Every doctor is concerned about your vital signs, but a good doctor cares about your overall health. Your website deserves the same care, and Hey Check It is here to help- Hey Check It is a website performance monitoring and optimization tool- Goes beyond just core web vitals to give you a full picture on how to optimize your website to give your users an optimal, happy experience- Includes AI-generated SEO data, accessibility scanning and site speed checks with suggestions on how to optimize, spelling and grammar checking, custom sitemaps, and a number of various tools to help youStart a free trial today at heycheckit.comMichele Hansen Hey, Colleen, Colleen Schnettlergood morning, Michelle.Michele Hansen  0:45  How are you?Colleen Schnettler  0:47  I'm doing great. How are you?Michele Hansen  0:49  I am I'm working working through stuff.Colleen Schnettler  0:52  Okay, can I start with the funny story? Sure. Our listeners. Okay. So if you listen to our podcast about Michelle's burnout, you might remember that I suggested some very dramatic things, like quit your job or move to a different country. So the next morning, Michelle texted me and told me she went for a walk. I made me laugh, because I was like, yes, you know, that's a good first step going for a walk.Michele Hansen  1:22  Yes, I actually, I did go for a walk that day, because it was sunny for once in Scandinavia in the wintertime. So you got to take advantage of that. So yeah, so I, I just want to start by saying I like I've gotten so much support from so many people and so many stories from people about their burnout, or their spouses burnout, or just feeling really, really supported and appreciating it. So much. How much other people have been sharing with me and how vulnerable they have been with me. It's been, it's been kind of amazing, I guess I didn't really know what to expect, going going into it, like recorded that episode. And I was kind of like, ah, like, I don't have any advice for people like is, right, is that going to be like useful for people. And it turns out, I guess, sort of just feeling seen, and knowing that other people go through it was helpful. And I think for me, like, just saying, like, sort of raising my hand and saying I have a problem, like, for me is often the first step in getting through it. Like, absolutely, um, so so that was really helpful for me. And just being open about it, and then all of the support from people. As has kind of given me like a little bit of motion on it. I mean, so many people reached out to me offering to, like, have a phone call or something about it. And, um, I haven't taken anyone, because, like, I don't have enough time. But I really appreciate it. And I'm just kind of like, I don't know, I'm like marinating and everyone's stories, like, like, I kind of feel like, I don't know if you ever do this, but like, you know, you get like a steak and then you put it in the fridge with salt on it, and for a couple of days, and then it gets really tender. And I feel like I'm just a piece of steak sitting in the fridge. And like every story and and sort of encouraging word people have sent to me as sort of, you know, their each one little piece of Maldon salt that's just kind of working its way in and tenderizing me and this is a little bit of a weird metaphor, but like people who take their seriously know what I'm talking about. Like, I'm just kind of, you know, I'm sort of like, yeah, I don't know, something marinating is like totally the wrong word for that. But you know, I'm just kind of absorbing, I guess all of that. Okay. Um, that's great. And yes, I have started to try to try to make some changes, but I think something that really helps crystallize for me, in hearing so many stories about burnout was like, there's kind of it feels like there's kind of like two different categories of burnout. There's like, work burnout, and then there's life burnouts. Okay. And work burnout is, you know, that's like your, your burnout from your work situation, right. And then life is like, you know, everything else going on, right? I have life burnout. It turns out and so that has been helpful for me in framing this because then it's kind of like a sort of, like, it feels like sort of like the first direction sign. You know, it's like, do I turn left? Do I turn right? Is it work burnout, is it life burnout, okay, now we know which way to go. Okay. And then that's like a, you know, sort of like another step to go down. like researching how people get through this. So I think that that was really key and helped me start, I think start even just like thinking about changes to make, because it's one, it's like everything possibly that you have going on that you might need to change. Like, that's a little bit overwhelming. But at least knowing which domain to think about is helpful, I think.Colleen Schnettler  5:27  So how do you know it's life burnout and not work burnout, what's the distinguishing characteristics?Michele Hansen  5:32  So I think it's that, you know, for me, like, like, I really enjoy work to the point where, like, you know, most of my life, I have found work easier than life, quite frankly, like, I tend to escape into work or school or, you know, whatever that is. And I think actually, the, the fact that I was like, one of my initial stressors couple weeks ago was like, I don't have enough time to work was not actually a sign that I was burning out from work, it was a sign that I was going into one of my oldest tried and true stress responses, which is trying to disappear into work. And then the fact that I didn't have enough time to do so was stressing me out. And that like that that outlet was not available. So it's not that I didn't have enough time to work. It's that like, I didn't have enough time to neglect the rest of my life and just disappear into work.Colleen Schnettler  6:40  Okay, I understand, I think, did weMichele Hansen  6:43  did we ever talk about like the four archetypes of like, stress and trauma responses, we were talking about that. Okay, so we're talking about that. So there's like four main categories of these. And it's just worth sort of noting and it's like, not any of them are better or worse than others. It's just intended to be descriptive, and like, help you understand how you respond to stressful situations. And so the first one is anger, which is, you know, respond with anger, whether that's verbally or physically, you know, with violence against yourself against other people, against objects, right. And so like, if something really stressful happens, and you really want to punch a pillow, or a punching bag, like anger might be one of your primary stress, or trauma responses, most people are a combination of a couple. The next one is flight, which is you are leaving the situation that can that that can be physically or it can also be sort of mentally, but that often takes the form of workaholism so disappearing into work. Hello, me raising hand. Um, that can be exercise, like, so I was a competitive gymnast growing up. So that's also in the flight response. You know, it can be physically moving places, like, you know, like, when, like, COVID got really bad, I decided to move country. So that is also a flight response. Like, hello, all the bells are going off here. Right? Um, so that's like the flight response. I think especially like, in our community, like, I come across a lot of people with the like, workaholic flight response. And the thing like, is like, though, the thing about flight responses is that like, they can often be sort of extreme versions of h...

