"Justin, I built a SaaS!"

Episode Transcript
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Justin Jackson (00:12):
Hello and welcome to Build Your SaaS. This
is the behind the scenes storyof building a web app in 2025.
I'm Justin Jackson, cofounder oftransistor.fm.

Harris Kenny (00:24):
And I'm Harris Kenny, founder of OutboundSync.

Yes. Now Harris and I have known each other for
a while. Longtime listener ofBuild Your SaaS. Right?

Oh, yeah.

And I wanted to have Harris on because he sent
me an email with the subjectline, I did it. I built my SaaS.
And Harris has been sharing hisstory with me over the years. I
know he's had multiple attempts.And I think what was exciting to
me, Harris, is just this ishard.

(00:58):
Like doing this, building aSaaS, building a software as a
service product, and getting itto profitability is really tough
and usually takes multipleattempts, as we'll hear. So I
wanted to have you on because Ithink your story will be
encouraging to folks who are init.

Yeah. For sure. Well, I appreciate being on,
man. I mean, yeah, I I listenedto the the show for years. And
so and, yeah, I hadn't had abunch of attempts and always
kind of look up to you fromafar.
We almost met in person atPodcast Movement when it was in
Denver, and we we asked Yeah.

How did that because I was looking at that
email too, and I was like, soyou had emailed me, like, oh,
I'm going to go to podcastmovement in Denver, and then we
just never crossed paths. Well,I was only there for a

little bit. It was when I was things were really
crazy at that time.

Okay.

And so I just didn't have a lot of time. So I
was like, hey. I wanna go, andI'm like, I hope I'll catch
Justin. Take out the boots, butif I don't catch him so I just
like it was like, well, whatyou've talked about for years of
just like no margin. Like, I'vejust been living a no margin
life for a while.
And so it was one of thosesituations where like, I was
late and I had to leave earlyand I I hope I caught you, but

(02:09):
it just didn't it was just tootight. But, like, there's a
future with more margin whereyou're like, my friend's in
town. I'm gonna go do thisthing, and, like, I have time to
do that. And I just, like,haven't haven't had that.

Yeah. I mean, I I think that's gonna resonate
with a lot of people. As anaside, this is something I've
been thinking about for a whileis you're a part of this Mega
Maker community that I've beenrunning since 02/2013. And I'd
like to do some more real lifemeetups with Mega Maker folks.
And maybe I have to take my sonto university in Toronto this

(02:42):
summer.
So I was thinking, oh, maybe wecould do a meetup in Toronto.
Where are you based out of, bythe way?

I'm based in Denver.

You're in Denver. Okay. So, yeah, I'm
gonna try to do some, like, onboth sides of the continent.
And, yeah, hopefully, we canstill hang out Yes. In person.

Definitely. I mean, assuming nothing tragic
happens, but I mean, I mean, I'mhere, and I would love to. And I
so I joined Mega Maker, but thenleft. And I I had joined a bunch
of things and left kind of,like, in the early days.

Why'd you why did you leave? You just felt
like it was too much. Not whatwas the reason?

So I left, like, everything. It's like I got off
Twitter. I left MicroConf. Ileft Mega Maker. So I quit my
job in 2019.

Yeah. Let's go back to that. Okay. 2019, you
quit your job.

Quit my job. I had had a bunch of bosses, and I was
my wife and wife and I werethinking about starting a family
and having kids. And I just likecouldn't envision being able to
do the things I would want to doas a husband and dad in these
like work environments I'd hadfor the previous decade.

Just because they were- it was long hours or
stressed or-

Just not like a lot of flexibility. It's like,
you know, and like, well, whatif I, like, need to go to an
appointment? And the the bosssaid I'd had at the time was
he's like, well, we don't reallywant you here. It's like, well,
yeah, but, like, I can just,like, do this stuff later on my
computer. Like, it's not

Yeah. I don't know.

I just didn't feel like I would be able to do it
the way I want it to be. Youknow?

I had I had a great like, when I got into tech
in 02/2008, I had a great boss.But even then, I remember there
being some things that graded onme. One was I didn't like other
people looking at my screenwhile I was working. In
truthfulness, like my day now,if you looked at my screen, you

(04:30):
might not have any idea of whatI'm doing. You know what?
Like, it could look like I'mwasting my time. It could look
like I'm just sitting therethinking. A lot of my time these
days is spent thinking. And I soI didn't like people looking at
my screen. And my joke back thenwas if I kept Excel open on my
screen all day, people wouldassume that I'm working and

(04:51):
productive, but I could be doingabsolutely nothing.
Right? Yeah. And then the secondthing was I just it felt so not
humiliating, but to ask for timeoff always felt like this, like
I had to prostrate myself infront of like, can I please have
some time off? And it justalways felt like, why do I have

(05:13):
to ask for permission? I wannabe in a position where I don't
have to ask for permission to,you know, take some time off or
whatever.
Yeah. Well, do

you remember Shawshank Redemption? You ever
see that movie? Mhmm. You just,like, reminds me of that. And,

(05:43):
yeah, I mean, I I felt like itjust felt arbitrary.
I mean, I was in a role where Iwas at that in that in that
position, performance based.Part part of it was, like,
commission or performance kickerbased on the team meeting its
sales goals, but nobody elsewas. Yeah. So, like, I would
need things. I would be like,hey.
Like, could we get this could Iget like, I just did a case

(06:03):
study with a customer. Can Ihave can I put it on the website
somewhere? And the web team'slike, yeah. We don't have, like,
time for that. I'm like, okay.
Well, I need to be able

to share

it with people. So then like I ended up putting it
up like on GitHub or something.And then linked the GitHub thing
from the support center becausethe support team wasn't willing
to let me put it there. And itwas like, why is this so hard?
Yeah.
And it was like, hey, I wantdata about who we've sold to.
And they were like, yeah, oursystem doesn't really like, it's
in there, but there's no UI. SoI, like, I had done a little bit

(06:35):
of SQL and database stuff inbusiness school. So anyway, so I
was just downloaded, like,dBeaver, and I was doing my own
SQL queries, doing all of thisstuff when it's like This

is definitely the DNA of a entrepreneur. I I
think like there's that feelingof it's not truly oppressive,
but there's these corporatestructures that can just feel
like they're gating you in. Andif you're a fast horse and you
just want to run, this feelingof being gated in is such a
frustrating feeling. Like, andgood companies and good teams, I

(07:08):
think, will reward thatbehavior, that kind of taking
initiative. And I'm going tomake sure this happens, or
here's a great suggestion, orlike, let's do this.
And I think kind of oldoppressive teams will they they
they just kind of suffocate orsuppress you or make it harder

(07:31):
for you to contribute in ameaningful way.

That's how I felt. Yeah. Like, I think that, like,
the company was well run andprofitable and doing well. And
so I was like, this is probablya me thing, but I was like,
look, I've had like a few jobsat this point. Like, at at some
point, maybe I'm the problemhere, and, like, maybe I need to
do the different thing.
Because it's like nothing thatthey were doing there was, like,

(07:53):
obviously on its face. Like, howcould you? How dare you? You
know? It it was just, like, itlike, grading.
It just felt like suffocating.But it's like but it made sense.
Like, yeah, this isn't the webteam's problem. It's not that
big of a deal. Like, sorry, it'snot a priority.
But anyway

Oh, yeah. I think this is the I think this
is the realization is it's ifyou're a fast horse and you want
to run, there's just somestructures that aren't going to
be work for you. And that'sfine. Like, if if the boss or

(08:29):
the team or the culture or thebusiness model or the market
just necessitates somethingelse, like if you really want a
remote job, but the company isreally a on prem culture and,
you know, you need to be there.Well, you're just not the right
fit for that place.

(08:49):
And I think what drives a lot offounders is that feeling of, you
know what? I'm never going to bereally I mean, we're never
really satisfied at all, but I'mnever going to like really be
kind of in my zone of geniusuntil I'm able to be doing this
on my own. Like Yeah. Nothingwill satisfy this itch until I'm

(09:13):
in charge and I'm calling theshots and I'm it's all reliant
on me,

but That's what I was that's that's definitely it.
Right? So I was like, okay. Isaid if I can get a project for
50% of my income so at the time,we had we had, like, had our
first house. Yeah.
We had our first mortgage, butthat was like so I didn't need a
a w two to get approved for themortgage.

Yeah. A check. Yeah. Always get your get your
mortgage before you quit yourjob.

Definitely. Because you can always drive
Uber, but they're not gonnaapprove you if you're driving
Uber. But, you know, there'slike a difference between
showing you make money andactually being able to make the
money. Right? Yeah.
I was like, okay. We we had thehouse. My wife was finishing her
PhD and which was like itself along journey. And I was
supporting throughout, whichhappy to do, like, more than

(10:09):
happy to do, but but just likekind of the financial realities
of the situation. And we hadn'thad kids yet.
So it felt like, okay, this isthe window. Yeah. If I can get
half of my current pay incontracts or projects, I will
quit my job. Mhmm. And I hadbuilt up a pretty good network
from my previous jobs.
We I helped scale a three dprinter company from 2014 to

(10:33):
2019. We'd gone from 1.7 to$20,000,000 in revenue as like a
hardware It was really hard. ButI learned a lot and I met a lot
of people because it's a reallyhigh visibility thing. Mhmm. So
anyway, that's a whole otherstory for another day.
But I had this other job in themeantime and worked my network.
I got I got I got my commitmentsbasically. I incorporated on

(10:54):
04/01/2019. I got mycommitments. I quit my job May
1.

And these were commitments for projects? Like,
these were clients?

Market client consulting. Like, let me help
you with your sales.

Okay. So you emailed a bunch of people, said,
hey. I'm looking to make thejump. I need some clients. Will
you be my client?
And you got commitments fromenough of them that you felt
like, okay, I could and what didthose commitments look like?
Like, there was just a pipelineof work? Like, had six months of
work? Or

Let's do it. Like, signed, closed, contract signed.
We're gonna start next week. SoI was like, okay. I'll I'll work
weird hours.
I'll make this work until I canget to 50%. Got it. So So I
waited till people, like, werelike, okay. We're going. We'll
pay you kind of thing.

