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[00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:01.920] You're listening to Startups for the Rest of Us.
[00:00:01.920 --> 00:00:03.440] I'm your host, Rob Walling.
[00:00:03.440 --> 00:00:09.360] In this episode, I talk once again with Kevin Wagstaff, the co-founder of Spectora.
[00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:20.320] And if you recall, he was on the show just a month or two ago talking about how he and his brother bootstrapped their SAS to a $90 million exit.
[00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:26.960] In that episode, I made a call for questions if you had any questions about how Kevin got where he's trying to go.
[00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:31.920] And I received an email filled with an entire episode's worth of questions.
[00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:34.080] Turned out to be a really great conversation.
[00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:35.600] I think you'll enjoy it.
[00:00:35.600 --> 00:00:51.920] Before I dive into my conversation with Kevin, if you ever wished that you had an outsider's advice from someone who's been in the trenches of trying to grow your SAS past 1 million, 2 million, 3 million ARR, then you should check out TinySeeds SAS Institute.
[00:00:51.920 --> 00:01:05.680] That's at sassinstitute.com, and it is our premium coaching and mastermind community where you're going to get all the advice, the camaraderie, the mastermind interactions, and one-on-one coaching that you want.
[00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:12.320] It's exclusively for founders doing 1 million ARR and up, and it's only SAS founders.
[00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:19.120] We're currently forming our next mastermind group, and we have one or two slots left.
[00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:32.480] We're still in the early stages of Institute, and so if you want to get in on the ground floor as a founding member while the community is still small and you'll get a ton of one-on-one attention, you should check out SASInstitute.com.
[00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:35.840] And with that, let's dive into my conversation with Kevin.
[00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:46.800] Kevin Wagstaff, thanks for coming back on the show.
[00:01:46.800 --> 00:01:47.760] Oh, of course, man.
[00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:49.120] You make it easy.
[00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:54.400] It is a pleasure to have you back for the second time in just a couple of months.
[00:01:54.400 --> 00:02:02.360] For those who don't know, your last episode was episode 776: How Bootstrapping Led to a Life-Changing $90 million SaaS exit.
[00:02:02.360 --> 00:02:08.040] And if the title was even longer, it would then say, and a subsequent exit at $110 million that he co-founded with his brother.
[00:02:08.040 --> 00:02:08.600] This whole thing.
[00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:12.280] Folks should go listen to that 45-minute conversation we had.
[00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:17.240] But in that episode, I asked for questions because your story was so compelling and there's so much more to it.
[00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:21.720] And we probably could have done three hours and still only touched on elements of it.
[00:02:21.720 --> 00:02:28.200] And so I asked folks, send an email, hit us up on X Twitter if you have questions for Kevin.
[00:02:28.200 --> 00:02:34.200] And we got this amazing email from Tom at garagetool.app.
[00:02:34.200 --> 00:02:37.160] And he gave us a full episode's worth of questions.
[00:02:37.160 --> 00:02:39.640] So that's what we're going to be diving into today.
[00:02:39.720 --> 00:02:41.640] Appreciate the specificity on him, too.
[00:02:41.640 --> 00:02:44.680] Like your listeners, I think, are so dialed on this stuff.
[00:02:44.920 --> 00:02:50.920] It makes the content easy when they ask such great, deep, bootstrappy SaaS questions.
[00:02:50.920 --> 00:02:52.040] That's what I liked about him, too.
[00:02:52.040 --> 00:02:56.920] You know, there's no question here of like, Kevin, what are your top three advices for nude?
[00:02:57.000 --> 00:02:57.560] You know what I mean?
[00:02:57.560 --> 00:02:59.960] Or what's your number one piece of advice for new entrepreneurs?
[00:02:59.960 --> 00:03:04.520] It's like, I mean, to keep going, persevere, work hard, you know.
[00:03:04.520 --> 00:03:06.360] But this is detailed.
[00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:09.160] And let's dive right into the first one.
[00:03:09.160 --> 00:03:12.280] The cool part too is several of these are multi-part questions.
[00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:14.840] So I think we're going to get in here pretty good.
[00:03:14.840 --> 00:03:22.120] So, first question: Kevin mentions that he approached Facebook groups to do some of his early marketing.
[00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:26.520] So, Kevin, did you have to offer anything in return for that?
[00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:29.240] And if so, what did you offer?
[00:03:29.560 --> 00:03:36.040] Initially, we did offer a discount on the software because we just no one knew who we were, brand new.
[00:03:36.040 --> 00:03:37.960] Got to get someone to join this group.
[00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:48.640] So, I believe we offered like a godfather-type grandfathered deal of like six months free and grandfathered price for life, the cardinal sin, you know.
[00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:55.280] But after we got 10 or 20 or 30, the main pitch was access to the founders.
[00:03:55.280 --> 00:04:03.040] So it's like, hey, if you have ever been with a software where you didn't like change or didn't like how little change was happening, guess what?
[00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:08.000] You can talk to me directly in this group and we'll dialogue back and forth and then follow through on that.
[00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:13.040] So really, it was like, you're going to hear directly from the people that make the decisions here.
[00:04:13.040 --> 00:04:20.720] And were you going into existing Facebook groups or did you start your own Facebook group and try to pull home inspectors into it?
[00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:21.680] Yes, both.
[00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:34.960] So like we spent so much time on there that it was like half the time we spent in our own group fostering those relationships and like creating rich content, asking good questions, being in so many threads to make our group good.
[00:04:34.960 --> 00:04:40.160] But then we would also go into other groups and answer questions half the day, basically.
[00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:44.720] Did you do both of those things, meaning your own group and posting in other groups?
[00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:47.600] Did you do both of those kind of from day one?
[00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:48.400] Yeah.
[00:04:48.400 --> 00:04:48.800] Yeah.
[00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:49.520] Yeah.
[00:04:49.520 --> 00:05:01.920] It was basically the first and last place every day for, I'd say for sure the first two years we visited, which was exhausting and taxing and don't recommend it for most people.
[00:05:03.520 --> 00:05:06.480] Do you want to be happy or do you want to spend that much time on Facebook?
[00:05:06.640 --> 00:05:12.960] Well, do you want to be happy in long term because you build an incredible business, but unhappy in the short term?
[00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:23.600] Dude, I tell you, I don't know if you listened to last week's episode, but I had my, I think it was like my 12 biggest mistakes that I made as an entrepreneur and my 10 best decisions or something like that.
[00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:27.040] Like why I succeeded in spite of those 12 mistakes is what I was trying to pull out.
[00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:37.960] One of them that I said was a boon for me was willing to just grind, like to grind and do stuff that I didn't want to do and kind of nobody wants to do.
[00:05:37.960 --> 00:05:42.680] And I was thinking of there are several founders that I think of who do this, like Jordan Galls, one and Ruben.
[00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:46.040] You know, there's these folks who come on the show that I know that I know they're grinding stuff.
[00:05:46.040 --> 00:05:51.720] But you were another person in my mind when I was writing that of like thinking about our conversation and specifically around Facebook groups.
[00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:54.120] Because it's like, do any of us want to do Facebook groups?
[00:05:54.120 --> 00:05:57.640] No, but you did it because why'd you do it?
[00:05:57.640 --> 00:05:59.880] That's where the customers were.
[00:05:59.880 --> 00:06:03.080] And I was getting good positive engagement and interaction.
[00:06:03.080 --> 00:06:10.360] And if I'm getting one to a hundred people in any given month closer to being a customer, it's like, I'm going to keep you talking to me.
[00:06:10.360 --> 00:06:12.200] I'm going to, I'm going to get you to like me.
[00:06:12.200 --> 00:06:14.040] And then you're going to want to do business with people you like.
[00:06:14.040 --> 00:06:16.040] So that was just like the mentality.
[00:06:16.040 --> 00:06:17.800] I kept asking questions and they kept responding.
[00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:19.640] So I'm like, cool, let's keep this going.
[00:06:19.640 --> 00:06:22.040] You did it because it worked well enough.
[00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:25.480] And it didn't really matter if you wanted to, because it worked well enough.
[00:06:25.480 --> 00:06:32.200] And you wanted to, you wanted to build a great business more than you wanted to be happy at the beginning and ending of every day.
[00:06:32.200 --> 00:06:34.280] Is that an accurate assessment?
[00:06:34.280 --> 00:06:34.760] Pretty much.
[00:06:34.760 --> 00:06:36.840] And I didn't really care about work-life balance.
[00:06:36.840 --> 00:06:45.400] I think like COVID and kind of the current culture and climate, I think people do believe, and some of them are right, where you can kind of have your cake and eat it too.
[00:06:45.400 --> 00:06:48.280] But like, it was all an all-out kind of burn the boats.
[00:06:48.280 --> 00:06:50.520] Like, I'm going to, we're going to do this for years.
[00:06:50.520 --> 00:07:00.600] And we're going to show up every day and show people that we're like ready to elbow our way in to be a competitor in this space, not we're going to show up, see if it works, you know, give it, you know, like that half committal.
[00:07:00.840 --> 00:07:02.040] That just wasn't the mentality.
[00:07:02.040 --> 00:07:09.080] And it's not right for everyone, but like we're, we had, we knew we had to go fully into this to show people that like we're trustworthy.
[00:07:09.080 --> 00:07:09.320] Yeah.
[00:07:09.320 --> 00:07:15.120] And as a reminder, you co-founded Spectora, your SaaS that you, you know, we were talking about with your brother.
[00:07:14.840 --> 00:07:16.880] So when you say we, that's what you're talking about.
[00:07:17.440 --> 00:07:24.720] Going off script here, because Tom didn't ask this question, but something you said brings something up for me, which is you said, you know, I didn't think about work-life balance.
[00:07:24.720 --> 00:07:29.440] So someone hearing this might think, A, that's not healthy.
[00:07:29.440 --> 00:07:31.520] How long can you do that?
[00:07:31.520 --> 00:07:34.640] They might also think, is that what it takes?
[00:07:34.640 --> 00:07:38.240] Is that what I need to do to be successful?
[00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:52.080] So for you, I mean, I'm curious about both of those questions, but it's like, for you, did you, because I've had times of no work-life balance, but my goal was, I only want to do that for X amount of months, or in terms of drip, it wound up being a few years, a few more years than I would have liked.
[00:07:52.080 --> 00:07:53.920] But again, in the end, it worked out, right?
[00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:55.200] So how did you think about that?
[00:07:55.200 --> 00:07:58.880] Were you just like, no work-life balance, and I'm just going to do it until it's done?
[00:07:58.880 --> 00:08:03.280] Or were you kind of like, eh, I can do this for a year or two before I really need to back off?
[00:08:03.280 --> 00:08:05.040] Yeah, I want to hear your experience on this too.
[00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:15.360] Cause yeah, ours was similar, whereas like we, we knew it'd be this undetermined amount of time from a few months to maybe a year or even two, ended up being longer than that.
[00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:19.600] And it'd be in like two, three years of kind of burning the candle at both ends.
[00:08:19.600 --> 00:08:22.000] But it was intoxicating seeing growth and results.
[00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:29.680] And so like anyone that's competitive or kind of a junkie in that way of seeing the numbers go up, we watch the freaking MRR chart every day.
[00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:34.880] And it's like, every, it's like, if you like video games, you know, we grew up playing video games every little boop, boop, boop.
[00:08:34.880 --> 00:08:38.160] And we were just like, okay, we're total addicts for this.
[00:08:38.160 --> 00:08:39.680] So let's just keep it going.
[00:08:39.680 --> 00:08:44.960] And yeah, we still, you know, on the weekends would play volleyball or work out, you know, once or twice a week.
[00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:52.320] You know, it's not like the sleeping under your desk kind of lore of you're literally like withering away.
[00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:53.840] And at times we felt like that.
[00:08:53.840 --> 00:09:00.760] But yeah, I don't want to overglamarize it either because, yeah, everyone always has the quick response of like, well, that's not good for your health and relationships.
[00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:01.880] Well, it's like, yeah, no shit.
[00:09:02.280 --> 00:09:10.360] Like, we wanted to do what most people wouldn't so we could get a result that most people don't get because like everyone wants work-life balance.
[00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:11.720] We all want to be happy all the time.
[00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:13.320] But like, that's why.
[00:09:13.560 --> 00:09:15.240] so few companies probably succeed.
[00:09:15.240 --> 00:09:16.760] And so it's like, I don't know.
[00:09:16.760 --> 00:09:24.840] I found the endurance from sports and me and you had our athlete talk of like doing hard things for a long time trains you mentally for that.
[00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:26.200] And I really felt equipped.
[00:09:26.200 --> 00:09:28.440] And there was times I was like, yeah, give me more.
[00:09:28.440 --> 00:09:29.640] Like I can go another hour.
[00:09:29.640 --> 00:09:31.240] And it was like 11 or 12 at night.
[00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:34.280] And so I think everyone can generate that within them.
[00:09:34.280 --> 00:09:37.240] I don't think you have to be special to be an effort guy.
[00:09:37.240 --> 00:09:38.120] I agree.
[00:09:38.120 --> 00:09:46.120] One thing that you said in there that really resonated with me is it wasn't just that you two were grinding hard, is that the MRR kept going up.
[00:09:46.120 --> 00:09:47.480] And that's the feedback loop.
[00:09:47.480 --> 00:09:54.120] Because if you had done what you were doing and there were no results and you'd plateaued at three grand or four grand, you know what I mean?
[00:09:54.120 --> 00:09:57.400] And you can only do that for honestly months.
[00:09:57.400 --> 00:10:03.240] I couldn't grind for a year with a plateau, like grind the way you're talking about, which I have, I have done periodically.
[00:10:03.240 --> 00:10:04.680] I try not to do it.
[00:10:04.680 --> 00:10:12.600] But if the feedback loop is that we're adding $1,000 a month to $3,000, $4,000 a month, then how do you not do that?
[00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:14.520] Yeah, even if it's top of funnel, right?
[00:10:14.520 --> 00:10:20.440] Or if it's like, hey, we're seeing incremental growth, 1%, hopefully that's all you need to see.
[00:10:20.440 --> 00:10:25.480] But everyone's bars are different for what keeps them fueled and going, what your TAM is and all that.
[00:10:25.480 --> 00:10:33.080] But yeah, to your point, was it hard those couple months where you're like, gosh, we got, we're keep pivoting, you know, things are plateauing.
[00:10:33.080 --> 00:10:34.120] Those are demoralized.
[00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:35.080] We had stints of that too.
[00:10:35.040 --> 00:10:37.960] Where, you know, it's like our chart doesn't show a lot of that.
[00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:43.480] But there were months when the interest rates stuck and it was like, oh, crap, this is more exhausting now.
[00:10:43.800 --> 00:10:46.000] That was my memory of my times of grinding.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:50.720] Where as long as the results came, I kind of forgot about how hard it was.
[00:10:50.880 --> 00:10:52.960] But it was the months where, yeah, we grew 200.
[00:10:52.960 --> 00:10:54.960] It was often December's and Aprils for something.
[00:10:54.960 --> 00:10:58.960] And for some reason, and April, I always assumed it was tax season for the U.S.
[00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:00.560] or whatever, and people were distracted.
[00:11:00.560 --> 00:11:03.200] And December was obviously because holidays.
[00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:09.680] And those months, if we, you know, you'd grow nothing or you'd go 300 MRR when I'm used to growing 5K MRR.
[00:11:09.680 --> 00:11:14.000] And I would just be like, oh my gosh, now I'm exhausted and burning out.
[00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:18.720] It was interesting how the burnout only hit me when it like there was no feedback loop.
[00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:27.920] Yeah, and maybe those are the months, if we were to do it again, where we do cut out an hour earlier and go work out hard or go, you know, make sure we're eating healthier and kind of managing that.
[00:11:27.920 --> 00:11:34.320] That's probably what I would do differently is know the seasonality of our business and take care of myself a little more.
[00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:35.680] Yeah, I agree.
[00:11:35.680 --> 00:11:43.920] And also, again, I know I say this a lot, but it's like every time that I was doing more work than I wanted to be, it was always like, this is a season.
[00:11:43.920 --> 00:11:44.880] This is not permanent.
[00:11:45.040 --> 00:11:48.320] I don't know if this season is a month or if it's five months or six months.
[00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:50.480] I never did it for a year straight like that.
[00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:57.760] I did feel stressed for a couple of years, but I didn't work more than 40 hours a week for more than a couple, two, three months at a time.
[00:11:57.760 --> 00:12:01.520] And it sounds like you guys were doing more than that.
[00:12:01.520 --> 00:12:08.800] Again, like, I don't want to undersell or under kind of characterize here that the point in time we felt this huge momentum shift.
[00:12:08.800 --> 00:12:11.120] And like you said, the feedback loop was there.
[00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:13.280] And so, like, I definitely am grateful for that.
[00:12:13.280 --> 00:12:16.640] And I know it's a lot easier when the scoreboard keeps going up.
