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

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
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
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
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
00:00:29.680 going to game youtube what's up syed how's it going man hey buddy dude appreciate you coming
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.
00:01:29.460 Are you crazy?
00:01:30.460 I thought you said 2,000.
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,
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?
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.
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.
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?
00:11:24.760 Screw you.
00:11:25.760 And what year was this?
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.
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.
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,
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?
00:14:05.320 He's like, dude, this is like shit quality video.
00:14:07.120 Yeah, it's not.
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.