June 20, 2023 • 54 mins
Tim reached out after the Aaron Francis episode: "I wanted to pitch you on the idea of coming on the podcast and sharing my journey of building side projects for the last decade while raising a family. I can also share the guardrails I put in place before finally going full-time on T.LY."
Highlights:
- (00:12) - Welcome
- (01:13) - Who is Tim Leland?
- (03:20) - What guardrails did you put in place?
- (06:24) - What's the sales funnel?
- (08:13) - Family as a motivator
- (16:21) - How would you describe your effort during this process?
- (20:06) - What about family boundaries?
- (23:25) - How do you manage your thoughts?
- (31:15) - How have you been able to manage the effort level?
- (34:44) - The pressure of cutting the cord from your job
- (38:16) - What's it been like being full time on t.ly?
- (39:59) - What's your SEO magic touch?
Links:
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- Bill Condo (@mavrck)
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- Evandro Sasse
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- Michael Sitver
- Colin Gray
- Dave Giunta
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justin (00:12):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Build Your SaaS. This is the
behind the scenes story ofbuilding a web app App in 2023.
I'm Justin. And today, I've gota guest, Tim Leland.
Tim, Tim, how's it going, man?
Tim (00:26):
It's going good. Great to finally be on here. I've been
listening to you for feels likeyears. I don't even know how far
back.
Justin (00:34):
When did we start the show? We started in 2018, so
it's been going going for awhile. And, you reached out.
Actually, I got got a messagefrom your wife and a message
from you, so I I I got doubledup. You you doubled up on,
feedback on the Aaron Francisepisode, And you said, hey.
I think it'd be fun to have meon and talk about your
(00:57):
experience bootstrapping on theside, And you've just recently
gone full time. Is that right?
Tim (01:03):
Yep. About a month ago.
Justin (01:05):
About a month ago. And the product is t.ly, which is a
URL shortener, which I think wecan get into that too. That's
that that seems like acompetitive category. But maybe
just for the folks at home,describe what you've been doing,
you know, for the past while,what you've been working on, and
how you kind of built yourselfup To go in full time a month
(01:27):
ago.
Tim (01:28):
Yeah. It's it's a long story. I'll try to tell you the
short version, but, Yeah. Itreally goes back to college
graduated college and just gotits job working, you know,
software developer and startedbuilding websites on the side,
and then eventually that turnedinto small apps. And then I got
(01:48):
and got into, like, the ChromeExtension space and started
building a few Chromeextensions, and then, it's kinda
led me to where I'm at now towhere, you know, I had a a
weather extension that Grew to,like, 250,000 users.
Didn't make a ton of money, butit was nice side income. And
then I built a link shortenerextension, and that actually is
(02:11):
kinda took off and has 450,000users, and then that Led me to t
d I l y.
Justin (02:17):
Wow. Okay. And, and you've you've also got a family?
You've got you've got kids aswell?
Tim (02:23):
Yep. Yep. I have a 8 year old, 5 year old, and 3 year old.
All all boys.
Justin (02:28):
8 year old, 5 year old, and 3 year old. All boys. 3
boys. Okay. You're similar to tomy setup, except our we have 4,
and our oldest is a girl.
So we now she's at college, andwe've got 3 boys at home. And
and my wife is, like, sadbecause there's There's no girls
around anymore. Just just us 4boys. You said okay. I wanna you
(02:50):
said, I wanna pitch you on theidea of coming on the pod and
sharing my journey of buildingside projects the last decade
while raising a family.
I can also share the guardrailsI put in place before before
finally going full time on t ly. So, yeah, what are what's
kind of your your perspectiveon, maybe what Aaron and I were
(03:11):
talking about, but also yourexperience in I I mean, a
decade's a long time, so you'vebeen kinda gradually working on
things on the side. How what'sbeen your experience with that
while also having 3 small boys?
Tim (03:27):
Yeah. Yeah. With with kids and, you know, house and Bills
and everything is it definitelymakes it more challenging to
say, hey. I'm gonna go fulltime. So, if I could have Done
this 10 years ago, it would havebeen a lot easier of a decision
to take the risk early on.
Justin (03:43):
Yeah. But
Tim (03:44):
yeah. So some of the Guardrails would be I well, my
first goal was let me make morethan what I'm making or or meet
what I'm making at my Currentjob. Yeah. And then once I did
that, I kind of felt like, okay.I could probably do it, but it
still felt A little risky.
So then I just said, okay. Letme just keep waiting, and I kept
(04:04):
waiting until I was more likedouble what I was doing, Which
is probably pretty extreme, butonce I hit that, I felt like,
okay. If I don't take the risknow, I don't know if I ever
will. So I just said, you know,worst case, I could lose half my
revenue. I would still bealright.
Mhmm. And then the other thingis Since I've been doing this
(04:24):
for so long, I've always had,like, some project making some
additional side income. So a lotof that, we've always been
saving, trying to live off ofjust normal salary and Yeah.
Putting the rest intoinvestments and things. So
Having a you know, that thoseare my guardrails, I guess, is
hopefully make more than whatyou do at your day job
Justin (04:45):
because, you
Tim (04:47):
know, there's other expenses. You gotta think
insurance. You gotta think, youyou know, you gotta do your
taxes a little differently.
Justin (04:53):
Yeah. You mean as a business owner?
Tim (04:56):
As a business owner. Yeah. Yeah. So you gotta think, okay.
I have some expense in thebusiness.
So there's you know, that'sthat's kinda how I did it, to
decide.
Justin (05:04):
Yeah. And and the I mean, the the one kind of thing
that jumps out at me right awayis is the time frame, that 10
years of kind of Consistenteffort. How would you describe
your effort during that time?Like, was this, a few hours a
week? Was this You waking up at3 in the morning every morning
and, going for a 1 hour jog andthen coding for 3 hours.
(05:27):
What what was your schedule likekind of building up To this.
Tim (05:31):
Yeah. Before kids or when the kids were younger, it would
be usually after we put them tobed. I would work for a few
hours on something, And a lot ofit was learning early on. So I
was, you know, learning at myday job, but also building
different apps, learning how to,like, scale and How to build and
build and support users, and, alot of it's marketing, which I
(05:52):
learned a lot from you over theyears. So that's always been
helpful.
Justin (05:57):
I mean, yeah, you you've been quite success. I don't know
if I've ever done anythingthat's had that many users. So,
you you've clearly donesomething right. You you're
reaching a lot of people.
Tim (06:06):
Yeah. Yeah. The challenge is, you know, I I I need to
figure out how to do a betterjob at converting. So if I have,
you know, 450,000 users using aa free Chrome extension. How can
I get, you know, a higherpercentage of those to convert?
And that's something I'm I'mactively working on.
Justin (06:23):
Yeah. Is that is that your funnel right now? Like, The
people funnel from a free Chromeextension over to your your paid
URL shortening service, and thenyou're hoping that a few of
those, I think you can use yourshortener for free, but then the
idea is that eventually folkswill upgrade to Either $5 a
(06:44):
month, $20 a month, or $50 amonth.
Tim (06:47):
Yeah. Yeah. So, the extension initially was Oh, I I
built the link shortenerextension and didn't even have
t.ly. Mhmm. And, I grew that tobe, you know, I don't know,
maybe 10, 50000 users.
And at that point, I decided Ineed to build TDIO and put
subscriptions around it. Andthen so, yeah, you're gonna
(07:10):
install the extension, use itfree, and then that's that was
my initial funnel. Now I'm, youknow, branching out To more of,
like, okay, SEO, getting morepeople who just search URL
shortener or URL URL shortenerwith custom domain, Those type
of things, more advancedfeatures, trying to get those
users to subscribe and, sign upto, you know, unlock some of
(07:30):
those, features.
Justin (07:32):
Yeah. Yeah. We gotta get to your SEO hot tips later on in
the episode because I'm curioustoo. But let's get back to this
idea of building on the side. SoIt it sounds like over the past
10 years, you've had babiesthroughout there.
Right? And you were just atnighttime Putting in a few hours
for learning, for, like,figuring your own things out,
(07:55):
doing projects, Doingexperiments. Am I characterizing
it correctly?
Tim (08:00):
Yep. Yep. Yeah. A lot of times it was just paying, you
know, can I make something thatwould pay for lunch? You know,
that was kind of my initial goalor get, you know, get coffee and
not feel like not feel guiltyabout doing those things.
So That was initially, thegoals. I also pay for the
servers and hosting and thingslike that.
Justin (08:18):
And I'm sure, if you're like me, there was also a this
is actually one interestingthing about having kids is that
for me, It definitely createdthis additional motivation of
well, first, comes therealization. Wow. This is More
expensive than I thought it wasgonna be. It's just expensive,
(08:39):
in a way that Sneaks up on youand then the idea being, okay,
wow, I I need to make moreincome for the family. How am I
gonna do that?
And it becomes this additionalmotivator. Right? It's like,
okay, well, I've got the dayjob, and that's paying me
whatever. And now I'm trying todo stuff on the side as well.
(09:00):
You know?
Like, I wanna make a little bitmore on the side. Was that true
for you? A little motivation onthe side?
Tim (09:06):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. So, you know, you realize
real quick, it moving up in ajob, You know, it takes time.
So in my mind, I was like, if Icould do anything on the side
with the skills I have, why not,you know, go for it? And Yeah.
Initially, it was just buildingwebsites. That's something that
almost any developer could do isgo out to, like, businesses and
(09:28):
then, you know, pitch them onbuilding a new website. That's
was kinda how I originally gotstarted.
Justin (09:33):
Yeah. Me too. Yeah. I would build, like, WordPress
sites on the side all the time,which is its own form of stress,
Like that that I remember I feellike in I mean, in retrospect,
it's probably all it allcontributes to where we end up.
But The, the I I have thisconstant, like, debate in my
(09:53):
head, which is I wonder if I hadput As much energy as I did into
side projects, if I put thatsame energy into, career
progression if, you know, whereI would have ended up or
whatever.
And, it's just interesting tothink about it because I I think
(10:18):
for a lot of folks, getting abetter paying job is actually
Probably a better option. Maybenot in this economy, but the you
know, the the idea is that youcould, for example, switch
Employers. Every big jump insalary I had was switching
employers, and it seems like alot of folks don't even Consider
(10:40):
it. It's like, well, no. I'mjust gonna kill myself building
WordPress sites on the weekend.
It's like, well, you could putin maybe the Same amount of
effort really researching acompany. I remember one time I
just put all my effort intoapplying that 37 signals. And, I
got I didn't get a response the1st time. And then the 2nd time
(11:03):
they flew me down for a jobinterview. And then I was gonna
take the job with them, and itwas less money, but then I went
to my existing employer andsaid, I'm thinking about taking
this job because it's remote.
And then they gave me, I think,like, a $10,000 raise or
something, maybe $15,000 raise.And so it was like, wow. Like
that that That was a big jumpjust because I said I might
(11:27):
switch careers. Anyway, that's athat's a that's a a tangent. But
did you consider, like, careerprogression, or did you just
feel stuck in the career?
Like, what was the Was there anysort of math on that side?
Tim (11:43):
Yes. But I think I see sometimes people say, how do I
make, you know, $10,000 a month?And The number one way is just
go get a job that pays 10,000,and that's Yeah. That's kind of
the best approach for thatversus trying to build a SaaS
product that doesn't. Yeah.
Yeah. So I've I've I mean, atthe same time, while I was
building things, a lot of theknowledge of working, like,
(12:03):
nights and weekends were Helpingme at my day job. So I was
progressing, and I, you know, Idid move up over time and and
make more and more money. So, Imean, that's definitely not a
bad approach. But if I go backto my very first job out of
college, I remember I went andit was, like, 8 to 6, and I
would walk in some mornings.
