March 3, 2022 • 43 mins
Are you ready to ignite an idea, fire up your business and transform your life!? If so, you will love soaking up today's episode with entrepreneur expert Shane Melaugh. Shane Melaugh has founded multiple seven-figure companies, including Thrive Themes, and is currently building his cultivating personal development community, ikario.
Shane's personal story is fascinating. His mission via ikario is to share his life experiences with as many people as possible to help them break free and transform their lives into beautiful success stories. In this episode, Shane openly shares how his life transitioned from constraints, struggles, and an overwhelming sense of failure to finding freedom, wonderful success, and ultimately, unlocking a better life. Throughout the discussion, Shane explores the importance of building on what already exists, reveals a brilliant tool for filtering through business ideas, and highlights why we shouldn't overlook self-care and personal development. Key points within this episode include:
- How to organically grow a loyal customer base.
- Understanding marketing techniques to reach new audiences.
- The power of personal interaction when building a business.
- How to identify and meet your customers needs.
- Sell before you make it! The benefits of testing your existing audience.
- A brilliant tool for filtering new business ideas.
- Napkin Maths – how to determine the feasibility of a business plan.
- Becoming comfortable with saying no.
- The ikario story: unlocking potential through self-development.
- Why self-care should never be overlooked.
- A book recommendation for becoming a better entrepreneur.
- Shane's advice on obtaining your first 10 customers.
"Hustle and grind 24/7 till you make it is the worst way to try and make it. If you don't have rest in your life and you're not strategic about having high-intensity focus and then deep rest, you're just basically cutting yourself off at the knees because you're hampering your own ability to learn and make progress." – Shane Melaugh.
Connect with Shane Melaugh:
https://activegrowth.com/about/
https://activegrowth.com/podcast/
https://www.youtube.com/user/imimpact
https://www.linkedin.com/shane-melaugh
Connect with First 10 Podcast host Conor McCarthy:
https://www.first10podcast.com
https://twitter.com/TheFirst10Pod
https://www.linkedin.com/in/comccart/
Resources:
Book: So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport.
https://www.calnewport.com/books/so-good/
Check out my podcast partners!
Buzzsprout:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1389931
Otter:
https://otter.ai/referrals/ETRNKY16
Calendly:
https://calendly.grsm.io/ilev18qxpn1e
This podcast was produced in partnership wit
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Shane Melaugh (00:01):
I just live a better life now than I could
have ever wished for. And, andone of the most important
factors from here is freedom. Ijust have total freedom. I'm
financially free, I can livewherever I want, I can basically
do whatever I want with my time.
And that is something that Iwouldn't have dared dream of
when I was younger.
Conor McCarthy (00:18):
Hello, and welcome to season four of the
first 10 podcast. I'm your host,Conor McCarthy, and I help
people start to grow theirbusinesses. I do that through
joint ventures, collaborations,coaching, and online workshops.
In each episode of this podcast,I interview business builders
about the early days of startinga business, about how they found
their first 10 customers and gotoff the ground so that you can
(00:38):
learn what works and whatdidn't. Please do check out my
website at ConorMcCarthy.me formore details. My guest today is
Shane Melaugh. Shane is a reallygreat example of a true
entrepreneur. He has foundedmultiple seven figure businesses
including Thrive Themes, and iscurrently building the Personal
Development website, Ikario. Inthis episode, Shane tells it all
(00:58):
about startup businesses, wecover how existing customers can
help direct your next business,marketing through connecting and
having great conversations,understanding needs, and
creating great offers how toquickly and cheaply test for a
signal when you're pursuing anew idea, and selling an idea
before you create it. We talkedabout the fallacy of credit
markets. And for those listenerswho have a ton of ideas or
opportunities coming up, Shanehas a great and simple way of
(01:21):
assessing those. We end thispodcast talking about Shane's
experience with personaldevelopment and the effect it
has had on him throughout hislife. It led him to create a
carrier as a way to spread thevalue of what he's learned more
widely. I'm actually in theIkario community myself. And I
can say that it's reallyfantastic. They cover everything
from productivity to finance tofitness. And Shane's style means
that it's really actionable andreally clear. So please do enjoy
(01:44):
this episode with Shane Melaugh.
And thanks for listening.
So first of all, Shane, thankyou very, very much for taking
the time to be here with ustoday.
Shane Melaugh (01:56):
Yes, my pleasure.
My pleasure. Looking forward tothis.
Conor McCarthy (01:58):
Could you just give us a quick 60 or 90 second
overview of what you're doingright now?
Shane Melaugh (02:02):
Well, I am currently working mainly on
Ikario, which is a personaldevelopment business. So where
we aim to teach people the kindsof skills that I think are most
crucial for people to basicallybreak free and live, a self
determined life. And this is theproject that I started after
(02:26):
essentially retiring from mylast business. So I was in the
in the marketing and softwarebusiness for many years. And
yeah, I got to the point whereessentially, my previous
business Thrive Themes basicallyoutgrew me, was very successful
and very pleased with that. ButI also, you know, realize that
(02:48):
it kind of grew to a size andtwo type of company that I
wasn't really very suited to runanymore. And I basically
successfully retired from that,and then started something new,
something smaller, that's moresuited to to my strengths again.
Conor McCarthy (03:04):
Okay, very cool.
And we'll come back to Ikariobecause I'm a huge fan of
Ikario. Since I discovered it, Ithink it's brilliant. But maybe
if you don't mind, can we goback to that, that time in your
life when you built multiplecompanies and thrive teams, etc?
Because this, this podcast isabout the first 10 customers and
starting things. Is there astory in there of one of the
projects or the businesses youstarted? Where you can kind of
(03:25):
get into some of the storiesabout how you found your first
customers?
Shane Melaugh (03:30):
Yeah, you know, in preparing for this podcast, I
was thinking about this. And theinteresting, I was wondering
like your well, which first 10customers because I've built
many businesses, and so there'sthe first 10 over and over
again. But at the same timeoften for a new business, t he
first 10 customers werecustomers from the previous one,
(03:53):
because and so you kind of haveto trace that back quite far.
Because, yeah, one of the firstthings I did as an entrepreneur
or let's say that was like semientrepreneurial that I had some
success with was that I wasselling computer hardware. And
they're, you know, my first myvery first customers, I think I
(04:16):
got on eBay, you know, I listedoffers on eBay. And that got me
some customers. But after that,and this is really this was
probably around 2007 or so. AndI was on very wobbly feet there
as an entrepreneur really didn'tknow what I was doing. And
basically what happened is Irealized I had had many or
(04:39):
several failed attempts where Ithought, Okay, I want to build
this kind of business or I wantto try to create some, some
business and it would always bejust a non starter and I
realized that my problem wasthat I just didn't know how to
reach people. I didn't know howto even if I have a good idea
and I never knew whether my ideawas actually good or not, but
because I didn't know how to getit in front of people, and that
(05:02):
led me to learning aboutmarketing. So I started reading
books about marketing. And whatI did. And this was, I think
this was maybe 2008, or 2009, Istarted a blog, where I started
writing about what I waslearning about marketing. And it
was kind of just an attempt of,I thought, well, I want to do
some active learning here. Andprobably if I explain some of
(05:23):
these things, I'll be better atremembering them and
implementing them. And so Istarted writing this, this blog
on the topic of marketing. And Istarted building various
websites, I got into all kindsof stuff. But basically, what
happened is that on this blog, Istarted growing a small
audience. And I was also usingit as a way to test things, you
(05:45):
know, testing, SEO strategies,and, and one of the things and
various things, you know,posting on forums and leaving
comments and other people'sblogs and all kinds of stuff to
try and reach people, right. Andwhat happened is that, on this
little blog, I grew a smallaudience. And those, you know,
basically from that, so that,from that organic, like content
(06:08):
creation and startingdiscussions with people in
different places, that is wheremy first 10 customers in the
world of marketing came from.
And, and I think this is a keypoint, because I think that
often the first customers, or atleast that the, the most
important customers have alwayscome to me through some kind of
an interaction, where there'ssome kind of a personal touch to
(06:33):
them. Because I think thereason, you know, the reason
that people resonated with withmy marketing blog was that I was
not trying to pretend like,again, the marketing space,
right? What you usually see ispeople basically flashing money
saying, I have the secret tomaking money, you know, buy my
course. And I'll tell you,right, and I wasn't, I wasn't
(06:54):
doing that. I was just saying,Hey, I built a few websites, I
tried this stuff, here's whathappened. And I was, I guess,
just more honest about here'ssome stuff that worked your
stuff that didn't work. And andpeople resonated with that.
And I also really got intoconversations with people
through at the time blog,comments, blog comments, not
(07:15):
really a thing anymore. Butnowadays, people have these
exchanges on maybe Twitter or onDiscord or whatever, right?
Where you have actualinteractions with people where
again, someone might ask aquestion, and I answer and they
see all this real person, andthey take, they've taken the
time to send me an answer here.
And that is what leads them thento buy my first course that I
made, and, and once again, it'slike, it's almost like this
(07:41):
continued relationship, I put alot of work into that very first
product that I ever made, whichwas an SEO course, put a lot of
work into that. And reallyundercharged for it, quite
frankly. And so people weregetting loads and loads of value
for very little money. And thatmade them basically loyal fans
for the next thing that I wasdoing. And so by the time I
(08:03):
started Thrive Themes that wasfrom that same seed, the first
10 customers for Thrive Themes,and in fact, the first few 100
customers, for Thrive Themescame from that same seed that I
had planted a few years earlier.
