Dan Martell - Master The 4-Day Workweek with Natalie @ WildBit.com - Escape Velocity Show #26

00:00:00.000 Your brain is not a good repository for memories, for thought, right?

00:00:03.340 It's for creative thought, and so you should be taking everything out of your brain,

00:00:08.040 putting it in a system that works, whatever that's, like, I happen to believe his system

00:00:11.720 is really great, but whatever system works, but just leave your brain to be creative.

00:00:16.420 Don't make your brain be this thing that you have to continuously pull things out of.

00:00:20.660 Like, it's just not, it's not the way it's designed.

00:00:22.440 It wasn't designed.

00:00:23.340 Admission sequence start.

00:00:25.440 Three, two, one.

00:00:30.000 I'm still waiting for the conference where they're going to put me on stage with a bottle of wine and a bottle of wine and a bottle of wine and a bottle of wine and a bottle of wine and a bottle of wine.

00:01:00.000 and just pepper me with questions.

00:01:02.500 Because that'll be the best talk I could do.

00:01:05.160 I feel like I've got to start doing that.

00:01:06.660 Yeah, it's great.

00:01:07.520 That's when people get the best.

00:01:08.940 The best Natalie comes out after a glass of wine.

00:01:11.620 Just as long as there's enough time to let the alcohol

00:01:13.680 hit and then just elaborate.

00:01:15.280 I guess that's true.

00:01:15.940 You should start with a glass before.

00:01:17.480 Yeah, maybe give them prep before.

00:01:19.340 That sounds like a great conference.

00:01:20.780 I would love to watch that.

00:01:21.760 That's amazing.

00:01:22.220 It's like the real deal founder conversations.

00:01:25.200 So you're the co-founder, CEO, Wildbit.

00:01:28.240 You guys have three products, Beanstalk, Postmark, Conveyor.

00:01:33.660 Yep.

00:01:34.320 The new one that's yet to be announced.

00:01:36.300 It's Conveyor.

00:01:37.100 Oh, that's Conveyor.

00:01:37.560 It's announced.

00:01:38.500 Why did Chris say it?

00:01:40.620 You know, you built something for four years.

00:01:42.300 OK.

00:01:42.880 Without launching it.

00:01:43.640 You made it seem like it was like a secret.

00:01:45.220 So we launched it, and then we kind of absorbed a ton of feedback,

00:01:50.860 and then we shut down sign-ups again.

00:01:52.500 Oh, wow.

00:01:53.020 That's interesting.

00:01:53.320 So we're going to have to relaunch it.

00:01:54.800 OK.

00:01:55.440 And what's cool is you guys are almost.

00:01:57.360 Chris started it 19 years ago.

00:01:59.240 You've been involved 16 years.

00:02:00.520 16 years, yeah.

00:02:01.260 Which is in the 0.0, like not a lot of companies

00:02:05.140 in the software space have been doing it for that long.

00:02:10.900 And Chris found out that I was one of the first Beanstalk

00:02:13.360 customers, which I love.

00:02:14.540 A lot of people don't know I'm technical.

00:02:15.720 They see me, they're like, oh, Dan's that marketing guy.

00:02:18.440 It's like, no, I used to write a lot of code.

00:02:20.360 And I was not early, but I went from Microsoft to Rails.

00:02:27.360 and Ruby and Mac at that point in my life, 2007, 2008.

00:02:32.340 I kind of drank the Kool-Aid.

00:02:34.560 So Beanstalk was awesome.

00:02:38.280 But what I love about your guys' dynamics,

00:02:41.940 how do you guys split roles?

00:02:43.860 So I am the CEO.

00:02:45.780 And he's a CTO.

00:02:46.780 And the way that functions in day to day

00:02:51.040 is I manage what I consider the front of the house.

00:02:54.360 And so the team culture, obviously the business side

00:02:59.080 of things, and kind of marketing to some degree,

00:03:02.600 although we don't do that very well.

00:03:04.080 And then he manages product.

00:03:05.980 You don't do that well, but you guys

00:03:07.200 have a fairly successful business.

00:03:08.700 Yeah, we have no marketing team right now.

00:03:10.380 How did that happen?

00:03:11.580 Which is not good.

00:03:12.160 Don't do that.

00:03:12.720 Yeah.

00:03:14.260 Which part, the not having a marketing team?

00:03:16.600 Build a successful software product with not really

00:03:20.240 a focus on distribution.

00:03:22.480 Because I think timing and market plays a massive role.

00:03:25.900 And when we launched Beanstalk, as you remember,

00:03:30.640 there was not a lot of that kind of stuff.

00:03:32.320 Like, SaaS was not, I don't even think.

00:03:33.800 It's so interesting, because it really wasn't.

00:03:35.800 No, I mean, it was, I laugh, because we have things

00:03:37.720 like Product Hunt, right?

00:03:39.020 And we're like, apps are launching by the minute.

00:03:41.560 I don't know.

00:03:42.100 Yeah, all day, all long.

00:03:43.480 Yeah, and we would launch, when we launched Beanstalk,

00:03:47.260 it was maybe an app launched a month.

00:03:49.720 You know, it was like everybody knew,

00:03:50.980 because it was this new thing.

00:03:52.900 We actually had an integration with Basecamp.

00:03:55.460 And I think at the time, it was a big deal.

00:03:59.720 They wrote about the integration with the Beanstalk

00:04:02.420 integrates with Basecamp because that was important for them

00:04:05.260 to have that connection as well, connection with other apps.

00:04:08.260 And so there was a lot that.

00:04:10.060 How much of that growth was that a lot of their early growth?

00:04:12.820 Basecamp post for us was a continuous driver

00:04:16.360 of traffic for years.

00:04:17.360 It was wild.

00:04:18.420 Wow.

00:04:19.240 But was it early, like what other factors were happening

00:04:24.100 in the market other than just?

00:04:26.420 I mean, there's a lot of wilds when we,

00:04:28.740 the idea behind Beanstalk, which is like hosted, yeah,

00:04:31.400 back then it was just hosted at Subversion, which was the kind

00:04:34.460 of repository of choice.

00:04:36.480 Yeah, repository of choice, yeah.

00:04:37.920 And so the plan back then was, you know,

00:04:41.980 you had to host them yourself and do all this management.

00:04:44.280 We were doing all this client services work.

00:04:45.480 And Chris was like, you know, every time we had to add a user,

00:04:47.320 it was a whole process.

00:04:48.320 He actually went to a bunch of friends and said, hey, you know, would you let me host your source code?

00:04:54.500 And they were like, I'm not letting you.

00:04:56.060 That's ridiculous.

00:04:57.000 Nobody's touching my source code. 0.59

00:04:58.060 That's my source code.

00:04:58.860 You know, that was like how unusual it was to have these hosted apps where you would, you know, store data or do critical things.

00:05:06.480 Like your core product in the cloud.

00:05:08.560 Yeah, we had fog bugs as like our task management, you know, installed on our, you know, computers.

00:05:14.180 It was just a different world.

00:05:15.820 So interesting.

00:05:16.300 And so that, our distribution was completely word of mouth.

00:05:21.300 And it was all around just the fact that, hey, this is a thing.

00:05:25.100 It was all early adopters, lots of Rails projects, actually,

00:05:27.740 because that was also the time of Ruby on Rails was becoming a thing.

00:05:30.940 And it was written in Rails, so it became a project that was written in Rails.

00:05:34.100 And so there was just like a lot of very natural word of mouth early to the market.

00:05:38.420 So subversion, written in Rails.

00:05:40.580 Yeah.

00:05:41.020 Like all these things.

00:05:41.720 All these things that just were like, it was just natural, right?

00:05:44.920 Like, the people who were on the internet looking

00:05:46.620 for hosted services, and they would use Beanstalk.

00:05:50.500 And there really wasn't anything else.

00:05:51.800 There was something called CVS Dude, which was not even worth

00:05:55.960 it, but a different time.

