, just in our own lack of knowledge or experience in those areas, but that's part of the learning process. So-Ben:Yeah, you're right.Josh:... we are... I think it's smart though, to be focusing on those areas now, to open up those possibilities in the future. So that if we change our minds and realize that we could scale the business to a point where we can, again, have the same thing that we have now only potentially better because we don't have those, even the small responsibilities, that drag us back in, on a regular basis.Ben:Yeah, yeah. We're still choosing to grow slow and to keep it pretty calm, keep that calm company.Josh:Yeah. That's the point of calm-Ben:Right. If we take it big chunk of money, we could hire the VP of Marketing, the VP of sales, the VP of engineering, right? And then we could-Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:... presumably step back once we got these people set on the, here's the goal, now get it, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:But, yeah, that would be a less calm company, for sure.Josh:Yeah.Ben:At least for a while.Josh:Yep. And even if that's to the extent that that's possible, yeah, I don't know, I mean, you still have to build the idea of the calm company into that business. Otherwise, you'll just end up with 30 to 50 people that are chaotic and-Ben:Right. Yeah.Josh:... calling you all the time or emailing you. Yeah. So I guess I'll revise my statement, it's like, I'm not willing to grind it out to get to the next level. If that's what it comes down to, I'm happy, let's just stay where we are for... I'm fine, we run the business as an asset and try to build the lifestyle aspect of it more than anything else. But if we can find a way to scale the business and then maybe invest in it so that we can accelerate the jump, or a hair faster, so to speak.Ben:I like that.Josh:I'm terrible at metaphors. I feel like this one might actually be working, but Starr's the metaphor person. So I feel like I'm really on... I'm going to risky position right now.Ben:Better stop while you're ahead, right?Josh:Yeah.Josh:No more metaphors for the rest of the day.Ben:I think that the hair growth thing works, just have to take care of not to offend all of our bald listeners, you know?Josh:Right. Yeah. So I went to a Starbucks this week and did some work inside of it-Ben:Whoa.Josh:... without a mask.Ben:Wow. That's brave.Josh:I still did the distancing stuff just because it seems smart. I wasn't hugging everyone, but, yeah, they've got it all posted, it's like, if you're vaccinated, the mask is optional. Plus I was drinking a beverage, so... But yeah, I had a Zoom session at the Starbucks, and it was a novel experience.Ben:Very nice. Yeah. I went to a Target this week for the first time in a long time, and yeah, I just put my mask on out of habit. It's like, get out of the car, put the mask on, go in the store, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:And I'm walking around and I don't know, maybe a quarter of the people there didn't have masks, it's like, oh yeah, it's not required anymore, really. I'm vaccinated. I'm like, huh, cool. And I'll just get a long my way, but it's like, I have to get used to this new reality of not having to wear a mask.Josh:That not everyone... Yeah. Although I still suspect that a large portion of the people that are going to take them off or aren't going to wear them are the people that were always not wearing them.Ben:Yeah. Although I will say, if I were still doing mass transit every day, like I used to do, I would definitely be still wearing a mask, if it was any time cold or flu season-Josh:Oh yeah.Ben:I'm not going back to that prehistoric animal way of not covering myself during germy season.Josh:Well, there's that flu statistics that I guess have been coming in from the CDC, since the season is coming to an end 2020, 2021 or whatever, and it seems the whole social distancing. Masking situation, hand-washing really drastically improved that situation. I don't know, I forget what the numbers were, but it was ridiculous.Ben:Yeah, it's dropped like 99% or something crazy.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Something like that.Ben:It's nuts.Josh:Which is-Ben:It's awesome.Josh:... wild. Give it a little time for the data to get worked out, I guess, because just seems prudent. But I mean, either way, it seems like it's a massive thing.Ben:Yeah. I would definitely need to normalize mask wearing during germs, no doubt.Josh:Yeah. Yep. I'm cool with never getting sick again.Ben:Totally. Well, and on that note, this fall kids will actually be going to school, and it'll be an exciting adventure. All those, snot nosed punks running around getting each other sick again.Josh:Yeah. That'll be the real test. That's just going to knock us out. Yeah. Yeah. My daughter's, Tatum's starting kindergarten in the fall.Ben:Wow.Josh:And that'll be her... We did preschool at home. So yeah, that's going to be wild.Ben:First school experience, huh?Josh:Yes.Ben:Yeah, that's-Josh:I'm entering a new stage. I feel like, a new phase.Ben:Yeah. It's bittersweet. You're like, oh, that's so exciting. And it's like, oh.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, yeah. I remember those days with fondness.Josh:What's also going to be weird, because it's going to force me to start interacting with other parents in the community, which I think that's my biggest thing right now is like, oh, no, I-Ben:You better watch out, next thing you know, you'll be the president of the PTSA. You'll be organizing bake sales, and-Josh:Yeah, we're definitely going to be the... I think we'll be the weird parents, in our area, anyway.Ben:It's funny. I've noticed this, this arc, your first kid goes into kindergarten and you're so into PTA and PTSA. You're like, "I'm going to take care of all the things. I'm going to volunteer in the classroom." And you're really engaged and involved and it's so good. And then over time you start to back off a bit. It's like, "Oh, I don't really need to do all the things, there are other people that help," you know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:And then by the time they get to the tail end and they get close to graduation from high school, you're just like, "I don't even care what they're doing anymore. Educate yourself, kid. You figure it out."Josh:Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean I had to basically educate myself, so you can.Ben:Yeah, yeah. Totally. It's funny seeing the new wave of parents come in every year to the PTA, and then all of a sudden they go out, again, as the new wave comes in.Josh:And you having been there for a while, that sounds kind of like, oh no metaphors. Like if you go to a gym regularly and every New Year's, like the first two weeks of January, that's what it sounds to me.Ben:Yep. Yeah. Totally. Yeah.Josh:Because everyone comes in and is just super dedicated, and then over the next couple of weeks, it's just, they all filter out again and you're back to the same 10 people in the afternoon or whatever.Ben:Right. Yeah. And all the regulars get annoyed because of it. They're like, "Oh, all these people crammed in one place."Josh:Yeah. All this exuberance is just... Yeah.Ben:Yeah. So gym, that's a open question for me right now. So I still have a gym membership. I haven't canceled it, but I haven't been since the beginning of the pandemic. And even though I'm a 100% vaccinated, and I'm feeling invincible, still, the gym is one place I'm like, I don't know. I still feel kind of uncomfortable at that. Still trying to decide whether or not I'm going to keep that membership, because I really enjoy going, but I don't know, I don't really want to wear a mask while I'm exercising, that just sucks.Josh:Yeah, that was mine too, I just didn't... Yeah.Ben:Yeah. And wiping down everything, I'm not a super sweaty person, so I'm not the kind of person that really needs to wipe down the equipment as soon as I'm done with it, because it's like, I just touch it. I didn't have a bath on it. And so I'm just... I don't know. I don't even know if they have a kitchen cleaning procedure that you have to do now, because, again, I haven't been to the gym, but I don't know. It's tough.Josh:I haven't been to the gym, because I got my home gym in 2019, the end of 2019, and so it's been that long. But I do sweat and I was used to just wiping down the equipment in between, it's not that bad. Especially if you... you can even carry a towel with you if you want, but most gyms have the whatever clothes-Ben:Yeah. Wipes.Josh:... and spray bottles and stuff. It's not the end of the world, but the mask thing, yeah, the idea of working out in a mask does not appeal to me. Even though it could be a plus for some people, like the people that are training for high altitudes and stuff. Some people wear the mask on the treadmills and I'm sure those people are like, "Sweet, that's just extra challenge."Ben:Right, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:So I'm still doing the home stuff and it's just not as-Josh:You should-Ben:... awesome.Josh:... give it a try.Ben:Yeah. I guess I should. I should call them and say, "Hey, what's the deal down there?"Josh:I mean, I figure from what has been reported, the vaccines are very effective.Ben:Yeah, totally.Josh:And I mean, I understand the hesitancy, give it some time, obviously, that's prudent, the wait and see approach is completely valid. But after that, I mean, if you're immune, you're immune. So at some point you have to start-Ben:Living again.Josh:Yeah. Getting back out there, putting yourself back out there. But I mean, it's not a bad thing to be cautious, so I understand.Ben:Yeah. Just get back in the habit, I guess.Josh:Yeah. And I mean, to be fair, I'm also not at the gym with a bunch of people spitting in my face. So just to be clear, I'm giving this advice from my bunker.Ben:Yeah. You've got the sweet home gym set up. I'm jealous.Josh:Yeah. Actually, I've reduced my routine a little bit lately, and I've actually been doing more yoga and flexibility things, because I always go really hard with the weightlifting, and I'm not getting any younger. And so injuries are more frequent, and so I've been doing two days, two days a week right now just to keep up the major lifts and stuff, but kind of taking a little bit of a break.Ben:Have you done any of the Apple Fitness stuff?Josh:Yeah, I did one of the yoga sessions on it, when I was just... because I did yoga last year, when I had some injury stuff, and it was good, and I should have just kept doing it. And so, that's why I tried when I first started getting back into it this year, and it was really good. It was a little intense though for a beginner like me. So I've been doing this more beginner training, learning the actual postures and stuff. But then my plan is just to use the Apple Fitness stuff after that, because they seem like they have a lot of good just general-Ben:Yeah. I really like the Apple Fitness stuff. I've done some of the yoga. I didn't do the 30 minute stuff. I did the 10 minutes stuff, because I'm a super beginner, and so I did the really easy yoga, which was great for me. And I've done their high intensity stuff, which was pretty good. I'm not really an aerobics kind of person. I run and I ride, I figure I get enough aerobics that way. But when it was raining and cold and stuff, I just did the high intensity stuff, and that was pretty cool. I really liked that. And I've done their cycling, which is okay, but it's geared, at least the ones that I did, were geared towards being on a indoor cycling machine where you can adjust the intensity easily and stuff.Ben:I'm not, I'm on my own bike on a trainer, where the wheel is propped up and it's on that little roller. And so a lot of the instructions in the thing were, "Okay, let's dial up the resistance." And it's like, "Well, okay, I don't have that good of a setup here. I can't just dial up the resistance." So I had to alter it a bit, but it was still nice.Josh:You got to get your weighted boots on.Ben:I mean, but they do have trainers like mine that actually do have remote control, and so you can do that, but I don't have one. But anyway, I really enjoyed them. The fitness things are cool, and they're set into 30, 20, 10 minute intervals. And so you can like, "Oh, what kind of workout do I want today?" Yeah, I really like it.Josh:Yeah. I like the high intensity stuff for cardio a lot. And otherwise , yeah, I don't know, I could get into running, I think, but I really like walking, so I'll go for super long walks. But again, time is sometimes a factor that... sometimes I'll even just go for the afternoon and just start walking and end up back home at dinner time or something like that. I like that, but I've never been like going out too much. I've gone through a few running phases, but it never really stuck. So I like the high intensity stuff, because as far as I understand, it gives you some of the same benefits without having to run for an hour or something.Ben:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I too love long walks.Josh:Yep. I think that's a great way to spend some of your just general workweek. That's the good alternative to sitting and grinding away at the desk-Ben:No doubt.Josh:... for eight hours a day or whatever. This morning I was wrestling with my kids and stuff. And I was picking them up individually and lifting them up and then throwing them on the bed. And then I was like, "Okay, now I have to go, I have to go back to work." And they're like, "No, no. We just, we want one more." So I was like, "Okay, I've got one more." So I picked them both up, one in each arm. And I do, basically, a lateral raise with them. And as I do this, I don't know what they weigh, but Tatum's over 50 pounds, and of course they're unbalanced, but my entire upper body, just like... I hadn't done any stretching or anything, so my entire upper body just cracks all over, and Caitlin, she's like, "Are you okay?" Apparently it was like, she was concerned for me. So, yeah, I realize, man, it's not the good old days anymore.Ben:You're getting up there in years.Josh:Not that out there, but at the age where you start to notice these things, right?Ben:Yeah.Josh:But I'm not past the point of trying.Ben:So did you do anything this week? I didn't do a whole lot actually. Well, I mean, I did responding to those urgent issues-Josh:Like working, you mean?Ben:Yeah.Josh:I did not get a whole lot of work done this week no. Yeah, no, you're good. I figure, yeah, I mean, again, yeah, I'm ready for a break, so I've been trying my best, but-Ben:You're coasting into that vacation.Josh:Yeah, it's been a struggle.Ben:That's awesome.Josh:But I mean, I think, we need to learn not to feel bad about that. Having a "unproductive" week. And I mean, if I'm... Yeah, honestly, I did things this week, it just wasn't as much work things. Dealt with things at home, read some books, that sort of stuff, that's still being productive, right?Ben:Totally. Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.I thought a lot about our project that we mentioned last week on the podcast about working together with Kevin on, I had spent a fair amount of time thinking about that. And that's one of the things that you can do on those long walks, it can still be working.Josh:Thinking.Ben:Thinking.Josh:Yeah, thinking is totally work.Ben:Thinking is totally work, so I did a lot of thinking this week, and responding to urgent stuff, but also, nearly, nearly done on the compliance thing. I think I have 11 out of 150 evidence requests left to complete. So-Josh:Wow.Ben:... yeah, it's almost there. Next week, I'll be actually talking to the auditors and-Josh:Awesome.Ben:Yeah. It's almost done. That's nice.Josh:And you've got ideas for making it easier next year.Ben:Yep. Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:So, yeah, just plugging away.Josh:So I guess we're cruising.Ben:Yeah, no worries. Well, I guess we can wrap it.Josh:Yeah, wrap it.Ben:They're getting a good one. This has been FounderQuest. We're still coming at you mostly every week, and we really enjoy it. And if you enjoy it, hope you give us a review at iTunes or wherever you can review podcasts, because I never do that, so I have no idea. But if you're into that, please do, and, yeah, check out Honeybadger, of course, because we love having more customers. And I guess we'll see y'all next time.Josh:Catch you later.

ceo new year founders google marketing zoom thinking startups target starbucks hack cdc saas developers educate shopify ui pta basecamp masking dealt elixir soc docker bootstrap honey badger gitlab transistor wipes g suite lifestyle business elasticsearch software as a service pagerduty apple fitness baremetrics ptsa ben it ben you josh it josh yeah josh you josh no ben so josh well josh oh ben well ben right micropreneur links write josh not

Will Working Together Ruin Our Anarchist Workflow?

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2021 39:09

Show notes:Links:TwistHook RelayBen Orenstein TupleWrite for HoneybadgerFull transcript:Starr:So Ben is joining us today from his car. It's bringing back fun memories. I recorded, I think the voiceover for our very first demo video in my car.Ben:Oh yeah? Nice. So as you may recall, I have a two story building that I lease one of the rooms, and the downstairs is a wine tasting room. Well with the pandemic, the company that had the wine tasting room, they closed shop. They stopped leasing, because who's going to go to a wine tasting room during a pandemic, right? Well they're leasing the space to a new tenant that's going to take that space. Apparently hey, we're getting back, things are reopening, let's taste wine again, but the new tenant wants to have a new door put in. So I got to the office today and they're like, "Yeah, we're putting in a new door." And then I'm like, "Cool." Didn't even think much of it. But then a few minutes later, there's all this drilling going on. I'm like, "Oh, I think probably the car is a better place to record today."Josh:Well at least you'll have some new friends soon.Ben:True, true.Starr:Yeah. Well I'm glad you made it, at least. And so what's up? I missed a week of the podcast and you guys invested our entire Honeybadger savings account into Bitcoin.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And I'm not sure that was the most prudent investment decision, y'all. I just wanted to say that.Ben:Yeah, the timing could have been better.Josh:Yeah, we really pulled a Roam Research on that one.Starr:Oh yeah. What do you mean by that?Josh:They invest in Bitcoin, apparently.Starr:Oh, they do? Okay.Ben:Of course they do.Starr:Of course. It's just a dip. You're supposed to buy the dips, Josh. It's just what, like a 30% dip? 40% dip?Josh:I wasn't watching it, but I read that it had recovered pretty quickly too.Starr:Oh. I have no idea. I didn't even follow it.Josh:As it does.Starr:I don't even follow it.Josh:Yeah. I just read random people's opinions.Starr:There you go.Josh:I forget where we left it last week, but I just wanted to state for record that I think I mentioned I made some accidental money in Bitcoin back when I was learning about block chain technology, but I have not bought any Bitcoin since, nor do I intend to, and I do not really view it as an investment asset.Starr:This is not investment advice.Josh:I just need to state my opinions for the future so I can look back on them with regret. If I don't say what I actually think, I'm never going to have anything to regret.Starr:There you go.Josh:I'm just going to commit.Starr:So you've decided to die on this no intrinsic value hill.Josh:Right. I'll let you know if I change my mind.Starr:Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah, I don't really check. Last week y'all did the interview with Mike, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah, it was a good conversation.Starr:Yeah. I don't really pay attention to it, except occasionally I'll look at the chart. It's the same with GameStop. Occasionally I'll look at the GameStop chart and then just see what wild stuff people are saying about it. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, GameStop was hovering at about 150 for a while, but now it's up to like 170-ish, 180. Something like that. Yeah. I peek at it every now... it's on my watch list when I log into my brokerage account, so I just see it. I'm like, "Oh, okay. Cool." And then I move on and check out my real actual stock portfolio.Starr:Oh yeah, yeah. I'm not going to buy it. It's like a TV show for me.Ben:Yeah, totally.Josh:Yeah. To be fair, I really don't have much of an opinion either way. I still don't understand it, so I don't know. I just feel like I probably shouldn't be buying it.Starr:That's really good advice. I don't understand anything though, so what am I supposed to do, Josh? Huh? Huh?Josh:Yeah.Ben:Just buy the index fund.Starr:Yeah. I don't even understand that.Josh:I don't understand that either though, if you really think about it.Ben:That's actually, there was a good thread or so on Twitter. I don't know if it was this week or last week, but basically the idea was if you feel really confident in your own ability, in your own business, given that, you're probably spending most of your time in that business, right? We spend most of our creative time in Honeybadger because that's where we feel the most potential is. So you're investing basically all of your personal capital in this one business. How do you diversify that risk? Or do you diversify the risk? Do you double down? Maybe do you take investment to diversify, and so you buy out? Let someone do a secondary and so you take some cash off the table? If you did that, then where would you put the money? Do you just go, "Okay, I'm going to go buy Bitcoin. I'm going to go buy an index fund," or whatever. And if you do that, is that a better use of your money than having just kept the equity and just plowing more time into your business? Right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's an interesting thought exercise. It's like, "Hm." The whole investment mindset of your business is interesting to me.Josh:Yeah. Yeah, that was interesting. I think I saw that conversation, or maybe I saw a similar conversation where they were talking about even just 401Ks and for founders who are already fairly... have at least made it in whatever sense that means. Is it the best financial move to keep maxing out your 401K versus investing in your ability to generate revenue in your business?Starr:So a little bit of real talk here. If you are a founder who's made it, maxing out your 401K isn't really a blip on your financial radar.Josh:It's not a big... yeah. That was kind of the same thought I had. It's not like you're putting 50% of your income into it.Starr:Yeah. What is it, like 20 grand? Something like that?Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's a good chunk of change, but still. It's not like...Josh:Yeah. I don't know.Starr:Yeah, that's interesting. I think I'm just going to go all in on Pogs. I think they're due for a comeback. I think that's going to be how I diversify.Josh:But I think it's probably a good move to invest in yourself if you have the ability to build businesses. That definitely seems like a good investment, in any case. Probably still have a 401K. I tend to do everything, except Bitcoin.Ben:A 401K is a nice backstop. Just keep stocking money away, and later it will be there, hopefully. But in the meantime, really, really spend your time and your energy on making your business even more profitable. Speaking of making your business more profitable, so this past week or two weeks, I've been working on our SOC 2 type two audit, so I'm doing the evidence collection.Starr:Oh yeah?Ben:So that in this case means I take a bunch of screenshots of settings, like the AWS console and G-suite console to show yeah, we have users, and yes, we have login restrictions, et cetera. All the 150 different things that you're supposed to check off the list when you do the audit. And as I've been going through this process taking all these screenshots, honestly it's getting a bit tedious, and it's surprisingly time consuming. And so I'm like, "You know, there are services for this sort of thing. Let me check them out." And so in the past three days, I've had conversations with Vanta, Secureframe, and Drata. These are three providers that what they do is they provide almost SOC 2 in a box. Basically they help you connect all of your systems and get the evidence that you need for an auditor in a more automated fashion. So for example, they'll plug into your AWS account and they'll pull out information about your security groups, your application firewall, your AIM, all the access permissions, all that kind of stuff, and pack that up into a nice little format that the auditor can then look at and like, "Yeah, they're good on all these different requirements." So you don't have to take screenshots of security groups.Ben:And I hadn't really looked at them before because I was like, "I don't know if I just want to spend that kind of money," but actually sitting back and looking at it, looking at the time that I'm spending on this and the amount of time I'm paying our auditors to audit all these screenshots that I'm taking, actually I think it would be cheaper to go with one of these services, because your audit is a bit more streamlined because the auditor knows how that data is going to come in and it's an easy format to digest, et cetera. But the thing is that after having gone through some of the sales pitches from these vendors, I'm thinking I really wish I would have started with these back the first time, because I think it would have been much easier just from the get go. So I think I've been doing the SOC compliance on hard mode, unfortunately, but lessons learned.Starr:With my experience, that just seems to be how projects are. You do it one time and you don't really know what you're doing, and you just push your way through it, and then eventually you figure out how to do it better and easier and all that. Because when something is new to you, you don't know what you can safely ignore. You know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Well plus you're pumping up the value of FounderQuest.Starr:Oh, that's true. We got a lot of content out of that.Ben:That's true.Starr:At least $100 worth.Josh:That's useful knowledge. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, so I think the short version is if you are interested in doing SOC2 compliance and you have no idea what you're doing, talk to these vendors first and maybe just start with them. They will help you, because they have customer success people like SaaS does. They have people on staff who are there to help you have success with their product. And if you don't get compliant, then you're going to stop using their product, so they're going to help you try and get there. And it's still pricey. It's still going to be five figures a year, but it will definitely save you some time and maybe even save you some money.Josh:Nice.Ben:Yeah. So next year, our audit should just be smooth as silk.Starr:Just butter.Josh:Love it.Starr:So if we-Josh:What are you going to do with all that extra free time?Ben:I made an executive decision.Starr:Oh really? What's that?Ben:Yes. The executive decision is we're going to have more teamwork at Honeybadger.Starr:That's ironic.Josh:Instead of what? What we have now, which is anarchy?Ben:We pretty much do have anarchy, I think. We are coordinated, we do make our plans, and we do have things we want to get done, but yeah, we are very independent at Honeybadger. We work independently. You might even say we're kind of siloed. We go off in the corner and do our own thing for most of the time. And I was chatting with Kevin about this, and I think we're going to try an experiment. So I think we're going to try to actually work together.Starr:Kevin is our developer.Starr:Yeah, so you all are going to be developing features together. Are you going to pair program? Are you going to use Tuple?Ben:Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down there.Starr:Are you going to mob program?Ben:Pair programming, that's maybe too advanced for us, I think. Maybe actually we'll chat in Slack a little bit here and there and maybe have a Zoom call.Josh:Yeah, so you're talking about you're both going to work on the same project at the same time.Ben:Right. Right.Josh:Mostly independently, but coordinating.Ben:Right. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I think that still can fit into our anarchy model.Starr:Yeah. It still seems a little bit independent.Josh:It's more like mutual aid or something.Starr:There you go. We should make a conference talk about mutual aid development.Josh:Right.Starr:That would go over well.Ben:Using NATO as a model for your development process. Yeah, so we'll see how it goes. I'm looking forward to it. I think I've been feeling a little lonely. I don't know if it's the right word, but maybe just off doing my own thing. I was like, "Oh, I think it will be nice to have some collaboration, some coordination." Maybe we'll even get to a level of synergies.Starr:Synergies.Starr:That's a blast from the past.Josh:Yeah, I think it's a good idea.Ben:Yeah, so more to come on that. We'll keep you posted. It's a bigger project. May not have results for a couple months. Don't really want to spill the beans on what it is right now. Competitive information. Don't want to leak it to all of our competitors.Starr:I like that. I like that. It's going to keep people on the hook for the next episodes.Josh:Totally.Ben:But yeah. That was my week.Josh:Yeah. Well my week, I took some time off, had some family stuff going on, so I was not very productive this week, but what I did work on was I've been working on this little guide for Hook Relay. I'd love to get the marketing machine, the fly wheel going on that at least, so we can be moving that along with everything else. And so yeah, working on some content and such.Starr:What is Hook Relay?Josh:Well you tell us what Hook Relay is, Ben. It's your baby.Ben:It's my baby. Yeah. So Hook Relay is a tool for managing web hooks. So you can record web hooks as they go out. In our case, to Honeybadger, we send a lot of web hooks, and so we built Hook Relay to help track all that web hook action. So we logged as pay loads that can go and diagnose issues that are happening, or maybe replay them as necessary, and of course it also handles inbound web hooks. So if you were handling, let's say, a post pay load request from GitHub about some activity that happens in your GitHub account, you handle that web hook and we can give you a place to store that, and then you can replay that, send it, forward it onto somewhere if you want, or just store it.Josh:Yeah. I think one of my favorite things about Hook Relay is just the visibility that it gives us into what's happening with the hooks, because otherwise we never had a dashboard. I guess we could have built one internally to see what the activity was and what's failing, what's actually... what requests are... because you're connecting to thousands of different people's random domain URLs, basically. It's really nice even for debugging and things like troubleshooting to be able to see what's going on, in addition to all the other cool things that it gives you out of the box.Starr:So you might say it's even like turnkey reliability and visibility for web hooks. For all your web hook needs.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, we modeled it on Stripes web hooks because we loved-Starr:I'm holding up a box up. I'm holding the TurboLinks box up and gesturing at it with my hand.Ben:Vanna White style.Josh:We should do our own channel, do our own infomercials.Ben:Yeah, I really wanted experience of Stripe. If you set up web hooks in Stripe, you can go and you can see all the web hooks they've sent you. You can see the pay loads, you can see whether they were successfully delivered or not, and I wanted that experience for our own web hooks, and also I thought it would be cool if developers could just have that without having to build the infrastructure. And so if you're building an app that send a bunch of web hooks on behalf of your customers, well now you can give your customers visibility into that web hook activity without having to build that tracking yourself.Josh:Yeah. That's pretty cool. So basically this content guide I'm working on is how to build web hooks into your application, including all the reliability and stuff that Hook Relay gives you for free. And the idea is that if that's what you're doing and you just want to save some time, Hook Relay will be a large chunk of that. You've just got to sign up. So I think it will be useful to everyone, even if they don't become a customer. If you're going to build your own back end and handle all the retries, build dashboards, and all that. But if you want it all turnkey, then Hook Relay is a big chunk of that work just done of you.Starr:So is this live? So can people go and sign up now?Ben:Yeah.Josh:Hook Relay, yes. It is.Josh:Hookrelay.dev.Ben:Yeah. In fact, we have enough customers now that it's actually paying for itself.Starr:What?Ben:Yes. So sweet.Josh:It's wild. That's wild.Starr:That's amazing.Ben:So Josh, is your guide going to have... are you going to dive deep into the architecture of here's how you build a whole web hook system, and so we're going to show you all the stuff behind the curtain so you can build your own? And then, "Oh, by the way, if you want it just done for you, here it is." Or are you going to just keep it more high level?Josh:I'm starting more high level. Yeah, I was planning on it being more high level. More like a high level architecture thing, or specification. Like these are the parts that you'll need to build, but you're going to have to solve some things, because it's not going to be specific to one system. It's not going to be like, "This is how you build web hooks for Ruby and Sidekick, or if you're going serverless." It will have suggestions on stacks or technologies to use for the back end, for instance, but yeah. I was thinking of leaving that to the user to figure out, but just showing the things you need to think about that a lot of people don't think about until they encounter the problems that might arise, like retrying and all the error handling that you add later, and validation for security reasons and things.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Starr:This is giving me flashbacks to a whole two or three year process after we first launched.Josh:Yeah.Starr:It was just like, "Oh, crap. There's an edge case here that we didn't think of because we're not used to doing web hooks at this scale." And that just went on for like three years.Josh:Yeah. And it's nice having the two products because Hook Relay came out of Honeybadger and it's basically part of our web hook system. This is basically just documenting Honeybadger's web hook system for other people who might want to replicate that or whatever.Ben:Totally. I think that will be cool. A great piece of content, a great piece of SEO juice. And if you did decide to go deep into the technical side, like if you explain the entire infrastructure that we're building, that would actually be kind of cool too because you could maintain your technical documentation for the system internally and use it as a piece of content for marketing.Josh:That could be cool. Yeah. That's not a bad idea. Yeah, I was thinking just because I want to get something out there. I'm thinking it will help with both, having a resource for people who are already on the site to see this is basically how you will implement this. It's kind of like an implementation guide, really. But then also SEO. It should help get us in more search results.Ben:Yeah.Josh:And I also want to credit Ben Orenstein and and Tuple. They have a great pair programming guide which was an inspiration for this idea. I just really liked the format that they used, and I just think it's a great idea if you have a product that's highly targeted or focused on one specific thing and doing it really well. I think it's maybe even a great alternative to a blog, for instance. You can get some of the same benefits of having a blog, but without actually having to create a blog with a lot of different variety of topics and things.Ben:Speaking of the blog, I was talking to Harris, our sales guru, about our blog strategy, and I said, "Yeah, it's basically like a flypaper strategy. We want it to attract developers that come and see the content and they love it and they're like, 'Oh, let me check out this Honeybadger thing.'" Not particularly novel, but I like the flypaper idea.Starr:That's a good metaphor. And also for a long time, I poo-pooed SEO because in my mind, SEO was very scammy. I don't know. I learned about SEO in the days of link farming and all that, and I just didn't want to be involved in that. So I'm just like, "We're just going to put out good content and that will be enough." And it is, yes, but also I've looked at some metrics since then that make it clear that the majority of good things that happen because of our blog actually are people entering through search queries. That really outweighs people sharing articles and doing stuff like that, which I guess is obvious that it would be that way, but my own bias against search just made me not see that for a while. So maybe trying to pick some possible low hanging fruit. We've tried to make our site search engine friendly, but we having really done any explicit SEO type activities.Josh:Yeah. I went through recently through our documentation and just tweaked just small things on a bunch of pages, like headlines and some of the meta tags and stuff, but mostly headlines and content on page was what I was focusing on. And I wasn't using any particular tool to measure before and after results, but it does seem like it bumped us up in some of the results for people searching for more general terms like Ruby error tracking, for example, which are typically pretty competitive terms. But I think we rank pretty well for some of those terms these days. I think we've been around enough and we're one of the options that come up. So it does seem like if you already target the terms, it actually does what they say it does, which is good to know. You've just got to pay attention to it.Ben:So the moral of story is there is some value in SEO.Starr:I guess so.Josh:Yeah. Well and I think documentation sites. Your documentation, I think it's a great place to optimize SEO because a lot of times, especially for those... maybe not for the long tail searches. A blog is great for that, like what you were talking about with the flypaper, Ben. But for people who are actually searching for what you do, I think a lot of times documentation pops up first in a lot of cases when I'm searching for things, so don't overlook it like we did.Starr:Yeah. Well this week, I guess the main thing I did was I got our authors lined up for the next quarter of intelligence briefings. So if you haven't been playing along at home, we're having some intelligence briefings created. Basically everything that's going on in a certain language community for the quarter, and this grew out of Josh's need because he's basically in charge of our client libraries. And we have libraries in a variety of languages, so keeping up with those languages and what's going on is a real pain in the ass, so we were going to make these guides originally for him, but then also we were like, "This would be really great content to publish."Starr:And I've already got this system with authors who want to write about programming languages, and so let's see if we can make some authors make these summaries. And so far, yeah, I'm pretty happy. We had four or five of them created, and we're not publishing them because they were for a previous quarter, and this is just a trial run to see if the results are okay, and I think they were. I think the results were pretty good. We go some feedback from you two, and I updated my process and updated the template that all the authors are using, and so we should be getting round two done. I'm setting the deadline a week after the end of the quarter. My hope is if they get them to me then, then I'll have a week to get them up on our blog or wherever, and then they won't be too out of date by the time people see them.Josh:Yeah. That's cool. I'm excited to see the next batch. My favorite thing from the reports were the ones where they wrote some original content summarizing things or sections or whatever. That was super useful because there's a little bit of a story element to it that's specific to the quarter or whatever that you don't really get from just... if you just aggregate everything, all the weekly newsletters and what happened on Reddit and what happened on Twitter. If you just dump that all in a document, it's a bit of overload, so it's nice to have the summary the story of what the community was interested in.Starr:Oh yeah. Definitely.Josh:Here are some articles that they talked about.Starr:That's the whole idea, is to have somebody who knows the community explain to you what's going on, as opposed to... if I wanted a bunch of links, I could just write a little script to scrape links from places.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And it wouldn't be very useful. What's useful is having people who know the environment being like, "Hey, this is what's going on. This is why it's important." And yeah, so that's going to be something I guess I need to look for explicitly when I get this round of things of reports back.Josh:Start calling them secret agents or something instead of authors.Starr:Oh yeah.Josh:Or detectives.Starr:Operatives. Yeah. Assets.Josh:As our detective service investigators.Ben:I think having that analysis of why this news is important or why these things are important that they've collected is really handy, because the links are great. Like you said, I could just write a script to collect them, but having someone with that context in the community saying, "Okay, and it's important because, and this is why you should pay attention," I think that's really helpful to someone who's maybe not as deep into that every day.Starr:Oh yeah.Josh:Yeah. And also knowing what to surface, because there was one report that it really seemed to just dump every single link or article that was discussed or was in a newsletter or whatever, and I think it's more helpful if it's on a quarterly level, if you know what is actually the important things that you really want to know about.Starr:Yeah, that's true. I just made a note for myself to go back and explicitly just mention that to people, because I realized I didn't put it in the instructions anywhere. I put like, "Here's where a description of the content goes," but I didn't really put what I want inside that description, I realized.Josh:Yeah.Starr:So I'm going to do that.Ben:We're iterating in real time here.Starr:Oh yeah, yeah. This is where the work gets done.Josh:Yeah. Well and pretty soon, we'll have hopefully some good examples that we can show future authors, or detectives, or whatever we're calling them.Starr:Oh, definitely. Definitely. I'm going to call them authors because they're already in the blog system as authors and it just seems like-Josh:Agents?Starr:I don't know. I've got to be able to talk to these people with a straight face.Ben:You could call them research specialists, but then you might have to pay them more.Starr:There you go.Josh:Research. Yeah. Yeah.Starr:I don't know. I think I'm paying pretty well. Honestly, I think I'm paying pretty well for looking at... I don't know. How many weeks is a quarter? 12? 12 weeks of newsletters and just telling me what's going on. I think I'm paying pretty well.Josh:Yeah. You don't need to talk to them with a straight face though. You need to talk to them with sunglasses on, smoking a cigarette in a diner.Starr:Oh that's right. Yeah.Josh:Or a dive bar somewhere.Starr:Those people aren't smiling. Those people aren't smiling. Oh, that's right. I can do that. I just realized that it's two weeks since my second vaccine, so I'm ready to go out and recruit secret agents.Josh:Ready to party.Starr:Yeah. I'm very anxious talking with people in public now, but that's not a topic for this conversation.Josh:Yeah. We'll ease back into it.Starr:Oh yeah. Yeah, we're going to have dinner with my sister in law on Saturday, and I'm just like, "Okay Starr, you can do this. You can do this."Josh:Cool.Starr:Yeah, and I guess the other thing that we did this week is we are doing a trial run of Twist as a replacement for Basecamp messages, the message board on Basecamp. And yeah, so basically the long and short of it is the whole Basecamp BS just left a bad taste in my mouth in particular. I think you all's a little bit, or maybe you're neutral. I don't care. That sounded really harsh.Ben:You can be honest with us. We can take it.Starr:No, I didn't mean to sound that harsh. I just mean I'm not trying to put my opinions onto you, is what I'm saying. I just felt gross using Basecamp. Also if I'm being honest, I never really enjoyed Basecamp as a product. It's got a couple things that just really rubbed me the wrong way.Josh:We were having some vague conversations in the past. We have posed do we really want to keep this part of what we're using Basecamp for? And we were already using a subset of it, so yeah. It wasn't totally out of the blue.Starr:Yeah. And we were using maybe 20% of Basecamp, just the message boards feature.Josh:And the check ins, which apparently we all disliked.Starr:And the check ins, which nobody liked but we all kept using for some reason. Ben is like, "Can I turn off the check ins?" And I'm like, "I thought you were the only reason we were doing the check ins, it's because I thought you liked them."Ben:I think I was the only reason we were doing the check ins.Josh:It's because... yeah.Ben:Yeah, because I remember when I started it I was like, "Yeah, I really don't know what's going on," because back to that siloed, independent, off in the corner thing, I was like, "It would be nice to know what people are doing." But yeah, lately I've been like, "This is just a drag." So I'm like, "Would anybody be upset if this went away?" And everyone is like, "Please take it away."Josh:Everyone is just passively aggressively answering them.Ben:Everyone hated it.Josh:It wasn't that bad, but-Ben:I get it.Josh:Kevin used them too, but yeah.Ben:So I finally gave everyone permission to tell me that it was not okay, and now we no longer do it.Starr:There you go. And we're just like, "While we're at it, just ditch Basecamp." So yeah, so we've been trying a new system called Twist. Twist is, essential it's... I don't know, it's like threaded discussions. I figured this out on my own. I'm very proud of myself. So you have lots of threads, and you twist them together to make yarn or something or some sort of textile, so I bet you that's why it's called Twist.Josh:Beautiful sweater.Starr:Yeah. A beautiful sweater. The tapestry that is Honeybadger. And so far, I've really been enjoying it. I find the UI to be a lot better. There was one bug that we found that I reported, so hopefully that will get fixed. It doesn't really bother me that much. Yeah, it's amazing sometimes how the UI of an application can just be like, "Oh, ah. I'm having to parse less information just to do my task."Josh:It's much nicer.Starr:Yeah.Ben:It does feel like a lot less friction for our use case.Josh:Yeah. Well we talked about that, just the structure. The way that you structure conversation and organization things in a management tool like that makes a big difference. In Basecamp, we would create Basecamps for whatever. They call them Basecamps, right? They're the projects.Starr:They're like projects. I don't know.Josh:We'd create different ones, different projects for each project, but then there's five of us, so we'd basically just add everyone to every single project that is in there. But all the conversation is siloed off in each project, and with Twist, it's just much more of a fluid... it uses what, like channels? But yeah, it just seems like it's all together. It's kind of like a combination of Slack and a threaded message board or something, to me.Starr:Yeah, or like Slack and email or something.Josh:Slack and email. Yeah. It's a nice combo.Starr:Yeah. It has inbox, which I like, where it shows you any unread messages, and so you can just easily just go and scan through them, and it's all in the same page. It's a single page application, so you don't have to click out to a completely new page and then come back to the inbox and do all that. Basecamp had a similar feature, but it's like a timeline and it had a line down the middle of the screen and then branches coming off of either side of it. And for some reason, I started using the inbox in Twist and it was just like, "Oh, this is so much better." For some reason I think having things on different sides of the screen just doubled the amount of background processing my brain had to do to put it all together. And yeah, so I don't know. I do like it. Also, it's got mark down. It's got mark down.Josh:The mark down editor is so nice. It reminds me a lot of just using GitHub, the editor on GitHub, with the mark down mode and preview. And you can drag and drop images into the... I don't know if you knew that, into the mark down editor, like you can on GitHub, and it automatically inserts the image tag and uploads it for you.Starr:Yeah, it's all really slick. So I don't know. I imagine in maybe another... I've got vacation next week, so maybe after that we'll get together and compare notes. But I don't know, it seems like people like it so far.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, it's been good. It's interesting-Josh:If I had to decide today, it's a keeper for me.Ben:Yeah, I would go ahead and switch.Starr:Oh yeah, me too.Ben:It's interesting to me, you alluded to this, Starr, as you were talking about comparing it to your products and how they approach... it's interesting to me the UI, even if it's the same kind of functionality, how much different takes on the user experience can make a different experience for the user. How it just feels different. Like, "Oh yeah, it's basically doing the same thing, but it just feels better for whatever. My mentality or our business." Fill in the blank there, but I thought about that many times. Honeybadger versus competitors. It's like, "Yeah, they're doing basically the same thing, but we do have differences in how we approach the UI and different use patterns that we think are more emphasized by our UI versus the others." And sometimes it's just a matter of personal preference. It's like, "Oh, this just feels better to me." One night I tried Python before I tried Ruby, and Python is like, "Oh, that's interesting," but then Ruby really clicked my brain. It's like, "Oh, it just feels better." And I'm sure other people have the opposite experience, but I don't know. It's weird to me and fun to think about the human part of these products. Josh:Yeah. And it's surprising, the strong opinions that people pick up just based on those experience things when they're basically the same, if they're doing the same thing. Some people, they either love it or hate it based on that.Starr:Yeah, that's true. Maybe it all goes back to whatever business apps you used in childhood. It's just whatever your mom made you for lunch, you're always going to love that.Josh:Yeah. It's like a nurture thing, nature versus nurture. You were exposed to these apps when you were young, and so it's just what you're drawn to.Starr:Yeah. I remember putting my little friend's contact details into Lotus Notes.Josh:Right. I had to program Lotus Notes.Ben:I got my first dev job because I knew Lotus Notes.Starr:Oh, nice.Josh:Lotus Notes was an important precedent at the time, I think.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It was the bomb. You could do some pretty serious stuff.Starr:Yeah. I kept having these jobs that weren't technically dev jobs, but ended up being dev jobs just because I knew how to write V basic macros for Excel. I'm sure a lot of people had that experience.Josh:The thing I remember doing in Lotus Notes was setting it up to ingest email from the outside world into whatever, the system. And thinking about it now, that project I've done over and over and over since then.Starr:It's Basecamp.Josh:And I'm still doing that project.Starr:It's Basecamp all over again. Oh no.Ben:If only there was a service that took in emails for you, and then you could just bring them into your app data.Josh:Yeah. I bet in 20 years, we'll be writing programs to accept email.Ben:Process emails, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. When is this stuff going away? Technology changes all the time. When is email going away? They've been killing it for years. It's like fricking Rasputin. When is it going away?Ben:It's the cockroach of protocols.Starr:There you go.Josh:After the singularity, they'll still have to have a way to import it directly into your consciousness, and yeah, I don't know.Starr:Yeah. I hope the spam filtering is really good then.Starr:All right, well it was great talking with y'all.Ben:Likewise.Starr:Yeah. So this has been FounderQuest. Go to the Apple podcast and review us if you want. If you're interested in writing for us, we are always looking for fresh, new talent. Young authors looking to make their mark on the world of technical blog posts for SAS companies. And yeah, just go to our blog and look for the write for us page. I don't currently have any openings, but who knows? People flake out. So if you're interested in writing these reports for us too, get in touch. These quarterly intelligence briefings, if you want to be an agent for our intelligence service. All right, so I'll see y'all later.