And from that same idea out ofthose exchanges, and, and out of
(08:23):
those positive interactionsessentially, with, with my
audience, right. And so I thinkthat has always been the key is
that I also think of this as youknow, there's a difference
between someone who's just likeon your mailing list, or who's a
customer or traffic, you know,you can get traffic to your
website, there's differencebetween traffic, that kind of
(08:46):
abstract or whatever number ofpeople versus someone who's
actually in your audience,someone who's in your audience,
the way I think about it issomeone who actually wants to
see and hear and learn more fromyou, right? So you can you can
pay for an ad and get sometraffic and traffic lands on
your landing page. And maybe youcan get them to sign up for
(09:07):
something, but do they actuallywant to hear from you? Are they
happy when they see an emailfrom you? Or most of them not?
Right? Something else has tohappen. First, you have to have
some kind of a positiveexchange, you have to give them
some kind of a positiveexperience for them to switch
from that kind of like oh why isthis person emailing me to oh, I
want more of this. And I thinkthat has always been the key for
(09:29):
me to that. Yeah, to the first10 Customers essentially right
is to create that kind of almostlike a personal interaction. So
it's it is like personalbranding, but I also think that
it's obviously it's not the onlyway to do it, but that is what
worked for me right is to is tohave a real like relationship
(09:50):
with these people in a way tothe extent that it's possible
online. And that also means thatyou know, it is it is a very
mutual thing right. I have Like,I know these people, I know
their names, I know their faces.
I've been on Zoom calls withthem, right? And I care about
them. And that means that alsomeans that I have like a very
rich source of information ofwho I'm talking to, and what
(10:11):
they need and how I can servethem, right. So that is
basically, yeah, I think that'sit. That's, that's what gave me
the start.
Conor McCarthy (10:23):
That's fascinating, though, that
there's so much so much richnessto that about the What's that
famous saying to almost doingthings that don't scale? I think
that was a great thing. Butyou're right there. And I think
a really key part of what yousaid in there was about
understanding needs, of course,people will talk to you more
naturally and more openly aboutwhat they really want and really
(10:44):
need, which is, which is reallywhat most people are looking for
when they're starting abusiness. What is it the
customer needs? The what's theproblem that I'm solving?
Shane Melaugh (10:51):
Absolutely. I mean, that's such a key point.
You know, I also see this with,and this is something with
Thrive Themes, which is a suiteof tools for for building
websites, essentially. Andthrough Thrive Themes. I got a
lot of exposure to websites thatother people build, right, I've
basically seen 1000s ofwebsites, the various people
(11:15):
have built in all kinds ofniches and whatnot. And that is
one of the most common issues isthat this very, there's this
very fundamental disconnect, oris it the thing you're talking
about is not actually whatpeople want? But it's like
you're answering a question thatnobody's asking. You're, you're,
and you're making a product thatnobody actually really wants?
(11:37):
And, and yeah, for a while I didthese website reviews, you know,
or basically look at websitesthat people had sent in and
tried to give feedback. And veryoften, it basically comes down
to that is that yes, there'ssome technical stuff wherever
you could choose a better fontor whatever, right? None of that
really matters that much.
Because the there's thisfundamental disconnect, where
(11:59):
it's like you haven't, you'renot speaking the audience
members language, and I'm notspeaking their language, and
you're not giving them somethingthey truly want. And I think
that's often what it comes downto a really good offer is one,
that is just exactly what youwant to need right now. And and
it's very difficult to getthere. And I think that having
(12:22):
this interaction with people isone of the best ways to get
there.
Conor McCarthy (12:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Reminds me of that famous sayingthat people people love to buy,
but they don't want to be sold.
And, and I think often what Isee and maybe what you see as
well, while you're speaking tois that idea of almost know,
assuming you know what thecustomer wants, and then going
ahead and building your landingpages and your offer, etc. But
there's a disconnect. Andthat's, it's important, but is
(12:49):
there anything that you wouldsay to people who who think they
have this great idea, they thinkthere's a need, what's the next
step they should take?
Shane Melaugh (12:57):
Yeah, you want to, you want to try to test that
against the market asefficiently as possible. So the
worst thing you can do is spenda lot of resource and that is
mainly time and money oncreating something before you
get some kind of an answer orsome kind of a signal. So in you
(13:21):
know, in in, let's say in moretraditional business that is
often comes down to waste ofmoney, or you've spent
unbelievable amounts of money toto make your first product or
something that the nobody wantsto buy. And in in a more in this
kind of more bootstrapsolopreneur type field, which is
(13:41):
most of the entrepreneurs I workwith are, you know, kind of solo
operations very small. And sothey're, usually not not
spending too much money is theproblem, the problem is spending
too much time, you know, so youyou spent a year fretting over
all kinds of details about youronline course. But you don't
(14:02):
actually know if anyone wants tobuy this thing yet right. Now,
if you already have some kind ofan audience, then always test
your offer against the audience,and what I've also done is to
sell something before I make it.
So to really make sure thatpeople want this and there's
basically two ways there'sthere's in there's two benefits
(14:23):
to this right? You can you cansell something before you create
the actual so course or whateverit is. And that allows you to
verify that people actually wantto buy it because if you make
that offer and virtually nobodybuys it, you just refund the
people who give you my and saysorry and you move on. But also
when you do get that signal andpeople buy it from you, you can
(14:44):
also then create the producttogether with your customers.
You can make sure that you stayon track. Now, I want to be
clear about this right thistakes skill. You have to be good
at creating product right But ifyou have that skill, then you
can calibrate the product andchange it and update it as
you're going through it based onthe feedback that your customers
(15:06):
give you, right? So that'ssomething I've done. But that
requires that you have anaudience to start with, which
most people don't. So if youdon't have an audience to start
with, you need to find a way toverify that your idea has legs
in some other way. And you cando that, in many ways, right? I
mean, one thing is, one of thefirst things you have to do is
(15:30):
you have to be very clear aboutwho is my audience? And where
are they, you have to have asense of where these people hang
out, right? The way I like tothink of it is basically you
have to be able to point me atthe group of people who
represent your ideal customers.
And, and that could be, youknow, that could be okay,
there's this conference, youknow, there's this whatever
(15:52):
industry conference and thepeople who go to that
conference, they they're mycustomer, right? It could be
well, there's this online forum,there's this whatever this
discord community where peopleare, usually there's more than
one, right? Here's a group of1000 discord communities where
people talk about, I don't knowhow to become a better a game
streamer or something like that.
That's my target audience. Sobut you have to be able to point
(16:14):
to it, you have to be able tosee this is where they are. And
then you go there, and you starttalking to people. And again,
you know, like you said, peopledon't want to be sold to but
everybody loves buying stuff.
And that's one of the things youcan test. Like, if if you start
talking about what you'rebuilding, or what your product
(16:35):
is, if it immediately, it'simmediately like, I don't want
to be sold to go away. And also,you know, some moderator steps
and says, Stop doing this,you're not allowed to that's a
sign that there's some mismatch,right? That your product is
perceived as this external thingthat asked this person just
wants money to get rid of them,right. Whereas if you have an
(16:55):
offer that really hits the nailon the head, the reaction should
be Thank God. Thank God, someonehas come here with this thing
that we desperately need, right?
Yeah, yeah. So that's, that'sone way to test it right? Or,
can you go to your targetaudience and tell them what you
do? And are you received withopen arms? Or are they trying to
get rid of you. And other way,and this is something I've done,
(17:18):
like many of the products thatI've created, were basically
just variations of somethingthat already exists. So I think
this is also important toconsider, right? If you want to
build like a billion dollarbusiness, you probably have to
invent something new, youprobably have to do something
hasn't been done before. Andthis is something that I've
(17:41):
never done, I've never attemptedto do. Because I think the way I
think about it, the the chancesof that succeeding are extremely
low, right? So it's very highreward but extremely high risk
to try and invent an entire newcategory of product or something
like that, right?
Instead, what I've alwaysattempted to do is essentially
(18:02):
go into an active market andjust take a little bit of market
share. So, again, if we useThrive Themes as an example, you
know, there was already therewere already other businesses
built around selling WordPressthemes and plugins that were
making millions a year. And itwas obvious that was a highly
(18:24):
active market, it was alsoobvious that it was a growth
market, right? That's, you know,the trajectory of how many
WordPress websites exists, justgoing straight up. And you could
easily look at this and say,well, in five years from now, is
this going to be higher or lowerthan now? And the answer was
obvious, it's going to be more.
So my thinking was simply like,if I can create a business, like
these businesses that alreadyexist, and either, if I can see
(18:47):
an opportunity to make itbetter, then that's what I do,
right, make the same thing butbetter, or make the same thing
but targeted at a slightlydifferent user. So in my case,
what I identified was that, youknow, people who, like the web
designer user was very highlyserved, but the marketing user
(19:07):
was underserved. So if youwanted to make a website that
looks really pretty unlimitedoptions. If you wanted to build
a sales page, that was not, youknow, the solutions were not
great. That's changed sincethen. But but that's basically
what you know, Thrive Themes isbasically, I think, the first
WordPress company step intothere, start taking that market
(19:28):
share and then because itworked, now, we have a lot of
other people as well doing it,but that was the basic idea. So
we were reinventing the wheel.