00:05:57.660 So that was really our kind of transition

00:06:00.000 when we launched Postmark.

00:06:01.800 Very similar, like, we launched it to Beanstalk customers

00:06:04.220 because we built tools for developers.

00:06:06.920 So huge uptick there.

00:06:08.740 And just always really focused on product.

00:06:11.220 That's always been where we just find the most excitement,

00:06:13.860 is just building really great products for developers,

00:06:16.920 because we're developers.

00:06:17.880 Well, not me, but like the team's developers.

00:06:19.800 And we love building tools that we can use ourselves.

00:06:24.300 So just really just continuously.

00:06:26.320 We did marketing.

00:06:27.100 I don't think it's just never.

00:06:28.600 You did developer marketing.

00:06:29.940 Like, I mean, you guys were in the community.

00:06:32.180 Chris was known.

00:06:33.240 Yeah, we were, exactly.

00:06:35.160 It really wasn't.

00:06:35.860 Content.

00:06:36.660 There was no distribution channels.

00:06:38.080 There was no go-to-market strategies.

00:06:40.320 You know, I was on a call with somebody once.

00:06:42.060 They're like, what's your go-to-market strategy?

00:06:43.720 And I was like, I don't know what that means.

00:06:45.100 I'm in the market.

00:06:46.000 What do I do?

00:06:46.720 Where do I go?

00:06:47.380 I'm already in it.

00:06:48.080 Do I have to go somewhere else?

00:06:49.280 Yeah, I was like, I don't know what that means.

00:06:50.860 We're getting better.

00:06:51.560 I mean, you can't do that this way anymore.

00:06:53.900 There's like that, if you build it, they will come,

00:06:56.080 is not a go-to-market strategy.

00:06:57.840 Even in the content, they call it peak content.

00:06:59.760 Like, it's done.

00:07:00.580 Like, creating a blog is just not going to get attention.

00:07:03.240 So we're definitely looking at it

00:07:04.880 from a different perspective now and still very stubborn

00:07:07.820 and want to do it our way.

00:07:08.760 But the growth has been just completely correlated

00:07:13.160 to just more customers.

00:07:14.600 They talk about it.

00:07:16.140 They're beloved products, right?

00:07:17.280 Like Postmark is a product that people really genuinely love.

00:07:20.000 Like our churn is so low, people don't leave.

00:07:21.920 They just care about it.

00:07:22.940 They love it.

00:07:23.480 So it created its own kind of energy around that.

00:07:26.420 And it just really worked for us.

00:07:28.160 And you guys have 30 employees now or 20?

00:07:30.380 Yeah, 30.

00:07:31.100 Yeah.

00:07:31.600 It fluctuates, but yeah, 30.

00:07:32.680 And then all remote?

00:07:34.940 So we're remote first.

00:07:35.760 We started the company.

00:07:36.440 The company is always remote first.

00:07:37.580 But we live in Philly and have a few folks who also live in Philly.

00:07:41.820 So we've had an office in Philadelphia that kind of became

00:07:44.720 like where people would come and stay.

00:07:47.800 And we're actually moving to a new space, just smaller

00:07:51.760 because we don't need that much space.

00:07:52.900 But yeah, I mean, remote first, everything's remote.

00:07:55.060 Most of the team is remote.

00:07:55.900 But there is like a small Philly kind of area

00:07:58.640 where people can come in.

00:07:59.760 And then in regards to that journey, 30 employees

00:08:02.840 from like the early days, and were you, what employee number,

00:08:06.500 I guess, like, or was it just you and Chris?

00:08:10.160 Oh.

00:08:11.060 Did Chris have other people working with them?

00:08:12.540 Yeah, I mean, yeah, because he started off.

00:08:15.120 So when he was like 20 years old, he

00:08:16.540 started off writing some PHP and realized

00:08:18.920 he was really bad at it.

00:08:19.800 And so much preferred the UI stuff.

00:08:21.940 And there was always contractors that kind of helped with it.

00:08:24.060 It was client services in the beginning.

00:08:25.280 So when I came in.

00:08:27.260 Is that what Wildbit?

00:08:28.440 Started, yeah, client services.

00:08:29.960 Nightclubs and bars.

00:08:31.160 Nice.

00:08:31.660 Did they build their websites or something?

00:08:33.040 Yeah, it was great.

00:08:34.920 We had so much fun.

00:08:37.320 Yeah, and restaurants, I guess, too.

00:08:39.520 There was actually, there's an incredible,

00:08:40.640 we used to get paid because we didn't make a lot of money

00:08:42.500 and we used to get paid by one of these,

00:08:44.220 this great restaurant in Philly.

00:08:45.360 We used to get, we did their work

00:08:46.780 and they would pay us in-

00:08:48.440 Just food credit?

00:08:49.260 Food, yeah.

00:08:50.080 So we just had a house account, so that's how we eat.

00:08:52.800 We had this nice restaurant, nice Cuban restaurant in Philly

00:08:54.740 and it was like, we could never afford it.

00:08:56.580 So it was like, so cool, you come in

00:08:57.800 and like they give you a box and you just sign your name.

00:08:59.740 It's very fancy.

00:09:00.580 House account.

00:09:01.420 Yeah, house account, it was pretty cool.

00:09:02.880 It was like, yeah, they were paying us for $2 food

00:09:05.420 for like $20 worth of work, but it's fine, it's fine.

00:09:09.160 Yeah, so I think, like, in terms of employees, when we started working together, you know, it was a transition.

00:09:15.860 I was in college.

00:09:16.780 I did QuickBooks.

00:09:17.520 It was, like, we were living together.

00:09:20.120 I was waitressing and hostessing.

00:09:22.120 That was the money we used to live so that everything else kind of flowed back into the business.

00:09:26.700 And it was, like, wherever I could fit in.

00:09:28.820 So it was, like, QuickBooks or helping write proposals.

00:09:30.960 And it wasn't the business really started to evolve when we got into products.

00:09:36.120 And that's where, like, you know, I took all the support.

00:09:38.040 How did the agency stuff last?

00:09:40.280 So Beanstalk launched in 2007.

00:09:44.160 And in, I think, mid-2008, it was making enough money

00:09:47.300 to cover the team.

00:09:48.100 And at that point, I have to look this up,

00:09:50.300 because everybody always asks.

00:09:51.180 But I think we were like four or five people.

00:09:53.420 And we just needed, we weren't going to fire anybody.

00:09:55.140 So you guys hustled for a while.

00:09:56.360 Yeah, I mean, it was a small team.

00:09:57.860 Yeah.

00:09:58.160 And we had a great time.

00:09:59.660 But we needed it to cover, because we're

00:10:01.800 still doing consulting work.

00:10:02.760 So Beanstalk was one person.

00:10:05.160 And then the rest of the team was doing client services work.

00:10:07.820 And so we basically knew that we did not want to fire anybody.

00:10:11.060 And so we had to wait until it made enough revenue.

00:10:14.640 To bring somebody over.

00:10:15.540 Exactly.

00:10:16.040 So we brought everybody over to Beanstalk.

00:10:17.780 That's really cool.

00:10:18.860 Yeah, it was kind of cool.

00:10:19.920 And one thing you talked about last night

00:10:23.440 that I thought fascinating, you said,

00:10:25.260 you got to learn how to pay yourself.

00:10:27.640 I'm a big fan of that.

00:10:28.680 Yeah, I think.

00:10:30.400 Especially for the bootstrap, where you said, look.

00:10:31.860 Like, if somebody was asking, like,

00:10:32.860 have you guys ever been approached?

00:10:33.820 You're like, yeah, I get approached all the time,

00:10:35.200 because you guys have bootstrapped.

00:10:37.440 but we pay ourselves.