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Understanding Bitcoin From a Developer's Perspective

Play Episode Listen Later May 21, 2021 50:53

Show notes:Links:Mike MondragonCRDTShip of TheseusExceptional CreaturesShiba Inu Full Transcript:Ben:I'm just gonna dive on in there. I'm so eager. I'm so excited. It's actually weird because Starr is the one that typically starts us off. Josh:Yeah. I thought we were just going to start with our just general banter, and then not introduce the guest until 30 minutes later.Ben:By the way.Josh:It is also our tradition.Ben:Yeah. Well we're getting better at this thing.Josh:Where we say, "Oh, by the way, if Starr doesn't sound like Starr..."Ben:Right, yes. Today Starr doesn't sound like Starr because today's star is Mike Mondragon instead. Welcome Mike.Josh:Hey Mike.Mike:Hey.Ben:Mike is a long time friend of the show, and friend of the founders. Actually, Mike, how long have we known each other? It's been at least 10, maybe 15 years?Mike:Probably 2007 Seattle RB.Ben:Okay.Josh:Yeah. I was going to say you two have known each other much longer than I've even known Ben.Ben:Yeah.Josh:So you go back.Ben:Way back.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Because I think Ben and I met in 2009.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Or something.Mike:Okay.Ben:Yeah, Mike and I have been hanging out for a long time.Mike:Yeah.Ben:We've known each other through many, many different jobs, and contracts, and so on. It's been awesome.Josh:Yeah, Mike, I feel like I've heard your name since... Yeah, for the last, at least, 10 years just working with Ben. You've always been in the background. And we've realized this is the first time we've actually met face to face, which is crazy. But it's great to... Yeah.Mike:Yeah.Josh:... have a face to put with the little... What is it, a cat avatar? Is a cat in your avatar? You've had that avatar for a really long time I feel like.Mike:Yeah, that's Wallace.Josh:Okay.Mike:So I'm Mond on GitHub and Twitter, and that cat avatar is our tuxedo cat, Wallace. And he is geriatric now. Hopefully he'll live another year. And if you remember in that era of Ruby, all of the Japanese Rubyists had cat icons. And so that was... I don't know. That's why Wallace is my icon.Josh:Yeah. Nice.Ben:So, so do Wallace and Goripav know each other?Mike:No, no, they don't. They're like best friends, right? They had to have met at Seattle RB.Ben:Yeah. Internet friends.Mike:Internet friends, yeah.Ben:Yeah. So, Mike is old school Ruby, way back, way back, yeah. But the other funny thing about the old Rubyists, all those Japanese Rubyists, I remember from RubyConf Denver... Was that 2007? Somewhere around there. I remember going to that and there were mats and a bunch of friends were sitting up at the front, and they all had these miniature laptops. I've never seen laptops so small. I don't know what they were, nine inch screens or something crazy.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I was like, "How do you even type on that thing?" But it's a thing. So I guess... I don't know. I haven't been to Japan.Mike:There are laptops that you could only get in Japan and they flash them with some sort of Linux probably.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Okay. I wonder how long it took them to compile C on there.Mike:Yeah. So, about the orbit with the founders. So, I think I'd put it in my notes that I... And I consider myself a sliver of a Honeybadger in that I did have a conversation with Ben about joining the company. And then in 2017, I did do a little contracting with you guys, which is ironic in that... So we're probably going to talk about cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. So the Bitcoin protocol is, essentially, on a four-year timer. And in 2017 was the last time that we were building up to, I guess, an explosive end to that cycle. And I had just been working at Salesforce at Desk.com, And I left because of Bitcoin. And then this year, four years later, I, again, just left Salesforce, but I just left from Heroku. And I didn't leave so much because of Bitcoin, I just got a better opportunity, and I'm a principal engineer at Okta, and I'm in the developer experience working on SDKs, primarily, the Golang SDK.Mike:So I think one of the things that they were happy about was that I had experience carrying the pager, and knowing what that's like, and they wanted to have an experienced engineer that would have empathy for the engineers to main the SDK. So I'm really excited to be here, because I'm not going to be carrying the pager, and it is the fun programming. What I imagine, listening to the founders, about the kind of fun programming that you guys get to do, working with different languages and whatnot. So, obviously right now, I'm starting out with Golang. We don't have a Ruby SDK, because OmniAuth provider is the thing that most people use. But, there's also PHP, and some Java, so I'm just looking forward to being able to do a bunch of different languages.Josh:Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. We don't know anything about SDK teams, Honeybadger. But yeah, it sounds like we have very similar jobs at the moment. So that's cool. We'll have to trade tips at some point. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I'm excited that you're there, because I'm definitely going to hit you up on the SAML stuff, because SAML's a pain in the tuchus yeah, I'm sure you'll have some insights from your time there.Mike:Well, that was how I was even open-minded to talking to Okta, was the recruiter had contacted me and I think actually it was the recruiter... I don't know the structure of how this works, but a lot of companies have a prospecting recruiter. And I think that a veteran oriented prospecting recruiter contacted me. And so being a veteran, I'll usually entertain those cold calls. And so then when I was at Desk, I wrote... So Desk was a big Rails monolith. I wrote a microservice to break some of the SSO off of the monolith itself. And in writing the API documentation that was on desk.com, I actually used Okta as one of the examples as a SSO identity provider using SAML. So yeah, I have had a little bit of experience from the outside of Okta with SAML. And so maybe I'll have more experience here to answer your questions.Ben:Yeah. We'll have to have you back and we can just do a whole hour on that. It's a fun world.Josh:After we do an hour on SDKs.Ben:Yeah, and your code that you wrote for us still lives on in Honeybadger.Josh:Yeah. Was it the webpack? That was some of the work, right?Ben:Some of it, yeah.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:And some GitHub integration work.Josh:And the integrations, yeah.Mike:Yeah, well if I remember correctly with the GitHub integration, I did do some GitHub integration, and it tickled your enthusiasm, Ben, and then I think you went in and like refactored that a little bit.Ben:Well, if you have a monolith like Redo that's been around for as long as ours has, things don't... It's like, what was that Theseus' ship, it's goes around the world but you replace things as it goes, and it's never the same app, right?Mike:Yeah, that's the thing, we had discussed this in the prelude around just software engineering in general and how hard it is to maintain a monolith, especially as a company grows and as developers come rolling into a project, you get all of these... Over time you get engineers with different goals, different techniques, different styles of touching your code base, to the point that it becomes very hard to maintain a project. And I think, I don't know if we're going to talk about Heroku at all, but I think that Heroku suffers from a little bit of that, where there's very few original Heroku that are involved in the runtime at least. And I just came from being on the runtime in the control plane. And, definitely, the code base there is... There's maybe one or two people that are still around that have touched that code base from the beginning.Ben:Yeah, let's dive into that, because that's fascinating to me. I know that there's been chatter on Twitter recently that people feel that Heroku is stagnated. That they haven't really brought a lot of innovative stuff to market recently. I remember, actually a funny story, I'm going to tell it myself. I can't remember what year this was, it were way... I don't know, I don't know, early 2000s. I was sitting as part of a focus group, and I can't reveal a lot of information because secrecy and stuff. But anyway, I was part of this focus group and I was asked as part of this group, what as a developer working on Ruby applications and Rails applications, what I thought about this new thing called Heroku. And had it explained to me, "Oh, you just get push", and "Blah, blah, blah", and I poo-pooed the idea. I was like, "Nah, I'm not interested", because I already know how to deploy stuff. I've got Mongrel, I got a DVS.Josh:Say Mongrel.Ben:I know how to use SEP, why do I need this? Like Math, never going to catch on. And so don't follow me for investing advice.Mike:Yeah, totally.Josh:I got my Linodes.Mike:Yeah. Or even back then, I wrote all of my own chef, so I got my own recipes I can-Ben:Right, exactly.Mike:... bare metal at will.Ben:Exactly. So, what do you think, you've been at Heroku, you've seen this process of people having to maintain this code base over a long period of time. What are some tips for people who might be a little earlier on the process? Looking down the road, what do you suggest people think about for having a more maintainable application?Mike:That's interesting. I really think that there is not one size fits all, and actually some of the things that are specific to Heroku, and actually to desk.com when I was there previously, that some of the issues actually stem from Salesforce culture and the way that Salesforce manages its businesses. And so, I guess the thing that I've always liked about Rails, specifically, is that the conventions that are used in Rails, you can drop an experienced Rails developer pretty much into any Rails app and they're going to know the basic conventions. And that saves you so much time to ramping up and bringing your experience into a project. Whereas when you get into bespoke software, then you run into well what were the architectural design patterns 10 years ago compared to now? How much drift has there been in libraries and the language, depending.Mike:And so that is... I don't... That's a very hard question to nail down in a specific way. I would just say in spit balling this, conventions are very important, I would say. So as long as you have a conventions using a framework, then I think that you'll get to go a long ways. However, if you start to use a framework, then you get the everything is a nail and I'm going to use my hammer framework on that. Which is its own thing that I've seen in Ruby, where if you start a project with Rails, I don't think everybody realizes this, but you are essentially going to be doing a type of software development that is in the mindset of Basecamp, right? And if you have an app that is not quite like Basecamp, and then you start to try to extending Rails to do something different, then you're going to start running into issues. And I think that... It makes me sad when I hear people talk poorly about Rails, because oftentimes people are just pushing it into a direction that it's not built to do. Whether they're, like in the old days, like monkey-patching libraries, or whatnot.Ben:Yeah, I think we saw that with the rise of Elixir and Phoenix, right? José just got frustrated with wanting to do some real time stuff. And that really wasn't the wheelhouse for Rails, right? And so he went and built Elixir and Phoenix, and built on top of that. And that became a better hammer for that particular nail than Rails, right? So now if you come into a new project and you're like, "Well, I'm going to do a lot of highly concurrent stuff", well, okay, maybe Rails isn't the best solution. Maybe you should go look at Elixir and Phoenix instead.Mike:Yeah. Yeah. So, with Heroku, I just want to say that it was so awesome to work at Heroku, and the day that I got a job offer to work there, it was like... I still, if I'm having a bad day, I still think about that, and the... I've never used hard drugs, but I would think that somebody that was cocaine high, that's probably what I was feeling when I got the offer from Heroku. I started using Heroku in 2009, and it has a story within our community, it's highly respected. And so I just want to say that I still think very highly of Heroku, and if I was to be doing just a throwaway project, and I just want to write some code and do git push main, or git push Heroku main, then I would definitely do that.Mike:And we were... And I'm not very experienced with the other kinds of competitors right now. I think, like you pointed him out, is it Vercel and Render?Ben:Render. Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Yeah. So I can't really speak to them. I can really just speak to Heroku and some of the very specific things that go on there. I think one of the issues that Heroku suffers from is not the technology itself, but just the Salesforce environment. Because at Salesforce, everything eventually has to be blue, right? And so, Heroku, I don't think they ever could really figure out the right thing to do with Heroku. As well as, the other thing about enterprise software is that if I'm selling Salesforce service cloud or whatever, I'm selling, essentially, I'm selling seats of software licenses. And there's no big margin in selling Compute, because if I'm buying Compute, I expect to be using that.Mike:And so, as a salesperson, I'm not incented to sell Heroku that much because there's just not margins for me in the incentive structure that they have at sales within Salesforce. So I think that's the biggest thing that Heroku has going against it, is that it's living in a Salesforce environment. And as, I guess, a owner of Salesforce being that I have Salesforce stock, I would hope that they would maximize their profits and actually sell Heroku. Who knows, maybe a bunch of developers get together and actually buy the brand and spin that off. That would be the best thing, because I think that Salesforce would probably realize a lot more value out of Heroku just by doing that, even if there's some sort of profit sharing, and then not have to deal with all the other things.Ben:Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah. The thing about billing, and then selling per user, versus the compute- That's definitely a different world. It's a totally different mindset. And I think Josh that we have now been given a directive step. We should acquire Heroku as part of Honeybadger.Josh:I was going to say, maybe we can acquire it with all of our Doge profits in five or 10 years from now.Mike:Well, yeah. Somebody spin a Heroku coin, a ERC20 token on Ethereum and get everybody to dump their Ethereum into this token.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Get that pot of money together. And then that is the Heroku Foundation. Yeah, exactly.Josh:Okay, yeah.Mike:The Heroku Foundation that buys the Heroku brand. I know that we're laughing about it, but actually this is what is possible today. And, I was telling Ben... Well, let me just say a couple of things about the FounderQuest and how it relates to me, is I've been listening to FounderQuest from the first episode, and I'm an only child, and I like to listen to podcasts. So I'll be on my afternoon walk, and I'll be hearing you guys talk, and I'm having this conversation along with you guys listening to the podcasts.Mike:And so, I think, in January, you guys were talking about, or maybe Ben was talking about, $30,000 Bitcoin, and you guys just had your yucks and laughs about it. And it actually made me think critically about this, because I've been involved with Bitcoin since about 2012, and it's like, "Do I have a tinfoil hat on?" Or what do I think? And so, I'm not joking about this, listening to you guys actually has helped me concretely come up with how I feel about this. And first off, I think, I'm bullish on technology. And this is the first epiphany that I had, is all of us have had a career close to Linux, close to Ruby, building backend services, close to virtualization and orchestration. Fortunately, that's been my interest, and fortunately that's been where our industry has gone. And so, when Bitcoin came out, as technologists, all you ever hear, if you don't know anything about Bitcoin, you just hear currency. And you're thinking internet money, you're not thinking about this as a technologist.Mike:And so that was the thing. I wish that Bitcoin had been talked about as a platform, or a framework.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:And not even called it coin. Because that confuses the issue-Josh:The whole coin thing, just... Yeah.Mike:Yeah, totally. And mining the metaphors-Josh:That alone.Mike:... just totally throws everything off. Because we are talking, we're laughing about it, but this is really possible today. We could come up with a Foundation to buy Heroku with a cryptocurrency, and it would... Yeah. So that's one thing that Ben helped me realize in my thinking around Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. And I think I'm just bullish on technology. And so to me, again, across our career, there's been so much change. And why would we look at Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies any differently than any other kind of technology? Even a hundred dollar bill with all the holograms on it, that is a kind of financial technology. And so we're just talking about a digital technology, we're not talking about coins I guess.Josh:That's the appeal, a lot of the Altcoins, right? They give everyone a way to invest in those companies, whereas before you would have to... Whatever, be an accredited investor or something to be able to get involved. Is that part of the appeal? I'm probably showing what I know about crypto, which is very little, but I'm excited to... Yeah, maybe you can...Mike:Yeah. Yeah, so I feel like these projects are... I'm not a VC, and I'm not an insider, but from what I can see from afar, in Silicon Valley there's a close group of people that have access to all of these ideas. And there's Angel clubs, and VC clubs, and whatnot, that are funding these startups. And to me, I feel like these crypto projects are the same kind of thing, except for they're just available to the public. And so, I think if I was speaking to another technologist that was interested in cryptocurrencies, is you probably need to get your hands on some of the technology in order to get experience with it.Mike:And so if that means you figure out how to maybe mine some coin on your laptop, or whatever, or you actually pay for it, you should at least have some in your possession, and at least learn about the custodial part of it. Also, there's different software libraries now to actually do programming against it, and platforms, I believe. So that'd be another way to at least tickle your curiosity, is by actually touching the technology and not thinking about the value. So yeah.Ben:Yeah. That, to me, that's one of the most interesting things about the whole coin thing. My younger son is really interested in the crypto space, in the coin and in the other parts of a distributed ledger, and what does that mean, and how does that work? And before I heard about NFTs, he was talking about NFTs. And so it's really interesting to me to see this coming from him. Just yesterday, we had a conversation about CRDTs, right? Because we're talking about how do you merge transactions that are happening in distributed fashion? Right? I was like, "Oh yeah", and it's so weird to have my teenage sons' world colliding with my world in this way.Josh:Yeah.Ben:But it's a lot of fun. And I've got to say, Mike, I got to give you back some credit, talking about the whole coin thing. As you've heard, we're pretty coin skeptical here at Honeybadger, the Founders, but you made a comment in our pre-show conversation. And maybe you didn't make this explicitly, but maybe it's just a way that I heard it. But I think... Well what I heard was, and maybe you actually said this, was basically think about this like an index fund, right? You put dollar cost to averaging, right? You put some money into coin, you put a little bit, it's not going to be your whole portfolio, right? But you don't treat it like a gamble, and you just treat it like an investment, like you would other things that may appreciate in value. And of course you may not.Ben:And so, as a result, I decided, "Okay, I can do that. I can put a little bit of my portfolio into coins". So just this week, and this is the funny part, just this week-Josh:I'm just finding this out now, by the way.Ben:Yeah, yeah. Josh is like... I told my wife about this last night and she was like, "What's Josh going to say?" "Like, I don't know". So anyway, just this week I put a little bit of money into Bitcoin and Ethereum. And that was... When did Elon do his thing about Bitcoin? Was that Thursday morning?Josh:Oh yeah.Ben:I bought, two hours before Elon did his thing, and Bitcoin lost 15% of its value.Mike:That's awesome.Ben:I'm like, "It's okay. It's okay, I'm just putting-Josh:Yeah, you don't sell, it doesn't matter.Mike:What was your emotion? What was your emotion?Ben:Yeah, totally. Yeah. In fact, my first buy, I used Coinbase. And Coinbase was like, "Oh, do you want to do this periodically?" I'm like, "Yes, I do. Every month". Boom.Mike:Oh.Ben:I went ahead and set that up like so, yeah.Mike:Oh, I did not know you could do that.Ben:I'm in it to win it, man.Mike:You should get a hardware wallet. That's the next thing, is you need to learn how to handle your own custody, so-Josh:Right, yeah. You got to... Yeah.Mike:Not leave it on the exchange. Interesting.Josh:Get those hard drives.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah. Ben's a veteran indexer though. So you can handle some dips. Some volatility.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Josh:I actually, I did make some money off of Bitcoin back in the day, and probably if I would've just held onto it, I would've made a lot more, of course.Mike:Same.Josh:So I accidentally... Back, I don't know when this was, it was maybe five years ago or something, when Bitcoin was going through one of its first early hype cycles, and I was like, "I'll check it". I was learning about it, of course. And so I went and bought some and I think I ran a blockchain Elixir app that someone made, to see how the transactions work and stuff. Read some books on Bitcoin. But I bought some Bitcoin, I can't remember how much, but just left it. I think this was after Coinbase had launched, I'm pretty sure I bought it through Coinbase. But yeah, I just left it, and then that was when it was in the first huge push of Bitcoin where it went up to 20,000 or something. And I remembered that I had it, and I went and looked and oh yeah, I made five grand or something. I put hardly anything into it initially. So I forget what I actually bought with that money. I just sold it and it's like cool, free money.Mike:So you just sold it this year? Or you sold it...Josh:No, I sold it back-Mike:In 17?Josh:I think I sold it at 20... Yeah, this would have been at 17 that I actually sold it, probably.Mike:Did you report it on your taxes, your capital gains?Josh:I did, yes. Yeah, I did.Ben:That's the benefit of having an accountant, because your accountant reminds you, "You know what? You did have some Bitcoin transactions, you should probably look at those".Josh:Can I say on here that I actually put some of it through a Bitcoin tumbler though, just to see how those work?Mike:Yeah, I mean...Josh:And that was a very small amount of money, but I didn't actually report that on my taxes. Because I think I actually forgot where it was or something.Ben:You'll have to explain what a Bitcoin tumbler is.Josh:So a Bitcoin tumbler... Well, I'll try, and then maybe Mike might explain it better, but a Bitcoin tumbler is basically how you anonymize your Bitcoin transaction. If you have some Bitcoin and you want to buy some drugs on the dark web or something, you go and you send your Bitcoin to this tumbler, and then it distributes it to a bunch of random Bitcoin addresses that it gives you. And then you have those addresses, and they're anonymized, because they've been sent through a bunch of peoples' wallets, or something like that.Mike:Yep. That's basically it.Ben:So it's basically money laundering.Josh:Yeah, it's laundering.Mike:Yeah. But if your privacy... I mean, okay-Josh:Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Because part of the appeal of Bitcoin is some people are just like, "Oh yeah, good money, credit card transactions are so... The governments are recording them and stuff, the NSA probably has a database of them". So Bitcoin is anonymous, but it's not. It's not anonymous. And yeah. So that's why people do this, right?Mike:Yeah. Well that, to me, that's if you want to... So the value of Bitcoin, if you want to get bullish on the value of Bitcoin, the traditional outlook is yeah, the silk road was going on and there's all this illegal stuff going on. Therefore it must be bad. But actually, to me, that's the thing, you know it's good if there's illicit stuff going on, because what's the number one currency that's used right now for illicit transactions? It's dirty US dollar bills. And if you're a drug dealer in central South America, you are collecting, dollar bills United States. You're paying some sort of transport probably at 10, 15% cost to get those dollars back to wherever you're going to hold them. And so, if you're using Bitcoin, you're probably not going to pay that fee. So, to me, it's like okay, that actually proves, at least in my mind, that there is value. That it's being used, right?Josh:Yeah. And you also, you don't want to see... Some people are fanatics about cash going away, even just because as more people move to digital transactions, whether it's just through, whatever, traditional networks, or through crypto. People are using less and less cash. And I feel like, whatever... Like Richard Stallman, he pays for everything in cash though, because he thinks that cash is going to go away someday. And that's a problem for privacy, because you do want a way to pay for things in private in some cases.Mike:Yep. I agree.Josh:Yeah.Ben:My only real beef with Bitcoin, well, aside from the whole requiring power plants just to do a transaction, is that there is Badger coin. This company that is named Honeybadger, it's all about Bitcoin. And they have these ATM's in Canada, and we constantly get support requests from people.Mike:Oh really?Josh:Is this the reason that we've been so down on cryptocurrencies in the past?Ben:I think so.Josh:Because ever since the beginning, since people started making coins, Badger coin came out and then it's been our primary exposure to be honest.Ben:It has been, yeah.Josh:Throughout the past... I don't know how many years it's been. Has it been six-Ben:Yeah, six-Josh:... to eight years?Ben:Yeah, something like that. It's been nuts.Josh:I'd say.Mike:You should send them an invoice, and they actually-Ben:Yeah, so what happens is they had these kiosks where you can buy Bitcoin, right? You put your real money in, and you get your fake money out, right? And the name on the top of the kiosk is Honeybadger. So, someone puts in some money, real money, and they don't get their fake money, then all of a sudden they're upset, right?Mike:Yeah.Ben:And so they... For whatever reason, it doesn't go through, right, I don't know how this works, I've never bought Bitcoin at a kiosk. But so, they're like, "Okay, Honeybadger". And so they Google Honeybadger, and the first result for Honeybadger is us. And so they're like, "Oh, here's a phone number I can call". And they call us. And they're like, "Where's my Bitcoin?" That's like, "Uh, I really can't help you with that".Josh:They do.Ben:"You stole my Bitcoin". It's like, "No, that's not us".Josh:Something just occurred to me. I wonder how many of them are just confused over the fact that Bitcoin transactions can take a while to arrive now, right? It's not always instantaneous, where it used to be a lot faster, but now I know that it can take a while to clear. So I wonder how many of those people are emailing us in the span... Maybe that's why they eventually always go away and we don't hear from them again. Maybe it's not that they're getting help, but it's just that their Bitcoins are arriving. Yeah. I have a feeling that there's some sort of... I'm guessing these are mostly regular normies using, and interacting with this very highly technical product and experience, and even if you're walking up to a kiosk, but there's still a highly technical aspect of it that, like you said Mike, people are thinking coin, they're thinking... The way this maps to their brain is it's like dollar bills. So they're looking at it like an ATM. Yep.Mike:Yeah. When it comes to cryptocurrency and the technology, I don't want to have to think about custody, or any of that other kinds of stuff. It'll be successful when it just is happening, I'm not thinking about it. They're already... In some... I don't know all of the different mobile devices, but I do carry out an iPhone. And so, the wallet on iPhone is pretty seamless now, right? And so I'm not thinking about how that technology is working. I had to associate an Amex with it originally, right? But once I've done that, then all I do is click my button to pay. And there you go. And so I do think that the cryptocurrency technology has a long way to go towards that, because if normal people, the non nerds, have to think about it, then it's not going to be useful. Because in the end-Josh:Yeah.Mike:... humans use tools, right? And so, whatever the tool is, they're going to use it especially if it's easy and it makes their life easier.Ben:So what I really want to know, Mike, is what are your feelings about Dogecoin? Are you bullish on Doge?Mike:Well, I'll answer that, but I wanted to come back to the bit about the NFT, and just talking about the possibilities with technology. And I think that you guys could profit from this.Ben:I like where it's going.Mike:You'll have to do some more research. But I think what you could do... See, I love the origin story of Honeybadger. And maybe not everybody knows about the Honeybadger meme from what is... When was this, two thousand...Ben:2012? 2011?Mike:Yeah, okay. So not everybody... Yeah, bot everybody knows about the meme. I guess, just go Google-Ben:I can link it in the show notes.Josh:It's long dead. This meme is long dead.Mike:Is it? Well it's still awesome. I still love it.Josh:It is.Mike:So, there's so many facets of this that I love. The first one is that... Can I name names on competitors-Ben:Of course.Mike:... in the origins? Okay. So the first one was is that Airbrake, an exception reporting service, was doing a poor job with their customer service. And you guys were like, "We're working on this project, we need exception reporting. It's not working". It's like, "Well, can we just take their library, and build our own backend?" Right? And to me, that is beautiful. And in thinking about this episode, in Heroku, the same opportunity lies for an aspiring developer out there where you could just take the Heroku CLI and point it at your own false backend until you figure out all of the API calls that happen. And I don't know, you have that backed by Kubernetes, or whatever orchestration framework is...Mike:There is the possibility that you could do the same Honeybadger story with Airbrake SDK, as there is with the Heroku CLI. So that's the first thing I love about the Honeybadger story, and the fact the name goes along with the fact that Airbrake had poor customer support, and you guys just were like, "F it, we're going to build our own exception reporting service". Now, in the modern context with NFTs is... I have old man experience with the NFTs in that GIFs, or GIFs, and JPEGs, this is BS that people are gouging for profit. However, the technology of the NFT... This is the thing that I think is beautiful, is that... And I'm not sure which of the NFTs does this, but there is the possibility that you could be the originator of a digital object, and then you sell that digital object. And then as that digital object is traded, then you, as the, I guess, the original creator, you can get a percentage of the sales for the lifetime of that digital asset.Ben:Yeah.Mike:And, I'm not sure which of the NFTs allows that, but that is one of the things, that's one of the value propositions in NFT. So what I was thinking is if you guys did an NFT on the shaw of the original Honeybadger Ruby SDK check-in, that this could be the thing that you guys have an experiment with, is you have real skin in the game, you're playing with the technology and see if that works. And, let me know if you do that, because I might try to buy it. So, we'll see.Josh:Well, we've already got a buyer, why wouldn't we?Mike:Yeah, so..Ben:Indeed, yeah.Josh:See I was thinking maybe you could own various errors or something in Honeybadger.Mike:Yeah, I mean... Whatever digital signature you want to... Whatever you want to sign, and then assign value to.Josh:Yeah, we could NFT our Exceptional Creatures.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Have you seen that, Mike? Have you seen that project?Mike:Yep, yep.Josh:Okay.Mike:I'm well aware of that. Yep.Ben:Yeah. I'm thinking what about open source maintainers, right? Let's say you have this project and someone really wants a particular feature, right? Or they're really happy about a particular feature that you've already done, right? You can sell them that shaw, that commit, that put it into name, right?Mike:Yeah, totally.Ben:You are the proud owner of this feature. Thank you.Mike:Yeah, totally. Yeah, I was hoping that I would come with some ideas. I hope someday in the future that I run into somebody and it's like, "Oh, we heard that podcasts were where ideas were free ideas that were worth a lot of money were thrown about. And I did this project, and now I'm retired. Thank you, Mike". Honeybadgers.Josh:Wait, so Ben are you saying that, so as a committer, so say I commit something to Rails, submit a PR, so then I own that PR once it's merged and it would be like I could sell that then to someone? Is that along the lines of what you're saying?Ben:No, I'm thinking the owner of the project. So, if you commit something to Rails, and you're really excited about it, and you for some reason want to have a trophy of that commit-Josh:Right.Ben:... on a plaque on the wall, right? Then the Rails core group could sell you that token.Josh:Okay. Gotcha.Ben:That trophy, that certificate, like, "Yep. This is your thing. Commissioned by..." It's like naming a star, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:You buy the rights to a star, and it's fake stuff, right? We're naming stars. But that's the same idea.Josh:Yeah. So you could use that same idea to incentivize open-source contribution. So if you make the PR to Rails and it gets merged, you get this NFT for the PR merge, which you could then actually profit for if it was... Say it was, I don't know, turbo links or something, whatever. Years later, when it's a huge thing and everyone in Rails is using it, maybe Mike's going to come along and be like, "Hey, I'll buy... I want to own the PR for turbo links".Ben:Right.Josh:Yeah. And of course then, you, as the owner, would also profit from any sale between parties later on too. You'd get that little percentage.Mike:Yeah. Well, so when somebody comes up with committer coin, just remember me, I want to airdrop of some committer coin.Josh:We have a name. We've got a name for it. Commit coin.Ben:I've got a new weekend project ahead of me.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Cool. Well, that helps me understand NFTs.Ben:Yeah, I really like the idea of being able to sell ownership rights to a digital asset. That I think a good idea. I don't know that the current implementation that we see on the news is a great implementation of that idea. Buying the rights for a copy of a JPEG, it feels kind of sketchy to me. But maybe there's some sort of, I don't know, PDF document that has some sort of value for some reason. And you can give that, sell that to someone. And to me, it's not so much about the profit, or the transaction, it's the ownership. You can say I am the owner of this thing. Yeah, there can be copies all over the place, but I'm the person that has the ownership, quote unquote, of this thing.Josh:Yeah, yeah. But then you've got to define value Ben. What is value? Okay, so, what makes a PDF more valuable than a JPEG?Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Bring this back to Dogecoin, and value propositions, and whatnot. What is valuable? When you're talking about the value of a JPEG, this reminded me of a conversation I was having with my son. He's 10 years old and he wanted some money to buy, I don't know what it was, and old man voice came out of me and it's like, "That's BS. I don't think that's valuable". And he looked at me and he was like, "It's valuable to me". And it's like, "Oh, you just put a dagger in my heart. I'm killing your dream". And one person's value may not be another person's value. So, on the Dogecoin, that's interesting. Dogecoin is very interesting to me, because I feel like I'm in a quantum state with a Dogecoin where it is a joke, but at the same time it apparently it has value.Mike:And I don't know where I stand on that threshold. I know how to trade Dogecoin. And I know the behavior of Dogecoin, and the behaviors, from a trading standpoint, has changed substantially in the last six months. Before it was a pump and dump kind of thing. Well, actually, you know what? When Dogecoin was first created, its purpose was highlighted by the community. People in podcast land don't realize this, but I'm wearing a 2017 Dogecoin shirt from when the Dogecoin community sponsored the number 98 NASCAR. And the thing of the community was like, "Oh, we have all this money, and we're just being altruistic and we're giving it away". And so they were exercising their belief with this currency, right?Mike:And from then, till now, there was a bit of a cycle to Dogecoin where you could, if you acquired Dogecoin for say under a hundred Satoshis, this is the Dogecoin BTC pair, that was actually a good buy. Just wait for the next pump when somebody does something, and Dogecoin goes over 200, or 300 Satoshis, and then you dump it. And that's basically what I did on this in the last six months. I had a small bag of Dogecoin waiting for the next pump and dump. And I actually did that, but it kept on getting pumped, and then it would stabilize. And then now we're at the point where apparently Elon Musk and Mark Cuban are saying that there's value to it.Mike:And to me, I actually put a lot of credence to that, because these are two public persons that they cannot... If they're pumping things in the public domain, then they have risk, right? And so you can't be those two people, and be pumping, and not run the risk of the FTC of the United States government coming in and saying, "Hey, why were you doing this?" So there's the, I guess for me, a small bit of a guarantee that maybe there is something to Dogecoin.Josh:Yeah. See, the way I think, when you first started you were saying it is a joke, but you're in this dual state, and my initial or immediate thought was it is a joke, but this is the internet, and the internet loves to make silly things real.Mike:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Especially these days.Ben:Yeah. It's pretty funny for all those people that made a bunch of money on GameStop, right? Yeah.Mike:Yeah. Well that's the thing, is in Dogecoin, Doge is, of itself, from a meme from the same time period as Honeybadger, right? The Iba Shinu doggie, right? So, the other thing I don't understand, or the thing that I understand but I don't know how to quantify it for myself, is that, to me... So there's no pre-mine on Dogecoin. There's no one person that owns a lot of Dogecoin from the beginning. Whereas if we're talking about Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, the founder, or one of the founders of Ethereum, they pre-mined Ethereum, and there's a ton of Ethereum that's owned by the founders. Whereas you compare that to, say, Litecoin, Charlie Lee cloned Bitcoin and created Litecoin. He sold all of his Litecoin. I believed in him when he said he's sold it all. He's a software engineer, just like us. He was Director of Engineering at Coinbase.Mike:He doesn't seem like he's wearing tinfoil hat out there, doing conspiracies. So when he says that he sold his coin in 2017, all of his Litecoin, I totally believe that. Yet today, he is the chairperson of the Litecoin foundation. And so, to me... I actually do have, I placed some value in the benevolence of Litecoin and Dogecoin, because there's not any one person that actually controls it. I guess Charlie Lee, he probably has a stronger voice than most. But he doesn't control the levers.Josh:Not financially.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Yeah. And so then with Dogecoin... So Dogecoin, it'll be awesome if it gets above a dollar, but the structure of Dogecoin will be such as they cannot maintain that.Josh:Right.Mike:Because it's an inflation-Josh:There's no cap, right?Mike:Right.Josh:Yeah.Mike:It's inflation. And so, I don't know the number, I think it's a million Dogecoin are minted every day. So, 10 years from now, if Dogecoin is worth a dollar still, then that means Bitcoin will be worth a lot more than that. So I guess that'd be awesome if Dogecoin stays a dollar. However, the point I'm trying to make is actually there is value in having an inflationary currency, especially if we're talking about living in the structure of our current financial... The way that our current financial markets work, where there is an inflation.Mike:And so if I want to be transacting with a digital currency, I don't want to have to be, say, like having an Argentina kind of moment where my one Dogecoin is worth $5 American today, and then maybe only $3 American a week from now. So to me, I think there is value in Dogecoin in that it's inflationary, and that it will not be as susceptible to speculation bubbles as other currencies. And so, I don't know if that answers your questions on the value of Dogecoin, but those are a couple of reasons why I think that Dogecoin is valuable. Now, am I going to be holding a big bag of Dogecoin in 2022? Probably not. Just to be honest.Ben:We're all about honesty at Honeybadger. I love the episodes where we have to have a disclaimer, this is not financial advice. Please consult competent professionals before investing, et cetera, et cetera. Mike, it has been a delight to have you with us. We appreciate your counterbalance to our coin pessimism that we have amongst the Honeybadger fan base.Josh:Yeah, I think we needed this.Ben:Yeah.Josh:We really needed this.Ben:We really did.Josh:So thank you.Ben:It's been good.Mike:Yeah. Oh, I got one more idea out there. Hopefully, somebody can run with this, is I've been trying to get motivated to do some experimentation with the Bitcoin lightning network. We didn't really talk about these a layer two solutions for scaling, but I think that there is a lot of potential in coming up with an interesting project that lays within the Litecoin* network, it has its value in and of itself, but there's a secondary value of being a note on the Litecoin* network where if there's transactions going through your node, let's say, I don't know how you'd instrument this, but let's say that Honeybadger actually was... That you guys were taking your payments across your own lightning node, then all of the transactions that are going across the lightning network, you're getting a small fee, right? So I think that there's the possibility of a micropayments kind of play there, like for instance, paying by the exception. I mean, literally-*Editor's note from Mike - "in my excitement talking about the Lighting Network I slipped and said Litecoin a couple of times between Lightning Network. Lightning Network is a layer 2 protocol that is primarily intended for scaling Bitcoin and that was what I meant. However, Lightning can be implemented to run on top of Litecoin and Ethereum."Josh:That has come up that has come up in the past, I think at one point.Mike:You can't do micro payments on a credit card.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Right? But you can do micropayments on lightening network. And I'm not selling you guys on this, but I'm saying that there's going to be some nerd out there that it's like, "Oh my God micropayments are here, I can do micropayments on lighting network". And then they're going to do well on that product, but then they're also going to do well on the commission that they're earning on payments going through their node.Josh:This could be used for usage base software as a service billing model.Ben:Totally. And then you get the skim off the top, just like a good affiliate does.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it. All right. All right, Mike, we're going to have to do some scheming together. Well, any final words, any parting words besides go by all the Dogecoin that you can?Mike:Yeah. Don't put all your money into the cryptocurrencies. Yeah.Josh:Seems like good advice.Ben:Be smart