And did you have a goal in mind? Like, I need to
get this number of people onretainer? Or It was just half

of my income. I forget exactly what my income
was at the time. Yeah. But itwas just half. I figured if I
could get to half, then I couldget the other half is what is
what my guess was.
So I saw one contract.Basically, one contract was
enough, but there was only a twomonth contract. So I was like,
okay. I've got two months ofhalf my income. Yeah.
Let's go. So I quit my job and Ifigured once I quit, I would and

(11:59):
I talked to some other kind ofmentor type people at the time.
And I felt like once I quit, I'mgonna unlock forty hours a week
of time. Yeah. And so, like,I'll be able to do way, way more
with that time.
So and that was right. By theJune or by the May, by the time
I got to June, so I was I wasback to my old income within a
month.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. So it was like, oh, okay. Okay. And and
and it was just me in my housewith one laptop. So it was like
all profit margin with noexpenses.
And so it was a really goodstart.

Yeah. But that drive, some people quit their
job. They have all this extratime and they find it's actually
the opposite. Without somebodydriving them, without somebody
pushing them, they don't havethat relentlessness you need to
go out and find clients.

Yeah.

And I think that's a good litmus test. It's
like once you have the time, doyou have the drive? Like after
I'd quit my job, there was timeswhere, for example, course sales
were like enough. And I waslike, I got to go build some
WordPress websites for people.And it's just this like dogged,

(13:11):
relentless drive to say, I'mgonna do whatever it takes.
I'm gonna email 100 people untilI sell, you know, 10 website
contracts and I'm going to buildthem all and then, you know,
live to see another day.

Yeah. I think the anticipation of like, that we
would be starting our family, Imean, like, within a year or so,
our daughter was born. And so Ithink that was like I had this
in my head of like, I've gotta Igotta kinda get this thing off
the ground because things are sothat to me was a big motive. I
can't like I can't disentanglethat.

Yeah. Yeah. Dependence is a huge that's
true, actually. Like, before Ihad kids, I didn't have that
same drive that I did after onceI realized, wow. This is this is
expensive.

This is just like Just keeps going up.

Yeah. And expensive in a sense, like, it's
expensive with your time, yourenergy, but your money. It's
just like you can't just live ina one bedroom condo anymore.
You've gotta you've gotta getmore space. You gotta get a car.
You gotta get a car seat.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally. Yeah. There's just hard
hard cash flow hits that comewith that.

Yeah. So so 2019, you you launched this, you
get some clients. COVID hit in2020. So Yeah. What what did
that affect you at all or

what Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So terrible timing.
Just couldn't have reallycouldn't have done it worse in a
lot of ways.

What? Because it it affected it poorly? Was just
so stressful

and that we were expecting at the time. So every
time I got to the mean, in thebeginning it was really unknown.
Then especially because we wereexpecting during that time, it
was really anxiety inducing. AndI think the biggest thing I
realized was like, what if I getsick? So I had these clients and
it's going well, but like,they're just really paying me to

(15:06):
talk to them about stuff.
Yeah. And like, we're gettingsome results definitely, but
like a lot of this business isjust like, I've been doing this
and I was working with a lot ofhardware companies at the time.
Mhmm. And so I just had a lot oflike offhand things of like, oh,
well, you should talk to thisdistributor. They would like
totally pick that up.
And like, I knew that because Ihad been doing it for seven or
six years. So that was likeworth it for them. But I was

(15:28):
like, what if I get sick and Ican't take that call? Like, are
you going keep paying me?Probably not.
So it felt very fragile. And sothis is when I started
discovering and I joined Iforget the exact date, but like
I joined MegaMaker and I startedlistening to Build Your SaaS and
Startups for the Rest of Us, Ijoined MicroConf.

Were you familiar with software as a
service or web apps? Like, wasthat you came from like a a
world where you're sellinghardware?

Yeah. I was I didn't have software background.
I mean, I had done like ERPconsulting in 2013 as a as an
account executive. I mean, sono. I mean, I mean, I'd never
worked for a SaaS company atall.
I never worked for a companythat had a dollar in SaaS
revenue.

How did it even come on your radar? Like how did
you I found

Rob Walling's stuff first and that tipped me
off in SaaS and then I foundBuild Your SaaS and Transistor.

Okay.

And then it just kind of like, was like, because
what I wanted was like to takecare of my family and to build
good business. So then it'slike, what kind of business? And
so because of like the pressuresof COVID and family and like,
I'm in my late thirties rightnow. And so, and I'd like
finished business school. Ilike, I had, I think, very
compressed learning cycles oflike very quickly, like, this is

(16:41):
a good idea.
Let's go. Okay. But it can bebetter. Just like, I didn't it
it's taken a long time to gethere, but within this, there's
been, like, really tightlearning loops. And then it was
like, oh, like, this is it.
Like, I went out to work on myown because I want my own
business because I wanna bepresent as a dad and brought my
family. And, like, this is thebest way to do it. It is a SaaS.
I need to figure out how to havea SaaS somehow.

Mean, doesn't seem that long in my if you
think about it, it's been sixyears.

So Yeah.

It it's been six five or six years since you even
kind of realized what the SaaSmarket industry category, how it
works. So that's prettycompressed.

Yeah. I mean, I guess in hindsight, yeah. Yeah.
It feels like a long time. Itfeels like a long time.
But, I mean, once we once whenonce once the my actual idea
hit, it was like it it took offreally quickly. So it was a lot
of tight, hard learning and thenbut but like having to maintain
cash flow the whole time. Therewas no like, oh, I'm gonna go on

(17:38):
the sabbatical and think aboutit. It was like, I'm staying up
late to try to figure out how todo this thing because during the
day, I'm on client calls andstuff.

I think what's interesting is that pull that
you just described, I think isquite common for people
investigating, especially thisspace, because that was always
the promise is like, okay, whatdo I desire? Well, I don't want
to work a job. I then you tryconsulting and you're like,

(18:06):
okay, consulting works, but youhave to keep this thing every
sales cycle is you're startingfrom zero again. I mean, it's
not really zero, but it's likeit can feel like that.

Oh, no. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
basically is.
Unless you start developing IPand, you know.

Yeah. I mean, I guess the the reason I say it's
not always from zero because youstill have your network. Like,
you still have former clientsyou can go back to and say, hey,
let's do another engagement orwhatever. But it can feel like
you're always starting fromzero. And then there's the
stress of that and likedelivering projects on time and,
you know, and like even likehaving to wake up early.

(18:43):
I had to wake up early and docalls with people in Sweden. So
it was like I had to wake up at4AM or something. I was like,
this is tough. And so then yousearch for, okay, what are some
of other options? And you'relike, oh, recurring revenue.
Like, if I could just have, youknow, instead of having to
rebuild it every sales cycleevery month or every quarter, I

(19:06):
just every month, new stuff cancome in. Mhmm. And then you go
look for solutions, and it'slike, oh, I I could build a SaaS
business.

Mhmm. Exactly. So that's that's how I kinda land
on it. But then I'm like, okay.I gotta learn about SaaS.
So I join all these things. AndI'm, like, super active on
Twitter at the time just, like,absorbing, absorbing, absorbing.
Mhmm. And I feel like I was justin, like, just downloading, just
constantly downloading littlethings and thinking about
thinking about surfing and, youknow, all these all these

(19:34):
analogies and the stair stepmethod and dah dah dah dah. But
I think, like, in general, whatI was feeling was like, Okay,
this is like too much learning.
I need to be like doing now. Ineed to like start like testing
ideas. I'm like, where is thisidea going to come from? How can

(19:55):
I turn this consulting businessinto maybe something that's like
a little bit more of an engineso I can free up, make more
money or just free up a littlebit more time? Mhmm.
So it kind of converted into alittle bit more of an agency.
Because at the time, like emaildeliverability started to
started to become like a littlebit of an issue discussed in
some of these corners of theweb. Most of my clients, they

(20:15):
didn't they wanted to talk tome, but if they were really
hard, like, and clear, theywould say, well, I want leads.
Yeah. Like, like, I'm talking toyou and I like your advice and
there's some really good ideasin here, but like, ultimately,
what do we need?
We need new leads for ourbusiness. And like, can you get
us leads? And I had never donethat before. The companies I'd
work with, in hardware, it'sdifferent. The go to market is

(20:35):
really different.
And so I just started learningcold email. I bought a cold
email course for like a $100 onTwitter. And so I started
learning cold email and startedbuilding an agency around
outreach Yeah. As, an extensionof this consulting service. And
so then I started getting reallydeep in that into that world,
and we became a HubSpotsolutions partner.
We were doing outbound. And thenthen I like, the the landscape

(20:58):
started to, like, sort of emergeof, okay. These are the tools
I'm using. These are gapsbetween these tools. This is how
they charge.
Mhmm. This is, like, what'sannoying. And then within that,
I had had like a few differentideas. But so I left the
communities and stuff, notbecause I didn't like them, but
because it was like, what I neednext is not here. Yeah.
What I need next is outsomewhere in the market and

(21:20):
nobody here is going to be theone who's going to be my first
customer or and so and so I onlyhave so many and at this point,
my daughter was born. I was justlike, okay. I don't have that
much time, so I gotta go. And soI, like, I literally deleted
Twitter. I literally left, like,everything.
I just started spending, like,all this time on LinkedIn and
and and to to kind of like sothat was kind of that, like,

(21:40):
that, like, transition period inthe beginning of what was,
testing ideas.

This is so key. Like, there's a you're gonna
need some foundation ofknowledge. But after you've got
a reasonable foundation, youneed to go out and do stuff. You
need to go out and startbuilding things. And I felt this

(22:07):
like I started the ProductPeople podcast in 02/2012.
And, you know, after a year ofdoing these interviews, I felt
like I gotta stop doing theseinterviews, and I've gotta do
something. Like, I gotta launchsomething exactly the same as

(22:27):
you. Like, this is until I startputting this into practice and
really feeling it, it's justlike anything. It's like I can
describe to you the mechanics ofsnowboarding, but until I get
you out on the hill and youstart to actually try it out, it
the head knowledge is fine,like, for you to have the

(22:49):
basics, but you need to start,you know, you need to just start
going down the hill

at some point. Exactly. You gotta land on your
butt and be like, okay.

Yeah.

That was fine.

So that's I I think that's great that you had
that self knowledge probablydriven by the fact that you
didn't have very much time.