00:10:39.500 Yeah, I have really strong opinions around,

00:10:43.880 and it's possible that it's because we got into the business

00:10:46.300 for different reasons, but for me,

00:10:48.080 your security of your business lies in whether you can

00:10:52.500 comfortably, whether you feel like you're being rewarded

00:10:54.700 for the work, and so I've met so many founders

00:10:58.980 and been close to so many founders

00:11:00.800 who just don't pay themselves, like pay themselves last,

00:11:04.740 Or they raise money and they, you know, they don't make a lot of money and salary because of all this like potential upside.

00:11:11.060 But what that does, it just weighs on you emotionally and it weighs on your life and you become very vulnerable to not the best outcomes, right?

00:11:19.000 Like a lot of these, you either have to continuously raise money because the financial incentive just gets further and further away because everything's diluted and you don't make, you know, or, you know, you're just like you're tired, right?

00:11:32.180 You're tired of the hustle or you're tired of all the work and you're not paying yourself.

00:11:35.680 And Chris and I have always paid ourselves because the whole purpose of this business was to support our family.

00:11:41.700 I still look at it to this day.

00:11:43.500 It's a family business.

00:11:44.660 Yeah, any expense is coming out of my pocket, right?

00:11:47.560 Yeah, you're taking from us.

00:11:48.700 Yeah, like any hires, personally, Chris and I are paying for it.

00:11:51.560 It's coming out.

00:11:52.100 I mean, we obviously separate the finances and all these things, but it is absolutely an impact on us personally.

00:11:56.800 And what we've done to make sure that we can secure our position is we make sure that we pay ourselves

00:12:01.640 so that this way when we do get you know i don't take a lot of meetings but like we've done a few

00:12:06.360 where they were really strategic and we're like you know let's just hear what people have to say

00:12:09.560 and uh our number is so high and i tell the team this all the time our number is so high

00:12:15.240 because chris and i pay ourselves and like i don't need it yeah it's not like i'm not going

00:12:19.560 to change your lifestyle yeah and it's incredible the power that brings like and i i talk to people

00:12:24.920 about this all the time like in those conversations that we've had the instinct on the people you're

00:12:30.520 meeting with or at least in our experience the people that we meet with are really expecting

00:12:34.520 you to be exhausted just burn out poor and we'll take some really crappy multiple yeah and you're

00:12:42.600 and you're just kind of like i've actually sat at a table and they were like you guys must be so tired

00:12:47.320 and we were like no we're great no i just got off what are you talking about well that was

00:12:52.200 that's pretty sabbatical i do want to talk about that but but the face changed yeah because they

00:12:55.880 instantly like never mind I'm not I'm not scooping this up for real cheap and I

00:13:00.500 think that's a superpower right because we acquisitions are really sexy to talk

00:13:06.080 about but the numbers behind them a lot of times are not they're not great for

00:13:10.280 the founders so I for us it's just it's a very important thing and I tell it's

00:13:13.520 like my number one thing when I talk to founders like are you have well I asked

00:13:16.340 two questions are you having fun and are you paying yourself because those are

00:13:20.560 that's that's your security that's you that's the armor that you need to be

00:13:24.060 able to do this for a long time, because that's

00:13:25.260 people ask me, like, how do you do this for 19 years?

00:13:27.000 I was like, having a lot of fun.

00:13:28.200 Don't burn yourself out.

00:13:29.300 And we pay ourselves.

00:13:31.000 And is it an aspect of having to learn to value?

00:13:35.140 Do you think people don't value their contribution,

00:13:37.600 or they feel, or do you think it's just delayed?

00:13:39.500 They feel like they've got to earn it.

00:13:40.880 I think there's a tremendous amount of guilt.

00:13:42.520 Like, there's this whole, I'm growing this business.

00:13:44.960 I need to see it.

00:13:45.960 You know, I need to pay myself last.

00:13:48.320 And I need to make sure that, you know, everybody, you know,

00:13:52.120 That money could be used for marketing or whatever.

00:13:55.500 Haring another engineer or support.

00:13:57.000 Whatever, right?

00:13:57.740 And inventory if you're in a traditional business.

00:14:00.000 All these kind of things.

00:14:00.920 And they miss the fact that the longer you do that.

00:14:04.760 And those things, I mean, like I said,

00:14:06.020 I waitress, and that's what we lived off of.

00:14:07.480 We had very little expenses back then.

00:14:09.320 But the longer you do it, the more vulnerable you get.

00:14:12.640 Because you do.

00:14:13.300 You get tired.

00:14:14.060 And you're like, what am I doing this for?

00:14:16.000 Yeah, all my friends are growing up and going on vacation

00:14:18.360 and buying cool stuff, and I'm still grinding.

00:14:20.280 It's like, what's the point?

00:14:21.500 Yeah.

00:14:22.160 And the numbers don't look good, right?

00:14:23.580 The statistics are against us.

00:14:25.280 100%.

00:14:26.240 It's so rare.

00:14:27.120 Yeah, like we make money, and that's really important for us.

00:14:29.960 And how do you guys, because you mentioned profit sharing,

00:14:32.520 how do you reconcile that?

00:14:35.480 Yeah, so our profit sharing removes anything Chris and I

00:14:37.640 take out of the business, so totally just pure profits

00:14:41.840 of the products and their hard work.

00:14:42.740 OK, so you pretty much say, like, here's

00:14:44.260 a pool of money that is the profit.

00:14:46.260 Yep.

00:14:47.600 That's what we're divvying out.

00:14:48.600 Exactly.

00:14:49.100 OK, so they don't see top line revenue and?

00:14:51.260 No, no, no, no, they see the whole, the full P&L is there.

00:14:53.560 But like anything, like I'll just withdraw, like our salary.

00:14:56.020 Like even just our base salaries, I

00:14:57.140 would draw everything out of the P&L so that they are not like.

00:15:02.180 OK, so they just see it as an expense.

00:15:04.300 So it's not like it's a blended, they don't really know.

00:15:06.740 I mean that I inflate the actual bottom line profits.

00:15:09.680 They're more than what like the P&L would show.

00:15:12.200 Because I just, I don't, they don't lose out on profit sharing.

00:15:15.760 Because you guys.

00:15:16.460 Because I take a salary.

00:15:17.360 OK, got it.

00:15:17.820 So it's actually inflated.

00:15:18.960 So it's higher that way.

00:15:20.540 this way it removes any of my

00:15:22.960 how much should I pay myself and all that

00:15:25.360 they don't care, it doesn't matter

00:15:26.780 it's the profits of the business

00:15:28.520 and then Chris and I

00:15:29.580 pay ourselves a salary from that

00:15:32.680 from the total number

00:15:34.340 so no, our P&L is fully transparent

00:15:36.020 except for a blended salary line for the whole team

00:15:38.500 that's the only non-transparent

00:15:40.560 piece of the pie

00:15:41.720 and that way they can make their own decisions around growing

00:15:44.400 and resources

00:15:45.580 yeah, we've always believed

00:15:47.940 I think the team

00:15:49.300 and it's been even more interesting so the last couple years we've run really

00:15:53.020 lean we've been growing the product postmark ahead of growth and like ahead

00:15:58.440 of revenue and so that's been a really I felt like a lot of pressure I don't

00:16:03.040 want them to be stressed out or upset like that's my stress like I know this

00:16:05.680 is the right decision but I don't and it was incredible to see the team like

00:16:08.300 really rally and be really supportive that yes we're investing ahead yes

00:16:10.960 profit sharing is really low but we know it's gonna get there and like there was

00:16:14.080 that that was really cool for me to see that we are in this together because

00:16:17.320 That was the point of the transparency,

00:16:18.860 was to show, just in a business that's

00:16:20.740 been around for 19 years, it's always been up, up, up, up, up.

00:16:23.020 It's like, when you start seeing that go down,

00:16:25.040 I just didn't have that experience

00:16:26.920 to see how the team would react.

00:16:28.420 And our team was like, yes, we all agree.

00:16:30.640 But that was a concern.

00:16:32.080 I just had anxiety.

00:16:33.080 Like, I feel I like those big bonuses,

00:16:36.180 and I want them to continue to get bigger.

