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[00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:10.080] Dude, do you um do you watch YouTube at all?
[00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:11.840] Yeah, a little bit.
[00:00:11.840 --> 00:00:14.400] I'm trying to do more learning.
[00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:16.400] I want like a better information diet.
[00:00:16.400 --> 00:00:19.920] And a couple years ago, I subscribed to a ton of newsletters.
[00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:26.560] You know that phase when everybody was like super into Substack and whatever, and it was just like everybody was doing paid newsletters?
[00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:28.640] I subscribed to like 50 newsletters.
[00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:32.240] And I had this grand plan that I'm going to read all these newsletters, learn all this stuff.
[00:00:32.240 --> 00:00:40.160] But like what happens is I've just spent the last two years just like marking every email read and archiving them immediately and not reading any of that shit.
[00:00:40.160 --> 00:00:44.240] So I think I should go to YouTube instead because this newsletter thing is just like it's not working.
[00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:46.160] But I'm not sure what channels to watch.
[00:00:46.160 --> 00:00:47.360] Like I don't know what's good on YouTube.
[00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:49.200] I just know there's a lot of good stuff.
[00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:51.360] You're trying to increase your information diet.
[00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:54.240] Is it like vaguely you just want more information?
[00:00:54.800 --> 00:00:57.040] Are there specific types of things you want to learn?
[00:00:57.040 --> 00:00:58.000] I'm not even there yet.
[00:00:58.000 --> 00:00:58.720] I don't know.
[00:00:59.760 --> 00:01:01.360] I just want to learn stuff.
[00:01:01.360 --> 00:01:04.400] I don't want to watch funny TikToks and reels and shit.
[00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:08.720] I want to watch stuff where after I watch it, I know more.
[00:01:08.720 --> 00:01:10.880] I'm so difficult with these kind of questions.
[00:01:10.880 --> 00:01:12.640] I'm like, what's your why?
[00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:14.000] Like, I get that you want to learn.
[00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:16.560] Like, what's the problem that you're trying to deal with?
[00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:17.200] I don't know, man.
[00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:19.440] I'll have downtime in between.
[00:01:19.760 --> 00:01:20.800] I don't want to work.
[00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:22.640] I've already exercised.
[00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:24.320] I've already hung out with my friends.
[00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:27.120] And then I'll play board games online.
[00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:28.880] I'm ranked number like 23 in the world.
[00:01:28.880 --> 00:01:31.680] It'll ticket to ride because I play so much on my phone.
[00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:32.720] I'm like, I shouldn't be doing this.
[00:01:32.720 --> 00:01:33.120] I should be learning.
[00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:34.720] I don't even know what that is.
[00:01:34.800 --> 00:01:36.800] It's a random fucking board game.
[00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:37.840] You shouldn't even know.
[00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:39.600] I shouldn't even know what it is.
[00:01:39.600 --> 00:01:41.280] But there's so much good stuff on YouTube.
[00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:42.800] Every now and then I stumble across.
[00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:46.960] Like somebody on Hacker News the other day was recommending like this video on astronomy.
[00:01:46.960 --> 00:01:50.960] And I just like clicked it randomly, and it's like this YouTube channel called Crash Course.
[00:01:50.960 --> 00:01:53.360] And they just do crash courses and topics.
[00:01:53.360 --> 00:02:00.000] It's almost like Khan Academy, where you can learn about math or business or life sciences or history.
[00:02:01.080 --> 00:02:12.280] And I clicked video number 25 in their astronomy course, and I learned all this stuff about how we know how far away the stars are and the history of how the ancients figured out that the Earth was round.
[00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:17.400] Like, did you know the ancient Greeks knew the Earth was round like 2,000 years ago?
[00:02:17.400 --> 00:02:18.760] I didn't know that shit.
[00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:20.920] And the way they figured it out was cool.
[00:02:21.160 --> 00:02:25.880] I did research for, like, I was studying innovation, and I wanted to write an article on it.
[00:02:25.880 --> 00:02:27.240] And I studied the Greeks.
[00:02:27.240 --> 00:02:31.960] And I figured out that the Greeks figured out and learned tons of things.
[00:02:31.960 --> 00:02:33.480] Like, the Earth is round.
[00:02:33.480 --> 00:02:40.680] They figured out tons of things that, like, random scientific discoveries that later would sort of be found out by people like Newton.
[00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:41.400] Yeah.
[00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:47.080] And essentially, all of their culture was just reduced to rubble through like war.
[00:02:47.080 --> 00:02:50.200] And tons of these pieces of information just got lost.
[00:02:50.200 --> 00:02:54.680] And then, in like the 1400s, a lot of the remains were found.
[00:02:54.680 --> 00:02:56.600] A lot of these old manuscripts were found.
[00:02:56.600 --> 00:03:01.720] And that did a huge amount to get the people, like Europeans out of the dark age.
[00:03:01.720 --> 00:03:11.400] But setting that aside, dude, you know what you should, what you should, if you're looking to just have like constructive learning time on YouTube, have you ever heard of extra credits or like extra history?
[00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:12.680] Dude, this thing is awesome.
[00:03:13.320 --> 00:03:14.040] It does two things.
[00:03:14.040 --> 00:03:15.400] It checks two boxes off.
[00:03:15.400 --> 00:03:25.000] Number one, it's a history show, and I love learning about history, but learning about history and learning about most things is usually like really dense.
[00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:26.600] Like it takes a lot of time.
[00:03:26.600 --> 00:03:39.640] And this is like these short, sweet cartoons that take pretty much like all of world history and they like package it up in like, you know, little series of like five videos that are like 10 minutes each.
[00:03:39.640 --> 00:03:40.520] And they're really fun.
[00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:41.480] They're really bite-sized.
[00:03:41.480 --> 00:03:43.800] Like it requires so little investment.
[00:03:43.800 --> 00:03:46.480] And you just get like the fun crash course.
[00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:52.240] There's one on YouTube called like Kurzkesat, and they also do these animated videos that'll explain stuff that are pretty cool.
[00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:53.920] But I want something that's like a little bit deeper.
[00:03:53.920 --> 00:04:02.480] I don't want like the you know like infotainment where you know like they give you information, but it's mostly just entertaining and funny and cool.
[00:04:02.480 --> 00:04:06.800] And then like, you know, five minutes later, you forgot everything you watched and you couldn't tell anybody.
[00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:10.240] I want something that's like a little bit deeper than that.
[00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:11.600] Hey, what's up, Stas?
[00:04:11.600 --> 00:04:12.880] Stas, what's up?
[00:04:12.880 --> 00:04:15.120] Yes, thank you so much for having me.
[00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:16.240] Welcome on.
[00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:18.400] You are Stas Kulesh.
[00:04:18.400 --> 00:04:19.520] You're an indie hacker.
[00:04:19.520 --> 00:04:23.760] You're the founder of a co-founder of a company called KarmaBot.
[00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:26.640] And I've been following your progress on indie hackers for quite some time.
[00:04:26.640 --> 00:04:30.640] On ND Hackers, your product page, it says you're making 25 grand a month in revenue.
[00:04:30.640 --> 00:04:33.840] But then I was talking to you earlier and you're like, no, that's just our Stripe revenue.
[00:04:33.840 --> 00:04:35.920] We also collect direct payments.
[00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:40.960] And so it's closer to like $40,000 a month in revenue for what you guys are doing.
[00:04:40.960 --> 00:04:41.920] Yep, that's right.
[00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:52.320] We deal with businesses and sometimes they, you know, once they sent it an actual like check, a paper piece of paper, they sent it to New Zealand.
[00:04:52.320 --> 00:04:54.400] And we were like, what are we going to do with that?
[00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:56.640] So it's not just Stripe.
[00:04:56.640 --> 00:04:58.720] We need to deal with accounting.
[00:04:59.040 --> 00:05:06.960] I think one of the cool things about your story that I know is essentially when you built Karma, it was kind of an internal tool, right?
[00:05:06.960 --> 00:05:10.080] Like you didn't necessarily build it for the external world.
[00:05:10.080 --> 00:05:11.680] You had a whole different business going on.
[00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:15.680] You and your co-founders decided, like, ah, maybe we can build this cool tool for ourselves.
[00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:20.400] And then you spun it out, which is something that Channing and I probably should do for indie hackers.
[00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:24.320] We have so many different tools that we build for ourselves, but we've never spun any of them out.
[00:05:24.320 --> 00:05:26.080] Yeah, I truly believe in this.
[00:05:26.080 --> 00:05:27.920] I think it's a cheat in a way.
[00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:34.840] Like, with whatever we do, other sub-products and side projects, we first run them through the team.
[00:05:29.600 --> 00:05:35.800] The team needs it.
[00:05:36.120 --> 00:05:43.800] And even if it's not bringing much money as a product for the outsiders, we actually save in tons on, you know, internally.
[00:05:43.800 --> 00:05:50.120] For example, we're doing invoicing and time tracking with our own product, which is called Time.
[00:05:50.120 --> 00:05:54.760] And it's tiny, but it saves us like six grand a year.
[00:05:54.760 --> 00:05:58.920] Well, you had like a hack because I think your company was an agency, right?
[00:05:58.920 --> 00:06:04.280] You guys were doing like web design and web development work, and you had like 25 people.
[00:06:04.280 --> 00:06:05.240] Yeah, roughly.
[00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:11.240] And that was like we tried, I think you can have a look at that product hunt.
[00:06:11.240 --> 00:06:13.560] We launched like 50-something products.
[00:06:13.560 --> 00:06:18.200] Only one or two succeeded in a way like to become sustainable.
[00:06:18.200 --> 00:06:18.680] Yeah.
[00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:21.320] And it's, yeah, just keep on building.
[00:06:21.320 --> 00:06:22.280] That was the motto.
[00:06:22.280 --> 00:06:24.040] And then one thing actually worked.
[00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:25.400] That was karma.
[00:06:25.400 --> 00:06:32.040] Yeah, I think that's the hack: you essentially built a company where you had a ton of programming resources.
[00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:34.840] And I think most people don't have like the time and the resources to do that.
[00:06:34.840 --> 00:06:36.760] Like at indie hackers, I'm the only coder.
[00:06:36.760 --> 00:06:39.880] If we want to build stuff, I have to stop building everything else and build that.
[00:06:39.880 --> 00:06:45.800] But you have an army of people to build side projects and do what'd you say, like 50 launches on Product Hunt?
[00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:47.320] Yeah, you can look it up.
[00:06:47.320 --> 00:06:51.480] I think it's just generally including all different versions of Karma as well.
[00:06:51.640 --> 00:06:55.240] I mean, we also with the team, you have to manage the workload.
[00:06:55.240 --> 00:06:58.600] Sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it's like not enough work basically.
[00:06:58.600 --> 00:07:01.720] And then we turn to our internal projects.
[00:07:01.720 --> 00:07:12.040] And it's the way of engaging the team and with the way of you know keeping the brains you know alive and just thinking of something new.
[00:07:12.280 --> 00:07:24.240] We try to play the startup game and this is like when you promise someone that you would do 100x in a year or so, you know, this kind of stuff when you need to fundraise.
[00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:26.480] Yeah, we're gonna be billions of the company.
[00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:30.960] Yeah, you have to lie a little bit, maybe overpromise and under deliver.
[00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:32.400] I don't know.
[00:07:32.400 --> 00:07:36.080] I believe in more like long games generally.
[00:07:36.080 --> 00:07:37.520] Like I said, we've got a team.
[00:07:37.520 --> 00:07:38.880] They need to feed their families.
[00:07:38.880 --> 00:07:40.080] We need to provide.
[00:07:40.080 --> 00:07:43.040] We need to make sure that they have enough work.
[00:07:43.040 --> 00:07:55.280] And it's more important to us to become a steady kind of sustainable business rather than try and get this opportunity this year, but maybe next year they're going to be layoffs.
[00:07:55.520 --> 00:07:57.200] We're kind of seeing it right nowadays, right?
[00:07:57.200 --> 00:07:58.240] It's a bubble.
[00:07:58.880 --> 00:08:01.120] I love the idea of releasing internal tools.
[00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:05.200] And by the way, Cortland, did you see the tool that I just released, Underhead?
[00:08:05.200 --> 00:08:08.960] Yeah, you've been telling me about it for like years, but I didn't realize you were going to release it.
[00:08:08.960 --> 00:08:16.080] Yeah, I mean, so this is a situation where I have my own app and it's like not a good product.
[00:08:16.080 --> 00:08:18.480] It's like a to-do list app, basically, right?
[00:08:18.480 --> 00:08:25.520] And I think there's almost nothing worse or more difficult business to get into than creating another to-do list app.
[00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:34.080] But the benefit of working with your own internal tools and then releasing those is that in a huge way, it's de-risked.
[00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:38.240] So in this case, I just decided to release this thing.
[00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:42.880] And now, you know, whatever, there are 50 to 100 people who are using this every day.
[00:08:42.880 --> 00:08:45.840] I mean, I just literally launched it a week ago.
[00:08:45.840 --> 00:08:47.760] I have no intention of making money on it.
[00:08:47.760 --> 00:08:51.760] I don't think it would make money, but it just generates all this traffic.
[00:08:51.760 --> 00:08:57.280] And so, on the worst side, no one was going to like it, in which case I just get to keep using my own app.
[00:08:57.280 --> 00:08:59.360] So, there's no real loss there.
[00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:03.640] And on the best side, now maybe it'll make money, but it'll definitely generate traffic.
[00:09:03.640 --> 00:09:08.680] And then I can like move those eyeballs to a product or a service that does make money.
[00:09:08.680 --> 00:09:09.560] Yeah, that's cool, dude.
[00:09:09.560 --> 00:09:11.400] You're never going to charge for it.
[00:09:11.400 --> 00:09:12.360] I mean, I don't know.
[00:09:12.520 --> 00:09:17.320] Like, the sky is the limit, but I mean, ultimately, this thing was just like Stas's product.
[00:09:17.320 --> 00:09:18.520] It was kind of in stealth mode.
[00:09:18.520 --> 00:09:23.240] I was getting my own benefit out of it, but it just wasn't doing a bunch of other work.
[00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:31.320] So, it's like, literally, if I sit on it and I don't do anything and the traffic just grows slowly, to me, that's better than simply working on it in private.
[00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:32.120] That's fair up.
[00:09:32.200 --> 00:09:34.760] And also, I think it is a hack.
[00:09:34.760 --> 00:09:38.920] Building tools for ourselves and then releasing them to others.
[00:09:38.920 --> 00:09:40.040] You don't expect much.
[00:09:40.040 --> 00:09:42.680] It's already working if it saves time and money.
[00:09:42.680 --> 00:09:46.840] If you're liking the product yourself, that's already a benefit.
[00:09:46.840 --> 00:09:47.400] Yeah.
[00:09:47.400 --> 00:09:56.280] So, for what you eventually built, Stas, because you guys built multiple tools for yourselves, the one that was sort of the breakout hit is called KarmaBot.
[00:09:56.280 --> 00:10:00.200] And Karmabot.chat, www.karmabot.chat.
[00:10:00.200 --> 00:10:04.760] I was going down your IndieHackers product page where for years you blogged about it on Indie Hackers.
[00:10:04.760 --> 00:10:09.000] You had something like 240 posts on your product page about it.
[00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:15.000] Like, you did like weekly updates, like, weekly update number 174, plus like blog posts, plus product updates.
[00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:17.160] Like, nevertheless, three books worth of updates.
[00:10:17.560 --> 00:10:19.080] I was scrolling down for like 10 minutes.
[00:10:19.080 --> 00:10:19.960] Like, where's the bottom of this?
[00:10:20.200 --> 00:10:20.360] Amazing.
[00:10:20.520 --> 00:10:21.960] You guys have written a ton about it.
[00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:28.280] The way I would describe it now is essentially, there's a lot of teams that are doing remote work.
[00:10:28.280 --> 00:10:38.040] And they're primarily communicating over things like Microsoft Teams or Slack or even like Telegram or something, like chat tools, where you don't really get to see your teammates.
[00:10:38.040 --> 00:10:44.520] In fact, there's like a post on Hacker News I was reading the other day where someone was saying, like, hey, what do you do when you don't have any friends and you don't go to bars and stuff?
[00:10:44.520 --> 00:10:48.880] And then also your company goes remote and you suddenly don't even like see your coworkers.
[00:10:48.880 --> 00:10:50.800] Like, how do you survive that situation?
[00:10:50.800 --> 00:11:00.560] I think with something like Karma, what you're doing is you're basically making it easier for people to come together and reward each other and feel like this personal connection.
[00:11:00.560 --> 00:11:22.080] So you can like basically use your tool to reward your team members, to give them like kudos, and you've got animations and you've got like these celebrations and people do good things and people hit milestones and they're actually like, you know, can log into this interface where they're getting like gift cards or like pizza or coffee or like, you know, even like company-wide bonuses based on like things that you type into Slack.
[00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:27.760] So the whole point is to get your whole remote team like bonded together and be happier and sort of stronger together.
[00:11:27.760 --> 00:11:31.680] Yeah, I think I started, you know, like you said, it's changed.
[00:11:31.680 --> 00:11:37.280] Over time, it was initially just sending points from one programmer to another.
[00:11:37.280 --> 00:11:46.640] And then it became this kind of reward system with bonuses and all multi-level permissions stuff because we want like bigger companies to get involved.
[00:11:46.640 --> 00:11:49.040] We want bigger teams to play this game.
[00:11:49.040 --> 00:11:55.680] And over time, we figured that it's about engagement as well as visibility of what's going on in a company.