(12:25):
It would be dark, and I wouldleave some nights at 6. And I
thought, I don't know if I cando this for the next 40 years or
so.
Justin (12:33):
Yeah.
Tim (12:34):
So I always kinda had in back of my mind, like, if I
could build something That wouldbe, you know, what I'd wanna do.
Now working from home andremotely helped a lot with that,
so that's not as big of anissue. But Yeah. That that was
kind of my mindset all along is,okay, if I could build something
that did make enough money, Iwould, you know, go for it and
try to build it to be reallybig.
Justin (12:55):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's I mean, I I think that
is the flip side. It's like,yeah, you can go get a job.
But for some folks, There'salways just gonna be this kind
of insatiable hunger to do yourown thing, own your own thing,
build your own thing, or have aretroactively, I'm wondering,
(13:18):
like, I wonder if some of thosefirst jobs, if they'd given me
some equity, If I would havestayed or if they'd you know,
what if they'd allowed me towork remote right from the
beginning, because I've alsobeen through the experience of,
like throughout my entirecareer, I've hired people. And
Part of the hiring process forme was like saying, okay, well,
(13:39):
like, what are you trying to getout of this? Like, what problems
are you trying to solve in yourown life? And, you know, for
some people, it's like, I hatemy commute. Other people, it's
like, I've got all these studentloans I'm trying to pay off.
Other people are you know,they've got all these things
That are causing them to hustle.Maybe on the side, build
something on the side, buildwebsites on the side, build
(14:02):
projects on the side. And as anemployer, you know, at different
jobs I had when I was hiringpeople, sometimes I could just
hire these people and I couldjust see all of their stress And
everything just go down, andthey no longer had that desire
to run their own thing. Theywere just so happy to, not be
running their own thing. I haveanother friend here, and he was
(14:25):
like a solo contractor forever,doing all sorts of like cool AWS
infrastructure stuff.
And then he got hired atAutomatic, and it was like
Automatic just took care ofeverything for him. And Now he's
like, I'm so glad I'm notrunning my own business, you
know? And it is a legitimateoption. Like, I I just think
(14:47):
that people should There aresome folks who are just like,
You know what? I just have thesethings I'm trying to accomplish.
Like, I just want more familytime, less commute, remote work,
A little bit more money andthat's it, you know, and some
autonomy in my work. And if youfind an employer that can give
you that, then Maybe that's goodfor you. There are other people,
(15:11):
I think, that are just like, youknow what? This is never gonna
be enough until I'm running myown thing. Do you feel like that
was you?
Which which side are you on doyou feel?
Tim (15:20):
Yeah. That's a tough one. I am kinda in the middle because
I, You know, for years enjoyed,you know, working with people,
working for a company. There'sdefinitely great benefits. You
know?
And, like, yeah, when you gohome at night, you don't really
have to, you know, worry toomuch about Yeah. You know, if
something goes wrong. But, youknow, at the same time, you
(15:43):
know, if if a company couldoffer, like, ownership and, all
those great benefits that youmentioned, like, that would
definitely be a selling point. Ido enjoy, like, if I build
something and then directly, youknow, for that time, more people
sign up or, you know, subscribeor or, You make more money off
of it. I enjoy that part of itso that I feel like when I build
(16:05):
it, I'm the owner of it type ofthing.
So
Justin (16:07):
Yeah. Well, I think that's I think we've painted a
picture of multiple paths toself actualization. Maybe
that'll be the title of thisepisode. Okay. So you're working
on this thing.
I mean, I think the other thingto point out with with what
you're talking about is I Imean, one of the things we I
discussed with Aaron is hedescribes this as his maximum
(16:30):
effort era. How would youdescribe your effort All along,
was was it Like how Yeah, howdid that feel to you over this
decade, Leading up to you goingfull time, what was the amount
of effort? What was the cost?Did you what did you have to
give up? Maybe talk through afew of those things.
Tim (16:50):
Yeah. That maximum effort kinda hit home with me when he
was talking about that. And, soover the years, I would say
there would be Times where Iwould put in maximum effort, and
then I would burn out and takebreaks. And
Justin (17:06):
Okay.
Tim (17:07):
I was it was kinda like up and down, and it would be like,
okay. Something seems to beworking, and then I would kinda,
like, get discouraged. And thenI'd be like, alright. I'm gonna
take a break. Just relax.
And as far as, like, what maybeI missed out on, probably, like,
just not watching as much TVthat which, You know, some
(17:28):
people would say it's probably agood thing. So Yeah. You know, I
I don't really watch a ton ofTV, so I think I would spend a
lot of the time, you know,working on things. Probably lost
a lot of sleep over the years.There were times where I'd be
doing something and, You know,I'd have to wake up early the
next morning, but I would be uptill 2, 3 o'clock in the
morning, and then I'd be like azombie the next day.
(17:51):
So that was definitely rough attimes. But, back to what you
said earlier about having kids,And, you know, thinking about,
okay, I'd like to make moremoney. I only have this much
time. Mhmm. I think it reallyhelps you to, like, focus so
that If if I didn't have thosefactors, I might would have,
(18:12):
like, wasted a lot of time,built something that didn't
really, you know, Do anythingversus when you have very little
time, you end up, you know,saying, okay.
What can I do and get done inthe next hour or 2? Yeah. And
then push it out there. Andthat's kinda how I've always
worked. Like, going back to,like, the weather extension, I
would, you know, be like, okay.
What can I do? Make it a littlebit better, Fix some bugs,
(18:34):
whatever, push it out, and thenbe done, and then, you know,
move on to something else.
Justin (18:40):
Yeah. It's kinda like the ultimate Pomodoro. Because
Yeah. Because you just know,like, okay. The baby's napping.
My spouse is out Shopping forgroceries. I've got 1 hour to to
do something with, and I'm justgonna use that the most
efficiently that I can. BecauseI was very similar. I just had
(19:02):
projects all along. There was athere was a period of time
where, like in my early twentieswhen our we had one 1 or 2 of
our babies that were still quiteyoung, we we I tried launching a
business with my brother and afriend That ended up not working
out.
And then after that, my wifeasked if I could take a break
(19:24):
from, From that stuff, just goget a job, take a break, just,
you know and so I I took apretty good break. I mean, for
me, I took a Pretty good breakfrom, like, let's say, 2008 to
2012. Really didn't work on anyNo. A few things, but for me, it
(19:45):
was like I was taking a break.But when I did start working on
stuff again, You know, I Iwanted to be more mindful about
it.
And my motivation was alwayslike, I'm doing this for the
family. There's also a big partof me that I think maybe I
wasn't completely honest. Like,a big part of me was doing it
for me too. Like, I just hadthat desire to that itch I
(20:09):
needed to scratch. And I I dothink that between 2012 and 2000
let's say, maybe 16, 17, Therewere probably multiple times
where I was just consumed withthinking about the business.
(20:33):
Like, Even though I was tryingto be balanced, you know, it was
just like it's just so easy whenyou're at the dinner table to
fate to kind of, like, zone outand Be thinking about something
else or all the other thingsthat could fit in your brain,
like I don't know. Like, When'sthe last time I took the kids to
(20:54):
the park? Oh, we got a birthdayparty coming up. Oh, we still
need to plan a vacation. Man,it's been 3 weeks since I've
gone on a date.
Like, all those normal thingsthat you could be thinking
about, for me, got replaced bybusiness thoughts. Did you have
any of that, and were you ableto set up any sort of guardrails
(21:16):
that were actually Effective inin creating good boundaries
between those things?
Tim (21:22):
Yeah. You probably would have to ask my wife that
question. She I'm trying tothink back. You know, I wouldn't
say I really missed out onanything. Probably now more than
ever in the last 6 months or sowhere I've been, you know, cons
kinda consumed with TDI OI,like, thinking, What can I do?
(21:43):
What can I do to you know, Ikeep thinking, like, I turn the
turn knobs? I switch this, I dothis, and then, you know, I see
different results. So I keeptrying to think what knobs can I
turn
Justin (21:54):
Mhmm?
Tim (21:55):
What switches can I you know, to grow traffic, to grow
users? Yeah. But, like, in thepast with Some of these other
projects, it would just be,like, maybe 10 o'clock at night,
and I would just get on mycomputer and you know, I I would
probably be thinking about itall throughout the day, and then
I would put, like, littlereminders in my phone, and I
just go through and be like, oh,I need to do this. This is a
(22:15):
good idea. I need to try to, Youknow, fix this issue or go
through my emails.
But, no, really, probably in thelast, like, year is when I've
really been more consumed nowmore than ever, which
Justin (22:27):
Yeah.
Tim (22:29):
Has had some negatives to where I'm, you know, thinking a
lot about The business morebecause now it's more important.
It's like, okay. If it failsnow, then, you know, I'm gonna
have to do a 180 and, You know,either go back and get a regular
job or, figure out, you know,what can I do to fix it type of
thing?
Justin (22:47):
Yeah. Yeah. There's 2 things I I wanna touch on there.
One thing I just keep thinkingabout, and and maybe this is
just me, so I'm I'm open tothat, that being true. But
realizing that creating room,creating space, creating margin
To even have thoughts.
(23:09):
So, I mean, since Transistor'sbeen doing well, and I've kind
of, in some ways, Taken my footoff the accelerator a little bit
in terms of, like, pushingmyself real hard. All of a
sudden, I've had Room, space,energy, the mindfulness to be
(23:30):
aware of other things, and thatcould be Things with me
personally, like my own mentalhealth. It could be things with
the kids. It could be thingswith my spouse. It could be
things with friends.
It could be things with myparents. Like, I've called my
mom and dad probably more in thelast 2 or 3 years that I have
(23:51):
combined since I left home, andpart of it is I've just had more
room, more space to I've givenmyself more space to have those
thoughts. And it's almost like Ihave only a certain number of
(24:11):
thought blocks in a day, Andit's just so easy for me to
default to business because Ilike business. There's lots to
think about. There's lots to do.
And as you said, there's alwaysthese different knobs that you
could be turning. Having thisrealization personally, I've
just wondered how Other peoplehave dealt with that because
(24:33):
there is a real danger, I think,to feeling like, well, I'm
present. I I show up for all thekids' recitals, and, my spouse
and I have just a recurring datenight all the time. And, again,
it could just be me, but I justfound, like, it it was a real
battle to give myself The room,the space to just not think
(24:58):
about business, and to allowother thoughts to come up like,
oh, I wonder how my 2nd youngestis doing in math right now.
Like, I should be thinking aboutthat.
And, Yeah. I'm wondering whatyou think about all that. Like,
what's the is there a danger ora risk when you're Building
(25:20):
stuff like this to just fill allyour thoughts and all the,
available brain Time and spacewith business stuff, to the
exclusion of some other stuffthat might kind of naturally
Emerge if you gave it space andtime to do so. Does that make
sense?
Tim (25:39):
Yeah. Yeah. And I I think that's that maximum effort. My
You know, the last 6 months orso, I feel like I've been
putting maximum effort into TDI0I. And, yes, there have been
times where I probably havethought, okay.
I'm, you know, throwing thebaseball with my oldest son, and
I'm not really thinking aboutwhat we're doing. I'm thinking
(25:59):
about some other idea I have orI need to be doing this. Or, you
know, you're sitting at a dinnertable and you pull out your
phone and, you know, writingdown reminders so you don't
forget or responding to emails.And I'm sometimes, yeah, I'm
telling myself, it's worth it.Let me do this now, and then,
you know, I'll make up for itwith the more time later.
(26:21):
Mhmm. And it's definitely likeyou're taking you're gambling.
