Resources
- The Art and Science of getting to the very top of Crowded Creator Markets (reddit link)
- Searching For Saas Feedback (https://searchingforsaas.com/feedback/)
Transcript
Nate: [00:00:30] Hey, Josh
Josh: [00:00:31] Hey Nate, how are you?
Nate: [00:00:34] doing good. my voice sounds a little bit different today. If you haven’t noticed that and getting some orthodontic work done. so
I apologize to anybody. If it sounds a little off.
Josh: [00:00:43] I don’t know. I think you’re your deep voice on the podcast, which whenever I listen to an episode just has this resounding thing. I think it’s because of your height and your size.
Nate: [00:00:56] Yeah. maybe, maybe how’s.
Josh: [00:01:00] Yeah. So I, I think I don’t, I don’t know if anyone will notice the, the slight, the slight impediment you might have or something.
Okay,
Nate: [00:01:07] There you go.
Josh: [00:01:10] good. Good. It’s
been, let’s see, just had father’s day, right? So
happy father’s day to you.
Nate: [00:01:16] Yeah. you as well.
Josh: [00:01:18] yeah. Thanks. And then maybe as the listeners
might’ve been noticing, we’ve been querying out for a bit of feedback lately. Which maybe if we tell the backstory about that a little bit maybe we’ll get a little bit more feedback, but we’ve gotten a few.
And it’s been, so do we want to thank the people that have submitted some feedback? So but yeah, just, I think the general thing is we are at this point 18 episodes in, I think when we first asked for the feedback was around 16.
Nate: [00:01:50] Yeah, It’s a long ways. We’ve come.
Josh: [00:01:52] It’s true. It’s true. And I feel like there’s this, and maybe, maybe it’s always just me, but there’s always this serendipity going on with timing in the universe and stuff. So at this all at the same time where, you know, we hit 16, we,
we had the interview with Arvid, so that was a bit of a change up torn normal regiment.
And I think I had a day, I called you during an early morning dog walk and had this kind of a. Just like, like how do you feel about the podcast? Very open-ended and you’re like
Nate: [00:02:26] I’m like, oh, this is going to be a deep discussion.
Josh: [00:02:29] of like
and I think even initially on that, I was like, oh, is this an episode? And you’re like, I’m not, I’m not quite sure. Let’s see where this goes. And just, just in a, in a casual phone conversation. So,
But to speed this up, it just led us to, Hey, let’s, let’s find out.
What the, you know, what the listener listeners want.
I think it is helpful for us to get some sort of engagement and understanding of like, I don’t know, and just not feel like we’re just talking into the wind, so to speak.
Nate: [00:02:57] Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s the biggest part of it. Kind of what prompted the, our discussion too, is like we’re, we’re talking all through all these episodes and we’re really like, we’re really enjoying it as, at least for myself, I’m loving it. But yeah, you’re right. It’s like, it feels like we’re just talking and who knows what everyone else cares about.
Right.
Josh: [00:03:14] right. So I mean, and I think if what I did mentally was tracked back to the original wise, right. So I know for me was helping you, which I would say if we were to
score these things, it’s helping you as probably
been, if we were to say out of 10, I don’t know. I think we’re moving you along, but at the same time, you know, we haven’t quite got you too.
You’re your own SAS yet, but at the same point, you know, that’d be pretty monumental if we
did it that quickly. So
Nate: [00:03:45] Yeah, I think so. I think that’s a pretty tough challenge. I was really curious to see what you’re going to say for a number there.
Josh: [00:03:50] Wait, did I give a number? What did
I
Nate: [00:03:51] No, you did.
Josh: [00:03:52] Oh, I didn’t. Okay. So out of 10, I’d
say, I’d probably say we’re probably about three or four. I don’t know what I mean, a 10 would have been a phenomenal, like, Hey, you’re already, you’re at like $300 MRR on this new project that we just kicked off as of like three months ago.
Nate: [00:04:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, but I think, I think a lot of the stuff we’ve talked about has been a lot of knowledge,
Changes, and I can see the way that my perspective on things is
shifting. And I think that that’s. That’s some really important first steps. I wouldn’t want to discount it and say
that a three out of 10 is like failure or something.
Josh: [00:04:26] No.