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Kicking The Tires On Basecamp Alternatives

Play Episode Listen Later May 14, 2021 38:23

Show notes:Links:Threads.comBlueyVogmaskTwistIt’s a Southern ThingIf I had a front porchFull transcript:Josh:How y'all doing?Ben:I'm doing.Starr:Yeah, about the same.Ben:I've been riding my scooter to work all week.Starr:Oh, how's that?Ben:It's a lot of fun. Got a little electric kick scooter and top speed about 25 miles per hour. I was concerned about it being able to get up the hill that I have to go back up on my way home. It does drag a bit on that hill. I only got a single motor. Guess I should have gone with the dual motor. Otherwise it's fun. It's nice to be out in nature, I guess, air quotes, because you're still on the road and you're still a victim of cars and stuff. Being able to see the sun coming up over the hills and down to the valley and while you're just feeling the wind on your face, it's all good.Josh:It sounds nice.Ben:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, sounds awesome. I don't know. It seems terrifying to me, but I'm sure it's a lot of fun.Ben:It helped that I have done a lot of bike riding on roads for the past several years, so I'm already comfortable with the idea of mixing it up with cars and weaving in and out of traffic and realizing that people aren't going to see me and things like that. I think if I had just gone from driving a car straight to riding a scooter in the bike lane, that would be a little more terrifying.Starr:Yeah, that makes sense.Josh:Next you're going to have to upgrade to one of the electric skateboards or a Onewheel or something, just remove the handle bars.Ben:Right, right, right. Get one of those Onewheel things.Josh:This is leading up to-Ben:Totally.Starr:We're just working up to hoverboards. I mean I commute to my backyard office, so maybe I should get a zip-line or something from the main house.Ben:I like that, yeah.Starr:... then I could be extreme.Josh:We want a zip-line at our place out into the forest.Starr:That would be fun.Ben:You could do a zip-line from your deck to the sandbox, send the kids out to play.Josh:The kids would love it. Well, I was thinking more for myself though. Screw the kids. They don't need a zip-line.Starr:There you go. That's actually not a bad idea. We're going to get-Josh:That would be cool though.Starr:... a deck in the fall.Josh:Oh, nice.Starr:I had thought it would be fun to put a fireman pole on one side or something so kids could slide down it. It's raised up a little bit but not that much. It's like a kid's sliding size.Ben:That would be totally awesome. That would-Josh:We have been loving our new deck that we have had for a month and a half or something now. It's a new deck. If you have a really old, rickety deck, a new one is a big upgrade. Also ours is a little bit larger, too, so it's like a bigger house almost.Starr:Oh, that's great. We don't even have a deck it's just like a little stairway.Josh:I think you're going to like it, Starr.Starr:I think so, too. I know, deck life. It's going to be covered. I was just like-Josh:It's just the small things.Starr:I know. All I want is to be able to go out on a nice evening or something and sit and drink a cup of tea and be outside.Ben:And think about all-Josh:I was going to say, where do you drink the sweet tea in the summer if you don't have a front porch?Starr:Yeah, that's the main problem with houses up here in the Northwest is there's not real front porches. We have one that's like a weird nod at a front porch. It's like somebody maybe had seen a front porch once when they were... They were like, "Oh, maybe I'll try and do that from memory," without really knowing what it's supposed to be like.Josh:Some of the ones in Portland have them, but they're boxed in usually, and they're the older houses-Josh:... like the old Craftsmans or whatever.Starr:The stately grand dames.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:Well, here in Kirkland we're destroying all those old houses and putting in-Starr:Thank God.Ben:... townhouses.Josh:Hell, yeah.Ben:I drove by one this morning. This morning was the first morning since I got my scooter that I actually didn't ride the scooter because it was raining and the ground was wet. I was like, "Ah, I don't want to deal with that this morning." So I just drove. I drove past this house that... Well, yesterday it was a house. Today, it's a pile of sticks because they sold the lot, and they're going to split it into probably, I don't know, four lots and put in some townhouses. It's always a sad thing, but people got to have a place to live.Starr:Yeah, it's a shame. They tore down a house on my block, too, except it was a condemned house. It looked like a gingerbread fairy house that you'd find on just a random stroll in the woods where you'd go inside and you'd find just a delicious meal laid out on the table just waiting for you. So I'm a little sad it's gone just for, I guess, the storytelling aspects, the mythology of it. I guess it's probably best not to just have a condemned structure hanging out.Josh:I still do feel like Ida's is missing out with your telling of that story. I feel a little sad for you all.Starr:I know. I know.Ben:You're totally missing the threat possibility there. Like, "Don't misbehave or I'll send you over to the gingerbread house."Starr:Oh my god, yeah. Yeah, lots of great ways to traumatize my child.Ben:Speaking of traumatizing children, I was going through Twitter the other day, and the Washington State Department of Health had a tweet. I don't remember what the tweet was, but they had a GIF embedded in it. It was Stimpy from Ren & Stimpy as a scene from the show. I was like, "That's from the Department of Health? My generation is now in charge."Starr:With the Twitter account at least.Ben:We're now putting in-Josh:Yeah, exactly.Ben:That was the weirdest... It's like, "I'm an adult." That was a weird, weird experience.Josh:It is kind of strange when the people in charge start looking more and more like you until you realize they're just like-Ben:They're just little kids, just like I am.Josh:Then you wonder why the hell they're in charge.Starr:I'm getting like Paul Ryan listening to a Rage Against the Machine vibe from this.Josh:That's what I'd be playing if I was in charge of the Department of Health's-Starr:There we go.Josh:... Twitter account.Starr:I think this week has all been a little bit... I don't know. We're all maybe a little bit having a hard time focusing. I know I have a little bit just. It seems like that happens every spring as soon as the weather gets nice and it stops being nice, then it gets nice and it stops being nice. You're waiting by the door with your kayak. You just got to get the jump on it before everybody else gets to the lake.Josh:Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. Also allergies have been kicking in lately.Starr:Oh my god, yeah.Josh:I was really on top of it this year, but then I ran out of my Zyrtec or whatever. It was on the list to replenish the supply or whatever, but I procrastinated and missed a few days. That's a huge mistake.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:That was this week. Now I switched to Claritin, so we'll see how... That's the big news of my week.Starr:Oh my gosh. I'm getting vaccinated later today, my second dose.Josh:Nice.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Congrats.Starr:I think I'm still going to keep wearing the KN95 respirators outside, though, just for the allergies.Josh:It's probably a good call.Ben:I was helping a neighbor with some yard work and doing a bunch of weeding and had the weed whacker out, and there's just dirt flying everywhere. I'm like, "Man, I should really wear a mask." Like, how ironic. I've got like, I don't know, a thousand masks in my house, and I'm not wearing one as I'm doing all this dusty stuff.Josh:That's a good thing to do.Starr:Oh, this is reminding me, I need to stock up before fire season.Ben:A few years ago when we had the really bad fire season, we got some Vogmasks. This was before the world knew that you were supposed to wear masks. Vogmasks are fantastic. They're a fabric mask that have the filtering stuff on the inside and highly recommend. I'll put a link in the show notes.Starr:Cool.Ben:Good stuff. When the pandemic hit, of course, they were out of stock immediately because everybody and their brother wanted one, but they've been back in stock. They're nice masks. They're really nice.Starr:Well, one thing that we have been doing is casually just checking out alternatives to Basecamp for our internal company's message board. I don't know. I feel like we're just perusing the alternatives. Honestly, it's been a little bit difficult finding just a system out there that's just a simple thread and message board without a million complex adjustments for running a forum that has thousands of people. Somebody on Twitter yesterday recommended Threads. I don't know. I think we're currently evaluating that one but no decisions yet.Josh:Is that like Twitter threads? You just-Starr:Oh, yeah, just Twitter threads.Josh:We do all of our communicating but just public threads.Starr:No, we're just going to use Twitter stories. We're just going to take some pics of ourselves in different-Josh:If we're trying to go to the opposite direction of Basecamp, we could just... Well, I guess this is like Basecamp, just do all of our communication via thought leadership.Starr:There you go.Ben:What if we did all of internal communication via TikTok?Starr:Okay, I'm getting this. I'm on board with this. We're just going to be influencers. Whoever's the most influential is going to-Josh:You know what? If our employees don't like it, too bad. You're getting a Twitter account, and it's getting verified.Starr:Yeah, they can interpret our really random TikTok video and try and figure out what it means. That's how they'll discover our disapproval.Ben:On the Basecamp thing, though, it was interesting as I was looking at it this week and realizing that the only thing that we use in Basecamp is messages along with the files. We sometimes attach files to our messages.Josh:Or email forwards.Ben:Yeah, occasionally we do an email forward. But we don't-Starr:Usually we do calendars, but we also have Google calendar.Ben:And Slack.Josh:And Notion.Ben:And notion. So we don't do to-dos. We don't do hill charts. We don't really use the project management side of the project management software that we're using. As I was looking at alternatives this week, I looked at monday.com and ClickUp and, I don't know, a few different ones. They're all these project management things. It's like, well, we don't really manage projects. We do that via chat or via a Zoom call every once in a while or via Notion. We don't use a project management tool for that. So it's like, yeah, all we really need are threads, conversations.Starr:It's the sort of thing where you could just do it in email, but it's nice having that archival ability, the ability to go back and check things out and not have it dependent on, "Oh, maybe I deleted that message by accident or whatever."Josh:Well, you could do it in Slack, but then you end up with the weird history aspect of it, and you'd have to have some sort of... You have to create a channel for it with the rules so it doesn't end up being just a chat. You have to say, "The rule of this channel is every message is a thread or a post or whatever."Starr:You kind of have to do it manually.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I did look at Twist. That was pretty cool, pretty close, but it also has chat. It's like, "well, I don't want a second chat since we already use Slack." We're not going to ditch Slack.Starr:Basecamp has chat, too.Ben:Right, and we don't use that. I guess you could use Twist. Twist is pretty nice.Starr:I think we need threaded messages, we need everything to be archived, and we need some way to see what people have been writing on lately, see what the latest activity is. That's basically it. I don't even use notifications. I get them, but I don't really... Usually by the time I see them... That's not my process. I don't look at my notifications and be like, "Oh, I'd better check this out." I check out the messages at a set set time basically.Ben:Then, like you said, the forum software, like the discourse, and it's just way, way too much. It's like, "Yeah, we get it." We just need a message board. We don't need all the dials and knobs. It's totally a dials and knobs application. I saw it in the settings, and I was like, "Whoa, okay. I'm just going to back away slowly."Starr:It could be fun, I don't know, if we want to be passive aggressive, we could shadow ban people. We could just do all sorts of fun things.Ben:But I suppose we don't have the hard requirements supporting BBCode.Starr:Isn't that a negative requirement? Supporting BBCode, I think that's a detriment. But we do have a chance to maybe, I don't know, maybe... One thing that I've always really... This really annoyed me about Basecamp is that it doesn't support Markdown, and everything we use supports Markdown, so everything I have is in Markdown. So if I write something in my personal notes, it's going to be in Markdown. If I want to transfer that to Basecamp, I got to manually format it, which is just like, "What am I? What is this? Who do you think I am?"Josh:That's my number one gripe with Basecamp, like the editor, is just a WYSIWYG editor that... I constantly... even just when I'm writing and I want to make a list and I just type a dash like I normally... in most things these days, and it just doesn't do anything in Basecamp. Then I remember, "Oh, I have to get my mouse and click on the bullet." It's a huge hassle.Ben:I can imagine your quality of life being dramatically affected by that.Josh:Yeah.Starr:You know we're developers when we're complaining about things like that.Josh:This is why I'm wearing wrist braces.Starr:Or dual wrist braces.Ben:I totally get what you're saying. I want to be able to type star, space, stuff, stuff, stuff and I get a list. Yeah, totally.Starr:It looks like threads.com, it does support Markdown, which is nice. I don't know. I haven't really played around with it a ton. Some aspects of its design, I'm not super happy. I wish the column widths were a little wider and stuff, but also I don't like certain aspects of Basecamp's design. So it's kind of a toss up for me.Ben:I did an export of our Basecamp content, and I got to say their export is fantastic. They give you an HTML page that links to a bunch of other pages per topic or project or team, whatever they call it, and the files are there. It's really well done. So I think if anyone's looking for inspiration on doing exports in their app, they should totally look at Basecamp. They nailed it. It's actually usable. You get this zip file. You open it up and bam, you can just browse through all your stuff.Starr:That's pretty great. I guess I should declare, I think maybe I started this casual looking for alternatives just because I've seen a lot of stuff online about people are angry at Basecamp. It's like, I'm not really angry at them. Well, this isn't really the point. I'm sad and disappointed in them. But also a lot of the reason why I think they have had our business and they had my business, I've stored personal stuff in a personal Basecamp account, it's just because they're trustworthy. That feeling of trustworthiness has gone down a few pegs for me.Starr:Also, I just kind of felt gross logging in there. If you haven't been keeping up with this, part of the deal is they were making fun of people's names and stuff. I don't know. Are they making fun of my name? I've got a weird name. Are they going through my stuff making fun of it? I know they have access to pretty much everything that I put into Basecamp. I don't know. Even if they're not doing that now, are they going to do that in the future? Because it seems like they're going in that direction. I don't know. It seems like they're shutting down people trying to hold them internally accountable for that sort of thing. I don't know. It's just like a gross feeling. I'm just sad about the whole thing.Josh:I personally I kind of doubt that that's like... I got the feeling that the list was more of an artifact from the past, and it had stuck around for too long. I didn't get the feeling that they're condoning that sort of activity really, but I get what you're saying. Also for me, a big factor of it, it's not even just that I'm mad at them or something, they did lose 30% of their company, and they're supporting two products now, one of which is a major infrastructure product but basically is like email. So they have operation overhead and stuff. They did just lose 30% of their company including their, what, head of strategy but basically head of product. So I just wonder, where is the product going from here? It was already, I felt, a little bit stagnating. I don't know. I think they've been working on the next version of it is what I heard. I don't know. It just seems like there are questions about just the stability from that nature, too.Ben:I'm probably in a third place from you two and I probably care the least. I'm like, "Eh, it's a message board. They can make fun of my name." Okay. I had that happen when I was 10. People do that. It's like, "Oh, get on." I have a hard time getting up the energy to care, I guess.Starr:Don't mistake me. I'm not like up in arms about it. This is more like a passive viewing. It's like, "Oh, I got to go on Basecamp and check my things. Uh, I just feel kind of crummy about it." This is-Ben:It's one of those friction things in your life you just don't need. Yeah, absolutely.Starr:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Absolutely.Starr:I'm like, this is a message board. Like, should I be having to deal with this just to go check some messages? It's ridiculous.Josh:I think all of us are really just talking these are passing thoughts we have using the product in light of the drama of the past few weeks.Starr:If we end up staying on it, I'm not going to be super upset. I'll probably get over it. I don't know. It just seems like it might be nice to try something different especially if we can get that sweet Markdown.Ben:I've been surprised that there are so few products that are just about this one use case of the simple messages. I expected there to be tons of things to try and no.Starr:Of course, in our company Notion, there's now a design document-Ben:Of course.Starr:... for a simple-Josh:Because we're going to build our own.Ben:We're going to build our own, of course. What does any good tech team do when they're frustrated with the 20 solutions on the market? They build solution number 21.Starr:Of course.Ben:Maybe we'll build that. The code name for that project is Budgie. I named it Budgie because I went to do the Google search, I'm like, "What's a communicative type of animal? What's a social animal?" I can't remember the search I did, but the first thing that got turned up was like, the most social birds. I don't know. So there's this list of birds, and budgie was the number one bird. So I'm like, "Okay, cool." Then I was like, "Well, what kind of domains are available?" Because of course when you start a project, you have to buy the domain. Before you do anything else, you got to buy that domain. Surprisingly, and perhaps not surprisingly in retrospect, every variant of budgie is taken, of course, budgie.com but also budgie.app and budgieapp.com. I'm like, "Wow. How many...?" And they're all for sale. None of them are actual products. They're all parked, and they're for sale. I'm like, so a bunch of people have had this idea about what's a social animal. I guess budgies are really popular for pets, and so they're looking for the ad opportunities with people looking for, "How do I take care of my budgie?" Anyway, just kind of a diversion.Starr:That's interesting. The first thing that pops into mind when I heard that... I like the name. It's a cute name. There's this really good Australian kids' cartoon called Bluey, and there's an episode where they find a little budgie that's injured, and it dies. So the kids have to come to terms with that. I don't know. It's just like, "Little budgie died."Josh:Bluey is one of the best cartoons ever, by the way.Starr:Yeah, Bluey. Oh, I'm glad you like it, too.Josh:It's so good.Starr:It's super good. It's super good. Basically the whole cartoon is just these kids... They're dogs but they're kids. They're just making up games to play with each other. How it works is the kids watching the show see it and that makes them want to play that game, too. So it's just not dumb TV. It gets them doing stuff outside of the TV, which is kind of nice.Josh:That's a really good analysis of the show. I hadn't thought about that aspect of it, but come to think of it, my kids totally imitate them.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:Climbing all over us.Starr:I now have to play every game in that show, and I've got to know them by name and what the rules are.Josh:One of the things we like about it is just they really got the sibling dynamic down. It is like our kids to a tee. It's pretty funny. Now that I think about it, maybe it's like our kids have now become the characters in the show.Ben:It's a good thing I watch the Simpsons.Josh:Oh, no. Actually we do watch the Simpsons.Starr:Is the Simpsons still on?Josh:It's on Disney+.Starr:Oh my gosh.Ben:Yeah, it is still a thing.Josh:They're still making it, too, right?Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.Starr:Wow. I don't know. I don't even know about that.Josh:We don't watch much of the Simpsons with them yet, a three and four-year-old.Josh:I don't know if I'm quite ready for a couple little Bart and Lisas.Ben:You put that off as long as you can. Well, I actually did a little bit of work this week. I was working on something, I don't know what. I noticed one of the tests was running kind of long like it was just stuck. I don't usually watch tests. I don't usually run the tests actually. I just let our CICB run the tests. I don't even worry about it. But this morning for some reason, I don't know, I was working on something, and I happened to be running the tests. I noticed one of the tests was just stuck. Like, that's weird. So I did a little investigation.Ben:It turns out that a number of our tests do some domain name server resolution because, for webhooks, when someone puts in their webhook, we want to verify that the destination is not like a private thing. They're not trying to fetch our EC2 credentials and stuff like that. So it does some checks like, is this is a private IP address? Does this domain name actually resolve, blah, blah, blah? Also for our uptime checks. Obviously, people are putting in domains for that, too. It turns out that, I don't know, maybe it was my machine, maybe it was the internet being dumb, whatever, but the domain name resolution was what was holding up the test. This happens, as you can imagine, in a variety of ways in our tests. This one test that I was running, which was only, I don't know, seven or eight tests, it was taking a minute or two minutes to run. Then I fixed this so that it stopped doing the domain name resolution, and it took two seconds.Josh:Wow.Ben:So a slight improvement to our test suite there. A quality of life improvement.Josh:Did you benchmark overall? Because that's got to be a huge improvement if it's doing that everywhere.Ben:Well, it's not doing that everywhere. I did do a push, so I have to go and check and see what GitHub... see if it dropped that time.Josh:Well, it might have been whatever was wrong with your DNS resolution in the first place that was causing it to be extra slow. Would it be faster if DNS was fast?Ben:Yeah, it could have been. I actually did some tests on my laptop at the time. I'm like, "Is my DNS resolution slow?" No.Josh:So it's-Ben:The test... I don't know what the deal was.Josh:It was just resolving a bunch of actual URLs in the test.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah, that's bad. So nice work. You reminded me that I did some work this week, too.Ben:OhJosh:Very important work, I must say. I added a yak to our Slack bot to where-Josh:... if you mention the word "yak" when you're interacting with the Slack bot now it will return... You should do it in Slack, just whatever Badger bot. Say Badger bot yak me, it-Starr:Okay, I'm doing it.Josh:Okay, do it.Starr:Oh, sorry. It was the wrong channel. Hold on.Josh:You got to do it in general, I think.Starr:Come on Badger bot. Oh my god. It's a little text space yak.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Awesome.Josh:This came about because earlier this week I was just passively mentioning in chat that I'm just yak shaving. My entire life is yak shaving. That just got us talking about, why don't we have some representation of that in our chat, in our Slack? Obviously, I had to stop everything I was doing and build that right away. Of course, there were some escaping issues that came up as a result of that, so obviously I had to deploy a few hot fixes.Ben:The whole episode amuses me. I love it. I would do exactly the same thing. But also what amuses me is that we already have, as part of Slack, GIPHY, and you could just dump a picture of a yak in there. But you're like, "No, that's good enough. I must have an ASCII yak.Josh:It's got to be an ASCII yak, yeah.Ben:This is great. I love technology.Josh:I kind of miss Hubot where it would just automatically... if you just mention it. Maybe I should change our Slack bot so that it does that. So if you say "yak," a wild yak appears. By the way, that's what the text at the bottom of the ASCII yak says, a wild yak appears. I just wish it would pop up if someone just mentions it in a chat, like if they're talking about it just because-Josh:It's listening to everything, right?Starr:That would be fine.Ben:We used to have Hubot, and every time you said "ship," it would show the ship-Josh:The ship, the squirrel. But I definitely would like... annoying at times, but overall I'd say it was worth it.Ben:Totally worth it.Starr:Yeah, definitely. I do remember sometimes where things were on fire, and it's just popping up funny GIFs, and it's like, "Not now. Not now Hubot, not now.Ben:Sit in the corner. Should have had that command. Like, "Go away for a while."Josh:Or just make it a separate... Maybe we should just make this a separate bot that you don't have to have any ops channel. Maybe this'll be our next product.Starr:Oh, there you go. It's like when you mention yak, it turns into an Oregon trail-type hunting scene, and you have to shoot the very slow pixel at it.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative). I do love this aspect of our business of being... I assume it's like a side effect of being small. I don't know. I'm sure large teams also do this, I didn't spend a day on this, but spend a day just doing something completely useless. I like that we can do that-Ben:Yes, it is.Josh:... and the total lack of responsibility, to be honest.Starr:Is there a total lack of responsibility? I don't know. I don't know.Ben:I think you could argue that there is a total lack of responsibility.Josh:Maybe relatively.Starr:Maybe.Josh:I think we're speaking relatively.Starr:Relatively? Well, there's responsibility to customers. I don't know. Do they count? Nah.Ben:Speaking of being a small company, just because of a recent acquisition of one of our competitors, I had gone to look at what some of our other competitors, what status they were, and I was just blown away with how many employees our competitors have. It's really amazing.Starr:What are they doing with all those people? Are they paying...? Do they have a professional volleyball team or something?Josh:Not in the past year.Starr:Well, they play over Zoom.Josh:It's a professional pong league now.Starr:There you go.Ben:We have five employees. The competitor that has the closest number of employees comes in at a hefty 71. Then the largest number that I found was 147 employees. That's impressive.Josh:With the competitor, the first one that you mentioned with the 70 something employees, and I assume over $100 million in funding, were they the ones that were recently bragging on Twitter about how much more usage they have than everyone else?Ben:I don't know because I don't remember seeing that bragging.Josh:They were. It was kind of funny. Yeah, you would probably be the major player.Starr:That's something I definitely learned throughout the course of running this business is that a company that has tens or, I don't know, hundreds of, did you say $100 million, that's a lot-Josh:It's a lot.Starr:... of funding can do more work than three people even if those three people are very, very good. It's-Ben:That's right.Starr:They can do more work, and that's all right. We're just going to have our little garden patch over here. It doesn't matter if ConAgra is a mile down the road. They can do their thing. We can do our thing.Ben:As long as they don't let their seeds blow into our farmland, right?Starr:Oh, yeah, definitely. Let me just ask you a question. When it comes to buying your strawberries for your traditional summer strawberry shortcake, are you going to go to that wonderfully, just delightful artisanal farm down the road, or are you just going to slide over to ConAgra and, I don't know, get some of their strawberry-shaped objects?Ben:I got to say, I love roadside fruit stands. Those are the best. When cherry season happens here in Washington, going and grabbing a whole mess of cherries from some random person that's propped on the side of a road, I mean it's awesome.Starr:My favorite ones are the ones have no... if you stop and think about it... I used to live in Arkansas. One time I was walking by and there was this roadside fruit stand just with oranges. It was like, "Hold up. Hold up. Oranges don't grow in Arkansas. What is this?" I don't know if he just went to Costco and just got a bunch of oranges or maybe he did the Cannonball Run from Florida straight up-Josh:Road trip.Starr:... and was selling oranges all the way up. There was some explaining to do.Ben:I didn't realize until I was saying it, but it really does sound ridiculous that you're going to go and get some fruit items from some random person on the side of the road. But I love roadside fruit stands. They're great.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:I don't know. In this day and age probably, yeah.Josh:Maybe things should be more like that. Maybe that would solve some problems.Ben:Well, coming back to the front porch thing, do you know that country song, If the World Had a Front Porch?"Starr:No, I don't.Ben:Definitely have to link it up in the show notes. It's all about if the world had a front porch like we did back then, then things would be different. People would be more friendly. We'd be chatting with our neighbors. Things would just be overall good.Starr:Yeah, totally.Josh:We'd all know each other.Starr:Is that true? Is that true?Ben:I got to say, I grew up in the Deep South. I did not have a front porch and none of my friends had a front porch because we all lived in the same neighborhood and all the houses were the same, but we were all still pretty friendly-Starr:Oh, there you go.Ben:... even though we didn't have front porches.Starr:Well, I had a front porch and people were assholes, so I think the correlation between front porches and nice people is weak.Ben:The song If I had a front porchJosh:.Isn't it more like a metaphor? I don't know.Starr:You could say the internet's the world's front porch and look how great that's worked out.Josh:If you just build a front porch-Starr:I'm sure it's a nice song. I don't mean to make fun of the song. I'm sure it's a good song.Josh:You build a front porch that the entire population of the world could fit on, just see how that goes. That's what we-Starr:It's like, "Oh, shit. We deforested the Amazon to get the wood for this."Ben:We should name our little message board product Front Porch.Starr:Front porch, ah, that's nice. You could have add-ons to that. Like for upgrades, you could get the rocking chair or the whittling knife.Ben:Yeah, and the sweet tea-Starr:The sweet tea, yeah.Ben:... or the mint julep.Starr:Can I ask you a question? Was sweet tea a thing when you were a kid?Ben:Yes.Starr:Do people refer to it as like, "Oo, sweet tea," as a saying?Ben:No.Starr:Okay, that-Ben:They'd just refer to is as tea.Starr:Okay, thank you.Ben:There was no other tea. It was just that.Josh:But it was sweet.Ben:Yeah, it was sweet, of course.Starr:Yeah, of course. It's-Ben:That's the only tea that existed. None of this Earl Grey hot business, no, no, no.Starr:I just noticed, I don't know, around 2007 everybody started talking about sweet tea. It's like, "What? What's this?" Ben:Yeah, totally. It's a Southern Thing, on YouTube, their channel, is pretty funny. They go into the sweet tea thing quite a bit. If you want some additional context, do some research on that whole aspect. You can go and watch that YouTube channel. I'll have to link it up in the show notes.Starr:Yeah, I'll check that out. Well, would you gentlemen like to wrap it up? I think I've got to start... I'm going to be Southern here. I'm fixing to get ready to think about going to my vaccine appointment.Ben:Jeet yet? You know that joke? Have you heard that?Starr:I haven't heard that joke. What?Ben:It's like, oh man, two southern guys, one's like, "Jeet yet?"Starr:Ah, did you eat yet? Okay, yeah.Ben:"No. Y'want to?"Starr:I haven't been back in a while.Josh:Did you eat yet?Starr:I haven't been back in a while.Ben:Oh, good times. Sometimes I miss the South but not during the summer.Starr:One of my favorite words, I think it might be a local Arkansas word, is tump. It's a verb, tump. It's the action of tipping something over and dumping out its contents. The perfect use case is a wheelbarrow. Like, you tump out the wheelbarrow. I'm sorry. Tump out the wheelbarrow.Ben:Totally.Josh:I am learning so much on this episode, by the way-Starr:There you go.Josh:... about the South.Josh:It's great. I'm learning more about-Josh:This is your second vaccine appointment, right?Starr:Yeah, it's the second one.Josh:Second and final. Well, for now.Starr:So I'm ready for it to hit me. I'm like, "Bring the storm.Josh:Yes, it hit me.Starr:Bring it on."Josh:Mine was like a 48-hour ordeal, but back to normal now. I feel great.Starr:That's good. You got your super powers.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Well, good luck with that.Starr:Thank you. Maybe one day we'll be able to have a conclave in person again, although I might need the support of a therapist or something because just like... I mean I like y'all, but I don't know if I'm over the droplets yet.Ben:You can still wear masks.Starr:Okay, that's good. Thank God, okay. All right, I will talk to y'all later.

