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[00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:12.160] AI is completely changing how people discover brands and content online, and hrefs has built a full-blown SaaS marketing platform to help you stay ahead.
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[00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:52.400] Try it free at ahrefs.com/slash a-w-t.
[00:00:52.400 --> 00:01:00.080] That's the letter A, h-re-e-f-s.com/slash awt.
[00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:04.800] You're listening to Startups for the Rest of Us.
[00:01:04.800 --> 00:01:06.000] I'm Rob Walling.
[00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:14.320] In this episode, I sit down with a longtime podcast listener named Zamir Khan, the founder of VidHug.
[00:01:14.320 --> 00:01:32.960] And as you'll hear in this episode, there have been many touch points on this very show where Zamir has sent in a voice message, or I wound up chatting with him back in 2021 when I did my call for anyone going through an exit, and I'll talk to you for 20 minutes.
[00:01:32.960 --> 00:01:52.320] And so you'll hear us recount this in this episode, but it is a pretty incredible story of a founder who started a B2C SaaS company and was really struggling, struggling to get traction, was struggling to grow it, and spent years facing the headwinds that we talk about on this podcast.
[00:01:52.320 --> 00:01:54.400] Hi, churn, it's hard to charge a subscription.
[00:01:54.400 --> 00:02:04.360] I believe it was a one-time fee at the time, and it's just really hard to get momentum in a business where the numbers are against you.
[00:02:04.360 --> 00:02:23.000] And then, if you listen to this episode, you'll find out what caused his revenue to explode more than 100x per month and an eventual offer to buy the company for an amount that we don't disclose on the show, but it's an amount that means he never has to work again.
[00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:28.680] And you, dear listener, get to hear the whole show and learn whether he took that offer or not.
[00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:38.280] It's quite a journey, and in the middle of the show, we're going to have a clip from episode 433, which I believe was in like 2018, maybe, maybe 2019.
[00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:42.360] And we'll have a six, seven-minute clip of his prior voicemail.
[00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:47.320] And you'll hear me and my former co-host, Mike Tabor, answer his question.
[00:02:47.320 --> 00:02:49.480] And it's all relevant.
[00:02:49.480 --> 00:02:53.640] It all ties in to his story and the eventual outcome.
[00:02:53.640 --> 00:03:02.680] Before we dive into Zemir's incredible journey, applications for Tiny Seed, my B2B SAS Accelerator, close today, September 9th.
[00:03:02.680 --> 00:03:18.280] If you want the right amount of funding, an incredible roster of mentors, a world-class network, an instant community of some of the best B2B SaaS founders in the world, head to tinyseed.com/slash apply.
[00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:23.080] And if you miss the application, head to tinyseed.com/slash apply.
[00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:27.320] Enter your email to be notified when applications open in the future.
[00:03:27.320 --> 00:03:33.960] Or likewise, if your business isn't quite ready, but you want to stay in the loop, tinyseed.com/slash apply.
[00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:36.840] And with that, let's dive into our story.
[00:03:47.520 --> 00:03:49.840] Zamir, welcome to the show.
[00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:50.560] Thanks, Rob.
[00:03:51.200 --> 00:03:54.720] It's a bit surreal to be here, but I'm very excited.
[00:03:54.720 --> 00:04:02.480] So, the listeners know you and I were just talking, and I knew you were a listener of the show, but you said you were listening since before I bought Hittail.
[00:04:02.480 --> 00:04:04.720] So, that's 2011 at least.
[00:04:04.720 --> 00:04:09.520] You might be an OG, like 14, 15-year listener, which is a trip.
[00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:13.200] So, here's the big question: Are you going to listen to this episode?
[00:04:13.200 --> 00:04:14.080] 100%.
[00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:14.560] Yeah.
[00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:14.880] Okay.
[00:04:14.880 --> 00:04:16.880] Yeah, this is a bit of a bucket list thing for me.
[00:04:17.200 --> 00:04:18.320] Yeah, awesome.
[00:04:18.320 --> 00:04:19.280] Love it, man.
[00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:27.360] So, I've obviously told in the intro told people a little bit, you know, about what you built and how you changed your life through SAS.
[00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:43.760] But I want to hear firsthand from you what it felt like when you saw millions of dollars appear in a bank account through after a lot of hard work, a lot of skill, a lot of luck, you saw more money than I'm guessing you had ever seen in your account.
[00:04:43.760 --> 00:04:45.600] Walk me through how that felt.
[00:04:45.600 --> 00:05:10.080] Yeah, I think the answer may not be what one might expect, but I think the overwhelming feeling is one of relief because having gone through, you know, a fairly lengthy process with selling VidHug and one that my sample size is one in terms of experience there, but I don't think there are sale processes that are 100% smooth, but it had its ups and downs.
[00:05:10.080 --> 00:05:17.200] And definitely relief that it's all of that time and effort came through.
[00:05:17.520 --> 00:05:30.000] And also, I think I didn't have the time or the energy to really absorb it fully because I knew the next step was to let my team know what had just happened and then.
[00:05:29.800 --> 00:05:38.040] And then my heart was with making sure that they're feeling secure because the entire company was acquired, the team.
[00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:45.720] I wanted to make sure that they knew that they still have jobs and they're part of this journey still and they're needed with the product.
[00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:47.080] So that's where my mind was.
[00:05:47.080 --> 00:05:51.960] It was, you know, seeing that number was surreal and unreal.
[00:05:51.960 --> 00:05:57.720] And definitely there was a little bit of celebration happening with my wife and I.
[00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:02.200] But then it was like, okay, that's cool, but we got to move on.
[00:06:02.200 --> 00:06:04.920] And there's still a lot of work to be done here.
[00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:26.600] That was kind of, it was over time, I think, as I had the chance to transition into my new role and frankly have a lot of responsibility taken off of my shoulders by the larger company that I was now a part of, that I had over time more time to appreciate like the new reality of like, okay, like life is different now.
[00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:27.880] Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
[00:06:27.880 --> 00:06:30.440] I think it takes most people quite a bit of time.
[00:06:30.440 --> 00:06:34.600] It took me months to realize, oh, I love what you said, life is different now.
[00:06:34.600 --> 00:06:41.560] I think there was a moment for me where I bought like, I don't know, a million dollars of Vanguard mutual funds.
[00:06:41.560 --> 00:06:42.200] You know what I mean?
[00:06:42.200 --> 00:06:43.480] Because I was like, I need to deploy this.
[00:06:43.480 --> 00:06:44.440] I'm not going to do it all at once.
[00:06:44.440 --> 00:06:49.640] And I was kind of like a little bit of dollar cost averaging in, but I remember, you know, being like, who does that?
[00:06:49.640 --> 00:06:51.400] Like, who does, who buys a million?
[00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:53.640] And it's like, well, me, I guess, now.
[00:06:53.640 --> 00:06:55.400] You know, it was just like, blew my mind.
[00:06:55.400 --> 00:06:59.240] And that was a moment because having money in a bank account, it's just a number on a screen.
[00:06:59.240 --> 00:07:03.080] Like, it doesn't, there's no, there's utility to it, but it doesn't feel you.
[00:07:03.080 --> 00:07:08.520] And then, but to me, owning like assets, investments was like, oh, this is, this is where the rubber meets the road.
[00:07:08.520 --> 00:07:13.080] And that's where I was like, okay, I'm in a different, I'm in a different place than I was a few months ago.
[00:07:13.080 --> 00:07:14.120] Yeah, for sure.
[00:07:14.120 --> 00:07:21.200] And I think, you know, the question people in that situation often get is like, you know, what did you, what did you buy to like, you know, what toy?
[00:07:21.440 --> 00:07:24.240] Like, and I didn't, I didn't buy like a Ferrari or something like that.
[00:07:24.400 --> 00:07:26.480] I wasn't in that mindset anyway.
[00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:32.640] But, you know, for us, it was, we had actually just bought a new house that needed a lot of work to be done to it.
[00:07:32.640 --> 00:07:34.080] It was an old house.
[00:07:34.080 --> 00:07:42.080] And before this, we were having to make a lot of decisions of like, well, we have a certain budget and we can only, we can do A or B, but we can't do both.
[00:07:42.080 --> 00:07:44.080] And so the difference for us was like, let's do both.
[00:07:44.080 --> 00:07:47.680] Like that, that was the kind of the splurge, so to speak.
[00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:50.560] But I wasn't driving a Ferrari the next week.
[00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:52.960] Yeah, that came that came a year later, right?
[00:07:54.480 --> 00:07:57.840] You expect me as someone who's very pragmatic and will not go.
[00:07:58.080 --> 00:07:58.880] It hasn't happened yet.
[00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:00.880] Yeah, yeah, you're still thinking about it.
[00:08:00.880 --> 00:08:07.200] I want to read a little excerpt because I asked you to put together a timeline because it helps us kind of navigate the story.
[00:08:07.200 --> 00:08:13.120] And here's a quote from this: you said, I was an avid listener to your podcast and I completely bought into the philosophy.
[00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:16.480] And yet I found myself on a path that broke most of the rules.
[00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:22.240] B2C, low-cost, one-time payment, an industry in which I had no edge.
[00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:23.040] I knew this.
[00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:24.800] I knew I was playing on hard mode.
[00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:26.880] And yet I continued to do it.
[00:08:26.880 --> 00:08:31.280] And I think someone listening to this episode might be thinking, What the f are you doing, Rob?
[00:08:31.280 --> 00:08:33.760] Like, why do you have a B2C success story on here?
[00:08:33.760 --> 00:08:36.960] Like, this goes, you know, this kind of goes against the thing that I've developed over the years.
[00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:38.560] We used to take B2C questions, right?
[00:08:38.560 --> 00:08:39.360] Mike and I.
[00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:40.160] And then I took it for what.
[00:08:40.160 --> 00:08:44.240] And then eventually I'm just like, I just don't have anything to say here because most of the time it doesn't work out.
[00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:47.040] But I followed your story is the thing.
[00:08:47.040 --> 00:08:57.280] And you not only sent us in, I think it was an email question back in maybe 2018, it was episode 433.
[00:08:57.280 --> 00:08:59.440] And I want to play a little excerpt of that here.
[00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:02.760] You not only sent that, but then you and I stayed in touch.
[00:09:02.760 --> 00:09:11.880] And to cut forward, there was a few years ago, it was during the pandemic in 2021, where I announced on the podcast: look, if you're selling a company right now, it's the biggest decision of your life, probably.
[00:09:12.200 --> 00:09:14.680] And if you need 20 or 30 minutes of my time, do it.
[00:09:14.680 --> 00:09:15.720] And I did a bunch of calls.
[00:09:15.720 --> 00:09:19.000] I don't remember how many, 10, 15 calls with people just to do it.
[00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:22.040] Because, you know, we were all at home, not doing anything anyways.
[00:09:22.040 --> 00:09:23.560] And you and I then chatted.
[00:09:23.560 --> 00:09:26.280] And that's when you told me, I was like, how's it going?
[00:09:26.280 --> 00:09:27.800] What's going on with VidHug?
[00:09:27.800 --> 00:09:30.920] It's, you know, thinking, oh, it's a cute business.
[00:09:30.920 --> 00:09:34.360] And you're like, someone made me a tremendous offer for this.
[00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:35.320] And I was blown away.
[00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:37.240] And we had a good conversation then.
[00:09:37.240 --> 00:09:39.720] And so that's one of the reasons I want to bring you on here.
[00:09:39.720 --> 00:09:41.560] I also like bringing on counterexamples.
[00:09:41.560 --> 00:09:43.960] Like, we're not, no one's right 100% of the time.
[00:09:43.960 --> 00:09:46.680] Like, I have my rules of thumb of when things should work and this and that.
[00:09:46.680 --> 00:09:48.040] And B2B, I think, is the best.
[00:09:48.040 --> 00:09:53.240] But, you know, you've kind of proven that you're the, what is it, the exception that maybe proves those rules.
[00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:53.640] Yeah.
[00:09:54.120 --> 00:10:01.000] Like, let me say first and foremost, I'm not here to say like you should go out and do a solo B2C bootstrap startup.
[00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:03.320] Like that's not, I'm not here to say that.
[00:10:03.400 --> 00:10:13.800] I believe that my journey is an example of what an otherworldly event you need to happen to actually help you win in that space as a bootstrapped founder.
[00:10:13.800 --> 00:10:19.000] Like it's clear that the pandemic was so big for VidHug's growth.
[00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:20.040] It was everything.
[00:10:20.600 --> 00:10:27.080] What I tend to say to people is the pandemic was the largest marketing campaign possible for something like VidHug.
[00:10:27.160 --> 00:10:35.880] You know, it's like if we had had millions of dollars of venture funding to do marketing for VidHug, it still couldn't have done what the pandemic did for it.
[00:10:36.120 --> 00:10:40.760] And so I think for any founder to rely on some event like that coming along.
[00:10:40.760 --> 00:10:42.120] Would be a little foolish, yeah.
[00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:44.360] Because it was a big swath of luck.
[00:10:44.360 --> 00:10:49.840] You were in the right place at the right time and you were doing things in public and that created an opportunity and you created your own luck.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:52.080] But in essence, yeah, I think you and I talked offline.
[00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:56.400] It's like, if there was no pandemic, VidHug is not the exit, you know, that you had.
[00:10:56.400 --> 00:10:58.800] It's not the product that you wanted.
[00:10:58.800 --> 00:11:10.960] No, and I think my, you know, my email question into you and the rest of my journey is a sign that, you know, I'm not going to sit here and say like I knew what I was doing and I knew that this shift would eventually happen.
[00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:11.600] I didn't.
[00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:26.560] And as I put in the notes, frankly, just before the pandemic started, I was at the point of almost giving up on VidHug and I parked it and decided to focus more on my consulting because I had a family and I needed to pay the bills.
[00:11:26.560 --> 00:11:36.320] So I'm not going to sit here and say that I knew it was coming, but it is, it's, you know, it's that old saying of luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
[00:11:36.560 --> 00:11:38.880] And I believe this is a firm example of that.
[00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:40.560] Yeah, I agree too.
[00:11:40.560 --> 00:11:40.960] All right.
[00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:53.600] So now I do want to roll your question and Mike and I weighing in saying, ooh, B2C is to, oh, I don't know that I, and I think I'm several times, so it's a nice side project, but I wouldn't, it's a step one busy.
[00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:54.160] You know what I mean?
[00:11:54.160 --> 00:11:54.960] I like to say that.
[00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:56.880] So we'll roll that here.
[00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:03.360] Our next question is about how to approach a B2C company.
[00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:06.080] And this is a long email, so I'm going to summarize it.
[00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:09.600] He says he's a huge fan of the podcast, started listening about five years ago.
[00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:11.120] He's a senior developer.
[00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:15.200] He's always had the product itch, and he's working on an app.
[00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:20.480] It's called VidHug, V-I-D-H-U-G-VidHug.com.
[00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:24.160] Started as a scratch your own itch project for his mother's birthday.
[00:12:24.160 --> 00:12:25.360] And it's definitely B2C.
[00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:26.240] It's low LTV.
[00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:27.920] It's non-recurring revenue.
[00:12:27.920 --> 00:12:35.560] He says, I feel like I have a mini rob on my shoulder most days saying, what are you even doing with this question mark exclamation point?
[00:12:35.560 --> 00:12:38.520] Thing is, I don't really have a counterpoint for you except for a feeling.
[00:12:38.520 --> 00:12:44.200] And that feeling comes from talking to customers that are now able to do something they previously could not.
[00:12:44.200 --> 00:12:53.720] The plan moving forward is to focus on growing organic channels on the B2C side through SEO and referrals and also build a B2B side, which would bring recurring revenue.
[00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:56.840] Do you think I'm crazy for even trying this?
[00:12:56.840 --> 00:13:04.040] And just as a point of data, he has basically a free tier and then he has one that is $15.
[00:13:04.040 --> 00:13:07.160] And it's a one-time thing for the B2C side.
[00:13:07.160 --> 00:13:08.600] What do you think, Mike?
[00:13:08.600 --> 00:13:12.120] Well, to answer his question directly, am I crazy for even trying?
[00:13:12.120 --> 00:13:13.240] The answer is yes.
[00:13:13.560 --> 00:13:15.880] It's just a matter of how crazy we all are.
[00:13:15.880 --> 00:13:16.520] Exactly.
[00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:17.960] It's just the spectrum.
[00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:19.320] It's just varying degrees.
[00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:19.800] Yes.
[00:13:20.360 --> 00:13:24.760] So going back to the question of, you know, are you crazy for trying something that's B2C?
[00:13:24.760 --> 00:13:25.720] I would say no.
[00:13:25.720 --> 00:13:34.200] Like, I definitely think that there are opportunities out there for people to build B2C businesses that are solid and profitable.
[00:13:34.200 --> 00:13:49.400] It's just a matter of making sure that you are, you know, methodical about, you know, how you pursue your different traffic sources and putting people on your mailing list and optimizing the product itself for revenue and getting people into it and making them happy.
[00:13:49.400 --> 00:13:57.160] And if you can do those things, it doesn't matter whether it's B2B or B2C, like you're still going to have happy customers who are going to give you money.
[00:13:57.160 --> 00:14:00.040] But that's that last piece of it is the key part.
[00:14:00.040 --> 00:14:02.240] Like they have to be happy and give you money.
[00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:06.200] Because if they're not giving you money, then you know you don't really have a business.
[00:14:06.200 --> 00:14:16.720] And that's the, I think that's the challenge that most people run into with B2C companies is that your LTV tends to be much lower and you need a larger number of customers in order to make it work.
[00:14:17.040 --> 00:14:29.200] But if you can get those viral components, and there are a lot of viral components to something like this, like you can email out to a bunch of people, and you know, if one person gets in there and they email 50 people, now you're in front of 50 people instead of just one.
[00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:36.560] Like that's a huge viral aspect that a lot of things that try to do B2C don't necessarily have.
[00:14:36.560 --> 00:14:40.480] And because this has that kind of baked into it, that's an encouraging sign.
[00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:44.480] It's not like the only thing I would look at, but it's definitely encouraging.
[00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:48.640] Yeah, this it's tough because B2C is just hard.
[00:14:48.640 --> 00:14:49.680] It's just a different game.