Follow Jordan! https://twitter.com/jdnocEvery doctor is concerned about your vital signs, but a good doctor cares about your overall health. Your website deserves the same care, and Hey Check It is here to help- Hey Check It is a website performance monitoring and optimization tool- Goes beyond just core web vitals to give you a full picture on how to optimize your website to give your users an optimal, happy experience- Includes AI-generated SEO data, accessibility scanning and site speed checks with suggestions on how to optimize, spelling and grammar checking, custom sitemaps, and a number of various tools to help youStart a free trial today at heycheckit.comAUTOMATED TRANSCRIPTColleen Schnettler  0:02  Every doctor is concerned about your vital signs. But a good doctor cares about your overall health. Your website deserves the same care. And Hey check it is here to help. Hey check it is a website performance monitoring and optimization tool. It goes beyond just core web vitals to give you a full picture on how to optimize your website to give your users a happy experience. It includes AI generated SEO data, accessibility scanning, and site speed checks, with suggestions on how to improve and a number of various other tools to help you start a free trial today at Hey, check it.comWelcome back to the software social podcast. I'm your host today, Colleen. Today I am super excited to have a special guest on the pod. Jordan O'Connor, the founder of closet tools is today's guest. Thanks for showing up today. Jordan, I appreciate it. Jordan O'Connor  0:56  Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me. Colleen Schnettler  0:58  So I specifically wanted to ask you here because your Indie hackers interviews was one of my favorites. And I'm sure you hear that a lot. Do you hear that? A lot? Jordan O'Connor  1:07  I've heard it a few times. Colleen Schnettler  1:08  Yeah. Yeah. So for those who have not heard your Indie hackers interview, could you tell us a little bit about what closet tools is? Jordan O'Connor  1:17  Yeah, so closet tools, I started closet tools almost almost four years ago now. It's basically an automation. It's software automation for Poshmark. So Poshmark is a retail selling platform. So it started out as mostly just people selling used women's clothes, it was mostly women selling used clothes on there.And the way they built the platform is more like social media than it is like, you know, like, you know, like what you would think of ecommerce is like a storefront or something like that. And so the way to get exposure to your closet, your profile, you have to do things like sharing and liking and commenting and all these different social engagement signals. And that's how you get exposure. That's how you get followers. That's how you get, you know, eyeballs on your stuff, so that you can sell stuff. And so that takes a ton of time. And my particular customer, which would be like a reseller, they don't really have time to be on social media all day engaging and stuff like that, like they just want to sell clothes. Most of them sell on eBay, they sell, you know, on their own storefront. So they just want to sell stuff. And so that's what causes tools does, it does a lot of those engagement things for them, it'll share their items throughout the day, it'll automatically respond to different events that happen if somebody likes an item, it'll automatically send that person an offer with a discount stuff like that. So it kind of automates a little bit of the sales process for them. So yeah,Colleen Schnettler  2:46  so Poshmark is like eBay, but fancy, right, like higher high end.Jordan O'Connor  2:52  It's no, it's definitely it's definitely I would say it's not that eBay is high end, but Poshmark scales, low end to high end, you can you know, you can find, you know, you can find like really nice purses or whatever on there and stuff. Or you can buy, you know, a $5 You know, screenprint t shirt, like you can buy, you know, anything you want on there, most of the appeal is that most of the items on there are like used. So you're getting get a discount on some item that's lightly used that you would normally pay a lot more for. So that's kind of, you know, the the corner of the market that they tackled, there's also a lot of new items on there and things like that, too. So, but yeah, the thing that's weird about it. So like you have like a closet, it literally is like like Instagram, so you have your closet, and it has like all the images of like your items and stuff that you're selling. And each post has, you know, a common section, people can like it, they can share it themselves to their followers. And when you share to your followers, your item, they're basically when you share to your followers, that item shows up in their main feed. So like you can go into the app and you can like search specifically for like, hey, I want like Nike shoes, or whatever. And then I'll just come up with Nike shoes. But if you just kind of like go into the app, and you have like the main feed, just like any social media platform, whatever people are sharing is what's going to show up there. And so if you're not constantly sharing, then you're not going to show up in that main feed, and people aren't going to randomly stumble onto your profile. But you literally have to physically click like two buttons for every item you want to share. And a lot of my customers are actual, you know that this is their business and they have 2000 3000 4000 items. And it would take them an hour or two just to go through and click click, click, click click. So it and that could be time there's been doing other things like even literally just like packaging items to sell send out and stuff like that. So So yeah, it saves them a ton of time, and it ends up making them more money in the long run just because you know it's doing things for them. So it's pretty, it's a win win. It's pretty cool.Colleen Schnettler  4:48  So how did you get that idea? Were you selling stuff on? Poshmark?Jordan O'Connor  4:52  Yeah, so my wife started selling things on Poshmark at the time. We kind of need some extra income and she was like no One of her friends actually introduced her to Poshmark. And so she jumped on and she was starting to sell stuff. But then right away, I kind of was like, Whoa, you're spending a lot of time, you know, night sharing and doing a bunch of stuff on there. I was like, and it was right around the time I was kind of learning web development, things like that. I had already knew how to code and stuff. But I had never really done much web development. And I said, Hey, I think I can write like a little script that kind of like automates that for you. Like, you just press a button, and it just rifled through and shares all of your stuff. And so that's what I did. And so that's how I made the first, you know, like, kind of the first version. And for a while, I just, um, let her and her friends use it. And they thought it was awesome there was that it was really cool. And all it was was a bookmarklet. So like in, you know, browsers, you can just embed JavaScript code right in the bookmark, and you just click it and execute it. And it just like, yeah, you went through, it wasn't smart, or anything, had no GUI or anything like that. I just did it. And they thought it was great. And they were doing well with it. And then I blogged about it on my personal blog. And over the course of like, six months, I started getting like a hand few handful of emails from people saying, like, Hey, I found this, you ...

Every doctor is concerned about your vital signs, but a good doctor cares about your overall health. Your website deserves the same care, and Hey Check It is here to help- Hey Check It is a website performance monitoring and optimization tool- Goes beyond just core web vitals to give you a full picture on how to optimize your website to give your users an optimal, happy experience- Includes AI-generated SEO data, accessibility scanning and site speed checks with suggestions on how to optimize, spelling and grammar checking, custom sitemaps, and a number of various tools to help youStart a free trial today at heycheckit.comAUTOMATED TRANSCRIPTColleen Schnettler  0:00  Good morning, Michelle. Hey, Colleen, it's early here in California. But I am here for you.Michele Hansen  0:42  It's late here in Denmark, it is dark. It is not even five.Unknown Speaker  0:47  My goodness.Colleen Schnettler  0:48  So I think this week, I would like to talk to something I talk about something a little more serious. And I want to talk about you. Because you have been going through some stuff.Michele Hansen  1:02  Yeah, I have. It kind of occurred to me this week that I I don't I don't know, I might be going through burnouts. Or at least I have, like, way too much stress. Like, like, I feel like I'm DDoSing myself.Colleen Schnettler  1:22  I love that line, by the way. So first of all, I guess your best friend and podcast host has been telling you this for like eight months.Michele Hansen  1:33  Like, we're like you're gonna burn out. I'm like, I'm fine. And then our friends of ours were like, you know, after like, I launched something like, you know, especially infoproduct people, they're like, I went through like a depression after that I really burned out like, and I was like, I hear you but like, I'm special. I'm not gonna that's not gonna happen to me. You know, all think we're special. We all think we're special. And we all are special. But there are also things that everyone goes through. Um, yeah, I have so much going on in my life right now. And, and I think this, I mean, I Okay, so you've known this for a long time. But like, I I think it really started to become apparent to me that like, given everything I'm doing I have really like down prioritized taking care of myself. That was something I got really thinking about at founder Summit. And it's not just like a work life balance problem or a, you know, need to like join a gym problem. Like, I think it's like, bigger than that. But I don't really know, like, how do you unburn out? How do you do though?Colleen Schnettler  2:43  Let's take a step back. When you say you haven't deprioritize taking care of yourself, what did you use to do that? You don't do like you have stopped doing over the past year. And like what led to that. I'm curious how you got to where you are.Michele Hansen  3:00  I mean, so I really don't first of all, like I really don't work out as much like and I used to be someone who was like super active, like, I used to run to work, bike to work, play tennis, do gymnastics, soccer on top of that, like super, super active and have really become less active. And I don't know if that's the pandemic or like moving countries and my habits like change, you know, you have to establish entirely new habits. As I was talking to people about it founder summit who are nomads, they were saying that they didn't realize until COVID and they were forced to stay in one place. how stressful it had been to like, move places every couple of months and have to like refigure it all over again. Like oh, like where's the grocery store that I like? And like, can I get the food I like and you know, where's the gym that I like? Where can I work? Like all those kinds of like basic everyday questions become sort of stressful. Like I definitely feel like that like I didn't go