tv amazon founders tiktok health google disney man washington zoom australian oregon south startups portland arkansas southern honestly kicking ip saas developers simpsons threads twist bart slack costco alternatives thank god northwest nah screw github notion html rage against the machine badger tires basecamp kirkland gif deep south bluey dns oranges elixir gifs urls paul ryan bootstrap oo front porch earl grey giphy cannonball run lifestyle business markdown stimpy lisas budgie ascii jeet software as a service washington state department ec2 tump wysiwyg conagra claritin onewheel zyrtec ben it benas ben you josh it josh yeah josh you josh one ben there ben oh ben so josh how josh well josh oh ben well benon ben right hubot josh so micropreneur josh not

"Outwitting The Devil" with Josh Forti - Part 3 of 3

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2021 20:48

Here is the exciting final part of this special three episode series! On this episode, Russell and Josh talk quite a bit about the new book Russell is currently working on! The new book will be the first (of possibly many) personal development book that Russell has written. We also get to hear why Russell loves to write books and why he thinks everyone should write one. So listen in to the final part of Russell and Josh’s “Outwitting The Devil” interview. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody. This Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the third and final episode from the Outwitting The Devil interview with Josh Forti. Hopefully you enjoyed the first two episodes. If you missed any of them, go back and listen to episode one, two and this is part three of three. In this one, Josh started asking me questions about my new books. Why I was so excited about Outwitting The Devil, by how I'm using this? Why I'm writing my fourth book and a bunch of other really cool things. So I hope you enjoy it. And you've enjoyed this interview series, please let me know, let Josh know. The best way to do that is take a picture of any of these on your phone, post them on your social media and tag me and him and let us know what you thought about the episodes. Thanks again, you guys. I appreciate you all for listening with that said, let's queue up the exciting conclusion of the Josh Forti, Russell Brunson Outwitting The Devil Podcast interview. Josh Forti: Okay. I want to do this because we're talking about all these amazing books and I don't know, this is probably like two, three weeks ago. Maybe it's a little bit longer that. You start hinting on Instagram about this book. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh. There's another book? What could it possibly be?" And then last week I'm out here and you started telling me about it and what it is. Russell: Showing you the deal. Josh: It's not a marketing book. It's the next piece and it's your first ever... And I don't want to spoil it for them. I'm going to say it's like your first ever take at personal development. Talk to us about this book. When's it coming out? How did this come about and the details of that, because I'm super, super excited for it. Russell: I think it was my only, hopefully. But I said that about Dot Com Secrets too. Josh: I don't believe that at all. There's going to be a trilogy for... Russell you're going to be writing books till you die dude. Russell: I don't know. Writing is so painful but this one, again, it's me coming back. We launched Traffic Secrets. The world goes chaotic and I have more time and I'm trying to just occupy my mind. Josh: Which by the way, how perfect time. My heart was completely broken when you had to cancel the Traffic Secrets event because I was supposed to speak to there. I was like, "No." But how perfect of a timing was Traffic Secrets when- Russell: There are pros and cons of it. It was really good from a selling book standpoint. It was really hard for making New York times bestseller list, which we actually hit, which I'm still freaked out about. It was tough because Amazon wasn't shipping books. Things weren't shipped, all sorts of chaos. They said books weren't essential and so like it was hard to hit lists because you'd sell 10,000 copies of books in a week but Amazon was waiting two, three, four weeks to ship them because it wasn't... The way that the lists work is, how many did you sell in retail outlets? How many do you sell on USA today? All the things. And so when you have the big push, but then some books aren't being counted four or five weeks later because Amazon doesn't consider them essential. They're not sure when they can glut. Normally it takes 10,000 books or something to hit a bestseller list. We hit over 100,000 to be able to do it. It was way harder, way more stressful, but we got it. But it was easier to sell because I had more time. Anyway, a lot of pros with that. Plus it was crazy because in the beginning of the book I talked about there's a storm coming and then literally it was like, we're in the middle it. You should give this book right now... Josh: Literally right now. Russell: I think I'm similar to you. I think a lot of people in our community where it's just like, my mind is always spinning. I can't stop. Josh: I cannot shut it off ever. Russell: It's like there's got to be something I got to be thinking about. And again, it was harder me to find stuff for me to geek out on inside of marketing and business. It was just hard to find the next... I don't know. Every level you get to, it's harder to find the next level. I'm sure there's time where Michael Jordan's like, "I can't find people to push me anymore." Where do you go? And it's just like- Josh: Yeah. Like Tom Brady in the NFL just completely dominating every team that's out there. Yeah. That's right. Russell: Anyway. So not that I'm that level or anything. Josh: Right. Right. Right. Russell: For me it gets harder and harder- Josh: Likewise. Russell: To find things. I have to dig so hard to find the gold. And so I started just looking again at some of these things. And that's when I stumble on this book and just like, every page is gold and it's like I'm lit up again. I'm on fire. Again, I talked about earlier, for me one of my highest values is ROI. What's my return on my investment. So I'm learning these things. I'm growing myself personally, but I'm feeling empty because I'm not sharing them. So it's like, "What's the platform?" That's why I'm like, "Everyone go read this." I need to have this conversation with somebody. So having Dave reading it, everybody can get to read it I'm trying to read so I can get this conversations. Then when you're like, "Hey, do you want to talk about a podcast?" I said, "Yes." You forged some of this stuff because it's in me and if I can't contribute, it seems like I'm wasting it. And so there was this, there was other things. And I started looking more and more. Right now I've got five kids. Three of my kids are teenagers now and teenagers have been way harder than I ever thought or expected. It's weird. Kids are really fulfilling, but man teenagers have been just... It's different for me. I'm feeling like I have to grow to understand myself, but to also understand them. And what I envisioned my kids as teenagers are going to be what it is, has been so much different. I think for me, at times it got me depression, sadness and these things. And I was like, "I shouldn't be depressed this time in my kid's life. This is the greatest time I could be with them but I got to shift my mind." So it was me trying to do some work on myself, to fix myself. Not fix myself, but to get myself in a spot where I could enjoy the season. And then number two is how do I serve them now at this point? Because I envisioned the way I was going to serve my kids was when my dad did. Where I was like, he drove me to wrestling practice and we traveled the world, we worked out super hard because that's what I needed and I assumed that that's what my kids are going to need and it's not. That's not what they want. They want almost the opposite of those things. I'm like, "But I have these gifts. These skills I can give you." They are like, "I don't want them." I'm like, "I can help you start a business." Like, "We don't care." I get them value money because they've always had it. It's like all these things. Every gift that I have, it's like all my unique abilities I want to give my kids, they don't want it. So I'm learning this thing of well, instead of me trying to give my kids these things that I think that were so valuable to me. It's like, I have to sit back and understand what's actually valuable to them, which is so much harder and I'm learning this process. And so as I'm going through this lens of trying to learn these things, understand them, trying to figure them out for myself and I'm stumbling upon things like this and other things. It just got to a point where I was like, "I need to write this book first off for myself." If anyone who's done it, there's this weird thing as you start reading, you start seeing connections. You don't see any other spot. I feel like God opens up insights to you. They're just magical. Like I remember- Josh: When you start writing. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah 100%. Russell: You have to get deep in a topic, you have studied all these things to figure things out. And I remember the first time I really understood this is, after I finished Traffic Secrets, I wanted to reedit DotCom and an Expert Secrets to publish the trilogy. So I went back. I remember reading those books and I was like, "Where did this stuff come from?" I was like, "This is good crap. I don't remember saying this or thinking that." I couldn't remember and- Josh: Interesting. Russell: It's the weirdest thing going back and fighting things. Somehow that was given to me because that was not something that I just intuitively knew. And I feel like for me, I wanted to start the book journey because I'm searching for these answers. The premise of the book is not, "I have all the answers, let me give them to you." I'm in the season where I'm going through it again and let me share through I'm learning on this journey because I'm learning some amazing things. And as I'm sharing as I'm writing them, again these insights keep popping in and it's fascinating. So I'll be doing something, I'll be doing something and I have a doodle. I'm like, "Oh my gosh." I run to Dave I'm like, "Look at this." He's like, "What am I explaining?" He's like, "I never saw it before." New to that. It showed up when I'm in this intense time. And so it's been fun as I'm writing it because these insights are coming at a speed that they don't normally come in. Josh: And I think also- Russell: It's really funny. Josh: I think... Hold that train of thought. I want you to keep going on that. But I've noticed that as well, when it comes to reading books. Reading a book and then applying the book, those are two very different things. I have read Expert Secrets, Dotcom Secrets, Traffic Secrets. And I'm going through, I've not read the hardcover of Expert Secrets. I've only read the soft cover. So right now I'm going through and yes, two nights ago I started it and it's- Russell: You started the hardcover? Josh: Yeah. I'm going through, I'm listening to it and I'm reading it and I'm taking notes- Russell: Get the hardcovers. They're way better than softcovers. Josh: So I'm going through all this stuff. For the last four or five, six months, all I've been doing, I have no front end products of my own. I'm not building anything. All I'm doing is working with big campaigns on the backend. It's like full out stuff. We're doing stuff with cash phones. All these stuff is up and I'm going through and actually inboxed you. I was like, "Dude. People say they've read this book but they haven't." They've read the words, but it's totally different when you actually experience it. And you're watching where it all fits in and you start to see how it all clicks together. So that broke from the reverse angle of when you're writing it and trying to put it on in together is what you're talking about here. Russell: Yes. It's super fascinating. So it's been fun. I'm excited. So my goal, I'm trying to get it done by summer for it to be a launch in March. So if you published traditionally, this publishing schedule is really, really long. So if you are going to read it in March, I'd have to have it done by June. Josh: If we want to read in March of next year, you have to have it done by June this year. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Dang. Russell: So that's where I'm at. So I'm also with the first section of the book and there's four sections. Back then this month I spent the section number one and then that's where I'm at. Josh: Do we get to know what it's called? Do you have a title yet? Russell: I do. I don't want to show a title yet because I don't want someone going and- Josh: Oh, that's true. Russell: "You guys all suck." And buys those domains up and they start like SEOing me and beating me and all that stuff. But it's going to be cool. It's a study of two things. So I'll give you this part. This is the subtitle. So subtitle, something Tony Robbins talks a lot about, but it's the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. These two things. How do achievers achieve? And then how do you actually get fulfilled? Because it's fascinating. I think- Josh: Interesting. Russell: I see my own life. I achieve something thinking that, "When I achieve this thing, I'm going to be fulfilled and happy and everything." And you achieve the thing and you're like, "I'm not happy." And you figure that achievement and fulfillment, they don't work hand in hand. It's a science of achievement, which that's why science achieves more scrutiny. It's like, "Here's a step-by-step process to get this result." I want to be state champion wrestler here's a step by step process. Boom, got it. I want to be a known American step-by-step process. Got it. I want to start a business, step-by-step. Science. It's not thinking, you just follow a process and you get it. So for me, achievements always come easy. Anything I ever want in my life I've achieved it because there's a science. I figured out. Fulfillment's art, it's different. It's not follow these steps and you become fulfilled. The yin yang of these two things. And it's so fascinating. I've been going deeper into it and seeing the pattern appear over and over and over again, all these different things. And how do you apply it to your life? And there's so many cool things in this book that don't necessarily talk about science of achievement and fulfillment but they're all in here. The patterns in here over and over and over again. So it's pulling it from all these sources and showing it to everybody, that's what the book's going to do and then how to weave it all into aspects of your life anyway. So that's- Josh: One of the things and I'm sure you'll talk about it, but will be the balance of those two things. Because it's early on in my very young career of being 27 years old, but it was all about achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve. And there's always my mom's voice in the back of my head, it's like, "Things won't make you happy." "I know mom." Russell: Yes they will. Josh: Yeah. Yes they will. And then you get there. There have been moments in my life where right now in this moment I am completely fulfilled or I'm completely content and it's just like, I don't know what could make my life better. And it's not when I achieved anything, it's not when I did anything. But in that moment, whenever I take a step back and think about that moment, I have very little drive to go achieve anything more. And there's that balance of how do I stay fulfilled and content while also being driven to go achieve. Because for me and this is something I'd wrestled with and talked to Katie about it. And I'm like, "It's either one or the other. I can't be..." And she's like, "There's always another option. There's never black and white." And so balancing the two of those and understanding that. Like you said, they don't go hand in hand. They're separate things, I think it's really important and something that I'm trying to figure out and learn. Russell: So I got frustrated about all the times I achieve something and I'm so frustrated, why do I not feel how I thought I was going to feel and leads to depression or frustration or whatever. But when you start separating these are two different things I can achieve and I want to achieve, but how do I get fulfilled in the journey or separately from it and you start anyway. It's been fascinating and learning so many cool things and it's going to be fun to start sharing with everybody. I'm going to probably start in my podcasts, start dropping more and more things then getting deeper and deeper. More of the thoughts are going be flushed out. That's the weird thing about writing a book too, is initially I'm like, "Here's what I'm going to write." I write an outline of what the book is going to be and I write chapter number one. I was like, "Now this outline makes sense. You write that one" Chapter two. And so it's like, it's this rebuild, rebuild, rebuild. And by the time it's done, hopefully we'll find out. It'll be the perfect thing that's like, here's the frameworks you need. And for example, this whole concept here, there's a chapter that's going to be taking the frameworks from this book and this is going to be the chapter walking people through this concept of faith and fear. This doodle is a rough draft. I just tell you I sent this to you today. I'm like, "This is not the perfect doodle. I saw it. I'm not going to post it down below yet because this is partially done." It's going to be perfect by the time the book's done. I'm still thinking through and trying to get it right. And making it a simple form where I can understand it and hopefully it makes it easy for people to apply. But anyway, it's pretty cool. I think everyone should read a book. I think everybody listening should set that as a goal because when you do, just the act of writing the book will change your board. And I think anyone will understand. And when somebody asks, "What are you doing?" You're like, "I'm writing a book." Josh: That sounds very cool. Russell: There's no much cooler than that. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Okay. I know you have a hard cutoff, so I want to be respectful of that here. So I want to end with one question here and that is specifically about reading books. It's interesting. I'm pretty involved in the ClickFunnels world. Those are my people as well too. And so those are the people that follow me and that I interact with and I talk to a lot and it's always interesting when I talk to people about reading versus action. And some people have this... I feel like there's weird thought that if you're a reader, you're not an action taker, which I'm like, "That's not true. That's not how that works." But anyway, for you, if you are early on in your career, early on in you journey of building your business and your funnels and putting everything together. Do you recommend? Going back and thinking of your life, were you a big reader early on? Did you do a lot of reading or were you more action taking and looking back, would you recommend people read more, take more action? What's that balance? Because it's very easy. I know for me, I'm making time to read and then that's all I want to do. I'm like, "This is amazing." And then I'll take action. And so what's that Balance there? And what do you recommend as far as reading versus action? Russell: It's tough because some people read just because you get fulfillment or like there's- Josh: There's a good feeling that comes with reading. Russell: Comes with reading. Josh: For sure. Russell: So- Josh: It's a fake sense of accomplishment. Russell: Yes. So this is my belief. I remember when I first got started, I was reading a lot, I was listening, I was going to seminars. I remember at first it always frustrated because I was learning all this stuff and I was getting it but I had nowhere to use it and I was trying to use it all. That's why I think I launched... I can't remember. A couple of funnels by measure. It was like a 106, 116 or something funnels I launched before ClickFunnels. And that's because every idea that came to me, I was like, "I have to create something." I create this and I create this. I was creating funnel and funnel and coaching program. I joined Dan Kennedy's mastermind and they talked about, "You should have mastermind groups." So at the event I launched a mastermind group. I'm like, "You should have phone sales." We started phone sales and "You should be doing seminars." We launched a seminar. Every idea that came, I launched it. But man, I got a point where I was drowning. Because we had 8,000 things we're doing and nothing really worked. And I remember always feeling guilty because these ideas are coming to me. I'm thinking, "These are gifts from God. These are inspiration. I need to have these things." And it wasn't until... I don't remember when. But somewhere down the line, I realized that, "I don't actually have to take all these different things and do them, but I can understand them." Because I enjoy learning, understanding. So I would take them into my mind and literally put them on a shelf. I remember there's this Dan Kennedy on how to do high ticket, air exclusive program. So when we were listening to it, there's talking about franchise and this. All of a sudden, this is amazing. So I was taking it because I enjoyed the learning of it. And then I was like, "I'm not doing this right now." I'm so stretched thin, but I enjoyed the learning. So I'm flying an airplane, listening to this audio book or whatever. If I'm going to put it over here, I'm just categorizing and I put it over here in my brain. Like, "Hey. If I ever wanted to go back and do that, I know where it's at or at least put over here." So I started learning because I enjoyed learning but I didn't have to implement everything. And I've put things in these different spots. At the same time I had a very clear vision. This is definitive purpose. I had a vision. So I'm trying to execute on something I'm trying to do. So as I'm learning, when something came that crossed my mind I was like, "That's the next step. I could grab it and plug it in and I could use it." If it didn't. I'm like, "That's awesome. Put it right here. Someday I'm going to use that in future." And I talked to… James Friel and I talked about because he has a Trello board. He calls his shiny penny Trello board where anytime you have a great idea- Josh: Yeah. I have one of those. Russell: Instead of trying to implement, he puts it on his Trello boards. Keeps your ideas. I think for most entrepreneurs, every idea is like your baby, like "This is the greatest idea of all time." Josh: Yeah. I have a Trello board called Josh's brain. Russell: Oh awesome. This pre Trello because I remember getting a note card. I had three by five note cards and when I had the ideas, I put them in there, I put them there. And somebody I'm going to come back to this and I get ideas and put them there. I kept putting them there either in a note card or somewhere else. And it's crazy. And I fast forward. Man, I think it's 19 or 20 years, I'm doing this now. So whatever it is. Almost two decades. And it's really cool because when I coach people now and this is my inner circle so I have people in here I'm coaching and someone would appear on stage and they're stuck with a problem and they're frustrated. They're like, "I don't want to do this thing." And all of a sudden out of the back of my mind pops up this thing and it comes into my- Josh: Exactly. Russell: I have this thing. I'm like, "Oh my gosh. Where did that come from?" It's because I learned it. Because I read this book here, I saw this thing over here and all these things. And so I think a lot of times we have to understand that learning is fun. So enjoy it. Don't be like, "I'm not going to read because..." Reading is awesome. Read, learn, do those things, but also understand, what is your mission? Stephen Larson talked about this two funnel hiking lives ago. He called it just-in-time learning. It seems like if you are going to read the book you need... I agree with that except for this is a better pastime than watching movies. So let's read, let's study. But having your path, this is my goal, this is where I'm going to go. If you join my coaching program, we're going to talk about what's the first funnel. That's what we focus on. Don't do anything else, just focus on that. You can learn other things, but categorize them or wait until you're ready. And then as you get pieces right. I need that, I need that and figure out the next steps. I think that's how I would do the yin yang of both of those. Because I'm the same way. I'm learning so many things or study things or I find things are awesome that I'm not going to use but someday there'll be someone I come upon that that nugget is going to be the thing that unlocks something for them and they're going to super grateful. So, anyway. Josh: All right. Well man, thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. This is so much fun. We could talk for hours, but we do have to wrap it up there. We've got a little something to get to, so thank you man. I appreciate it. Russell: No worries. And hopefully all you guys, two things I want to say. Number one, I'd highly recommend reading this book and read through the lens of this. The first time I didn't know where I was going. So I was all over the place and just freaking out. But look at the lens of Faith and Fear of, I don't want to be a drifter. I want to be somebody spiritually, mentally, and physically free. Look at that and start looking at everything he talks about from this lens and just look at it as protections of you that will be there to get to the spot where you're learn 2% or how to keep yourself from becoming a drifter or if you are drifter shift yourself back. And looking at this, because it's this guide book of all the ways that the devil uses to shift you around. And when you're aware of it, man, it makes it so much more powerful. Josh: And- Russell: This is huge. Josh: The thing that I would say we didn't have time to get to it, but I would say too is understand that it's not... If you're religious, understand that there's probably going to be some things that the devil is like, "You don't need God, you don't need me." Some of the things that are going to be in there, like Russell said, 97% is good, 3% is bad. Don't let that prevent you from understanding the value and the power that's in this book because there is so much good stuff in this. And any single time that I've ever had success at anything when I look back, it follows very closely to the principles that were taught here, so anyway. Russell: That's awesome. And then wait until next March to buy my book. Josh: And I will be the number one affiliate. So hopefully you all can be number two, three, four. That's cool. That's going to be super, super cool. So Russell, thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. Love to do it again for The Book of Mormon or something like that and all right. All right guys, that's it. Russell: Thanks everyone. Josh: As always, hustle, hustle. God bless. Don't be afraid to think different because those of us who think different are going to be the ones who change the world. I love you all. See you soon. Russell: Bye everybody. Josh: See you.

