Dan Martell - June 06, 2019


Keep Your SaaS Product Competitive with Syed @ WPBeginner.com - Escape Velocity Show #3


Episode Stats


Length

34 minutes

Words per minute

192.22028

Word count

6,709

Sentence count

442

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

15

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I sit down with a good friend of mine and talk to him about how he got into tech. We talk about his journey in tech and how he became the man behind some of the biggest tech companies in the world.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 some dude's like oh yeah you know video is very different you don't know shit about video right 0.77
00:00:03.840 make it work uh you don't know anything yeah and i'm like listen man the quality of your videos
00:00:08.280 don't even matter right and and he was arguing for it and you were saying it doesn't matter
00:00:13.160 i'm saying it doesn't matter because i was so getting pissed off at this guy right because
00:00:16.280 he's telling me how it's so hard and i'm like dude the quality of your videos don't even matter
00:00:19.700 like i i can i bet you i can i can make the channel bigger than yours yeah and this guy 0.88
00:00:24.220 had like 20 or 30 000 subscribers he thought he was hot shit um so i'm like let me do this i'm 0.71
00:00:29.680 going to game youtube what's up syed how's it going man hey buddy dude appreciate you coming 0.97
00:00:47.760 on here um i consider you like the warren buffett of sass and tech uh and that's those are my words
00:00:55.660 I don't think I've ever heard you say it.
00:00:57.280 But dude, you have been involved in many companies.
00:01:01.920 How many businesses have you started in the last, what?
00:01:06.660 Is it 10 plus years?
00:01:07.960 I mean, you're not a very old dude.
00:01:09.300 I thought when I first met you, we'd known each other
00:01:11.860 for over, I think, a decade now.
00:01:13.420 Yeah.
00:01:15.420 But you've done a lot.
00:01:17.240 How many companies have you been involved in?
00:01:19.660 Man, over two dozen now.
00:01:23.540 Are you serious?
00:01:24.420 I'm serious.
00:01:25.120 Dude, I knew it was a couple dozen.
00:01:26.400 2,000 is bananas.
00:01:27.460 No, no, two dozen, not 2,000. 0.97
00:01:29.460 Are you crazy?
00:01:30.460 I thought you said 2,000. 0.82
00:01:30.960 I'm like, OK, is that domains you buy?
00:01:32.420 No, no, no, over two dozen.
00:01:34.180 OK, awesome.
00:01:35.000 Two dozen companies.
00:01:35.880 And what are some of those companies
00:01:36.880 that people would know?
00:01:38.700 Well, if you're in this crowd, OptinMonster
00:01:41.300 is a pretty big one.
00:01:43.840 WPBeginner.
00:01:44.720 For sure.
00:01:45.220 If you ever do anything with WordPress,
00:01:46.920 you know about that.
00:01:49.000 Monster Insights, it used to be known as Yoast Analytics.
00:01:52.120 Yeah, which is a huge plug-in.
00:01:53.680 Right, so you acquired that.
00:01:55.100 Exact Metrics, WP Forms, if you're doing anything with form
00:02:00.100 building in WordPress, you've seen that.
00:02:02.600 Member Press, if you're doing anything with membership.
00:02:04.940 For sure.
00:02:05.440 Dude, you've got the whole market.
00:02:06.720 Pretty links and, you know, yeah.
00:02:09.440 Why did you get into tech?
00:02:11.220 I mean, I know we met, for those watching, dude, it was like 2008.
00:02:17.020 I think it was the guys at Column 5 that introduced us.
00:02:19.720 Column 5, right.
00:02:20.300 And you were helping them with some of their high end clients.
00:02:22.800 Somehow we got a hold of you.
00:02:24.060 You helped us with our WordPress deployment.
00:02:27.840 How did tech end up in your life?
00:02:30.520 Man, my parents moved here.
00:02:33.200 It's a very long story.
00:02:34.240 Yeah.
00:02:34.740 My parents moved to the US.
00:02:36.480 How old were you when they moved?
00:02:37.720 I was 12 years old.
00:02:40.200 My dad's mechanical engineering background,
00:02:42.380 degrees invalidate, kind of do what all brown people do here, 1.00
00:02:46.500 work at gas stations, swiping stuff.
00:02:49.500 I just wanted to make money.
00:02:50.560 And one of my cousins told me about domaining,
00:02:54.160 and that's what the start of tech was for me.
00:02:56.380 Really?
00:02:56.680 Domaining? 0.53
00:02:57.180 Domaining.
00:02:57.760 And then did you learn how to code, or?
00:02:59.620 Yeah, man.
00:03:00.280 So I didn't speak English, by the way, at that time.
00:03:03.280 Wow.
00:03:04.420 I knew the alphabets.
00:03:05.680 I didn't know the alphabets.
00:03:06.520 I memorized those.
00:03:08.140 So I didn't speak English.
00:03:10.900 I came here.
00:03:11.400 I was 12 years old.
00:03:12.220 I was supposed to go in eighth grade.
00:03:14.260 They tested me off.
00:03:15.340 So I was a 12-year-old in high school
00:03:17.320 and spending most of my time in the library
00:03:19.040 because I didn't have any friends.
00:03:20.780 I was a total nerd.
00:03:21.920 And I wanted to play games.
00:03:24.800 And the school blocked everything,
00:03:26.900 because they don't want to play games.
00:03:28.920 So I started looking at how do you play games around this thing.
00:03:31.760 There's a thing called Firewall. 0.98
00:03:33.200 And yeah, everything keeps coming about proxies.
00:03:35.820 And all the proxies were blocked,
00:03:37.880 so I decided to learn how to make one.
00:03:39.660 So admin stuff.
00:03:40.740 Oh, you made your own proxy?
00:03:41.920 I made my own proxy.