And again, these are just the why’s and we can’t control the outcomes, which, you
know, maybe if we did
reach this, this would be the end of the podcast. I don’t know.
Nate: [00:04:36] I hope not.
Josh: [00:04:36] I hope not now. Yeah. But but I think the second one for me was like helping others. So that, that’s the part where. Without the engagement and understanding it’s hard.
I, I can’t score that. Like, I don’t have any sense on that.
Nate: [00:04:50] Yeah, it’s really hard to get the feedback you need, the feedback loop, tickets, score that, right.
Josh: [00:04:55] right. And that’s, I think why we even
thought about just you know, doing the survey to
start anyway. So the other ones I had,
and if I recall correctly, one of them was just exploring podcasts as a medium and I’m enjoying that. I think that was probably the, the most exciting part about, you know, these past
like three or three or four months.
For me it was just exploring
this as a medium. It was a new creative endeavor and something I haven’t done before. and I think we were like, we had some episodes we never even posted
because we’re like, oh yeah, that was not really good. And we both knew it and felt it. And we’re like, yeah,
let’s, let’s let’s just not even do that one.
Nate: [00:05:37] but, but thankfully those have been few and far between like, I think as we’ve gone along, we’ve definitely gotten better at doing things that at least we think sound decent.
Josh: [00:05:47] Oh, yeah. So yeah, I think there was only one that we’ve didn’t that we left on the cutting room floor, honestly.
Nate: [00:05:52] Yeah. Yeah.
Josh: [00:05:53] And then the last item was
just refining my speaking and trying to slow down and be more concise, which I want to say. I’ve improved on, but I can’t a hundred percent say maybe I’ll have to listen back and listen to maybe the speed I talk or some other things.
Nate: [00:06:14] well, I, I do the editing for the show and I can say that compared to your first episode, we’re definitely doing quite a bit better. But I think in the last, like
maybe eight episodes or
so it’s probably flat lined and kind of stayed somewhat similar.
Not that it’s terrible. It’s just I think, I think it’d be really good to listen to and see what.
Josh: [00:06:33] what do you, what are you rating it on? Like the number of ums and transitions and things like that? Or is there a scoring in the script or something that’s magical statistic? I don’t know about.
Nate: [00:06:45] there isn’t, there isn’t a magical score, but like, as I’m listening to the episode, I kind of listened to how the the
conversation is progressing and how, how many,
like good points are being made in a certain block of time.
And I found that, especially compared to the first
episode we did Our points of conversation are coming
faster. And they’re more
they’re clearer, which I think is really important. But I think that we still, I think both of us probably still have quite a bit of
work to do on that.
Josh: [00:07:14] that’s fine. Yeah. And I think yeah. We’re yeah. That’s I think you’re right.
Nate: [00:07:21] it is what it is.
Josh: [00:07:22] Yep. True, true. Cool. And like, I just kind of started in the beginning. A lot of the universe was, you know, not only my own Twitter painting about you know, what we’re doing. Having an extra central moment, about 16 episodes in, but like I said, the universe was also talking to me in some way, shape or form after that.
Right. So we started the survey.
And then I think there’s that Reddit posts that I think has been going around, at least I’ve seen it in a couple of different places, like on Twitter and some slack channels and things like that.
Nate: [00:07:56] Yeah.
Josh: [00:07:57] what would that one was about essentially about creators, right. And.
Podcasting stats.
Nate: [00:08:03] Yeah. And actually that was from a conversation I was having with a
mutual friend. And he was kind of, he had done a podcast in the past and
was kind of like I know you’ve done all of these episodes and I know you guys are feeling like you’re not hearing much
feedback, but Hey, you should check
this out.
Like, I think you guys should maybe consider like, you know, push on and, you know, maybe reconsider like what the reasoning is of why you’re doing the podcast. And this episode,
this article might help you with that.
Josh: [00:08:27] Hmm. Yeah. And so the, the general, so it’s called, I think
we’ll we’ll link to it in the show notes, but
it’s called the art and science of getting to the very top of crowded creative markets. So, so what were your biggest takeaways out of that? Anyway?
Nate: [00:08:43] I guess the biggest thing was just kind of like lots of people give up fairly quickly. And you know, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of nuance to it, but just like pushing on.
And just being consistent really sets you apart from the room, the pack. W what did you think of.
