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[00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:04.080] Is this really an episode of Startups for the Rest of Us on a Thursday?
[00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:04.960] That's right.
[00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:12.160] For the next six weeks, you'll find new episodes of Tiny Seed Tales Season 5 in this feed every Thursday morning.
[00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:21.520] If you're not familiar with Tiny Seed Tales, it's a narrative-style season-based show where I follow a founder as they navigate the ups and downs of building a SaaS.
[00:00:21.520 --> 00:00:28.640] We dive into their journey to find product-market fit, optimize the product, scale their business, and hopefully reach escape velocity.
[00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:34.800] These episodes were recorded over the past year, so you're going to get an inside look at a founder's journey.
[00:00:34.800 --> 00:00:42.160] The goal is to give you honest insights into the challenges, setbacks, and hard-won victories that come with growing a real SaaS company.
[00:00:42.160 --> 00:00:50.000] If you're new to Tiny Seed, it's the startup accelerator I run for ambitious, bootstrapped SaaS founders, and it's the first accelerator of its kind.
[00:00:50.000 --> 00:01:02.400] Twice a year, we fund B2B SaaS founders who want just the right amount of capital, a community of like-minded, ambitious founders, and access to mentorship, advice, and everything else you'd expect from a world-class accelerator.
[00:01:02.400 --> 00:01:06.560] Applications for our fall 2025 batch open on September 1st.
[00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:18.240] This time around, we've shortened the application window a bit and we've tightened up the process so we'll get you a definitive answer much quicker, avoiding the drawn-out uncertainty common in other investment processes.
[00:01:18.240 --> 00:01:25.520] The application is intentionally short and focused, and if you know your core metrics, it usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.
[00:01:25.520 --> 00:01:32.800] For all the details and to get notified when applications open, go to tinyseed.com/slash apply and get on our mailing list.
[00:01:32.800 --> 00:01:35.760] Let's dive into this first episode of season five.
[00:01:35.760 --> 00:01:36.960] My name is Harris Kenny.
[00:01:36.960 --> 00:01:44.480] I'm the founder of Outbound Sync, and it's an integration product between sales engagement platforms and CRMs.
[00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:53.440] Welcome back to Tiny Seed Tales, a series where I follow a founder through the roller coaster of building their startup.
[00:01:53.440 --> 00:02:01.480] I'm your host, Rob Walling, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of TinySeed, the first startup accelerator designed for bootstrappers.
[00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:07.480] This will be our first episode of season five, where we follow Harris Kenney, founder of Outbound Sync.
[00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:17.160] Harris has made the hard transition from agency owner to SaaS founder, and in just over a year, he has built his monthly recurring revenue to $10,000 a month.
[00:02:17.160 --> 00:02:22.520] In my first conversation with Harris, I asked him why he applied to TinySeed in the first place.
[00:02:25.640 --> 00:02:34.840] My SAS product was built out of my agency, and it was the fourth iteration of a SAS that I tried over a total of five years working myself.
[00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:39.080] And what really pushed me was that it felt like it was starting to really take off.
[00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:45.080] And I was feeling that like the rocket is like entering the atmosphere and it's shaking and the bolts are moving.
[00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:53.560] And because I was getting more deals coming in and bigger and bigger prospects and like very mature companies saying, hey, yeah, we're interested in this.
[00:02:53.560 --> 00:02:55.240] Here's a security questionnaire.
[00:02:55.240 --> 00:02:58.440] And sort of these things, it just sort of started compounding.
[00:02:58.440 --> 00:03:02.520] And actually, someone reached out to me who's a Tiny Seed portfolio company.
[00:03:02.520 --> 00:03:04.600] And he was like, hey, you should think about applying to Tiny Seed.
[00:03:04.600 --> 00:03:05.800] And I was like, oh, actually, it's funny.
[00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:06.440] It's a long story.
[00:03:06.440 --> 00:03:11.080] I've been following Tiny Seed for years and I kind of forgot about it to go into building mode.
[00:03:11.080 --> 00:03:15.000] But now that I'm here and this is working, maybe I should throw my hat in.
[00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:17.080] And so I reached out to a couple of Tiny Seed founders.
[00:03:17.080 --> 00:03:20.760] But yeah, it was that feeling of like, hey, what if this works actually?
[00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:25.720] And that was exciting, but also I don't know what I want to do this alone, basically.
[00:03:26.200 --> 00:03:27.560] That's a good way to think about it.
[00:03:27.720 --> 00:03:31.640] Not fear of success, but like, oh, like, this is actually, this is, this seems like it could actually work.
[00:03:31.640 --> 00:03:33.400] So it's like, I should not get in my own way.
[00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:37.560] Being alone, like, I should, yeah, if I'm alone, I feel like my odds of success are higher with Tiny Seed, basically.
[00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:38.840] That was kind of like why I should try.
[00:03:38.840 --> 00:03:41.320] But if it didn't work, I was going to do it anyway.
[00:03:42.920 --> 00:03:46.000] Some of the challenges of being a solopreneur are obvious.
[00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:50.000] The loneliness, the isolation, no one to spitball ideas with.
[00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:57.440] But then there's also this very practical human need to succeed, if for no other reason than to support your family.
[00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:04.320] I started my own company five years ago before my wife and I had kids because I wanted to have the flexibility.
[00:04:04.320 --> 00:04:08.160] And I was always able to, in services, it's very like flexible.
[00:04:08.480 --> 00:04:11.840] You can always, I was always able to kind of like pull a rabbit out of a hat and like make it work.
[00:04:11.840 --> 00:04:13.120] And we have a great house.
[00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:14.320] We're very fortunate.
[00:04:14.320 --> 00:04:19.200] But with SAS, it was kind of like, okay, it's time for me to take this more seriously.
[00:04:19.200 --> 00:04:26.960] Like how I'm like getting our, you know, when we got this new house, like the process of getting a mortgage was so, so frustrating because of how I paid myself through my own company.
[00:04:26.960 --> 00:04:30.320] And it's like, okay, it's time for me to kind of like grow up a little bit.
[00:04:30.320 --> 00:04:39.600] And if I'm going to run that kind of company, I've known how to make it work, you know, kind of like a street, like a street rat, like Aladdin, you know, or whatever.
[00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:45.520] But it's like, okay, now I'm kind of entering a different world where like there's due diligence and process and, you know, uptime.
[00:04:45.520 --> 00:04:49.600] And you can't just like make up for it with like a smile and working extra on a Saturday.
[00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:54.560] It's like, if that thing is down, it's down and like you messed up and it's a huge problem.
[00:04:54.560 --> 00:05:02.160] So it was, it was all of that, but also the upside of like, it's, it's the type of, it's like the best business model ever.
[00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:07.360] And if I could be the one, you know, running that kind of business, the reward is, you know, pretty substantial.
[00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:08.560] And it's really leveraged work.
[00:05:08.560 --> 00:05:12.560] I solve a problem once and I sell it X times versus one.
[00:05:12.960 --> 00:05:14.960] And also it's recurring.
[00:05:14.960 --> 00:05:15.760] Yes.
[00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:22.960] Let's say you went and raised friends and family, or you raised an angel round and you hustled and you got money.
[00:05:22.960 --> 00:05:26.480] That wouldn't replace the community, the mentorship, the connection, right?
[00:05:26.480 --> 00:05:29.560] But there are other programs certainly out there.
[00:05:28.880 --> 00:05:34.520] There are funds that have communities, or there are accelerators, regional accelerators.
[00:05:29.200 --> 00:05:36.040] There are other options.
[00:05:36.360 --> 00:05:43.720] And I'm curious, you know, if you evaluated those or for you, like, why TinySeed over the alternatives?
[00:05:44.680 --> 00:05:58.360] Yeah, I think that Tiny Seed, it was definitely an end of one when I got to this point because MicroConf community, this is like going back to like 2020, kind of like started me down this road.
[00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:03.320] And, you know, start small, stay small, and the stair-stepping method, those ideas were like very early on.
[00:06:03.320 --> 00:06:09.240] It was like small dominoes that started, but it took a while for them to like for the dominoes to get bigger, basically.
[00:06:09.240 --> 00:06:18.600] And so it kind of shaped in my mind how I was thinking about like what I wanted a business to do for me, for my life, for my family.
[00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:21.240] And then I went through this like circuitous route.
[00:06:21.240 --> 00:06:22.280] So I think that's like part of it.
[00:06:22.280 --> 00:06:28.040] It was like very early influence in terms of setting what's possible in my mind.
[00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:30.840] It's like it doesn't have to be a billion dollar company to be successful.
[00:06:30.840 --> 00:06:39.160] There's actually many, in fact, like hundreds of millions of different little price points between zero and a billion that would be really successful.
[00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:41.240] So I think that's part of it.
[00:06:41.240 --> 00:06:46.280] And then, and then it was like sort of wandering through the desert, trying a lot of ideas, trying to run the agency, slowly getting better.
[00:06:46.280 --> 00:06:47.160] I mean, we had some good months.
[00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:51.480] I mean, I had some agency months where we were over 30K in, you know, build services.
[00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:52.440] You know, it was good.
[00:06:52.440 --> 00:06:54.040] It was, it was, it was a good agency.
[00:06:54.040 --> 00:07:03.640] But as the SaaS part started growing and that MRR kept growing relative to the agency side, it was like, no, I really wanted to build a B2B SaaS company.
[00:07:03.640 --> 00:07:05.720] I don't want to build a productized service.
[00:07:05.720 --> 00:07:14.600] I don't want to have like some goofy combination of things, like multiple bets with like a little app here, a little app there.
[00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:27.280] Like, I want to build a single B2B SaaS company that solves a really specific problem and that moves upmarket and that can solve like enterprise-level, really highly complex issues because of what we do around block lists and syncing data.
[00:07:27.280 --> 00:07:30.240] Like, it actually gets pretty thorny.
[00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:32.320] And we're in a really, really small area.
[00:07:32.320 --> 00:07:37.360] And so it's just like, I'm going to need more like power, firepower, like my team.
[00:07:37.360 --> 00:07:39.200] And I want to build a B2B SaaS company.
[00:07:39.200 --> 00:07:39.600] That was it.
[00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:44.880] And like the other ones I talked to that, you know, or that I looked at over the years were like, well, we'll invest in this, but also this and also this.
[00:07:44.880 --> 00:07:49.520] Their thesis was so scattered that it was kind of like, I don't really want that.
[00:07:49.520 --> 00:07:54.800] And I want somebody who's going to be like, hey, let's talk about churn for two hours.
[00:07:54.800 --> 00:07:56.240] And we want to talk about it.
[00:07:56.240 --> 00:07:57.200] And you want to talk about it.
[00:07:57.200 --> 00:08:01.840] And by the way, you have like 12 friends who are all like similar spots who also want to talk about it.
[00:08:01.840 --> 00:08:06.400] That was like what I wanted, not just sort of like a general panel about like, how do you keep your customers happy?