You're gambling this time forhopefully more in the future.
Mhmm. And it's a risk.
I think it it was there inepisode where, he talked about
how his wife it was him. Right?He said his wife really, you
know, Took did a lot of thestuff with the kids and
Justin (26:40):
Mhmm.
Tim (26:41):
That's why I sent it to my wife originally because she I
was like, I bet you can relateto this. And she's like, you
know, Great mom. She, you know,does a lot and keeps keeps us
kinda organized on that side. SoYeah. That really helps out.
It allows me to, you know, focusand, You spend time doing the
this stuff, like the businessside of things. So
Justin (27:01):
Yeah. And I think that's, like, another thing I I
have tried to, bring up is thatif there's alignment there,
like, If 1 person's likebuilding a business or projects
on the side or whatever, and thethe other person is okay with
that and is also okay to takeon, another role, and they're
(27:23):
just like you know, if 1 personjust wants to be, like, home
with the kids, that's their fulltime thing, that's great. That's
That's, an alignment that canwork. I just have an inbox full
of examples of people who haveemailed me saying, man, like,
wow. This just did not workBecause, you know, maybe their
spouse doesn't wanna do thatmuch of the housework and child
(27:47):
rearing and other things.
I think that's, like, thiscrucial bedrock to all of this
is, having as much alignment asyou can and being pretty sure
about it. Like, okay. Like, thisis this is going to consume some
of my thinking blocks, some ofmy energy blocks, And that's
(28:10):
gonna mean I have to give thatspace up for something else, and
all of this is a bet. I'mbetting my time, energy, focus,
and resources now with the hope,like you said, of it paying off,
in the future. And, also,depending on what kind of
business you build, That thatcould be there or it couldn't be
(28:32):
there either.
Right? Like, that there's, theseare all difficult things to
figure out, especially since,For me, so much of the
motivation was like, I just knewwe needed to to make more money.
And so knowing that, and then Ialso just knew I didn't want to
commute anymore. And I also Soin the in the search for these
(28:54):
things, it's good to want thosethings. And then it's just like
this navigating the costs, whatyou're giving up, if you're
giving up too much right now.
It's None of it's easy to figureout. You know?
Tim (29:07):
Yeah. I've thought over the years, I've I've thought to
myself, I wish I could justkinda be normal and just, You
know, work at work at 9 to 5,enjoy it. But I just always you
know, like I said, I would takebreaks over the years, and I
would, You know, work onsomething, get a great idea. And
then, but, yeah, I would be youknow, why can't I just, you
(29:28):
know, go to work, come home, andbut, You know, just my, I guess,
drive to to build something justevery single time just took
over, and I was like, okay. Thisidea is gonna be it.
I just need to, you know, buildit, put it out there, see what
happens. And Yeah. It'sdefinitely been a journey, and,
(29:48):
everything kinda builds on topof each other too. So that's
what's been nice is thelearnings of your past have
really helped your future.
Justin (29:55):
Yeah. I mean, I think, Overall, especially the way you
did it kind of gradually becauseAaron describes maximum effort
as, the most. The the max I cando. He says the effort he can
give is the maximum determined,but by what he's willing to
sacrifice. In my mind, it itsounds like he's saying, like,
okay.
(30:15):
There's things I won'tsacrifice, and I'm willing to
give everything else to that.And maybe one reason that hasn't
really resonated with me isbecause it's like to me, it was
like, well, of course, I'm notgonna watch TV. Like, I'm the
same. I don't watch TV. I don'twatch sports.
I don't have hobbies. Like, allthat stuff resonated with me,
but that was just like, well, ofcourse, that's not gonna be
(30:36):
true. I always found itdifficult, and maybe he just
doesn't have this difficulty. Ialways found it difficult to
navigate In real life, whenyou're getting up to, like, am I
gonna be home for dinner? Sure.
Okay. I'll be home for dinner.But then am I gonna Stay up all
night and then just be a realshithead the next day? Well,
(30:56):
that happened a lot. And then amI gonna be like consumed by
something, like a launch orwhatever.
And then my kids are saying,hey, dad, dad, dad. And I'm
just, like, in my own world allthe time. That stuff just
happened more than I'd probablylike to admit. So how how do you
(31:17):
define like, what is The effortpiece for you, is it just like
have you been good at justsaying, you know what? This
part, I'm just I'm not gonnacross that line, and I'm good
with it?
Or have and it or have you justbeen able to do it over a longer
period of time, like you seesaid, 10 years, And just that
pace was manageable. What's thenavigation of all that for you?
Tim (31:42):
Yeah. I I think one of the benefits of, You know, building
a business, like a a web webbusiness SaaS product is you're
usually home Anyways Mhmm.Unless you have to travel with
it. So that's that's kind ofbeen a benefit to where you
know, I usually was would bealways home working on
something. But yes.
(32:02):
So you might be home, but areyou present mentally? Mhmm. Not
not I wouldn't say a 100%always. You know, like I said,
the whole, You know, being atdinner and checking your phone.
Yeah.
So those are the things to towork on. So be present in the
times where, you know, it's It'simportant. You know, don't miss,
school events, sporting things.Try to be there for all those.
(32:26):
Mhmm.
But, yeah, I think A lot of mysacrifice was probably my own
sleep and, probably health attimes, but and also maybe doing
what I wanna do is, you know,like, Watch a TV or like, I
don't really watch sports or TV,so that that really helped with,
you know, giving you that extratime.
Justin (32:44):
The the other thing though is that It's interesting
because, like, the in in a way,your own sleep I think you said
sleep and health is your ownsacrifice, But in another way,
that affects everybody else. Soit's like I I understand the
distinction like, oh, I'm justgiving this up. I I it it can
also, I think, set up sometimesa, this idea of like, yeah. I'm
(33:09):
just sacrificing my own stufffor the sake of the family or
whatever. And, again, I'm justspeaking personally, but I
haven't found that always to behealthy.
Like, I also had that feelinglike, well, I'm just up at, you
know, 4 in the morning workingon this email newsletter that
I'm gonna send out that's, Youknow, contributing to this
bigger thing I'm trying to buildover time. Overall, am I glad
(33:33):
that I did it? Yes. And but onthe other hand, I'm always kind
of questioning. I wonder if Icould have done it differently.
I'm wondering if I could havebeen, better to myself, which it
would have in turn helped inother areas of life, just like
eventually, You know, the sleepdoesn't just affect you, it
(33:55):
affects other folks too. And,you know, the same is true for
Our physical and mental health.Eventually, you know, you can't
you can't keep grinding thatdown, and then, You know, think
that it's not gonna affectanything. Right? Like, it's
gonna eventually affect you,which will in turn affect the
the people around you.
(34:15):
I'm open to the idea that otherpeople just navigate this better
than me, but I'm also, like,wanting to it feels like I I
have this responsibility to alsoquestion, Not just not just you
or but just the listener to say,you know, how healthy are you
being? Are you is theresomething you can do to make
this more manageable, morehealthy for you. We can
(34:39):
sacrifice things for a certainstretch. But In in some ways
your position is alsointeresting. That was the second
thing I wanted to talk about isonce you've launched the
business And you've cut the cordto the employer, and you're
like, okay, I don't wanna goback.
That part there was, like, Kindof a whole other phase of this.
(35:00):
In some ways, everything up tothat point was more manageable
for me Because it was just like,Yeah, like if this email
newsletter doesn't go out, it'sfine. If this launch doesn't do
as well, It's fine because Istill have a full time job. But
once I cut the cord to the job,that became more kind of
(35:25):
consuming. Have you felt thatway too?
Tim (35:28):
Yeah. Definitely more, you know, pressure and, I would say,
human stress of, You know, notmessing messing something up to
Mhmm. You know, cause causeissues. You got you know, when
you're doing the solo, you'vegot servers, you've got, You
know, users, support, you gotall kinds of issues that can
happen. So, yeah, I I keepthinking, You know, 6 months,
(35:53):
I'll feel like, okay.
Everything's gone well for 6months. I'm in a good state, and
And, you know, I'll feel betterabout it, but I don't know. Do
you still worry at times?
Justin (36:05):
No. I I worry a lot less. So that that part is true.
There's a threshold where but ittook a while to get here. Right?
Because I went I wentindependent in 2016 with
marketing for developers course,and I thought, okay. I'd done,
like, whatever, 60 or 70 k onthat part time, and I thought,
(36:27):
well, if I go full time, maybe Ican double it. And I ended up
doing more than double it. Soinitially, those things were
great, But then there was kindof, like, you know, like, in
terms of, marketing fordevelopers, it just wasn't It
wasn't like a SaaS where there'slike this recurring revenue
always coming in. Right?
With Transistor, the initialperiod of building it was
(36:52):
Stressful. But once we hit, youknow, probably 20 k a month, I
calmed down a lot. And thensince then, it's just more and
more calm because You get aftera while, you just realize, sure,
there is a a chance that thiscould all go away overnight, but
(37:14):
it's just so small. You know?Mhmm.
So for me, it's gone down, butevery business is gonna be
different. I mean, I talk tofriends who have SaaS
businesses, and they arestressed constantly, because of
the market they're in, becauseof the competition. I mean, if
if a big player in our industryreally hammered us. That would
(37:35):
be stressful for sure. Butoverall, on a day to day basis,
it's definitely less stressful.
So there that that part andwe've got more people now. So
it's like at first, it was justJohn worrying about Servers and
then me worrying about Johnworrying about servers, and now
Jason is also worrying aboutservers. So it's like The the
(37:57):
the stress is spread out alittle bit, you know, and then,
you know, Helen's always thereto help with customers, and now
I've got Josh as well. And itit's just like, okay. Between us
5, we can we can manage all ofthis.
Yeah. So I'd say it's lessstress down. But it really it it
depends on so many factors.Right? Let's maybe in the last
(38:18):
little bit here, let's talk alittle bit about t.ly.
So you went full time on it onceyou've done double the revenue
of your salary.
Tim (38:25):
Yep. Close close to it. Yep.
Justin (38:27):
And it's only been a month, but how's it gone since
then? What's, the the way youdescribed, like, working on the
knobs, that's exactly that isexactly what it is. It's like,
once you get something that'sworking, it's like, okay, now
you're just like Kindaiteratively turning knobs and
hoping that you get, you know,little boosts. So, yeah, how's
(38:47):
it been since you launched?Since you went full time?
Tim (38:50):
Yeah. It's been it's been good. You know, my big focus has
been, trying to split my timebetween, like, features and
Marketing. So if in my mind, ifI could just continue to grow,
like, awareness of TDIOY beingout there Mhmm. People are still
looking for URL shorteners everysingle day.
(39:11):
They're still, you know, usingthem. But there's actually some
new, like well, I'd say newer,but newer use cases I've seen
where people are, using, like,URL shorteners and putting,
like, QR codes in books. And sothere's always, like, these new
ideas for, you know, how peopleare using them. It gets quite a
bit of traffic just, you know,searching for, a URL
(39:33):
surrendering. So that's been mybiggest goal is how can I move
up and search ranking for someof those key terms?
And then from there, just, youknow, building more brand
awareness.
Justin (39:45):
Yeah. Yeah. This so this is I mean, I I I want I think
now is the time for your SEO hottips because in my mind like,
when you told me about this inour Twitter DMs, I was like, URL
like, URL shorteners, that iscompetitive. Like, it's just
like a lot of people have beendoing it. There's been some big
players like tiny URL and Bitlythat have been around forever.
(40:09):
And I searched for URL Shortenerfree, and you're on the 1st
page. You're you're right upthere with, those folks I just
mentioned. So How did you dothat, Tim?