Josh: [00:08:57] I mean, I agree with it. I mean, I think it’s probably in general, same. You could probably say the same thing. Bloggers, you know, 10 years ago even SAS businesses, all of these things. I think they, I feel like they build up a level of momentum and you get better over time. You know, when Y
I think we all would love to be an overnight success, but all of these, all of
these things you know, even as we’re talking about,
you know, our rapport and how we’re
talking and are we being more concise and things like that, like those are hopefully improving over time.
It may be the people listening early on are like, oh Yeah.
that’s good. But you know, it didn’t, didn’t hit, hit them hard enough that they wanted to they’re like raving about that. Or they heard three awesome episodes in a row. And now we’re where we built up some, some momentum and some fan base or something like that.
Nate: [00:09:50] Yeah. What I thought was really interesting, that was in the article too, was that
it was talking a lot about expectations and how,
if you had higher, like really high expectations for yourself, you are more likely to quit because basically you would try and fail and then on seeing your failure and
comparing that. to your expectations.
You’d be like, oh, I can’t do this. Like, I’m useless.
Josh: [00:10:14] right.
Nate: [00:10:15] kind of interesting. Just because like with
startups stuff, I’ve kind of felt the same way where I have maybe I get too excited about an idea and I set these really high and lofty goals. And then when I don’t make it, then it really, really can push like really weigh down on you.
But if you kind of more take the approach. I’m I’m working on this thing. That’s fun. And I don’t have like crazy expectations for it. It’s just something that I’m doing. That seems like a good idea. That, that, that can really change how you think about it.
Josh: [00:10:46] yeah, I could see that. So it’s more of the reminding ourselves of the notion that. You can only control what you can control. So like, and I can see that definitely like, let’s say from your standpoint on developing
software and building a lot of software over the
years, it’s like the end goal
and the like, you know, you’re successful
when you give it to the customer
and the customer’s happy, but they’re already paying
customer to use.
So they’re paying for your time. But at the
same time, You, you do the job
and they pay you that,
that closes the loop and was successful. And hopefully you’re getting even bonus
stuff out of it as they rave about it, or as they continue to work with you or other things like that. But that in itself is a nice closed loop.
Like set a goal, check it off. It got accomplished where this creator stuff is so much dependent on. You’re not getting that feedback. Right. It’s just out there.
Nate: [00:11:43] right. But I think, I think you could
apply this even to like a a software consulting type of situation or a SAS situation where
it, when you start the
project, It looks money me. Right?
Especially if it’s a really difficult problem and you don’t have any
idea how You’re going to tackle it,
or you don’t have any idea of all the nuance, how are you going to get there?
And by just starting and just working out the problem piece by piece, you will get there. And I know that from experience, but if you just try, if you try and like, Okay.
in two weeks I have to finish this project and you’re just focused on like two weeks out to finish it. He just, I ended up just stressing out and like feeling like I’m not achieving the goal.
Okay.
Josh: [00:12:28] Okay. No, I, I, yeah, that’s interesting
because I think part of what I
see with what we’re doing is, you know, we set up these otherwise
like learning podcasting as a medium refining speaking, and all those things are moving
along And It’s interesting. Just thinking about like,
what are the intrinsic benefits that we’re
getting from that? and if we’re focusing on that
piece and that’s seems to be a lot of the resounding advice,
like you said, you know that the
friend you were talking about this was like, you know, keep going. Like you just, you know, you’re just kinda, you’re still getting started. Like, don’t worry about it.
Actually I was talking to another podcast or the other day, and he’s just said, I was kind of explaining the problem and he’s like, I just don’t look at the stats is what he said.
And I’m like, Hmm, Nate does Nate doesn’t look at the stats. Josh looks at the stats and then Josh doesn’t feel great or whatever. So, Hm. Josh stopped looking at the stats. I don’t know. The only other thing I wanted to note about that article was, you know, it was trying to kind of frame it in that way.
And one of the pieces was it’s like, it’s like, you can be at the top 1%
of podcasts. In the world, you only need to publish 21 episode. So in that light, we’re have done what 18. And so this one, plus two more and we’re in the top 1%. If we want to feel like we’ve accomplished something.
Nate: [00:13:48] Woo. Look at us. Go.
