22: This is our $97K pitch (and it better work)

Hey. I'm Mitchell Davis, a Laravel developer.

Mate, I gotta stop you. What's going on with your hat?

You don't like the hat?

What's going on? You could eat dinner off that flat brim.

You could. It's for those that aren't on YouTube, it's a LariCon hat from, like, three years ago maybe. What time is it? And it's like a like a US one, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. I this, like, way back when. And, yes, it's not my style of cap. But I believe Laracon is going on, like, now or soon. Yeah. Michael's flying over there to The US. He just flew this morning. So sorry. It's not today. It's in a couple days then. But, yeah, this week, it's happening.

Looks like you're doing the podcast on the Regina table.

Yeah. There's no chance to sunburn in this thing. It is a flat rimmed cap. Let me tell you. Yep. Holy moly.

You have to

get through

it. The door for you before, like, to go through it. It goes out past your arms. Anyway, I'm Gavin Tye, sales and marketing of Six Sides, and we're bringing you our b to b SaaS journey to document us building Six Sides.

We are. Now for those that don't know, Gavin, why don't you tell us what is Six Sides? Because we've picked up some new followers. Maybe we'll get into that. You you tell us.

So our mission or our purpose is to help community driven businesses or organizations build stronger community through events, and that's by increasing connection and building awareness. There are fundamental principles that we're aligning to. And, yeah, that's what gets us up out of bed. That's what is making me, you know, helping both of us.

Where are you going with this this sentence? Holy shit. There's some, I was gonna have to put some content warnings on that. I don't know.

Oh, mate. Come on. I've been doing I've been up to my neck in grant progress, and I was just channeling my grant writing.

We're gonna get into that too. So you're in for a big episode today. I've got one hour, so we're gonna just fucking smash through this thing.

But We're doing something different today.

Well, are, but hang on. Specifically for those that are new, yes, we're helping events and build communities and stuff, but we're doing it with a mobile app and there's a back end that specifically the, like, the thing that we're offering is a mobile app for events. So I think we could do a better job of making that a little clearer that that's how we're accomplishing it.

Right? I do agree. I've just written down here that let's both work on our thirty second pitch, and then and then we'll have them come on.

Yep. Maybe we can do them both next week, and then the the audience can vote.

Do them both next week.

Anyway, yes, we are doing something new. Why don't you tell us?

So typically, before we do a podcast, we'll jump online, talk for ten or fifteen minutes, and then figure out what we wanna talk about or sometimes have that content rich discussion before we even have the podcast. So today, I was like, let's not even talk because you're back from we have barely spoken over the weekend. Yeah. And so so let's just jump on. Let's just jump on and start talking now. So it's all from the beginning. So

yeah. Off the dome. I love it. You don't you

don't stuff. Too sunburn. So

I'm not at

all. You took that out?

No. Not true. Got a little bit.

You took that out.

Yeah. His hat's can really recommend his hat. No. I got a little bit of sunburn. So I've been in Bali for ten days. It's my first day back at work in now two weeks, and feels good. It was a really good time. I went with Nicole, my fiancee, her sister, and two of her well, our now shared friends. So five of us was awesome. We stayed at a few villas.

What's a shared friend? Is that like shared custody? Like, you gotta book in time with shared friends?

Is that what it is? Yeah. It's friends that I they were Nicole's friends from high school Okay. Who we've now been together for ten years. So I have met all of her friends and become fairly close with them as well. So now they are shared friends.

If you were shared friends if they were close friends, you wouldn't call them shared friends. I'm just gonna call that out. Everyone's list who's listening would call that out. So and if you and Nicole ever broke up, let's not be under the illusion they would not be

friends with They would be back to her friends. But I'm not just gonna say they're her friends, and then, like, I've got no idea I would talk with them at all. Fair enough. They are friends.

Yep. Fair enough. And I I know Mexican, mate. I I I learned Spanish when I was at school. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Como esta.

Yep. Oh, yeah. Right.

That's all I know.

That's it. That's the extent of your year nine language class.

That's the other. Yeah.