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"Outwitting The Devil" with Josh Forti - Part 2 of 3

Play Episode Listen Later May 3, 2021 29:10

Welcome to the second part of a special three episode series! On this episode, Russell and Josh talk about their biggest “take-aways” from the book. Russell talks about a difficult time when Clickfunnels was down and instead of choosing fear and running from the problem, he chose to have faith in his business and fight to make it better. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed the first part of my interview with Josh Forti, on Outwitting the Devil. This episode, I'm excited, because we're going to go a little bit deeper. We're going to start talking about some of my stories, and practical applications of how I was able to use this in my past. This story I tell, I wasn't expecting to tell this. I didn't know where he was going to go with the interview questions. We got a little emotional, but I think it was good. So I'm excited to share it with you. I'm a little nervous, but a little excited at the same time. So with that said, we're going to cue up the theme song. When we come back you can listen to episode number two, from the Josh Forti interview, about Outwitting the Devil. Josh Forti: I had a very definitive takeaway from the book. You could read a million times, and keep getting gold nuggets, but what was the thing that stuck out to you, that was the most powerful of it? That caused you to literally go on Instagram, be like, "Yo, everybody read this book right now." Russell: Everyone's in different spots, so I think it's good to read this book for everyone to kind of see where you fit. Anyway, maybe I have a distorted view of myself, but I feel like I'm somebody who acts in definitive purpose. I feel like I act in faith, most of the times. So, I feel like I'm on the side. So the thing that was so powerful for me, if you look in the middle of my thing, there's two columns here, was he started saying, he asked, he's like, "When someone uses definitive purpose, does that mean they're free from you?" He's like, "No." He's like, "As soon as they're using definitive purpose." And he's like, "These are the tools I use to try to get them to become drifters." And I started looking at the list of things he uses to get them to become drifters. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, I see those patterns in my life. I see the things that are pulling me to that side as well." And it became this warning for me of like, "Okay, these are the things to protect yourself from." Because, we're not free, it's not like, I do good things therefore I'm to be good forever. It's like, no, the entire time he's trying to get you to the other side. And so for me, it was interesting. You can see some of these ones I list up here, like the temptations he uses to get someone who is free, to become a drifter. So number one, was flattery. And it was interesting, he said that the way he uses flattery, is in women, he uses vanity, and in men, he uses egotism. And I've seen that so many times in my own personal life, where with your ego and you start reading your own bio, you drink your own Kool-Aid, and you're like, "I'm amazing." And as soon as you do that, it starts shifting you from this state of freedom, to drifters. And I've seen... I've got personal friends who have let ego destroy their families, destroy their businesses, destroy their lives. And I always have fear of that, and I see myself slipping into that often. It's definitely a temptation, it's one of the things for me, that pulls me in, I'm trying to be careful of. It's funny, people always tell me, like, "I feel like you're one of the few guys in the industry that doesn't have a big ego." I'm like, "I have a huge ego." I try to be aware of it. I'm grateful for my wife. One of my buddies told me, he's like, "It wasn't for Colette." He's like, "You'd have the biggest head in the world." She's the one that keeps me focused. Josh: I feel like that's Leo with me too, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Russell: But I think it was interesting for man, for egotism, and women, he said vanity, which is interesting too. So those are two things there. Next was failure, and he talked about failure from both sides. He said that failure can be something that actually serves you, because you fail, you see what's wrong and you read adjust, but some people go through failure, and then they slip to like, "Okay, this didn't work," and they're out. And you see that a lot. Josh: Well, and that's even here, it's learning from adversity. That's one of the key things, how do you use failure? If you're going to be a drifter, you're going to be like, "Failure. Ew yuck. I'm never going to do it again." versus a successful person. Russell: You see people all the time that fail, are like, "Oh, I tried the thing, and it didn't actually work." It's like, "Okay. It worked for 800 other people, but it didn't work for you. Maybe it was you, maybe the approach was..." It's so interesting where it's like, if... It comes back to, if you've read Jocko's book. Josh: What's Jocko's book? Extreme Ownership. Yeah. Russell: That's the thing, the failure happens, and it's like, "Oh, I going to blame it on them." Boom. Instantly you're a drifter. But if you're like, "It was me, I did it wrong. What am I going to change?" The extreme ownership, that's the shift from failure. Whereas you take extreme ownership, boom, you're staying over here, but, if you don't... And I have a problem all the time. I think something that's happened to my team, or whatever, and I want to point the finger, and it's like, "But I'm the leader of the team." But it's so much easier to point out, than point back in. And so for me, that was the one. Again, another one I noticed, when I had my failures, did I point out or in? Because if I point out, I'm slipping into drifting. Propaganda, bribes, food, sex, all these different things he was using. The food one was interesting, he was talking about, he's like, "When men and women become rich, and they have all these things, I get them through food, when they start eating and get gluttonous. And all of sudden their body gets not healthy, and then it's harder to move." And I'm sure you felt that, when you're not eating healthy, your mind gets cloudy, and all these things, it's very easy to become a drifter. And so, it's just all these tools he's using to try to get you to shift from one another. Those things were... In my time in my life right now, where I was just like, "Okay, cool. I've got walls, I can start protecting myself up. I can become more aware of it." When you're aware of something, it's so much easier to fight it, as opposed to when… Josh: Yeah. And when you're successful too, everything's convenient. And that's one of the things that he brought up in the book too. I noticed in my life, I was thinking back to when I first started, I was like, "Man, I was sleeping on my buddy's couch." For three months, and I worked my butt off, and everything like that. I'm like, "Why do I lack that drive sometimes?" Like, "Why don't I have that anymore?" It's like, "Because life is convenient." Because if I sleep until eight o'clock, or if I don't perform today, my life doesn't change at all. But back then, it did. And so when things become convenient, it's super easy to come back into that drifter mode. Russell: Yeah. A hundred percent. And that's one of the hardest thing. I think, at least for me, when I was growing up, I always thought there's a point where you made it. In fact, I remember this one time, my business was doing well at the time, we had a bunch of employees. I remember hiring this guy to come consult me on something, and he came out, and he's looking at all this stuff. And he's like, "So tell me, when was he felt like... When did you know you made it?" And I was like, "Oh, I..." I'm still freaking out. I don't feel like I made it. And I think, in my life, I always thought there's going to be a point where I'm like, "I made it, or figured the thing out." Or whatever, but I never got there. I feel like the second I do, that's when it's going to start... That's the thing. And so, I think being more aware of that, just like, this is a constant thing and that's okay, but, it's a constant between God and Satan, there's this constant... Every moment is like, each of them are fighting for. It's like, if you give up here, then you slip back over to there. You can't just... There's no neutral ground. Josh: So, I just want to talk about that, because I think one of the biggest... Well, the number one thing, like you said, of a non drifter, is the definitive purpose. And I have noticed that in my life, even recently... Over the past year, year and a half, I've been working with Katie Richardson, you know that, just really getting clear on what the next steps of things are. And my definitive purpose, if you will, when I first started my entrepreneurship journey, was this, "I just don't want to be poor anymore." I go like, "My definitive purpose is to not worry about money, and to get out of debt, and just be free. Then be able to make decisions or whatever." And then I got there, and then there was this next definitive purpose. And they were incremental, almost goals, but not like this overwhelming definitive purpose. And so, going through the process of that, of course, with my brother dying, and that whole shattering of everything. Like for you, you've built ClickFunnels, you have a wildly successful company and people look up to you, and are like, "Oh my gosh, Russell, you're on top of the world. You're amazing. You've made it." At now, you've just said, "Hey, I don't feel like I've made it yet. I still feel like I have a long way to go." How do you... A, has your purpose changed since you started, compared to where you're at now? And B, how do you continue to remind yourself of that purpose? Or how do you find that purpose? When you could do nothing for the rest of your life, and be totally fine. How do you find purpose in that? Russell: I'd be a drifter at that point. Josh: Right, you wouldn't be a drifter. I can just see Russell sitting on the beach. No, actually, I can't even imagine what that would look like, for Russell on the beach for long periods of time. But, what would that look like for you? Or, how do you find that purpose? Russell: So, you asked about if my purpose has changed. So I would say, in my mind, it's two things. There's the people that I've been called to serve has not changed, I feel like I've been called to serve entrepreneurs. Those are my people, those are the people that I'm here... And so for me, it's like, what are all the ways I can help them? So, initially it was like, "Do seminars, write books." That was the first thing, and then it's like, "Oh, we're going to build software." And then it's like, "Oh, we're doing events." And, we kept adding these things on. And so, that was the thing. And so my purpose was like, what are all the things I can do to help an entrepreneur to be more successful? That's my vision. That's my mission. That's my thing. And I feel like now that, again, after I finished the three books, I was like, I feel like that, again, that the trilogy, that's what people need. And then we have Funnel Hacking Live, that's amazing. We have these things in place, all the things there are... they're there. And I think there's things, where there's big updates, we have to company click funnels. There're other things we do to make things better, but for me, it's like, there's not a lot more, again, it's not like I'm going to come out with some magic funnel, I'm like, "God, it changes everything again." Like, it's there. Right? So for me, it's like, "Okay, I'm still called to serve these people. What's the next level of success? What's the next thing I need to do?" And for me, I started looking, like what were the things that I struggled with? And so much of it was not... It was like, I didn't have the tools, I didn't have the information, which is why the last two decades has been focused on that. But, the next thing was like, I had to become someone different, who did I have to become to be successful? I look at so many entrepreneurs who are coming into my world, these people that I'm called to serve, and giving them funnels. Man, they don't believe in themselves, they have horrible identities. They're choosing fear over faith, every single time, and they're not having success. And so, for me, it's like, "Hey, I still have the same people." So-called same.. served the same people. But, what am I... What's the next thing I need to help them with? And if you just look at my book trilogy, the first one was dotcom secrets. It's like, "They need to understand funnels." That was the book. And it was like, "Hey, now I understand funnels." And now everyone's like, "I'm building funnels." But then their funnels weren't working, they weren't converting. And I'm like, "Oh, they don't know how to tell stories, right copy, or..." So, Expert Secrets, I'm like, "Expert Secrets." It's like, "Okay, now they understand that." And I thought I was done. And then I'm like, "Okay. Some people have these funnels that have really good copy, but Facebook shut down their account and they're screwed, or they have no traffic, or whatever." And I'm like, "Oh, my people in the traffic." So, I'm getting traffic, and that was Traffic Secrets book. And so for me, the last year, year and a half, especially, as you know, we've been in this insane environment of insanity… Josh: How do you even describe it? Russell: And I'm watching these people I've been called to serve, melting down, choosing fear in every single direction, over, and over, and over, and over again. I'm seen people who don't have an identity, they don't have beliefs, they don't have rules, they don't have values. And I have all these things they need to actually have the structure, to implement. It is what we talked about. And that's why I started geeking back to this personal moments, and partially because it's for myself, because I'm trying to protect myself and strengthen myself. But for me, Hill doesn't really go deep on anything. If you look at my disc profile, one of my things is I have very, very high... my highest value is ROI. If I don't see return on investment on something, I can't do. That's why I struggled in school, that's why I struggled with so many things. That's why when I started trying to read scriptures again, I struggled with it, until I started a podcast, because now there's return on my investment. I'm going to learn this thing, but I'm going to give it to somebody else. And there's my return on investment, now I can do it, and I feel fulfilled by it. Josh: Which by the way, I'm going to plug, podcast number three is going to be about that. Russell: And the same thing here. So, I started going back through, started reading these things. And for a while it was tough, because I'm reading these things, and for me it's like, what's the return on investment? It's good for me, but, ah, I've been called to serve. It's not just... Again, I talk about this in the new book, we'll talk about it a minute. But in Expert Secrets I talk about growth and contribution. I love growth, because good for me, but I thrive on the contribution. It's me sharing that gets me excited. So I was going through these things, and that's when, probably three or four months ago, is when I was like, "Hey, I'm learning all these principles, these things, I'm doodling all this stuff." I need to have something I'm putting it towards, or else I'm not going to be able to continue the momentum I need to keep doing this, and keep figuring out these things. And so, that's why I started, as you know, on my fourth book, which is not a marketing book. Josh: Yeah. I want to talk about that. Okay. I really do want to go there. However, there's one question I want to ask you first, I want to pull back another layer of Russell, that people... I don't know. Maybe, you've told this story before. I don't know. I don't even know what the story is, I'm about to ask you. So, my number one takeaway from the book, was how much fear controls people. That was my number one thing. And, for me, and this has come through a tremendous amount of mental work, and tremendous amount of personal identity work, over the course of the past 12 to 16 months, of just tears and just facing my own fears and insecurities, and bringing them to light and working through. But, there's not a whole lot of things I'm afraid of. There're very few things where I'm looking at them, I'm like, "Oh my gosh." I just do me, and whatever. Like criticism, it doesn't really bother me, or whatever. But, there's certain instances that come up where I'm like, "Ooh, I'm afraid of failure in that specific scenario, for that specific thing." And I'd be curious to know, for you, as you built ClickFunnels, I'm sure there were moments of fear. And I'm sure there were moments, when this side of things started to creep in, but you worked through that. And so, I'd be curious to know, what was one of the biggest times when you were building ClickFunnels, that you were afraid? And how did you work through that? What's that story? Russell: Oh man. Josh: Because I feel like we hear the marketing version of it. Russell: The highlight reels. Josh: We do, right? And they serve a very specific purpose. And I always laugh when people want to criticize, like, "Russell only tells this part of the story, or whatever" I'm like, "Do you understand why he's doing that?" Like, "Do you understand it's fitting into... It's at Funnel Hacking Live, or it's at this, or whatever." I'm like, "There's a purpose for that." It's not like he's trying to do that, but I want to know the other side of it. I want to know the behind the scenes of, what was that moment where you're like, "This is not worth it. I'm going to shut it all down. Or I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able..." I don't know what the story is. Russell: Yeah, definitely for me, the part that was the hardest, it was the first year of ClickFunnels, we just launched it. And I remember, because when Todd built it he told me, he was like... And in my head, I thought we're going to get 10,000 members month one, that was in my head. And Todd was like, "Okay, well, just so you know, as soon it past 10,000 members, the way I coded it, it's going to have to be different." And I was like, "I don't know that means, but I'm going to get 10,000 members. Right?" So we go and launch it, we don't get 10,000 members, kind of depressed, but we started pursuing this thing, start working towards it. And within about a year we got 10,000 members. And during that time, ClickFunnels started doing weird things, where it would just go down for five minutes, and be back, like, "What just happened?" And like, "Oh, some blah, blah, blah, techie thing happened." And yeah, so they fixed it, like, "Hey, good." And then it goes down, this time it's down 15 minutes, and 15 minutes down.... It's funny, because one minute I'm everyone's hero, they're like, "We love you, Russell. You made our lives so much easier making money." I'm getting the messages, and just feeling the ego, and all the things they're just like... This is amazing. And then it goes down, and I want you to understand, when ClickFunnels would go down, it wasn't like, "Hey, man, it's down." It was like, "I want to kill you." Like, "You owe me $2,000 in ads for my 15 minute window that it's down." Like, "I'm going to sue you." Like death threats, I went from the hero of the day, to, "I want to kill you." And messages coming in are like... And I'm getting things, and Todd's not getting them, because no one knows... He's kind of behind the scenes, and I'm just like, you want to kill me? They're that angry? They want to sue me, they want all these things. And then, publicly posting everywhere, how horrible and how bad.... And the second someone slips, everyone wants to jump up and start throwing daggers at them, it's insane. I seen it happen to so many people. I have friends who I've seen it happen to recently, where it's like, everyone loves until they do something, and then it's just like everyone wants to pounce on- Josh: And half the time, it's not even their fault. Russell: It's crazy, if that's happening. And so, it's happening, we get back up, and then, "Is this is going to work good?" Like, "Yeah, fine." I'm like, "Okay. It's going to be good." So then we plan on that, and then again, it would go good for two, three weeks, then something happened, and it just kept happening. And the longer we go, more members happened, it would more often, it would happen longer. And, it was just horrible. Because I remember one time I was speaking at a Dan... GKC event. And I'm in the hotel room, we just got there, Dave and I were there, we're getting everything ready. And it goes down, we're down for like 30 minutes. I'm freaking out. I'm supposed to be on stage in 30 minutes, or like an hour or something, and it's down, and I messaging and I remember voxing Todd, I'm like, "Hey, it's down again." He messaged back all nice like, "Oh yeah." Like anyways, he was just like, he's like, "Oh yeah, it's down again. We'll work on it." So I messaged back, I was like, "This is happening a lot. Are you sure we're okay? You seem a little nice and calm, you okay?" It's funny, because Todd's super respectful, he doesn't ever swear around me or anything. And he messaged back, and I've never heard Todd scared before. And he messaged back, and he was... I won't repeat what he said, but it was just like, what he said and how he said it, was just like, we're screwed. He said it four or five times in a row, and then he ended. And I was just like- Josh: And you're about to go on stage? Russell: Yeah, and I was like… Josh: Oh my gosh. Russell: And I was just freaking out. I'm like, "I'm about to go on stage, and try and convinced all this audience that I've got the greatest thing in the world. And my partner who built it, is freaking out, and doesn't know how to stabilize this thing. And he's..." I remember just being sick to my stomach, scared, all these fears, all the anxiety, all the inadequacy, all those things. And I remember I'm just freaking out, and then we got it back up, and then Dave's like, "Hey, you're on in like 10 minutes." I'm like, "Oh." So, I do my things, run downstairs and then come on stage. And I was just in my head, and my mind, and my body just freaking out. And, do the presentation, I know the presentation, even if I'm scared, it's going to come out pretty similar, it converted well, people bought it, everyone's excited. I remember afterwards, it was weird, this is one of those weird things, I don't even know who it was. If you're listening, she messaged me, some dude lingered afterwards and he's like, "Um, you okay?" I'm like, "Yeah. Fine. How's it going?" And he's like a chiropractor, but like a “woo-woo” one, were they do energy stuff. And he's like, "Can I adjust you?" And I'm like, "That's weird." He's like, "No, I don't really do normal adjusting, it's this other weird kind." And I was like, "I don't know what's happening. This guy is creeping me." But for some reason, like, "Sure. Whatever." So he takes me in this other room, he starts doing adjusting, he's doing the muscle testing, and all sorts of stuff on me, which I- Josh: Just some random dude? Russell: Yeah. I'd never had that happen before, he was attending the event, so he was there. Josh: Right. Russell: And it was weird, because he starts... He's just like, "You have all this tension here, here, all these things." And he's trying to figure out why. And so, eventually, and again, some people think that that's crazy. You think that's crazy? Nowadays, I don't know, Because- Josh: No. I don't think it's crazy. Russell: Anyway. It's interesting. But, he's doing this muscle testing, and he muscle tests, and he's like, "The thing that you're experiencing right now inside your body, is a reflection of something that happened." I can't remember, it was like 3.6 years ago, or something like that. He's like, "What happened three and a half ago?" "I have no idea." I couldn't remember. And all of a sudden I was like, "Oh my gosh, that was the last time my company collapsed." And we had to... We didn't go through bankruptcy, but had to fire almost a hundred people. We had to shut everything down. It was all this stuff. And he's like, "Your body's experiencing the same things right now, that you experienced at that moment. And that's this tension and these things." Josh: Oh my gosh. Russell: It was crazy. And he did all this stuff to try to release it, and everything. But also I realized, it's like, oh my gosh. My biggest thing is, I built this thing up, people think I'm a hero again, right now. And I remember what happened three and a half years ago, when I lost everything and how much pain, and how much... All these things, the poverty I got, the criticism I got, the ill health I got, the loss of love I got, friends, family, coworkers walking out on me. I wanted to die. I'm over the edge. All my greatest fears came back in that moment, and I'm in this spot, and I don't know how to fix it, because I can't code. I go to college and learn how to code? I don't what to do. Josh: That's the worst, oh man. Russell: The next week… Josh: It's out of your hands. Russell: We're flying to London, to speak in London. They invited my family to come to me. So, my wife and kids were all flying in London, and I told parts of this story before, but we're in the air, everything's good. The kids are having so much fun, they're flying. And we land, we get to London, and there's... In your phones, the chips don't work, so you have to- Josh: Yeah. You got to swap them. Russell: So we're driving around, and finally get our chips in there, and as soon as it does, all of a sudden, my phone was just like... And I don't know what it is, so I'm looking, and there's text messages, there's instant messages, there's voxers, there's all these things, hundreds, I'm not exaggerating, people are like, "A hundred's, probably like 10." No, hundreds and hundreds on every platform, where people sending me death threats, sending me they want to kill me, send me the hate me, send me I'm screwing them over, sending me all that... just this stuff, and I'm looking at my phone, and I'm just like, "I don't even know what happen." So I'm finally trying to get Todd, I got ahold of him, and he's like, "Yeah, we're down. We've been down for four or five hours." He's like, "If we're able to get it back up." And all I remember him saying, if, and not when, and I was just like- Josh: And you're in London. Russell: With my family. Josh: About to speak. Russell: And so, I don't even know. I went back to the hotel room, and we had two hotels conjoining for the kids. I was like, "Hey, I'm going to go in this room for a minute." And I shut the door, and I'm just like, I don't know what to do. We're down. I don't know if we're getting it back up. So, to speak the next day to talk about click funnels. And it was one of the things where I was just in so much fear, I wanted to hide. I just wanted to not say anything. I just wanted to be quiet. Josh: Yeah. Especially as an introvert. Russell: Yeah. Especially and introvert who's got literally hundreds of people telling me how much they hate me. And, I don't know want to do. And this one of those moments where it's just like, the fear and the faith, I wanted to go to fear. That sounds so nice, just to hide and... But I was like, I can't, because this is my life. This is all this stuff we've worked for, for so long. And, in that moment I had impression of, you should go live on Facebook. I'm like, "I don't want to live on Facebook." They're like, "You have to. You have to tell people what's happening." I was like, "What kind of CEO, in the middle of this crash, gets online and like, Hey, our company's down." And put on the happy face, like, "It's okay, because... let me blame the servers." I had a million people I could blame, because it was... Josh: It's not your fault Russell. It's never your fault, right? Russell: So, finally, I was like, "All right." So I just, I told the kids, "I'm going to be on in 15 minutes." So I clicked go, and all of a sudden I'm live. And of course, because it's live, everybody pops in, because they're trying to figure out... Because they all want to kill me. Like, "Russell's here, this is our time." And first it popped up, you start seeing the comments, like, "You're effing killed... You killed my business." Like all these things, and just like, "You owe me, how much money." Like all these things, and I'm just like, "Okay." And instead of doing what I wanted to do, which was blame, point to other people. I was like, "I'm pissed." And I was like, "This is not okay." Like, "My business is down, your business is down. You trusted me. You trusted us. We are not doing this right. This is not acceptable." I'm not like... And I tried my best. In fact, the video's still live, it's on... If you go to my Facebook page, and go to videos and scroll down to year one of click funnels, the video's still live there. Josh: That's crazy. Russell: And, basically I just tried… Josh: Somebody go find it and post in the comments. Seriously. I'd love to see it. Russell: Yeah. And I just posted it, I can't remember if I posted in the ClickFunnels group, or maybe it was in my... Anyway, I remember I found a little while ago to look at it again, I remember watching it, I was just like, "Whoa, that sucked." But I did my best, try to take that. Definitive purposes, this is not okay, this is what we're trying to do. I'm just going to take faith. And it was crazy, because I remember we posted that, while Todd and the team was working their butts off. And luckily through so many miracles, they got everything back up. We had a backup from right, for a hit. We didn't lose anything, other than the eight hours we were down. And we expected the next day that half our members would cancel, everything's going to be gone. And it was crazy how by taking the action of faith, people came in, and instead of being upset, they're like, "You know what, thank you. Thank you for not hiding. Thank you for telling us you're upset. Thank you for understanding this is not acceptable, and not trying to be like, oh, thanks for taking responsibility. And over the next week, we didn't see any... It wasn't like, signups and cancellation, we watched those two numbers all the time, it wasn't a big drop. It was just like... It didn't change. And, after that we made changes, we figured things out, we got things solid and looking stable. And that was the last time we went down for more than a little blip here or there. But that was probably the biggest thing, and I remember just being... Anyway. Josh: That's crazy. Well, I think, that comes back to having a definitive purpose, because you had a goal, you were all in. Because, without that, you throw in the towel, and you say this isn't worth it. If you are not crystal, crystal clear, or at least very, very emotionally attached to that outcome, or to that goal of that definitive purpose of where you're at, you should shut everything down there, and you walk. That's crazy. I've never heard that story before. Russell: I'm sweating reliving it. Thanks for that. Josh: No problem. I'm sure the audience loved it though. Russell: Anyway, it was a scary, scary time in between those two things happening back to back. And like I said, and then we started working towards it, and man, Todd and Ryan, and all the people on our team who went and who figured out the problems, and solidified things, and brought in the right people. It's crazy, because people with click funnels are like, "You should know how to not go down." It's like, "You don't understand. At that point, we went from a bunch of entrepreneurs trying to make something, to like, at that point we were like the 300th most visited website in the world." And there's not many people on this planet who know how to handle the database architecture behind that. We didn't know how to do it, and so we're trying to find people. We literally hired people who, they're charging 10 grand an hour to do database administration. So, you hire them, like, "Okay, here's 20 grand. You get two hours to look." So they log in and look around, like, "Here's all the mistakes." And then they go back, and go try to fix them. Then like, "Hey, here's another 10 grand, another hour." Like that's the people who like ran eBay and Amazon. Those are people you have to hire to come and look at these problems, because they're not problems that most people deal with. And if you think about it, we tell you we have 120,000 members, that's true. That's 120,000 people's websites, most of them more than one, most of them 10, 20, 50, a hundred. There's... I don't know, quarter million, half a million websites running all on our servers. No one knows that stuff. Josh: Brad, how many do we have? How many? Brad's over here they already probably got 50, just there. No, we'll run it through. Russell: These are problems, not normal problems most people know how to solve. We don't know how to solve them. So it's like, "How do we do that?" Every level there's new level of stress and problems, and things that they keep coming up, that you just... If you don't have that definitive purpose, and that dream, and that vision, that thing, there's so many things pulling you off the path. There's a million things trying to pull you to become a drifter, from flattery, to failure, to propaganda, bribes, to... All these things are trying to do that, the world's stacked against you. In fact, according the book, 98% of people are there. Josh: Yeah 98%. That's crazy. Russell: So, first off, it comes back to, if you want to shift yourself back, the very first thing is, come back to very first questions, like, "Am I doing this decision based on faith or fear?" That's the transition point, it's not like, "Okay I got to fix all this crap. And I got to..." No, it's like, come back to the very beginning, and if you start shifting your decision making process, to like, "I'm scared." You can still be scared, you still have fear. I still have fear all the time, I'm sure you do too. I'm like, "Do I do that?" But, you don't act in fear, you act in faith. Like, "Okay, I could lose everything, I could be criticized. I could, I could, I could..." But, this is my definitive purpose, this is my vision, this is where I have to go. Therefore, I will act in faith, regardless of these things that they happen. I have to be okay with the worst case scenario. I have to be okay, that if I screw up people are going criticize me, or else I'm not going to be able to move forward in faith. And that's the conundrum. That's where you have to get thick skin, and be okay with these things. And I think for me, I've tried it, I spend time consciously thinking about each of these. Like you talked about death, you don't fear death, for me, for a big part of my life I did fear death. And there's parts of me... I'm thinking about it today, if I was to die, I wouldn't be scared of death, I'd be scared of my kids not having a dad. But, the thing, the belief that I have, and the new book goes deep into these kinds of things, that I'm real excited to share. But, my belief about death, we have to have beliefs, and values, and rules around all these kind of things. But my belief about death is, I strongly, strongly, strongly believe that none of us will live on this planet one second longer or shorter than God wants us to. I believe that to my core soul. So, because I'm okay with that... Because, it's not like all of a sudden accidentally I'm going to catch something and I'm going to die, and then God's like, "Oh crap, I missed that one." That's not going to happen. There's plans, there's purpose, there's things that are happening, and I have that as a belief. Maybe it's not true, but it's my belief. Therefore, because I believe that, I'm not scared of death. If it happens, that sucks, and be horrible for my kids, but, again, it's part of the plan, therefore I'm not afraid of death, because of that. Josh: Yeah. And I had never really even thought about death, until my brother obviously passed away. Russell: You came face to face with it… Josh: Yeah. Like, "Holy cow. Freak accident, helicopter crash, over in Kenya." It's like, "What the heck?" And, I flew around the world trying to figure out what I believe, and what I thought. And the conclusion, I don't know if it's a conclusion, but the belief that I have about death, is I'm like, "All right, when I die, that's when my life starts." I'm like, "Okay, cool." Like I'm, this is what I say? It's a whisper in the wind, like it's a flash in the pan. Life is, we're here, and we're given these choices. And God's like, "All right, here, you got your 80 or 90 years on life. And you get a choice, you can either choose to accept me, or reject me." And then eternity starts, or doesn't start, it always is. For me, I'm like, "Sweet." And coupled with, or partnered with, what you said of like, "I don't think God makes mistakes." So if I die, even if it's a dumb, stupid decision that I made that led to that, it's not like God didn't factor in my stupidity. And so, because I know that, it's confidence. Yeah.