Josh: [00:13:49] The other one on, there was, it said your competition is not the 2 million podcasts that are out there. the 20,000 podcasters who didn’t quit while I liked that from a motivational standpoint, I’m also
Yeah. That’s the 20,000 that didn’t quit that are already, still doing it. But how many people are also starting today too?
So you’re still competing with a lot of people and maybe it’s more than it’s definitely more than the 20,000 that they would say are in the top, like 1%. But
Nate: [00:14:21] yeah, I agree with you on, I, I agree with you on that. I don’t think that that’s a good motivation, but I
don’t think it’s reasonable.
Josh: [00:14:28] right, right.
Nate: [00:14:29] Another thing that I, that was
kind of interesting was the lead and lag metrics. And it was basically like saying when you look at someone who’s successful, you might see something like, oh, this guy decided he wanted to quit being a lawyer and be an
author.
And you know, he’s an awesome guy. Look at him.
And that’s one way of looking
at it,
but the, the, the kind of
the beneath the surface thing that matters is that guy also wrote a page of his book every day. And that was his way of getting
started. He, he did the work. And I think that sometimes you can just be captured by the spectacle of, well, look what this person did as opposed to like, how did they get it?
Josh: [00:15:04] Right, right, Yeah. And I think that’s probably part of it. I think maybe in the beginning, when we were, when we were promoting the podcast a little more, like I did send it out to our referral Rocky email list and we got a big boost to then, And then it sort of hit the, okay, we’ve done all the basic things it’s out there.
All of our initial friends and family probably downloaded it, listen to it a little bit. And they’re like, good job. And then they kind of moved on with their lives because they’re not really our target audience anyway. And now it’s kind of hit this.
I would say a flattening part of
the thing. And if I
really think about it and focus
on what the end goal is, it’s not necessarily to, to have a massive Like audience.
And I think that’s also this, this article was talking about, you know, being a creator and trying to be this top thing. And I don’t think that’s our goal anyway. So which is interesting to kind of think of, okay, well, what is that number? That helps us feel like we have an impact. I don’t know yet what that
is.
Exactly. And maybe putting a number on it may, may, may not be the greatest thing at this point. Anyway, it’s just like, okay, let’s do this for X period of time and we’ll check in everyone. So I’ll see how it goes. And, and if our energy levels are, are good and we keep enjoying this, then that’s reasonable.
Nate: [00:16:28] Yeah. Yeah. I think like this is.
a little bit tangential, but like I’ve always really admired some people who are these
really tiny businesses. Who don’t have a giant following who
aren’t trying to be the biggest, best, whatever.
And they
just work on their businesses and the best way that they can, that they know how, and they just, they’re just happy with that.
They just plug away at it. And I think that’s kind of related to this too. It’s like, yeah, sure. There might be a point where it doesn’t make sense for us to do it, but yeah, just doing a good job at what, where we’re at is also okay.
Josh: [00:16:59] cool. Cool. The last piece of my universe speaking to me was I listened to
a podcast that I poked my head around a couple of
times. It’s called startup to last it’s. It’s also kind of in our similar scope community.
And they had a, they had an episode recently and I’d listened to it and I said, Hey, you should listen to this too.
I think it was their celebratory like hundredth episode. And they’d been doing it for two
years, I think, on a weekly basis. So it definitely was kind of like this, Hey, let’s take a look at the future
and see what, What they say, what were their lessons learned? And it’s interesting how much their path, even in the beginning, them describing the beginning
parts of their first like 20 episodes or something like that sort of definitely resonated with me.
But that was another one of those serendipitous like universe. Hey, Josh listened to this as well. So what, what, what did you get out of listening to that app?
Nate: [00:17:55] Well. the, the one thing that really jumped out to me was they took, I think they did like three hours worth of prep and editing time on their first
episode. So like they do like one hour of recording and then. Three hours of editing afterwards and
like two hours of prep before it was like an insane amount of work.
And now they just do like one hour and I think 15, one hour of recording and like 15 minutes of post production or something like that. That was as the person who
edits
Josh: [00:18:22] Yeah. Sorry.
Nate: [00:18:24] as the person. Yeah. Editing the show. I was like, whoa, that’s insane.
I spent like, I dunno, maybe half hour editing the show or something like that
Josh: [00:18:31] definitely think? that could take away from your energy too. Right? Like if, if you spent that much time on it, so.
