Hey, Colleen.
Hey, Michelle.
How's it going?
I'm good. How are you?
I'm good. I was, uh, listening to a hammer stone pod yesterday, or the day before you, guys had a new one out. And, it sounds like you are really just pounding the pavement on sales now and shifting away from technical.
Yeah, it is a huge shift. It is a scary shift, but also it's really exciting.
Yeah.
More fun than I thought it would be.
Ooh.
And so that's interesting. Like every time you send a cold DM or a cold email, you get a little like dopamine hit.
Do you, but like what, so what if they were, they don't reply to you like that? Doesn't.
Yeah. No, most people don't reply, but I don't know. It doesn't seem to be, I mean, this is the game, right? Like it, and it's a game that I haven't played before, but it's kind of fun. I think it's a huge, I mean, it's obviously a new skillset for me, but I'm excited to try something new and to learn something new.
I'm really excited to see you just like jumping into it head first. I feel like, you know, when we met and we started first started doing the podcast, before you did anything differently, you used to read a ton of books and articles on things, which is a good approach to do. And I, you know, we should of course learn from other people, but I think sometimes you use that as kind of procrastinating doing something new and now you're just in.
And I haven't heard that same, like, well, I just need to read these more articles on this and I have one, I'll do it when I finished this book, I'm reading, like you have jumped into cold sales, like it's cold water without any fear.
It's funny. Okay. So I did do one thing, that's a little funny. I don't remember if I said this on Hammerstone podcasts, but I did, you know, you can go on YouTube and look up sales, and watch people sell stuff. It's fascinating. It's so I did do that to get pumped up. Cause these guys get on. I was watching this one guy and like these guys get on sales calls, and the person can be like, yeah, this product's not for me. And they're still. Like they don't let it go. Right.
They're like, oh, well, you know, dive in as you might say, like, why not? Well, maybe you can just buy it now and it'll be for you later. It's fascinating to
Do you want to be like that though?
I don't. But I think that the difference is it's all about like, I think where I struggled, doing these customer interviews and doing the cold sales, which are, I know they're two different things, but when I say cold sales, I really mean I want to talk to people about their problems. So I really think of them as like customer interviews is as soon as someone's like, yeah, it's just not a good fit. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. I'm out. Right. Which is obviously not the right response.
The right response is to figure out why, why is it not a good fit? What's their job to be done. And so. I don't want to be sleazy or slimy. That's not what I'm trying to do, but I also tend to just like my customer interviews before I met you, or before I started working with you were like 30 seconds long. I think I told you my early customer interviews for simple file upload were literally five minutes long because I did not know what else to say or do.
Yeah, I feel you were like, if they said something and you understood it, you'd be like okay.
sweet. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I think there's definitely a line there between yeah, between like being pushy and then, uh, and then also trying to understand, okay, well, is it because they don't experience this very often. Are they not the person who experiences this problem? Is this problem already solved in a satisfactory way?
Like, cause I think there's a difference between like we already use something for this, and we're happy with it versus we don't use anything for this and we don't see any reason to and because we do it so infrequently that it's just not a problem.
Yeah. So I, what else did I do? I did something else. I can't remember now.
You're doing your founding customers thing. Right. Which I think is a brilliant idea. You have this group of five founding customers that are, they, like, I guess they get a special discount, but also more like high touch service onboarding from you is that.
Yeah. So my customer advisory board, I think I have two slots left if you are interested in trying the refined product. Um, yeah, so my customer advisory board has been so cool because these people have already paid. They're excited. They're the ideal first customers. And so far, they're all rails developers and they've been like, Hey, like I am open to helping you, around these rough edges as we integrated it in our app.
So there, you know, I just think it's going to be so fun working with these guys because we're going to work together like super high touch, right? I want to be there for the whole process. Show them exactly how to do it and kind of see how that feels to them. So yeah, I'm pumped about that.
Did you get your, your real estate customers in that you mentioned them like your one freelancing client that you had, that it sounded like they actually had a need for it. Were you able to get them into the founding customer?
Um, yeah, I mean, I haven't yet, but I will because they're my clients. So they need
So there's one slot left
Yeah, I guess you're right. I
So if you want, or you maybe want at some point in the future, you think you might want refined for rails. You should talk to Colleen now.
Yes, we will help you filter your data for your users and for your team. It's wonderful. It's so cool to Michelle. I think one of the things as I get more and more into this, I'm just having so much fun with it now, which is cool. Like the sales, and the product is just so good. I mean, it's like, you know, the rails, um, the rails architecture is designed almost exactly based off of what Aaron did for Laravel.
