Software Social

Michele Hansen  00:00Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by Oh Dear, the website monitoring app. As an Oh Dear customer myself, I particularly like how easy it is to make SLA reports with Oh Dear. They're professional and sleek, and they make it easier for us to service enterprise customers. And I actually requested this feature myself last year, and I'm so delighted with how open to suggestions they are. You can sign up for a free 10 day trial with no credit card required at OhDear.app. Colleen Schnettler  00:32So Michele, how has your week been?  Michele Hansen  00:34It's good. It's good. You know, I was, I was doing some writing this morning, which is funny, I've realized it's, like, my reward work. Like, you know, when I get through all the other stuff, like it's like, oh, like, now I have some writing time. And, Colleen Schnettler  00:47That's amazing because I remember being in high school and, like, English, like whenever I had to write a paper, it was literally my least favorite thing to do. So I find that fascinating that, for you, writing is your reward work. Michele Hansen  00:59I, five paragraph essays are, I don't think anyone looks forward to writing those. Like, this is very different than, than that. Um, but so I was, I was writing and I started thinking about this framework that I know we've talked about, and it occurred to me that I have a very tangible example of that. Colleen Schnettler  01:20Which framework? StoryBrand, or something else?   Michele Hansen  01:22No, so it's a Marty Cagan framework.  Colleen Schnettler  01:25Okay. Michele Hansen  01:26So, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna back up first. So, there's this misconception, I think that people sometimes have or fear about customer research that if they start listening to their customers, then they have to do everything the customers ask them for. And they're basically, like, giving up control over the vision of the product to the customer.  Colleen Schnettler  01:47Okay. Michele Hansen  01:48And that's not true, right? Like, you'll always have to weigh it against, um, what makes sense for you to do. And so, there's this one framework that I particularly like that was developed by Marty Cagan, who is kind of, like, the the product guru, like, he's the head of this consultancy called the Silicon Valley Product Group. Like, he is like the product guy, and in order for a product to be successful, he says how it needs to be valuable, viable, usable, and feasible. Colleen Schnettler  02:26Wow, valuable, viable, usable, feasible.  Michele Hansen  02:30So let's, let's break it down a little bit. So first, it has to be valuable for the customer. Like, it has to be something that is, you know, accomplishes something for them and helps them do something, right. Because if it's something that doesn't help them do something that they would want to do, then they wouldn't use it. Like, the example I kind of think of for this is what was that startup that would, like, squeeze a bag of pureed fruit for you? Like Juicero, or, like, it was some, like, they raised like billions of dollars or whatever, for, like, a smoothie machine, and everyone is like, why? Like, not really very valuable to people.  Colleen Schnettler  03:04Right. Okay.  Michele Hansen  03:05I'm sure they had wonderful ideas, and they were great people. It has to be viable, which means it has to be, like, commercially viable, like people have to be willing to pay for it. So like, I could make something that's super awesome and useful, but if no one is willing to pay for it, then it's not a viable product, right? Like, if I'm solving a problem that no one experiences painfully enough to, to pay someone to solve it, then it's not going to work out.  Colleen Schnettler  03:30Okay. Michele Hansen  03:30It has to be usable, which may be the easiest of all these words, to understand that, like, they have to be able to figure out how to use it. So,  Colleen Schnettler  03:39Okay. Michele Hansen  03:39You may have heard this in the context of usability testing, which is basically, like, if I make a website that you can do something on, but you can't actually figure out how to do that, and it's confusing, then it doesn't matter if what the product does is something that's valuable to you. If you can't figure out how to do it, you're going to move on to something else.  Colleen Schnettler  03:57Right.  Michele Hansen  03:57And then the last one is it has to be feasible, like, it has to be possible for you to produce this product. So,  So this would be the equivalent of being, me being like, Colleen, I really need a spaceship. And you being like, that's awesome. I can see that's valuable for you. Maybe you have the ability to pay for that. I don't, but you know, let's go with it. I can build it in a way that, that you can use it. You know, you're an engineer, right? Any kind of engineer can build any kind of thing, right?  Colleen Schnettler  04:05Oh, okay. Sure.  Michele Hansen  04:25Yeah. Like, you could build a bridge. No, I'm, I'm, for all the certified engineers out there, I'm aware that they're not all transferable. But it wouldn't be feasible for you to build that.  Colleen Schnettler  04:37Right.  Michele Hansen  04:38So, so this framework of valuable, viable, usable and feasible is something that I always keep in mind when we're getting feedback from people because you don't necessarily act on every single problem and every piece of advice that you hear, and, like, and that's okay.  Colleen Schnettler  04:55Yeah, okay.  Michele Hansen  04:56And so, a specific example of this that relates to the book and to something we have been talking about quite a bit is consulting and whether I should do consulting related to the book.  Colleen Schnettler  05:10Right.  Michele Hansen  05:10It's something we've talked about, and I've gotten quite a few requests from people about. And, you know, as I thought about it, okay, so clearly, this would be valuable for people. Like they, they feel like they need...

