Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to another episode of the Growth Focus Podcast where we bring together tech leaders from all across the globe to share their time, their insights and expertise with us so that we can grow our businesses. Now, my name is Gary Lafty, your host and founder and CEO of the Growth Focus Partnerships, where we take tech leaders and turn them into authorities within their field so their conversations turn into clients and their insights turn into pipelines.
Today we're going to be talking about what does it take to break through some barriers, some glass ceilings, some mental flaws that enable us to get a new foundation in order to grow. We're also going to be talking about what mindset shifts do we have to take in order to reach that next level of income and what certain founders tend to miss when it comes to growing their company. So without further ado, let's bring on this episode's guest. Rick. It's an extreme honor and pleasure to have you with us today. Why don't you start off by telling us who you are and what is it that you do?
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Hey, I'm Rick Shot. I'm a software executive. I've just been in the startup space probably I guess since Amazon was selling books, kind of stayed in that space mostly worked with SAS software companies my whole career. Currently working with two or three startups right now and that's what I enjoy so.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Well, I'll tell you what, why don't you take us back a little bit and why don't share with us what originally drew you into the world of SaaS and early stage startups?
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Well, I mean it was the dot com boom when I was getting into, when I was graduating college and I went to school of business, I thought what I was going to do had to take some classes that were, you know, technically technical related and I found myself that I liked it a lot. So I ended up getting internship job that was, you know, related to software and then I just ended up graduating. I was too far in to business that I went ahead and finished that and then when I graduated I just kind of self self taught web programming and stuff like that and I jumped right in. From then on I never did anything different. So.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: So it's been quite.
Yeah, yeah. What a journey, as you said, going right back to the dot com day. So in effect, you know, you've seen from one parameter to another from dot com days to AI driven platforms today.
That being said, then what are some sort of key lessons that you've learned from that journey within the industry?
[00:02:33] Speaker B: I mean, I guess working with a lot of different SaaS companies.
What I've seen is the trajectory and path of growth has all been very similar.
Everybody seems to have the same type of problems at the same type of stages.
So when you see those patterns and you start with new companies, you try to avoid them.
But there's, you know, a lot of similarities. Software, you know, how we build, it's changed. But you know, foundationally the problems haven't changed. You know, people, customers and scaling, you know, the same problem still exists.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's one of the key things is, and this is what we, you and I have been talking about before is, you know, some of the big major problems. It doesn't matter what you are, whether you're a SaaS, whether you're a VAR, whether you're a founder. The problems are the same when it comes to building a business. You know, and there's certain plateaus that certain founders tend to get to, you know, if they're hitting that zone of the first class ceiling, million dollars, $2 million, they probably got there on pure grit, maybe their network and they're really their referral basis. But once they get to Scotland, 1 million ceiling, 2 million ceiling, they kind of run out of steam for founders listening who might be at this, let's say 1 million a year, ARR. And hitting kind of this plateau, glass ceiling. What challenges have you faced that you could share some insights with them?
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Well, one thing I've seen, at least from a pattern standpoint is usually at that level you have a few people doing a lot of different roles.
If you're the founder or CEO that, you know it's your baby, you are probably doing way too much.
You haven't given up control of certain things.
So with that comes, you need to be hiring really good people for those key roles that you have to get your day to day hands off of.
That's one of the first steps I see that founders have a hard time with because it's, it's theirs, it's their baby, they grew it.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: You know, like you said, if they didn't take funding, they probably, you know, worked really hard to get to this point and but you know, they're probably stuck because, you know, they're in the way.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Yep, yep. When do you think they'll know? And we, I see this every day, every day when I'm talking to people within the industry.
Like you said, it's their baby.
They've worked tremendously hard to get to this particular level, you know, especially if they're bootstrapped and it's kind of like, well, no one can do this the way I do it, because it is, it is my story, my mission.
When do you think it's the right time for founders to start looking at separating those roles and bringing on a team? And how will they recognize it's the right time?
[00:05:12] Speaker B: Well, I mean, you know, when your numbers plateau, that's a really good indicator that, you know, I mean, yeah, but.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: You don't want to try to get there before then, obviously, right? Yeah.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: I mean, if you're still growing, then don't change what you're doing. But obviously things, the numbers start plateau and you're, you're seeing more churn with the same effort. That's a pretty good indicator to me that, you know, what, what's going on? What are we missing?