We weren't trying to create anentirely new market, we were
simply identifying like a gap inan already active market and
stepping in there. And that thereason I'm saying this is
(19:49):
because that's also one of theways in which you can verify
that an idea is good is like,look, people are already
spending money on this. This isalready a thing, right? Yeah,
that That's one way to, youknow, basically the further away
your ideas from something thatalready exists and people are
already spending money on themore other verification, you
(20:09):
need to make sure that you'renot just making a mistake.
Conor McCarthy (20:15):
I hope you're enjoying this episode, and that
there's some actionable andinsightful advice that you can
take out to your business.
Helping you identify and createthose first 10 customers is what
I do. So if you like what youhear on this podcast and want
more information, including abunch of free resources on how
to find your first 10 customersand grow your business, check
out first10podcast.com, that's10 one zero, or find me on
(20:36):
Twitter @thefirst10pod. Now, youprobably hear what I'm about to
say on every podcast you listento. And it makes a really big
difference to the show. If youfind this podcast in any way
useful or enjoyable, I'd be sograteful if you left me a review
on iTunes, it really does make abig difference in terms of other
people discovering the podcast.
(20:58):
Also, if you leave a review, youwill get to see your name on the
review in lights. What I'll dois I'll design your words and
post them online taking you onyour project along with it. I
know it's a pretty sweet deal.
Okay, let's get on with theshow. That's very interesting,
because I think a lot of peopleget scared away by credit
markets. Yeah, but but to yourpoint, it's a it's a pool of
(21:20):
interest. And, and there are somany more people than will ever
fit into one market. So can youdevelop something along a
different vector almost.
Shane Melaugh (21:32):
I would also encourage anyone, anyone doing
entrepreneurial and creativestuff, I would highly encourage
that you start looking at yourspace, and, and other creative
spaces and entrepreneurialspaces from like an observer
perspective. And notice howbecause even like, I think
(21:52):
anyone can can think of examplesof this, where the market looks
like it's completely crowded andoversaturated until the new
thing comes along. And then inretrospect, it seems inevitable,
right? It happens all the time.
And you know, it's just like,yeah, if we, if we think about,
like, if I think about thepersonal development space,
(22:12):
right. Ever since I've beeninterested in the personal
development space, which is formost of my life, the market has
been crowded, which is to saythere's a bunch of people are
like best selling authors, youknow, writing their self
development books, and there arethe bloggers and the YouTubers
and whatnot. But also whathappens all the time is that
someone new comes along, youknow, and often you have like
(22:33):
the meteoric rise, and all of asudden, someone like Matt D.
Avella is like a mainstay, youknow, the face of productivity
and minimalism on YouTube. Wereover five years ago, he
basically didn't exist onYouTube prime. So, if you go
back in time, and someone asksyou well, what do you think
about the self help or theproductivity or whatever space
(22:56):
on YouTube? It's like, well,it's overcrowded. Look at look
at all these people withmillions of subscribers, how
could you possibly compete. Anda few years later, here's these
three or four new faces thathave appeared, now this happens
all the time. This happens allthe time. So I think paying
attention to this, and and like,learning to almost mentally
(23:16):
rewind the clock, you know, whenyou see the inevitable you see
it again, like just like a greatoffer does not feel like
someone's trying to sell me itjust feels like Oh, thank god
someone has finally has thisthing. And all they want is
money or it's almost ridiculous.
A really good offer feels likeyou're getting away with it.
(23:37):
Right? It's like all I have togive it as money for this. Wow.
Amazing. Whenever that feelslike a good offer has this
effect where it doesn't feellike you're being sold to and it
almost feels like this is thisthe sense of inevitable
inevitability to it, right? Youfeel like this has to exist,
it's so important and so good.
Of course, this exists. But ifyou rewind the clock a little
(23:59):
bit, it didn't exist. And it'sthe same with any kind of
business, any kind of creatoranything like that. The once you
see the success of a new brand,or of a new creator, it feels
inevitable. But if you likelearn to practice, like
rewinding the clock, what didthis look like before this
person started this businessbefore they made their first
(24:22):
video or whatever it is, right?
And try to think of like, how doyou find that gap? That seems
inevitable afterwards?
Conor McCarthy (24:33):
Hmm. That is, I love that way of thinking
because you're right, everyevery category looks absolutely
stuffed. And then someone alwaysemerges and then someone emerges
after that and and on and on wego. So yeah, I love and it's
almost like an exercise youcould do if you're thinking of
getting into a category who totop three people and find out as
(24:54):
much as you can about theirfirst year or two when it was
probably really difficult forthem. You know, like Matt
D'Avella, I follow him as well.
And it's like, you know,crickets like putting out
videos, putting out content andno one's getting on, but then
something happens, thensomething else happens. And then
you found your audience, andthen they they help you spread
the word, etc. So they, thatthat's, I love that that's a
great way to think aboutentering any market. How do you
(25:16):
filter new ideas that comealong? You must have lots of
ideas, or you must have a lot ofopportunities pitched at you. Do
you have a quick kind ofshorthand way of deciding yes,
no to new new projects,
Shane Melaugh (25:27):
The easiest shorthand way is to just always
say no. Because, because listen,it's like there's, there's a
real limit to to the use of moreprojects. So the best thing is
to always say no, but I actuallylike a really good framework for
(25:53):
this is one that I originallycame across from. What's his
name? Mark Manson. Mark Mansonwrote this years ago, I hope you
don't mind swearing on thispodcast, because the framework
is fuck yes or no. All right. Sothose are the two options like
you you see an opportunity comesyour way? If the answer is not,
(26:15):
fuck, yes, it's no. Becausethere's a horrible, they're
horrible consequences to sayingyes to things that we feel like
lukewarm about. And I thinkthat's, that's good, especially
when you are in the situationwhere you basically have more
opportunity than than time,right? You say only Yes, the
(26:35):
things that you're very, veryexcited about. I think that's a
good framework to use. If youare in a, this is of course,
like, usually people start outwith more time, then
opportunity. And then as youbecome successful, you get more
opportunities, then you havetime. So if you're in the
(26:56):
situation where you have moretime than opportunity, and you
like looking for ideas andthings like that, I think the
most important thing is to, topractice, essentially, right,
like coming up with inevaluating and testing ideas,
and to apply mental models tothis. So to have us have a way
(27:19):
to think about how do I makethis decision strategically? And
so that it's not just a gutfeeling, you know, oh, this
sounds like a really good idea.
I should do that. That's, that'sa terrible way to decide what to
do with your next five years,you know? So have a framework
for how you make thesedecisions. And this is something
that I mean, it's also somethingthat I teach, right, like, how
(27:40):
do you to strategically thinkabout this? Yeah. Because
basically, I can't, I can't likenutshell this, this whole
process, but it is somethingthat, you know, we teach on
Ikario as well. But a verysimple idea for businesses is to
do napkin math, right? Where youkind of do the very rough math
of what would this look likethat you can kind of scribble on
(28:03):
the back of the napkin, right?
Where you, you're not trying toget the exact numbers, but you
just think of, okay, I have thisidea for this product I want to
create for this market, right?
And then you go, Well, alright,how much? What would they sell
this product for? What's theprice? And then, and what does
it cost to produce? Especiallyif it's a physical product, you
(28:26):
know, what's the cost ofproduction shipping and so on?
Okay, and then you have a profitmargin. And then you think about
all roughly, what is the totaladdressable market here? How
many people can I sell this to?
Realistically, right? And whatdoes that look like? And simply,
like, run the numbers to seelike, Okay, if I, if I managed
(28:46):
to get 100 customers a month,what does that look like? If I
managed to get 1000 customers amonth? What, what does that look
like? And what's the likelihoodthat I can do this, because if
you just do the rough math, andyou see like, Okay, I need
10,000 customers a month tobreak even. That's not good. So,
so, and on the other hand, ifyou have a model where you can
(29:09):
see, okay, I could start smallhere, you know, if I get, and I
get a few customers a month, Ican do this maybe as a side gig
next to my job. And then if Iget to the point where I have
like 10 sales a month, I canquit my job and start focusing
on this full time. That's acompletely different scenario
that we're looking at, right?
And your numbers don't have tobe precise. And you can just
(29:29):
guess, right? Because I don'tknow if I can get 10 customers
or 100 or 1000. But I can tellusually, they're getting a 1000s
probably way harder than getting10. Yeah, yeah. So so just
running these kinds of numbersand having a sense of what would
have to look like for this towork. I think many ideas can be
dismissed just based on that.
(29:54):
You just run the numbers and yourealize I have to actually get
so many customers for this to beworth it. that I can't even I
don't even know how this is evergoing to happen, right. And then
you either have to changesomething about the offer, you
have to change something aboutthe pricing of the offer, or you
have to figure out how to, youknow, obviously, you can make
(30:14):
things that are basically massappeal, right. But what's the
worst thing is if you havesomething that requires mass
appeal, that requires like, massadoption for you to make good
money, but it's like a nicheproduct and, and just like
running through a couple ofscenarios, yet with like rough
(30:35):
calculations can help you figurethat kind of thing out
Conor McCarthy (30:38):
I like that.