 Colleen Schnettler  00:00This week's episode of the Software Social Podcast is brought to you by Hopscotch Product Tours. Hopscotch Product Tours allows you to improve user onboarding with helpful product tours that guide your users to success. Also reduce frustration by helping users learn how to use your product without the need for demo calls, visit Hopscotch.club today and start delighting your users with Hopscotch Product Tours. Michele Hansen  00:28Hey, Colleen. Colleen Schnettler  00:29Hey, Michele.  Michele Hansen  00:31How you doing?  Colleen Schnettler  00:32I'm doing pretty well. I had a pretty uplifting week over here in the Simple File Upload world.  Michele Hansen  00:38You know what? That's good to hear. Because I feel like last week you were, we talked about how you were kind of feeling like you were in the void.  Colleen Schnettler  00:44I totally was. And, you know, I still feel that but I'm trying to, two things happen that changed my perspective. One, I got another check from Heroku. So that always helps. That doesn't hurt. And I'm kind of just trying to focus on my mindset as I approach this business. I have to say the check from Heroku because unlike Stripe, where you just get paid randomly when people, you know, when people pay, you only get paid once a month. So I've been telling you I have $800 MRR for like three weeks, and I haven't seen that money. So I just saw that money yesterday. So that was pretty exciting. Michele Hansen  01:21Nice Colleen Schnettler  01:22Yeah, I think I remember telling you my very first check. I got like I had enough leftover to buy a bagel.  Michele Hansen  01:28Yes. The bagel, the $20 bagel. Colleen Schnettler  01:30The $20 bagel. Well, this time it was it was quite a bit more so I could could have bought quite a few bagels. So that was pretty exciting.  Michele Hansen  01:37And I saw you tweeted out earlier this week that the Stripe payouts, I was just like payout, payout, payout. Colleen Schnettler  01:45I think what must happen is like people must have signed up, there were, like, four or five people who signed up like one day apart. And so the all of their invoices hit like right after each other. So I like signed on to my email every day, and it was like payout payout payout. It was awesome. It's very exciting. It was a lot of excitedness in terms of actually seeing the fruits of my labor on this product this week. So that was fun.  Michele Hansen  02:10Yay. Internet money.  Colleen Schnettler  02:12Yay, internet money.  Michele Hansen  02:13So where is your MRR at now? So I just checked and I'm at $975. I know. What? Oh my god, you're almost at the $1,000 MRR mark, and it's been, like, three months. Yeah, I guess it's, yeah, three, oh my god. Like,  Colleen Schnettler  02:35Yeah.  Michele Hansen  02:36That's, that's not common. Like, just for everybody else kind of like, listening like that is, that is very uncommon. Like, you're you're not like ending up on $1,000 after three months like Coleen like that's, that's normal. Like, I think it took us like six months, and even then that was kind of fast for a little project. Dude, 975. Yeah. Colleen Schnettler  02:57That's real money. It's real. That's why my last check. Because if you look at my checks from Heroku, and once again, I only get those once a month. It's not like Stripe. It was like the first one was like 150. The second one was like 250. This last one was like $570. I was like, that's like, real money. Like I could do something with that money. That's cool. Yeah, so, so from a monetary perspective, it's going great. I think I, I was struggling a lot. And I still am kind of struggling because I don't have a good feedback loop. I have been kind of unsure what to do next, and how to push the product forward. And it's funny because I like I think mid last week, I was just in a funk. And I was like, You know what, I'm just gonna build it the way I want to build it. I'm gonna develop all these features. I don't care what anyone tells me. Like, I'm just gonna do what I want to do. And you know, of course, everyone I talked to is like, that's a terrible idea. And the best way someone phrased it to me, they were like, what if you do go and you spend a couple months and you build all these features you feel like you need, you're still not going to know who your customer is. Like, I was complaining because I don't know who my customer is. And she was like, even if you spend this time to build that out, you'll be three months down the road, and you still won't know who your customer is. So have you made any progress? And I was like, oh, that's a good way to put it. So, I did a few interviews this week, which was really great. I'm really gonna take a pause on any kind of development work, and just talk to people. I mean, talk talk, talk.  Michele Hansen  03:01Colleen. Colleen Schnettler  03:02I know, I know. Michele Hansen  03:04You're done putzing around in the code garden and like, you're out there in the town square.  Colleen Schnettler  03:29I'm convinced. Like, between the, I mean, I probably five different people had to tell me this. But like you guys have convinced me that I just need to talk to more people. I just need, I don't know. Like, if you ask me who my ideal customer was, like, is, or who this provides value to, I can't identify that person, and casting a net of all developers is way too broad and too vague. So, that's really what I am focused on. In the next couple months, I think another thing is I need to calm down a little bit and slow down and be a little bit more patient.  Michele Hansen  05:21You said that you could go off and build something for three months, and it sounds like this person you were talking to, kind of helped you realize basically, like, you wouldn't know who you were building for and why you were building it and how they needed any of that to work.  Colleen Schnettler  05:39Yeah. And I think that's exactly the thing. So, so this week has been great. I spoke to three consultants, I have another one today, and I'm trying to get to five consultants, which I'm sure I can find one more person. Here's the thing, Michele, they all want different things.  Michele Hansen 

 Michele Hansen  00:00Hey, welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by Oh Dear. Oh Dear makes it easy to monitor uptime, SSL certificates, broken links, scheduled tasks and more. They send out notifications when something is wrong. All of that is paired with a developer friendly API and great documentation. And I can back them up on that because we use Oh Dear for Geocodio and are happy customers. You can sign up for a 10 day free trial with no credit card required at OhDear.app. Michele HansenSo I have kind of an announcement to make. Colleen Schnettler  00:35Oh, I love announcements. Do tell. Michele Hansen  00:38We are no longer a bootstrapped company. Colleen Schnettler  00:42What does that mean? Michele Hansen  00:44So, I've been getting more feedback on my, on my book, and, and I’m getting so much amazing feedback from, because I ended up sending it out to like, 200 people last weekend. And I decided to open it up to some friends of mine who are, like, like, work in tech, but not in kind of, like, bootstrap world or in VC world. So that, so, they like, aware of what's going on, but also kind of outside of this little bubble, because I want to get their, their perspective on things. And there was one comment in particular that I got that really made me reconsider things. And in the intro to the book, I'm describing how, you know, we're this, you know, bootstrapped B2B SaaS. And they said, that was complete jargon, and also consider using a less racially-loaded term. Colleen Schnettler  01:44Oh. Michele Hansen  01:45Yeah. And I had this real moment of sort of looking in the mirror and realizing, oh, wow, like, people outside of this bubble, have a very different definition of this word, and a very different meaning from that word, than we do. And I've had reservations about it for a long time, and like, wanted to switch to a new word, but didn't really have one that I felt like worked, because everyone kind of recognizes what that means. But this was kind of shocking to me of, like, you know, getting outside of my bubble and seeing how people outside of it react to that. Colleen Schnettler  02:27I honestly didn't know there were negative connotations around the word because I've only heard the word used in our little context, you know, people that are in tech starting businesses.Michele Hansen  02:40Yeah, I imagine you're not the only one who is surprised by this. So, I kind of dug into the phrase a little bit. And the problem comes from the fact that the phrase pull yourself up by your bootstraps is where it comes from. Now, historically, apparently, when this, this word, the phrase first came around, it was actually intended to imply that something was impossible, because if you can just sort of picture someone wearing old fashioned boots with, with loops on them, and then trying to stand up while holding their own bootstraps, like, they would fall. So it was, so it's kind of a funny image, if you can sort of picture that. But then it sort of, in specifically American political discourse, where, the phrase is originally American, it came to sort of be combined with all of these sort of self reliance and sort of the rugged individual American man who doesn't need help from anyone, and kind of all of these connotations. And as I sort of dug into people with outside, who are outside of the community, they all had this very negative reaction to it, that was very politically tinged, and to them, felt like we were sort of making this like, political statement. And I was like, whoa, like, that is not the intention at all. But you know, the sort of, the politics of it aside, I realized that within the community, we're not even clear on what it means. Like, Colleen Schnettler  04:14Yeah, I guess that's a good point.Michele Hansen  04:16Like, I was emailing with a customer a few weeks ago. And, and for some reason, I happened to ask them if they were bootstrapped company. I had just gotten the sense from their website. And their reaction back to me, that I've been thinking about was they're like, I wouldn't say we're bootstrapped because we're growing. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Like, when they heard bootstrapped, they thought that it meant a company that doesn't grow. And then, and I did some polls on this a while ago. You know, some people think that it can mean that a company doesn't take any funding at all. But what do you like, what about debt? What about using credit cards? Is that funding? What if you take funding from something like TinySeed or Earnest, which aren't like the big VCs, but like, you're still taking money and maybe giving away equity, like, is that bootstrapped? But then also like when we started out, you know, part of our funding capital was $1,000 in AWS credits for the first six months. Now, that technically showed up as a marketing expense for AWS and not as an investment, but to us, it was the same thing. And so, I think it's this broader point that none of us are truly self-reliant. Like, we all have a community that's holding us up and helping us at every step of the way. And seeing how people outside of this world react to that world react to that world was a really kind of shocking moment for me. And I was like, you know what, maybe, you know, maybe there's another word that I can use that is both more descriptive and less potential for offending people outside of this little bubble. Colleen Schnettler  06:01Okay, so what did you settle on? Michele Hansen  06:03Customer funded? Colleen Schnettler  06:05Oh, that's good. Michele Hansen  06:06But then somebody pointed out to me that people might think that it meant that we did crowdfunding, or like one of those Regulation CF campaigns that, like, Gumroad did. Colleen Schnettler  06:16When you said that, like, it is a little confusing. Customer-funded is a little confusing to me, too. And then what about people who don't like, people in the beginning, like what word? I mean, if you think about language, which I think is, this is really good that you're bringing this up. But we don't really have a word for people who aren't making enough yet, you know, like, Michele Hansen  06:35Right, yeah. Colleen Schnettler  06:37Self-funded, I guess?Michele Hansen  06:45Yeah. I mean, I guess self-funded is another word. I mean, I, I've been thinking about this, and I don't really have an answer to this. So I'm kind of curious what other people think. There is, like, we as a community, feel an importance to note that we are not VC-funded SaaS. We're also not all SaaS, right? Cuz there's people doing courses, there's like, like, there's all sorts of other things...

Colleen Schnettler  00:00This week's episode of the Software Social Podcast is brought to you by Hopscotch Product Tours. Hopscotch Product Tours allows you to improve user onboarding with helpful product tours that guide your users to success. Also, reduce frustration by helping users learn how to use your product, without the need for demo calls. Visit Hopscotch.club today and start delighting your users with Hopscotch Product Tours. Michele Hansen  00:28So Colleen. Cloudflare. Colleen Schnettler  00:33Oh, Cloudflare. Michele HansenThis week, Cloudflare introduced their images beta to simplify your image pipeline, a simple service to store, resize, optimize, and deliver images at scale. Colleen Schnettler  00:54Yeah, I saw that. So that's a big disappointment for me because I really, when I had been thinking about how this was going to go, in my mind, I was gonna launch in Heroku, which I've done, and kind of get my product exactly where I want it to be, and then launching Cloudflare. Because I have launched a small free app in the Cloudflare marketplace before, and they have millions of users. So the distribution channel there is spectacular. So I'm a little disappointed because I felt like I had a really, really good opportunity in that marketplace. And now that they've launched their own service, like, I don't think I'm going to be able to compete with that. Michele Hansen  01:37So this came out, and you know, I saw this, this blog post, and I thought of you immediately and it's interesting. The post they have on it, they outline the difference, they call them the four fundamental questions you might answer: Where do we store images? How do we secure, resize and optimize the images for different use cases? How do we serve the images to our users reliably? How do we do all of these things at scale while having predictable and affordable pricing, especially during spikes? And what strikes me about that is there are some similarities with what you've been solving, but also there are differences. Like, Colleen Schnettler  02:12What do you mean? Michele Hansen  2:!4So, I remember you talking about images and whether you wanted to go in this whole direction of resizing and optimizing images. And your product is called Simple File Upload. It's not Simple Image Upload. And so this is like, part of what you're solving, but at the same time, you're doing other stuff, too. Colleen Schnettler  02:40Right. And when I originally launched the product, that was a big reason, is because all of the big players predominantly handle media files, and I kept running into this problem where I needed PDFs, or I needed Word docs because we were doing resumes. So that is part of the reason I started focusing on files in general. But as more and more people use it, I see pretty consistently, most people are using it predominantly for images. So I really did feel like my growth trajectory was going to be in the image space. So I am different from Cloudflare in that I would, I do multiple files, but they even have good pricing. Like, they even have, they're going to, this is going to be incredibly successful for them because they even have straightforward pricing is what it looks like. And so it doesn't make, mean I'm not gonna have a thing, right? It means maybe when I launch in Cloudflare, I focus more on the file aspect than the image aspect because they currently offer all the things I want to add, but have not yet added, right? Like it'd be, it is so frustrating as a developer to read their blog post and be like, oh, my gosh, it'd be so easy for me to add these few things they offer. And man, if I had just beaten them into the market. But you know what, it's a big market. Like, there's literally millions of people, I believe, who use CloudFlare. So, it doesn't mean there's not space for me. But I do think it means when I write my CloudFlare app, I focus more on other types of files, since they will now have, you know, this easy to implement solution that fits right in with their existing CDN’s and stuff. Michele Hansen  04:16I think that's such an important point that there are space for multiple companies in it for any given thing, you know, and I don't know if this is a result of kind of the, the sort of narrative that we're living in around companies, and especially what, you know, venture capitalists might look for in a company is they want the company that is going to become the monopoly that can charge the highest prices and have, you know, the highest profits and just eat everybody else in that industry. And that is, you know, in so many ways, the opposite of what we bootstrappers try to do and believe in and, you know, also now the US government has kind of onto tech, and all of that sort of monopoly-building. And, but I think living in that environment, we forget that like, it's okay to have a big company come into your space, or to already have big companies competing against you, and there can still be space for a small, successful company there. And, you know, I offer us up as evidence. Like, we've been competing at Google since day one. Colleen Schnettler  05:31Yeah, and I think that's one of the best decisions I made when I finally launched this product. As we've talked about before, I've been coming up with ideas and trying to launch MVPs of different things. And a lot of the things I was trying to do were like, big, cool new ideas. And as a single founder, like, in an untested market, I could not get a big cool new idea off the ground, like props to you, if you can, that's awesome. But people looked at me like I, like, they looked at me sideways when I was like, I told people, like developers what I was making, they were like, so you're making what? And they list like five other companies that do the same thing. And I was like, yes, I am. And now they're all really surprised at how successful it's been. And I think that just goes to show, like, the market was already proven for what I was doing. I focused on a really small group of people. And so far, that's been working for me. And again, I don't know, like, how that'll grow or scale or whatever. But I don't know, it's working for me right now, going into a tested market, even with big players, because the big players, if you have a customer support request to a big player, they're gonna send you to their forums, right? I know, because it's happened to me. You're like, oh, I have this problem. Can I do this thing? They're like, first thing is you get the automated chat widget that says, ‘Go look in the forums,’ and you're like, nah. And I had my first support request this week, by the way, which is kind of fun. And the person was like, it was so great. I think they were so surprised that I responded so quickly. And I, like, literally fixed the problem in a day. I think, I think the person left with like, a really positive, I mean, they told me they had a really positive experience with me. And so, kind of what you talk about what Geocodio, I think, by focusing on a small group of people, and by keeping my customer support high, hopefully I can still find a place, a spac...

