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[00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:03.920] Welcome back to season five, episode two of Tiny Seed Tales.
[00:00:03.920 --> 00:00:15.360] Before we jump back in with Harris, I wanted to let you know that if you're a founder who's looking for the right amount of funding, a community of like-minded founders, and a world-class network of mentors, you should apply for Tiny Seed.
[00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:21.360] Our fall 2025 batch applications open on September 1st and close on September 9th.
[00:00:21.360 --> 00:00:30.960] Also, on September 3rd, we'll be doing a live QA with the Tiny Seed team, so you can ask any burning questions ahead of submitting your application.
[00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:35.760] TinySeed is the world-class accelerator for B2B SaaS founders.
[00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:40.960] And if you want to work with me and my team, you should head to tinyseed.com slash apply.
[00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:47.680] There you'll see all the details and you can sign up to get notified when the QA is going live as well as when applications open.
[00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:50.320] That's tinyseed.com slash apply.
[00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:55.440] And as a reminder, the episode you're about to listen to takes place a few months after episode one.
[00:00:55.440 --> 00:01:02.480] That's the beauty of Tiny Seed Tales is that I follow a founder over 12 to 18 months and we record six to eight episodes.
[00:01:02.480 --> 00:01:08.240] So there's these lovely time gaps between the episodes where we can really see things unfold.
[00:01:08.240 --> 00:01:11.200] So with that, let's dive in to episode two.
[00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:15.040] I've had calls with these traditional RevOps shops agencies and they don't go anywhere.
[00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:15.840] Like they don't get it.
[00:01:16.160 --> 00:01:17.760] They don't understand why.
[00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:26.800] So even though on paper it seems like that would be a great fit as a hubspot partner with $25 million in annual revenue, that should be a great account.
[00:01:26.800 --> 00:01:32.000] But it's actually this like little scrappy half million dollar a year agency that's excited about what we're doing.
[00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:40.640] And I don't know where it's going to go, but momentum wise, it feels like there's a lot of momentum happening with the types of people that we're working with.
[00:01:43.520 --> 00:01:48.640] Welcome back to Tiny Seed Tales, a series where I follow a founder through the roller coaster of building their startup.
[00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:56.080] I'm your host, Rob Walling, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of TinySeed, the first startup accelerator designed for bootstrappers.
[00:01:56.400 --> 00:02:01.480] In this episode, I pick back up on my conversation with Harris Kenney, founder of Outbound Sync.
[00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:10.680] Last time we learned that Harris has made the hard transition from agency owner to SaaS founder, and in just over a year, has built his MRR to $10,000 a month.
[00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:18.680] Since we last spoke, he's been working on his positioning and has decided to do a Zoom-in pivot to focus on agencies who are using Outbound Sync.
[00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:22.440] I wanted to dig in and find out why he was making this move.
[00:02:27.880 --> 00:02:30.520] We did roll it out.
[00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:48.200] So the short version of kind of the genesis of it, or the decision was at the kickoff for our batch, talked about it with you, made you talk to me about it outside of the elevator for a couple minutes, talked to Andy, who's in my batch, and decided to just push out like a data sync only lower price version.
[00:02:48.200 --> 00:02:49.960] And it has gone very well.
[00:02:49.960 --> 00:02:55.240] It's working kind of how exactly you would hope the agencies will, they're now talking about it in their sales process.
[00:02:55.240 --> 00:03:04.200] Some of them are actually starting to put it like in their decks and in their contracts of like if a user wants a CRM integration, they're going to use Outbound Sync and there's additional cost.
[00:03:04.200 --> 00:03:11.000] And then they close these deals and they just send me a Slack message, you know, and so we've got expansion revenue now and they're happy to do it.
[00:03:11.160 --> 00:03:19.080] I'm trying to figure out the balance of like the support that they're supposed to get because like some of their clients are kind of needy and others are really easy.
[00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:21.160] Some of the agencies do the onboarding on their own.
[00:03:21.160 --> 00:03:25.480] Other ones like we do it and they're kind of requiring a lot of help from us.
[00:03:25.480 --> 00:03:31.720] So I would not say that like the operational side of it is figured out, but in terms of like it's growing, they're happy.
[00:03:31.720 --> 00:03:33.080] We're signing new agencies.
[00:03:33.080 --> 00:03:42.600] We just signed a first client with a very big agency that has 150 active clients, and this is just one for them, but obviously that could grow a lot.
[00:03:42.600 --> 00:03:49.760] So, yeah, like it's it's really working very well, but we do still have teams that come to us and like we have to have brand and secure.
[00:03:49.920 --> 00:04:00.320] We'll talk about like security, and we have to also be able to stand on our own feet because those end clients are also evaluating us too because we're the ones that are ultimately going to connect with their CRM.
[00:04:00.320 --> 00:04:03.680] And outbound sync is the thing that's showing up in their CRM data.
[00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:08.240] So, yeah, so there's this like balance of like serving agencies, but also building our own direct thing.
[00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:09.600] And I'm still figuring it out.
[00:04:09.600 --> 00:04:10.880] But like, in short, we're making money.
[00:04:10.880 --> 00:04:11.600] I'm glad we did it.
[00:04:11.600 --> 00:04:12.800] We're going to keep doing it.
[00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:15.600] And there's still like a lot of figuring out to do, I think.
[00:04:15.920 --> 00:04:28.640] Do you feel like you are going to focus on serving just agencies from now on and either not market to not sell to other customer types or even turn them away?
[00:04:28.640 --> 00:04:30.080] What's your thinking there?
[00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:40.080] Yeah, I am starting to lean that way, even just unconsciously, because they understand our product so well and the problem that it solves so well.
[00:04:40.080 --> 00:04:43.520] The sales process is very low friction, right?
[00:04:43.520 --> 00:04:47.760] Because like they get a customer and the customer says, Hey, okay, we use Salesforce, we use HubSpot.
[00:04:47.760 --> 00:04:49.600] It's really important to get this in the CRM.
[00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:50.640] And they already know why.
[00:04:50.640 --> 00:04:51.840] They already know why Outbound Sync.
[00:04:51.840 --> 00:04:53.600] They've typically tried to do some automation on their own.
[00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:57.920] They understand the value of it and they love being able to just like pass these questions off to us.
[00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:02.960] And so, yeah, I'm finding myself spending more time there and thinking about features for them.
[00:05:02.960 --> 00:05:07.600] They have like very specific features that they want that we can definitely build that I can see that would be valuable for them.
[00:05:07.840 --> 00:05:13.120] I think that if a direct team comes in and they're motivated and they're ready to go, it's like, of course, I'm happy to work with them.
[00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:14.000] And we've had a couple.
[00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:16.800] Like, we had one that between our recordings that came in.
[00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:19.040] I had one call with them, one call closed.
[00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:20.160] They onboarded themselves.
[00:05:20.320 --> 00:05:24.480] I literally haven't heard from them in over a month, but the data is flowing and they're happy.
[00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:29.800] But there's definitely a lot of teams are not in that situation.
[00:05:29.440 --> 00:05:31.720] And so it's like, I don't want to chase someone down.
[00:05:31.880 --> 00:05:46.280] If they don't have the internal alignment and decision-making ability to move forward, it like, I mean, it can take like a year plus of conversations because for our product to be used, there's like hundreds of other things that have like fallen into place.
[00:05:46.280 --> 00:05:49.640] And then with the agency, like those things have all fallen into place, basically.
[00:05:49.640 --> 00:05:50.040] Right.
[00:05:50.040 --> 00:06:04.360] So you have a customer type that is easier to sell to, really just understands the product better, that is easier to onboard, that probably potentially has less price sensitivity because they're maybe passing it along to clients.
[00:06:04.360 --> 00:06:06.520] They are less support.
[00:06:06.520 --> 00:06:10.840] They will probably be higher annual contract value because, you know, all these things.
[00:06:10.840 --> 00:06:15.880] So that feels like at your stage, early stage, like that's it.
[00:06:15.880 --> 00:06:17.080] That's the SCP, right?
[00:06:17.080 --> 00:06:18.680] And, you know, let's just be honest.
[00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:26.280] If you hit two, three, four million and you're like, wow, I've just got a lot of agencies here and it's slowing down, obviously you can kind of go back.
[00:06:26.280 --> 00:06:28.600] You can undo this decision at any time, right?
[00:06:28.600 --> 00:06:39.720] But for now, to become positioned and known for being the sync engine for agencies, I think is a really interesting approach.
[00:06:39.720 --> 00:06:47.560] Yeah, I've thought about giving him a seat for free and being like, hey, like use this for your own campaigns because I know they'll make content about it.
[00:06:47.560 --> 00:06:51.080] And like from a cost perspective, it's not really that big of a deal.
[00:06:51.080 --> 00:06:54.120] And I know if they get familiar with it, that they would use it.
[00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:54.680] I don't know.
[00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:59.720] Maybe I charge them a low price, but I feel like if I say, hey, here's a free seat, they would be jazzed about it.
[00:06:59.720 --> 00:07:20.480] And as they're getting more mature, they, well, okay, so this is like a little bit of a sidebar, but something that's happening in this agency space is like there's this huge disruption happening where you've got like these traditional marketing and RevOps and CRM shops, and then you have this like emergence of this tool called Clay and these lead gen agencies that are really kind of going to the real job to be done.
[00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:26.320] The reason why most people hire agencies in the first place, marketing and sales agencies, is they want more leads.
[00:07:26.320 --> 00:07:29.280] And a lot of agencies will do other things on top of that.
[00:07:29.280 --> 00:07:36.480] They'll build forms and landing pages and persona development and hundreds of thousands of dollars of like extra services.
[00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:48.480] And so these other agencies have come out, these cold email, growth hacking, clay agencies that are just like going right to the main thing that people want, which is like, here's leads for your sales team from scratch.
[00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:57.600] And so there's this like balancing act of the traditional RevOps shops and stuff are starting to encroach on this space.
[00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:00.480] Like they're getting listed as experts in some of these tools.
[00:08:00.480 --> 00:08:04.080] But I see their LinkedIn posts and I watch their videos and it's like they don't get it.
[00:08:04.080 --> 00:08:06.000] Like they're just missing the point.
[00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:12.560] And so in my head, I'm like, who's going to, as these like, this encroachment is happening between the two, who has a skill set that's harder to learn?
[00:08:12.560 --> 00:08:17.040] You have these scrappy agencies that are doing like the hardest possible thing, getting business from nothing.
[00:08:17.040 --> 00:08:24.240] And then you have these, kind of, it's hard to run a RevOps and CRM shop, but like you get referred leads, you've got this whole infrastructure.
[00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:28.720] You've got a huge multi-billion dollar SaaS company snowplowing for you.
[00:08:29.040 --> 00:08:32.880] And then they're trying to be nimble, but then the nimble people are basically trying to learn how to do the easier things.