Are customers upset? Like, who. Somebody's dropping a ball somewhere in your organization. And you got to figure, figure out what that is pretty quickly too, because.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Yeah, because you can go into reverse very, very quickly, can't you, from all that growth you had. It's not just hitting the plateau. You hit that plateau, you hit, you hit your head a few times, and then you start going into reverse because you can't then see the wood from the trees and where the problems are. And as you quite already said, who's dropped the ball. And it's predominantly you. And. But you're trying to juggle too many things, right?
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. The other thing I've seen too is you, you've worked so hard to get to get to where you are, and then the ball's dropping. You're, you're, you're not paying attention to all these things.
You're too busy to even hire. So like, do you need HR at this point? Do you need, like, you have to figure those things out really quick and higher, higher, higher, quick. And they have to be quality hires. Which is the other kind of downside I see is like, you can't just hire anybody that early. They have to be really good.
But founders don't like to spend a lot of money early.
Yeah, but that's the time when you do it.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: I think that's a really good point there. Like, like you said, they get to a point where they are so busy, they seem to be banging their head against the wall every single morning. They get out of bed, but the feet on the floor and go, right, I will go and do this again. It becomes frustrating, Very, very frustrating. And they just become over busy being too busy. And like you said, the analysts are too busy to, to hire. What kind of steps would you say that would, would be sort of advisable for them when it comes to taking their first hires.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: On reaching out to your network, you know, that's first step one. You need to have a good network of other people that have gone through this.
Even sometimes I'd say reaching out to an advisor and just having an advisor to that's been through it that has, it maybe has a better network than you if you, if you don't.
They can find people even if they're interim because you just don't want to make a mistake that early on.
Expensive hire, that's critical.
That may not be a good fit for your company and where you're at.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think one of the key words you just said there was even if it's interim. Right. Because there is this tendency to think well once I start hiring they're going to be with us. It's got to be the right person.
It's going to be long term. I don't want to then share everything with them for them to go. But there's a power in the interim as isn't there?
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Oh yeah, for sure.
And it might cost you a lot but it won't cost you as much as the long term hire that wasn't right and all the mistakes they might make. So you really have to weigh that.
Another thing I've seen at this stage you were just talking about that they need to be looking for or patterns I've seen is especially with SaaS products for software is, you know, usually organically grown company that's gotten to let's say a million AR or whatever their little plateau is they're doing everything the customer's asking.
Right. They're just whatever they can do to make the customer happy because they need those customers. But that you know, eventually won't scale. Eventually you do have to have a good product vision. You have to have a good roadmap and a product person that's usually the founder.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: And then figuring out what you're going to do long term. You know, a real strategy to move forward. Because you can't just listen to everything that every thing each customer wants and just do that. You know, you'll be a custom software shop.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: But we can understand why, why they do that, can't they? They, it's either a cash, they just want the cash or they want the client or they just want to feel the fact that yes they're right and it's, and it's a product or service. That that is, is, is desired by the marketplace. And then, but with all the little tweaks. But as you say, we see this every single time, that when they're starting up, almost every single time one client makes one tweak and a little tweak per client doesn't seem to make that much of a difference. But once you've got a good bucket full of clients and now you're trying to bend over backwards for all of those, it's a lot of little tweaks to your original thing.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: It's impossible to maintain. Right. You have to have your own vision of what your, your product is and what it's going to be. And again, like I said, if you want to grow and scale what, you got to have a plan.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: So let's talk about this plan. What does this vision look like? Because, you know, we're going to be talking about later on today about, you know, lead generation, marketing, sounding app, getting your voice heard above all the noise out there. But with your experience, what would you give, what advice would you give to bootstrap founders trying to grow that haven't got external funding and they're just trying to push the company forward, but just keep, as we say, hitting this glass ceiling.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Well, one, you got to know it.
Assuming you're going to have competitors, most companies have a pretty good competitor. No one's really doing anything on their own.
You got to know where you're going and not play catch up, right? So I call them leapfrog features. So, like, you got to know, like, what you're trying to do, what you want to do, and not just fill in a sheet and saying, all right, they have this, we have this and they have this. You know what I mean?
To some degree you have to have that to compete, but you also have to have a vision of like, all right, what's going to get, what's going to make us first, what's going to make us better?
And you have to plan and you have to really think through, you know, what your product needs or doesn't have.