Tim (40:25):
Well, one thing by kinda nature of the product. So, like,
you know, backlinks are I'm I'mdefinitely you know, I'm not an
ex SEO expert. I've been tryingto learn as much as I can. But,
so When you think of a a URLshortener, by nature, they get a
lot of backlinks because peoplewill create a short link, Post
(40:48):
it on a website, post itsomewhere. And through all that,
I guess, you get, you know, somecredit.
So that's that's helped towhere, you know, you have
millions of backlinks. But thenhow they compete against these
other ones that have, you know,made hundreds of millions of
backlinks. Yeah. That's it'sjust been kinda like, you know,
Multiple things, writing contentaround anything to do with short
(41:11):
links, marketing. So I've, youknow, been doing a lot with the
blog, trying to, you know, do alittle bit of keyword research,
trying to figure out some ofthat stuff, building additional,
like, tools That kinda help withmarketing.
So, like, just like a QR codebuilder, on the site, like, Some
(41:32):
other, you know, tools thatdrive additional traffic. And
then also just, like, reallytrying to make it easy for if
somebody wants to create a shortlink, They can come on the home
page and click shorten, andthey'll get a short link right
away versus some of the otherones make it a little bit more
difficult, want you to sign up,and, that type of thing. So and
(41:53):
then also, I've been trying todo, you know, some promotion
stuff to where I get people to,you know, write about it or, you
know, share articles about URLshorteners in t.01.
Justin (42:04):
I mean, it just sounds like just standard stuff. Like,
you're you're you're you've gota product that people are
searching for. So, I mean, Ithink this is the I mean, in
some ways, it's like it isamazing that In such a big
established category, an upstartlike you could Start something
(42:26):
and get traction. Right? Like,that is amazing in a way, and I
think Speaks to this idea of,like, people being in motion,
searching for a solution is kindof the foundation of every good
business.
And even when things arecompetitive, sometimes there's a
(42:46):
way of threading the needle togetting enough attention.
Because yeah. And are you usingtools? Like, you're using just
like Ahrefs to to monitorbacklinks and Keywords. Is there
anything in particular you'relooking at in Ahrefs or similar
tool?
Tim (43:03):
Yeah. I I've Signed up maybe, like, a month ago for
Ahrefs, so I haven't really beenusing it for that long. It it's
helped a little bit to, youknow, Track some different
things. But for, you know, forthe most part, like, the
keywords are prettystraightforward for what I'm
trying to do and Adding newfeatures that people have been
wanting and then writing, youknow, articles about how to,
(43:25):
like, bulk shorten URLs, andpeople are searching for that
type of stuff. So, you know,once I kinda figure out that, I
just keep keep doing it.
Justin (43:35):
So so your your keyword research tactic, Tim's t keyword
research tactic is just tolisten to what customers are
asking for, build it, and thenwrite a blog post with those
keywords in it.
Tim (43:46):
Yep. Usually. Yep. That's it.
Justin (43:49):
I mean, sometimes it doesn't have to be too
complicated. Right? Like and ifyou're listening, You might
already be ahead of the con thecompetitors just because you're
listening. So what are peopleactively wanting? What do they
want so much that they'rewilling to Search on Google for
bulk shorten URLs and then,like, look, look, look, and then
(44:12):
find t.ly.
And then if you don't have whatthey want, they ask you for it.
Like, there's just so mucheffort there, and if they're
willing to go through all thatwork, It's probably a pretty
good signal that, you know,that's what they want. Yet I
just search for bulk shortenURLs, and, yeah, you're on the
1st page. Pretty impressive.It's really impressive.
Tim (44:34):
Yeah.
Justin (44:35):
What do you have any other Things that you've I I'm
surprised that you just startedusing Ahrefs. Have you tried any
paid acquisition?
Tim (44:44):
Yeah. I'm I've, You know, experimented maybe a year ago,
and then recently, I've startedit back. Google Ads, just try.
It it hasn't really convertedwell. Mhmm.
Justin (44:58):
At
Tim (44:58):
least I mean, I'm not an expert on that either. So at
times, you feel like you're justwasting money, You know, paying
Google. But Yeah. Yeah. I'vebeen experimenting with it, I
guess, trying to, you know,drive more awareness, get more
sign ups, and then see if I canconvert some of those users.
Justin (45:13):
And when you talk to customers, is the vast majority
just saying, yeah. I I was justsearching for you on searching
something on Google, Tried a fewthings out and then landed on
t.ly. Is that and what's thedifferentiator? It's just like
you have features that they wantthat nobody else does?
Tim (45:31):
Couple things there. So yeah. So I I try to talk to
customers, but a lot of times,you know, I don't really hear
anything back. I have some,like, You know, onboarding
emails, but a lot of timesthey'll say, I searched for URL
shortener, and one of the keydifferences is mine's The
shortest. Okay.
Kinda I'm try my latestmarketing tactic is, marketing
as the world's shortest URLshortener.
Justin (45:52):
Okay.
Tim (45:54):
Curious your thoughts on that.
Justin (45:55):
But I mean, if if that's what people are are searching
for, if there's if they careabout it, then it matters.
Tim (46:01):
I do get a lot of messages about that. They say they wanted
to create short links, and minewas the shortest. Yeah. So
that's what kinda drove them.Yeah.
So they want some features andthen some of the other ones. So
when I started the back in,like, 2018 when I started the
link shortener extension, Ithink it was Bitly charged,
like, $1,000 for custom domains.Mhmm. And since then, I don't
(46:24):
know what their latest price is,but it's, you know, it's more
expensive than mine. So Mhmm.
If somebody who's just a, youknow, solo person or small
company and they want to createa few 100 or 1,000, like,
branded links, My my solution isreally the most affordable,
which I know as a you know, whenyou talk about pricing isn't
(46:45):
always the best thing to be thecheapest, but, That's kinda one
of my ways I try to stand out isto be more affordable.
Justin (46:52):
Yeah. I actually I I'm I'm I'm against the grain on
this one. I I think that whenyou're an indie product and
you're trying to stand out, oneof the easiest, most accessible
ways to stand out is to be moreaffordable. I I think it's a
fine it's fine to be more themore affordable option as long
as you can make the economicswork, As long as you've got
(47:15):
enough volume coming in,responding to that pricing, and
as long as those customers are,not too much trouble to service.
I think it's great.
It's it's such an easy way.Like, if there's 2 comparable
products and one is moreaffordable, most of us choose
(47:37):
the more affordable option. It'slike, okay. I could go here. I
could go here, and They're boththe same or similar, and it's
like, well, okay.
I'm just gonna go after, youknow, the one that's a little
bit more affordable. And if youcan give better customer service
on top of that and everythingelse, usually the problems with
the the funny thing about thisbinary of, like, Don't charge
(48:00):
less is that there's so muchother nuance that you'd have to
explore to see if that was trulya bad idea. Like, are if sure.
If you don't have enough volumeof interest and you're charging
$10 a year, That's gonna betricky. But if you're a landing
(48:20):
page builder like Card, andyou've got tons and tons of
Interest.
Lots and lots of people wantthis thing. Charging $19 a year
is actually a huge advantagebecause there's tons of people
like me that signed up, Okay.Don't even think about it every
year. It's just $19 that justit's okay. And they're gonna
(48:41):
have me for life Because nowI've built, also people's jobs
to be done are interesting.
Like, card for me, sure, I buildsome landing pages on it, but
the Primary use case is thosepeople that want me to build a
website for them. I just say,let me build you a free site on
card, just 1 page. I'll do itfor free. And then if you need
(49:03):
something more than that, go andget yourself a Squarespace, you
know, whatever. And I'll justkeep it alive just so peep
people come to me.
I can just build them a quicksite, and then I don't even have
to think about it anymore.Right? See, I think I think
being the more affordableoption, it's one way to stand
out. And on some of thesethings, like Geocodio, I think,
did this as well for, You know,their their API, Google's was
(49:27):
more expensive. If if the thingthat's driving people to look
for a solution is we were onGoogle, but now it's too
expensive Or now we need thissolution, but Bitly's is too
expensive.
Why wouldn't you wanna positionyourself in there to be like,
yeah. We're a little bit moreaffordable. Seems great. Seems
like a an underrated, strategyas long as all the other
(49:51):
variables match up.
Tim (49:52):
Yeah. Well, that's good to hear because I've always felt
like maybe I underpriced it.But, yeah. Yeah. So I'm trying
to get the people who are just,You know, they might need a few
short links, for differentmarketing things.
People need it for I've seenpeople who are, getting married,
and they want to have a shortlink to put on their, invitation
(50:13):
Yeah. Or QR code. So they'll useit. They don't really need a ton
of features. They just need tocreate it, so that's why it's
kinda a good solution for thosetype of users.
Justin (50:22):
Yeah. How's churn? Is churn okay?
Tim (50:26):
Yeah. I'd have to come and look. I it's it's not bad. I
mean, once people kinda getusing it, they they stick
around. But, yeah, I don't havethe number on top of my head,
but it's It's it's not massive.
Justin (50:38):
I mean, that's usually the other concern with lower
priced options. I just I thoughtof it because you said weddings.
I'm like, oh, well, that'sObviously, a high churn scenario
there. But if you got it, you Imean, the other thing is, like,
somebody might use it for theirwedding, And then 3 months
later, their boss says, hey. Weneed a tool for tracking how how
(50:58):
many people clicked on thislink.
And they go, oh, well, I usethat for my wedding. Why don't
we just use it for This as well.So those things can build on
each other. So one scenariomight be high churn, but the the
next one that comes along mightbe fine. Right?
There's, lots of options.There's Yep. There's lots of
nuance beyond, some of thegeneralized device that's out
(51:20):
there.
Tim (51:21):
Yeah. Yeah. I enjoy just, you know, helping out. Like,
people use it for free. That'sthe majority of users using it
are just creating free links.
I mean, If you go on Twitter andsearch TDIOY/, you can see just,
like, thousands of people aresharing, and and most of those
people are just doing it forfree. And I kinda enjoy that
part as a developer justbuilding a product that, you
(51:41):
know, almost from day 1, since Ihad the user base using the
extension, I had Thousands ofpeople creating short links.
Mhmm. And that's kinda a neatfeel and, you know, I enjoy
that. Doesn't really always makeyou money, but, It is a neat
side to where, you know, peopleare using the service and,
getting a lot of benefit out ofit.
Justin (52:02):
Yeah. Perfect, man. Well, this was good. I think we
we covered a we covered a lot ofground. As always, if folks are
listening right now, Yes.
That means you in your car, andyou wanna pull over to the side,
write down some notes, shoot meor Tim a DM, Write us an email,
whatever. Tim is Tim Leland, l el a n d, On Twitter, I'm m I
(52:28):
Justin, the letter m, the letterI. Justin, go check out t.ly, or
Even better, search for URLshortener free and then click on
t.li first. That really helps AsIndi's out, when people Google
search and then click our resultfirst, try it out. I just tried
it.
I love how you make a You make alink and it automatically gives
(52:50):
you that QR code. That's that'ssome smart product design there.
And, Tim, you also have a blog,timleland.com. Yep. Anything
else we should tell peopleabout?
Tim (53:01):
No. Definitely send me a message. I try to try to respond
to anything that people send me.So and, if you need to create a
short URL, use t.0y.
Justin (53:10):
Use the world's shortest
Tim (53:12):
Yes.
Justin (53:13):
URL shortener.
Tim (53:16):
Cool. Thanks for your cheesy.
Justin (53:18):
No. I love it, man. I love it. Thanks for doing this,
Tim.
Tim (53:21):
Yep. Thanks for having me
Justin (53:27):
on.