[00:08:32.880 --> 00:08:41.200] And so I suspect that these agencies that we're working with are going to grow and they're going to start adding more services, much easier services deliver, paid ads, these other things.
[00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:47.200] So anyway, this is a little bit of a side thing, but I've had calls with these traditional RevOps shops agencies, and they don't go anywhere.
[00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:48.000] Like they don't get it.
[00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:50.000] They don't understand why.
[00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:56.960] So even though on paper, it seems like that would be a great fit as a HubSpot partner with $25 million in annual revenue.
[00:08:56.960 --> 00:08:58.480] That should be a great account.
[00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:03.480] But it's actually this like little scrappy half million dollar a year agency that's excited about what we're doing.
[00:09:03.640 --> 00:09:11.960] And I don't know where it's going to go, but momentum wise, it feels like there's a lot of momentum happening with the types of people that we're working with.
[00:09:12.120 --> 00:09:13.880] There's a shift in the market happening, right?
[00:09:13.880 --> 00:09:14.920] And this is what we see.
[00:09:14.920 --> 00:09:18.520] We see this a shakeup or a shift or whatever we want to call it.
[00:09:18.760 --> 00:09:23.320] You know, you're calling out momentum in this direction because you're in it and can see that from the outside.
[00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:25.160] I'm like, something's, I know something's happening.
[00:09:25.160 --> 00:09:27.400] I'm hearing, but I don't, I don't understand exactly where it's going, right?
[00:09:27.400 --> 00:09:31.400] I hear from folks like you and Valentin, you know, the finding male co-founder who are in this space.
[00:09:31.400 --> 00:09:34.200] The same thing happens with email marketing or marketing automation.
[00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:37.320] Like it's like every five to seven years, there's this big shakeup, right?
[00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:41.560] And I was in on the probably the last one or two, you know, two times ago.
[00:09:41.560 --> 00:09:42.280] That was my startup.
[00:09:42.280 --> 00:09:47.720] And these days, it's it's players like Beehive and Substack that are kind of, they're like redefining it in a new way.
[00:09:47.720 --> 00:09:53.080] And I remember when Beehive launched, I was like, wow, I don't know that that will work, but they figured something out, right?
[00:09:53.080 --> 00:09:56.200] They had their lead and there are things that are changing.
[00:09:56.200 --> 00:10:02.440] This is why it's so hard to run a SaaS company for like more than, I don't know, 10 years.
[00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:04.760] Like it just gets the markets shift.
[00:10:04.760 --> 00:10:11.720] And especially a 10-year-old SaaS company is a lot of legacy code and you start moving slower and you can't hit that momentum, right?
[00:10:11.720 --> 00:10:25.800] So you're, I'm, I'm bringing up product stuff because I'm, of course, a product guy, but you're, you're seeing the market shift and you're saying that the old agencies almost don't understand that there's like a sales marketing, there's an understanding, there's a shift in the understanding of where it's head, where the puck is headed, right?
[00:10:25.800 --> 00:10:28.520] And you feel like you're more towards the cutting edge of that.
[00:10:28.520 --> 00:10:29.080] Yeah, that's right.
[00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:29.320] Yeah.
[00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:32.280] And they have relationships with the traditional vendors in the space, right?
[00:10:32.280 --> 00:10:34.520] So they have a partnership with ZoomInfo.
[00:10:34.520 --> 00:10:36.920] They have a partnership with an outreach or a sales loft.
[00:10:36.920 --> 00:10:42.040] So they get a new customer and they say, now you're subscribing to ZoomInfo, you're paying them $100,000, whatever plus a year.
[00:10:42.040 --> 00:10:44.720] Now you're playing, now you're subscribing to Outreach or Sales Loft.
[00:10:44.520 --> 00:10:49.840] So it's just like, there's just like a lot of cost and process and legacy stuff that's built into that.
[00:10:50.160 --> 00:11:00.640] I mean, I guess like we're part of, Appon Sync is kind of part of this unbundling movement that's happening, you know, and it's like API driven and webhook driven and like data portability.
[00:11:00.640 --> 00:11:05.600] You still end up spending money, you just spend it in different ways, but you can do a lot more interesting things right now.
[00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:10.720] But I haven't like my public pricing and my public positioning hasn't, I haven't made that change yet.
[00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:13.760] It's still kind of like an if you know, you know sort of thing.
[00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:16.240] But I'm in the WhatsApp groups with these agency owners.
[00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:20.080] Like I just got off a call with one and he's like, hey, man, yeah, I've been following your stuff forever.
[00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:21.840] This is how we're doing this stuff right now.
[00:11:21.840 --> 00:11:26.160] But I just, we have this one client and I wanted to see what you're up to lately.
[00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:27.680] But he already knows me.
[00:11:27.680 --> 00:11:37.760] And so I don't need to be necessarily aggressively marketing to them like explicitly as such, you know, because we're already kind of in these, I'm already kind of in those watering holes.
[00:11:39.040 --> 00:11:42.320] For years, I've been saying, build your network, not your audience.
[00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:48.160] And the inbound interest that Harris is getting is a perfect case study of why this is so helpful.
[00:11:49.760 --> 00:11:55.840] When we spoke with Harris in episode one, he was building out his team and was worried because he was hiring ahead of revenue.
[00:11:55.840 --> 00:11:58.640] I wanted to check in to see how things were going.
[00:12:01.520 --> 00:12:05.040] I mean, I've been running a fully bootstrapped business for five years.
[00:12:05.040 --> 00:12:11.520] And so I just have some real habits, ingrained habits built in there.
[00:12:11.520 --> 00:12:13.360] But beneath that, I have taken some chances.
[00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:14.560] And then this was like the big chance.
[00:12:14.560 --> 00:12:16.880] Like, okay, I think this is maybe the best idea I'm going to have.
[00:12:16.880 --> 00:12:19.040] I don't know what else I'm going to come up with the rest of my life.
[00:12:19.040 --> 00:12:19.840] Like, maybe this is it.
[00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:21.280] So, let's go for it.
[00:12:21.280 --> 00:12:29.760] And so, I remember we were sitting around the table at the kickoff for our batch, and each person was going to bring up like ideas, things they needed help with.
[00:12:29.960 --> 00:12:34.760] And my big thing that I've been wrestling with was like, oh, is my developer working out or not?
[00:12:34.760 --> 00:12:39.560] And, like, this is how much, you know, he's working 15 hours a week, but it seems like he's got these other projects.
[00:12:39.560 --> 00:12:44.520] And I remember just like everyone around the table was just like, What are you talking about?
[00:12:44.520 --> 00:12:46.520] Like, he needs to be full-time.
[00:12:46.840 --> 00:12:49.400] What are you expecting him to get done in 15 hours a week?
[00:12:49.400 --> 00:12:52.360] It was just like immediate, like, you don't know what you're talking about.
[00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:53.400] Everything's fine.
[00:12:53.400 --> 00:13:00.600] Like, yeah, I mean, there was not even like, especially in a room of like contrarians and independent thinkers, usually someone's going to come up with some reason why there's like another way.
[00:13:00.600 --> 00:13:02.920] But literally, every single person was like, Yeah, yeah, 40 hours.
[00:13:02.920 --> 00:13:03.640] I was like, Cool.
[00:13:03.640 --> 00:13:06.600] Okay, I've got 19 minutes left in my 20-minute idea.
[00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:07.320] Something else.
[00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:09.640] What else?
[00:13:09.640 --> 00:13:11.320] And everybody, everybody's right.
[00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:13.560] I mean, the change has been massive.
[00:13:13.560 --> 00:13:14.120] And I like him.
[00:13:14.680 --> 00:13:15.640] I like working with him.
[00:13:15.640 --> 00:13:17.880] And the output is just way, way better.
[00:13:17.880 --> 00:13:18.680] And so we're rocking.
[00:13:18.680 --> 00:13:20.200] I mean, we're shipping stuff really fast.
[00:13:20.200 --> 00:13:27.560] And then the customer success, you know, a couple months ago when we were talking about this, like initially, I remember just being like, oh, I don't know.
[00:13:27.560 --> 00:13:31.880] And you were like, trust me, you will find 40 hours a week for a customer success person.
[00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:32.840] Just trust me.
[00:13:32.840 --> 00:13:34.440] And I was like, okay, like, I hear you.
[00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:35.000] Okay.
[00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:38.680] Like, let me just, let me shut down my old agency and kind of get my feet under me.
[00:13:38.680 --> 00:13:43.320] Well, here we are, like, three months later, and I am swamped in customer success stuff.
[00:13:43.320 --> 00:13:45.800] Onboarding, tickets, feature requests.
[00:13:45.800 --> 00:13:46.600] It's all good.
[00:13:46.600 --> 00:13:48.120] Like, there's no problems with the product.
[00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:52.760] It's just like the natural thing that happens when you've got a few dozen companies using your thing.
[00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:54.680] It's all normal stuff.
[00:13:54.680 --> 00:13:59.320] And fortunately, I did start the hiring process with Dynamite Jobs about a month ago.
[00:13:59.320 --> 00:14:02.680] So my new CSM did start on Monday of this week.
[00:14:02.680 --> 00:14:04.520] And so he's ramping pretty quickly.
[00:14:04.520 --> 00:14:07.160] And I'm amazed they found him, his experience.
[00:14:07.560 --> 00:14:14.200] He had been a third hire at a SaaS company before, where the first was a founder, the second was a full-time dev, and then he was the third founding CSM.
[00:14:14.200 --> 00:14:16.320] It's like the same thing, same thing here.
[00:14:14.760 --> 00:14:21.280] He's familiar with HubSpot, confident, willing to take on a challenge, excited to do the remote thing.
[00:14:21.760 --> 00:14:26.320] It was a tough hiring process, but Dynamite Jobs made it easier, but it was tricky because I don't know.
[00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:27.440] I wasn't sure I'd find somebody.
[00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:29.440] Oh, the applicants were all over the map.
[00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:31.120] I wasn't sure, like, what do I really need here?
[00:14:31.120 --> 00:14:37.440] So there's this like heuristic of like hiring for people based on what they've done, not based on what they can do.
[00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:42.000] And so then I'm like, okay, but like, what have, what is it of the things that people have done that I'm looking for?
[00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:43.440] So like CSM experience?
[00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:44.720] Is it like HubSpot experience?
[00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:46.400] Because we make this HubSpot product.
[00:14:46.400 --> 00:14:48.960] Is it like understanding outbound tools?
[00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:50.640] Is it working at a small company?
[00:14:50.640 --> 00:14:52.480] And it's like, it's kind of all of these things.
[00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:57.280] And so different applicants had different strengths across those different areas.
[00:14:57.280 --> 00:15:02.720] And like one amazing one came through, but like wanted a ton and ended up ghosting anyway.
[00:15:02.720 --> 00:15:11.600] And it's like, okay, well, I want, I got to find somebody who's excited and sort of crazy enough to be like a third hire at a company.