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"Outwitting The Devil" with Josh Forti - Part 1 of 3

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 28, 2021 27:25

Welcome to the first part of a special three episode series! On this episode, Russell and Josh start talking about the book “Outwitting The Devil” by Napoleon Hill. They discuss some of the background of how this book was published, and then go into detail about the premise and the lessons that it teaches. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. So I told you guys a couple episodes ago, I told you about one of my new favorite books, which is Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. I told you a little bit about the book and why you should read it. I told you I was doing a podcast interview with Josh Forti where he was going to ask me a bunch of questions about the book. We did that and it was really, really fun, and so I'm going to actually... I want to stream that interview to you guys over the next three episodes here on the podcast, and it's fun. The interview went way different than I thought it was going to go, and so I think you're going to enjoy it. The first part we talked about the book and the story behind it, and the breaking down the doodle and explanation, and the difference between faith and fear, some of the basic stuff. The second episode, we start talking about my biggest takeaways from the book and why personal development is important, and then Josh start asking questions about a time in my life when I used faith over fear and stuff like that. The story that came out, most people probably haven't heard this about ClickFunnels crashing and a bunch of other stuff, and so that episode two is going to be really fun for you guys. I'm excited, and episode number three is about my next book, so that was what the interview was about. It was really fun. It was a little over an hour long, and so we decided to break it up into three episodes for you guys, and so that's the game plan. So this is episode one of The Outwitting the Devil interview with Josh Forti, one of three. So when the theme song comes back, we'll cue that up. You'll have a chance to listen to the first one. Make sure you listen to all three episodes over the next week or so because I think you're going to enjoy it. The first one is really cool because you understanding why I'm so excited about this book, the biggest takeaways, but then some practical application, episode two and then episode three, we'll talk about the new book, why, what we're talking about, and a bunch of other cool stuff. So I'm excited. With that said, we’ll queue up the theme song. When we come back we'll jump into the first part of my interview with Josh Forti. Josh Forti: What's up, everybody! Russell: We're back. We're back. Josh: We are back. Russell: Four months, we're back. Josh: We're back. We're back guys. What is up? Welcome back to another episode of Think Different Theory, I'm going to claim this one, episode of Think Different Theory. Russell: And I'll probably also use it on the Marketing Secrets podcast; we'll use it for both. Josh: That's perfect, a dual episode. Guys. We are back. We were supposed to do this last week, but Russell's- Russell: Circumstances didn't allow it. Josh: Yeah. Russell was in a bad mood. So we have to do this, but guys, welcome back today. I'm really, really excited because we are discussing- Russell: One of my new favorite books. Josh: One of your new favorite books, Outwitting the Devil, which you recommended to everybody, the whole world, what? Like three months ago, four months ago. Something like that. Russell: Yeah. I'm shocked when people read it. If you haven't yet, go buy it on Amazon. There's two versions. I got to share this real quick. He'll share that while I'll tell you guys about this. Josh: Perfect. Russell: There's two versions of it. This one's got Sharon Lechter's notes, one doesn't. I'd get the one with Sharon Lechter's notes and oh, I talk to the camera here. Hey, what's up camera. And also you get the audio book. It's awesome. Because in an audio book, you can actually hear the two voices and one voice is the devil. One's Napoleon Hill. And it's amazing. Should I tell the story about the books? Josh: Okay. So actually I want to do that. I actually want to do this because how I want to open this up is, I want to take it back. Kind of take a step back because you've built Clickfunnels and now I feel like you've gone into kind of this new stage. You start reading a bunch of books and then you like geek out on Atlas Shrugged, and then you geek out on the next thing now we're at this book. So back us up, how did you find this book? Where did it come about? And then let's dive into it because I feel like context is important. Russell: Yeah. So, man, a lot of things. So obviously those who've read any of my books. I feel like I'm done. I wrote all the marketing books, I'm out of secrets. That's it. Trilogy is done. Work is finished. It's over. Josh: Guys, we're done with Russell forever. Russell: But then for me it's like, I don't know. I think in any area of life there's a point where you get mastery and it gets harder and harder to find new things. So there's all these incremental things, but there's not a whole bunch of new stuff I can discover, like oh my gosh, ah, freak out. Josh: Right, something about marketing you've never seen before. Russell: Yeah, so it's harder. And so for me, I'm a learner. I'm always pursuing education ideas and things. And so I started just kind of re geeking out on personal development stuff just because I miss it. I'm trying to think about things in my life. And so I was going through a bunch of different things and rereading a bunch of books I read back a decade ago, like Think and Grow Rich. Which by the way, that's kind of ... This Is the first edition printed Think and Grow Rich. Russell: Josh knows I'm kind of a geek with old books. You guys will see why more in about 18 months from now. We're doing some cool things, but this is first edition Think and Grow Rich. Think and Grow Rich was written by Napoleon Hill in 1937. It's the most, outside of the Bible, it's the highest personal development book ever sold. And it's really, really good. And so I was reading that again and then people kept tell me about this other book. And there's a lot of books. Right here, this is Think and Grow Rich, this is the Laws of Success. I'm trying to acquire a first edition Laws of Success, which is, I was telling you it's insane, expensive. Josh: It's crazy expensive. But Russell's over here, geeking out on all the books. Russell: I love old books. Josh: Actually a side note on that guys, the very first time ... So this is back at, I think it was the first or second offer. I can't remember mind lab mind, the big one. Offer mind you spoke at it and you were coming off stage. And I walked out and it was you and Dave and I like ran up to you as you were getting on the elevator. Do you remember this? Russell: Yes I do. Josh: And remember I was like Russell. And I didn't know you hardly at all this time. We kind of knew, basically, we had had some interactions. I was like, I'm trying to dream 100 you, what's a good gift? And you're like old books. Ding, the elevator door shuts. You're on the elevator, I'm off the elevator. And I was like, all right, that's all I have to go on. Russell: And you sent me some amazing old books. Josh: Yeah. Russell: So, very very cool. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Yeah. And so I just, again, I'm kind of going back through and I'm relearning from Tony again and from other people and stuff like that. But then this book keeps coming up and for some reason the title didn't grab me. I was like, Outwitting the Devil, it sounds stupid. I didn't want to read it. It never even crossed my mind as a book I was going to read. It's not something that I would really care about. And then one day I downloaded it on Audible. I download almost all the books I buy physical copies of- Josh: A hundred percent. Russell: I do it Audible too just in case. And I'm one of those kind of people that when I'm in a mood for something, that's why when I travel, it drives my wife crazy. I'll bring a backpack with like 40 books. I don't know what mood I'm going to be in. Russell: And she's like, why don't you bring a Kindle? I'm like, because like paper and I wanted to be able to hold it and see where the bookmarks at. Josh: Yeah, yeah. Russell: And the same thing is true with Audible. So I just download all the Audible just in case. And so one day I was working out, I was trying, anyway. This is a longer story, but I was trying to buy success.com at the time, it ended up falling through. I didn't get it. But Napoleon Hill was actually one of the original, he wrote for success in 1980. In fact, hold, this is kind of cool. This is Napoleon Hill's, he started a magazine. He actually talks about it in Outwitting The Devil. So he started a magazine called Hill's Golden Rule. This is one of the original, this one is from 1919. But anyway, he was also an author in the original Success Magazines back in 1800, I have a whole bunch of copies, actually 1800's and Napoleon Hill's articles in Success Magazine. Josh: Dang, that's so cool. Oh my gosh. Russell: So I had just gotten some of these things. And then one morning I was working out and I was looking at my playlist and Outwitting the Devil popped up. And for some reason I was like, all right. So I clicked it and it start talking about this magazine, talked about Hills Golden Rule, talked about Success Magazine, which I was trying to acquire the time and all these things. I was just like, oh my gosh. And so the very beginning he tells the story, he's kind of telling the story, I don't really know what I was going to go. He's telling this story about his life. And then all of a sudden transitions to this conversation is happening with the devil. Russell: And as you know, you've read it. Josh: It's so good. Russell: It's just like, I started getting like, oh my gosh. Why did nobody tell me about this before this is ... Let me put in perspective, I've read a lot of personal development books. I love Think and Grow Rich. This is so much better than Think and Grow Rich. Josh: It is, I agree with that. Russell: And, do you want me to tell the story behind or do you want to tell? What's the... Josh: Full behind... Russell: Just what the book is, where it came from. This is an amazing story. Josh: I just want to pass it over to you because I have questions about it. So I want to kind of hear things from your perspective here on this thing. I think a lot of people do as well. It's funny though, because when you put this on, gosh, I kind of picked up reading halfway through last year. I made a public declaration when I graduated from high school, I literally, I bought a pickup truck. Russell: I don't read anymore. Josh: And I put down the tailgate, I got up there, I stood up, I held my arms there and I literally yelled audibly out loud. I will never read another book ever again, outside of the Bible. Literally I was so done with reading my mom made us do all this reading in high school. Right. I was like, I'm so done. And thankfully that's not the case. Russell: Do you know what that reminds me of? I got done wrestling my senior year in college and after my last match. I've publicly said I will never run again. And then I gained 60 pounds, now I run. Josh: And now you run. Yeah. Russell: We had a similar experience. We were like- Josh: We'll never do that again. But six months into last year I started picking up reading more or whatever. And actually I've been averaging three books a month this year, which is freaking awesome. But, I'm halfway through. I can't remember what book it was. I see on your Instagram story. And you're like, everybody read this book. Russell: Every chapter, it was like, oh my gosh. Josh: Right. So I immediately go and buy it. And as soon as I finished the next book, I read the whole thing. And I think I read it in two sittings, right? Like the whole day I was like, oh my gosh, this is so good. So I do. I want you to kind of break it down for those people out there that don't know what it is. It is a story of Napoleon Hill interviewing the devil essentially. So I have a lot of questions just after you kind of explain the context of it all, but why don't you just kind of give people some context around what that is. Russell: By the way I spent last little while trying to take the entire book and put it into a framework like I do. So that's what this is back here, we'll talk about this. And some of the things… Josh: We have this here too. Russell: That hopefully serve as a framework for you guys. If you decided to read, here's some stuff to help. But, okay. Russell: So there's the story. So Think and Grow Rich was published in 1937, the next year. And if you've read Think and Grow Rich, there's times in here where he's like having conversations, people would pass away. People died, he's thinking about them and having these, in his head, these conversations that they come into the book. So it's pretty cool. So in 1937, 1938 he writes the manuscript for Outwitting the Devil. Josh: Yep. Russell: And so it's a year later. And the premise of this is literally, he talks about, I don't know if this is a little interview or if this was a physical, just something in my head, but this is the conversation I had with the devil. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And it's less of just an interview, but more like he's putting the devil on trial. He's on trial and he's like, you have to answer my questions. These are my questions. Josh: And the during this time, the devil, I can't remember how he explained it in the book, but the devil is forced to have to tell the truth 100% of the time. So any question that he asked him, he cannot lie. He has to be able to tell the truth. And that's one of the questions in there is he even says, it doesn't matter if you're religious or not. It doesn't matter whether you think it's a metaphor or whether you think he actually sat down and interviewed the devil. No matter what it was, the principles still reign true. Which is why I love the book. And you basically take that element out of it. Don't let that belief get in your way, still read the book. So, yeah. And 1938 is when he wrote the book, but didn't get published in 1938. Russell: Yeah. So imagine, this is one of the coolest stories ever. So 1938, he writes the book and in the book, he actually talks about the devil's like, if you ever publish this, it'll destroy your life, it will destroy your family it will destroy everything, because all the people fighting against this are going to destroy you. And so he finishes this book a year after Think and Grow Rich, has the manuscript. And he's so scared. He never actually publishes it. So he ends up dying. I think in '78, I believe. He passes away. His wife, second person gets the manuscript. She reads it. And she's like, I'm not publishing this. Josh: Yeah. Russell: She refuses to publish it. Later, she passes away. Napoleon Hill foundation gets the book. It gets to them, they read it and they're like, oh my gosh, this is probably the best thing he's ever written. Russell: And then they actually contacted, this is cool. I talked to Sharon Lechter last week. So I called Sharon Lechter. She's right here. Says- Josh: No way. That's awesome. Russell: Right here. Sharon Lechter. So she was probably the fourth person to ever read the manuscript. They sent it to her, what do you think we should do with this. So she says she got it. She sat down and she was reading it. And she's like, this is one of the greatest things ever published. If you don't know Sharon Lechter. She was the one who helped with all of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books. She was the CEO of the company for a long time. She helped build the biggest financial education company on the planet. And now she's coming over here to this mission and she takes his book and she's the one who takes it, gets the manuscript ready for print. Inside of here's got her notes, which is kind of cool. Her notes taking it from, it was published back in, the last big crash what were the two- Josh: Eight, yeah. Russell: 2008. So she's sharing things in here and how they relate back then, which is kind of cool. But anyway, so she published it. Josh: And it's in the audio book as well, she kind of goes through and comments. Russell: She jumps in. Josh: There's a devil's voice. And then there's Napoleon Hill's voice. And then there's her kind of commenting, which is actually kind of cool through the thing. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah. Russell: It is kind of cool to make it natural or make it kind of tied to the time. But I think even nowadays, a decade later, whatever, it's even more- Josh: Well. Russell: Applicable. Josh: And that's, what's crazy is you read the book and if you didn't know that it was written back in 1938, you'd be like, oh, he's totally talking about right now. Russell: Yeah. Josh: You have no clue he's talking about- Russell: Because some of the references he's talking about Hitler and Mussolini. All of these people and we're like, okay, well, the dictators nowadays are different, but that was who- Josh: Right. Russell: The things that were happening. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Right then in time. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. And just the craziness of fear and economic turmoil and depression. I'm like, huh. Sounds like where we're at now. So anyway. Russell: So that's, the cool story about it. It's just this book that this manuscript has been lost for generations from literally the best personal development author of our time. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And to bring it back. I was just visualizing myself as Sharon Lechter reading that original. Can you imagine just reading the manuscript and be- Josh: Being the first part of the third or fourth person to ever read it? Russell: So insanely cool. So anyway, that's kind of the backstory and then you get into it and it's fascinating. So that's the story behind the book. Josh: That's why you guys have to read it, how cool is that? Yeah, it's super, super cool. And kind of what I'd love to do, I want you to go through, because I think this is important. For the sake of time, I mean, we could probably talk for four or five or six hours on this book. But for the sake of time, the time constraints, I think this summarizes the book super well. Josh: And so I'd love to go through the book. I'd love to see your interpretation of the framework and kind of explain it. And then, it's funny because whenever I go through personal development books, you see everything through the world of funnels and marketing and things like that. I cannot read a personal development book without looking at whether or not the fundamental principles of it are true or what they align with. Right. So they align with Christianity or Atheism or whatnot. So I have questions about, because I'm a huge fan of the book. You're a huge fan of the book. Right. But there's some certain things in here that he talks about that I have questions that I'd love to know your opinion on. So I think if we go through and kind of talk through the overall context of the book here and then kind of pivot towards that towards the end, I think that would be awesome. Russell: Well, one thing to just kind of address that before we get too deep into it. Because I know a lot of people have this fear of reading, anything of what if I don't believe it. Well, I'm not this belief therefore, I can't. And I'm such a big believer in there's truth in most things, I think there's truth in all things. And I can read something and be like, oh my gosh, 97% of this, I believe spot on. 3% I don't really agree with, but I can still appreciate the 97% and love it and enjoy it and be grateful for it. In fact, I do the same thing in my personal relationships, I can talk to somebody I don't agree 100% with. And I still like them afterwards, which is something I think our world needs to learn how to do better. But. Josh: Yeah, even if you lose Bitcoin bets. Russell: Hey, now. Let’s talk about frameworks… That's 3% of him I can’t stand right now. Anyway, okay. So the way my mind works, when I read it ... So I read the book first time and I was just in this whirlwind of, oh my gosh, there's so many things. And I was re listening today as I was working out, trying to ... This is a framework, but there's so many levels and layers and things go deeper and deeper and deeper. So the first time I listened to it, I was just kind of overwhelmed because there's so much good stuff. Russell: And the second time I was going through it, I was like, okay, if I was trying to doodle this to explain to somebody what's the overarching- Josh: Yeah, what's the promise of the book? Russell: The framework. Josh: Yeah. Russell: That's just kind of the way if you've read any of my books, that's how my brain works. I read like 30 books and from there I'm like, okay, this is what I think they're saying. So this is kind of the premise. I'll walk up to the board and kind of show you guys this. But the basic concept is all of us, me, you, anybody. Right. We have a decision comes to us and we've got two choices every single time. And that's kind of where this whole thing starts from. So should I go over there? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. You take my mic too. Russell: Okay, I'm taking mic. So I know you guys can't see this perfectly and this is going to be the words they're all small, so I'll kind of talk through it and hopefully that'll work. So here's me or you. And this is us and we have decisions come to us. They come to us. Am I audio right here? Can you hear it? Cool. So we have decisions all the time. So the biggest thing is, if something comes to us, we can make decisions based on one or two things. Right. We're either making decision based on faith or based on fear. That's it, those are the two things. And obviously, especially in the last year, we've noticed, I think that this has been amplified. Where do most of us make our decisions? I think the way you'll find is that people traditionally make their decisions one way or the other. Russell: Either they make all their decisions towards fear, or all of them towards faith. And so that's something start thinking about personally yourself, as I start thinking about when I'm making decisions, am I doing them through fear or through faith? And I feel like people, not a hundred percent, I think you tend to favor one of these. And it's important because when you start understanding Satan, how the devil is using these as tools, it starts helping you think, I got to start making my decisions differently or else I'm doing what he wants. So I'm going to start on the fear side. So his initial goal is to get people to make decisions based on fear. If he can get that, you become what he calls the drifter. So drift or somebody who's drifting through life- Josh: I'm going to stop you really quick. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Really quick. I'm just going to take my mic back really quick. I think one of the things I want to just cover here really quick, is kind of the premise of how this, even before we dive into this, how this came about. Because in the book, basically Napoleon Hill asks the devil. He's like, Hey, listen, I want to understand what you, as the devil are doing to try to control people. Because in the book, one of the things that he claims, and I guess you have it up here, the 98%. Is that the devil controls 98% of people on the earth by getting them to do drifting, which we'll talk about here in a second. Right? And so the whole premise of this book is basically Napoleon Hill is interviewing the devil and getting the devil to explain how the laws of the universe work and basically how the devil is using those laws of the universe to pull people towards him. And then he also draws contrast of that, of how God uses them to draw people towards God. And so it's basically understanding the laws of success, the laws of the universe, how they work and it's, what is it? The secrets of freedom and success. So if you understand he's asking questions with the specific intention of trying to figure out how the world works, how the devil is using those, and then how we can use those things to ultimately have success if we can figure out how they work. Is that? Russell: Perfect. Josh: Good. Yeah. Russell: Cool. Thank you for adding that. That was awesome pre-frame and I think that ... Hope that works. When you understand that it's like, that is this that's the war we're in every single day, right? I mean, it's every movie. Right and wrong, good and evil. Right? That's the fight. Right? And so the devil here is showing, this is my playbook. This is how I get people to come to my side. And so his side, he calls them drifters. Drifters, people who are drifting through life. They're not ambitious, not doing anything. There's kind of there. And when you're a drifter, he controls you. And he said, 98% of the population he controls by getting them to drift. The first thing does that by initially, decision comes, you act in faith or act in fear. If you act in fear, you are moving down towards being a drifter, okay. Now he starts going through what are the most effective ... Ugh, so good. So many good things. But so he said, how does he get people to act towards fear? So he's like, these are my six tools. I have six tools. Off camera: Are we good on volume? Russell: Is the volume good? Do I need to yell louder? Okay. These are the six tools, the most effective tools I use. I have to get people to act towards. So the first one is poverty. If you can get them to fear poverty, oh, if I do the thing I might could be poor. Then I'm going to be fearful instead of having faith. And, I don't care if I'm poor, I'm going to go for it. Right. So he gets people to fear through poverty. Through criticism. How many of you guys have had a decision to make, and you have fear. Oh, what if people criticize me? That's one of his tools, right? Health. Ah, I don't know if I can do that. Because I'm not healthy enough. Loss of love, old age and death. So those are the six most effective fears that the devil uses that get you to take fear over faith. And he said of those six, the two most powerful are poverty and death. He can get you to be scared of, I'm going to lose all my money. I'm going to be broke. Or, oh, if I do that, I might die. Or, I might not... Those things. Those are the two most powerful tools. So that was really fascinating for me. I look to that because I have so many times in my life when I have decisions, I am scared of criticism or I'm scared of loss of love or whatever those things might be, right. Entrepreneurship. How many times you trying to gamble everything. If you're scared of poverty, right? Then it's like, ah. In fact, I have entrepreneurs all the time. This is a conversation I have way more often than you would think where they're coming to me. And they built the business to a certain point and they're stuck and they're so scared. And the thing that I always had to come back to them, what's the worst case scenario? Because there's a spot where they're so fearful. They can't act and they can't make decisions. They can't do anything. And they just are frozen and they start shrinking right there. You see them going from people who have the presence to be able to take action. Do things. These people are stuck and frozen. And I literally, my conversation I have over and over and over again, it's like, well, what's the worst case scenario. Because if you're not okay with the worst case scenario with poverty, with death, these things. If you're not okay with those, there's no way you're going to have faith to move forward. You have to break yourself of the worst case scenario. And so I see this in my own life. I see it in so many entrepreneurs, coach, I see this as the cycle for them getting to fear. So everyone take a personal reflection. Which one are the ones that you're most afraid of, is it poverty, criticism, ill health, loss of love, old age or death. Josh: And I'm actually just going to stand up here. Because I think it'll be easier. And one of the things that... So what he's trying to do is he's trying to use one of these six things to get you to become a drifter. Ooh, we just moved the screen. That's the key thing. And I'm looking at this camera here. Okay. That's the key thing that he's trying to get you to do is the devil wants you to become a drifter because if the opposite of being drifting is, and it's the characteristics of a non drifter over here, is you have definitive purpose. You have mastery over self, you have a learning from adversity, controlling environmental influence, time, positive thoughts over time. And then thinking through plans before you act on them. So if you have those things, that's the opposite of being a drifter. If he can get you to drift, then you don't have definitive purpose, then you're not actually going after anything. Then you're not going to be able to have control over it. And then he has control over you. And that's the comparison that he keeps drawing in the book, right? If he can get you to drift, then he has control over you. But if you're not a drifter, then guess what? Then he doesn't have power over you. And then you're ultimately going to have success and freedom in life. And so, these are the things that he lays out in the book and it's like, okay, look, if you choose to be a free thinker, if you choose to be someone who is like, this is what we're all about. Has control of your mind. You're going to come into this spiritual, mental, and physical freedom category versus the drifter category. Russell: Yeah. It's amazing. And yeah, I think what... In fact, I almost called this column here, definitive purpose. Because it's so in fact if you read Think and Grow Rich, he talks to the whole chapter about definitive purpose. People who say, this is the thing I want going to go through it. I'm at a definitive purpose. No matter what happens, no matter what obstacles, trials I'm going to go get the thing that's definitive purpose, right? Again, that's the big premise of Think and Grow Rich. And here he comes back to it. Again, I almost made the title of this, but it's not- Josh: I think it fits better. Russell: It does. But it's not an opposite, where this is freedom versus drifting is the opposites. And this is what it actually says in the book. Josh: If we just summarized it as one word drifters versus freedom. Russell: Yeah, yeah. Spiritual and physical freedom. Yeah, because freedom of mind, this whole thing is he trying to control the mind if you control your mind, you win. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And so, yeah. The definitive purpose, that's the number one characteristic of a non drifter is definitive purpose. Right? So, you're coming here. I'm an act. And you're like, oh, I got fear. I got fear. What if, what if, what if they criticize me? And you don't act. Where here you're like I've got definitive purpose. This is my mission. This is the goal. I don't care what happens. I'm going to go for it and you just go for it. And that's where you're acting in faith. I don't know the path. I don't know where I'm going, but I believe in my skillset, I believe in my mission. I believe in my calling. I'm going to go and you start moving and eventually you show up and you end up over here. Josh: Yeah. Russell: So anyway, and then these other ones are all amazing. We can go deeper, but. Josh: Yeah, we can go deeper. And I think we can hold this. This is the same thing. Right? Russell: Okay. Josh: So we can hold up there? Russell: All right. Josh: And that way we can get kind of back to poor Brandon's over there. Brandon's over there like, yeah. Russell: You're ruining my mic. Josh: Yeah. So one of the things I want to dive deep down in on this is specifically on here, you have this thing called hypnotic rhythm. And if I were to do this, as an overview, it's basically, there's a human and then there's the devil. And then there's God, this is basically how he describes it in the book. Right. There's the devil and there's God. And there's the human and the human is going through life and there's the devil pulling for him and there's God pulling for him. Right. And then that person has the choice. Russell: It's like two angels, devil on your shoulder Josh: Yeah, pretty much. Right. And then you have the choice to either choose faith or choose fear, which is why, one of the things that I've been so adamantly kind of fighting right now is, don't live in fear. Why is anybody fearful of anything? And I know that's easy for me to say, because I'm not afraid of death. Right. And that's literally one of the top things that he uses to control the mind. Right. And you look around the world today and everyone's so afraid of dying or it's like, who cares? Whatever. I know where I'm going when I die. But, that's one of the things that I've been fighting so strongly. So, I have a fear and I become a drifter or I have faith and I become someone with definitive purpose and I have freedom ultimately in my life. But there's this thing underneath that is kind of the core crux of what ultimately keeps us there. And it's, I actually have notes on it, but it's this thing called hypnotic rhythm. Russell: It was interesting because he talks about hypnotic rhythm after he talks about drifters. And he's like my goal is to get them into hypnotic rhythm. He says that if you go from routines to habits you have, it's going to be habitual. And they're habitual, they become hypnotic rhythm where you're stuck in this cycle. And he says is that how you control the drifters. That's how the universe controls everything. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Positive and negative. That's why, if you look at the bottom here, it's got the little whirlpool at the bottom for hypnotic rhythm. It's the same thing. So if you have good habits and you're doing things, do you get a spot where eventually it's a pattern that you're just stuck in. It's easier to stay in the 2%. If you're in the 98%, it's easier to stay there too. Hypnotic rhythm serves all things. Josh: And that's the thing I think is so interesting about it is the way that he explains it is hypnotic rhythm is the thing that keeps the world in harmony. Right? And one of the quotes out of the book that I wrote down is nature, which in this particular case he's talking about nature in the form of hypnotic rhythm. "Nature is not interested in morals, as such she is not interested in right or wrong. She is not interested in justice or injustice. She's interested only in forcing everything to express action according to its nature." Right? So when you go into hypnotic rhythm, either positively or negatively, you get into the rhythm of nature, right. And nature is interested. And if you look at it purely from an objective standpoint, he's saying that nature is only interested in making the thing, the object, in this case you do what has been designed to do. So if you're choosing to be in hypnotic rhythm in the spiritual freedom side of things, nature is going to keep you in that. And that's why, it's almost rewiring your whole brain and your whole life for success. It's why successful people continue to have success. And it's why non-successful people do not have success. And I think understanding that and understanding that hypnotic rhythm is, I almost like to think of it as the subconscious mind. Right? Once your subconscious mind goes into the hypnotic rhythm to just do the same thing over and over and over again, it's very, very difficult to escape that. Russell: Yeah. And you see it happen in your life all the time. There's times in my life, when I was wrestling where I had so many routines, so many things where that structure in my life was just, it happens on autopilot because that was what I did. Right. And so it was perfect. I didn't have to everyday figure out, how am I going to be successful? How am I going to have definitive purpose? It become part of me. Right. Josh: Yeah. Russell: It’s something in business, or other parts. I think that it's true. We get these patterns, these ruts, these things, wherever it is. Either positively or negatively, but that's the hypnotic rhythm where that's the goal is to get in those. But in the positive side, not negative side. Because you see it's a downward spiral. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Right. Upward spiral positively or downward spiral negatively. But if you get into hypnotic rhythm, that's the thing that keeps you in that spot. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Does that make sense? Josh: Yeah.