Or maybe you're an industry expert and you've been thinking about what your customers need that no one's thinking about. And that's what I call the leapfrog feature.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: It's like, it's almost like thinking about, like from what I want to understand from it. Is that not just about thinking about the future of the product or the service, but think of the future of the business? What does the business look like down, down the road? You know, what is What? Yeah. How many clients, how many customers are you serving? What do you do? What does it look like then? What are the fulfillment looks like then? Kind of looking way into the future and then kind of reverse engineering that and say, okay, this is the plan we've got to take.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you really have to understand how you're going to attain all these customers, keep them.
What's your business going to look like? Not only technically, but operationally, location wise, are you going to be an international company or not? Are you serving the whole world or just the United States? Just, you know, wherever you're based, you know, because there's all types of legal and things that you have to deal with to prepare for that.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Which again is another reason to make sure you've got a good team, make sure you've got a good, good board, no matter how big or small that board is.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Yeah. You want to serve clients in Europe. Okay, well, there's rules around that and you got to have a data center that all kinds of things have to happen. You're gonna. Yeah, it was certain levels of customers. Do you have your compliances? Like, you gotta, you gotta be ahead of that if that's where you're going to know that all that has to happen.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: More than you and your buddy that got you, you know, a little bit down the road to do it.
Exactly.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: So what this is, what we're saying is, what is that vision? What is the destination? And you know, people say it's not. It's the journey. The journey is a good part of it, but you still have to have a North Star. You still need to know. And it can't be in front of your face anymore, you know, and there'll be people listening, you know, and people watching this and then we're going.
I remember when a million dollars or $2 million, that was the North Star, that was where I needed to get to, but now we're getting to that. What is your next step? And they can't see that next step because they're too, like we said earlier, too busy being busy to think, how can we break through? And then look at the 5 million or look at the 10 million. It seems impossible to get to that stage.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Right, right. And then even like further, further down the road is like, are you even a qualified CEO for a level company that you're now at? And do you have enough vision to get out of the way even then? Like, there's all kinds of.
Yeah.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Otherwise you just got yourself another job. As I Say, haven't you just built yourself another job and you're just not leading anymore. You just, you're just working in it rather than leading it. So let's talk about the work that you do, Rick, and what excites you're currently involved with both Drip Jobs and Route. Amazing. So you know what excites you about those? Tell us a little bit about the both those companies.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Well, one's a CRM for like the service based industry.
So it's just another SaaS company. And what excites me is the growth, the stage of the company I came in, it was a friend of mine that got me involved.
So that's fun as working with people that you've worked with before. They're smart.
But right now really it's AI. Like everything else, it's innovating with AI which is where Radomize came from. We were working on a pretty interesting feature in Drip Jobs and realized this is not just a Drip Jobs feature, this is like anyone could use this functionality. So we immediately spun it off and you know, we're close to launching that right now. So. And that's all kind of AI based stuff.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about that because I like that you've mentioned randomized uses AI in, you know, in a meaningful way when we were talking before. How would you approach differentiation when everybody's shouting AI, you know, literally could be a one man band to, to a big massive enterprise. Even VCs are saying as long as it's got AI will be interested. So everyone's got to have this AI element to it.
What approach is different to the way you guys do it? Arudomize?
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Well, one, we got a patent for the process on what we're doing, which is important, but I've said this probably to you and others is if you're using AI for whatever it is business you're trying to do and if that business can't function without the AI, then you don't have a business or product.
That's my take on it.
So could randomize function if AI went down?
Not as well, but it still has value.
So that's where I look at AI in your company.
You're seeing it every day right now with the main service providers with AI because it's changing so fast every day. But you're seeing the main providers like anthropic and OpenAI and Google, they're cutting out the middleman.
So a lot of companies have spun up that are completely based on their technology and they're just Kind of a pass through and they're like, wait, well we can provide that.
You know, here's a new tool that's ours. You don't have to use theirs anymore, you just use ours because it's our service they're using anyway.
So that's where I look at like these tools are cool, they're innovating and some of them are making money, a lot of money and some are getting bought by the main companies and that's awesome too.
But I think we'll see fewer and fewer of those because it's moving so fast and the main providers are able to go, okay, these are products we can put on top of the. Our product.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
They're almost swallowing up a lot of those little market spaces. As quick as we see it grow and expand almost at this exponential rate, you've got the guys now who are just gobbling them up into the world and you know, just making it just one sh. Huge entity.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah, that's, that's, that's the path. I don't think that's going to change.
I feel like the AI space and I could be wrong. I don't know. It's kind of like cell phones were and it's kind of like it's just going to be something you're using all the time.