Michele Hansen  00:00The following message is brought to you by Balsamiq. Balsamiq decided to support the Software Social community by donating their sponsored airtime to some of our listeners.This episode is sponsored by KB Clip. So much institutional knowledge transfer happens in Slack. KB Clip is a magic shortcut to turn a conversation into an FAQ entry, a wiki page, or a Knowledge Base article. If your team is asking the same questions over and over again in chat, KB Clip may be a great solution to keep your people better informed. KB Clip is looking for early access alpha and beta customers. If you'd like to move your company knowledge out of Slack and into the hands of your people, sign up at KBclip.com. Thank you again to Balsamiq for generously supporting our listeners this way. If you'd like to receive a promo code for Balsamiq, visit balsamiq.com/go/software-social And this is our last ad with Balsalmiq, so I just want to take a second to thank them for taking the risk on us. They were our first advertiser, and they have been so awesome to work with it. We genuinely appreciate you, Balsalmiq. So thanks. Michele HansenSo, last time we talked about the numbers for Simple File Upload was about two weeks ago, and you hadn't really looked at it much for a few weeks because you had been moving. Um, and it was at $515 in MRR, and it's been, like, two weeks since then. So where, where ya at? Colleen Schnettler  01:46So, I checked this morning and I am at 800.  Michele Hansen  01:50Whoa. Dude. No, I am like almost 1000.  Colleen Schnettler  01:52I know. MRR. I know. that feels like almost 1000, and like 1000 feels like a real business. Michele Hansen  02:02Holy buckets of guacamole, Batman, like 800 dollars! Colleen Schnettler  02:06Yeah, it was it was um, it's exciting. Now, like, the caveat here is the reason I had such a jump because I'm averaging about a customer a week, which is a wonderful growth rate for me. But someone signed up for my custom plan, which is $250 a month. Michele Hansen  02:23Hey, oh. Colleen Schnettler  02:25So Michele Hansen  02:26What is your custom plan? Colleen Schnettler  02:27So my custom plan is basically like, whatever you want. I don't actually even remember if I put like, what the limits I put on it. I should probably check to make sure this person is set up properly. But basically, the custom plan is, is the idea that I will set it up for you. Um, so that person is signed up, and I have, I'm sure it's a company at that, you know, it's through Heroku. So I'm sure it's a company. I have reached out, but I haven't heard anything back yet. So they're just paying me. So hopefully, I can help them out. Yeah, hopefully I can help them out. So yeah, that, that's that plan. So that's why there's been such a big jump over the two weeks, because that really made a difference. But it’s very exciting.  Michele Hansen  03:10That's so exciting. And I really hope that you can, you know, get in touch with these folks, and figure out why they bought that so you can sell a lot more of that.  Colleen Schnettler  03:22So I can sell more.  Michele Hansen  03:23Like, let's do that. Like, let's sell more of that.  Colleen Schnettler  03:26This plan. Colleen Schnettler  03:28I want everyone on this plan. So yeah, so that was a nice surprise. I have, as I said, I finally have a little more time to work on it. So this week, I pushed through like, just a few small things, a few email onboarding changes. I wasn't getting a very good response rate to my email. So I just tried to make a few changes. I just pushed them through this week, so I won't know if they work for a little while to see if I could get some more responses. And I think, you know, I'm still, I'm still in this weird place where I'm really busy, and I don't have quite the time I thought I would. So I'm really just trying to focus on small, persistent, small, consistent effort over time. And I was reading a tweet by Paul Graham, and I know a lot of people have like, mixed feelings on Paul Graham. Okay, but I still like his tweets. Anyway, someone was, was talking about when Y Combinator started, and they were talking about how the thing with Paul Graham is, he used to like, intensely focus on one thing. So if you were in his Y Combinator batch, and you were supposed to do this one thing, like, every time he saw you, that's all he would ask you about. And I like that because I think in this stage, there's just so many things, right? There's so many things pulling my attention. Like for example, I went to do these emails, which should have taken 30 minutes, and I ended up spending four hours because I was like, well while I'm in here, I'm gonna fix this thing and while I'm in here, I'm gonna write some more, I'm going to get these tests passing and, and while I'm in here, you know, and then it was like, the half day I had, I had set aside to do this stuff got taken up with, like, all those little things. And those are all good things to get done. But Michelle, it's been like, three weeks since, or four weeks since our interview with Drew, and I still have not taken the feedback we discussed, and put it on my freakin homepage. Like, I just haven’t done it. Michele Hansen  05:28That’s okay.  Colleen Schnettler  05:28I know, but I, I think that should be my number one, I think that should be like my number one thing to do. So until I get that done, I should stop getting distracted by oh, but my email copy could be better. Oh, but this thing could be better. Michele Hansen  05:43So, can we talk about your email copy for a second? So I'm curious, like do you have what the copy was before? And then I'm just curious what you changed it to. Colleen Schnettler  05:54Oh, you know what, I'm only saving the ones that I have now. So I didn't save the old ones.  Michele Hansen  06:01Can you read us the new one?  Colleen Schnettler  06:03The new one says, “Hi, I just wanted to personally reach out and thank you for trying Simple File Upload. Would you mind replying and let, letting me know two things? One, are you working on a business client or personal website? Any links you want to share are encouraged. Two, what are you hoping to accomplish with Simple File Upload? I read and respond to every re...