[00:14:49.680 --> 00:14:55.760] With this customer lifetime value, you can't run ads, you can't pay salespeople, you can't, you know, there's so many things you can't do.
[00:14:55.760 --> 00:15:02.320] So it'll literally be outreach to bloggers and offering it free to bloggers and sponsoring bloggers.
[00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:05.760] And I keep saying bloggers, podcasters, whatever, people with audiences.
[00:15:05.760 --> 00:15:26.880] You know, if you got, here's the thing: if you got a bunch of Instagrammers with huge followings, YouTubers, bloggers, podcasters, yeah, it would be possible to grow this, but it's a completely different playbook than what we typically talk about or what you're going to hear from, you know, from Microcomp speakers, for example, or in the traction book, right?
[00:15:26.880 --> 00:15:31.360] Where it really is more focused on doing a lot more B2B stuff.
[00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:34.000] So you just have to ask yourself, is that what you want to do?
[00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:38.400] You know, do you want to build those relationships with influencers?
[00:15:38.400 --> 00:15:43.840] And, you know, it's not going to be the core of the HR's workflow or the core of a manager's workflow.
[00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:45.680] It's just, it's a nice to have.
[00:15:45.680 --> 00:15:51.920] And I think that's the other thing to think about: I had businesses in the early days that only made a thousand a month, $2,000 a month.
[00:15:51.920 --> 00:15:53.920] And frankly, I learned a lot from them.
[00:15:53.920 --> 00:16:01.880] It was a stair-step approach, you know, and I learned how to whatever, run ads and do SEO and do display ads and do AdWords and that kind of stuff.
[00:16:01.880 --> 00:16:04.520] And I took that experience with me to the next thing.
[00:16:04.520 --> 00:16:10.920] So, in its current incarnation, do I think VidHug can be a, you know, a mid-six-figure business?
[00:16:10.920 --> 00:16:11.720] I don't.
[00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:12.920] And it's just my opinion, right?
[00:16:12.920 --> 00:16:18.280] It doesn't mean I'm right or wrong, but I don't see an angle there as it stands today.
[00:16:18.280 --> 00:16:26.520] But then again, I could have said that about Drip the month it launched because it was just an email capture form and autoresponders, you know?
[00:16:26.520 --> 00:16:40.760] And then we kept pivoting and grinding and customer developing and slow launching and doing all the things that you heard me talk about on this podcast over the years and eventually got it, you know, into the well under the seven figure mark.
[00:16:40.760 --> 00:16:45.960] And so that's the thing is, is as it stands today, VidHug is a, it is a cool side project.
[00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:51.480] And frankly, I'm impressed that you've gotten it to $600 a month, you know, given the price point and all that.
[00:16:51.480 --> 00:16:53.160] But I think it depends on how you're thinking about it.
[00:16:53.160 --> 00:17:02.280] If you think about it as good learning and you want to build it up to a grand, two, three grand a month, that to me seems doable and it'll be learning and it'll be a little bit of income.
[00:17:02.280 --> 00:17:04.840] I don't know how you would ever get it past there.
[00:17:04.840 --> 00:17:08.600] Maybe you'll eventually come to the point where you see an angle to do that.
[00:17:08.600 --> 00:17:10.600] I also had a lot of businesses that never did.
[00:17:10.600 --> 00:17:22.920] You know, I had e-books and info products and I had e-commerce site and I had small software products and I had one-time software products and all of those topped out and I could never get them past, let's say, between 500 and 5,000 a month.
[00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:24.920] I had several that were in that range.
[00:17:24.920 --> 00:17:28.760] And eventually I either sunsetted them or I sold them as I moved on to bigger things.
[00:17:28.760 --> 00:17:34.760] And so my gut is that VidHug will fit into that space, that role in your entrepreneurial career.
[00:17:34.760 --> 00:17:37.000] And there's certainly a time and place for those.
[00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:41.960] And you just got to figure out, I think, how you're thinking about it and where you want it to take you.
[00:17:42.600 --> 00:17:46.080] So, yeah, obviously, Mike and I were, it's funny.
[00:17:44.600 --> 00:17:48.160] I think we were right.
[00:17:44.760 --> 00:17:50.400] We were probably, we were right, but also wrong.
[00:17:50.560 --> 00:17:58.880] Like, obviously, we were technically incorrect because it became something most, but we couldn't have predicted the pandemic, where, as you said, I love this phrase you used.
[00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:04.480] You said, I basically got to problem solution fit, but good vibes don't pay the bills.
[00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:11.280] And COVID basically, the pandemic shifted the market and brought product market fit to me.
[00:18:11.280 --> 00:18:21.120] Most of the time, you have to tweak the product to fit the market, but the market basically shifted to you, which I think is a succinct and very clever way of saying it.
[00:18:21.120 --> 00:18:25.520] These days, VidHug is located at memento.com.
[00:18:25.520 --> 00:18:28.880] Memories are made with memento.
[00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:36.240] And it started off as something that you built to fix a pain point that you experienced with your mom's 70th birthday.
[00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:38.000] You want to tell us that story?
[00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:39.680] Yeah, that's right.
[00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:43.280] So, this was back in late 2016.
[00:18:43.520 --> 00:18:45.840] My mom was turning 70 years old.
[00:18:46.080 --> 00:18:49.600] Milestone birthday, you want to do something special.
[00:18:49.600 --> 00:18:52.000] And, you know, I come from an immigrant family.
[00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:55.040] My mom's family and friends mostly don't live close by.
[00:18:55.040 --> 00:18:56.720] They live in other continents.
[00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:03.840] And so we thought, well, what if we got everybody to record a video message to mom and put that all together into one video?
[00:19:03.840 --> 00:19:06.320] And my mom was turning 70.
[00:19:06.320 --> 00:19:09.440] She's the youngest of her many siblings.
[00:19:09.760 --> 00:19:17.360] And so you can imagine the crowd, the audience that I was trying to get recorded videos sent to me digitally from.
[00:19:17.360 --> 00:19:19.440] And so I experienced the challenge with that.
[00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:27.360] I did actually put together a little webpage where they could visit it, use their webcam, record a video, and that would automatically get sent to me.
[00:19:27.360 --> 00:19:39.320] And that, even that, as clunky as it was, was easier than like record something and put the file in Dropbox and or try to email it to me, but Gmail attachments won't, you know, allow that, that kind of thing.
[00:19:39.320 --> 00:19:41.240] Then I put them together in iMovie.
[00:19:41.240 --> 00:19:45.000] It took me a long time, even though I consider myself a technical person.
[00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:48.040] It's just you want it to be good and perfect.
[00:19:48.040 --> 00:19:52.840] And so by the end of it, when I was going to show her the video, I was honestly sick of the project.
[00:19:52.840 --> 00:19:58.040] I was like, I spent way too much time on this, but let's see, let's show it to her.
[00:19:58.040 --> 00:20:07.320] And it was, you know, as I would find out again and again and again with VidHug, it was the most, one of the most impactful gifts that she's ever received.
[00:20:07.320 --> 00:20:08.840] She was speechless.
[00:20:08.840 --> 00:20:09.880] She cried.
[00:20:09.880 --> 00:20:15.800] She told me, especially because her generation is not as, you know, digital.
[00:20:16.040 --> 00:20:30.840] She told me, you know, this one friend that you had in the video from Australia, I haven't seen her face in 25 years because we write each other letters, but we haven't, you know, necessarily like shared selfies because we don't do that.
[00:20:30.840 --> 00:20:35.800] And so I know that's a generational thing, but that just showed me the depth of the impact of it.
[00:20:35.800 --> 00:20:38.920] And I think it was my brother's partner.
[00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:41.240] She said, you know, she knew I was a techie.
[00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:42.520] She knew I liked to hack on things.
[00:20:42.520 --> 00:20:45.880] She said, like, you should build something that anyone can do this.
[00:20:45.880 --> 00:20:48.360] And that just started the idea.
[00:20:48.360 --> 00:20:54.760] And I was like, yeah, like, wouldn't it be cool if more people did this because it was, it didn't take so long to do.
[00:20:54.760 --> 00:21:01.560] And so you built an MVP and it seems like spare time 2017, 2018, hacked something together.
[00:21:01.560 --> 00:21:06.440] And did you originally give it away for free, or did you have kind of a stripe link from the start?
[00:21:06.440 --> 00:21:13.480] No, it was the bare bones MVP was very, I had read the Lean Startup and I was trying to be good.
[00:21:13.720 --> 00:21:17.760] So my MVP was simply a web page where you could submit videos.
[00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:21.600] And it was me iMovieing the clips together on the background.
[00:21:14.840 --> 00:21:22.000] Wow.
[00:21:22.320 --> 00:21:25.680] And so I was doing that for family, friends.
[00:21:25.680 --> 00:21:30.400] I was kind of advertising it as a service just to validate, like, is this something other people want?
[00:21:30.400 --> 00:21:32.640] And I got good feedback from that.
[00:21:32.640 --> 00:21:35.920] Then I was like, I don't want to iMovie these things.
[00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:42.640] And so the technical challenge was like, can I build the video editing automation on the background?
[00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:45.680] So I built that in the cloud, very rudimentary.
[00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:49.360] And that's when I first started charging for it with Stripe.
[00:21:49.360 --> 00:21:50.640] And that was very basic.
[00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:58.400] It just put the videos together, no background music, no audio normalization, almost no graphics of any kind.
[00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:02.560] The process would succeed probably 85% of the time.
[00:22:02.560 --> 00:22:04.800] And the rest I was iMovieing.
[00:22:04.800 --> 00:22:12.800] And yeah, so then incrementally, like there were newer versions after that that were faster, better, better graphics, more music.
[00:22:12.800 --> 00:22:24.160] And actually the last incremental version that I made, which was a really big step up in terms of what the user got, was released a couple months before the pandemic.
[00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:24.640] Wow.
[00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:25.120] Yeah.
[00:22:25.120 --> 00:22:29.520] So just luck meets opportunity type or preparation meets opportunity in that case.
[00:22:29.520 --> 00:22:33.200] So when you add it, you added a Stripe link to it at like middle of 2018.
[00:22:33.360 --> 00:22:34.240] I have in the notes.
[00:22:34.240 --> 00:22:38.880] And did you, did it make any kind of money for that over the next year or two?
[00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:40.960] Or was it just like hundreds a month?
[00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:42.240] You know, just hundreds.
[00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:44.320] So yeah, like I wrote into the pod.
[00:22:44.320 --> 00:22:51.440] It was doing, I got to $600 a month, and that was because of some fortunate marketing on my part.
[00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:54.720] I was still, I was a technical person figuring out how to market.
[00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:59.360] I was on Quora answering all the special occasion related questions.
[00:22:59.360 --> 00:23:07.160] And at that time, it was tough because not only had I picked B2C, I had picked something new that people didn't really know was an option for them.
[00:23:07.160 --> 00:23:10.120] They weren't searching for group videos.
[00:23:10.120 --> 00:23:14.120] So I had to find like who were the people who...
[00:23:14.120 --> 00:23:16.840] really, really needed this product and were desperate for it.
[00:23:16.840 --> 00:23:30.680] And so I was trying to get into communities related to, let's say, family with like people deployed in the military and then like people in long distance relationships basically I found were the ones that really were coming to this product.
[00:23:30.920 --> 00:23:32.840] So yeah, hundreds of dollars a month.
[00:23:32.840 --> 00:23:33.960] It was a side project.
[00:23:33.960 --> 00:23:39.400] Obviously, I was still doing, you know, technical consulting work to pay the bills.
[00:23:39.400 --> 00:23:49.160] But I was passionate about it because every user that came along and used it had that same reaction of like, wow, you know, like this is, I only spent $15.
[00:23:49.320 --> 00:23:54.120] A lot of them told me like I would have spent a lot more had I known what the impact was.
[00:23:54.120 --> 00:23:55.240] How much were you charging?
[00:23:55.560 --> 00:23:57.240] It was a one-time fee, right?
[00:23:57.240 --> 00:24:02.040] Yeah, I think I started at $12 and then I increased to $15.
[00:24:02.040 --> 00:24:12.440] And again, early stage, I was that founder who was like, I was putting like 90% off coupons out there just to like try to get people to use it and gradually got away from that.
[00:24:12.920 --> 00:24:16.120] And so you can see the mountain you have to climb.
[00:24:16.120 --> 00:24:22.600] $600 a month is not a lot, but it's like a decent amount of users you have to attract, right?
[00:24:23.320 --> 00:24:26.520] And they churn every time because it's one time, right?
[00:24:26.520 --> 00:24:27.080] One time, right.
[00:24:27.080 --> 00:24:31.160] So you need 50 new people to convert and pay you every month to get to 600.
[00:24:31.400 --> 00:24:33.000] And that's where one time is difficult.
[00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:35.320] That's where B2C is difficult because the pricing is low.
[00:24:35.320 --> 00:24:40.200] And so you need, you just, I think what we said in the podcast episode is like, you just don't have money to market.
[00:24:41.080 --> 00:24:41.960] You can't really do much.
[00:24:41.960 --> 00:24:42.760] You can't buy ads.
[00:24:42.760 --> 00:24:45.000] You know, it has to be these free marketing approaches, right?
[00:24:45.040 --> 00:24:46.880] Which is free, which is your time.
[00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:49.040] And that you did Quora and Reddit and Facebook.
[00:24:49.040 --> 00:24:52.240] And, but here's the thing: you went out, we talk about hard work, luck, and skill.
[00:24:52.240 --> 00:25:01.920] Like, you put in hard work because you reached out and got a crucial backlink from like a blogger, right, who had a listicle about long-distance gift ideas where they said video, and you're like, hey, can you just add a link to VidHug?
[00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:05.920] And that kind of started, that was a flywheel for you, right?
[00:25:06.240 --> 00:25:08.240] Yes, yeah, I love that story.
[00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:14.160] So I was still listening to the pod at the time, and I knew I needed content, right?
[00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:24.000] And so I did start like a blog for VidHug and I was writing my own, but I knew, you know, again, that was a long-term thing, that that wasn't going to happen right away.
[00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:29.600] So I knew the terms I was interested in were related at that time to long-distance relationships.
[00:25:29.600 --> 00:25:35.600] And so one of the top terms for that was a listicle about long-distance birthday gift ideas.
[00:25:35.600 --> 00:25:41.280] And it was from somebody who had an e-commerce business where they sold birthdays in a jar, basically.
[00:25:41.760 --> 00:25:46.720] And so, or like a gift box, but it included like birthday cake in a jar, I believe.
[00:25:47.120 --> 00:25:49.520] Really, like a lovely idea.
[00:25:49.520 --> 00:25:51.680] And they had this article of like, here's the ideas.
[00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:54.240] And obviously, like, their product was in that list.
[00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:56.560] But number four was like, make a video.
[00:25:56.560 --> 00:26:03.120] And almost all, I remember all the 10 links or all the 10 items in the list had a link, but the fourth one didn't.
[00:26:03.120 --> 00:26:04.880] The video one didn't.
[00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:09.280] And so I thought about it and I didn't want to just cold approach them.
[00:26:09.280 --> 00:26:11.520] So I actually did a little bit of research on this founder.
[00:26:11.520 --> 00:26:12.960] She was on an interview somewhere.
[00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:13.680] I listened to it.
[00:26:13.680 --> 00:26:16.960] And so the one I reached out to her, I had done my research.
[00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:21.280] And so it was an approach where I was, you know, like, I'd spent some time like learning about you.
[00:26:21.280 --> 00:26:25.600] And I think that made her receptive to talking to me.
[00:26:25.600 --> 00:26:30.280] And we actually got on a phone call together and, you know, had a good talk.
[00:26:30.280 --> 00:26:32.360] She was a solo founder of an e-commerce business.
[00:26:29.760 --> 00:26:34.760] I was a solo founder of VidHug at the time.
[00:26:35.320 --> 00:26:37.800] And yeah, she just said, Yeah, yeah, I'll do that.
[00:26:37.800 --> 00:26:39.080] I'll put that link on you for there.
[00:26:39.080 --> 00:26:46.200] And because of where she ranked, that was immediately like, boom, one to two sales a day just from that link, which I know, again, doesn't sound like a lot.
[00:26:46.200 --> 00:26:51.240] It's not a lot of money, but like for me at that time, that was like a level, that was a stair step for VidHug.
[00:26:51.240 --> 00:26:54.840] And that actually gave me more motivation to keep going with it.
[00:26:54.840 --> 00:27:02.360] And that's the thing I like to underscore on the podcast a lot: like flat revenue, no revenue, even just any type of flat revenue is really discouraging.
[00:27:02.360 --> 00:27:08.280] And spending tons of time nights and weekends and having the number not go up is harder than most people realize.
[00:27:08.280 --> 00:27:17.000] And so, getting, as you said, one to two a day, 30 to 60 a month, like recur, that becomes, it's not technically MRR, but it is recurring-ish, right?
[00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:18.680] As long as that keeps ranking.
[00:27:18.680 --> 00:27:25.400] And so that's what you were seeing, which can really kind of really help boost your motivation for a while.
[00:27:25.400 --> 00:27:34.840] And so that, if we smash forward, because that was in, yeah, 2018, 2019, you put the stripe link on, you did, you did a lot of one-time kind of things that don't scale, right?
[00:27:34.840 --> 00:27:37.880] Like we said, Quora and Reddit, Facebook, you get that link.
[00:27:37.880 --> 00:27:47.480] And if we smash cut to February of 2020, right before the pandemic starts, you had VidHug up to $1,000 a month, still on paper use.
[00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:54.600] And so that gives people an idea of like you were spending years, nights, and weekends to get it from, it was at $600, I think, in 2018.
[00:27:54.600 --> 00:27:56.280] And then it was at, you know, $1,000 a month.
[00:27:56.680 --> 00:27:57.320] It's a tough thing.
[00:27:57.320 --> 00:28:02.280] And you said, I considered selling it, even had interest, but didn't complete the sale.
[00:28:02.280 --> 00:28:05.800] So you were kind of just like, I don't know if I want to keep doing this.
[00:28:05.800 --> 00:28:07.480] I mean, you were kind of done with Moto.
[00:28:07.560 --> 00:28:09.320] Yeah, what was the story there?