00:03:42.820 Oh, wow.
00:03:43.320 So that way you could tunnel through and play all the games.
00:03:44.900 That's right.
00:03:45.440 Oh, dude, that's neat.
00:03:47.220 I love that the mother of necessity
00:03:49.400 was the invention for you.
00:03:51.180 And why the drive?
00:03:54.940 I know that you're also in real estate.
00:03:57.880 Dude, what I've always appreciated about you
00:03:59.220 is you're driven.
00:04:00.580 You built that YouTube channel.
00:04:02.700 I think you exited.
00:04:03.840 What was that called again?
00:04:04.720 List 25.
00:04:05.500 List 25.
00:04:06.340 I mean, million plus subscribers.
00:04:08.160 It had 2 and 1 half million subscribers,
00:04:10.500 over half a billion views.
00:04:11.460 Yeah, so it's like you're a renaissance guy
00:04:14.460 of the internet, you know what I mean?
00:04:16.120 And I just love it because we're at Traffic and Conversion
00:04:20.620 Summit, you're hungry, you're moving forward.
00:04:22.620 I remember talking to you once, and you
00:04:24.580 mentioned one of your mentors.
00:04:26.740 How did you figure this stuff out?
00:04:29.440 What do you think are the big moves
00:04:30.900 that allowed you to get to the point where you're buying
00:04:34.420 companies and doing a roll up and that kind of stuff?
00:04:38.080 Yeah, man, surrounding myself with much smarter people
00:04:41.200 than me.
00:04:41.620 And how long have you been doing that for?
00:04:44.060 I met my mentor when I was 14 years old.
00:04:45.860 I'm playing cricket, which most Americans don't know about the sport,
00:04:49.920 but if you go to Pakistan, India, Australia, cricket is huge.
00:04:54.180 I was playing cricket in South Florida.
00:04:56.020 You actually have to pay to play cricket.
00:04:58.000 Really? They don't have cricket fields that you can just go play?
00:05:00.260 No, they're leagues.
00:05:01.860 And then I met the guy who owned one of the teams,
00:05:04.320 and he said I could play for free because I didn't have any money.
00:05:06.200 But, I mean, dude, he meets a lot of people.
00:05:07.820 This is what I always find funny is, like,
00:05:09.480 what did you say at 14 that got him to?
00:05:13.100 No, dude, I kid you not.
00:05:14.580 I was just playing cricket in his team and he, you know, and he would,
00:05:17.500 he was really genuine guy and, you know, he would talk to everybody and I,
00:05:21.640 and I would, you know, talk to everybody too. And super respectful,
00:05:25.160 super polite. And that was his rule.
00:05:26.980 I could play in the team for free as long as I'm respectful and don't curse
00:05:30.020 around and things like that. And I started, you know, he would ask, well,
00:05:33.760 what are you doing? What, you know, what are you studying?
00:05:35.280 He took genuine interest and I told him, Oh yeah,
00:05:37.000 I'm studying this and I'm trying to do this thing online.
00:05:38.840 And he was like, Oh, this is cool. And then, um, you know, he,
00:05:42.160 he would like start giving me a little bit of wisdom and one time he invited all the entire
00:05:46.120 team over to his house and i was just mind blown right this is like not a house this is a
00:05:51.020 freaking mansion huge mansion it's a humongous mansion you can go around in golf carts right
00:05:55.640 there was literally golf carts you could ride around the whole property estate uh and i was
00:05:59.800 just like i was like whoa and i started like literally taking interest in what is that at 14
00:06:04.180 yes that's that's about 14 you visit this guy's house and he and i mean i've been in those moments
00:06:10.280 where your whole belief system shifts about what's possible.
00:06:14.280 Absolutely.
00:06:14.820 I saw a brown guy that can actually do this.
00:06:18.520 Dude, that's amazing.
00:06:19.300 Right?
00:06:20.500 Like, nobody in my family is rich, by the way.
00:06:23.360 Most entrepreneurs, that's usually not the case.
00:06:26.780 And he was interested, but what did, you know,
00:06:30.200 obviously to be on the league, you've
00:06:31.700 got to be respectful and all that stuff.
00:06:33.660 Right.
00:06:33.820 But what did you do to get him to get to the point
00:06:36.700 where he was willing to take time to mentor you
00:06:38.900 outside of just doing I just love cricket and this man loves cricket more than I do so we would watch
00:06:46.280 like you know cricket games uh that they're being they're being played around the world and he would
00:06:50.460 have like this watch party at his house yeah um but except they were like stayovers at his house
00:06:55.500 because the crickets are being played in other parts of the world yeah so on the weekends a
00:06:59.420 bunch of guys would get together right and I would actually take interest in what he does and he does
00:07:04.520 real estate right nobody else would ask nobody else would ask and i would think that's the part
00:07:08.280 man it's like you you i just love that because those other people on the team were there right
00:07:14.120 and you actually said hey man how how did this right come to be yeah and i genuinely was curious
00:07:20.680 right and i i kept like i'm like i love this right and he saw like my eyes would just glow and like
00:07:27.480 everybody's watching the game and we're we're kind of like that's where the couch is we're sitting
00:07:31.320 right on you know on the other side and at three in the morning literally and he's just like telling
00:07:37.720 me how he took over a burger king without paying a dime right no money out of pocket no money out
00:07:43.400 of pocket just take over a burger king and i was like oh and i'm just like you know my eyes would
00:07:47.800 glow and i and and of course that makes you feel appreciated yeah right somebody and then he just
00:07:52.600 kept telling me story after story and i'll say oh yeah i'm doing this in my business and he's like
00:07:56.280 oh, cool, let me introduce you to so-and-so.
00:07:59.220 And he would just introduce me to his other friends who
00:08:01.680 are also fairly wealthy, successful people.
00:08:05.280 And yeah.