Tim (53:38):
That's where, you know, being a developer, I don't
always think about themarketing, but I I'm trying to
do more and more. I've alwaysthought if I could find Me,
Justin Jackson, to to be themarketer. That's I bet you've
gotten that a 1000000 times.Like, hey. I need you to come be
the marketer, and I'll just bethe developer because developing
(54:00):
is easy.
It's the marketing. It's it's sochallenging at times. Like, what
should I do next? Yeah. Well,I'm gonna
Justin (54:07):
save this clip in case I ever find myself unemployed,
Tim.
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Build Your SaaS. This is the
behind the scenes story ofbuilding a web app App in 2023.
I'm Justin. And today, I've gota guest, Tim Leland.
Tim, Tim, how's it going, man?
Tim (00:26):
It's going good. Great to finally be on here. I've been
listening to you for feels likeyears. I don't even know how far
back.
Justin (00:34):
When did we start the show? We started in 2018, so
it's been going going for awhile. And, you reached out.
Actually, I got got a messagefrom your wife and a message
from you, so I I I got doubledup. You you doubled up on,
feedback on the Aaron Francisepisode, And you said, hey.
I think it'd be fun to have meon and talk about your
(00:57):
experience bootstrapping on theside, And you've just recently
gone full time. Is that right?
Tim (01:03):
Yep. About a month ago.
Justin (01:05):
About a month ago. And the product is t.ly, which is a
URL shortener, which I think wecan get into that too. That's
that that seems like acompetitive category. But maybe
just for the folks at home,describe what you've been doing,
you know, for the past while,what you've been working on, and
how you kind of built yourselfup To go in full time a month
(01:27):
ago.
Tim (01:28):
Yeah. It's it's a long story. I'll try to tell you the
short version, but, Yeah. Itreally goes back to college
graduated college and just gotits job working, you know,
software developer and startedbuilding websites on the side,
and then eventually that turnedinto small apps. And then I got
(01:48):
and got into, like, the ChromeExtension space and started
building a few Chromeextensions, and then, it's kinda
led me to where I'm at now towhere, you know, I had a a
weather extension that Grew to,like, 250,000 users.
Didn't make a ton of money, butit was nice side income. And
then I built a link shortenerextension, and that actually is
(02:11):
kinda took off and has 450,000users, and then that Led me to t
d I l y.
Justin (02:17):
Wow. Okay. And, and you've you've also got a family?
You've got you've got kids aswell?
Tim (02:23):
Yep. Yep. I have a 8 year old, 5 year old, and 3 year old.
All all boys.
Justin (02:28):
8 year old, 5 year old, and 3 year old. All boys. 3
boys. Okay. You're similar to tomy setup, except our we have 4,
and our oldest is a girl.
So we now she's at college, andwe've got 3 boys at home. And
and my wife is, like, sadbecause there's There's no girls
around anymore. Just just us 4boys. You said okay. I wanna you
(02:50):
said, I wanna pitch you on theidea of coming on the pod and
sharing my journey of buildingside projects the last decade
while raising a family.
I can also share the guardrailsI put in place before before
finally going full time on t ly. So, yeah, what are what's
kind of your your perspectiveon, maybe what Aaron and I were
(03:11):
talking about, but also yourexperience in I I mean, a
decade's a long time, so you'vebeen kinda gradually working on
things on the side. How what'sbeen your experience with that
while also having 3 small boys?
Tim (03:27):
Yeah. Yeah. With with kids and, you know, house and Bills
and everything is it definitelymakes it more challenging to
say, hey. I'm gonna go fulltime. So, if I could have Done
this 10 years ago, it would havebeen a lot easier of a decision
to take the risk early on.
Justin (03:43):
Yeah. But
Tim (03:44):
yeah. So some of the Guardrails would be I well, my
first goal was let me make morethan what I'm making or or meet
what I'm making at my Currentjob. Yeah. And then once I did
that, I kind of felt like, okay.I could probably do it, but it
still felt A little risky.
So then I just said, okay. Letme just keep waiting, and I kept
(04:04):
waiting until I was more likedouble what I was doing, Which
is probably pretty extreme, butonce I hit that, I felt like,
okay. If I don't take the risknow, I don't know if I ever
will. So I just said, you know,worst case, I could lose half my
revenue. I would still bealright.
Mhmm. And then the other thingis Since I've been doing this
(04:24):
for so long, I've always had,like, some project making some
additional side income. So a lotof that, we've always been
saving, trying to live off ofjust normal salary and Yeah.
Putting the rest intoinvestments and things. So
Having a you know, that thoseare my guardrails, I guess, is
hopefully make more than whatyou do at your day job
Justin (04:45):
because, you
Tim (04:47):
know, there's other expenses. You gotta think
insurance. You gotta think, youyou know, you gotta do your
taxes a little differently.
Justin (04:53):
Yeah. You mean as a business owner?
Tim (04:56):
As a business owner. Yeah. Yeah. So you gotta think, okay.
I have some expense in thebusiness.
So there's you know, that'sthat's kinda how I did it, to
decide.
Justin (05:04):
Yeah. And and the I mean, the the one kind of thing
that jumps out at me right awayis is the time frame, that 10
years of kind of Consistenteffort. How would you describe
your effort during that time?Like, was this, a few hours a
week? Was this You waking up at3 in the morning every morning
and, going for a 1 hour jog andthen coding for 3 hours.
(05:27):
What what was your schedule likekind of building up To this.
Tim (05:31):
Yeah. Before kids or when the kids were younger, it would
be usually after we put them tobed. I would work for a few
hours on something, And a lot ofit was learning early on. So I
was, you know, learning at myday job, but also building
different apps, learning how to,like, scale and How to build and
build and support users, and, alot of it's marketing, which I
(05:52):
learned a lot from you over theyears. So that's always been
helpful.
Justin (05:57):
I mean, yeah, you you've been quite success. I don't know
if I've ever done anythingthat's had that many users. So,
you you've clearly donesomething right. You you're
reaching a lot of people.
Tim (06:06):
Yeah. Yeah. The challenge is, you know, I I I need to
figure out how to do a betterjob at converting. So if I have,
you know, 450,000 users using aa free Chrome extension. How can
I get, you know, a higherpercentage of those to convert?
And that's something I'm I'mactively working on.
Justin (06:23):
Yeah. Is that is that your funnel right now? Like, The
people funnel from a free Chromeextension over to your your paid
URL shortening service, and thenyou're hoping that a few of
those, I think you can use yourshortener for free, but then the
idea is that eventually folkswill upgrade to Either $5 a
(06:44):
month, $20 a month, or $50 amonth.
Tim (06:47):
Yeah. Yeah. So, the extension initially was Oh, I I
built the link shortenerextension and didn't even have
t.ly. Mhmm. And, I grew that tobe, you know, I don't know,
maybe 10, 50000 users.
And at that point, I decided Ineed to build TDIO and put
subscriptions around it. Andthen so, yeah, you're gonna
(07:10):
install the extension, use itfree, and then that's that was
my initial funnel. Now I'm, youknow, branching out To more of,
like, okay, SEO, getting morepeople who just search URL
shortener or URL URL shortenerwith custom domain, Those type
of things, more advancedfeatures, trying to get those
users to subscribe and, sign upto, you know, unlock some of
(07:30):
those, features.
Justin (07:32):
Yeah. Yeah. We gotta get to your SEO hot tips later on in
the episode because I'm curioustoo. But let's get back to this
idea of building on the side. SoIt it sounds like over the past
10 years, you've had babiesthroughout there.
Right? And you were just atnighttime Putting in a few hours
for learning, for, like,figuring your own things out,
(07:55):
doing projects, Doingexperiments. Am I characterizing
it correctly?
Tim (08:00):
Yep. Yep. Yeah. A lot of times it was just paying, you
know, can I make something thatwould pay for lunch? You know,
that was kind of my initial goalor get, you know, get coffee and
not feel like not feel guiltyabout doing those things.
So That was initially, thegoals. I also pay for the
servers and hosting and thingslike that.
Justin (08:18):
And I'm sure, if you're like me, there was also a this
is actually one interestingthing about having kids is that
for me, It definitely createdthis additional motivation of
well, first, comes therealization. Wow. This is More
expensive than I thought it wasgonna be. It's just expensive,
(08:39):
in a way that Sneaks up on youand then the idea being, okay,
wow, I I need to make moreincome for the family. How am I
gonna do that?
And it becomes this additionalmotivator. Right? It's like,
okay, well, I've got the dayjob, and that's paying me
whatever. And now I'm trying todo stuff on the side as well.
(09:00):
You know?
Like, I wanna make a little bitmore on the side. Was that true
for you? A little motivation onthe side?
Tim (09:06):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. So, you know, you realize
real quick, it moving up in ajob, You know, it takes time.
So in my mind, I was like, if Icould do anything on the side
with the skills I have, why not,you know, go for it? And Yeah.
Initially, it was just buildingwebsites. That's something that
almost any developer could do isgo out to, like, businesses and
(09:28):
then, you know, pitch them onbuilding a new website. That's
was kinda how I originally gotstarted.
Justin (09:33):
Yeah. Me too. Yeah. I would build, like, WordPress
sites on the side all the time,which is its own form of stress,
Like that that I remember I feellike in I mean, in retrospect,
it's probably all it allcontributes to where we end up.
But The, the I I have thisconstant, like, debate in my
(09:53):
head, which is I wonder if I hadput As much energy as I did into
side projects, if I put thatsame energy into, career
progression if, you know, whereI would have ended up or
whatever.
And, it's just interesting tothink about it because I I think
(10:18):
for a lot of folks, getting abetter paying job is actually
Probably a better option. Maybenot in this economy, but the you
know, the the idea is that youcould, for example, switch
Employers. Every big jump insalary I had was switching
employers, and it seems like alot of folks don't even Consider
(10:40):
it. It's like, well, no. I'mjust gonna kill myself building
WordPress sites on the weekend.
It's like, well, you could putin maybe the Same amount of
effort really researching acompany. I remember one time I
just put all my effort intoapplying that 37 signals. And, I
got I didn't get a response the1st time. And then the 2nd time
(11:03):
they flew me down for a jobinterview. And then I was gonna
take the job with them, and itwas less money, but then I went
to my existing employer andsaid, I'm thinking about taking
this job because it's remote.
And then they gave me, I think,like, a $10,000 raise or
something, maybe $15,000 raise.And so it was like, wow. Like
that that That was a big jumpjust because I said I might
(11:27):
switch careers. Anyway, that's athat's a that's a a tangent. But
did you consider, like, careerprogression, or did you just
feel stuck in the career?
Like, what was the Was there anysort of math on that side?
Tim (11:43):
Yes. But I think I see sometimes people say, how do I
make, you know, $10,000 a month?And The number one way is just
go get a job that pays 10,000,and that's Yeah. That's kind of
the best approach for thatversus trying to build a SaaS
product that doesn't. Yeah.
Yeah. So I've I've I mean, atthe same time, while I was
building things, a lot of theknowledge of working, like,
(12:03):
nights and weekends were Helpingme at my day job. So I was
progressing, and I, you know, Idid move up over time and and
make more and more money. So, Imean, that's definitely not a
bad approach. But if I go backto my very first job out of
college, I remember I went andit was, like, 8 to 6, and I
would walk in some mornings.
(12:25):
It would be dark, and I wouldleave some nights at 6. And I
thought, I don't know if I cando this for the next 40 years or
so.
Justin (12:33):
Yeah.
Tim (12:34):
So I always kinda had in back of my mind, like, if I
could build something That wouldbe, you know, what I'd wanna do.