That's right. I don't know much Spanish, so I can't I can't jump in there. But, anyway, it was really good. The other thing that we did, a a hike up a volcano crater thing, and it was brutal. So we Nicole and I actually, like, opted out, and we got a bike ride shuttle up the mountain. Come on, Mitchell Davis. No. It just is what it is. It was like I I wanted to be honest the whole time it was happening. I was like, I'm gonna have to tell Gavin about this because, like, that's alright.

You have a whoop. I gift to do a whoop, and you have yet to put it on. Maybe this is a good sign that you need to focus on your longevity.

Get the health.

Yeah. That's right. So,

yes, it's something that I'm thinking about a bit more, especially in light of this hike. But,

yes, we don't need be able that. Davis on that work that I gave you, so there's no reason that you can't at least put it on for four months.

Okay. Thank you, Gavin, the personal trainer. That's great.

I will expect the notification today.

Yeah. No. Won't be today. I have so much going on, but maybe later this month. And no. No. But, well, you know all the context of why of everything that's going on at the moment. So Okay. Anyway, please. This is not the health podcast.

Going down is worse than going up. In many cases, it can hurt more.

So Yeah. Yeah. And then I made the mistake of trying to sort of sidestep, like still going down the hill, but turn 90 degrees and because I knew like, okay, you can get better traction, but man, my left knee just was so in so much pain from it so yeah and it was in in pain for the next few days so anyway it was that was tough and a little humiliating but it was a really fun time. So, yeah, those were, like, the big highlights. But probably about six or seven days into this ten day holiday, I was like, okay.

Awesome. Mate, it's a good I've always wanna go to a top of a volcano and have a look. And, yeah, somewhere

It wasn't a, like, volcano volcano I came to know. I thought we were gonna see, like, some lava or something. No. It was nothing like that. It was like steam coming out of some grass. So, yeah, it wasn't like a cool volcano. Apparently, there there is one, and it's, like, 3,000 meters. So it's like a twelve hour hike or something like that. It's ridiculous. So there's no way I would have made that. But anyway. Yeah. So I too would like to see a real volcano.

Yep. Awesome. Okay. Where do we start? Where do I start to oh, I've got you recommended I watch our I listen to our SaaS journey by the transistor guys, and it's been

It's not

B2B B2B SaaS journey?

What do they call it? No. Build your SaaS.

Build Yeah. I've been listening to

so long.

At the beginning. And You

like it?

Yeah. It's good. It it's a lot of similarities between you and I. Right? It's we're not Exactly. We're not treading a new path. It's just six, seven years later because I started in 02/2018.

Yeah. I'm glad you're enjoying it. That's cool. Yeah. It's very similar.

I think, the main thing that theme that's come out of there is that they're being authentic. Right? They're trying to do the right thing about the audience and not they talked about some other platforms on there about how they're forced to like, they do big revenue raises, then

they gotta try

to, capital raises and try to generate revenue ways that aren't necessarily thinking about the end user. And we're trying to I I feel like at its core, we're trying to achieve the we're we're we're achieving we're trying to achieve the same thing. So, yeah, it's it's really good. They're at a 167 or something episodes. I it's gonna take me a while to get through it. I probably won't get through it all. But yeah.

It's, it's it's months of listening for sure. Yeah. I mean, that's the type of, like, legacy that I hope we build up with this show is, you know, if we keep doing this every week for a few years, at least we're gonna get to a 150 odd episodes. So

And if they were all CDs, we could stack them all on the brim of your hat.

That's it. I'm turning it around now. I might expand it a little. It's a little it's a bit tight on the old noggin, but, we've talked about that before. So that's alright. There we go. Alright. Cool. So, what have you been up to while I've been away? That's my barley story. What have you been doing?

Yeah. So a few things in our personal lives. I mean, we're getting a re a kitchen redone. It's been an absolute mission, which is a story for another day, but that's been fun. So there could be someone knocking on the door soon to come and have a look at or do some work. I have no idea what they're doing. They've complete the schedule's completely gone out. I keep making mistakes.

So

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Anyway, that's that's going on.

Of construction.