00:08:07.200 So at some point, though, you had to develop a skill set.
00:08:09.660 So how did you end up in the WordPress space?
00:08:12.540 Man, I was doing a lot of shady SEO stuff in 0405.
00:08:17.880 And that was all static content.
00:08:20.220 And I was selling some of the backlinks.
00:08:21.960 And Google was coming hard on static content.
00:08:24.600 and I needed something dynamic.
00:08:27.000 And I discovered WordPress in 06.
00:08:29.760 Wow.
00:08:30.540 And then that just all of a sudden,
00:08:31.800 you stopped the shady stuff, or you just shifted it?
00:08:33.580 No, Google slapped.
00:08:34.680 Got a Google slap, got a Google slap.
00:08:36.340 Yeah, got to get legit.
00:08:38.840 Pretty much, it was one of the easiest money I ever made.
00:08:41.760 I still say that.
00:08:42.820 And yeah, one day, Google just flipped the switch,
00:08:46.360 and all vanished.
00:08:47.640 And you had to figure something new out.
00:08:49.280 I had to figure something new out.
00:08:50.700 I didn't know that I was pretty good at traffic.
00:08:53.920 And I started looking at all the different sources,
00:08:58.280 like the friend feeds of the world.
00:08:59.980 And there were new platforms coming up,
00:09:02.260 like dig.com and stumbleupon.com.
00:09:05.660 And yeah, so I started looking at WordPress, like WordPress
00:09:08.760 sites.
00:09:09.360 I was pretty technical.
00:09:11.380 Had a team that could build websites and just start
00:09:14.360 Was your team mostly in the US or?
00:09:15.920 No, overseas.
00:09:16.760 OK, overseas.
00:09:18.140 And so the WordPress stuff started becoming.
00:09:20.920 Where does List25 come from?
00:09:23.800 Or how do you evaluate projects?
00:09:25.720 And maybe you have a different approach today,
00:09:27.300 but I'm just curious.
00:09:28.860 As somebody that sees opportunity all around,
00:09:31.720 you've obviously figured out a way to go down certain paths,
00:09:36.040 be successful.
00:09:37.360 You said a couple dozen companies.
00:09:38.740 Some I'm assuming didn't work out.
00:09:41.040 How did you evaluate opportunities then versus now?
00:09:45.040 You know, I was in college.
00:09:47.460 I went to UF, University of Florida.
00:09:49.220 And my roommate, who was three years ahead of me, graduated, you know, with a degree and then got a master's in the national business and couldn't get a job.
00:09:59.560 So and we were just in Czech Republic and I was like talking, man, I wish like, you know, there was one site that just told me all about the castles.
00:10:07.360 But so I don't have to walk all around, just go to the right spot because those castles are humongous, right?
00:10:12.360 Yeah.
00:10:12.760 Just go to that one spot or two things or five things to see.
00:10:16.840 So I initially thought, oh, that would be a cool site to do just for fun.
00:10:21.720 And then that didn't work out, of course, because I don't go to that many castles.
00:10:25.980 So I never executed on that.
00:10:27.960 But this guy was there.
00:10:28.800 I'm like, dude, you know, since you're not able to find a job, why not?
00:10:32.360 Why don't you start this website?
00:10:33.580 I'm seeing these list style websites popping up everywhere.
00:10:37.700 And I can help you if you execute, right?
00:10:40.540 And I'll pay you.
00:10:41.260 I'll pay you an hourly rate.
00:10:42.660 And then...
00:10:43.180 So take the risk out of it.
00:10:44.600 Right.
00:10:44.960 And was he a business partner with you?
00:10:46.500 Or you just wanted to say, hey, here's a project that you should work on?
00:10:48.960 Right, here's a project.
00:10:49.820 And I didn't want to just give him money.
00:10:52.300 Yeah.
00:10:52.800 And he's a really dear friend.
00:10:54.120 Still one of my best friend, best friend at my wedding.
00:10:55.940 Awesome.
00:10:57.140 And yeah, so he.
00:10:59.360 And did it start off as a WordPress site or as a YouTube video?
00:11:02.320 It started as a WordPress site.
00:11:03.360 November, right?
00:11:04.200 November started as a WordPress site.
00:11:05.500 I already had power user profiles and all that stuff.
00:11:08.780 Yeah, you know how to drive traffic.
00:11:10.120 So as long as he writes the content, I can use one of those profiles
00:11:13.380 and blow it up. 0.90
00:11:14.800 And in January, like three months after launch,
00:11:19.320 somebody, I forget who, was telling me
00:11:21.320 how I don't know how to do anything on YouTube.
00:11:23.540 And I was like, man, you know what? 0.99
00:11:24.760 Screw you. 0.99
00:11:25.760 And what year was this? 0.99
00:11:27.020 2012.
00:11:28.120 So 2011 November, we launched this.
00:11:30.240 And some dude was like, oh yeah, video's very different. 0.91
00:11:33.400 You don't know shit about video, right?
00:11:34.900 Yeah, you don't want to make it work. 0.96
00:11:36.220 Yeah, and I'm like, listen, man, the quality of your videos
00:11:39.340 don't even matter, right?
00:11:41.540 And he was arguing for it, and you were saying it doesn't matter.
00:11:44.300 saying it doesn't matter because i was so getting pissed off at this guy right because he's telling
00:11:47.500 me how it's so hard and i'm like dude the quality of your videos doesn't matter like i i can i bet
00:11:51.740 you i can i can make the channel bigger than yours yeah and this guy had like 20 or 30 000
00:11:56.140 subscribers he thought he was hot um so i'm like let me do this i'm gonna game youtube so you you
00:12:02.700 went back to your your your black cat my black hat stuff right video and you're like i'm like i'm
00:12:07.340 gonna i'm gonna study this yeah i'm gonna study i study this how this works yeah so so i kid you
00:12:12.380 not i wanted a youtube channel i realized the age of the channel was very important somebody bought
00:12:17.180 somebody else's no list 25 was not uh was not available on it was a hidden you know it was it
00:12:22.940 was a closed channel somebody had it they closed it so i hit up my ad rep and said yo uh i need
00:12:28.060 this channel unlocked if you do i'll increase my budget yeah so they gave me that channel
00:12:32.620 whoa so now and this thing started early oh six oh wow so now i have a channel that was six with
00:12:38.540 with no videos on it.