That was it. It was like, oh, man. And it it was
kind of like a little sadbecause it was like, oh, like,
is fun. Like, I like talking tothese people. Like, this is
funny.
This is my community. I'm homealone. Yeah. I have no real
coworkers. I like, all myfriends have jobs, and then we
have a young kid, and so I don'thave a lot of time in general.
Like Mhmm. When I'm not working,I'm trying to be a dad as best I

(23:27):
can and trying to be a husband.And so so it was like a little
sad, honestly, but it but I justdidn't feel like I had a like
all of these things, felt like Ididn't have a really good
alternative. It just felt like Igot to do this. If I want to
move forward, I have to makesome changes here and it's going
to be, you know, a littleuncomfortable, but it's I just

(23:48):
don't what's the alternative?

Yeah. Okay. So you get this agency going.
Agency's going. And it's workingor what what happened?

Like, it's working. It's working. I'm
acquiring customers. Like, I'mstarting to, like, feel what
it's like to get on a wave alittle bit. Mhmm.
Because with my consulting,like, I had this feeling of
like, yeah, I've got theserelationships, but like, I don't
have that many relationships.Like, at some point, like, is
gonna go away and then what? Butnow with the agency, it was
like, oh, this is a problem.People are landing in spam. They

(24:18):
need new leads.
Like I can productize aroundthis. There's some tooling
around this. Like, and so it wasworking. I was, I was getting
customers, retaining customers.It wasn't taking off because it
was me.
I had contractors who some ofwhom were really wonderful, but
like I was never able to fullydelegate. So it had these ebbs
and flows as I tried to balancesales and delivery. Mhmm. Mhmm.

(24:39):
But then and this is like theworst you're not supposed to do
this.
This is like the worst advice. Ithink maybe the lowest paying
client I ever had in the historyof my agency. I mean, I think I
have to go back and check, but Imean, he was paying me almost
nothing. Yeah. Because somemonths are like, sure.
Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You got to
hustle.

He was like, you know, I really want this, cold
email data from Smart Lead. Ireally want it in HubSpot. And I
was like, oh, yeah. Like, we'reHubSpot partner. Everyone in
HubSpot always talks aboutinbound, inbound, inbound.
In fact, everyone in the HubSpotecosystem is constantly like, at
this time, really posturingagainst outbound. Like, that's
the whole positioning of HubSpotas inbound. So they're

(25:20):
constantly criticizing it. I waslike, well, that's kind of an
interesting thing to be like theoutbound person in HubSpot
ecosystem. Like nobody's sayingthat, that would be and then and
then it made sense to me like,well, yeah, of course you would
want this there.
Yeah. You get a lead and thenyou need to manage it and they
become a deal and then you closethe deal and then they become a
customer. Like, yeah, right.Like, duh. Why why isn't anybody

(25:41):
doing that?
And what I didn't realize at thetime, but I now realize is that
like, these tools were very likeon the edge. They were like
growth hacking tools and biggercompanies that had those
requirements weren't using them,or they weren't using them like
they use the rest of theirtools. So it was like a bet
basically at the time of like,if this way of generating

(26:03):
generating new leads takes off,then new tools will be required
to like coordinate ororchestrate the new tools with
the old tools

Yeah.

If it if it takes off.

Okay. So let let a client is paying you to help
them manage when you sayoutbound, you're talking about
sending cold email

Yep.

Trying to get leads. Yep. And this client
says, this is good. They weren'tpaying they weren't a high value
customer, but they just said,this is good. I really want this
like, once you get me a lead, Iwant this to move into HubSpot,
which I'm using as my CRM.
And then as you were looking atHubSpot, you're like, oh, this

(26:43):
is weird. Because HubSpot'swhole philosophy was all around
content. Like, you use contentto attract leads. So there are
inbound leads. They sign up onyour blog posts because to get
the PDF.
Yeah. And then you manage therelationship that way. But not a
lot of people using HubSpot werestarting with outbound.

Mm-mm. No. No. Yeah. At least not publicly.
But then I realized like,actually quite a few of our
HubSpot clients are doingoutbound. Yes. And actually
HubSpot themselves has a hugesales team with like a few 100
salespeople and they totally dooutbound.

Yeah. So this seems like a gap. Like, this is
a opportunity.

Exactly.

So what did that translate into? What what did
you do with that information?

Well, I started to build something. So I started to
build it in make.com.

Okay.

SmartLead had webhooks, and I thought, okay.
Well, I can take these webhookpayloads. Like, as these events
occur in SmartLead, an email issent, a reply is received. As
these happen, I can take thoseevents, map them, and push them
to HubSpot. Okay.
I I I remember saying, like, howhard like, how hard could it be?
You know? Yeah. Yeah. There'sthis quote.
We do things not because they'reeasy, but because we thought

(27:57):
they would be easy.

That's that's the entrepreneur's Yeah. Mantra.
Yeah.

So that was it. The the the pinboard the
pinboard guy said that, and Iit's I think about it all. It's
on LinkedIn. Think about it allthe time. I remember literally
being like, oh, yeah.
Like, how are gonna be? And Isaid that to him. And so so this
is May 2023. So Okay. Did we

miss a part here? Because you did try to
build IntroCRM.

Oh, yes. So my agency was called IntroCRM. Yes.
Sorry. I covered some of the Imissed I skipped some of the
SaaS stuff because because itwas never a SaaS.
Okay. I tried doing IntroCRM asa SaaS, and now and my agency
just became IntroCRM, but wenever I never had a single
paying customer. I builtsomething in Bubble. Oh, man.
Sorry.
I forgot about I haven't thoughtabout that in, like, in, like, a
while. No.

That's that's okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So oh, yeah. It was so bad. Don't even
remember it.
My first necessity was a CRM.

Yes. So you were doing this agency, and then
you're like, okay. I'm gonna tryto build some software.

Yes. Right.

And then you built this tool called InterCRM
in Bubble, but it didn't reallytake off? It didn't really work?

No. Not at all. So it was like my thought was like,
I was using Basecamp. Oh, man.Sorry.
Oh, man. Totally spaced on thischapter. Mm-mm. That's fine. I
was using Basecamp, and I waslike, oh, Basecamp, they're
discontinuing Highrise.
Like, there's no CRM likeBasecamp, and they're not doing
Highrise anymore. There shouldbe a simple CRM for everybody
that everybody can use.

Opportunity. And and, mean, Highrise was, I
think, doing, I don't know,three to five million a year or
something like that. Like, itwas it was on Basecamp scale, it
wasn't success successful, quoteunquote. But for most of us,
that would be an amazingbusiness.

Exactly. And I thought, like, okay. And I
really looked up to Jason Friedand David Heinemeier Hansen. And
part of my idea of, like, goingfrom agency to SaaS was, like,
exactly what they had done. Sothey were really influential in
my mind at the time.
I don't know. It's hard to know.When I'm being, like, self
critical, I would say, well,they were really they were
really running a design agency.They were really crafts people
and, know Mhmm. What was Idoing?
But I think I'm probably being alittle hard on myself. I think

(29:57):
like, I I was doing hard stuff,and it and it I think it
ultimately has translated into agood product. And so it's like
sometimes it's hard when you seethese people from afar. You kind
of Yeah. You're it feels likeunattainable of like but they're
just normal guys too workinghard and doing great things, but
they're, you know, just peopletoo.
In hindsight now, I feel like Icreated too much distance in my
mind between what they were todo and what I what I would be

(30:17):
able to do, you know, of like,oh, how could I ever

do that? They're just humans too. I mean, they're
they are very gifted in in manyways. But earlier in my career,
I applied for a job there andflew to Chicago and spent a day
with the team. And that was mysense after that day was I had
like kind of put them up on apedestal.
But then after spending a daywith them, I'm like, oh, these
are just human beings. Like,they're Yeah. There's they are

(30:42):
again, they are good at whatthey do. They're skilled. It
wasn't, like, magical.
It was just like, these are justpeople doing work, and they've
achieved something. I think

they would probably be, like, the first
ones to say that. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. I think so too.

They would

be like

I mean, they you know, I don't think you know,
they just had to have a brand,they did it early, they've done
it at an incredible scale. Ithink so so IntraCRM was my
first SaaS idea. I built it withBubble myself. I got help from
so my first idea was anintegration. I was like, okay.
So there should be a CRM thatintegrates with Basecamp because

(31:18):
I thought the first tool thatpeople adopt is project
management software Because youhave a couple of clients and you
don't need a CRM yet, so youstart with a project management
software like Trello orBasecamp, and then you start to
get more clients and then yourealize, oh, I kind of have to
manage these leads. I need aCRM. And so my thought was the
first thing that shouldintegrate should be a CRM, but
the core system of record isactually the project management
tool and they kind of go backand forth. So that was my first

(31:39):
idea. And so I had Lola,Lunchpail Labs, she built the
integration for me.
We we integrated with Trello andBasecamp and, oh gosh, I can't
remember it now, but there was,like, I think maybe a third
project management tool that weintegrated with. Because I was
working with all these foundersand they were in project
management tools all day. Mhmm.And I was like, oh, yeah. Like,
so they would maybe use this andthey're not using HubSpot

(32:00):
because it's too bloated.
Yeah. And there's too much todo.

And so you tried to sell it to folks, but it just
didn't work?

I was like, well, so, like, we have this basic CRM
and it comes with theseservices. Okay. And they were
like, we just we just wanna workwith you. We don't we don't want
your CRM.

Got it. So the so when you pitched people on
it, they were like, like, wejust want the services part. Why
why do you think they didn'twant the CRM? Like, what were
they using instead?

They just, like, didn't check it, didn't log into
it. I had, like, an amazingclient, and she was just very
kind. And I felt like if anyone,she would have just, like,
logged in just out of, like,curiosity and sympathy

Yeah. Or pity.

And even she had never logged in. So I was like,
okay. This is like, nobody caresabout this, really.

I think what's interesting about this is your
hypothesis seems reasonable.

Mhmm.

And so then, you know, there's different
questions. Is it is it the wayyou're marketing it? Is the way
you're positioning it? Is it theactual product isn't solid? So
those folks that weren't loggingin, what were they doing
instead?
Like, what were they usinginstead of your CRM? Were they
just using no CRM? Like, theyYeah. There wasn't actually any

(33:13):
movement there?

Yeah. They would like use nothing or they would
use a Google Sheet or they wouldjust kind of manage it out of
their inbox. I think there'slike a version of this, but I
don't think I have foundermarket fit to build it. It has
to be like a product led thing.It would have to be like, you
just drop in and like now withAI and these AI native tools, I
could imagine there being a CRMthat connects with Gmail.