to the dentist for 18 months. Mostly because it's like so like hack I have a package I've been trying to mail for three months and I'm just so overwhelmed by the idea of like figuring out the Danish postal system that it's still sitting at my desk. So like basic everyday things become really overwhelming when you're abroad. Yeah, I think like one of my habits changed but then I think I just have so much going on also that like you know I think the great thing about working for yourself is like if you want to take an hour lunch break and read a book like you can do that but like I have been feeling like I don't even have time to eat I don't have time to make myself healthy food like the idea of just like even cooking a piece of salmon or whatever like seems overwhelming and so like I have really allowed my health to like totally slip because I just feel like I don't have time for it but I also don't have those like sort of habit triggers I guess that I used to have you know if I was in my environment I was in you know, do Two years ago, for sure. And I think with everything that I have going on, that's like become really acute.Colleen Schnettler  5:09  So and you would lump. I mean, that's your physical health. But also you said you don't read books for pleasure. I mean, I think that's what you just said. So that's not that's your whole, not just do it like I do. Okay. Yeah. I mean, have you also, like, what about your, your mental health are you also are you still not having time to do the things you used to love that brought you joy.Michele Hansen  5:33  So I differentiate that, and I think this is like I've been, you know, so I'm obviously not an expert in this, I'm just somebody who's going through differentiating between burnout and depression, where, like, I actually feel like my mental health is pretty good. Like I've done I've done a lot of work on my mental health the past couple of years. Um, and, you know, depression is like, when you try to, you know, you try to get the energy to do the things that you liked, and then you don't get any enjoyment out of it, it's like the dopamine just doesn't even fire. Or if it does, it only lasts for a second. So whereas you know, a non depressed person, maybe you can go for a walk, and, and then you or you see a friend, and it kind of brightens you for the rest of the day, and at least helps you get through it. You know, when I've gone through depression, it's like, that enjoyment you get from that, like, you get like 30 seconds of enjoyment out of it, and then it's just gone. And you even feel worse than you did before, because you were expecting to make you feel good. And then it didn't, and then it just like spirals. I'm not in that state right now. It's more just like this constant feeling of stress. And like, I don't have enough time for anything. And feeling exhausted by that constant stress. But it's also not anxiety, either. Because an idea I guess I'm not I don't really know how to explain this. But like it's, it's not like worrying. And it's not like a tension, or No, I don't, I don't know how to explain it. But yeah, it's kind of it's gotten me to Google X. It's like, I don't know what this feeling is. And then I kind of, you know, I mentioned it to some friends of ours. And they're like, that's, that's the burnout. We were telling you was going to happen. And I'm like, oh, and then I'm like, so like, what is like the plan to like, get out of this? Like, is there like, what does your schedule look like when you were getting out of burnout? They're like, yeah, that's kind of like, you're trying to, like, make a schedule of it. Like, right. And one of our friends was, like, I Googled, you know, how to be a type B personality when I was...

Every doctor is concerned about your vital signs, but a good doctor cares about your overall health. Your website deserves the same care, and Hey Check It is here to help- Hey Check It is a website performance monitoring and optimization tool- Goes beyond just core web vitals to give you a full picture on how to optimize your website to give your users an optimal, happy experience- Includes AI-generated SEO data, accessibility scanning and site speed checks with suggestions on how to optimize, spelling and grammar checking, custom sitemaps, and a number of various tools to help youStart a free trial today at heycheckit.comAUTOMATED TRANSCRIPTMichele Hansen  0:00  Hey, welcome back to software social, I am super excited to have a guest with me this week. It is Matt wensing, who is founder of Summit, which is a tool for financial modeling. Previously, he was founder of risk pulse, which was acquired in 2019, which was an enterprise SAS. I'm also the co host of out of beta. Matt, welcome. Thanks, Michelle.Matt Wensing  0:31  I'm really excited to be here, too. I'm a listener. And I just love it. So this is fun.Michele Hansen  0:37  So I have been wanting to talk to you for a really long time. And there is one tweet that you sent out in particular, that made me really want to talk to you. So in January, you tweeted out some notes you had taken from customer research that you did for Summit. And you were working with what the jobs to be done world calls the forces diagram, which is basically this diagram we use to show the different pushes and pulls and anxieties and habits people have around the tools they use, and why they might be looking for something new, but also why they might stay with what they're doing right now. And I am so curious to hear kind of like how this came about, and how you have been using customer research as you explore summits. So can you kind of like take us back in time to when you first started researching Summit?Matt Wensing  1:52  Yeah, absolutely. So it's funny that there's actually an overlap here between even knowing what jobs be done enforces progress is and that initial research. So I attend the business of software conference each year in the States, so there's one in Europe and the States, but every October, in Boston, folks get together, at least pretty COVID and cross fingers soon. And Bob molesta is a regular speaker there as well, who is not sure the godfather of the forces of progress framework in a lot of ways. And I just remember being this is probably Oh, man, time's flying, right. So let's just say five years ago, I wanted to say three and like now, it's not three, it's probably five years ago, I listened to him interview, an audience member, kind of a mock customer interview, live about purchasing a car. And the way that they were able to take a dialogue and really parse it into a framework that you could then take away from that, and then keep doing that with more and more conversation. It just was like, Okay, this is definitely a tool that I need to add to my tool belt like this is, this is amazing. What's interesting is then fast forward into Summit, like by that time in the history of my previous company, I was doing sales, enterprise sales, mostly it wasn't doing a lot of customer research, at least in terms of the early sort of genesis of the product. So I don't know that I got to use it a lot. Back then it was mostly just listening to like we did do enterprise deals where there were custom features involved. But really, I got to use it fresh, you know, when you're second time founder, a lot of times you're like, Oh, I'm gonna do this the right way, this time around and actually use more tools and framework things I've learned. And forces progress is one of those. So I wanted to build this tool to do financial modeling. But that is such an ambiguous target that I knew I needed to figure out the value proposition. What does that really mean? What do people want? So funny enough, I gave a talk at business a software as a lightning talk in 2019. And I kind of use that as a launching point. I didn't frame it as, hey, I'm selling a product. I didn't even have a product. I had a little prototype, basically. But I use that talk to share. Really, the problem, socialize the problem space, if you will talk about, hey, this is this is a challenge, isn't it? Like this is a pain. Here's a little tool I made to kind of deal with that pain. And I really tried to draw some business lessons out of it. But really, at that same time, I started to have conversations with potential customers and prospects. And as they talked to me, I started cataloger file their feedback into these different kind of buckets, right, kind of the tool that I had learned previously and yeah, I just kind of did that every you know a few months would kind of refresh my understanding of what they were saying and built up this. This list organized list of feedback which I guess I'll put a bow on it and say it really think helped me understand the product strategy, like what did the product strategy need to be, for me to go into this space that was otherwise very nebulous? Like, how do I have opinion? Like what should my opinions be about the tool and what it needs to do? Right?Michele Hansen  5:19  Mm hmm. It's really it's really interesting that you use basically that talk as sort of a, I guess, sort of, in a way, sort of what Patrick McKenzie would call a friend catcher, to attract people to you to talk about the problem. But then because you had that experience with the forces of progress and with seeing Bob Maestas speak who, by the way, his his book, demand side sales actually has real customer interviews in it that are all broken down by the forces. And it's like, it's so good, like it should be on everybody's shelf. And then, but you you were able to process that. And I think that's so important, because sometimes there can can feel like there's this gap between for people who are new to research of how do I go from talking to people to actually designing value? And how do I figure out okay, I've talked to these people, I know what these problems are, I know what I'm interested in. But then what is the product? And it sounds like you were able to bridge that? So I'm curious if you can kind of dive into when you went from this point of understanding the problem space socializing the problem space, you kind of had a prototype, but like, how did the prototype sort of snowball with that? And how did you figure out where it was valuable?Matt Wensing  6:48  Yeah, so to put a timeline on this, this was, what you're describing now is essentially the journey from late 20, October 2019, through probably April, May of this year, so you know, almost almost two years, essentially. And during that time, I've released multiple versions of the products, really knowing that this was not going to be it. Now I'm a developer, a full stack developer who can build full, I can build applications top to bottom, not as strong as they used to be on the front end, but like it works. And what I was essentially trying to do was understand, okay, so there are few risks of the business. And funnily enough, Patrick McKenzie was one of the first people I pinged about this idea, because was his work at stripe Atlas and stripe. And just in general, I knew that he would have interesting opinion. And his thoughts were okay, financial modeling is interesting. But it sounds like it could be transactional, like, somebody has a need, they do it. And then they're gone. And I knew I wanted to build a SAS. And so that was like, Okay, that's a great point. Because a lot of times, the use cases that would come up when I talked ...