00:12:40.160 So how did you figure out what YouTube?
00:12:42.640 I mean, it's an interesting principle,
00:12:44.400 because it's like hacking anything, right?
00:12:46.720 How do you reverse engineer?
00:12:48.520 I mean, you probably knew some people,
00:12:49.960 but how did you figure that out?
00:12:51.340 I asked a few friends, and I started looking
00:12:53.160 at videos that were ranking higher.
00:12:54.400 It was the domain.
00:12:55.000 And YouTube was Google-owned.
00:12:56.700 I was thinking, OK, age of domain matters in Google.
00:13:00.580 Yeah, exactly.
00:13:01.500 So yeah, 06 channel, now starting in 2011.
00:13:05.720 And this is what we did.
00:13:06.880 videos were shit quality, probably 320p, okay?
00:13:10.020 We took those 500 pixel wide images from the blog, 0.91
00:13:12.360 blew it up, and pixelated,
00:13:15.660 and all what David was doing was narrating it.
00:13:18.760 So essentially, just so everybody can get the visual,
00:13:21.120 it's a blog post with photos, the list is 25,
00:13:24.420 you're taking the heading photos from each section,
00:13:27.500 stretching it so it's pixelated,
00:13:29.060 and David is narrating and creating a video,
00:13:32.360 hit publish.
00:13:33.200 And putting it up there, and it would optimize it, right?
00:13:36.100 And guess what?
00:13:38.600 Put it on a symbol upon, baby.
00:13:39.980 That's it.
00:13:40.480 So you use your profile you built out.
00:13:42.280 Gets going.
00:13:43.120 And what were some of the early traction numbers?
00:13:46.120 Like, how did, I mean, so the first month, I believe,
00:13:48.880 we got, like, a few thousand subs.
00:13:50.280 And then it started going to, like, 10,000 and onwards.
00:13:53.740 And it really started catching on.
00:13:55.180 Like, within six months, how many subs did you have?
00:13:57.920 I don't recall, but it beat that guy.
00:13:59.560 Like, tens of thousands?
00:14:00.220 It beat that guy.
00:14:00.780 Oh, really?
00:14:01.300 Whatever he had, you're like, got you, bro.
00:14:03.640 Right.
00:14:03.860 And he was pissed, right? 0.99
00:14:05.320 He's like, dude, this is like shit quality video. 0.97
00:14:07.120 Yeah, it's not. 0.96
00:14:07.720 And I'm like, listen, man, all I have to do
00:14:10.360 is publish more videos than you do
00:14:11.660 and optimize it better than you do.
00:14:13.620 And I know the game.
00:14:15.320 And my whole thing was just seeing if I could do it.
00:14:19.220 What was the, how much content did you eventually end up
00:14:21.800 pushing?
00:14:22.200 Is it like weekly, daily?
00:14:24.600 Yeah, it started out with once a week.
00:14:26.600 And what did, I mean, from a, because I think marketplaces
00:14:29.080 and like focus, like the bowling pin,
00:14:31.100 what was the first category of list 25s were you doing?
00:14:35.320 Dude, it was like things that you know you shouldn't be looking at, but you want to look at.
00:14:40.700 Such as?
00:14:41.720 Because I know what comes to mind in that mind.
00:14:43.560 Brutal torture techniques.
00:14:45.220 Really?
00:14:46.340 Are these subreddits, or where did you get these, bro?
00:14:49.040 Yeah, yeah.
00:14:49.420 Is that it?
00:14:49.780 You look at subreddit and be like, the deep of the underbelly of the internet?
00:14:54.440 Yes, that was the most popular video, and most popular article.
00:14:58.100 We would rank, I think, number one for the word torture techniques, and you'd be surprised how many people are searching for that.
00:15:02.460 But was there, I mean, there's obviously a benefit that Syed Balky's name's not on.
00:15:07.860 No.
00:15:08.320 You know what I mean?
00:15:08.920 Like, I didn't even know you owned this thing until we had dinner here.
00:15:12.220 And you're like, yeah, I'm doing this thing.
00:15:13.500 And I'm like, how are you pulling this off?
00:15:16.660 Dude, so it was just like, find the person, creative endeavors, invest in it.
00:15:21.280 And has that been the pattern for other projects that you've kicked off is who's going to lead this?
00:15:27.140 Yeah, but I've gotten smarter about it.
00:15:29.220 It's not like, just because I'm good at the hacking part of things.
00:15:32.460 That should be in every space.
00:15:34.480 Just like now, it's more focused and alignment with what we've got going on and where we're trying to go.
00:15:40.560 So how are you making decisions today around projects you take on or don't take on?
00:15:44.440 Yeah, it has to be in the WordPress space because that's what we're good at.
00:15:49.240 Has to be an essential.
00:15:50.860 The solution that we're working towards has to be an essential.
00:15:53.340 Essential meaning has to be needed by all WordPress sites.
00:15:56.620 It has to be needed by the vertical serving so desperately
00:15:59.640 that this is the last thing that you cancel
00:16:01.340 if your business is about to go out.
00:16:03.160 Wow, I mean, that's clear.
00:16:05.000 Right, extremely clear.
00:16:06.080 Okay.
00:16:06.520 So no utilities.
00:16:07.680 Okay.