(33:37):
And it's like, if your businessis small and simple enough, if
it connects to your calendar andyour inbox, it will maintain
their data model for you andcreate little deals for you. I
could actually see that today.Yeah. And that would be good
enough for this kind of user.Because the problem is the
entry.
The like logging in, loggingout, updating fields, like
nobody, it just wasn't worththeir time to do it. Then when

(34:01):
they got big enough, they hiredsomebody to do it. And then that
person wanted a real tool,right?

Yeah, and then they would so you were in this
kind of in between IntroCRM as asoftware product was like in an
in between state and that waslike not quite right.

Yeah. It just didn't quite land. But but I was
right that people like, the thecore idea of, like, these things
don't talk to each other, thathas, like, a thread that has
been true for a while. And,like, even back to the three d
printing company and even backto the ERP consulting company,
like, partnerships has been,like, the thread of growth
through, like, fifteen years ofmy career through the companies

(34:37):
that I've grown. That is like athat is like a continuity thing.
Like, my idea of, like, thesethings don't talk to each other.
That is now fundamentally whatAppOnSync is built on today.

I think that is such a crucial observation. It
doesn't mean your hypotheseswill always be correct, but that
alone is just true. And in an AIworld, I feel like that's more
true than ever. Like everybody'styping into ChatGPT and Claude,

(35:09):
but there's still not a lot ofglue between like, Claude could
tell you to go do something, butthen you've gotta there's this
chasm that jump over. You're theone that's got to go do what it
just told you to do.
Yeah. And there's going to bemore and more glue needed
between these things. Yes. And Ithink there's going to be a lot

(35:31):
of opportunity just in that.Even, you know, like Zapier
integrations break all the time,or they're not quite right, or
there's just all of these holes,all of these little
opportunities, all of theselittle friction points where
it's like, ah.
Another one I've observed is ifyou go to a retail store, I
would ask owners about what theywere doing and they're still

(35:54):
entering inventory manually.Mhmm. And you'd think, oh, man,
like there's a barcode on everyproduct they get in And you'd
think that or you'd think thatthe the supplier or the
distributor could just send themsome sort of JSON, some sort of
data that would just populatetheir point of sale system. But

(36:14):
still in 2025 and still withmodern point of sales like
Square, they're still enteringdata in manually. And again,
maybe there's not enough moneythere or friction.
Like, the economics of all thatof the opportunity might not be
there, but the thread iscorrect. Yeah. And I think

(36:35):
you've identified like, there'sgonna still there's still so
much manual data entry rightnow. There's there's lots of
opportunities here if you're,like, looking.

I think so. Absolutely. And here's the
thing. So someone would say,well, yeah, of course, you gotta
enter this thing into Claude,then you gotta go to the other
thing. Well, that's where MCPservers come in, and that's why
agentic workflows are soexciting.
Yeah. I mean, any developer,Hey, so tomorrow I'm going to
publish our database schema.Nothing will be lost, no
security issues. I'm just goingto publish it and post it

(37:09):
online. Like, do you would yoube proud of that?
Do you have any issues maybewith the tables and the labels?
Do you feel like our database iswell documented if you were to
get hit by a bus tomorrow? Imean, how many developers would
be like, no problem. OpenKimono. Let the world see.
And so if that's the case, ifthe developer who's building and
maintaining a code doesn't feellike it's exceptionally well
documented to them, then how theheck is Claude going to know

(37:31):
what to do? Yeah. It's going tostumble. It's going to stumble
in the tables and it's going tostumble in the And you can say,
Well, they'll figure it out.How?
There's all these nuances,especially like when you get to
the edge cases and the edgecases are sometimes what matter
the most.

The edge cases are what's real. This is why
every time I look at a demo,like somebody releases some sort
of demo, it's like, okay, thisis not a real company. This is
not a real use case. This is notnothing. This is all fantasy.
But, you know, come into myworld. And it's even like the

(38:03):
like right now, when I am tryingto level audio Mhmm. I use this
tool called Eulene audio meteror whatever. It it tells me the
loudness in Loofs. But then Itake a screenshot of that, bring
it into Claude, then give it thethere's these built in Apple

(38:24):
audio filters.
I say, here's the audio filter,AU Dynamics. Tell me what to use
here, like how much gain, howmuch release time, all that
stuff. That is friction. Right.And you think, you know, there's
a modern world, like maybe withApple shortcuts, I could do
something or may and the truthis, is it's still a lot of

(38:47):
friction to get something fromone system to another.
And for most users, that stillexists and there's just a lot of
opportunity there. Yes. Like, ifthere was a tool that, in my
case, like maybe a web app orsomething, that, you know,
automatically gave me a loudnessscore for my raw audio and then

(39:12):
told me what, you know, what todo or just automatically did it
for me, I might might pay forthat. Right?

Yeah. That's how you discover problems. Yeah.
Well, that's where yeah. Andthat's where it gets
complicated.
Yeah. But no. I I think thatlike with I mean, with AI, I
mean, imagine if you had like alibrary, you know, like a
physical library. Mhmm. But likeno card catalog.
Yeah. It's like, okay, well, areyou gonna find the book? And I
mean, and at some point you'reexpending and this is the thing
I think people aren't talkingabout. They say, this is the
worst it's ever gonna be. It'salways gonna get better.

(39:40):
Like, well, maybe. There's alsolike a lot of money being spent
right now. And like, at somepoint, there's gonna need to be
a return on these things. And atsome point, they're gonna start
charging more. And so, I mean,yes, I understand that in
theory, things will get better,but like nothing gets better
forever.
Yeah. I mean, the only thingthat grows infinitely is cancer
cells. Yeah. You know? And thenyou have like system collapse.
So it's just like, I like AI. Weuse it. I've I tried building a

(40:03):
a GPT wrapper. So Yeah. Let'stalk those other SaaS ideas.
So Yeah. CRM didn't work. Butthen I got into this they wanted
the service, so I did theservice. And then they said,
okay. Well, I'm giving them leadlists to give me feedback to
score them so I can make thembetter lists, better fits.
Yeah. Because I'm using likedatabase tools like ZoomInfo and
Apollo. And so I'm giving themGoogle Sheets. And so I was

(40:24):
like, oh, this is a SaaS. It's alead rater.
Built it with Glide. I give youlike a sample set of leads. You
can swipe through it like adating app. Yeah. Say which ones
you like, say which ones youdon't.
I'm going to take that feedbackand I'm going to go build a
better list.

That also seems like a good idea.

Yeah. It wasn't it wasn't, like, wasn't, like, the
worst. You know? I mean, it Imean, it's it's kinda like an
LLM concept. Right?
It's like reinforcement training

from

the person who knows. It took a lot of work,
and, again, like, they theyweren't spending the time on it.
I I don't know. It just forwhatever reason, it didn't quite
click. People didn't wanna do itor or they were just getting too
lost in the weeds.
Mhmm. And I was like, yeah.Like, I understand what you're
saying, but we just need to sendsome email. And if if it's not a
fit, they just won't get back tous. It's okay.
Yeah. Doesn't have to beperfect. So I don't know. It

(41:10):
just, didn't work.

You know that oh, that's such an interesting
the thought I just had, becauseyou've mentioned this twice now,
which is, like, they couldn'ttake the time or make the effort
to log in. Or they couldn't takethe time or make the effort to
log in, in this case, score someleads or whatever. I think this

(41:31):
happens a lot more than werealize, which is there's just a
certain category of applicationswhere you're not gonna get
people to log in, and that'sdifficult. It's like it's like
I'll I'll I'll use this as anexample. I actually love this

(41:51):
tool and I pay for this tool,but I think it's still a good
example is seotesting.com.

Mhmm.

I love this product. You know, they're
friends of mine. I think it's agreat product. But my
interaction with the product isbasically at this point 95% just
through the emails they send meof here's this month's top
keywords, here's the winners andlosers. Am I setting up a lot of
SEO tests?

(42:17):
Not really. And that's I thinkthat because there's just only
so many apps I can log intoregularly. Right. And even like
like, oh, I've got theseanalytics. Like, you're gonna
log in and get these analytics.
It's like, well, the only apps Ireally do that for is like

(42:40):
revenue analytics because moneyis important. And then kind of
performance based metrics oncontent. Like Yeah. You know,
blog, you know, websiteanalytics and podcast analytics
and YouTube analytics. I'll lookat all of those.
But anything outside of that,it's just like, oh, you want me

(43:01):
to log in and score a bunch ofleads? It's like, that seems
like a good idea in as aconcept. Like, yeah, I would
like to do that. I would like toget better leads. And, yeah, I
could see even a fun interfacelike like a dating app.
Like, I could see myself doingthat. But at the end of the day,
it's another thing to log intoExactly. That I I only have so

(43:22):
many spaces in my life forthings that I log into.

Exactly.

Yeah. That's interesting.

So it just, like, it didn't it didn't quite click.
It was so then the the thirdidea that I had was draft
studio. This was like an early gGPT wrapper product. I actually
use it internally. So in coldemail, there's this thing called
SpinTax where you give it a wordand then you give it variations
of that word.
So like, hello, hi, hey, heythere, greetings, good morning,

(43:49):
good afternoon, whatever.

Yeah.

And so you could like take an email or you could
take a phrase, drop it intodraft studio. It would spin up
permutations of that and thenspit out spin tax that you could
just drop into Smart Lead sothat your emails would be
different from each other, whichwould help with deliverability.
Yeah. Actually, I liked it. Iused it a lot.
It was useful. As AI hasaccelerated, and it's it's just
like made some of these thingsless necessary now, people are

(44:11):
making fully unique emails everytime. Mhmm. So it's just like I
just kinda knew it didn't have along term potential. I liked it
as an app and I used it a lot.
I did have a few people who usedit a lot and liked it too. But
it was just it was just a as aGBC rapper, it was too simple to
really go anywhere, and I kindaalways knew that. I was busier

(44:32):
with the agency. And

that also seems like the kind of thing that
eventually if I could figure outa process for doing that in
ChatGPT or Claude, I would justdo that. Totally.

Yeah. Yeah. So like that but it was okay. But
it was technically a SaaS. Ibuilt it in Glide.
I thought about charging for it.And then and then so so that all
of those things happenedbetween, like, when interest
CRM, I registered that domain in2020. Yeah. And then I started
building up on sync in May 2023.

Okay.

So that was I think it was my fourth idea. My
fifth idea, which I've, like,almost not really talked about
very much, but it was cardimporter. There was, like, the
HubSpot's default card importeris actually really not great.

Okay.