00:16:37.760 And so for me, it's like, hey, I made the call, ultimately,

00:16:40.680 that we're going to invest ahead and lose some of that,

00:16:44.300 not have those profits for that year, year and a half.

00:16:48.740 But I know it's the right choice.

00:16:50.620 But it was my decision, ultimately.

00:16:52.080 So I had that anxiety.

00:16:54.580 They got on board.

00:16:55.640 Yeah, are they on board?

00:16:56.540 They were, of course.

00:16:57.400 And it's been really cool to see, actually,

00:16:58.860 that transparency really helps them see and feel a part of it.

00:17:02.780 And the downs are when they feel the most a part of it,

00:17:05.200 right?

00:17:05.500 When it's like, yes, we're in this together.

00:17:07.140 We're rallying for this.

00:17:08.240 We know we believe in this product

00:17:09.580 and that we're making the right calls.

00:17:10.860 And so it was really interesting.

00:17:12.380 So having you and Chris in the business for this long is pretty rare.

00:17:17.800 Like, I don't know a lot of couples.

00:17:19.240 I don't know if I could run a company with my wife, lover,

00:17:21.900 but it's just we're different personalities.

00:17:24.040 And then children come along, right?

00:17:26.520 So you have two daughters.

00:17:29.580 How has that impacted the dynamics of the work?

00:17:33.240 Or, like, how do you think of, like, the concept of integration

00:17:36.680 or balance around dividing and conquer between you and Chris?

00:17:42.980 How do you do it as an entrepreneurial mom? 1.00

00:17:46.140 I think the reason we work so well together

00:17:48.800 is we're actually extremely good at different things,

00:17:52.580 and it complements each other really well.

00:17:54.240 So that just flows right into our personal lives.

00:17:57.480 And one of the joys of running a business together

00:18:01.980 is that as an entrepreneur, I really believe you never turn it off.

00:18:04.560 like i even if i'm not working like it's just somewhere in my brain thinking about it and the

00:18:09.580 fact that we can bring it home in a way that's empowering like i have two daughters right so

00:18:14.400 their mom's you know the ceo of a successful software company you know all these things like

00:18:18.960 that's empowering for them and so we talk about work at at home at the dinner table you know we

00:18:22.960 all go around the room and talk about our days how old are your daughters now i have a nine-year-old

00:18:26.500 and almost five-year-old okay but we talk about our days we do this thing called rose thorn bud

00:18:30.620 where we talk about like a rose a thorn and a bud from our day and ours are work on Monday through

00:18:35.120 Thursday and so they hear about people challenges you know because they know some of our team they

00:18:40.740 hear about projects we've launched and features we've you know and things like that and I think

00:18:45.100 it's really important and we don't compete in that way like we don't have two different businesses

00:18:48.620 that we have to compete for attention or whatever and then we we are very equal partners Chris and

00:18:56.360 I in every aspect of our life and that very much translates at home and there's no uh there's no

00:19:04.440 this is my job and this is like we definitely have things like I'll you know I'll figure out

00:19:07.540 what's for dinner but he you know he'll figure out like what the kids are doing with after

00:19:11.600 school activities and we're just we're extremely equal in our homes and that's just I think again

00:19:16.420 because we run the business together there's no equal yeah it just flows into the house we're

00:19:21.380 We're very equal parents.

00:19:24.260 We don't have kind of those gender. 0.97

00:19:27.300 I don't feel like I'm a working mom,

00:19:28.700 and he's also a working dad.

00:19:30.700 We're very much the same that way.

00:19:32.820 I love that, working dad.

00:19:34.300 I don't feel like anybody's ever called me that,

00:19:36.140 but I'm definitely a working dad.

00:19:37.340 Yeah, I know.

00:19:37.920 I mean, he does.

00:19:38.480 He's like heavily.

00:19:39.920 Like, I do night routine every night, pick up the kids.

00:19:42.820 Yeah, we take turns on the kids.

00:19:43.960 We swap the kids because they sleep in different rooms.

00:19:47.160 But they, no, I mean, everything.

00:19:49.620 Like, it's not, you know, if I'm too busy for dinner,

00:19:52.060 like, he'll make dinner.

00:19:53.120 And I just, there's no, there's really no lines.

00:19:56.760 And then how have you guys kind of leveraged the business

00:20:00.240 to kind of support your family?

00:20:01.840 Do you have, like, help, or how does that?

00:20:05.440 Yes, we've always had help.

00:20:06.900 So talk about that.

00:20:07.780 Because I know that my wife, you know, even when we,

00:20:10.120 this is early days of, like, having somebody clean the house,

00:20:12.560 she was like, there was guilt because it's, you know,

00:20:16.020 her mom, like, and her mom never said anything.

00:20:18.220 It just literally was just her perception

00:20:19.920 of what her mom would think.

00:20:21.520 So then to go to the nanny, to the house manager level.

00:20:25.880 So we, when Chris and I were dating,

00:20:28.980 we only ever fought over one thing.

00:20:31.680 And we almost never fight.

00:20:33.660 And we only fought over one thing when we were dating,

00:20:35.280 and that was always cleanliness.

00:20:37.700 He's obsessed with cleaning.

00:20:39.080 And I've gotten older, and I really

00:20:42.560 appreciate the smooth, clean countertop.

00:20:45.860 But I just wasn't like that.

00:20:48.500 Like, so, you know, I can put the cup away tomorrow.

00:20:52.060 Like, he needs to put the cup away before bed.

00:20:53.520 Man, you sound like me.

00:20:53.920 I'm the same.

00:20:54.400 He cleans the house before he goes to bed so that it's like that.

00:20:57.180 Yeah.

00:20:57.640 Wow, so cool.

00:20:58.620 Yeah.

00:20:58.820 And that was the only thing we ever fought about.

00:21:00.100 So one of the first things we did when we had no money was we had somebody come clean the house every other week.

00:21:05.840 And I forget what it cost.

00:21:06.800 Maybe, like, 60 bucks every other week.

00:21:08.300 And we basically looked at it like that's one less dinner out.

00:21:10.280 Yeah.

00:21:11.060 Or one less night drinking when we were young.

00:21:12.940 Yeah.

00:21:13.080 at but that meant we don't fight and that also meant that we got to spend the whole

00:21:17.720 day together so like otherwise it was a sunday and it was like all right you clean the toilet

00:21:21.640 we lived in this cool like and that was a choice right that's not a it was very much we could find

00:21:27.880 that money in just by not doing something we really didn't have a lot like we literally lived

00:21:31.400 off of my waitressing and and kind of hostessing is that a word hostessing yeah uh salary so it was

00:21:37.400 just a choice we made like that was an expense that allowed us to spend time together so we've

00:21:42.440 always carried that through because for me it's it's experience like you know i want to have those

00:21:48.920 those times with the kids and with chris and those experiences matter and i i try to choose where

00:21:53.800 our priorities lie so the kids had nan we had a nanny for both kids it's life-changing did you

00:21:59.600 have a night nanny no it's magical yeah but our kids slept through the night pretty early that's

00:22:04.960 not fair i'm sorry that's awesome though we can talk about parenting later my mom is 1.00

00:22:09.240 i'm i want to talk about now this is this is the kind of stuff yeah so i'm from russian so like

00:22:13.580 we actually did like a very strict schedule very early on like feeding yeah and didn't do the 3 a.m

00:22:19.660 feeding very early on figured it out real quick and they were yeah real fast but that was my mom

00:22:24.100 thank god for my mom i don't know she was just like at first i was like no i can't do that and

00:22:27.520 then like you're not sleeping for a week you're like i can do that tell me how to do that and

00:22:30.760 she's like here's how we do it and we just kept a really i'm i was better as a mom on a schedule

00:22:35.520 So for me, we would do feedings 6, 9, 12, 3, 6, 9, 12, and then skip to 3 a.m.

