Michele Hansen  00:00

Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by the website monitoring tool, Oh Dear.

If you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you know that I'm passionate about customer service and listening to customers.

A few months ago, we noticed something wasn't working on the Oh Dear dashboard. We reported it to them, and they fixed it almost immediately. Everybody has bugs occasionally, but not every company is so responsive to their customers, and we really appreciate that.

You can sign up for a 10 day free trial with no credit card required at OhDear.app.

Colleen Schnettler  00:35

So Michele, I'd love to hear about how things are going with the book. 

Michele Hansen  00:40

They're going. Um, so after our episode with Sean last week, I realized that I kind of, I have to launch this thing eventually, right? 

Colleen Schnettler  00:54

Yes. 

Michele Hansen  00:55

And, you know, for, you know, I mean, for months I've been hearing that advice of, you know, do a, do a presale and like, start selling it beforehand, And, and I was like, yeah, I mean, you know, I, that's the best practice. That makes sense. And then just kind of be like, but that doesn't apply to me, right? Like, I couldn't make, um. It's, you know, it's funny, because it's almost, I feel like the way people feel about when they hear about customer interviewing, they're like, that sounds really valuable and like the right thing to do, and I'm just gonna act like that doesn't apply to me. 

Colleen Schnettler  01:29

Yep. 

Michele Hansen  01:30

So that's kind of how I was, and talking to Sean really kind of got me to be like, okay, okay, fine. I should actually sit down and do this. So I got a very simple website together, and then I actually did end up launching the presale. 

Colleen Schnettler  01:46

Oh, congratulations. 

Michele Hansen  01:48

Yeah, that was super scary. Like, because the book 

Colleen Schnettler  01:50

I bet.

Michele Hansen  01:53

And, like, random places where it says like, insert graphic here.

Colleen Schnettler  02:01

So tell us how many books have you sold? 

Michele Hansen  02:03

Okay, yeah, so I guess I get to do, like, a numbers update for the first time. This is fun. Um, so I have sold 34 copies. 

Colleen Schnettler  02:15

Wow. 

Michele Hansen  02:16

Presale.

Colleen Schnettler  02:17

That's a lot. 

Michele Hansen  02:18

So, and that's not including for like, you know, platform fees and whatever. Just like, you know, $29 times 34, basically. $986. 

Colleen Schnettler  02:32

That's amazing. Congratulations! 

Michele Hansen  02:35

So close to that, like, 1000 mark, which, I was talking about this with Mathias earlier, and he's kind of like, I feel like that's like a, you know, that's like, the legit threshold, is 1000. Like, and I don't know why, but it's like, yeah, it's like that feels like, that feels like the, the, like, the first big hurdle. 

Colleen Schnettler  02:55

I totally agree. That's wonderful news. Congratulations. 

Michele Hansen  03:00

You know, I expected to feel excited, or relieved, or something positive after releasing it, or the presale, at least. And I gotta tell you, like, I just feel pressure. Like, I'm really glad I didn't do this sooner. 

Colleen Schnettler  03:25

Really? 

Michele Hansen  03:27

Yeah. Because now I have, you know, at least 34 people I can't disappoint.

Colleen Schnettler  03:32

Right. 

Michele Hansen  03:32

And I feel like, just like, the pressure to make something that is a quality product, like, I already had that pressure on myself to put something out there that I'm proud of. 

Colleen Schnettler  03:44

Yeah.

Michele Hansen  03:46

Now I have all these other people who are expecting that, and not that anyone has emailed me and said anything to that effect, but that's how I feel. And I was thinking about this earlier. And I was like, man, like, writing and selling this book has like, brought out all of these, like, vulnerabilities and, and self-doubt and everything, like all of this stuff that I like, thought I had dealt with and then it's, like, sort of like bursting out of the cabinet, being like, hey, I'm still here. So it's, you know, I mean, I have tools to, like, deal with that, but it's been like, oh my gosh, like, I thought I had dealt with, like, I never feel this way about anything about Geocodio, like, so. 

Colleen Schnettler  04:33

So, this is interesting, because I, when I was feeling a similar way, many months ago, I don't actually know if I talked about it on the podcast, but I had a very high value client that I had a great relationship with that needed a file uploader, and mine wasn't quite done, and I had this moment of terror, panic, I don't know, where I was like, I shouldn't use mine because, because if I put it on my client's site, like, it has to work, right? There's no get out of jail free card, Kind of like, you've now sold this book. Like, you have to finish it. 

Michele Hansen  05:07

Right. It's not just like, throwing it in a PDF and then like. 

Colleen Schnettler  05:09

Yeah. 

Michele Hansen  05:10

Oh, whatever, nobody paid for it. Like, it's not a big deal. Like, it's like, no, this is, like, this is serious now. 

Colleen Schnettler  05:17

Yeah. And I think something that, that I'm thinking of as you're talking about this, I remember at the time, Alex Hillman had a really great tweet thread about you're not scared of failure, maybe you're secretly scared of success. 

Michele Hansen  05:32

Mm hmm. 

Colleen Schnettler  05:33

It was really interesting. Like, just when you think about, like, the psychology and all of these new insecurities coming to light for you, like, maybe you're scared of success. 

Michele Hansen  05:42