You don't think about it much anymore. It's not, there's, it's not as comp. It's not going to be so competitive. You're just going to have some main providers and everybody has it and it'll continue to innovate and drive everything but it won't be kind of like chat, GPT or you know, the.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Yeah, all the little individual providers.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: It's just embedded in our everyday life and it's just part of everything.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: I think that's a very good analogy. The cell phones, we've all got them, they're within arm's reach no matter what for majority of the population of this planet and we don't even think of it. I remember when we had cell phones when they first came out, you know, it was the thing, it was like, oh, this is, this is a phone, we make calls on it, this is what we do. But now it's just, it's just an extension of us. It's an extension of our knowledge basis, extension of our ability to do things.
Opens garages, opens our cars. It starts the cars, it books the tickets. It's everything. It's our boarding passes. It's everything now, isn't it?
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's just something that's. With you, you don't.
I mean, you'd be more worried about leaving your phone than your wallet usually, you know, it's like you can't really function without in this day and age.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. So that's been very interesting to see. That's a very good take on where AI is going to be. So let's talk about randomize. What problem does randomize solve that you feel that most people still underestimate or get wrong?
[00:18:53] Speaker B: The biggest problem we're trying to solve is route optimization.
So most all companies have ways to book appointments, like calendar and scheduling and all that kind of stuff.
But most of the time when companies do that, it's a request for an appointment. It has to get confirmed, it has to get approved. It has to, like someone has to at some point go, yeah, we can service whatever this is on this date or. Yes, that works with our schedule.
Our goal is to have the calendars integrated, to be very smart with AI and to be able to find slots immediately in their schedules with the help of AI and routing and time destinations, the locations, what types of appointments they are, where the other people are going and coming from, all those kind of things.
We're using AI to go, well, you know what, here's some dates based off what you're in, all the parameters that could be where we. You guaranteed spot right here. If you want it, boom. Right. So you don't have to go through the approval process.
So the goal is to optimize work schedules, you know, for the service you have whatever it is and you know, like you might have an opening tomorrow, right, that's open, but you're not going to be anywhere near where this is at.
But let's say two days from now or even whenever, three days, I got a guy that's going to be next door at this time.
Yeah, this is a more optimized spot. And if time is not a problem, that's the one you want to fill.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it just makes it more efficient, isn't it? And like you said, it would almost do it by half. Because every time for a majority of us who have to make appointments or people want appointments with us, they've got to set us an invitation. We've got to check if it's the right thing, will we be in the right place? Even though, like you say, even though there's a gap that might be take up with travel time or that might be a debrief time or whatever the case may be, and just because There's a slot there doesn't necessarily mean.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: That's, that's absolutely ideal or free for that. For that particular meeting.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Exactly. You have the types of meetings it is. Do they run over? You have all types of things that are interesting like with traffic patterns and stuff. So like yes, A to B takes this long, but what time of day is A and B for this particular appointment? Well, historically there's always this going on. So there's a lot of cool things to do with, with the data and with AI to help us, you know, find the most optimized routes.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean I used, I don't know to put that into place how I used it. I actually used it. Yes. Or a version of it yesterday when I had to. I reverse engineered how long it would take me to get from here in Breckenridge down to Denver. Down into, into Denver at a certain time. Think I had to be there by, I don't know, half past 11 in the morning or whatever. So using AI, Google's AI, what if I left? If I had to be there, what this time, what would the traffic be to get down with the typical traffic be, what time would I have to leave, etc. So we're already using that type of AI anyway. Now it's just had the integration into our more efficient working day.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: Yeah. In your business and all the parameters you have your, you know, there's all types of configurations around how you run your business and your time slots and your, your people and you might have sales people and you might have all kinds of things where it's this type of appointment, so this person's calendar matters, not this one and you know, all that kind of stuff.
But that's kind of the goal is.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Interesting times. Really, really interesting. So what has worked with you when it's currently come to acquiring customers, acquiring that, you know, the generation, what's working really well for you guys right now?
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Well, at least, excuse me with route of mind, since we haven't launched, a lot of our customers are going to come from existing drip jobs that's going to be like kind of out of the gate customers. But with drip jobs, everything's usually simple. Facebook marketing, that kind of stuff, just normal.
We have an agency we work with, it helps us with all, you know, with, with ads and where they get placed. But it's pretty much all digital normal, like out of the box. Here's our, you know, our set of, of ads we're running and these are the places they're going to be showing up at. And based off of, you know, our current customer demographics, that's who's going to see them.