00:16:08.040 If you come say, hey, you know what?
00:16:10.060 I'm trying to make my website Google AMP compatible.
00:16:13.040 You should make a plugin for that.
00:16:14.580 No.
00:16:15.080 No.
00:16:15.620 Because who knows five years later what Google did.
00:16:17.520 So what are other categories that,
00:16:19.680 I mean, obviously this is your secret sauce,
00:16:21.860 but I mean, is there any that are obvious
00:16:23.120 that you think are next for you in that space?
00:16:26.100 Yeah, I mean, I have exactly the blueprint
00:16:30.040 of what we're trying to do, the companies that we're
00:16:32.280 going to be taking stakes in.
00:16:34.080 This year, I'm actually meeting up with one tonight.
00:16:37.800 I'm not going to talk about it.
00:16:38.700 For sure, yeah, it's early.
00:16:39.920 And have you ever raised venture for this?
00:16:43.420 No, I've been bootstrapped since the beginning,
00:16:46.340 and I don't intend to.
00:16:47.940 What do you think?
00:16:48.580 I mean, you've been in the space, like,
00:16:50.780 I think the affiliate summit, the internet marketing,
00:16:54.660 And you meet these young guys that make a lot of money.
00:16:57.120 But you've never been that guy, and that's
00:16:58.740 what I've always appreciated.
00:17:01.160 What do you think, financially, from a reinvestment point
00:17:04.380 of view, do you feel that you do better or right
00:17:07.560 than the other guys from creating real wealth?
00:17:10.860 And that's why I've always something about software for me.
00:17:14.220 I love the continuity of it.
00:17:16.060 I love that every month I got to earn the customer.
00:17:18.420 I mean, it's just an honest business model.
00:17:21.440 And I've always been a big fan of reinvesting in growth.
00:17:24.480 It just didn't make sense for me to take money out
00:17:26.320 and spend it on some depreciating asset
00:17:28.380 when I know I can get a bigger ROI in the next 12 months.
00:17:31.180 It seems like you also believe in that.
00:17:34.500 What do you do personally around investing, either yourself
00:17:37.920 or other assets?
00:17:38.680 How do you think of that?
00:17:40.280 Yeah, I mean, I started making money quite at an early age.
00:17:43.600 And I was just afraid of losing it,
00:17:47.580 being honest with you.
00:17:48.540 When I was younger, seeing where I came from nothing.
00:17:51.180 Yeah, I came from nothing.
00:17:52.200 And I didn't want to go back to that.
00:17:53.700 I saw a lot of my friends, same age, maybe a year or two
00:17:57.400 older than me, completely crushing it on MySpace
00:18:00.020 and some of the other earlier days,
00:18:02.580 and buying these BMWs or even like Lambos that they can't
00:18:06.720 afford, but they're buying it.
00:18:07.820 You get the payments, yeah.
00:18:08.760 Right.
00:18:09.180 And I was like, man, I'm not going to do that.
00:18:12.300 So I saved my money, which actually
00:18:14.860 turned out to be a good decision.
00:18:16.940 Yeah, because that market's corrected.
00:18:18.820 Yeah, that market's corrected.
00:18:20.360 And my mentor helped me find some really, really good deals
00:18:23.580 commercial real estate triple net leases learned that game from him uh all the way and started
00:18:30.020 diversifying a little bit right because that was like that gave me peace of mind yeah because now
00:18:33.840 i know you can't kick me out of my house i know you can't do this so it just you know take away
00:18:38.380 all those fears and that security allowed you to push even harder in the business exactly that
00:18:43.560 security because i was not i was not worried yeah i was no longer worried making payments
00:18:48.680 Supporting your lifestyle, taking care of your family.
00:18:51.560 Right.
00:18:52.000 And so I was like, no, I can't lose.
00:18:54.440 Yeah.
00:18:54.920 So now it's all house money.
00:18:56.920 It's like, what do we do with this?
00:18:59.000 Right.
00:18:59.780 Do you think there'll be a point in the future
00:19:01.160 where you take some capital to kind of grow things?
00:19:03.080 No.
00:19:03.580 No.
00:19:04.080 So you're good bootstrapping, free cash flow, reinvest.
00:19:07.640 And why software?
00:19:09.120 I mean, obviously, you've done a bunch of different annuity type
00:19:12.380 things with SEO, et cetera.
00:19:13.960 But why software?
00:19:14.720 recurring revenue uh is quite attractive but i feel did you learn that from the real estate
00:19:22.040 stuff from your mentor like just kind of when i look at software in real estate i feel like
00:19:25.980 they have similar yeah yeah yeah um it's very very close to triple net leases if you put the
00:19:31.520 right team in it yeah um but the coolest part about software is that you can actually make a
00:19:37.420 real big difference yeah um especially what we're doing now um and that's just exciting
00:19:43.220 and being at the forefront of innovation.
00:19:45.860 And software is quite like hacking, right?
00:19:48.120 Seeing what does the user want versus what do they need.
00:19:53.720 And figuring that out, whoever figures that out wins the game.
00:19:57.800 So yeah.
00:19:58.660 So that's neat.
00:19:59.260 And you've seen like, I recently brought my group
00:20:02.660 that I coach to see, Jason Cohen at WP Engine.
00:20:06.460 I mean, they've built, I think it's a $100 million a year
00:20:08.420 company in like six, seven years.
00:20:13.040 Does it blow your mind?
00:20:14.160 It blows my mind that WordPress is so big.
00:20:16.640 I don't think people like, tell me,
00:20:18.200 tell everybody watching the stats on WordPress
00:20:20.780 so they can get a sense of.
00:20:22.400 Yeah, it doesn't blow my mind because I've been in WordPress
00:20:24.280 for the last 13 years.
00:20:25.940 WordPress powers 33% of all websites.