And like he thought of everything, like all of these weird edge cases that we've taken care of. So it's so beautiful when you start to use it. And someone's like, well, what about NOLs? And I'm like, oh, we totally handled those. Just like these little edge cases that trip people up, that annoy people. I dunno, it just makes me happy to like work on software, I feel really good about and can see our client using. I mean, our client uses this everywhere in their app. It is so cool.
And like, it's just, it's just cool. I don't know. I was just happy about it, I guess.
It's such a delight to work on a product that you're really proud of. But also with this one, you have ownership of the product, right? And so when someone says, Hey, this is really cool. First of all, you're like, wow, they think something I made is cool. That's kind of cool. That's like motivating. But then, can you do this? And you can be like, oh, you know what, no, we're actually thinking of adding that, and you can be like, hey like, can you tell me, why you would need that?
And then you can talk to them about it and be like, yeah, maybe we can add that in the future. Knowing. Yeah, maybe we can actually add that in the future. And you're not just saying maybe if the product manager approves it and then we get executive approval and then the roadmap is already locked in for at least 18 months right now.
Like, oh, I'm going to tell them that we can do it, but we probably can't, that's kind of a crappy feeling, but getting to not only get that super positive feedback yourself and really feel like you're selling something that you're proud of, but also having the. You know, influence and control over the future of the product.
And you know, I think it allows you to just really connect with your customers on what they're trying to do in a way that is a lot harder when you don't have that say over the roadmap.
Yeah. So it's, you know, as I said, I think I said to Aaron, like, it's exciting. I mean, I'm pulling back on the technical stuff, which is scary
Yeah.
well, and also like, that's how I make my money. So, I mean, it's going to be like less personal income. Um, so
Oh, so is this like, this is reducing your, because you have it cause you've been working for the clients that was funding you guys to build it and now. But, so what does that actually, what was it a one-year contract or was it like a certain number of hours that works out to a year? So like,
So the contract was really whatever we needed. I mean, it was, it was incredibly flexible. We had agreed because I quit my other job for this opportunity. I had wanted a minimum commitment of a year, which they gave me, but there's no end date. So, you
Okay, So you don't actually fall off a
I don't fall off a cliff, but what we're doing, what we talked about. Is there hiring someone to be me within their company. Does that make sense? So they're like, want me to train him up? He's going to start in a couple of weeks. And so as I trained him up, so now I have a contractor, like hammer stone refine has a contractor that's working upstream on technical stuff.
And then the client is actually hiring someone, they want me to train up, to take some of the app load, like of the load of putting it everywhere in their app and understanding it and explaining it to everyone. Like take some of the app load off of me. And this is exactly what I want to happen, Michelle.
This is the ideal path for me, but it's also scary because when I was the person who was like touching every part of the app as like some serious job security, like that's some serious consulting revenue security. And as I give these pieces away, that is going to significantly impact my personal income, um, which is something we have planned for and which was always the plan. But you know, you get there and you're like, okay,
Let's go to.
This is it. This is the time. So it's exciting and scary and fun. And you know, if I don't bet on myself, like, what am I doing here? Right. This is what I want. But it is a little.
I think it's really interesting to see also how excited you are about doing sales for this versus how marketing for simple file upload kinda always seemed like a little bit of a drag to you. Like it was always a bit of like, I don't know what to do. Let's do this content, you just have this excitement about selling this that I feel like I didn't ever fully see with simple file upload.
And I don't know if that's difference between the products or that's the difference between for you like sales versus marketing. Like some people genuinely enjoy one over the other, even though they are often thought of as the same category. They're really not. Uh, I'm curious how you think about. Like if you've thought about your own energy levels for the two products.
Yeah. So I think so, I feel like I'm finally getting to my unfair advantage and what I mean by that is like, I am a developer, a good developer who loves people and I'm good with people. And so I think the sales stuff feels different than the marketing stuff, because the sales stuff is right now. It's just all one-on-one and I freaking love. I love talking and maybe sales isn't the right word, maybe like it's more of a customer interview where, you know.
Yeah. I mean, it feels like you're kind of doing like a combination. It's sort of like sales, exploration interviews, rather like, it's not quite a full customer interview, but it's also not like, as you said, you know, pitching.
Yeah. And so. I think it, whereas like marketing, like writing blog posts, man, that's a drag. It's not content pieces are not my favorite, but I just really like taught it, and I think the thing I like talking to people about so much with hammer stone is the people who have this problem. Big problem. It is incredibly painful for them is what I'm finding. Just a tremendous annoyance. So I don't know. It just feels cool to be like, we can solve that for you. We can make your life better.
Like this should be a no brainer. I'm enjoying that process.