[00:15:11.600 --> 00:15:15.360] You know, I mean, that requires like a type of person because it's risky.
[00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:17.040] It requires a lot of trust in me.
[00:15:17.040 --> 00:15:19.360] So yeah, but we would, yeah, so that was what was tricky.
[00:15:19.360 --> 00:15:26.080] It was, it was hard to find like apples to apples comparison because we have these different requirements and then different ones were strong in different areas, you know?
[00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:26.800] It's always tough.
[00:15:26.800 --> 00:15:33.600] Customer success and marketing are two unexpectedly complex things to hire for.
[00:15:33.920 --> 00:15:39.280] And, you know, I don't want to dismiss hiring a developer, hiring sales, hiring support.
[00:15:39.280 --> 00:15:41.520] But it's kind of like you need to be able to sell.
[00:15:41.520 --> 00:15:43.680] You need to be reliable, get it done.
[00:15:43.680 --> 00:15:44.640] You need to understand the product.
[00:15:44.640 --> 00:15:47.200] And the developer, like, we can go through, but it's like, you need to write good code.
[00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:51.440] You need to not be a jerk, and you need to, you know, do whatever else and show up and be reliable.
[00:15:51.440 --> 00:15:54.320] Customer success, there are a lot of skills, a lot of, a lot floats into that, right?
[00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:56.960] It's like your rapport with other individuals.
[00:15:56.960 --> 00:16:01.240] Like, do you know how to re-architect my entire onboarding and track metrics?
[00:16:01.400 --> 00:16:02.760] Like, that's part of customer success.
[00:16:02.760 --> 00:16:05.320] Now, not everybody needs to know how to do that, but others do.
[00:16:05.320 --> 00:16:06.120] There's ongoing.
[00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:10.120] There's a lot to it that other, and it's still a new role, right?
[00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:15.720] I mean, I don't, the first time I ever heard the term was probably, I don't know, 2012, 2013.
[00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:20.760] So this is like a decade old versus like a salesperson, as old as time, you know what I mean?
[00:16:20.760 --> 00:16:22.280] And customer support goes back.
[00:16:22.280 --> 00:16:23.000] How, what do we think?
[00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:24.200] 50, 60, 70 years?
[00:16:24.200 --> 00:16:25.720] Like, success is a newer role.
[00:16:25.720 --> 00:16:31.640] And so it can be hard to hire for because there isn't as much, not legacy, but as much like foundational knowledge about it.
[00:16:31.640 --> 00:16:32.280] Yeah, for sure.
[00:16:32.280 --> 00:16:32.840] But no, I agree.
[00:16:33.880 --> 00:16:36.440] So far, I mean, it's been a couple of days, but yeah, he's eager.
[00:16:36.440 --> 00:16:38.600] He's taking, he's taken on new things.
[00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:42.520] And I have like a decent, there's like the pieces of a CSM role in place.
[00:16:42.520 --> 00:16:44.840] So he's not starting from scratch, which I think is helpful.
[00:16:44.840 --> 00:16:46.360] But I'm like, hey, here's our onboarding.
[00:16:46.360 --> 00:16:48.120] There's a single page in our knowledge base.
[00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:50.760] And then there's this onboarding plan tool that we use.
[00:16:50.760 --> 00:16:52.280] They're not the same.
[00:16:52.520 --> 00:16:54.680] They're out of like sync.
[00:16:54.680 --> 00:17:00.360] So one of your first things, go through those, identify the inconsistencies, identify some room for improvement.
[00:17:00.360 --> 00:17:01.480] And he started to do that.
[00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:03.640] He actually has an engineering background, which is kind of interesting.
[00:17:03.640 --> 00:17:08.600] He studied engineering in school and then worked for an aerospace company before going into SaaS.
[00:17:08.600 --> 00:17:14.200] And so in the interview process, he had said a few things like, oh, we should do a root cause analysis of what went wrong.
[00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:19.000] And I remember just thinking, oh, yeah, like our product is really technical.
[00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:21.240] And the thing is, our customers don't really want to talk to us.
[00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:24.200] I mean, they'll be happy to chat, but like we kind of need to be in the background.
[00:17:24.200 --> 00:17:27.400] If they're talking to us a lot, that means something is really not working.
[00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:30.360] It's not a product where it's fun to talk to the team.
[00:17:30.680 --> 00:17:32.920] It's like sync issues and stuff.
[00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:35.720] And so it's like, okay, I need someone who's going to be able to really drill down.
[00:17:36.120 --> 00:17:44.000] And so I was really, I thought that skill set was cool because I just thought it would, it was kind of more to what we need to be able to do.
[00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:48.560] Just like really drill down and understand why these properties aren't mapping or whatever.
[00:17:44.840 --> 00:17:52.240] Because we can't hand wave away a problem.
[00:17:53.040 --> 00:17:56.400] It's either data is either syncing or it's not.
[00:17:56.720 --> 00:18:01.360] And you know, someone who can figure that out quickly is like, that's a very valuable skill.
[00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:05.280] I love how fast Harris is iterating.
[00:18:05.280 --> 00:18:09.680] He's been exploring integrating with Salesforce, which can be challenging to say the least.
[00:18:09.680 --> 00:18:13.520] Before our conversation, he sent me this audio note.
[00:18:15.760 --> 00:18:17.600] I have this sort of Eureka moment.
[00:18:17.600 --> 00:18:18.640] I'm pretty excited about it.
[00:18:18.640 --> 00:18:21.600] I know we're not going to talk for a little while, but I wanted to share it.
[00:18:21.600 --> 00:18:30.480] So context: our go-to-market motion working with agencies continues to be getting more and more traction.
[00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:34.960] And several of these agencies are working with customers who are using Salesforce.
[00:18:34.960 --> 00:18:42.240] Now, I've only built this HubSpot integration, but I really built it kind of painstakingly to think about how everything maps.
[00:18:42.240 --> 00:18:50.000] And what I'm really excited about is that our HubSpot sync to Salesforce is working very cleanly.
[00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:56.160] I just spun up a developer account in Salesforce after having a call with a Series E startup.
[00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:59.760] So just a ton of traction, really mature company with a lot of money.
[00:18:59.760 --> 00:19:03.040] And the agency they're working with is crushing.
[00:19:03.040 --> 00:19:05.920] They've booked 90 meetings for them so far.
[00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:10.240] And so they're really happy with their agency, but they want to get that agency's work in Salesforce.
[00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:12.480] And I, anyway, it's working.
[00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:22.000] I was surprised that it worked as well as it did, but it looks like I had kind of been building for this because I built, I think, so tightly to HubSpot that it worked.
[00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:25.600] And so, this is opening up a whole different set of doors for us.
[00:19:25.600 --> 00:19:30.120] I think in the short term, I want to focus on the HubSpot to Salesforce path.
[00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:36.280] But then there's also room to potentially build just a standalone Salesforce integration and serve a wholly different section of the market.
[00:19:36.600 --> 00:19:44.200] Yeah, I'm just, I don't know, it's a Friday afternoon right now, almost four o'clock, and I'm unbelievably excited.
[00:19:44.840 --> 00:19:51.800] And this Eureka moment wasn't just groundbreaking, it seemed to reignite something inside Harris.
[00:19:52.120 --> 00:19:56.360] I haven't had a feeling like this since like kind of early days.
[00:19:56.360 --> 00:20:03.320] I discovered that multiple users had already been using our product in Salesforce, which I didn't know.
[00:20:03.320 --> 00:20:05.720] Nobody told me that or asked or anything.
[00:20:05.960 --> 00:20:08.360] Not that they have to, but like, it just never came up.
[00:20:08.360 --> 00:20:12.520] And that was part of the downside of the agency thing is that I just didn't realize that.
[00:20:12.520 --> 00:20:13.800] And so then I tested it myself.
[00:20:13.800 --> 00:20:16.280] I spun up a dev account and it worked.
[00:20:16.280 --> 00:20:20.600] It's like, oh, you can go from App OnSync to HubSpot to Salesforce.
[00:20:20.600 --> 00:20:24.760] And then I talked to more and more people and realized like, oh, actually, like, quite a few users are doing this.
[00:20:24.760 --> 00:20:33.240] And then these new enterprise deals that are coming in are also saying, oh, we actually need like, so this is the thing that more and more I'm hearing like that people actually wanted.
[00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:36.920] People that understood the value of the product tended to be actually in that ecosystem.
[00:20:36.920 --> 00:20:41.720] Now, there are also HubSpot people, but it was like the Salesforce people who were kind of more into it.
[00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:44.040] So that was like an interesting learning.
[00:20:44.040 --> 00:20:47.240] And then when I spun up the Sandbox account, I actually kind of liked it.
[00:20:47.240 --> 00:20:50.680] I hadn't used Salesforce in like 10 years, but I kind of liked it.
[00:20:50.680 --> 00:20:51.640] And it was.
[00:20:52.120 --> 00:20:53.480] Said no one ever.
[00:20:53.480 --> 00:20:54.920] Well, you're the one.
[00:20:54.920 --> 00:20:55.720] So you're the one.
[00:20:55.960 --> 00:20:56.840] Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:57.480 --> 00:21:00.920] Well, I liked it because for the reasons why a lot of people don't like it.
[00:21:00.920 --> 00:21:04.680] Like in HubSpot, it's very intuitive and it's user-friendly, but it's like Apple versus Android.
[00:21:04.680 --> 00:21:18.560] And sometimes I want to see a big settings menu with a compact, like tight table where I can see everything and it's not like nestled between like these dropdowns and you got to click through to this to this to this to actually get to the toggle.
[00:21:18.560 --> 00:21:23.120] So in a weird way, it was kind of like, oh, I feel like, I feel like there's a lot in front of me here.
[00:21:23.120 --> 00:21:24.800] So I can, I don't know, it was, it was just interesting.
[00:21:24.800 --> 00:21:26.080] It was a very unexpected response.
[00:21:26.080 --> 00:21:31.280] Because in the HubSpot ecosystem, it's very like territorial of like, oh, orange, good, blue, bad, you know, whatever.
[00:21:31.280 --> 00:21:32.880] So I was like, okay, this is kind of interesting.
[00:21:33.040 --> 00:21:37.680] So we talked to a company that made like a toolkit product and we're going to, and so basically it was like a quick integration.
[00:21:37.680 --> 00:21:41.280] They're basically themselves an infrastructure as a platform as a service.
[00:21:41.280 --> 00:21:43.520] So they're an iPass and we're kind of an iPass.
[00:21:43.520 --> 00:21:44.960] I was like, okay, well, maybe we can work with them.
[00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:50.240] And then anyway, the developer jumped into it and he was like, I'm not getting the error messages I need from these API calls.
[00:21:50.240 --> 00:21:52.400] I think I can just do it on my own.
[00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:54.640] It's like, honestly, man, like, you've got me here.
[00:21:54.640 --> 00:21:56.000] Like, I trust you.