Follow the speakers we mentioned!David Sherry: https://twitter.com/_brandswellItamar Marani: https://twitter.com/itamarmaraniColleen Schnettler  0:00  Every doctor is concerned about your vital signs, but a good doctor cares about your overall health. Your website deserves the same care, and Hey Check It is here to help- Hey Check It is a website performance monitoring and optimization tool- Goes beyond just core web vitals to give you a full picture on how to optimize your website to give your users an optimal, happy experience- Includes AI-generated SEO data, accessibility scanning and site speed checks with suggestions on how to optimize, spelling and grammar checking, custom sitemaps, and a number of various tools to help youStart a free trial today at heycheckit.comAUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT Michele Hansen  0:35  Hey, Colleen.Colleen Schnettler  0:37  Good morning, Michelle.Michele Hansen  0:39  It's so nice to see your face again, after seeing it in person. Last off at founder Summit.Colleen Schnettler  0:45  I know that was such a wonderful trip. And just amazing that we got to spend that time together.Michele Hansen  0:51  I keep thinking about how awesome it was like, I feel like they've set the bar really, really high for conferences in general as but especially post COVID.Colleen Schnettler  1:04  Yeah, I also think I will be impressed if they can replicate that experience next year, because everyone I know now wants to go. And I think part of what made that conference so special was that there were it was capped at 150 people. And I'm sure they're gonna get a flood of applicants to go next year. So I don't know what they're going to do how they're going to handle that.Michele Hansen  1:28  Yeah, actually, so Tyler tweet that he was like, oh, like, what if we did this in other cities? Oh, like to a year? Yeah. And I was like, Oh, that would be really cool. Yeah, good. Maybe we should talk about like, what made it so awesome. And like, kind of what are like, what are takeaways from it?Colleen Schnettler  1:44  Oh, yeah, girl, I have so many takeaways, all the takeaways. Okay. What were what? What would you lead with? What made it so special for you? Besides me? Of course. It's too easy.Michele Hansen  2:01  You know, so I mean, yeah, this is really hard thing to like, summarize. So I think it was, I mean, it was just so nice being in the same place with other people who are doing the same thing. You know, I think we've talked about how, you know, we initially connected one of the reasons was like, You're the only person I knew in my regular everyday life, who also did this, like weird internet business thing. And there's just like, aren't that many people in this world doing that. So it's just like, so nice to be around other people who are doing this. And you're not only not only do you feel normal, but like, it's such a good environment for like, throwing around ideas. And like, there was at one point when we were talking about, like, multiples for SaaS companies like making a couple $1,000 a month at one point, like on a on the bus to do the hot air balloon ride over to t Wuhan like, and I hope I'm pronouncing that right. I'm practicing so much. And we're like, you know what, we should just like, ask the bus, like this bus full of people would know the answer to this question and have a perspective on this. And like, and so that was really, really awesome. And I feel like there's so many people who introduce themselves. And then and then we like, you know, I'm so and so Oh, and I'm so and so on Twitter, and I'm like, oh my god, like, I've been tweeting with you for the past, you know, like, couple of years, and I finally meeting you in person. And. And so that was really awesome. And I mean, just getting so many ideas going about things. And also, you know, we had talked on our meta episode about how I want to talk more about negotiation, because that's something I do a lot of, and sales, but don't really talk about. And then a speaker was sick on the second day, and Tyler was like, Hey, can anybody give a talk this afternoon? And like, fill the spot and I was like, Yep, alright, I can do negotiation, talk and workshop. And, and, you know, just kind of kind of jumped at it. And it was, it was super fun. And I think I think the big thing I'm really thinking about that, you know, that activity did was like the, the, the, like the wheel where you had to, like rate different areas over your life from like, one to 10 like how they're going. So there was I think it was like occupational fulfillments like one to 10 which is work, right work. Yep. spiritual, emotional, environmental. Physical. Did I already say social? I don't think so. Social. Yeah, there was like five or six different things. Yeah, that'sColleen Schnettler  4:49  six. Um,Michele Hansen  4:52  and I think we both had really interesting results from that. Like they're very different like ours were like, Oh, yes, opposite one. And yeah, and really thinking about how like, you know, I like I gave like physical health like a one on that, right. And the goal of this activity was, you know, you give each area a score of one to 10. And then you set a goal of getting up to spots in the next 90 days. So not going from one to 10, which is often how I two things, just like totally like, balls to the wall focusing on something. But going, you know, from like, one to three, and so it's like, how can you have a plan to go from one to three or three to five? Or, or what have you in the next 90 days. And I remember you saying, when I was writing the book, you were like, Dude, you're like, moving so fast, like you're gonna run headfirst into a wall. And I did, and I haven't talked about that too much, but kind of like privately, I've talked to some people who definitely had this had a similar feeling after launching things. Yeah. Um, and yeah, just really, really thinking. I mean, like, literally even like today, like I got hiccups. 30 seconds before we got on recording, and I was doing literally everything I could to get them to go away, rather than being like, hey, maybe let's record another day instead, right? Like I make work happen no matter what. Even if it's at the the sacrifice of my physical health. And so I think that's something you know, I really need to focus on and I think, something Natalie from wild bit said on stage was like, you know, if the founder isn't happy, if the founder isn't healthy, then the company can't flourish. And so I think that's, that's, I mean, that's something I really, really need to work on. And it's like, kind of like work related, but it's like, it's not, but it also like it is in every sense of the word. So I think that's kind of been a thing I'm thinking about, but I don't I still don't really know exactly where I go with that.Colleen Schnettler  7:07  Like actionable steps. That's what you're still trying to figure out. Because if you want a warning, pretty bad, soMichele Hansen  7:12  yeah, it is. Yeah. I mean, I did order atomic habits, which is like one of those books that like I've never read before, never read a tie. No, it's like one of those books. I feel like that. And like Ray Dalio, his book, or like, books that everybody around me read and like, told me about, and I read about, so I felt like I read them. But I didn't, you know, like, I just didn't feel like I needed to, because it just everybody read it. And I'm like, No, I should probably like, sit down and think about like, not doing a whole sca...