00:22:43.340 But that meant I would wake them up, so I wouldn't let them nap too long.

00:22:45.620 I'd make sure that they're fed so I knew comfortably that they got all the food that they needed.

00:22:50.980 And we did that with both, and that worked really well for us.

00:22:53.700 And what other stuff do you have support to allow you to?

00:22:57.480 Because what I love about it is, look, I'm spending money to buy time to then go spend with my family, or I'm going to work.

00:23:03.760 Like, do you guys have an executive assistant?

00:23:06.260 Do you have?

00:23:06.860 No, it's one thing I've always wanted.

00:23:08.440 It's very strange.

00:23:09.320 Chris and I don't have personal email addresses.

00:23:12.000 Never have.

00:23:12.500 You just have one inbox?

00:23:13.660 One inbox.

00:23:14.440 That's fascinating.

00:23:15.280 I see those people with the Facebook accounts

00:23:17.820 where it's like, Ben and Jane on Facebook.

00:23:21.380 And I'm like, oh, no, no, I didn't mean, no, no.

00:23:23.440 We don't have the same.

00:23:25.480 Like, it's Natalie at Wildbit, and then there's a Chris at Wildbit.

00:23:28.220 OK.

00:23:28.560 There's no personal.

00:23:29.480 Like, there's no Natalie at Gmail.

00:23:31.040 Like, there's no Natalie at Gmail.

00:23:32.040 OK, it's always been the company.

00:23:33.160 So that's always been the company.

00:23:34.100 OK, but you don't share an email.

00:23:35.000 No, no, no.

00:23:35.520 That would be ridiculous.

00:23:36.480 I was like, that's fascinating. 0.81

00:23:38.100 Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

00:23:38.360 He would die in my inbox.

00:23:39.840 No, no.

00:23:40.760 But the personal assistant was always so hard,

00:23:45.660 because our work emails are tight.

00:23:48.700 There's a privacy security thing, and I couldn't separate them.

00:23:52.200 And so I think we just got emails set.

00:23:54.120 I think he just set up.

00:23:55.120 He's like, we need to separate these.

00:23:57.660 Personal, some emails.

00:23:58.680 Yeah.

00:23:59.200 But I really want an executive assistant.

00:24:00.660 No, I don't have one.

00:24:01.460 It's a game changer.

00:24:02.460 I know.

00:24:02.920 I know.

00:24:03.180 Everybody tells me. 1.00

00:24:03.960 All my friends are like, you're stupid. 1.00

00:24:05.380 You need one. 1.00

00:24:06.780 I don't have that.

00:24:08.000 We have help at home.

00:24:09.200 So the kids are in school.

00:24:09.980 We have somebody who kind of almost like a house man.

00:24:12.360 Yeah.

00:24:12.500 You know, she takes care of a lot of the stuff. 0.75

00:24:15.100 You know, birthday presents for birthday parties for kids.

00:24:18.460 You know, like the kids go to get invited to birthday parties, helping me plan parties.

00:24:21.700 You know, just like stuff like that, ordering groceries.

00:24:24.320 Yeah, things that you'd have to do on a Saturday.

00:24:26.460 Yeah, I'm a big, I mean, we don't even have the kids do activities on Saturdays.

00:24:30.320 Well, the fact that you guys do the four-day work week.

00:24:31.380 We do four-day work week.

00:24:32.300 How long has that been going on?

00:24:33.380 Two years.

00:24:34.000 OK.

00:24:34.440 We're in our third year.

00:24:35.240 And what was the impetus behind that?

00:24:39.660 There's a book called Deep Work by Cal Newport.

00:24:42.000 Oh, I know.

00:24:42.580 Yeah.

00:24:43.580 I send two books to everybody who comes to Wildwood,

00:24:46.160 and that's one of them.

00:24:46.980 What's the other one?

00:24:48.160 Getting Things Done by David Allen.

00:24:49.720 Nice, yeah.

00:24:50.140 I met David in 2007.

00:24:52.100 I have a picture of the young Dan at a workshop.

00:24:55.440 And he's awesome.

00:24:58.020 He's extremely generous this time.

00:24:59.460 He just did an entire hour workshop with our team.

00:25:03.300 I don't know why people don't get on the GTD way.

00:25:05.980 Back in the day, there was a whole GTD.

00:25:07.760 Is it 43 folders?

00:25:09.000 Do you remember?

00:25:09.740 There was all these tools for like.

00:25:11.840 OmniFocus.

00:25:12.480 Yeah, OmniFocus.

00:25:13.640 Still around, still great.

00:25:15.100 Yeah, those two books in particular,

00:25:18.180 because my feeling is that I can do as much as I can

00:25:21.980 to enable focus work from a team perspective.

00:25:25.940 but it's every individual's responsibility to be individually productive.

00:25:29.780 Oh, that's cool.

00:25:30.800 All right.

00:25:31.040 Right?

00:25:31.280 I can't tell.

00:25:31.860 And I'm a strong believer that, like, everybody does things differently.

00:25:35.160 Like, one of the reasons GTD never caught on to some of our engineering team

00:25:38.820 is because their work is very linear.

00:25:41.340 And they don't have these tons of projects that live in their life.

00:25:45.860 Where, like me, I'm always, you know, I'm juggling personal projects,

00:25:48.520 nonprofits, you know, boards, things like that.

00:25:50.220 Like, there's always this stuff.

00:25:51.500 And so, like, having that is the only way that my brain can function.

00:25:55.040 but the book to me is the methodology is extremely important but the perspective

00:26:01.080 or the the kind of the view that your brain is not a good repository for memories for thought

00:26:06.740 right it's it's for creative thought and so you should be taking everything out of your brain

00:26:11.640 putting it in a system that works whatever that's it like i happen to believe his system is really

00:26:15.740 great but whatever system works but just leave your brain to be creative don't make your brain

00:26:21.320 be this thing that you have to continuously pull things out of like it's just not it's not the way

00:26:25.720 it's designed right so i think so anyway that's why i send those two books but in cal's book

00:26:30.200 he talks a lot about the brain's capacity for the science around the brain's capacity for deep work

00:26:38.380 and so at wild bit everything is all we're just obsessed with focus work like it's everything we

00:26:43.860 do it's all around like you know i just believe so much in my heart that my job is to create an

00:26:49.340 environment where people can get their best work done and really push themselves past their comfort

00:26:53.000 zone so that they are really proud of their work and feel really fulfilled and so you can't do that

00:26:58.100 if you don't have the opportunity to actually do good work right and people tell me all the time i

00:27:01.820 do my best work at night i'm like blah blah blah it's because you're not working during the day

00:27:05.620 like you're distracted all these things so we've always had you know a very strong stance against

00:27:09.900 open office floor plans we've always had closed offices even when we had the philly space i don't

00:27:14.880 let remote worker remote team members work out of a coffee shop four days a week like they have

00:27:19.360 to have a quiet space so there's just a lot of stuff like that so when the the deep work book

00:27:25.200 is so so great because it gives you real perspective on like what it is that you get paid to do right

00:27:31.460 why are we here what is our job that that that work needs to be priority we have to create so

00:27:37.680 much space for it and so when he looks at like the science behind your brain's capacity for deep work

00:27:42.560 it shows that our brain is a muscle and after about four hours it's fatigued and doesn't do

00:27:48.060 good work anymore and four hours actually really hard that's writers and and and people who think

00:27:54.580 for a living right like who and if you actually if you look back right there's always a story is

00:27:59.020 like somebody wake the big writers wake up at 6 a.m they work till 10 and they're done right like

00:28:03.640 they're done yeah and Stephen King a bunch yeah yeah and it's like their day is done because they

00:28:08.280 know that they've that's the best you're gonna get from me today and that's amazing and so we

00:28:12.080 We looked at it and said, well, what are we doing for 40 hours?

00:28:13.900 Because 5 times 4 is 20.

00:28:15.900 So what's 40 hours look like?

00:28:17.720 And what is the, you know, are we getting our best work done?