[00:21:56.640 --> 00:22:01.440] Whatever, you know, take a shot at it, work on it for a couple weeks, and let's just see what happens.
[00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:05.280] He kept doing some bug reports here or there, but in general, this was his focus for a couple weeks.
[00:22:05.280 --> 00:22:07.440] And sure enough, like, it works.
[00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:10.000] Like, we're going to be announcing a Salesforce beta.
[00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:12.160] I just posted on LinkedIn.
[00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:16.960] And we already to our agencies were like, hey, I've got customers that want the Salesforce thing.
[00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:20.480] So send me a Stripe link and let's go.
[00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:24.720] And already we've solved problems that you can't do if you're doing the HubSpot sync.
[00:22:25.040 --> 00:22:30.720] Then the Salesforce integration, you're in beta, it took you weeks, five, six weeks?
[00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:31.600] Is that right?
[00:22:31.760 --> 00:22:34.080] I mean, yes, it's which is kind of crazy to me.
[00:22:34.080 --> 00:22:44.640] I think it's because we spent like a year and a half on HubSpot that like when Vitali jumped in, and also like what we do isn't actually that complicated, all things considered.
[00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:47.840] Like something like a drip, it's like there's a lot going on with that product.
[00:22:47.840 --> 00:22:50.800] I mean, we're basically like, does this contact exist or not?
[00:22:50.800 --> 00:22:53.680] If not, create it, log these emails to it.
[00:22:53.680 --> 00:22:59.880] I mean, there's more to it, but fundamentally, I think other products have a lot more problems, like things they have to think about.
[00:22:59.880 --> 00:23:00.440] We'll see.
[00:23:00.600 --> 00:23:02.920] I might be talking to you next time and be like, Rob, I was wrong.
[00:23:02.920 --> 00:23:03.880] Like, we missed it.
[00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:04.520] We forgot this thing.
[00:23:04.520 --> 00:23:05.960] Like, we hit an iceberg.
[00:22:59.520 --> 00:23:06.280] Sure.
[00:23:06.440 --> 00:23:08.040] But I don't think it'll be on your side, though.
[00:23:08.280 --> 00:23:09.560] I don't think it'll be your code.
[00:23:09.560 --> 00:23:18.920] It will be, if anything, the experience that we started having and that other founders have had as they've tried to do this is that Salesforce says, oh, great, you have this code.
[00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:24.120] Now, in order for anyone to deploy it, you need to go through our security audit and our this and that audit.
[00:23:24.120 --> 00:23:26.600] And each one of those takes two months or something because you're waiting on them.
[00:23:26.680 --> 00:23:27.960] Do you have to do any of that?
[00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:33.800] I think that, I mean, to get like formally listed in the exchange, yes.
[00:23:34.120 --> 00:23:38.760] But because that's not our, that's not how we're acquiring customers.
[00:23:38.760 --> 00:23:41.160] Like, actually, it's been a year and a half.
[00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:45.320] We're like, there's one app in front of us in the queue before we're going to get listed in the HubSpot marketplace.
[00:23:45.320 --> 00:23:47.480] We haven't even been in the HubbleSpot marketplace yet.
[00:23:47.480 --> 00:23:47.880] Right.
[00:23:48.040 --> 00:23:49.480] Because we're in the direct.
[00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:49.880] Yeah.
[00:23:49.880 --> 00:23:50.520] Yeah.
[00:23:50.520 --> 00:23:55.480] So I think that we'll be able to get away with being like, hey, this is a beta developer version of the app.
[00:23:55.480 --> 00:23:59.640] And then, and then over time, yeah, we'll be in the app exchange and we'll pay the few thousand dollars.
[00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:04.840] And we are starting SOC2 in tandem with this because the Salesforce people are, they want SOC2.
[00:24:04.840 --> 00:24:10.440] And so I suspect that if we do that, then it'll make some of the security stuff easier because we will say, like, hey, here's our trust center.
[00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:15.320] And we ended up, yeah, that's like a whole, that was like a whole thought process over the last couple weeks.
[00:24:16.600 --> 00:24:24.040] If you're unfamiliar with SOC2, it's all about making sure your company's security controls and data handling practices are up to snuff.
[00:24:24.040 --> 00:24:31.240] It's like getting a seal of approval that says these folks are doing things the right way when it comes to protecting customer info.
[00:24:31.240 --> 00:24:39.560] And as startups want to move upmarket and sell to bigger companies, SOC 2 can be a game changer, but it's expensive and it's a ton of work.
[00:24:42.440 --> 00:24:47.120] Like looking through the SOC 2 attestation, it makes sense to me.
[00:24:44.680 --> 00:24:50.480] Like these policies and controls that we should put in place, I don't know.
[00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:54.320] Sometimes some of that stuff just feels like a song and dance.
[00:24:54.320 --> 00:24:59.920] And I'm sure that a little bit of it is, but I mean, for me, like as a non-technical founder, we've got one developer.
[00:24:59.920 --> 00:25:01.760] Some of these things are very good for me.
[00:25:01.760 --> 00:25:11.600] Like if something happens to him for whatever reason, if we have these controls in place, like I will be in a better position in terms of being able to like business continuity or something happens to me.
[00:25:11.600 --> 00:25:15.120] So like it's funny, but some say, oh, you're too small to do it right now.
[00:25:15.120 --> 00:25:20.160] But because we're small, I look at these things and I'm like, these are actually kind of like viability of the business.
[00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:25.600] If we can resolve these, it actually kind of helps me sleep a little bit better at night, which is kind of funny.
[00:25:25.600 --> 00:25:27.280] But yeah, yeah.
[00:25:27.280 --> 00:25:31.520] That's the glass half full view of it because most people hate SOC 2 and they hate going through it.
[00:25:31.520 --> 00:25:36.960] And you're like, this actually, you are definitely, you're on the optimist side, which I think is really good for you.
[00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:45.200] Well, it's like it's like, oh, what happens if the one person who is putting code in production, what happens if something happens to them?
[00:25:45.280 --> 00:25:50.000] Like, I should probably have an answer to that before it happens.
[00:25:50.320 --> 00:25:51.120] You know?
[00:25:52.400 --> 00:25:57.680] So you wrote me a note, and the note said, I realized we weren't really spending the tiny seed money yet.
[00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:03.120] It had been three months and we had effectively only spent $8,000 of the check you wrote us.
[00:26:03.120 --> 00:26:09.040] And revenue growth had slowed with you being bogged down in customer success stuff.
[00:26:09.040 --> 00:26:11.520] So talk me through where you are with that.
[00:26:11.520 --> 00:26:13.120] Like, have you started spending more money?
[00:26:13.120 --> 00:26:14.720] Is this like the hires and the full time?
[00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:17.520] And that kind of makes all that work.
[00:26:17.520 --> 00:26:18.720] Yeah, definitely.
[00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:21.280] There's just like old habits from how I've been running my business.
[00:26:21.280 --> 00:26:25.040] And so I was treating that money in the bank like it wasn't there.
[00:26:25.040 --> 00:26:32.600] But something that you've said that kind of rings in my ears from time to time is that, you know, having more money in a business can save you years of time.
[00:26:32.920 --> 00:26:40.680] And so I sort of made this decision: it was, it was customers and prospects were coming in and they were asking for these things.
[00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:43.080] They were asking for SOC 2, they were asking for Salesforce.
[00:26:43.080 --> 00:26:46.680] And it was like, okay, well, I probably just need to spend money to do those things.
[00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:50.200] So, yeah, so now we're in this like spending era a little bit.
[00:26:50.200 --> 00:26:52.600] And so my job now is to get it back, right?
[00:26:52.600 --> 00:26:57.720] So it's like, okay, we're going to start sending the link to our trust center for our security stuff to people.
[00:26:57.720 --> 00:27:02.280] And so now I need to come up with pricing for what those people who ask for that thing, what are they going to pay?
[00:27:02.280 --> 00:27:04.680] And I went to an old starters for the rest of us episode.
[00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:06.440] I just searched like security.
[00:27:06.440 --> 00:27:11.640] And I've listened to every episode that I found that where security came up in the Spotify search thing.
[00:27:11.640 --> 00:27:15.400] And so I'm thinking about like, you know, five-figure annual contract value stuff.
[00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:25.720] We did close our first annual contract with a company where it was like, okay, the people are willing to sign that type of contract with us even before we have the Salesforce or the SOC 2.
[00:27:25.720 --> 00:27:33.160] So that gave me a really big boost of confidence because I've never sold an annual contract of anything in my life of my own companies.
[00:27:33.160 --> 00:27:36.120] And so it was like, okay, we're solving a problem enough that they're willing to write that check.
[00:27:36.120 --> 00:27:39.640] How much more would they be willing to pay if we could solve these problems even better?
[00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:40.840] So we decided to go.
[00:27:40.840 --> 00:27:57.240] I went with Vanta, which is kind of like the category creator in the like GRC compliant software space because I just kind of want to get it done right the first time, send it to people, and they'll be like, cool, you passed review and not have to like go back and forth and maintain a bunch of stuff in like a Google Drive and things like that.
[00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:14.360] So yeah, so that was like the decision of like consciously, let's spend this money, let's get these deals in, rework pricing, and try to be a little bit more confident in the sales cycle instead of before being like, well, it's supposed to be 500, but you can pay 100 and it's month to month, but you can actually, you know, cancel yesterday.
[00:28:14.360 --> 00:28:17.280] You know, it's just like, come on, dude, like, this is cool.
[00:28:14.840 --> 00:28:19.040] You've built something cool, sell it.
[00:28:19.040 --> 00:28:22.320] And so I think part of it's going to give me the confidence to do some of that.
[00:28:24.560 --> 00:28:28.560] Harris's bold moves are paying off, and Outbound Sync is gaining momentum.
[00:28:28.560 --> 00:28:33.840] But as he navigates this entrepreneurial roller coaster, every decision carries weight.
[00:28:33.840 --> 00:28:37.840] Will his growing confidence be the key to unlocking even greater success?
[00:28:37.840 --> 00:28:51.600] Buckle up for next week's episode, where we'll follow up on his SOC2 compliance journey, find out how he's scaling outbound campaigns without losing the personal touch, and talk about a potential positioning pivot that could catapult Outbound Sync into a whole new league.
[00:28:51.600 --> 00:28:54.400] Don't miss out on the twists and turns of Harris's journey.
[00:28:54.400 --> 00:28:57.040] Next time on Tiny Seed Tales.
[00:28:58.960 --> 00:29:00.960] I hope you enjoyed this episode.
[00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:12.640] If you've ever wondered what it's really like inside TinySeed and want to hear a raw, candid coaching conversation between Harris and I, we put together something special for you at tinyseed.com/slash bonus.
[00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:13.600] You should check it out.
[00:29:13.600 --> 00:29:16.000] I've never released anything like this before.
[00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:16.880] I hope you enjoy it.
[00:29:16.880 --> 00:29:19.680] 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 --> 00:00:03.920] Welcome back to season five, episode two of Tiny Seed Tales.