Now working from home andremotely helped a lot with that,
so that's not as big of anissue. But Yeah. That that was
kind of my mindset all along is,okay, if I could build something
that did make enough money, Iwould, you know, go for it and
try to build it to be reallybig.
Justin (12:55):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's I mean, I I think that
is the flip side. It's like,yeah, you can go get a job.
But for some folks, There'salways just gonna be this kind
of insatiable hunger to do yourown thing, own your own thing,
build your own thing, or have aretroactively, I'm wondering,
(13:18):
like, I wonder if some of thosefirst jobs, if they'd given me
some equity, If I would havestayed or if they'd you know,
what if they'd allowed me towork remote right from the
beginning, because I've alsobeen through the experience of,
like throughout my entirecareer, I've hired people. And
Part of the hiring process forme was like saying, okay, well,
(13:39):
like, what are you trying to getout of this? Like, what problems
are you trying to solve in yourown life? And, you know, for
some people, it's like, I hatemy commute. Other people, it's
like, I've got all these studentloans I'm trying to pay off.
Other people are you know,they've got all these things
That are causing them to hustle.Maybe on the side, build
something on the side, buildwebsites on the side, build
(14:02):
projects on the side. And as anemployer, you know, at different
jobs I had when I was hiringpeople, sometimes I could just
hire these people and I couldjust see all of their stress And
everything just go down, andthey no longer had that desire
to run their own thing. Theywere just so happy to, not be
running their own thing. I haveanother friend here, and he was
(14:25):
like a solo contractor forever,doing all sorts of like cool AWS
infrastructure stuff.
And then he got hired atAutomatic, and it was like
Automatic just took care ofeverything for him. And Now he's
like, I'm so glad I'm notrunning my own business, you
know? And it is a legitimateoption. Like, I I just think
(14:47):
that people should There aresome folks who are just like,
You know what? I just have thesethings I'm trying to accomplish.
Like, I just want more familytime, less commute, remote work,
A little bit more money andthat's it, you know, and some
autonomy in my work. And if youfind an employer that can give
you that, then Maybe that's goodfor you. There are other people,
(15:11):
I think, that are just like, youknow what? This is never gonna
be enough until I'm running myown thing. Do you feel like that
was you?
Which which side are you on doyou feel?
Tim (15:20):
Yeah. That's a tough one. I am kinda in the middle because
I, You know, for years enjoyed,you know, working with people,
working for a company. There'sdefinitely great benefits. You
know?
And, like, yeah, when you gohome at night, you don't really
have to, you know, worry toomuch about Yeah. You know, if
something goes wrong. But, youknow, at the same time, you
(15:43):
know, if if a company couldoffer, like, ownership and, all
those great benefits that youmentioned, like, that would
definitely be a selling point. Ido enjoy, like, if I build
something and then directly, youknow, for that time, more people
sign up or, you know, subscribeor or, You make more money off
of it. I enjoy that part of itso that I feel like when I build
(16:05):
it, I'm the owner of it type ofthing.
So
Justin (16:07):
Yeah. Well, I think that's I think we've painted a
picture of multiple paths toself actualization. Maybe
that'll be the title of thisepisode. Okay. So you're working
on this thing.
I mean, I think the other thingto point out with with what
you're talking about is I Imean, one of the things we I
discussed with Aaron is hedescribes this as his maximum
(16:30):
effort era. How would youdescribe your effort All along,
was was it Like how Yeah, howdid that feel to you over this
decade, Leading up to you goingfull time, what was the amount
of effort? What was the cost?Did you what did you have to
give up? Maybe talk through afew of those things.
Tim (16:50):
Yeah. That maximum effort kinda hit home with me when he
was talking about that. And, soover the years, I would say
there would be Times where Iwould put in maximum effort, and
then I would burn out and takebreaks. And
Justin (17:06):
Okay.
Tim (17:07):
I was it was kinda like up and down, and it would be like,
okay. Something seems to beworking, and then I would kinda,
like, get discouraged. And thenI'd be like, alright. I'm gonna
take a break. Just relax.
And as far as, like, what maybeI missed out on, probably, like,
just not watching as much TVthat which, You know, some
(17:28):
people would say it's probably agood thing. So Yeah. You know, I
I don't really watch a ton ofTV, so I think I would spend a
lot of the time, you know,working on things. Probably lost
a lot of sleep over the years.There were times where I'd be
doing something and, You know,I'd have to wake up early the
next morning, but I would be uptill 2, 3 o'clock in the
morning, and then I'd be like azombie the next day.
(17:51):
So that was definitely rough attimes. But, back to what you
said earlier about having kids,And, you know, thinking about,
okay, I'd like to make moremoney. I only have this much
time. Mhmm. I think it reallyhelps you to, like, focus so
that If if I didn't have thosefactors, I might would have,
(18:12):
like, wasted a lot of time,built something that didn't
really, you know, Do anythingversus when you have very little
time, you end up, you know,saying, okay.
What can I do and get done inthe next hour or 2? Yeah. And
then push it out there. Andthat's kinda how I've always
worked. Like, going back to,like, the weather extension, I
would, you know, be like, okay.
What can I do? Make it a littlebit better, Fix some bugs,
(18:34):
whatever, push it out, and thenbe done, and then, you know,
move on to something else.
Justin (18:40):
Yeah. It's kinda like the ultimate Pomodoro. Because
Yeah. Because you just know,like, okay. The baby's napping.
My spouse is out Shopping forgroceries. I've got 1 hour to to
do something with, and I'm justgonna use that the most
efficiently that I can. BecauseI was very similar. I just had
(19:02):
projects all along. There was athere was a period of time
where, like in my early twentieswhen our we had one 1 or 2 of
our babies that were still quiteyoung, we we I tried launching a
business with my brother and afriend That ended up not working
out.
And then after that, my wifeasked if I could take a break
(19:24):
from, From that stuff, just goget a job, take a break, just,
you know and so I I took apretty good break. I mean, for
me, I took a Pretty good breakfrom, like, let's say, 2008 to
2012. Really didn't work on anyNo. A few things, but for me, it
(19:45):
was like I was taking a break.But when I did start working on
stuff again, You know, I Iwanted to be more mindful about
it.
And my motivation was alwayslike, I'm doing this for the
family. There's also a big partof me that I think maybe I
wasn't completely honest. Like,a big part of me was doing it
for me too. Like, I just hadthat desire to that itch I
(20:09):
needed to scratch. And I I dothink that between 2012 and 2000
let's say, maybe 16, 17, Therewere probably multiple times
where I was just consumed withthinking about the business.
(20:33):
Like, Even though I was tryingto be balanced, you know, it was
just like it's just so easy whenyou're at the dinner table to
fate to kind of, like, zone outand Be thinking about something
else or all the other thingsthat could fit in your brain,
like I don't know. Like, When'sthe last time I took the kids to
(20:54):
the park? Oh, we got a birthdayparty coming up. Oh, we still
need to plan a vacation. Man,it's been 3 weeks since I've
gone on a date.
Like, all those normal thingsthat you could be thinking
about, for me, got replaced bybusiness thoughts. Did you have
any of that, and were you ableto set up any sort of guardrails
(21:16):
that were actually Effective inin creating good boundaries
between those things?
Tim (21:22):
Yeah. You probably would have to ask my wife that
question. She I'm trying tothink back. You know, I wouldn't
say I really missed out onanything. Probably now more than
ever in the last 6 months or sowhere I've been, you know, cons
kinda consumed with TDI OI,like, thinking, What can I do?
(21:43):
What can I do to you know, Ikeep thinking, like, I turn the
turn knobs? I switch this, I dothis, and then, you know, I see
different results. So I keeptrying to think what knobs can I
turn
Justin (21:54):
Mhmm?
Tim (21:55):
What switches can I you know, to grow traffic, to grow
users? Yeah. But, like, in thepast with Some of these other
projects, it would just be,like, maybe 10 o'clock at night,
and I would just get on mycomputer and you know, I I would
probably be thinking about itall throughout the day, and then
I would put, like, littlereminders in my phone, and I
just go through and be like, oh,I need to do this. This is a
(22:15):
good idea. I need to try to, Youknow, fix this issue or go
through my emails.
But, no, really, probably in thelast, like, year is when I've
really been more consumed nowmore than ever, which
Justin (22:27):
Yeah.
Tim (22:29):
Has had some negatives to where I'm, you know, thinking a
lot about The business morebecause now it's more important.
It's like, okay. If it failsnow, then, you know, I'm gonna
have to do a 180 and, You know,either go back and get a regular
job or, figure out, you know,what can I do to fix it type of
thing?
Justin (22:47):
Yeah. Yeah. There's 2 things I I wanna touch on there.
One thing I just keep thinkingabout, and and maybe this is
just me, so I'm I'm open tothat, that being true. But
realizing that creating room,creating space, creating margin
To even have thoughts.
(23:09):
So, I mean, since Transistor'sbeen doing well, and I've kind
of, in some ways, Taken my footoff the accelerator a little bit
in terms of, like, pushingmyself real hard. All of a
sudden, I've had Room, space,energy, the mindfulness to be
(23:30):
aware of other things, and thatcould be Things with me
personally, like my own mentalhealth. It could be things with
the kids. It could be thingswith my spouse. It could be
things with friends.
It could be things with myparents. Like, I've called my
mom and dad probably more in thelast 2 or 3 years that I have
(23:51):
combined since I left home, andpart of it is I've just had more
room, more space to I've givenmyself more space to have those
thoughts. And it's almost like Ihave only a certain number of
(24:11):
thought blocks in a day, Andit's just so easy for me to
default to business because Ilike business. There's lots to
think about. There's lots to do.
And as you said, there's alwaysthese different knobs that you
could be turning. Having thisrealization personally, I've
just wondered how Other peoplehave dealt with that because
(24:33):
there is a real danger, I think,to feeling like, well, I'm
present. I I show up for all thekids' recitals, and, my spouse
and I have just a recurring datenight all the time. And, again,
it could just be me, but I justfound, like, it it was a real
battle to give myself The room,the space to just not think
(24:58):
about business, and to allowother thoughts to come up like,
oh, I wonder how my 2nd youngestis doing in math right now.
Like, I should be thinking aboutthat.
And, Yeah. I'm wondering whatyou think about all that. Like,
what's the is there a danger ora risk when you're Building
(25:20):
stuff like this to just fill allyour thoughts and all the,
available brain Time and spacewith business stuff, to the
exclusion of some other stuffthat might kind of naturally
Emerge if you gave it space andtime to do so. Does that make
sense?
Tim (25:39):
Yeah. Yeah. And I I think that's that maximum effort. My
You know, the last 6 months orso, I feel like I've been
putting maximum effort into TDI0I. And, yes, there have been
times where I probably havethought, okay.
I'm, you know, throwing thebaseball with my oldest son, and
I'm not really thinking aboutwhat we're doing. I'm thinking
(25:59):
about some other idea I have orI need to be doing this. Or, you
know, you're sitting at a dinnertable and you pull out your
phone and, you know, writingdown reminders so you don't
forget or responding to emails.And I'm sometimes, yeah, I'm
telling myself, it's worth it.Let me do this now, and then,
you know, I'll make up for itwith the more time later.
(26:21):
Mhmm. And it's definitely likeyou're taking you're gambling.
You're gambling this time forhopefully more in the future.
Mhmm. And it's a risk.
I think it it was there inepisode where, he talked about
how his wife it was him. Right?He said his wife really, you
know, Took did a lot of thestuff with the kids and
Justin (26:40):
Mhmm.
Tim (26:41):
That's why I sent it to my wife originally because she I
was like, I bet you can relateto this. And she's like, you
know, Great mom. She, you know,does a lot and keeps keeps us
kinda organized on that side. SoYeah. That really helps out.