00:28:22.260 Are we thinking about why?

00:28:23.260 So we did it as an experiment to say, I'll just drop a day

00:28:26.040 and see what happens.

00:28:26.900 And it wasn't a forcing function in some ways to get the focus.

00:28:30.840 Because that's the other thing.

00:28:31.880 It's like the day before you travel.

00:28:33.360 For me, it's like so productive because you're trying to get.

00:28:35.940 Yeah.

00:28:36.400 I mean, I think I definitely love experiments.

00:28:40.020 We're always experimenting with how we work.

00:28:41.760 And most of the time, it's on the extreme to just see what breaks.

00:28:45.920 So we turn off Slack for a month.

00:28:48.100 What's going to break?

00:28:48.920 Let's see what happens.

00:28:50.080 And so I think we just, we're big on just testing it and not hypothesizing all the ways in which it's going to fail.

00:28:58.160 It's like, let's just see what happens and what's the worst that happens.

00:29:01.420 So what was the byproduct of the four-day work week?

00:29:03.580 Oh, my God.

00:29:03.940 We got so much more work done.

00:29:05.340 More work got done.

00:29:06.260 So much more work done.

00:29:07.260 And such better quality work.

00:29:09.080 my team may be thanking you in like a week because i might do it i mean here's the thing i i think

00:29:16.220 we all make this is the same with like you know having somebody help you around the house right

00:29:21.100 those are choices we're making choices in how we spend our time and those and what we work on and

00:29:26.800 those are those are conscious choices everything you say yes to you say no to something else right

00:29:30.200 like they're conscious choices and so we looked at it and said okay well if we're only working

00:29:35.080 four days a week what are we working on and why and that became this like driving force right and

00:29:40.600 it's like where are we spending our time are you focused are you getting enough hours right are you

00:29:45.320 you know on a remote team in different time zones it's very uh it's not talked about a lot but

00:29:51.080 meetings are way more disruptive because they're in different time zones and they could really

00:29:55.560 impact somebody's ability to get into flow and have really focused work so my 9 a.m could be

00:29:59.880 somebody's 2 p.m. or somebody's noon right or whatever those things are and that could just

00:30:05.980 completely derail right like an 11 a.m. meeting for somebody in my view is almost a complete

00:30:10.600 derailment unless they're a morning person and they got like a solid couple hours in the morning

00:30:13.860 yeah right at 10 30 right like my morning's gone i'll do some busy work too brilliant right because

00:30:20.020 it's like what do you i want my creative time exactly and so you know really reimagined and

00:30:25.920 re-evaluated meetings and how we function and energy flow yeah i'm just such a focus worker

00:30:32.980 i love that you you um you didn't just do it for yourself but you said hey this is what i want for

00:30:40.880 people that want to work here and let me create that environment because yeah i wild bit is the

00:30:47.100 product of 28 really incredible people and i'm excluding kristen like like they are the reason

00:30:55.160 it exists they are the reason it all the products are as good as they are the reason our support is

00:30:59.140 world-class the i mean they're everything and my job is just to create an environment where they

00:31:05.520 can be really really successful i mean that's all that's all i do that that's why i exist right

00:31:09.820 to create this space environment so like it's all for them what happened when you turned off

00:31:15.600 slack for a month you know i bought slack a long time i thought this is a distraction i'm the same

00:31:21.000 I'm like, you know, I teach my team

00:31:23.280 like how to do email properly so that, you know,

00:31:25.080 and I don't like when they're super responsive.

00:31:26.760 And I'm like, yeah.

00:31:28.440 Not just because I do email for a living.

00:31:29.880 Yeah, but it's just like, then Slack, I was like, oh,

00:31:33.280 I can see a few use cases where it makes sense to kind of

00:31:35.460 capture knowledge.

00:31:37.960 So this isn't our first Slack experiment.

00:31:40.220 And I'll tell you that the second one.

00:31:41.240 Did you guys ever use like Campfire back in the day?

00:31:43.220 All of it.

00:31:43.720 So Slack's not interesting to me as a product in general.

00:31:46.060 Yeah, it's actually interesting that it's successful now

00:31:48.060 when you've seen all these.

00:31:49.320 We used Campfire.

00:31:50.040 You can use HipChat.

00:31:51.580 We're a team.

00:31:52.380 You have to use something.

00:31:53.140 So we used AIM at one point.

00:31:55.740 People probably don't know that.

00:31:57.080 No clue.

00:31:57.780 A bunch of AIM.

00:31:58.300 AOL Instant Messenger.

00:31:59.640 AIM, yeah.

00:32:00.000 Yeah, AOL was a-

00:32:00.960 What is that?

00:32:01.980 She speaks of.

00:32:02.860 I know, I know.

00:32:03.900 Sometimes I show my age.

00:32:07.580 The Slack experiment is interesting because for us, this second time around,

00:32:13.500 we did it last year for a week.

00:32:14.720 We turned it off.

00:32:15.220 that was super impactful where we realized how much we used as a whole the team uses slack to

00:32:23.220 procrastinate so it's not even the disruption like we're pretty good at keeping the noise down

00:32:28.700 everybody's got their notifications they'll plug in when they want it yeah but the distract the

00:32:33.200 procrastination enabler was wild and it was basically like i found myself people were saying

00:32:39.200 like i found myself faced with a hard problem right that part of your brain's like i want to

00:32:44.000 do a hard problem let me find something that feeds it right and they would like flip to slack slack

00:32:48.500 wasn't there and it's like oh i got up and went to take a walk and you tell me what's better for

00:32:52.980 solving that hard problem like scrolling through slack or taking a walk right i mean it's the same

00:32:57.720 slack's no different than like facebook obsessions and instagram obsessions i deleted all that shit 0.95

00:33:02.200 i don't have any of that stuff anymore and it's like they're just not valuable depending on what

00:33:08.020 you're going for but if you're going for the ability to have creative thought to work as

00:33:11.860 little as possible because you're getting such good work done then like that stuff is useless

00:33:16.920 the second time around so we learned a lot in that one week and everybody kind of adjusted their

00:33:21.820 expectations the second time around for the month we actually missed it and there is and so it's

00:33:28.760 back but we are a remote team and that is how we connect you know for better or worse and it's not

00:33:34.720 a good way to connect but there was just this feeling of loneliness that everybody had almost

00:33:40.240 collectively everybody had even if we weren't actively in it there was just that was a thread

00:33:46.120 that connected all of us all over the world to like a single home and that i think is still

00:33:51.780 really important but i just don't i don't want that to come off like slack is the solution to

00:33:57.580 loneliness and remote work because i very much believe slack is enabling loneliness and remote

00:34:01.440 work because so many companies are just relying on that to be like oh we have slack and a general

00:34:05.240 channel and a you know in a cat meme channel or whatever right like all this stuff but our

00:34:11.640 experience has been that you have to be really intentional in remote work and creating opportunities

00:34:15.720 for people to connect i call it like the intentional water cooler like you have to

00:34:19.560 really really work hard yeah all these things if you just leave it people i mean you basically get

00:34:25.720 a general head hey hey hey bye bye you know it's like i mean it's it's useless right it's completely

00:34:31.960 useless because especially in different time zones you know and if you're optimizing focus

00:34:35.800 work you don't want to have slack open all the time so for us only because we're obsessed with

00:34:41.180 that stuff like we had removed all the typical slack issues like having an inbox you know second

00:34:46.520 inbox where people are posting things you have to read back like we don't slack has always been for

00:34:50.520 disposable conversation yeah never for anything permanent never for anything that anybody ever

00:34:56.100 has to read back it's it's it's it's uh synchronous communication that's it it's not historical

00:35:02.700 anything and we err on the side of asynchronous as much as possible so that people can work in

00:35:07.940 their own time and on their own schedules so it was actually fine i mean we need we need something

00:35:12.120 that connects the whole team that was the big learning for me something that like is a single

00:35:15.820 thread that you know you just know that if i need it to it's kind of like a security blanket if i

00:35:20.440 I can go plug in to feel connected to the team.