[00:28:09.640 --> 00:28:10.040] Yeah.
[00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:13.240] So again, like you said, that's early 2020.
[00:28:13.240 --> 00:28:20.480] And as somebody who was like a freelancer consultant, that's the time that I did my annual taxes for the previous year.
[00:28:20.800 --> 00:28:29.040] And 2019 was the year that I took the most time away from billable hours to work on VidHug.
[00:28:29.040 --> 00:28:32.880] And it was easy for me because I enjoyed working on VidHug.
[00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:39.360] Again, it was like, you know, it was a fun project from a technical perspective, and the customers were having great experiences.
[00:28:39.360 --> 00:28:46.160] So there were good vibes, but it allowed me to ignore, you know, the stuff we've been talking about with the low revenue numbers.
[00:28:46.160 --> 00:28:49.840] And so that was staring me in the face at the time of doing taxes.
[00:28:49.840 --> 00:29:01.280] It was like, whoa, okay, like I'm having fun and I feel passionate about this project, but I have a wife, I have a family, and I have a mortgage.
[00:29:01.280 --> 00:29:09.120] And I think anybody who's been a freelancer consultant also knows that you don't get promotions when you're in that position.
[00:29:09.120 --> 00:29:11.680] You don't get a new job title every year.
[00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:17.520] And you probably have a peer group where you're seeing people make real, like, tangible progressions.
[00:29:17.520 --> 00:29:22.800] So that combined with, like, whoa, my income was a lot less than it was in previous years.
[00:29:22.800 --> 00:29:35.600] And VidHug is what I have to show for it really made me examine it and think like, obviously, I wasn't ready to fully step away from it, but I said, I'm going to put it on the back burner and I'm going to focus on my consulting.
[00:29:35.600 --> 00:29:47.360] You know, there was one other piece there that was making me feel that, which was the other anecdote is about the support that I had to do for VidHug because it's a B2C business, low cost.
[00:29:47.360 --> 00:29:54.960] And actually, I think, you know, you've said this before: sometimes the lower the cost, the more support you might have to do for those users.
[00:29:54.960 --> 00:30:06.040] And so, most of the users of the products were, I mean, almost all of them, lovely, but it's a technical thing and it's attracting people who are non-technical.
[00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:09.640] And again, like I'm the solo founder, it's a side project.
[00:30:09.800 --> 00:30:11.800] It was buggy at the beginning.
[00:30:11.800 --> 00:30:14.280] So I remember one time I was with my family.
[00:30:14.280 --> 00:30:19.160] We were at a nice cottage in kind of like the backcountry.
[00:30:19.320 --> 00:30:22.920] Doesn't have Wi-Fi and not good sell signal.
[00:30:22.920 --> 00:30:26.760] And I'm trying to have a Help Scout conversation with a customer.
[00:30:26.760 --> 00:30:29.160] And my family is inside playing board games.
[00:30:29.160 --> 00:30:38.520] And I'm standing on a rocky beach holding my cell phone out to try to catch a signal until I feel my phone buzz with the next response from Help Scout.
[00:30:38.520 --> 00:30:45.480] And that combined with seeing like what it meant for the bottom line, it was like, this has been fun, but is it really worth it?
[00:30:45.480 --> 00:30:47.640] You know, that was kind of the feeling.
[00:30:47.640 --> 00:30:56.760] Yeah, I've been in that same situation up on the coast of Maine at one point early on when I was doing everything myself, 2008 or 9, and I was, it was there with the family, had a young kid.
[00:30:56.760 --> 00:30:59.480] And I remember like trying to get sales service to answer responses.
[00:30:59.480 --> 00:31:02.360] And I also had some one-time sales stuff at the time.
[00:31:02.360 --> 00:31:04.440] And it was just like, what am I doing?
[00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:05.720] Like, what is happening right now?
[00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:07.240] I don't want to be doing this.
[00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:14.040] And especially for 12 or 15 bucks one-time, every email you respond to is like, well, I just kind of, you know what I mean?
[00:31:14.040 --> 00:31:15.720] Like, none of this was worth it.
[00:31:15.720 --> 00:31:20.120] So yeah, I could see how you would, you'd be discouraged, not only lack of growth, but the support.
[00:31:20.120 --> 00:31:37.240] And then one month later, right, to March of 2020, and I think you sent me a graph, which is awesome, but it's like your daily active users goes from, I don't know, approximately 250 a day to 5,000 a day by the end of March.
[00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:40.440] So it's not like a 20x increase.
[00:31:40.440 --> 00:31:45.840] And obviously, this has something to do with the lockdown, right?
[00:31:45.840 --> 00:31:49.920] You want to talk us through kind of the logic that caused that to just spike up?
[00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:53.120] Was there was there suddenly search volume or were you being mentioned?
[00:31:53.120 --> 00:31:58.480] Like, what was the real, or was it just all direct and people were somehow, yeah, I just don't know how they were finding you?
[00:31:58.480 --> 00:32:01.440] Yeah, I, it was, it was a crazy time.
[00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:11.600] And I think the funny thing is that I think most people assume that because I was deep in this product and I understood who needed it, that I would know right away what would happen.
[00:32:11.600 --> 00:32:13.440] But I, I feel a bit stupid.
[00:32:13.440 --> 00:32:14.080] I didn't.
[00:32:14.080 --> 00:32:20.320] I was so focused at that time when things started locking down when they announced that our kids wouldn't be going back to school.
[00:32:20.320 --> 00:32:23.680] I was focused on I'm back with my consulting business.
[00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:26.480] I'm moving that from the co-working space back to home.
[00:32:26.480 --> 00:32:33.280] My wife and I need to watch our three kids as they're at home and make sure that they're still getting some education.
[00:32:33.280 --> 00:32:37.520] And of course, I was watching the news and frightened about what's going on.
[00:32:37.520 --> 00:32:48.720] VidHug was at that time just like a Google Analytics tab that I kept open on the side just to like, I like to see the real-time, like, you know, who's on the site and how many people are using it and that kind of thing.
[00:32:48.720 --> 00:32:57.280] And I remember trying to pay attention to my consulting work and noticing that, you know, the number of users on the site kept growing.
[00:32:57.280 --> 00:33:00.320] Like you could watch it literally in real time.
[00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:03.600] And as you saw in that graph, it just kept going.
[00:33:03.600 --> 00:33:09.280] I wish I had the 100% clear attribution to say what drove that.
[00:33:09.280 --> 00:33:13.040] But what happened was that people couldn't celebrate in person anymore.
[00:33:13.040 --> 00:33:20.240] I knew that VidHug helped people celebrate who couldn't be together in person because I knew it was used by people in kind of long-distance situations.
[00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:23.840] But now everybody couldn't celebrate in person.
[00:33:23.840 --> 00:33:34.680] And so my feeling was that it was a combination of a few people found the product and knew about it, probably through that link that I landed.
[00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:38.280] But after that, it's got a viral loop built into the product.
[00:33:38.280 --> 00:33:39.800] That's one of the advantages, right?
[00:33:39.800 --> 00:33:43.720] So if somebody does a VidHug, we call them the organizer.
[00:33:43.720 --> 00:33:46.760] They're the one that's like commissioning, they're making the video.
[00:33:46.760 --> 00:33:51.240] They then invite their friends and family of the person that it's for to participate in the video.
[00:33:51.240 --> 00:33:56.440] Sometimes they invite 100 people, 200, sometimes 20, but a lot of people.
[00:33:56.440 --> 00:33:59.880] All of those people come to VidHug and record a video.
[00:33:59.880 --> 00:34:02.200] They've now seen the platform.
[00:34:02.200 --> 00:34:05.960] They understand, in a sense, what it makes.
[00:34:05.960 --> 00:34:15.000] And if only a handful of those people, you know, a small percentage of them later say, oh, you know, my mom's birthday is coming up or my son's birthday is coming up.
[00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.000] And I don't know what I'm going to do because it's COVID, that's what happened.
[00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:25.960] And the thing that surprised me, many things surprised me, but we would see like happy second birthday videos on there.
[00:34:26.280 --> 00:34:35.000] People were making birthdays for the kids, which, you know, I didn't, I never thought this product would be for that because kids have birthday parties in person.
[00:34:35.320 --> 00:34:37.000] And so we were seeing that.
[00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:46.360] We were seeing schools use it immensely for teacher appreciation, for just staying connected with each other while they were all at home.
[00:34:46.360 --> 00:34:53.240] And so from March, April, May, that growth just kept going like a freight train.
[00:34:53.240 --> 00:34:57.000] Yeah, and the viral loop I think is a huge key to that.
[00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:01.720] I talk in the SAS playbook about SAS virality specifically, because it's different.
[00:35:01.720 --> 00:35:05.000] You know, Facebook virality is different than SaaS virality.
[00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.880] So, but within SaaS, I demarcated strong virality and weak virality.
[00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:11.480] Okay, so let's do weak first.
[00:35:11.480 --> 00:35:15.840] This is a good example of this is SavvyCal or SignWell, right?
[00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:19.360] SavviCal's scheduling link, SignWell is electronic signature.
[00:35:19.680 --> 00:35:22.720] I can send you a link to book me.
[00:35:22.720 --> 00:35:28.160] I don't invite you to be a user, I don't invite you to contribute, but you might, you'll see powered by SavviCal.
[00:35:28.160 --> 00:35:30.000] And that's what I call weak virality.
[00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:31.360] Same thing with electronic signature.
[00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:33.840] You'll see, oh, he's sending documents through SignWell.
[00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:34.480] Cool.
[00:35:34.480 --> 00:35:36.880] Strong virality is when I invite you.
[00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:43.680] Strong virality is Slack, where I'm the tech lead on my five-person dev team and I invite my four other people.
[00:35:43.680 --> 00:35:49.520] They create an account and they do stuff and they interact with it more, more deeply than just clicking a link or clicking a thing.
[00:35:49.520 --> 00:36:01.520] And so VidHug has, at least by my, you know, my arbitrary definition, strong SaaS virality, even though you still weren't SaaS, you were still one time, but it just, it drove the, drove the attention.
[00:36:01.520 --> 00:36:07.760] And once people have used it, then they get the idea, oh, well, I could send this to my friends and my family and all that.
[00:36:07.760 --> 00:36:09.440] And so you hit milestones.
[00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:10.560] I love that you listed this.
[00:36:10.560 --> 00:36:11.520] I hit milestones.
[00:36:11.520 --> 00:36:14.880] More revenue in one hour than usual in a day.
[00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:17.920] More revenue in one day than usual in a month.
[00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:21.120] More revenue in one day than all of 2019.
[00:36:21.120 --> 00:36:25.520] Then you started working seven days a week, 14 hours a day.
[00:36:25.520 --> 00:36:33.440] And so your wife must have, I mean, she was just on taking care of three kids duty because you had no time to do anything.
[00:36:33.440 --> 00:36:35.280] What was your time spent doing?
[00:36:35.280 --> 00:36:39.440] Was it mostly support or was it scaling and bug fixes?
[00:36:39.760 --> 00:36:41.040] All of the above.
[00:36:41.040 --> 00:36:42.960] There was a lot of supports.
[00:36:43.200 --> 00:36:50.480] And again, like when we plot out the metrics of how many users that used VidHug actually needed support, that percentage is very low.
[00:36:50.480 --> 00:37:06.040] But because a single customer brings 100, 200 people to the platform, people who record videos would still come into support and say, like, you know, often they'd have a webcam issue that wasn't our problem, but they're on VidHug using it, and so we would support them through that.
[00:37:06.040 --> 00:37:14.360] Or somebody who's being sent the video, like, I'm trying to watch the video, but my old Windows machine doesn't have the right codec on it, like that kind of thing.
[00:37:14.360 --> 00:37:22.520] So, yeah, even though it was a low percentage of the number of active users that needed support, my Help Scout inbox was just full.
[00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:25.160] And so, I was doing all of that.
[00:37:25.160 --> 00:37:30.040] Luckily, I had again, this is preparation meets opportunity.
[00:37:30.040 --> 00:37:34.920] I built VidHug with a serverless back end using the serverless framework.
[00:37:34.920 --> 00:37:40.840] So, it was using like microservices on the API side, and that actually scaled fairly well.
[00:37:40.840 --> 00:37:55.400] You know, I had some minor hiccups there, but I do feel like if I had it running on, and I'm not advocating this as a reason because, again, this is such a one-off, but if I had it running on a small server, it would have completely just like that, it would have been trouble falling over.
[00:37:55.400 --> 00:38:00.520] Yeah, so there was little things it was all in AWS, but definitely had to tweak some things there.
[00:38:00.520 --> 00:38:11.880] And also, like, if people remember, during that time, even large services were having trouble because everybody was moving to work from home, everybody was going remote, the internet was just under strain.
[00:38:11.880 --> 00:38:19.240] So, a lot of the issues that we ended up having were like larger third-party services that we relied on going down.
[00:38:19.240 --> 00:38:29.880] Like, you know, we had like an AWS outage, we had at one point in time, uh, VitHug was using DigitalOcean and they had an issue, um, so those kind of things.
[00:38:29.880 --> 00:38:35.560] But of course, your users don't know that that's they've to them, that's a VitHug issue, and that's fair.
[00:38:35.560 --> 00:38:44.000] There was that, and and yeah, bug fixing, because at that time, I'd never had so many people with so many different devices and browsers.
[00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:47.360] Recording videos in the browser has come a long way.
[00:38:47.520 --> 00:38:52.720] At that time, it was still device-dependent, browser-dependent, lots of those things.
[00:38:53.040 --> 00:39:03.840] And to give people an idea, you know, I had said you went from 250 actives a day up to 5,000 a day by the end of March.
[00:39:03.840 --> 00:39:07.280] And by the end of April, you're at almost 80,000.
[00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:09.680] So it just, I mean, talk about exponential.
[00:39:09.680 --> 00:39:13.360] And in April, again, we talked about you were at $1,000 a month, plateau.
[00:39:13.360 --> 00:39:16.320] In April, you did six figures of revenue.
[00:39:16.320 --> 00:39:18.400] And I remember you emailing me during this time.
[00:39:18.400 --> 00:39:24.480] I could probably pull it up, but I remember you were extremely stressed and you were like, this is brutal.
[00:39:24.480 --> 00:39:33.520] And, you know, in the notes here, you sent me, it sounds ridiculous to say that I experienced trauma from a wildly successful growing business, but I did.
[00:39:33.520 --> 00:39:36.800] You were staying up till 3.30 a.m.
[00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:41.200] at one point because there was this service in Romania that went down and they were asleep.
[00:39:41.200 --> 00:39:50.400] And the downside of VidHug, this is quoting you, the downside of VidHug being so special to users was that when it didn't work, you were responsible for ruining someone's birthday or anniversary.
[00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:54.320] Every single user was truly there for a special occasion.
[00:39:54.320 --> 00:39:57.760] So this sounds like not fun at all.
[00:39:58.080 --> 00:40:00.000] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:07.760] So it's the upside of, you know, experiencing the user's joy when their occasion comes off, but you get to experience the downside of that too.
[00:40:07.760 --> 00:40:10.800] So that in that time was, again, a third-party service.
[00:40:11.200 --> 00:40:22.640] To have our videos recorded in the browser and then transcoded and sent to our servers, we used a third-party service by some Bootstrap founders who were in Romania and they built a great product, frankly.
[00:40:22.640 --> 00:40:24.240] And for the most part, it did work.
[00:40:24.240 --> 00:40:30.520] But like I said, that early stage of the pandemic was not really a good time for many services.
[00:40:30.840 --> 00:40:40.040] And so they did have some downtime when they basically got, my understanding is they got DDoSed by one of their other customers, you know, like another customer who didn't realize that they were going to have so much volume.
[00:40:40.040 --> 00:40:46.280] And so that meant that nobody could submit a video to VidHug during that time.
[00:40:46.280 --> 00:40:49.160] And I think I have this in the notes too.
[00:40:49.160 --> 00:40:56.040] Just to give you a picture, at our peak in May, a video was being submitted to VidHug every second.
[00:40:56.040 --> 00:40:57.160] Incredible volume.
[00:40:57.160 --> 00:40:57.800] Yeah.
[00:40:57.800 --> 00:41:05.240] So every second, or maybe a little bit less than that, somebody was not able to submit a video to VidHug.
[00:41:05.240 --> 00:41:12.840] And these people were, you know, I've been invited to be part of my friend's birthday, and now they're not going to get my video because it's not working for me.
[00:41:12.840 --> 00:41:26.920] Or I remember talking to someone like, I've been working on this video for my husband for weeks and its birthday is tomorrow and I want to surprise him with it, surprise him with it, but it's not ready because the rendering platform isn't working.
[00:41:26.920 --> 00:41:34.920] And while those times were rare, my heart was so intertwined with this product, right?
[00:41:34.920 --> 00:41:46.040] As its creator, as its founder, that I soaked in when the product worked well and I love that, but I felt heartbroken when this happened to users.
[00:41:46.040 --> 00:41:48.360] And I remember that night.
[00:41:48.360 --> 00:41:52.760] I remember, I want to say I remember it well, but it was not enjoyable.
[00:41:52.760 --> 00:41:58.760] I was exhausted and I remember just sobbing with my wife next to me.
[00:41:58.760 --> 00:42:04.920] She was kind of comforting me and frankly saying to her, I don't know if I have it in me to keep going.
[00:42:04.920 --> 00:42:05.880] And I did.
[00:42:05.880 --> 00:42:13.040] It sounds crazy to say when you say the revenue numbers, I thought about pulling the plug.
[00:42:13.040 --> 00:42:17.920] I thought about putting a static up a static page and saying, like, sorry, folks, I just can't do it anymore.
[00:42:18.240 --> 00:42:27.920] And I'm happy that I was able to connect with some advisors and hire some help and dig out of that place.
[00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:34.080] But I almost got to that place where I just didn't, it wasn't worth it to me no matter how much money it was making.
[00:42:34.080 --> 00:42:36.000] Yeah, and that's a really weird place to be, huh?
[00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:41.200] Because as an entrepreneur or an aspiring founder, when you're doing it at nights and weekends for years and years and years, all you want is success.