Follow Kevin! https://twitter.com/SahinKevinCheck out ScrapingBee: https://www.scrapingbee.com/AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPTColleen Schnettler  0:00  This episode of Software Social is sponsored by Hey Check It. Does your website performance keep you up at night? The creators behind Hey Check It started it for this very reason—peace of mind about their sites and the sites they manage. Hey Check It is a website performance monitoring and suggestion tool focused on SEO, accessibility, uptime, site speed and content. It includes AI-generated SEO, data, spelling and grammar checking, custom sitemaps, and a number of other tools. If you're managing multiple websites, check their agency plans with public facing dashboards to meet your clients' needs. Start a free trial today at HeyCheckIt.comMichele Hansen  0:39  Hey, welcome back to Software Social. We're doing another interview this week. I am so excited to have Kevin Sahin with me. He is co-founder of ScrapingBee. Kevin, welcome to software social.Kevin Sahin  0:57  Well, thank you, Michele, I'm excited to be here.Michele Hansen  1:01  So this kind of came about because I was on Twitter, as I often am. And I noticed, I think it was actually someone tweeted about MicroConf Europe, which I had been really wanting to go to, but conflicted with a friend's wedding. So we couldn't go. So I was just sort of following and watching everything unfold on Twitter and tweeted about how peer your co founder was, was giving a talk. And he mentioned how scraping DEA offered free API credits to customers who are willing to jump on a 15 minute call with them. And you guys ask them questions like, what else have you tried, and my interest immediately perked up. And really wanted to talk to you about those calls you had and what you learned from them, and what that added for the business. But before we jump into that, perhaps you should say for a moment, just what scraping be. Is and, and whatnot. And?Kevin Sahin  2:09  Sure. So um, so basically scraping the is an API for web scraping. When you are extracting data from the web, you often have the two same problems, which are, there are more and more websites that are using JavaScript frameworks like Vue js, react, etc. And so you have to render the page inside a web browser. And this is kind of, it's a pain to manage, especially at scale. Because you have to, you know, there are lots of DevOps skills that you need. You need big servers, you need lots of things. And it's really handy to have, you know, a headless browser accessible with a simple API call. The other thing that you have to do when you scrape the web at scale, is to manage proxies. So you can you probably need proxies for many different reasons. For example, let's say that you are extracting data from ecommerce website. Well, most ecommerce websites are internationalized, meaning that if you access the website from an IP address in Europe, you will have the prices in euro if you access the IP address or the website from an IP address in the US you will have prices in dollars. So you need some kind of proxy management system. The other thing is IP rate limit. Some websites are limiting the number of pages you can access per day from a single IP address if you need to access more pages, you need more IP addresses etc, etc. And so we bundled this inside a single API which is scrapingMichele Hansen  4:04  so I love how you're solving that because we have felt that pain personally. So I've kind of talked a little bit in the past about how my husband dies first project that was what so the one well, not at first, but the one right before geocoder that basically funded Juco was this mobile app called what's open nearby where you could open it up and see grocery stores convenience stores and coffee shops that were open near you. And how we ran that in the back end was we had a ton of scrapers running of like grocery store, you know Starbucks, whatever like their websites, scraping the hours off of them and we like just all the time there's issues you know, the parsers breaking or you get blocked or actually the the sort of recent side project we did Keren, which allowed people to get an alert when a grocery pick slot opened up on a on a grocery stores website because of COVID and everything that was also powered by scrapers basically and the back end. And so I have I have personally felt the pain of, you know, the impacts when when when, you know, scraping goes wrong or you know it can get frustrating at times.Kevin Sahin  5:29  Yeah, that's I mean, there are the, the story behind scraping is that we, we personally experienced some of those frustrations, because p&i like before launching scraping beam, we started our career in two different startups that were heavily relying on web scraping. In the business, I was working on a startup in France, which is kind of a mix between mint.com in the US and plaid.com. So for those who don't know, it's a bank account aggregation software's sublet, that comm is an API that allows third party to access your bank account. And means that comm is a bank account aggregation, personal finance management app. And so at this startup, I was really exposed to all of these issues. And Param, he was working for a real estate startup, a real estate data startup in France. And so there will relying on scraping lots of real estate portals. So we both, you know, experienced lots of these issues regarding how to handle headless browsers, how to handle proxies, how to, you know, handle blocks, etc, etc. So that was something we, we knew a little about,Michele Hansen  7:16  I love how you started with a pain that you had. But also as, as you've run the business, you're also actively reaching out to your customers to understand what they were trying to do, what problems they were having, and how they were solving those problems. So I wonder if you can kind of take us back to when you like, how did those emails come about where you were reaching out to people like, like, what what kind of prompted that?Kevin Sahin  7:47  Yeah. So that we quickly realized that we really knew when I say that we knew a little about it, it's not an a few million. Because we really knew a little about the different web scraping use cases each time. I mean, from the beginning, when we launched the API we like from day one, I'd say, we realized that some users, we're scraping, have had some use cases that we never imagined. So we quickly realized that we had to get them on the phone and knew more about about it, understand their businesses, what kind of data they they needed, what frequency for what we use case, etc, etc. But the problem that we had is that at the beginning, so we had we had the banner on the dashboard, covering that, if they had any question, they could schedule a call with me. But nobody was scheduling any call. So maybe, maybe the banner was wasn't, I mean, the copy wasn't great, maybe. The CTA wasn't clear, I don't know. But the fact is, nobody was getting any call with me. And we also had an email sequence where we, we had a few links to my county. But it wasn't working. I mean, sometimes we had a trial scheduling a call, but it was not very, not a lot. And and then we we had this idea of offering more 10x more free API calls. Then the trial offered. And then instantly, we started to get a lot of calls. So many that I had to, you know, delete some availability in my week, because I was just doing calls every day all day. And, and it was great because we will learn so much we, I mean, we will learn so many different use cases that we never thought about. For example, I don't know, we, we, we had so many diverse people. So for example, university resea...