[00:12:16.640 --> 00:12:17.840] But we wanted to capitalize on it.
[00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:18.720] We didn't want to take it for granted.
[00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:26.160] So, in a way, I thought we were being grateful for the opportunity given by saying, let's just quadruple down here every day.
[00:12:26.160 --> 00:12:28.080] Yep, go with what works.
[00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:40.440] And so, to get back to Tom's questions, still relating to Facebook groups, Tom asks, Were you worried about some of the admins of these Facebook groups being allied with some of your competitors?
[00:12:40.440 --> 00:12:48.840] The biggest Facebook group in our industry is allied with one of our competitors, and this competitor is actually building a pretty sizable audience.
[00:12:48.840 --> 00:12:50.440] Was that a risk for you?
[00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:51.800] Yeah, I was terrified of that.
[00:12:51.800 --> 00:12:52.520] I hated those.
[00:12:52.520 --> 00:12:54.600] Those guys were the hardest to like even.
[00:12:54.840 --> 00:13:02.760] It's like being the new kid on the playground, and you see all the cool kids hanging out, big groups of them, and you walk out there and they just point and laugh at you.
[00:13:02.760 --> 00:13:03.800] Like, that's how I felt.
[00:13:03.800 --> 00:13:05.320] My wife got so protective over me.
[00:13:05.320 --> 00:13:08.360] She thought she felt like I was just getting bullied online for like a whole year.
[00:13:08.440 --> 00:13:12.760] So, she would, she would, like, she'd be like, wanting to get on Facebook and curse these guys out.
[00:13:12.760 --> 00:13:15.080] And I'm like, sweetie, that won't be a good look for us.
[00:13:15.080 --> 00:13:16.120] So, I'll be okay.
[00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:17.320] I'm a grown man.
[00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:21.080] But I'm not going to lie, these other Facebook groups were really hard to get into.
[00:13:21.080 --> 00:13:27.800] And the ones affiliated with competitors, I had to really go in hat in hand and just say, Hey, I'm here for the good of the industry.
[00:13:27.800 --> 00:13:30.200] I don't care if you guys use Spectora.
[00:13:30.200 --> 00:13:32.600] I want to help you guys market your businesses better.
[00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:38.920] I want to help home inspectors save time and just repeat that mission, vision, values statement over and over.
[00:13:38.920 --> 00:13:44.680] And showing up, you have to do the work and show up every day and show them that, like, hey, I'm not here for a quick sales pitch.
[00:13:44.680 --> 00:13:53.400] And then I also showed vulnerability that always helps in life, I think, of like going in there and saying, Hey, look, I know we don't have the features of HomeGage because at the time we didn't.
[00:13:53.400 --> 00:13:55.240] I was like, Look, they're the big elephant in the room.
[00:13:55.240 --> 00:13:55.640] I get it.
[00:13:55.640 --> 00:13:57.160] Most of you use them and love them.
[00:13:57.160 --> 00:13:59.080] You'll never leave them, and that's fine.
[00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:02.920] But I'm here for people that maybe wants something different or change, and I'm here to help.
[00:14:02.920 --> 00:14:06.600] You know, and that whole like takes the edge off of, like, I'm here to help.
[00:14:06.600 --> 00:14:08.280] And then I became a part of the community.
[00:14:08.280 --> 00:14:13.400] And I had relationships and talked with guys on Facebook for five years before they did a trial.
[00:14:13.400 --> 00:14:21.520] I saw a trial pop up like three years ago, and I'm like, oh my God, I talked to that guy on Facebook eight years ago, and I never sold him once.
[00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:22.960] I just hung out.
[00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:24.720] I just kept hanging out on the playground.
[00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:25.920] That was kind of the play.
[00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:27.200] Can't say that was all intentional.
[00:14:27.200 --> 00:14:28.480] That's what ended up happening.
[00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:35.840] I can't say, you know, I didn't have a crystal ball, but there were guys I was just like, dude, you're going to bite my head off every time I say anything.
[00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:36.720] And that's cool.
[00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:37.440] I still love you.
[00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:38.480] Gonna deal with this.
[00:14:38.640 --> 00:14:39.520] Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:40.320] Yeah.
[00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:49.520] And so, lest people think your only marketing approach was Facebook groups, because that's what we've talked about for the first, you know, 10, 15 minutes of this show.
[00:14:49.520 --> 00:14:52.880] Let's bounce to SEO because Tom had a question about that.
[00:14:52.880 --> 00:14:59.680] And he said, I did some quick SEMrush research on home inspection software, and it seems like the search volume is pretty low.
[00:14:59.680 --> 00:15:02.080] So, what keywords did you concentrate on to do your SEO?
[00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:04.480] And how did you find those keywords?
[00:15:04.480 --> 00:15:05.520] It's a great question.
[00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:08.160] Good job, Tom, doing your homework on SEM Rush.
[00:15:08.240 --> 00:15:09.680] We've all used it and love it.
[00:15:09.680 --> 00:15:10.640] Yeah, small volume.
[00:15:10.640 --> 00:15:16.800] So it's a small industry, just like Imagine Garage app, you know, your wrap and sign addressable market is.
[00:15:16.800 --> 00:15:21.120] And so I said, we have to rank first for home inspection software.
[00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:24.080] That's the only game in town where you only had one or two keywords.
[00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:30.960] And so it was a big hill getting in the industry saying, oh my gosh, HomeGage and Home Inspector Pro rank first and second.
[00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:31.840] Everyone loves them.
[00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:33.200] Everyone goes there.
[00:15:33.200 --> 00:15:34.720] How are we ever going to supplant them?
[00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:40.400] Turns out just content every day for years can bust through that when your competitors aren't doing it.
[00:15:40.400 --> 00:15:44.560] So YouTube is owned by Google, second biggest search engine on the planet.
[00:15:44.560 --> 00:15:50.880] So keep in mind, good YouTube presence, I just believe has something to do with the main algorithm.
[00:15:50.880 --> 00:15:55.760] I don't have any proof of that, but I have to believe clicks and signals into YouTube help.
[00:15:55.760 --> 00:16:00.840] So I made YouTube webinars, videos, any blog article turned into a YouTube video.
[00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:03.880] Rob, you're no stranger to creating content, so you know this.
[00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:06.840] But then I looked at adjacent keywords.
[00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:10.200] So I think SCM Rush is great if you use the magic keyword tool.
[00:16:10.200 --> 00:16:15.240] It'll give you adjacent keywords and kind of the next bubble out from the main keyword.
[00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:23.880] And for me, it was if someone's looking for what association do I belong to if I want to be a home inspector, what tools do I need as a home inspector?
[00:16:23.880 --> 00:16:28.520] Hey, what are licensing requirements in Oregon for a home inspector?
[00:16:28.520 --> 00:16:35.080] So I literally spent hours writing a master article on the requirements of every state to become a home inspector.
[00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:38.200] And I got them from the state licensing websites.
[00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:40.600] Spent a whole day copying and pasting.
[00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:42.280] And then I created that master article.
[00:16:42.280 --> 00:16:46.200] That article ended up ranking first or second for home inspector requirements.
[00:16:46.200 --> 00:16:49.000] So then I was getting them when they were thinking about being a home inspector.
[00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:50.440] They were clicking on Spectora.
[00:16:50.440 --> 00:16:54.040] And I was like, you're going to see our name when you're just thinking about it.
[00:16:54.040 --> 00:16:58.760] So hopefully six months down the road, you're like, oh, yeah, for some reason, I want to use Spectora.
[00:16:58.760 --> 00:17:03.560] So every industry, I think, has bigger and bigger circles of keywords.
[00:17:03.560 --> 00:17:07.720] As you talk, it strikes me that you had short-term results.
[00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:13.560] And what I mean by short-term results is being in the Facebook groups, you had to, you were bootstrapped and two founders.
[00:17:13.560 --> 00:17:15.560] So you had to have some type of revenue coming in.
[00:17:15.560 --> 00:17:17.560] You couldn't just say, well, we'll have revenue in a year.
[00:17:17.560 --> 00:17:19.240] Let's have a free plan, you know?
[00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:26.680] So you needed some type of, hey, we need a couple hundred MRR or whatever it is, you know, a thousand MRR each month to kind of grow.
[00:17:26.680 --> 00:17:31.400] But everything you're saying is, but then it took a year or two or three to work.
[00:17:31.400 --> 00:17:35.880] And over time, that snowball, it like paid off for you.
[00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:43.240] Was that intentional, or is it a hindsight thing of like, well, it took longer than we thought, but we just kept grinding because we figured it would work.
[00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:44.920] Or at the start, were you like, this is going to take a while?
[00:17:45.840 --> 00:17:52.240] Yeah, so at the start, we were like, hey, it might take a year to get to the point where we can pay ourselves even a couple grand a month.
[00:17:52.240 --> 00:18:01.440] And so in our episode, I briefly mentioned it, but I offered kind of marketing agency type plans to customers for the first year.
[00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:08.640] So we were charging $300 to $500 a month for me to personally manage their SEO because that was my specialty and kind of my background.
[00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:24.000] So I had at any time between 10 and 20 home inspectors who would pay me $300 to $500 a month to write two blog articles a month to go to their website, optimize keywords, title tags, kind of the basics of SEO to signal to Google what your site's about.
[00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:29.680] And that floated us for the first six months a year where we had 10, 20K.
[00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:30.560] Let's see.
[00:18:30.560 --> 00:18:33.680] So it's like 500 a month, 10 to 20 customers.
[00:18:33.680 --> 00:18:39.200] So whatever that maths out to, a couple grand a month to at least cover our bills, float us a little bit.
[00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:42.720] And then I kind of phased those out and told them, hey, can't do this anymore.
[00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:46.080] Here's a good recommendation to kind of pick up your SEO, like a local agency.
[00:18:46.080 --> 00:18:50.960] I'd find them one to link up with as the software MRR started to ramp up.
[00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:53.440] So it was kind of like, hey, this is what I'm good at.
[00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:55.280] I can contribute in this way.
[00:18:55.280 --> 00:18:58.080] And then phased into the software piece.
[00:18:58.080 --> 00:19:01.120] And then we ended up hosting websites as part of our offerings.
[00:19:01.120 --> 00:19:03.600] So we have about 2,000 websites that we host now.
[00:19:03.600 --> 00:19:06.480] And it's a good, it's a great profit margin segment.
[00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:09.760] Tom's next question is about product market fit.
[00:19:09.760 --> 00:19:13.680] So he says, I ended up listening to some other interviews that Kevin took part in.
[00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:19.040] In one of the interviews, Kevin said, you know, we had product market fit when they had 10 customers.
[00:19:19.040 --> 00:19:27.200] Was this the metric that you used to decide you had product market fit, or was it something else and having 10 customers was just a side effect?
[00:19:27.520 --> 00:19:28.720] Keen observation.
[00:19:29.040 --> 00:19:33.720] Definitely not the number of customers, but more about solving the critical pain point.
[00:19:33.960 --> 00:19:39.560] Once I heard it from 10 customers and then they signed up because they believed we addressed that pain point.
[00:19:39.560 --> 00:19:43.560] So it was more like, hey, you want to save time on your inspections.
[00:19:43.560 --> 00:19:44.040] I get it.
[00:19:44.040 --> 00:19:46.360] Okay, what's the main choke point here?
[00:19:46.360 --> 00:19:47.560] Okay, it's in the app.
[00:19:47.560 --> 00:19:50.120] You're spending too much time in the app tapping around.
[00:19:50.120 --> 00:19:51.080] That pisses you off.
[00:19:51.080 --> 00:19:53.240] You want to spend more time with your family.
[00:19:53.240 --> 00:20:05.880] Once I felt like we were on the path to solving that and people started signing up, that felt like maybe pain point market fit or, you know, like product pain point fit, however you want to word it.
[00:20:05.880 --> 00:20:13.240] But I asked every one of them, if you had a magic wand and you could wave it and solve something about your software, what would it be?
[00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:15.160] A couple guys said, I think I found that with you.
[00:20:15.160 --> 00:20:17.240] I was like, okay, we're onto something here.
[00:20:17.240 --> 00:20:17.960] I took that.
[00:20:17.960 --> 00:20:20.200] That was our marketing headline from there on out.
[00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:26.600] Their words, not mine, where I'm like, you said you're spending, you could spend more time with your family if we save you an hour.
[00:20:26.600 --> 00:20:28.280] Oh, that's marketing gold.
[00:20:28.280 --> 00:20:29.720] I'm using that everywhere.
[00:20:29.720 --> 00:20:33.640] Who doesn't want more time, you know, to grow your business or to spend with your family?
[00:20:33.640 --> 00:20:39.000] I believe that phase you talked about is problem solution fit.
[00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:46.200] It's where you've identified a problem and the solution, it can be software, it can be anything, right?
[00:20:46.200 --> 00:20:52.920] It doesn't have to actually be code, but if you find that, then you can now say, all right, let's pile more on or let's write the code to do it.
[00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:58.280] Because sometimes it's kind of human automation or you're doing a productized service, for example, as the solution.
[00:20:58.280 --> 00:21:02.600] But it sounds like you already were there where the code was actually was nailing it.
[00:21:02.600 --> 00:21:08.840] Another marketing approach that worked really well for you was word of mouth.
[00:21:08.840 --> 00:21:18.560] And Tom asks, when doing word of mouth marketing, were you worried that you might upset your market and the criticism that would come when you started doing it?
[00:21:18.880 --> 00:21:24.720] Or were you just ready to roll up your sleeves and roll with the punches when you picked that marketing channel?
[00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:37.040] Tom will probably understand this well, but like we did not understand the constant criticism we would get in this industry basically from everything we did at any time.
[00:21:37.040 --> 00:21:38.000] Why is that?
[00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:40.800] Well, tell me more about that because I'm not sure I understand why.
[00:21:40.800 --> 00:21:41.520] You're going to laugh.
[00:21:41.520 --> 00:21:44.800] So home inspectors point out what's wrong for a living.
[00:21:44.800 --> 00:21:49.360] They go into a home and look for up to 300 things that are wrong with it.
[00:21:49.360 --> 00:21:50.160] Of course.
[00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:51.680] They don't point out what's right.
[00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:52.480] And so they...
[00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:53.120] Yeah.
[00:21:53.440 --> 00:22:05.120] So like every email, every decision, product we've made, there's been at least one person that tells us this is the worst decision of all time and we're going to crash and burn and we should have listened to them.
[00:22:05.120 --> 00:22:12.720] So you kind of get used to upsetting 10% or less of your user base or the broader market at any given time.
[00:22:12.720 --> 00:22:15.840] I don't know if that exists in other places and spaces.
[00:22:15.840 --> 00:22:18.160] I know B2C can be more forgiving.
[00:22:18.160 --> 00:22:22.880] B2C, when you serve software engineers or like QA people, because they're the same thing.
[00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:29.200] But software developers, the good ones who don't, you know, who QA their own code or whatever, they're super freaking detail and nitpicky.
[00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:31.680] I bet serving lawyers, right?
[00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:32.960] Because aren't they like detail?
[00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:33.600] So yeah, there's.
[00:22:33.760 --> 00:22:34.960] Doctors, lawyers.
[00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:36.320] Yeah, there's a few of these.
[00:22:36.320 --> 00:22:38.240] So anyways, yeah, keep going with that.
[00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:51.040] So yes, once we kind of started getting out there and just showing up kind of unapologetically, all kinds of criticism, all kinds of bullseye from people saying, your types come around every year.
[00:22:51.040 --> 00:22:52.160] You're not going to last.
[00:22:52.160 --> 00:22:53.360] Get out of this Facebook group.
[00:22:53.360 --> 00:22:54.640] You're a vendor.
[00:22:54.640 --> 00:22:57.840] Oh, you guys are just a cheap version of this, or you're an expensive version of this.
[00:22:57.840 --> 00:23:01.720] So, like, I think the mission was always connecting with people.
[00:23:02.040 --> 00:23:13.320] And each time we talked to a customer, they saw a little bit of who we were because we lost money on so many customers that we spent an hour or two with talking, just learning about them and their industry.
[00:23:13.320 --> 00:23:20.280] And shocker, a lot of customer, a lot of companies neglect their longtime customers that aren't profitable to them.
[00:23:20.280 --> 00:23:25.320] So, we talked to solo home inspectors that got no attention from their software.
[00:23:25.320 --> 00:23:27.880] They didn't talk to the founder of their company anymore.
[00:23:27.880 --> 00:23:30.440] We were like, hey, we got on calls, me and Mike.
[00:23:30.440 --> 00:23:33.000] So, I'm like, hey, you're on with the lead engineer and the lead marketer.
[00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:34.200] Like, tell us your problems.
[00:23:34.200 --> 00:23:35.240] Tell us what you want.
[00:23:35.240 --> 00:23:38.840] But yeah, that creates word of mouth when they're just like, hey, Kevin and Mike are the real deal.