[00:11:55.680 --> 00:12:08.880] When you've got 100 plus people working remotely, they're not only not, you know, becoming mates, literally in real life, they also get disconnected and they don't really know what their company is doing as well.
[00:12:08.880 --> 00:12:19.920] So karma, when you see this animated card, it's like a greeting card in a way that pops up in a special channel, which is called Appreciation or something, or Karma, you can call it whatever.
[00:12:19.920 --> 00:12:25.920] And you instantly know that these people, they've done a great job and they've been working on that.
[00:12:25.920 --> 00:12:29.280] And you're like, oh, so this department is actually busy with this kind of stuff.
[00:12:29.280 --> 00:12:30.120] Interesting.
[00:12:30.120 --> 00:12:31.720] And there is no limit.
[00:12:29.680 --> 00:12:35.240] No one ever left the company because they've been thanked too many times.
[00:12:35.800 --> 00:12:37.400] People like being thanked.
[00:12:37.400 --> 00:12:40.680] And there is no way you can underappreciate your people.
[00:12:40.680 --> 00:12:44.120] And over time, this message became, you know, it's our motto.
[00:12:44.120 --> 00:12:55.480] We're trying to make the remote environment, which is really difficult to be honest, because it's not enough to put a smiley, like a bracket at the end of the message, or a smiley, or an emoji even.
[00:12:55.480 --> 00:13:00.920] It still reads as a, you know, well, okay, he's probably happy with what I've done.
[00:13:00.920 --> 00:13:06.520] Unless you've done this specifically through karma, it's not really, you know, a major achievement.
[00:13:06.520 --> 00:13:08.840] So it's like tipping culture in a way.
[00:13:08.840 --> 00:13:12.520] You have to leave a tip so people know that you're happy.
[00:13:12.520 --> 00:13:13.960] It's so hard with remote work.
[00:13:14.840 --> 00:13:17.000] I forget to congratulate Channing all the time.
[00:13:17.800 --> 00:13:20.120] Oh, you should install karma then.
[00:13:21.160 --> 00:13:23.480] Could we use it with like a team of two?
[00:13:23.480 --> 00:13:24.920] Like, does that make any sense?
[00:13:24.920 --> 00:13:27.160] Because you mentioned it used to just be like a one-on-one thing.
[00:13:27.320 --> 00:13:28.120] That's really not.
[00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:29.320] Yeah, that's the other bit.
[00:13:29.320 --> 00:13:30.440] It's not for everybody.
[00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:34.280] It's not for all teams because partially it's a cultural element.
[00:13:34.280 --> 00:13:36.680] There is a cultural element to it as well.
[00:13:36.680 --> 00:13:46.360] As you know, generally some teams, when they maybe they're too serious and they don't want to play these stupid games with these stupid points, we got money for that, right?
[00:13:46.360 --> 00:13:48.120] Pay me more and I will be happier.
[00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:57.240] So this kind of straight on, like very, you know, upfront approach in some teams, it doesn't survive karma.
[00:13:57.240 --> 00:14:03.720] That's why I don't think it's a startup in a sense of growing fast and being the product for everybody.
[00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:06.680] It's not for everyone, but the world is big.
[00:14:06.680 --> 00:14:08.440] Software is just growing.
[00:14:08.440 --> 00:14:16.800] Yeah, I feel like I want to use this product just between Cortland, between you and me, almost because it would be like a funny way to be passive-aggressive.
[00:14:17.040 --> 00:14:19.120] Yeah, can I give you like a different number of kudos?
[00:14:19.120 --> 00:14:25.760] Like I give you like one star for this podcast, but then you know, like a sort of snarky number of kudos.
[00:14:25.760 --> 00:14:31.200] We need to work with the bullying as well, because what you've just done, it's not really, I don't support that.
[00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:44.160] So in a bigger company, it may become an HR issue, and we sort of have to deal with that and make sure that through the tool, there is no this, you know, under-the-cover kind of terrible stuff going on.
[00:14:44.160 --> 00:14:49.280] Because in big companies, they are less personable rather than small teams like yourself.
[00:14:49.280 --> 00:14:51.520] We instantly went towards bullying each other.
[00:14:51.520 --> 00:14:54.320] Yeah, I mean, look, that's just the way, like, that would bring us together.
[00:14:54.320 --> 00:14:58.480] That's kind of the way that our dynamic works often when we're working together.
[00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:04.800] But it's funny, we're talking about maybe a size of a team that's too small for this to work.
[00:15:05.120 --> 00:15:09.440] But I love this because it just sounds to me like gamification.
[00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:14.160] And I apply gamification literally to the way that I personally work.
[00:15:14.160 --> 00:15:16.000] It's kind of weird, but I love it.
[00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:23.360] Like, I say, here are my goals for the week, and I kind of have a weird, a bit of a point system for like what I want to do in the week.
[00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:29.840] And then every day at the end of the day, I kind of know if I'm on track, like I know what I'm working with.
[00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:31.920] So that works well for some teams.
[00:15:31.920 --> 00:15:35.600] Like I said, we've got modules and we can have bonuses.
[00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:42.080] And based on the way we share karma, for example, we could have like one point each in a week.
[00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:51.760] That would mean that a bunch of points set aside will be divided equally because we all worked equally and we all got the same amount of karma for this from each other.
[00:15:51.760 --> 00:15:54.240] But this example is not ideal for the team of three.
[00:15:54.400 --> 00:15:58.480] It would work better in the team of third plus 300 even.
[00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:04.440] I think the biggest we've had was 16,000 and that was kind of difficult to manage.
[00:16:04.440 --> 00:16:20.040] I'm kind of curious about you personally because I feel like the mind of a founder who comes up with an idea like Karmabot and you think like, okay, what would be good is to reward people with points and to like kind of have this these gamification principles in a product.
[00:16:20.040 --> 00:16:22.520] Like how do you personally think about productivity?
[00:16:23.320 --> 00:16:25.960] Is this the kind of thing that like you use in your life?
[00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:29.160] Like I said, that's the way that I run my personal life.
[00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:32.600] Yeah, I'm totally with you on that one actually.
[00:16:32.600 --> 00:16:38.920] Like I've feel this, especially talking about the long game and business in general, like it's a game.
[00:16:39.400 --> 00:16:42.760] It's all built around relationship that you build with your clients.
[00:16:42.760 --> 00:16:46.760] It's all built around the money that you get from them as a reward for helping them.
[00:16:46.760 --> 00:16:48.760] That's how I explain this to my son.
[00:16:48.760 --> 00:16:51.400] Like I help people so they pay me money.
[00:16:51.400 --> 00:16:53.640] And that's really easy to understand.
[00:16:53.640 --> 00:16:57.480] Over time, that's the gamification in essence.
[00:16:57.480 --> 00:17:01.560] Like you're doing good deeds and then you get money and reward.
[00:17:01.880 --> 00:17:02.360] Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:06.280] So one of the ways that I like to think about it is as a kind of pain receptor.
[00:17:06.280 --> 00:17:11.320] With me personally, I'm like, you know, we feel pain, just physical pain in our bodies.
[00:17:11.320 --> 00:17:17.640] If you have like ants crawling on your leg, you get like a signal that like, ouch, this thing hurts.
[00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:25.480] And it's good that you have these little incremental pain receptors because if you don't have them, for example, there are people who have conditions where they don't feel pain.
[00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:34.280] Like often, you know, within a couple of years, they have scars all over themselves and they have like, you know, they have to get you know amputations, et cetera.
[00:17:34.280 --> 00:17:58.880] But it's in real life with the things that we want to pursue with our goals, we often don't have those built-in pain receptors or like in this sense, like progress receptors and so having these intermittent rewards with something that's kind of vague like business or with like you know sort of connecting with your team or doing different projects is honestly a huge life hack I do believe in my product, obviously.
[00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:00.480] I mean, I cannot say otherwise.
[00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:02.640] And this is something that helped my team.
[00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:07.840] And I think there are teams that would benefit a lot from a system like Karma.
[00:18:07.840 --> 00:18:17.440] If you're taking it semi-seriously, because it's a pulse in a way, like the number of points that you've got today as a whole, as a team, it actually shows their mood.
[00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:19.360] It actually shows their productivity.
[00:18:19.360 --> 00:18:22.240] And tomorrow, if it's lower, it's not hard science.
[00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:24.560] It could be due to risk factors.
[00:18:24.560 --> 00:18:38.960] But as a leader, you would see that your company, your team is not performing as they've performed before when they were much happier and shared more and shared more through karma and generally talked more on this remote thing that was new actually.
[00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:41.280] Like we started five years ago.
[00:18:41.280 --> 00:18:53.200] It's to this day, companies, they just, you know, they getting on board with remote, fully remote became fine after COVID, but now it's still kind of new.
[00:18:53.200 --> 00:19:02.000] And I think before I thought karma was like stupid, like there were moments, of course, when I thought it's a stupid point system, no one wants it.
[00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:07.680] But also at the same time, we had some feedback from really smart people talking about like, hey, it's just not time.
[00:19:07.680 --> 00:19:08.240] Just wait.
[00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:10.080] Just wait for it.
[00:19:10.080 --> 00:19:14.160] And I now realize why, because remote was so tiny.
[00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:17.600] Now it's everybody understands after COVID what it means.
[00:19:17.600 --> 00:19:20.480] So you started building this in New Zealand.
[00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:24.240] I think it's you and your co-founder David and you had your agency in New Zealand, right?
[00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:28.360] And then one of the things, like right now, you're in, I think, Poland.
[00:19:28.680 --> 00:19:29.480] Yeah.
[00:19:29.720 --> 00:19:34.440] It's a whole windy path to get from New Zealand to Poland.
[00:19:34.440 --> 00:19:36.600] It wasn't a straightforward just move from one to the other.
[00:19:36.600 --> 00:19:41.960] Like you have traveled the world and you have like some funny theories based on travel.
[00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:43.000] How did you end up in Poland?
[00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:44.280] Like why are you there?
[00:19:44.280 --> 00:19:49.480] Well, Poland is just this decade, I would say, is for Poland.
[00:19:50.040 --> 00:19:55.000] I believe that it takes like roughly five, ten years to understand the place where you live.
[00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:56.520] And I've been always moving.
[00:19:56.520 --> 00:19:59.480] I've left my hometown when I was 16 or something.
[00:19:59.480 --> 00:20:07.800] I went to another bigger town and then I went to another town and now and then I spent 20 years in New Zealand being an immigrant trying to understand how they think.
[00:20:07.800 --> 00:20:11.160] What's your upshot of how the Kiwis think in New Zealand?
[00:20:11.160 --> 00:20:15.560] Because I was there for three weeks and I could tell you how I, what my impression was after three weeks.
[00:20:15.560 --> 00:20:17.480] It's a very laid-back country.
[00:20:17.480 --> 00:20:27.800] If you like the birds, if you like the beaches, if you like, you know, walking the trails and all the cool parks and stuff, that's very well for you.
[00:20:27.800 --> 00:20:29.160] And I love the place.
[00:20:29.160 --> 00:20:31.880] I love the country and I truly love it.
[00:20:31.880 --> 00:20:35.800] I mean, I've spent, I'm a citizen, I've spent years there.
[00:20:35.800 --> 00:20:46.840] But I think it also has the limitation of being isolated in various ways, physically and also mentally in a way of, you know, it's an island, a couple of islands far, far away.
[00:20:46.840 --> 00:21:00.600] And when I arrived, there was a notion that it may become like Silicon Valley of the Pacific region because you allow smart people to have this great lifestyle and they work remotely.
[00:21:00.600 --> 00:21:04.840] But then, due to various things, it didn't work in the end.
[00:21:04.840 --> 00:21:12.280] So, I think at the moment, it's sort of getting through this phase of, you know, taking a step back a little bit.
[00:21:12.280 --> 00:21:15.200] And also, COVID was very difficult for the country.
[00:21:14.840 --> 00:21:21.920] So, altogether, laid back, you know, kayak every day, work efficiently in the morning.
[00:21:22.080 --> 00:21:23.760] That works for many people.
[00:21:23.760 --> 00:21:26.240] Did you live near Auckland or were you near like a big city?
[00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:27.920] In Auckland, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:32.000] I was there for three weeks in 2016, I think.
[00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:41.360] And my impression was kind of the same, like super laid back, very outdoorsy, not very ambitious, like very relaxed, not super into like education.
[00:21:41.360 --> 00:21:45.040] Like, I stayed with the family for a while, and the school year was about to start.
[00:21:45.040 --> 00:21:48.160] And they're like, ah, we're just going to take our kids on like a two-month camping trip.
[00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:50.960] So they just pulled their kids out of school and just like went camping.
[00:21:50.960 --> 00:21:51.920] And I was like, well, what about school?
[00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:53.760] They're like, ah, it doesn't matter that much.
[00:21:53.760 --> 00:21:55.040] And I was driving around the world.
[00:21:55.600 --> 00:21:56.480] Yeah, it'll be fine.
[00:21:56.640 --> 00:21:59.920] A lot of the signs on the side of the road were misspelled.
[00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:01.200] No one cared.
[00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:02.240] No one gave a shit.
[00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:03.120] Everybody's got like beautiful skills.
[00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:03.600] Like, whatever.
[00:22:03.600 --> 00:22:04.480] You know where you're going.
[00:22:04.480 --> 00:22:06.240] Yeah, it just didn't matter.
[00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:07.200] There is value in that.
[00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:08.720] It's just a different mentality.
[00:22:09.360 --> 00:22:13.600] It's about going sideways in terms of going upwards.
[00:22:13.600 --> 00:22:18.960] So in America, for example, I think the country of opportunity, you would think, I mean, that's my perception.
[00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:20.080] I've never lived there.
[00:22:20.080 --> 00:22:23.680] But it's like you want bigger, bigger company, more people hired.
[00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:28.320] You know, you're going upwards, bigger cars, bigger burgers and stuff.
[00:22:28.320 --> 00:22:31.200] And in Kiwi land, it would be something like...
[00:22:31.360 --> 00:22:31.760] Everything.
[00:22:31.840 --> 00:22:32.720] Why would you?
[00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:38.000] It's just, all right, I'm fine with this burger and this house by the beach.
[00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:43.200] I don't need the big New York skyscrapers and everything all at once.
[00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:44.720] There is no ambition, like you said.
[00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:45.360] And it's fine.
[00:22:45.840 --> 00:22:47.440] It's completely fine.
[00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:51.840] You were saying that it takes five or ten years for you to learn the culture of a place.
[00:22:51.840 --> 00:22:54.000] And so you were in New Zealand for 20 years.
[00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:55.760] Where did you go after that?
[00:22:56.080 --> 00:22:59.720] Well, the plan was to go to go and live in South America.
[00:22:59.360 --> 00:23:01.080] We visited it a couple of times.
[00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:08.600] We've been to Spain to compare, and we realized that Europe is different to Latin America and specifically Chile.
[00:23:08.600 --> 00:23:10.120] We liked it very much.
[00:23:10.120 --> 00:23:15.080] And I still think it's a very progressive country and it will get places and we will see.
[00:23:15.080 --> 00:23:19.720] It's so resource-rich and the culture is so different.
[00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:33.080] And in a way, I wanted to show my son that there are places on this planet when people don't speak English as a primary language and it's not just the English-speaking world that observes the third world, this kind of mentality.
[00:23:33.080 --> 00:23:34.520] I don't like it in general.
[00:23:34.520 --> 00:23:35.560] I think it's not right.
[00:23:35.560 --> 00:23:38.360] And in Chile, we sort of experienced that.
[00:23:38.600 --> 00:23:41.320] We came and people speak in different languages.
[00:23:41.320 --> 00:23:42.840] They have different issues.
[00:23:42.840 --> 00:23:46.360] They don't think about problems in Europe.
[00:23:46.360 --> 00:23:48.440] That's problems in old Europe.
[00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:51.320] Problems in America, also kind of different place.
[00:23:51.480 --> 00:23:59.320] We have our own region of the globe and it's dense enough in terms of things happening and stuff.
[00:23:59.320 --> 00:24:01.720] So that was the first try out.
[00:24:02.840 --> 00:24:06.600] But then COVID started and it killed the whole vibe.
[00:24:06.920 --> 00:24:12.280] We basically spent five months in an Airbnb apartment in a lockdown.
[00:24:12.280 --> 00:24:17.640] I did a travel thing when COVID started too, like around July 2020.
[00:24:17.640 --> 00:24:20.440] I was like, all right, I'm going to travel around just the United States.
[00:24:20.440 --> 00:24:21.960] And I was just driving around.
[00:24:21.960 --> 00:24:22.840] And I thought it was so cool.
[00:24:22.920 --> 00:24:23.640] It was a little bit like you.
[00:24:23.640 --> 00:24:29.240] I was like, you know, I think I should travel and like, you know, just expand my awareness and just be more on the road.
[00:24:29.240 --> 00:24:33.640] And it was like surprisingly, it was like better than I thought it was going to be in some respects.
[00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:40.920] I think, like, as human beings, we kind of evolved to be outdoors and to be nomadic and sort of like move from place to place.
[00:24:40.920 --> 00:24:44.280] And when I was like traveling, I was changing cities like every day or two.
[00:24:44.280 --> 00:24:49.360] And it kind of unlocked this very fresh, inspiring perspective on life for me that I didn't expect to happen.
[00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:53.280] Where it just felt like, wow, like I just feel much more alive, right?
[00:24:53.280 --> 00:25:01.840] I'm like talking to people from these tiny towns that I've never been to, and everyone in their own town, like you said, was like very unconcerned with like the things that I was concerned with.
[00:25:01.840 --> 00:25:04.480] And they had their own local issues, you know?
[00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:06.000] And I thought that was really cool.