Follow Rosie! https://twitter.com/rosiesherryCheck out Rosieland: https://rosie.land/Michele Hansen  0:01  This episode of Software Social is brought to you by Reform.As a business owner, you need forms all the time for lead capture, user feedback, SaaS onboarding, job applications, early access signups, and many other types of forms.Here's how Reform is different:- Your brand shines through, not Reform's- It's accessible out-of-the-box... And there are no silly design gimmicks, like frustrating customers by only showing one question at a timeJoin indie businesses like Fathom Analytics and SavvyCal and try out Reform.Software Social listeners get 1 month for free by going to reform.app/social and using the promo code "social" on checkout.Hey, welcome back to software social. I am so excited this week to have with us the woman the myth, the legend, Rosie Sherry. Hello. So excited to have you. So you were I founder of Ministry of Testing, lead community at Indie Hackers, which is probably how many people listening know you, currently leading community for Orbit. Also have your own thing going on Rosieland, which is a community about community. So excited to talk to you.Rosie Sherry  1:30  Thank you, thank you. It's good to be here.Michele Hansen  1:33  So I want I want to start out with something something I noticed when I think about your background is how you've kind of gone between being a founder yourself, and intentionally working for other people also having sort of other things going on. And, you know, on the show in the past, we've kind of talked a little bit about how sometimes there's this perception that there's this sort of like staircase of an entrepreneurs career where you start out working for other people, and then maybe you have an info product, and then maybe you do consulting, and then you do an info product, and then you have a SAS and then I don't know, and it's like this sort of like staircase. And there's this sort of like implied increase in virtue throughout all of that. And then if you're taking backwards steps, that's seen as like, literally like a step backwards. And it's like this ladder rather than being this kind of what I'm more see in people's actual careers, which is kind of moving between different things as their interests lead them and as their life leads them. I feel like I see that in your career. And I'm kind of curious how you think about these shifts you've made between working for yourself and working for other people? And like, like, kind of all of that.Rosie Sherry  2:45  Yeah, it's kind of like steps going up and down, right? Or going up and down or left, I guess, an elevator? Yeah, I mean, I have like, no idea what I'm doing. But I guess like, I kind of go with the flow. When I when I stepped back from Ministry of testing, I had been doing that for 10 years. And I thought, like, as I was stepping back, I thought I'd never work for someone else's, like my plan was to take some time off and just like, take it easy for it. And just, I don't know, see what I wanted to do. And I knew I kind of wanted to, like focus in on community, but I wasn't sure how. And then, like, the opportunity with indie hackers came up. And I was like, Oh, you know, this could be fun. This could be interesting. I think I could learn a lot from how courtland has built community there. It's similar to ministry testing, in some ways, but yet, it's, it's really different. So I kind of just jumped on that, like, you know, earlier, earlier than I had planned. I was I was a contractor there for the whole time. And I was there for two years as a contractor. And basically, we just kept renewing the contract, like every three to six months. So it wasn't like it was the plan, stay there. And apparently surprised that I stayed there for two years, I thought I wouldn't last I thought I wouldn't be able to kind of work for someone else after like doing my own thing for 10 years. That was interesting. There's a lot of benefit, especially, I think, perhaps more these days where everything just seems I just feel like there's so much opportunity out there. And there's a lot of things that I didn't like about running a business. I didn't necessarily want to manage people, I didn't want to do the accounts, I didn't want to worry about money or worry about, you know, the future of, of the business. So yeah, I mean, this, you know, loads of things about running a business that I think people try to glorify, they try to hide, they try to not talk about it. But you know, it can be stressful. And I think my realization after running the Ministry of testing, is actually I don't, I don't want to run a company and employ people. I don't want to be responsible for someone's wages at the point of life that I that I am in at the moment. might might change over time, but right now Yeah, I'd rather like I guess, do something more for me something more, you know, focusing on, like my interest in things that that I need. And yeah, and I guess like contracting, bringing home a paycheck, that's great. But you know, for me, it's been, you know, it was great, I saved up a bunch of money, I didn't actually spend any of the money that I made in the hackers. So that was like a nice, consistent income for me to like, you know, get our family more and more of a safety net. Now, my Uber and I never, ever considered working for a startup people have it. Yeah, it's, it's new. For me, it's different from me. But this negative, there's a lot of pros as well. So I try to kind of be mindful of all of that. And, you know, there's days, I just want to pack it all in and say, I can't be bothered, I should just go back to being independent. But there are other days where I'm just like, no, this is actually really good. I'm enjoying what I'm doing this, you know, there's a great team that I'm working with. And again, you know, I get paid well, I don't have to worry about money, I don't have to invoice people the money every month in my bank account. And I'm like, Oh, this is nice. This is, you know, this nice not just to show up and do the work.Michele Hansen  6:11  You mentioned how it was stressful, being responsible for people's paychecks. And I totally relate to that. I think it's one of the reasons why we haven't really, you know, formally hired here, right? Like, I have a VA, but you strike me as someone who you know, and this comes through so much in your work for indie hackers in your work on community who like deeply cares about other people, and supporting them and encouraging them and helping them reach their goals, and you know, and be that person they want to be. And I wonder if that almost made it harder to be running a company and responsible for people's income when you felt so responsible for those outcomes and really invested in them as people?Rosie Sherry  6:57  Yeah, I mean, it's actually interesting, because I still own in ministry, testing, or co owner, when you're founded, you kind of like, I guess, the foundation of everything that comes later, to a certain extent. So like, the fact that I worked when I wanted, the fact that I had five kids, the fact that I just like took time off when I needed to the fact that I defined, you know, decided my own hours, all of those things, ended up becoming how things were done administrator testing, and it's become more apparent, I guess, as the team, I think about eight or nine people at the moment, at first, you know, I was only one with kids. And, you know, I was very much family friendly person, I would support, you know, everything about me is like, we need to live our own lives as well. We need to have flexibility, you know, work shouldn't stop us having having a family and ...

MIchele: This episode of Software Social is brought to you by Reform.As a business owner, you need forms all the time for lead capture, user feedback, SaaS onboarding, job applications, early access signups, and many other types of forms.Here's how Reform is different:- Your brand shines through, not Reform's- It's accessible out-of-the-box... And there are no silly design gimmicks, like frustrating customers by only showing one question at a timeJoin indie businesses like Fathom Analytics and SavvyCal and try out Reform.Software Social listeners get 1 month for free by going to reform.app/social and using the promo code "social" on checkout.Colleen: Hello, Michelle. MIchele: I feel like it's been awhile.Colleen: It has been a while. It's been a few weeks. I MIchele: Yeah. But like, so we haven't really liked formally talked or not formally, but, you know, but we have been like, I feel like we have been talking constantly about this podcast for the past couple of weeks at the same time.Colleen: I would agree. There's been a lot of discussion about that. MIchele: And we've been meaning to do like kind of a catch-up episode for a while too. And so it kind of felt this kind of feels like a good time to sort of pause and have a little bit of a meta episode where we sort of, I guess, talk about where we've come from and why w why do we do this in the first place and, and where are we going?Colleen: Okay. I like it. MIchele: So let's let's rewind. So if, if this were a fancy produced podcast, this is when you would insert harp noises. So just imagine that there's a harp playing in your head. So let's rewind back to July of 20, 20, Colleen. What were you doing in July of 2020?Colleen: Oh, geez. Well, let's see July. So we were a couple months into the pandemic. I believe I was working a full-time job and I had a desire, a strong desire to launch a product. MIchele: Were you consulting full time for one client or I thought you were consulting.Colleen: Maybe I was still, yeah. Good thing. We haveMIchele: I feel like you can Colleen: to. MIchele: I feel like I remember sometime I think it was right around when COVID was heading. And I feel like I remember standing on your, like your like porch or your steps like talking through whether you should take a job and like, yeah. Like that was like right around that time.But, and I think you didn't. Colleen: I think MIchele: And I, Colleen: The first time they offered it to me, I think I said, MIchele: And then I think you were consulting, Colleen: I believe you're correct. I believe I was consulting for one client. So it was kind of that cadence of a more permanent job. But at that time I was not a quote full-time employee. I had not launched a MIchele: I think you're like compromise with them. Was that like you would work for them. Four days a week as a consultant, and then you would get one day a week to work on like your stuff. But actually it had been like that for a while. Like, I feel like you would have this sort of, this is my phrasing here, this like Friday fun day where you got to just like do your own projects for a while.Colleen: Yeah. that sounds right. MIchele: Yeah. Yeah. But that was very much, I mean, now looking back on it, I guess that was like, The end of what I term your wandering through the forest period. Wondering. you know, you know, if this was, if this is frozen too, for all the parents out there, this is when your power ballad of lost in the woods is playing.Colleen: Lost in the woods. Yes. would be my lost in the woods. Power ballad period. Indeed. Agree. MIchele: It was a pivotal moment. And then I think. I don't know if it was like August. Oh, so of 2020 that you were kind of on, I mean, I guess we could listen to our own