And so it was, like, a really basic take a
picture of your business card,scans it in HubSpot. It's
actually a really big like, it'sa thing. There's a lot of
HubSpot comments and a forumabout wanting these features. I
posted a YouTube video. I stillget messages on LinkedIn about
it.
People being like, hey. IsCardimporter, like, still
available? Yeah. So I actuallythink it like, there's
something, but it's not a it wasmy fifth idea. Nap on Sing was
taken off, so I just didn't doanything with it.

(45:32):
Mhmm. But of of the ideas, itwas probably my second best
idea, but it would need morearound it to, like, become
something. Yeah. But I guess mypoint is, like, not all of my
ideas were bad.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's what's interesting
is none of these ideas actuallyseem bad. They all seem like
reasonable bets. And it's kindof like you can follow all of
the advice for looking forbusiness ideas. Like you go into
the forums and what are peoplecommenting about?
You talking you had consultingclients and you're listening to

(46:08):
their pains and their friction,and that's all a part of it. And
basically, you're doing all ofthat work, which by the way, I
think like 90% of people don'tdo that work. But it's that work
that sets you up for some goodat bats. Yeah. And I think the
truth is is like, you look atprofessional baseball players.

(46:30):
These are people who havetrained their entire lives to
hit baseballs, and they have ahard time hitting baseballs.

Totally.

Right? So you you can do all of the
foundational work, but theirchances, their odds of hitting a
baseball are much higher thanmine are. Right? Totally. So all
of that foundational workmatters.
You've got to do all that workto get up to the plate and have
a reasonable shot at hitting theball. And then even then, you

(47:00):
might hit it. You might foul.You might walk. You might just
get a line drive.
You might get a home run. Like,those are all opportunities.
Those are all sorry. You know,potential outcomes.

Mhmm.

But it's still it's like a lot of players get
up to bat and they strike out.

Right.

And they're good players.

But what's the number? It's like if you bat
300, you're in the hall of fameor what you know, there's
something like that.

Yeah. I mean, I I'm actually not a baseball fan.

Yeah. I'm not I'm not either, but I know there's
some number where it's like notthat many. And if you actually
hit that many, you're like oneof the best of all time kind of
thing.

I mean, this is the this is the whole point. I
think this is why sports is a insome ways, sports is a bad
metaphor for business becausesports really is zero sum.
Right. Business has there's moreopportunities. Like, there can
be multiple CRM softwareproviders, and, you know, you
could still win.

(47:54):
Totally. So I but I think what'sinstructive about your story and
my story and really almosteverybody I know, almost very
few people get up to bat and hita line drive or a home run their
first at bat. And I also seethere's in entrepreneurship,

(48:15):
there are a ton of people whohave not done the foundational
work. They don't have clientsthat they're observing and
getting, like seeing where theirpain points are, seeing where
the gaps are, seeing where theopportunities are. They're not
looking at the forums.
They're not exploring andevaluating ideas in this way.
They don't have a network. Theydon't have any skills. And so,

(48:37):
you know, what is the successrate of any given entrepreneur
stepping up to bat? Well, it'snearly zero because there's an
infinite number of people whowant to do it.
But like I said, I think 90%,95% of them aren't even doing
the basic foundational work toeven have a chance of hitting a

(48:58):
baseball. Definitely. You do thebasic find the basic
foundational work to giveyourself a chance. And then
that's after that, it's like,we'll see what happens. You
know?
Yeah. Hit this one. Okay. Itwas, you know, I barely got on
base.

Yeah. Well, it's like the harder I work, the
luckier I get. Right? It's like,I definitely think this was like
a lot of a lot of work. But butso because of all this, when
outbound synced, like, when Idid that and I started talking
about it to people, I was

like Sync is your is the idea that you're
working on right now.

This is

the one that worked.

Yes. I've been doing this for two years. It's
profitable. We've got threepeople on the team. We've been
growing 10 to 20% every monthliterally since we since October
2023.
Like it like and but there werethere were things that were
happening with it where I waslike, this has never happened
before.

Okay. Okay. What's different. Let let's
explore that. So you you wentthrough these other ideas.
All of them are like, maybe youget on base, but it's not really
or maybe you don't even get onbase. Yeah.

And then Maybe by

domain. Yeah. Maybe by domain. Yeah. Maybe by
domain.
So what was the genesis ofoutbound sync? What like, what
was the observation that you'relike, oh, some this is worth
doing?

So, you know, so I had that client. He said he
wanted them to talk to eachother. I said, okay. Sounds
interesting. Built out a basicversion of it.
And then I started posting aboutit on LinkedIn because LinkedIn
is my only water cooler at thispoint.

Okay.

Because I figured like the people who if I'm gonna
build something based on thespace that I'm in, they're gonna
be there. Yeah. Probably. So Istart posting about it there. I
post about it in some WhatsAppgroups, and I get some people
biting.
So in outbound, a lot of peopleare in WhatsApp groups, just by
the way. I don't

know why.

It's very international. Like, very there
are some biases, but in general,it's pretty meritocratic. I've
got a lot of people who I talkwith who are like, I don't know
their name. I don't know theirface. I don't know anything
about them, but they're in thesegroups and they're kind of
anonymous like hacker chat kindof growth hacker chats.

How did you get in those WhatsApp groups?

That's a good question. I don't well, when I
was running my agency, that'swhen I got exposure to some of
those chats and, like, otheragency owners are in some of
those groups.

Okay. And they'd say, hey. You might wanna join
this group.

Yeah. Hey. Oh, yeah. Exactly. And, like, one of
them, like, they had, like, ajust, like, they were promoting
it to, like, hey.
Join my group. And there's nocaution in it that I just kind
of joined the group. Share bestpractices. There's kind of like
a guild. You know, there's, likeit's kind of like there's honor
among thieves.
Mhmm. The, like, the bestoutbound people, like, all know
each other, and they all talk.And they all share notes and and
they don't consider themselvesas really direct competitors in

(51:30):
a in a traditional way. Yeah.Like, it's it's very
interesting.
It's very unusual. But I reallythink that yeah.

I do think this is a key action that a lot of
founders don't take, which isyou said, I'm going to get off
everything that's a distraction,and I'm gonna go where my
clients are. So LinkedIn is anatural choice. And then you're
also getting in these WhatsAppgroups. Yeah. And I think when

(51:58):
you're thinking about where toinvest your time, I don't think
people realize that in a givenindustry or category This is why
I think actual participants in agiven industry or category have
such an advantage over somebodywho's just flying in because it
looks like a good businessopportunity, is you have to be

(52:19):
simmering in that community.
You have to be soaking in it.You have to be in the water
every day. And there are justthings you can't experience. And
they're they're really subtleunless you have this constant
drip of being in a WhatsAppgroup every day and seeing what

(52:40):
people are talking about, andyou're building those
relationships, and you're makingthese subconscious observations.

Yes.

Right. You're doing that, like, I think it's
pretty hard. I think it's hardto build a podcast hosting
application if you're not apodcaster. There's just
something about knowing thepain, about knowing lots of
other podcasters that are tryingto do it too, of knowing what

(53:09):
it's like to to conceptualize ashow, and then record into a
shitty mic, and then, you know,try to publish it and then be
listening to it and hearingbackground noise and like
cringing. That whole process,until you understand it in an
organic way like I coulddescribe it to somebody, but

(53:32):
until you've experienced it,until you know the pain of
releasing something publicly andhaving people not respond to it
or trying to get distributionfor it or trying to get people
to notice, you just don'tunderstand.
And it's the same thing withoutbound salespeople, outbound

(53:52):
leads people. Like, do I reallyunderstand that category as an
outsider? No. And so if I try toswoop in and and say, I'm gonna
compete with Harris, JustinJackson tomorrow. I'm just gonna
start a new app.
I you have such an advantageover me. Even with ChatGPT, I

(54:13):
could get all the likeintellectual information. Like,
tell me about the outbound worldand it might be able to, you
know, even pull in stuff fromReddit and stuff and get it's
still not the same as being inthe water, as surfing that spot
every single day, showing upwith all the other surfers,
looking at those waves, seeingthe weather and how it rolls in.

(54:33):
Like, nothing compares to beingin it. And I I think it's
actually almost there are someentrepreneurs that have been
able to serve an audience or acategory that is not their own.
I think it's exceedingly rare.And almost always there's some

(54:54):
venture funding in it where youhave runway to really give
yourself a crash course in it. Ithink it's so tough. I think you
gotta be in it to really have anadvantage, especially as a
bootstrapper.

Definitely. And so what's funny about where we are
today is that those two places Iwas spending my time represent,
like, the two parts of thebusiness. Mhmm. I'll I'll we we
can cut we'll keep we'll keepriffing, but, like, the agencies
are not our direct customertoday. But they're our peers and
they are the channel that wesell through, and I consider
them friends.
I mean, I've had agency partnerswho have gone through some

(55:30):
personal things and like, I'vedone, it doesn't matter with the
details, but, like, I've donepersonal gestures for them just
because, like Mhmm. I love them.I just like I love them. And if
they if they if some like,truly, I consider them, like,
comrades. Like Yeah.
And if they were here, if theywere like, if someone needed
something, like, I would dosomething for them. And I have
done something for them. Notbecause it's like a marketing
thing, but because it's like,hey, man. Like, I love you.

(55:51):
We've been in this stufftogether.
Like, we've written these upsand downs. Like, the Google shut
down all these things orMicrosoft, you know, this
happened, whatever. And we'vekind of been through these
experiences together. Yeah. Youknow, like that's real.
Those are real friendships andthere's real trust that gets
built there over time. But thefunny thing is that they are not
our direct customer. We stillsell to the people who are on
LinkedIn. Ultimately, the biggercompanies, that's where the

(56:12):
revenue operations and the salesleaders are. But it's because I
spent time with them andunderstood the space.
That was like a really and I'mstill in those WhatsApp groups.
Like, I mean, I mostly I justuse them, like, for joking
around. Yeah. Like, I don't belike, hey, everybody, we have a
webinar we're doing next week. Ijust like post memes and like
give people a hard time andstuff.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, like, just to be like, that's
like my role in thosecommunities. We have fun. We're
having fun.

And again, hard to replicate that, to have that
kind of rapport with people inthe industry. So we should
really paint a picture. Sooutbound sync, what does it do?
Like, what was what's the thejob it's doing for people?