[00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:15.360] But then something else started happening where I realized, like, well, like, the other thing that we sort of evolved to do as humans is like have a tribe and have like a consistent set of people around us who we love.
[00:25:15.360 --> 00:25:16.960] Like, you had your family, right?
[00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:18.640] You've got like your spouse and your kids.
[00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:20.400] And so you're like, okay, I've got my people.
[00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:22.880] You know, even if you're locked down in a house, I got my people.
[00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:24.480] But like, I was by myself.
[00:25:24.480 --> 00:25:28.080] Like, I remember I met this girl at this hotel who was working at the hotel I stayed at.
[00:25:28.080 --> 00:25:29.920] And like, we had some cool conversations.
[00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:30.880] It was kind of flirty.
[00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:31.920] We went out to dinner.
[00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:33.360] I met one of her friends.
[00:25:33.360 --> 00:25:35.440] And the next day I was like, all right, well, cool.
[00:25:35.600 --> 00:25:36.640] Never going to see you again.
[00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:37.120] Goodbye.
[00:25:37.120 --> 00:25:38.160] And I just left.
[00:25:38.160 --> 00:25:41.440] And I'm like, I think I actually got to like settle down somewhere.
[00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:42.720] And so I ended up in Seattle.
[00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:45.280] And I've had the opposite mindset since then.
[00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:46.240] I don't want to travel.
[00:25:46.240 --> 00:25:52.160] I want to stay in one place and invest and meet a ton of people and just make my life better and better and better in one place.
[00:25:52.480 --> 00:25:55.200] Well, I think you can do it not once.
[00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:57.120] I think nesting is great.
[00:25:57.120 --> 00:25:58.560] Nesting is comfortable.
[00:25:58.560 --> 00:26:02.240] Nesting is naturally what many people are looking for.
[00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:04.800] And it's about, I think it's about the anxiety levels.
[00:26:04.800 --> 00:26:08.160] You're just getting calmer, you work better, you feel better.
[00:26:08.320 --> 00:26:10.560] New Zealand is a perfect place for that.
[00:26:10.880 --> 00:26:14.960] You know, lower your anxiety to the very low levels.
[00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:16.000] But I don't know.
[00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:17.120] I got bored.
[00:26:17.120 --> 00:26:26.640] So maybe what we're trying to do now in Poland, which is step three, a couple of years forward, I found my Polish ancestry, ancestral routes.
[00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:33.240] So something they've got the program, governmental program, that allows people to come and maybe stay if they feel like it.
[00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:42.680] So I went through the official process and I'm expecting to become a Romanians resident any week now.
[00:26:43.160 --> 00:26:44.360] It's a long thing.
[00:26:44.360 --> 00:26:49.800] You have to learn the freaking difficult language, which is also beautiful and you know, so rich.
[00:26:49.800 --> 00:26:55.160] And that's what I mean when you actually have a chance to fully emerge in a new culture.
[00:26:55.160 --> 00:26:56.680] And it will take years.
[00:26:56.680 --> 00:26:59.160] I know, like I said, it's a long game.
[00:26:59.160 --> 00:27:04.760] But back to your point, I will try to build here a nest as well.
[00:27:04.760 --> 00:27:08.280] Like, I've done it there, and I will try to do it here.
[00:27:08.280 --> 00:27:11.800] It will take maybe 10 years to build a new nest.
[00:27:11.800 --> 00:27:17.800] And realistically, you know, that it will be three, four times from now.
[00:27:17.800 --> 00:27:19.720] I'm in my 30s.
[00:27:19.720 --> 00:27:22.200] So how much time do I have?
[00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:24.200] Maybe three different places.
[00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:25.080] Maybe Japan is.
[00:27:25.160 --> 00:27:26.200] Japan is cool, right?
[00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:27.720] But do you really dig Japan?
[00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:30.440] Do you really understand how it works?
[00:27:30.760 --> 00:27:34.360] I think it will take a long time to understand it truly.
[00:27:34.360 --> 00:27:36.040] Like I said, a decade.
[00:27:36.040 --> 00:27:40.520] So Japan, Vikings, I'm fascinated by this Nordic culture.
[00:27:40.520 --> 00:27:41.880] So that's true.
[00:27:42.120 --> 00:27:45.800] Then already, so I'm 60 already about that, right?
[00:27:45.800 --> 00:27:46.360] Yeah.
[00:27:46.840 --> 00:27:51.880] So then my health maybe will allow me to try it one more place.
[00:27:51.880 --> 00:27:52.520] And that's it.
[00:27:52.520 --> 00:27:53.000] That's it.
[00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:55.000] It's like life is short.
[00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:56.120] And then you're dead.
[00:27:56.120 --> 00:27:56.600] Yeah.
[00:27:56.600 --> 00:28:16.080] All of this hits really close to home for me personally because so I've got a girlfriend, and we both kind of mutually decided that we don't necessarily want to have kids, and that we would substitute the purpose and like the busyness of kids with A, doing a lot of travel and completely throwing ourselves into our projects.
[00:28:16.080 --> 00:28:27.120] And so, she's she's Swiss, she's um, she's not a naturalized American citizen, and so we travel back and forth between these two places, and it kind of checks that box of nesting, right?
[00:28:27.120 --> 00:28:31.040] We have our New York City friends, it's where I live, she has her Swiss friends.
[00:28:31.040 --> 00:28:36.960] We're literally about to book a flight to Switzerland, you know, whenever she gets home tonight for the summer.
[00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:46.480] And now she started to kind of lobby me towards like this, you know, like you know, how open are you to actually just sort of moving to Switzerland eventually?
[00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:51.200] And I feel like it almost entirely comes down to the network thing, right?
[00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:54.240] Like, how many people do you know in that place?
[00:28:54.240 --> 00:28:57.600] Like, how much, you know, sort of diversity does it have?
[00:28:57.600 --> 00:29:04.960] And she has a really strong case where Europe, you have this really amazing, efficient transportation system.
[00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:08.480] Trains are actually things that you want to like board.
[00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:13.040] Whereas, like, Cortland and I had to deal with the BART in San Francisco, like, not good.
[00:29:13.040 --> 00:29:16.000] Even the train system in New York City, not that good.
[00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:19.440] You can travel around to different countries fairly easily.
[00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:21.840] I could come visit you, Stas, and Poland.
[00:29:21.840 --> 00:29:26.640] Dude, have you seen that Instagram account for the New York subway called Subway Creatures?
[00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:28.720] It's my favorite Instagram account.
[00:29:29.840 --> 00:29:31.040] Did you send me?
[00:29:31.040 --> 00:29:36.960] Were you the one that sent me that video of like there was like a guy who had who fell asleep?
[00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:51.440] He was maybe homeless, I'm not sure, but he had like a dog, and the dog was sitting in his lap on this on the New York City subway, and the guy had passed out, and this dog was just licking the guy's mouth while like everyone around him just held their smartphones up, like recording.
[00:29:51.440 --> 00:29:52.560] Was that did you send me that one?
[00:29:52.560 --> 00:29:54.560] That was like a daily occurrence at the New York subway.
[00:29:54.560 --> 00:29:56.400] Like, it's you should move to Europe, dude.
[00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:57.760] I fully support it.
[00:29:57.760 --> 00:30:05.480] Well, yeah, I've seen less time I've been to London, I've seen an actual knight, like, you know, the person wearing armor on the tube.
[00:30:06.360 --> 00:30:07.720] They just, he was there.
[00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:08.760] And I'm not sure.
[00:30:08.760 --> 00:30:12.280] He's coming from some medieval gathering or something, but he was there.
[00:30:12.280 --> 00:30:14.040] And I'm like, yeah, that's interesting.
[00:30:14.040 --> 00:30:17.400] You know, big cities and the big cultural places, they always like that.
[00:30:17.400 --> 00:30:20.440] But I totally hear what he's saying.
[00:30:20.680 --> 00:30:24.040] And Europe, specifically Switzerland, I think it's super old.
[00:30:24.040 --> 00:30:25.240] It's all about nesting.
[00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:33.880] There are villages which can track in their genome, they could track the same people been living there for 5,000 years or something.
[00:30:33.880 --> 00:30:41.400] Like, that's like the reality of how comfy and nesting, how good that spot is for nesting.
[00:30:41.400 --> 00:30:42.280] So beware.
[00:30:42.280 --> 00:30:48.200] Do you find that being an Andy hacker, your ability to work on your business is like different in different places?
[00:30:48.200 --> 00:30:55.400] Like, what's the different vibe between running a company in New Zealand versus in like South America versus in Poland?
[00:30:55.720 --> 00:30:59.800] Well, part of the business is just general agency stuff.
[00:30:59.800 --> 00:31:05.480] So with that, being in Europe, you cover like wider client base, right?
[00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:11.480] You can speak just because it's convenient to a billion and a half people when you're in Europe.
[00:31:11.480 --> 00:31:23.160] And when you're in New Zealand, it's roughly 300 million because it's the west coast of America is very accessible, three hours difference with San Francisco and the rest.
[00:31:23.400 --> 00:31:28.120] Australia, on the other side, they're just like 26 people, a million people.
[00:31:28.120 --> 00:31:30.840] And up north, you've got agents that don't need us.
[00:31:30.840 --> 00:31:33.160] Like they solving their problems themselves.
[00:31:33.480 --> 00:31:38.600] So in terms of client work and with karma, we want to sell to businesses.
[00:31:38.600 --> 00:31:43.240] I had much, much, much wider opportunities while working from Chile.
[00:31:43.240 --> 00:31:45.200] That's roughly New York time.
[00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:48.560] And from Europe as well, it's just perfect.
[00:31:44.600 --> 00:31:49.840] I think you're just covering more people.
[00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.000] And that's about connections, of course, like being better connected.
[00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:58.080] And that's why, again, New Zealand, I think it's kind of isolated.
[00:31:58.080 --> 00:32:02.880] Corlin and I, he's on the West Coast, he's in Seattle, and I'm in New York City.
[00:32:02.880 --> 00:32:04.560] So we have like this three-hour spread.
[00:32:04.560 --> 00:32:07.520] And we have a very international community, indie hackers.
[00:32:07.520 --> 00:32:18.960] So like if we have, you know, some responsibility to like kind of manage the forum, I wake up way before him, and I can kind of like cover a little bit of like the, you know, European time.
[00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:24.800] And then when I go to bed, he can still make sure that, you know, if we have a fire, he's, he's awake to put it out.
[00:32:24.800 --> 00:32:32.560] So maybe we like expand our reach just a little bit if I then just move to Switzerland and then we have like, you know, we complete the spread.
[00:32:32.560 --> 00:32:34.000] For sure, 100%.
[00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:35.360] David is my business partner.
[00:32:35.360 --> 00:32:36.240] He's in Australia.
[00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:39.040] So he's still covering for that part of the globe.
[00:32:39.040 --> 00:32:45.280] And the time difference between New Zealand and, for example, Spain is 12 hours, 13 hours sometimes.
[00:32:45.280 --> 00:32:46.480] So it's vast.
[00:32:46.480 --> 00:32:52.000] It's so unmanageable, but at the same time, if you spread your resources, it works well.
[00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:57.680] One of the things that I like about your company, about KarmaBot, is that it's software as a service, right?
[00:32:57.680 --> 00:33:00.160] You guys charge a subscription fee.
[00:33:00.160 --> 00:33:05.440] At the low end, it's like 30 bucks a month, depending on your team size, and go all the way up to like 200 bucks a month.
[00:33:05.440 --> 00:33:14.160] And then you've got like an enterprise pricing thing where you got 500 more people, you're doing $10,000 a year plus deal sometimes.
[00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:14.880] I like this.
[00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:21.360] Most of the people we've had on the podcast recently, like there's been this trend in recent years towards like kind of like info products, right?
[00:33:21.360 --> 00:33:31.880] Like content-based businesses, people selling newsletters, or people doing like, you know, like maybe like on the high end, like job boards on the low end, like people monetizing their podcasts and whatnot.
[00:33:29.920 --> 00:33:36.680] And I, as a software engineer, like, I'm much more attracted to the SaaS stuff that you're doing.
[00:33:36.840 --> 00:33:43.000] I want to like code something and just have it work automatically in the background while people are like paying me money and it's just coming in.
[00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:45.160] Like that just sounds like a much more exciting type of business.
[00:33:45.160 --> 00:33:47.320] The downside is that it's really, really slow.
[00:33:47.320 --> 00:33:59.960] Like if Channing and I wanted to do some sort of SaaS product for any hackers, part of me is like, well, shit, like everybody I talk to who works on a SaaS product, it's like years before you start seeing meaningful revenue.
[00:33:59.960 --> 00:34:00.360] Yeah.
[00:34:00.360 --> 00:34:08.760] And I mean, it could be dead by that time because technologically it advances in the, you know, you're just late for the train.
[00:34:08.760 --> 00:34:14.120] It's a tricky thing because I think technically, yes, it's working on it by itself.
[00:34:14.120 --> 00:34:17.960] There are requests from clients and you're sort of improving product, listening to them.
[00:34:17.960 --> 00:34:23.640] So everybody's happy, but at the same time, it's difficult to sell.
[00:34:23.640 --> 00:34:35.000] Like we spent maybe 800 hours selling karma, David and I, doing demos, selling, talking about numbers, talking about pricing.
[00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:37.720] I think it's the most difficult part, to be honest.
[00:34:37.720 --> 00:34:40.840] Just because it's us and you're selling it to a business.
[00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:45.800] Business is really trying to, you know, get the best out of this deal.
[00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:51.800] They don't care as much as customers when you're selling something to a specific person, not a company.
[00:34:51.960 --> 00:34:53.720] Company is faceless.
[00:34:54.040 --> 00:34:56.680] So let's say you could go back in time, right?
[00:34:56.680 --> 00:34:57.960] Like it took you guys a while.
[00:34:57.960 --> 00:35:02.040] I think you started KarmaBot in 2016.
[00:35:02.040 --> 00:35:07.400] By the end of 2019, you'd hit $100,000 a year in revenue.
[00:35:07.400 --> 00:35:16.400] You know, so that was like two and a half years roughly between getting started and getting to the point where you can pay like, you know, a six-figure salary to like one person, which is quite a lot of time.
[00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:17.840] You got to be patient to do that.
[00:35:18.160 --> 00:35:19.040] How did you get there?
[00:35:19.040 --> 00:35:23.040] And then what do you think you could have done with the benefit of hindsight to get there faster?
[00:35:23.280 --> 00:35:25.840] How could you start a SaaS company fast?
[00:35:26.080 --> 00:35:28.480] Speaking to customers is the most difficult part.
[00:35:28.480 --> 00:35:36.720] And I think what unlocked Karma in a way, so it became more than just an internal product that we joined Y Combinator School.
[00:35:36.720 --> 00:35:48.560] The earliest Y Combinator school was actually, it was a real person with YC experience giving you feedback on the product, on the way you sell, on the problems that you've got.
[00:35:48.560 --> 00:35:59.280] And that, and Indie Hackers actually as well, tracking the progress, showing more numbers, trying to understand the lingo, trying to understand the numbers, being involved in a community.
[00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:04.320] That helped to grow from, I don't know, 200 bucks a month to 2,000.
[00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:11.040] And after that, you already started thinking about it as a, okay, so this actually can pay for our ramen.
[00:36:11.040 --> 00:36:13.120] And then, like, what's next?
[00:36:13.760 --> 00:36:16.400] This was kind of a gamble, right?
[00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:18.320] I mean, you already had an agency.
[00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:23.680] This was an internal tool, but SAS is a really large leap to make.
[00:36:23.680 --> 00:36:30.880] Like, was there ever a period when you're only making 200 bucks a month and you were trying to climb to more than that where you like thought about giving up?
[00:36:30.880 --> 00:36:34.320] Like, was this a discussion that you and your co-founder had?
[00:36:34.640 --> 00:36:36.240] Of course, yes, every day.
[00:36:36.240 --> 00:36:41.760] Like I said, it was really difficult for him, especially to believe that we're earning 200 bucks a month.
[00:36:41.760 --> 00:36:43.920] Like, how can we talk about 20,000?
[00:36:43.920 --> 00:36:45.040] It will never happen.
[00:36:45.040 --> 00:36:47.040] And I'm showing him this exponential growth.
[00:36:47.040 --> 00:36:48.720] And he's like, oh, don't do that.
[00:36:48.720 --> 00:36:50.000] It's like, it's it's fake.
[00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:53.200] Yet these charts, they always, they're good for the presentations.
[00:36:53.200 --> 00:36:54.640] Like, don't bullshit me.
[00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:56.960] Let's let's be realistic about it.
[00:36:56.920 --> 00:37:00.280] Also, it's still an exponential growth just because of the word of the mouth.
[00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:04.200] It brings you 1% growth because people talking about it, we're talking about it.
[00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:05.560] Some people will come tomorrow.
[00:37:05.800 --> 00:37:13.160] And that will be that same kind of non-linear growth that you get with digital products like that.
[00:37:13.160 --> 00:37:16.120] And it just took longer time.
[00:37:16.120 --> 00:37:24.920] And for me, I think it was about the ability to convince my partner to just keep on doing it and find something that he liked.
[00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:25.960] He likes selling.
[00:37:25.960 --> 00:37:29.320] He likes this moment when money hits your bank account.
[00:37:29.320 --> 00:37:32.200] You know, I like inspiring people.
[00:37:32.200 --> 00:37:36.200] I like the talking about big stuff and big things.
[00:37:36.200 --> 00:37:39.800] And your company culture is super important, these values and all.
[00:37:39.800 --> 00:37:41.160] And to the moon.