Yes. Yep. So there's a few things I've been working. We got approval to go through on another grant for Queensland, like, at the Ignite, Ideas Fund. And, so I've been spending I spent all last week and a lot of the week before doing that.

Giggles. Yeah. That's right.

So

Yep. Holly. Out, Holly.

Yep. Well, Volunteering WA supports this episode today, so we'll shout them out as a sponsor. Yep. And, yep, they've been fantastic to work with. And just getting an understanding of a particular Holly's mindset around what she's thinking, how she thinks it'll add value to her community, her pain points.

So Yeah. Well, it shows because I've had a look. You've done a really good job with it. You've sent me a message and asked me to fill in, like, just a couple questions, maybe two questions or something like that that were more technically oriented about, like, back end infrastructure, all this sort of stuff. But then you filled out, like, the other 98 questions in this thing. It's

a Yeah.

Gargantuan effort that's happened, and you've done a really good job with it. I found, like, maybe one spelling mistake in the whole thing, which I thought was incredible. And then there was, like, one other thing where you referenced like, there was a typo in a number or something like that in a goal that we were looking at. And I went through seriously, like, everything. I looked at it all, and I was just blown away with what you've been able to do literally in two weeks.

It was quite a long time. Yeah. Thank thank you. Thank you for those words. Like, you're doing all this stuff on the development side. Like, imagine it with just solo founders. You you just couldn't do it or one would be sacrificed. And you do your part, I do my part, and we help each other out when we need to run at the end where knocking off different different issues. Yeah. But I learned something really important before I doing this.

Yeah. Yeah. A little.

So I I I saw it come up once, and I know what they're, I know what they're looking for. Right? I thought, what am I looking for if I'm a producer of Channel nine? And, I wrote I put mom in, and I said, mom is really, like, selfless. She looked after Warren Wayne. And I thought, if someone just reads it, they'll call us. Anyway, I forgot I did it. And about six months later, they called me and said, hey, Gavin. We've read you. Knock a cash.

myself how we go is not a good sign. So, yeah, that's that's unreal.

Yeah. I've got it. So but since then, I've tried to learn to put myself in the shoes of the reader. Right? Yeah. And help them achieve what they wanna achieve. And that's what I've tried to do with this grant. You know, they Mate. They're doing great things for the economy, and I'm just we're just trying to help them. We're trying to be a vehicle to help them do that.

Yep. I can see you're buttering them up. You're gonna send them this recording as part of the submission.

Might be a post.

Excellent. Well, yeah, it's it's fantastic. I was blown away with what you've been able to do. I think it sells us it, like, puts us in a really good light. Hopefully, they agree. You're I think you said you're looking to submit that at the end of this week. You're waiting on, these letters of support from our three customers. So Yeah.

Yeah. I've got one. I'm just waiting for two more, and then I've gotta I wanna go through and just have a relook at it Yeah. Again, and then I'll submit it by Friday. Then that's well I think the deadline's Monday, so we'll get it go

ahead. Okay. Yep. Excellent. Yeah. Well, we're very thankful to our three customers that have all said, yes, they're willing to do this, which is fantastic. Like and it was three for three, which is just awesome. Feels really good that, okay, we've got people in our corner. Not only are they paying customers, but they're willing to help us, you know, get some help. Yep. Yeah. So we're very thankful for that. So if you're listening, thank you. Alright. Cool.

You've got my decision to build in public and be a bit more sharing about what I'm doing. Yeah. I think you all kinda cue me whether I wanna talk about that or not.

Oh, yeah. Let's do that. So you you did message me, what, probably a week or two ago now and said, mate, I'm starting to think about I wanna pivot my, like, persona and and my my topics and things that I'm talking about to be more build in public. So why is that?

Because it I think there's well, there's a couple of different things. As we're always told to have a single focus and don't get diverted. And I like, inherently, know that. Right? But we've been positioned I think, personally, like, I'm only talking from my own perspective.

So Yeah.