I'm really glad to see you enjoying it. I think that really is the big difference between sales and marketing. And if you enjoy talking to people, which, I mean, I guess we run a podcast, so we shouldn't be entirely surprised that you enjoy talking to me. Um, then run with that. I mean, and you know, to be a developer who genuinely likes people, and talking to them as much, You do writing code and being able to speak to that in a very technical way, is really unusual.
The other nexus, I see this a lot in is people who do developer relations, and so to be, you know, to be a salesperson who can really speak to the technical aspects of things and understand, why you would use something is so valuable. I'm actually, you know, I'm reminded. So yesterday we were looking at, appliances, uh, very exciting. And, you know, we went to two different showrooms yesterday and one was for a company that makes supposedly incredibly nice, you know, very high-end appliances.
And we want to just see like, okay, what's the best thing out there just for comparison. And then we went to another one that was more, very good quality, more like mid range and not. Like nobody, like would be impressed when they walked into your house if they saw it, versus this other one was very impressive. And I noticed immediately, you know, the first one, the salesperson talked about how, you know, all these, a Michelin star chef uses them.
And like, you know, it was very exclusive and everything. And then. The other one, even though it wasn't as nice, they're saying, well, you know, when you're making your potatoes and you need to do this and you're working with it, like in your kitchen, just like this. And like, or you're trying to make this other dish and, like, you want them to be a specific brownness.
And like, the level of in this case cooking, but like the technical understanding of here's when you're using this, here's what you're trying to do. Like the rest of that activity that you have going on here's why this product helps you and speaks to the things that people are trying to do. It helps you sell it in a way where you don't have to be like, you should buy it now because it's going on sale.
And then it's going to go, the price is going to go up and like, even if you don't need it, you should buy it. Now. You can be like, well, if you're trying to do this, you might struggle with doing X, Y, and Z. And here's how this product helps you do that. And it's more like just factually explaining what the product does and you don't have to put on the.
Right.
And it's a more pleasant experience. I think for everybody.
Right. That, and that's where I am right now. I'm not trying to hard sell anyone. I'm like, we, you know, we speak to your problem. This is what it does, and this is why it's gonna make your life.
And I think that's what you learn, you know, if you got to a point where you can do like straight customer interviews or even as you do more of these sort of S we'll call them sales, exploration interviews, like the more you can speak to those specific situations in a company where somebody would have this problem, the more, when you talk to more people, there'll be like, oh, they really get it without, you know, without having to do too much more explaining, right?
You don't have to be like, so have you, have you ever struggled with this and this? You can be like, no. So when you are trying to do this, we help you do that faster.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's been, you know, it's a paradigm shift in terms of what I'm doing. Um, and I think what's different about it too is simple file upload, simple file upload, it was like kind of a small product. Like people just want to use it and it's fine, but this is a higher priced product, like a higher touch product. So these conversations feel much more, um, what's the right word, like, uh, interest.
I don't wanna say interesting, but they feel much more, they have much more depth to them, right. Because the problem is multifaceted. Everyone experienced this problem in a slightly different way. And people generally have identified the problem. And so I feel like I'm getting more out of these talks than I was when I was trying to do talks for people with simple file upload. Yeah. So there's that.
So we talked about how you didn't read a bunch of books and blog posts before starting to do this, but I'm betting that you read some too, like you have this, this founding customers concept, you're cold dM-ing people. I'm curious, where have you been getting these ideas from, what are you looking to to like help you learn how to sell?
Gosh, you're going to love this so much. So yeah, so, you know, uh, Ben and Derrick's podcast, the art of.
Yes.
On episode 205, but if you go back to episode 38, that's when Derek has starting levels and Ben is starting Tuple pull.
Oh.
So I am, lee it's like three years ago, it's like 2017 or something, or maybe more than that. I don't remember. So basically I've realized that. So I'm listening to the artist product podcast from episode 40 and it's right when Tuple is starting. And I got this founding customers concept, because Ben was talking about doing that in the very, before Tuple was a thing like before it was a thing, he was taking like a small group of founding customers. And I was like, dude, I should do that.
And that's interest.
yeah. So between that, and then, just trying to be like talking to when Corey was on Cory Haines was on software social. He was on a while ago, but we were joking about how, he, and I first met cause he called DMD me and how he does that all the time. And he was like, you just got to shoot your shot. And I was like, yeah, why am I not doing that? Like that seems silly. And then at rails conf I met, a new friend and his name is Joe and he has rails devs.