00:20:28.340 A third of the internet is powered by WordPress.
00:20:30.920 Absolutely.
00:20:33.540 It's a multiple billion dollar industry.
00:20:36.200 Wow, multiple billion dollar industry.
00:20:38.280 And how does it break down like WordPress.org?
00:20:40.420 Like what are they doing in the market?
00:20:42.400 Why is WP Engine competitive against them?
00:20:45.440 Why is there the ability for an ecosystem to exist?
00:20:48.900 I mean, WordPress.org is an open source project.
00:20:51.840 It's run by the foundation.
00:20:52.960 So they have no bearing on WP Engine.
00:20:55.540 OK.
00:20:56.160 So what a lot of times people confuse is
00:20:58.300 WordPress.com and WordPress.org are two separate entities.
00:21:01.420 Are they not?
00:21:02.240 There's no shared overlap?
00:21:03.780 There's no shared overlap, except that the founder
00:21:05.800 is the same person.
00:21:07.200 Is he still the president of the nonprofit?
00:21:09.680 He is, but there's the board now.
00:21:11.140 OK.
00:21:11.640 There's some oversight.
00:21:12.480 Right, there's some oversight.
00:21:13.980 And wordpress.com is how big of a business?
00:21:16.800 I believe they're private still, but.
00:21:18.540 Yeah, they're still private.
00:21:19.920 I have some idea, but I probably won't share.
00:21:23.140 Are they bigger or smaller than WP Engine?
00:21:25.660 Pretty close.
00:21:26.580 Really?
00:21:27.080 So it's pretty impressive what they've built over at WP Engine.
00:21:30.920 Who are the other big guys in the WordPress space?
00:21:34.360 I mean, the biggest fishies in the WordPress space
00:21:37.020 are the GoDaddy's of the world, right?
00:21:39.400 The GoDaddy.
00:21:40.660 Squarespace?
00:21:41.700 Squarespace, no, and WordPress, right?
00:21:43.040 Endurance.
00:21:43.540 No, but yeah, OK, got it.
00:21:44.780 So GoDaddy actually runs WordPress for their?
00:21:47.540 Like hosting.
00:21:48.280 OK.
00:21:48.620 Yeah, like hosting is a big market in WordPress, right?
00:21:53.480 Because to run a WordPress site, you've
00:21:55.180 got to have a domain in hosting.
00:21:56.280 Yeah.
00:21:56.700 GoDaddy is the biggest in the world.
00:21:58.580 And do you have a company that does that?
00:22:01.420 No, that's not a business that I want to be in.
00:22:03.300 OK.
00:22:03.800 It's very high overhead, very high overhead.
00:22:06.900 And extremely competitive.
00:22:09.600 Yeah, hosting, dude.
00:22:10.440 I started a hosting company.
00:22:11.520 That was my second company that lost a lot of money.
00:22:13.940 Learn my lesson.
00:22:15.840 Where do you see the kind of the SaaS space going next
00:22:19.560 in regards to how people are buying,
00:22:21.300 the price points that they're, how we support customers?
00:22:24.320 What do you guys do to compete in the software space?
00:22:27.540 Because WordPress is obviously very competitive.
00:22:30.840 I mean, you've probably had many projects like myself.
00:22:33.120 All of a sudden, you're on Upwork.
00:22:34.620 Somebody's like, copy this site.
00:22:36.460 I will pay you $500 to copy this tool.
00:22:39.940 What do you do to stay competitive?
00:22:42.740 You know, the cool part about the WordPress ecosystem
00:22:46.380 is that I feel it's still a little behind
00:22:50.240 compared to when you're looking at other SaaS.
00:22:52.540 It doesn't move as fast.
00:22:54.760 That's my honest opinion on that.
00:22:58.180 For us, just looking at what's happening in the SaaS world,
00:23:00.700 bringing it over to the WordPress space,
00:23:03.800 and really talking to our customers.
00:23:05.560 You know, we make it do proactive NPS surveys,
00:23:08.320 but we do it a little differently.
00:23:10.500 We ask conditional questions based on what they put in as their rating,
00:23:15.020 whether it's 9 and 10, 7 or 8, or 6 below.
00:23:18.600 And then there's a secondary question.
00:23:20.500 It's like, if you could have us build one more feature or add one thing,
00:23:23.540 what would it be?
00:23:24.820 So really customer-driven.
00:23:26.440 Really, really customer-driven.
00:23:27.540 And that helps make our product be the best in the market.
00:23:31.140 Yeah.
00:23:32.640 Was there a point where the WordPress community
00:23:36.700 didn't like doing monthly subscription tools?
00:23:39.640 Yes.
00:23:40.140 Because I felt like that was a big thing, where themes, et cetera,
00:23:44.220 there were one-offs, and it was really hard to get a continuity.
00:23:47.380 Absolutely.
00:23:48.000 And what shifted, or how did that come about?
00:23:50.740 I mean, even now, it's not as widely.
00:23:55.520 It's more widely adopted, but it's not still
00:23:58.220 like people prefer one-offs you see very little monthly subscriptions it's more annual it's more
00:24:05.860 annual subscriptions okay the reason for that is it's a downloadable yeah right install it right
00:24:11.400 unless you can do what opt-in monster does right yeah like our wordpress plugin is just a connector
00:24:15.640 yeah between our app you need an api right so at that point we can do monthly yeah um but even you
00:24:21.760 guys you were early to the game of monthly within the wordpress we were like one of the first yeah
00:24:27.000 in the WordPress space to do it monthly.
00:24:29.080 And it's interesting how there's a cognitive bias
00:24:32.120 towards a certain approach to business
00:24:35.080 that even if it's internet, even though it's technology,
00:24:37.960 I want to pay one time, I don't want to pay a subscription.