Michele Hansen  0:00  The following message is brought to you by Balsamiq. Balsamiq decided to support the Software Social community by donating their sponsored airtime to some of our listeners.This episode is sponsored by Homeschool Boss. Homeschool Boss offers NWA MAP growth assessments to homeschoolers in the US. These are untimed online tests and math reading science and language usage that adapt to the child's performance as they test. In this challenging year. Homeschool Boss makes it easy for parents to learn what their kids know and what they are ready to learn next. They offer group rates and are happy to work with pods and tutors. Check it out at Homeschool Boss.com. Thank you again to Balsamiq for generously supporting our listeners this way. If you'd like to receive a promo code for Balsamiq, visit balsamiq.com/go/software-socialColleen Schnettler  0:58  So Michele, this week, I had a prospective customer interview, which was a new experience and a lot of fun. Michele HansenYeah. Colleen Schnettler Yeah. And so what in order to prep for that interview, I had to search through all of my emails to find all of your customer interview scripts. Michele Hansen  I know it wasn't too hard to search. Colleen Schnettler Well, the problem is, is you also email me as Michele the human so it was like I was like how do I feel? Sure, like human turtle shell the robot was like how where's my Deploying Empathy, Michele's Customer Research filter. But you know what I was thinking as I was sorting through my emails trying to isolate all of your scripts.Michele Hansen  1:41  Yeah.Colleen Schnettler  1:43  I was thinking it'd be sure be nice if I had this in a book format.Michele Hansen  1:49  You aren't the first person to say that, Colleen.Colleen Schnettler  1:52  So tell me your thoughts on it.Michele Hansen  1:54  So you know, it's kind of funny how the newsletter came about, because I think I had just gotten off of a mentoring call with a founder. And I realized as I was sort of sending them, they wanted to know about doing customer interviews. And I was typing up this email to them. And it's like, 10, paragraphs long. And it's like, this book is really good. But like, only these chapters are relevant for you. And like, this book doesn't go in enough detail. So like, listen to this podcast, but then also like, here's this worksheet, and it was like, so disorganized. And I also felt like I was writing the same email over and over and over again. And I was like, You know what, this is this, maybe this is a book. And then it was like, but everyone who has ever written a book has told me not to write a book, and that it's very lonely and difficult and, like, sounds like an awful experience. So maybe I shouldn't write a book like, and, and then I grant it, like, tweeted out, and everyone's like, Oh, my God, write a book. And I was like, okay, so I was like, You know what, I'll read it as a newsletter. If people like it, it becomes a live rough draft. If not, it's just a newsletter, and like, I can stop doing it. And like, no one's paying me for anything. And so as it's gone on, I have accepted the fact that maybe it is a book. But I've never written a book before. I've never marketed a book before. I've read a lot of them. I have not read books about writing or selling a book. Um, so it's been it's been kind of an interesting experience. It's a whole new world for me.Colleen Schnettler  3:33  Yeah. Because you don't have any other informational products. Right?Michele Hansen  3:39  Okay, like, I guess this podcast is technically an info product. I mean, but really, it's just forces us to, like keep up our weekly meetings. Like, I mean, like, I guess we have advertisers like technically but you know, it's like, really, that's why we're doing this, like, we love you, listeners. But truly, this is just for Colleen and I.Colleen Schnettler  4:01  So it seems like so I obviously subscribe to your newsletter when you started it. You have more content that I can read? Like, it seems like there's a there's just so much in your brain that you want to get out about this.Michele Hansen  4:14  I feel like I'm Marie Kondo in my head, like I'm just getting it all out. You know, like it's just like cleaning out my closet and it's like all of these things have been just like sitting there marinating for years now and kind of coming out sporadically as as necessary. And of course, he like sort of use them and build on them in my work. But yeah, it just feels like I just have all of this stuff. And it's like alright, here is like Michele's mental yardsale, my book about customer research.Colleen Schnettler  4:45  So how do you feel about turning all of this information into a book like how's the process been and how are you feeling about it?Michele Hansen  4:55  So if I tell myself that I'm just writing a newsletter and not a book, great. If I tell myself that I'm writing a book, and then I open the Google Doc and I see that blinking cursor, terrified.Colleen Schnettler  5:10  Too much pressure.Michele Hansen  5:11  I don't know, it just feels like a lot. Like and it's just something I haven't done before. I'm probably way under estimating how long it's going to take to go from like, newsletter rough draft to actual finished product, nevermind even having something that's just like a straight PDF, right of without any illustrations or any like, they're like, there's so many steps to this. And I've been trying to read about it. Like Alex Hillman published a lot of great stuff after writing his book, Tiny MBA last year, that's been really helpful for me. But yeah, I mean, it feels overwhelming, and kind of like we were talking about last week, but I think having ADD sort of plays into this, because like, you know, partly, like I love having multiple projects at a time, like, I can't just have one thing I'm working on. And so that's partly where the newsletter comes from. But also then staring down a huge task that I have never done before is really, really intimidating to me.Colleen Schnettler  6:13  Yeah, and I assume, like the mechanics of writing and selling a book is totally different than the mechanics of building and selling a SaaS or selling. Michele Hansen  6:24  Yeah. Like, you know, like, with a SaaS, I feel like, you know, all people are googling for what they need, right? Like, they're like, how do you do this. And then as long as you have a landing page that says, Here's how you can do this, like, and then you do that, and then they pay you like, and it's very straightforward in terms of like delivering the value to someone.I feel like with a book, it's a lot harder, like, I feel like I have to convince people that they need it. I mean, especially like, this is a hard thing that I'm trying to get, like doing interviews is, you know, to how I feel about it being you know, writing this book being this huge, monumental task that I don't know how to do that feels scary. A lot of people feel that way about interviews. So I can definitely, you know, empathize with my own reader about...