[00:37:41.560 --> 00:37:43.000] They get inspired.
[00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:46.680] But then to actually close the deal, I'm not that interested in that.
[00:37:46.680 --> 00:37:48.120] It's like it happens automatically.
[00:37:48.120 --> 00:37:49.160] If they need it, they will buy it.
[00:37:49.160 --> 00:37:50.440] That's my motto.
[00:37:50.440 --> 00:37:56.520] But my partner, he likes the actual moment of, you know, chi-ching moment, I call it.
[00:37:56.520 --> 00:37:57.640] And that helped a lot.
[00:37:57.640 --> 00:38:00.040] So he picked up sales.
[00:38:00.040 --> 00:38:01.960] He started talking about the product.
[00:38:01.960 --> 00:38:08.760] He started talking about it and understanding, listening as well, obviously, and understanding what they need.
[00:38:08.760 --> 00:38:11.720] And that was a huge leap forward.
[00:38:11.720 --> 00:38:27.960] And like I said, it would be not fair not to mention Y Combinator School and Indie Hackers as well for the as a community that, you know, with all those 200 posts of regular updates, that is actually discipline.
[00:38:28.040 --> 00:38:31.560] That is actually showing that it's going fine.
[00:38:31.880 --> 00:38:42.120] I think one of the things that I like about what I read in your product timeline on indie hackers is you can kind of see this upward creep of you doing more enterprise sales.
[00:38:42.120 --> 00:38:45.000] So at the very beginning, I was like, oh, we'll just sell it to tiny teams.
[00:38:45.680 --> 00:38:50.720] And then I think there's one month, it was like March 2019 or 2018 or something.
[00:38:50.720 --> 00:38:53.600] You're like, we've got three enterprise sales deals in the works.
[00:38:53.600 --> 00:38:55.040] One of them is almost going to close.
[00:38:55.040 --> 00:38:56.880] I think we'll make $10,000 a year from this.
[00:38:56.880 --> 00:38:58.240] It's going to be so cool.
[00:38:58.240 --> 00:39:02.080] And now I assume you have like many more larger companies that you sell to.
[00:39:02.080 --> 00:39:07.920] Even the way that you've described everything on your homepage is kind of like, oh, I could see why a bigger company would buy this.
[00:39:07.920 --> 00:39:12.320] And that's cool because when you make these bigger deals, you don't need as many customers.
[00:39:12.320 --> 00:39:18.240] And you can grow your revenue a lot faster if you just do five, $10,000 a year deals.
[00:39:18.240 --> 00:39:24.480] And if you have to do like $500, $10 a year deals, to individual people, it just doesn't work that fast.
[00:39:24.480 --> 00:39:26.640] Do you think you could have started that way?
[00:39:26.880 --> 00:39:31.040] Do you think you could go back in time and be like, you know what, let's just do enterprise sales from the way?
[00:39:31.440 --> 00:39:32.480] No, no, no.
[00:39:32.720 --> 00:39:34.400] I wouldn't be able to speak to them.
[00:39:34.400 --> 00:39:35.280] I don't understand.
[00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:37.440] I wouldn't be able to understand their problems.
[00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:43.920] Like the way they buy, the way they choose a product, the things that they're concerned about.
[00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:46.400] They're not actually concerned about the price that much.
[00:39:46.400 --> 00:39:50.960] They're concerned about many other things, like how do we actually implement it?
[00:39:50.960 --> 00:39:53.600] How do we actually make sure that people are using it?
[00:39:53.600 --> 00:39:55.200] How do we measure the use?
[00:39:55.200 --> 00:39:57.040] How do we measure the outcome of that?
[00:39:57.040 --> 00:40:00.000] And also, having a champion is super important.
[00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:01.840] We didn't really understand it at the beginning.
[00:40:01.840 --> 00:40:04.320] A champion is a founder in a small team.
[00:40:04.320 --> 00:40:07.520] I would be selling to you, Channing, and that I will inspire you.
[00:40:07.520 --> 00:40:09.200] You will be, oh, yes, that's cool.
[00:40:09.200 --> 00:40:17.920] And then the next day, like, it would be easy for me to convince you, but at the same time, it would be easy for you to just, you know, drop it a couple of months later.
[00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:18.880] And I don't want that.
[00:40:18.880 --> 00:40:20.480] I want a bigger company.
[00:40:20.480 --> 00:40:26.640] It may be difficult to convince, but I want them to stay for me with the year, two, three.
[00:40:26.640 --> 00:40:28.960] The longest is five years plus.
[00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:31.080] We've got clients, they're super happy.
[00:40:31.400 --> 00:40:38.600] So, to answer your question, no, unfortunately, I think it's you have to grow into this.
[00:40:38.920 --> 00:40:41.000] How do you think a founder can grow into that?
[00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:41.720] I don't know.
[00:40:41.720 --> 00:40:47.880] If I knew, karma would be much, much, much bigger and it would be a primary thing that I do in life.
[00:40:47.880 --> 00:40:52.760] But it's still like it's a niche product, and I don't know how to sell it to everybody.
[00:40:52.760 --> 00:40:54.360] I don't know how to sell it well.
[00:40:54.360 --> 00:41:09.800] I mean, we sell it okay because probably better than some other people would have sold it, but it's a difficult question because actually it's less geeky, it's less hackery, it's less fulfilling in a way.
[00:41:09.800 --> 00:41:17.240] You work with corporations, they don't care much about the ingenuity of your code base or generally your product.
[00:41:17.240 --> 00:41:27.880] They're solving their problems, and the problems they could be vague, the solution could be vague, the outcome could be difficult to measure, and you're there.
[00:41:27.880 --> 00:41:34.280] You're either promising too much or your product maybe is smaller than they need.
[00:41:34.280 --> 00:41:41.560] Yeah, obviously, it seems like how you go after big companies has to be kind of tailored to everyone's industry, et cetera.
[00:41:41.560 --> 00:41:45.160] But Cortland, you remember when I was a copier salesman, right?
[00:41:45.160 --> 00:41:46.840] When I was like, yeah, in my 20s?
[00:41:47.160 --> 00:41:51.480] So I had this job because I lived in San Francisco and I had to pay the bills.
[00:41:51.480 --> 00:41:58.040] So I just kind of got this job selling multi-function, big industrial-sized copy machines.
[00:41:58.040 --> 00:41:59.400] And it was the worst.
[00:41:59.400 --> 00:42:08.440] It was like you pretty much have to like go door to door downtown San Francisco, you know, sort of knocking on doors, giving people like your business card.
[00:42:08.440 --> 00:42:14.520] The first day that I was on this job, literally, I went into someone's office and they threw a stapler.
[00:42:14.520 --> 00:42:20.400] It was like the person on the front desk threw it because she's like so sick of people going in.
[00:42:21.120 --> 00:42:29.280] So I decided immediately when I had this job, like I don't want to try to get commissions on a bunch of small companies, right?
[00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:32.480] Like and just sort of have this constant treadmill that I'm on.
[00:42:32.480 --> 00:42:35.120] I immediately was like, I just want to go for like the big kahuna.
[00:42:35.360 --> 00:42:37.360] What are the 800-pound gorillas?
[00:42:37.360 --> 00:42:39.840] And yeah, you have to work your way up.
[00:42:39.840 --> 00:42:42.880] So I had to like meet my commission every single month.
[00:42:42.880 --> 00:42:46.080] But I immediately was like, I don't know, school districts.
[00:42:46.080 --> 00:42:49.360] So my sales territory was like north of San Francisco.
[00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:54.080] And it took me like six months of dragging my heels with smaller deals or whatever.
[00:42:54.080 --> 00:43:00.320] And then as soon as I got that first school district, like I landed this deal, then I had this like network that I was in.
[00:43:00.320 --> 00:43:03.600] Like that business manager knew the business manager at another one.
[00:43:03.600 --> 00:43:09.040] And so it was like, once I got in, I like didn't have to go for the smaller deals anymore.
[00:43:09.040 --> 00:43:12.800] And I guess if I were to ask, you know, what's the secret?
[00:43:12.800 --> 00:43:14.000] How did you close this deal?
[00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:15.440] Tell me I want to do the same.
[00:43:15.440 --> 00:43:18.080] It would be difficult because it's very business specific.
[00:43:18.080 --> 00:43:19.440] You have to know people.
[00:43:19.680 --> 00:43:24.960] Maybe that guy specifically was really, you know, happy with the way you did the sales.
[00:43:24.960 --> 00:43:27.520] And then his trusted friend trusted him.
[00:43:27.520 --> 00:43:29.440] So it's a pyramid of trust now.
[00:43:29.440 --> 00:43:35.360] So this stuff, when it becomes bigger, I think it's difficult to repeat consistently.
[00:43:35.360 --> 00:43:43.920] But at the same time, with SaaS and being the founder and selling your own stuff, it's kind of fulfilling in another way when it's just not for everybody.
[00:43:43.920 --> 00:43:47.600] And if it's not for you, you just, you know, move on.
[00:43:47.600 --> 00:43:51.920] The other thing I think is cool about what you're doing is you're in this industry that I don't know very much about.
[00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:58.080] It's called, you know, in your about page, you kind of describe it as like you're a people culture tool.
[00:43:58.080 --> 00:44:00.840] And there's all these other people culture tools.
[00:44:00.840 --> 00:44:05.800] There's kudos, there's bonus lead, there's Bravo, there's one called Matter.
[00:44:05.800 --> 00:44:07.640] What do you think you guys know?
[00:44:07.640 --> 00:44:10.280] What do you guys do that these other people don't?
[00:44:10.280 --> 00:44:10.440] Right?
[00:44:10.680 --> 00:44:16.360] If I'm trying to make like a company in the people culture tool space, like what's important to know to build a good product?
[00:44:17.080 --> 00:44:20.520] Please don't because you're smart and you will be a difficult competitor.
[00:44:20.840 --> 00:44:24.520] But we're taking notes.
[00:44:24.840 --> 00:44:29.720] Yeah, I think it's partially entertainment, unfortunately.
[00:44:29.720 --> 00:44:31.960] So we have, it's like Netflix.
[00:44:31.960 --> 00:44:35.240] There will be people who would like to watch this weird show.
[00:44:35.240 --> 00:44:46.200] So if Karma is not, I mean, similar in some regards to this program that the company has been using for years, let's say, honestly, at some point, people get tired.
[00:44:46.440 --> 00:44:48.040] The attraction goes down.
[00:44:48.040 --> 00:44:50.360] They're not engaged as well as before.
[00:44:50.360 --> 00:44:52.200] So they just need change.
[00:44:52.200 --> 00:44:55.000] And I think it's how we lose customers.
[00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:57.320] This is how we gain customers as well.
[00:44:57.320 --> 00:45:02.600] Usually there is a notion of having people culture boosted somehow.
[00:45:02.600 --> 00:45:04.680] And then they find a solution.
[00:45:04.680 --> 00:45:07.640] And over time, they maybe got tired of it.
[00:45:07.640 --> 00:45:09.480] So they're looking for something else.
[00:45:09.480 --> 00:45:13.800] Or, and this is, you know, this is where I always happy.
[00:45:13.800 --> 00:45:20.520] I'm happy to help and talk about, you know, remote work and people culture, building the team remotely.
[00:45:20.520 --> 00:45:21.480] This is kind of new.
[00:45:21.480 --> 00:45:26.040] They try to become really progressive in a way.
[00:45:27.560 --> 00:45:32.840] That's with the older companies, they don't always understand that.
[00:45:33.240 --> 00:45:39.960] I think we understand it better because we're younger and we fully remote ourselves and we know we built it for ourselves.
[00:45:39.960 --> 00:45:42.600] So that actually helps to sell.
[00:45:42.920 --> 00:45:45.200] I think that's partially how we differen.
[00:45:45.520 --> 00:45:47.520] But I wouldn't, you know, argue at all.
[00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:49.520] There are tons of companies.
[00:45:49.520 --> 00:45:54.240] We are not unique, but like I said, there is a different Netflix throw for everybody.
[00:45:54.240 --> 00:46:03.200] Man, I feel like 10 years ago, hearing about a people culture tool for a company, I would have like kind of rolled my eyes.
[00:46:03.200 --> 00:46:08.800] Maybe partially because I worked for this terrible sales company and I felt like it's all manipulative bullshit.
[00:46:08.800 --> 00:46:14.160] But then the job that I worked right before in the hackers was this company called Outdoorsy.
[00:46:14.160 --> 00:46:17.600] It's kind of like the Airbnb for RVs, right?
[00:46:17.600 --> 00:46:21.680] They just, if you have an RV sitting in your lawn, you just get to rent that out.
[00:46:21.680 --> 00:46:28.320] And there was like a seven-person team, this startup Outdoorsy, and the culture was amazing.
[00:46:28.320 --> 00:46:28.960] It was sick.
[00:46:28.960 --> 00:46:30.640] And I was like, I get it.
[00:46:30.640 --> 00:46:32.320] And like, they would do tons of cool things.
[00:46:32.560 --> 00:46:34.400] We were an RV company.
[00:46:34.400 --> 00:46:42.480] And so it's like, look, every month, someone has to take a month off of work to like get in one of our RVs and like just go on vacation.
[00:46:42.480 --> 00:46:43.600] And like that was for everybody.
[00:46:43.600 --> 00:46:45.680] And then you like kind of write your little report.
[00:46:45.680 --> 00:46:49.840] Basically, the company had so much focus on these things that I used to be like, that's just superficial.
[00:46:49.840 --> 00:46:52.560] Like you're just kind of like trying to pull my strings and manipulate me.
[00:46:52.560 --> 00:46:57.600] But after that, I was like, no, that's really, really a massive superpower.
[00:46:57.600 --> 00:47:03.840] And that's what I meant when I was talking about stuff like in the early days when someone would be saying, oh, man, this is stupid.
[00:47:03.840 --> 00:47:06.400] This is just points on top of points, whatever.
[00:47:06.400 --> 00:47:07.760] This is superficial.
[00:47:07.760 --> 00:47:08.960] And this is not real.
[00:47:08.960 --> 00:47:09.840] It's fake.
[00:47:09.840 --> 00:47:16.640] And on the other hand, I had people believing in the people culture trend and that, you know, you just wait.
[00:47:16.640 --> 00:47:18.480] In the future, it will pick up.
[00:47:18.480 --> 00:47:32.600] And I think remote, the remote stuff, when you don't get to see people, when you don't get to meet them in person, this really needs this, like, what is it, like, taste enhancer, like extra spices.
[00:47:32.760 --> 00:47:42.360] It needs something to enhance this experience because it's scary, it's bland, it's just a piece of text basically on the screen.
[00:47:42.360 --> 00:47:45.720] You cannot go to a bar and have a conversation.
[00:47:45.720 --> 00:47:55.800] When we work together on Slack, and then once a year, let's say we meet in person, I was so surprised that you actually know these people.
[00:47:55.800 --> 00:47:59.400] You communicate with them through Zoom, you communicate with them through Slack.
[00:47:59.400 --> 00:48:01.640] You know that they could be a different size.
[00:48:01.640 --> 00:48:05.000] You don't predict the size of a person, but you can totally.
[00:48:05.160 --> 00:48:06.600] I mean, I know this dude.
[00:48:06.600 --> 00:48:07.960] I know how to speak to him.
[00:48:07.960 --> 00:48:11.240] I know what he means when he responds, when he's smiling.
[00:48:11.240 --> 00:48:14.040] I know that it was he did understand me.
[00:48:14.040 --> 00:48:16.120] And this is achievable through remote.
[00:48:16.120 --> 00:48:20.600] And also, I think that's also a discovery for many teams.
[00:48:20.600 --> 00:48:25.800] So, karma is a connector, it's a glue for such an environment.
[00:48:25.800 --> 00:48:28.760] Can I ask you just one question to sort of wrap up?
[00:48:29.080 --> 00:48:33.080] Obviously, you've had like this journey, you spent like over 10 years building this agency.
[00:48:33.080 --> 00:48:39.720] You then spent the last like six, seven years working on karma, growing up to $40,000 a month in revenue.
[00:48:39.720 --> 00:48:44.680] What do you think a brand new founder can take away from your story?
[00:48:46.120 --> 00:48:49.160] Trying different things and playing the long game.
[00:48:49.160 --> 00:48:50.280] I think it works.
[00:48:50.280 --> 00:48:52.520] I believe in consistency and persistency.
[00:48:52.520 --> 00:48:58.120] Like these 200 stupid updates with numbers that no one actually understands apart from myself.
[00:48:58.360 --> 00:49:01.880] I think that what to and no one cares, to be honest.
[00:49:02.520 --> 00:49:05.960] That's what it took to build the product in the end.
[00:49:05.960 --> 00:49:06.440] I love it.
[00:49:06.760 --> 00:49:09.320] Consistency, play the long game, and don't give up.
[00:49:09.400 --> 00:49:12.600] Staska-less, thanks a ton for coming on the India Actors Podcast.
[00:49:12.840 --> 00:49:19.120] Can you let listeners know where they can go to find out more about Karma and anything else that you're working on?
[00:49:19.440 --> 00:49:23.520] Right, so Karma is a people culture tool for your company, for your team.
[00:49:23.520 --> 00:49:29.360] If you're working on Slack or Microsoft Teams, you can find it at karmapot.chat on the internet.
[00:49:29.360 --> 00:49:30.880] Just Google us, we will be there.
[00:49:30.960 --> 00:49:31.520] That's all.
[00:49:31.760 --> 00:49:32.000] All right.
[00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:32.560] Thanks again, Stash.
[00:49:32.800 --> 00:49:33.920] Awesome.