[00:08:06.400 --> 00:08:09.840] It's like, no, no, I very specifically wanted to solve this churn problem.
[00:08:09.840 --> 00:08:10.160] Yeah.
[00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:11.520] No, and that makes a lot of sense.
[00:08:11.520 --> 00:08:16.480] And that is how my career as a professional has evolved.
[00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:22.560] Because if you go back to MicroConf in 2011, it was the conference for self-funded startups.
[00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:23.840] It was not SaaS.
[00:08:23.840 --> 00:08:30.960] And it wasn't until really 2015, 14, somewhere in there, where I was like, oh, SaaS is where I want to be.
[00:08:30.960 --> 00:08:36.000] And the deeper I go, the more value that I can provide.
[00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:40.880] And by deeper I go, I meant startups for the rest of us went all SaaS at that point.
[00:08:40.880 --> 00:08:44.800] And that's, I just told people, like, I'm not answering questions about info products anymore.
[00:08:44.800 --> 00:08:46.080] It's not that I don't like info products.
[00:08:46.080 --> 00:08:48.240] It's not that I don't make info products, right?
[00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:48.800] I have courses.
[00:08:48.800 --> 00:08:49.280] I have books.
[00:08:49.280 --> 00:08:53.920] I have like everything I do, you know, on the Microconf side is kind of a course information product.
[00:08:53.920 --> 00:08:55.440] It's not that I don't like those.
[00:08:55.440 --> 00:08:58.880] It's that I can't help you as much if I'm not focused.
[00:08:58.880 --> 00:09:01.320] It's why my books now, I have read a book called the SAS playbook.
[00:09:01.400 --> 00:09:10.920] It's not the startup playbook because for exactly what you're saying is like the moment that you rise up one layer of abstraction, you lose granularity.
[00:09:10.920 --> 00:09:14.200] And two hours on churn makes no sense.
[00:09:14.200 --> 00:09:26.280] If there's a biotech company next to you and a hardware company on the other side and a two-sided marketplace on the other side and a B2C company on the other side, you know, of you, it just you don't share that same depth.
[00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:30.120] And I concern, I was concerned early on about pigeonholing.
[00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:37.480] And frankly, when we launched Tiny Seed, Ainar, my co-founder, for folks who are listening, co-GP, he was like, it's B2B SAS.
[00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:38.120] That's what we're doing.
[00:09:38.120 --> 00:09:43.560] And I was like, ooh, but maybe what if I'm the person who was like, but I could, we could.
[00:09:43.640 --> 00:09:46.200] And I think it's the best decision we made.
[00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:53.800] Looking at our batch, it's like these companies are structurally similar, like in the important ways, but so different.
[00:09:54.120 --> 00:10:00.040] And it's amazing how much you can learn when, you know, like real estate titles is like one of our batch companies and like Go Links.
[00:10:00.040 --> 00:10:08.200] And then, but then you hear him talking, you're like, actually, no, this is, this is totally relevant, even though if you talk to like a normal person, they would be like, those are three different companies.
[00:10:08.200 --> 00:10:09.720] Right, but a lot of commonality.
[00:10:09.720 --> 00:10:09.880] Yeah.
[00:10:09.880 --> 00:10:12.440] So I can see how, yeah, and you learn from that.
[00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:15.160] So yeah, it's just like a very specific way to operate.
[00:10:15.160 --> 00:10:17.720] But within that, I think there's a lot of variety.
[00:10:17.720 --> 00:10:24.760] Well, and it speaks to, you know, secretly slash not so secretly, like, what do any of us want to do?
[00:10:24.760 --> 00:10:27.800] We want to operate a company that is probably best in class.
[00:10:27.800 --> 00:10:31.320] And I want to operate my, I want my companies to always be the gold standard, right?
[00:10:31.320 --> 00:10:33.480] So, I wanted Drip to be the best at what it did.
[00:10:33.480 --> 00:10:35.080] And I wanted people to think highly of it.
[00:10:35.080 --> 00:10:39.000] And I want MicroConf to be the gold standard for, you know, bootstrapped entrepreneurs.
[00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:42.840] And I wanted Tiny Seed to be the gold standard for B2B SaaS accelerators.
[00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:43.080] Period.
[00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:44.120] I want to be the best in the world.
[00:10:44.120 --> 00:10:44.920] Otherwise, why am I doing it?
[00:10:45.600 --> 00:10:48.720] And it speaks to that-that's a long road.
[00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:52.560] You have to build a brand, you have to do all this stuff, but it speaks to that.
[00:10:52.560 --> 00:10:59.840] That it was a factor for you of, oh, well, I'm B2B SaaS, and therefore I want the best that I know, you know.
[00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:02.400] So, it um, I don't know, I guess that means a lot.
[00:11:02.400 --> 00:11:10.800] I normally on Tiny Seed Tales, I'm not the one kind of having a realization, but like it, every time I hear that kind of thing of why did you apply, and it's like, Well, you're B2B SaaS, and so am I.
[00:11:10.800 --> 00:11:13.600] It's like, we made the right, made the right decision, you know what I mean?
[00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:17.760] Going narrow is often, often the right decision, yeah.
[00:11:17.760 --> 00:11:29.280] Well, I mean, especially at that point, because you know, at that point, our MRR was, um, I mean, this is April, May, it was like 7,000 or something like that.
[00:11:29.280 --> 00:11:42.800] It was, it was a, you know, and so, and I, and I still had like, I mean, in May, this is my last full month of the agency, we did $30,000 in revenue, but then like almost a third of that was the SaaS.
[00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:47.920] So, I was like getting basically at my time, I was really busy then.
[00:11:47.920 --> 00:11:50.720] And then I had these big customers who were paying me big amounts, and the SaaS was getting close.
[00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:54.240] I was like, I don't probably don't need to do this.
[00:11:54.240 --> 00:12:00.320] But when I talked about it, you know, with my wife, she was like really encouraging of like, this is the thing that you've been wanting.
[00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:02.560] Like, just like, you should go for it.
[00:12:02.560 --> 00:12:03.440] Don't go halfway.
[00:12:03.760 --> 00:12:17.200] And I will say, like, two months out from that decision, just speaking about the point about focus, these two months of the SaaS now really taking off and then the agency petering out and like slowly winding down have been, it has been so much work running both.
[00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:25.840] And like during the process, I remember Tracy was like, you know, look, like, you run your company, but just so you know, like, we want, if you're working on it, we want it to be the thing that you're working on.
[00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:29.680] We don't want you to have like seven other things going on, which I was like, okay, I get it.
[00:12:30.040 --> 00:12:31.640] Okay, like, no problem.
[00:12:31.960 --> 00:12:49.240] But two months of like having both is like, I literally, I don't know if I could do this for another month or two because it, you know, and so I've seen this like relief, but also like I'm having much better ideas and I'm having, we can talk about like the go-to-market stuff, but like that is starting to really, really accelerate.
[00:12:49.240 --> 00:12:53.400] And I'm also seeing with my team, like our developer, he was part-time before.
[00:12:53.400 --> 00:12:56.920] And then once joining Tiny Seed, I could say, hey, you're 40 hours now.
[00:12:56.920 --> 00:12:58.680] And oh my gosh, he is just ripping.
[00:12:58.680 --> 00:13:02.520] And I've got a funny story from the kickoff about that, but he's just ripping through tickets.
[00:13:02.520 --> 00:13:07.640] And this is kind of goofy, but personal example: we have a nanny who we hired full-time.
[00:13:07.640 --> 00:13:14.280] And we've had like this mix mishmash of daycare in the past, but having a full-time nanny who she's really good and she's like, this is what I do.
[00:13:14.280 --> 00:13:18.920] I take care of kids and I help you, you know, help your family.
[00:13:19.240 --> 00:13:24.680] She's like helping around the house and she's doing laundry and she's cleaning and she's so playful with the kids and she's coming up with these activities.
[00:13:24.680 --> 00:13:30.440] And it's so different than when we had like a part-time nanny and then a grandma here and then spend time with a neighbor there.
[00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:37.080] And so like there's this whole like deeper thing that I'm kind of processing about like focus energy and like, what are you doing?
[00:13:37.080 --> 00:13:40.680] Like whether it's like our developer or a nanny or me having one company.
[00:13:40.920 --> 00:13:46.920] And it seems so obvious, but it's just like, it's just slowly permeating my like whole like brain.
[00:13:51.400 --> 00:13:57.400] I've learned through personal experience that when you try to run multiple companies at once, all of them suffer.
[00:13:57.400 --> 00:13:59.160] And so does your personal life.
[00:13:59.160 --> 00:14:04.280] That's why we require any founder we invest in to fully commit to their idea.
[00:14:04.280 --> 00:14:07.240] That's what I told Harris when he applied to be part of Tiny Seed.
[00:14:07.240 --> 00:14:11.080] And he was skeptical at first, but ultimately he came around.
[00:14:14.640 --> 00:14:19.520] When I said, like, okay, I thought I was like, okay, this is kind of like not a concession, but like a little bit of a concession.
[00:14:19.520 --> 00:14:27.040] But what I've come to realize is that it has actually, I think, benefited me disproportionately because I own most of my company, almost all of it still.
[00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:28.720] And so my company's doing better.
[00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:29.920] So I benefit way more.
[00:14:29.920 --> 00:14:32.160] And in my personal life, my whole thinking on that has flipped.
[00:14:32.160 --> 00:14:35.520] I mean, I wasn't like salty about it before, but I was kind of like, okay, this is a choice.
[00:14:35.520 --> 00:14:36.960] I'm giving something up here.
[00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:51.920] But I feel like I've just been freed to just build this thing that like after spending all this time, years trying ideas and posting and getting feedback, I finally have this idea that really smart people are like, hey, I want a demo.
[00:14:51.920 --> 00:14:53.520] So it's like, just do that thing.
[00:14:53.520 --> 00:14:54.400] Like this is it.
[00:14:54.400 --> 00:14:54.800] Just do it.
[00:14:55.040 --> 00:14:59.600] You know, you have caught a tiger by the tail, lighting that bottle, whatever analogy we can use for it.
[00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:04.960] And it's like, don't that up by half-assing it.
[00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:05.440] Yeah.
[00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:07.120] Because someone will eat your lunch.
[00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:10.080] This is what would happen if you worked on this and three other things.
[00:15:10.080 --> 00:15:11.520] Is it would grow slow.
[00:15:11.520 --> 00:15:12.400] You wouldn't give a full attention.
[00:15:12.400 --> 00:15:13.360] You'd be distracted.
[00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:22.880] When you're doing dishes, when you're walking around, when you're in the shower, whatever, all your thoughts are scattered between three and four things.
[00:15:22.880 --> 00:15:24.080] It doesn't get the attention it deserves.
[00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:25.120] It's not even the hours.
[00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:29.600] It's as you said, you have your best ideas when you're focused.
[00:15:29.600 --> 00:15:33.280] And that your best ideas are what's going to 10x this business.