And he was talking about his sales strategy, which was to personalize, like cold outreach. And I was like, that makes total sense, like personalized cold outreach. Perfect sense. So that's kind of what I'm trying to do right now, as I contact more people. Like you clearly need this thing. I mean, you say it nicer than that. We have the thing we can make your lives better.
That's really interesting. So instead of reading about those, basically you are We know you're listening to other people that, you know, talk about doing this, or you are talking to them directly about it. And I wonder if that makes it feel more, doable because there's that sort of social proof element of like, if I know somebody who has done this and has done it successfully, then maybe I can do it too. Like, does that make
Yeah. It's and it's not so nebulous, right. When you read about like, you know, Paul Graham's blog or whoever, someone, you know, in a totally different stage of life, it's hard to relate that to yourself. You know what I mean?
Yeah, it doesn't feel quite as actionable because they have a different set of incentives and resources at play that you maybe don't have, but listening to art, a product, or, you know, Cory Haynes on and Chris on default alive, like, that could, you know, they're in somewhat similar situations and,
Yeah. And I have to say like Nathan's, Barry's tweet is my most favorited tweet. The one, um, I know I bring this up all the time, so stop me if I told you, but the one where he talks about how convert kit got stuck at 1500 MRR for like a year. And then he started doing direct sales and we all know where it is now. So, um, it's like this great tweet thread about how like, he was just totally stagnant.
And then he started changing the game by like, he would like literally fly places to meet with people, but how that just fundamentally shifted his whole business.
We'll have to link to that. Um, I think you, I think you have mentioned that.
sure I have, because I read it every day. Okay.
And, and like, I mean, who better to look to then someone who literally runs a company called convert kit about how other people can convert people to things, right. Like, Yeah, probably knows a little bit about what he's talking about. Uh, so episode 38 onwards of art, of broadcast, art of pop out of product podcasts. Just stop listening to us. Just go listen to that.
oh, it's really funny because it's like, they're talking about like their Twitter strategy. And again, I think, three or four years old. And I was like, oh, Derek's talking about his Twitter strategy. And I like was scrolling through his tweets to try and find it. And I'm like, oh no, I'm never going to find it. Cause it was like four years ago. Like I've no idea what he's talking about. But yeah, you know, I think things feel really good, Michelle, I think.
And also, my sister is, getting into some simple file upload stuff, which is really cool. And so it feels, it feels like a. A lot of excitement and promise and fun, you know, it's like I was reading this blog post or article, or I don't know the other day about, the arrival fallacy. And it's this concept that when you hit a certain thing, you're going to be.
Mm.
when I hit a million ARR, I will be happy when I buy this house, I will be happy. And it's this whole concept of like, it actually has this great interview linked of some famous basketball player who won a championship and was depressed afterwards. Cause he was like, but I'm still the same person. Like I thought everything would change, cause I've been striving for this goal, my whole life. And now I want a championship and I'm still the same person and nothing has really changed.
And, um, I was thinking about that a lot about how, yes, it feels like it will be so great when Aaron and I are on our feet alone supporting our families. But also you don't want to fall into that arrival fallacy. Like we'll still be the same people. And it's just so important to like, appreciate and enjoy this part of building the business. And I do so that's cool.
Yeah, I think it's important to, be enjoying it right now. And I mean, I know you, like, you've been working a lot, you've been working nights and weekends trying to be stuff out before lacrosse practice, which you knew used to not do. Like you used to have really good, strong boundaries around when you worked and you have purposely removed those boundaries and you're working a lot, but I feel like, I mean, I get the sense that you feel like it's worth it.
And that you're enjoying the journey to build it. And then, yeah, it's frustrating, but doesn't really feel, you know, like a slog and it's, not just the end goal as the great philosopher Miley Cyrus says, it's the climb.
Oh, my goodness. Wow. Uh you're right. I have removed those work-life boundaries that I used to have that you were so impressed with. Um, but it's working for us right now. So as long as it continues to work for us, we'll just keep on, keep on in.
So your goal is selling five licenses a month. Is that right? I keep getting this wrong.
No. I mean, you know, I think, I think this goes back to like, our goal is to keep, selling. Right. I can't necessarily control whether someone converts or not. So, you know, those kinds of metrics, I don't think are super valuable because you attach so much emotion to them, whereas it's like, so our goal is to be doing four to five calls a week right now.
Because that's something you can
Cause that's something we can control. And so, and also, you know, I think of all these people, like you, uh, I had Nadia who has story graph on, you know, Nathan Barry's tweet. They talked to customers for a long time until they got it just right. So I think there's, I distinctly remember Nadia saying, like she did like six months of intensive customer interviews. And so I think it's just important to remember that. The key. I think for us, the key to success is talking to our customers.