00:24:41.160 You know, I mean, that's why I look at Adobe,
00:24:43.880 and I mean, for them to do what they did,
00:24:45.560 I mean, they really, that was a big shift
00:24:47.160 in their business model, right?
00:24:48.680 You got to retrain the consumer.
00:24:50.040 The whole, yeah, retrain the whole consumer.
00:24:52.040 Yeah.
00:24:53.080 What are other things that you feel,
00:24:54.760 maybe yourself or other the best SaaS companies are doing well to really differentiate and compete?
00:25:00.760 You know, really creating good content is very important. So education-based marketing?
00:25:05.240 Education-based marketing is important. Some of the best SaaS companies that I'm looking at
00:25:12.200 are doing very well in product marketing. Okay. Yeah. Unpack that. So somebody,
00:25:24.120 you know, you have multiple tiers on your SaaS and oftentimes you might have certain features
00:25:28.840 that are locked. And, you know, so you, some, some, some of the apps are not even showing those
00:25:34.040 features that are locked. Yeah. So like, you don't even know, you don't even know they exist.
00:25:37.800 Yeah. Right. So just adding that, adding the, the link to the screen and then explaining on this
00:25:44.140 screen, you can unlock it. If you upgrade your account. Exactly. Heck even show, even show a
00:25:47.820 fake preview, even show a fake preview of what it is. Right. Um, and then put a video there,
00:25:53.080 or put something of education of why this is important.
00:25:57.040 That kind of thing is just hidden revenue for you.
00:26:01.600 Yeah, sell more stuff to your existing customers.
00:26:04.200 Absolutely.
00:26:05.020 That's really smart.
00:26:06.080 I remember talking to HubSpot, and they
00:26:08.640 mentioned that one of their biggest expansion revenue
00:26:11.920 opportunity, and the reason why it's a cost,
00:26:13.540 is they used to have to make a customer that
00:26:15.600 wanted to upgrade to the next level, or even unlock an add-on,
00:26:18.800 get on a call with a sales rep.
00:26:20.080 And now what they do is they allow you to unlock it
00:26:22.180 for a limited trial, which then forces the upgrade
00:26:26.100 or the add-on, because it's a lot easier
00:26:28.040 than to obviously use it and then hit that upper limit.
00:26:32.060 What do you guys do for retention?
00:26:34.500 Or do you do anything clever to help with expansion revenue
00:26:37.240 or reduce churn?
00:26:39.940 What's your?
00:26:41.360 You know, we try to make sure that the usage of our product
00:26:45.420 is high.
00:26:47.300 A lot of times, if the usage is not high,
00:26:49.440 you're going to lose that customer.
00:26:50.940 And you won't be able to save no matter what kind of cancellation workflow you put in.
00:26:56.580 If the usage ain't there, you're not going to win.
00:26:59.040 So what we do is we celebrate the usage.
00:27:03.440 So after like, you know, kind of like gamify it.
00:27:06.300 After X days, they'll say, hey, you got this many entries, right?
00:27:10.900 Go ahead and leave a review.
00:27:12.440 Go do this, right?
00:27:13.980 And then like changing that messaging around usage.
00:27:18.100 If we see that you're not using it,
00:27:19.600 then somebody from our team will reach out and say, hey.
00:27:23.020 So do you actually have somebody on your team,
00:27:25.060 customer success or whatever, actively monitor new accounts,
00:27:28.940 activation, usage.
00:27:30.280 And if they're not, they're.
00:27:31.240 Yes.
00:27:32.040 And celebrate when they get some wins,
00:27:34.000 but then also actively ask them if they're not using it,
00:27:38.560 where they're stuck.
00:27:39.500 Yes.
00:27:40.000 And it's like manual plus automated sequences
00:27:45.000 that are happening, right?
00:27:46.500 So using Intercom, that's like sending messages.
00:27:50.000 And then, of course, yeah, I know you're a big fan.
00:27:54.920 Yeah, I don't hide the fact.
00:27:57.840 Cool.
00:27:58.260 So there is a people side of your business.
00:28:00.580 Because as a bootstrap dude, you obviously
00:28:02.760 got to look at your expenses, and people are expensive.
00:28:06.180 Have you figured out the ROI of where people make sense
00:28:08.660 for some of this stuff, or even price point on accounts?
00:28:11.740 Do you segment by?
00:28:13.800 Is there any accounts that don't get a manual contact?
00:28:16.960 Yeah, we don't do that on our lowest end plan.
00:28:21.620 But we know on a higher end plan, it makes more sense to do it.
00:28:27.280 I always say your business, but if somebody
00:28:29.220 bought a SaaS business today, what's
00:28:31.680 the first thing you think they should change the day after
00:28:34.320 to make it more valuable?
00:28:36.260 The checkout funnel.
00:28:37.740 And do unpack that one.
00:28:40.380 Look at what your card abandonment is.
00:28:43.480 that's the first thing i i start i start there um if it if it's like recurring revenue and you
00:28:49.440 already have a lot of recurring revenue then i start i start even one level below that and look
00:28:54.300 at how much fail payment you have fixing fixing that fail payment is a big issue that a lot of
00:28:59.780 people don't even look at they don't they don't and that's just bleeding money and that's free
00:29:03.440 money the moment you unlock it and you can put in like some simple dunning rules yeah you know
00:29:07.180 just to get started there's tools out there right already yeah um so start there you know a little
00:29:13.120 bit higher up in the funnel which is your checkout page take a look at what's
00:29:17.140 the abandonment looking like there yeah for example I'll give you I'll give you
00:29:21.460 a quick example small change that you can make that we that we did we had in
00:29:26.440 the app it was being communicated that you're gonna get a discount if you
00:29:29.300 upgrade today okay you got to the pricing page but the discount price
00:29:33.820 wasn't being listed there and the messaging in the app was saying discount
00:29:38.860 was auto applied yeah it was auto applied on the cart yeah but it was not
00:29:42.760 Not shown on the pricing page.