[00:23:38.840 --> 00:23:39.800] They'll listen to you.
[00:23:39.800 --> 00:23:42.040] Oh, they're chiming in on this thread right now.
[00:23:42.040 --> 00:23:47.080] We answered so many freaking pointless threads, 100 deep, nested.
[00:23:47.080 --> 00:23:48.840] No one's going to see this.
[00:23:48.840 --> 00:23:50.040] Someone's always going to see it.
[00:23:50.040 --> 00:23:57.240] So like, that's, that's the nitty-gritty work where I'm like, that's the grinder in us that was like, that creates word of mouth.
[00:23:57.240 --> 00:24:09.560] And did you try to get to a certain churn rate or a level of confidence in Spectora before you went that route, before you started doing the real viral or word of mouth stuff?
[00:24:09.560 --> 00:24:18.280] No, we did that from the beginning just because we witnessed another founder in the space that just lived in the forums and threads.
[00:24:18.280 --> 00:24:22.520] So he was on like the main association forum and Facebook answering everyone.
[00:24:22.520 --> 00:24:23.560] He was everyone's friend.
[00:24:23.560 --> 00:24:24.840] Everyone knew him and respected him.
[00:24:24.840 --> 00:24:27.800] And we were like, okay, we're going to do that.
[00:24:27.800 --> 00:24:39.640] So in a way, we just were like, that clearly works and resonates to connect with people one-to-one on social media where they are, meeting them where they are, not trying to get them to do, to go onto TikTok or Facebook or somewhere else.
[00:24:39.640 --> 00:24:42.680] So we saw him doing that and we were like, that's the playbook.
[00:24:42.680 --> 00:24:44.040] Like, just go do that.
[00:24:44.040 --> 00:24:46.320] And churn was a slap in the face for our industry.
[00:24:46.320 --> 00:24:48.800] We did not know it'd be like 3% a month.
[00:24:44.840 --> 00:24:49.440] It was brutal.
[00:24:49.600 --> 00:25:00.720] So once we started to see that survival rate, we baked that into our numbers and said, hey, at any given point, like a quarter of our user base or a third of our user base could go down.
[00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:01.840] That's scary.
[00:25:01.840 --> 00:25:04.240] So we need to always be marketing and growing.
[00:25:04.240 --> 00:25:08.000] And that was kind of my side of the house was like, that's why I lived on Facebook.
[00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:12.400] So I'm like, I have to get every new inspector that comes in the industry or at least win share.
[00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:14.000] I got to get like half of them.
[00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:20.160] Is the churn high because they're kind of people who do it on the side or they're retirees and they just decide to stop doing it?
[00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:22.000] They decide to stop being a home inspector?
[00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:23.200] Is there some other reason?
[00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:24.160] Yeah, you're onto it.
[00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:32.800] It's like there's a seasonality, there's part-timers, and then there's about half the states in the U.S., it's not regulated at the state level.
[00:25:32.800 --> 00:25:35.520] So in Colorado, you could roll out of bed and be a home inspector.
[00:25:35.520 --> 00:25:40.320] So then you get guys that jump in, they do a couple, then they're like, I don't want to work hard to grow a business.
[00:25:40.320 --> 00:25:42.160] So I'll cancel.
[00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:48.400] So the cancellation and re-signup rate was, we couldn't make sense of our numbers for the first six years.
[00:25:48.400 --> 00:25:49.040] Yeah, totally.
[00:25:49.040 --> 00:25:49.680] That's hard, right?
[00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:53.120] It's like, well, how do I, they churned three months ago and now they're a new, but they're not new.
[00:25:53.280 --> 00:25:54.320] Yeah, out of you.
[00:25:54.320 --> 00:25:55.760] That's always clunky.
[00:25:55.760 --> 00:26:00.720] We've talked, I'm going off script because we've talked a lot about things that worked for you.
[00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:07.120] It seems like you generally had success with the stuff you tried, the Facebook groups, the word of mouth, the SEO.
[00:26:07.440 --> 00:26:15.840] Were there things that you and Mike spent time doing marketing-wise, I'm thinking, that just didn't work?
[00:26:15.840 --> 00:26:17.600] Were there approaches that didn't work?
[00:26:17.600 --> 00:26:20.320] And if so, how did you, this is if I get this question all the time.
[00:26:20.320 --> 00:26:21.440] How did you know they weren't working?
[00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:26.000] How long did you give them till you made the decision to stop doing them?
[00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:30.520] Paid ads never seemed to hit for us.
[00:26:29.840 --> 00:26:35.800] And it might have been the lack of expertise and sophistication with targeting and kind of like the full stack setup.
[00:26:35.880 --> 00:26:44.920] But like running campaigns out of Google and Facebook paid tended to result in tons of clicks, tons of wasted spend.
[00:26:44.920 --> 00:26:48.600] So it was kind of like we looked at that channel for a few months.
[00:26:48.600 --> 00:26:51.080] We gave like a, I think we did a three-month pilot.
[00:26:51.080 --> 00:26:56.920] And we were getting clicks from bad keywords because we didn't dial in the right negative keywords in Google Ads.
[00:26:56.920 --> 00:27:00.600] It was like we were getting car inspection guys and things like that.
[00:27:00.600 --> 00:27:07.960] But then even once we dialed it in, we felt it was a lot of like kind of people just clicking around late night, maybe not as serious.
[00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:16.920] And so we just kind of tracked that to conversion and said, man, we're batting like one for 40 here, one for 50.
[00:27:16.920 --> 00:27:19.560] Not to just, it doesn't justify the spend.
[00:27:19.560 --> 00:27:20.360] So we cut that.
[00:27:20.360 --> 00:27:30.840] That was always, that was never a good route, was paid acquisition because it seemed like a product where people would kick the tires on multiple softwares, not necessarily be ready to buy right away.
[00:27:30.840 --> 00:27:33.640] Like, I need an email marketing tool today.
[00:27:33.960 --> 00:27:34.440] Right.
[00:27:34.440 --> 00:27:41.080] And also, we talked about in the interview that your annual contract value just isn't that high.
[00:27:41.080 --> 00:27:45.080] Paid ads, especially Google, you need, you just need a lot of money.
[00:27:45.080 --> 00:27:51.640] And I believe yours was, it was like a, there's a thousand and then there's a two thousand and a three thousand ACV, depending on if you stack things or something.
[00:27:51.640 --> 00:27:55.400] But it like, that's, it's just not that much if you're going to try to buy AdWords.
[00:27:55.400 --> 00:28:02.120] Yeah, lifetime value's got to be up there in the tens of hundreds of thousands to really spend that.
[00:28:02.120 --> 00:28:05.080] And we knew we could go meet these same people at conferences.
[00:28:05.080 --> 00:28:06.440] And they're in the field working too.
[00:28:06.440 --> 00:28:10.760] So a lot of times our demographic was not online all the time.
[00:28:10.760 --> 00:28:12.440] And so it kind of made sense.
[00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:19.840] Affiliate marketing we also failed at where it was like working with some of the biggest associations and partners in the space.
[00:28:14.680 --> 00:28:21.280] It was like, here's our affiliate link.
[00:28:21.360 --> 00:28:23.840] We'll share 10 or 20 bucks with you.
[00:28:23.840 --> 00:28:32.320] It was kind of peanuts at the end of the day compared to just going to another conference, making relationships or writing, you know, making 10 more YouTube videos.
[00:28:32.320 --> 00:28:35.440] And to me, we just watched the numbers over months.
[00:28:35.440 --> 00:28:39.680] You know, and then we tried to boil everything down to math, which I think most, you know, most founders can appreciate.
[00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:41.680] It's like, what does the math say?
[00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:43.360] Last question from Tom.
[00:28:43.360 --> 00:28:47.600] You mentioned that the home inspection industry is really slow to catch up on technology.
[00:28:47.600 --> 00:28:51.120] Are you ever worried about someone being offended by hearing this?
[00:28:51.120 --> 00:28:57.520] I feel the same way about my industry, and sometimes I catch myself about to say it in a demo, but I stop myself.
[00:28:57.520 --> 00:29:01.600] I want to ask you after this, Rob, if you've said things that have offended people throughout your journeys.
[00:29:04.320 --> 00:29:16.080] I knew they'd probably be offended, but at the same time, I also knew if it was the truth and it was something I observed and was undeniably true, that it would be okay to say because many of them admitted that to me.
[00:29:16.080 --> 00:29:17.760] They'd be like, Kevin, I'm not a techie.
[00:29:17.760 --> 00:29:18.880] You know, I don't know this stuff.
[00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:20.080] I rely on you guys for that.
[00:29:20.080 --> 00:29:21.280] You guys are the nerds.
[00:29:21.280 --> 00:29:22.720] We're like, yeah, we'll be your nerds.
[00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:29.600] Like, we were just like, cool, we'll be, we kind of branded ourselves on, like, let us be your technology stack was kind of how we talked to them.
[00:29:29.600 --> 00:29:33.680] Of like, dude, you build garages, you inspect homes, you do whatever.
[00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:37.040] These trades guys, they want to outsource all that to us.
[00:29:37.040 --> 00:29:39.680] So like, let them and be upfront about it.
[00:29:39.680 --> 00:29:46.880] And yeah, the competitors probably did not like me out there saying that of like, hey, there's not a single good tech solution in the space.
[00:29:46.880 --> 00:29:48.560] I'm marketing my business, man.
[00:29:48.560 --> 00:29:51.360] Like they can go out and say their message.
[00:29:51.360 --> 00:29:56.080] But if we're getting our ass kicked by like a service Titan, I'd probably say that too.
[00:29:56.080 --> 00:29:58.160] I'd be like, man, service Titan does everything.
[00:29:58.160 --> 00:29:59.360] We're going to try and compete.
[00:29:59.360 --> 00:30:00.760] But they're crushing it.
[00:29:59.840 --> 00:30:06.040] And yeah, occasionally you put a little spin on things to help your company, but I was okay with that.
[00:29:59.840 --> 00:30:07.080] And I got slandered for it.
[00:30:08.360 --> 00:30:09.640] I took my licks.
[00:30:09.640 --> 00:30:19.560] Yeah, the thought of, well, specifically, I guess the phrasing that Tom used is, you mentioned that the home inspection industry is slow to catch up on technology.
[00:30:19.560 --> 00:30:21.880] To me, that's not an offensive statement.
[00:30:21.880 --> 00:30:23.560] That's an industry as a whole.
[00:30:23.560 --> 00:30:25.400] Like, I will hear, here I am on the podcast.
[00:30:25.400 --> 00:30:26.520] You want to hear me offend people?
[00:30:26.760 --> 00:30:31.480] The legal industry tends to be more laggards than not.
[00:30:31.480 --> 00:30:33.160] Certainly, any type of trade.
[00:30:33.160 --> 00:30:35.160] I mean, my dad was an electrician for 42 years.
[00:30:35.160 --> 00:30:37.400] I was an electrician on and off for years, you know.
[00:30:37.400 --> 00:30:39.720] And my brother runs an electrical contractor.
[00:30:39.720 --> 00:30:47.880] Like all of the trades, all construction, mechanics, they focus on what they do well, which is fixing with their hands and building things.
[00:30:47.880 --> 00:31:07.400] And do they really want, you know, and this, it's a generalization, but it's like if you look at a bell curve, maybe, or distribution across folks who are electricians versus folks who are web designers or something, you know, it's like how many of those folks really want to get into software and are interested in it and just have a high acumen for it and mess around on their computer on the weekends.
[00:31:07.400 --> 00:31:08.440] The numbers are different.
[00:31:08.440 --> 00:31:09.480] It just is, right?
[00:31:09.480 --> 00:31:12.200] So I don't think that's, it's not that you're saying one individual.
[00:31:12.200 --> 00:31:18.840] Now, it'd be offensive if I said, Kevin, you yourself are really not, you know, technically adept or whatever.
[00:31:18.840 --> 00:31:20.760] Unless you were like, yeah, no, I totally am not.
[00:31:20.760 --> 00:31:22.600] You know, and then it wouldn't be offensive.
[00:31:22.600 --> 00:31:24.200] But it's like, it's if it's true.
[00:31:24.200 --> 00:31:24.760] Yeah.
[00:31:25.080 --> 00:31:26.120] So I don't know.
[00:31:26.120 --> 00:31:32.360] I wouldn't be too concerned about this, especially if you're talking about an industry as a whole.
[00:31:32.360 --> 00:31:36.360] My guess is most people probably would agree with that.
[00:31:36.360 --> 00:31:44.680] I guess the thing though that you then touched on, which was almost a separate thing, was saying our solution is the best and there really isn't that much, really isn't any good tech here.
[00:31:44.680 --> 00:31:47.120] Now, that could be offensive to competitors.
[00:31:44.760 --> 00:31:53.040] And I, I mean, lightweight marketing automation that doesn't suck was the H1 of drip for years.
[00:31:53.040 --> 00:31:54.960] So, what does that imply?
[00:31:55.280 --> 00:32:01.920] That implies, and then yeah, and then I named because I wrote the whole copy for that long form landing page.
[00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:03.840] I named crap, who was it?
[00:32:03.840 --> 00:32:08.000] It was Infusionsoft, it was Marketo, it was part of by name on that page.
[00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:14.400] Now, I did not name MailChimp because I always thought they were good tech, and I did not name HubSpot because I thought they were good tech and I've always respected those founders.
[00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:16.960] But any of the other marketing automation I would throw under the bus.
[00:32:16.960 --> 00:32:18.080] Did I offend them?
[00:32:18.080 --> 00:32:18.640] I don't know.
[00:32:18.640 --> 00:32:19.600] Did they even pay attention?
[00:32:19.600 --> 00:32:22.960] Was I just too much of a gnat for them to even bother with?
[00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:23.600] Who knows?
[00:32:23.600 --> 00:32:26.160] Did somebody probably read it and say that guy's kind of a dick?
[00:32:26.160 --> 00:32:27.440] Maybe, you know, maybe happened.
[00:32:27.440 --> 00:32:28.960] But I believe, did I believe it?
[00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:33.760] Did I ever say anything on that homepage that I didn't like wholeheartedly agree?
[00:32:33.760 --> 00:32:37.600] I was so passionate that, like, why are you screwing your customers?
[00:32:37.600 --> 00:32:41.840] This pisses me off that your software sucks and you overcharge for it and you force them into annual contracts.
[00:32:41.840 --> 00:32:46.480] You don't let them see the software until they can touch it, you know, until they've paid you for the whole year.
[00:32:46.480 --> 00:32:49.200] So, anyways, yeah, you can tell I'm getting off on a rant here.
[00:32:49.600 --> 00:32:55.040] Yes, but you, you, you spoke what you knew to be true, and then you could back it up.
[00:32:55.040 --> 00:33:02.320] And like, as long as you're saying what you believe to be true, if someone calls you on it, if you just show up and say, like, am I wrong here?
[00:33:02.320 --> 00:33:03.280] Like, let's look at it together.
[00:33:03.280 --> 00:33:05.520] Like, I'm happy to be wrong, but like, does this suck?
[00:33:05.520 --> 00:33:06.720] Does Infusionsoft suck?
[00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:08.160] Like, is it hard to use?
[00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:10.320] Yeah, I don't think they're bad people.
[00:33:10.320 --> 00:33:12.640] Yeah, but I don't think the tool is good and I don't like their sales model.
[00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:13.360] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:33:13.360 --> 00:33:14.640] Yeah, depersonalize it.
[00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:20.560] And I just love that you like stood, you like stood kind of on what you knew to be true and you weren't afraid to say it.
[00:33:20.560 --> 00:33:32.120] And I think that's like, it takes a little bit of irrational confidence maybe before we were big boys, but you got to be okay taking that risk because it forces us to step up then, right?
[00:33:32.120 --> 00:33:34.200] Because then you were like, I better make sure drip doesn't suck.
[00:33:34.200 --> 00:33:35.080] I got to make sure.
[00:33:29.840 --> 00:33:35.960] That's the thing.
[00:33:36.440 --> 00:33:37.960] That's, I'm calling my shot.
[00:33:38.120 --> 00:33:40.920] I'm opening myself to attack now, right?
[00:33:40.920 --> 00:33:46.360] It better be amazing and it better without a doubt be better than these things I'm calling out by name.
[00:33:46.360 --> 00:33:47.640] Yeah, there's a certain amount.
[00:33:47.640 --> 00:33:49.880] And I don't, I'm not a conflict person.
[00:33:49.880 --> 00:33:50.680] I don't enjoy it.
[00:33:50.680 --> 00:33:51.400] I can do it.
[00:33:51.400 --> 00:33:54.200] Obviously, I have to sometimes, but it's not my wheelhouse.
[00:33:54.200 --> 00:33:55.800] You know, it's not like a strength of mine.
[00:33:55.800 --> 00:33:57.480] I know friends of mine who are really good at it.