That's how we're going to move the needle. That's how we're going to change the game.
I think it's also not just talking to them, but also iterating as you go through that. Like, I saw like Matt wincing of someone who's also on this show last fall was saying how, you know, they've gone through three versions of their product, over the last, I don't know, like two or three, two or three years. Right? Like. Time, but they keep doing it and they, and I think keep doing it because you keep enjoying it.
You keep still being hungry for solving what people are trying to do and you keep iterating through it. It's not a time of sort of, you know, just researching, Right. You're researching, you're exploring you're tinkering. You're saying, okay. People are buying this. We've got some people buying this amount, but if we do this differently, like, okay, maybe we got a little bit more like, and you're selling as you go as well. You're not waiting sell it it feels perfect.
Exactly. And I think that's the key is we're selling as we go and we iterate on the product.
So next week then for you is four to five calls. It's actually, it sounds like you really enjoy it. Cause I think you said on the hammer stone podcast, that your goal is one a week and now the goal is four to five
Yeah. Now that you repeat that back to me, did it four to five a week is a lot, maybe.
Oh no, no, no, keep it keep it. You told me I had to be on 20 podcasts. I said I would be on like five and you were like 20 and I was like,
four to five? It
So now you have to have five next week. I'm sorry.
to say four to five a month.
Oh, well, you actually said four to five weeks. Sorry. It's been recorded. It's out there now. You can't take it back
I mean, right now we're at one a week. Maybe we
hashtag. Sorry, not sorry. You have to do five.
Jeez. Oh.
you enjoy it.
I do. I mean, honestly, the hardest part is freaking scheduling with time-zones and everyone
Well, I'm the one who complains about time zones. Like, what is it?
for you.
No, it does. It does suck though. Especially like, if you're trying to talk to people, I guess though, you're talking to people all over the world, right? Like Our customers are all us and Canada.
Yeah. We're all over the world right now, but no. No. Okay. I meant to say four to five a month, but maybe I can do more than one a week.
But you said four to five a week. and I feel like four to five a week. Is that. I mean, it sounds like you're, you're like hustling here. I feel like you're not, not to use that word that I know is complicated and loaded, but like you are, you are going at it.
I don't want to be a golden Retriever. I want to be a pit bull, Michelle.
Whew, I don't, I don't think you're, I don't think you're a pit bull.
Okay, can I be, uh, okay, let me iterate on that, but
Like a Greyhound, like, do you want to go fast or. Like maybe like a Greyhound golden retriever mix
No. You're I don't know. Ah, no, you're right. I'm hustling. Hustling is I believe the right word. Cause that's how I want to think about this is like I'm hustling on this. We're doing this.
Also pit bulls, I don't think they can run very fast. Don't they have the same like congestion issues that like other bulldogs have no there's like some dogs that are like born with nose issues and they can't breathe very well. And there's some dog owners out there who are probably telling me this, but like, they're not, they're known for being very strong, but not being very particularly fast.
Um, so I like this speaking of inspirational things, watch.
spirit animal. is
Um, yeah, we're changing the spirit animal. Yeah. So there's this YouTube video I love. And it's Michael, someone from Y Combinator talking about what makes a good founder and it's like four minutes. We'll add it in the show notes too. I love it. But I think he uses the term relentless. That's a good term.
Um, and resilient.
Yeah. Yeah. But that's like such an
like Yeah. but no, but I think resilience is important because you're sending all of these DMS and you said you're getting the dopamine hit from sending out the message. And you're not like scrolling through your Dems being like, they didn't reply to. me. They didn't reply to me. Like that's, that's resilience. Right. Or being like, I mean, it's normal to like, feel something when you don't get a reply back. Right. I think that's totally understandable.
And you don't have to like, tell yourself not to feel something, cause you care, about this product. you care about this product getting to be your full-time job. But yeah, just keep going. Be a relentless golden retriever. Just fetch that ball Coleen.
Yes, it's amazing. Okay. Huge. Thanks to all of our listeners, who've become software socialites and support our show. You can become a supporter for $10 a month or a hundred dollars a year at software social dot dev backslash supporters, Chris from chipper CI, the daringly handsome Kevin Griffin, and Mike from gently used domains, who has a nice personality.
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And that was amazing. People like keep supporting us, which is awesome. Well, I guess that's gonna, wrap us up for today. I am off to conferences next week? So I guess the next.
Yay.
I can tell you about how the workshop, and talks go. Um, and I look forward to hearing about your four to five, uh, sales calls per week.
Okay, bye. Bye.
Stop talking to me.
It's not making me do
Don't make me do more sales calls. Okay. Bye.