[00:42:41.200 --> 00:42:46.880] And sometimes success, even when it doesn't come this quickly, it can still be extremely stressful.
[00:42:47.120 --> 00:42:53.120] I can certainly speak to experiencing that with DRIP, which again didn't grow nearly like, you know, exponentially like this.
[00:42:53.120 --> 00:42:56.400] But I remember thinking, shouldn't I be happier?
[00:42:56.400 --> 00:42:59.360] This is what I've wanted for, you know, for 10, 15 years.
[00:42:59.360 --> 00:43:01.920] And now I'm here and it's like, this is not very fun.
[00:43:02.080 --> 00:43:05.040] That's a really, really interesting place to be.
[00:43:05.040 --> 00:43:07.920] Why do you think you didn't pull the plug?
[00:43:08.240 --> 00:43:12.400] I definitely want to give some credit to my wife that she was very supportive.
[00:43:12.880 --> 00:43:16.640] And she wasn't the kind to say, like, you know, no, don't pull the plug.
[00:43:16.640 --> 00:43:18.240] You should keep going like that strongly.
[00:43:18.240 --> 00:43:24.720] But she was just, you know, she was there for me and, you know, kind of in a way, like, this will pass.
[00:43:24.720 --> 00:43:26.480] These things always do pass.
[00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:27.360] And it did.
[00:43:27.360 --> 00:43:35.440] And, you know, what I found, even though I was answering so many support questions during that time, almost everyone was so understanding.
[00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:38.880] They were like, oh my gosh, I'm speaking to the actual creator of this product.
[00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:43.280] Because I had in my signature, you know, Zamir Khan, founder and CEO of VidHug.
[00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:47.200] Little did they know I was the only person working for that company.
[00:43:47.200 --> 00:43:50.720] But they felt special and they said, oh, like you're looking at this right now.
[00:43:50.720 --> 00:43:53.200] You're responding to my email in the middle of the night.
[00:43:53.200 --> 00:43:54.160] Thank you.
[00:43:54.160 --> 00:43:56.960] And so that made it a bit easier.
[00:43:57.200 --> 00:43:59.680] But I have to give credit to my wife, Heather.
[00:43:59.960 --> 00:44:07.320] Just like when I was out on that beach holding the phone out for signal, she wasn't saying, like, you know, why are you wasting time on VidHug?
[00:44:07.320 --> 00:44:08.920] It's not paying the bills.
[00:44:08.920 --> 00:44:10.120] She never said that.
[00:44:10.120 --> 00:44:15.640] And so I think for a lot of founders who have been through this journey, they know that it takes more than just one person.
[00:44:16.040 --> 00:44:19.400] There's other people behind the scenes that make that happen.
[00:44:19.720 --> 00:44:20.520] My wife, Dr.
[00:44:20.520 --> 00:44:27.080] Sherry Walling, has a phrase that your spouse or significant other, your life partner, is your original investor.
[00:44:27.080 --> 00:44:35.240] Your original, so if you raise subsequent funding, your original investor is that person who is there with you because they put up with, they put up with your bullshit.
[00:44:35.240 --> 00:44:39.960] And I say that about, because she put up with my bullshit for years and years of the nights and weekends.
[00:44:39.960 --> 00:44:47.240] And I think that is almost a requisite to be able to pull it off because it is hard to do this alone.
[00:44:47.480 --> 00:44:52.600] I love that term because, yeah, they go all in, right?
[00:44:52.600 --> 00:44:53.160] Yeah.
[00:44:53.480 --> 00:44:58.120] And so you obviously get this popular this quickly.
[00:44:58.120 --> 00:45:14.760] You received inbound interest from a lot of investment firms, including Sequoia, including Punch Bowl, which is a digital invitation and greeting card platform that wound up acquiring you in 2021, I believe is when it finally closed.
[00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:20.280] But you were getting this inbound interest to raise funding and you're thinking to yourself, I'm just trying to keep this thing afloat.
[00:45:20.280 --> 00:45:21.560] Do I want to, I'm a bootstrapper.
[00:45:21.560 --> 00:45:22.440] Do I need to raise funding?
[00:45:22.440 --> 00:45:23.720] Do I want to raise funding, right?
[00:45:23.720 --> 00:45:26.120] It's going to complicate things.
[00:45:26.440 --> 00:45:32.680] But in 2021, it was Matt is the CEO of Punch Bowl, reached out again.
[00:45:32.680 --> 00:45:36.520] And instead of investing, he says, Maybe we should buy you.
[00:45:36.520 --> 00:45:40.200] Was that even on your radar before then of selling?
[00:45:40.200 --> 00:45:41.160] Were you thinking about it?
[00:45:41.240 --> 00:45:43.560] I mean, or were you just trying to keep your head above water?
[00:45:43.560 --> 00:45:45.840] I'm guessing by this time, you've hired some help, right?
[00:45:44.840 --> 00:45:51.440] You have some support help because this is a year-ish, nine months after pandemic started.
[00:45:51.760 --> 00:45:58.720] But what was your mindset as you entered this negotiation that eventually resulted in an LOI and them closing the deal?
[00:45:58.720 --> 00:46:09.200] Yeah, so I mean, first I want to take it back to that, you know, early time period when I first had that inbound interest and from including from Matt at Punch Bowl, who at the time I did not know at all.
[00:46:09.200 --> 00:46:15.680] And like I consider him a friend now, but at that time, it was just some random guy from a company that I hadn't heard of.
[00:46:15.680 --> 00:46:17.520] And he reached out to me.
[00:46:17.520 --> 00:46:25.040] Like a lot of people at the time reached out to me, say, hey, I was in a VidHug or a friend gave me a VidHug and I love the platform.
[00:46:25.040 --> 00:46:26.320] Let's talk.
[00:46:26.320 --> 00:46:31.280] So at that time, like you said, there were still so many fires that I was fighting.
[00:46:31.280 --> 00:46:39.440] I was, you know, I used the phrase like building the airplane while flying it that I didn't even have the capacity to entertain such ideas.
[00:46:39.440 --> 00:46:43.120] And as far as investment, I said, look at the company's bank account.
[00:46:43.120 --> 00:46:44.720] Like, I'm not spending that money right now.
[00:46:44.880 --> 00:46:47.360] Like, I don't need an influx of cash.
[00:46:47.360 --> 00:46:48.960] I need other things.
[00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:59.520] And so it was hiring that we needed to do team building because we basically experienced, you know, what you might consider four years of growth in three to four months.
[00:46:59.520 --> 00:47:02.400] And so the company had a lot of catching up to do.
[00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:06.320] And that's what we did over that time period in 2020.
[00:47:06.320 --> 00:47:14.480] So when Matt came back around, and that was unexpected to me, he came back around in 2021 and said, you know, hey, how are things going?
[00:47:14.720 --> 00:47:16.560] Do you have time to chat again?
[00:47:16.800 --> 00:47:21.040] And when the conversation came to, you know, I'm not interested in investing.
[00:47:21.040 --> 00:47:23.520] I'm interested in buying the company.
[00:47:23.520 --> 00:47:26.080] Then I had time because I had a team in place.
[00:47:26.080 --> 00:47:28.560] I wasn't working such a crazy schedule.
[00:47:28.560 --> 00:47:32.920] Things were, the product had improved to the point where it was working well.
[00:47:29.840 --> 00:47:36.840] And we were actually looking at, you know, we were doing active marketing.
[00:47:37.080 --> 00:47:43.480] We were looking at, you know, building out different features, maybe going after a B2B market a little bit.
[00:47:43.480 --> 00:47:48.200] And we had already had also some other, you know, inbound interest.
[00:47:48.200 --> 00:48:00.120] For it was never like we want to buy your company, but it was like, let's talk about integrating VidHug with our product in a way that I knew the eventual goal there was just, you know, it was an audition.
[00:48:00.360 --> 00:48:05.960] So when Matt came around, I was in a place where I had the time to have that conversation.
[00:48:05.960 --> 00:48:13.560] And I was also in the place of someone who had gone through four years of growth in four months and I was burnt out.
[00:48:13.560 --> 00:48:28.040] And I was like, oh, here is a company, a strategic buyer who has a team who has been at this for over a decade, full of smart people who can help me and work alongside me.
[00:48:28.040 --> 00:48:29.640] And that seemed very appealing.
[00:48:29.640 --> 00:48:41.560] I was like, I still want to work on VidHug, but being the CEO of this company, which means a lot more than the stuff that I'm great at, which is product development, has taken its toll.
[00:48:41.560 --> 00:48:44.920] Combine that with just pandemic life with kids.
[00:48:44.920 --> 00:48:47.240] I knew there was a change coming.
[00:48:47.480 --> 00:48:52.680] I knew the pandemic would end and I knew that we would navigate our way through that.
[00:48:52.680 --> 00:48:54.040] But that was daunting.
[00:48:54.040 --> 00:48:58.840] And so when this opportunity came along, I was like, let's talk.
[00:48:58.840 --> 00:48:59.080] Yeah.
[00:48:59.080 --> 00:49:12.520] And I remember when you and I talked on the phone then in that, you know, in that early 2021 timeframe, I was surprised at the amount of money you were going to get because I thought of it as a one-time B2C.
[00:49:12.520 --> 00:49:19.920] You know, it's that my valuation criteria obviously is going to be skewed better for B2B, for subscription.
[00:49:20.400 --> 00:49:28.320] You certainly had the growth, but even I remember we talked about it, I was like, if you don't sell now when the pandemic ends, does this keep going or does it not?
[00:49:28.320 --> 00:49:31.040] It doesn't seem like it will, you know, and there was a whole thing about that.
[00:49:31.040 --> 00:49:37.520] And so I was also, because to me, that's kind of a, it's not platform risk per se, but there's a rit, there's an existential risk to the revenue.
[00:49:37.520 --> 00:49:45.200] And so when they made the offer, I was quite positive about it, or at least in my heart, I was.
[00:49:45.200 --> 00:49:49.840] I don't know if I couched that on the call or not, but I remember being like, dude, this is enough money, you never have to work again.
[00:49:50.160 --> 00:49:54.080] I would, in your shoes, seriously, seriously, seriously consider taking this.
[00:49:54.240 --> 00:49:56.640] This does not seem like a bad decision long term.
[00:49:56.640 --> 00:50:07.440] And this allows you to kind of work on and do whatever you want forever rather than worrying about, ooh, what, you know, as the pandemic goes away, declines, ends, whatever we want to phrase it, is this business still viable?
[00:50:07.440 --> 00:50:11.360] With all that said, all exits are painful.
[00:50:11.680 --> 00:50:14.080] There are no smooth times of selling your company.
[00:50:14.080 --> 00:50:20.640] And so as we wrap up, because we are hitting time, I'm curious, can you summarize like you're from LOI to close?
[00:50:20.640 --> 00:50:21.920] Was it happy-go-lucky?
[00:50:21.920 --> 00:50:22.560] This is amazing.
[00:50:22.560 --> 00:50:23.440] Everything's great.
[00:50:23.440 --> 00:50:26.240] Was it like, holy, this is way harder than I thought it would be?
[00:50:26.240 --> 00:50:33.200] And man, I wish Robin Sherry had written exit strategy five years earlier so that you could have read it and it would tell you how painful it would be.
[00:50:33.520 --> 00:50:38.960] I definitely wish I had exit strategy on my desk during that time, 100%.
[00:50:38.960 --> 00:50:40.320] It was not easy.
[00:50:40.320 --> 00:50:46.400] And that's not to say that I was dealing with anything unusual, but it's a process.
[00:50:46.400 --> 00:50:55.840] And again, with a small company, with a small team, this is not something that I wanted to present to my team and say, hey, we might sell the company, but it might fall through.
[00:50:55.840 --> 00:51:05.800] So, I knew that's something that I had to do quietly, keep the company operating because there was a lot to do, and also have these conversations and go through this due diligence.
[00:51:06.120 --> 00:51:22.040] So, that was challenging, it was extra work, and then at times, you know, at one point, the you know, the other side went quiet for a long period of time, and that was incredibly stressful for me because I didn't know what was happening.
[00:51:22.040 --> 00:51:30.680] Later, I would learn that that had nothing to do with VidHug, nothing to do with me, it was just something that was going on on their end, and you know, not intentional.
[00:51:30.680 --> 00:51:38.360] But even up until you know, I would say one or two days before closing, and we're talking about a process that lasted several months.
[00:51:38.360 --> 00:51:42.200] There were points in time where I thought, oh, this, like, this might not go through.
[00:51:42.200 --> 00:51:55.720] That's incredibly stressful because throughout that process, you're trying, you know, so hard to stay level and say, you know, this may not happen, and we'll continue with the company, and we have a plan for it.
[00:51:56.040 --> 00:52:06.120] But I think anyone who's been through it knows that at some point in time, you get to a point where, like, if this doesn't happen, I don't know how I'm going to go on.
[00:52:06.440 --> 00:52:07.800] Yeah, exactly.
[00:52:07.800 --> 00:52:20.680] That's one of the hardest parts is you get attached to the money, but you also get attached to the idea that it's not going to be so stressful and that you're going to have to be able to hand off a bunch of hard stuff probably that you don't want to do to someone else.
[00:52:20.680 --> 00:52:31.520] You get attached to the idea of, yeah, I think just if you see you can really clearly see a future that you like better than the present, and to realize that could just get taken away from you at any time.
[00:52:31.520 --> 00:52:32.840] It's like, oh, this is hard.
[00:52:32.840 --> 00:52:34.520] It's a hard way to live.
[00:52:34.520 --> 00:52:35.240] Absolutely.
[00:52:35.400 --> 00:52:36.040] It was that.
[00:52:36.040 --> 00:52:46.320] And also, like, I put so much time into that process that I could have put into growing VidHug and preparing for what you said, the market shift that was coming.
[00:52:46.480 --> 00:52:53.360] I knew what we needed to do, but I had just taken so much time away from that that I could have put towards it for this.
[00:52:53.360 --> 00:52:57.040] So it was a bit of a sunk cost feeling too, you know, that fear of.
[00:52:57.520 --> 00:52:58.400] Yeah, for sure.
[00:52:58.400 --> 00:53:03.280] And so you actually stayed working with the acquirer who is now called Sincere.
[00:53:03.280 --> 00:53:11.520] You worked with them for another four years, which is unusual for someone to hang around that long because you didn't have golden handcuffs for very long, if at all.
[00:53:11.520 --> 00:53:16.800] But recently, just what, four or five months ago, you flew the coop.
[00:53:16.800 --> 00:53:17.680] You went solo.
[00:53:17.680 --> 00:53:18.960] You're hanging out.
[00:53:18.960 --> 00:53:20.560] Are you building another thing?
[00:53:21.120 --> 00:53:22.240] Don't build another thing, by the way.
[00:53:22.240 --> 00:53:22.880] Not yet.
[00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:28.560] Give yourself a minimum six to 12 months is what I want you to take because you do have the luxury of that time.
[00:53:28.560 --> 00:53:34.000] So how have you been spending your time and why has it been some of the best months of your life?
[00:53:34.880 --> 00:53:38.640] I remember this time where I was just like, oh, this is what I did all of this for.
[00:53:38.640 --> 00:53:40.640] Like, this is amazing.
[00:53:40.640 --> 00:53:41.280] Yeah.
[00:53:41.920 --> 00:53:47.680] I think one thing about staying at Sincere for a while, which I had a great time at great people.
[00:53:47.680 --> 00:53:51.280] I loved continuing to work on VidHug, which became a mento.
[00:53:51.280 --> 00:53:59.440] One of the things that allowed me to do is slow down from kind of founder mode to like executive employee mode, but still it's different.
[00:53:59.440 --> 00:54:01.600] It allowed me to bring some work-life balance back.
[00:54:01.600 --> 00:54:08.480] And it allowed me to start building things into my life that I knew I would want to do after that journey ended.
[00:54:08.480 --> 00:54:13.360] And so one of those things was I became a fitness instructor, like a group.
[00:54:13.360 --> 00:54:18.880] If you think of those fitness classes at the gym where there's like 30 people working out together, I do that.
[00:54:18.880 --> 00:54:32.040] I started coaching my daughter's soccer team, those kind of building in those activities that are good for mental health, physical health, and also like keep me from going all in on some other project in the near future.
[00:54:32.280 --> 00:54:39.320] So, but the way that I stay in touch with what I love is like, you know, building new products and startups.
[00:54:39.320 --> 00:54:46.440] I have invested in a few startups locally, actually, founders that I kind of came up with through my journey.
[00:54:46.680 --> 00:55:03.560] And so, in advising them and working with them, I get to still, I think, as you know, Rob, still get that taste of the trenches and the ups and the downs, but I also get to step away from it at times and not have it be on my mind all the time.
[00:55:03.560 --> 00:55:06.120] Yeah, it's a really nice, really nice transition.
[00:55:06.120 --> 00:55:08.200] Well, man, hell of a journey.
[00:55:08.200 --> 00:55:17.080] Thanks for chronicling it here in so many ways on this podcast, from your email back in the day to telling your full story today.
[00:55:17.080 --> 00:55:20.840] If folks want to keep up with you, you are on X Twitter.
[00:55:20.840 --> 00:55:25.720] It's Zamir Khan, K-H-A-N, but the I is a one.
[00:55:25.720 --> 00:55:30.360] So, we'll link that up in the show notes if folks want to follow what you're up to next.
[00:55:30.360 --> 00:55:36.520] And of course, memento.com if they want to see what you built and you're on LinkedIn as well.
[00:55:36.520 --> 00:55:37.480] Thanks again, man.
[00:55:37.480 --> 00:55:39.000] Really appreciate you coming on the show.
[00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:40.040] Thanks for having me, Rob.
[00:55:40.440 --> 00:55:41.880] It's been a pleasure.
[00:55:41.880 --> 00:55:46.280] Thanks so much to Zamir for coming on the show and telling his story.
[00:55:46.280 --> 00:55:48.520] And thank you for listening this week and every week.
[00:55:48.520 --> 00:55:52.760] This is Rob Walling signing off from episode 794.

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

[00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:12.160] AI is completely changing how people discover brands and content online, and hrefs has built a full-blown SaaS marketing platform to help you stay ahead.