[00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:36.320] It's not the split focus.
[00:15:36.320 --> 00:15:42.160] There are two agencies who are working on, had been working on kind of a similar thing, and I'm seeing us separate.
[00:15:42.160 --> 00:15:48.400] I'm seeing us getting mentioned organically in other places, and I'm seeing us getting referrals because they're like, oh, that's Harris's thing.
[00:15:48.560 --> 00:15:49.920] That, oh, outbound sync.
[00:15:49.920 --> 00:15:50.640] That's all they do.
[00:15:50.640 --> 00:15:52.960] Even though, like, those other agency owners, by the way, are super smart.
[00:15:52.960 --> 00:16:00.680] And I know that they've built really good integrations that are working for their individual customers, but they're also doing their thought leadership posts and they're also trying to get known for other things.
[00:15:59.920 --> 00:16:03.160] And so I'm seeing that play out right now.
[00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:09.080] Like what could be a direct competitor versus like a Zapier make or something.
[00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:22.440] I want to touch on something you've already brought up, which is you had an agency doing outbound for paid clients.
[00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:25.560] And as you said, you built it to 30 grand a month.
[00:16:25.560 --> 00:16:31.480] And you launched a successful SaaS out of that agency.
[00:16:31.800 --> 00:16:36.040] The thing with building a SaaS out of an agency is every agency wants to do it.
[00:16:36.040 --> 00:16:39.400] Some agencies try and almost none succeed.
[00:16:39.400 --> 00:16:45.800] It's very, very hard to be running an agency or a consultancy managing clients.
[00:16:45.800 --> 00:16:48.680] You have freelancers or full-time people doing day-to-day work.
[00:16:48.680 --> 00:16:50.840] It's like, I got to get 40 hours of work in just for the clients.
[00:16:50.840 --> 00:16:52.120] And I'm trying to do the SaaS on the side.
[00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:58.920] Is it nights and weekends or am I not taking paying work to do this thing that is not paying me or may never pay me?
[00:16:58.920 --> 00:17:00.680] And that's the balance, right?
[00:17:00.680 --> 00:17:12.520] Is if I can bill $100, $200 an hour, whatever it is, thousands of dollars a month, why wouldn't I just do that than actually focus on the thing that might bring me thousands of dollars a month a year or two down the line?
[00:17:12.520 --> 00:17:16.040] My question for you is: how did you do it?
[00:17:16.040 --> 00:17:19.560] When most fail, why have you succeeded?
[00:17:19.560 --> 00:17:29.960] I think the first thing I would say that I feel is that where I am right now is that this is kind of the getting into Tiny Seed, winding out in the agency, starting the SaaS is kind of the end of the beginning.
[00:17:29.960 --> 00:17:34.120] And so I see the like early development of the project as kind of like prologue.
[00:17:34.120 --> 00:17:39.080] And obviously there's like a lot of work to be done from here, but like, how did I get from prologue to here?
[00:17:39.080 --> 00:17:42.200] I think like I just really, really, really wanted it.
[00:17:42.200 --> 00:17:50.240] I really wanted to have this kind of company seeing other SaaS founders who kind of got to later stages and what their life looked like.
[00:17:50.560 --> 00:17:52.560] And, you know, it was just like, I want that.
[00:17:52.560 --> 00:17:53.760] I want to be around.
[00:17:53.760 --> 00:18:01.680] It's really important to me to spend as much time as I can with my kids, but also have resources so that they can do cool things and travel.
[00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:03.920] You know, my wife and I love to travel.
[00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:06.320] So I think that I really wanted the outcome.
[00:18:06.320 --> 00:18:08.480] And this idea I stumbled on by accident.
[00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:11.280] I had a customer who basically wanted this product.
[00:18:11.280 --> 00:18:13.280] They were right for the wrong reasons.
[00:18:13.280 --> 00:18:17.440] They were too small to need it versus what I'm seeing, who actually needs it these days.
[00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:19.600] But I built it just because I felt like I could.
[00:18:19.600 --> 00:18:26.720] And frankly, like, I wouldn't be here if I didn't have ChatGPT because I built the first version of this with ChatGPT and Make.
[00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:36.240] And I thought it was like, I saw this, there's this funny quote of like, we do hard things not because they are hard, but because we thought they would be easy.
[00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:40.880] And that's how I ended up here because I was like, oh, I can do that in a make.com scenario, no problem.
[00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:42.000] And then I use ChatGPT.
[00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.640] I just need one API call and I can do everything else in Make.
[00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:46.960] And then I posted about LinkedIn and more people were interested.
[00:18:46.960 --> 00:18:52.640] And so I started bundling with my campaigns and I started saying, hey, if you want to do outbound with us, you have to be using HubSpot.
[00:18:52.640 --> 00:18:54.400] And we use our integration.
[00:18:54.400 --> 00:18:58.640] And so it was kind of forced coupling of the two products.
[00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:02.640] And then if the product was like falling short, I could always make up for it on the services side.
[00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:07.680] And then slowly I started to have people say, well, we don't want to do campaigns with you, but that sync thing sounds cool.
[00:19:07.680 --> 00:19:09.040] Can we just have that?
[00:19:09.040 --> 00:19:10.560] And so then I sold a couple of those.
[00:19:10.560 --> 00:19:15.280] And that was the first time I felt like, oh, I have actual SaaS revenue here.
[00:19:15.280 --> 00:19:16.960] Like, this is, they're just paying me for a product.
[00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:19.440] And I haven't talked to them in a month.
[00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:24.000] And I checked in with them because I, my service anxiety was like, hey, like, how's everything going?
[00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:25.200] And they're like, yeah, man, great.
[00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:26.240] Like, what's up?
[00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:27.360] Why are you emailing me?
[00:19:27.600 --> 00:19:28.960] I was like, oh, have a good day.
[00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:29.200] All right.
[00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:29.520] See ya.
[00:19:29.520 --> 00:19:29.760] Good to hear.
[00:19:29.760 --> 00:19:31.000] Let me know if you need anything.
[00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:34.440] So that was kind of like how I think kind of stepped into it.
[00:19:34.840 --> 00:19:37.800] I did a trade with a development shop running campaigns for them.
[00:19:37.800 --> 00:19:40.440] And then they refactored the code from low code to code.
[00:19:40.440 --> 00:19:45.240] So it took four months of low code, two months of refactoring to real code.
[00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:47.960] And then that's when things really started.
[00:19:47.960 --> 00:21:00.720] So we had our, I kind of count our MRR in October when it was running through like the real platform and I wasn't manually connecting make scenarios and stuff like that because the product was just so bad then that it just like it really didn't count so yeah that's kind of technically how I do it but but it was nights and weekends and it was weird hours there's one story that I just like I'll remember this for my entire life so we had also had some really intense family and medical stuff that's like a conversation with their day and then my health also like it's been hard to be healthy like I've not had the best lifestyle like losing a lot like not a lot of sleep not great food not great exercise so it's been very difficult it's required a lot of different sacrifices that I'm trying to like correct a little bit now it was 3 30 in the morning in Denver one of these early early customers who said they wanted it I connected it through make this guy's in Warsaw he's in Poland and I'm messaging him on slack I'm like hey I fixed that bug he's like okay great I was like do you want to talk about it I just want to make sure that it's working he was like now like right now aren't you in Denver I was like yeah I'm awake like are you free let's talk and so we like hopped on a slide huddle and we talked for like 10 minutes and he was like 3 30 in the morning and he was like are you like okay I'm like yeah yeah I've just been working on this for five hours like I'm not like doing any kind of drugs or anything.
[00:21:00.720 --> 00:21:05.840] Like, I've just worked on this for five hours and I need to hear from you that it's working so I can go to bed.
[00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:08.320] And he was like, You're a zombie.
[00:21:08.360 --> 00:21:09.520] I was like, I was like, I don't know.
[00:21:09.560 --> 00:21:12.400] I'm just, I just really want to solve this right now and then I'm going to go to sleep.
[00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:16.000] And so, not being a developer, there were times where things were probably like way harder.
[00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:23.360] Like, GPC isn't actually that good at writing code, but that like that it was, it was like sacrifices like that, being lucky, having good support, like a lot of other things.
[00:21:23.360 --> 00:21:25.760] But, but, yeah, that's kind of my reflection on that stage.
[00:21:25.760 --> 00:21:28.720] I like that, and I want to, I want to tease it out.
[00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:32.160] I often say success is three components of varying degrees.
[00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:34.160] It depends on the story.
[00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:37.120] The components are hard work, luck, and skill.
[00:21:37.120 --> 00:21:43.200] And the hard work is you doing what it takes and staying up till 3:30 in the morning and doing it.
[00:21:43.200 --> 00:22:01.200] I'm not saying that we, neither you or I are agreeing you should do that every night, nor is it healthy, but sometimes there are points where you have to do this to you, do the work, you have to schlep, you have to be the janitor, or you have to pull an all-nighter to do a thing, or work a 60-hour week here and there, not for the rest of your life, to make it work.
[00:22:01.200 --> 00:22:02.880] So, the hard work is obvious.
[00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:15.520] The luck, I think, is, I think there's a bit of luck that you stumbled upon an idea that was an obvious need from the start.
[00:22:15.520 --> 00:22:31.680] And this is where it's like, is it luck or did you make your own luck by starting an agency, by developing the skill set that you have as someone who can sell, as someone who found clients, and as someone who put in the work to build an agency to 30K to then create opportunity for yourself?
[00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:34.000] So, I say doing things in public creates opportunity.
[00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:39.520] And by in public, sometimes that's a blog, sometimes that's starting a company and then realizing, oh, there's actually a deeper need here, right?
[00:22:39.520 --> 00:22:43.680] So, all of these factors are at play in your story.
[00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:59.440] And there's an element too of, I guess we could put it in the skill bucket, but it's like you were smart enough to realize, oh, this need for this customer is something that I should build in no-code, or I should build in code, frankly, but you know, you didn't have the skill at the time.
[00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:04.680] And so, it's like, there's a scrappiness to this story of, I just kind of figured it out.
[00:23:04.680 --> 00:23:07.000] Went to ChatGPT and why I had it together with Make.
[00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:12.040] I know some founders or aspiring founders who just wouldn't, they wouldn't take action.
[00:23:12.040 --> 00:23:13.560] They wouldn't do, is it too risky?
[00:23:13.560 --> 00:23:14.600] Am I wasting the time?
[00:23:14.600 --> 00:23:15.800] What if this doesn't work?
[00:23:15.800 --> 00:23:18.040] What if it breaks and the client gets mad at me?
[00:23:18.040 --> 00:23:19.720] What if, what if, what if?
[00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:25.960] And it sounds like you took a lot of action very quickly because all of it doesn't have to work.
[00:23:25.960 --> 00:23:27.960] Just 70 or 80% of it does.
[00:23:28.440 --> 00:23:28.760] Yeah.
[00:23:28.760 --> 00:23:29.080] Yeah.