I've been sitting there for ages. And because all my messaging on LinkedIn is around sales strategy and sales market fit, which is gonna be an issue in the future when when when Six Sides gets traction and we really start ramping up. That I don't think that's sustainable. And I'm not gonna have two LinkedIn profiles. Right?

I wanna call that out as well. Yeah. Let's let's give a shout out to Roman because that episode was really good. He gave a lot of, like, very helpful insights. I was listening to the the whole thing in a in a car in in Bali on my way to get a massage. And, yeah, it was it was great. And you guys have such great chemistry. So Yeah. Shout out to Rome.

It's our highest listened podcast to date, like, in in the short window.

So Yeah. I think it really helped that he shared it as well out to his audience.

So, yeah, that that was great. And so there's so there's so many lessons there. Like, you're saying, like, you don't give up a good you don't give up successful businesses. Like, why would you do that? And he goes, so you just gotta make it work.

I don't think it's arrogant at all. It's fun. It's really fun to talk about what you're building and what you're working on, and that's like that's the content that I enjoy putting out. Not like advice for, you know, businesses that are thinking about building technology and stuff. I've that's never really resonated with me.

Yeah. Look. And I don't like talk I don't know if this is true or not. I don't like talking about myself. I feel like I don't like talking about myself or putting out success.

It's hard. Right? It's really hard to not for everybody. Some people do it amazingly well, and, you know, they've got, like, a good solid ego. I've got some ego.

Even I hate that word. I think we're knowledgeable. We're above Aboriginal. And to be honest, Mitch, it's gonna be harder for you to talk about yourself if you keep wearing a hat.

You and this fucking hat. Let's see. I'm gonna buy you one of these hats.

Well, Mel's in here. I'll get her to come and look at the hat.

She's coming. This will be great audio. You wanna have look

at come come around and have a at the hat.

It's fine. But it's specifically a LariCon hat. That's the part that people need to know. Yep. I'm supporting the cause.

Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. It's awesome. She said that shit.

No. I didn't.

They can you're on the podcast, and people can hear you. Yeah.

That's right. Now we gotta tag Mel as another Contributor. We gotta tag her. Try as a guest on this episode. Yep. Anyway, I think it's really great. I'm very pleased that you're wanting to do more building public stuff, and that's something that I'd like that's my jam. So Okay. When you send that through, I was like, fuck yeah. This is great. Let's do this. Yeah.

So that that could be a question. So if anyone's watching this on YouTube, which they're probably not gonna get to thirty one minutes before we actually start talking about it, or if anyone's listening to this on the podcast, if you are I don't know. What interests you? What do you wanna know about this? Like, not not just me about, or if there's common lessons across both businesses.

Yeah. Yep. Okay.

Alright. This one, four x my salary. Like, this is interesting. You give the context, and then I will I'll tell you my thoughts on my side.

So as I was reading this grant submission that Gavin's put together, we it got to a section where we had to explain why we wanted how we came up with this budget, you know, that we were requesting of something like $97,000 or something like that. And then you you step through and they kinda break it down, and you have added all of the so you don't ask for a figure. You put in things and it adds up to a figure. Right? So you have to justify at each step.

It comes down to just one thing, Mitch. It's value. No. And look. Do you know in Inhore when you sent that through yesterday, I laughed. Right? And and I think you laughed too. And after a

100%,

that could have gone another way. Like, if we didn't trust each other implicitly, you could have gone, what the fuck? Like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, if we didn't could have. Yeah.

That never crossed my mind at all for even a second.

And even I was telling Mel, and I'm like, that could have been without the right context. That could not that could have gone a lot worse than what it did. And the reason for it at the end of the day is because this is a commercialization project, and it's not a technical project. And The grant. Yes.

No. Yeah. Yeah. No. Not at all.

But it could go like that.

It could have. Yeah. In certain businesses. So if you and I weren't yeah. The the way that we are and there wasn't this built up trust over years, then, yeah, a 100% that could have been a very awkward conversation. But I think very interesting you didn't put it in front of me and say, hey. Just so you know, I'm this is what I'm doing, and this is why I wanna take, you know, four times the salary that

you're gonna be barley for one, and then you didn't wanna talk about it for two. And That's

not true at all. We were still messaging.