[00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:30.000] With over 15 years of real-world web data and AI that actually understands marketing, hrefs helps you measure your brand presence, build authority, and monitor reputation across search, social, and AI platforms like ChatGPT, Google AI overviews, perplexity, and more.
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[00:00:39.760 --> 00:00:42.640] There's no need to juggle a bunch of disconnected tools.
[00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:48.000] Get hrefs all-in-one platform to make your brand unmissable in a fast-moving world.
[00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:52.400] Try it free at ahrefs.com/slash a-w-t.
[00:00:52.400 --> 00:01:00.080] That's the letter A, h-re-e-f-s.com/slash awt.
[00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:04.800] You're listening to Startups for the Rest of Us.
[00:01:04.800 --> 00:01:06.000] I'm Rob Walling.
[00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:14.320] In this episode, I sit down with a longtime podcast listener named Zamir Khan, the founder of VidHug.
[00:01:14.320 --> 00:01:32.960] And as you'll hear in this episode, there have been many touch points on this very show where Zamir has sent in a voice message, or I wound up chatting with him back in 2021 when I did my call for anyone going through an exit, and I'll talk to you for 20 minutes.
[00:01:32.960 --> 00:01:52.320] And so you'll hear us recount this in this episode, but it is a pretty incredible story of a founder who started a B2C SaaS company and was really struggling, struggling to get traction, was struggling to grow it, and spent years facing the headwinds that we talk about on this podcast.
[00:01:52.320 --> 00:01:54.400] Hi, churn, it's hard to charge a subscription.
[00:01:54.400 --> 00:02:04.360] I believe it was a one-time fee at the time, and it's just really hard to get momentum in a business where the numbers are against you.
[00:02:04.360 --> 00:02:23.000] And then, if you listen to this episode, you'll find out what caused his revenue to explode more than 100x per month and an eventual offer to buy the company for an amount that we don't disclose on the show, but it's an amount that means he never has to work again.
[00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:28.680] And you, dear listener, get to hear the whole show and learn whether he took that offer or not.
[00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:38.280] It's quite a journey, and in the middle of the show, we're going to have a clip from episode 433, which I believe was in like 2018, maybe, maybe 2019.
[00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:42.360] And we'll have a six, seven-minute clip of his prior voicemail.
[00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:47.320] And you'll hear me and my former co-host, Mike Tabor, answer his question.
[00:02:47.320 --> 00:02:49.480] And it's all relevant.
[00:02:49.480 --> 00:02:53.640] It all ties in to his story and the eventual outcome.
[00:02:53.640 --> 00:03:02.680] Before we dive into Zemir's incredible journey, applications for Tiny Seed, my B2B SAS Accelerator, close today, September 9th.
[00:03:02.680 --> 00:03:18.280] If you want the right amount of funding, an incredible roster of mentors, a world-class network, an instant community of some of the best B2B SaaS founders in the world, head to tinyseed.com/slash apply.
[00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:23.080] And if you miss the application, head to tinyseed.com/slash apply.
[00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:27.320] Enter your email to be notified when applications open in the future.
[00:03:27.320 --> 00:03:33.960] Or likewise, if your business isn't quite ready, but you want to stay in the loop, tinyseed.com/slash apply.
[00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:36.840] And with that, let's dive into our story.
[00:03:47.520 --> 00:03:49.840] Zamir, welcome to the show.
[00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:50.560] Thanks, Rob.
[00:03:51.200 --> 00:03:54.720] It's a bit surreal to be here, but I'm very excited.
[00:03:54.720 --> 00:04:02.480] So, the listeners know you and I were just talking, and I knew you were a listener of the show, but you said you were listening since before I bought Hittail.
[00:04:02.480 --> 00:04:04.720] So, that's 2011 at least.
[00:04:04.720 --> 00:04:09.520] You might be an OG, like 14, 15-year listener, which is a trip.
[00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:13.200] So, here's the big question: Are you going to listen to this episode?
[00:04:13.200 --> 00:04:14.080] 100%.
[00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:14.560] Yeah.
[00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:14.880] Okay.
[00:04:14.880 --> 00:04:16.880] Yeah, this is a bit of a bucket list thing for me.
[00:04:17.200 --> 00:04:18.320] Yeah, awesome.
[00:04:18.320 --> 00:04:19.280] Love it, man.
[00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:27.360] So, I've obviously told in the intro told people a little bit, you know, about what you built and how you changed your life through SAS.
[00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:43.760] But I want to hear firsthand from you what it felt like when you saw millions of dollars appear in a bank account through after a lot of hard work, a lot of skill, a lot of luck, you saw more money than I'm guessing you had ever seen in your account.
[00:04:43.760 --> 00:04:45.600] Walk me through how that felt.
[00:04:45.600 --> 00:05:10.080] Yeah, I think the answer may not be what one might expect, but I think the overwhelming feeling is one of relief because having gone through, you know, a fairly lengthy process with selling VidHug and one that my sample size is one in terms of experience there, but I don't think there are sale processes that are 100% smooth, but it had its ups and downs.
[00:05:10.080 --> 00:05:17.200] And definitely relief that it's all of that time and effort came through.
[00:05:17.520 --> 00:05:30.000] And also, I think I didn't have the time or the energy to really absorb it fully because I knew the next step was to let my team know what had just happened and then.
[00:05:29.800 --> 00:05:38.040] And then my heart was with making sure that they're feeling secure because the entire company was acquired, the team.
[00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:45.720] I wanted to make sure that they knew that they still have jobs and they're part of this journey still and they're needed with the product.
[00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:47.080] So that's where my mind was.
[00:05:47.080 --> 00:05:51.960] It was, you know, seeing that number was surreal and unreal.
[00:05:51.960 --> 00:05:57.720] And definitely there was a little bit of celebration happening with my wife and I.
[00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:02.200] But then it was like, okay, that's cool, but we got to move on.
[00:06:02.200 --> 00:06:04.920] And there's still a lot of work to be done here.
[00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:26.600] That was kind of, it was over time, I think, as I had the chance to transition into my new role and frankly have a lot of responsibility taken off of my shoulders by the larger company that I was now a part of, that I had over time more time to appreciate like the new reality of like, okay, like life is different now.
[00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:27.880] Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
[00:06:27.880 --> 00:06:30.440] I think it takes most people quite a bit of time.
[00:06:30.440 --> 00:06:34.600] It took me months to realize, oh, I love what you said, life is different now.
[00:06:34.600 --> 00:06:41.560] I think there was a moment for me where I bought like, I don't know, a million dollars of Vanguard mutual funds.
[00:06:41.560 --> 00:06:42.200] You know what I mean?
[00:06:42.200 --> 00:06:43.480] Because I was like, I need to deploy this.
[00:06:43.480 --> 00:06:44.440] I'm not going to do it all at once.
[00:06:44.440 --> 00:06:49.640] And I was kind of like a little bit of dollar cost averaging in, but I remember, you know, being like, who does that?
[00:06:49.640 --> 00:06:51.400] Like, who does, who buys a million?
[00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:53.640] And it's like, well, me, I guess, now.
[00:06:53.640 --> 00:06:55.400] You know, it was just like, blew my mind.
[00:06:55.400 --> 00:06:59.240] And that was a moment because having money in a bank account, it's just a number on a screen.
[00:06:59.240 --> 00:07:03.080] Like, it doesn't, there's no, there's utility to it, but it doesn't feel you.
[00:07:03.080 --> 00:07:08.520] And then, but to me, owning like assets, investments was like, oh, this is, this is where the rubber meets the road.
[00:07:08.520 --> 00:07:13.080] And that's where I was like, okay, I'm in a different, I'm in a different place than I was a few months ago.
[00:07:13.080 --> 00:07:14.120] Yeah, for sure.
[00:07:14.120 --> 00:07:21.200] And I think, you know, the question people in that situation often get is like, you know, what did you, what did you buy to like, you know, what toy?
[00:07:21.440 --> 00:07:24.240] Like, and I didn't, I didn't buy like a Ferrari or something like that.
[00:07:24.400 --> 00:07:26.480] I wasn't in that mindset anyway.
[00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:32.640] But, you know, for us, it was, we had actually just bought a new house that needed a lot of work to be done to it.
[00:07:32.640 --> 00:07:34.080] It was an old house.
[00:07:34.080 --> 00:07:42.080] And before this, we were having to make a lot of decisions of like, well, we have a certain budget and we can only, we can do A or B, but we can't do both.
[00:07:42.080 --> 00:07:44.080] And so the difference for us was like, let's do both.
[00:07:44.080 --> 00:07:47.680] Like that, that was the kind of the splurge, so to speak.
[00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:50.560] But I wasn't driving a Ferrari the next week.
[00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:52.960] Yeah, that came that came a year later, right?
[00:07:54.480 --> 00:07:57.840] You expect me as someone who's very pragmatic and will not go.
[00:07:58.080 --> 00:07:58.880] It hasn't happened yet.
[00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:00.880] Yeah, yeah, you're still thinking about it.
[00:08:00.880 --> 00:08:07.200] I want to read a little excerpt because I asked you to put together a timeline because it helps us kind of navigate the story.
[00:08:07.200 --> 00:08:13.120] And here's a quote from this: you said, I was an avid listener to your podcast and I completely bought into the philosophy.
[00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:16.480] And yet I found myself on a path that broke most of the rules.
[00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:22.240] B2C, low-cost, one-time payment, an industry in which I had no edge.
[00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:23.040] I knew this.
[00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:24.800] I knew I was playing on hard mode.
[00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:26.880] And yet I continued to do it.
[00:08:26.880 --> 00:08:31.280] And I think someone listening to this episode might be thinking, What the f are you doing, Rob?
[00:08:31.280 --> 00:08:33.760] Like, why do you have a B2C success story on here?
[00:08:33.760 --> 00:08:36.960] Like, this goes, you know, this kind of goes against the thing that I've developed over the years.
[00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:38.560] We used to take B2C questions, right?
[00:08:38.560 --> 00:08:39.360] Mike and I.
[00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:40.160] And then I took it for what.
[00:08:40.160 --> 00:08:44.240] And then eventually I'm just like, I just don't have anything to say here because most of the time it doesn't work out.
[00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:47.040] But I followed your story is the thing.
[00:08:47.040 --> 00:08:57.280] And you not only sent us in, I think it was an email question back in maybe 2018, it was episode 433.
[00:08:57.280 --> 00:08:59.440] And I want to play a little excerpt of that here.
[00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:02.760] You not only sent that, but then you and I stayed in touch.
[00:09:02.760 --> 00:09:11.880] And to cut forward, there was a few years ago, it was during the pandemic in 2021, where I announced on the podcast: look, if you're selling a company right now, it's the biggest decision of your life, probably.
[00:09:12.200 --> 00:09:14.680] And if you need 20 or 30 minutes of my time, do it.
[00:09:14.680 --> 00:09:15.720] And I did a bunch of calls.
[00:09:15.720 --> 00:09:19.000] I don't remember how many, 10, 15 calls with people just to do it.
[00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:22.040] Because, you know, we were all at home, not doing anything anyways.
[00:09:22.040 --> 00:09:23.560] And you and I then chatted.
[00:09:23.560 --> 00:09:26.280] And that's when you told me, I was like, how's it going?
[00:09:26.280 --> 00:09:27.800] What's going on with VidHug?
[00:09:27.800 --> 00:09:30.920] It's, you know, thinking, oh, it's a cute business.
[00:09:30.920 --> 00:09:34.360] And you're like, someone made me a tremendous offer for this.
[00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:35.320] And I was blown away.
[00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:37.240] And we had a good conversation then.
[00:09:37.240 --> 00:09:39.720] And so that's one of the reasons I want to bring you on here.
[00:09:39.720 --> 00:09:41.560] I also like bringing on counterexamples.
[00:09:41.560 --> 00:09:43.960] Like, we're not, no one's right 100% of the time.
[00:09:43.960 --> 00:09:46.680] Like, I have my rules of thumb of when things should work and this and that.
[00:09:46.680 --> 00:09:48.040] And B2B, I think, is the best.
[00:09:48.040 --> 00:09:53.240] But, you know, you've kind of proven that you're the, what is it, the exception that maybe proves those rules.
[00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:53.640] Yeah.
[00:09:54.120 --> 00:10:01.000] Like, let me say first and foremost, I'm not here to say like you should go out and do a solo B2C bootstrap startup.
[00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:03.320] Like that's not, I'm not here to say that.
[00:10:03.400 --> 00:10:13.800] I believe that my journey is an example of what an otherworldly event you need to happen to actually help you win in that space as a bootstrapped founder.
[00:10:13.800 --> 00:10:19.000] Like it's clear that the pandemic was so big for VidHug's growth.
[00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:20.040] It was everything.
[00:10:20.600 --> 00:10:27.080] What I tend to say to people is the pandemic was the largest marketing campaign possible for something like VidHug.
[00:10:27.160 --> 00:10:35.880] You know, it's like if we had had millions of dollars of venture funding to do marketing for VidHug, it still couldn't have done what the pandemic did for it.
[00:10:36.120 --> 00:10:40.760] And so I think for any founder to rely on some event like that coming along.
[00:10:40.760 --> 00:10:42.120] Would be a little foolish, yeah.
[00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:44.360] Because it was a big swath of luck.
[00:10:44.360 --> 00:10:49.840] You were in the right place at the right time and you were doing things in public and that created an opportunity and you created your own luck.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:52.080] But in essence, yeah, I think you and I talked offline.
[00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:56.400] It's like, if there was no pandemic, VidHug is not the exit, you know, that you had.
[00:10:56.400 --> 00:10:58.800] It's not the product that you wanted.
[00:10:58.800 --> 00:11:10.960] No, and I think my, you know, my email question into you and the rest of my journey is a sign that, you know, I'm not going to sit here and say like I knew what I was doing and I knew that this shift would eventually happen.
[00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:11.600] I didn't.
[00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:26.560] And as I put in the notes, frankly, just before the pandemic started, I was at the point of almost giving up on VidHug and I parked it and decided to focus more on my consulting because I had a family and I needed to pay the bills.
[00:11:26.560 --> 00:11:36.320] So I'm not going to sit here and say that I knew it was coming, but it is, it's, you know, it's that old saying of luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
[00:11:36.560 --> 00:11:38.880] And I believe this is a firm example of that.
[00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:40.560] Yeah, I agree too.
[00:11:40.560 --> 00:11:40.960] All right.
[00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:53.600] So now I do want to roll your question and Mike and I weighing in saying, ooh, B2C is to, oh, I don't know that I, and I think I'm several times, so it's a nice side project, but I wouldn't, it's a step one busy.
[00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:54.160] You know what I mean?
[00:11:54.160 --> 00:11:54.960] I like to say that.
[00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:56.880] So we'll roll that here.
[00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:03.360] Our next question is about how to approach a B2C company.
[00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:06.080] And this is a long email, so I'm going to summarize it.
[00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:09.600] He says he's a huge fan of the podcast, started listening about five years ago.
[00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:11.120] He's a senior developer.
[00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:15.200] He's always had the product itch, and he's working on an app.
[00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:20.480] It's called VidHug, V-I-D-H-U-G-VidHug.com.
[00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:24.160] Started as a scratch your own itch project for his mother's birthday.
[00:12:24.160 --> 00:12:25.360] And it's definitely B2C.
[00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:26.240] It's low LTV.
[00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:27.920] It's non-recurring revenue.
[00:12:27.920 --> 00:12:35.560] He says, I feel like I have a mini rob on my shoulder most days saying, what are you even doing with this question mark exclamation point?
[00:12:35.560 --> 00:12:38.520] Thing is, I don't really have a counterpoint for you except for a feeling.
[00:12:38.520 --> 00:12:44.200] And that feeling comes from talking to customers that are now able to do something they previously could not.
[00:12:44.200 --> 00:12:53.720] The plan moving forward is to focus on growing organic channels on the B2C side through SEO and referrals and also build a B2B side, which would bring recurring revenue.
[00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:56.840] Do you think I'm crazy for even trying this?
[00:12:56.840 --> 00:13:04.040] And just as a point of data, he has basically a free tier and then he has one that is $15.
[00:13:04.040 --> 00:13:07.160] And it's a one-time thing for the B2C side.
[00:13:07.160 --> 00:13:08.600] What do you think, Mike?
[00:13:08.600 --> 00:13:12.120] Well, to answer his question directly, am I crazy for even trying?
[00:13:12.120 --> 00:13:13.240] The answer is yes.
[00:13:13.560 --> 00:13:15.880] It's just a matter of how crazy we all are.
[00:13:15.880 --> 00:13:16.520] Exactly.
[00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:17.960] It's just the spectrum.
[00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:19.320] It's just varying degrees.
[00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:19.800] Yes.
[00:13:20.360 --> 00:13:24.760] So going back to the question of, you know, are you crazy for trying something that's B2C?
[00:13:24.760 --> 00:13:25.720] I would say no.
[00:13:25.720 --> 00:13:34.200] Like, I definitely think that there are opportunities out there for people to build B2C businesses that are solid and profitable.
[00:13:34.200 --> 00:13:49.400] It's just a matter of making sure that you are, you know, methodical about, you know, how you pursue your different traffic sources and putting people on your mailing list and optimizing the product itself for revenue and getting people into it and making them happy.
[00:13:49.400 --> 00:13:57.160] And if you can do those things, it doesn't matter whether it's B2B or B2C, like you're still going to have happy customers who are going to give you money.
[00:13:57.160 --> 00:14:00.040] But that's that last piece of it is the key part.
[00:14:00.040 --> 00:14:02.240] Like they have to be happy and give you money.
[00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:06.200] Because if they're not giving you money, then you know you don't really have a business.
[00:14:06.200 --> 00:14:16.720] And that's the, I think that's the challenge that most people run into with B2C companies is that your LTV tends to be much lower and you need a larger number of customers in order to make it work.
[00:14:17.040 --> 00:14:29.200] But if you can get those viral components, and there are a lot of viral components to something like this, like you can email out to a bunch of people, and you know, if one person gets in there and they email 50 people, now you're in front of 50 people instead of just one.
[00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:36.560] Like that's a huge viral aspect that a lot of things that try to do B2C don't necessarily have.
[00:14:36.560 --> 00:14:40.480] And because this has that kind of baked into it, that's an encouraging sign.