[00:23:29.080 --> 00:23:29.400] Yeah.
[00:23:29.400 --> 00:23:44.600] I mean, my threshold was, can I get this working well enough that I can, with a straight face, talk about it on LinkedIn and I mean WhatsApp groups and Slack groups with some outbound folks too and share it and see if people are interested enough for me to kind of keep working on it.
[00:23:44.600 --> 00:23:46.200] And so that was kind of my threshold.
[00:23:46.200 --> 00:23:55.480] I never misrepresented where the product was, but like I would literally finish something and then be recording a video three minutes later being like, look at what Outbound Sync can do now.
[00:23:55.800 --> 00:23:59.640] There was no like one month lead up if we're releasing something new.
[00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:01.320] It's like literally, I just finished this.
[00:24:01.320 --> 00:24:02.360] It's worked one time.
[00:24:02.360 --> 00:24:03.560] I'm going to talk about it.
[00:24:03.560 --> 00:24:06.360] And we see this with the most successful Tiny Seed founders.
[00:24:06.360 --> 00:24:10.280] I have a list of all the seven figure Tiny Seed companies in a simple note doc on my phone.
[00:24:10.280 --> 00:24:15.080] And if you go down that list and you look at the founders, guess what all of them do?
[00:24:15.080 --> 00:24:17.000] They all move very quickly.
[00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:20.840] They ship things very quickly and they generally work on the right things.
[00:24:20.840 --> 00:24:23.560] They're not right all the time, but they're right enough of the time.
[00:24:23.560 --> 00:24:25.000] You don't need to be right 100%.
[00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.320] If you're right 60, 70, 80%, but you're just shipping a lot of things quickly.
[00:24:29.320 --> 00:24:30.040] You hit it.
[00:24:30.280 --> 00:24:32.280] It all doesn't have to work.
[00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:46.720] At this point, it's cliche to refer to the entrepreneurial journey as a roller coaster, but it's not inaccurate because there are challenges, fear, and times when nothing's working.
[00:24:47.040 --> 00:24:52.640] But there's also optimism, things that excite you, moments where everything comes together.
[00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:56.320] I was curious to find out what was keeping Harris up at night.
[00:24:56.320 --> 00:24:59.200] What kind of headwinds was he facing?
[00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:03.840] It's definitely myself still.
[00:25:03.840 --> 00:25:10.640] There's the mindset shift that I've been trying to undergo in the last like month has been pretty big.
[00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:26.800] Like I have some pretty hard-coded things around money and how I spend my time that I'm trying to rewire now to like grow into someone who apparently has a company that was backed by an investor and not just an investor, but Tiny Seed, who I, you know, really admire and respect.
[00:25:26.800 --> 00:25:31.360] And so it's like, oh, I kind of need to become this thing that I'm, that I am on paper.
[00:25:31.680 --> 00:25:34.160] And that's like how I spend my time during the day.
[00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:38.720] It's like hiring more help, like hiring a landscaper, for example, to help mowing the lawn.
[00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:40.480] Like I take pride in, yeah, I mow my lawn.
[00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:42.880] You know, I'm happy to do things and work on things.
[00:25:43.040 --> 00:25:46.080] You know, I don't have everything done for me, but it's like, yeah, okay.
[00:25:46.400 --> 00:25:50.640] If you can find someone to do that for 40 bucks, like, should you be doing it?
[00:25:50.640 --> 00:25:52.480] Does it make sense for you to be doing it?
[00:25:52.480 --> 00:26:03.040] And, you know, I mean, when I started my career, like, I mean, I remember in the very, like, very, very early days, like my first job is an unpaid internship cold calling, 2009, the recession.
[00:26:03.040 --> 00:26:06.560] And like my first job, like, I would skip lunch just to like save money.
[00:26:06.560 --> 00:26:13.600] And so like, I have like certain things with money where I need to kind of like think bigger and pursue the bigger opportunity.
[00:26:13.600 --> 00:26:16.880] And it is kind of, it's pretty intense.
[00:26:16.880 --> 00:26:20.720] It's like, you know, it's really rewiring stuff that's pretty deep-seated.
[00:26:20.720 --> 00:26:28.560] And, and so I feel like if I can't do that, if this doesn't work, it'll be because I couldn't figure those things out.
[00:26:28.560 --> 00:26:33.320] I couldn't get past my own stuff because, because I think that the market opportunity is there.
[00:26:33.320 --> 00:26:35.320] Like, I keep having better and better calls.
[00:26:35.320 --> 00:26:37.720] I'm having like very interesting opportunities.
[00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:39.080] Our MRR keeps growing.
[00:26:39.080 --> 00:26:44.840] Like, we hit we passed 10K and MRR in nine months, and really smart people are liking it, what we're doing.
[00:26:44.840 --> 00:26:54.600] And I, so, so, that, that is the thing that I, and so, like, it's exciting in a way because I feel like I'm progressing and growing and getting better and as a person and more well-rounded.
[00:26:54.600 --> 00:27:01.640] And if I can be, have more capacity to do these things, I'll like, it'll benefit everything I'm trying to do in my life.
[00:27:01.960 --> 00:27:15.560] But yeah, it's like, it's like, yeah, can I, but I have to do it faster than it's a, it's a real forcing function of like, hey, it's time now to do that, to make these changes, to become this version of this company and this version of myself.
[00:27:15.560 --> 00:27:16.760] So, yeah, that's the hardest thing.
[00:27:16.760 --> 00:27:21.800] And this like feeling a pressure of like, if I can't figure it out, that's what I'm feeling right now.
[00:27:21.800 --> 00:27:25.720] It's like, now there will be a stage at which something will happen where I'm like, hey, I couldn't control that.
[00:27:25.720 --> 00:27:28.280] That was, that was because of external forces or whatever.
[00:27:28.280 --> 00:27:29.960] But yeah, right now it's that pressure.
[00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:30.680] Overall, it's good.
[00:27:30.680 --> 00:27:31.160] I want to be there.
[00:27:31.160 --> 00:27:32.360] I want like pressure is a good thing.
[00:27:32.360 --> 00:27:33.640] Pressure is a privilege.
[00:27:33.800 --> 00:27:35.400] It's good to be in the seat that I'm in.
[00:27:35.400 --> 00:27:40.680] I would trade it, but it's different than before when it was always like a side bet.
[00:27:40.680 --> 00:27:43.080] And well, if it doesn't work, I can always do something different.
[00:27:43.080 --> 00:27:48.840] And, you know, there's like comfort in the way I was doing things, but it wasn't compounding.
[00:27:48.840 --> 00:27:50.440] I wasn't building assets.
[00:27:50.440 --> 00:27:51.320] I wasn't building wealth.
[00:27:51.320 --> 00:27:52.680] I wasn't really moving forward.
[00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:57.400] It was just like, I'm flexible and I'm KG and I'm making it work.
[00:27:57.720 --> 00:28:00.760] But if I want to be like a build, build something, then I have to make these changes.
[00:28:00.760 --> 00:28:01.960] So, yeah, it's definitely that.
[00:28:01.960 --> 00:28:06.520] Not to be all like, not to like turn this into a therapy session, but that's definitely the thing right now for sure for me.
[00:28:06.520 --> 00:28:10.920] And on the flip side, what is going well?
[00:28:10.920 --> 00:28:11.800] What is working?
[00:28:11.800 --> 00:28:13.480] What are you excited about?
[00:28:13.480 --> 00:28:15.000] What gets you up in the morning?
[00:28:15.760 --> 00:28:19.520] It's definitely the things that we're enabling customers to do.
[00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:27.200] I feel like we're actually very far ahead of our users, and our users are very far ahead of the market.
[00:28:27.440 --> 00:28:38.320] So, because of what our way our product works is very different than the way that most of these native integrations work in the market and the way that most teams are doing things these days.
[00:28:38.320 --> 00:28:48.240] So, like, I'm excited because I'm working, we're working on stuff that's really on the edge, and I'll have a conversation once a week with somebody who sees that.
[00:28:48.240 --> 00:28:56.560] And they're like, okay, well, here's how I want to apply this to doing cold calling, or here's how I want to do a data enrichment workflow based on what you just showed me that outbouncing can do.
[00:28:56.560 --> 00:29:07.760] So, that's exciting because I feel like if I can enable those kind of people, that the one to three-year horizon for the company is really exciting.
[00:29:07.760 --> 00:29:10.480] Because right now, like we're in a niche of a niche of a niche.
[00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:13.360] I mean, it's a really small part of the market who gets what we do.
[00:29:13.360 --> 00:29:21.360] And then, even within that, there's really only certain people where I get on calls and they're like, Oh my God, yes, this is like, this is it.
[00:29:21.360 --> 00:29:23.040] So, those conversations are super motivating.
[00:29:23.040 --> 00:29:30.000] So, we've got some features that we're working on that I think are going to like pay off in that way that I'm excited about.
[00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:32.880] And then, some bigger companies for sure, they're talking to us.
[00:29:32.880 --> 00:29:36.480] I mean, there's partnerships that we're doing with agencies that are going very well.
[00:29:36.800 --> 00:29:46.160] There's this like broader conversation that of like what other integration like work could we do, other platforms that's kind of interesting.
[00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:51.120] But yeah, I think in general, it's like: I feel like we're ahead, and people who are ahead are finding us and getting excited.
[00:29:51.120 --> 00:30:00.680] And that makes me think that there's a solid future here because I've seen the stuff that I was doing in my agency a few years ago that are now mainstream two or three years later.
[00:29:59.520 --> 00:30:04.040] And companies that are supporting that are literally growing 10x.
[00:30:04.680 --> 00:30:09.880] And so I think that if I'm ahead, like I think we're ahead, then the future is really exciting.
[00:30:10.040 --> 00:30:13.240] And even now, the growth is good, but I think it could be a lot better.
[00:30:13.240 --> 00:30:15.560] And so that's exciting, I think.
[00:30:17.800 --> 00:30:20.680] Harris seems to have caught a bit of lightning in a bottle.
[00:30:20.680 --> 00:30:23.560] As he moves forward, he'll have some big decisions to make.
[00:30:23.560 --> 00:30:30.920] Should he add support for additional platforms, double down on a narrower ICP, or widen the aperture and go for a broader market?
[00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:33.240] Or go after something else entirely?
[00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:36.280] That's next time on Tiny Seed Tales.
[00:30:37.720 --> 00:30:39.560] Hope you enjoyed this episode.
[00:30:39.560 --> 00:30:51.240] If you've ever wondered what it's really like inside Tiny Seed and want to hear a raw, candid coaching conversation between Harris and I, we've put together something special for you at tinyseed.com/slash bonus.
[00:30:51.240 --> 00:30:52.200] You should check it out.
[00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:54.600] I've never released anything like this before.
[00:30:54.600 --> 00:30:55.480] I hope you enjoy it.
[00:30:55.480 --> 00:30:58.280] It's at tinyseed.com/slash bonus.