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

[00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:10.080] Dude, do you um do you watch YouTube at all?
[00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:11.840] Yeah, a little bit.
[00:00:11.840 --> 00:00:14.400] I'm trying to do more learning.
[00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:16.400] I want like a better information diet.
[00:00:16.400 --> 00:00:19.920] And a couple years ago, I subscribed to a ton of newsletters.
[00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:26.560] You know that phase when everybody was like super into Substack and whatever, and it was just like everybody was doing paid newsletters?
[00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:28.640] I subscribed to like 50 newsletters.
[00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:32.240] And I had this grand plan that I'm going to read all these newsletters, learn all this stuff.
[00:00:32.240 --> 00:00:40.160] But like what happens is I've just spent the last two years just like marking every email read and archiving them immediately and not reading any of that shit.
[00:00:40.160 --> 00:00:44.240] So I think I should go to YouTube instead because this newsletter thing is just like it's not working.
[00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:46.160] But I'm not sure what channels to watch.
[00:00:46.160 --> 00:00:47.360] Like I don't know what's good on YouTube.
[00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:49.200] I just know there's a lot of good stuff.
[00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:51.360] You're trying to increase your information diet.
[00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:54.240] Is it like vaguely you just want more information?
[00:00:54.800 --> 00:00:57.040] Are there specific types of things you want to learn?
[00:00:57.040 --> 00:00:58.000] I'm not even there yet.
[00:00:58.000 --> 00:00:58.720] I don't know.
[00:00:59.760 --> 00:01:01.360] I just want to learn stuff.
[00:01:01.360 --> 00:01:04.400] I don't want to watch funny TikToks and reels and shit.
[00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:08.720] I want to watch stuff where after I watch it, I know more.
[00:01:08.720 --> 00:01:10.880] I'm so difficult with these kind of questions.
[00:01:10.880 --> 00:01:12.640] I'm like, what's your why?
[00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:14.000] Like, I get that you want to learn.
[00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:16.560] Like, what's the problem that you're trying to deal with?
[00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:17.200] I don't know, man.
[00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:19.440] I'll have downtime in between.
[00:01:19.760 --> 00:01:20.800] I don't want to work.
[00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:22.640] I've already exercised.
[00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:24.320] I've already hung out with my friends.
[00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:27.120] And then I'll play board games online.
[00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:28.880] I'm ranked number like 23 in the world.
[00:01:28.880 --> 00:01:31.680] It'll ticket to ride because I play so much on my phone.
[00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:32.720] I'm like, I shouldn't be doing this.
[00:01:32.720 --> 00:01:33.120] I should be learning.
[00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:34.720] I don't even know what that is.
[00:01:34.800 --> 00:01:36.800] It's a random fucking board game.
[00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:37.840] You shouldn't even know.
[00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:39.600] I shouldn't even know what it is.
[00:01:39.600 --> 00:01:41.280] But there's so much good stuff on YouTube.
[00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:42.800] Every now and then I stumble across.
[00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:46.960] Like somebody on Hacker News the other day was recommending like this video on astronomy.
[00:01:46.960 --> 00:01:50.960] And I just like clicked it randomly, and it's like this YouTube channel called Crash Course.
[00:01:50.960 --> 00:01:53.360] And they just do crash courses and topics.
[00:01:53.360 --> 00:02:00.000] It's almost like Khan Academy, where you can learn about math or business or life sciences or history.
[00:02:01.080 --> 00:02:12.280] And I clicked video number 25 in their astronomy course, and I learned all this stuff about how we know how far away the stars are and the history of how the ancients figured out that the Earth was round.
[00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:17.400] Like, did you know the ancient Greeks knew the Earth was round like 2,000 years ago?
[00:02:17.400 --> 00:02:18.760] I didn't know that shit.
[00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:20.920] And the way they figured it out was cool.
[00:02:21.160 --> 00:02:25.880] I did research for, like, I was studying innovation, and I wanted to write an article on it.
[00:02:25.880 --> 00:02:27.240] And I studied the Greeks.
[00:02:27.240 --> 00:02:31.960] And I figured out that the Greeks figured out and learned tons of things.
[00:02:31.960 --> 00:02:33.480] Like, the Earth is round.
[00:02:33.480 --> 00:02:40.680] They figured out tons of things that, like, random scientific discoveries that later would sort of be found out by people like Newton.
[00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:41.400] Yeah.
[00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:47.080] And essentially, all of their culture was just reduced to rubble through like war.
[00:02:47.080 --> 00:02:50.200] And tons of these pieces of information just got lost.
[00:02:50.200 --> 00:02:54.680] And then, in like the 1400s, a lot of the remains were found.
[00:02:54.680 --> 00:02:56.600] A lot of these old manuscripts were found.
[00:02:56.600 --> 00:03:01.720] And that did a huge amount to get the people, like Europeans out of the dark age.
[00:03:01.720 --> 00:03:11.400] But setting that aside, dude, you know what you should, what you should, if you're looking to just have like constructive learning time on YouTube, have you ever heard of extra credits or like extra history?
[00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:12.680] Dude, this thing is awesome.
[00:03:13.320 --> 00:03:14.040] It does two things.
[00:03:14.040 --> 00:03:15.400] It checks two boxes off.
[00:03:15.400 --> 00:03:25.000] Number one, it's a history show, and I love learning about history, but learning about history and learning about most things is usually like really dense.
[00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:26.600] Like it takes a lot of time.
[00:03:26.600 --> 00:03:39.640] And this is like these short, sweet cartoons that take pretty much like all of world history and they like package it up in like, you know, little series of like five videos that are like 10 minutes each.
[00:03:39.640 --> 00:03:40.520] And they're really fun.
[00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:41.480] They're really bite-sized.
[00:03:41.480 --> 00:03:43.800] Like it requires so little investment.
[00:03:43.800 --> 00:03:46.480] And you just get like the fun crash course.
[00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:52.240] There's one on YouTube called like Kurzkesat, and they also do these animated videos that'll explain stuff that are pretty cool.
[00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:53.920] But I want something that's like a little bit deeper.
[00:03:53.920 --> 00:04:02.480] I don't want like the you know like infotainment where you know like they give you information, but it's mostly just entertaining and funny and cool.
[00:04:02.480 --> 00:04:06.800] And then like, you know, five minutes later, you forgot everything you watched and you couldn't tell anybody.
[00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:10.240] I want something that's like a little bit deeper than that.
[00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:11.600] Hey, what's up, Stas?
[00:04:11.600 --> 00:04:12.880] Stas, what's up?
[00:04:12.880 --> 00:04:15.120] Yes, thank you so much for having me.
[00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:16.240] Welcome on.
[00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:18.400] You are Stas Kulesh.
[00:04:18.400 --> 00:04:19.520] You're an indie hacker.
[00:04:19.520 --> 00:04:23.760] You're the founder of a co-founder of a company called KarmaBot.
[00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:26.640] And I've been following your progress on indie hackers for quite some time.
[00:04:26.640 --> 00:04:30.640] On ND Hackers, your product page, it says you're making 25 grand a month in revenue.
[00:04:30.640 --> 00:04:33.840] But then I was talking to you earlier and you're like, no, that's just our Stripe revenue.
[00:04:33.840 --> 00:04:35.920] We also collect direct payments.
[00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:40.960] And so it's closer to like $40,000 a month in revenue for what you guys are doing.
[00:04:40.960 --> 00:04:41.920] Yep, that's right.
[00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:52.320] We deal with businesses and sometimes they, you know, once they sent it an actual like check, a paper piece of paper, they sent it to New Zealand.
[00:04:52.320 --> 00:04:54.400] And we were like, what are we going to do with that?
[00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:56.640] So it's not just Stripe.
[00:04:56.640 --> 00:04:58.720] We need to deal with accounting.
[00:04:59.040 --> 00:05:06.960] I think one of the cool things about your story that I know is essentially when you built Karma, it was kind of an internal tool, right?
[00:05:06.960 --> 00:05:10.080] Like you didn't necessarily build it for the external world.
[00:05:10.080 --> 00:05:11.680] You had a whole different business going on.
[00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:15.680] You and your co-founders decided, like, ah, maybe we can build this cool tool for ourselves.
[00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:20.400] And then you spun it out, which is something that Channing and I probably should do for indie hackers.
[00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:24.320] We have so many different tools that we build for ourselves, but we've never spun any of them out.
[00:05:24.320 --> 00:05:26.080] Yeah, I truly believe in this.
[00:05:26.080 --> 00:05:27.920] I think it's a cheat in a way.
[00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:34.840] Like, with whatever we do, other sub-products and side projects, we first run them through the team.
[00:05:29.600 --> 00:05:35.800] The team needs it.
[00:05:36.120 --> 00:05:43.800] And even if it's not bringing much money as a product for the outsiders, we actually save in tons on, you know, internally.
[00:05:43.800 --> 00:05:50.120] For example, we're doing invoicing and time tracking with our own product, which is called Time.
[00:05:50.120 --> 00:05:54.760] And it's tiny, but it saves us like six grand a year.
[00:05:54.760 --> 00:05:58.920] Well, you had like a hack because I think your company was an agency, right?
[00:05:58.920 --> 00:06:04.280] You guys were doing like web design and web development work, and you had like 25 people.
[00:06:04.280 --> 00:06:05.240] Yeah, roughly.
[00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:11.240] And that was like we tried, I think you can have a look at that product hunt.
[00:06:11.240 --> 00:06:13.560] We launched like 50-something products.
[00:06:13.560 --> 00:06:18.200] Only one or two succeeded in a way like to become sustainable.
[00:06:18.200 --> 00:06:18.680] Yeah.
[00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:21.320] And it's, yeah, just keep on building.
[00:06:21.320 --> 00:06:22.280] That was the motto.
[00:06:22.280 --> 00:06:24.040] And then one thing actually worked.
[00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:25.400] That was karma.
[00:06:25.400 --> 00:06:32.040] Yeah, I think that's the hack: you essentially built a company where you had a ton of programming resources.
[00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:34.840] And I think most people don't have like the time and the resources to do that.
[00:06:34.840 --> 00:06:36.760] Like at indie hackers, I'm the only coder.
[00:06:36.760 --> 00:06:39.880] If we want to build stuff, I have to stop building everything else and build that.
[00:06:39.880 --> 00:06:45.800] But you have an army of people to build side projects and do what'd you say, like 50 launches on Product Hunt?
[00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:47.320] Yeah, you can look it up.
[00:06:47.320 --> 00:06:51.480] I think it's just generally including all different versions of Karma as well.
[00:06:51.640 --> 00:06:55.240] I mean, we also with the team, you have to manage the workload.
[00:06:55.240 --> 00:06:58.600] Sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it's like not enough work basically.
[00:06:58.600 --> 00:07:01.720] And then we turn to our internal projects.
[00:07:01.720 --> 00:07:12.040] And it's the way of engaging the team and with the way of you know keeping the brains you know alive and just thinking of something new.
[00:07:12.280 --> 00:07:24.240] We try to play the startup game and this is like when you promise someone that you would do 100x in a year or so, you know, this kind of stuff when you need to fundraise.
[00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:26.480] Yeah, we're gonna be billions of the company.
[00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:30.960] Yeah, you have to lie a little bit, maybe overpromise and under deliver.
[00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:32.400] I don't know.
[00:07:32.400 --> 00:07:36.080] I believe in more like long games generally.
[00:07:36.080 --> 00:07:37.520] Like I said, we've got a team.
[00:07:37.520 --> 00:07:38.880] They need to feed their families.
[00:07:38.880 --> 00:07:40.080] We need to provide.
[00:07:40.080 --> 00:07:43.040] We need to make sure that they have enough work.
[00:07:43.040 --> 00:07:55.280] And it's more important to us to become a steady kind of sustainable business rather than try and get this opportunity this year, but maybe next year they're going to be layoffs.
[00:07:55.520 --> 00:07:57.200] We're kind of seeing it right nowadays, right?
[00:07:57.200 --> 00:07:58.240] It's a bubble.
[00:07:58.880 --> 00:08:01.120] I love the idea of releasing internal tools.
[00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:05.200] And by the way, Cortland, did you see the tool that I just released, Underhead?
[00:08:05.200 --> 00:08:08.960] Yeah, you've been telling me about it for like years, but I didn't realize you were going to release it.
[00:08:08.960 --> 00:08:16.080] Yeah, I mean, so this is a situation where I have my own app and it's like not a good product.
[00:08:16.080 --> 00:08:18.480] It's like a to-do list app, basically, right?
[00:08:18.480 --> 00:08:25.520] And I think there's almost nothing worse or more difficult business to get into than creating another to-do list app.
[00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:34.080] But the benefit of working with your own internal tools and then releasing those is that in a huge way, it's de-risked.
[00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:38.240] So in this case, I just decided to release this thing.
[00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:42.880] And now, you know, whatever, there are 50 to 100 people who are using this every day.
[00:08:42.880 --> 00:08:45.840] I mean, I just literally launched it a week ago.
[00:08:45.840 --> 00:08:47.760] I have no intention of making money on it.
[00:08:47.760 --> 00:08:51.760] I don't think it would make money, but it just generates all this traffic.
[00:08:51.760 --> 00:08:57.280] And so, on the worst side, no one was going to like it, in which case I just get to keep using my own app.
[00:08:57.280 --> 00:08:59.360] So, there's no real loss there.
[00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:03.640] And on the best side, now maybe it'll make money, but it'll definitely generate traffic.
[00:09:03.640 --> 00:09:08.680] And then I can like move those eyeballs to a product or a service that does make money.
[00:09:08.680 --> 00:09:09.560] Yeah, that's cool, dude.
[00:09:09.560 --> 00:09:11.400] You're never going to charge for it.
[00:09:11.400 --> 00:09:12.360] I mean, I don't know.
[00:09:12.520 --> 00:09:17.320] Like, the sky is the limit, but I mean, ultimately, this thing was just like Stas's product.
[00:09:17.320 --> 00:09:18.520] It was kind of in stealth mode.
[00:09:18.520 --> 00:09:23.240] I was getting my own benefit out of it, but it just wasn't doing a bunch of other work.
[00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:31.320] So, it's like, literally, if I sit on it and I don't do anything and the traffic just grows slowly, to me, that's better than simply working on it in private.
[00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:32.120] That's fair up.
[00:09:32.200 --> 00:09:34.760] And also, I think it is a hack.
[00:09:34.760 --> 00:09:38.920] Building tools for ourselves and then releasing them to others.
[00:09:38.920 --> 00:09:40.040] You don't expect much.
[00:09:40.040 --> 00:09:42.680] It's already working if it saves time and money.
[00:09:42.680 --> 00:09:46.840] If you're liking the product yourself, that's already a benefit.
[00:09:46.840 --> 00:09:47.400] Yeah.
[00:09:47.400 --> 00:09:56.280] So, for what you eventually built, Stas, because you guys built multiple tools for yourselves, the one that was sort of the breakout hit is called KarmaBot.
[00:09:56.280 --> 00:10:00.200] And Karmabot.chat, www.karmabot.chat.
[00:10:00.200 --> 00:10:04.760] I was going down your IndieHackers product page where for years you blogged about it on Indie Hackers.
[00:10:04.760 --> 00:10:09.000] You had something like 240 posts on your product page about it.
[00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:15.000] Like, you did like weekly updates, like, weekly update number 174, plus like blog posts, plus product updates.
[00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:17.160] Like, nevertheless, three books worth of updates.
[00:10:17.560 --> 00:10:19.080] I was scrolling down for like 10 minutes.
[00:10:19.080 --> 00:10:19.960] Like, where's the bottom of this?
[00:10:20.200 --> 00:10:20.360] Amazing.
[00:10:20.520 --> 00:10:21.960] You guys have written a ton about it.
[00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:28.280] The way I would describe it now is essentially, there's a lot of teams that are doing remote work.
[00:10:28.280 --> 00:10:38.040] And they're primarily communicating over things like Microsoft Teams or Slack or even like Telegram or something, like chat tools, where you don't really get to see your teammates.
[00:10:38.040 --> 00:10:44.520] In fact, there's like a post on Hacker News I was reading the other day where someone was saying, like, hey, what do you do when you don't have any friends and you don't go to bars and stuff?
[00:10:44.520 --> 00:10:48.880] And then also your company goes remote and you suddenly don't even like see your coworkers.
[00:10:48.880 --> 00:10:50.800] Like, how do you survive that situation?
[00:10:50.800 --> 00:11:00.560] I think with something like Karma, what you're doing is you're basically making it easier for people to come together and reward each other and feel like this personal connection.
[00:11:00.560 --> 00:11:22.080] So you can like basically use your tool to reward your team members, to give them like kudos, and you've got animations and you've got like these celebrations and people do good things and people hit milestones and they're actually like, you know, can log into this interface where they're getting like gift cards or like pizza or coffee or like, you know, even like company-wide bonuses based on like things that you type into Slack.
[00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:27.760] So the whole point is to get your whole remote team like bonded together and be happier and sort of stronger together.
[00:11:27.760 --> 00:11:31.680] Yeah, I think I started, you know, like you said, it's changed.
[00:11:31.680 --> 00:11:37.280] Over time, it was initially just sending points from one programmer to another.
[00:11:37.280 --> 00:11:46.640] And then it became this kind of reward system with bonuses and all multi-level permissions stuff because we want like bigger companies to get involved.
[00:11:46.640 --> 00:11:49.040] We want bigger teams to play this game.
[00:11:49.040 --> 00:11:55.680] And over time, we figured that it's about engagement as well as visibility of what's going on in a company.