Oh, yeah. Mate, you have saw how big that the bloody doc was. I can't tell you every thoughts of it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Right. Anyway

we're gonna have to put it another

man, I reckon we said that fuck about 10 times in this episode.

It's the

most we've ever said

it. It's

gonna happen to have

We're excited.

Yeah. Yeah. That's alright. So It's good. But that was the reasoning behind it, and I laughed at the end, and it was like, that was funny. Like Yeah. And I'm so glad that we have that basis of trust. Right?

Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yep. So, no, it's it's all good. It's just funny. It really jumped off the page at me because I I'm super detail oriented. And I told you I'm going through every section in this thing, and sure enough, I found the one part where you wanna knife me in the back. So

Yet you chose the hat, and you're

still telling me this hat. Mate. That's it. That's it. I've had enough of this hat slam.

Put it on your LinkedIn profile for a week and ask people to vote on your hat and see what they say. Yes or no to the hat. Is it poll?

Not building in public. No. That is public ridicule.

That's criticism in public. No.

I don't need that. That's alright.

Oh, so you're not that confident anymore. Yep. Gotcha. Yeah.

There's a reason I haven't worn this hat myself I know. In, like, the three years that I've had it. I know. It's because, yeah, I put it on, and it looks ridiculous. My head is not made for this hat. I get it. But I'm wearing it to show support for the Laravel crowd that's happening right now, and I think you've you've ridden on me a little too hard here, and I feel like

But do you

think so? Maybe we should end the podcast now.

So could you turn your head to the side a little bit?

Okay.

Alright. And then move your head back. Looks like a pickup driving away. Alright. That's it. That's the last one. That's the last one.

Yep. Alright. Alright. Let me turn it around now.

So the question is, what would we do with that grant money is is at the end of the day. Right? I think the if we was if we were lucky enough to be successful, in the grand money, what we wanna do is help communities and community based organizations and our clients build more awareness to support their community. That's essentially what we wanna do. Yes.

Yep. Yeah. It's certainly compelling. Yeah. Reading through, that jumped out to me about the, like, student internship stuff, like that angle. I've never been in any business that's had anything like that. So that would be really cool. Very interesting. Potentially, like a bit of a time sink, but, you know, probably worthy for the community. Right? So and that's a big part of what this grant is trying to address. So Yep.

Yeah. I do think in time, yeah, you are right. If we do want to hire school based people now, a lot of our time's gonna be spent. There is time that goes into supporting those and upskilling them. And if we're two of us that don't have full time attention at the moment, that's probably not the right thing. But in time Yeah.

It's longer term.

Yeah. Or they've already got a set of skills that we can utilize. And as a back part, like a subsequent part, they can be involved in some other things and learn about the business, right, through osmosis. So, yeah, there's a I just think there's such a good opportunity to help others from this, and and we'll get there eventually. I just think this will accelerate our timeline by a good twelve months.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. It's really exciting. So in there, you've talked about so in the grant and specifically to build up this budget of almost a 100 k, you've talked about some marketing strategies potentially engaging with, like, some agencies to do some marketing work. Mhmm. I think there's some outreach in there as well. Is that right?

Yeah. There there'll be some lead generation work to go in there as well. Like, we're doing some of it now. Yep. Though with I showed you what I did with my other platform deal by the other the other day on generating some white paper for a potential client, and that's a game changer. That will give us more ability to target people specifically. Yeah. So yes. And there's a lot of other things, marketing and lead generation. Yep.

Anyway alright. So, look, that's the grant. I think we've covered that now. We will keep y'all posted on how we go. So maybe next week, if you're submitting that, you can just give us an update. And then if we hear back, good or bad, later in the year,

we'll let know. Think the timelines they're saying that the grant will be released in in December. So we're months away from it being, getting we you just don't know how long it takes from that giving you feedback, so we won't expect to hear anything. We'll forget about it before we get feedback.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Sounds good. Well, why don't we talk a little bit well, a lot about Denmark and the app and where everything's at? So Yeah. Laravel Live Denmark will be our first paying customer on our new infrastructure, and it is happening, I believe it's the twenty first. Yep.

in Denmark.