[00:00:03.920 --> 00:00:15.360] Before we jump back in with Harris, I wanted to let you know that if you're a founder who's looking for the right amount of funding, a community of like-minded founders, and a world-class network of mentors, you should apply for Tiny Seed.
[00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:21.360] Our fall 2025 batch applications open on September 1st and close on September 9th.
[00:00:21.360 --> 00:00:30.960] Also, on September 3rd, we'll be doing a live QA with the Tiny Seed team, so you can ask any burning questions ahead of submitting your application.
[00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:35.760] TinySeed is the world-class accelerator for B2B SaaS founders.
[00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:40.960] And if you want to work with me and my team, you should head to tinyseed.com slash apply.
[00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:47.680] There you'll see all the details and you can sign up to get notified when the QA is going live as well as when applications open.
[00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:50.320] That's tinyseed.com slash apply.
[00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:55.440] And as a reminder, the episode you're about to listen to takes place a few months after episode one.
[00:00:55.440 --> 00:01:02.480] That's the beauty of Tiny Seed Tales is that I follow a founder over 12 to 18 months and we record six to eight episodes.
[00:01:02.480 --> 00:01:08.240] So there's these lovely time gaps between the episodes where we can really see things unfold.
[00:01:08.240 --> 00:01:11.200] So with that, let's dive in to episode two.
[00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:15.040] I've had calls with these traditional RevOps shops agencies and they don't go anywhere.
[00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:15.840] Like they don't get it.
[00:01:16.160 --> 00:01:17.760] They don't understand why.
[00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:26.800] So even though on paper it seems like that would be a great fit as a hubspot partner with $25 million in annual revenue, that should be a great account.
[00:01:26.800 --> 00:01:32.000] But it's actually this like little scrappy half million dollar a year agency that's excited about what we're doing.
[00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:40.640] And I don't know where it's going to go, but momentum wise, it feels like there's a lot of momentum happening with the types of people that we're working with.
[00:01:43.520 --> 00:01:48.640] Welcome back to Tiny Seed Tales, a series where I follow a founder through the roller coaster of building their startup.
[00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:56.080] I'm your host, Rob Walling, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of TinySeed, the first startup accelerator designed for bootstrappers.
[00:01:56.400 --> 00:02:01.480] In this episode, I pick back up on my conversation with Harris Kenney, founder of Outbound Sync.
[00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:10.680] Last time we learned that Harris has made the hard transition from agency owner to SaaS founder, and in just over a year, has built his MRR to $10,000 a month.
[00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:18.680] Since we last spoke, he's been working on his positioning and has decided to do a Zoom-in pivot to focus on agencies who are using Outbound Sync.
[00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:22.440] I wanted to dig in and find out why he was making this move.
[00:02:27.880 --> 00:02:30.520] We did roll it out.
[00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:48.200] So the short version of kind of the genesis of it, or the decision was at the kickoff for our batch, talked about it with you, made you talk to me about it outside of the elevator for a couple minutes, talked to Andy, who's in my batch, and decided to just push out like a data sync only lower price version.
[00:02:48.200 --> 00:02:49.960] And it has gone very well.
[00:02:49.960 --> 00:02:55.240] It's working kind of how exactly you would hope the agencies will, they're now talking about it in their sales process.
[00:02:55.240 --> 00:03:04.200] Some of them are actually starting to put it like in their decks and in their contracts of like if a user wants a CRM integration, they're going to use Outbound Sync and there's additional cost.
[00:03:04.200 --> 00:03:11.000] And then they close these deals and they just send me a Slack message, you know, and so we've got expansion revenue now and they're happy to do it.
[00:03:11.160 --> 00:03:19.080] I'm trying to figure out the balance of like the support that they're supposed to get because like some of their clients are kind of needy and others are really easy.
[00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:21.160] Some of the agencies do the onboarding on their own.
[00:03:21.160 --> 00:03:25.480] Other ones like we do it and they're kind of requiring a lot of help from us.
[00:03:25.480 --> 00:03:31.720] So I would not say that like the operational side of it is figured out, but in terms of like it's growing, they're happy.
[00:03:31.720 --> 00:03:33.080] We're signing new agencies.
[00:03:33.080 --> 00:03:42.600] We just signed a first client with a very big agency that has 150 active clients, and this is just one for them, but obviously that could grow a lot.
[00:03:42.600 --> 00:03:49.760] So, yeah, like it's it's really working very well, but we do still have teams that come to us and like we have to have brand and secure.
[00:03:49.920 --> 00:04:00.320] We'll talk about like security, and we have to also be able to stand on our own feet because those end clients are also evaluating us too because we're the ones that are ultimately going to connect with their CRM.
[00:04:00.320 --> 00:04:03.680] And outbound sync is the thing that's showing up in their CRM data.
[00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:08.240] So, yeah, so there's this like balance of like serving agencies, but also building our own direct thing.
[00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:09.600] And I'm still figuring it out.
[00:04:09.600 --> 00:04:10.880] But like, in short, we're making money.
[00:04:10.880 --> 00:04:11.600] I'm glad we did it.
[00:04:11.600 --> 00:04:12.800] We're going to keep doing it.
[00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:15.600] And there's still like a lot of figuring out to do, I think.
[00:04:15.920 --> 00:04:28.640] Do you feel like you are going to focus on serving just agencies from now on and either not market to not sell to other customer types or even turn them away?
[00:04:28.640 --> 00:04:30.080] What's your thinking there?
[00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:40.080] Yeah, I am starting to lean that way, even just unconsciously, because they understand our product so well and the problem that it solves so well.
[00:04:40.080 --> 00:04:43.520] The sales process is very low friction, right?
[00:04:43.520 --> 00:04:47.760] Because like they get a customer and the customer says, Hey, okay, we use Salesforce, we use HubSpot.
[00:04:47.760 --> 00:04:49.600] It's really important to get this in the CRM.
[00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:50.640] And they already know why.
[00:04:50.640 --> 00:04:51.840] They already know why Outbound Sync.
[00:04:51.840 --> 00:04:53.600] They've typically tried to do some automation on their own.
[00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:57.920] They understand the value of it and they love being able to just like pass these questions off to us.
[00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:02.960] And so, yeah, I'm finding myself spending more time there and thinking about features for them.
[00:05:02.960 --> 00:05:07.600] They have like very specific features that they want that we can definitely build that I can see that would be valuable for them.
[00:05:07.840 --> 00:05:13.120] I think that if a direct team comes in and they're motivated and they're ready to go, it's like, of course, I'm happy to work with them.
[00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:14.000] And we've had a couple.
[00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:16.800] Like, we had one that between our recordings that came in.
[00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:19.040] I had one call with them, one call closed.
[00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:20.160] They onboarded themselves.
[00:05:20.320 --> 00:05:24.480] I literally haven't heard from them in over a month, but the data is flowing and they're happy.
[00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:29.800] But there's definitely a lot of teams are not in that situation.
[00:05:29.440 --> 00:05:31.720] And so it's like, I don't want to chase someone down.
[00:05:31.880 --> 00:05:46.280] If they don't have the internal alignment and decision-making ability to move forward, it like, I mean, it can take like a year plus of conversations because for our product to be used, there's like hundreds of other things that have like fallen into place.
[00:05:46.280 --> 00:05:49.640] And then with the agency, like those things have all fallen into place, basically.
[00:05:49.640 --> 00:05:50.040] Right.
[00:05:50.040 --> 00:06:04.360] So you have a customer type that is easier to sell to, really just understands the product better, that is easier to onboard, that probably potentially has less price sensitivity because they're maybe passing it along to clients.
[00:06:04.360 --> 00:06:06.520] They are less support.
[00:06:06.520 --> 00:06:10.840] They will probably be higher annual contract value because, you know, all these things.
[00:06:10.840 --> 00:06:15.880] So that feels like at your stage, early stage, like that's it.
[00:06:15.880 --> 00:06:17.080] That's the SCP, right?
[00:06:17.080 --> 00:06:18.680] And, you know, let's just be honest.
[00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:26.280] If you hit two, three, four million and you're like, wow, I've just got a lot of agencies here and it's slowing down, obviously you can kind of go back.
[00:06:26.280 --> 00:06:28.600] You can undo this decision at any time, right?
[00:06:28.600 --> 00:06:39.720] But for now, to become positioned and known for being the sync engine for agencies, I think is a really interesting approach.
[00:06:39.720 --> 00:06:47.560] Yeah, I've thought about giving him a seat for free and being like, hey, like use this for your own campaigns because I know they'll make content about it.
[00:06:47.560 --> 00:06:51.080] And like from a cost perspective, it's not really that big of a deal.
[00:06:51.080 --> 00:06:54.120] And I know if they get familiar with it, that they would use it.
[00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:54.680] I don't know.
[00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:59.720] Maybe I charge them a low price, but I feel like if I say, hey, here's a free seat, they would be jazzed about it.
[00:06:59.720 --> 00:07:20.480] And as they're getting more mature, they, well, okay, so this is like a little bit of a sidebar, but something that's happening in this agency space is like there's this huge disruption happening where you've got like these traditional marketing and RevOps and CRM shops, and then you have this like emergence of this tool called Clay and these lead gen agencies that are really kind of going to the real job to be done.
[00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:26.320] The reason why most people hire agencies in the first place, marketing and sales agencies, is they want more leads.
[00:07:26.320 --> 00:07:29.280] And a lot of agencies will do other things on top of that.
[00:07:29.280 --> 00:07:36.480] They'll build forms and landing pages and persona development and hundreds of thousands of dollars of like extra services.
[00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:48.480] And so these other agencies have come out, these cold email, growth hacking, clay agencies that are just like going right to the main thing that people want, which is like, here's leads for your sales team from scratch.
[00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:57.600] And so there's this like balancing act of the traditional RevOps shops and stuff are starting to encroach on this space.
[00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:00.480] Like they're getting listed as experts in some of these tools.
[00:08:00.480 --> 00:08:04.080] But I see their LinkedIn posts and I watch their videos and it's like they don't get it.
[00:08:04.080 --> 00:08:06.000] Like they're just missing the point.
[00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:12.560] And so in my head, I'm like, who's going to, as these like, this encroachment is happening between the two, who has a skill set that's harder to learn?
[00:08:12.560 --> 00:08:17.040] You have these scrappy agencies that are doing like the hardest possible thing, getting business from nothing.
[00:08:17.040 --> 00:08:24.240] And then you have these, kind of, it's hard to run a RevOps and CRM shop, but like you get referred leads, you've got this whole infrastructure.
[00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:28.720] You've got a huge multi-billion dollar SaaS company snowplowing for you.
[00:08:29.040 --> 00:08:32.880] And then they're trying to be nimble, but then the nimble people are basically trying to learn how to do the easier things.