We've grown pretty organically starting in the painting industry because our founder had a painting company and that's what started it really. He started painting, he was a painter, had a need started, started trying to fill that need himself and that turned into.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: So that's an issue. What kind of founder led marketing has he put into that? Or you guys are continuing to use to stand above all the noise that's actually out there in the marketplace?
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Well, being an expert in the space. So what really helped him was a podcast, being an expert in painting and being a voice that people trust because they've heard him speak and go to industry events and talk.
That helps a lot. You know, puts a lot of validity behind a lot of integrity as well, like what he's offering, you know, what the company is. So that's what like you know, kind of, kind of got it off the ground.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: You got it going and now it's just having a good product and making sure it's, you know, delivering and meeting needs.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: And we said earlier, yeah, I think this is the key point that you made. Then again, there'll be people watching this, because we've talked about this quite a lot is, is you don't want to be the best kept secret. You can have the best product, the best service, you can resurface that pain or that need that's out there. But if you're not doing things like going out there and speaking, you're not doing podcasts, you're not doing webinars, you're not sharing your mission and your voice, you effectively best kept secret or at worst you just, you're in the pool of competing in the sea of sameness like everybody else.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And, and I mean I know you've heard this but you know, no one has this original idea typically that no one's ever thought of. It's just most people don't execute. Right. They just, or they haven't been heard of. But I mean we know like for Ratomize, we know there's people that have already done this. Similarly, like CRMs for service based companies, there's plenty of them.
It doesn't mean you can't compete. You know, you just have to find a way to do, do certain things better and listen to your customers and see and also have a vision. Right. Like we do have, have the luxury of, of one of the founders being someone who uses the software A lot.
So he firsthand will feel pain.
You'd see leads, you know, that others may not that, you know, if you're not, not really using it, so.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, no, I've come across plenty of founders who have come with a great idea and those who've listened before and those who know me, you know, I always use this term, the, you know, the, the field of dreams mentality. This is so cool. If I just build it, they'll come flooding to me. But they don't actually use it themselves. They just think this is a great thing to take to market without filling the necessary need. Yet those I see that are really, really successful are those founders, like you said, who have saw a gap in the market.
They were personally affected by it and thought there must be a better way of doing it, you know, and here that's the key thing. It's a better way than the others are currently doing.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you just can't. That was, that goes back to what I was saying before. You just can't fill the feature checkbox and say, oh well they do that, let's do that. And there's no, no reason to switch. It's kind of, you know, you're, you're very replaceable like that.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
And easily forgotten. This is the key thing. You're easily forgotten as well. Right. If you're not, if you're replaceable and easily forgotten. So talking about moving forward then having a vision, having a plan, let's talk scale. What needs to happen in this in sorts of next 12 to 24 months for you to feel like you've hit a really good next growth milestone.
[00:27:20] Speaker B: Slow churn down and continue just converting. So we do a trial based for most of the, you know, all the subscriptions are trial based. So basically keeping everyone who comes and trying to, you know, we could do that. Our growth will be hitting targets and be super happy. So a lot of challenges with that. Right. You have to make sure your product's really good because of its self service.
You know, you can't hold every customer's hand. Right. And that's something I'll tell you, I've seen with other products and even talked to some other companies before about. And that typically happens with a organically grown, you know, companies like we're talking about is it really requires a lot of hands on for the customer to be successful. Yeah, the owners or the co founders are the people who hold those hands and eventually you can't hold everyone's hand.
[00:28:15] Speaker A: So what does one do? Because you're absolutely right, Rick. You know, there's. We get to talk to and work with a lot of SaaS founders, and churn is one of those things which if some are paying a lot of attention to, some need to pay more attention to in their turn. But one of those things is helping. Like you said, to use the words that you just used, is helping the client succeed. It's not just a case of, here's a trial, try it out, see if it works for you, continue, because that's when you'll start. Because if they don't know how to use it, they'll suddenly realize we're not using it to the best of our ability, so why are we having it? And then they leave. So what are you guys doing to hold that hand, as it were? You say you can't hold everybody's hand, but what kind of stuff are you actually doing to stop that Churn, or at least reverse the churn a little bit?
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So onboardings offer free. Onboardings offer a lot of training, documentation, but ultimately just making the product intuitive to use. I mean, that's the real answer for anybody.
But if you have a, you know, advanced, sophisticated system that can do a lot and has a lot of power, sometimes that's easier said than done. You know, Apple's kind of the. The king of that, right? Making something pretty complex, super simple, you know?