[00:11:55.680 --> 00:12:08.880] When you've got 100 plus people working remotely, they're not only not, you know, becoming mates, literally in real life, they also get disconnected and they don't really know what their company is doing as well.
[00:12:08.880 --> 00:12:19.920] So karma, when you see this animated card, it's like a greeting card in a way that pops up in a special channel, which is called Appreciation or something, or Karma, you can call it whatever.
[00:12:19.920 --> 00:12:25.920] And you instantly know that these people, they've done a great job and they've been working on that.
[00:12:25.920 --> 00:12:29.280] And you're like, oh, so this department is actually busy with this kind of stuff.
[00:12:29.280 --> 00:12:30.120] Interesting.
[00:12:30.120 --> 00:12:31.720] And there is no limit.
[00:12:29.680 --> 00:12:35.240] No one ever left the company because they've been thanked too many times.
[00:12:35.800 --> 00:12:37.400] People like being thanked.
[00:12:37.400 --> 00:12:40.680] And there is no way you can underappreciate your people.
[00:12:40.680 --> 00:12:44.120] And over time, this message became, you know, it's our motto.
[00:12:44.120 --> 00:12:55.480] We're trying to make the remote environment, which is really difficult to be honest, because it's not enough to put a smiley, like a bracket at the end of the message, or a smiley, or an emoji even.
[00:12:55.480 --> 00:13:00.920] It still reads as a, you know, well, okay, he's probably happy with what I've done.
[00:13:00.920 --> 00:13:06.520] Unless you've done this specifically through karma, it's not really, you know, a major achievement.
[00:13:06.520 --> 00:13:08.840] So it's like tipping culture in a way.
[00:13:08.840 --> 00:13:12.520] You have to leave a tip so people know that you're happy.
[00:13:12.520 --> 00:13:13.960] It's so hard with remote work.
[00:13:14.840 --> 00:13:17.000] I forget to congratulate Channing all the time.
[00:13:17.800 --> 00:13:20.120] Oh, you should install karma then.
[00:13:21.160 --> 00:13:23.480] Could we use it with like a team of two?
[00:13:23.480 --> 00:13:24.920] Like, does that make any sense?
[00:13:24.920 --> 00:13:27.160] Because you mentioned it used to just be like a one-on-one thing.
[00:13:27.320 --> 00:13:28.120] That's really not.
[00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:29.320] Yeah, that's the other bit.
[00:13:29.320 --> 00:13:30.440] It's not for everybody.
[00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:34.280] It's not for all teams because partially it's a cultural element.
[00:13:34.280 --> 00:13:36.680] There is a cultural element to it as well.
[00:13:36.680 --> 00:13:46.360] As you know, generally some teams, when they maybe they're too serious and they don't want to play these stupid games with these stupid points, we got money for that, right?
[00:13:46.360 --> 00:13:48.120] Pay me more and I will be happier.
[00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:57.240] So this kind of straight on, like very, you know, upfront approach in some teams, it doesn't survive karma.
[00:13:57.240 --> 00:14:03.720] That's why I don't think it's a startup in a sense of growing fast and being the product for everybody.
[00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:06.680] It's not for everyone, but the world is big.
[00:14:06.680 --> 00:14:08.440] Software is just growing.
[00:14:08.440 --> 00:14:16.800] Yeah, I feel like I want to use this product just between Cortland, between you and me, almost because it would be like a funny way to be passive-aggressive.
[00:14:17.040 --> 00:14:19.120] Yeah, can I give you like a different number of kudos?
[00:14:19.120 --> 00:14:25.760] Like I give you like one star for this podcast, but then you know, like a sort of snarky number of kudos.
[00:14:25.760 --> 00:14:31.200] We need to work with the bullying as well, because what you've just done, it's not really, I don't support that.
[00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:44.160] So in a bigger company, it may become an HR issue, and we sort of have to deal with that and make sure that through the tool, there is no this, you know, under-the-cover kind of terrible stuff going on.
[00:14:44.160 --> 00:14:49.280] Because in big companies, they are less personable rather than small teams like yourself.
[00:14:49.280 --> 00:14:51.520] We instantly went towards bullying each other.
[00:14:51.520 --> 00:14:54.320] Yeah, I mean, look, that's just the way, like, that would bring us together.
[00:14:54.320 --> 00:14:58.480] That's kind of the way that our dynamic works often when we're working together.
[00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:04.800] But it's funny, we're talking about maybe a size of a team that's too small for this to work.
[00:15:05.120 --> 00:15:09.440] But I love this because it just sounds to me like gamification.
[00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:14.160] And I apply gamification literally to the way that I personally work.
[00:15:14.160 --> 00:15:16.000] It's kind of weird, but I love it.
[00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:23.360] Like, I say, here are my goals for the week, and I kind of have a weird, a bit of a point system for like what I want to do in the week.
[00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:29.840] And then every day at the end of the day, I kind of know if I'm on track, like I know what I'm working with.
[00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:31.920] So that works well for some teams.
[00:15:31.920 --> 00:15:35.600] Like I said, we've got modules and we can have bonuses.
[00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:42.080] And based on the way we share karma, for example, we could have like one point each in a week.
[00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:51.760] That would mean that a bunch of points set aside will be divided equally because we all worked equally and we all got the same amount of karma for this from each other.
[00:15:51.760 --> 00:15:54.240] But this example is not ideal for the team of three.
[00:15:54.400 --> 00:15:58.480] It would work better in the team of third plus 300 even.
[00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:04.440] I think the biggest we've had was 16,000 and that was kind of difficult to manage.
[00:16:04.440 --> 00:16:20.040] I'm kind of curious about you personally because I feel like the mind of a founder who comes up with an idea like Karmabot and you think like, okay, what would be good is to reward people with points and to like kind of have this these gamification principles in a product.
[00:16:20.040 --> 00:16:22.520] Like how do you personally think about productivity?
[00:16:23.320 --> 00:16:25.960] Is this the kind of thing that like you use in your life?
[00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:29.160] Like I said, that's the way that I run my personal life.
[00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:32.600] Yeah, I'm totally with you on that one actually.
[00:16:32.600 --> 00:16:38.920] Like I've feel this, especially talking about the long game and business in general, like it's a game.
[00:16:39.400 --> 00:16:42.760] It's all built around relationship that you build with your clients.
[00:16:42.760 --> 00:16:46.760] It's all built around the money that you get from them as a reward for helping them.
[00:16:46.760 --> 00:16:48.760] That's how I explain this to my son.
[00:16:48.760 --> 00:16:51.400] Like I help people so they pay me money.
[00:16:51.400 --> 00:16:53.640] And that's really easy to understand.
[00:16:53.640 --> 00:16:57.480] Over time, that's the gamification in essence.
[00:16:57.480 --> 00:17:01.560] Like you're doing good deeds and then you get money and reward.
[00:17:01.880 --> 00:17:02.360] Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:06.280] So one of the ways that I like to think about it is as a kind of pain receptor.
[00:17:06.280 --> 00:17:11.320] With me personally, I'm like, you know, we feel pain, just physical pain in our bodies.
[00:17:11.320 --> 00:17:17.640] If you have like ants crawling on your leg, you get like a signal that like, ouch, this thing hurts.
[00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:25.480] And it's good that you have these little incremental pain receptors because if you don't have them, for example, there are people who have conditions where they don't feel pain.
[00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:34.280] Like often, you know, within a couple of years, they have scars all over themselves and they have like, you know, they have to get you know amputations, et cetera.
[00:17:34.280 --> 00:17:58.880] But it's in real life with the things that we want to pursue with our goals, we often don't have those built-in pain receptors or like in this sense, like progress receptors and so having these intermittent rewards with something that's kind of vague like business or with like you know sort of connecting with your team or doing different projects is honestly a huge life hack I do believe in my product, obviously.
[00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:00.480] I mean, I cannot say otherwise.
[00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:02.640] And this is something that helped my team.
[00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:07.840] And I think there are teams that would benefit a lot from a system like Karma.
[00:18:07.840 --> 00:18:17.440] If you're taking it semi-seriously, because it's a pulse in a way, like the number of points that you've got today as a whole, as a team, it actually shows their mood.
[00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:19.360] It actually shows their productivity.
[00:18:19.360 --> 00:18:22.240] And tomorrow, if it's lower, it's not hard science.
[00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:24.560] It could be due to risk factors.
[00:18:24.560 --> 00:18:38.960] But as a leader, you would see that your company, your team is not performing as they've performed before when they were much happier and shared more and shared more through karma and generally talked more on this remote thing that was new actually.
[00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:41.280] Like we started five years ago.
[00:18:41.280 --> 00:18:53.200] It's to this day, companies, they just, you know, they getting on board with remote, fully remote became fine after COVID, but now it's still kind of new.
[00:18:53.200 --> 00:19:02.000] And I think before I thought karma was like stupid, like there were moments, of course, when I thought it's a stupid point system, no one wants it.
[00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:07.680] But also at the same time, we had some feedback from really smart people talking about like, hey, it's just not time.
[00:19:07.680 --> 00:19:08.240] Just wait.
[00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:10.080] Just wait for it.
[00:19:10.080 --> 00:19:14.160] And I now realize why, because remote was so tiny.
[00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:17.600] Now it's everybody understands after COVID what it means.
[00:19:17.600 --> 00:19:20.480] So you started building this in New Zealand.
[00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:24.240] I think it's you and your co-founder David and you had your agency in New Zealand, right?
[00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:28.360] And then one of the things, like right now, you're in, I think, Poland.
[00:19:28.680 --> 00:19:29.480] Yeah.
[00:19:29.720 --> 00:19:34.440] It's a whole windy path to get from New Zealand to Poland.
[00:19:34.440 --> 00:19:36.600] It wasn't a straightforward just move from one to the other.
[00:19:36.600 --> 00:19:41.960] Like you have traveled the world and you have like some funny theories based on travel.
[00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:43.000] How did you end up in Poland?
[00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:44.280] Like why are you there?
[00:19:44.280 --> 00:19:49.480] Well, Poland is just this decade, I would say, is for Poland.
[00:19:50.040 --> 00:19:55.000] I believe that it takes like roughly five, ten years to understand the place where you live.
[00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:56.520] And I've been always moving.
[00:19:56.520 --> 00:19:59.480] I've left my hometown when I was 16 or something.
[00:19:59.480 --> 00:20:07.800] I went to another bigger town and then I went to another town and now and then I spent 20 years in New Zealand being an immigrant trying to understand how they think.
[00:20:07.800 --> 00:20:11.160] What's your upshot of how the Kiwis think in New Zealand?
[00:20:11.160 --> 00:20:15.560] Because I was there for three weeks and I could tell you how I, what my impression was after three weeks.
[00:20:15.560 --> 00:20:17.480] It's a very laid-back country.
[00:20:17.480 --> 00:20:27.800] If you like the birds, if you like the beaches, if you like, you know, walking the trails and all the cool parks and stuff, that's very well for you.
[00:20:27.800 --> 00:20:29.160] And I love the place.
[00:20:29.160 --> 00:20:31.880] I love the country and I truly love it.
[00:20:31.880 --> 00:20:35.800] I mean, I've spent, I'm a citizen, I've spent years there.
[00:20:35.800 --> 00:20:46.840] But I think it also has the limitation of being isolated in various ways, physically and also mentally in a way of, you know, it's an island, a couple of islands far, far away.
[00:20:46.840 --> 00:21:00.600] And when I arrived, there was a notion that it may become like Silicon Valley of the Pacific region because you allow smart people to have this great lifestyle and they work remotely.
[00:21:00.600 --> 00:21:04.840] But then, due to various things, it didn't work in the end.
[00:21:04.840 --> 00:21:12.280] So, I think at the moment, it's sort of getting through this phase of, you know, taking a step back a little bit.
[00:21:12.280 --> 00:21:15.200] And also, COVID was very difficult for the country.
[00:21:14.840 --> 00:21:21.920] So, altogether, laid back, you know, kayak every day, work efficiently in the morning.
[00:21:22.080 --> 00:21:23.760] That works for many people.
[00:21:23.760 --> 00:21:26.240] Did you live near Auckland or were you near like a big city?
[00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:27.920] In Auckland, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:32.000] I was there for three weeks in 2016, I think.
[00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:41.360] And my impression was kind of the same, like super laid back, very outdoorsy, not very ambitious, like very relaxed, not super into like education.
[00:21:41.360 --> 00:21:45.040] Like, I stayed with the family for a while, and the school year was about to start.
[00:21:45.040 --> 00:21:48.160] And they're like, ah, we're just going to take our kids on like a two-month camping trip.
[00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:50.960] So they just pulled their kids out of school and just like went camping.
[00:21:50.960 --> 00:21:51.920] And I was like, well, what about school?
[00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:53.760] They're like, ah, it doesn't matter that much.
[00:21:53.760 --> 00:21:55.040] And I was driving around the world.
[00:21:55.600 --> 00:21:56.480] Yeah, it'll be fine.
[00:21:56.640 --> 00:21:59.920] A lot of the signs on the side of the road were misspelled.
[00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:01.200] No one cared.
[00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:02.240] No one gave a shit.
[00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:03.120] Everybody's got like beautiful skills.
[00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:03.600] Like, whatever.
[00:22:03.600 --> 00:22:04.480] You know where you're going.
[00:22:04.480 --> 00:22:06.240] Yeah, it just didn't matter.
[00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:07.200] There is value in that.
[00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:08.720] It's just a different mentality.
[00:22:09.360 --> 00:22:13.600] It's about going sideways in terms of going upwards.
[00:22:13.600 --> 00:22:18.960] So in America, for example, I think the country of opportunity, you would think, I mean, that's my perception.
[00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:20.080] I've never lived there.
[00:22:20.080 --> 00:22:23.680] But it's like you want bigger, bigger company, more people hired.
[00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:28.320] You know, you're going upwards, bigger cars, bigger burgers and stuff.
[00:22:28.320 --> 00:22:31.200] And in Kiwi land, it would be something like...
[00:22:31.360 --> 00:22:31.760] Everything.
[00:22:31.840 --> 00:22:32.720] Why would you?
[00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:38.000] It's just, all right, I'm fine with this burger and this house by the beach.
[00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:43.200] I don't need the big New York skyscrapers and everything all at once.
[00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:44.720] There is no ambition, like you said.
[00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:45.360] And it's fine.
[00:22:45.840 --> 00:22:47.440] It's completely fine.
[00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:51.840] You were saying that it takes five or ten years for you to learn the culture of a place.
[00:22:51.840 --> 00:22:54.000] And so you were in New Zealand for 20 years.
[00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:55.760] Where did you go after that?
[00:22:56.080 --> 00:22:59.720] Well, the plan was to go to go and live in South America.
[00:22:59.360 --> 00:23:01.080] We visited it a couple of times.
[00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:08.600] We've been to Spain to compare, and we realized that Europe is different to Latin America and specifically Chile.
[00:23:08.600 --> 00:23:10.120] We liked it very much.
[00:23:10.120 --> 00:23:15.080] And I still think it's a very progressive country and it will get places and we will see.
[00:23:15.080 --> 00:23:19.720] It's so resource-rich and the culture is so different.
[00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:33.080] And in a way, I wanted to show my son that there are places on this planet when people don't speak English as a primary language and it's not just the English-speaking world that observes the third world, this kind of mentality.
[00:23:33.080 --> 00:23:34.520] I don't like it in general.
[00:23:34.520 --> 00:23:35.560] I think it's not right.
[00:23:35.560 --> 00:23:38.360] And in Chile, we sort of experienced that.
[00:23:38.600 --> 00:23:41.320] We came and people speak in different languages.
[00:23:41.320 --> 00:23:42.840] They have different issues.
[00:23:42.840 --> 00:23:46.360] They don't think about problems in Europe.
[00:23:46.360 --> 00:23:48.440] That's problems in old Europe.
[00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:51.320] Problems in America, also kind of different place.
[00:23:51.480 --> 00:23:59.320] We have our own region of the globe and it's dense enough in terms of things happening and stuff.
[00:23:59.320 --> 00:24:01.720] So that was the first try out.
[00:24:02.840 --> 00:24:06.600] But then COVID started and it killed the whole vibe.
[00:24:06.920 --> 00:24:12.280] We basically spent five months in an Airbnb apartment in a lockdown.
[00:24:12.280 --> 00:24:17.640] I did a travel thing when COVID started too, like around July 2020.
[00:24:17.640 --> 00:24:20.440] I was like, all right, I'm going to travel around just the United States.
[00:24:20.440 --> 00:24:21.960] And I was just driving around.
[00:24:21.960 --> 00:24:22.840] And I thought it was so cool.
[00:24:22.920 --> 00:24:23.640] It was a little bit like you.
[00:24:23.640 --> 00:24:29.240] I was like, you know, I think I should travel and like, you know, just expand my awareness and just be more on the road.
[00:24:29.240 --> 00:24:33.640] And it was like surprisingly, it was like better than I thought it was going to be in some respects.
[00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:40.920] I think, like, as human beings, we kind of evolved to be outdoors and to be nomadic and sort of like move from place to place.
[00:24:40.920 --> 00:24:44.280] And when I was like traveling, I was changing cities like every day or two.
[00:24:44.280 --> 00:24:49.360] And it kind of unlocked this very fresh, inspiring perspective on life for me that I didn't expect to happen.
[00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:53.280] Where it just felt like, wow, like I just feel much more alive, right?
[00:24:53.280 --> 00:25:01.840] I'm like talking to people from these tiny towns that I've never been to, and everyone in their own town, like you said, was like very unconcerned with like the things that I was concerned with.
[00:25:01.840 --> 00:25:04.480] And they had their own local issues, you know?