show and figure this out. Again, this worry, fancy produced podcast with harp noises. We would know that and there would be a clip of it right now.But I think it was like in August that you were like F like, I need to just. Decide, unlike one of these things. Cause like we had been meeting for a while. So like just context is like we were, we were meeting up every week for coffee for a long time. At a, so we used to live in the same place. We now live on opposite sides of the world, but we used to live in the same place, like a neighborhood over you were the only person I had ever like met in my daily life who was also doing this weird internet.Business thing who was like in that world. And also like our kids went to the same school and we lived like two minutes from each other and it was like just perfect. Yeah. So, and then we started meeting up at a coffee shop called Northside social, which is actually how we ended up getting the name for this show.And the show basically was, you know, I moved to Denmark to Denmark. then for us this year, you moved to California. So now we're really all over the place to keep us talking to each other, to keep those conversations happening. for a long time, we had been meeting up and you were playing around with like all of these different ideas and, and playing as like you were, you were taking it very seriously.Like it wasn't play. There was some con like there's like a content analytics idea. I feel like, like, there's a one point. It was like, you were thinking about some sort of like, Competitor to H refs that was like for SEO consultants to like measure the value of their work. There was the, the, there was the stay at home moms doing babysitting and daycare for other the childcare thing.And then, but like, so August of 2020, I feel like there was kind of this moment in early. Like I just gotta like pick something and go for it. And it's going to be this file upload thing, which annoys me.Colleen: that's, that's pretty accurate. And I remember. Why was it in that stage of back to lost in the woods? It felt like every time we met, you would draw me that pain frequency graph. And, and I just, I was like, I don't know, like I just don't know where any of these ideas fall on the pain frequency graph.So I'm going to take what feels like the smallest lift, which is a JavaScript widget, right. Something I feel like I can make in a constrained period of time. And I'm just going to do. I'm going to do everything wrong, but I'm just going to do it.MIchele: And then you did it and then so Colleen: yeah, But we launched the podcast before I had a product. So part of the McColl was like, oh man, now I'm telling the world about this. So I better freaking do it like a podcast with never having launched a product would not be. MIchele: And so then last fall to goes through. You building it and balancing that with consulting and with parenting too, was all of the like, cause I guess your kids were in school, like part like the whole co COVIDschool, like Colleen: some COVID school, situation. MIchele: And then, I think it was, was it December that simple file upload.I remember you gave me that you gave me like a walkthrough of it in like September or October of last year, but then it was available in the Heroku marketplace and alpha in like October or so November. And then it went into beta in November, December, right? Colleen: Betas when you can start charging. Oh no. You're right. Cause You have to do out. No, MIchele: had to get like a. Colleen: So you have to do alpha and then you have to do beta. MIchele: it's like one thing where you had to get like 10 people, then...

Go to deployempathy.com to buy the audiobook private podcast, physical book, or ebook!This episode of Software Social is brought to you by Reform.As a business owner, you need forms all the time for lead capture, user feedback, SaaS onboarding, job applications, early access signups, and many other types of forms.Here's how Reform is different:- Your brand shines through, not Reform's- It's accessible out-of-the-box... And there are no silly design gimmicks, like frustrating customers by only showing one question at a timeJoin indie businesses like Fathom Analytics and SavvyCal and try out Reform.Software Social listeners get 1 month for free by going to reform.app/social and using the promo code "social" on checkout.AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPTMichele Hansen  0:01  Hey, everyone, Michele here. Colleen is at a conference this week. So doing something a little bit different this week and wanted to give you a preview of the audio book podcast for Deploy Empathy. So as I've kind of mentioned on previous episodes, I am releasing the audio book every week as a podcast as I record it. Part of the idea of this was kind of to sort of sort of do like I did with the newsletter with the book and sort of you know, do it and you know, sort of chapters at a at a time. And so I didn't have to spend you know, two weeks recording which is just, I didn't didn't really have two weeks, you know, of full workdays to sort of lock myself in a closet and record it. So this is allowing me to record it as I have time. Which is kind of a challenge as I say this right now, my desk is literally surrounded and pillows from the last time I recorded which was like two weeks ago. So So yeah, it's been it's been kind of an interesting challenge. But I have been enjoying it. And it's also allowed me to get feedback on it as well. This is my first time recording an audio book. So if anything sounds weird, or whatnot, like people can, you know, give me feedback, and I get a chance to re record as I go. So, so yeah, so it started in I want to say the end of August. And currently, it's on Part Six, which is the how to talk so people will talk section of the book, which is maybe my favorite section of the book. I admit I was a little bit nervous going into recording these chapters because the tone of voice is so important. And I wanted to make sure that I got that right. And I think I got a little bit in my head about that. But I think it I think it came out Okay, so I think I think I'm happy with it. But so yeah, so So this week you're gonna get a chance to preview the the the private podcast, there are still spots in it if you want to join so it's limited to 500 people and right now I think there's about a little under 200 so there's quite a few spots left if you wanted to, to join along, but also you know what, once the full thing is recorded, which I don't really I guess it'll be sort of end of the year early next year. You know, it'll also be available as a regular audio book not quite sure what I'm going to do with the podcast I'm actually kind of curious to hear if people want that to stick around or whatnot. I don't I wonder if it makes it more digestible to get through but maybe that value is on the you know that it's coming out every week, right now. So yeah, hope you enjoy and Colleen and I will be next back next week.Part Six, how to talk So people will talk. This is the most important part of this book. The tactics you'll learn build toward one goal, creating a bubble of suspended judgment, where the person feels comfortable being open. Throughout this part, you'll also find ways to practice these skills before using them in customer conversations. We'll go into each of these in depth one, use a gentle tone of voice to validate them. Three, leave pauses for them to fill for, mirror and summarize their words. Five, don't interrupt, six, use simple wording. Seven asked for clarification, even when you don't need it. Eight. Don't explain anything. Nine. Don't negate them in any way. And let them be the expert. Love it. Use their words and pronunciation 12 asked about time and money already spent. Lastly, you'll learn how to pull it all together by picturing yourself as a rubber duck. Trust me, it'll take you some time and some practice. But I think you'll notice a difference even in your personal life. By using these phrases and tactics. I want you to make me a promise, you'll only use what I'm about to teach you for good, you won't be manipulative, and you won't use what people say against them. deploying the tactics in this chapter can make someone open up to you much more than they otherwise would. Someone's confidence is a sacred gift. And it should be handled gently, respectfully and ethically. That respect should continue after the interview to I expect you to carry through the empathy you build for the customer well beyond the interview, and use empathy as part of your decision making process. Before we get into the tactics and phrases, it's important to understand just how much these tactics can transform a conversation. I got my start doing proper customer interviews in the personal finance industry. In America, people are generally very private about their personal finance decisions and situations. It's an extremely delicate topic. And because of this, I had to learn interviewing in a rigorous way. I didn't realize how much the techniques outlined in this chapter had woven themselves into my everyday conversation habits until I was at the grocery store a few years ago, I was in line with a dozen items and notice that the cashier hugged the woman in front of me, and they interacted with one another in a heartfelt way. I must have just finished an interview because I found myself asking the cashier about it. me with a smile. Oh, I noticed you hugged her. Is that your sister? cashier? No, she's just a longtime customer. I've worked here for a long time. me. Oh, you have? cashier? Yeah, almost 20 years. I'm due to retire soon. Companies changed a lot in that time. me. Oh hasn't. cashier proceeds to tell me about how the store chain was bought out by another chain 10 years ago, how they changed the retirement plan how she's worried about having enough income from Social Security, her 401k her old pension and retirement and how she's making extra 401k contributions. This was all in the span of less than five minutes. As she rang up the dozen or so items I had in my basket. It's important to note that this cashier wasn't just a particularly chatty person. This was my local grocery store. And I had been there a few times per week. For several years at this point. I'd been in this woman's line many many times. And we had never had more than a simple polite conversation about the weather, or how busy the store was that day. I went home and told a former co worker about it and joked Do I have Tell me about your retirement planning written on my forehead. I was amazed that a stranger had told me that kind of information in such a short amount of time. My former co worker pointed out that it was a sign of just how much interview skills had worked themselves into my everyday conversation style. And how I become so much more effective at digging into the heart of an issue without too much effort. For someone who's only negative mark in their first professional performance review was that I was abrasive and was diagnosed with a DD it'll 11 years old, it came as quite a shock to realize I now had an active listening conversation style without even realizing it. That experience taught me how we need to be careful with these skills, and to know when to hit the brakes. It's a person's decision what to reveal. But I always keep that story in mind and remind myself to back off or shift topics. When it seem...