[00:08:32.880 --> 00:08:41.200] And so I suspect that these agencies that we're working with are going to grow and they're going to start adding more services, much easier services deliver, paid ads, these other things.
[00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:47.200] So anyway, this is a little bit of a side thing, but I've had calls with these traditional RevOps shops agencies, and they don't go anywhere.
[00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:48.000] Like they don't get it.
[00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:50.000] They don't understand why.
[00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:56.960] So even though on paper, it seems like that would be a great fit as a HubSpot partner with $25 million in annual revenue.
[00:08:56.960 --> 00:08:58.480] That should be a great account.
[00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:03.480] But it's actually this like little scrappy half million dollar a year agency that's excited about what we're doing.
[00:09:03.640 --> 00:09:11.960] And I don't know where it's going to go, but momentum wise, it feels like there's a lot of momentum happening with the types of people that we're working with.
[00:09:12.120 --> 00:09:13.880] There's a shift in the market happening, right?
[00:09:13.880 --> 00:09:14.920] And this is what we see.
[00:09:14.920 --> 00:09:18.520] We see this a shakeup or a shift or whatever we want to call it.
[00:09:18.760 --> 00:09:23.320] You know, you're calling out momentum in this direction because you're in it and can see that from the outside.
[00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:25.160] I'm like, something's, I know something's happening.
[00:09:25.160 --> 00:09:27.400] I'm hearing, but I don't, I don't understand exactly where it's going, right?
[00:09:27.400 --> 00:09:31.400] I hear from folks like you and Valentin, you know, the finding male co-founder who are in this space.
[00:09:31.400 --> 00:09:34.200] The same thing happens with email marketing or marketing automation.
[00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:37.320] Like it's like every five to seven years, there's this big shakeup, right?
[00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:41.560] And I was in on the probably the last one or two, you know, two times ago.
[00:09:41.560 --> 00:09:42.280] That was my startup.
[00:09:42.280 --> 00:09:47.720] And these days, it's it's players like Beehive and Substack that are kind of, they're like redefining it in a new way.
[00:09:47.720 --> 00:09:53.080] And I remember when Beehive launched, I was like, wow, I don't know that that will work, but they figured something out, right?
[00:09:53.080 --> 00:09:56.200] They had their lead and there are things that are changing.
[00:09:56.200 --> 00:10:02.440] This is why it's so hard to run a SaaS company for like more than, I don't know, 10 years.
[00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:04.760] Like it just gets the markets shift.
[00:10:04.760 --> 00:10:11.720] And especially a 10-year-old SaaS company is a lot of legacy code and you start moving slower and you can't hit that momentum, right?
[00:10:11.720 --> 00:10:25.800] So you're, I'm, I'm bringing up product stuff because I'm, of course, a product guy, but you're, you're seeing the market shift and you're saying that the old agencies almost don't understand that there's like a sales marketing, there's an understanding, there's a shift in the understanding of where it's head, where the puck is headed, right?
[00:10:25.800 --> 00:10:28.520] And you feel like you're more towards the cutting edge of that.
[00:10:28.520 --> 00:10:29.080] Yeah, that's right.
[00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:29.320] Yeah.
[00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:32.280] And they have relationships with the traditional vendors in the space, right?
[00:10:32.280 --> 00:10:34.520] So they have a partnership with ZoomInfo.
[00:10:34.520 --> 00:10:36.920] They have a partnership with an outreach or a sales loft.
[00:10:36.920 --> 00:10:42.040] So they get a new customer and they say, now you're subscribing to ZoomInfo, you're paying them $100,000, whatever plus a year.
[00:10:42.040 --> 00:10:44.720] Now you're playing, now you're subscribing to Outreach or Sales Loft.
[00:10:44.520 --> 00:10:49.840] So it's just like, there's just like a lot of cost and process and legacy stuff that's built into that.
[00:10:50.160 --> 00:11:00.640] I mean, I guess like we're part of, Appon Sync is kind of part of this unbundling movement that's happening, you know, and it's like API driven and webhook driven and like data portability.
[00:11:00.640 --> 00:11:05.600] You still end up spending money, you just spend it in different ways, but you can do a lot more interesting things right now.
[00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:10.720] But I haven't like my public pricing and my public positioning hasn't, I haven't made that change yet.
[00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:13.760] It's still kind of like an if you know, you know sort of thing.
[00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:16.240] But I'm in the WhatsApp groups with these agency owners.
[00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:20.080] Like I just got off a call with one and he's like, hey, man, yeah, I've been following your stuff forever.
[00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:21.840] This is how we're doing this stuff right now.
[00:11:21.840 --> 00:11:26.160] But I just, we have this one client and I wanted to see what you're up to lately.
[00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:27.680] But he already knows me.
[00:11:27.680 --> 00:11:37.760] And so I don't need to be necessarily aggressively marketing to them like explicitly as such, you know, because we're already kind of in these, I'm already kind of in those watering holes.
[00:11:39.040 --> 00:11:42.320] For years, I've been saying, build your network, not your audience.
[00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:48.160] And the inbound interest that Harris is getting is a perfect case study of why this is so helpful.
[00:11:49.760 --> 00:11:55.840] When we spoke with Harris in episode one, he was building out his team and was worried because he was hiring ahead of revenue.
[00:11:55.840 --> 00:11:58.640] I wanted to check in to see how things were going.
[00:12:01.520 --> 00:12:05.040] I mean, I've been running a fully bootstrapped business for five years.
[00:12:05.040 --> 00:12:11.520] And so I just have some real habits, ingrained habits built in there.
[00:12:11.520 --> 00:12:13.360] But beneath that, I have taken some chances.
[00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:14.560] And then this was like the big chance.
[00:12:14.560 --> 00:12:16.880] Like, okay, I think this is maybe the best idea I'm going to have.
[00:12:16.880 --> 00:12:19.040] I don't know what else I'm going to come up with the rest of my life.
[00:12:19.040 --> 00:12:19.840] Like, maybe this is it.
[00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:21.280] So, let's go for it.
[00:12:21.280 --> 00:12:29.760] And so, I remember we were sitting around the table at the kickoff for our batch, and each person was going to bring up like ideas, things they needed help with.
[00:12:29.960 --> 00:12:34.760] And my big thing that I've been wrestling with was like, oh, is my developer working out or not?
[00:12:34.760 --> 00:12:39.560] And, like, this is how much, you know, he's working 15 hours a week, but it seems like he's got these other projects.
[00:12:39.560 --> 00:12:44.520] And I remember just like everyone around the table was just like, What are you talking about?
[00:12:44.520 --> 00:12:46.520] Like, he needs to be full-time.
[00:12:46.840 --> 00:12:49.400] What are you expecting him to get done in 15 hours a week?
[00:12:49.400 --> 00:12:52.360] It was just like immediate, like, you don't know what you're talking about.
[00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:53.400] Everything's fine.
[00:12:53.400 --> 00:13:00.600] Like, yeah, I mean, there was not even like, especially in a room of like contrarians and independent thinkers, usually someone's going to come up with some reason why there's like another way.
[00:13:00.600 --> 00:13:02.920] But literally, every single person was like, Yeah, yeah, 40 hours.
[00:13:02.920 --> 00:13:03.640] I was like, Cool.
[00:13:03.640 --> 00:13:06.600] Okay, I've got 19 minutes left in my 20-minute idea.
[00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:07.320] Something else.
[00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:09.640] What else?
[00:13:09.640 --> 00:13:11.320] And everybody, everybody's right.
[00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:13.560] I mean, the change has been massive.
[00:13:13.560 --> 00:13:14.120] And I like him.
[00:13:14.680 --> 00:13:15.640] I like working with him.
[00:13:15.640 --> 00:13:17.880] And the output is just way, way better.
[00:13:17.880 --> 00:13:18.680] And so we're rocking.
[00:13:18.680 --> 00:13:20.200] I mean, we're shipping stuff really fast.
[00:13:20.200 --> 00:13:27.560] And then the customer success, you know, a couple months ago when we were talking about this, like initially, I remember just being like, oh, I don't know.
[00:13:27.560 --> 00:13:31.880] And you were like, trust me, you will find 40 hours a week for a customer success person.
[00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:32.840] Just trust me.
[00:13:32.840 --> 00:13:34.440] And I was like, okay, like, I hear you.
[00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:35.000] Okay.
[00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:38.680] Like, let me just, let me shut down my old agency and kind of get my feet under me.
[00:13:38.680 --> 00:13:43.320] Well, here we are, like, three months later, and I am swamped in customer success stuff.
[00:13:43.320 --> 00:13:45.800] Onboarding, tickets, feature requests.
[00:13:45.800 --> 00:13:46.600] It's all good.
[00:13:46.600 --> 00:13:48.120] Like, there's no problems with the product.
[00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:52.760] It's just like the natural thing that happens when you've got a few dozen companies using your thing.
[00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:54.680] It's all normal stuff.
[00:13:54.680 --> 00:13:59.320] And fortunately, I did start the hiring process with Dynamite Jobs about a month ago.
[00:13:59.320 --> 00:14:02.680] So my new CSM did start on Monday of this week.
[00:14:02.680 --> 00:14:04.520] And so he's ramping pretty quickly.
[00:14:04.520 --> 00:14:07.160] And I'm amazed they found him, his experience.
[00:14:07.560 --> 00:14:14.200] He had been a third hire at a SaaS company before, where the first was a founder, the second was a full-time dev, and then he was the third founding CSM.
[00:14:14.200 --> 00:14:16.320] It's like the same thing, same thing here.
[00:14:14.760 --> 00:14:21.280] He's familiar with HubSpot, confident, willing to take on a challenge, excited to do the remote thing.
[00:14:21.760 --> 00:14:26.320] It was a tough hiring process, but Dynamite Jobs made it easier, but it was tricky because I don't know.
[00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:27.440] I wasn't sure I'd find somebody.
[00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:29.440] Oh, the applicants were all over the map.
[00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:31.120] I wasn't sure, like, what do I really need here?
[00:14:31.120 --> 00:14:37.440] So there's this like heuristic of like hiring for people based on what they've done, not based on what they can do.
[00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:42.000] And so then I'm like, okay, but like, what have, what is it of the things that people have done that I'm looking for?
[00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:43.440] So like CSM experience?
[00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:44.720] Is it like HubSpot experience?
[00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:46.400] Because we make this HubSpot product.
[00:14:46.400 --> 00:14:48.960] Is it like understanding outbound tools?
[00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:50.640] Is it working at a small company?
[00:14:50.640 --> 00:14:52.480] And it's like, it's kind of all of these things.
[00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:57.280] And so different applicants had different strengths across those different areas.
[00:14:57.280 --> 00:15:02.720] And like one amazing one came through, but like wanted a ton and ended up ghosting anyway.
[00:15:02.720 --> 00:15:11.600] And it's like, okay, well, I want, I got to find somebody who's excited and sort of crazy enough to be like a third hire at a company.
[00:15:11.600 --> 00:15:15.360] You know, I mean, that requires like a type of person because it's risky.