Yeah, a tiny amount of timeinvested upfront, will help you
not waste weeks and months,potentially years. There's also
I reread the story the otherday, I think was Charlie Munger,
who a colleague of hisapproached him and with this
question of, you know, I want todo lots of things with my life.
And he said, Okay, write downthe 25 things you want to do
with your life. And this guywrote down the 25 things. And
(30:59):
then Charlie Munger said, I'mgoing to circle the top five.
And he did that. He said, Okay,now, that's it. That's really
all you have time for in yourlife. Like the other things have
to say away. I remember when Ifirst heard that I went, Oh,
that's brilliant. Like, let'shave your five an arbitrary
number of, of opportunities. Butrecently, I read it again and
went, Oh, no, it's actuallyabout the 20. It's actually
(31:21):
about the things that he said,You just, you can't even look at
those. And he had a similarexample in, he said, once about
trading, he said, if you onlyhad 10 opportunities to make a
big investment in your life,that was it. You think very
carefully about the things youinvest your time and money in.
So these are just really useful,mental thought thought
(31:44):
experiments.
Shane Melaugh (31:46):
And also going back to the previous thing about
you know, opportunities likethat is why saying no is so
important. It's very importantto be able to say no to stuff
that's just that's not in yourtop five basically.
Conor McCarthy (32:01):
Yeah. Ikario, I think, so we were talking a
little bit beforehand, I'm arecent convert to a carrier. And
I think it's great. You'vealways been into personal
development. So why now? Why didyou start Ikario when you did?
Shane Melaugh (32:17):
Yeah, I felt like, I think that, for me, you
know, personal development wasreally a necessity for me,
because of my personal history.
Like, I really struggled when Iwas younger, and I was kind of a
failure at life, basically,until my mid 20s, or so, there
was really no indication that,that I make anything about
(32:41):
myself, you know. And so it wasreally a necessity for me, where
I just had to figure out, okay,basically, I'm not good at
anything I had, I didn't have agood social life, I, I was
broke, I was unhappy. And I wasjust like, this is I was on a
life trajectory, where I wasjust like, This is not good. I
don't want this to just go on,you know. So, personal
(33:04):
development was was a necessityfor me. And I think my
experience with it was that forfor many years, I was just like,
reading lots of books about it,and trying lots of things. I was
just doing all this work onmyself. And a lot of it, I was
unsure of, like, does this work?
(33:26):
You know, is this doinganything? Here I am, you know,
doing my journaling every dayand doing these exercises doing
this stuff? The other? But isthis going anywhere? I don't
know. Right? But there is this,this, like, it is the long game,
right? You're playing the longgame. And it is. What I've
noticed is that it's really likethis exponential growth, where,
(33:48):
you know, at some point, after afew years of doing this, I
realized, okay, and now I'mmaking decent money with a
business of my own. And I have abetter social life, and I feel
better about myself and lots ofthings are clearly better. But
then, you know, another fiveyears later, I'm like, way
beyond anything I could havedreamt off. So the payoff for me
(34:11):
of doing the self developmentstuff has just been
undescribable I honestly, I justlive a better life now than I
could have ever wished for. And,and one of the most important
factors from here is freedom. Ijust have total freedom, I'm
financially free, I can livewherever I want, I can basically
do whatever I want with my time.
And that is something that Iwouldn't have dared dream of
(34:31):
when I was younger. And so forme, you know, after retiring
from Thrive Themes, the questionwas like, what's the what's the
best thing I can do? Basically,what I want to do is I want to,
I want to give the experiencethat I had to as many other
(34:53):
people as possible like this isthe most valuable thing I've
ever discovered in my lifetimeand I'm just very motivated to
try and bring that to as manyother people as possible. And
that's why I started Ikario. SoIkario was not a business that I
started because of any of thestuff we talked about. Now, it
wasn't that I thought, Oh,here's this great market
(35:13):
opportunity. Here's a product Ican make for this niche, and so
on. It's not like that. Theprimary purpose of Ikario is I
want other people to experiencewhat I experienced, which I, in
the most simple terms, I thinkof it as breaking free, right?
It is breaking free from yourconstraints that you know, might
(35:34):
keep you locked into a job youdon't like and this kind of
stuff, but it's also breakingfree from other sources of
suffering, external andinternal, right? Maybe you're
like in a toxic socialsituation, maybe you just have
really low self esteem as I did,and things like that, right. And
for me, it's just like, Idiscovered ways to break free
(35:54):
from this, and I can't think ofanything better to do with my
time than then try and pass thison to other people.
Conor McCarthy (36:05):
It is, it's a pretty amazing resource. And
obviously, I'll include links inthe show notes. Who do you find
coming along to Ikario? Like whoare the people that seems to be
attracting, that may besurprising to you?
Shane Melaugh (36:19):
Well, it's there is definitely carry over again,
like I mentioned earlier, right,from my previous ventures, where
a lot of the people Ikario rightnow are entrepreneurs, and are
like these solopreneur typepeople. And it also makes sense,
of course, right? There'soverlap, because why do people
start a business is because theywant financial freedom, right,
and they're seeking for a way tobreak free. And I also, you
(36:43):
know, a lot of the material thatwe have covered in Ikario
content has been about how tobecome more productive, and, and
how to manage your money. Andthat's the reason I talk about
these things is because thoseare some of the key tools that
you need in order to break free,you know, yeah, we live in a
world where you need, you needmoney to break free, right, as
(37:05):
long as you as long as you're infinancial, financially dire
straits, you're always going tobe dependent on, you're always
going to be less free, you haveless choice about what to do
with your time. And you're alsojust going to be suffering from
more stress, and worry, and soon and so forth. Right. And so,
(37:26):
the key tools that I think youneed in order to overcome this
is you need to learn how to beproductive, which is you need to
learn how to undistract yourselfand use your time effectively.
So that you can effectively likemarshal your resources towards a
goal such as building yourbusiness or advancing your
career or doing something elselike that. And then, as you make
(37:49):
more money, you have to knowsome basics about how to play
the money game, so that youdon't just constantly,
essentially piss out all themoney that comes in immediately,
right. And you don't make youdon't make the kinds of, so the
money game is an adversarialgame. So there's many players
who are invested in getting youto make bad decisions
(38:09):
financially, so that they canget more of your money over a
longer time, right. And so,that's why we talk about these
things. To me, these are likesome of the basic building
blocks so you become a morecapable, more effective person.
You start playing the money gamea bit better. But then there's
all kinds of other stuff becauseyou know, when I talk about
(38:30):
productivity, I'm not justtalking about how to make it to
do this, I'm talking about howto manage your time and how to
how to design your your life insuch a way that there's like
periods of intensity followed byperiods of rest, that you have
this balance, right, one of thethings we often talk about is
like the it's like the oppositeof hustle culture, right? The
opposite of just hustle andgrind 24/7 till you make it is
(38:51):
this the worst way to try andmake it because that if you
don't have rest in your life,and you're not strategic about
like having high intensityfocus, and then deep rest,
you're just high you're justbasically cutting yourself off
at the knees, because you'reyou're hampering your own
ability to learn and makeprogress and so on. Right. And,
(39:14):
and then there's also thisbasically all fits into into a
bigger picture again, where youknow, ultimately there's no one
dimensional way to live a goodto live a good life. And so
that's why yeah, likeproductivity and work and high
capability high performance areimportant. But also things like
(39:35):
taking care of your physicalbody and and doing like internal
work, but I'm a huge believer inlike writing and introspective
writing. So we cover like this,this broad range of topics
essentially. Because again, forme, the only thing that matters
is what is most valuable. I'mnot that concerned with you know
(39:57):
what matches a specific nicheJust like listen, if you're if
you're this kind of person, youwant to break free, I think you
should know this about money.
And you should know this abouthow to deal with your emotions
and do writing and you shouldknow this about how to how to
eat healthy food, right? I'mjust trying to teach everything
that I that has made the biggestdifference for me, you know?
Conor McCarthy (40:16):
And and you do it so well, I have to say it's,
it's so actionable. Like whatyou teach I've been I've been
lots of course, I've read lotsof books on personal
development, etc. But yours isreally kind of nitty gritty, the
nuts and bolts. It's almostlike, oh, yeah, that's obvious.
But you present the way youpackage it presented, and it's
(40:37):
like it. Yeah, it becomes areally useful system. Just two
more questions. One is aboutbooks. Is there any books that
you recommend to people who arestarting to get their first 10
customers?
Shane Melaugh (40:47):
Oh, there's too many great books, honestly, I
think that so one book that Ihave to say that's not directly
related to, to getting yourfirst 10 customers, but it is, I
think, a very important book forentrepreneurs to read. And it's
one that I've gotten a lot ofpositive feedback from people
who have recommended it too. Andit's so good, they can't ignore
you by Cal Newport. This issomething that, yeah, this it
(41:14):
also describes something that isalso key to what we do in Ikario
about like growing your skillsin the right kind of way, but it
seems like and the reason I'mmaking this recommendation,
specifically, more than manyother books have recommended
seems to really strike a nervewith people write something
about how this book presentsthis idea, just really strikes a
(41:36):
nerve with people. So I think sogood they can't ignore you is a
very, very useful book to read.
It's not directly related togetting your first customers,
but it is related to becoming abetter entrepreneur.
Conor McCarthy (41:47):
Okay. Okay.
That's a good one. It's time forme to reread it. And then the
last question, and you kind ofanswered this earlier, but but
it might be worth saying, again,what would you say to someone
who was starting out to findtheir first 10 customers?