Yes. So the job to be done. So we get the data. So
we had this low code thing.People are interested.
I started having big calls withpeople. I realized this is not
gonna work. Like, I'm manuallyOAuth ing into accounts. People
someone just asked me about SOCtwo. We have a make scenario.
I'm like, SOC two? I don't know.Here's makes security
documentation. Yeah. Werefactored into full code.
We go to market. Takes fourmonths to build it, two months

(57:18):
to refactor it. October 2023, wego to market. And the like, the
job to be done is, okay, if youwell, I started with if you're
using SmartLead Yeah. And youuse HubSpot, we get your data
from SmartLead into HubSpot.
Okay. That was like that was it.It was like simple enough if
you're using these two tools.But today, if you it's kind of
inverted. I would I consider usa HubSpot app or a Salesforce

(57:40):
app.
If you're a a team using HubSpotand you're doing outbound, well
then if you're using thesetools, we can bring your data
back into HubSpot. Likefundamentally, we're a HubSpot
app. We get this data in, andthen as a HubSpot app or a
Salesforce app, we get the datain job one. Job two is make the
data useful. So like I got alead.

(58:01):
Now I can route that lead to theright salesperson based on their
territory or whatever the rulesare.

Okay.

I can give them the context of that full thread
of a conversation.

Got

it. I can see all the sent emails before that. So
like reply routing. Because likegrowth hackers were doing this
in the beginning. So they wouldbe like to their founder led
customer, here's a Slackmessage.
And the founder would be like,great, I'll jump on a call,
done. But now if it's like wehave mid market customers with
1,500 employees, they need toroute it to the right person,

(58:30):
that rep needs context, theyneed to know what the campaign
was. There's like so many morerules that are not possible the
way it was being done before.Interesting. Routing the
replies, that's like a huge painpoint for the sales So this is
like a

fire hose of leads. Yes. And then your app
just says, okay, I've got to getthese leads to the right people
in the organization Yep. Withthe right context, with the
right information.

Exactly.

Got it.

And we empower the internal revenue op revenue
operations or HubSpot orSalesforce admin to build the
rules for that routing or thelike channeling the Firehose. We
allow them to build itthemselves inside of HubSpot and
Salesforce.

Got it.

So I, like, sort of finally came to grips with,
I'm gonna not gonna try to makepeople log in to anything

Yes. You went to where they already are.

Yeah. You wanna be in HubSpot. I'm gonna give you
this data in HubSpot. You don'tneed to log in. You would log in
to our application one time, andthen you're never able to look
at it again.
Yeah. We we build pipes.

Got it.

Like, just use the sink. Don't worry about where
the water's coming from.

And does it show up in HubSpot and Salesforce as
an official app?

Yes. So we're we're in the marketplace in
HubSpot and we're working onSalesforce app exchange. That's
like more of a process. But thebiggest surprise learning I had
in the beginning was that youactually don't need to be in the
marketplace to get distributionthrough them. So when we talk
about building a SaaS orstarting a SaaS, we had dozens
and dozens of HubSpot customersbefore we had a marketplace

(59:53):
listing.

Okay.

So it's because I was able to get HubSpot, I
posted on LinkedIn and HubSpotusers were like, we're using
Smart Lead, I want that inHubSpot. And they just reach out
to me.

Justin Jackson (01:00:02):
Got it.

Harris Kenny (01:00:03):
And they would install it as a private
connected app. So I was notusing HubSpot as a direct
distribution channel, if thatmakes sense. I was riding the
HubSpot wave, but HubSpot wasn'tputting me on the board. Do you
know what I mean?

So if you posted on LinkedIn and said, you know,
if you have this problem and youuse HubSpot, here's a solution.
And so people that were usingHubSpot, it was enough for them
to go, oh, I use HubSpot andthen go, oh, I have that
problem. Exactly. Okay. Now I'mgonna pursue the solution.

Exactly. Because they weren't even thinking to
search for it in the marketplacebecause no HubSpot so few
HubSpot teams were even usingthese tools.

Yeah.

So there was no like search discovery motion.
The place that at this time,like even still, people are
learning about these new cuttingedge things in Slack and on
LinkedIn. There's no like, hey,we need to go buy a digital
sales room tool or we need to gobuy a landing page tool, go
search in the HubSpotmarketplace and see what's

(01:00:55):
available. Like that wasn't athing.

Got it.

You know?

Got it.

For more like there is for more established
categories.

So wow. This is interesting. So so you launched
this thing and you're primarilygetting customers through
LinkedIn and relationships? Isthat

Well, initially, because I still have my agency,
all the revenue came from myclients. And once again, I I
forced tried to bundle them, butthis time it worked. Yeah. I
said, listen. I run an agency.
We specialize in helping teamsthat use HubSpot get new leads,
and we have this tool to getgive you those leads. It's
called outbound sync. Andthey're like, yeah, sure. We
need leads. If you get inHubSpot, great.

(01:01:33):
That's we want them there. Wereally want the leads, but we
also do want them in HubSpot.And that was my first few
customers. That was all myinitial MRR because of that. And
then when I started to getpeople come in and say, hey,
man, your agent looks great, butlike, I just see the app.
That's when I was like, I have aSaaS. Like, not like a software
I don't have a SaaS company, butI have a SaaS because someone is
paying me only for this Herokuapp that we built, you know,

(01:01:58):
that I built with the developer.So that was like the beginning
of of the beginning of that. Andso we were only selling direct
for a while. So people wouldfind us directly, and then
eventually I wound down myagency, And then it was like all
software revenue after that.

Yeah. And you shared your graph with me. Yeah.
It it it's pretty like it's like15% a month, you'd say, in terms
of growth. Let me

see if I can I can share one? We're not like doing
the build in public thing withnumbers, but I can share my
screen without the Numbers.

Sure, There's a little share button down there.
You should be able to use that.

Yeah. So this is like the transition. I've not
talked about this with anybodyanywhere yet. Nobody's asked.
This is the journey fromservices revenue to software.
So purple is my services orconsulting revenue and green is
my SaaS. This is gross top line,you know, money made. And so if
you're just listening, I mean,it's pretty much a cross fade. I
mean, you've got you candescribe it probably better than

(01:02:49):
me, but, yeah, I mean, this iskind of this has been the
journey.

Yeah. On one hand, so starting in 2023, most
of your revenue is consulting.And then you see around well, I
guess this would be just at theend of 2023, you start to get
software revenue. And then thesoftware revenue just grows
every single month. And thengradually, the consulting

(01:03:14):
revenue well, not gradually,actually, it comes off, you
know, you can see the transitionpoint where you're just like,
oh, it's time to switch to yeah.
We don't have to share thenumbers, but, like, you're doing
well. Like, this is you've doneit. Right?

Thanks, man. Yeah. For sure. I I feel like we're
we're there. I mean, I'll tellyou this transition point, May
2024.
So friend of the pod, friend ofso many people, Ruben Mhmm.
Gomes. When things were takingoff, I I emailed Ruben and I was
like, hey, I think things aregoing pretty well. Like, tell me
about TinySeed. Like, I've gotthis agency.
I have these expenses. Like, wehave childcare costs. I have a

(01:03:50):
mortgage. We have two cars.Like, my I mean, my wife works
in health care.
Got a great job and she's makingmoney, but we just have a lot of
combined income and I can't notmake money. Yeah. What if this
keeps going well? And then likea month later I was like, Oh my
God, I need help. Like I'mhaving calls with people that
are way better prospects thanI've ever had before, asking

(01:04:11):
questions that I am not at allequipped to answer and I don't
have time to answer.
And the hardest thing that Idon't think people, unless
you've been in it, it's reallyhard to explain, is that, like,
if you have a multi thousanddollar a month retainer client,
and then you have, like, a multi$100 a month SaaS client

Mhmm.

How do you balance tasks between those two things?
Like, it's different. The mathdoes math. Like Mhmm. One, this
this pays my mortgage, but thisone is is valued at the top
line.
The other know, my services arevalued at bottom line, like,
EBITDA or whatever, like, howmuch profit they're generating.
The software is is valued onpaper at the top line of how
much the MRR is or ARR is.

Yeah.

But like but like, this isn't a lot of money, that
is a lot of money, but this istechnically worth more. And then
like, this is a little fix, butit's just a little bug. And this
is like something where if Idon't get back to them, they'll
fire me right away. Yeah. Andand so, like, it's literally
it's impossible to decide whatto do Mhmm.
At any given moment. Yeah.Because the comparison is it's

(01:05:09):
it's apples and oranges. Yeah.And so that was like the appeal.
So so I kinda so I kinda startedkinda coming back into like, oh,
yeah. TinySeed. Oh yeah, likethere's a thing for this. And so
we ended up throwing our hat inand getting into TinySeed and I
made the decision to shut downmy agency, even though at the
time my SaaS revenue was 20% ofwhat my services revenue was.

Yeah. I

felt like the momentum was just like sort of
undeniable, but I couldn't. Ineeded a bridge. Yeah. I just, I
couldn't get it to grow fastenough to pay my bills. And I
didn't know what I was doing.
I had never gotten this level ofsuccess before. And so I didn't
know how to like the learning Ihad done in the beginning, it

(01:05:54):
got me here. And then all of asudden I like slammed into a
ceiling of like, I don't knowwhat to do. I don't even know
who to ask for help. Yeah.
I don't I don't know, like, whatshould I be prioritizing right
now? And so for us, like, thatwas like a godsend of like,
okay, this will allow me tobridge the gap. Yeah. And and
then hopefully it works. If itdoesn't work, that's really
stressful because I just shutdown this thing that that has

(01:06:15):
been paying my bills since 2019and has been my, like, my
lifeline.
And now I'm committing to this.I switched I mean, this is like
a little detail, but it was anLLC. So I was able to do owner
draws, it was very taxadvantaged. And now I'm
switching to a c corp where Ican't pull money out of the
business. And, like, I I can'tdo the I don't have the
flexibility that I had before.

(01:06:35):
So all of a sudden, was like,this business has to work. And
so it was a really but it feltlike, again, like I didn't have
a choice. Like, it felt likethis is so obviously a better
choice that even though it's ahard one, it's the right one.
And and so that turned out to bethe case,

think. I've never heard anyone describe
using TinySeed as a bridgebefore. So you've got this,
like, clear momentum with theSaaS. It's growing month over
month. But in order totransition from consulting to
this new thing, you needsomething to bridge the gap.
And in it sounds like in yourcase, that was both money, but

(01:07:11):
also just having more people inyour court that could help you,
could help strategize, couldhelp make decisions.