[00:33:57.480 --> 00:34:00.680] They love debating, love getting into an argument, or even just conflict just ignites them.
[00:34:00.680 --> 00:34:02.520] Ha ha, I can be right about something.
[00:34:02.520 --> 00:34:05.000] Me, I'm always like, I don't really want to get in a fight.
[00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:06.520] That feels like a waste of time.
[00:34:06.520 --> 00:34:13.640] But I was always willing to risk that and to do it and defend myself and my company.
[00:34:13.640 --> 00:34:25.240] If I knew it was, if I knew I was right about it and I knew, much like saying lightweight marketing occupation that doesn't suck, it's not just marketing, but it truly was a stance that we were taking.
[00:34:25.240 --> 00:34:30.680] Like that's what Drip, when we came on the scene, we were like, all the other platforms are kind of mediocre, guys.
[00:34:30.680 --> 00:34:35.800] And our whole thing, our USP, our positioning, our whole positioning was based on that.
[00:34:35.800 --> 00:34:44.520] And so that's where I was willing to go to the mat for it because it was important to differentiate ourselves in this sea of competitors.
[00:34:44.520 --> 00:34:48.840] I love that you said that because for you guys watching and listening, I'm the same way.
[00:34:49.240 --> 00:34:52.680] It's not like we are just like cocky brash and we like came out that way.
[00:34:52.680 --> 00:34:57.400] I'm very conflict avoidant and was even more so at the beginning of this Spectora journey.
[00:34:57.400 --> 00:34:58.920] I grew up a people pleaser.
[00:34:58.920 --> 00:35:00.520] I was kind of that kid in my family.
[00:35:00.520 --> 00:35:02.120] And so like it hurt me.
[00:35:02.120 --> 00:35:08.840] It made my heart beat fast every time someone would trash me on social media and people would say things about the software and me personally.
[00:35:08.840 --> 00:35:10.680] And it always hurt every time.
[00:35:10.680 --> 00:35:18.080] And it made, there were times I quit going on Facebook for like five, 10 days at a time to regather myself and get my confidence again because I hated it.
[00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:19.120] I hated conflict.
[00:35:19.440 --> 00:35:23.520] But like, I also realized I had to find my voice the way you just said you did.
[00:35:23.520 --> 00:35:27.200] Of like, maybe not finding it, but like you spoke what you knew to be true.
[00:35:27.200 --> 00:35:34.640] My self-growth journey throughout Spectora was like, do your homework and then unapologetically say what you want without being a dick.
[00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:36.160] And that's possible.
[00:35:36.320 --> 00:35:37.040] You can do that.
[00:35:37.040 --> 00:35:39.680] And so I thought about my wording a lot.
[00:35:39.920 --> 00:35:44.080] I got reps on camera the way we've both done over the years on YouTube.
[00:35:44.080 --> 00:35:50.560] So it's like I got used to saying things in a certain way where I was like, hey, I'm not being here, but I just objectively think we are better.
[00:35:50.560 --> 00:35:51.920] And here's why.
[00:35:51.920 --> 00:35:53.120] But I'm happy to debate it.
[00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:54.640] Happy to talk about it.
[00:35:54.640 --> 00:35:58.160] Kevin Wagstaff, thanks for joining me on the show again, man.
[00:35:58.160 --> 00:35:59.200] It's great to have you.
[00:35:59.200 --> 00:36:00.160] This is so fun, man.
[00:36:00.160 --> 00:36:00.560] It's cool.
[00:36:00.800 --> 00:36:03.600] It's neat to be on the other side of the AirPods, huh?
[00:36:03.680 --> 00:36:04.960] Because you were a long-term listener.
[00:36:04.960 --> 00:36:08.160] And is it weird to be on the show now?
[00:36:08.160 --> 00:36:09.840] Did you listen back to your first episode?
[00:36:09.840 --> 00:36:10.320] Not yet.
[00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:13.280] I'm scared to, but I was around listening.
[00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:20.640] I remember I went back and listened to like the first, yeah, I went back and listened from one, I think, years ago when I first started listening.
[00:36:20.640 --> 00:36:31.520] First episode, so I've been an OG for a while, but I get energy out of just like talking about in retrospect now to like our past selves, if that makes sense, of like us 10 years ago.
[00:36:31.520 --> 00:36:33.040] It's so fun and humbling.
[00:36:33.040 --> 00:36:39.120] And I just want people to all kind of crack their industries and win because it's such a fun journey.
[00:36:39.120 --> 00:36:40.480] Well, it's great having you on the show, man.
[00:36:40.480 --> 00:36:44.880] If folks want to keep up with you on X Twitter, you're Kevin Wagstaff3.
[00:36:44.880 --> 00:36:47.840] That's the number, Kevin Wagstaff, and the number three.
[00:36:47.840 --> 00:36:49.440] And I think that's it, right?
[00:36:49.440 --> 00:36:50.240] You're not on LinkedIn.
[00:36:50.400 --> 00:36:53.440] You don't do, you don't have like a main website you want to send people to?
[00:36:53.440 --> 00:36:54.560] Nope, just there.
[00:36:54.560 --> 00:36:59.360] And then if people have more questions, they can find us, you know, where they found us for this one.
[00:36:59.360 --> 00:37:00.680] Find us on the Twitters.
[00:37:00.680 --> 00:37:01.320] Awesome, man.
[00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:02.440] Thanks again for joining me.
[00:37:02.440 --> 00:37:02.920] Awesome.
[00:37:02.920 --> 00:37:04.120] Thanks, brother.
[00:36:59.600 --> 00:37:07.480] Thanks again to Kevin for coming back on the show so soon.
[00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:09.000] I really enjoyed our conversation.
[00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:10.120] I hope you did as well.
[00:37:10.120 --> 00:37:12.360] And if you keep listening, I'll keep recording.
[00:37:12.360 --> 00:37:16.520] This is Rob Walling signing off from episode 786.
[00:37:50.200 --> 00:37:51.960] You found the hidden track.
[00:37:51.960 --> 00:38:01.720] Kevin and I are going to talk a little bit about his experience as an athlete, a college athlete, and then you played pro ball.
[00:38:01.720 --> 00:38:13.080] Tell us a little about your experience, but the reason I want to get into it is I was also a high school and college athlete, and it had a huge impact on my ability to be an entrepreneur and succeed at it.
[00:38:13.080 --> 00:38:16.040] And so I want to hear a little bit about your experience around that too.
[00:38:16.040 --> 00:38:17.640] Yeah, I'm such a believer in it.
[00:38:17.640 --> 00:38:22.120] I mean, it doesn't just have to be athletics, but we're going to, that's what we share in common and what we've drawn from.
[00:38:22.120 --> 00:38:32.760] But it was just something I was so solely focused on basketball from age eight, basically to 28 to basically when we started Spectora, it was something I lived, breathed.
[00:38:32.760 --> 00:38:34.920] I always was a repetition person.
[00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:36.120] I wanted to be really good.
[00:38:36.120 --> 00:38:39.080] And my parents just said, hey, if you want to be really good, practice.
[00:38:39.080 --> 00:38:45.000] And then somewhere along the way, I got really inspired and motivated to hone the craft and spend time at it.
[00:38:45.040 --> 00:38:56.720] And so, when you spend so many thankless mornings and nights lifting with the team, working out, shooting, staying after practice, you just kind of get used to refining something until it's good and sticking with it.
[00:38:56.720 --> 00:39:06.000] And I read a very pivotal, I'll get into this in a second, but played college basketball and then had a chance to play on a semi-pro team in the Philippines afterwards.
[00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:14.080] Did that for a very short stint, came back home because I had a young daughter and realized I'd make more money with my brain than playing basketball.
[00:39:14.080 --> 00:39:33.520] So said goodbye to that dream, had to disassociate from the athlete in me and was kind of had a few years of being lost in a way of like that athlete identity until I came across a Mark Cuban blog post that talked about business being his new sport because he liked basketball and he only played in high school.
[00:39:33.520 --> 00:39:42.560] But he said business is 24/7 and the way he talked about it, I was like, oh my God, I could channel the sports mentality into business and get rich doing it.
[00:39:42.560 --> 00:39:44.080] This sounds incredible.
[00:39:44.080 --> 00:39:53.200] So then it was more just finding the what and kind of had to, you know, bide my time until we found the thing that I could really be a psycho about the way I was a psycho about basketball.
[00:39:53.200 --> 00:39:54.000] Yeah, obsessive.
[00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:54.160] Yeah.
[00:39:54.400 --> 00:39:54.800] Obsessive.
[00:39:54.800 --> 00:39:55.200] Yeah.
[00:39:55.200 --> 00:39:55.680] What about you?
[00:39:55.920 --> 00:40:02.400] When you, what, well, when you say the sports mentality, I'm going to tell you how that, what that translates to me, and you can tell me if you feel the same way.
[00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:04.480] To me, academics were always easy.
[00:40:04.480 --> 00:40:08.320] I read from the time I was like three years old, doing math in my head, whatever.
[00:40:08.320 --> 00:40:09.600] All that stuff kind of came easy.
[00:40:09.600 --> 00:40:11.360] Sports were really hard for me.
[00:40:11.360 --> 00:40:14.160] I'm not like physically, naturally gifted.
[00:40:14.160 --> 00:40:16.960] And so I was slower than the other kids.
[00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:18.720] I was skinnier.
[00:40:18.720 --> 00:40:19.680] I was weaker.
[00:40:19.680 --> 00:40:22.240] I couldn't push as many weights as anybody.
[00:40:22.240 --> 00:40:24.320] And I played football and ran track and all this.
[00:40:24.320 --> 00:40:36.600] The big thing with sports for me is I would work day in, day out with basically no positive feedback loop for weeks and then months.
[00:40:36.920 --> 00:40:41.160] And then I'd have that first meet if I was running track.
[00:40:41.160 --> 00:40:44.600] And I'd get the first feedback loop of, ooh, I'm doing okay or I'm not.
[00:40:44.920 --> 00:40:48.680] And then the next week, then I'd have another feedback loop of, oh, I'm doing better.
[00:40:48.680 --> 00:40:53.080] And whether it was just pure time-based or whether it was placing, you know, in the races.
[00:40:53.080 --> 00:41:00.520] But the thing there is this ability to have delayed gratification and to work towards a goal that is months and months out.
[00:41:00.520 --> 00:41:08.440] Now, I never thought, you know, I mean, I ran track from the time I was, what, 14 until I was 23, right, through college.
[00:41:08.440 --> 00:41:12.920] So I wasn't old enough to, I never thought in terms of years, ooh, in three, four years, I'm going to be better.
[00:41:12.920 --> 00:41:17.320] I just didn't think that far out, but I definitely thought out, ooh, in six months, I'm going to be faster.
[00:41:17.320 --> 00:41:19.000] In nine months, I'm going to be faster.
[00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:21.080] And I didn't play instruments growing up.
[00:41:21.080 --> 00:41:27.160] I didn't do anything else in my life, I think, that had such delayed gratification till I became a founder.
[00:41:27.160 --> 00:41:33.000] Till I became a, well, at first, it was a blogger where it's like, oh, I got to build an audience over a year or five or 15, right?
[00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:33.720] Podcaster.
[00:41:33.720 --> 00:41:35.800] But being an entrepreneur was where it hit me.
[00:41:35.800 --> 00:41:46.600] So that's when you say sports mentality, to me, it's like, no, I'm going to put in the reps, even though I kind of have nothing to show for it for an extended period of time.
[00:41:46.600 --> 00:41:48.120] Does that resonate with you?
[00:41:48.120 --> 00:41:49.080] 100%.
[00:41:49.080 --> 00:41:56.200] And to build on that, some of those reps, I imagine you pushed your body to a point of near failure and exhaustion, right?
[00:41:56.200 --> 00:41:57.000] To be great.
[00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:00.280] Yeah, I used to throw up every week or two in the early parts of the season.
[00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:00.840] Yeah.
[00:42:00.840 --> 00:42:04.920] So you, you once you push your body in a way, that's physical pain.
[00:42:04.920 --> 00:42:05.720] You feel it.
[00:42:06.040 --> 00:42:12.280] Whereas like emotional pain is different and it's like sometimes harder, sometimes not as hard as physical pain.
[00:42:12.280 --> 00:42:19.760] And so, that's why by like even working out, working out, pushing your body, once it's like pushing your mind, then you're like, oh, I got, I could do this.
[00:42:14.920 --> 00:42:20.960] I got energy left in the tank.
[00:42:21.040 --> 00:42:23.120] I got renewable energy here.
[00:42:23.440 --> 00:42:24.880] I can keep going.
[00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:32.640] You find levels within yourself to just say, like, oh no, no, I can push harder and not let it ruin my day or impact me because you've done it physically.
[00:42:32.640 --> 00:42:36.160] So, like, part of it was, oh, we've pushed ourselves way harder.
[00:42:36.160 --> 00:42:37.280] We got this.
[00:42:37.280 --> 00:42:39.200] Yeah, that was something I thought of often.
[00:42:39.200 --> 00:42:46.480] The other place where I think this holds up is learning an instrument over the course of many years, which I am not acting.
[00:42:46.480 --> 00:42:48.320] I play the guitar, but I'm not that good at it.
[00:42:48.320 --> 00:42:49.600] And I've always, I'm self-taught.
[00:42:49.600 --> 00:42:51.760] So, I never did the hardcore practice.
[00:42:51.760 --> 00:42:56.800] But my kids, when they were younger, Sherry and I said, You will do something hard every day.
[00:42:56.800 --> 00:43:02.240] You will either do a martial art, you will play an instrument, or you will play a sport.
[00:43:02.240 --> 00:43:04.720] And you will do that six days a week.
[00:43:04.720 --> 00:43:08.160] And I mean, that's pretty, it's pretty brutal, but we're just like, no, no, no, no.
[00:43:08.320 --> 00:43:17.600] And it's not because I want you to be a concert cellist and violin, which is what they play, or that I want you to be a black belt martial artist, or that I want you to be a track athlete.
[00:43:17.600 --> 00:43:25.760] It's that I want you to know what it's like to build something over time and to do hard you don't want to do to have a payoff years from now.
[00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:28.800] Man, life lessons in a world that just keeps moving quicker.
[00:43:28.800 --> 00:43:30.800] They are going to be well equipped.
[00:43:30.800 --> 00:43:33.280] What would you say, Rob, to someone who didn't play sports?
[00:43:33.280 --> 00:43:36.000] Because I'm always curious when I'm like, man, it's so natural to us.
[00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:39.280] Like, what would you say to someone who had other things?
[00:43:39.280 --> 00:43:40.080] Well, and that's the thing.
[00:43:40.080 --> 00:43:47.040] There's a bunch of tiny seed founders who, a bunch of founders I know who are super successful that I don't think played any, played sports as a kid.
[00:43:47.040 --> 00:43:50.800] You know, anybody that I've had on the show, like, I don't think most of them did.
[00:43:50.800 --> 00:43:54.400] And so I think there are other ways to do this.
[00:43:54.400 --> 00:43:58.640] I don't think you and I should frame this as, oh, this is how you're successful is if you played sports.
[00:43:58.640 --> 00:43:59.880] I don't think that's it either.
[00:43:59.880 --> 00:44:01.560] I think each of us has our motive.
[00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:03.560] One, you need some motivation.
[00:43:59.520 --> 00:44:04.680] I think there has to be a goal.
[00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:09.800] Like my goal was to make enough money that I had some type of freedom and I wasn't worried constantly about money.
[00:44:09.800 --> 00:44:11.160] And then, hey, I can quit the day job.
[00:44:11.160 --> 00:44:12.680] And then, hey, I don't have to work again, right?
[00:44:12.680 --> 00:44:14.440] That was a strong goal.
[00:44:14.440 --> 00:44:15.800] So that's kind of the first thing.
[00:44:15.800 --> 00:44:19.960] But the second thing is, I think you need some type of intrinsic motivation.
[00:44:19.960 --> 00:44:22.280] And I think if you played sports, you know what that is.
[00:44:22.280 --> 00:44:26.120] But I think some people are also just intrinsically motivated to do stuff.
[00:44:26.120 --> 00:44:28.920] And I don't know if that comes from upbringing.
[00:44:28.920 --> 00:44:35.880] Like there are some folks I know who kind of had to get a job from the time they were like 12 or were like working from the time they were 10.
[00:44:35.880 --> 00:44:38.680] And to them, work was just a part of life.
[00:44:38.680 --> 00:44:40.600] Doing work that you didn't want to do was just it.
[00:44:40.600 --> 00:44:42.760] So I think that could easily be it.
[00:44:42.760 --> 00:44:44.920] So I think there are many paths.
[00:44:44.920 --> 00:44:51.080] I just think sports is perhaps an easy, it's really easy to see the comparison, you know, in the through line.
[00:44:51.080 --> 00:44:51.320] Yeah.