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

[00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:04.080] Is this really an episode of Startups for the Rest of Us on a Thursday?
[00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:04.960] That's right.
[00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:12.160] For the next six weeks, you'll find new episodes of Tiny Seed Tales Season 5 in this feed every Thursday morning.
[00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:21.520] If you're not familiar with Tiny Seed Tales, it's a narrative-style season-based show where I follow a founder as they navigate the ups and downs of building a SaaS.
[00:00:21.520 --> 00:00:28.640] We dive into their journey to find product-market fit, optimize the product, scale their business, and hopefully reach escape velocity.
[00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:34.800] These episodes were recorded over the past year, so you're going to get an inside look at a founder's journey.
[00:00:34.800 --> 00:00:42.160] The goal is to give you honest insights into the challenges, setbacks, and hard-won victories that come with growing a real SaaS company.
[00:00:42.160 --> 00:00:50.000] If you're new to Tiny Seed, it's the startup accelerator I run for ambitious, bootstrapped SaaS founders, and it's the first accelerator of its kind.
[00:00:50.000 --> 00:01:02.400] Twice a year, we fund B2B SaaS founders who want just the right amount of capital, a community of like-minded, ambitious founders, and access to mentorship, advice, and everything else you'd expect from a world-class accelerator.
[00:01:02.400 --> 00:01:06.560] Applications for our fall 2025 batch open on September 1st.
[00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:18.240] This time around, we've shortened the application window a bit and we've tightened up the process so we'll get you a definitive answer much quicker, avoiding the drawn-out uncertainty common in other investment processes.
[00:01:18.240 --> 00:01:25.520] The application is intentionally short and focused, and if you know your core metrics, it usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.
[00:01:25.520 --> 00:01:32.800] For all the details and to get notified when applications open, go to tinyseed.com/slash apply and get on our mailing list.
[00:01:32.800 --> 00:01:35.760] Let's dive into this first episode of season five.
[00:01:35.760 --> 00:01:36.960] My name is Harris Kenny.
[00:01:36.960 --> 00:01:44.480] I'm the founder of Outbound Sync, and it's an integration product between sales engagement platforms and CRMs.
[00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:53.440] Welcome back to Tiny Seed Tales, a series where I follow a founder through the roller coaster of building their startup.
[00:01:53.440 --> 00:02:01.480] I'm your host, Rob Walling, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of TinySeed, the first startup accelerator designed for bootstrappers.
[00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:07.480] This will be our first episode of season five, where we follow Harris Kenney, founder of Outbound Sync.
[00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:17.160] Harris has made the hard transition from agency owner to SaaS founder, and in just over a year, he has built his monthly recurring revenue to $10,000 a month.
[00:02:17.160 --> 00:02:22.520] In my first conversation with Harris, I asked him why he applied to TinySeed in the first place.
[00:02:25.640 --> 00:02:34.840] My SAS product was built out of my agency, and it was the fourth iteration of a SAS that I tried over a total of five years working myself.
[00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:39.080] And what really pushed me was that it felt like it was starting to really take off.
[00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:45.080] And I was feeling that like the rocket is like entering the atmosphere and it's shaking and the bolts are moving.
[00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:53.560] And because I was getting more deals coming in and bigger and bigger prospects and like very mature companies saying, hey, yeah, we're interested in this.
[00:02:53.560 --> 00:02:55.240] Here's a security questionnaire.
[00:02:55.240 --> 00:02:58.440] And sort of these things, it just sort of started compounding.
[00:02:58.440 --> 00:03:02.520] And actually, someone reached out to me who's a Tiny Seed portfolio company.
[00:03:02.520 --> 00:03:04.600] And he was like, hey, you should think about applying to Tiny Seed.
[00:03:04.600 --> 00:03:05.800] And I was like, oh, actually, it's funny.
[00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:06.440] It's a long story.
[00:03:06.440 --> 00:03:11.080] I've been following Tiny Seed for years and I kind of forgot about it to go into building mode.
[00:03:11.080 --> 00:03:15.000] But now that I'm here and this is working, maybe I should throw my hat in.
[00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:17.080] And so I reached out to a couple of Tiny Seed founders.
[00:03:17.080 --> 00:03:20.760] But yeah, it was that feeling of like, hey, what if this works actually?
[00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:25.720] And that was exciting, but also I don't know what I want to do this alone, basically.
[00:03:26.200 --> 00:03:27.560] That's a good way to think about it.
[00:03:27.720 --> 00:03:31.640] Not fear of success, but like, oh, like, this is actually, this is, this seems like it could actually work.
[00:03:31.640 --> 00:03:33.400] So it's like, I should not get in my own way.
[00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:37.560] Being alone, like, I should, yeah, if I'm alone, I feel like my odds of success are higher with Tiny Seed, basically.
[00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:38.840] That was kind of like why I should try.
[00:03:38.840 --> 00:03:41.320] But if it didn't work, I was going to do it anyway.
[00:03:42.920 --> 00:03:46.000] Some of the challenges of being a solopreneur are obvious.
[00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:50.000] The loneliness, the isolation, no one to spitball ideas with.
[00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:57.440] But then there's also this very practical human need to succeed, if for no other reason than to support your family.
[00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:04.320] I started my own company five years ago before my wife and I had kids because I wanted to have the flexibility.
[00:04:04.320 --> 00:04:08.160] And I was always able to, in services, it's very like flexible.
[00:04:08.480 --> 00:04:11.840] You can always, I was always able to kind of like pull a rabbit out of a hat and like make it work.
[00:04:11.840 --> 00:04:13.120] And we have a great house.
[00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:14.320] We're very fortunate.
[00:04:14.320 --> 00:04:19.200] But with SAS, it was kind of like, okay, it's time for me to take this more seriously.
[00:04:19.200 --> 00:04:26.960] Like how I'm like getting our, you know, when we got this new house, like the process of getting a mortgage was so, so frustrating because of how I paid myself through my own company.
[00:04:26.960 --> 00:04:30.320] And it's like, okay, it's time for me to kind of like grow up a little bit.
[00:04:30.320 --> 00:04:39.600] And if I'm going to run that kind of company, I've known how to make it work, you know, kind of like a street, like a street rat, like Aladdin, you know, or whatever.
[00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:45.520] But it's like, okay, now I'm kind of entering a different world where like there's due diligence and process and, you know, uptime.
[00:04:45.520 --> 00:04:49.600] And you can't just like make up for it with like a smile and working extra on a Saturday.
[00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:54.560] It's like, if that thing is down, it's down and like you messed up and it's a huge problem.
[00:04:54.560 --> 00:05:02.160] So it was, it was all of that, but also the upside of like, it's, it's the type of, it's like the best business model ever.
[00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:07.360] And if I could be the one, you know, running that kind of business, the reward is, you know, pretty substantial.
[00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:08.560] And it's really leveraged work.
[00:05:08.560 --> 00:05:12.560] I solve a problem once and I sell it X times versus one.
[00:05:12.960 --> 00:05:14.960] And also it's recurring.
[00:05:14.960 --> 00:05:15.760] Yes.
[00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:22.960] Let's say you went and raised friends and family, or you raised an angel round and you hustled and you got money.
[00:05:22.960 --> 00:05:26.480] That wouldn't replace the community, the mentorship, the connection, right?
[00:05:26.480 --> 00:05:29.560] But there are other programs certainly out there.
[00:05:28.880 --> 00:05:34.520] There are funds that have communities, or there are accelerators, regional accelerators.
[00:05:29.200 --> 00:05:36.040] There are other options.
[00:05:36.360 --> 00:05:43.720] And I'm curious, you know, if you evaluated those or for you, like, why TinySeed over the alternatives?
[00:05:44.680 --> 00:05:58.360] Yeah, I think that Tiny Seed, it was definitely an end of one when I got to this point because MicroConf community, this is like going back to like 2020, kind of like started me down this road.
[00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:03.320] And, you know, start small, stay small, and the stair-stepping method, those ideas were like very early on.
[00:06:03.320 --> 00:06:09.240] It was like small dominoes that started, but it took a while for them to like for the dominoes to get bigger, basically.
[00:06:09.240 --> 00:06:18.600] And so it kind of shaped in my mind how I was thinking about like what I wanted a business to do for me, for my life, for my family.
[00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:21.240] And then I went through this like circuitous route.
[00:06:21.240 --> 00:06:22.280] So I think that's like part of it.
[00:06:22.280 --> 00:06:28.040] It was like very early influence in terms of setting what's possible in my mind.
[00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:30.840] It's like it doesn't have to be a billion dollar company to be successful.
[00:06:30.840 --> 00:06:39.160] There's actually many, in fact, like hundreds of millions of different little price points between zero and a billion that would be really successful.
[00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:41.240] So I think that's part of it.
[00:06:41.240 --> 00:06:46.280] And then, and then it was like sort of wandering through the desert, trying a lot of ideas, trying to run the agency, slowly getting better.
[00:06:46.280 --> 00:06:47.160] I mean, we had some good months.
[00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:51.480] I mean, I had some agency months where we were over 30K in, you know, build services.
[00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:52.440] You know, it was good.
[00:06:52.440 --> 00:06:54.040] It was, it was, it was a good agency.
[00:06:54.040 --> 00:07:03.640] But as the SaaS part started growing and that MRR kept growing relative to the agency side, it was like, no, I really wanted to build a B2B SaaS company.
[00:07:03.640 --> 00:07:05.720] I don't want to build a productized service.
[00:07:05.720 --> 00:07:14.600] I don't want to have like some goofy combination of things, like multiple bets with like a little app here, a little app there.
[00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:27.280] Like, I want to build a single B2B SaaS company that solves a really specific problem and that moves upmarket and that can solve like enterprise-level, really highly complex issues because of what we do around block lists and syncing data.
[00:07:27.280 --> 00:07:30.240] Like, it actually gets pretty thorny.
[00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:32.320] And we're in a really, really small area.
[00:07:32.320 --> 00:07:37.360] And so it's just like, I'm going to need more like power, firepower, like my team.
[00:07:37.360 --> 00:07:39.200] And I want to build a B2B SaaS company.
[00:07:39.200 --> 00:07:39.600] That was it.
[00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:44.880] And like the other ones I talked to that, you know, or that I looked at over the years were like, well, we'll invest in this, but also this and also this.
[00:07:44.880 --> 00:07:49.520] Their thesis was so scattered that it was kind of like, I don't really want that.
[00:07:49.520 --> 00:07:54.800] And I want somebody who's going to be like, hey, let's talk about churn for two hours.
[00:07:54.800 --> 00:07:56.240] And we want to talk about it.
[00:07:56.240 --> 00:07:57.200] And you want to talk about it.
[00:07:57.200 --> 00:08:01.840] And by the way, you have like 12 friends who are all like similar spots who also want to talk about it.
[00:08:01.840 --> 00:08:06.400] That was like what I wanted, not just sort of like a general panel about like, how do you keep your customers happy?