Shane Melaugh (42:00):
Yeah, I would, I would say, the most important
thing is to make sure you getinto conversations with people
who are in your target market inany way that you can, in any way
that you can. Because, you know,like I said, back in the day,
one of my venues was like blogcomments. And nowadays, and even
in you know, forums back whenyou had, basically forums being
(42:21):
a thing. And nowadays, that'sdifferent. And it depends on
what niche you're in, right? Youmight be in a niche where the
action that the conversation ishappening in Facebook groups,
you might be in a niche wherepeople are on Twitter, where or
where people are on Discordservers, or whatever it is, but
become part of thatconversation. For me, that has
(42:44):
always been the key to beingable to get that initial
traction and to being able tomake sure that my ideas are not
delusional, basically, isnowhere the conversation is
happening and start havingconversations.
Conor McCarthy (43:00):
That's fantastic. Shane, thank you for
all the wisdom and smarts you'vedropped in this episode. Yeah,
you're very kind with your timeand I'll post this online for
everyone to hear.
Shane Melaugh (43:10):
Nice. Well, it's my pleasure is great to chat.
Thanks.
I just live a better life now than I could
have ever wished for. And, andone of the most important
factors from here is freedom. Ijust have total freedom. I'm
financially free, I can livewherever I want, I can basically
do whatever I want with my time.
And that is something that Iwouldn't have dared dream of
when I was younger.
Conor McCarthy (00:18):
Hello, and welcome to season four of the
first 10 podcast. I'm your host,Conor McCarthy, and I help
people start to grow theirbusinesses. I do that through
joint ventures, collaborations,coaching, and online workshops.
In each episode of this podcast,I interview business builders
about the early days of startinga business, about how they found
their first 10 customers and gotoff the ground so that you can
(00:38):
learn what works and whatdidn't. Please do check out my
website at ConorMcCarthy.me formore details. My guest today is
Shane Melaugh. Shane is a reallygreat example of a true
entrepreneur. He has foundedmultiple seven figure businesses
including Thrive Themes, and iscurrently building the Personal
Development website, Ikario. Inthis episode, Shane tells it all
(00:58):
about startup businesses, wecover how existing customers can
help direct your next business,marketing through connecting and
having great conversations,understanding needs, and
creating great offers how toquickly and cheaply test for a
signal when you're pursuing anew idea, and selling an idea
before you create it. We talkedabout the fallacy of credit
markets. And for those listenerswho have a ton of ideas or
opportunities coming up, Shanehas a great and simple way of
(01:21):
assessing those. We end thispodcast talking about Shane's
experience with personaldevelopment and the effect it
has had on him throughout hislife. It led him to create a
carrier as a way to spread thevalue of what he's learned more
widely. I'm actually in theIkario community myself. And I
can say that it's reallyfantastic. They cover everything
from productivity to finance tofitness. And Shane's style means
that it's really actionable andreally clear. So please do enjoy
(01:44):
this episode with Shane Melaugh.
And thanks for listening.
So first of all, Shane, thankyou very, very much for taking
the time to be here with ustoday.
Shane Melaugh (01:56):
Yes, my pleasure.
My pleasure. Looking forward tothis.
Conor McCarthy (01:58):
Could you just give us a quick 60 or 90 second
overview of what you're doingright now?
Shane Melaugh (02:02):
Well, I am currently working mainly on
Ikario, which is a personaldevelopment business. So where
we aim to teach people the kindsof skills that I think are most
crucial for people to basicallybreak free and live, a self
determined life. And this is theproject that I started after
(02:26):
essentially retiring from mylast business. So I was in the
in the marketing and softwarebusiness for many years. And
yeah, I got to the point whereessentially, my previous
business Thrive Themes basicallyoutgrew me, was very successful
and very pleased with that. ButI also, you know, realize that
(02:48):
it kind of grew to a size andtwo type of company that I
wasn't really very suited to runanymore. And I basically
successfully retired from that,and then started something new,
something smaller, that's moresuited to to my strengths again.
Conor McCarthy (03:04):
Okay, very cool.
And we'll come back to Ikariobecause I'm a huge fan of
Ikario. Since I discovered it, Ithink it's brilliant. But maybe
if you don't mind, can we goback to that, that time in your
life when you built multiplecompanies and thrive teams, etc?
Because this, this podcast isabout the first 10 customers and
starting things. Is there astory in there of one of the
projects or the businesses youstarted? Where you can kind of
(03:25):
get into some of the storiesabout how you found your first
customers?
Shane Melaugh (03:30):
Yeah, you know, in preparing for this podcast, I
was thinking about this. And theinteresting, I was wondering
like your well, which first 10customers because I've built
many businesses, and so there'sthe first 10 over and over
again. But at the same timeoften for a new business, t he
first 10 customers werecustomers from the previous one,
(03:53):
because and so you kind of haveto trace that back quite far.
Because, yeah, one of the firstthings I did as an entrepreneur
or let's say that was like semientrepreneurial that I had some
success with was that I wasselling computer hardware. And
they're, you know, my first myvery first customers, I think I
(04:16):
got on eBay, you know, I listedoffers on eBay. And that got me
some customers. But after that,and this is really this was
probably around 2007 or so. AndI was on very wobbly feet there
as an entrepreneur really didn'tknow what I was doing. And
basically what happened is Irealized I had had many or
(04:39):
several failed attempts where Ithought, Okay, I want to build
this kind of business or I wantto try to create some, some
business and it would always bejust a non starter and I
realized that my problem wasthat I just didn't know how to
reach people. I didn't know howto even if I have a good idea
and I never knew whether my ideawas actually good or not, but
because I didn't know how to getit in front of people, and that
(05:02):
led me to learning aboutmarketing. So I started reading
books about marketing. And whatI did. And this was, I think
this was maybe 2008, or 2009, Istarted a blog, where I started
writing about what I waslearning about marketing. And it
was kind of just an attempt of,I thought, well, I want to do
some active learning here. Andprobably if I explain some of
(05:23):
these things, I'll be better atremembering them and
implementing them. And so Istarted writing this, this blog
on the topic of marketing. And Istarted building various
websites, I got into all kindsof stuff. But basically, what
happened is that on this blog, Istarted growing a small
audience. And I was also usingit as a way to test things, you
(05:45):
know, testing, SEO strategies,and, and one of the things and
various things, you know,posting on forums and leaving
comments and other people'sblogs and all kinds of stuff to
try and reach people, right. Andwhat happened is that, on this
little blog, I grew a smallaudience. And those, you know,
basically from that, so that,from that organic, like content
(06:08):
creation and startingdiscussions with people in
different places, that is wheremy first 10 customers in the
world of marketing came from.
And, and I think this is a keypoint, because I think that
often the first customers, or atleast that the, the most
important customers have alwayscome to me through some kind of
an interaction, where there'ssome kind of a personal touch to
(06:33):
them. Because I think thereason, you know, the reason
that people resonated with withmy marketing blog was that I was
not trying to pretend like,again, the marketing space,
right? What you usually see ispeople basically flashing money
saying, I have the secret tomaking money, you know, buy my
course. And I'll tell you,right, and I wasn't, I wasn't
(06:54):
doing that. I was just saying,Hey, I built a few websites, I
tried this stuff, here's whathappened. And I was, I guess,
just more honest about here'ssome stuff that worked your
stuff that didn't work. And andpeople resonated with that.
And I also really got intoconversations with people
through at the time blog,comments, blog comments, not
(07:15):
really a thing anymore. Butnowadays, people have these
exchanges on maybe Twitter or onDiscord or whatever, right?
Where you have actualinteractions with people where
again, someone might ask aquestion, and I answer and they
see all this real person, andthey take, they've taken the
time to send me an answer here.
And that is what leads them thento buy my first course that I
made, and, and once again, it'slike, it's almost like this
(07:41):
continued relationship, I put alot of work into that very first
product that I ever made, whichwas an SEO course, put a lot of
work into that. And reallyundercharged for it, quite
frankly. And so people weregetting loads and loads of value
for very little money. And thatmade them basically loyal fans
for the next thing that I wasdoing. And so by the time I
(08:03):
started Thrive Themes that wasfrom that same seed, the first
10 customers for Thrive Themes,and in fact, the first few 100
customers, for Thrive Themescame from that same seed that I
had planted a few years earlier.
And from that same idea out ofthose exchanges, and, and out of
(08:23):
those positive interactionsessentially, with, with my
audience, right. And so I thinkthat has always been the key is
that I also think of this as youknow, there's a difference
between someone who's just likeon your mailing list, or who's a
customer or traffic, you know,you can get traffic to your
website, there's differencebetween traffic, that kind of
(08:46):
abstract or whatever number ofpeople versus someone who's
actually in your audience,someone who's in your audience,
the way I think about it issomeone who actually wants to
see and hear and learn more fromyou, right? So you can you can
pay for an ad and get sometraffic and traffic lands on
your landing page. And maybe youcan get them to sign up for
(09:07):
something, but do they actuallywant to hear from you? Are they
happy when they see an emailfrom you? Or most of them not?