Prompt 2: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 3: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 4: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Full Transcript

[00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:01.920] You're listening to Startups for the Rest of Us.
[00:00:01.920 --> 00:00:03.440] I'm your host, Rob Walling.
[00:00:03.440 --> 00:00:09.360] In this episode, I talk once again with Kevin Wagstaff, the co-founder of Spectora.
[00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:20.320] And if you recall, he was on the show just a month or two ago talking about how he and his brother bootstrapped their SAS to a $90 million exit.
[00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:26.960] In that episode, I made a call for questions if you had any questions about how Kevin got where he's trying to go.
[00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:31.920] And I received an email filled with an entire episode's worth of questions.
[00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:34.080] Turned out to be a really great conversation.
[00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:35.600] I think you'll enjoy it.
[00:00:35.600 --> 00:00:51.920] Before I dive into my conversation with Kevin, if you ever wished that you had an outsider's advice from someone who's been in the trenches of trying to grow your SAS past 1 million, 2 million, 3 million ARR, then you should check out TinySeeds SAS Institute.
[00:00:51.920 --> 00:01:05.680] That's at sassinstitute.com, and it is our premium coaching and mastermind community where you're going to get all the advice, the camaraderie, the mastermind interactions, and one-on-one coaching that you want.
[00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:12.320] It's exclusively for founders doing 1 million ARR and up, and it's only SAS founders.
[00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:19.120] We're currently forming our next mastermind group, and we have one or two slots left.
[00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:32.480] We're still in the early stages of Institute, and so if you want to get in on the ground floor as a founding member while the community is still small and you'll get a ton of one-on-one attention, you should check out SASInstitute.com.
[00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:35.840] And with that, let's dive into my conversation with Kevin.
[00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:46.800] Kevin Wagstaff, thanks for coming back on the show.
[00:01:46.800 --> 00:01:47.760] Oh, of course, man.
[00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:49.120] You make it easy.
[00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:54.400] It is a pleasure to have you back for the second time in just a couple of months.
[00:01:54.400 --> 00:02:02.360] For those who don't know, your last episode was episode 776: How Bootstrapping Led to a Life-Changing $90 million SaaS exit.
[00:02:02.360 --> 00:02:08.040] And if the title was even longer, it would then say, and a subsequent exit at $110 million that he co-founded with his brother.
[00:02:08.040 --> 00:02:08.600] This whole thing.
[00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:12.280] Folks should go listen to that 45-minute conversation we had.
[00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:17.240] But in that episode, I asked for questions because your story was so compelling and there's so much more to it.
[00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:21.720] And we probably could have done three hours and still only touched on elements of it.
[00:02:21.720 --> 00:02:28.200] And so I asked folks, send an email, hit us up on X Twitter if you have questions for Kevin.
[00:02:28.200 --> 00:02:34.200] And we got this amazing email from Tom at garagetool.app.
[00:02:34.200 --> 00:02:37.160] And he gave us a full episode's worth of questions.
[00:02:37.160 --> 00:02:39.640] So that's what we're going to be diving into today.
[00:02:39.720 --> 00:02:41.640] Appreciate the specificity on him, too.
[00:02:41.640 --> 00:02:44.680] Like your listeners, I think, are so dialed on this stuff.
[00:02:44.920 --> 00:02:50.920] It makes the content easy when they ask such great, deep, bootstrappy SaaS questions.
[00:02:50.920 --> 00:02:52.040] That's what I liked about him, too.
[00:02:52.040 --> 00:02:56.920] You know, there's no question here of like, Kevin, what are your top three advices for nude?
[00:02:57.000 --> 00:02:57.560] You know what I mean?
[00:02:57.560 --> 00:02:59.960] Or what's your number one piece of advice for new entrepreneurs?
[00:02:59.960 --> 00:03:04.520] It's like, I mean, to keep going, persevere, work hard, you know.
[00:03:04.520 --> 00:03:06.360] But this is detailed.
[00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:09.160] And let's dive right into the first one.
[00:03:09.160 --> 00:03:12.280] The cool part too is several of these are multi-part questions.
[00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:14.840] So I think we're going to get in here pretty good.
[00:03:14.840 --> 00:03:22.120] So, first question: Kevin mentions that he approached Facebook groups to do some of his early marketing.
[00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:26.520] So, Kevin, did you have to offer anything in return for that?
[00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:29.240] And if so, what did you offer?
[00:03:29.560 --> 00:03:36.040] Initially, we did offer a discount on the software because we just no one knew who we were, brand new.
[00:03:36.040 --> 00:03:37.960] Got to get someone to join this group.
[00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:48.640] So, I believe we offered like a godfather-type grandfathered deal of like six months free and grandfathered price for life, the cardinal sin, you know.
[00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:55.280] But after we got 10 or 20 or 30, the main pitch was access to the founders.
[00:03:55.280 --> 00:04:03.040] So it's like, hey, if you have ever been with a software where you didn't like change or didn't like how little change was happening, guess what?
[00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:08.000] You can talk to me directly in this group and we'll dialogue back and forth and then follow through on that.
[00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:13.040] So really, it was like, you're going to hear directly from the people that make the decisions here.
[00:04:13.040 --> 00:04:20.720] And were you going into existing Facebook groups or did you start your own Facebook group and try to pull home inspectors into it?
[00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:21.680] Yes, both.
[00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:34.960] So like we spent so much time on there that it was like half the time we spent in our own group fostering those relationships and like creating rich content, asking good questions, being in so many threads to make our group good.
[00:04:34.960 --> 00:04:40.160] But then we would also go into other groups and answer questions half the day, basically.
[00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:44.720] Did you do both of those things, meaning your own group and posting in other groups?
[00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:47.600] Did you do both of those kind of from day one?
[00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:48.400] Yeah.
[00:04:48.400 --> 00:04:48.800] Yeah.
[00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:49.520] Yeah.
[00:04:49.520 --> 00:05:01.920] It was basically the first and last place every day for, I'd say for sure the first two years we visited, which was exhausting and taxing and don't recommend it for most people.
[00:05:03.520 --> 00:05:06.480] Do you want to be happy or do you want to spend that much time on Facebook?
[00:05:06.640 --> 00:05:12.960] Well, do you want to be happy in long term because you build an incredible business, but unhappy in the short term?
[00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:23.600] Dude, I tell you, I don't know if you listened to last week's episode, but I had my, I think it was like my 12 biggest mistakes that I made as an entrepreneur and my 10 best decisions or something like that.
[00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:27.040] Like why I succeeded in spite of those 12 mistakes is what I was trying to pull out.
[00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:37.960] One of them that I said was a boon for me was willing to just grind, like to grind and do stuff that I didn't want to do and kind of nobody wants to do.
[00:05:37.960 --> 00:05:42.680] And I was thinking of there are several founders that I think of who do this, like Jordan Galls, one and Ruben.
[00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:46.040] You know, there's these folks who come on the show that I know that I know they're grinding stuff.
[00:05:46.040 --> 00:05:51.720] But you were another person in my mind when I was writing that of like thinking about our conversation and specifically around Facebook groups.
[00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:54.120] Because it's like, do any of us want to do Facebook groups?
[00:05:54.120 --> 00:05:57.640] No, but you did it because why'd you do it?
[00:05:57.640 --> 00:05:59.880] That's where the customers were.
[00:05:59.880 --> 00:06:03.080] And I was getting good positive engagement and interaction.
[00:06:03.080 --> 00:06:10.360] And if I'm getting one to a hundred people in any given month closer to being a customer, it's like, I'm going to keep you talking to me.
[00:06:10.360 --> 00:06:12.200] I'm going to, I'm going to get you to like me.
[00:06:12.200 --> 00:06:14.040] And then you're going to want to do business with people you like.
[00:06:14.040 --> 00:06:16.040] So that was just like the mentality.
[00:06:16.040 --> 00:06:17.800] I kept asking questions and they kept responding.
[00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:19.640] So I'm like, cool, let's keep this going.
[00:06:19.640 --> 00:06:22.040] You did it because it worked well enough.
[00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:25.480] And it didn't really matter if you wanted to, because it worked well enough.
[00:06:25.480 --> 00:06:32.200] And you wanted to, you wanted to build a great business more than you wanted to be happy at the beginning and ending of every day.
[00:06:32.200 --> 00:06:34.280] Is that an accurate assessment?
[00:06:34.280 --> 00:06:34.760] Pretty much.
[00:06:34.760 --> 00:06:36.840] And I didn't really care about work-life balance.
[00:06:36.840 --> 00:06:45.400] I think like COVID and kind of the current culture and climate, I think people do believe, and some of them are right, where you can kind of have your cake and eat it too.
[00:06:45.400 --> 00:06:48.280] But like, it was all an all-out kind of burn the boats.
[00:06:48.280 --> 00:06:50.520] Like, I'm going to, we're going to do this for years.
[00:06:50.520 --> 00:07:00.600] And we're going to show up every day and show people that we're like ready to elbow our way in to be a competitor in this space, not we're going to show up, see if it works, you know, give it, you know, like that half committal.
[00:07:00.840 --> 00:07:02.040] That just wasn't the mentality.
[00:07:02.040 --> 00:07:09.080] And it's not right for everyone, but like we're, we had, we knew we had to go fully into this to show people that like we're trustworthy.
[00:07:09.080 --> 00:07:09.320] Yeah.
[00:07:09.320 --> 00:07:15.120] And as a reminder, you co-founded Spectora, your SaaS that you, you know, we were talking about with your brother.
[00:07:14.840 --> 00:07:16.880] So when you say we, that's what you're talking about.
[00:07:17.440 --> 00:07:24.720] Going off script here, because Tom didn't ask this question, but something you said brings something up for me, which is you said, you know, I didn't think about work-life balance.
[00:07:24.720 --> 00:07:29.440] So someone hearing this might think, A, that's not healthy.
[00:07:29.440 --> 00:07:31.520] How long can you do that?
[00:07:31.520 --> 00:07:34.640] They might also think, is that what it takes?
[00:07:34.640 --> 00:07:38.240] Is that what I need to do to be successful?
[00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:52.080] So for you, I mean, I'm curious about both of those questions, but it's like, for you, did you, because I've had times of no work-life balance, but my goal was, I only want to do that for X amount of months, or in terms of drip, it wound up being a few years, a few more years than I would have liked.
[00:07:52.080 --> 00:07:53.920] But again, in the end, it worked out, right?
[00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:55.200] So how did you think about that?
[00:07:55.200 --> 00:07:58.880] Were you just like, no work-life balance, and I'm just going to do it until it's done?
[00:07:58.880 --> 00:08:03.280] Or were you kind of like, eh, I can do this for a year or two before I really need to back off?
[00:08:03.280 --> 00:08:05.040] Yeah, I want to hear your experience on this too.
[00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:15.360] Cause yeah, ours was similar, whereas like we, we knew it'd be this undetermined amount of time from a few months to maybe a year or even two, ended up being longer than that.
[00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:19.600] And it'd be in like two, three years of kind of burning the candle at both ends.
[00:08:19.600 --> 00:08:22.000] But it was intoxicating seeing growth and results.
[00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:29.680] And so like anyone that's competitive or kind of a junkie in that way of seeing the numbers go up, we watch the freaking MRR chart every day.
[00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:34.880] And it's like, every, it's like, if you like video games, you know, we grew up playing video games every little boop, boop, boop.
[00:08:34.880 --> 00:08:38.160] And we were just like, okay, we're total addicts for this.
[00:08:38.160 --> 00:08:39.680] So let's just keep it going.
[00:08:39.680 --> 00:08:44.960] And yeah, we still, you know, on the weekends would play volleyball or work out, you know, once or twice a week.
[00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:52.320] You know, it's not like the sleeping under your desk kind of lore of you're literally like withering away.
[00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:53.840] And at times we felt like that.
[00:08:53.840 --> 00:09:00.760] But yeah, I don't want to overglamarize it either because, yeah, everyone always has the quick response of like, well, that's not good for your health and relationships.
[00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:01.880] Well, it's like, yeah, no shit.
[00:09:02.280 --> 00:09:10.360] Like, we wanted to do what most people wouldn't so we could get a result that most people don't get because like everyone wants work-life balance.
[00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:11.720] We all want to be happy all the time.
[00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:13.320] But like, that's why.
[00:09:13.560 --> 00:09:15.240] so few companies probably succeed.
[00:09:15.240 --> 00:09:16.760] And so it's like, I don't know.
[00:09:16.760 --> 00:09:24.840] I found the endurance from sports and me and you had our athlete talk of like doing hard things for a long time trains you mentally for that.
[00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:26.200] And I really felt equipped.
[00:09:26.200 --> 00:09:28.440] And there was times I was like, yeah, give me more.
[00:09:28.440 --> 00:09:29.640] Like I can go another hour.
[00:09:29.640 --> 00:09:31.240] And it was like 11 or 12 at night.
[00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:34.280] And so I think everyone can generate that within them.
[00:09:34.280 --> 00:09:37.240] I don't think you have to be special to be an effort guy.
[00:09:37.240 --> 00:09:38.120] I agree.
[00:09:38.120 --> 00:09:46.120] One thing that you said in there that really resonated with me is it wasn't just that you two were grinding hard, is that the MRR kept going up.
[00:09:46.120 --> 00:09:47.480] And that's the feedback loop.
[00:09:47.480 --> 00:09:54.120] Because if you had done what you were doing and there were no results and you'd plateaued at three grand or four grand, you know what I mean?
[00:09:54.120 --> 00:09:57.400] And you can only do that for honestly months.
[00:09:57.400 --> 00:10:03.240] I couldn't grind for a year with a plateau, like grind the way you're talking about, which I have, I have done periodically.
[00:10:03.240 --> 00:10:04.680] I try not to do it.
[00:10:04.680 --> 00:10:12.600] But if the feedback loop is that we're adding $1,000 a month to $3,000, $4,000 a month, then how do you not do that?
[00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:14.520] Yeah, even if it's top of funnel, right?
[00:10:14.520 --> 00:10:20.440] Or if it's like, hey, we're seeing incremental growth, 1%, hopefully that's all you need to see.
[00:10:20.440 --> 00:10:25.480] But everyone's bars are different for what keeps them fueled and going, what your TAM is and all that.
[00:10:25.480 --> 00:10:33.080] But yeah, to your point, was it hard those couple months where you're like, gosh, we got, we're keep pivoting, you know, things are plateauing.
[00:10:33.080 --> 00:10:34.120] Those are demoralized.
[00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:35.080] We had stints of that too.
[00:10:35.040 --> 00:10:37.960] Where, you know, it's like our chart doesn't show a lot of that.
[00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:43.480] But there were months when the interest rates stuck and it was like, oh, crap, this is more exhausting now.
[00:10:43.800 --> 00:10:46.000] That was my memory of my times of grinding.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:50.720] Where as long as the results came, I kind of forgot about how hard it was.
[00:10:50.880 --> 00:10:52.960] But it was the months where, yeah, we grew 200.
[00:10:52.960 --> 00:10:54.960] It was often December's and Aprils for something.
[00:10:54.960 --> 00:10:58.960] And for some reason, and April, I always assumed it was tax season for the U.S.
[00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:00.560] or whatever, and people were distracted.
[00:11:00.560 --> 00:11:03.200] And December was obviously because holidays.
[00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:09.680] And those months, if we, you know, you'd grow nothing or you'd go 300 MRR when I'm used to growing 5K MRR.
[00:11:09.680 --> 00:11:14.000] And I would just be like, oh my gosh, now I'm exhausted and burning out.
[00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:18.720] It was interesting how the burnout only hit me when it like there was no feedback loop.
[00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:27.920] Yeah, and maybe those are the months, if we were to do it again, where we do cut out an hour earlier and go work out hard or go, you know, make sure we're eating healthier and kind of managing that.
[00:11:27.920 --> 00:11:34.320] That's probably what I would do differently is know the seasonality of our business and take care of myself a little more.
[00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:35.680] Yeah, I agree.
[00:11:35.680 --> 00:11:43.920] And also, again, I know I say this a lot, but it's like every time that I was doing more work than I wanted to be, it was always like, this is a season.
[00:11:43.920 --> 00:11:44.880] This is not permanent.
[00:11:45.040 --> 00:11:48.320] I don't know if this season is a month or if it's five months or six months.
[00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:50.480] I never did it for a year straight like that.
[00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:57.760] I did feel stressed for a couple of years, but I didn't work more than 40 hours a week for more than a couple, two, three months at a time.
[00:11:57.760 --> 00:12:01.520] And it sounds like you guys were doing more than that.
[00:12:01.520 --> 00:12:08.800] Again, like, I don't want to undersell or under kind of characterize here that the point in time we felt this huge momentum shift.
[00:12:08.800 --> 00:12:11.120] And like you said, the feedback loop was there.
[00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:13.280] And so, like, I definitely am grateful for that.
[00:12:13.280 --> 00:12:16.640] And I know it's a lot easier when the scoreboard keeps going up.