It allows me to, you know, focusand, You spend time doing the
this stuff, like the businessside of things. So
Justin (27:01):
Yeah. And I think that's, like, another thing I I
have tried to, bring up is thatif there's alignment there,
like, If 1 person's likebuilding a business or projects
on the side or whatever, and thethe other person is okay with
that and is also okay to takeon, another role, and they're
(27:23):
just like you know, if 1 personjust wants to be, like, home
with the kids, that's their fulltime thing, that's great. That's
That's, an alignment that canwork. I just have an inbox full
of examples of people who haveemailed me saying, man, like,
wow. This just did not workBecause, you know, maybe their
spouse doesn't wanna do thatmuch of the housework and child
(27:47):
rearing and other things.
I think that's, like, thiscrucial bedrock to all of this
is, having as much alignment asyou can and being pretty sure
about it. Like, okay. Like, thisis this is going to consume some
of my thinking blocks, some ofmy energy blocks, And that's
(28:10):
gonna mean I have to give thatspace up for something else, and
all of this is a bet. I'mbetting my time, energy, focus,
and resources now with the hope,like you said, of it paying off,
in the future. And, also,depending on what kind of
business you build, That thatcould be there or it couldn't be
(28:32):
there either.
Right? Like, that there's, theseare all difficult things to
figure out, especially since,For me, so much of the
motivation was like, I just knewwe needed to to make more money.
And so knowing that, and then Ialso just knew I didn't want to
commute anymore. And I also Soin the in the search for these
(28:54):
things, it's good to want thosethings. And then it's just like
this navigating the costs, whatyou're giving up, if you're
giving up too much right now.
It's None of it's easy to figureout. You know?
Tim (29:07):
Yeah. I've thought over the years, I've I've thought to
myself, I wish I could justkinda be normal and just, You
know, work at work at 9 to 5,enjoy it. But I just always you
know, like I said, I would takebreaks over the years, and I
would, You know, work onsomething, get a great idea. And
then, but, yeah, I would be youknow, why can't I just, you
(29:28):
know, go to work, come home, andbut, You know, just my, I guess,
drive to to build something justevery single time just took
over, and I was like, okay. Thisidea is gonna be it.
I just need to, you know, buildit, put it out there, see what
happens. And Yeah. It'sdefinitely been a journey, and,
(29:48):
everything kinda builds on topof each other too. So that's
what's been nice is thelearnings of your past have
really helped your future.
Justin (29:55):
Yeah. I mean, I think, Overall, especially the way you
did it kind of gradually becauseAaron describes maximum effort
as, the most. The the max I cando. He says the effort he can
give is the maximum determined,but by what he's willing to
sacrifice. In my mind, it itsounds like he's saying, like,
okay.
(30:15):
There's things I won'tsacrifice, and I'm willing to
give everything else to that.And maybe one reason that hasn't
really resonated with me isbecause it's like to me, it was
like, well, of course, I'm notgonna watch TV. Like, I'm the
same. I don't watch TV. I don'twatch sports.
I don't have hobbies. Like, allthat stuff resonated with me,
but that was just like, well, ofcourse, that's not gonna be
(30:36):
true. I always found itdifficult, and maybe he just
doesn't have this difficulty. Ialways found it difficult to
navigate In real life, whenyou're getting up to, like, am I
gonna be home for dinner? Sure.
Okay. I'll be home for dinner.But then am I gonna Stay up all
night and then just be a realshithead the next day? Well,
(30:56):
that happened a lot. And then amI gonna be like consumed by
something, like a launch orwhatever.
And then my kids are saying,hey, dad, dad, dad. And I'm
just, like, in my own world allthe time. That stuff just
happened more than I'd probablylike to admit. So how how do you
(31:17):
define like, what is The effortpiece for you, is it just like
have you been good at justsaying, you know what? This
part, I'm just I'm not gonnacross that line, and I'm good
with it?
Or have and it or have you justbeen able to do it over a longer
period of time, like you seesaid, 10 years, And just that
pace was manageable. What's thenavigation of all that for you?
Tim (31:42):
Yeah. I I think one of the benefits of, You know, building
a business, like a a web webbusiness SaaS product is you're
usually home Anyways Mhmm.Unless you have to travel with
it. So that's that's kind ofbeen a benefit to where you
know, I usually was would bealways home working on
something. But yes.
(32:02):
So you might be home, but areyou present mentally? Mhmm. Not
not I wouldn't say a 100%always. You know, like I said,
the whole, You know, being atdinner and checking your phone.
Yeah.
So those are the things to towork on. So be present in the
times where, you know, it's It'simportant. You know, don't miss,
school events, sporting things.Try to be there for all those.
(32:26):
Mhmm.
But, yeah, I think A lot of mysacrifice was probably my own
sleep and, probably health attimes, but and also maybe doing
what I wanna do is, you know,like, Watch a TV or like, I
don't really watch sports or TV,so that that really helped with,
you know, giving you that extratime.
Justin (32:44):
The the other thing though is that It's interesting
because, like, the in in a way,your own sleep I think you said
sleep and health is your ownsacrifice, But in another way,
that affects everybody else. Soit's like I I understand the
distinction like, oh, I'm justgiving this up. I I it it can
also, I think, set up sometimesa, this idea of like, yeah. I'm
(33:09):
just sacrificing my own stufffor the sake of the family or
whatever. And, again, I'm justspeaking personally, but I
haven't found that always to behealthy.
Like, I also had that feelinglike, well, I'm just up at, you
know, 4 in the morning workingon this email newsletter that
I'm gonna send out that's, Youknow, contributing to this
bigger thing I'm trying to buildover time. Overall, am I glad
(33:33):
that I did it? Yes. And but onthe other hand, I'm always kind
of questioning. I wonder if Icould have done it differently.
I'm wondering if I could havebeen, better to myself, which it
would have in turn helped inother areas of life, just like
eventually, You know, the sleepdoesn't just affect you, it
(33:55):
affects other folks too. And,you know, the same is true for
Our physical and mental health.Eventually, you know, you can't
you can't keep grinding thatdown, and then, You know, think
that it's not gonna affectanything. Right? Like, it's
gonna eventually affect you,which will in turn affect the
the people around you.
(34:15):
I'm open to the idea that otherpeople just navigate this better
than me, but I'm also, like,wanting to it feels like I I
have this responsibility to alsoquestion, Not just not just you
or but just the listener to say,you know, how healthy are you
being? Are you is theresomething you can do to make
this more manageable, morehealthy for you. We can
(34:39):
sacrifice things for a certainstretch. But In in some ways
your position is alsointeresting. That was the second
thing I wanted to talk about isonce you've launched the
business And you've cut the cordto the employer, and you're
like, okay, I don't wanna goback.
That part there was, like, Kindof a whole other phase of this.
(35:00):
In some ways, everything up tothat point was more manageable
for me Because it was just like,Yeah, like if this email
newsletter doesn't go out, it'sfine. If this launch doesn't do
as well, It's fine because Istill have a full time job. But
once I cut the cord to the job,that became more kind of
(35:25):
consuming. Have you felt thatway too?
Tim (35:28):
Yeah. Definitely more, you know, pressure and, I would say,
human stress of, You know, notmessing messing something up to
Mhmm. You know, cause causeissues. You got you know, when
you're doing the solo, you'vegot servers, you've got, You
know, users, support, you gotall kinds of issues that can
happen. So, yeah, I I keepthinking, You know, 6 months,
(35:53):
I'll feel like, okay.
Everything's gone well for 6months. I'm in a good state, and
And, you know, I'll feel betterabout it, but I don't know. Do
you still worry at times?
Justin (36:05):
No. I I worry a lot less. So that that part is true.
There's a threshold where but ittook a while to get here. Right?
Because I went I wentindependent in 2016 with
marketing for developers course,and I thought, okay. I'd done,
like, whatever, 60 or 70 k onthat part time, and I thought,
(36:27):
well, if I go full time, maybe Ican double it. And I ended up
doing more than double it. Soinitially, those things were
great, But then there was kindof, like, you know, like, in
terms of, marketing fordevelopers, it just wasn't It
wasn't like a SaaS where there'slike this recurring revenue
always coming in. Right?
With Transistor, the initialperiod of building it was
(36:52):
Stressful. But once we hit, youknow, probably 20 k a month, I
calmed down a lot. And thensince then, it's just more and
more calm because You get aftera while, you just realize, sure,
there is a a chance that thiscould all go away overnight, but
(37:14):
it's just so small. You know?Mhmm.
So for me, it's gone down, butevery business is gonna be
different. I mean, I talk tofriends who have SaaS
businesses, and they arestressed constantly, because of
the market they're in, becauseof the competition. I mean, if
if a big player in our industryreally hammered us. That would
(37:35):
be stressful for sure. Butoverall, on a day to day basis,
it's definitely less stressful.
So there that that part andwe've got more people now. So
it's like at first, it was justJohn worrying about Servers and
then me worrying about Johnworrying about servers, and now
Jason is also worrying aboutservers. So it's like The the
(37:57):
the stress is spread out alittle bit, you know, and then,
you know, Helen's always thereto help with customers, and now
I've got Josh as well. And itit's just like, okay. Between us
5, we can we can manage all ofthis.
Yeah. So I'd say it's lessstress down. But it really it it
depends on so many factors.Right? Let's maybe in the last
(38:18):
little bit here, let's talk alittle bit about t.ly.
So you went full time on it onceyou've done double the revenue
of your salary.
Tim (38:25):
Yep. Close close to it. Yep.
Justin (38:27):
And it's only been a month, but how's it gone since
then? What's, the the way youdescribed, like, working on the
knobs, that's exactly that isexactly what it is. It's like,
once you get something that'sworking, it's like, okay, now
you're just like Kindaiteratively turning knobs and
hoping that you get, you know,little boosts. So, yeah, how's
(38:47):
it been since you launched?Since you went full time?
Tim (38:50):
Yeah. It's been it's been good. You know, my big focus has
been, trying to split my timebetween, like, features and
Marketing. So if in my mind, ifI could just continue to grow,
like, awareness of TDIOY beingout there Mhmm. People are still
looking for URL shorteners everysingle day.
(39:11):
They're still, you know, usingthem. But there's actually some
new, like well, I'd say newer,but newer use cases I've seen
where people are, using, like,URL shorteners and putting,
like, QR codes in books. And sothere's always, like, these new
ideas for, you know, how peopleare using them. It gets quite a
bit of traffic just, you know,searching for, a URL
(39:33):
surrendering. So that's been mybiggest goal is how can I move
up and search ranking for someof those key terms?
And then from there, just, youknow, building more brand
awareness.
Justin (39:45):
Yeah. Yeah. This so this is I mean, I I I want I think
now is the time for your SEO hottips because in my mind like,
when you told me about this inour Twitter DMs, I was like, URL
like, URL shorteners, that iscompetitive. Like, it's just
like a lot of people have beendoing it. There's been some big
players like tiny URL and Bitlythat have been around forever.
(40:09):
And I searched for URL Shortenerfree, and you're on the 1st
page. You're you're right upthere with, those folks I just
mentioned. So How did you dothat, Tim?
Tim (40:25):
Well, one thing by kinda nature of the product. So, like,
you know, backlinks are I'm I'mdefinitely you know, I'm not an
ex SEO expert. I've been tryingto learn as much as I can. But,
so When you think of a a URLshortener, by nature, they get a
lot of backlinks because peoplewill create a short link, Post
(40:48):
it on a website, post itsomewhere. And through all that,
I guess, you get, you know, somecredit.