[00:08:06.400 --> 00:08:09.840] It's like, no, no, I very specifically wanted to solve this churn problem.
[00:08:09.840 --> 00:08:10.160] Yeah.
[00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:11.520] No, and that makes a lot of sense.
[00:08:11.520 --> 00:08:16.480] And that is how my career as a professional has evolved.
[00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:22.560] Because if you go back to MicroConf in 2011, it was the conference for self-funded startups.
[00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:23.840] It was not SaaS.
[00:08:23.840 --> 00:08:30.960] And it wasn't until really 2015, 14, somewhere in there, where I was like, oh, SaaS is where I want to be.
[00:08:30.960 --> 00:08:36.000] And the deeper I go, the more value that I can provide.
[00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:40.880] And by deeper I go, I meant startups for the rest of us went all SaaS at that point.
[00:08:40.880 --> 00:08:44.800] And that's, I just told people, like, I'm not answering questions about info products anymore.
[00:08:44.800 --> 00:08:46.080] It's not that I don't like info products.
[00:08:46.080 --> 00:08:48.240] It's not that I don't make info products, right?
[00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:48.800] I have courses.
[00:08:48.800 --> 00:08:49.280] I have books.
[00:08:49.280 --> 00:08:53.920] I have like everything I do, you know, on the Microconf side is kind of a course information product.
[00:08:53.920 --> 00:08:55.440] It's not that I don't like those.
[00:08:55.440 --> 00:08:58.880] It's that I can't help you as much if I'm not focused.
[00:08:58.880 --> 00:09:01.320] It's why my books now, I have read a book called the SAS playbook.
[00:09:01.400 --> 00:09:10.920] It's not the startup playbook because for exactly what you're saying is like the moment that you rise up one layer of abstraction, you lose granularity.
[00:09:10.920 --> 00:09:14.200] And two hours on churn makes no sense.
[00:09:14.200 --> 00:09:26.280] If there's a biotech company next to you and a hardware company on the other side and a two-sided marketplace on the other side and a B2C company on the other side, you know, of you, it just you don't share that same depth.
[00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:30.120] And I concern, I was concerned early on about pigeonholing.
[00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:37.480] And frankly, when we launched Tiny Seed, Ainar, my co-founder, for folks who are listening, co-GP, he was like, it's B2B SAS.
[00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:38.120] That's what we're doing.
[00:09:38.120 --> 00:09:43.560] And I was like, ooh, but maybe what if I'm the person who was like, but I could, we could.
[00:09:43.640 --> 00:09:46.200] And I think it's the best decision we made.
[00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:53.800] Looking at our batch, it's like these companies are structurally similar, like in the important ways, but so different.
[00:09:54.120 --> 00:10:00.040] And it's amazing how much you can learn when, you know, like real estate titles is like one of our batch companies and like Go Links.
[00:10:00.040 --> 00:10:08.200] And then, but then you hear him talking, you're like, actually, no, this is, this is totally relevant, even though if you talk to like a normal person, they would be like, those are three different companies.
[00:10:08.200 --> 00:10:09.720] Right, but a lot of commonality.
[00:10:09.720 --> 00:10:09.880] Yeah.
[00:10:09.880 --> 00:10:12.440] So I can see how, yeah, and you learn from that.
[00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:15.160] So yeah, it's just like a very specific way to operate.
[00:10:15.160 --> 00:10:17.720] But within that, I think there's a lot of variety.
[00:10:17.720 --> 00:10:24.760] Well, and it speaks to, you know, secretly slash not so secretly, like, what do any of us want to do?
[00:10:24.760 --> 00:10:27.800] We want to operate a company that is probably best in class.
[00:10:27.800 --> 00:10:31.320] And I want to operate my, I want my companies to always be the gold standard, right?
[00:10:31.320 --> 00:10:33.480] So, I wanted Drip to be the best at what it did.
[00:10:33.480 --> 00:10:35.080] And I wanted people to think highly of it.
[00:10:35.080 --> 00:10:39.000] And I want MicroConf to be the gold standard for, you know, bootstrapped entrepreneurs.
[00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:42.840] And I wanted Tiny Seed to be the gold standard for B2B SaaS accelerators.
[00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:43.080] Period.
[00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:44.120] I want to be the best in the world.
[00:10:44.120 --> 00:10:44.920] Otherwise, why am I doing it?
[00:10:45.600 --> 00:10:48.720] And it speaks to that-that's a long road.
[00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:52.560] You have to build a brand, you have to do all this stuff, but it speaks to that.
[00:10:52.560 --> 00:10:59.840] That it was a factor for you of, oh, well, I'm B2B SaaS, and therefore I want the best that I know, you know.
[00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:02.400] So, it um, I don't know, I guess that means a lot.
[00:11:02.400 --> 00:11:10.800] I normally on Tiny Seed Tales, I'm not the one kind of having a realization, but like it, every time I hear that kind of thing of why did you apply, and it's like, Well, you're B2B SaaS, and so am I.
[00:11:10.800 --> 00:11:13.600] It's like, we made the right, made the right decision, you know what I mean?
[00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:17.760] Going narrow is often, often the right decision, yeah.
[00:11:17.760 --> 00:11:29.280] Well, I mean, especially at that point, because you know, at that point, our MRR was, um, I mean, this is April, May, it was like 7,000 or something like that.
[00:11:29.280 --> 00:11:42.800] It was, it was a, you know, and so, and I, and I still had like, I mean, in May, this is my last full month of the agency, we did $30,000 in revenue, but then like almost a third of that was the SaaS.
[00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:47.920] So, I was like getting basically at my time, I was really busy then.
[00:11:47.920 --> 00:11:50.720] And then I had these big customers who were paying me big amounts, and the SaaS was getting close.
[00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:54.240] I was like, I don't probably don't need to do this.
[00:11:54.240 --> 00:12:00.320] But when I talked about it, you know, with my wife, she was like really encouraging of like, this is the thing that you've been wanting.
[00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:02.560] Like, just like, you should go for it.
[00:12:02.560 --> 00:12:03.440] Don't go halfway.
[00:12:03.760 --> 00:12:17.200] And I will say, like, two months out from that decision, just speaking about the point about focus, these two months of the SaaS now really taking off and then the agency petering out and like slowly winding down have been, it has been so much work running both.
[00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:25.840] And like during the process, I remember Tracy was like, you know, look, like, you run your company, but just so you know, like, we want, if you're working on it, we want it to be the thing that you're working on.
[00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:29.680] We don't want you to have like seven other things going on, which I was like, okay, I get it.
[00:12:30.040 --> 00:12:31.640] Okay, like, no problem.
[00:12:31.960 --> 00:12:49.240] But two months of like having both is like, I literally, I don't know if I could do this for another month or two because it, you know, and so I've seen this like relief, but also like I'm having much better ideas and I'm having, we can talk about like the go-to-market stuff, but like that is starting to really, really accelerate.
[00:12:49.240 --> 00:12:53.400] And I'm also seeing with my team, like our developer, he was part-time before.
[00:12:53.400 --> 00:12:56.920] And then once joining Tiny Seed, I could say, hey, you're 40 hours now.
[00:12:56.920 --> 00:12:58.680] And oh my gosh, he is just ripping.
[00:12:58.680 --> 00:13:02.520] And I've got a funny story from the kickoff about that, but he's just ripping through tickets.
[00:13:02.520 --> 00:13:07.640] And this is kind of goofy, but personal example: we have a nanny who we hired full-time.
[00:13:07.640 --> 00:13:14.280] And we've had like this mix mishmash of daycare in the past, but having a full-time nanny who she's really good and she's like, this is what I do.
[00:13:14.280 --> 00:13:18.920] I take care of kids and I help you, you know, help your family.
[00:13:19.240 --> 00:13:24.680] She's like helping around the house and she's doing laundry and she's cleaning and she's so playful with the kids and she's coming up with these activities.
[00:13:24.680 --> 00:13:30.440] And it's so different than when we had like a part-time nanny and then a grandma here and then spend time with a neighbor there.
[00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:37.080] And so like there's this whole like deeper thing that I'm kind of processing about like focus energy and like, what are you doing?
[00:13:37.080 --> 00:13:40.680] Like whether it's like our developer or a nanny or me having one company.
[00:13:40.920 --> 00:13:46.920] And it seems so obvious, but it's just like, it's just slowly permeating my like whole like brain.
[00:13:51.400 --> 00:13:57.400] I've learned through personal experience that when you try to run multiple companies at once, all of them suffer.
[00:13:57.400 --> 00:13:59.160] And so does your personal life.
[00:13:59.160 --> 00:14:04.280] That's why we require any founder we invest in to fully commit to their idea.
[00:14:04.280 --> 00:14:07.240] That's what I told Harris when he applied to be part of Tiny Seed.
[00:14:07.240 --> 00:14:11.080] And he was skeptical at first, but ultimately he came around.
[00:14:14.640 --> 00:14:19.520] When I said, like, okay, I thought I was like, okay, this is kind of like not a concession, but like a little bit of a concession.
[00:14:19.520 --> 00:14:27.040] But what I've come to realize is that it has actually, I think, benefited me disproportionately because I own most of my company, almost all of it still.
[00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:28.720] And so my company's doing better.
[00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:29.920] So I benefit way more.
[00:14:29.920 --> 00:14:32.160] And in my personal life, my whole thinking on that has flipped.
[00:14:32.160 --> 00:14:35.520] I mean, I wasn't like salty about it before, but I was kind of like, okay, this is a choice.
[00:14:35.520 --> 00:14:36.960] I'm giving something up here.
[00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:51.920] But I feel like I've just been freed to just build this thing that like after spending all this time, years trying ideas and posting and getting feedback, I finally have this idea that really smart people are like, hey, I want a demo.
[00:14:51.920 --> 00:14:53.520] So it's like, just do that thing.
[00:14:53.520 --> 00:14:54.400] Like this is it.
[00:14:54.400 --> 00:14:54.800] Just do it.
[00:14:55.040 --> 00:14:59.600] You know, you have caught a tiger by the tail, lighting that bottle, whatever analogy we can use for it.
[00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:04.960] And it's like, don't that up by half-assing it.
[00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:05.440] Yeah.
[00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:07.120] Because someone will eat your lunch.
[00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:10.080] This is what would happen if you worked on this and three other things.
[00:15:10.080 --> 00:15:11.520] Is it would grow slow.
[00:15:11.520 --> 00:15:12.400] You wouldn't give a full attention.
[00:15:12.400 --> 00:15:13.360] You'd be distracted.
[00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:22.880] When you're doing dishes, when you're walking around, when you're in the shower, whatever, all your thoughts are scattered between three and four things.
[00:15:22.880 --> 00:15:24.080] It doesn't get the attention it deserves.
[00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:25.120] It's not even the hours.
[00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:29.600] It's as you said, you have your best ideas when you're focused.
[00:15:29.600 --> 00:15:33.280] And that your best ideas are what's going to 10x this business.