[00:12:16.640 --> 00:12:17.840] But we wanted to capitalize on it.
[00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:18.720] We didn't want to take it for granted.
[00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:26.160] So, in a way, I thought we were being grateful for the opportunity given by saying, let's just quadruple down here every day.
[00:12:26.160 --> 00:12:28.080] Yep, go with what works.
[00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:40.440] And so, to get back to Tom's questions, still relating to Facebook groups, Tom asks, Were you worried about some of the admins of these Facebook groups being allied with some of your competitors?
[00:12:40.440 --> 00:12:48.840] The biggest Facebook group in our industry is allied with one of our competitors, and this competitor is actually building a pretty sizable audience.
[00:12:48.840 --> 00:12:50.440] Was that a risk for you?
[00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:51.800] Yeah, I was terrified of that.
[00:12:51.800 --> 00:12:52.520] I hated those.
[00:12:52.520 --> 00:12:54.600] Those guys were the hardest to like even.
[00:12:54.840 --> 00:13:02.760] It's like being the new kid on the playground, and you see all the cool kids hanging out, big groups of them, and you walk out there and they just point and laugh at you.
[00:13:02.760 --> 00:13:03.800] Like, that's how I felt.
[00:13:03.800 --> 00:13:05.320] My wife got so protective over me.
[00:13:05.320 --> 00:13:08.360] She thought she felt like I was just getting bullied online for like a whole year.
[00:13:08.440 --> 00:13:12.760] So, she would, she would, like, she'd be like, wanting to get on Facebook and curse these guys out.
[00:13:12.760 --> 00:13:15.080] And I'm like, sweetie, that won't be a good look for us.
[00:13:15.080 --> 00:13:16.120] So, I'll be okay.
[00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:17.320] I'm a grown man.
[00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:21.080] But I'm not going to lie, these other Facebook groups were really hard to get into.
[00:13:21.080 --> 00:13:27.800] And the ones affiliated with competitors, I had to really go in hat in hand and just say, Hey, I'm here for the good of the industry.
[00:13:27.800 --> 00:13:30.200] I don't care if you guys use Spectora.
[00:13:30.200 --> 00:13:32.600] I want to help you guys market your businesses better.
[00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:38.920] I want to help home inspectors save time and just repeat that mission, vision, values statement over and over.
[00:13:38.920 --> 00:13:44.680] And showing up, you have to do the work and show up every day and show them that, like, hey, I'm not here for a quick sales pitch.
[00:13:44.680 --> 00:13:53.400] And then I also showed vulnerability that always helps in life, I think, of like going in there and saying, Hey, look, I know we don't have the features of HomeGage because at the time we didn't.
[00:13:53.400 --> 00:13:55.240] I was like, Look, they're the big elephant in the room.
[00:13:55.240 --> 00:13:55.640] I get it.
[00:13:55.640 --> 00:13:57.160] Most of you use them and love them.
[00:13:57.160 --> 00:13:59.080] You'll never leave them, and that's fine.
[00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:02.920] But I'm here for people that maybe wants something different or change, and I'm here to help.
[00:14:02.920 --> 00:14:06.600] You know, and that whole like takes the edge off of, like, I'm here to help.
[00:14:06.600 --> 00:14:08.280] And then I became a part of the community.
[00:14:08.280 --> 00:14:13.400] And I had relationships and talked with guys on Facebook for five years before they did a trial.
[00:14:13.400 --> 00:14:21.520] I saw a trial pop up like three years ago, and I'm like, oh my God, I talked to that guy on Facebook eight years ago, and I never sold him once.
[00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:22.960] I just hung out.
[00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:24.720] I just kept hanging out on the playground.
[00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:25.920] That was kind of the play.
[00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:27.200] Can't say that was all intentional.
[00:14:27.200 --> 00:14:28.480] That's what ended up happening.
[00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:35.840] I can't say, you know, I didn't have a crystal ball, but there were guys I was just like, dude, you're going to bite my head off every time I say anything.
[00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:36.720] And that's cool.
[00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:37.440] I still love you.
[00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:38.480] Gonna deal with this.
[00:14:38.640 --> 00:14:39.520] Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:40.320] Yeah.
[00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:49.520] And so, lest people think your only marketing approach was Facebook groups, because that's what we've talked about for the first, you know, 10, 15 minutes of this show.
[00:14:49.520 --> 00:14:52.880] Let's bounce to SEO because Tom had a question about that.
[00:14:52.880 --> 00:14:59.680] And he said, I did some quick SEMrush research on home inspection software, and it seems like the search volume is pretty low.
[00:14:59.680 --> 00:15:02.080] So, what keywords did you concentrate on to do your SEO?
[00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:04.480] And how did you find those keywords?
[00:15:04.480 --> 00:15:05.520] It's a great question.
[00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:08.160] Good job, Tom, doing your homework on SEM Rush.
[00:15:08.240 --> 00:15:09.680] We've all used it and love it.
[00:15:09.680 --> 00:15:10.640] Yeah, small volume.
[00:15:10.640 --> 00:15:16.800] So it's a small industry, just like Imagine Garage app, you know, your wrap and sign addressable market is.
[00:15:16.800 --> 00:15:21.120] And so I said, we have to rank first for home inspection software.
[00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:24.080] That's the only game in town where you only had one or two keywords.
[00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:30.960] And so it was a big hill getting in the industry saying, oh my gosh, HomeGage and Home Inspector Pro rank first and second.
[00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:31.840] Everyone loves them.
[00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:33.200] Everyone goes there.
[00:15:33.200 --> 00:15:34.720] How are we ever going to supplant them?
[00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:40.400] Turns out just content every day for years can bust through that when your competitors aren't doing it.
[00:15:40.400 --> 00:15:44.560] So YouTube is owned by Google, second biggest search engine on the planet.
[00:15:44.560 --> 00:15:50.880] So keep in mind, good YouTube presence, I just believe has something to do with the main algorithm.
[00:15:50.880 --> 00:15:55.760] I don't have any proof of that, but I have to believe clicks and signals into YouTube help.
[00:15:55.760 --> 00:16:00.840] So I made YouTube webinars, videos, any blog article turned into a YouTube video.
[00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:03.880] Rob, you're no stranger to creating content, so you know this.
[00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:06.840] But then I looked at adjacent keywords.
[00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:10.200] So I think SCM Rush is great if you use the magic keyword tool.
[00:16:10.200 --> 00:16:15.240] It'll give you adjacent keywords and kind of the next bubble out from the main keyword.
[00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:23.880] And for me, it was if someone's looking for what association do I belong to if I want to be a home inspector, what tools do I need as a home inspector?
[00:16:23.880 --> 00:16:28.520] Hey, what are licensing requirements in Oregon for a home inspector?
[00:16:28.520 --> 00:16:35.080] So I literally spent hours writing a master article on the requirements of every state to become a home inspector.
[00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:38.200] And I got them from the state licensing websites.
[00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:40.600] Spent a whole day copying and pasting.
[00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:42.280] And then I created that master article.
[00:16:42.280 --> 00:16:46.200] That article ended up ranking first or second for home inspector requirements.
[00:16:46.200 --> 00:16:49.000] So then I was getting them when they were thinking about being a home inspector.
[00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:50.440] They were clicking on Spectora.
[00:16:50.440 --> 00:16:54.040] And I was like, you're going to see our name when you're just thinking about it.
[00:16:54.040 --> 00:16:58.760] So hopefully six months down the road, you're like, oh, yeah, for some reason, I want to use Spectora.
[00:16:58.760 --> 00:17:03.560] So every industry, I think, has bigger and bigger circles of keywords.
[00:17:03.560 --> 00:17:07.720] As you talk, it strikes me that you had short-term results.
[00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:13.560] And what I mean by short-term results is being in the Facebook groups, you had to, you were bootstrapped and two founders.
[00:17:13.560 --> 00:17:15.560] So you had to have some type of revenue coming in.
[00:17:15.560 --> 00:17:17.560] You couldn't just say, well, we'll have revenue in a year.
[00:17:17.560 --> 00:17:19.240] Let's have a free plan, you know?
[00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:26.680] So you needed some type of, hey, we need a couple hundred MRR or whatever it is, you know, a thousand MRR each month to kind of grow.
[00:17:26.680 --> 00:17:31.400] But everything you're saying is, but then it took a year or two or three to work.
[00:17:31.400 --> 00:17:35.880] And over time, that snowball, it like paid off for you.
[00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:43.240] Was that intentional, or is it a hindsight thing of like, well, it took longer than we thought, but we just kept grinding because we figured it would work.
[00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:44.920] Or at the start, were you like, this is going to take a while?
[00:17:45.840 --> 00:17:52.240] Yeah, so at the start, we were like, hey, it might take a year to get to the point where we can pay ourselves even a couple grand a month.
[00:17:52.240 --> 00:18:01.440] And so in our episode, I briefly mentioned it, but I offered kind of marketing agency type plans to customers for the first year.
[00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:08.640] So we were charging $300 to $500 a month for me to personally manage their SEO because that was my specialty and kind of my background.
[00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:24.000] So I had at any time between 10 and 20 home inspectors who would pay me $300 to $500 a month to write two blog articles a month to go to their website, optimize keywords, title tags, kind of the basics of SEO to signal to Google what your site's about.
[00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:29.680] And that floated us for the first six months a year where we had 10, 20K.
[00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:30.560] Let's see.
[00:18:30.560 --> 00:18:33.680] So it's like 500 a month, 10 to 20 customers.
[00:18:33.680 --> 00:18:39.200] So whatever that maths out to, a couple grand a month to at least cover our bills, float us a little bit.
[00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:42.720] And then I kind of phased those out and told them, hey, can't do this anymore.
[00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:46.080] Here's a good recommendation to kind of pick up your SEO, like a local agency.
[00:18:46.080 --> 00:18:50.960] I'd find them one to link up with as the software MRR started to ramp up.
[00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:53.440] So it was kind of like, hey, this is what I'm good at.
[00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:55.280] I can contribute in this way.
[00:18:55.280 --> 00:18:58.080] And then phased into the software piece.
[00:18:58.080 --> 00:19:01.120] And then we ended up hosting websites as part of our offerings.
[00:19:01.120 --> 00:19:03.600] So we have about 2,000 websites that we host now.
[00:19:03.600 --> 00:19:06.480] And it's a good, it's a great profit margin segment.
[00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:09.760] Tom's next question is about product market fit.
[00:19:09.760 --> 00:19:13.680] So he says, I ended up listening to some other interviews that Kevin took part in.
[00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:19.040] In one of the interviews, Kevin said, you know, we had product market fit when they had 10 customers.
[00:19:19.040 --> 00:19:27.200] Was this the metric that you used to decide you had product market fit, or was it something else and having 10 customers was just a side effect?
[00:19:27.520 --> 00:19:28.720] Keen observation.
[00:19:29.040 --> 00:19:33.720] Definitely not the number of customers, but more about solving the critical pain point.
[00:19:33.960 --> 00:19:39.560] Once I heard it from 10 customers and then they signed up because they believed we addressed that pain point.
[00:19:39.560 --> 00:19:43.560] So it was more like, hey, you want to save time on your inspections.
[00:19:43.560 --> 00:19:44.040] I get it.
[00:19:44.040 --> 00:19:46.360] Okay, what's the main choke point here?
[00:19:46.360 --> 00:19:47.560] Okay, it's in the app.
[00:19:47.560 --> 00:19:50.120] You're spending too much time in the app tapping around.
[00:19:50.120 --> 00:19:51.080] That pisses you off.
[00:19:51.080 --> 00:19:53.240] You want to spend more time with your family.
[00:19:53.240 --> 00:20:05.880] Once I felt like we were on the path to solving that and people started signing up, that felt like maybe pain point market fit or, you know, like product pain point fit, however you want to word it.
[00:20:05.880 --> 00:20:13.240] But I asked every one of them, if you had a magic wand and you could wave it and solve something about your software, what would it be?
[00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:15.160] A couple guys said, I think I found that with you.
[00:20:15.160 --> 00:20:17.240] I was like, okay, we're onto something here.
[00:20:17.240 --> 00:20:17.960] I took that.
[00:20:17.960 --> 00:20:20.200] That was our marketing headline from there on out.
[00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:26.600] Their words, not mine, where I'm like, you said you're spending, you could spend more time with your family if we save you an hour.
[00:20:26.600 --> 00:20:28.280] Oh, that's marketing gold.
[00:20:28.280 --> 00:20:29.720] I'm using that everywhere.
[00:20:29.720 --> 00:20:33.640] Who doesn't want more time, you know, to grow your business or to spend with your family?
[00:20:33.640 --> 00:20:39.000] I believe that phase you talked about is problem solution fit.
[00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:46.200] It's where you've identified a problem and the solution, it can be software, it can be anything, right?
[00:20:46.200 --> 00:20:52.920] It doesn't have to actually be code, but if you find that, then you can now say, all right, let's pile more on or let's write the code to do it.
[00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:58.280] Because sometimes it's kind of human automation or you're doing a productized service, for example, as the solution.
[00:20:58.280 --> 00:21:02.600] But it sounds like you already were there where the code was actually was nailing it.
[00:21:02.600 --> 00:21:08.840] Another marketing approach that worked really well for you was word of mouth.
[00:21:08.840 --> 00:21:18.560] And Tom asks, when doing word of mouth marketing, were you worried that you might upset your market and the criticism that would come when you started doing it?
[00:21:18.880 --> 00:21:24.720] Or were you just ready to roll up your sleeves and roll with the punches when you picked that marketing channel?
[00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:37.040] Tom will probably understand this well, but like we did not understand the constant criticism we would get in this industry basically from everything we did at any time.
[00:21:37.040 --> 00:21:38.000] Why is that?
[00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:40.800] Well, tell me more about that because I'm not sure I understand why.
[00:21:40.800 --> 00:21:41.520] You're going to laugh.
[00:21:41.520 --> 00:21:44.800] So home inspectors point out what's wrong for a living.
[00:21:44.800 --> 00:21:49.360] They go into a home and look for up to 300 things that are wrong with it.
[00:21:49.360 --> 00:21:50.160] Of course.
[00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:51.680] They don't point out what's right.
[00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:52.480] And so they...
[00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:53.120] Yeah.
[00:21:53.440 --> 00:22:05.120] So like every email, every decision, product we've made, there's been at least one person that tells us this is the worst decision of all time and we're going to crash and burn and we should have listened to them.
[00:22:05.120 --> 00:22:12.720] So you kind of get used to upsetting 10% or less of your user base or the broader market at any given time.
[00:22:12.720 --> 00:22:15.840] I don't know if that exists in other places and spaces.
[00:22:15.840 --> 00:22:18.160] I know B2C can be more forgiving.
[00:22:18.160 --> 00:22:22.880] B2C, when you serve software engineers or like QA people, because they're the same thing.
[00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:29.200] But software developers, the good ones who don't, you know, who QA their own code or whatever, they're super freaking detail and nitpicky.
[00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:31.680] I bet serving lawyers, right?
[00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:32.960] Because aren't they like detail?
[00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:33.600] So yeah, there's.
[00:22:33.760 --> 00:22:34.960] Doctors, lawyers.
[00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:36.320] Yeah, there's a few of these.
[00:22:36.320 --> 00:22:38.240] So anyways, yeah, keep going with that.
[00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:51.040] So yes, once we kind of started getting out there and just showing up kind of unapologetically, all kinds of criticism, all kinds of bullseye from people saying, your types come around every year.
[00:22:51.040 --> 00:22:52.160] You're not going to last.
[00:22:52.160 --> 00:22:53.360] Get out of this Facebook group.
[00:22:53.360 --> 00:22:54.640] You're a vendor.
[00:22:54.640 --> 00:22:57.840] Oh, you guys are just a cheap version of this, or you're an expensive version of this.
[00:22:57.840 --> 00:23:01.720] So, like, I think the mission was always connecting with people.
[00:23:02.040 --> 00:23:13.320] And each time we talked to a customer, they saw a little bit of who we were because we lost money on so many customers that we spent an hour or two with talking, just learning about them and their industry.
[00:23:13.320 --> 00:23:20.280] And shocker, a lot of customer, a lot of companies neglect their longtime customers that aren't profitable to them.
[00:23:20.280 --> 00:23:25.320] So, we talked to solo home inspectors that got no attention from their software.
[00:23:25.320 --> 00:23:27.880] They didn't talk to the founder of their company anymore.
[00:23:27.880 --> 00:23:30.440] We were like, hey, we got on calls, me and Mike.
[00:23:30.440 --> 00:23:33.000] So, I'm like, hey, you're on with the lead engineer and the lead marketer.
[00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:34.200] Like, tell us your problems.
[00:23:34.200 --> 00:23:35.240] Tell us what you want.
[00:23:35.240 --> 00:23:38.840] But yeah, that creates word of mouth when they're just like, hey, Kevin and Mike are the real deal.