00:35:23.460 You mentioned last night about hiring a coach

00:35:27.480 or having support.

00:35:28.960 What happened in the business?

00:35:31.580 What problems showed up?

00:35:33.200 How did you find the person, and what did they do to help you?

00:35:37.100 Chris and I have been going through this for the last, I guess,

00:35:40.200 four years, going through this journey of elevating the business

00:35:45.280 where it's not the Chris and Natalie show.

00:35:49.160 right it's like a mature thoughtful business that involves everybody that

00:35:55.940 doesn't you know if Chris and I fall out of an airplane like because that's a

00:35:59.120 risk I mean if something happens like you have 28 people who I don't want them

00:36:03.440 to have to just sell the thing okay right and like I don't you know I don't

00:36:06.620 all that so that is an extreme example but also like I want the business to not

00:36:13.520 need me like I'm a bottleneck in so many areas so that especially four years ago

00:36:16.580 So we went through this kind of big soul searching, and it's been like a full circle of everything.

00:36:24.460 And it started with really like, what are our roles?

00:36:27.660 Like there was before that, before that coach, before we started working through stuff, we were in every decision together, every meeting together.

00:36:34.760 Both of you?

00:36:35.520 Both of us.

00:36:36.020 Even though you had CTO and kind of CEO?

00:36:37.660 No, we didn't have those titles.

00:36:38.900 We were just Chris and Natalie.

00:36:39.700 We didn't have titles, and it was just Chris and Natalie.

00:36:42.560 Everything.

00:36:43.240 Everything.

00:36:43.940 Prioritization.

00:36:44.380 Everything.

00:36:46.000 Wow.

00:36:46.580 everything and just because you didn't know any different no well you know

00:36:54.580 that coaching was very much like marriage counseling in a sense where it was i can see

00:36:59.220 that those are hard conversations that you know you you don't you got to tread lightly on them

00:37:04.660 you have to be really intentional around them like what do you actually want to do you know i

00:37:08.260 this is chris's business for a long time like that's how i always viewed it this is chris's

00:37:11.220 business he started it i came into it you know all these things and and having those like really

00:37:16.100 meaningful conversations were like no actually natalie like i don't want to do it i want you to

00:37:20.420 like run the company i just want to work on product like that's what you know and having

00:37:24.100 those dialogues around like you know chris will say like i don't think the business could ever

00:37:28.340 gotten to this point if it was just me like it was just him because i don't want these things

00:37:31.860 that we do you know i wouldn't be able to be good at these people things and culture things and all

00:37:35.700 these things that like i really enjoy so we're lucky in that way but the coach was really you

00:37:40.020 know one of his first things was like so tell me what you guys do here it's like well we do all the

00:37:45.140 of eggs and he's like okay well co-co-ceo is a thing but let's just you know let's keep working

00:37:50.080 through that and it's not even that he had like a process or it was just i was saying this to

00:37:55.960 somebody earlier it was the value of sitting down for a day focusing on the business i couldn't you

00:38:02.960 know i was paying him to come here so like i needed his help and i'm gonna make an effort out

00:38:07.840 of it yeah and just asking a lot of questions making us think about things and so that was

00:38:11.840 kind of the big first step was okay ceo cto got it this is your responsibility we like drew it out

00:38:16.300 we mind mapped it we did all tons a ton of stuff to just really grasp like what is that in a day

00:38:21.080 to day what is your team asking you for that they were much happier when they knew which one of us

00:38:27.140 to go to that was much that was a huge shift because it was like well product for example

00:38:32.660 chris is deep deep in the product and then all of a sudden it's like natalie jumps in

00:38:39.340 at the 11th hour and I have a really good eye for stuff

00:38:41.960 and I'm not really good at like the detail

00:38:43.560 but they'll send me something at the end and I'm like that doesn't make sense

00:38:45.840 you know or that flow and it's like well should we have

00:38:47.740 included Natalie earlier and so now you know

00:38:49.640 it's just like this whole confusing thing and now it's like

00:38:51.720 Chris's product that's what he does

00:38:53.240 and so he brings me in when he

00:38:55.780 feels like he could use a little bit of

00:38:57.480 Natalie but most

00:38:59.840 rarely they're so much smarter than I am

00:39:01.820 but that kind of became

00:39:03.780 a thing and then it was all the people stuff right like

00:39:05.440 who's my manager and we've been

00:39:07.880 flat until January of this year. So January 2019. Before that, we were flat. So it was like,

00:39:12.180 who's my manager? Was it Chris? Is it Natalie? Who do I talk to when I have a problem?

00:39:15.520 Career development.

00:39:16.400 And it's like, talk to both of them.

00:39:17.600 Right. And it's like, what do you do with that? That's just crazy. So that was really

00:39:20.340 huge. And then we just kept working through, I mean, as recently as last year, like through

00:39:25.200 working through an operating system. What, how do we want to operate? How do we plan?

00:39:30.480 How do we structure, you know, meetings?

00:39:34.020 Essentially designing the business.

00:39:35.640 The whole business.

00:39:36.440 Just like you do product.

00:39:37.440 applied to the business.

00:39:39.160 Well, the business is a product.

00:39:40.620 Yeah.

00:39:41.180 And for us, it's especially acute

00:39:42.500 because we have multiple products,

00:39:44.660 but we have Wildbit.

00:39:46.040 And so I look at Wildbit as its own very important product.

00:39:48.800 That's unique, too.

00:39:49.860 Like, not a lot of, like, how?

00:39:51.460 I think it's our superpower, honestly.

00:39:53.320 It's the reason we've been able to start.

00:39:54.880 Yeah, when you said that I didn't want to fire anybody

00:39:56.600 and you were, like, transitioning people over,

00:39:58.780 I'm like, that's really disciplined.

00:40:00.200 Like, that's, it takes.

00:40:01.440 Well, and it's also because, like, we didn't,

00:40:03.640 a lot of companies, it's an idea, a founder, co-founder,

00:40:06.360 and then they grow a team, right?

00:40:07.600 So that idea is the thing that's holding them together.

00:40:09.640 So if the idea doesn't pan out,

00:40:12.040 then the team disbands, right?

00:40:13.800 We were Wildbit that had a bunch of ideas

00:40:17.400 and we've shut some down.

00:40:18.740 We've sold some, right?

00:40:19.540 Like we've had more than just the suite that we have.

00:40:21.420 And so Wildbit has always stayed together.

00:40:23.600 I've never sold a product with a team.

00:40:25.960 It's only ever been the technology.

00:40:28.980 I've never shut something down and fired people.

00:40:30.920 Like we've moved people over.

00:40:31.800 But it's also, we have incredible longevity on the team

00:40:34.640 And I really attribute that to the ability for people to move around and work on different things.

00:40:40.080 You know, there's like this real people have worked on conveyor who now work on Postmark, who've worked on Beanstalk, you know, and there's just this this flow.

00:40:47.440 And while we say like we don't put people in boxes.

00:40:49.700 So there really is this not just you can't be you don't have to be working on the product.

00:40:54.300 You can also if you don't want to be a developer, you know, or work in this stack, like, let's talk about that.

00:40:59.040 Let's figure out how to help you work in a new stack or or maybe you want to write for a little bit.

00:41:04.300 You know, whatever those things are, we try to find out.

00:41:06.160 But because we have the space and, like, the capacity to say, hey, there's this and there's this.

00:41:09.760 And there are different times in their life.

00:41:11.100 The products are in different life cycles.

00:41:12.420 So you get a little more startup-y here, a little more growth-focused here.

00:41:16.760 And you can really just, to me, that's not only diversifying our risk, but also it's creating an environment where people almost can get new jobs and not leave wild.

00:41:26.560 Yeah.

00:41:27.340 And we get to, like, play them.

00:41:28.120 Continuity is so powerful.