So that's that's helped towhere, you know, you have
millions of backlinks. But thenhow they compete against these
other ones that have, you know,made hundreds of millions of
backlinks. Yeah. That's it'sjust been kinda like, you know,
Multiple things, writing contentaround anything to do with short
(41:11):
links, marketing. So I've, youknow, been doing a lot with the
blog, trying to, you know, do alittle bit of keyword research,
trying to figure out some ofthat stuff, building additional,
like, tools That kinda help withmarketing.
So, like, just like a QR codebuilder, on the site, like, Some
(41:32):
other, you know, tools thatdrive additional traffic. And
then also just, like, reallytrying to make it easy for if
somebody wants to create a shortlink, They can come on the home
page and click shorten, andthey'll get a short link right
away versus some of the otherones make it a little bit more
difficult, want you to sign up,and, that type of thing. So and
(41:53):
then also, I've been trying todo, you know, some promotion
stuff to where I get people to,you know, write about it or, you
know, share articles about URLshorteners in t.01.
Justin (42:04):
I mean, it just sounds like just standard stuff. Like,
you're you're you're you've gota product that people are
searching for. So, I mean, Ithink this is the I mean, in
some ways, it's like it isamazing that In such a big
established category, an upstartlike you could Start something
(42:26):
and get traction. Right? Like,that is amazing in a way, and I
think Speaks to this idea of,like, people being in motion,
searching for a solution is kindof the foundation of every good
business.
And even when things arecompetitive, sometimes there's a
(42:46):
way of threading the needle togetting enough attention.
Because yeah. And are you usingtools? Like, you're using just
like Ahrefs to to monitorbacklinks and Keywords. Is there
anything in particular you'relooking at in Ahrefs or similar
tool?
Tim (43:03):
Yeah. I I've Signed up maybe, like, a month ago for
Ahrefs, so I haven't really beenusing it for that long. It it's
helped a little bit to, youknow, Track some different
things. But for, you know, forthe most part, like, the
keywords are prettystraightforward for what I'm
trying to do and Adding newfeatures that people have been
wanting and then writing, youknow, articles about how to,
(43:25):
like, bulk shorten URLs, andpeople are searching for that
type of stuff. So, you know,once I kinda figure out that, I
just keep keep doing it.
Justin (43:35):
So so your your keyword research tactic, Tim's t keyword
research tactic is just tolisten to what customers are
asking for, build it, and thenwrite a blog post with those
keywords in it.
Tim (43:46):
Yep. Usually. Yep. That's it.
Justin (43:49):
I mean, sometimes it doesn't have to be too
complicated. Right? Like and ifyou're listening, You might
already be ahead of the con thecompetitors just because you're
listening. So what are peopleactively wanting? What do they
want so much that they'rewilling to Search on Google for
bulk shorten URLs and then,like, look, look, look, and then
(44:12):
find t.ly.
And then if you don't have whatthey want, they ask you for it.
Like, there's just so mucheffort there, and if they're
willing to go through all thatwork, It's probably a pretty
good signal that, you know,that's what they want. Yet I
just search for bulk shortenURLs, and, yeah, you're on the
1st page. Pretty impressive.It's really impressive.
Tim (44:34):
Yeah.
Justin (44:35):
What do you have any other Things that you've I I'm
surprised that you just startedusing Ahrefs. Have you tried any
paid acquisition?
Tim (44:44):
Yeah. I'm I've, You know, experimented maybe a year ago,
and then recently, I've startedit back. Google Ads, just try.
It it hasn't really convertedwell. Mhmm.
Justin (44:58):
At
Tim (44:58):
least I mean, I'm not an expert on that either. So at
times, you feel like you're justwasting money, You know, paying
Google. But Yeah. Yeah. I'vebeen experimenting with it, I
guess, trying to, you know,drive more awareness, get more
sign ups, and then see if I canconvert some of those users.
Justin (45:13):
And when you talk to customers, is the vast majority
just saying, yeah. I I was justsearching for you on searching
something on Google, Tried a fewthings out and then landed on
t.ly. Is that and what's thedifferentiator? It's just like
you have features that they wantthat nobody else does?
Tim (45:31):
Couple things there. So yeah. So I I try to talk to
customers, but a lot of times,you know, I don't really hear
anything back. I have some,like, You know, onboarding
emails, but a lot of timesthey'll say, I searched for URL
shortener, and one of the keydifferences is mine's The
shortest. Okay.
Kinda I'm try my latestmarketing tactic is, marketing
as the world's shortest URLshortener.
Justin (45:52):
Okay.
Tim (45:54):
Curious your thoughts on that.
Justin (45:55):
But I mean, if if that's what people are are searching
for, if there's if they careabout it, then it matters.
Tim (46:01):
I do get a lot of messages about that. They say they wanted
to create short links, and minewas the shortest. Yeah. So
that's what kinda drove them.Yeah.
So they want some features andthen some of the other ones. So
when I started the back in,like, 2018 when I started the
link shortener extension, Ithink it was Bitly charged,
like, $1,000 for custom domains.Mhmm. And since then, I don't
(46:24):
know what their latest price is,but it's, you know, it's more
expensive than mine. So Mhmm.
If somebody who's just a, youknow, solo person or small
company and they want to createa few 100 or 1,000, like,
branded links, My my solution isreally the most affordable,
which I know as a you know, whenyou talk about pricing isn't
(46:45):
always the best thing to be thecheapest, but, That's kinda one
of my ways I try to stand out isto be more affordable.
Justin (46:52):
Yeah. I actually I I'm I'm I'm against the grain on
this one. I I think that whenyou're an indie product and
you're trying to stand out, oneof the easiest, most accessible
ways to stand out is to be moreaffordable. I I think it's a
fine it's fine to be more themore affordable option as long
as you can make the economicswork, As long as you've got
(47:15):
enough volume coming in,responding to that pricing, and
as long as those customers are,not too much trouble to service.
I think it's great.
It's it's such an easy way.Like, if there's 2 comparable
products and one is moreaffordable, most of us choose
(47:37):
the more affordable option. It'slike, okay. I could go here. I
could go here, and They're boththe same or similar, and it's
like, well, okay.
I'm just gonna go after, youknow, the one that's a little
bit more affordable. And if youcan give better customer service
on top of that and everythingelse, usually the problems with
the the funny thing about thisbinary of, like, Don't charge
(48:00):
less is that there's so muchother nuance that you'd have to
explore to see if that was trulya bad idea. Like, are if sure.
If you don't have enough volumeof interest and you're charging
$10 a year, That's gonna betricky. But if you're a landing
(48:20):
page builder like Card, andyou've got tons and tons of
Interest.
Lots and lots of people wantthis thing. Charging $19 a year
is actually a huge advantagebecause there's tons of people
like me that signed up, Okay.Don't even think about it every
year. It's just $19 that justit's okay. And they're gonna
(48:41):
have me for life Because nowI've built, also people's jobs
to be done are interesting.
Like, card for me, sure, I buildsome landing pages on it, but
the Primary use case is thosepeople that want me to build a
website for them. I just say,let me build you a free site on
card, just 1 page. I'll do itfor free. And then if you need
(49:03):
something more than that, go andget yourself a Squarespace, you
know, whatever. And I'll justkeep it alive just so peep
people come to me.
I can just build them a quicksite, and then I don't even have
to think about it anymore.Right? See, I think I think
being the more affordableoption, it's one way to stand
out. And on some of thesethings, like Geocodio, I think,
did this as well for, You know,their their API, Google's was
(49:27):
more expensive. If if the thingthat's driving people to look
for a solution is we were onGoogle, but now it's too
expensive Or now we need thissolution, but Bitly's is too
expensive.
Why wouldn't you wanna positionyourself in there to be like,
yeah. We're a little bit moreaffordable. Seems great. Seems
like a an underrated, strategyas long as all the other
(49:51):
variables match up.
Tim (49:52):
Yeah. Well, that's good to hear because I've always felt
like maybe I underpriced it.But, yeah. Yeah. So I'm trying
to get the people who are just,You know, they might need a few
short links, for differentmarketing things.
People need it for I've seenpeople who are, getting married,
and they want to have a shortlink to put on their, invitation
(50:13):
Yeah. Or QR code. So they'll useit. They don't really need a ton
of features. They just need tocreate it, so that's why it's
kinda a good solution for thosetype of users.
Justin (50:22):
Yeah. How's churn? Is churn okay?
Tim (50:26):
Yeah. I'd have to come and look. I it's it's not bad. I
mean, once people kinda getusing it, they they stick
around. But, yeah, I don't havethe number on top of my head,
but it's It's it's not massive.
Justin (50:38):
I mean, that's usually the other concern with lower
priced options. I just I thoughtof it because you said weddings.
I'm like, oh, well, that'sObviously, a high churn scenario
there. But if you got it, you Imean, the other thing is, like,
somebody might use it for theirwedding, And then 3 months
later, their boss says, hey. Weneed a tool for tracking how how
(50:58):
many people clicked on thislink.
And they go, oh, well, I usethat for my wedding. Why don't
we just use it for This as well.So those things can build on
each other. So one scenariomight be high churn, but the the
next one that comes along mightbe fine. Right?
There's, lots of options.There's Yep. There's lots of
nuance beyond, some of thegeneralized device that's out
(51:20):
there.
Tim (51:21):
Yeah. Yeah. I enjoy just, you know, helping out. Like,
people use it for free. That'sthe majority of users using it
are just creating free links.
I mean, If you go on Twitter andsearch TDIOY/, you can see just,
like, thousands of people aresharing, and and most of those
people are just doing it forfree. And I kinda enjoy that
part as a developer justbuilding a product that, you
(51:41):
know, almost from day 1, since Ihad the user base using the
extension, I had Thousands ofpeople creating short links.
Mhmm. And that's kinda a neatfeel and, you know, I enjoy
that. Doesn't really always makeyou money, but, It is a neat
side to where, you know, peopleare using the service and,
getting a lot of benefit out ofit.
Justin (52:02):
Yeah. Perfect, man. Well, this was good. I think we
we covered a we covered a lot ofground. As always, if folks are
listening right now, Yes.
That means you in your car, andyou wanna pull over to the side,
write down some notes, shoot meor Tim a DM, Write us an email,
whatever. Tim is Tim Leland, l el a n d, On Twitter, I'm m I
(52:28):
Justin, the letter m, the letterI. Justin, go check out t.ly, or
Even better, search for URLshortener free and then click on
t.li first. That really helps AsIndi's out, when people Google
search and then click our resultfirst, try it out. I just tried
it.
I love how you make a You make alink and it automatically gives
(52:50):
you that QR code. That's that'ssome smart product design there.
And, Tim, you also have a blog,timleland.com. Yep. Anything
else we should tell peopleabout?
Tim (53:01):
No. Definitely send me a message. I try to try to respond
to anything that people send me.So and, if you need to create a
short URL, use t.0y.
Justin (53:10):
Use the world's shortest
Tim (53:12):
Yes.
Justin (53:13):
URL shortener.
Tim (53:16):
Cool. Thanks for your cheesy.
Justin (53:18):
No. I love it, man. I love it. Thanks for doing this,
Tim.
Tim (53:21):
Yep. Thanks for having me
Justin (53:27):
on.
Tim (53:38):
That's where, you know, being a developer, I don't
always think about themarketing, but I I'm trying to
do more and more. I've alwaysthought if I could find Me,
Justin Jackson, to to be themarketer. That's I bet you've
gotten that a 1000000 times.Like, hey. I need you to come be
the marketer, and I'll just bethe developer because developing
(54:00):
is easy.
It's the marketing. It's it's sochallenging at times. Like, what
should I do next? Yeah. Well,I'm gonna
Justin (54:07):
save this clip in case I ever find myself unemployed,
Tim.
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