Nate: [00:18:36] oh, totally, totally. But I think the, like the overarching thing that I kind of got from them was that they were doing it because they enjoyed hanging out together. And that was what was kind of keeping them going and the odd person that really
benefited from their conversations out there that kind of provided a lift to them as well.
At least that’s what I kind of caught from him.
Josh: [00:18:57] right. And did they say like, one of them listens to the episodes afterwards? One of them didn’t I don’t remember. Was it, was it Tyler that, that listens to them or didn’t?
I don’t remember.
Nate: [00:19:10] forget which name was, which, but I think it’s the editor guy was listening to the listening to them afterwards.
Josh: [00:19:15] Yeah. There’s Rick Rick and Tyler and yeah, I don’t, I don’t remember who was the editor and it was, I think, I think Tyler’s the editor for some reason. I don’t know why. So anyway, so yeah. Cool. Yeah, and I think some of the other things I got out of listening to them and what they
really, they personally benefited from was I think they said, you know, the ones that they were workshopping things together like working through problems together.
I think that really helped. You know, give a
residual benefit for it. And the other one,
like I said, or like you mentioned was less
prep. They lowered the effort on the prep and that kind of probably just took some of the pressure off and some of the, maybe dragging parts of it, that parts that would kind of take away the energy that
you may or may not be getting from, from even doing the court record.
Nate: [00:20:07] Yeah, totally. Like you’re trying so hard to follow the script and then like, it kind of falls flat because you’ve, you’re basically reading a script. I feel like that would be really cool.
Josh: [00:20:17] right. Or you’re just trying to make them too good. Right. Or you’re just worried about it or you’re like, you want to cover a topic, but you’re not letting the
organic happen. And I think we’ve done a better
job of kind of doing a little bit less prep before. I think we’ve had. We, if you probably look at our notes of how we prepped, it’s gotten less and less, not just from a time perspective, but also I think we realized just leaving room to let more of the organic things happen.
I think has been helpful.
Nate: [00:20:44] Yeah. And I think I kind of inversely to that. They were talking about
the, the episodes where they tried to teach people
stuff. They said that that didn’t really go very well.
Because they like very quickly ran out of content and found, it felt a little bit weird talking about some of the things that they maybe weren’t experts.
Josh: [00:21:03] Right. And I could see that too. And that’s where the workshopping words really like, they’re just, they’re just talking to each other about helping each other solve different problems, which I’m not sure if we’ve done that a whole lot. Between you and me. I mean, I think there’s been like, I’m almost coming in as a coach with some of the way we’ve done some of the earlier ones.
Like, Hey, let’s do this and we have these
challenges And we are kind of workshopping some of your things, but
then I think I’ve
been definitely more reluctant
to, to share. and
I don’t know if that’s just me personally
or also a combination of just. Some of the things that I’m struggling with. And that’s, I think where a lot of people start is may not necessarily be the best to talk about on a podcast either.
It has a lot of context or it has to do with a lot
of, yeah. Things that are going to be hard to explain the full backstory and complexity to get to,
Nate: [00:22:03] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think we still do some, like, you know what, when, when one of us talks about a particular idea, we’ll often push back and forth on each other. And I think that
kind of
falls into the workshopping category, although we don’t like do it fully, like as in a whole episode worth of,
that at all.
Josh: [00:22:19] right, right. So what it did lead me to thinking, I know we’ve had a couple
discussions a little bit off the, off the air on this, but it’s, we were just thinking about mixing up the format a little bit and I think. After having Arvid and I thought it was pretty interesting having a guest on and the dynamic that that created.
How did, how did you feel about having a guest on?
Nate: [00:22:42] I thought that was great. I love that.
Josh: [00:22:45] Yeah. and I think I liked it a lot too. I
think that
actually played more well into our different perspectives.
Cause I think we just broke it up. I said here all handled the early part. Yeah.
You handle the later parts because you read the book and you actually might have good questions for him.
But, but I think that worked well
because it led a person just like, okay, we’re going to have this personnel, what do I want to ask
them?
And we kind of just divided And conquered and, but then we still left room for organic intervention and interruptions between, you know, and anyone within like the scope of those sections. So yeah.