[00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:17.040] It requires a lot of trust in me.
[00:15:17.040 --> 00:15:19.360] So yeah, but we would, yeah, so that was what was tricky.
[00:15:19.360 --> 00:15:26.080] It was, it was hard to find like apples to apples comparison because we have these different requirements and then different ones were strong in different areas, you know?
[00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:26.800] It's always tough.
[00:15:26.800 --> 00:15:33.600] Customer success and marketing are two unexpectedly complex things to hire for.
[00:15:33.920 --> 00:15:39.280] And, you know, I don't want to dismiss hiring a developer, hiring sales, hiring support.
[00:15:39.280 --> 00:15:41.520] But it's kind of like you need to be able to sell.
[00:15:41.520 --> 00:15:43.680] You need to be reliable, get it done.
[00:15:43.680 --> 00:15:44.640] You need to understand the product.
[00:15:44.640 --> 00:15:47.200] And the developer, like, we can go through, but it's like, you need to write good code.
[00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:51.440] You need to not be a jerk, and you need to, you know, do whatever else and show up and be reliable.
[00:15:51.440 --> 00:15:54.320] Customer success, there are a lot of skills, a lot of, a lot floats into that, right?
[00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:56.960] It's like your rapport with other individuals.
[00:15:56.960 --> 00:16:01.240] Like, do you know how to re-architect my entire onboarding and track metrics?
[00:16:01.400 --> 00:16:02.760] Like, that's part of customer success.
[00:16:02.760 --> 00:16:05.320] Now, not everybody needs to know how to do that, but others do.
[00:16:05.320 --> 00:16:06.120] There's ongoing.
[00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:10.120] There's a lot to it that other, and it's still a new role, right?
[00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:15.720] I mean, I don't, the first time I ever heard the term was probably, I don't know, 2012, 2013.
[00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:20.760] So this is like a decade old versus like a salesperson, as old as time, you know what I mean?
[00:16:20.760 --> 00:16:22.280] And customer support goes back.
[00:16:22.280 --> 00:16:23.000] How, what do we think?
[00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:24.200] 50, 60, 70 years?
[00:16:24.200 --> 00:16:25.720] Like, success is a newer role.
[00:16:25.720 --> 00:16:31.640] And so it can be hard to hire for because there isn't as much, not legacy, but as much like foundational knowledge about it.
[00:16:31.640 --> 00:16:32.280] Yeah, for sure.
[00:16:32.280 --> 00:16:32.840] But no, I agree.
[00:16:33.880 --> 00:16:36.440] So far, I mean, it's been a couple of days, but yeah, he's eager.
[00:16:36.440 --> 00:16:38.600] He's taking, he's taken on new things.
[00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:42.520] And I have like a decent, there's like the pieces of a CSM role in place.
[00:16:42.520 --> 00:16:44.840] So he's not starting from scratch, which I think is helpful.
[00:16:44.840 --> 00:16:46.360] But I'm like, hey, here's our onboarding.
[00:16:46.360 --> 00:16:48.120] There's a single page in our knowledge base.
[00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:50.760] And then there's this onboarding plan tool that we use.
[00:16:50.760 --> 00:16:52.280] They're not the same.
[00:16:52.520 --> 00:16:54.680] They're out of like sync.
[00:16:54.680 --> 00:17:00.360] So one of your first things, go through those, identify the inconsistencies, identify some room for improvement.
[00:17:00.360 --> 00:17:01.480] And he started to do that.
[00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:03.640] He actually has an engineering background, which is kind of interesting.
[00:17:03.640 --> 00:17:08.600] He studied engineering in school and then worked for an aerospace company before going into SaaS.
[00:17:08.600 --> 00:17:14.200] And so in the interview process, he had said a few things like, oh, we should do a root cause analysis of what went wrong.
[00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:19.000] And I remember just thinking, oh, yeah, like our product is really technical.
[00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:21.240] And the thing is, our customers don't really want to talk to us.
[00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:24.200] I mean, they'll be happy to chat, but like we kind of need to be in the background.
[00:17:24.200 --> 00:17:27.400] If they're talking to us a lot, that means something is really not working.
[00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:30.360] It's not a product where it's fun to talk to the team.
[00:17:30.680 --> 00:17:32.920] It's like sync issues and stuff.
[00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:35.720] And so it's like, okay, I need someone who's going to be able to really drill down.
[00:17:36.120 --> 00:17:44.000] And so I was really, I thought that skill set was cool because I just thought it would, it was kind of more to what we need to be able to do.
[00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:48.560] Just like really drill down and understand why these properties aren't mapping or whatever.
[00:17:44.840 --> 00:17:52.240] Because we can't hand wave away a problem.
[00:17:53.040 --> 00:17:56.400] It's either data is either syncing or it's not.
[00:17:56.720 --> 00:18:01.360] And you know, someone who can figure that out quickly is like, that's a very valuable skill.
[00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:05.280] I love how fast Harris is iterating.
[00:18:05.280 --> 00:18:09.680] He's been exploring integrating with Salesforce, which can be challenging to say the least.
[00:18:09.680 --> 00:18:13.520] Before our conversation, he sent me this audio note.
[00:18:15.760 --> 00:18:17.600] I have this sort of Eureka moment.
[00:18:17.600 --> 00:18:18.640] I'm pretty excited about it.
[00:18:18.640 --> 00:18:21.600] I know we're not going to talk for a little while, but I wanted to share it.
[00:18:21.600 --> 00:18:30.480] So context: our go-to-market motion working with agencies continues to be getting more and more traction.
[00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:34.960] And several of these agencies are working with customers who are using Salesforce.
[00:18:34.960 --> 00:18:42.240] Now, I've only built this HubSpot integration, but I really built it kind of painstakingly to think about how everything maps.
[00:18:42.240 --> 00:18:50.000] And what I'm really excited about is that our HubSpot sync to Salesforce is working very cleanly.
[00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:56.160] I just spun up a developer account in Salesforce after having a call with a Series E startup.
[00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:59.760] So just a ton of traction, really mature company with a lot of money.
[00:18:59.760 --> 00:19:03.040] And the agency they're working with is crushing.
[00:19:03.040 --> 00:19:05.920] They've booked 90 meetings for them so far.
[00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:10.240] And so they're really happy with their agency, but they want to get that agency's work in Salesforce.
[00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:12.480] And I, anyway, it's working.
[00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:22.000] I was surprised that it worked as well as it did, but it looks like I had kind of been building for this because I built, I think, so tightly to HubSpot that it worked.
[00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:25.600] And so, this is opening up a whole different set of doors for us.
[00:19:25.600 --> 00:19:30.120] I think in the short term, I want to focus on the HubSpot to Salesforce path.
[00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:36.280] But then there's also room to potentially build just a standalone Salesforce integration and serve a wholly different section of the market.
[00:19:36.600 --> 00:19:44.200] Yeah, I'm just, I don't know, it's a Friday afternoon right now, almost four o'clock, and I'm unbelievably excited.
[00:19:44.840 --> 00:19:51.800] And this Eureka moment wasn't just groundbreaking, it seemed to reignite something inside Harris.
[00:19:52.120 --> 00:19:56.360] I haven't had a feeling like this since like kind of early days.
[00:19:56.360 --> 00:20:03.320] I discovered that multiple users had already been using our product in Salesforce, which I didn't know.
[00:20:03.320 --> 00:20:05.720] Nobody told me that or asked or anything.
[00:20:05.960 --> 00:20:08.360] Not that they have to, but like, it just never came up.
[00:20:08.360 --> 00:20:12.520] And that was part of the downside of the agency thing is that I just didn't realize that.
[00:20:12.520 --> 00:20:13.800] And so then I tested it myself.
[00:20:13.800 --> 00:20:16.280] I spun up a dev account and it worked.
[00:20:16.280 --> 00:20:20.600] It's like, oh, you can go from App OnSync to HubSpot to Salesforce.
[00:20:20.600 --> 00:20:24.760] And then I talked to more and more people and realized like, oh, actually, like, quite a few users are doing this.
[00:20:24.760 --> 00:20:33.240] And then these new enterprise deals that are coming in are also saying, oh, we actually need like, so this is the thing that more and more I'm hearing like that people actually wanted.
[00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:36.920] People that understood the value of the product tended to be actually in that ecosystem.
[00:20:36.920 --> 00:20:41.720] Now, there are also HubSpot people, but it was like the Salesforce people who were kind of more into it.
[00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:44.040] So that was like an interesting learning.
[00:20:44.040 --> 00:20:47.240] And then when I spun up the Sandbox account, I actually kind of liked it.
[00:20:47.240 --> 00:20:50.680] I hadn't used Salesforce in like 10 years, but I kind of liked it.
[00:20:50.680 --> 00:20:51.640] And it was.
[00:20:52.120 --> 00:20:53.480] Said no one ever.
[00:20:53.480 --> 00:20:54.920] Well, you're the one.
[00:20:54.920 --> 00:20:55.720] So you're the one.
[00:20:55.960 --> 00:20:56.840] Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:57.480 --> 00:21:00.920] Well, I liked it because for the reasons why a lot of people don't like it.
[00:21:00.920 --> 00:21:04.680] Like in HubSpot, it's very intuitive and it's user-friendly, but it's like Apple versus Android.
[00:21:04.680 --> 00:21:18.560] And sometimes I want to see a big settings menu with a compact, like tight table where I can see everything and it's not like nestled between like these dropdowns and you got to click through to this to this to this to actually get to the toggle.
[00:21:18.560 --> 00:21:23.120] So in a weird way, it was kind of like, oh, I feel like, I feel like there's a lot in front of me here.
[00:21:23.120 --> 00:21:24.800] So I can, I don't know, it was, it was just interesting.
[00:21:24.800 --> 00:21:26.080] It was a very unexpected response.
[00:21:26.080 --> 00:21:31.280] Because in the HubSpot ecosystem, it's very like territorial of like, oh, orange, good, blue, bad, you know, whatever.
[00:21:31.280 --> 00:21:32.880] So I was like, okay, this is kind of interesting.
[00:21:33.040 --> 00:21:37.680] So we talked to a company that made like a toolkit product and we're going to, and so basically it was like a quick integration.
[00:21:37.680 --> 00:21:41.280] They're basically themselves an infrastructure as a platform as a service.
[00:21:41.280 --> 00:21:43.520] So they're an iPass and we're kind of an iPass.
[00:21:43.520 --> 00:21:44.960] I was like, okay, well, maybe we can work with them.
[00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:50.240] And then anyway, the developer jumped into it and he was like, I'm not getting the error messages I need from these API calls.
[00:21:50.240 --> 00:21:52.400] I think I can just do it on my own.
[00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:54.640] It's like, honestly, man, like, you've got me here.
[00:21:54.640 --> 00:21:56.000] Like, I trust you.