Both. Definitely.

Yeah. Did you use the money for hiring? Like
or was it just as runway foryourself?

Yeah. All all three. So I use it a little bit
runway for myself. I brought onCSM. I brought brought our
engineer on full time.

What's a CSM?

Oh, sorry. Customer Success Success
Manager.

Oh, okay.

And then engineer on full time. And then we also
got SOC two. Which was totallyworth it. But just like upfront
capital intensive things, theother thing that happened is at
the tiny seed, when the foundersall met up, I had all of a
sudden agencies started textingme and they're like, Hey dude,
heard you're winding down. I'vealways been curious about

(01:07:57):
outbound sync.
I actually have a client thatneeds this. And it was because I
shut down my agency, I thinkthey felt a lot more comfortable
working with me. Yeah. And so Iset up our partner program May
when we joined Tiny Seed, andnow it's like 80% of our
business.

80% of like revenue leads? Oh, wow.

Yeah. So now, like, so agencies who I've been
friends with this whole time andI've always been like sharing
notes with them. Yeah. Now theyhave clients who come in and
they say, listen, we're a 1,500employee company, series d
company. We have money.
Yeah. We have people, not theproblem. We just need the best.
We need someone who's willing totake chances and do really
interesting things. And likethat's what agencies are for.

(01:08:33):
Yeah. Even like Nike works atagencies, right? Famously. So
they but they say, but we useSalesforce. And so we need this
data.
We need it in Salesforce. Weneed to be able to attribute it,
and it needs to be compliant.And so that's what we solve. We
solve all of those problems, andwe let these really brilliant
growth hackers do their thingand then we connect them to the

(01:08:56):
people who have the willingnessto pay and the desire to pay,
but have rules that need to befollowed. And so that has become
this huge flywheel for us andwe're helping them grow.
We're helping them move upmarket because they're getting
bigger and better customersbecause they can tell these
stories.

I see. So this is not like a a a standard,
like, affiliate program. This isMm-mm. A program a partner's
program where you are giving thepartner's leads.

They bring them to us. We refer some. I've inferred
I I I referred Anthropic, sothat's a pretty good one.

Oh,

yeah. But we don't have a ton of leads. They bring
them into us generally. But whatwe bring is we bring the tool
and then we bring a lot ofsupport. So we set up a Slack
connect channel with them andwith their customer, and our CSM
is in there.
And so our customer successmanager is in there. So if they
have CRM questions, if they needto get in the weeds, we say,
hey, we will help think throughthis with your customer so that

(01:09:47):
you can do the thing that you'regood at. You are not a
Salesforce admin.

Yes. Got it.

Understand how to sift through signals and how to
get the right people, we'll makesure that it's a lead in
Salesforce with the right fieldspopulated, created at the right
time Yeah. Assigned to the rightperson kind of thing.

So for your partners, you are enabling a
whole new category of businessfor them. Yes. And giving them a
superpower when they have a newclient, they can they're like,
oh, wow. I can use outbound syncfor this. Outbound sync is gonna
provide me with all the supportand the tooling to do this job

(01:10:22):
that might be too big for themto do normally or or whatever.

Yeah. It's just hard. It's just it's just it is
a software required. The onlyway to do this is is with
software. Yeah.
The funny thing is that thesepeople are like they have their
own, like, dev resourcestypically. They have tons of
really sophisticated internaltooling. It's just, like, hard
enough and enough of a headachethat that I that there's enough
of an opportunity for us tobuild

Yeah. To to for you to for them to outsource it
to you.

And they're happy to, by the way. Like, I've had
people tell me, like, dude, I'mspending I've got a bunch of
vendors who are spending a bunchmoney. App on Sync is the only
one that I'm not even I don'teven feel like negotiating with
you because I don't ever wannathink about Salesforce.

I mean, that's a great signal. Yeah. I mean,
that's the whole beauty aboutSaaS is you're basically
socializing the cost ofsoftware, but also support
across thousands of customers.Exactly. And so, you know, I'm
looking at your pricing rightnow.
It starts at $99 and it goes upfrom there. $2.49, $4.99, and

(01:11:22):
then enterprise. So that's apretty good deal. For $4.99,
you're getting email and Slacksupport.

I think we go over the top with support. Yeah. I
think if someone if I you know,if someone were to come in
today, they would be like, yougotta dial that back.

Yeah. I I I mean, I think we go over the top
with support at Transistor too.

I been a Transistor customer. I agree.
And it was awesome. And I, like,I loved the experience.

I think that's just like again, it's one of
those things where if the wholeworld is going to AI chatbots
and support docs and or, youknow, poorly paid customer
support people that aren'tprofessionals, then what's one
way to stand out? It's it'shaving unbelievable customer

(01:12:05):
support. And it takes lesspeople than, you know, to
support 36,000 users onTransistor, which is probably, I
don't know, 8,000 payingaccounts. That's two full time
people to do that. So it's aninvestment, but it's less people
than you might think to do thatwork.

Well and people remember, you know, and then you
get better feedback. The AIsupport thing, I've had such
negative experiences with that.And the thing is, like, because
we have ears to the ground,like, we're able to ship better
features. Mhmm. And it's I don'tknow.

Oh, To me, it's That's the other thing is that,
you know, AI might answerpeople's questions, and then it
might give you analytics on themost you know? But it can't see
the subtext. It can't observethings. It can't make notes and
say, oh, man. Like, I can reallydig in here and see what is
causing what's motivating thiscustomer and then also what's

(01:13:00):
causing their problem.
And those are opportunities. Andif your job as an entrepreneur
or a founder is to correctlyidentify opportunities, like
that's your whole job. And it'slike, what are the resources I
used to do that? Well, part ofit is these back channels, these
WhatsApp groups and Slackchannels and all that stuff.

(01:13:21):
Part of it is me having anaudience on LinkedIn and
watching what's going on there.
And a big part of it isobserving real customers. And
instead of just answering theirquestion and moving on, just
taking a break and pause. Hey,let me dig into this with you a
bit. Like, can we jump on a calland talk about that? Can I just
ask you some more questions?

(01:13:43):
Very few people are willing toask one follow-up question. I
think we need to be asking twoor three or four follow-up
questions. That's where you kindof really dig into things. And
the, you know, AI just wants tomove on.

Right. Resolved. Anything else?

Yep. And our propensity as humans is to wanna
move on. But the founder's jobis to say, let's slow this down.
Hey. Tell me more about that.
Like, what's going on there?What are you using right now?
Okay. And is there like, you'repaying for that. Okay.
Is it working for you? What'sworking? What's not? That's the

(01:14:23):
magic right there.

Yeah. I mean, I totally I mean, I totally agree.
So, yeah, I mean, for us, that'ssuper important and we we're
yeah. We're we're in this funnyspot where, like, all the time
people are like, why can't Ijust do this with Zapier? I
think it's like a really goodbootstrap business opportunity.
I don't I don't think it's aventure scale business, but it's

(01:14:47):
like TinySteep is willing totake a chance on it. And like,
we I needed that bridge andthere's just no way I could have
done otherwise. I mean, thatthose like, couple months where
I was doing both was by far thehardest period of the last six
years. Yeah. By far.
I I remember I was on a callwith a guy, he was in Poland. We
were on a call at three a. M.

Yeah.

He's like, Dude, what time is it? I'm like, Oh,
it doesn't matter. Like, can youjust tell me if this is working
yet?

Yeah.

Like, it was was excruciatingly painful. You
know, we went through somefamily medical stuff in between,
which I don't really talk aboutpublicly, but it was
extraordinarily difficult. Andwe've like subsequently had a
second child. And so it's like,life just is happening. While
all of this is happening too.
But yeah, there's lot of reasonswhy this is a weirdly cool

(01:15:32):
opportunity. We're sittingbetween a few things. There's
lot of reasons why people thinkZapr could do it, or Make could
do it, or couldn't I just dothat with ChatGPT? But because
we're listening to customers andwe're finding these weird little
problems, I'm on a demo call andI show someone like, oh, you can
do this in Salesforce. They'relike, oh, that's that's it.
But you wouldn't know unless wetalked to 50 other Salesforce

(01:15:52):
people. We built that one tinylittle feature where it's like
it's not documented anywhere,but it's just how that part of
Salesforce works. And if youtalk to someone who knows, then
you know. And if you don't, thenyou'll then you

won't build it. And being able to observe those
their reactions and everything.Yeah. So everything you're
telling me, Harris, just remindsme of this article by Rob Snyder
called How Loom Found Pull. Andthe idea is that you want
instead of like pushing asolution all the time, you want
where there's just natural pull.

(01:16:27):
People are naturally beingpulled towards your solution.
And he has this pull hypothesisthat I think is so great. It
goes, what are we designing for?And number one criteria, there's
a project on their to do list.Number two criteria, that is
unavoidable right now.
So there's a project on their todo list, and it's unavoidable.

(01:16:49):
They're they need to deal withit. Number three, they consider
a list of options to get itdone. So, okay, we got a
problem. We need to get it donenow.
Here's our list of options.We're going through this right
now with Transistor becausewe're trying to find an HLS
video streaming hostingsolution. So we're Yeah. We're
going through a list ofproviders, But they think their

(01:17:09):
options have seriouslimitations. And I think we've
all experienced this, right?
Like, here's something. So thisis a poll hypothesis. And they
talk they go through Loom'swhole company story. And their
first one was OpenTest. Didn'twork.
Great hypothesis. Just like youhad, I think, some really good

(01:17:31):
early hypothesis hypotheses.Didn't work. Then they go to the
second one. Here's the secondone.
OpenTest is the product versiontwo. That didn't work. Okay. Now
we're gonna create a productcalled OpenVid, and they're
getting closer and closer. Andthen finally, they get to Loom,

(01:17:51):
which is, you know, this verysuccessful video recording and
sharing tool, which was acquiredby Jira for 975,000,000.
And what I like about this storyand your story, I see it
mirrored in both, is that Robasks the question, like, was
that original hypothesis wrong?Maybe not. Because there's

(01:18:15):
actually some other companiesthat release products exactly
with that hypothesis, and itworked. So there's a mix of
success factors, you know,timing, and maybe the skill of
the founder or these connectionsor the product approach or
whatever. Any given hypothesescan work.

(01:18:35):
But all you can do as anentrepreneur is keep iterating
and keep trying to find thething that's going to work for
you, work for your customers,work in your world. And, yeah,
it just seems like you wentthrough this exact journey.