Nate: [00:23:22] Yeah. And I think that’s like, I think that’s one of the best ways to learn too, is like, you’re just chatting with an expert, just asking them questions. Right. And see what they.
Josh: [00:23:32] Yeah. And that’s something I added to my list of like, if we started doing more of those it’s, you know, in terms of just the intrinsic benefits of this, but just our own learning, right? Like it’s sticking us two in the room back and forth and just talking about stuff we’ve learned. You’re going to, we’re going to run into a wall.
We’re going to run out of things to talk about, or it’s just going to be the two of us in our own little echo chamber, but bringing someone in kind of just brings a different energy, a different
level of expertise.
And I do think it’s something we could, we should keep doing. But I also don’t want to take away necessarily from the spirit of the show as well.
Like I don’t want to turn us into it. A grind of interviewing someone every week. Cause I think that can wear on people as well from a, from a podcast host perspective.
Nate: [00:24:24] Yup. Yup. We’re the, we’re the variety. So.
Josh: [00:24:28] And then it’s like like half, I mean, w so we’ve already started
lining up a couple other people we can interview that I think will be a lot of fun. So I’m excited about adding that into our mix. But I can tell you, scheduling is sometimes. of pain, right? Like we’re scheduling between three or four people and time zones and things like that.
And,
Nate: [00:24:48] Yup. Especially when Nate puts the wrong dates on there that makes it even more fun.
Josh: [00:24:52] true. So I do think that, but I do want to keep, like, one of the things I’ve noticed is that like the workshopping
part of like where your progress in your search for SAS is going. I feel like it’s hard for us to talk about it on a weekly basis. And even if we are, it’s in very small little chunks and maybe it’s an art intros and things like that. So I wouldn’t mind proposing, even maybe we’re just doing episode, like an episode specifically to that maybe like once a month or every two weeks. That is more like, Hey,
let’s just have an organic, Hey, how’s the
updates has how’s ads by going how’s your. Status lists going, is that, is that still a PDF?
Going all, all these little things and just getting a general update on those. But I think like at a once, maybe like once a month mince, every couple of weeks, instead of it being kind of integrated in with
these other topics, I think might be a little easier for us to do right.
Can actually workshop some things a bit more when we’re focused on a problem.
So if you run into, Hey, I had a load of consulting work and I didn’t really do anything on it this week. It doesn’t leave the show kind of in this weird, Hey, what’s going on with Nate type of thing?
Nate: [00:26:12] just drop my ball on that side of things. No, I think that sounds great. And that way people don’t get too tired of being talking to. Okay.
Josh: [00:26:19] I think that’s both of us. We’re both like, hello. I don’t think we’re, I wouldn’t say self-conscious about it. We’re just like, are we, is there anything that’s really that interesting about it? It’s interesting to me, it’s interesting to you. But yeah, but, and if, at least if they’re, that’s not why they’re here and that’s not why they find the podcast very interesting.
Which I could see like some people in different stages, that’s some of the feedback I’ve gotten. They’re like, oh yeah, it’s interesting. But I already have an idea and I’m working on it. So there’s all these episodes on ideation and markets. Yeah, not that interesting to me. I mean so they can
skip those ones and, and maybe bringing on our guests and other things.
And I think we could still have people join us on our journey with that without necessarily being inundated with exactly where your stage might be.
Nate: [00:27:07] yup.
Josh: [00:27:09] Cool. So it sounds like we have some new ideas for format. We already have some guests lined up, so that’ll be a neat way to integrate that in and mix some things up for us. So hopefully we’ll get a little more feedback. Maybe we’ll leave that open.
It’s what searching for sas.com/feedback. We’ll also leave that in the show notes, so maybe we’ll leave it open another week.
People want to contribute to that and help drive what the future of searching for SAS might be. Anything else on, on our podcasts about our podcast?
Nate: [00:27:37] no, it’s been lots of fun. I can’t believe it’s 18 already looking forward to the rest.
Josh: [00:27:42] Cool. Yeah. We’re adults now. Right?
18 adults can drink. Can drink it. Drink in Canada, right?
Nate: [00:27:47] That’s right. That’s right.
Josh: [00:27:49] not here yet. Three more, three more in the U S so we can drink.
Nate: [00:27:53] Come to Canada.
Josh: [00:27:55] Cool. All right, I’ll talk to you later. Thanks Nate. But