[00:21:56.640 --> 00:22:01.440] Whatever, you know, take a shot at it, work on it for a couple weeks, and let's just see what happens.
[00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:05.280] He kept doing some bug reports here or there, but in general, this was his focus for a couple weeks.
[00:22:05.280 --> 00:22:07.440] And sure enough, like, it works.
[00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:10.000] Like, we're going to be announcing a Salesforce beta.
[00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:12.160] I just posted on LinkedIn.
[00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:16.960] And we already to our agencies were like, hey, I've got customers that want the Salesforce thing.
[00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:20.480] So send me a Stripe link and let's go.
[00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:24.720] And already we've solved problems that you can't do if you're doing the HubSpot sync.
[00:22:25.040 --> 00:22:30.720] Then the Salesforce integration, you're in beta, it took you weeks, five, six weeks?
[00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:31.600] Is that right?
[00:22:31.760 --> 00:22:34.080] I mean, yes, it's which is kind of crazy to me.
[00:22:34.080 --> 00:22:44.640] I think it's because we spent like a year and a half on HubSpot that like when Vitali jumped in, and also like what we do isn't actually that complicated, all things considered.
[00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:47.840] Like something like a drip, it's like there's a lot going on with that product.
[00:22:47.840 --> 00:22:50.800] I mean, we're basically like, does this contact exist or not?
[00:22:50.800 --> 00:22:53.680] If not, create it, log these emails to it.
[00:22:53.680 --> 00:22:59.880] I mean, there's more to it, but fundamentally, I think other products have a lot more problems, like things they have to think about.
[00:22:59.880 --> 00:23:00.440] We'll see.
[00:23:00.600 --> 00:23:02.920] I might be talking to you next time and be like, Rob, I was wrong.
[00:23:02.920 --> 00:23:03.880] Like, we missed it.
[00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:04.520] We forgot this thing.
[00:23:04.520 --> 00:23:05.960] Like, we hit an iceberg.
[00:22:59.520 --> 00:23:06.280] Sure.
[00:23:06.440 --> 00:23:08.040] But I don't think it'll be on your side, though.
[00:23:08.280 --> 00:23:09.560] I don't think it'll be your code.
[00:23:09.560 --> 00:23:18.920] It will be, if anything, the experience that we started having and that other founders have had as they've tried to do this is that Salesforce says, oh, great, you have this code.
[00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:24.120] Now, in order for anyone to deploy it, you need to go through our security audit and our this and that audit.
[00:23:24.120 --> 00:23:26.600] And each one of those takes two months or something because you're waiting on them.
[00:23:26.680 --> 00:23:27.960] Do you have to do any of that?
[00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:33.800] I think that, I mean, to get like formally listed in the exchange, yes.
[00:23:34.120 --> 00:23:38.760] But because that's not our, that's not how we're acquiring customers.
[00:23:38.760 --> 00:23:41.160] Like, actually, it's been a year and a half.
[00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:45.320] We're like, there's one app in front of us in the queue before we're going to get listed in the HubSpot marketplace.
[00:23:45.320 --> 00:23:47.480] We haven't even been in the HubbleSpot marketplace yet.
[00:23:47.480 --> 00:23:47.880] Right.
[00:23:48.040 --> 00:23:49.480] Because we're in the direct.
[00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:49.880] Yeah.
[00:23:49.880 --> 00:23:50.520] Yeah.
[00:23:50.520 --> 00:23:55.480] So I think that we'll be able to get away with being like, hey, this is a beta developer version of the app.
[00:23:55.480 --> 00:23:59.640] And then, and then over time, yeah, we'll be in the app exchange and we'll pay the few thousand dollars.
[00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:04.840] And we are starting SOC2 in tandem with this because the Salesforce people are, they want SOC2.
[00:24:04.840 --> 00:24:10.440] And so I suspect that if we do that, then it'll make some of the security stuff easier because we will say, like, hey, here's our trust center.
[00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:15.320] And we ended up, yeah, that's like a whole, that was like a whole thought process over the last couple weeks.
[00:24:16.600 --> 00:24:24.040] If you're unfamiliar with SOC2, it's all about making sure your company's security controls and data handling practices are up to snuff.
[00:24:24.040 --> 00:24:31.240] It's like getting a seal of approval that says these folks are doing things the right way when it comes to protecting customer info.
[00:24:31.240 --> 00:24:39.560] And as startups want to move upmarket and sell to bigger companies, SOC 2 can be a game changer, but it's expensive and it's a ton of work.
[00:24:42.440 --> 00:24:47.120] Like looking through the SOC 2 attestation, it makes sense to me.
[00:24:44.680 --> 00:24:50.480] Like these policies and controls that we should put in place, I don't know.
[00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:54.320] Sometimes some of that stuff just feels like a song and dance.
[00:24:54.320 --> 00:24:59.920] And I'm sure that a little bit of it is, but I mean, for me, like as a non-technical founder, we've got one developer.
[00:24:59.920 --> 00:25:01.760] Some of these things are very good for me.
[00:25:01.760 --> 00:25:11.600] Like if something happens to him for whatever reason, if we have these controls in place, like I will be in a better position in terms of being able to like business continuity or something happens to me.
[00:25:11.600 --> 00:25:15.120] So like it's funny, but some say, oh, you're too small to do it right now.
[00:25:15.120 --> 00:25:20.160] But because we're small, I look at these things and I'm like, these are actually kind of like viability of the business.
[00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:25.600] If we can resolve these, it actually kind of helps me sleep a little bit better at night, which is kind of funny.
[00:25:25.600 --> 00:25:27.280] But yeah, yeah.
[00:25:27.280 --> 00:25:31.520] That's the glass half full view of it because most people hate SOC 2 and they hate going through it.
[00:25:31.520 --> 00:25:36.960] And you're like, this actually, you are definitely, you're on the optimist side, which I think is really good for you.
[00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:45.200] Well, it's like it's like, oh, what happens if the one person who is putting code in production, what happens if something happens to them?
[00:25:45.280 --> 00:25:50.000] Like, I should probably have an answer to that before it happens.
[00:25:50.320 --> 00:25:51.120] You know?
[00:25:52.400 --> 00:25:57.680] So you wrote me a note, and the note said, I realized we weren't really spending the tiny seed money yet.
[00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:03.120] It had been three months and we had effectively only spent $8,000 of the check you wrote us.
[00:26:03.120 --> 00:26:09.040] And revenue growth had slowed with you being bogged down in customer success stuff.
[00:26:09.040 --> 00:26:11.520] So talk me through where you are with that.
[00:26:11.520 --> 00:26:13.120] Like, have you started spending more money?
[00:26:13.120 --> 00:26:14.720] Is this like the hires and the full time?
[00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:17.520] And that kind of makes all that work.
[00:26:17.520 --> 00:26:18.720] Yeah, definitely.
[00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:21.280] There's just like old habits from how I've been running my business.
[00:26:21.280 --> 00:26:25.040] And so I was treating that money in the bank like it wasn't there.
[00:26:25.040 --> 00:26:32.600] But something that you've said that kind of rings in my ears from time to time is that, you know, having more money in a business can save you years of time.
[00:26:32.920 --> 00:26:40.680] And so I sort of made this decision: it was, it was customers and prospects were coming in and they were asking for these things.
[00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:43.080] They were asking for SOC 2, they were asking for Salesforce.
[00:26:43.080 --> 00:26:46.680] And it was like, okay, well, I probably just need to spend money to do those things.
[00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:50.200] So, yeah, so now we're in this like spending era a little bit.
[00:26:50.200 --> 00:26:52.600] And so my job now is to get it back, right?
[00:26:52.600 --> 00:26:57.720] So it's like, okay, we're going to start sending the link to our trust center for our security stuff to people.
[00:26:57.720 --> 00:27:02.280] And so now I need to come up with pricing for what those people who ask for that thing, what are they going to pay?
[00:27:02.280 --> 00:27:04.680] And I went to an old starters for the rest of us episode.
[00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:06.440] I just searched like security.
[00:27:06.440 --> 00:27:11.640] And I've listened to every episode that I found that where security came up in the Spotify search thing.
[00:27:11.640 --> 00:27:15.400] And so I'm thinking about like, you know, five-figure annual contract value stuff.
[00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:25.720] We did close our first annual contract with a company where it was like, okay, the people are willing to sign that type of contract with us even before we have the Salesforce or the SOC 2.
[00:27:25.720 --> 00:27:33.160] So that gave me a really big boost of confidence because I've never sold an annual contract of anything in my life of my own companies.
[00:27:33.160 --> 00:27:36.120] And so it was like, okay, we're solving a problem enough that they're willing to write that check.
[00:27:36.120 --> 00:27:39.640] How much more would they be willing to pay if we could solve these problems even better?
[00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:40.840] So we decided to go.
[00:27:40.840 --> 00:27:57.240] I went with Vanta, which is kind of like the category creator in the like GRC compliant software space because I just kind of want to get it done right the first time, send it to people, and they'll be like, cool, you passed review and not have to like go back and forth and maintain a bunch of stuff in like a Google Drive and things like that.
[00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:14.360] So yeah, so that was like the decision of like consciously, let's spend this money, let's get these deals in, rework pricing, and try to be a little bit more confident in the sales cycle instead of before being like, well, it's supposed to be 500, but you can pay 100 and it's month to month, but you can actually, you know, cancel yesterday.
[00:28:14.360 --> 00:28:17.280] You know, it's just like, come on, dude, like, this is cool.
[00:28:14.840 --> 00:28:19.040] You've built something cool, sell it.
[00:28:19.040 --> 00:28:22.320] And so I think part of it's going to give me the confidence to do some of that.
[00:28:24.560 --> 00:28:28.560] Harris's bold moves are paying off, and Outbound Sync is gaining momentum.
[00:28:28.560 --> 00:28:33.840] But as he navigates this entrepreneurial roller coaster, every decision carries weight.
[00:28:33.840 --> 00:28:37.840] Will his growing confidence be the key to unlocking even greater success?
[00:28:37.840 --> 00:28:51.600] Buckle up for next week's episode, where we'll follow up on his SOC2 compliance journey, find out how he's scaling outbound campaigns without losing the personal touch, and talk about a potential positioning pivot that could catapult Outbound Sync into a whole new league.
[00:28:51.600 --> 00:28:54.400] Don't miss out on the twists and turns of Harris's journey.
[00:28:54.400 --> 00:28:57.040] Next time on Tiny Seed Tales.
[00:28:58.960 --> 00:29:00.960] I hope you enjoyed this episode.
[00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:12.640] If you've ever wondered what it's really like inside TinySeed and want to hear a raw, candid coaching conversation between Harris and I, we put together something special for you at tinyseed.com/slash bonus.
[00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:13.600] You should check it out.
[00:29:13.600 --> 00:29:16.000] I've never released anything like this before.
[00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:16.880] I hope you enjoy it.
[00:29:16.880 --> 00:29:19.680] It's at tinyseed.com/slash bonus.