Right? Something else has tohappen. First, you have to have
some kind of a positiveexchange, you have to give them
some kind of a positiveexperience for them to switch
from that kind of like oh why isthis person emailing me to oh, I
want more of this. And I thinkthat has always been the key for
(09:29):
me to that. Yeah, to the first10 Customers essentially right
is to create that kind of almostlike a personal interaction. So
it's it is like personalbranding, but I also think that
it's obviously it's not the onlyway to do it, but that is what
worked for me right is to is tohave a real like relationship
(09:50):
with these people in a way tothe extent that it's possible
online. And that also means thatyou know, it is it is a very
mutual thing right. I have Like,I know these people, I know
their names, I know their faces.
I've been on Zoom calls withthem, right? And I care about
them. And that means that alsomeans that I have like a very
rich source of information ofwho I'm talking to, and what
(10:11):
they need and how I can servethem, right. So that is
basically, yeah, I think that'sit. That's, that's what gave me
the start.
Conor McCarthy (10:23):
That's fascinating, though, that
there's so much so much richnessto that about the What's that
famous saying to almost doingthings that don't scale? I think
that was a great thing. Butyou're right there. And I think
a really key part of what yousaid in there was about
understanding needs, of course,people will talk to you more
naturally and more openly aboutwhat they really want and really
(10:44):
need, which is, which is reallywhat most people are looking for
when they're starting abusiness. What is it the
customer needs? The what's theproblem that I'm solving?
Shane Melaugh (10:51):
Absolutely. I mean, that's such a key point.
You know, I also see this with,and this is something with
Thrive Themes, which is a suiteof tools for for building
websites, essentially. Andthrough Thrive Themes. I got a
lot of exposure to websites thatother people build, right, I've
basically seen 1000s ofwebsites, the various people
(11:15):
have built in all kinds ofniches and whatnot. And that is
one of the most common issues isthat this very, there's this
very fundamental disconnect, oris it the thing you're talking
about is not actually whatpeople want? But it's like
you're answering a question thatnobody's asking. You're, you're,
and you're making a product thatnobody actually really wants?
(11:37):
And, and yeah, for a while I didthese website reviews, you know,
or basically look at websitesthat people had sent in and
tried to give feedback. And veryoften, it basically comes down
to that is that yes, there'ssome technical stuff wherever
you could choose a better fontor whatever, right? None of that
really matters that much.
Because the there's thisfundamental disconnect, where
(11:59):
it's like you haven't, you'renot speaking the audience
members language, and I'm notspeaking their language, and
you're not giving them somethingthey truly want. And I think
that's often what it comes downto a really good offer is one,
that is just exactly what youwant to need right now. And and
it's very difficult to getthere. And I think that having
(12:22):
this interaction with people isone of the best ways to get
there.
Conor McCarthy (12:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Reminds me of that famous sayingthat people people love to buy,
but they don't want to be sold.
And, and I think often what Isee and maybe what you see as
well, while you're speaking tois that idea of almost know,
assuming you know what thecustomer wants, and then going
ahead and building your landingpages and your offer, etc. But
there's a disconnect. Andthat's, it's important, but is
(12:49):
there anything that you wouldsay to people who who think they
have this great idea, they thinkthere's a need, what's the next
step they should take?
Shane Melaugh (12:57):
Yeah, you want to, you want to try to test that
against the market asefficiently as possible. So the
worst thing you can do is spenda lot of resource and that is
mainly time and money oncreating something before you
get some kind of an answer orsome kind of a signal. So in you
(13:21):
know, in in, let's say in moretraditional business that is
often comes down to waste ofmoney, or you've spent
unbelievable amounts of money toto make your first product or
something that the nobody wantsto buy. And in in a more in this
kind of more bootstrapsolopreneur type field, which is
(13:41):
most of the entrepreneurs I workwith are, you know, kind of solo
operations very small. And sothey're, usually not not
spending too much money is theproblem, the problem is spending
too much time, you know, so youyou spent a year fretting over
all kinds of details about youronline course. But you don't
(14:02):
actually know if anyone wants tobuy this thing yet right. Now,
if you already have some kind ofan audience, then always test
your offer against the audience,and what I've also done is to
sell something before I make it.
So to really make sure thatpeople want this and there's
basically two ways there'sthere's in there's two benefits
(14:23):
to this right? You can you cansell something before you create
the actual so course or whateverit is. And that allows you to
verify that people actually wantto buy it because if you make
that offer and virtually nobodybuys it, you just refund the
people who give you my and saysorry and you move on. But also
when you do get that signal andpeople buy it from you, you can
(14:44):
also then create the producttogether with your customers.
You can make sure that you stayon track. Now, I want to be
clear about this right thistakes skill. You have to be good
at creating product right But ifyou have that skill, then you
can calibrate the product andchange it and update it as
you're going through it based onthe feedback that your customers
(15:06):
give you, right? So that'ssomething I've done. But that
requires that you have anaudience to start with, which
most people don't. So if youdon't have an audience to start
with, you need to find a way toverify that your idea has legs
in some other way. And you cando that, in many ways, right? I
mean, one thing is, one of thefirst things you have to do is
(15:30):
you have to be very clear aboutwho is my audience? And where
are they, you have to have asense of where these people hang
out, right? The way I like tothink of it is basically you
have to be able to point me atthe group of people who
represent your ideal customers.
And, and that could be, youknow, that could be okay,
there's this conference, youknow, there's this whatever
(15:52):
industry conference and thepeople who go to that
conference, they they're mycustomer, right? It could be
well, there's this online forum,there's this whatever this
discord community where peopleare, usually there's more than
one, right? Here's a group of1000 discord communities where
people talk about, I don't knowhow to become a better a game
streamer or something like that.
That's my target audience. Sobut you have to be able to point
(16:14):
to it, you have to be able tosee this is where they are. And
then you go there, and you starttalking to people. And again,
you know, like you said, peopledon't want to be sold to but
everybody loves buying stuff.
And that's one of the things youcan test. Like, if if you start
talking about what you'rebuilding, or what your product
(16:35):
is, if it immediately, it'simmediately like, I don't want
to be sold to go away. And also,you know, some moderator steps
and says, Stop doing this,you're not allowed to that's a
sign that there's some mismatch,right? That your product is
perceived as this external thingthat asked this person just
wants money to get rid of them,right. Whereas if you have an
(16:55):
offer that really hits the nailon the head, the reaction should
be Thank God. Thank God, someonehas come here with this thing
that we desperately need, right?
Yeah, yeah. So that's, that'sone way to test it right? Or,
can you go to your targetaudience and tell them what you
do? And are you received withopen arms? Or are they trying to
get rid of you. And other way,and this is something I've done,
(17:18):
like many of the products thatI've created, were basically
just variations of somethingthat already exists. So I think
this is also important toconsider, right? If you want to
build like a billion dollarbusiness, you probably have to
invent something new, youprobably have to do something
hasn't been done before. Andthis is something that I've
(17:41):
never done, I've never attemptedto do. Because I think the way I
think about it, the the chancesof that succeeding are extremely
low, right? So it's very highreward but extremely high risk
to try and invent an entire newcategory of product or something
like that, right?
Instead, what I've alwaysattempted to do is essentially
(18:02):
go into an active market andjust take a little bit of market
share. So, again, if we useThrive Themes as an example, you
know, there was already therewere already other businesses
built around selling WordPressthemes and plugins that were
making millions a year. And itwas obvious that was a highly
(18:24):
active market, it was alsoobvious that it was a growth
market, right? That's, you know,the trajectory of how many
WordPress websites exists, justgoing straight up. And you could
easily look at this and say,well, in five years from now, is
this going to be higher or lowerthan now? And the answer was
obvious, it's going to be more.
So my thinking was simply like,if I can create a business, like
these businesses that alreadyexist, and either, if I can see
(18:47):
an opportunity to make itbetter, then that's what I do,
right, make the same thing butbetter, or make the same thing
but targeted at a slightlydifferent user. So in my case,
what I identified was that, youknow, people who, like the web
designer user was very highlyserved, but the marketing user
(19:07):
was underserved. So if youwanted to make a website that
looks really pretty unlimitedoptions. If you wanted to build
a sales page, that was not, youknow, the solutions were not
great. That's changed sincethen. But but that's basically
what you know, Thrive Themes isbasically, I think, the first
WordPress company step intothere, start taking that market
(19:28):
share and then because itworked, now, we have a lot of
other people as well doing it,but that was the basic idea. So
we were reinventing the wheel.
We weren't trying to create anentirely new market, we were
simply identifying like a gap inan already active market and
stepping in there. And that thereason I'm saying this is
(19:49):
because that's also one of theways in which you can verify
that an idea is good is like,look, people are already
spending money on this. This isalready a thing, right? Yeah,
that That's one way to, youknow, basically the further away
your ideas from something thatalready exists and people are
already spending money on themore other verification, you
(20:09):
need to make sure that you'renot just making a mistake.
Conor McCarthy (20:15):
I hope you're enjoying this episode, and that
there's some actionable andinsightful advice that you can
take out to your business.
Helping you identify and createthose first 10 customers is what
I do. So if you like what youhear on this podcast and want
more information, including abunch of free resources on how
to find your first 10 customersand grow your business, check
out first10podcast.com, that's10 one zero, or find me on
(20:36):
Twitter @thefirst10pod. Now, youprobably hear what I'm about to
say on every podcast you listento. And it makes a really big
difference to the show. If youfind this podcast in any way
useful or enjoyable, I'd be sograteful if you left me a review
on iTunes, it really does make abig difference in terms of other
people discovering the podcast.