[00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:44.480] It's not like the only thing I would look at, but it's definitely encouraging.
[00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:48.640] Yeah, this it's tough because B2C is just hard.
[00:14:48.640 --> 00:14:49.680] It's just a different game.
[00:14:49.680 --> 00:14:55.760] With this customer lifetime value, you can't run ads, you can't pay salespeople, you can't, you know, there's so many things you can't do.
[00:14:55.760 --> 00:15:02.320] So it'll literally be outreach to bloggers and offering it free to bloggers and sponsoring bloggers.
[00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:05.760] And I keep saying bloggers, podcasters, whatever, people with audiences.
[00:15:05.760 --> 00:15:26.880] You know, if you got, here's the thing: if you got a bunch of Instagrammers with huge followings, YouTubers, bloggers, podcasters, yeah, it would be possible to grow this, but it's a completely different playbook than what we typically talk about or what you're going to hear from, you know, from Microcomp speakers, for example, or in the traction book, right?
[00:15:26.880 --> 00:15:31.360] Where it really is more focused on doing a lot more B2B stuff.
[00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:34.000] So you just have to ask yourself, is that what you want to do?
[00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:38.400] You know, do you want to build those relationships with influencers?
[00:15:38.400 --> 00:15:43.840] And, you know, it's not going to be the core of the HR's workflow or the core of a manager's workflow.
[00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:45.680] It's just, it's a nice to have.
[00:15:45.680 --> 00:15:51.920] And I think that's the other thing to think about: I had businesses in the early days that only made a thousand a month, $2,000 a month.
[00:15:51.920 --> 00:15:53.920] And frankly, I learned a lot from them.
[00:15:53.920 --> 00:16:01.880] It was a stair-step approach, you know, and I learned how to whatever, run ads and do SEO and do display ads and do AdWords and that kind of stuff.
[00:16:01.880 --> 00:16:04.520] And I took that experience with me to the next thing.
[00:16:04.520 --> 00:16:10.920] So, in its current incarnation, do I think VidHug can be a, you know, a mid-six-figure business?
[00:16:10.920 --> 00:16:11.720] I don't.
[00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:12.920] And it's just my opinion, right?
[00:16:12.920 --> 00:16:18.280] It doesn't mean I'm right or wrong, but I don't see an angle there as it stands today.
[00:16:18.280 --> 00:16:26.520] But then again, I could have said that about Drip the month it launched because it was just an email capture form and autoresponders, you know?
[00:16:26.520 --> 00:16:40.760] And then we kept pivoting and grinding and customer developing and slow launching and doing all the things that you heard me talk about on this podcast over the years and eventually got it, you know, into the well under the seven figure mark.
[00:16:40.760 --> 00:16:45.960] And so that's the thing is, is as it stands today, VidHug is a, it is a cool side project.
[00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:51.480] And frankly, I'm impressed that you've gotten it to $600 a month, you know, given the price point and all that.
[00:16:51.480 --> 00:16:53.160] But I think it depends on how you're thinking about it.
[00:16:53.160 --> 00:17:02.280] If you think about it as good learning and you want to build it up to a grand, two, three grand a month, that to me seems doable and it'll be learning and it'll be a little bit of income.
[00:17:02.280 --> 00:17:04.840] I don't know how you would ever get it past there.
[00:17:04.840 --> 00:17:08.600] Maybe you'll eventually come to the point where you see an angle to do that.
[00:17:08.600 --> 00:17:10.600] I also had a lot of businesses that never did.
[00:17:10.600 --> 00:17:22.920] You know, I had e-books and info products and I had e-commerce site and I had small software products and I had one-time software products and all of those topped out and I could never get them past, let's say, between 500 and 5,000 a month.
[00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:24.920] I had several that were in that range.
[00:17:24.920 --> 00:17:28.760] And eventually I either sunsetted them or I sold them as I moved on to bigger things.
[00:17:28.760 --> 00:17:34.760] And so my gut is that VidHug will fit into that space, that role in your entrepreneurial career.
[00:17:34.760 --> 00:17:37.000] And there's certainly a time and place for those.
[00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:41.960] And you just got to figure out, I think, how you're thinking about it and where you want it to take you.
[00:17:42.600 --> 00:17:46.080] So, yeah, obviously, Mike and I were, it's funny.
[00:17:44.600 --> 00:17:48.160] I think we were right.
[00:17:44.760 --> 00:17:50.400] We were probably, we were right, but also wrong.
[00:17:50.560 --> 00:17:58.880] Like, obviously, we were technically incorrect because it became something most, but we couldn't have predicted the pandemic, where, as you said, I love this phrase you used.
[00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:04.480] You said, I basically got to problem solution fit, but good vibes don't pay the bills.
[00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:11.280] And COVID basically, the pandemic shifted the market and brought product market fit to me.
[00:18:11.280 --> 00:18:21.120] Most of the time, you have to tweak the product to fit the market, but the market basically shifted to you, which I think is a succinct and very clever way of saying it.
[00:18:21.120 --> 00:18:25.520] These days, VidHug is located at memento.com.
[00:18:25.520 --> 00:18:28.880] Memories are made with memento.
[00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:36.240] And it started off as something that you built to fix a pain point that you experienced with your mom's 70th birthday.
[00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:38.000] You want to tell us that story?
[00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:39.680] Yeah, that's right.
[00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:43.280] So, this was back in late 2016.
[00:18:43.520 --> 00:18:45.840] My mom was turning 70 years old.
[00:18:46.080 --> 00:18:49.600] Milestone birthday, you want to do something special.
[00:18:49.600 --> 00:18:52.000] And, you know, I come from an immigrant family.
[00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:55.040] My mom's family and friends mostly don't live close by.
[00:18:55.040 --> 00:18:56.720] They live in other continents.
[00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:03.840] And so we thought, well, what if we got everybody to record a video message to mom and put that all together into one video?
[00:19:03.840 --> 00:19:06.320] And my mom was turning 70.
[00:19:06.320 --> 00:19:09.440] She's the youngest of her many siblings.
[00:19:09.760 --> 00:19:17.360] And so you can imagine the crowd, the audience that I was trying to get recorded videos sent to me digitally from.
[00:19:17.360 --> 00:19:19.440] And so I experienced the challenge with that.
[00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:27.360] I did actually put together a little webpage where they could visit it, use their webcam, record a video, and that would automatically get sent to me.
[00:19:27.360 --> 00:19:39.320] And that, even that, as clunky as it was, was easier than like record something and put the file in Dropbox and or try to email it to me, but Gmail attachments won't, you know, allow that, that kind of thing.
[00:19:39.320 --> 00:19:41.240] Then I put them together in iMovie.
[00:19:41.240 --> 00:19:45.000] It took me a long time, even though I consider myself a technical person.
[00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:48.040] It's just you want it to be good and perfect.
[00:19:48.040 --> 00:19:52.840] And so by the end of it, when I was going to show her the video, I was honestly sick of the project.
[00:19:52.840 --> 00:19:58.040] I was like, I spent way too much time on this, but let's see, let's show it to her.
[00:19:58.040 --> 00:20:07.320] And it was, you know, as I would find out again and again and again with VidHug, it was the most, one of the most impactful gifts that she's ever received.
[00:20:07.320 --> 00:20:08.840] She was speechless.
[00:20:08.840 --> 00:20:09.880] She cried.
[00:20:09.880 --> 00:20:15.800] She told me, especially because her generation is not as, you know, digital.
[00:20:16.040 --> 00:20:30.840] She told me, you know, this one friend that you had in the video from Australia, I haven't seen her face in 25 years because we write each other letters, but we haven't, you know, necessarily like shared selfies because we don't do that.
[00:20:30.840 --> 00:20:35.800] And so I know that's a generational thing, but that just showed me the depth of the impact of it.
[00:20:35.800 --> 00:20:38.920] And I think it was my brother's partner.
[00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:41.240] She said, you know, she knew I was a techie.
[00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:42.520] She knew I liked to hack on things.
[00:20:42.520 --> 00:20:45.880] She said, like, you should build something that anyone can do this.
[00:20:45.880 --> 00:20:48.360] And that just started the idea.
[00:20:48.360 --> 00:20:54.760] And I was like, yeah, like, wouldn't it be cool if more people did this because it was, it didn't take so long to do.
[00:20:54.760 --> 00:21:01.560] And so you built an MVP and it seems like spare time 2017, 2018, hacked something together.
[00:21:01.560 --> 00:21:06.440] And did you originally give it away for free, or did you have kind of a stripe link from the start?
[00:21:06.440 --> 00:21:13.480] No, it was the bare bones MVP was very, I had read the Lean Startup and I was trying to be good.
[00:21:13.720 --> 00:21:17.760] So my MVP was simply a web page where you could submit videos.
[00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:21.600] And it was me iMovieing the clips together on the background.
[00:21:14.840 --> 00:21:22.000] Wow.
[00:21:22.320 --> 00:21:25.680] And so I was doing that for family, friends.
[00:21:25.680 --> 00:21:30.400] I was kind of advertising it as a service just to validate, like, is this something other people want?
[00:21:30.400 --> 00:21:32.640] And I got good feedback from that.
[00:21:32.640 --> 00:21:35.920] Then I was like, I don't want to iMovie these things.
[00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:42.640] And so the technical challenge was like, can I build the video editing automation on the background?
[00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:45.680] So I built that in the cloud, very rudimentary.
[00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:49.360] And that's when I first started charging for it with Stripe.
[00:21:49.360 --> 00:21:50.640] And that was very basic.
[00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:58.400] It just put the videos together, no background music, no audio normalization, almost no graphics of any kind.
[00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:02.560] The process would succeed probably 85% of the time.
[00:22:02.560 --> 00:22:04.800] And the rest I was iMovieing.
[00:22:04.800 --> 00:22:12.800] And yeah, so then incrementally, like there were newer versions after that that were faster, better, better graphics, more music.
[00:22:12.800 --> 00:22:24.160] And actually the last incremental version that I made, which was a really big step up in terms of what the user got, was released a couple months before the pandemic.
[00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:24.640] Wow.
[00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:25.120] Yeah.
[00:22:25.120 --> 00:22:29.520] So just luck meets opportunity type or preparation meets opportunity in that case.
[00:22:29.520 --> 00:22:33.200] So when you add it, you added a Stripe link to it at like middle of 2018.
[00:22:33.360 --> 00:22:34.240] I have in the notes.
[00:22:34.240 --> 00:22:38.880] And did you, did it make any kind of money for that over the next year or two?
[00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:40.960] Or was it just like hundreds a month?
[00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:42.240] You know, just hundreds.
[00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:44.320] So yeah, like I wrote into the pod.
[00:22:44.320 --> 00:22:51.440] It was doing, I got to $600 a month, and that was because of some fortunate marketing on my part.
[00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:54.720] I was still, I was a technical person figuring out how to market.
[00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:59.360] I was on Quora answering all the special occasion related questions.
[00:22:59.360 --> 00:23:07.160] And at that time, it was tough because not only had I picked B2C, I had picked something new that people didn't really know was an option for them.
[00:23:07.160 --> 00:23:10.120] They weren't searching for group videos.
[00:23:10.120 --> 00:23:14.120] So I had to find like who were the people who...
[00:23:14.120 --> 00:23:16.840] really, really needed this product and were desperate for it.
[00:23:16.840 --> 00:23:30.680] And so I was trying to get into communities related to, let's say, family with like people deployed in the military and then like people in long distance relationships basically I found were the ones that really were coming to this product.
[00:23:30.920 --> 00:23:32.840] So yeah, hundreds of dollars a month.
[00:23:32.840 --> 00:23:33.960] It was a side project.
[00:23:33.960 --> 00:23:39.400] Obviously, I was still doing, you know, technical consulting work to pay the bills.
[00:23:39.400 --> 00:23:49.160] But I was passionate about it because every user that came along and used it had that same reaction of like, wow, you know, like this is, I only spent $15.
[00:23:49.320 --> 00:23:54.120] A lot of them told me like I would have spent a lot more had I known what the impact was.
[00:23:54.120 --> 00:23:55.240] How much were you charging?
[00:23:55.560 --> 00:23:57.240] It was a one-time fee, right?
[00:23:57.240 --> 00:24:02.040] Yeah, I think I started at $12 and then I increased to $15.
[00:24:02.040 --> 00:24:12.440] And again, early stage, I was that founder who was like, I was putting like 90% off coupons out there just to like try to get people to use it and gradually got away from that.
[00:24:12.920 --> 00:24:16.120] And so you can see the mountain you have to climb.
[00:24:16.120 --> 00:24:22.600] $600 a month is not a lot, but it's like a decent amount of users you have to attract, right?
[00:24:23.320 --> 00:24:26.520] And they churn every time because it's one time, right?
[00:24:26.520 --> 00:24:27.080] One time, right.
[00:24:27.080 --> 00:24:31.160] So you need 50 new people to convert and pay you every month to get to 600.
[00:24:31.400 --> 00:24:33.000] And that's where one time is difficult.
[00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:35.320] That's where B2C is difficult because the pricing is low.
[00:24:35.320 --> 00:24:40.200] And so you need, you just, I think what we said in the podcast episode is like, you just don't have money to market.
[00:24:41.080 --> 00:24:41.960] You can't really do much.
[00:24:41.960 --> 00:24:42.760] You can't buy ads.
[00:24:42.760 --> 00:24:45.000] You know, it has to be these free marketing approaches, right?
[00:24:45.040 --> 00:24:46.880] Which is free, which is your time.
[00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:49.040] And that you did Quora and Reddit and Facebook.
[00:24:49.040 --> 00:24:52.240] And, but here's the thing: you went out, we talk about hard work, luck, and skill.
[00:24:52.240 --> 00:25:01.920] Like, you put in hard work because you reached out and got a crucial backlink from like a blogger, right, who had a listicle about long-distance gift ideas where they said video, and you're like, hey, can you just add a link to VidHug?
[00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:05.920] And that kind of started, that was a flywheel for you, right?
[00:25:06.240 --> 00:25:08.240] Yes, yeah, I love that story.
[00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:14.160] So I was still listening to the pod at the time, and I knew I needed content, right?
[00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:24.000] And so I did start like a blog for VidHug and I was writing my own, but I knew, you know, again, that was a long-term thing, that that wasn't going to happen right away.
[00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:29.600] So I knew the terms I was interested in were related at that time to long-distance relationships.
[00:25:29.600 --> 00:25:35.600] And so one of the top terms for that was a listicle about long-distance birthday gift ideas.
[00:25:35.600 --> 00:25:41.280] And it was from somebody who had an e-commerce business where they sold birthdays in a jar, basically.
[00:25:41.760 --> 00:25:46.720] And so, or like a gift box, but it included like birthday cake in a jar, I believe.
[00:25:47.120 --> 00:25:49.520] Really, like a lovely idea.
[00:25:49.520 --> 00:25:51.680] And they had this article of like, here's the ideas.
[00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:54.240] And obviously, like, their product was in that list.
[00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:56.560] But number four was like, make a video.
[00:25:56.560 --> 00:26:03.120] And almost all, I remember all the 10 links or all the 10 items in the list had a link, but the fourth one didn't.
[00:26:03.120 --> 00:26:04.880] The video one didn't.
[00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:09.280] And so I thought about it and I didn't want to just cold approach them.
[00:26:09.280 --> 00:26:11.520] So I actually did a little bit of research on this founder.
[00:26:11.520 --> 00:26:12.960] She was on an interview somewhere.
[00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:13.680] I listened to it.
[00:26:13.680 --> 00:26:16.960] And so the one I reached out to her, I had done my research.
[00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:21.280] And so it was an approach where I was, you know, like, I'd spent some time like learning about you.
[00:26:21.280 --> 00:26:25.600] And I think that made her receptive to talking to me.
[00:26:25.600 --> 00:26:30.280] And we actually got on a phone call together and, you know, had a good talk.
[00:26:30.280 --> 00:26:32.360] She was a solo founder of an e-commerce business.
[00:26:29.760 --> 00:26:34.760] I was a solo founder of VidHug at the time.
[00:26:35.320 --> 00:26:37.800] And yeah, she just said, Yeah, yeah, I'll do that.
[00:26:37.800 --> 00:26:39.080] I'll put that link on you for there.
[00:26:39.080 --> 00:26:46.200] And because of where she ranked, that was immediately like, boom, one to two sales a day just from that link, which I know, again, doesn't sound like a lot.
[00:26:46.200 --> 00:26:51.240] It's not a lot of money, but like for me at that time, that was like a level, that was a stair step for VidHug.
[00:26:51.240 --> 00:26:54.840] And that actually gave me more motivation to keep going with it.
[00:26:54.840 --> 00:27:02.360] And that's the thing I like to underscore on the podcast a lot: like flat revenue, no revenue, even just any type of flat revenue is really discouraging.
[00:27:02.360 --> 00:27:08.280] And spending tons of time nights and weekends and having the number not go up is harder than most people realize.
[00:27:08.280 --> 00:27:17.000] And so, getting, as you said, one to two a day, 30 to 60 a month, like recur, that becomes, it's not technically MRR, but it is recurring-ish, right?
[00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:18.680] As long as that keeps ranking.
[00:27:18.680 --> 00:27:25.400] And so that's what you were seeing, which can really kind of really help boost your motivation for a while.
[00:27:25.400 --> 00:27:34.840] And so that, if we smash forward, because that was in, yeah, 2018, 2019, you put the stripe link on, you did, you did a lot of one-time kind of things that don't scale, right?
[00:27:34.840 --> 00:27:37.880] Like we said, Quora and Reddit, Facebook, you get that link.
[00:27:37.880 --> 00:27:47.480] And if we smash cut to February of 2020, right before the pandemic starts, you had VidHug up to $1,000 a month, still on paper use.
[00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:54.600] And so that gives people an idea of like you were spending years, nights, and weekends to get it from, it was at $600, I think, in 2018.
[00:27:54.600 --> 00:27:56.280] And then it was at, you know, $1,000 a month.
[00:27:56.680 --> 00:27:57.320] It's a tough thing.
[00:27:57.320 --> 00:28:02.280] And you said, I considered selling it, even had interest, but didn't complete the sale.