[00:23:38.840 --> 00:23:39.800] They'll listen to you.
[00:23:39.800 --> 00:23:42.040] Oh, they're chiming in on this thread right now.
[00:23:42.040 --> 00:23:47.080] We answered so many freaking pointless threads, 100 deep, nested.
[00:23:47.080 --> 00:23:48.840] No one's going to see this.
[00:23:48.840 --> 00:23:50.040] Someone's always going to see it.
[00:23:50.040 --> 00:23:57.240] So like, that's, that's the nitty-gritty work where I'm like, that's the grinder in us that was like, that creates word of mouth.
[00:23:57.240 --> 00:24:09.560] And did you try to get to a certain churn rate or a level of confidence in Spectora before you went that route, before you started doing the real viral or word of mouth stuff?
[00:24:09.560 --> 00:24:18.280] No, we did that from the beginning just because we witnessed another founder in the space that just lived in the forums and threads.
[00:24:18.280 --> 00:24:22.520] So he was on like the main association forum and Facebook answering everyone.
[00:24:22.520 --> 00:24:23.560] He was everyone's friend.
[00:24:23.560 --> 00:24:24.840] Everyone knew him and respected him.
[00:24:24.840 --> 00:24:27.800] And we were like, okay, we're going to do that.
[00:24:27.800 --> 00:24:39.640] So in a way, we just were like, that clearly works and resonates to connect with people one-to-one on social media where they are, meeting them where they are, not trying to get them to do, to go onto TikTok or Facebook or somewhere else.
[00:24:39.640 --> 00:24:42.680] So we saw him doing that and we were like, that's the playbook.
[00:24:42.680 --> 00:24:44.040] Like, just go do that.
[00:24:44.040 --> 00:24:46.320] And churn was a slap in the face for our industry.
[00:24:46.320 --> 00:24:48.800] We did not know it'd be like 3% a month.
[00:24:44.840 --> 00:24:49.440] It was brutal.
[00:24:49.600 --> 00:25:00.720] So once we started to see that survival rate, we baked that into our numbers and said, hey, at any given point, like a quarter of our user base or a third of our user base could go down.
[00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:01.840] That's scary.
[00:25:01.840 --> 00:25:04.240] So we need to always be marketing and growing.
[00:25:04.240 --> 00:25:08.000] And that was kind of my side of the house was like, that's why I lived on Facebook.
[00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:12.400] So I'm like, I have to get every new inspector that comes in the industry or at least win share.
[00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:14.000] I got to get like half of them.
[00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:20.160] Is the churn high because they're kind of people who do it on the side or they're retirees and they just decide to stop doing it?
[00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:22.000] They decide to stop being a home inspector?
[00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:23.200] Is there some other reason?
[00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:24.160] Yeah, you're onto it.
[00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:32.800] It's like there's a seasonality, there's part-timers, and then there's about half the states in the U.S., it's not regulated at the state level.
[00:25:32.800 --> 00:25:35.520] So in Colorado, you could roll out of bed and be a home inspector.
[00:25:35.520 --> 00:25:40.320] So then you get guys that jump in, they do a couple, then they're like, I don't want to work hard to grow a business.
[00:25:40.320 --> 00:25:42.160] So I'll cancel.
[00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:48.400] So the cancellation and re-signup rate was, we couldn't make sense of our numbers for the first six years.
[00:25:48.400 --> 00:25:49.040] Yeah, totally.
[00:25:49.040 --> 00:25:49.680] That's hard, right?
[00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:53.120] It's like, well, how do I, they churned three months ago and now they're a new, but they're not new.
[00:25:53.280 --> 00:25:54.320] Yeah, out of you.
[00:25:54.320 --> 00:25:55.760] That's always clunky.
[00:25:55.760 --> 00:26:00.720] We've talked, I'm going off script because we've talked a lot about things that worked for you.
[00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:07.120] It seems like you generally had success with the stuff you tried, the Facebook groups, the word of mouth, the SEO.
[00:26:07.440 --> 00:26:15.840] Were there things that you and Mike spent time doing marketing-wise, I'm thinking, that just didn't work?
[00:26:15.840 --> 00:26:17.600] Were there approaches that didn't work?
[00:26:17.600 --> 00:26:20.320] And if so, how did you, this is if I get this question all the time.
[00:26:20.320 --> 00:26:21.440] How did you know they weren't working?
[00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:26.000] How long did you give them till you made the decision to stop doing them?
[00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:30.520] Paid ads never seemed to hit for us.
[00:26:29.840 --> 00:26:35.800] And it might have been the lack of expertise and sophistication with targeting and kind of like the full stack setup.
[00:26:35.880 --> 00:26:44.920] But like running campaigns out of Google and Facebook paid tended to result in tons of clicks, tons of wasted spend.
[00:26:44.920 --> 00:26:48.600] So it was kind of like we looked at that channel for a few months.
[00:26:48.600 --> 00:26:51.080] We gave like a, I think we did a three-month pilot.
[00:26:51.080 --> 00:26:56.920] And we were getting clicks from bad keywords because we didn't dial in the right negative keywords in Google Ads.
[00:26:56.920 --> 00:27:00.600] It was like we were getting car inspection guys and things like that.
[00:27:00.600 --> 00:27:07.960] But then even once we dialed it in, we felt it was a lot of like kind of people just clicking around late night, maybe not as serious.
[00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:16.920] And so we just kind of tracked that to conversion and said, man, we're batting like one for 40 here, one for 50.
[00:27:16.920 --> 00:27:19.560] Not to just, it doesn't justify the spend.
[00:27:19.560 --> 00:27:20.360] So we cut that.
[00:27:20.360 --> 00:27:30.840] That was always, that was never a good route, was paid acquisition because it seemed like a product where people would kick the tires on multiple softwares, not necessarily be ready to buy right away.
[00:27:30.840 --> 00:27:33.640] Like, I need an email marketing tool today.
[00:27:33.960 --> 00:27:34.440] Right.
[00:27:34.440 --> 00:27:41.080] And also, we talked about in the interview that your annual contract value just isn't that high.
[00:27:41.080 --> 00:27:45.080] Paid ads, especially Google, you need, you just need a lot of money.
[00:27:45.080 --> 00:27:51.640] And I believe yours was, it was like a, there's a thousand and then there's a two thousand and a three thousand ACV, depending on if you stack things or something.
[00:27:51.640 --> 00:27:55.400] But it like, that's, it's just not that much if you're going to try to buy AdWords.
[00:27:55.400 --> 00:28:02.120] Yeah, lifetime value's got to be up there in the tens of hundreds of thousands to really spend that.
[00:28:02.120 --> 00:28:05.080] And we knew we could go meet these same people at conferences.
[00:28:05.080 --> 00:28:06.440] And they're in the field working too.
[00:28:06.440 --> 00:28:10.760] So a lot of times our demographic was not online all the time.
[00:28:10.760 --> 00:28:12.440] And so it kind of made sense.
[00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:19.840] Affiliate marketing we also failed at where it was like working with some of the biggest associations and partners in the space.
[00:28:14.680 --> 00:28:21.280] It was like, here's our affiliate link.
[00:28:21.360 --> 00:28:23.840] We'll share 10 or 20 bucks with you.
[00:28:23.840 --> 00:28:32.320] It was kind of peanuts at the end of the day compared to just going to another conference, making relationships or writing, you know, making 10 more YouTube videos.
[00:28:32.320 --> 00:28:35.440] And to me, we just watched the numbers over months.
[00:28:35.440 --> 00:28:39.680] You know, and then we tried to boil everything down to math, which I think most, you know, most founders can appreciate.
[00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:41.680] It's like, what does the math say?
[00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:43.360] Last question from Tom.
[00:28:43.360 --> 00:28:47.600] You mentioned that the home inspection industry is really slow to catch up on technology.
[00:28:47.600 --> 00:28:51.120] Are you ever worried about someone being offended by hearing this?
[00:28:51.120 --> 00:28:57.520] I feel the same way about my industry, and sometimes I catch myself about to say it in a demo, but I stop myself.
[00:28:57.520 --> 00:29:01.600] I want to ask you after this, Rob, if you've said things that have offended people throughout your journeys.
[00:29:04.320 --> 00:29:16.080] I knew they'd probably be offended, but at the same time, I also knew if it was the truth and it was something I observed and was undeniably true, that it would be okay to say because many of them admitted that to me.
[00:29:16.080 --> 00:29:17.760] They'd be like, Kevin, I'm not a techie.
[00:29:17.760 --> 00:29:18.880] You know, I don't know this stuff.
[00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:20.080] I rely on you guys for that.
[00:29:20.080 --> 00:29:21.280] You guys are the nerds.
[00:29:21.280 --> 00:29:22.720] We're like, yeah, we'll be your nerds.
[00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:29.600] Like, we were just like, cool, we'll be, we kind of branded ourselves on, like, let us be your technology stack was kind of how we talked to them.
[00:29:29.600 --> 00:29:33.680] Of like, dude, you build garages, you inspect homes, you do whatever.
[00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:37.040] These trades guys, they want to outsource all that to us.
[00:29:37.040 --> 00:29:39.680] So like, let them and be upfront about it.
[00:29:39.680 --> 00:29:46.880] And yeah, the competitors probably did not like me out there saying that of like, hey, there's not a single good tech solution in the space.
[00:29:46.880 --> 00:29:48.560] I'm marketing my business, man.
[00:29:48.560 --> 00:29:51.360] Like they can go out and say their message.
[00:29:51.360 --> 00:29:56.080] But if we're getting our ass kicked by like a service Titan, I'd probably say that too.
[00:29:56.080 --> 00:29:58.160] I'd be like, man, service Titan does everything.
[00:29:58.160 --> 00:29:59.360] We're going to try and compete.
[00:29:59.360 --> 00:30:00.760] But they're crushing it.
[00:29:59.840 --> 00:30:06.040] And yeah, occasionally you put a little spin on things to help your company, but I was okay with that.
[00:29:59.840 --> 00:30:07.080] And I got slandered for it.
[00:30:08.360 --> 00:30:09.640] I took my licks.
[00:30:09.640 --> 00:30:19.560] Yeah, the thought of, well, specifically, I guess the phrasing that Tom used is, you mentioned that the home inspection industry is slow to catch up on technology.
[00:30:19.560 --> 00:30:21.880] To me, that's not an offensive statement.
[00:30:21.880 --> 00:30:23.560] That's an industry as a whole.
[00:30:23.560 --> 00:30:25.400] Like, I will hear, here I am on the podcast.
[00:30:25.400 --> 00:30:26.520] You want to hear me offend people?
[00:30:26.760 --> 00:30:31.480] The legal industry tends to be more laggards than not.
[00:30:31.480 --> 00:30:33.160] Certainly, any type of trade.
[00:30:33.160 --> 00:30:35.160] I mean, my dad was an electrician for 42 years.
[00:30:35.160 --> 00:30:37.400] I was an electrician on and off for years, you know.
[00:30:37.400 --> 00:30:39.720] And my brother runs an electrical contractor.
[00:30:39.720 --> 00:30:47.880] Like all of the trades, all construction, mechanics, they focus on what they do well, which is fixing with their hands and building things.
[00:30:47.880 --> 00:31:07.400] And do they really want, you know, and this, it's a generalization, but it's like if you look at a bell curve, maybe, or distribution across folks who are electricians versus folks who are web designers or something, you know, it's like how many of those folks really want to get into software and are interested in it and just have a high acumen for it and mess around on their computer on the weekends.
[00:31:07.400 --> 00:31:08.440] The numbers are different.
[00:31:08.440 --> 00:31:09.480] It just is, right?
[00:31:09.480 --> 00:31:12.200] So I don't think that's, it's not that you're saying one individual.
[00:31:12.200 --> 00:31:18.840] Now, it'd be offensive if I said, Kevin, you yourself are really not, you know, technically adept or whatever.
[00:31:18.840 --> 00:31:20.760] Unless you were like, yeah, no, I totally am not.
[00:31:20.760 --> 00:31:22.600] You know, and then it wouldn't be offensive.
[00:31:22.600 --> 00:31:24.200] But it's like, it's if it's true.
[00:31:24.200 --> 00:31:24.760] Yeah.
[00:31:25.080 --> 00:31:26.120] So I don't know.
[00:31:26.120 --> 00:31:32.360] I wouldn't be too concerned about this, especially if you're talking about an industry as a whole.
[00:31:32.360 --> 00:31:36.360] My guess is most people probably would agree with that.
[00:31:36.360 --> 00:31:44.680] I guess the thing though that you then touched on, which was almost a separate thing, was saying our solution is the best and there really isn't that much, really isn't any good tech here.
[00:31:44.680 --> 00:31:47.120] Now, that could be offensive to competitors.
[00:31:44.760 --> 00:31:53.040] And I, I mean, lightweight marketing automation that doesn't suck was the H1 of drip for years.
[00:31:53.040 --> 00:31:54.960] So, what does that imply?
[00:31:55.280 --> 00:32:01.920] That implies, and then yeah, and then I named because I wrote the whole copy for that long form landing page.
[00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:03.840] I named crap, who was it?
[00:32:03.840 --> 00:32:08.000] It was Infusionsoft, it was Marketo, it was part of by name on that page.
[00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:14.400] Now, I did not name MailChimp because I always thought they were good tech, and I did not name HubSpot because I thought they were good tech and I've always respected those founders.
[00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:16.960] But any of the other marketing automation I would throw under the bus.
[00:32:16.960 --> 00:32:18.080] Did I offend them?
[00:32:18.080 --> 00:32:18.640] I don't know.
[00:32:18.640 --> 00:32:19.600] Did they even pay attention?
[00:32:19.600 --> 00:32:22.960] Was I just too much of a gnat for them to even bother with?
[00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:23.600] Who knows?
[00:32:23.600 --> 00:32:26.160] Did somebody probably read it and say that guy's kind of a dick?
[00:32:26.160 --> 00:32:27.440] Maybe, you know, maybe happened.
[00:32:27.440 --> 00:32:28.960] But I believe, did I believe it?
[00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:33.760] Did I ever say anything on that homepage that I didn't like wholeheartedly agree?
[00:32:33.760 --> 00:32:37.600] I was so passionate that, like, why are you screwing your customers?
[00:32:37.600 --> 00:32:41.840] This pisses me off that your software sucks and you overcharge for it and you force them into annual contracts.
[00:32:41.840 --> 00:32:46.480] You don't let them see the software until they can touch it, you know, until they've paid you for the whole year.
[00:32:46.480 --> 00:32:49.200] So, anyways, yeah, you can tell I'm getting off on a rant here.
[00:32:49.600 --> 00:32:55.040] Yes, but you, you, you spoke what you knew to be true, and then you could back it up.
[00:32:55.040 --> 00:33:02.320] And like, as long as you're saying what you believe to be true, if someone calls you on it, if you just show up and say, like, am I wrong here?
[00:33:02.320 --> 00:33:03.280] Like, let's look at it together.
[00:33:03.280 --> 00:33:05.520] Like, I'm happy to be wrong, but like, does this suck?
[00:33:05.520 --> 00:33:06.720] Does Infusionsoft suck?
[00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:08.160] Like, is it hard to use?
[00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:10.320] Yeah, I don't think they're bad people.
[00:33:10.320 --> 00:33:12.640] Yeah, but I don't think the tool is good and I don't like their sales model.
[00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:13.360] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:33:13.360 --> 00:33:14.640] Yeah, depersonalize it.
[00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:20.560] And I just love that you like stood, you like stood kind of on what you knew to be true and you weren't afraid to say it.
[00:33:20.560 --> 00:33:32.120] And I think that's like, it takes a little bit of irrational confidence maybe before we were big boys, but you got to be okay taking that risk because it forces us to step up then, right?
[00:33:32.120 --> 00:33:34.200] Because then you were like, I better make sure drip doesn't suck.
[00:33:34.200 --> 00:33:35.080] I got to make sure.
[00:33:29.840 --> 00:33:35.960] That's the thing.
[00:33:36.440 --> 00:33:37.960] That's, I'm calling my shot.
[00:33:38.120 --> 00:33:40.920] I'm opening myself to attack now, right?
[00:33:40.920 --> 00:33:46.360] It better be amazing and it better without a doubt be better than these things I'm calling out by name.
[00:33:46.360 --> 00:33:47.640] Yeah, there's a certain amount.
[00:33:47.640 --> 00:33:49.880] And I don't, I'm not a conflict person.
[00:33:49.880 --> 00:33:50.680] I don't enjoy it.
[00:33:50.680 --> 00:33:51.400] I can do it.
[00:33:51.400 --> 00:33:54.200] Obviously, I have to sometimes, but it's not my wheelhouse.
[00:33:54.200 --> 00:33:55.800] You know, it's not like a strength of mine.
[00:33:55.800 --> 00:33:57.480] I know friends of mine who are really good at it.