(20:58):
Also, if you leave a review, youwill get to see your name on the
review in lights. What I'll dois I'll design your words and
post them online taking you onyour project along with it. I
know it's a pretty sweet deal.
Okay, let's get on with theshow. That's very interesting,
because I think a lot of peopleget scared away by credit
markets. Yeah, but but to yourpoint, it's a it's a pool of
(21:20):
interest. And, and there are somany more people than will ever
fit into one market. So can youdevelop something along a
different vector almost.
Shane Melaugh (21:32):
I would also encourage anyone, anyone doing
entrepreneurial and creativestuff, I would highly encourage
that you start looking at yourspace, and, and other creative
spaces and entrepreneurialspaces from like an observer
perspective. And notice howbecause even like, I think
(21:52):
anyone can can think of examplesof this, where the market looks
like it's completely crowded andoversaturated until the new
thing comes along. And then inretrospect, it seems inevitable,
right? It happens all the time.
And you know, it's just like,yeah, if we, if we think about,
like, if I think about thepersonal development space,
(22:12):
right. Ever since I've beeninterested in the personal
development space, which is formost of my life, the market has
been crowded, which is to saythere's a bunch of people are
like best selling authors, youknow, writing their self
development books, and there arethe bloggers and the YouTubers
and whatnot. But also whathappens all the time is that
someone new comes along, youknow, and often you have like
(22:33):
the meteoric rise, and all of asudden, someone like Matt D.
Avella is like a mainstay, youknow, the face of productivity
and minimalism on YouTube. Wereover five years ago, he
basically didn't exist onYouTube prime. So, if you go
back in time, and someone asksyou well, what do you think
about the self help or theproductivity or whatever space
(22:56):
on YouTube? It's like, well,it's overcrowded. Look at look
at all these people withmillions of subscribers, how
could you possibly compete. Anda few years later, here's these
three or four new faces thathave appeared, now this happens
all the time. This happens allthe time. So I think paying
attention to this, and and like,learning to almost mentally
(23:16):
rewind the clock, you know, whenyou see the inevitable you see
it again, like just like a greatoffer does not feel like
someone's trying to sell me itjust feels like Oh, thank god
someone has finally has thisthing. And all they want is
money or it's almost ridiculous.
A really good offer feels likeyou're getting away with it.
(23:37):
Right? It's like all I have togive it as money for this. Wow.
Amazing. Whenever that feelslike a good offer has this
effect where it doesn't feellike you're being sold to and it
almost feels like this is thisthe sense of inevitable
inevitability to it, right? Youfeel like this has to exist,
it's so important and so good.
Of course, this exists. But ifyou rewind the clock a little
(23:59):
bit, it didn't exist. And it'sthe same with any kind of
business, any kind of creatoranything like that. The once you
see the success of a new brand,or of a new creator, it feels
inevitable. But if you likelearn to practice, like
rewinding the clock, what didthis look like before this
person started this businessbefore they made their first
(24:22):
video or whatever it is, right?
And try to think of like, how doyou find that gap? That seems
inevitable afterwards?
Conor McCarthy (24:33):
Hmm. That is, I love that way of thinking
because you're right, everyevery category looks absolutely
stuffed. And then someone alwaysemerges and then someone emerges
after that and and on and on wego. So yeah, I love and it's
almost like an exercise youcould do if you're thinking of
getting into a category who totop three people and find out as
(24:54):
much as you can about theirfirst year or two when it was
probably really difficult forthem. You know, like Matt
D'Avella, I follow him as well.
And it's like, you know,crickets like putting out
videos, putting out content andno one's getting on, but then
something happens, thensomething else happens. And then
you found your audience, andthen they they help you spread
the word, etc. So they, thatthat's, I love that that's a
great way to think aboutentering any market. How do you
(25:16):
filter new ideas that comealong? You must have lots of
ideas, or you must have a lot ofopportunities pitched at you. Do
you have a quick kind ofshorthand way of deciding yes,
no to new new projects,
Shane Melaugh (25:27):
The easiest shorthand way is to just always
say no. Because, because listen,it's like there's, there's a
real limit to to the use of moreprojects. So the best thing is
to always say no, but I actuallylike a really good framework for
(25:53):
this is one that I originallycame across from. What's his
name? Mark Manson. Mark Mansonwrote this years ago, I hope you
don't mind swearing on thispodcast, because the framework
is fuck yes or no. All right. Sothose are the two options like
you you see an opportunity comesyour way? If the answer is not,
(26:15):
fuck, yes, it's no. Becausethere's a horrible, they're
horrible consequences to sayingyes to things that we feel like
lukewarm about. And I thinkthat's, that's good, especially
when you are in the situationwhere you basically have more
opportunity than than time,right? You say only Yes, the
(26:35):
things that you're very, veryexcited about. I think that's a
good framework to use. If youare in a, this is of course,
like, usually people start outwith more time, then
opportunity. And then as youbecome successful, you get more
opportunities, then you havetime. So if you're in the
(26:56):
situation where you have moretime than opportunity, and you
like looking for ideas andthings like that, I think the
most important thing is to, topractice, essentially, right,
like coming up with inevaluating and testing ideas,
and to apply mental models tothis. So to have us have a way
(27:19):
to think about how do I makethis decision strategically? And
so that it's not just a gutfeeling, you know, oh, this
sounds like a really good idea.
I should do that. That's, that'sa terrible way to decide what to
do with your next five years,you know? So have a framework
for how you make thesedecisions. And this is something
that I mean, it's also somethingthat I teach, right, like, how
(27:40):
do you to strategically thinkabout this? Yeah. Because
basically, I can't, I can't likenutshell this, this whole
process, but it is somethingthat, you know, we teach on
Ikario as well. But a verysimple idea for businesses is to
do napkin math, right? Where youkind of do the very rough math
of what would this look likethat you can kind of scribble on
(28:03):
the back of the napkin, right?
Where you, you're not trying toget the exact numbers, but you
just think of, okay, I have thisidea for this product I want to
create for this market, right?
And then you go, Well, alright,how much? What would they sell
this product for? What's theprice? And then, and what does
it cost to produce? Especiallyif it's a physical product, you
(28:26):
know, what's the cost ofproduction shipping and so on?
Okay, and then you have a profitmargin. And then you think about
all roughly, what is the totaladdressable market here? How
many people can I sell this to?
Realistically, right? And whatdoes that look like? And simply,
like, run the numbers to seelike, Okay, if I, if I managed
(28:46):
to get 100 customers a month,what does that look like? If I
managed to get 1000 customers amonth? What, what does that look
like? And what's the likelihoodthat I can do this, because if
you just do the rough math, andyou see like, Okay, I need
10,000 customers a month tobreak even. That's not good. So,
so, and on the other hand, ifyou have a model where you can
(29:09):
see, okay, I could start smallhere, you know, if I get, and I
get a few customers a month, Ican do this maybe as a side gig
next to my job. And then if Iget to the point where I have
like 10 sales a month, I canquit my job and start focusing
on this full time. That's acompletely different scenario
that we're looking at, right?
And your numbers don't have tobe precise. And you can just
(29:29):
guess, right? Because I don'tknow if I can get 10 customers
or 100 or 1000. But I can tellusually, they're getting a 1000s
probably way harder than getting10. Yeah, yeah. So so just
running these kinds of numbersand having a sense of what would
have to look like for this towork. I think many ideas can be
dismissed just based on that.
(29:54):
You just run the numbers and yourealize I have to actually get
so many customers for this to beworth it. that I can't even I
don't even know how this is evergoing to happen, right. And then
you either have to changesomething about the offer, you
have to change something aboutthe pricing of the offer, or you
have to figure out how to, youknow, obviously, you can make
(30:14):
things that are basically massappeal, right. But what's the
worst thing is if you havesomething that requires mass
appeal, that requires like, massadoption for you to make good
money, but it's like a nicheproduct and, and just like
running through a couple ofscenarios, yet with like rough
(30:35):
calculations can help you figurethat kind of thing out
Conor McCarthy (30:38):
I like that.
Yeah, a tiny amount of timeinvested upfront, will help you
not waste weeks and months,potentially years. There's also
I reread the story the otherday, I think was Charlie Munger,
who a colleague of hisapproached him and with this
question of, you know, I want todo lots of things with my life.
And he said, Okay, write downthe 25 things you want to do
with your life. And this guywrote down the 25 things. And
(30:59):
then Charlie Munger said, I'mgoing to circle the top five.
And he did that. He said, Okay,now, that's it. That's really
all you have time for in yourlife. Like the other things have
to say away. I remember when Ifirst heard that I went, Oh,
that's brilliant. Like, let'shave your five an arbitrary
number of, of opportunities. Butrecently, I read it again and
went, Oh, no, it's actuallyabout the 20. It's actually
(31:21):
about the things that he said,You just, you can't even look at
those. And he had a similarexample in, he said, once about
trading, he said, if you onlyhad 10 opportunities to make a
big investment in your life,that was it. You think very
carefully about the things youinvest your time and money in.
So these are just really useful,mental thought thought
(31:44):
experiments.
Shane Melaugh (31:46):
And also going back to the previous thing about
you know, opportunities likethat is why saying no is so
important. It's very importantto be able to say no to stuff
that's just that's not in yourtop five basically.