The Atlas Shrugged Interview - Part 5 of 5

Prosperity Through Multifamily Real Estate Investing

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2020 36:24

Welcome to the final segment of this special interview! In this episode you get to hear Russell answer all these interesting questions: Who do you look up to? What is Tony Robbins like? How do you “deal” when things get heavy? What do you sacrifice for success? Is there closure as an entrepreneur? What do you want to be known or remembered for? Russell and Josh chat about all this and much more in the exciting conclusion to this “Atlas Shrugged” interview series. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson, and I want to welcome you, first off, to the Marketing Secrets podcast; and, second off, to the last part of our five-part Atlas Shrugged interview series. The exciting conclusion. At this time, we'd been going for three-plus hours. I was really, really tired. If I sound like I am kind of out of it, it's because I was probably a little bit out of it. We started the interview at 8:00 or 9:00 at night, so this is probably midnight or so. The night before, I had slept three hours. Or, two nights before, it was three-and-a-half... Three hours and 12 minutes. I remember. I wear an aura ring, so I track my sleep cycle. So, the night before, I slept three hours and 12 minutes. The night before this was, like, five hours. So I was tired. I was worn out. But I still had a lot of fun with it. I think Josh is a great interviewer. And I think that we had a lot of fun talking about all this stuff. So, with that said, you guys, hope you enjoyed this interview series. And, when we come back from the theme song, you have a chance to jump right into the exciting conclusion. Part five of the Atlas Shrugged interview. Josh Forti: So, one of the things you talk about in... Well, actually, expert secrets. But I think they mention it... She kind of mentions it in this book, too... is creating belief by looking up to somebody. And, if you can't see it, if nobody else has done it, then it's hard for people to kind of imagine it and ingrain it. Like, for me, I look up at... I'm like, "Who do I want to be like? What business do I want?" I'm like, "Okay, cool." Like you and your books, I want to be like that type of bit here. And then Katie Richards is another one. Being a powerful person, just in general. Okay, like, these are the people that I look up to, and I'm like, "Okay. That's what I'm going towards." So, for you, who are those people? Like, in your life. That you look up to, and you're like, "Okay, that's it." Because I feel like, the higher you get... And, I mean, you're not all the way up the ladder, right? There's still plenty more. But you're way above where the average person is going to get to. The average person has a lot of people they can look up to. You, there's a lot less options, I feel like. Who are those people that you look up to and go, "Okay, that's who I'm trying to be more like," or, "That's where I learned my lessons from." Russell Brunson: Yeah. There's different parts of my life for different people, too. You know? Josh: Yeah. Russell: I look at the business side, I know the companies I aspire to be like. Salesforce, Shopify, HubSpot. Those are companies that are just like the next tier, but from where we are. That they've crossed the chasm, where we're still trying to figure out how to... That next tier. Right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: I think watching them has been... That's when we said we'd go to DreamForce two years in a row, just because I wanted to... And I talked about it, actually, on my podcast. Because when I was out there, it was like... And you need to see it to understand it. Because I remember, when I was wrestling, my dad, my freshman year, took us to the... I had just started wrestling. He took us to the state tournament. I saw this guy on my team win state. And I was like, "That's what I want." Exactly what it was. That'd be my goal. And you see it to do it. So I think for me, those are kind of the businesses that I look up to. People, I mean, Tony... From an influence... Like, people speaking, Tony still, to me, is like... Who's bigger than him, right? Josh: Right, right. Russell: Or better. And the fact I've had a chance to build a friendship with him is really cool, because it's been interesting to see him not on stage. You know what I mean? Like, everyone has a chance to see him on stage, and he's the best in the world on there. But then you see him offstage, and see who he really is. And it's just cool to see that, I don't know, someone who's been doing this for that long, consistently, who still cares, who's still doing this. He doesn't need money, but he still is doing events almost every day of the year, because he wants that. So I think that- Josh: He can stop. Russell: Yeah. And I get it. I have so much respect for that. So I think that's a big thing. Yeah. Just, different areas of life, there's different people. But- Josh: What's it like- Russell: I've tried harder and harder to get closer and closer to him, because I like seeing... I like understanding them, not just from the outside, but understanding from inside. Because it's just a different perspective that you don't get. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. What is it it like? What is Tony like? Russell: Honestly, he's like a little kid. We went to his house, and... I can't talk with details, but he had a slide in his house, and he went down the slide with us, and it just... It was really cool. And we had a chance to go with him and do the meditation thing. And the way he served us, when we were with him at his house, you can tell it's how he wishes he could serve everybody. You know? And that just is hard. Like, you saw him... He's in this room serving us, and he's crying, and you see this emotion. And you're just like, "Oh my gosh," like, "he would do this for everyone if he could." But he can't. So that's why you do these big scale things. But it's the best way he can do that. But I think, if he could, he would do that for every single human being he could. It's just really... I don't know. It's cool. There's been a lot of situations, when I've been around him, where he could have not... He could have easily, like, turned it off. You know, but it's sincere. He doesn't turn it off. You know what I mean? And I try to be that way as much as I can. And hopefully you've seen, now with me and my kids? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Russell: I try to. And obviously, there's Russell, who's a more introverted, more reserved, and then there’s Russell who’s gonna be like, "Ahh!" But it's still the same... Hopefully. I want to be growing like that. Like, I'd respect him, because he's... In every situation I've seen him, he's always been sincere. Which is not... I can't say that about most people in our industry, and our world. Josh: Yeah. For sure. Russell: Which is unfortunate, because it's just like, "You are..." I remember one time I was in an event, and I heard this guy speak. He was awesome. And he just breaks down crying in the middle of this event, in the middle of the speech. And I was like, "This guy is great." And he got offstage. And he looks at me, and he's like... He said something like, "I pulled out the fake tears again." And I was like, "What?" I remember just feeling like... Ugh. I just felt so sick. How does someone do that and not... He was all proud of it. Like, "Ha," like, "I got them with my..." I just remember feeling so... Just dirty. And I just didn't like that. I was like, "I don't want to be that way. I want to be..." I don't want people saying, like, "Oh, yeah, Russell's different here than here." I don't want people saying that. Josh: Yeah. Like, one consistent person. The same person on and off stage. Russell: Yeah. Josh: There's certain people that... You just know. You meet them, and they're just genuine all the way through. Right? Russell: Mm-hmm Josh: I'm trying to think... Like Catherine Jones, right? For example. She's awesome, right? We had dinner. I had dinner with her, and... Well, God. I had dinner with her, and some friends... Russell: "What am I allowed to say in the podcast?" Josh: Yeah. No, her and some friends, when I was in Utah last. And I've had her as a client. I've watched her speak on stage, in front of... Live. I've had dinner with her. And it's like, it is the same person. Right? Russell: So cool. Josh: And there are people like that. And they're rare. I really do think- Russell: That's what people say. Like, "You never want to meet your mentors, because they're going to disappoint you." Josh: Yeah. Russell: Because of that. Because it's like, "Oh, you put them on this pedestal, and you see them in real life, and you're like... 'Huh. Well. That's disappointing.'" And then it negates all the stuff... That's my biggest thing, is that I don't want somebody who... I gave them something, to help them, and they see me in real life, and it's like, "Oh." It negates- Josh: Yeah! Russell: All you just gave them. Which it does, right? Josh: It really does. Because it takes away the trust factor. Russell: Yeah. And so it's just like... I don't know. Because I think I was nervous meeting Tony the first time. I was like, "What if..." Josh: Yeah, no kidding. Russell: You know? And you see him multiple times, over and over and over, and you're just like, "Cool." It's just neat to see that. Josh: So, what's interesting is, one of my biggest reservations about Tony before... You, and Funnel Hacking Live, was actually the thing that warmed me up to Tony. Because I didn't really know a whole lot... I'd never experienced Tony like I have at Funnel Hacking Live, or anything like that. It's so crazy. You walk into the room when he's talking, and it's like you feel the energy shift. Russell: Nobody on earth has presence like that. Josh: It is insane. Like, everyone tells you about it, but then you don't really believe it until you experience it. And I remember, actually, it was in Orlando. The first time, when he was down there or whatever. And I remember, he came... He was in the room... I was in the room when he entered. And energy, obviously, just like when anybody walks on stage, was quite ramped up. But then he just went into his normal talking. And I remember leaving the room. And, most people, you walk in and you feel it? And I remember opening that door, and shutting it, and like... My whole body shifted. Out of this high energy state, into the low energy state. And I felt like, if I was in that room, I could literally go forever. Right? It was just this nonstop source of energy. But what was interesting about Tony is, Tony doesn't really talk about God. Which is super interesting. Like, I don't know what faith Tony is. And maybe he's talked about it in something about that. And so, for me, one of the biggest struggles that I had... Because, well, growing up, and when I first the house, and when I first got into the entrepreneurship, I, like, really wrestled with God. Right? Especially, you know, going through the death of my brother was actually, ironically, the thing that brought me back to God. But I really, really wrestled with that. And so, for Tony, it was like, he's got all this energy, and he's connecting to this higher source, and he's talking about all these things, but he never... He never ties it to anything. He never gives credit to... Well, in this story I'm telling myself at the time, he's never giving credit to this higher... thing. Like, where does that all come from? And then, the more I got to know Tony... Not personally, but through his work, and through watching his videos, and seeing him at Funnel Hacking Live... I'm like, "I don't know what it is that he believes." I've never sat down... And if I ever get to interview him, I'm absolutely asking him that question. But, whatever that is, I don't think it's possible to be incongruent. Because it's... I don't know! It's not of Earth, almost. It's like you're tapping into something that isn't... In in order to operate at that level, you can't be selfish. Like, you know what I mean? Do you sense that with him at all? Like- Russell: Yeah. And he is, I think... And I'm sure you've seen it before. You talk political, and your audience is cut in half, right? Josh Forti: Yeah. Russell: I think for him, he's traveling such a world-global thing. I mean, Tony is Christian. But it's tough because half the world he speaks to are not Christians. Josh: Right. Russell: And so he... He draws that line, because he doesn't want to alienate people. Because he's like, "I'm here to serve God, and..." Josh: Right. Russell: “God didn’t send me to serve a certain group, it’s to serve everybody.” I think... That's my guess, as to why he doesn't anchor that in as a hard thing. Because his audience is so massive. But he definitely, if you ask him, he definitely knows where it's coming from. You know what I mean? Because, wherever he talks about it, he's... You know, the first time he told me, he's like... It's funny, because I'd experienced this myself, and didn't have words to put to it. Because I come on stage, I have a plan, everything's there. I start talking, and all of the sudden, like, something comes through me? And he's like, "It never comes out the way that I plan, but it always comes out perfect." And he's like, "As long as I follow that, it always just works out perfect." Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I've had so many times where I... Again, I start talking about something, I don't know where I'm going. I'm like, "Why am I talking about this?" And then all of the sudden, it's like, "Oh, wow." And there's somebody... Like, that was the thing that- Josh: Connected it. Russell: Shifted it for them. You know what I mean? And I think the more that you tap into that, the more... Again, it comes back to what I talked about before, like, where you do that... God's giving you this thing, and if you have stewardship over it, and you use it, he'll give it to you more and more. And Tony, now, who's been doing it for 40 years... Josh: It's actually super interesting you say that. So, literally, every Tuesday, I meet with Katie. Right? And we have our one-on-one call, and we talk for an hour. And one of the topics of conversation was, I was like, "Katie..." We were actually talking about getting ready for this interview. I was like, "I don't feel nervous. At all." Right? And I'm like, "And I'm getting so many texts and DMS or whatever, like, 'Oh my gosh, are you nervous? What if you mess up?'” And, so many… So many different things, right? And I'm like, "I don't feel any of that. I feel like this is just like, 'All right, cool. I'm flying out to Russell. We're gonna hang out. It's gonna be great. We're gonna go.'" And I'm like, "So, why is everybody else telling me I should be nervous? Right? Like, why is that a thing?" One of the things that she said was like, "Being who you are, being your person, knowing yourself, and, like, doing this..." But one of the things that we talked about was some of the things that you have to accept by faith. And I was really wrestling with this idea of, like, "Am I supposed to be prepared?" Am I? Russell voxed me and was like, "This is the first interview he's ever prepared for." I'm like, "I just read the book. I don't have any notes prepared for him! I'm just gonna show up and talk, right? That's what I do." And she's like, "But that's your superpower. That-" And sometimes you have to just have faith. And she's like, "You prepare 80% of the way, and leave the 20% up to God." And she's like, "And most people are not going to understand that. And, for a lot of people, that's going to freak it out." But she's like, "How many times have you prepared something 100%, you knew every word you were going to say?" And I'm like, "Very little." She's like, "Well, think back to one of the times that you did." I'm like, "Okay," and she's like, "How'd it go? I was like, "Well, terrible! Literally. It was some of my worst presentations. The most prepared I come, the biggest it'll flop." Right? And she's like, "And the least you prepare sometimes, you just walk in confidently and you do your best, turns out amazing." Yeah. Because that's what Tony's talking about, like, "It just comes over you." It's like, if you have faith that, when you show up and become... You are the best version of yourself. You show up the most prepared you can be. And you just fully embrace that, and have faith in the rest? God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, I feel like it just works the rest of it out. You know what I mean? Russell: Understood. Yeah. That's why, before I do anything, I pray before. I prayed before this call. Or, what's it called? Before this interview, before I step on stage every single time. Because a big part of it's like... Without that, what good are your words? You know what I mean? If you're doing it with the Spirit, with God... Whatever you want to call it, you know? For me, it's the Spirit. If you're with the Spirit, then it'll touch people, in a way that you can't just by your words alone. And so I always ask that, and I look for help. And I remember, I think Steven Larson, the first time he was working for me, we did our first event in the room over here. And I remember, before I would do the events myself, he started working for me. And I was in the back here. And I was saying a prayer, and he walked in. He's like, "Oh, sorry!" He's like, "That's cool." I'm like, "What?" He's like, "You pray before you go out there." I was like, "Oh, yeah. I'm not going out there by myself!" Like, you know? I'm not that good. So, I need help, and it shows up when you... pray. Josh: All right, I have two questions that I want to ask you, before we kind of go to rapid-fire, to kind of bring this to a close. I don't know. We could probably go all night, but... Russell: You just want us to keep going all night? Or you want us to go to bed? Josh: How much longer do we go for? Are you guys liking this? Comment down below. Let us know. Give some feedback. Do you like it? Do you not like it? What are your thoughts? We've been going for about three hours. And I figured, at least, it was going to go at least this long. Russell: I guarantee there's going to be some of you guys who are like, "I agree with everything," to be like, "I agree with half," or to be like, "I don't understand what they're saying. I agree with nothing." So- That's okay. There's nothing... Again, our goal was not to motivate, was not to try to convince you guys of anything. That's not my goal. Our goal was to flesh out these ideas, and hopefully you guys come on the journey, and get some cool ideas from it, and see how perceive life. I think what's fascinating is everybody has such a different perspective on life. And so many times, when we hear somebody else's perspective, we get offended. And it's like, "What if you didn't get offended, and just listened to their perspective?" And maybe you don't listen to everything, but you're like, "Oh. I'm going to take that, and that. Those are two things that were really cool for me." Just don't pay attention to the rest of it. Right? Because I'm sure, if you paid attention to everything that we both said, you probably got offended at least 12 times. But if you're just like, "I'm just going to take the gold that's good for me, and then leave everything else on the side," you got a dozen amazing things that you can use, hopefully. So. Josh: All right. And so my next question is, who are you voting for? No, I'm just kidding. Russell: Ugh. Actually, last year, I don't... Four years ago... So, I'm a big Jack Bauer fan, and I bought "Jack Bauer for president" shirts. And then, that whole day, I was Instagramming and Facebooking, "I'm writing in Jack Bauer! I'm writing in Jack Bauer!" And I would have if he was a real human. But, anyway. Josh: That's funny. Who was I just... Oh, Leah, I was talking to her on the way, as we were driving to the airport. We were talking about Joe Rogan. And, because Joe Rogan is... It's so funny, because people... Like, Trump retweeted one of his tweets. And Joe Rogan's a big liberal, right? Like, he even said he was going to vote for Bernie, before Biden became the nominee. And so I feel like a lot of Trump supporters, are like, "Yeah, Joe Rogan's a Trump fan!" Like, Joe Rogan is not a Trump fan. That's not at all what it is. And so we were like, "Well, who do you think he's going to vote for?" And I was like, "If I was a betting man, I would bet that he votes for Kanye. That he wrote him in." Because he does this three-hour interview. And Kanye answers... If you watch the interview... I mean, I know it's three hours of your time, and you'll probably never get to it. But it is a fascinating interview. And he asked... Because he keeps trying to bring Kanye back to like, "If you were president, what would you do?" Because Kanye is like, "I'm going to be president. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when," right? Like, "If I don't win this year, I'm going to for sure win in 2024." Kanye, I love your confidence. But anyway, so, Kanye answers these questions completely differently. And so, anyway. I don't want to run with that. But, my real question for you... So, you can go long on these, or we can go rapid-fire questions on them. Either way. Atlas Shrugged. Got the world on his shoulders. You feel that. How do you deal with that responsibility? Because I'm sure there's been times, I know in my own life, with my three to five little people that I'm managing, and some contractors, I'm like, "Oh my gosh! If I have to take one more thing, I'm just going to explode!" Right? Like, if we don't... So how do you, how do you deal with that pressure, and not... One of the things that I've had to learn how to do is, I don't know if anger is the right word, but deal with not taking out my frustration on somebody else. Right? Like, God bless Leah. She knows me super, super well. And like she knows the moods where it's like, "Don't ask him a question." Like, "Avoid it, and let him cool off," because if you say the wrong thing right now, I'm just going to inadvertently take it out on her. And I've had to learn how to balance that and communicate that. How do you deal with all that pressure, and still... You've got 400 people looking up to you. I know you don't talk to them everyday, but that's a lot. Russell: Yeah. That's just employees. And you have the community, and... Josh: Right. Russell: Yeah, it gets heavy. A lot. And I think it's funny, because, as you read the book, you know, Atlas Shrugged and walked away from the thing... Josh: Right. Russell: And I think for me, I don't want to walk away. You know what I mean? I don't think... That's a big thing. And I think, because the first part is, I was thinking about it, that... Because I'm a big believer that this, for me, is a calling. It's a mantle. This is what I've been called to do at this time in my life. And since, as heavy as it gets... Like, man, think about other people in a different time who had to carry a burden they didn't want to lift, right? There's tons of them. So I think about that a lot. I reached out to other people who were producers, who I know have heavy... You can ask Garrett White. Every time I'm stressing out to the max, I text Garrett, and I'm like, "Hey, man. Life's heavy. Just thinking about you." And he always sends back something about, like, "Dude, do you realize how you've changed my..." just things like that, that just... It's just like, "Okay, it's worth it. Thank you." And then, in Voxer, whenever someone voxes me something, it's like, this success story of, like, "Dude, just so you know, blah, blah, blah." And on Voxer, you can star things. So I have a whole starred menu of all the people that have told me how the fact that I'm carrying this has changed their life. So I'll listen to those, and I'll listen to four or five or six of them. And eventually, when I hear those things, it gets lighter. And so that's a big thing, for me, is just that... Dave, one of my... I'm not sure if Dave's still here or not. But Dave's one of my best friends. Josh: Is he still here? Russell: No. Josh: Dave. Russell: One of my favorite humans. Yeah. And now he's... Anyway. You know, he's carrying a lot of pressure, now, too. Dave... I don't know if you knew this... Dave is the CEO now of ClickFunnels. He's taking over a huge part of my responsibility. And he's carrying out- Josh: Oh, he's into the CEO role? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Or, is he? Or he's moving into it? Russell: He is. Officially, now, yeah. Internally. And he's... Josh: Congratulations, Dave. Russell: And, looking back now, something I should have done five years ago. He's so much better than me at... Than I am. But I see him, I see Todd, I see that people on our team who are carrying weight. And having other people that you're doing this with, besides yourself, helps a lot. So I think that's a big part of it, too, is just... I don't know. If it was just me, like that, eventually I think I'd shrug and walk away. But I know that there's a dozen other people all holding that up as well, and that helps a lot as well, because you know you're not in it alone. I always tell Dave, I'm like, "Man, if I was going to war, I would bring you. Just because I want you in the trenches with me. You know what I mean?" And knowing that I'm not in it alone helps a lot. So I think a lot of times, it's those things. When you're where, when you're doing it by yourself, that's when it gets hard. I try to not... And I think our default human thing is to isolate, and take the pressure and pain. And just for me, as an introvert, I'd rather isolate. But I try, specifically when it gets heavy, just to, like, "Okay, I can't isolate, or I'm going to just get crushed." Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I reach out, and that helps me a lot to be able to sustain stuff. Josh: Next rapid-fire question, if you will. Success takes sacrifice. So, in managing ClickFunnels, obviously you love it. But what things are you not able to do, or do you wish you were able to do more of, that you are not able to because of the role that you play in ClickFunnels? Russell: Yeah. Stuff like this. I feel bad. There's so many people who ask for podcast interviews and things like that. People that I would love to do it with, but just there's not enough time. I miss... When we were first growing ClickFunnels, and starting it, I just remember coming in in the mornings, and being like, "What should we do today?" And thinking about it, and brainstorming. I miss that part. Now you come in, and it's like, "All right, there's 8,000 things you got to do." And it's like, "Okay," and I miss those parts of it. I don't know, I miss... Not being able to turn it off, but I think... I don't know, it would be nice... I think it's Alex Charfen, I'm thinking about. Like, "You don't want to run off into the white wood." There's times where... And this is dorky. This is the cheesiest thing. Remember watching the last... Endgame? Avengers Endgame. Josh: Oh, yeah. Russell: And, at the end, when Iron Man dies, and... What's her name? Pepper Potts. When she's like, "You can rest now." I remember hearing that, and I was just like... I actually started crying. I was just like, "I feel like I want to rest sometime. I don't know how, or when, or-" I desire that. I don't know how, because there's so much stuff and so many things. And I think, I don't know, I long for that moment. Where it's just like, whatever the... Like at the end of the Bootstrap book. I don't know where or when that happens, but- Josh: Right, yeah. Russell: If there's ever a time where it's just like, "Oh. We did it." Like, it's weird, because in wrestling, there was a thing where you get your hand raised, and then you get to rest. Business, I haven't found that. Like, it's just this constant thing. Where you have victories and stuff, but you never... Again, wrestling is like, you'd cut weight a week, you'd train, you'd practice, and you'd go out there, head-to-head. You wrestle. You get a hand-raise, you go out to eat, and you relax. You sleep that weekend. Monday, you get back to work. I don't feel like, in business, there's ever been that. Like, "Ah." Josh: Do you think it exists? Russell: I don't know. I assume when people sell a business there's some of that, but most people I know that have sold a business... It's harder. Because it's like someone else is taking your thing that your identity is tied to. So that scares me too. And so I don't know. That's something, I don't know if it's like... Is it when I die that I'm like, "Ah." Like Iron Man? I don't know... I don't know. Some day. I desire that. I don't know how to get it, but that's something I'm looking at. How do you get that? How do you get that release you get, where you're just like, "Ah, I did a good job." I think Funnel Hacking Live is probably the closest to that? Josh: Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Russell: Right after it ends? But then also, sometimes... Like two years ago, and it's semi-controversial, and I got blown up for, like, three or four days. And I remember I was like, "This sucks!" Like, "I just killed myself, and now I'm defending myself for three days because of some other speaker who said something that I wish they wouldn't have, but they did, and..." And, yeah. Some of the things like that are hard, but, huh. Anyway. Josh: Are we having Funnel Hacking Live this year? Or, next year, I guess? Russell: Some version of it, yeah. We're in a contract battle with Nashville, where we've done it the last two years. I was just to go there again this year. It typically takes us nine months, for Funnel Hacking Live. Obviously, because of everything, we haven't. We're three months out from when it was supposed to be, and there's no way I can fill it in time. Plus, I don't think we were going to come do there. And so we're trying to push that contract for another year, and then doing a hybrid, something in between. So far, we haven't even got the contract, which is... Anyway. So, something will happen. And I'm dying to not announce it yet, because I don't have finality yet. But some version of Funnel Hacking Live- Josh: What? You mean you can't break something right here, live, at- Russell: I've tried my best! To- Josh: 1:00 in the morning, Eastern time? Russell: We'd love to do some kind of hybrid... Something. Essentially, because I spoke at Tony's thing, where he had the big internet… Josh: Yeah. How was that? Russell: It was really cool. And hard. Because, at first, you come out, and you're in this room, and there's faces everywhere, like, "Ah! That's amazing!" But you're speaking at an event. You shift, and you're looking at different people, which is fun. Here, if you look at people, it looks like you're talking like this. So you have to look at the camera. So, you have a million faces everywhere, and you have to look right here? And you can't- Josh: Oh my God! Russell: And everyone's doing weird things, and so it's kind of hard. Because you're like, I have to look here, or else it looks like I'm not connected to you. But there's so much happening that I want to... It was- Josh: Oh. That's crazy. Russell: It was almost... I don't know if "Dizzy" is the right word, but something that we were just like... It was different. It was hard to get used to. But, anyway, he's building a new place that's three times as big. We're just going to have a hybrid, where half is at... half's the stadium. He said something interesting. He's like, "This year is the year of virtual. Next year is the year of hybrid." So I'm trying to figure out our version of that. And I don't know what that is yet. Josh: Hybrid being part live, part... Russell: Yeah. Yeah. Because I never wanted to make Funnel Hacking Live virtual, ever. Because… it’s this thing. But I also want to make it... Yeah, anyway. So, I'm hoping. I'm hoping the next couple weeks have some finality on that contract, so we can start the next... Whatever the process looks like. So it'll be some version of 2021, for sure. Josh: Cool. Russell: Where people who want to travel will be able to travel. Josh: All right. Awesome. Two more questions. Russell: Okay. Josh: One: what is one thing that people don't know about you? What's a Russell Brunson thing that is a pretty defined part of who you are that people don't really know? Russell: I'm public about everything... Josh: Are you, though? Russell: I don't know. That's a good question. Have you learned anything by me since you've been here in our... Josh: Yeah, a couple of things. Russell: Really? Josh: Yeah. A couple of things. Yeah. More from your wife, though. Yeah. She's told... Russell: She's telling you all the good stuff. Josh: Also, your kids are fascinating. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah. I talked to them for probably 10, 15 minutes. Russell: My kids are the coolest. I think my biggest fear in life is that I am not going to be the dad that they need. You know what I mean? I don't know. He's going to be like... I don't know. Being a parent's way harder than I thought I was going to be. I thought I was going to be amazing at it. I'm like, "I can influence thousands of people at once," but the person you care about and love the most? And same to my wife. I think those are my biggest fears. I don't want to mess up the family. And it's weird because, again, it's like all my super powers are like my kryptonite in a family. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And so I think I struggle with that a lot of times, where it's just like, "Nah, I'm such a good communicator." I think. Communicating messages. And I struggle communicating with people I love the most. So I think that's it, I think. I am scared to death of cats and dogs. I will not touch them. Josh: Really? Russell: Yeah. I won't touch any animal. They're disgusting to me. And I'm allergic to cats, but the way it came about is, when I was in high school, the girl I was dating, she had a cat, and they went out of town. She's like, "You can watch my cat." And I was like, "Okay." So I came in, and the cat's rubbing against me, so I was petting it, because I'm like... I'd never had an animal before, right? And I'm petting it. And my eyes swole shut. For three days. Three days later, they finally opened again, and the white part was all blood-red. And I don't trust animals since then. You can watch me. My in-laws have cats. I walk in the house, and I stand there. I won't sit on the couches, because I'm like... Because I break out an allergies. If like a dog runs up to me, everyone... You'll see I've kind of turned my... Like, "Don't touch me." Anyway, I don't like animals. Unless you can eat them. So there's something people probably don't know about me. Josh: There you go! Who would've guessed, who would've guessed. All right. Last question. Final question. And I asked this to you... I think I have asked this to you before, but now we're here. We're in person. And we're going to talk. I want you to fast-forward to the end of your life, when you are on your deathbed, and I want you to... All your money, and success, and fame, and influence it's all gone. But you've influenced a lot of people. And you get to leave them with a final message that kind of defines... not what you took away from life, but like the message that you feel like you should put on to some... Pass on, for generations to come. What would you want to be defined by? What would you want that message to be, for people to remember you by? Russell: Cool... And I'm hoping... Honestly, my biggest hope. I'm hoping that when we die, we go to our maker. I'm hoping that we get a glimpse of what our life actually did. You know, like the ripple effect? Josh: Fascinating. Russell: You know It's A Wonderful Life? Josh: Yeah. Russell: When he sees what it was like, before and after? I'm hoping all of us get that experience. Because you have no idea what you're actually doing with it. But I'm sure what we're all doing is... Anyway, I'm praying that we get that moment, because that would be... Anyway. I think my message that I- Josh: That would be so cool. Russell: Yeah. Can you imagine that? Josh: Yeah. That'd be wild. Russell: Yeah. Josh: We need to do a podcast just about our faith. That'd be cool. That'll be our next one. Russell: Okay. That'd be fun. Josh: Next one, I'll fly out here for, and we'll just do it, just about- Russell: That'd be fun. Josh: Just about God, and faith. All right. Russell: That'd be fun. But I think for my message, I would leave it as, I think that... Again, just to tie back to what we talked about initially, I think a lot of us start these businesses, or start whatever we're trying to do, whatever we're called to do, you start initially out of greed, right? It's natural, man. We have these desires that make us want to do stuff, right? And I think for me, when I first got started in this business, I just thought it was to make money, and all these kind of things. And I saw, even when it started having an impact, I mean, "This is cool, this is cool." But it wasn't until... I had a coach a few years ago. She's amazing. And I remember she asked me about what I think God thinks about my business. I'm like, "Why would He care about this?" He cares about how I'm living my life, and I'm keeping to the Commandments and stuff, but why would He care about this?" She's like, "Don't you see it?" And I'm like, "See what?" She's like, "You don't see what He's... Who you've become? His hand in your life?" And it never had crossed my mind. And she started helping me understand, like, "This thing that you're doing is not just to make money. This is a calling. This is literal... This is a calling. You were called of God to do this thing, and the ripple effect, and people's lives you're changing... Even though you're helping people to start businesses, build funnels, it seems like it doesn't matter, but it does. Because it frees people, and then they can change people's lives. And the ripple effect is huge." And she helped me understand that day, in such a profound way, that just these things that we're doing, it's a literal calling from God. I think if I was on my deathbed, I would want people to know, like, when you feel that tug, or that nudge, that thing that starts you on this journey, that's not just like, "Oh, it'll be fun. Oh, I'll make some money," or whatever. It's literally God giving you something. This is your stewardship. Do something with it. See what it is. I think, if you realize that... Since I've realized that, it's been different. Now that I know that, it's like, "Okay, I'm going to run as hard as I can. Because this is not just an idea I had. This is a gift." And it's like these tests, like, "What am I going to do with this?" And then when you look at it from that lens, it's like, man, you can do and create... You have more faith in yourself, because it's not yourself, right? I get scared every time I get on stage. I got nervous before this. Like I get... "You're probably confident, because you're on the stage in front of 35,000 people." No! I freak out in front of, like, 20 people! I get so nervous. But I'm like, "I know that I can do it, because this is a calling that was given. And He's not going to give me something that I can't do." And so I think that, if I could help people understand that... I don't know the right way to articulate it, but I think if everybody understood that, how real that actually is, it'd make you run harder, make you work harder, and make you braver, and make you have more courage, more... All the things you need to get that message out. Because you were called. It is a literal calling. And you're probably not worthy of it yet? Like, when you get it, you're not worthy. Like they say, "He qualifies, so he calls," right? You're not qualified right now, but the act of you moving forward is what qualifies you, and what prepares you for the calling. And I think that, if people understood that, man, people would focus so much less on themselves and on their situation and just, like, "All right. Here's the baton. Run." Right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: You're now gonna start running. And you would do it with perfect faith, because you know it's from somebody beside yourself. And I think if people understood that and believed, it would change everything. Josh: Russell. Thank you so much, man. Russell: Yeah, man. Josh: This was so much fun. Russell: It is fun. Josh: I'm so glad we were able to make this happen. Russell: How long do we have to do... Where are we at? Josh: We're at three hours and 18 minutes. Russell: Dang. And we're still here? Josh: Three hours 20 minutes. Yeah. Russell: Dang, a lot of people still here. Josh: Yeah. I've got... Yeah. Quite a bit. Russell: Thanks for having me, man. Thanks for coming all the way out here for this. It was cool. Josh: Yeah. Of course. Yeah. And- Russell: Oh, and we have the comments now. Josh: What do you guys think of the interview? Yes? Good, bad? Thumbs up? Rate it! On a scale from 1 to 10. On a scale from 1 to 10, give us a rating. 1 to 10. Russell: "I used to think Russell was cool, but now I think he's crazy," or, "I used to think Russell was crazy, now I think he's cool." I'm good with all those things. I'm just curious. Josh: Russell, God bless you. God bless your wisdom and mission. Look at this. Thank you so much. This is amazing. Russell: Smileys are here. What's up, Smileys? Josh: Let's go, let's go. What's up, James Smiley? Great stuff. Awesome. I love it, I love it. I could do... A 1000. We got a 1000 out of 10. Russell: Dang! Josh: That's pretty darn good. Russell: It is really good. Josh: 12? 12 out of 10. Russell: Oh, so fun. Josh: Brent? what's up, man? All right, we're going to have to do this again. Sometime when we can sit down and talk about God. That one, we're really gonna have to get prepped for it. Oh, do you know Nick Robbins? Russell: Not off the top of my head. Josh: All right. He's kind of in the ClickFunnels world? He ran an agency, sold it, but still remained a partner, and then got bored, and then came back into it? Anyway. So he and I had, I think, a three-and-a-half-hour conversation about God. So, it's interesting, because he and I actually have a lot of similar beliefs, but he doesn't believe in God. So he's like, "Yeah, I think there's something out there, and it's something intelligent," or whatever. And so we had a... He uses language. And I don't, typically. And so we had all this big, long, huge debate. So, and we've gone there and said that. Russell: That's fun. Josh: Yeah. So. Russell: I think one of the most fascinating conversations I ever had was with Howard Berg, the world's fastest reader? That guy's, like, 30,000... Josh: Yeah. Oh, that's right! He came here, didn't he? Russell: Yeah. A couple of times, since we've hung out. He's read 30,000 books. I was like, "I can ask this guy any question I want." And so I asked him. I was like, "What's your opinion on God?" And I remember he told me, he said... Because, again, religion usually causes fights. Because, like, "Well, I believe-" you know, and it's so cool, because he's like, "Well, most people read one book, and then they base their belief in God on this one book." He's like, "I've read..." I can't remember what it was... "Like, 1,200 books on God, from every perspective." And he's like, "Based on that, this is what I believe." It was just so cool to see that, I think. And I feel like all of us, instead of us being like, "This is my way, this is my way." It's like, just hear... Even if you completely... I completely disagree with so many people's opinion, but I still hear it. Because, again, why do they believe that? There's something. There's a reason why they believe that. I want to understand that. And, anyway. And it's just so interesting. Josh: That's my big thing. My big thing is like... And that's one of the hardest things, for mem is figuring out... My beliefs are always changing. That's probably reason I started the podcast. I just wanted to talk to people. Right? Like, if I'm wrong... I'm so excited whenever someone comes in and is like, "You're wrong, and here's why!" And I'm like- Russell: "Sweet!" Josh: "Oh my gosh! Thank you so much! I know what I'm onto next! Yes!" Right? Where everybody else is like, "I don't want to be wrong. What are they-" I'm like, "If somebody comes in and proves my idea wrong..." Like, my ideas are pretty thought-through. And I'm a really thought-through person. I know why I believe what I believe, not just what I believe. Right? So if somebody can come along and challenge that? That's one of the things that is so attractive to me about Leah. Leah was smart. She challenged even beliefs that she maybe even agreed with. She'd play the devil's advocate, and change, and challenge it. And I'm like, "that's what I like. I want to grow and expand like that." So, anyway. Russell: Yeah. That's awesome. Josh: We'll have to come back and do that, so. All right. Russell. Thank you so much, man. Super, super appreciate it. Guys, as always. Hustle, hustle. God bless. Don't be afraid to think different. And who knows? You might just end up in a chair next to Russell Brunson. So, that'd be awesome. Guys, as always, hustle, hustle. God bless. Don't be afraid to think different. Those of us that think different are going to change the world. By using funnels! And other stuff. Russell: Yeah! Josh: I love you all. And I will see you on the next live stream episode. Take it easy, man. Russell: Bye everybody. Josh: Peace!