(01:18:56):
Multiple If

you if you scroll up that thing, I mean, this
totally mirrors. So like today,like I had a like, this week,
we've been like, recently, wechanged our pricing and since we
changed our pricing in we me. Ichanged our pricing in, like,
late April after I went toMicroConf. Yeah. And I listened
to Marcos Rivera.
It's called like street pricing.Yeah. I I listened to his

(01:19:17):
microconf talk literally fivetimes and then plus all the
other random stuff.

Okay.

And we and I think we've really since since then,
conversations have been goingeven even better. So it's like
for us, like who are wedesigning for? It's revenue
teams using HubSpot andSalesforce. Yeah. So they
typically have multiplesalespeople, and and they're
running this, like, outboundmotion.
They need to connect. There's aproject on their list.
Literally, someone said twopeople both people my my sales

(01:19:42):
calls this morning both said, Ihave it on my list to figure out
how to get these two things totalk to each other. Yeah. It's
unavoidable because they'respending the agency is the
secret sauce for us because whenthey're really serious, they
hire an agency.
And so there's like, we'respending a lot of money on this
really good agency. So we needresults and we need to attract
what's happening. That's thelike secret to why I think why

(01:20:05):
it's working so well is becausethey're committed to the outcome
versus internal teams like playaround with outbound, but like
varying results and it's there'sno urgency. Yeah. So it's like
they're shipping campaigns nextweek, we've got to get
everything connected orwhatever.
They look at Zapier or Make orany of that or building it
themselves or not notintegrating them is, like,
always an option. And thenultimately, some of those teams

(01:20:29):
decide that outbound sync isgonna help them get the data the
way they need it. Yeah. So, Imean, I I don't know. I mean,
maybe there's a way to, like,kind of forcibly shoehorn this
into any story, but I do feellike as I go through this, it
feels like we have a version ofthis today.

And I think this is the point is that if you
can't honestly and realisticallyand reasonably fill out this
hypotheses worksheet, alreadythat's a no go. Now the
hypotheses worksheet does notmean you're automatically going
to hit a home run. But the wayyou just described it, I can

(01:21:06):
there's just these key points.It's like, this is a project on
their list that's unavoidableright now. How do we know that?
They've hired an agency. Theyhave put they've invested time
and money and resources. This isand this is like everything in a
business. Like, John and I havebeen struggling with sales tax
forever. If you've listened tothis podcast.

(01:21:28):
And it's been on our listforever. And then it reaches a
boiling point where it'sunavoidable. We've got to deal
with this right now. We aregoing to invest real time, real
money. How do we know?
Well, it's become Justin'snumber one priority. It's my
number one project for the nexttwo, three months. We are gonna
get this done. And in our case,we hired somebody, a contractor

(01:21:51):
to help us just like I wasmeeting with them every week.
We're strategizing.
We're trying to figure out whatexactly do we need to do. We're
booking meetings. Like, that'show you know it's serious. And
again, there's no guarantees,but the stronger the signal is
here and the less you deludeyourself. Like, when there's

(01:22:17):
real money being invested andyou have that key observation
like you had, which was they'vehired an agency, this is
serious.
Like, now this has gone fromnice to have or yeah, that
sounds good or to no, we we'repushing. We're doing this.

Exactly. Yeah. There's board level metrics.
Like, have customers who arelike the VP of marketing is
like, I have a board meetingnext week. Mhmm.
I have a question about this appon sync data because our
internal admin is gonna build areport for me for my board
meeting kind of thing. And

you can in customer interviews and
investigations, you can askquestions that will reveal this,
which is what are you doingabout this problem right now? So
you say it's on your list.You've got a project that's
unavoidable that you say isunavoidable. You say it's on
your list. What are you actuallydoing to solve that?

(01:23:10):
And if they're like, not much. Ihaven't really looked for
anything yet. Like, what haveyou considered? Not much. It's
like, okay.
This isn't yes. Sure. It's onyour list, but

Yeah.

I don't see actual motion. Like, the
customer has to be in motion ina real serious way for it to
work. This is like, I built thatthat project with a college grad
called Swag Fan. It's like Yeah.Yeah.
Making swag. Now I use it. It'sgreat. But that is not a serious

(01:23:45):
project on most people's list.And so it's it's never gonna
have that same pull thatsomething else would.
There's there's something wayhigher on most founders' lists
and most marketing people'slists than we gotta get swag out
right now to our fans andinfluencers and everything.

Well, so the urgency thing, I mean, for sure.
There's so much to that. Lastthing on this where I think it's
super interesting is like thevalue goes both ways for the
agencies too. They want to beable to prove results. Yeah.
And so when we get the data intothat important system, they can
show the customers the value.Mhmm. So for them, it helps with
retention too. Yeah. And ithelps them get credit when

(01:24:27):
there's conversion that theydidn't directly drive.
So I email a company. I let'ssay let's say you're doing the
sales tax thing and I end upemailing, like, Helen for some
reason, and I'm, with Numeral.Numeral solves sales tax for
SaaS companies. I email Helen.Helen's like, oh, this isn't my
thing, but I forward it toJustin.
Then Justin goes to Numeral'swebsite, signs up. The cold
agency email that the coldagency that email Helen that and

(01:24:51):
then the next day, you signed upfor Numeral, like, that's a
conversion that they're normallynot never getting credit for.
Yes. So, like, there's we're soin the middle of lots of things,
but and so we're I think we'rethe middle of, like, trying to
create win wins across thingsand just solve annoying problems
so that different people cantalk. And, like, the swag fan
thing is a funny example of,like, yeah, like, who yeah.
Who's feeling that? Who's like,god. I really I really need this

(01:25:12):
swag. Exactly. Yeah.
So there's there's a lot ofweird ways where I don't know.
Ultimately, like, I'm not surewhy this is working right now if
you add it all up. I don't know.I just I just it it feels like
it's going really well. I don'tknow what's gonna happen next.
And I couldn't really if I hadto recreate it, I couldn't.
Mhmm. Because I because Icouldn't really boil it down to,
like, okay. Here's the threethings or here's the five
things.

But this is the important piece I want people to
take away. This is a journey.It's like you deciding as a
founder, I'm going to do this.And at the beginning, you think
it's gonna be a one or two yearproject. Like, I'm gonna I'm
gonna quit my job, and I'm gonnaget this done in two years, and

(01:25:51):
I'm gonna have a great business.
And the truth is is this is alifetime project, and you are on
a journey of iterating andtrying to get closer to your
goal. And again, every at batyou have, you got to be doing
something, some fundamentals togive yourself a better shot. But

(01:26:15):
you also have to get go up tobat. You have to make some
swings like you did. And theneventually, something will hit.
And you won't know completelywhy. You'll have some ideas. As
an outsider, I think I can see alot of characteristics about why
outbound sync worked. It justhas a lot of built in momentum.

(01:26:37):
You're in an existing juggernautof an ecosystem with HubSpot and
Salesforce.
There's so much money in motionthere. And so for you to capture
some of that value or create newvalue inside that ecosystem, it
just makes sense. And I thinkpeople need to follow this
example and understand there'sno guarantees. So you could get

(01:27:00):
up to bat 10 times, and it mightnot work out. But what you're
doing as a founder is you'rebasically betting that if I keep
at this, if I keep improving, ifI keep learning, if I keep
iterating, one of these at batsis gonna produce something.
And, yeah, dude, I'm just sopleased for you. Congrats on

(01:27:22):
getting it to here. This is suchan awesome success story.

Thanks, man. Yeah. I I mean, yeah, I learned so
much. I I mean, I feel like Iwas learning so much for so long
from you. So when we connectedand talking about coming back on
here, felt like a really yeah.
Like a full circle thing. I washappy to do it. You know? We
like, yeah. Like, feel like it'sthe end of the beginning now.
And so now, like, the workbegins, but it feels like we're
default alive. I'm not, like,really anxious about paying

(01:27:48):
bills or the the threat of notbeing able to pay bills sort of
somewhat soon. And so now I'mhoping I can breathe and start
even taking some bigger risksthan we have before. Because
like in the last six years,every time I place a bet, it
kinda had to pay off or I had todo or or be such a little bet
that it could lose. Oh,

yeah. I mean, once you get out of that scrappy
bets stage where, like, goodinvestors, good people who make
people who are good at makingbets, eventually, the whole idea
is that they are bettingresources that they can lose.
Right. So it's like, this is apretty good bet. But if I lose

(01:28:26):
this bet, it's not the end ofthe world.
Whereas when you're at thebeginning and you're
bootstrapping and you'rescrappy, it's like, if I lose
this bet, yeah, like, it couldbe rough. You know?

Yeah.

And it felt like every bet leading up to
Transistor was like that for me.It was like Yeah. Okay. Like,
this is I am kinda betting thefarm every time. That's why it's
so hard.
But, yeah, now at this stage, Ithink you're you're about to
enter a really fun stage.Running a company is always
hard. But at this stage when youhave more resources and more

(01:29:01):
breathing room and more calm andmore margin, then it just
becomes about showing up everyday. I just think my job is
showing up every day and movingthis giant rock further down the
path. Like, I'm just pushing ita little bit more.
And those efforts are kind ofmultiplied in a way that didn't
happen before because there isexisting pull. So, yeah, I'm

(01:29:26):
excited for you. For folks whowanna check out what you're
doing, where should they findyou? On LinkedIn and at the
website?

Yeah. Outboundsync.com. And then,
yeah, LinkedIn, Harris Kenny.Look me up. As we've been
embracing our partners, I postreally weird funny stuff, like,
about Pokemon, and I've beenposting memes.
And just like we found our ICP,and so I'm just having fun,
like, posting for them. Oh,sweet. So so yeah. So if you if
you like kind of funny goofyLinkedIn, go there. If you're
looking for inspiration, it'syou're it's not the place.

Sweet. Sweet. Well, thanks so much for being
here. I'm gonna read out oursupporters because we haven't
done our Patreon shout outs in awhile. So thanks to everyone
who's still supporting the showon Patreon.
We've got Pascal. We've got GregPark. We've got Mitchell Davis.
We've got Marcel Folle. We'vegot Bill Condo.
We've got Ward frommemberspace.com. Evander Sassy,

(01:30:16):
Austin Loveless, MichaelSidberg, Colin Gray, and Dave
Junta. Thanks, everybody.Thanks, Harris. See you soon.

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