So I've been working really hard while I was away on this holiday and then some since I got back on well, since, like, Friday Friday afternoon, I started working on the app again. Over the ten days that I was away, I'd estimate I spent probably about twenty hours or so working on the mobile app. And it's funny. I've got some great photos of, like, my view as I'm at my laptop and I'm you know, the whole time I'm using the app on my actual phone and so because there's some things that are just better when you're working on a mobile app on your phone instead of using, a simulator on your computer. Mhmm.

Can you post about that on LinkedIn. Put a post up saying, hey. Look. It's not easy being a founder and, like, do your thing. Yeah. Sure. Do that?

Yeah. I could do that. Yeah. Okay. That's a good building in public. Today? Maybe. Maybe I can release something in to coincide with, the episode coming up tomorrow. But, man, I got so many things to do. So Yep.

that overnight come back with some feedback?

They did. Yeah. So they came back. So I submitted the the production app knowing that it's not fully ready yet, but I submitted it to the App Store to get, like, up for public release because we know that just from past experiences and rolling out other apps that I've worked on in the past for clients or for our own apps, like for for LariCon last year, the initial release that you do for a mobile app up on the App Store and Play Store often can take considerably longer to get reviewed and approved. I don't really know the reason why.

So So as far as being on track for Denmark, we're we're on track right where we're starting

to go. Yep. I'm gonna have it finished, the app fully production ready by Friday this week. So that's going to give us, think it's something like twenty days or so until the event. And then all of that time will go towards the reviews. So we will do the

and stuff.

Well, yeah, that's right. I mean, there's things to be done on their side, on Laravel Live Denmark's side to send us some information. I saw that over the weekend you had contacted them and they came back with some stuff, so I'm gonna check all of that out and make sure that we've got their event configured correctly. Yep. In time, that will all be done self-service.

Yep.

So, yeah, we are on track. And then, Mark, if you're listening to this, you you guys, we are on track, and we do have your back. It's just this the timeline is a little tighter than I would have liked. So Yep. Yep.

I think you do an amazing job. Oh, like, it's such stressful time. You've got five more days, ten more days maybe, and then you can not take your foot off, but you have a bit of a breather. And

Certainly, yeah, can can relax a little, and that's gonna feel really good. So thank you. I I accept your feedback. We will get it there. I can't wait to then be on the other side of this, like, review process.

is listening of our listeners who wants to have a look at the app and test it Yeah. Let us know at journey at six sides or, again, send us a message on LinkedIn or Yeah. Blue Sky, whatever.

Yeah. That would be great because, like, this is it's it's really cool. Like, this is an exciting time for us to have our first release of the app go out. You know? It's only gonna get better from here Yep. Which is awesome. But how cool is this, like, to be in a position where we are releasing new software? You know?

Yep. It's pretty cool. Yeah. It's awesome. Mate, we're almost out of time. We've got two minutes hard stop.

Do we?

So yeah. Okay. It's almost time. Gotcha.

Yep. Alright. Well, why don't we wrap up there? That's a good spot to call it. So I wanna thank everybody that's listening and is coming along for the journey with us.

On on on our next podcast, mate, I'm gonna talk about g the GPT agent that's been recently released. I used it last week. It was awesome. I'll give a Okay. Sales strategy update, on on how that's going.

Don't know. Okay. I will report on the progress of, getting the app released onto the App Store. That's my my sworn guarantee that I will have that ready to talk about.

Alright? Mel's trying to make me laugh in the background. She's got a she's got a hat one of your hats on.

Comes camera next time. But Is it still recording?

No. It's not recording anymore.

It is. Okay. She's not blind. I almost got her. Yep. Yep. For those that that don't know what we're talking about, check out YouTube. Anyway, we will leave it there. You can find Gavin on LinkedIn, Gavin Ty. You can find me, Mitch Dev, everywhere. Journey at Six Side. Leave us a review, comment, all the stuff that all the influencers say, and we will catch you next week.