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Raising Equity Through Retirement Accounts with Josh Plave

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2020 45:58

Generally speaking, for most, the second largest percentage of an individual’s wealth is derived from their retirement accounts. The unfortunate circumstance is that one really can’t do much to control their retirement account, or so you may think...Our special guest on today’s episode is Josh Plave, Founder of Wall to Main. Josh is an expert in understanding how to take control of and leverage retirement accounts to invest in real assets like real estate. By structuring Self Directed IRA’s (SDIRA) and Checkbook Control, Josh has found his niche in maximizing the potential of his retirement accounts and educating others to do the same. Josh also specializes in helping investors use their retirement funds to passively invest in real estate.At a young age of 16, he opened his first Roth IRA due to the influence of his grandfather and mother who were both CPAs. He founded his company, Wall to Main, after the unfortunate passing of his grandfather and mother and funded it from the IRA’s he inherited from them. After forming his company, he pioneered the creation of the industry’s first UBIT calculator aimed to assist investors in calculating the expected taxation from using a Self-Directed IRA to invest. Josh provides all of the tips and tricks needed to invest quickly, safely and inexpensively with an existing retirement account.In this episode, we cover:What is a SDIRA and what are its limitations?When is the right time to utilize your self-directed IRAs and how to properly utilize it? What is UBIT and how does it impact our returns?How does the UBIT Calculator work and what benefits will it provide you as an investor?What strategies did Josh used to build his portfolio?What are some of Josh success stories?Tune in to the entire episode as Josh covers these informative points and so much more!Final Four Questions:1. What are the things that you do for your continued education to help further your investing?Josh: “For my continued education, it's interesting, it's kind of evolved. I've gone from, I started with podcasts. And, you know, I got all the basics. But once you become an operator, I don't listen to podcasts as much that kind of when I see an operator or someone with a special skill set that I want to listen to, I jump in, but I've really moved towards books, and specific, you know, topics that I'm really interested in at the time. And I found that it really is, it's a nice opportunity to expand my mind. I was never really into books early on and I've now read a couple hundred.”2. What have been some of the most impactful lessons that you've learned along the way?Josh: “People may have heard of before, but it's been really impactful for me is really focused on one thing. People get a lot of shiny object syndrome, especially when they have this entrepreneurial spirit and they want to build something for themselves or for their family. I talked to one guy, he does multifamily, he does office space, he does industrial he does this night and like he you know, he's got his finger in his hands and a lot of different pies and which is great. But I like to really master one specific topic. 3. What advice would you give to the listeners to help them grow their businesses?Josh: “It sounds so cliche, but really just educate yourself and stay curious. And so, just don't sit on your laurels, always make sure that you're learning. Stay curious as it makes you become a more well-rounded individual.”4. Tell the listeners how they can learn more about and get connected with you.Josh:Website: www.walltomain.com

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The Atlas Shrugged Interview - Part 4 of 5

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2020 41:13

Welcome back to the 4th part of this interview series. We are getting near the end and the topics keep getting more interesting. In this episode you hear them talk about the influence their parents had on their lives in business. If they feel misunderstood as entrepreneurs and how their ability to communicate might be able to change that. Russell explains how he realizes that Clickfunnels is a team effort and that’s what help him stay so grounded. Then they discuss what each liked most about the Atlas Shrugged book and what character they each associate with most. So tune into part 4 of this exciting interview! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up everybody, this is Russell. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. All right. I hope you guys have enjoyed the first three. We are moving into the fourth episode of our interview. My interview with Josh Forti talking about Atlas Shrugged. Again, during this series, we've been talking about religion and politics and all the things you're not supposed to talk about, but we've done it all through the lens of Atlas Shrugged, which I hope you've enjoyed and had a lot of fun with it. Hopefully it's made you want to go and actually read the Atlas Shrugged book, which I think would be really, really cool. With that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song. When we come back, you have a chance to start listening to part four of my interview with Josh Forti. Josh Forti: So, what did your parents do right for you? One of the things that I try to say, I try to say it a lot but I don't even say it enough. My parents have played a absolutely tremendous... I owe so much of who I am today to my parents indirectly in a lot of ways. My parents didn't teach me about money or things like that. That wasn't their gift, but the principles of hard work and family values, biting your tongue, even though it doesn't seem like I bite my tongue. Oh my gosh. Every day, right? Russell Brunson: It could be worse guys. Josh: Right. It could be way worse. Some people would love that, but you know, deescalating situations and having those... I owe so much of who I am to those. Yeah, they messed up in a lot of ways like you said, but what were some of the things that your parents did right? What are the things that you remember from your parents? Russell: Yeah. I love my parents. I was very blessed with my parents, for sure. I don't think my dad was super engaged when we were younger just because he was in the phase where, like trying to figure things out and make money. It was different back then. Josh: Is he an entrepreneur? Russell: Yeah. He also had a job, but he did side business so he was always trying to figure things out. I saw him doing these things. I saw the job he didn't love and then I saw him doing stuff he did love and I watched him work really hard. Then when I started wrestling, I saw my dad... That became the thing that me and him connected with which meant the world to me and it was so important to him. What's cool was that my dad showed up to every wrestling practice. He came to every single match. His day job was State Farm insurance, he built up his book of business where by the time I was wrestling, he was able to take off as much as he wanted. It ran itself and he was making money and had residual income. I remember my dad was the only one, as soon as wrestling practice got done, my dad would walk in and we would do practice afterwards. Never missed a match. He was always there. I remember just thinking, I want to make sure I have a business or something like my dad was for me. That was so important to me. Like I said, he wasn't super around when we were younger and I think he struggled because of the younger kids, which I understand. That phase in my life, he was there and my best friend and it was just, it was awesome. I love that and I've been trying to have my kids now. Especially at times where maybe I wasn't as good of a dad, I was too busy. I'm trying to connect more. That was my dad for sure. Then my mom, for me she was just... I wouldn't say I'm a people pleaser but I'm very much an achiever. I think when I started wrestling and I saw my dad got closer to me and then I got a win and I saw him get excited, I wanted to win because I wanted to impress my dad. To this day, I think I still have that. Part of the reason I'm in this business and I'm doing stuff is I love when my dad sees it. There's something, I love impressing him. To this day I love that win. With my mom, she loved me even when I didn't win. that was something that was so foreign to me. I remember I'd be cutting away for wrestling, I hadn't eaten for three days. I'd be so tired, so miserable. She'd come down and sneak in my room, bringing me food. I'm like, "Mom, I can't eat. I'm not going to make weight." She's like, "Why don't you just quit then? You don't need to do this." She was the opposite of my dad. She loved me no matter what and didn't care that I was trying to win or succeed. Couldn't care less. She loved me just because I was me. That was weird but so cool as well. It's both those principles, it's something I've tried to weave in. I've got two different sides I'm trying to weave that into my kids. Again, so far from perfect, but I think those are the two things that meant the world to me, that I'm super grateful for them those things for me because I still remember those things now. Josh: So there is... Which by the way, that's awesome. There's a lot of people in this world that are growing up without a dad, without a mom. It's interesting because I think a lot of my social media posts, I kind of come across sometimes like the heartless a-hole, you know what I mean? A little bit, they're like, "Josh!" You know what I mean? You talk about, take personal responsibility for your life, everybody can do anything. If you're broke it's your fault, that's one of my favorite sayings. If you're broke in America it's your fault, right? They're like, "Josh, you don't understand. You grew up and your parents are still married. Not only do you have parents, they're still together and they still actually love each other." It's not even necessarily they're still together. You're like a percentage of the percentage of the percentage in a lot of ways. I don't even know what question I'm asking you, but what would you do? Where could somebody find that? What can we do as a society or just as entrepreneurs, as producers to help those people? I feel like that's a really big need. Russell: For sure. Josh: One of my big struggles with this is I always want to point it back to the church. I had a really awakening, come-to-Jesus moment back when I posted, this is probably a month ago or so. I posted it on Instagram actually. I think you liked it, actually, so I know you saw it. I said, "Defund the media, defund fear, defund career politicians. Fund orphanages, churches and schools." I posted it on Facebook and I posted it on Instagram, and I was shocked at how many people were like, "Dude. Fund the churches? They're a bunch of pedophile people there too." So many people had such this negative view of the church. I grew up in the church, that's what I knew. How I knew how family works is because I saw our own family and then I saw the church family and I saw the community and how the church was involved in the community. The church that I went to, after I moved out Grable, Indiana, I worked three doors down from it and that's where people went to vote was in their gym. And the fair, that's where people parked. The church was such an integral part... that word, a part of the community. So when I saw all these people that had this negative view of the church, that broke my heart because that was my solution. There are so many things. Like, if you don't have a dad, you can go to the church. If you don't have this, you can go to the church. Said, "What?" If that's your answer, that's cool, but how can we as producers of society and the people that are going out there and making the money, how can we help those that don't have what you and I had? Russell: It's interesting. What Mormons believe is the family is the central everything. That's God's plan. Husband and wife starts a family. That's an eternal principle, right? If you look at the adversary, Satan, whatever you want to call him, his job, if he can destroy the family, everything falls apart. That's the war we're in right now. We think we're in a lot of different wars. The war we are in is, Satan is attacking families. That's it. Josh: Okay. I want you to finish this, I have to say this though. Guys, and this is not Russell saying this, this is me. This is why I hate the Black Lives Matter organization. Not movement, the organization so much. Because, their whole principle is bragging about the traditional family values. Anyway, I'm not speaking for Russell. Russell: Yeah, if you Google "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," you'll see my beliefs on family. We have it printed out eight foot on my wall in my house. That's my belief. Family is central, everything. So, Satan, the way he destroys societies and nations and this world is, destroy the family. So when you see families are broken, they're single mothers and single fathers, it's heartbreaking. I think it's the saddest thing in the world. I don't know the right way to solve it. I do know that it's vitally important. I remember first time I met Tony Robbins and started learning from him, one of the principles he talked about in relationships is masculine, feminine energy. The masculine and feminine is key to a relationship. I could go on for four hours just on masculine and feminine. Oh, that's the most fascinating topic in the world. If you ever see how Tony fixes relationships, you look at the traditional view of traditional counseling, there's a problem. They're like, "What's the symptom of the problem?" They try to solve the symptom of the problem and counseling takes years because it's a symptom of the problem. All the issues, they're all symptoms of problems. The real problem is when there's a masculine and a feminine, and it doesn't matter. Again, this is true with gay, straight, doesn't matter. Feminine, masculine energy. You take a masculine and a feminine and that polar opposite, that magnetism, magnetize together, right? That's what creates attraction, passion, everything. What happens is you have a masculine and feminine, they're attracted together. That's how you start. That's how any relationship starts. Right? Then you look at people getting married. It was interesting because what Tony talked about, he said you look at typically in a relationship, there's what they call the seven-year itch, and why is that? He talks about the way the feminine causes change is... Some day I want to write a book on this. I don't know perfectly enough to- Josh: Russell needs to become a writer. My word… Russell: Yeah, I've got a lot of books to write. But, this is how it works in traditional marriage. Masculine and feminine. What happens is one of the ways that feminine causes change is they criticize, right? I see this with my wife, with friends, with girls. If they want their friend to change their hair they don't say, "Hey, you should get a haircut." They'll criticize to try to cause change. Right? What happens is that a feminine- Josh: Yo, wow. That's so true. Interesting stuff. Russell: Yeah. That's just one example of- Josh: Dave! Russell: Feminine… Josh: Right, right. Russell: So, feminine and masculine come together. This is just an example. They'll start criticizing the man, but a masculine man doesn't care, it bounces off him. Like, "Okay. Okay." Right? What happens after seven years of that happening? Eventually instead of it balancing off of you, which is the masculine response, you start taking it personally. Like, "Oh." As soon as you take it personally, guess what happens? You are shifting physically from your masculine into a feminine. You start shifting and what happens is you shift from masculine to feminine and boom, the attraction breaks, and it starts falling apart. And then all the other problems start happening. The problem isn't solving the fact that you leave the toilet seat up or that you don't communicate well. The problem is that the masculine-feminine attraction is broken. If you fix the masculine and feminine, you can make men become men and women become women. Attraction comes back, all the other symptoms disappear. It's fascinating. That's from a marriage, family, relationship standpoint. Josh: Okay. I want to- Russell: I'm telling this because I want to talk about this from the family with kids in a minute, but yes. Josh: Okay. But I want you to now give me another example that Tony Robbins has said, because what you made it sound like there is that the way the woman does something is the thing that's causing the bond. I know that's not what you meant. Russell: Oh, it could be, yeah. That's- Josh: I just wanted to do that clarification. Russell: It's the same thing with the men where the men are responding over and over, where women now become defensive and they become more masculine and it's the other way. Yeah. Sorry. That's not the only example. I was just- Josh: Right. Russell: The one- Josh: I just wanted to make sure we clarify that because I know thing's have been taken out of context before. Russell: Somebody is going to be angry at me. I apologize. I'm stupid. I get it. But conceptually, does that make sense? It's the break of the masculine and feminine that causes the split, which causes the disharmony. And if you bring the masculine and feminine together, I think that's what causes attraction and causes passion and causes all these things. I look at my life when we were struggling in our marriage, it's because I'm showing up feminine. When I show masculine, everything's great. Where my wife comes in masculine and I'm masculine, we butt heads, it's fascinating. Anyway, I don't want to get deep into this because there's so much stuff. There's another show on this, because you look at this thing. You've got a family and the mother and father split and then there's kids who go with either the mother or the father, and now what they have is they've got either a very masculine person they're learning from or feminine, but they don't see both. And so it shifts them and it shifts their relationship. So many problems. I think the way we help the most, or can help the most is... Hormozi does this. Alex Hormozi does this. He donates his money to... Do you remember the name of the charity? He got our first Two Heart award. It's afterschool kids. These kids, like men who... There's these kids trying to play basketball or lift weights or whatever, who don't have masculine energy in their life. They come and they donate their time and they help the kids to brig masculinity. All of us, we need male and female perspectives. Josh: Right. Russell: It's designed to have those things together. When you lose one of them, it's a tragedy. I think the way we can start helping is, how do we bring programs where they can see masculine energy and see the way to make it a positive and not a negative thing? A lot of times, all they know is masculine energy left and oftentimes there's a lot of anger between the people. They hear talking trash about the spouse and talking trash about these traits which are traits that are essential for them to develop. I don't know. I don't know if that's the right answer or not, but I feel like that's how we could help those things. Help them understand, like the kids who don't have a father or a mother. They need that energy in their life to understand it, to be able to... I don't know. Josh: Okay. This is seemingly unrelated to this, but I think that I can tie it back in because it's a question that I think fits in here. I'm going to start with a super-basic question, which I think the answer is obvious, but we'll go down this road. Do you feel misunderstood as an entrepreneur? Russell: I did early on, less so now. Josh: Why is that? Russell: When I was got started... Entrepreneurship has become more of a cool thing in the last decades. Since Shark Tank and stuff. Back when I first started it wasn't. Everyone was confused. Like, "Why would you do that?" It is cooler. Also, I think the more you talk, the more you either alienate people or you attract people, and I think a lot of the people who I have alienated have been alienated and I think they are attracted by attractive. So my bubble of people around me are people who understand this lingo, who relate to it. So it's less hard now than it was initially. Josh: I believe that one of my superpower... Your superpower, your art, your format is marketing and funnels, funnels specifically. That's what you do. I feel you could just sit there for hours and hours and days and forever for the rest of, all of time. Russell: Yes. I love it. Josh: My superpower thing that I like to do is this. Communication. I love constructing words in a way that people can understand. I'm sure not, but the Kanye West interview that Joe Rogan just did three days ago. Russell: I've heard about him… Josh: This has been a long awaited episode. No one thought it was ever going to happen because it was teased and it wasn't, didn't happen. Finally happens. So I see this, I had no idea what's coming. It drops and I'm a huge fan of Joe Rogan and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing!" I sit down and I look online and all these people are like, "Terrible interview. Not worth your time. Couldn't get past the first 20 minutes." Anything like that. I'm like, what? So I go and the first 20 minutes are kind of like, eh whatever. I get done with this three-hour interview. It was like, top three interviews of all time. What's interesting is... Do you know Kanye? Like, how Kanye communicates at all? Russell: No. Josh: Okay, there's so many references that I want to use that you won't get. Kanye sees the world fundamentally differently and how Joe describes it in there and the way that I described it is... You wouldn't know this, like I said, because it's psychedelic, it's like a drug or whatever. But imagine being on a psychedelic drug in a small format at all times. That's how his mind works. He sees everything, it's like expanded. So even Kanye said, "The reason I have such a hard time communicating sometimes is because I see things in three-dimensional and then I have to put them into a two-dimensional conversation." I'm not trying to compare myself the way I think to the way that Kanye thinks, ubt this concept of people think he's beating around the bush when really he's just trying to explain something. One of the things I love doing is taking a concept that and figuring out how to describe it in a way that the average person can understand. I live in a different world, just like you live in a different world than the average person does. I live in a different world and that is by choice. I do not see the world the way that most people do. I intentionally do not want to see the world the way that other people do. Everything that I do, I will intentionally engineer where my life is different than the average person because I want to see the world differently, but I want to be able to communicate that in a way that they can understand. My question is, do you think that there's a lot of great ideas stuck inside of producer's heads that if more people understood them and thought like that, we could change the world for the better? But because they're stuck in their head and that person doesn't know how to communicate it well, or is not focused on that, that that effect never happens. Russell: Gotcha. Yes. That's why I think for me the study, this art of funnels and copywriting and story does, is so fascinating. That's what it is, right? I always pitch, like when we have an idea, in my head it's like this big granite block, right? It's like, this is the idea and give it to somebody, like, "This is the idea." You're like, "I don't get it." Right? Josh: Right. Russell: Then you start thinking about, who is it? Start chiseling away at the stone. You start chiseling, chiseling, and eventually you have this amazing statue. This thing that people can see and they can understand and they gravitate towards. I feel it's the same thing with communication or with any kind of idea you're trying to sell. The funnel is one thing. Right now, like, "Hey, you should buy my coaching programs." Why? Like, "Ah, it's too big." I need to take them to a path, simplify that. So there's a step-by-step process which is like chiseling away. Then inside each step of the process, there's the words and the stories, the things you communicate to simplify it to get more and more fine tuned. That's why for me, when we create a funnel and we launch it, it's like taking this big granite block and chiseling it down to now something that somebody can come in on the side of it go through a process. By the time they're done at the end, they're going to get some money, they're going to get a product and something's going to change for them. I think that's what marketing is. it's that process of trying to simplify the message. I think a hundred percent, that's why most ideas don't get out. I don't know, how many times have you had... This kind of comes back to talking about, who knows, an hour or two ago too, but four or five people get the same idea, but then one person executes on it. It's like the person who understands the communication the best is the one typically who gets it out, right? How much of your life or my life has been focused on the communication? I don't necessarily like that part as much. It's not my favorite part, but it's such an essential tool. I remember when I got in this game and I was trying to sell my very first product, Zip Brander. I put it up, I had a picture of it, Buy Now button and tried to send traffic, and nobody bought it. Someone's like, "Well, you need a headline," so I'm like, okay. So I put a headline. "Tell us what this does." So I found some sites that kind of modeled what they did and the people started buying it. It was learning that process of, how do you communicate? I remember thinking, I never want to learn how to write copy. That's what we all thought back then. "I don't want to write copy, I don't want to do that. That sounds horrible." I wanted to hire someone, but the people I tried to hire was expensive, it was 10 to $20,000 for a sales letter. I couldn't afford it, so I'm like, I have to learn this art and how to communicate. I'm so grateful because that's how everything we built has been, off the communication of an idea, and doing it in a way that gets people to move. Josh: How do you decide what you're going to communicate? You have a lot of ideas in your head and you have a lot of different thoughts on everything and you choose to share funnels and marketing primarily. Then you have some religion in there, which I would say probably is number two, maybe ish, of what you communicate. But that's it. How do you decide... Russell: The battles I want to choose? Josh: Yeah. Russell: What battles? That's a good question. I think part of what's interesting, like why did I want to do this interview? I read the book, it was fascinating. I don't know the answers and I thought this would be a fun way to talk it out loud. This is fascinating. Funnels are fascinating to me because I can apply it to so many things. You know when I talk a lot about wrestling, but not the community you bump into but for wrestling, I talk about that. I think it's just the ideas that fascinate me that I feel have the most fluidity and can do the most. Again, as an introverted person, I'll typically go out and have conversations with people as much as I can, but when I find something that does cause and effect, that's why I practice telling my story so many times and I'll do a podcast. I know now when I'm on stage in front of 9,000 people, the stories can get people to move because I practice it. So I think it's putting a lot of things out in the water and then seeing what things people relate to, and then I go deeper on the ones that are like, "Okay, this one had an impact." There's a lot of stuff. I remember in first version Dotcom Secrets, there were seven or eight chapters more that never got published. I was going to publish… Josh: Do you have copies of this? Russell: Yeah. It was like, all my best stuff at the time that I knew that I was going to publish it and it was all in the book. I remember I heard an interview with Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday... Ryan Holiday at the time and they were both talking... Anyway, they were talking about their books. Both of them said that when they write a typical book... You know, Tim Ferris's books are like this fat… My first draft was like, twice as big. It's like, to make your book go from good to great, it's not adding more. It's cutting. Like, I cut two thirds of my book to give you this one. I think it was Ryan said the same thing. The first draft is usually twice as big as the final one. Then the next section, it's cut, cut, cut, cut. I remember going back to Dotcom Secrets that night and I was like, "Okay, based on that, what would I cut and how would that do?" I cut seven chapters out and after I was done, I was so scared because I love these things, but those things aren't that important to get people what they need to actually be successful. Some of those things ended up being in Dotcom Secrets and Expert Secrets, and different places, but yeah. I wonder how that first version- Josh: I was going to say, I wonder if she just published the first day or if she had a 2,700 page book and cut something out of it. That's crazy. Okay. Back to the question in the car, and I want to tie this back to the book. How has growing a multi-hundred million dollar, making hundreds of millions of dollars having a roughly billion-dollar company, being the CEO of 400 employees, how has that changed your perspective of the world? Russell: So many things I could respond. I think there was a season of my life where I thought that if I was going to create something, if I was going to do something, the way I was going to do it, by me. Does that makes sense? Josh: Yeah. Russell: In fact, if you look at my history, the first decade of business, the businesses were about me. They were me. I was the sole owner, the sole person. On this journey, when we started, it was so different. It was like, what's the team look like? Todd was my first time I had a partner. That was so scary for me. Then it's been the greatest thing I possibly could have done. Right? Then we brought in other partners and then employees and stuff. I don't know. It's been fascinating just realizing that to build this, it wasn't about me. It was about... I don't know, just that whole thing. I think anything great, a lot of times there's a person that gets credit for it. Like, Elon Musk gets credit because whatever or Bill Gates or whoever the people are, they get the credit for it. You start really seeing how many people are involved to make something amazing. You know what I mean? I think that's the biggest thing for me as I started growing it. It's frustrating. Not frustrating for me. I enjoy it. People are always asking, "Russell invented ClickFunnels." I literally don't know how to code anything. There's not one dot of code in that word. Maybe once I leaned over Todd's shoulder, put a button in that and he had to delete it. I think it's cool that you see how many... Before Funnel Hacking Live, every time we start we bring our whole team together. I'm the one who's on stage, but I am fully aware that it is not me. This is us. If it wasn't for this team and these people, all you guys, all your contribution, this was impossible. I want to always ground that because I think sometimes the leader or whoever gets a big head where they think it's them. I see that with a lot of people who are on big stages where they still drink their own Kool-Aid so they think it's them. That's my shift in the world, just understanding the great things, the things that we remember. The things that are legacies that go on and on and on. There may be a head or a person that the branding tied too, but there's this group of people that created something amazing. That's… know what I mean? Josh: How do you stay grounded? I am a huge fan of Russell because for me, you're the person I look up to as not just, hey, you taught me how to make a lot of money, but I want to have the character that you have. I don't want to have... I look at Grant Cardone. You don't have to talk smack about Grant Cardone, but I can. Grant Cardone is really, really full of himself. Don't get me wrong. I learned a lot from Graham Cardone, especially about money. He's changed my perspective about a lot of things. I'm eternally grateful for that, but if I grew up to be Grant Cardone, where that was the focus.., I mean, I watched him, I was there at the stadium down in Miami or whatever. It was all about him. I think he even got up on stage and was like, "Oh yeah, everybody says Russell is the greatest salesman, but I'm the one that packed the house." I'm like, dude! You know what I'm saying? Why? Why is that necessary? How do you stay grounded? It's so fascinating to me to watch different types of people. I know Tai Lopez for example, for awhile there, it was all about Tai and now he's gone more behind the scenes, but each person that I watch whether it's Tai or Gary or Grant, they all have a different way about them. You have your way about them. The one that I see as the most grounded, humble... There's nobody that's looking at you. You get up on a stage and you're like, "Oh yeah, I'm Russell!" You know what I mean? Russell: Everyone awkwardly, like, "Yay." Josh: Right. Then you walk up and Grant's like... But you, it's just yeah, it's that awkward, "Hey, I'm just over here." How are you grounded in that? How do you not let it get to your head? Because it would be so easy for you to get wrapped up in your own head. Russell: Someone told me it's because of my wife. They said, "If you'd married anybody else, your head would be so big." Josh: I met your wife for the first time today. I mean, we had crossed paths, but I said when you were getting your haircut, "So what's it like being married to Russell?" She goes, "Hes just the sixth child of mine." I was like, oh boy. The big kid. Russell: That's awesome. I think I would say it's two things. We kind of talked about this earlier, but I'll tie back to it. The first one is that I am fully aware that these ideas are not mine. I didn't invent the funnel. I didn't invent any of this stuff. All I know is that I was on a path, in a journey. I was given the thing and the next thing, and I was freaking out and I was putting them together. That's part of it. This stuff's not mine. It's stuff that was given to me and tested and so I'm so grateful for that. It's never me like, "Oh, look what I invented." That's so annoying because it's not. Again, come back to these ideas, these thoughts, these desires and things that were given to us. I think that's the first part. The second part of it is, and I see this a lot in people in my world who, they had some success and then they're like, "This is my person. I made them a bajillion..." I hate that too. Like, you helped them in a piece but they did the work. I'm very careful to always when I'm talking about any of our success stories, I didn't make that person. We had this super-cool opportunity to be a piece to their journey. Right? We helped them give them some ideas and a tool, but they're the ones that killed. I don't know what it takes to build what they're building. I didn't do that. They did that. I'm grateful that they did and I'm even more grateful that I got to be a little piece of that. I got to be part of that journey. I got to see that and just have the impact of, oh my gosh. Because I killed myself and wrote those books and because Todd killed himself and wrote software and I was able to communicate it, they're able to do this thing and it's not all me. I'm fully aware it's not all me. I know what every entrepreneur has to go through to be successful and it's not a mentor who gives you everything. It's just a lot of people who are a piece. I've had mentors who gave me a piece that I'm so grateful for, but then they try to take all the credit, like, "Oh, this is when..." I hate that too. So I think those two sides. Number one is again, I don't think these ideas are something that I came up with. They were given to me and I was a good steward of them because I was able to aggregate and there's the thing. The number two is just my belief that I didn't help anyone. Even when you said, "You and Katie," I felt awkward. I didn't do anything. Josh: Right. Russell: Luckily some of the stuff resonated with you and it was a little piece of your journey. I'm so grateful for that. The fact, to see you do stuff now, it's so much fun for me to watch you. Just knowing, "Man, because he bumped into me, maybe something happened and now he's doing this stuff and this work and it's so cool seeing how you're impacting people." I think those are the reasons why I don’t think my head gets big, because I don't think it's me. I'm grateful that I get to be a piece of it, of the journey, but I'm not the creator of it. Josh: All right. I want to loop back to the book. Russell: Go ahead. Can we just read it? You guys want us to read it to you? Josh: Yeah. What was the thing that fascinated you about it though? When you've asked me, you were like, "Dude, I read it and I'm geeking out about it, I just want to geek out about it." What about it had you so fascinated? What did you want to geek out about it? I have a question that I want to ask later on about it, but what was the thing that just made you geek? Russell: There are a lot of things. I think the biggest thing that I was really excited, we talked about earlier was just… The biggest thing earlier was just this cons-... Again, for those of you who are tuning in late in here, there's the whole, it talks about greed. Right? And that concept of greed versus charity. Again, the book very much is like, greed is good, it's the thing that causes production and you should care about yourself and then good things will happen, it will create jobs and everything else will take care of as long as you're caring most about yourself. Which I thought was kind of cool but then also I had the other side with my beliefs in Christ and Christianity and all these things like that, where it's just like, how does that reconcile with faith, hope, charity and love, and serving everybody else? That's probably the thing that got me the most. I think about that a lot, especially in politics. Again, I'm not deep into politics, I'm not going to talk about who I'm voting for, not voting for, it doesn't matter. But I see that on both sides. I feel like on the Republican side you see a lot of this stuff, like this. Then on the Democrat side, you see a lot of the charity stuff. Again, in my notes I wrote this actually initially, because I wanted to talk about this. I'm a big believer that there's not a right and wrong. There's good in both sides. Josh: There's not a right or wrong side. Russell: Yeah. Things are messed up on both sides. It's how the world works. Satan, there's this eternal struggle between God and Satan and Christ, this is always happening. So there's two sides and there's God-like principles and things on the right that are amazing and then there's Satan that's twisting things and jacking them up. Same thing on both sides. I see everyone fighting tooth and nail and I bet you, if we all sat down, the majority of all issues we'd all agree on. But then it's these fringe things that causes so much hatred and fighting and just drives me crazy. I think that this book is the perfect example of what I believe so much in some of these principles, but there's also the opposite principles that I also believe in and they're both right. If you missed the beginning part of the interview, we talked more about that but the greed, the growth and contribution, that transition is the key that just fascinates me. Josh: Yeah. What parts of the book contradicted the most with your faith? What part of the books did you have the hardest time with because of your faith? Russell: Yeah. The producers in the book, the minds, the people that I connect with, because I self-identify as a producer, someone who's obsessed with production and creating. That’s why I relate with Hank Rearden, Dagny, all these people are cut from my same cloth. It's as they're growing this stuff that they didn't give back, that they didn't... That's the thing. I felt like they weren't rounded out characters and that's the biggest thing for me. The first half of the book, I want to be Hank Rearden. He's fricking the man. Like yes, that's all I want to be. I wanted to see him have that change of heart where he's Christ-like and he gives of his own free will. Not because the government came with the gun and told him he's got to pay taxes. I wanted to see his character develop and realize that, "Oh my gosh, I should be serving people because I love them. Not because of the government's force." That's the piece that I wish. Josh: It never took that turn. The book, you almost expected it and then it didn't happen. Russell: It got worse and worse and worse and then they waited until just everything... People were dying, everything collapses and then the lights in the yurt go out, wooh, and they're like, "Okay, now we can come back and build." Josh: Now we can go back and build, but even when they come back and build, it was built by our new law of basically... Actually, one of the things that's fascinating about that was... Gosh, it was towards the end. Was it Galt? I think it was Galt. Yeah, I think it was during his speech when he was like, "The minds society, we gave all this stuff to you guys basically." Trying to be like God there, but every day, we created all this stuff, we created these jobs, we created these resources. We gave it to you and all we wanted from you guys was for you to let us be in our own head. Let us, our minds be free and not be controlled by anything else. You took all that and not only did you take it all, then you said, "No, you're bad and we're going to take that away too. So we're all going on strike because of that." You relate to that so much and then it's like, yes! Then they explained how they live and it's like, you expect them to have that change of heart rather, but no. It's because we are amazing and because we are the great minds and we must live by this code. It has nothing to do with actually giving back or actually contributing to society. It was like they didn't care about contributing to society. It just happened to happen. Russell: Yeah. Which is cool, which is why again, governments should let producers produce because the byproduct is really good. Josh: Right. Russell: For everybody. So that part is so much I relate to. Part of this is probably because Ayn Rand didn't believe in God. You know what I mean? That wasn't part of her values and so it's tough because she weaved that... I just wish at the end of the book, it would have been like, and then Hank Rearden realized that he could help all these people himself and so he built orphanages and changed all these kids' lives. Like, yes! That would have been amazing. He found about OUR and he went and donated money to save all these children. Josh: Right. Russell: But he did it of his own free will because he had that change of heart. I don't want to die at the end of my days and... I produced some great jobs, but I didn't care about people. I feel like that missed the mark. Josh: Hank Rearden you say is the person you related to really most in the book? Russell: Yeah, I think so. I wanted to be Francisco though, he was pretty sweet. Josh: Who do you think I related to most in the book? Russell: Oh. Who was it? Josh: It was a relatively main one. You were close. Russell: Oh, was it Francisco? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. Russell: He was cool. Josh: Right from the beginning he fascinated me. I knew right when, the plot twist of where he ran off and became the playboy or picture, he was obviously a playboy or whatever. I knew right then and there. I don't know what the plot, I don't know what the connection is but I know this is going to come back around and it's not going to be how it seems. The mind doesn't shift and then he stays in the scene or whatever. He fascinated me because, or he strikes me as someone... Hank Rearden didn't care about the crowds. He did not at all. He hated going to the wedding. It was by force that his wife drug him out there that one time. It was always, "I just want to work in my office." I'm actually not like that. I am actually much more the... I do like the crowds, but I don't like the crowds because I need praise. Don't get me wrong, I like being on stage and doing this type of stuff or whatever, but for me, I like the crowds because I love people. It's funny because I actually don't get along with a lot of people in real life. Whenever I go to the airport, I'm like, I will pay whatever it takes. Put me on a plane first, the least amount of people I have to deal with, whatever. I don't want to have to interact with people that I don't want to interact with. But I love studying and understanding people's minds. For me, one of the reasons I am so fascinated by Donald Trump is because of how he can control the crowds. You look at his rallies. Dude, you can't ignore them. They're just huge. My fiance's parents, or her mom and Kirby went yesterday, I think it was last night, to Omaha. 29,000 people showed up in the bitter cold of Omaha, a last-minute notice. That type of control or not even control, but that type of influence to be able to go through, what is it that makes people go and do that? So Francisco in the book, he was the partier guy and he went and he was with the crowds and he was very good with words and articulated, but he sold me at that wedding. I'm telling you. Russell: That was good. Josh: To me, there's more than two ways, but super simplified down, there's two ways to influence people. There's one, which is the indirect, which is build a software company, it's build a product, it's build an iPhone. You're not directly influencing them with your words or whatever, but it's influencing their behavior by creating a product, by creating a service that's going to go out and change the world. Then the other way is to actually go out there and change them with your words. That's why Jesus, for example, Jesus didn't build the product. He did it through His words kind of, sort of, but to me that's so fascinating. If I can figure out how to do that, that's how I can affect real change in the world. And it's funny because you've had had such a massive influence on my life, but probably a year and a half maybe ish into me knowing ClickFunnels, I was like, "Man, Russell's doing it all wrong." I had this thing of, if Russell would communicate more about stuff besides funnels, he would have a bigger impact. I had this limited belief of, this is the only way you can influence and impact people, is by going out there and actually speaking to them. But that's my superpower and my gift. In the book, Francisco was the one I think that best represents my style of trying to go out and do things. I find it interesting by Hank Rearden with you… Russell: I'm the same way. I would rather be in here building funnels, doing some stuff. There's scenes of Hank in the book where he's sitting there looking out over the factories at night and he sees, he watches the steel being poured, it's glowing. He's enjoying that. For me, it's similar where I do the stage thing and things like that. I get less value… interactions are hard, but I spend a lot of time on social media at night, just looking at the people that I know are in our world and watching what they're doing because that's me watching the steel. My mission is not to go teach people how to do what you do. I'm giving you a blow horn so you can go do it. That's more fascinating to me to sit back and explain to my wife. Events drive her crazy because then it'll happen and it'll get done and then I scurry off and I don't want to talk to anybody. I sit in the room and I just watch what people takeaways and then who they're talking to. I spend a lot of time just watching. That's for me like looking over the steel and being like, I gave them a trumpet or I gave them a blow horn and now their messages are going out there and I can just watch it. So for me, I don't want to teach personal development and this and that, but I want to empower or give tools or whatever tools there are so that you can and whoever all the other influencers are to be able to do those things. Does that makes sense? I'm an amplifier. I'm an amplifier of other people's messages and my message just happens to be, "Here's the amplification that you need to amplify your message," and then letting everybody else go and do it.

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The Atlas Shrugged Interview - Part 1 of 5