Michele Hansen  0:01 This episode of Software Social is brought to you by Reform.As a business owner, you need forms all the time for lead capture, user feedback, SaaS onboarding, job applications, early access signups, and many other types of forms.Here's how Reform is different:- Your brand shines through, not Reform's- It's accessible out-of-the-box... And there are no silly design gimmicks, like frustrating customers by only showing one question at a timeJoin indie businesses like Fathom Analytics and SavvyCal and try out Reform.Software Social listeners get 1 month for free by going to reform.app/social and using the promo code "social" on checkout.Colleen: So Michelle, last time we spoke, you were rapidly approaching selling 500 books. So we'd love an update on the status of the book.Michele: Drum roll, please. As of today 567 copies, Colleen: Wow. That's amazing. Congratulations.Michele: I'm, I'm pretty pretty excited about. Colleen: Yeah. That's spectacular.Michele: So I was thinking about this and, and talking about it with some friends because on my trip to the us last week and you know, talking to people about it and I realized like, why, why was the number 500? So big to me and I think it's because when I first started writing this, like, you know, the newsletter and everything else, I was like, okay, only the people on the newsletter are the only ones who are ever going to buy this book.Right? Like, you know, worst case scenario, I'm writing this just to have a central place to send people when they ask me about doing customer research. And then as I sort of I don't know, admitted to myself that it was becoming a book then I was like, So only the people on this list are going to buy it.Maybe like a quarter of them are like half, you know, that's like, it's going to sell like 5,000 copies, maybe like 200, like lifetime, like ever. But it's really only going to be people who have heard me talk about it, like, you know, who are basically doing this because I have implored them to do so, you know?Cause I've been like, it's been really helpful for geocoding, so you should do it and they're taking my word for it. But 500 or 567, you know, that's like way more than, you know, the 30 odd newsletter readers that I interviewed as part of the writing process. That's more people than subscribed to the newsletter.That's I guess about as many people listened to this podcast, as of right now on a, on a weekly basis, that's this way more than I thought. And that's only in the first two months And I mean, I feel like I keep quoting him so much that we really need to have him on, or just get a clip of him saying it.But as our friend, Mike Buck B says that is stranger money. That is people who don't know me, who don't care about me, who, you know, aren't just buying the book to be nice. Because they're my friend, right? Like that's people who recommended it to other people who were bought it because somebody recommended it to them.And that kind of feels like massive validation for like the concept of customer research to me, when, you know, I feel like there's all these stereotypes about, you know, developers not wanting to talk to people. And there's so many old school ways of doing business where people think that the only ideas come from, you know, sort of inside the building or that they're above talking to customers.Right? Like it feels like repudiation of all of that for the concept. Colleen: You've definitely reached outside your one degree of separation network Michele: Yeah. Colleen: in terms of the reach the book has had.Michele: Yeah. That's super. I don't know. I guess when you set your expectations very low, you're always going to be pleasantly surprised. So I feel like, even when I had five people subscribing to the newsletter even I was like, wow. Even my friends are tolerating me on, like, that was even a surprise.So, so yeah. Yeah. Colleen: It's amazing. I don't know if you've had a chance yet to listen to the podcast with Nadia, but she talked about, she was on last week. I had her on while you were out. She did three months of customer research. So for three months. So before she built her alpha. I interviewed customers for three months. I was like, yes, that's amazing.And she talked a lot about how that was. So she's been incredibly successful. She has 500,000 users and she talked about how that was the critical, like the critical piece to her building. Her business was taking that time out. And of course this is before your book existed, but like taking that time out to do that customer research, and she used this term called synthesis, which I loved.So she would do. was like, she had read your book, even though your book didn't exist, she would videotape her customer interviews and then she would go back and she would said, and then I would go back and I would, I would, I think she said she would synthesize them, but basically what she meant is she would watch the whole interview over and really try to absorb and hear what they were saying.It was really, it was fascinating. But to your point, the importance of customer research is becoming more and more evident. To all of us, especially developers who just want to build buildings and not.Michele: I mean, I guess I want to clarify that, like, I, you know, I didn't invent any of this stuff. You know, it's been around for yeah, Colleen: feel like, sorry to interrupt. I feel like the key is there's a hole, there's a hole in the market because we don't know how to do Michele: yeah. Colleen: mean that, that's the thing we know this is a thing we know this is important, but most of the. I don't know, literally what do you do? And I think your book meets such a need, cause it's like, literally, if you don't know what to say, say these words here are the words you can say when you get confused or lost or scared,Michele: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's like, there's a, there's an amazing, wonderful body of. Work on, on customer research and yes. So I always, I, I hear what you're saying. I always want to be very clear, like I did not invent this concept. And I've referenced a lot of that in the book and I'm more so I guess I'm, I'm re phrasing it and sort of, I'm reminded of a quote from GOTA that I'm going to garble, which is basically that all brilliant thoughts have already been thoughts and. Merely have to rethink them in our, our own experience and our own words. And I guess that's sort of what I have tried to do is to, to Yeah, Bring my own kind of voice and perspective to it for, for that, for that level of, of here is if you, if you truly do not know what to say, then here's what you can say. I mean rides we've went what Sean did too. Didn't he say that he did like hundreds of hours of researchbefore Colleen: lot. I Michele: he launched his stuff to, Colleen: my head, but it was quite a lot of hours.Michele: I wonder how you feel about hearing that, because you have said a couple of times in the past, how you wished you could just. I don't know if you wished it, but like you, you felt like you needed to like go in a cave for like three months and then just research. And I have been like, no, like do it alongside, which are already doing, like, you don't have to go quote unquote in the cave, you know, to to, to figure this out and see, but it sounds like you were her story left a really strong impression on you.And I'm curious how that changes your. Colleen: so her story left a really strong impres...