[00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:06.000] And I thought that was really cool.
[00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:15.360] But then something else started happening where I realized, like, well, like, the other thing that we sort of evolved to do as humans is like have a tribe and have like a consistent set of people around us who we love.
[00:25:15.360 --> 00:25:16.960] Like, you had your family, right?
[00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:18.640] You've got like your spouse and your kids.
[00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:20.400] And so you're like, okay, I've got my people.
[00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:22.880] You know, even if you're locked down in a house, I got my people.
[00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:24.480] But like, I was by myself.
[00:25:24.480 --> 00:25:28.080] Like, I remember I met this girl at this hotel who was working at the hotel I stayed at.
[00:25:28.080 --> 00:25:29.920] And like, we had some cool conversations.
[00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:30.880] It was kind of flirty.
[00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:31.920] We went out to dinner.
[00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:33.360] I met one of her friends.
[00:25:33.360 --> 00:25:35.440] And the next day I was like, all right, well, cool.
[00:25:35.600 --> 00:25:36.640] Never going to see you again.
[00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:37.120] Goodbye.
[00:25:37.120 --> 00:25:38.160] And I just left.
[00:25:38.160 --> 00:25:41.440] And I'm like, I think I actually got to like settle down somewhere.
[00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:42.720] And so I ended up in Seattle.
[00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:45.280] And I've had the opposite mindset since then.
[00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:46.240] I don't want to travel.
[00:25:46.240 --> 00:25:52.160] I want to stay in one place and invest and meet a ton of people and just make my life better and better and better in one place.
[00:25:52.480 --> 00:25:55.200] Well, I think you can do it not once.
[00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:57.120] I think nesting is great.
[00:25:57.120 --> 00:25:58.560] Nesting is comfortable.
[00:25:58.560 --> 00:26:02.240] Nesting is naturally what many people are looking for.
[00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:04.800] And it's about, I think it's about the anxiety levels.
[00:26:04.800 --> 00:26:08.160] You're just getting calmer, you work better, you feel better.
[00:26:08.320 --> 00:26:10.560] New Zealand is a perfect place for that.
[00:26:10.880 --> 00:26:14.960] You know, lower your anxiety to the very low levels.
[00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:16.000] But I don't know.
[00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:17.120] I got bored.
[00:26:17.120 --> 00:26:26.640] So maybe what we're trying to do now in Poland, which is step three, a couple of years forward, I found my Polish ancestry, ancestral routes.
[00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:33.240] So something they've got the program, governmental program, that allows people to come and maybe stay if they feel like it.
[00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:42.680] So I went through the official process and I'm expecting to become a Romanians resident any week now.
[00:26:43.160 --> 00:26:44.360] It's a long thing.
[00:26:44.360 --> 00:26:49.800] You have to learn the freaking difficult language, which is also beautiful and you know, so rich.
[00:26:49.800 --> 00:26:55.160] And that's what I mean when you actually have a chance to fully emerge in a new culture.
[00:26:55.160 --> 00:26:56.680] And it will take years.
[00:26:56.680 --> 00:26:59.160] I know, like I said, it's a long game.
[00:26:59.160 --> 00:27:04.760] But back to your point, I will try to build here a nest as well.
[00:27:04.760 --> 00:27:08.280] Like, I've done it there, and I will try to do it here.
[00:27:08.280 --> 00:27:11.800] It will take maybe 10 years to build a new nest.
[00:27:11.800 --> 00:27:17.800] And realistically, you know, that it will be three, four times from now.
[00:27:17.800 --> 00:27:19.720] I'm in my 30s.
[00:27:19.720 --> 00:27:22.200] So how much time do I have?
[00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:24.200] Maybe three different places.
[00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:25.080] Maybe Japan is.
[00:27:25.160 --> 00:27:26.200] Japan is cool, right?
[00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:27.720] But do you really dig Japan?
[00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:30.440] Do you really understand how it works?
[00:27:30.760 --> 00:27:34.360] I think it will take a long time to understand it truly.
[00:27:34.360 --> 00:27:36.040] Like I said, a decade.
[00:27:36.040 --> 00:27:40.520] So Japan, Vikings, I'm fascinated by this Nordic culture.
[00:27:40.520 --> 00:27:41.880] So that's true.
[00:27:42.120 --> 00:27:45.800] Then already, so I'm 60 already about that, right?
[00:27:45.800 --> 00:27:46.360] Yeah.
[00:27:46.840 --> 00:27:51.880] So then my health maybe will allow me to try it one more place.
[00:27:51.880 --> 00:27:52.520] And that's it.
[00:27:52.520 --> 00:27:53.000] That's it.
[00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:55.000] It's like life is short.
[00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:56.120] And then you're dead.
[00:27:56.120 --> 00:27:56.600] Yeah.
[00:27:56.600 --> 00:28:16.080] All of this hits really close to home for me personally because so I've got a girlfriend, and we both kind of mutually decided that we don't necessarily want to have kids, and that we would substitute the purpose and like the busyness of kids with A, doing a lot of travel and completely throwing ourselves into our projects.
[00:28:16.080 --> 00:28:27.120] And so, she's she's Swiss, she's um, she's not a naturalized American citizen, and so we travel back and forth between these two places, and it kind of checks that box of nesting, right?
[00:28:27.120 --> 00:28:31.040] We have our New York City friends, it's where I live, she has her Swiss friends.
[00:28:31.040 --> 00:28:36.960] We're literally about to book a flight to Switzerland, you know, whenever she gets home tonight for the summer.
[00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:46.480] And now she started to kind of lobby me towards like this, you know, like you know, how open are you to actually just sort of moving to Switzerland eventually?
[00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:51.200] And I feel like it almost entirely comes down to the network thing, right?
[00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:54.240] Like, how many people do you know in that place?
[00:28:54.240 --> 00:28:57.600] Like, how much, you know, sort of diversity does it have?
[00:28:57.600 --> 00:29:04.960] And she has a really strong case where Europe, you have this really amazing, efficient transportation system.
[00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:08.480] Trains are actually things that you want to like board.
[00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:13.040] Whereas, like, Cortland and I had to deal with the BART in San Francisco, like, not good.
[00:29:13.040 --> 00:29:16.000] Even the train system in New York City, not that good.
[00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:19.440] You can travel around to different countries fairly easily.
[00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:21.840] I could come visit you, Stas, and Poland.
[00:29:21.840 --> 00:29:26.640] Dude, have you seen that Instagram account for the New York subway called Subway Creatures?
[00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:28.720] It's my favorite Instagram account.
[00:29:29.840 --> 00:29:31.040] Did you send me?
[00:29:31.040 --> 00:29:36.960] Were you the one that sent me that video of like there was like a guy who had who fell asleep?
[00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:51.440] He was maybe homeless, I'm not sure, but he had like a dog, and the dog was sitting in his lap on this on the New York City subway, and the guy had passed out, and this dog was just licking the guy's mouth while like everyone around him just held their smartphones up, like recording.
[00:29:51.440 --> 00:29:52.560] Was that did you send me that one?
[00:29:52.560 --> 00:29:54.560] That was like a daily occurrence at the New York subway.
[00:29:54.560 --> 00:29:56.400] Like, it's you should move to Europe, dude.
[00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:57.760] I fully support it.
[00:29:57.760 --> 00:30:05.480] Well, yeah, I've seen less time I've been to London, I've seen an actual knight, like, you know, the person wearing armor on the tube.
[00:30:06.360 --> 00:30:07.720] They just, he was there.
[00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:08.760] And I'm not sure.
[00:30:08.760 --> 00:30:12.280] He's coming from some medieval gathering or something, but he was there.
[00:30:12.280 --> 00:30:14.040] And I'm like, yeah, that's interesting.
[00:30:14.040 --> 00:30:17.400] You know, big cities and the big cultural places, they always like that.
[00:30:17.400 --> 00:30:20.440] But I totally hear what he's saying.
[00:30:20.680 --> 00:30:24.040] And Europe, specifically Switzerland, I think it's super old.
[00:30:24.040 --> 00:30:25.240] It's all about nesting.
[00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:33.880] There are villages which can track in their genome, they could track the same people been living there for 5,000 years or something.
[00:30:33.880 --> 00:30:41.400] Like, that's like the reality of how comfy and nesting, how good that spot is for nesting.
[00:30:41.400 --> 00:30:42.280] So beware.
[00:30:42.280 --> 00:30:48.200] Do you find that being an Andy hacker, your ability to work on your business is like different in different places?
[00:30:48.200 --> 00:30:55.400] Like, what's the different vibe between running a company in New Zealand versus in like South America versus in Poland?
[00:30:55.720 --> 00:30:59.800] Well, part of the business is just general agency stuff.
[00:30:59.800 --> 00:31:05.480] So with that, being in Europe, you cover like wider client base, right?
[00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:11.480] You can speak just because it's convenient to a billion and a half people when you're in Europe.
[00:31:11.480 --> 00:31:23.160] And when you're in New Zealand, it's roughly 300 million because it's the west coast of America is very accessible, three hours difference with San Francisco and the rest.
[00:31:23.400 --> 00:31:28.120] Australia, on the other side, they're just like 26 people, a million people.
[00:31:28.120 --> 00:31:30.840] And up north, you've got agents that don't need us.
[00:31:30.840 --> 00:31:33.160] Like they solving their problems themselves.
[00:31:33.480 --> 00:31:38.600] So in terms of client work and with karma, we want to sell to businesses.
[00:31:38.600 --> 00:31:43.240] I had much, much, much wider opportunities while working from Chile.
[00:31:43.240 --> 00:31:45.200] That's roughly New York time.
[00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:48.560] And from Europe as well, it's just perfect.
[00:31:44.600 --> 00:31:49.840] I think you're just covering more people.
[00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.000] And that's about connections, of course, like being better connected.
[00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:58.080] And that's why, again, New Zealand, I think it's kind of isolated.
[00:31:58.080 --> 00:32:02.880] Corlin and I, he's on the West Coast, he's in Seattle, and I'm in New York City.
[00:32:02.880 --> 00:32:04.560] So we have like this three-hour spread.
[00:32:04.560 --> 00:32:07.520] And we have a very international community, indie hackers.
[00:32:07.520 --> 00:32:18.960] So like if we have, you know, some responsibility to like kind of manage the forum, I wake up way before him, and I can kind of like cover a little bit of like the, you know, European time.
[00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:24.800] And then when I go to bed, he can still make sure that, you know, if we have a fire, he's, he's awake to put it out.
[00:32:24.800 --> 00:32:32.560] So maybe we like expand our reach just a little bit if I then just move to Switzerland and then we have like, you know, we complete the spread.
[00:32:32.560 --> 00:32:34.000] For sure, 100%.
[00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:35.360] David is my business partner.
[00:32:35.360 --> 00:32:36.240] He's in Australia.
[00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:39.040] So he's still covering for that part of the globe.
[00:32:39.040 --> 00:32:45.280] And the time difference between New Zealand and, for example, Spain is 12 hours, 13 hours sometimes.
[00:32:45.280 --> 00:32:46.480] So it's vast.
[00:32:46.480 --> 00:32:52.000] It's so unmanageable, but at the same time, if you spread your resources, it works well.
[00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:57.680] One of the things that I like about your company, about KarmaBot, is that it's software as a service, right?
[00:32:57.680 --> 00:33:00.160] You guys charge a subscription fee.
[00:33:00.160 --> 00:33:05.440] At the low end, it's like 30 bucks a month, depending on your team size, and go all the way up to like 200 bucks a month.
[00:33:05.440 --> 00:33:14.160] And then you've got like an enterprise pricing thing where you got 500 more people, you're doing $10,000 a year plus deal sometimes.
[00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:14.880] I like this.
[00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:21.360] Most of the people we've had on the podcast recently, like there's been this trend in recent years towards like kind of like info products, right?
[00:33:21.360 --> 00:33:31.880] Like content-based businesses, people selling newsletters, or people doing like, you know, like maybe like on the high end, like job boards on the low end, like people monetizing their podcasts and whatnot.
[00:33:29.920 --> 00:33:36.680] And I, as a software engineer, like, I'm much more attracted to the SaaS stuff that you're doing.
[00:33:36.840 --> 00:33:43.000] I want to like code something and just have it work automatically in the background while people are like paying me money and it's just coming in.
[00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:45.160] Like that just sounds like a much more exciting type of business.
[00:33:45.160 --> 00:33:47.320] The downside is that it's really, really slow.
[00:33:47.320 --> 00:33:59.960] Like if Channing and I wanted to do some sort of SaaS product for any hackers, part of me is like, well, shit, like everybody I talk to who works on a SaaS product, it's like years before you start seeing meaningful revenue.
[00:33:59.960 --> 00:34:00.360] Yeah.
[00:34:00.360 --> 00:34:08.760] And I mean, it could be dead by that time because technologically it advances in the, you know, you're just late for the train.
[00:34:08.760 --> 00:34:14.120] It's a tricky thing because I think technically, yes, it's working on it by itself.
[00:34:14.120 --> 00:34:17.960] There are requests from clients and you're sort of improving product, listening to them.
[00:34:17.960 --> 00:34:23.640] So everybody's happy, but at the same time, it's difficult to sell.
[00:34:23.640 --> 00:34:35.000] Like we spent maybe 800 hours selling karma, David and I, doing demos, selling, talking about numbers, talking about pricing.
[00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:37.720] I think it's the most difficult part, to be honest.
[00:34:37.720 --> 00:34:40.840] Just because it's us and you're selling it to a business.
[00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:45.800] Business is really trying to, you know, get the best out of this deal.
[00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:51.800] They don't care as much as customers when you're selling something to a specific person, not a company.
[00:34:51.960 --> 00:34:53.720] Company is faceless.
[00:34:54.040 --> 00:34:56.680] So let's say you could go back in time, right?
[00:34:56.680 --> 00:34:57.960] Like it took you guys a while.
[00:34:57.960 --> 00:35:02.040] I think you started KarmaBot in 2016.
[00:35:02.040 --> 00:35:07.400] By the end of 2019, you'd hit $100,000 a year in revenue.
[00:35:07.400 --> 00:35:16.400] You know, so that was like two and a half years roughly between getting started and getting to the point where you can pay like, you know, a six-figure salary to like one person, which is quite a lot of time.
[00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:17.840] You got to be patient to do that.
[00:35:18.160 --> 00:35:19.040] How did you get there?
[00:35:19.040 --> 00:35:23.040] And then what do you think you could have done with the benefit of hindsight to get there faster?
[00:35:23.280 --> 00:35:25.840] How could you start a SaaS company fast?
[00:35:26.080 --> 00:35:28.480] Speaking to customers is the most difficult part.
[00:35:28.480 --> 00:35:36.720] And I think what unlocked Karma in a way, so it became more than just an internal product that we joined Y Combinator School.
[00:35:36.720 --> 00:35:48.560] The earliest Y Combinator school was actually, it was a real person with YC experience giving you feedback on the product, on the way you sell, on the problems that you've got.
[00:35:48.560 --> 00:35:59.280] And that, and Indie Hackers actually as well, tracking the progress, showing more numbers, trying to understand the lingo, trying to understand the numbers, being involved in a community.
[00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:04.320] That helped to grow from, I don't know, 200 bucks a month to 2,000.
[00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:11.040] And after that, you already started thinking about it as a, okay, so this actually can pay for our ramen.
[00:36:11.040 --> 00:36:13.120] And then, like, what's next?
[00:36:13.760 --> 00:36:16.400] This was kind of a gamble, right?
[00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:18.320] I mean, you already had an agency.
[00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:23.680] This was an internal tool, but SAS is a really large leap to make.
[00:36:23.680 --> 00:36:30.880] Like, was there ever a period when you're only making 200 bucks a month and you were trying to climb to more than that where you like thought about giving up?
[00:36:30.880 --> 00:36:34.320] Like, was this a discussion that you and your co-founder had?
[00:36:34.640 --> 00:36:36.240] Of course, yes, every day.
[00:36:36.240 --> 00:36:41.760] Like I said, it was really difficult for him, especially to believe that we're earning 200 bucks a month.
[00:36:41.760 --> 00:36:43.920] Like, how can we talk about 20,000?
[00:36:43.920 --> 00:36:45.040] It will never happen.
[00:36:45.040 --> 00:36:47.040] And I'm showing him this exponential growth.
[00:36:47.040 --> 00:36:48.720] And he's like, oh, don't do that.
[00:36:48.720 --> 00:36:50.000] It's like, it's it's fake.
[00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:53.200] Yet these charts, they always, they're good for the presentations.
[00:36:53.200 --> 00:36:54.640] Like, don't bullshit me.
[00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:56.960] Let's let's be realistic about it.
[00:36:56.920 --> 00:37:00.280] Also, it's still an exponential growth just because of the word of the mouth.
[00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:04.200] It brings you 1% growth because people talking about it, we're talking about it.
[00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:05.560] Some people will come tomorrow.
[00:37:05.800 --> 00:37:13.160] And that will be that same kind of non-linear growth that you get with digital products like that.
[00:37:13.160 --> 00:37:16.120] And it just took longer time.
[00:37:16.120 --> 00:37:24.920] And for me, I think it was about the ability to convince my partner to just keep on doing it and find something that he liked.
[00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:25.960] He likes selling.
[00:37:25.960 --> 00:37:29.320] He likes this moment when money hits your bank account.
[00:37:29.320 --> 00:37:32.200] You know, I like inspiring people.
[00:37:32.200 --> 00:37:36.200] I like the talking about big stuff and big things.
[00:37:36.200 --> 00:37:39.800] And your company culture is super important, these values and all.
[00:37:39.800 --> 00:37:41.160] And to the moon.