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: It's hard. It's, you know, it's not an easy thing to do.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: No, exactly.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: That's ultimately the goal. The goal is that someone comes into your product and it makes perfect sense. It's just right in front of it.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: This feels natural to them. It just feels absolutely natural.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: I see. But that, I mean, if you want to give some advice to anyone, it's like that's what your. If you can make your customer perceive the value immediately, you won.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I think Apple's a good. Like you said, Apple's a great way that from their phone to their watch to the. To the computers to the laptops, everything's the same. It's. Everything feels so familiar, irrespective of which one you're. Which one you're using.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: And you know what's interesting about that? I'm a big fan of UX and user experience and that kind of stuff. And I've had some good mentors in the past who've taught me a lot about it. And, you know, there's been plenty of times I've used my Apple device along over the years where I wasn't happy about it. At first, I didn't like what they had introduced or how their approach was for certain things.
But to me, that goes back to their vision of knowing. Knowing better than I knew of what I needed.
And they were like, no, this is the right way. Let's do this. And then, you know, a few days later or however long it takes. You can't imagine doing it any other way.
And so that's, you know, they could listen to customers who are like, no, I don't want that. I don't like that.
Or they could, you know, look in the future and go, this is what we need to be doing.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I like what you just said, that they, they knew better. It's a nice way of looking at it because we've all. At some point, I am a, I'm an Apple, I suppose. Yeah. I have everything on Apple stuff. And I get. Try and get my wife to use an Apple. She's not trying to convert her over to it. But I do recall, like you did when I, when it, when it was first. Why, why is they doing it this way? This feels uncomfor.
Why has it got to be so restrictive? Why are they dominating it, doing it this way? It's so much easier doing other way. But I love what you said there, Rick, about. Well, perhaps they knew more than we did. Perhaps they saw a much, much bigger vision of where it is. And we just see it's so comfortable now. It is so comfortable. Everything's.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: And so much easier.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And if you can deliver your product or your, whatever your business offering is, it doesn't have to be software. But, you know, if you perceive the customer, perceives the value right away, then you're no longer competing with the other, your competitor, with price, you know, because that's where it ends up when you're, when you're side by side, it's like, oh, which one's cheaper? Then you don't want. That's not where you want to be with anything. You want to have value.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And value doesn't have to be complicated. We see people trying to overcomplicate things just to create value. And actually then that diminishes it because now it's too complicated to use. It doesn't feel like it flows properly, you know, so you, you can be expensive and simple, you know, and give great value.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: How many times have you bought anything that you love? And you're like, I can't believe I didn't think of that. You know?
[00:32:35] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: But yeah, someone finally thought about it. I was like, oh yeah, people will love that.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: Yeah, they're going to love it. They got to love it. Well, listen, Rick, I've got one last loaded question for you. It's a question I ask all my guests at the end or versions of the question. If you, if you could give one takeaway from today's interview, from today's podcast episode to a founder who has just waking up every morning and hitting that glass ceiling and just doesn't know what to do to break through it. Stop the reverse. What would that one piece of advice be?
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Hire really good people.
Like early on. Hire really, really. They'll be expensive, but hire experienced good people that fit your culture as well. And when I say hire good people, hire people that fit your culture.
You know, be slow on that. I've said hire earlier quickly, but like be slow on that. Decision the person that you want.
But, but hire good people early in those key positions and it'll make things so much smoother.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: No, Well, I think that's a great piece of advice to end this episode on. Rick, thank you very much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on today and I'm pretty sure that a lot of people will be taking lots of little insights and nuggets from you today.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: Awesome, Jordan, thanks for having me.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: Not at all. So if people want to get hold of you or potentially check, we'll connect with what's the best way of doing that.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Hit me on LinkedIn.
First name, last name Rickshaw. You'll be able to find me and yeah, reach out.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: Fantastic. I'll make sure that link is in the show notes so you just click straight through to it and make it nice and easy for both you and them. So again, thank you very much, Rick for joining us and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for sharing another episode of the Growth Focus podcast. And as per normal, you know by now, please make sure you like it and share it and drop comments in anything you picked up from Rick today that you found that was exciting for you, interesting for you, that could potentially help you grow. But please make sure you share these episodes so that everybody body can grow as well. So until next time, keep working hard, but more importantly, keep profitable and we'll see you on the next episode. Bye bye.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: See you.