Conor McCarthy (32:01):
Yeah. Ikario, I think, so we were talking a
little bit beforehand, I'm arecent convert to a carrier. And
I think it's great. You'vealways been into personal
development. So why now? Why didyou start Ikario when you did?
Shane Melaugh (32:17):
Yeah, I felt like, I think that, for me, you
know, personal development wasreally a necessity for me,
because of my personal history.
Like, I really struggled when Iwas younger, and I was kind of a
failure at life, basically,until my mid 20s, or so, there
was really no indication that,that I make anything about
(32:41):
myself, you know. And so it wasreally a necessity for me, where
I just had to figure out, okay,basically, I'm not good at
anything I had, I didn't have agood social life, I, I was
broke, I was unhappy. And I wasjust like, this is I was on a
life trajectory, where I wasjust like, This is not good. I
don't want this to just go on,you know. So, personal
(33:04):
development was was a necessityfor me. And I think my
experience with it was that forfor many years, I was just like,
reading lots of books about it,and trying lots of things. I was
just doing all this work onmyself. And a lot of it, I was
unsure of, like, does this work?
(33:26):
You know, is this doinganything? Here I am, you know,
doing my journaling every dayand doing these exercises doing
this stuff? The other? But isthis going anywhere? I don't
know. Right? But there is this,this, like, it is the long game,
right? You're playing the longgame. And it is. What I've
noticed is that it's really likethis exponential growth, where,
(33:48):
you know, at some point, after afew years of doing this, I
realized, okay, and now I'mmaking decent money with a
business of my own. And I have abetter social life, and I feel
better about myself and lots ofthings are clearly better. But
then, you know, another fiveyears later, I'm like, way
beyond anything I could havedreamt off. So the payoff for me
(34:11):
of doing the self developmentstuff has just been
undescribable I honestly, I justlive a better life now than I
could have ever wished for. And,and one of the most important
factors from here is freedom. Ijust have total freedom, I'm
financially free, I can livewherever I want, I can basically
do whatever I want with my time.
And that is something that Iwouldn't have dared dream of
(34:31):
when I was younger. And so forme, you know, after retiring
from Thrive Themes, the questionwas like, what's the what's the
best thing I can do? Basically,what I want to do is I want to,
I want to give the experiencethat I had to as many other
(34:53):
people as possible like this isthe most valuable thing I've
ever discovered in my lifetimeand I'm just very motivated to
try and bring that to as manyother people as possible. And
that's why I started Ikario. SoIkario was not a business that I
started because of any of thestuff we talked about. Now, it
wasn't that I thought, Oh,here's this great market
(35:13):
opportunity. Here's a product Ican make for this niche, and so
on. It's not like that. Theprimary purpose of Ikario is I
want other people to experiencewhat I experienced, which I, in
the most simple terms, I thinkof it as breaking free, right?
It is breaking free from yourconstraints that you know, might
(35:34):
keep you locked into a job youdon't like and this kind of
stuff, but it's also breakingfree from other sources of
suffering, external andinternal, right? Maybe you're
like in a toxic socialsituation, maybe you just have
really low self esteem as I did,and things like that, right. And
for me, it's just like, Idiscovered ways to break free
(35:54):
from this, and I can't think ofanything better to do with my
time than then try and pass thison to other people.
Conor McCarthy (36:05):
It is, it's a pretty amazing resource. And
obviously, I'll include links inthe show notes. Who do you find
coming along to Ikario? Like whoare the people that seems to be
attracting, that may besurprising to you?
Shane Melaugh (36:19):
Well, it's there is definitely carry over again,
like I mentioned earlier, right,from my previous ventures, where
a lot of the people Ikario rightnow are entrepreneurs, and are
like these solopreneur typepeople. And it also makes sense,
of course, right? There'soverlap, because why do people
start a business is because theywant financial freedom, right,
and they're seeking for a way tobreak free. And I also, you
(36:43):
know, a lot of the material thatwe have covered in Ikario
content has been about how tobecome more productive, and, and
how to manage your money. Andthat's the reason I talk about
these things is because thoseare some of the key tools that
you need in order to break free,you know, yeah, we live in a
world where you need, you needmoney to break free, right, as
(37:05):
long as you as long as you're infinancial, financially dire
straits, you're always going tobe dependent on, you're always
going to be less free, you haveless choice about what to do
with your time. And you're alsojust going to be suffering from
more stress, and worry, and soon and so forth. Right. And so,
(37:26):
the key tools that I think youneed in order to overcome this
is you need to learn how to beproductive, which is you need to
learn how to undistract yourselfand use your time effectively.
So that you can effectively likemarshal your resources towards a
goal such as building yourbusiness or advancing your
career or doing something elselike that. And then, as you make
(37:49):
more money, you have to knowsome basics about how to play
the money game, so that youdon't just constantly,
essentially piss out all themoney that comes in immediately,
right. And you don't make youdon't make the kinds of, so the
money game is an adversarialgame. So there's many players
who are invested in getting youto make bad decisions
(38:09):
financially, so that they canget more of your money over a
longer time, right. And so,that's why we talk about these
things. To me, these are likesome of the basic building
blocks so you become a morecapable, more effective person.
You start playing the money gamea bit better. But then there's
all kinds of other stuff becauseyou know, when I talk about
(38:30):
productivity, I'm not justtalking about how to make it to
do this, I'm talking about howto manage your time and how to
how to design your your life insuch a way that there's like
periods of intensity followed byperiods of rest, that you have
this balance, right, one of thethings we often talk about is
like the it's like the oppositeof hustle culture, right? The
opposite of just hustle andgrind 24/7 till you make it is
(38:51):
this the worst way to try andmake it because that if you
don't have rest in your life,and you're not strategic about
like having high intensityfocus, and then deep rest,
you're just high you're justbasically cutting yourself off
at the knees, because you'reyou're hampering your own
ability to learn and makeprogress and so on. Right. And,
(39:14):
and then there's also thisbasically all fits into into a
bigger picture again, where youknow, ultimately there's no one
dimensional way to live a goodto live a good life. And so
that's why yeah, likeproductivity and work and high
capability high performance areimportant. But also things like
(39:35):
taking care of your physicalbody and and doing like internal
work, but I'm a huge believer inlike writing and introspective
writing. So we cover like this,this broad range of topics
essentially. Because again, forme, the only thing that matters
is what is most valuable. I'mnot that concerned with you know
(39:57):
what matches a specific nicheJust like listen, if you're if
you're this kind of person, youwant to break free, I think you
should know this about money.
And you should know this abouthow to deal with your emotions
and do writing and you shouldknow this about how to how to
eat healthy food, right? I'mjust trying to teach everything
that I that has made the biggestdifference for me, you know?
Conor McCarthy (40:16):
And and you do it so well, I have to say it's,
it's so actionable. Like whatyou teach I've been I've been
lots of course, I've read lotsof books on personal
development, etc. But yours isreally kind of nitty gritty, the
nuts and bolts. It's almostlike, oh, yeah, that's obvious.
But you present the way youpackage it presented, and it's
(40:37):
like it. Yeah, it becomes areally useful system. Just two
more questions. One is aboutbooks. Is there any books that
you recommend to people who arestarting to get their first 10
customers?
Shane Melaugh (40:47):
Oh, there's too many great books, honestly, I
think that so one book that Ihave to say that's not directly
related to, to getting yourfirst 10 customers, but it is, I
think, a very important book forentrepreneurs to read. And it's
one that I've gotten a lot ofpositive feedback from people
who have recommended it too. Andit's so good, they can't ignore
you by Cal Newport. This issomething that, yeah, this it
(41:14):
also describes something that isalso key to what we do in Ikario
about like growing your skillsin the right kind of way, but it
seems like and the reason I'mmaking this recommendation,
specifically, more than manyother books have recommended
seems to really strike a nervewith people write something
about how this book presentsthis idea, just really strikes a
(41:36):
nerve with people. So I think sogood they can't ignore you is a
very, very useful book to read.
It's not directly related togetting your first customers,
but it is related to becoming abetter entrepreneur.
Conor McCarthy (41:47):
Okay. Okay.
That's a good one. It's time forme to reread it. And then the
last question, and you kind ofanswered this earlier, but but
it might be worth saying, again,what would you say to someone
who was starting out to findtheir first 10 customers?
Shane Melaugh (42:00):
Yeah, I would, I would say, the most important
thing is to make sure you getinto conversations with people
who are in your target market inany way that you can, in any way
that you can. Because, you know,like I said, back in the day,
one of my venues was like blogcomments. And nowadays, and even
in you know, forums back whenyou had, basically forums being
(42:21):
a thing. And nowadays, that'sdifferent. And it depends on
what niche you're in, right? Youmight be in a niche where the
action that the conversation ishappening in Facebook groups,
you might be in a niche wherepeople are on Twitter, where or
where people are on Discordservers, or whatever it is, but
become part of thatconversation. For me, that has
(42:44):
always been the key to beingable to get that initial
traction and to being able tomake sure that my ideas are not
delusional, basically, isnowhere the conversation is
happening and start havingconversations.
Conor McCarthy (43:00):
That's fantastic. Shane, thank you for
all the wisdom and smarts you'vedropped in this episode. Yeah,
you're very kind with your timeand I'll post this online for
everyone to hear.
Shane Melaugh (43:10):
Nice. Well, it's my pleasure is great to chat.
Thanks.
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