[00:37:41.560 --> 00:37:43.000] They get inspired.
[00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:46.680] But then to actually close the deal, I'm not that interested in that.
[00:37:46.680 --> 00:37:48.120] It's like it happens automatically.
[00:37:48.120 --> 00:37:49.160] If they need it, they will buy it.
[00:37:49.160 --> 00:37:50.440] That's my motto.
[00:37:50.440 --> 00:37:56.520] But my partner, he likes the actual moment of, you know, chi-ching moment, I call it.
[00:37:56.520 --> 00:37:57.640] And that helped a lot.
[00:37:57.640 --> 00:38:00.040] So he picked up sales.
[00:38:00.040 --> 00:38:01.960] He started talking about the product.
[00:38:01.960 --> 00:38:08.760] He started talking about it and understanding, listening as well, obviously, and understanding what they need.
[00:38:08.760 --> 00:38:11.720] And that was a huge leap forward.
[00:38:11.720 --> 00:38:27.960] And like I said, it would be not fair not to mention Y Combinator School and Indie Hackers as well for the as a community that, you know, with all those 200 posts of regular updates, that is actually discipline.
[00:38:28.040 --> 00:38:31.560] That is actually showing that it's going fine.
[00:38:31.880 --> 00:38:42.120] I think one of the things that I like about what I read in your product timeline on indie hackers is you can kind of see this upward creep of you doing more enterprise sales.
[00:38:42.120 --> 00:38:45.000] So at the very beginning, I was like, oh, we'll just sell it to tiny teams.
[00:38:45.680 --> 00:38:50.720] And then I think there's one month, it was like March 2019 or 2018 or something.
[00:38:50.720 --> 00:38:53.600] You're like, we've got three enterprise sales deals in the works.
[00:38:53.600 --> 00:38:55.040] One of them is almost going to close.
[00:38:55.040 --> 00:38:56.880] I think we'll make $10,000 a year from this.
[00:38:56.880 --> 00:38:58.240] It's going to be so cool.
[00:38:58.240 --> 00:39:02.080] And now I assume you have like many more larger companies that you sell to.
[00:39:02.080 --> 00:39:07.920] Even the way that you've described everything on your homepage is kind of like, oh, I could see why a bigger company would buy this.
[00:39:07.920 --> 00:39:12.320] And that's cool because when you make these bigger deals, you don't need as many customers.
[00:39:12.320 --> 00:39:18.240] And you can grow your revenue a lot faster if you just do five, $10,000 a year deals.
[00:39:18.240 --> 00:39:24.480] And if you have to do like $500, $10 a year deals, to individual people, it just doesn't work that fast.
[00:39:24.480 --> 00:39:26.640] Do you think you could have started that way?
[00:39:26.880 --> 00:39:31.040] Do you think you could go back in time and be like, you know what, let's just do enterprise sales from the way?
[00:39:31.440 --> 00:39:32.480] No, no, no.
[00:39:32.720 --> 00:39:34.400] I wouldn't be able to speak to them.
[00:39:34.400 --> 00:39:35.280] I don't understand.
[00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:37.440] I wouldn't be able to understand their problems.
[00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:43.920] Like the way they buy, the way they choose a product, the things that they're concerned about.
[00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:46.400] They're not actually concerned about the price that much.
[00:39:46.400 --> 00:39:50.960] They're concerned about many other things, like how do we actually implement it?
[00:39:50.960 --> 00:39:53.600] How do we actually make sure that people are using it?
[00:39:53.600 --> 00:39:55.200] How do we measure the use?
[00:39:55.200 --> 00:39:57.040] How do we measure the outcome of that?
[00:39:57.040 --> 00:40:00.000] And also, having a champion is super important.
[00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:01.840] We didn't really understand it at the beginning.
[00:40:01.840 --> 00:40:04.320] A champion is a founder in a small team.
[00:40:04.320 --> 00:40:07.520] I would be selling to you, Channing, and that I will inspire you.
[00:40:07.520 --> 00:40:09.200] You will be, oh, yes, that's cool.
[00:40:09.200 --> 00:40:17.920] And then the next day, like, it would be easy for me to convince you, but at the same time, it would be easy for you to just, you know, drop it a couple of months later.
[00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:18.880] And I don't want that.
[00:40:18.880 --> 00:40:20.480] I want a bigger company.
[00:40:20.480 --> 00:40:26.640] It may be difficult to convince, but I want them to stay for me with the year, two, three.
[00:40:26.640 --> 00:40:28.960] The longest is five years plus.
[00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:31.080] We've got clients, they're super happy.
[00:40:31.400 --> 00:40:38.600] So, to answer your question, no, unfortunately, I think it's you have to grow into this.
[00:40:38.920 --> 00:40:41.000] How do you think a founder can grow into that?
[00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:41.720] I don't know.
[00:40:41.720 --> 00:40:47.880] If I knew, karma would be much, much, much bigger and it would be a primary thing that I do in life.
[00:40:47.880 --> 00:40:52.760] But it's still like it's a niche product, and I don't know how to sell it to everybody.
[00:40:52.760 --> 00:40:54.360] I don't know how to sell it well.
[00:40:54.360 --> 00:41:09.800] I mean, we sell it okay because probably better than some other people would have sold it, but it's a difficult question because actually it's less geeky, it's less hackery, it's less fulfilling in a way.
[00:41:09.800 --> 00:41:17.240] You work with corporations, they don't care much about the ingenuity of your code base or generally your product.
[00:41:17.240 --> 00:41:27.880] They're solving their problems, and the problems they could be vague, the solution could be vague, the outcome could be difficult to measure, and you're there.
[00:41:27.880 --> 00:41:34.280] You're either promising too much or your product maybe is smaller than they need.
[00:41:34.280 --> 00:41:41.560] Yeah, obviously, it seems like how you go after big companies has to be kind of tailored to everyone's industry, et cetera.
[00:41:41.560 --> 00:41:45.160] But Cortland, you remember when I was a copier salesman, right?
[00:41:45.160 --> 00:41:46.840] When I was like, yeah, in my 20s?
[00:41:47.160 --> 00:41:51.480] So I had this job because I lived in San Francisco and I had to pay the bills.
[00:41:51.480 --> 00:41:58.040] So I just kind of got this job selling multi-function, big industrial-sized copy machines.
[00:41:58.040 --> 00:41:59.400] And it was the worst.
[00:41:59.400 --> 00:42:08.440] It was like you pretty much have to like go door to door downtown San Francisco, you know, sort of knocking on doors, giving people like your business card.
[00:42:08.440 --> 00:42:14.520] The first day that I was on this job, literally, I went into someone's office and they threw a stapler.
[00:42:14.520 --> 00:42:20.400] It was like the person on the front desk threw it because she's like so sick of people going in.
[00:42:21.120 --> 00:42:29.280] So I decided immediately when I had this job, like I don't want to try to get commissions on a bunch of small companies, right?
[00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:32.480] Like and just sort of have this constant treadmill that I'm on.
[00:42:32.480 --> 00:42:35.120] I immediately was like, I just want to go for like the big kahuna.
[00:42:35.360 --> 00:42:37.360] What are the 800-pound gorillas?
[00:42:37.360 --> 00:42:39.840] And yeah, you have to work your way up.
[00:42:39.840 --> 00:42:42.880] So I had to like meet my commission every single month.
[00:42:42.880 --> 00:42:46.080] But I immediately was like, I don't know, school districts.
[00:42:46.080 --> 00:42:49.360] So my sales territory was like north of San Francisco.
[00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:54.080] And it took me like six months of dragging my heels with smaller deals or whatever.
[00:42:54.080 --> 00:43:00.320] And then as soon as I got that first school district, like I landed this deal, then I had this like network that I was in.
[00:43:00.320 --> 00:43:03.600] Like that business manager knew the business manager at another one.
[00:43:03.600 --> 00:43:09.040] And so it was like, once I got in, I like didn't have to go for the smaller deals anymore.
[00:43:09.040 --> 00:43:12.800] And I guess if I were to ask, you know, what's the secret?
[00:43:12.800 --> 00:43:14.000] How did you close this deal?
[00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:15.440] Tell me I want to do the same.
[00:43:15.440 --> 00:43:18.080] It would be difficult because it's very business specific.
[00:43:18.080 --> 00:43:19.440] You have to know people.
[00:43:19.680 --> 00:43:24.960] Maybe that guy specifically was really, you know, happy with the way you did the sales.
[00:43:24.960 --> 00:43:27.520] And then his trusted friend trusted him.
[00:43:27.520 --> 00:43:29.440] So it's a pyramid of trust now.
[00:43:29.440 --> 00:43:35.360] So this stuff, when it becomes bigger, I think it's difficult to repeat consistently.
[00:43:35.360 --> 00:43:43.920] But at the same time, with SaaS and being the founder and selling your own stuff, it's kind of fulfilling in another way when it's just not for everybody.
[00:43:43.920 --> 00:43:47.600] And if it's not for you, you just, you know, move on.
[00:43:47.600 --> 00:43:51.920] The other thing I think is cool about what you're doing is you're in this industry that I don't know very much about.
[00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:58.080] It's called, you know, in your about page, you kind of describe it as like you're a people culture tool.
[00:43:58.080 --> 00:44:00.840] And there's all these other people culture tools.
[00:44:00.840 --> 00:44:05.800] There's kudos, there's bonus lead, there's Bravo, there's one called Matter.
[00:44:05.800 --> 00:44:07.640] What do you think you guys know?
[00:44:07.640 --> 00:44:10.280] What do you guys do that these other people don't?
[00:44:10.280 --> 00:44:10.440] Right?
[00:44:10.680 --> 00:44:16.360] If I'm trying to make like a company in the people culture tool space, like what's important to know to build a good product?
[00:44:17.080 --> 00:44:20.520] Please don't because you're smart and you will be a difficult competitor.
[00:44:20.840 --> 00:44:24.520] But we're taking notes.
[00:44:24.840 --> 00:44:29.720] Yeah, I think it's partially entertainment, unfortunately.
[00:44:29.720 --> 00:44:31.960] So we have, it's like Netflix.
[00:44:31.960 --> 00:44:35.240] There will be people who would like to watch this weird show.
[00:44:35.240 --> 00:44:46.200] So if Karma is not, I mean, similar in some regards to this program that the company has been using for years, let's say, honestly, at some point, people get tired.
[00:44:46.440 --> 00:44:48.040] The attraction goes down.
[00:44:48.040 --> 00:44:50.360] They're not engaged as well as before.
[00:44:50.360 --> 00:44:52.200] So they just need change.
[00:44:52.200 --> 00:44:55.000] And I think it's how we lose customers.
[00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:57.320] This is how we gain customers as well.
[00:44:57.320 --> 00:45:02.600] Usually there is a notion of having people culture boosted somehow.
[00:45:02.600 --> 00:45:04.680] And then they find a solution.
[00:45:04.680 --> 00:45:07.640] And over time, they maybe got tired of it.
[00:45:07.640 --> 00:45:09.480] So they're looking for something else.
[00:45:09.480 --> 00:45:13.800] Or, and this is, you know, this is where I always happy.
[00:45:13.800 --> 00:45:20.520] I'm happy to help and talk about, you know, remote work and people culture, building the team remotely.
[00:45:20.520 --> 00:45:21.480] This is kind of new.
[00:45:21.480 --> 00:45:26.040] They try to become really progressive in a way.
[00:45:27.560 --> 00:45:32.840] That's with the older companies, they don't always understand that.
[00:45:33.240 --> 00:45:39.960] I think we understand it better because we're younger and we fully remote ourselves and we know we built it for ourselves.
[00:45:39.960 --> 00:45:42.600] So that actually helps to sell.
[00:45:42.920 --> 00:45:45.200] I think that's partially how we differen.
[00:45:45.520 --> 00:45:47.520] But I wouldn't, you know, argue at all.
[00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:49.520] There are tons of companies.
[00:45:49.520 --> 00:45:54.240] We are not unique, but like I said, there is a different Netflix throw for everybody.
[00:45:54.240 --> 00:46:03.200] Man, I feel like 10 years ago, hearing about a people culture tool for a company, I would have like kind of rolled my eyes.
[00:46:03.200 --> 00:46:08.800] Maybe partially because I worked for this terrible sales company and I felt like it's all manipulative bullshit.
[00:46:08.800 --> 00:46:14.160] But then the job that I worked right before in the hackers was this company called Outdoorsy.
[00:46:14.160 --> 00:46:17.600] It's kind of like the Airbnb for RVs, right?
[00:46:17.600 --> 00:46:21.680] They just, if you have an RV sitting in your lawn, you just get to rent that out.
[00:46:21.680 --> 00:46:28.320] And there was like a seven-person team, this startup Outdoorsy, and the culture was amazing.
[00:46:28.320 --> 00:46:28.960] It was sick.
[00:46:28.960 --> 00:46:30.640] And I was like, I get it.
[00:46:30.640 --> 00:46:32.320] And like, they would do tons of cool things.
[00:46:32.560 --> 00:46:34.400] We were an RV company.
[00:46:34.400 --> 00:46:42.480] And so it's like, look, every month, someone has to take a month off of work to like get in one of our RVs and like just go on vacation.
[00:46:42.480 --> 00:46:43.600] And like that was for everybody.
[00:46:43.600 --> 00:46:45.680] And then you like kind of write your little report.
[00:46:45.680 --> 00:46:49.840] Basically, the company had so much focus on these things that I used to be like, that's just superficial.
[00:46:49.840 --> 00:46:52.560] Like you're just kind of like trying to pull my strings and manipulate me.
[00:46:52.560 --> 00:46:57.600] But after that, I was like, no, that's really, really a massive superpower.
[00:46:57.600 --> 00:47:03.840] And that's what I meant when I was talking about stuff like in the early days when someone would be saying, oh, man, this is stupid.
[00:47:03.840 --> 00:47:06.400] This is just points on top of points, whatever.
[00:47:06.400 --> 00:47:07.760] This is superficial.
[00:47:07.760 --> 00:47:08.960] And this is not real.
[00:47:08.960 --> 00:47:09.840] It's fake.
[00:47:09.840 --> 00:47:16.640] And on the other hand, I had people believing in the people culture trend and that, you know, you just wait.
[00:47:16.640 --> 00:47:18.480] In the future, it will pick up.
[00:47:18.480 --> 00:47:32.600] And I think remote, the remote stuff, when you don't get to see people, when you don't get to meet them in person, this really needs this, like, what is it, like, taste enhancer, like extra spices.
[00:47:32.760 --> 00:47:42.360] It needs something to enhance this experience because it's scary, it's bland, it's just a piece of text basically on the screen.
[00:47:42.360 --> 00:47:45.720] You cannot go to a bar and have a conversation.
[00:47:45.720 --> 00:47:55.800] When we work together on Slack, and then once a year, let's say we meet in person, I was so surprised that you actually know these people.
[00:47:55.800 --> 00:47:59.400] You communicate with them through Zoom, you communicate with them through Slack.
[00:47:59.400 --> 00:48:01.640] You know that they could be a different size.
[00:48:01.640 --> 00:48:05.000] You don't predict the size of a person, but you can totally.
[00:48:05.160 --> 00:48:06.600] I mean, I know this dude.
[00:48:06.600 --> 00:48:07.960] I know how to speak to him.
[00:48:07.960 --> 00:48:11.240] I know what he means when he responds, when he's smiling.
[00:48:11.240 --> 00:48:14.040] I know that it was he did understand me.
[00:48:14.040 --> 00:48:16.120] And this is achievable through remote.
[00:48:16.120 --> 00:48:20.600] And also, I think that's also a discovery for many teams.
[00:48:20.600 --> 00:48:25.800] So, karma is a connector, it's a glue for such an environment.
[00:48:25.800 --> 00:48:28.760] Can I ask you just one question to sort of wrap up?
[00:48:29.080 --> 00:48:33.080] Obviously, you've had like this journey, you spent like over 10 years building this agency.
[00:48:33.080 --> 00:48:39.720] You then spent the last like six, seven years working on karma, growing up to $40,000 a month in revenue.
[00:48:39.720 --> 00:48:44.680] What do you think a brand new founder can take away from your story?
[00:48:46.120 --> 00:48:49.160] Trying different things and playing the long game.
[00:48:49.160 --> 00:48:50.280] I think it works.
[00:48:50.280 --> 00:48:52.520] I believe in consistency and persistency.
[00:48:52.520 --> 00:48:58.120] Like these 200 stupid updates with numbers that no one actually understands apart from myself.
[00:48:58.360 --> 00:49:01.880] I think that what to and no one cares, to be honest.
[00:49:02.520 --> 00:49:05.960] That's what it took to build the product in the end.
[00:49:05.960 --> 00:49:06.440] I love it.
[00:49:06.760 --> 00:49:09.320] Consistency, play the long game, and don't give up.
[00:49:09.400 --> 00:49:12.600] Staska-less, thanks a ton for coming on the India Actors Podcast.
[00:49:12.840 --> 00:49:19.120] Can you let listeners know where they can go to find out more about Karma and anything else that you're working on?
[00:49:19.440 --> 00:49:23.520] Right, so Karma is a people culture tool for your company, for your team.
[00:49:23.520 --> 00:49:29.360] If you're working on Slack or Microsoft Teams, you can find it at karmapot.chat on the internet.
[00:49:29.360 --> 00:49:30.880] Just Google us, we will be there.
[00:49:30.960 --> 00:49:31.520] That's all.
[00:49:31.760 --> 00:49:32.000] All right.
[00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:32.560] Thanks again, Stash.
[00:49:32.800 --> 00:49:33.920] Awesome.