[00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:36.320] It's not the split focus.
[00:15:36.320 --> 00:15:42.160] There are two agencies who are working on, had been working on kind of a similar thing, and I'm seeing us separate.
[00:15:42.160 --> 00:15:48.400] I'm seeing us getting mentioned organically in other places, and I'm seeing us getting referrals because they're like, oh, that's Harris's thing.
[00:15:48.560 --> 00:15:49.920] That, oh, outbound sync.
[00:15:49.920 --> 00:15:50.640] That's all they do.
[00:15:50.640 --> 00:15:52.960] Even though, like, those other agency owners, by the way, are super smart.
[00:15:52.960 --> 00:16:00.680] And I know that they've built really good integrations that are working for their individual customers, but they're also doing their thought leadership posts and they're also trying to get known for other things.
[00:15:59.920 --> 00:16:03.160] And so I'm seeing that play out right now.
[00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:09.080] Like what could be a direct competitor versus like a Zapier make or something.
[00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:22.440] I want to touch on something you've already brought up, which is you had an agency doing outbound for paid clients.
[00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:25.560] And as you said, you built it to 30 grand a month.
[00:16:25.560 --> 00:16:31.480] And you launched a successful SaaS out of that agency.
[00:16:31.800 --> 00:16:36.040] The thing with building a SaaS out of an agency is every agency wants to do it.
[00:16:36.040 --> 00:16:39.400] Some agencies try and almost none succeed.
[00:16:39.400 --> 00:16:45.800] It's very, very hard to be running an agency or a consultancy managing clients.
[00:16:45.800 --> 00:16:48.680] You have freelancers or full-time people doing day-to-day work.
[00:16:48.680 --> 00:16:50.840] It's like, I got to get 40 hours of work in just for the clients.
[00:16:50.840 --> 00:16:52.120] And I'm trying to do the SaaS on the side.
[00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:58.920] Is it nights and weekends or am I not taking paying work to do this thing that is not paying me or may never pay me?
[00:16:58.920 --> 00:17:00.680] And that's the balance, right?
[00:17:00.680 --> 00:17:12.520] Is if I can bill $100, $200 an hour, whatever it is, thousands of dollars a month, why wouldn't I just do that than actually focus on the thing that might bring me thousands of dollars a month a year or two down the line?
[00:17:12.520 --> 00:17:16.040] My question for you is: how did you do it?
[00:17:16.040 --> 00:17:19.560] When most fail, why have you succeeded?
[00:17:19.560 --> 00:17:29.960] I think the first thing I would say that I feel is that where I am right now is that this is kind of the getting into Tiny Seed, winding out in the agency, starting the SaaS is kind of the end of the beginning.
[00:17:29.960 --> 00:17:34.120] And so I see the like early development of the project as kind of like prologue.
[00:17:34.120 --> 00:17:39.080] And obviously there's like a lot of work to be done from here, but like, how did I get from prologue to here?
[00:17:39.080 --> 00:17:42.200] I think like I just really, really, really wanted it.
[00:17:42.200 --> 00:17:50.240] I really wanted to have this kind of company seeing other SaaS founders who kind of got to later stages and what their life looked like.
[00:17:50.560 --> 00:17:52.560] And, you know, it was just like, I want that.
[00:17:52.560 --> 00:17:53.760] I want to be around.
[00:17:53.760 --> 00:18:01.680] It's really important to me to spend as much time as I can with my kids, but also have resources so that they can do cool things and travel.
[00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:03.920] You know, my wife and I love to travel.
[00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:06.320] So I think that I really wanted the outcome.
[00:18:06.320 --> 00:18:08.480] And this idea I stumbled on by accident.
[00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:11.280] I had a customer who basically wanted this product.
[00:18:11.280 --> 00:18:13.280] They were right for the wrong reasons.
[00:18:13.280 --> 00:18:17.440] They were too small to need it versus what I'm seeing, who actually needs it these days.
[00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:19.600] But I built it just because I felt like I could.
[00:18:19.600 --> 00:18:26.720] And frankly, like, I wouldn't be here if I didn't have ChatGPT because I built the first version of this with ChatGPT and Make.
[00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:36.240] And I thought it was like, I saw this, there's this funny quote of like, we do hard things not because they are hard, but because we thought they would be easy.
[00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:40.880] And that's how I ended up here because I was like, oh, I can do that in a make.com scenario, no problem.
[00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:42.000] And then I use ChatGPT.
[00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.640] I just need one API call and I can do everything else in Make.
[00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:46.960] And then I posted about LinkedIn and more people were interested.
[00:18:46.960 --> 00:18:52.640] And so I started bundling with my campaigns and I started saying, hey, if you want to do outbound with us, you have to be using HubSpot.
[00:18:52.640 --> 00:18:54.400] And we use our integration.
[00:18:54.400 --> 00:18:58.640] And so it was kind of forced coupling of the two products.
[00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:02.640] And then if the product was like falling short, I could always make up for it on the services side.
[00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:07.680] And then slowly I started to have people say, well, we don't want to do campaigns with you, but that sync thing sounds cool.
[00:19:07.680 --> 00:19:09.040] Can we just have that?
[00:19:09.040 --> 00:19:10.560] And so then I sold a couple of those.
[00:19:10.560 --> 00:19:15.280] And that was the first time I felt like, oh, I have actual SaaS revenue here.
[00:19:15.280 --> 00:19:16.960] Like, this is, they're just paying me for a product.
[00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:19.440] And I haven't talked to them in a month.
[00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:24.000] And I checked in with them because I, my service anxiety was like, hey, like, how's everything going?
[00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:25.200] And they're like, yeah, man, great.
[00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:26.240] Like, what's up?
[00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:27.360] Why are you emailing me?
[00:19:27.600 --> 00:19:28.960] I was like, oh, have a good day.
[00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:29.200] All right.
[00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:29.520] See ya.
[00:19:29.520 --> 00:19:29.760] Good to hear.
[00:19:29.760 --> 00:19:31.000] Let me know if you need anything.
[00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:34.440] So that was kind of like how I think kind of stepped into it.
[00:19:34.840 --> 00:19:37.800] I did a trade with a development shop running campaigns for them.
[00:19:37.800 --> 00:19:40.440] And then they refactored the code from low code to code.
[00:19:40.440 --> 00:19:45.240] So it took four months of low code, two months of refactoring to real code.
[00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:47.960] And then that's when things really started.
[00:19:47.960 --> 00:21:00.720] So we had our, I kind of count our MRR in October when it was running through like the real platform and I wasn't manually connecting make scenarios and stuff like that because the product was just so bad then that it just like it really didn't count so yeah that's kind of technically how I do it but but it was nights and weekends and it was weird hours there's one story that I just like I'll remember this for my entire life so we had also had some really intense family and medical stuff that's like a conversation with their day and then my health also like it's been hard to be healthy like I've not had the best lifestyle like losing a lot like not a lot of sleep not great food not great exercise so it's been very difficult it's required a lot of different sacrifices that I'm trying to like correct a little bit now it was 3 30 in the morning in Denver one of these early early customers who said they wanted it I connected it through make this guy's in Warsaw he's in Poland and I'm messaging him on slack I'm like hey I fixed that bug he's like okay great I was like do you want to talk about it I just want to make sure that it's working he was like now like right now aren't you in Denver I was like yeah I'm awake like are you free let's talk and so we like hopped on a slide huddle and we talked for like 10 minutes and he was like 3 30 in the morning and he was like are you like okay I'm like yeah yeah I've just been working on this for five hours like I'm not like doing any kind of drugs or anything.
[00:21:00.720 --> 00:21:05.840] Like, I've just worked on this for five hours and I need to hear from you that it's working so I can go to bed.
[00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:08.320] And he was like, You're a zombie.
[00:21:08.360 --> 00:21:09.520] I was like, I was like, I don't know.
[00:21:09.560 --> 00:21:12.400] I'm just, I just really want to solve this right now and then I'm going to go to sleep.
[00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:16.000] And so, not being a developer, there were times where things were probably like way harder.
[00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:23.360] Like, GPC isn't actually that good at writing code, but that like that it was, it was like sacrifices like that, being lucky, having good support, like a lot of other things.
[00:21:23.360 --> 00:21:25.760] But, but, yeah, that's kind of my reflection on that stage.
[00:21:25.760 --> 00:21:28.720] I like that, and I want to, I want to tease it out.
[00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:32.160] I often say success is three components of varying degrees.
[00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:34.160] It depends on the story.
[00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:37.120] The components are hard work, luck, and skill.
[00:21:37.120 --> 00:21:43.200] And the hard work is you doing what it takes and staying up till 3:30 in the morning and doing it.
[00:21:43.200 --> 00:22:01.200] I'm not saying that we, neither you or I are agreeing you should do that every night, nor is it healthy, but sometimes there are points where you have to do this to you, do the work, you have to schlep, you have to be the janitor, or you have to pull an all-nighter to do a thing, or work a 60-hour week here and there, not for the rest of your life, to make it work.
[00:22:01.200 --> 00:22:02.880] So, the hard work is obvious.
[00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:15.520] The luck, I think, is, I think there's a bit of luck that you stumbled upon an idea that was an obvious need from the start.
[00:22:15.520 --> 00:22:31.680] And this is where it's like, is it luck or did you make your own luck by starting an agency, by developing the skill set that you have as someone who can sell, as someone who found clients, and as someone who put in the work to build an agency to 30K to then create opportunity for yourself?
[00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:34.000] So, I say doing things in public creates opportunity.
[00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:39.520] And by in public, sometimes that's a blog, sometimes that's starting a company and then realizing, oh, there's actually a deeper need here, right?
[00:22:39.520 --> 00:22:43.680] So, all of these factors are at play in your story.
[00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:59.440] And there's an element too of, I guess we could put it in the skill bucket, but it's like you were smart enough to realize, oh, this need for this customer is something that I should build in no-code, or I should build in code, frankly, but you know, you didn't have the skill at the time.
[00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:04.680] And so, it's like, there's a scrappiness to this story of, I just kind of figured it out.
[00:23:04.680 --> 00:23:07.000] Went to ChatGPT and why I had it together with Make.
[00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:12.040] I know some founders or aspiring founders who just wouldn't, they wouldn't take action.
[00:23:12.040 --> 00:23:13.560] They wouldn't do, is it too risky?
[00:23:13.560 --> 00:23:14.600] Am I wasting the time?
[00:23:14.600 --> 00:23:15.800] What if this doesn't work?
[00:23:15.800 --> 00:23:18.040] What if it breaks and the client gets mad at me?
[00:23:18.040 --> 00:23:19.720] What if, what if, what if?
[00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:25.960] And it sounds like you took a lot of action very quickly because all of it doesn't have to work.
[00:23:25.960 --> 00:23:27.960] Just 70 or 80% of it does.
[00:23:28.440 --> 00:23:28.760] Yeah.
[00:23:28.760 --> 00:23:29.080] Yeah.