Michele Hansen  00:00The following message is brought to you by Balsamiq. Balsamiq decided to support the Software Social community by donating their sponsored airtime to some of our listeners.This episode is sponsored by Leave Me Alone. Leave Me Alone makes it super easy to unsubscribe from unwanted emails, simply connect your email account, and they'll show you everything you're subscribed to. And you can unsubscribe with a single click. Leave Me Alone works with all email providers, Gmail, Outlook, AOL, Yahoo, and many more. The best part is that you can connect all of your different email accounts and unsubscribe from everything in one place. Leave Me Alone uses credits to unsubscribe, one credit is one unsubscribe, you get five free credits to try out unsubscribing. And you can earn more credits by referring your friends or completing milestones in the app. If you need more credits, the low cost pricing starts at $2.50 for 50 credits. Plus Leave Me Alone is a privacy focused service. They will never sell your data. Check it out at LeaveMeAlone.app. Thank you again to Balsamiq for generously supporting our listeners this way. If you'd like to receive a promo code for Balsamiq, visit balsamiq.com/go/software-social Colleen Schnettler  01:17Hey, Michele, it's so good to talk to you.  Michele Hansen  01:19I feel like it's been forever. Colleen Schnettler  01:22It has. I think it's been three weeks since we've recorded together.  Michele Hansen  01:26So I'm not gonna lie. I am dying to know how things are going. Colleen Schnettler  01:35Sure. So as I have mentioned several times on this podcast, the past couple of weeks have been really busy for me. We have moved and work has been just very intense. And so I honestly didn't even check my numbers for like three weeks, which sounds ridiculous, but I just wasn't in the mental space for it. So in preparation of today's podcast, I did check. And I'm now at $515 MRI.  Michele Hansen  02:04Dude! Colleen Schnettler  02:06Right? Yes, I think the beautiful thing about this -  Michele Hansen  02:10Wow.  Colleen Schnettler  02:10Yeah, no, I just feel like the beautiful thing about this is just, I was able to just let it sit. Now to be fair, I always check my email. So even when I was on, I don't have time for this mode, like I always check my email just in case of you know, someone and my match, not my metrics, but like my stats to make sure everything is up. So it wasn't that I was neglecting the product. But I was definitely neglecting, like even checking how many people were signed up. And so that was like a great surprise. Like, just really cool to see.  Michele Hansen  02:43Last time we talked you were at like, three something. Right? And you were like, kind of like some right?  Colleen Schnettler  02:51Yeah, I think that's right. And I think I think this shows that getting too obsessed with like, checking every week. Like, I like to check. I mean, I check every week usually, but becoming too obsessed with it really can swing, you know, emotionally high and low. So it was actually kind of nice to just like, sit on it. And then see it increase.  Michele Hansen  03:12That's pretty awesome. Wait a year, like six weeks into this now? What was it? Colleen Schnettler  03:21It was February fourth. Michele Hansen  03:22Feburary fourth you were able to start having paying customers.  Colleen Schnettler  03:25Yep. So it's two months. I'm over 500 MRR in two months.  Michele Hansen  03:28That's faster than we grew. Colleen Schnettler  03:31Oh, wow. That's cool to hear.  Michele Hansen  03:32Yeah, I think it took us like, I don't know, five or six months to break 500. Colleen Schnettler  03:38Oh, my gosh. And now you make all the money. There's hope for me. Michele Hansen  03:46That's insane.  Colleen Schnettler  03:47So that's really cool. Yeah, I'm feeling really good about it. Yeah, so I think it's kind of also, you know, when you're stressed about other things, this is all - self doubt always creeps in. And so last week I was I was kind of in a little bit of a self doubt spiral, not spiral. That's the wrong word. But like, kind of in a self doubt, place, thinking that this like, again, was like, I don't know if this is going to work. But then I checked my numbers and things are going really well. And I haven't even implemented any of those amazing ideas you shared in your last deploying empathy newsletter.  Michele Hansen  04:25So your revenue grew without you adding any new features. Colleen Schnettler  04:31Yeah, how about that? Michele Hansen  04:34Isn't that interesting?  Colleen Schnettler  04:36It's like someone said that might happen. Who would have given that great advice to stop adding features.  Michele Hansen  04:44But you're also like you were doing customer support during this time? It sounds like. Colleen Schnettler  04:48Yeah, I'm always - well, no one emailed me because no one ever emails me.  Wait, hold on. So your revenue increased and nobody needed to talk to you. Michele Hansen  04:58That's exactly correct. Colleen Schnettler  05:01Right, like it's pretty cool. I feel pretty cool about it. So, yeah, so I'm feeling good. And I'm like kind of reenergized once I'm back at work next week to really focus on some of these marketing tasks and, and to start asking people to do customer interviews again. Because I still feel like I have momentum. Michele Hansen  05:23 It sounds like it. Colleen Schnettler  05:25Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's what I've been up to.  

Michele Hansen  0:00  The following message is brought to you by Balsamiq. Balsamiq decided to support the Software Social community by donating their sponsored airtime to some of our listeners.This episode is sponsored by Bella Scena.Are you making the best use of time in your meetings?  Do you ever feel like your meetings are groundhog day where you talk about the same things week after week? Bella Scena helps you get a handle on your meetings to make the best use of your time.  With Bella Scena, meetings are a process.  Bella Scena make it easy and visual to:1. Plan and collaborate on agendas- whether ahead of time or in real time. Make sure you are having the right conversations.2. Track and share meeting notes and follow ups- create one version of what happened in the meeting.3. Give you peace of mind of who owns what follow ups. Check it out at meetbellascena.comThank you again to Balsamiq for generously supporting our listeners this way. If you'd like to receive a promo code for Balsamiq, visit balsamiq.com/go/software-socialMichele HansenHey, everyone, so we're gonna do something a little bit different this week, Colleen is moving. And so we decided that was an opportunity to bring on one of our listeners to workshop their business challenges this week, and hear all about what they're working on. So I am so excited to have a guest with us today. Do you want to introduce yourself?Rosssveth Lopez  1:29  Yes. Hello, everyone. I'm Rossveth with. I'm from the Philippines. So I'm really, really excited to be here. And it's an honor to be on your podcast.Michele Hansen  1:45  I'm so excited to have you. So can you tell us a little bit about what you're working on?Rosssveth Lopez  1:50  Okay, so actually, it's been just the several weeks that I've started. So I've had this idea, or maybe a little bit of a background. I've always wanted to bootstrap a business. And I, like, signed up for blogs, you know, the money making bags, and I stumbled across selling, selling printables, like digital designs on Etsy. And so I ventured in that. And being a non graphic designer, like art is not my main thing. So I can come up with designs, but it really, it takes me a while to even select fonts. So it's one of my pain points. And I, and I figured you know, this could be improved or my process could be more efficient. So I researched, like, font viewer tools. I guess some of you have seen, like, the famous ones, web apps, but I feel like there's something more that could be done. So I've used those tools, actually. So I select the fonts that I like, but then when I go back to my design, I still think that I need to do, or I need to select a few more. So, I keep going back and forth, and, and that's, that's when I thought of this idea. Like I could do a font viewer, but it would be more. So it would be you could preview the fonts, but it would be against your background. So you would have your, your background or your design and you have the selected fonts already, like five or 10 of these. And you can see it in one place. So, and then in like, in an instant, or just for a few seconds, you can already see how the font, like, would look with your design. And then you can select from there. So all the tools I'm saying, Oh, it's only been, like, plain texts.Michele Hansen  4:03  Gotcha. So just to recap, so you, you had an Etsy store where you were selling printables, like custom printables. I think we were talking about this earlier, and I bought some Christmas ornaments, for example for family members who had lost pets last year. And I was able to customize them with the text on it, but I wasn't able to see what it looked like. And so basically your idea is that if Etsy store owners can have a tool on their shop to show customers or themselves just what one of those custom pieces would look like before they purchase it that maybe people would buy more from their shops or it would simply be easier for Etsy store owners to make proofs for their customers. Is that right? Rosssveth Lopez  4:55Exactly. So, so my plan is the basic one would be it would be for the sellers, for the sellers themselves, the ones who do the design, it would help in their process with the designing. And then that would be the added feature when you can share that design or