00:29:44.060 Not being shown.
00:29:44.680 Yeah.
00:29:45.180 So just changing that.
00:29:47.440 It's the message match.
00:29:48.860 Absolutely.
00:29:49.800 People don't even look at their own flow, and they go,
00:29:51.940 oh, that doesn't make any sense.
00:29:53.420 So just making sure those little attention and details
00:29:57.400 are there, reducing the fields, of course, common sense stuff,
00:30:00.520 putting email field above everything.
00:30:01.840 That's one of the first thing I do.
00:30:02.980 And then bring them back to the cart if they abandon.
00:30:05.000 Is that why?
00:30:05.500 Exactly.
00:30:06.000 Yeah.
00:30:07.240 Dude, I love how nerdy and technical you
00:30:10.820 can get on optimization of the business model.
00:30:13.200 It's not like high level.
00:30:14.840 What are some of the companies that you admire
00:30:16.720 that are doing cool things?
00:30:18.240 That maybe one level down, everybody
00:30:19.900 can mention the drifts and the drop boxes and et cetera.
00:30:22.160 But even in your space or outside your space,
00:30:25.660 who are guys that you admire, the way they're operating?
00:30:29.300 And of course, I love WP Engine in our space.
00:30:32.320 They're doing some really, really cool stuff.
00:30:35.480 The guys at Nextiva are doing really awesome stuff,
00:30:38.900 Business phone services.
00:30:41.220 I like what they're doing, just looking at.
00:30:45.540 Always cool to see what Neil is doing.
00:30:47.280 We're just making software free.
00:30:48.660 Yeah.
00:30:49.760 Building the top of the funnel.
00:30:50.880 Yeah, building top of the funnel.
00:30:52.400 And I think that's happening across the board, right?
00:30:54.500 Yeah.
00:30:55.000 There's going to be free versions of everything.
00:30:56.740 Lowering the price, lowering the price,
00:30:58.720 until you figure out, like you have the user base.
00:31:00.840 And then you can sell them anything you want.
00:31:02.300 If you had to wipe everything away from a tech product focus
00:31:07.520 that you have, start over today.
00:31:10.400 If you had to design, or even for yourself,
00:31:13.020 let's say you had half a million dollars to invest
00:31:15.920 or build or buy, what would you go look at for a SaaS
00:31:23.420 that you'd want to be involved in?
00:31:26.660 And you don't have the WordPress community anymore.
00:31:29.200 You're starting from scratch.
00:31:30.260 What do you think makes a good SaaS product?
00:31:35.900 What price point?
00:31:36.880 What industry?
00:31:38.660 And if I was to go in, I would try to look a little bit more into the accounting space.
00:31:46.500 Why is that?
00:31:47.720 I think there's a big void there.
00:31:50.240 You mean like in the zero space?
00:31:53.500 In the bench, in the narrow space.
00:31:56.280 Okay.
00:31:56.840 Yeah.
00:31:57.720 So something.
00:31:58.880 And what do you like?
00:32:00.020 What kind of price point do you like?
00:32:01.480 I mean, do you like mid-market?
00:32:03.660 Do you like SMB?
00:32:04.520 I like SMB because it doesn't have a sales overhead.
00:32:07.620 It's easy to sell to SMB.
00:32:08.940 Of course, there's high churn on SMB.
00:32:10.880 But I would rather take that and then just build that brand.
00:32:15.360 And then the mid-market and enterprise will just come to you.
00:32:17.820 They show up eventually anyways once you own that brand.
00:32:19.980 Yeah, because the inbound becomes the best channel at that point
00:32:23.720 because you are everywhere.
00:32:25.020 Yeah, and you don't have to convince people to buy the product.
00:32:28.800 They're just showing up.
00:32:30.000 Right.
00:32:30.160 um just as we wrap up what's the one lesson you feel your mentor taught you like obviously the
00:32:37.800 technical and the triple net lease and all that stuff but what's the mindset belief thing that
00:32:42.540 you if you had to distill everything he's done you know giving you advice what would that be
00:32:46.600 just finding alignment what does that mean for you uh just looking at who has what you have what
00:32:53.980 you want and figuring out you know how does that align it what can you offer to them that aligns
00:33:00.140 um to unlock that piece to like connect with them to connect with them to leverage what they have
00:33:05.840 um figuring out what can you offer them right now how can you collaborate or to collaborate
00:33:10.860 to their world you do value add bundles or whatever you're doing yeah um just finding the
00:33:16.120 alignment alignment with the person you want yeah and what what are and just because i think it's
00:33:21.980 fascinating what are things that somebody can add because there's a lot of people are like well i
00:33:25.620 don't have anything they would want.
00:33:27.900 What have you seen work for somebody who's just starting off?
00:33:30.840 No, you always have something they want.
00:33:36.600 Otherwise, you don't have a business.
00:33:38.380 Do you know what I'm saying?
00:33:39.380 You're filling a success gap in their customer's journey.
00:33:46.180 And likely, they are filling a success
00:33:48.820 gap in your customer's journey.
00:33:50.460 Got it.
00:33:52.440 So finding that alignment partnership
00:33:54.180 get distribution of your product yeah that's awesome that's that's probably the best thing
00:33:58.020 you can do that's cool say i did appreciate you man absolutely awesome having you on all right
00:34:02.640 everybody check where can people find you online uh awesome motive.com that's probably it's probably
00:34:08.180 like yeah you can see everything we're doing yeah we'll link it out all right buddy cool thanks again
00:34:11.680 yeah thanks for watching this episode of escape velocity be sure to like and subscribe and leave
00:34:17.420 a comment with your biggest insight from our conversation be sure to check out the next episode
00:34:24.180 Thank you.