[00:28:02.280 --> 00:28:05.800] So you were kind of just like, I don't know if I want to keep doing this.
[00:28:05.800 --> 00:28:07.480] I mean, you were kind of done with Moto.
[00:28:07.560 --> 00:28:09.320] Yeah, what was the story there?
[00:28:09.640 --> 00:28:10.040] Yeah.
[00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:13.240] So again, like you said, that's early 2020.
[00:28:13.240 --> 00:28:20.480] And as somebody who was like a freelancer consultant, that's the time that I did my annual taxes for the previous year.
[00:28:20.800 --> 00:28:29.040] And 2019 was the year that I took the most time away from billable hours to work on VidHug.
[00:28:29.040 --> 00:28:32.880] And it was easy for me because I enjoyed working on VidHug.
[00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:39.360] Again, it was like, you know, it was a fun project from a technical perspective, and the customers were having great experiences.
[00:28:39.360 --> 00:28:46.160] So there were good vibes, but it allowed me to ignore, you know, the stuff we've been talking about with the low revenue numbers.
[00:28:46.160 --> 00:28:49.840] And so that was staring me in the face at the time of doing taxes.
[00:28:49.840 --> 00:29:01.280] It was like, whoa, okay, like I'm having fun and I feel passionate about this project, but I have a wife, I have a family, and I have a mortgage.
[00:29:01.280 --> 00:29:09.120] And I think anybody who's been a freelancer consultant also knows that you don't get promotions when you're in that position.
[00:29:09.120 --> 00:29:11.680] You don't get a new job title every year.
[00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:17.520] And you probably have a peer group where you're seeing people make real, like, tangible progressions.
[00:29:17.520 --> 00:29:22.800] So that combined with, like, whoa, my income was a lot less than it was in previous years.
[00:29:22.800 --> 00:29:35.600] And VidHug is what I have to show for it really made me examine it and think like, obviously, I wasn't ready to fully step away from it, but I said, I'm going to put it on the back burner and I'm going to focus on my consulting.
[00:29:35.600 --> 00:29:47.360] You know, there was one other piece there that was making me feel that, which was the other anecdote is about the support that I had to do for VidHug because it's a B2C business, low cost.
[00:29:47.360 --> 00:29:54.960] And actually, I think, you know, you've said this before: sometimes the lower the cost, the more support you might have to do for those users.
[00:29:54.960 --> 00:30:06.040] And so, most of the users of the products were, I mean, almost all of them, lovely, but it's a technical thing and it's attracting people who are non-technical.
[00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:09.640] And again, like I'm the solo founder, it's a side project.
[00:30:09.800 --> 00:30:11.800] It was buggy at the beginning.
[00:30:11.800 --> 00:30:14.280] So I remember one time I was with my family.
[00:30:14.280 --> 00:30:19.160] We were at a nice cottage in kind of like the backcountry.
[00:30:19.320 --> 00:30:22.920] Doesn't have Wi-Fi and not good sell signal.
[00:30:22.920 --> 00:30:26.760] And I'm trying to have a Help Scout conversation with a customer.
[00:30:26.760 --> 00:30:29.160] And my family is inside playing board games.
[00:30:29.160 --> 00:30:38.520] And I'm standing on a rocky beach holding my cell phone out to try to catch a signal until I feel my phone buzz with the next response from Help Scout.
[00:30:38.520 --> 00:30:45.480] And that combined with seeing like what it meant for the bottom line, it was like, this has been fun, but is it really worth it?
[00:30:45.480 --> 00:30:47.640] You know, that was kind of the feeling.
[00:30:47.640 --> 00:30:56.760] Yeah, I've been in that same situation up on the coast of Maine at one point early on when I was doing everything myself, 2008 or 9, and I was, it was there with the family, had a young kid.
[00:30:56.760 --> 00:30:59.480] And I remember like trying to get sales service to answer responses.
[00:30:59.480 --> 00:31:02.360] And I also had some one-time sales stuff at the time.
[00:31:02.360 --> 00:31:04.440] And it was just like, what am I doing?
[00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:05.720] Like, what is happening right now?
[00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:07.240] I don't want to be doing this.
[00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:14.040] And especially for 12 or 15 bucks one-time, every email you respond to is like, well, I just kind of, you know what I mean?
[00:31:14.040 --> 00:31:15.720] Like, none of this was worth it.
[00:31:15.720 --> 00:31:20.120] So yeah, I could see how you would, you'd be discouraged, not only lack of growth, but the support.
[00:31:20.120 --> 00:31:37.240] And then one month later, right, to March of 2020, and I think you sent me a graph, which is awesome, but it's like your daily active users goes from, I don't know, approximately 250 a day to 5,000 a day by the end of March.
[00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:40.440] So it's not like a 20x increase.
[00:31:40.440 --> 00:31:45.840] And obviously, this has something to do with the lockdown, right?
[00:31:45.840 --> 00:31:49.920] You want to talk us through kind of the logic that caused that to just spike up?
[00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:53.120] Was there was there suddenly search volume or were you being mentioned?
[00:31:53.120 --> 00:31:58.480] Like, what was the real, or was it just all direct and people were somehow, yeah, I just don't know how they were finding you?
[00:31:58.480 --> 00:32:01.440] Yeah, I, it was, it was a crazy time.
[00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:11.600] And I think the funny thing is that I think most people assume that because I was deep in this product and I understood who needed it, that I would know right away what would happen.
[00:32:11.600 --> 00:32:13.440] But I, I feel a bit stupid.
[00:32:13.440 --> 00:32:14.080] I didn't.
[00:32:14.080 --> 00:32:20.320] I was so focused at that time when things started locking down when they announced that our kids wouldn't be going back to school.
[00:32:20.320 --> 00:32:23.680] I was focused on I'm back with my consulting business.
[00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:26.480] I'm moving that from the co-working space back to home.
[00:32:26.480 --> 00:32:33.280] My wife and I need to watch our three kids as they're at home and make sure that they're still getting some education.
[00:32:33.280 --> 00:32:37.520] And of course, I was watching the news and frightened about what's going on.
[00:32:37.520 --> 00:32:48.720] VidHug was at that time just like a Google Analytics tab that I kept open on the side just to like, I like to see the real-time, like, you know, who's on the site and how many people are using it and that kind of thing.
[00:32:48.720 --> 00:32:57.280] And I remember trying to pay attention to my consulting work and noticing that, you know, the number of users on the site kept growing.
[00:32:57.280 --> 00:33:00.320] Like you could watch it literally in real time.
[00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:03.600] And as you saw in that graph, it just kept going.
[00:33:03.600 --> 00:33:09.280] I wish I had the 100% clear attribution to say what drove that.
[00:33:09.280 --> 00:33:13.040] But what happened was that people couldn't celebrate in person anymore.
[00:33:13.040 --> 00:33:20.240] I knew that VidHug helped people celebrate who couldn't be together in person because I knew it was used by people in kind of long-distance situations.
[00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:23.840] But now everybody couldn't celebrate in person.
[00:33:23.840 --> 00:33:34.680] And so my feeling was that it was a combination of a few people found the product and knew about it, probably through that link that I landed.
[00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:38.280] But after that, it's got a viral loop built into the product.
[00:33:38.280 --> 00:33:39.800] That's one of the advantages, right?
[00:33:39.800 --> 00:33:43.720] So if somebody does a VidHug, we call them the organizer.
[00:33:43.720 --> 00:33:46.760] They're the one that's like commissioning, they're making the video.
[00:33:46.760 --> 00:33:51.240] They then invite their friends and family of the person that it's for to participate in the video.
[00:33:51.240 --> 00:33:56.440] Sometimes they invite 100 people, 200, sometimes 20, but a lot of people.
[00:33:56.440 --> 00:33:59.880] All of those people come to VidHug and record a video.
[00:33:59.880 --> 00:34:02.200] They've now seen the platform.
[00:34:02.200 --> 00:34:05.960] They understand, in a sense, what it makes.
[00:34:05.960 --> 00:34:15.000] And if only a handful of those people, you know, a small percentage of them later say, oh, you know, my mom's birthday is coming up or my son's birthday is coming up.
[00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.000] And I don't know what I'm going to do because it's COVID, that's what happened.
[00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:25.960] And the thing that surprised me, many things surprised me, but we would see like happy second birthday videos on there.
[00:34:26.280 --> 00:34:35.000] People were making birthdays for the kids, which, you know, I didn't, I never thought this product would be for that because kids have birthday parties in person.
[00:34:35.320 --> 00:34:37.000] And so we were seeing that.
[00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:46.360] We were seeing schools use it immensely for teacher appreciation, for just staying connected with each other while they were all at home.
[00:34:46.360 --> 00:34:53.240] And so from March, April, May, that growth just kept going like a freight train.
[00:34:53.240 --> 00:34:57.000] Yeah, and the viral loop I think is a huge key to that.
[00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:01.720] I talk in the SAS playbook about SAS virality specifically, because it's different.
[00:35:01.720 --> 00:35:05.000] You know, Facebook virality is different than SaaS virality.
[00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.880] So, but within SaaS, I demarcated strong virality and weak virality.
[00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:11.480] Okay, so let's do weak first.
[00:35:11.480 --> 00:35:15.840] This is a good example of this is SavvyCal or SignWell, right?
[00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:19.360] SavviCal's scheduling link, SignWell is electronic signature.
[00:35:19.680 --> 00:35:22.720] I can send you a link to book me.
[00:35:22.720 --> 00:35:28.160] I don't invite you to be a user, I don't invite you to contribute, but you might, you'll see powered by SavviCal.
[00:35:28.160 --> 00:35:30.000] And that's what I call weak virality.
[00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:31.360] Same thing with electronic signature.
[00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:33.840] You'll see, oh, he's sending documents through SignWell.
[00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:34.480] Cool.
[00:35:34.480 --> 00:35:36.880] Strong virality is when I invite you.
[00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:43.680] Strong virality is Slack, where I'm the tech lead on my five-person dev team and I invite my four other people.
[00:35:43.680 --> 00:35:49.520] They create an account and they do stuff and they interact with it more, more deeply than just clicking a link or clicking a thing.
[00:35:49.520 --> 00:36:01.520] And so VidHug has, at least by my, you know, my arbitrary definition, strong SaaS virality, even though you still weren't SaaS, you were still one time, but it just, it drove the, drove the attention.
[00:36:01.520 --> 00:36:07.760] And once people have used it, then they get the idea, oh, well, I could send this to my friends and my family and all that.
[00:36:07.760 --> 00:36:09.440] And so you hit milestones.
[00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:10.560] I love that you listed this.
[00:36:10.560 --> 00:36:11.520] I hit milestones.
[00:36:11.520 --> 00:36:14.880] More revenue in one hour than usual in a day.
[00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:17.920] More revenue in one day than usual in a month.
[00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:21.120] More revenue in one day than all of 2019.
[00:36:21.120 --> 00:36:25.520] Then you started working seven days a week, 14 hours a day.
[00:36:25.520 --> 00:36:33.440] And so your wife must have, I mean, she was just on taking care of three kids duty because you had no time to do anything.
[00:36:33.440 --> 00:36:35.280] What was your time spent doing?
[00:36:35.280 --> 00:36:39.440] Was it mostly support or was it scaling and bug fixes?
[00:36:39.760 --> 00:36:41.040] All of the above.
[00:36:41.040 --> 00:36:42.960] There was a lot of supports.
[00:36:43.200 --> 00:36:50.480] And again, like when we plot out the metrics of how many users that used VidHug actually needed support, that percentage is very low.
[00:36:50.480 --> 00:37:06.040] But because a single customer brings 100, 200 people to the platform, people who record videos would still come into support and say, like, you know, often they'd have a webcam issue that wasn't our problem, but they're on VidHug using it, and so we would support them through that.
[00:37:06.040 --> 00:37:14.360] Or somebody who's being sent the video, like, I'm trying to watch the video, but my old Windows machine doesn't have the right codec on it, like that kind of thing.
[00:37:14.360 --> 00:37:22.520] So, yeah, even though it was a low percentage of the number of active users that needed support, my Help Scout inbox was just full.
[00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:25.160] And so, I was doing all of that.
[00:37:25.160 --> 00:37:30.040] Luckily, I had again, this is preparation meets opportunity.
[00:37:30.040 --> 00:37:34.920] I built VidHug with a serverless back end using the serverless framework.
[00:37:34.920 --> 00:37:40.840] So, it was using like microservices on the API side, and that actually scaled fairly well.
[00:37:40.840 --> 00:37:55.400] You know, I had some minor hiccups there, but I do feel like if I had it running on, and I'm not advocating this as a reason because, again, this is such a one-off, but if I had it running on a small server, it would have completely just like that, it would have been trouble falling over.
[00:37:55.400 --> 00:38:00.520] Yeah, so there was little things it was all in AWS, but definitely had to tweak some things there.
[00:38:00.520 --> 00:38:11.880] And also, like, if people remember, during that time, even large services were having trouble because everybody was moving to work from home, everybody was going remote, the internet was just under strain.
[00:38:11.880 --> 00:38:19.240] So, a lot of the issues that we ended up having were like larger third-party services that we relied on going down.
[00:38:19.240 --> 00:38:29.880] Like, you know, we had like an AWS outage, we had at one point in time, uh, VitHug was using DigitalOcean and they had an issue, um, so those kind of things.
[00:38:29.880 --> 00:38:35.560] But of course, your users don't know that that's they've to them, that's a VitHug issue, and that's fair.
[00:38:35.560 --> 00:38:44.000] There was that, and and yeah, bug fixing, because at that time, I'd never had so many people with so many different devices and browsers.
[00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:47.360] Recording videos in the browser has come a long way.
[00:38:47.520 --> 00:38:52.720] At that time, it was still device-dependent, browser-dependent, lots of those things.
[00:38:53.040 --> 00:39:03.840] And to give people an idea, you know, I had said you went from 250 actives a day up to 5,000 a day by the end of March.
[00:39:03.840 --> 00:39:07.280] And by the end of April, you're at almost 80,000.
[00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:09.680] So it just, I mean, talk about exponential.
[00:39:09.680 --> 00:39:13.360] And in April, again, we talked about you were at $1,000 a month, plateau.
[00:39:13.360 --> 00:39:16.320] In April, you did six figures of revenue.
[00:39:16.320 --> 00:39:18.400] And I remember you emailing me during this time.
[00:39:18.400 --> 00:39:24.480] I could probably pull it up, but I remember you were extremely stressed and you were like, this is brutal.
[00:39:24.480 --> 00:39:33.520] And, you know, in the notes here, you sent me, it sounds ridiculous to say that I experienced trauma from a wildly successful growing business, but I did.
[00:39:33.520 --> 00:39:36.800] You were staying up till 3.30 a.m.
[00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:41.200] at one point because there was this service in Romania that went down and they were asleep.
[00:39:41.200 --> 00:39:50.400] And the downside of VidHug, this is quoting you, the downside of VidHug being so special to users was that when it didn't work, you were responsible for ruining someone's birthday or anniversary.
[00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:54.320] Every single user was truly there for a special occasion.
[00:39:54.320 --> 00:39:57.760] So this sounds like not fun at all.
[00:39:58.080 --> 00:40:00.000] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:07.760] So it's the upside of, you know, experiencing the user's joy when their occasion comes off, but you get to experience the downside of that too.
[00:40:07.760 --> 00:40:10.800] So that in that time was, again, a third-party service.
[00:40:11.200 --> 00:40:22.640] To have our videos recorded in the browser and then transcoded and sent to our servers, we used a third-party service by some Bootstrap founders who were in Romania and they built a great product, frankly.
[00:40:22.640 --> 00:40:24.240] And for the most part, it did work.
[00:40:24.240 --> 00:40:30.520] But like I said, that early stage of the pandemic was not really a good time for many services.
[00:40:30.840 --> 00:40:40.040] And so they did have some downtime when they basically got, my understanding is they got DDoSed by one of their other customers, you know, like another customer who didn't realize that they were going to have so much volume.
[00:40:40.040 --> 00:40:46.280] And so that meant that nobody could submit a video to VidHug during that time.
[00:40:46.280 --> 00:40:49.160] And I think I have this in the notes too.
[00:40:49.160 --> 00:40:56.040] Just to give you a picture, at our peak in May, a video was being submitted to VidHug every second.
[00:40:56.040 --> 00:40:57.160] Incredible volume.
[00:40:57.160 --> 00:40:57.800] Yeah.
[00:40:57.800 --> 00:41:05.240] So every second, or maybe a little bit less than that, somebody was not able to submit a video to VidHug.
[00:41:05.240 --> 00:41:12.840] And these people were, you know, I've been invited to be part of my friend's birthday, and now they're not going to get my video because it's not working for me.
[00:41:12.840 --> 00:41:26.920] Or I remember talking to someone like, I've been working on this video for my husband for weeks and its birthday is tomorrow and I want to surprise him with it, surprise him with it, but it's not ready because the rendering platform isn't working.
[00:41:26.920 --> 00:41:34.920] And while those times were rare, my heart was so intertwined with this product, right?
[00:41:34.920 --> 00:41:46.040] As its creator, as its founder, that I soaked in when the product worked well and I love that, but I felt heartbroken when this happened to users.
[00:41:46.040 --> 00:41:48.360] And I remember that night.
[00:41:48.360 --> 00:41:52.760] I remember, I want to say I remember it well, but it was not enjoyable.
[00:41:52.760 --> 00:41:58.760] I was exhausted and I remember just sobbing with my wife next to me.
[00:41:58.760 --> 00:42:04.920] She was kind of comforting me and frankly saying to her, I don't know if I have it in me to keep going.
[00:42:04.920 --> 00:42:05.880] And I did.
[00:42:05.880 --> 00:42:13.040] It sounds crazy to say when you say the revenue numbers, I thought about pulling the plug.
[00:42:13.040 --> 00:42:17.920] I thought about putting a static up a static page and saying, like, sorry, folks, I just can't do it anymore.
[00:42:18.240 --> 00:42:27.920] And I'm happy that I was able to connect with some advisors and hire some help and dig out of that place.
[00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:34.080] But I almost got to that place where I just didn't, it wasn't worth it to me no matter how much money it was making.
[00:42:34.080 --> 00:42:36.000] Yeah, and that's a really weird place to be, huh?