share your customized designs with your, your customers, your clients, so they could see that, so they could see it themselves. I actually came across several sellers who had experiences where their customers wanted a refund, because they did not like how it turned out. And yeah, so it, that's one, one, like, problem that that can be solved. And I, I’ve tried to research. They, some stores, each had their own websites, just to put the, their designs and with the fonts that they like, that they were offering. So they created their own. And I thought like why not, you know, offer this as a service. I've seen services like you do the designs on their platform. And you could share that, the links, but this, what I'm thinking of would be different. It would be your designs, you can create them from anywhere. And then you just display the fonts that you offer. So, yeah.Michele Hansen  6:30Yeah, that makes sense. I guess we should probably back up a little bit and talk about your, your background a little back. So you're a developer, right? Rosssveth Lopez  6:38Yes, yes I am. So.Michele Hansen  6:38  Yeah, how did this come about? Rosssveth Lopez  06:45Okay. Well, I've been in the software industry for like, 14 years or something. I recently resigned from my corporate job about three years ago, after I had my third son. So it's, it's been a goal that we had as a couple that we would, like, we would stay at home, take care of the kids, but then pursue also a business. So I've just been stuck with finding that idea, that $1 million idea to start to work on. And it was only like very recently that I learned about indie hacking and bootstrapping. And so the blogs that I signed up for, those were just like the ways I wanted to get ideas how to, how to start my own business. And, and that's, I've never heard of Etsy before. And like you could sell printables as a passive income you created once, and then you can sell it forever. And so I was like, amazed with the idea. And, but when I, like I, I also stumbled across tech Twitter and how the people left and right, were creating businesses, like simple projects, and they were making money. So that really, really amazed me.Michele Hansen  8:16  It sounds like that was really like a lightbulb moment for you.Rosssveth Lopez  8:19  Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't know, growing up, I've always wanted to start a business. But you know, you compare it with, like, tech giants, like, like the big companies being famous all around, having these great ideas impacting the world. But I never really know, or maybe I did not come across it in my, like, experiences or with my colleagues about just, you know, starting a busines...

Listen to The Customer Interview: Part 1 https://softwaresocial.dev/episodes/customer-interview-part-1-the-interviewColleen Schnettler  0:00  The following message is brought to you by Balsamiq. Balsamiq decided to support the Software Social community by donating their sponsored airtime to some of our listeners.This episode is sponsored by POW!, usepow.app. POW! is a privacy-first menstrual cycle journal for people with periods and those who care about them. Whether it's for health, productivity, or part of trying to conceive, POW! is a flexible way to privately track periods. Check it out at usepow.app.Thank you again to Balsamiq for generously supporting our listeners this way. If you'd like to receive a promo code for Balsamiq, visit balsamiq.com/go/software-socialMichele Hansen  0:31  Last week, we interviewed a user of Colleen's product, Simple File Upload. And this week, we are going to talk about that interview. So, Colleen, to help me What do you think you're after that?Colleen Schnettler  0:48  Oh, my gosh, it was so much fun. It was so hard for me. So I turned off my video, and I muted myself, which was good, because I got very excited during the interview. And like, it was like, I was like sitting on my hands. I was like, Colleen, you have no lines. You have no, you may not speak. I just thought it was it was really great. Some of the things I noticed that he talked about that kind of surprised me, was actually one thing that surprised me a lot was he was struggling with his current storage solution for three days.Michele Hansen  1:27  Yeah.Colleen Schnettler  1:28  And then when offered, offered when when he remembered I guess, like that I have a thing. He didn't it was almost like there was an emotional attachment to the struggle that he had already put in that he didn't want to throw that work away right away.Michele Hansen  1:43  Yeah. sunk costs. Absolutely.Colleen Schnettler  1:46  That really surprised me. Yeah, yeah. I was really surprised about that. I didn't see that coming. You know, there were several times I thought to while you were doing the interview, where if I had been doing the interview, I would have been like, Okay, great. Like the end. I feel like you were able, I think the interview was about 2030 minutes. I feel like if I had been interviewing him, it would have been about seven. Because I would have been like, hey, do you like simple file upload? And he would have been like, Yeah, it's great. Like, okay, cool.Colleen Schnettler  2:20  Like, that's how I I mean, even writing down these questions. I I still just it's I usually, I don't know, I struggle with like the the circling back. Like, there was one point where you like circle back, I think to something he had said earlier, like re asked the question, and you got more information from him? Yes. That was solid work.Michele Hansen  2:47  Yeah. So that is something we do to basically like, rephrase what someone said, and then just say, like, do I have that? Right?Colleen Schnettler  2:55  Yeah.Michele Hansen  2:57  I actually know people who will do this, they will purposefully mistake what someone said so that they correct them and add more detail onUnknown Speaker  3:04  interesting. Yeah,Michele Hansen  3:06  yeah. And actually, when I first started interviewing, basically, I would think of this as effectively playing dumb, which I think was in some context was effective. Like, for example, especially when I was interviewing, you know, if I was interviewing, say, 80, or 90 year old men about their retirement, most of them didn't take me very seriously in the first place. And so I could use that to my advantage. And basically like, oh, like, what do you mean by that? I don't even know what you're talking about. Yeah. And it like it worked really well. But then being a founder, like you don't want to, like, you don't want people to think you're, you're done. Really well, like, I sort of like matured out of that strategy. But yeah, but it's saying like, Oh, so I just heard us like, you just said that you struggle with that for three days. And then you just say that, and then they add things to it.Colleen Schnettler  4:06  Yes. I mean, things we've talked about before, but what I really noticed in this interview is you were very, you were very call and very quiet and slow. Which is I mean, I don't mean that in a bad way. But like, it seems like you're very you're you're you're almost monotone in your tone of voice. And you left huge gaps, which we're not going to edit out so you can get the full experience everyone listening, but like huge gaps. And I'm like over here, like she gonna say something like, Is he gonna say something? Giving him really the opportunity, I think, to expound on whatever it was he was talking about.Michele Hansen  4:47  Yeah, I think, like, I like to think that. You know, I see the interviews aren't like acting. They're not a conversation. Rise. You almost want the other person Forget that you're a person like that you have opinions that you have thoughts about things like you are just there to absorb whatever it is they have to say and to help bring that out. And it's it's so funny that you say I was so calm and like, because I mean, like, you know me like, I'm not like that, like, if you get me at my most truly relaxed, like I am, like, bouncing off the walls, like I'm interrupting people. I'm excited. I'm making puns all the time. Like, I am very much not sitting there like quietly listening, which is, which is why I think that if I can learn how to do this, anybody can learn how to do this.Colleen Schnettler  5:42  Yeah, I think and I think I mean, I think for me, it's just gonna take practice. But like, one of the things he said, that really struck me, and there were so I think it would have been hard for me because he said so many things, which were literally the reason why I built it. So I would have been like, so excited. Like when he was like I just he said something like, I just wanted to build my product. I didn't want to, you know, waste any more time on file uploading, I want to be like, yes, that's why I built it. You know, like, actually, I was fortunately I was on mute. So you guys couldn't hear me. Real noisy over here. So, you know, that, I think is a founder. And then and I wonder too, like, you're almost an impartial third party here. I wonder at when you do interviews as a founder, do people treat you differently? Because I know it's your product?Michele Hansen  6:39  Yes, and no. I mean, so obviously I haven't I haven't had the experience you've just had of having somebody interview one of my customers while I'm there and seeing how differently they take it. Yeah, um, I don't I don't think it's been a detriment. Like, you know, to what I was saying earlier about, like, people not taking me seriously, like, I don't run into that issue anymore. Right. Like, I don't I, I have been in scenarios where I was treated dismissively, or even insulted. Thankfully, it's not that many like that, like, the actual number of interviews where I've been truly insulted was l...