[00:23:29.080 --> 00:23:29.400] Yeah.
[00:23:29.400 --> 00:23:44.600] I mean, my threshold was, can I get this working well enough that I can, with a straight face, talk about it on LinkedIn and I mean WhatsApp groups and Slack groups with some outbound folks too and share it and see if people are interested enough for me to kind of keep working on it.
[00:23:44.600 --> 00:23:46.200] And so that was kind of my threshold.
[00:23:46.200 --> 00:23:55.480] I never misrepresented where the product was, but like I would literally finish something and then be recording a video three minutes later being like, look at what Outbound Sync can do now.
[00:23:55.800 --> 00:23:59.640] There was no like one month lead up if we're releasing something new.
[00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:01.320] It's like literally, I just finished this.
[00:24:01.320 --> 00:24:02.360] It's worked one time.
[00:24:02.360 --> 00:24:03.560] I'm going to talk about it.
[00:24:03.560 --> 00:24:06.360] And we see this with the most successful Tiny Seed founders.
[00:24:06.360 --> 00:24:10.280] I have a list of all the seven figure Tiny Seed companies in a simple note doc on my phone.
[00:24:10.280 --> 00:24:15.080] And if you go down that list and you look at the founders, guess what all of them do?
[00:24:15.080 --> 00:24:17.000] They all move very quickly.
[00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:20.840] They ship things very quickly and they generally work on the right things.
[00:24:20.840 --> 00:24:23.560] They're not right all the time, but they're right enough of the time.
[00:24:23.560 --> 00:24:25.000] You don't need to be right 100%.
[00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.320] If you're right 60, 70, 80%, but you're just shipping a lot of things quickly.
[00:24:29.320 --> 00:24:30.040] You hit it.
[00:24:30.280 --> 00:24:32.280] It all doesn't have to work.
[00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:46.720] At this point, it's cliche to refer to the entrepreneurial journey as a roller coaster, but it's not inaccurate because there are challenges, fear, and times when nothing's working.
[00:24:47.040 --> 00:24:52.640] But there's also optimism, things that excite you, moments where everything comes together.
[00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:56.320] I was curious to find out what was keeping Harris up at night.
[00:24:56.320 --> 00:24:59.200] What kind of headwinds was he facing?
[00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:03.840] It's definitely myself still.
[00:25:03.840 --> 00:25:10.640] There's the mindset shift that I've been trying to undergo in the last like month has been pretty big.
[00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:26.800] Like I have some pretty hard-coded things around money and how I spend my time that I'm trying to rewire now to like grow into someone who apparently has a company that was backed by an investor and not just an investor, but Tiny Seed, who I, you know, really admire and respect.
[00:25:26.800 --> 00:25:31.360] And so it's like, oh, I kind of need to become this thing that I'm, that I am on paper.
[00:25:31.680 --> 00:25:34.160] And that's like how I spend my time during the day.
[00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:38.720] It's like hiring more help, like hiring a landscaper, for example, to help mowing the lawn.
[00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:40.480] Like I take pride in, yeah, I mow my lawn.
[00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:42.880] You know, I'm happy to do things and work on things.
[00:25:43.040 --> 00:25:46.080] You know, I don't have everything done for me, but it's like, yeah, okay.
[00:25:46.400 --> 00:25:50.640] If you can find someone to do that for 40 bucks, like, should you be doing it?
[00:25:50.640 --> 00:25:52.480] Does it make sense for you to be doing it?
[00:25:52.480 --> 00:26:03.040] And, you know, I mean, when I started my career, like, I mean, I remember in the very, like, very, very early days, like my first job is an unpaid internship cold calling, 2009, the recession.
[00:26:03.040 --> 00:26:06.560] And like my first job, like, I would skip lunch just to like save money.
[00:26:06.560 --> 00:26:13.600] And so like, I have like certain things with money where I need to kind of like think bigger and pursue the bigger opportunity.
[00:26:13.600 --> 00:26:16.880] And it is kind of, it's pretty intense.
[00:26:16.880 --> 00:26:20.720] It's like, you know, it's really rewiring stuff that's pretty deep-seated.
[00:26:20.720 --> 00:26:28.560] And, and so I feel like if I can't do that, if this doesn't work, it'll be because I couldn't figure those things out.
[00:26:28.560 --> 00:26:33.320] I couldn't get past my own stuff because, because I think that the market opportunity is there.
[00:26:33.320 --> 00:26:35.320] Like, I keep having better and better calls.
[00:26:35.320 --> 00:26:37.720] I'm having like very interesting opportunities.
[00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:39.080] Our MRR keeps growing.
[00:26:39.080 --> 00:26:44.840] Like, we hit we passed 10K and MRR in nine months, and really smart people are liking it, what we're doing.
[00:26:44.840 --> 00:26:54.600] And I, so, so, that, that is the thing that I, and so, like, it's exciting in a way because I feel like I'm progressing and growing and getting better and as a person and more well-rounded.
[00:26:54.600 --> 00:27:01.640] And if I can be, have more capacity to do these things, I'll like, it'll benefit everything I'm trying to do in my life.
[00:27:01.960 --> 00:27:15.560] But yeah, it's like, it's like, yeah, can I, but I have to do it faster than it's a, it's a real forcing function of like, hey, it's time now to do that, to make these changes, to become this version of this company and this version of myself.
[00:27:15.560 --> 00:27:16.760] So, yeah, that's the hardest thing.
[00:27:16.760 --> 00:27:21.800] And this like feeling a pressure of like, if I can't figure it out, that's what I'm feeling right now.
[00:27:21.800 --> 00:27:25.720] It's like, now there will be a stage at which something will happen where I'm like, hey, I couldn't control that.
[00:27:25.720 --> 00:27:28.280] That was, that was because of external forces or whatever.
[00:27:28.280 --> 00:27:29.960] But yeah, right now it's that pressure.
[00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:30.680] Overall, it's good.
[00:27:30.680 --> 00:27:31.160] I want to be there.
[00:27:31.160 --> 00:27:32.360] I want like pressure is a good thing.
[00:27:32.360 --> 00:27:33.640] Pressure is a privilege.
[00:27:33.800 --> 00:27:35.400] It's good to be in the seat that I'm in.
[00:27:35.400 --> 00:27:40.680] I would trade it, but it's different than before when it was always like a side bet.
[00:27:40.680 --> 00:27:43.080] And well, if it doesn't work, I can always do something different.
[00:27:43.080 --> 00:27:48.840] And, you know, there's like comfort in the way I was doing things, but it wasn't compounding.
[00:27:48.840 --> 00:27:50.440] I wasn't building assets.
[00:27:50.440 --> 00:27:51.320] I wasn't building wealth.
[00:27:51.320 --> 00:27:52.680] I wasn't really moving forward.
[00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:57.400] It was just like, I'm flexible and I'm KG and I'm making it work.
[00:27:57.720 --> 00:28:00.760] But if I want to be like a build, build something, then I have to make these changes.
[00:28:00.760 --> 00:28:01.960] So, yeah, it's definitely that.
[00:28:01.960 --> 00:28:06.520] Not to be all like, not to like turn this into a therapy session, but that's definitely the thing right now for sure for me.
[00:28:06.520 --> 00:28:10.920] And on the flip side, what is going well?
[00:28:10.920 --> 00:28:11.800] What is working?
[00:28:11.800 --> 00:28:13.480] What are you excited about?
[00:28:13.480 --> 00:28:15.000] What gets you up in the morning?
[00:28:15.760 --> 00:28:19.520] It's definitely the things that we're enabling customers to do.
[00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:27.200] I feel like we're actually very far ahead of our users, and our users are very far ahead of the market.
[00:28:27.440 --> 00:28:38.320] So, because of what our way our product works is very different than the way that most of these native integrations work in the market and the way that most teams are doing things these days.
[00:28:38.320 --> 00:28:48.240] So, like, I'm excited because I'm working, we're working on stuff that's really on the edge, and I'll have a conversation once a week with somebody who sees that.
[00:28:48.240 --> 00:28:56.560] And they're like, okay, well, here's how I want to apply this to doing cold calling, or here's how I want to do a data enrichment workflow based on what you just showed me that outbouncing can do.
[00:28:56.560 --> 00:29:07.760] So, that's exciting because I feel like if I can enable those kind of people, that the one to three-year horizon for the company is really exciting.
[00:29:07.760 --> 00:29:10.480] Because right now, like we're in a niche of a niche of a niche.
[00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:13.360] I mean, it's a really small part of the market who gets what we do.
[00:29:13.360 --> 00:29:21.360] And then, even within that, there's really only certain people where I get on calls and they're like, Oh my God, yes, this is like, this is it.
[00:29:21.360 --> 00:29:23.040] So, those conversations are super motivating.
[00:29:23.040 --> 00:29:30.000] So, we've got some features that we're working on that I think are going to like pay off in that way that I'm excited about.
[00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:32.880] And then, some bigger companies for sure, they're talking to us.
[00:29:32.880 --> 00:29:36.480] I mean, there's partnerships that we're doing with agencies that are going very well.
[00:29:36.800 --> 00:29:46.160] There's this like broader conversation that of like what other integration like work could we do, other platforms that's kind of interesting.
[00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:51.120] But yeah, I think in general, it's like: I feel like we're ahead, and people who are ahead are finding us and getting excited.
[00:29:51.120 --> 00:30:00.680] And that makes me think that there's a solid future here because I've seen the stuff that I was doing in my agency a few years ago that are now mainstream two or three years later.
[00:29:59.520 --> 00:30:04.040] And companies that are supporting that are literally growing 10x.
[00:30:04.680 --> 00:30:09.880] And so I think that if I'm ahead, like I think we're ahead, then the future is really exciting.
[00:30:10.040 --> 00:30:13.240] And even now, the growth is good, but I think it could be a lot better.
[00:30:13.240 --> 00:30:15.560] And so that's exciting, I think.
[00:30:17.800 --> 00:30:20.680] Harris seems to have caught a bit of lightning in a bottle.
[00:30:20.680 --> 00:30:23.560] As he moves forward, he'll have some big decisions to make.
[00:30:23.560 --> 00:30:30.920] Should he add support for additional platforms, double down on a narrower ICP, or widen the aperture and go for a broader market?
[00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:33.240] Or go after something else entirely?
[00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:36.280] That's next time on Tiny Seed Tales.
[00:30:37.720 --> 00:30:39.560] Hope you enjoyed this episode.
[00:30:39.560 --> 00:30:51.240] If you've ever wondered what it's really like inside Tiny Seed and want to hear a raw, candid coaching conversation between Harris and I, we've put together something special for you at tinyseed.com/slash bonus.
[00:30:51.240 --> 00:30:52.200] You should check it out.
[00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:54.600] I've never released anything like this before.
[00:30:54.600 --> 00:30:55.480] I hope you enjoy it.
[00:30:55.480 --> 00:30:58.280] It's at tinyseed.com/slash bonus.