[00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:41.200] Because as an entrepreneur or an aspiring founder, when you're doing it at nights and weekends for years and years and years, all you want is success.
[00:42:41.200 --> 00:42:46.880] And sometimes success, even when it doesn't come this quickly, it can still be extremely stressful.
[00:42:47.120 --> 00:42:53.120] I can certainly speak to experiencing that with DRIP, which again didn't grow nearly like, you know, exponentially like this.
[00:42:53.120 --> 00:42:56.400] But I remember thinking, shouldn't I be happier?
[00:42:56.400 --> 00:42:59.360] This is what I've wanted for, you know, for 10, 15 years.
[00:42:59.360 --> 00:43:01.920] And now I'm here and it's like, this is not very fun.
[00:43:02.080 --> 00:43:05.040] That's a really, really interesting place to be.
[00:43:05.040 --> 00:43:07.920] Why do you think you didn't pull the plug?
[00:43:08.240 --> 00:43:12.400] I definitely want to give some credit to my wife that she was very supportive.
[00:43:12.880 --> 00:43:16.640] And she wasn't the kind to say, like, you know, no, don't pull the plug.
[00:43:16.640 --> 00:43:18.240] You should keep going like that strongly.
[00:43:18.240 --> 00:43:24.720] But she was just, you know, she was there for me and, you know, kind of in a way, like, this will pass.
[00:43:24.720 --> 00:43:26.480] These things always do pass.
[00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:27.360] And it did.
[00:43:27.360 --> 00:43:35.440] And, you know, what I found, even though I was answering so many support questions during that time, almost everyone was so understanding.
[00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:38.880] They were like, oh my gosh, I'm speaking to the actual creator of this product.
[00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:43.280] Because I had in my signature, you know, Zamir Khan, founder and CEO of VidHug.
[00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:47.200] Little did they know I was the only person working for that company.
[00:43:47.200 --> 00:43:50.720] But they felt special and they said, oh, like you're looking at this right now.
[00:43:50.720 --> 00:43:53.200] You're responding to my email in the middle of the night.
[00:43:53.200 --> 00:43:54.160] Thank you.
[00:43:54.160 --> 00:43:56.960] And so that made it a bit easier.
[00:43:57.200 --> 00:43:59.680] But I have to give credit to my wife, Heather.
[00:43:59.960 --> 00:44:07.320] Just like when I was out on that beach holding the phone out for signal, she wasn't saying, like, you know, why are you wasting time on VidHug?
[00:44:07.320 --> 00:44:08.920] It's not paying the bills.
[00:44:08.920 --> 00:44:10.120] She never said that.
[00:44:10.120 --> 00:44:15.640] And so I think for a lot of founders who have been through this journey, they know that it takes more than just one person.
[00:44:16.040 --> 00:44:19.400] There's other people behind the scenes that make that happen.
[00:44:19.720 --> 00:44:20.520] My wife, Dr.
[00:44:20.520 --> 00:44:27.080] Sherry Walling, has a phrase that your spouse or significant other, your life partner, is your original investor.
[00:44:27.080 --> 00:44:35.240] Your original, so if you raise subsequent funding, your original investor is that person who is there with you because they put up with, they put up with your bullshit.
[00:44:35.240 --> 00:44:39.960] And I say that about, because she put up with my bullshit for years and years of the nights and weekends.
[00:44:39.960 --> 00:44:47.240] And I think that is almost a requisite to be able to pull it off because it is hard to do this alone.
[00:44:47.480 --> 00:44:52.600] I love that term because, yeah, they go all in, right?
[00:44:52.600 --> 00:44:53.160] Yeah.
[00:44:53.480 --> 00:44:58.120] And so you obviously get this popular this quickly.
[00:44:58.120 --> 00:45:14.760] You received inbound interest from a lot of investment firms, including Sequoia, including Punch Bowl, which is a digital invitation and greeting card platform that wound up acquiring you in 2021, I believe is when it finally closed.
[00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:20.280] But you were getting this inbound interest to raise funding and you're thinking to yourself, I'm just trying to keep this thing afloat.
[00:45:20.280 --> 00:45:21.560] Do I want to, I'm a bootstrapper.
[00:45:21.560 --> 00:45:22.440] Do I need to raise funding?
[00:45:22.440 --> 00:45:23.720] Do I want to raise funding, right?
[00:45:23.720 --> 00:45:26.120] It's going to complicate things.
[00:45:26.440 --> 00:45:32.680] But in 2021, it was Matt is the CEO of Punch Bowl, reached out again.
[00:45:32.680 --> 00:45:36.520] And instead of investing, he says, Maybe we should buy you.
[00:45:36.520 --> 00:45:40.200] Was that even on your radar before then of selling?
[00:45:40.200 --> 00:45:41.160] Were you thinking about it?
[00:45:41.240 --> 00:45:43.560] I mean, or were you just trying to keep your head above water?
[00:45:43.560 --> 00:45:45.840] I'm guessing by this time, you've hired some help, right?
[00:45:44.840 --> 00:45:51.440] You have some support help because this is a year-ish, nine months after pandemic started.
[00:45:51.760 --> 00:45:58.720] But what was your mindset as you entered this negotiation that eventually resulted in an LOI and them closing the deal?
[00:45:58.720 --> 00:46:09.200] Yeah, so I mean, first I want to take it back to that, you know, early time period when I first had that inbound interest and from including from Matt at Punch Bowl, who at the time I did not know at all.
[00:46:09.200 --> 00:46:15.680] And like I consider him a friend now, but at that time, it was just some random guy from a company that I hadn't heard of.
[00:46:15.680 --> 00:46:17.520] And he reached out to me.
[00:46:17.520 --> 00:46:25.040] Like a lot of people at the time reached out to me, say, hey, I was in a VidHug or a friend gave me a VidHug and I love the platform.
[00:46:25.040 --> 00:46:26.320] Let's talk.
[00:46:26.320 --> 00:46:31.280] So at that time, like you said, there were still so many fires that I was fighting.
[00:46:31.280 --> 00:46:39.440] I was, you know, I used the phrase like building the airplane while flying it that I didn't even have the capacity to entertain such ideas.
[00:46:39.440 --> 00:46:43.120] And as far as investment, I said, look at the company's bank account.
[00:46:43.120 --> 00:46:44.720] Like, I'm not spending that money right now.
[00:46:44.880 --> 00:46:47.360] Like, I don't need an influx of cash.
[00:46:47.360 --> 00:46:48.960] I need other things.
[00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:59.520] And so it was hiring that we needed to do team building because we basically experienced, you know, what you might consider four years of growth in three to four months.
[00:46:59.520 --> 00:47:02.400] And so the company had a lot of catching up to do.
[00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:06.320] And that's what we did over that time period in 2020.
[00:47:06.320 --> 00:47:14.480] So when Matt came back around, and that was unexpected to me, he came back around in 2021 and said, you know, hey, how are things going?
[00:47:14.720 --> 00:47:16.560] Do you have time to chat again?
[00:47:16.800 --> 00:47:21.040] And when the conversation came to, you know, I'm not interested in investing.
[00:47:21.040 --> 00:47:23.520] I'm interested in buying the company.
[00:47:23.520 --> 00:47:26.080] Then I had time because I had a team in place.
[00:47:26.080 --> 00:47:28.560] I wasn't working such a crazy schedule.
[00:47:28.560 --> 00:47:32.920] Things were, the product had improved to the point where it was working well.
[00:47:29.840 --> 00:47:36.840] And we were actually looking at, you know, we were doing active marketing.
[00:47:37.080 --> 00:47:43.480] We were looking at, you know, building out different features, maybe going after a B2B market a little bit.
[00:47:43.480 --> 00:47:48.200] And we had already had also some other, you know, inbound interest.
[00:47:48.200 --> 00:48:00.120] For it was never like we want to buy your company, but it was like, let's talk about integrating VidHug with our product in a way that I knew the eventual goal there was just, you know, it was an audition.
[00:48:00.360 --> 00:48:05.960] So when Matt came around, I was in a place where I had the time to have that conversation.
[00:48:05.960 --> 00:48:13.560] And I was also in the place of someone who had gone through four years of growth in four months and I was burnt out.
[00:48:13.560 --> 00:48:28.040] And I was like, oh, here is a company, a strategic buyer who has a team who has been at this for over a decade, full of smart people who can help me and work alongside me.
[00:48:28.040 --> 00:48:29.640] And that seemed very appealing.
[00:48:29.640 --> 00:48:41.560] I was like, I still want to work on VidHug, but being the CEO of this company, which means a lot more than the stuff that I'm great at, which is product development, has taken its toll.
[00:48:41.560 --> 00:48:44.920] Combine that with just pandemic life with kids.
[00:48:44.920 --> 00:48:47.240] I knew there was a change coming.
[00:48:47.480 --> 00:48:52.680] I knew the pandemic would end and I knew that we would navigate our way through that.
[00:48:52.680 --> 00:48:54.040] But that was daunting.
[00:48:54.040 --> 00:48:58.840] And so when this opportunity came along, I was like, let's talk.
[00:48:58.840 --> 00:48:59.080] Yeah.
[00:48:59.080 --> 00:49:12.520] And I remember when you and I talked on the phone then in that, you know, in that early 2021 timeframe, I was surprised at the amount of money you were going to get because I thought of it as a one-time B2C.
[00:49:12.520 --> 00:49:19.920] You know, it's that my valuation criteria obviously is going to be skewed better for B2B, for subscription.
[00:49:20.400 --> 00:49:28.320] You certainly had the growth, but even I remember we talked about it, I was like, if you don't sell now when the pandemic ends, does this keep going or does it not?
[00:49:28.320 --> 00:49:31.040] It doesn't seem like it will, you know, and there was a whole thing about that.
[00:49:31.040 --> 00:49:37.520] And so I was also, because to me, that's kind of a, it's not platform risk per se, but there's a rit, there's an existential risk to the revenue.
[00:49:37.520 --> 00:49:45.200] And so when they made the offer, I was quite positive about it, or at least in my heart, I was.
[00:49:45.200 --> 00:49:49.840] I don't know if I couched that on the call or not, but I remember being like, dude, this is enough money, you never have to work again.
[00:49:50.160 --> 00:49:54.080] I would, in your shoes, seriously, seriously, seriously consider taking this.
[00:49:54.240 --> 00:49:56.640] This does not seem like a bad decision long term.
[00:49:56.640 --> 00:50:07.440] And this allows you to kind of work on and do whatever you want forever rather than worrying about, ooh, what, you know, as the pandemic goes away, declines, ends, whatever we want to phrase it, is this business still viable?
[00:50:07.440 --> 00:50:11.360] With all that said, all exits are painful.
[00:50:11.680 --> 00:50:14.080] There are no smooth times of selling your company.
[00:50:14.080 --> 00:50:20.640] And so as we wrap up, because we are hitting time, I'm curious, can you summarize like you're from LOI to close?
[00:50:20.640 --> 00:50:21.920] Was it happy-go-lucky?
[00:50:21.920 --> 00:50:22.560] This is amazing.
[00:50:22.560 --> 00:50:23.440] Everything's great.
[00:50:23.440 --> 00:50:26.240] Was it like, holy, this is way harder than I thought it would be?
[00:50:26.240 --> 00:50:33.200] And man, I wish Robin Sherry had written exit strategy five years earlier so that you could have read it and it would tell you how painful it would be.
[00:50:33.520 --> 00:50:38.960] I definitely wish I had exit strategy on my desk during that time, 100%.
[00:50:38.960 --> 00:50:40.320] It was not easy.
[00:50:40.320 --> 00:50:46.400] And that's not to say that I was dealing with anything unusual, but it's a process.
[00:50:46.400 --> 00:50:55.840] And again, with a small company, with a small team, this is not something that I wanted to present to my team and say, hey, we might sell the company, but it might fall through.
[00:50:55.840 --> 00:51:05.800] So, I knew that's something that I had to do quietly, keep the company operating because there was a lot to do, and also have these conversations and go through this due diligence.
[00:51:06.120 --> 00:51:22.040] So, that was challenging, it was extra work, and then at times, you know, at one point, the you know, the other side went quiet for a long period of time, and that was incredibly stressful for me because I didn't know what was happening.
[00:51:22.040 --> 00:51:30.680] Later, I would learn that that had nothing to do with VidHug, nothing to do with me, it was just something that was going on on their end, and you know, not intentional.
[00:51:30.680 --> 00:51:38.360] But even up until you know, I would say one or two days before closing, and we're talking about a process that lasted several months.
[00:51:38.360 --> 00:51:42.200] There were points in time where I thought, oh, this, like, this might not go through.
[00:51:42.200 --> 00:51:55.720] That's incredibly stressful because throughout that process, you're trying, you know, so hard to stay level and say, you know, this may not happen, and we'll continue with the company, and we have a plan for it.
[00:51:56.040 --> 00:52:06.120] But I think anyone who's been through it knows that at some point in time, you get to a point where, like, if this doesn't happen, I don't know how I'm going to go on.
[00:52:06.440 --> 00:52:07.800] Yeah, exactly.
[00:52:07.800 --> 00:52:20.680] That's one of the hardest parts is you get attached to the money, but you also get attached to the idea that it's not going to be so stressful and that you're going to have to be able to hand off a bunch of hard stuff probably that you don't want to do to someone else.
[00:52:20.680 --> 00:52:31.520] You get attached to the idea of, yeah, I think just if you see you can really clearly see a future that you like better than the present, and to realize that could just get taken away from you at any time.
[00:52:31.520 --> 00:52:32.840] It's like, oh, this is hard.
[00:52:32.840 --> 00:52:34.520] It's a hard way to live.
[00:52:34.520 --> 00:52:35.240] Absolutely.
[00:52:35.400 --> 00:52:36.040] It was that.
[00:52:36.040 --> 00:52:46.320] And also, like, I put so much time into that process that I could have put into growing VidHug and preparing for what you said, the market shift that was coming.
[00:52:46.480 --> 00:52:53.360] I knew what we needed to do, but I had just taken so much time away from that that I could have put towards it for this.
[00:52:53.360 --> 00:52:57.040] So it was a bit of a sunk cost feeling too, you know, that fear of.
[00:52:57.520 --> 00:52:58.400] Yeah, for sure.
[00:52:58.400 --> 00:53:03.280] And so you actually stayed working with the acquirer who is now called Sincere.
[00:53:03.280 --> 00:53:11.520] You worked with them for another four years, which is unusual for someone to hang around that long because you didn't have golden handcuffs for very long, if at all.
[00:53:11.520 --> 00:53:16.800] But recently, just what, four or five months ago, you flew the coop.
[00:53:16.800 --> 00:53:17.680] You went solo.
[00:53:17.680 --> 00:53:18.960] You're hanging out.
[00:53:18.960 --> 00:53:20.560] Are you building another thing?
[00:53:21.120 --> 00:53:22.240] Don't build another thing, by the way.
[00:53:22.240 --> 00:53:22.880] Not yet.
[00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:28.560] Give yourself a minimum six to 12 months is what I want you to take because you do have the luxury of that time.
[00:53:28.560 --> 00:53:34.000] So how have you been spending your time and why has it been some of the best months of your life?
[00:53:34.880 --> 00:53:38.640] I remember this time where I was just like, oh, this is what I did all of this for.
[00:53:38.640 --> 00:53:40.640] Like, this is amazing.
[00:53:40.640 --> 00:53:41.280] Yeah.
[00:53:41.920 --> 00:53:47.680] I think one thing about staying at Sincere for a while, which I had a great time at great people.
[00:53:47.680 --> 00:53:51.280] I loved continuing to work on VidHug, which became a mento.
[00:53:51.280 --> 00:53:59.440] One of the things that allowed me to do is slow down from kind of founder mode to like executive employee mode, but still it's different.
[00:53:59.440 --> 00:54:01.600] It allowed me to bring some work-life balance back.
[00:54:01.600 --> 00:54:08.480] And it allowed me to start building things into my life that I knew I would want to do after that journey ended.
[00:54:08.480 --> 00:54:13.360] And so one of those things was I became a fitness instructor, like a group.
[00:54:13.360 --> 00:54:18.880] If you think of those fitness classes at the gym where there's like 30 people working out together, I do that.
[00:54:18.880 --> 00:54:32.040] I started coaching my daughter's soccer team, those kind of building in those activities that are good for mental health, physical health, and also like keep me from going all in on some other project in the near future.
[00:54:32.280 --> 00:54:39.320] So, but the way that I stay in touch with what I love is like, you know, building new products and startups.
[00:54:39.320 --> 00:54:46.440] I have invested in a few startups locally, actually, founders that I kind of came up with through my journey.
[00:54:46.680 --> 00:55:03.560] And so, in advising them and working with them, I get to still, I think, as you know, Rob, still get that taste of the trenches and the ups and the downs, but I also get to step away from it at times and not have it be on my mind all the time.
[00:55:03.560 --> 00:55:06.120] Yeah, it's a really nice, really nice transition.
[00:55:06.120 --> 00:55:08.200] Well, man, hell of a journey.
[00:55:08.200 --> 00:55:17.080] Thanks for chronicling it here in so many ways on this podcast, from your email back in the day to telling your full story today.
[00:55:17.080 --> 00:55:20.840] If folks want to keep up with you, you are on X Twitter.
[00:55:20.840 --> 00:55:25.720] It's Zamir Khan, K-H-A-N, but the I is a one.
[00:55:25.720 --> 00:55:30.360] So, we'll link that up in the show notes if folks want to follow what you're up to next.
[00:55:30.360 --> 00:55:36.520] And of course, memento.com if they want to see what you built and you're on LinkedIn as well.
[00:55:36.520 --> 00:55:37.480] Thanks again, man.
[00:55:37.480 --> 00:55:39.000] Really appreciate you coming on the show.
[00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:40.040] Thanks for having me, Rob.
[00:55:40.440 --> 00:55:41.880] It's been a pleasure.
[00:55:41.880 --> 00:55:46.280] Thanks so much to Zamir for coming on the show and telling his story.
[00:55:46.280 --> 00:55:48.520] And thank you for listening this week and every week.
[00:55:48.520 --> 00:55:52.760] This is Rob Walling signing off from episode 794.