Michele Hansen  0:00 The following message is brought to you by Balsamiq. Balsamiq decided to support the Software Social community by donating their sponsored airtime to some of our listeners.This episode is sponsored by RosieLand. RosieLand is going meta and building a community for community builders through a newsletter community of course and soon to launch podcast. RosieLand brings together community builders for conversations wherever we can have them. And Rosie Sherry would love to chat with anyone who is building a community. Check it out at Rosie.Land. Thank you again to Balsamiq for generously supporting our listeners this way. If you'd like to receive a promo code for Balsamiq, visit balsamiq.com/go/software-socialMichele HansenHey, everyone. So we're doing something a little bit different this week. We've had a lot of conversations lately about doing customer interviews. And so we thought that it might be helpful to do a demo of one so that you can all understand what goes into one. So we have someone who has agreed to be interviewed. Who is using Colleen's product, Simple File Upload. And so I'm going to interview them today. Alright, so here we go. We're gonna get started. Michele HansenHi, Is this Drew?Drew  1:24  Yep, this is Drew.Michele Hansen  1:26  Hi, Drew, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. I really appreciate it.Drew  1:30  No problem. Thanks for having me.Michele Hansen  1:33  So before we get started, I just want to ask if you had any questions for me?Drew  1:38  I'm not off the top of my head. I'm sure I'll find some along the way.Michele Hansen  1:42  Okay, feel free to ask any questions that might come up. Drew  1:45  Okay. Michele Hansen  1:47  And just before we get started, I just want to make sure that it's okay, we record this interview.Drew  1:51  Yeah, absolutely.Michele Hansen  1:53  Okay, so um, so just to get started, Could you just tell me a little bit about like, how you came to even needing something like Simple File Upload in the first place?Drew  2:05  Well, I'm, I'm building a product that is going to play currently has a, it's a job listing platform. So we wanted companies to be able to upload their logo, you know, to sit next to their listing. But our stage two of that we're actually adding in some more verbose user accounts, where users will have avatars, they'll be able to upload resumes and stuff like that. So we just really, we really saw that we were gonna need something that would allow us to upload all the files and handle them easily.Michele Hansen  2:42  Yeah, that makes sense. Um, I'm curious, have you tried anything else to do this?Drew  2:51  Yeah, we were using Firebase Storage, because we were using firestore as our database. So we started using Firebase Storage. Just because, you know, they, they were right next to each other seemed like an easy enough fit. And it was working at first. But we recently started going through a big migration to next js, which has, which is you know, some things are just handled a little differently from a code perspective. And Firebase Storage just did not work as easily. As it was, we found ourself running into a lot of walls, jumping through a lot of hoops just to make the simplest things work.Michele Hansen  3:36  Can you tell me a little bit more about those hoops and, and walls that you ran into?Drew  3:44  I'm trying to think a specific case. So we were we're really just trying to load the image before the component was loaded. You know, so it would be there when, when the page did load. But because of because of how they give you access to it with promises, and you know, all that fun stuff. I don't know if it's because we were implementing it wrong. Or maybe they just weren't ever really meant to work hand in hand, but we would get we were getting errors that, you know, it couldn't it couldn't do what we were asking because the data it needed, wasn't there yet when it was asking for it. And we really started to feel like we were just putting band aids on things to make something work. And this was really kind of our big push to make the platform more stable, not less. That was probably the biggest one.Michele Hansen  4:45  Sounds like that was like frustrating. A lot of like, fits and starts for you guys.Drew  4:51  Yeah, it really was because there we had it working. And it you know, it took a little bit of work to get it working that first time and Most every other piece of the code kind of just transferred one to one for the most part. And this, this part just did not. And we already had, you know, we had a decent amount of files in the stores that we wanted to get to, but for whatever reason, be it user error or stored there. It just wasn't happening.Michele Hansen  5:24  Yeah, I'm going to do remember, like how long it was, like from from the time when you just started, decided to start using Firebase Storage? And then until you decided, like, wasn't going to work? Like, how long was that?Drew  5:42  Oh, we started, we started using it around a year ago, the it was working fine. We started, we started working on this big rebuild about maybe a month and a half ago. And that was probably when we started realizing that it wasn't gonna work. And I think it was, I think I spent probably three days trying to wrestle it before I've just relented.Michele Hansen  6:08  Oh, man.So it took six weeks of try of trying to get it to work, and then you intensely worked on it for three days, and then it still wouldn't work.Drew  6:21  Well, the six weeks wasn't fully working on trying to get it to work six weeks was, you know, getting all the components moved over. And all that other stuff set up for the new environment. And then, but you are correct, it was three intense days of trying to make it work.Michele Hansen  6:37  Man, there must have been super frustrating.Drew  6:41  It was and I was I was at my wit's end.Michele Hansen  6:48  So when did you start thinking like that, maybe use something else.Drew  6:57  Almost immediately, I wanted to use something else, but I didn't know what else would be out there at the pricing model that they provide. Um, but I guess, free free always comes with caveats. And I found those caveats early on.Michele Hansen  7:12  Oh, so Firebase Storage was free if you were using firestore.Drew  7:17  Yeah, they have their, they have this whole platform set up where it's, it's free up until X amount of requests, but that number is like really high. So it's really, it's really enticing when you're trying to just, you know, when you just want to get something up and moving. The widget, we just kept hitting brick walls with the storage.Michele Hansen  7:38  Yeah, it sounds like it. So. So you were, you had like three days of intensely trying to work on this. You wanted to use something else? And then you you didn't know what oth...