[00:33:57.480 --> 00:34:00.680] They love debating, love getting into an argument, or even just conflict just ignites them.
[00:34:00.680 --> 00:34:02.520] Ha ha, I can be right about something.
[00:34:02.520 --> 00:34:05.000] Me, I'm always like, I don't really want to get in a fight.
[00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:06.520] That feels like a waste of time.
[00:34:06.520 --> 00:34:13.640] But I was always willing to risk that and to do it and defend myself and my company.
[00:34:13.640 --> 00:34:25.240] If I knew it was, if I knew I was right about it and I knew, much like saying lightweight marketing occupation that doesn't suck, it's not just marketing, but it truly was a stance that we were taking.
[00:34:25.240 --> 00:34:30.680] Like that's what Drip, when we came on the scene, we were like, all the other platforms are kind of mediocre, guys.
[00:34:30.680 --> 00:34:35.800] And our whole thing, our USP, our positioning, our whole positioning was based on that.
[00:34:35.800 --> 00:34:44.520] And so that's where I was willing to go to the mat for it because it was important to differentiate ourselves in this sea of competitors.
[00:34:44.520 --> 00:34:48.840] I love that you said that because for you guys watching and listening, I'm the same way.
[00:34:49.240 --> 00:34:52.680] It's not like we are just like cocky brash and we like came out that way.
[00:34:52.680 --> 00:34:57.400] I'm very conflict avoidant and was even more so at the beginning of this Spectora journey.
[00:34:57.400 --> 00:34:58.920] I grew up a people pleaser.
[00:34:58.920 --> 00:35:00.520] I was kind of that kid in my family.
[00:35:00.520 --> 00:35:02.120] And so like it hurt me.
[00:35:02.120 --> 00:35:08.840] It made my heart beat fast every time someone would trash me on social media and people would say things about the software and me personally.
[00:35:08.840 --> 00:35:10.680] And it always hurt every time.
[00:35:10.680 --> 00:35:18.080] And it made, there were times I quit going on Facebook for like five, 10 days at a time to regather myself and get my confidence again because I hated it.
[00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:19.120] I hated conflict.
[00:35:19.440 --> 00:35:23.520] But like, I also realized I had to find my voice the way you just said you did.
[00:35:23.520 --> 00:35:27.200] Of like, maybe not finding it, but like you spoke what you knew to be true.
[00:35:27.200 --> 00:35:34.640] My self-growth journey throughout Spectora was like, do your homework and then unapologetically say what you want without being a dick.
[00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:36.160] And that's possible.
[00:35:36.320 --> 00:35:37.040] You can do that.
[00:35:37.040 --> 00:35:39.680] And so I thought about my wording a lot.
[00:35:39.920 --> 00:35:44.080] I got reps on camera the way we've both done over the years on YouTube.
[00:35:44.080 --> 00:35:50.560] So it's like I got used to saying things in a certain way where I was like, hey, I'm not being here, but I just objectively think we are better.
[00:35:50.560 --> 00:35:51.920] And here's why.
[00:35:51.920 --> 00:35:53.120] But I'm happy to debate it.
[00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:54.640] Happy to talk about it.
[00:35:54.640 --> 00:35:58.160] Kevin Wagstaff, thanks for joining me on the show again, man.
[00:35:58.160 --> 00:35:59.200] It's great to have you.
[00:35:59.200 --> 00:36:00.160] This is so fun, man.
[00:36:00.160 --> 00:36:00.560] It's cool.
[00:36:00.800 --> 00:36:03.600] It's neat to be on the other side of the AirPods, huh?
[00:36:03.680 --> 00:36:04.960] Because you were a long-term listener.
[00:36:04.960 --> 00:36:08.160] And is it weird to be on the show now?
[00:36:08.160 --> 00:36:09.840] Did you listen back to your first episode?
[00:36:09.840 --> 00:36:10.320] Not yet.
[00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:13.280] I'm scared to, but I was around listening.
[00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:20.640] I remember I went back and listened to like the first, yeah, I went back and listened from one, I think, years ago when I first started listening.
[00:36:20.640 --> 00:36:31.520] First episode, so I've been an OG for a while, but I get energy out of just like talking about in retrospect now to like our past selves, if that makes sense, of like us 10 years ago.
[00:36:31.520 --> 00:36:33.040] It's so fun and humbling.
[00:36:33.040 --> 00:36:39.120] And I just want people to all kind of crack their industries and win because it's such a fun journey.
[00:36:39.120 --> 00:36:40.480] Well, it's great having you on the show, man.
[00:36:40.480 --> 00:36:44.880] If folks want to keep up with you on X Twitter, you're Kevin Wagstaff3.
[00:36:44.880 --> 00:36:47.840] That's the number, Kevin Wagstaff, and the number three.
[00:36:47.840 --> 00:36:49.440] And I think that's it, right?
[00:36:49.440 --> 00:36:50.240] You're not on LinkedIn.
[00:36:50.400 --> 00:36:53.440] You don't do, you don't have like a main website you want to send people to?
[00:36:53.440 --> 00:36:54.560] Nope, just there.
[00:36:54.560 --> 00:36:59.360] And then if people have more questions, they can find us, you know, where they found us for this one.
[00:36:59.360 --> 00:37:00.680] Find us on the Twitters.
[00:37:00.680 --> 00:37:01.320] Awesome, man.
[00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:02.440] Thanks again for joining me.
[00:37:02.440 --> 00:37:02.920] Awesome.
[00:37:02.920 --> 00:37:04.120] Thanks, brother.
[00:36:59.600 --> 00:37:07.480] Thanks again to Kevin for coming back on the show so soon.
[00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:09.000] I really enjoyed our conversation.
[00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:10.120] I hope you did as well.
[00:37:10.120 --> 00:37:12.360] And if you keep listening, I'll keep recording.
[00:37:12.360 --> 00:37:16.520] This is Rob Walling signing off from episode 786.
[00:37:50.200 --> 00:37:51.960] You found the hidden track.
[00:37:51.960 --> 00:38:01.720] Kevin and I are going to talk a little bit about his experience as an athlete, a college athlete, and then you played pro ball.
[00:38:01.720 --> 00:38:13.080] Tell us a little about your experience, but the reason I want to get into it is I was also a high school and college athlete, and it had a huge impact on my ability to be an entrepreneur and succeed at it.
[00:38:13.080 --> 00:38:16.040] And so I want to hear a little bit about your experience around that too.
[00:38:16.040 --> 00:38:17.640] Yeah, I'm such a believer in it.
[00:38:17.640 --> 00:38:22.120] I mean, it doesn't just have to be athletics, but we're going to, that's what we share in common and what we've drawn from.
[00:38:22.120 --> 00:38:32.760] But it was just something I was so solely focused on basketball from age eight, basically to 28 to basically when we started Spectora, it was something I lived, breathed.
[00:38:32.760 --> 00:38:34.920] I always was a repetition person.
[00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:36.120] I wanted to be really good.
[00:38:36.120 --> 00:38:39.080] And my parents just said, hey, if you want to be really good, practice.
[00:38:39.080 --> 00:38:45.000] And then somewhere along the way, I got really inspired and motivated to hone the craft and spend time at it.
[00:38:45.040 --> 00:38:56.720] And so, when you spend so many thankless mornings and nights lifting with the team, working out, shooting, staying after practice, you just kind of get used to refining something until it's good and sticking with it.
[00:38:56.720 --> 00:39:06.000] And I read a very pivotal, I'll get into this in a second, but played college basketball and then had a chance to play on a semi-pro team in the Philippines afterwards.
[00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:14.080] Did that for a very short stint, came back home because I had a young daughter and realized I'd make more money with my brain than playing basketball.
[00:39:14.080 --> 00:39:33.520] So said goodbye to that dream, had to disassociate from the athlete in me and was kind of had a few years of being lost in a way of like that athlete identity until I came across a Mark Cuban blog post that talked about business being his new sport because he liked basketball and he only played in high school.
[00:39:33.520 --> 00:39:42.560] But he said business is 24/7 and the way he talked about it, I was like, oh my God, I could channel the sports mentality into business and get rich doing it.
[00:39:42.560 --> 00:39:44.080] This sounds incredible.
[00:39:44.080 --> 00:39:53.200] So then it was more just finding the what and kind of had to, you know, bide my time until we found the thing that I could really be a psycho about the way I was a psycho about basketball.
[00:39:53.200 --> 00:39:54.000] Yeah, obsessive.
[00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:54.160] Yeah.
[00:39:54.400 --> 00:39:54.800] Obsessive.
[00:39:54.800 --> 00:39:55.200] Yeah.
[00:39:55.200 --> 00:39:55.680] What about you?
[00:39:55.920 --> 00:40:02.400] When you, what, well, when you say the sports mentality, I'm going to tell you how that, what that translates to me, and you can tell me if you feel the same way.
[00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:04.480] To me, academics were always easy.
[00:40:04.480 --> 00:40:08.320] I read from the time I was like three years old, doing math in my head, whatever.
[00:40:08.320 --> 00:40:09.600] All that stuff kind of came easy.
[00:40:09.600 --> 00:40:11.360] Sports were really hard for me.
[00:40:11.360 --> 00:40:14.160] I'm not like physically, naturally gifted.
[00:40:14.160 --> 00:40:16.960] And so I was slower than the other kids.
[00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:18.720] I was skinnier.
[00:40:18.720 --> 00:40:19.680] I was weaker.
[00:40:19.680 --> 00:40:22.240] I couldn't push as many weights as anybody.
[00:40:22.240 --> 00:40:24.320] And I played football and ran track and all this.
[00:40:24.320 --> 00:40:36.600] The big thing with sports for me is I would work day in, day out with basically no positive feedback loop for weeks and then months.
[00:40:36.920 --> 00:40:41.160] And then I'd have that first meet if I was running track.
[00:40:41.160 --> 00:40:44.600] And I'd get the first feedback loop of, ooh, I'm doing okay or I'm not.
[00:40:44.920 --> 00:40:48.680] And then the next week, then I'd have another feedback loop of, oh, I'm doing better.
[00:40:48.680 --> 00:40:53.080] And whether it was just pure time-based or whether it was placing, you know, in the races.
[00:40:53.080 --> 00:41:00.520] But the thing there is this ability to have delayed gratification and to work towards a goal that is months and months out.
[00:41:00.520 --> 00:41:08.440] Now, I never thought, you know, I mean, I ran track from the time I was, what, 14 until I was 23, right, through college.
[00:41:08.440 --> 00:41:12.920] So I wasn't old enough to, I never thought in terms of years, ooh, in three, four years, I'm going to be better.
[00:41:12.920 --> 00:41:17.320] I just didn't think that far out, but I definitely thought out, ooh, in six months, I'm going to be faster.
[00:41:17.320 --> 00:41:19.000] In nine months, I'm going to be faster.
[00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:21.080] And I didn't play instruments growing up.
[00:41:21.080 --> 00:41:27.160] I didn't do anything else in my life, I think, that had such delayed gratification till I became a founder.
[00:41:27.160 --> 00:41:33.000] Till I became a, well, at first, it was a blogger where it's like, oh, I got to build an audience over a year or five or 15, right?
[00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:33.720] Podcaster.
[00:41:33.720 --> 00:41:35.800] But being an entrepreneur was where it hit me.
[00:41:35.800 --> 00:41:46.600] So that's when you say sports mentality, to me, it's like, no, I'm going to put in the reps, even though I kind of have nothing to show for it for an extended period of time.
[00:41:46.600 --> 00:41:48.120] Does that resonate with you?
[00:41:48.120 --> 00:41:49.080] 100%.
[00:41:49.080 --> 00:41:56.200] And to build on that, some of those reps, I imagine you pushed your body to a point of near failure and exhaustion, right?
[00:41:56.200 --> 00:41:57.000] To be great.
[00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:00.280] Yeah, I used to throw up every week or two in the early parts of the season.
[00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:00.840] Yeah.
[00:42:00.840 --> 00:42:04.920] So you, you once you push your body in a way, that's physical pain.
[00:42:04.920 --> 00:42:05.720] You feel it.
[00:42:06.040 --> 00:42:12.280] Whereas like emotional pain is different and it's like sometimes harder, sometimes not as hard as physical pain.
[00:42:12.280 --> 00:42:19.760] And so, that's why by like even working out, working out, pushing your body, once it's like pushing your mind, then you're like, oh, I got, I could do this.
[00:42:14.920 --> 00:42:20.960] I got energy left in the tank.
[00:42:21.040 --> 00:42:23.120] I got renewable energy here.
[00:42:23.440 --> 00:42:24.880] I can keep going.
[00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:32.640] You find levels within yourself to just say, like, oh no, no, I can push harder and not let it ruin my day or impact me because you've done it physically.
[00:42:32.640 --> 00:42:36.160] So, like, part of it was, oh, we've pushed ourselves way harder.
[00:42:36.160 --> 00:42:37.280] We got this.
[00:42:37.280 --> 00:42:39.200] Yeah, that was something I thought of often.
[00:42:39.200 --> 00:42:46.480] The other place where I think this holds up is learning an instrument over the course of many years, which I am not acting.
[00:42:46.480 --> 00:42:48.320] I play the guitar, but I'm not that good at it.
[00:42:48.320 --> 00:42:49.600] And I've always, I'm self-taught.
[00:42:49.600 --> 00:42:51.760] So, I never did the hardcore practice.
[00:42:51.760 --> 00:42:56.800] But my kids, when they were younger, Sherry and I said, You will do something hard every day.
[00:42:56.800 --> 00:43:02.240] You will either do a martial art, you will play an instrument, or you will play a sport.
[00:43:02.240 --> 00:43:04.720] And you will do that six days a week.
[00:43:04.720 --> 00:43:08.160] And I mean, that's pretty, it's pretty brutal, but we're just like, no, no, no, no.
[00:43:08.320 --> 00:43:17.600] And it's not because I want you to be a concert cellist and violin, which is what they play, or that I want you to be a black belt martial artist, or that I want you to be a track athlete.
[00:43:17.600 --> 00:43:25.760] It's that I want you to know what it's like to build something over time and to do hard you don't want to do to have a payoff years from now.
[00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:28.800] Man, life lessons in a world that just keeps moving quicker.
[00:43:28.800 --> 00:43:30.800] They are going to be well equipped.
[00:43:30.800 --> 00:43:33.280] What would you say, Rob, to someone who didn't play sports?
[00:43:33.280 --> 00:43:36.000] Because I'm always curious when I'm like, man, it's so natural to us.
[00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:39.280] Like, what would you say to someone who had other things?
[00:43:39.280 --> 00:43:40.080] Well, and that's the thing.
[00:43:40.080 --> 00:43:47.040] There's a bunch of tiny seed founders who, a bunch of founders I know who are super successful that I don't think played any, played sports as a kid.
[00:43:47.040 --> 00:43:50.800] You know, anybody that I've had on the show, like, I don't think most of them did.
[00:43:50.800 --> 00:43:54.400] And so I think there are other ways to do this.
[00:43:54.400 --> 00:43:58.640] I don't think you and I should frame this as, oh, this is how you're successful is if you played sports.
[00:43:58.640 --> 00:43:59.880] I don't think that's it either.
[00:43:59.880 --> 00:44:01.560] I think each of us has our motive.
[00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:03.560] One, you need some motivation.
[00:43:59.520 --> 00:44:04.680] I think there has to be a goal.
[00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:09.800] Like my goal was to make enough money that I had some type of freedom and I wasn't worried constantly about money.
[00:44:09.800 --> 00:44:11.160] And then, hey, I can quit the day job.
[00:44:11.160 --> 00:44:12.680] And then, hey, I don't have to work again, right?
[00:44:12.680 --> 00:44:14.440] That was a strong goal.
[00:44:14.440 --> 00:44:15.800] So that's kind of the first thing.
[00:44:15.800 --> 00:44:19.960] But the second thing is, I think you need some type of intrinsic motivation.
[00:44:19.960 --> 00:44:22.280] And I think if you played sports, you know what that is.
[00:44:22.280 --> 00:44:26.120] But I think some people are also just intrinsically motivated to do stuff.
[00:44:26.120 --> 00:44:28.920] And I don't know if that comes from upbringing.
[00:44:28.920 --> 00:44:35.880] Like there are some folks I know who kind of had to get a job from the time they were like 12 or were like working from the time they were 10.
[00:44:35.880 --> 00:44:38.680] And to them, work was just a part of life.
[00:44:38.680 --> 00:44:40.600] Doing work that you didn't want to do was just it.
[00:44:40.600 --> 00:44:42.760] So I think that could easily be it.
[00:44:42.760 --> 00:44:44.920] So I think there are many paths.
[00:44:44.920 --> 00:44:51.080] I just think sports is perhaps an easy, it's really easy to see the comparison, you know, in the through line.
[00:44:51.080 --> 00:44:51.320] Yeah.