00:41:29.520 So powerful.

00:41:31.260 As you look back over the 19, almost 20 years, well, not 16, sorry,

00:41:37.100 but it'll be 20 years, 16 years being CEO, co-founder with Chris,

00:41:41.860 who did you need to become to continue leading this organization, like the company?

00:41:47.320 Like your own beliefs, mindsets?

00:41:51.360 Man, there's a, that's a powerful question.

00:41:54.300 So you go, I went through this whole, you know, I'm actually really young.

00:42:00.520 And so like when I said you just turned 27, 33, you never told us, we didn't ask 33.

00:42:07.800 But so like you can, you know, so I'm young.

00:42:10.740 Right.

00:42:11.000 And so like there was a tremendous amount of imposter syndrome that I struggled with

00:42:16.940 for a long time.

00:42:17.520 I'm also not a developer and I'm running in, you know, I'm pretty knowledgeable now

00:42:21.740 because i've been doing this for so long but i'm not a developer and so there is just a tremendous

00:42:26.640 amount of imposter syndrome and with that comes that insecurity of like are the things that i

00:42:32.960 really strongly believe in are they valid you know and and i you know i can say now that like yes

00:42:41.520 like so much of what wild but is is like my my beliefs and how people should be treated how

00:42:46.420 how work should should happen why you know the the kind of what i call like the audacity to think

00:42:52.840 that we can be responsible for 30 families right and and that's a lot of people and like all these

00:42:57.820 things is is very much for a long time was this i just i felt really insecure about who am i and

00:43:04.820 why am i why do i think i i can do this and there's like just a tremendous growth that was

00:43:10.700 really necessary and it was hard at times I think what's happening now is I'm realizing that I've

00:43:17.100 also had this very singular experience where I you know I've worked with people who have to say yes

00:43:24.440 to me right let's just call it like they obviously we have disagreements all these things but at the

00:43:28.060 end of the day I'm their boss I've created an environment in my community you know in this

00:43:33.400 space where people respect me and listen to me and all these things and that's not really the

00:43:37.520 real world like there's a lot more I can and I should experience to not be in that space so I've

00:43:43.700 been trying over the last two years really to get out of to create opportunities where I'm not just

00:43:49.380 solely like in this space wherever you know my thoughts are really great and everybody loves them

00:43:53.500 and it's like okay cool and start making myself a little more uncomfortable again and almost kind

00:43:58.240 of creating that imposter syndrome again to to see how better I can develop and being a better

00:44:03.200 leader and a better, like more well-rounded person. So I've been doing some work on some

00:44:08.760 nonprofits. I'm the chair of the board of like a small nonprofit school that I'm really passionate

00:44:13.740 about. And, you know, that's an example where I'm nobody, right? Like I've got 15 volunteer

00:44:20.580 board members who are really excited about the school, but they have their own jobs. They're

00:44:26.040 very successful. You know, there's, I got to get on the phone and talk to them, right? I'm not like

00:44:29.460 texting them or slacking them.

00:44:31.200 And I do this thing called EO, which is Entrepreneur's

00:44:34.740 Organization, which is like a forum

00:44:36.440 that you meet with seven or eight other entrepreneurs,

00:44:39.100 and they're not in tech, right?

00:44:40.340 That's the whole mission is that you're in different industries.

00:44:42.520 And they're talking about manufacturing.

00:44:45.060 But we have the same problems, but in a different lens.

00:44:46.980 And that helps ground me a little bit to be like, yeah,

00:44:49.860 I'm not that special.

00:44:50.860 This isn't that unique.

00:44:52.960 And those, I think I've been trying to force myself,

00:44:55.500 and I enjoy them very much, but trying to force myself

00:44:57.580 into these other experiences so that I can be more well-rounded.

00:45:02.780 I was having a conversation with somebody recently about how we've built this

00:45:06.560 business of people that like we've surrounded ourselves with customers and

00:45:10.760 employees and vendors, everybody that we like, that we respect, right?

00:45:14.960 I don't allow nonsense. Like our 10th value is no, don't be an asshole. 1.00

00:45:18.420 Like I just don't allow, I don't allow in my personal life, right? 1.00

00:45:21.420 Like, you know, I don't have friends with drama. Our family's really stable.

00:45:24.900 like we when something happens that is outside of that it pierces me like completely paralyzes me

00:45:32.100 I'm just I don't have the experience like if somebody's trying to pull something on you know

00:45:36.800 or like we're negotiating something or something and the person's not ethical yeah I'm I lose it

00:45:42.920 I have no like I cannot I don't have those experiences that people have to be able to be

00:45:48.540 like okay I'll deal with that and I I don't that's probably not like I have to start building that

00:45:54.320 thicker skin to have those experiences to be better at reacting to them to to look at them 0.64

00:45:59.540 as Ray Dalio sitting like as another one of those right like I need to start having and so that's

00:46:03.580 been really important with bigger problems which is different problems right I you know I was the

00:46:08.920 conversation I was having was like talking about negotiating like a real estate thing and you know

00:46:14.020 the person at the other end of the table wasn't was you know maybe they read art of the deal I

00:46:18.940 don't know but they were very much like I'm gonna squeeze every last ounce out of you and it's just

00:46:24.020 the way i work it's not the way i think it's like i'm happiest at a deal we're like both excited

00:46:28.820 and we're like yeah like this is great right and i'm a great negotiator that's not the point but

00:46:33.220 it's always around like let's let's come to something that we're all excited about

00:46:36.660 and in that scenario i was basically like just take it i don't i don't it's just too much like

00:46:42.100 too much it's too much for me i don't want to deal with that type of person i'll never deal with you

00:46:46.740 again and like that was it i'd like to be a little better at handling that because i probably you

00:46:52.500 You know, it got taken a little bit.

00:46:53.800 But those are the kind of experiences where, for some people, it's just run-of-the-mill.

00:46:58.640 You know, I always have these conversations where I get, like, how can this person be like this?

00:47:01.840 And I'll talk to somebody, and they're like, what do you mean?

00:47:03.220 It's just a person. 1.00

00:47:03.880 All people suck, you know. 1.00

00:47:04.860 I'm like, no, no, no. 1.00

00:47:06.160 Most people don't actually suck.

00:47:08.520 But I just, I think it's just a, it'll create a more well-rounded person. 0.84

00:47:12.640 It'll make me a little bit more able to react to these things so that they're, so that they feel as natural as some of the things I deal with at work.

00:47:20.720 that somebody who's just starting out

00:47:23.800 is like, oh, I have to deal with this people thing.

00:47:25.640 And I'm like, yeah, it's easy.

00:47:26.540 We just kind of, you do this and you do that.

00:47:27.900 That feels natural to me

00:47:28.780 because I've had these experiences.

00:47:30.580 So I think that's a long way of saying

00:47:32.680 I just have to be a better person, right?

00:47:36.240 Put yourself in the position

00:47:37.420 to get more reps around that stuff. 0.99

00:47:39.980 That's it.

00:47:40.420 I just think the actively seeking it out

00:47:43.000 has been really important

00:47:43.960 to just kind of continue to evolve.

00:47:47.460 Where do people find you online, Natalie?

00:47:49.600 Twitter is probably the only social network.

00:47:52.020 That's the one.

00:47:52.540 The only one left.

00:47:53.100 We still plug into.

00:47:54.060 That's the only one, just Natalie Nagel on Twitter or Natalie Wild.

00:47:58.080 I appreciate that.

00:47:59.000 It's been great to have you on here.

00:48:00.120 Thank you so much.

00:48:01.200 That was awesome.

00:48:01.720 Well, thanks for watching this episode of Escape Velocity.

00:48:05.660 Be sure to like and subscribe and leave a comment with your biggest insight from our conversation.

00:48:11.100 Be sure to check out the next episode.

Dan Martell - April 23, 2020

Master The 4-Day Workweek with Natalie @ WildBit.com - Escape Velocity Show #26

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