The Productize Podcast

Introducing the new owner of Productize

Productize & Scale — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 10:01:00 +0000

Exciting news! The Productize brand has been acquired by long-time Productize community-member, Sam Shepler

What "Productizing" (really) means in 2021

Productize & Scale — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 06:00:00 +0000

In this solo episode, I share the audio of my new workshop called What "Productizing" (really) means in 2021. In this talk, I share 3 new concepts to help you think differently about how you can level up and grow your service business in 2021.

Enjoy!

Developing Your Expertise & Turning it into IP w/ Philip Morgan

Productize & Scale — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 06:00:00 +0000

This is my conversation with Philip Morgan who helps independent consultants thrive. Philip has become known as an expert when it comes to positioning your services as a consultant.

And that in itself—the process developing expertise—is something Philip has focused in on in his offerings. We talked about how he has productized this and helps his customers form habits and build the muscle of writing, publishing, and formulating their expertise on a topic, then turning into tangible IP.

Unfortunately—This conversation was cut a bit short due to a power outtage! But we managed to chat about some good stuff for a good 20-minutes or so. Enjoy!

Follow Philip Morgan on Twitter

Philip Morgan's company

Launching a Daily Video Content Service w/ Sean McCabe

Productize & Scale — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Today I'm talking to Sean McCabe, the founder of Daily Content Machine, a productized service which cuts your long-form video content into 7 "clippable moments" (as Sean puts it) and publishes those to your social media on a daily basis.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we talked about his launch of the service, how they run their operations behind the scenes.

We also covered Sean's long and winding path through teaching creative people entrepreneurship, building an audience, and running training and online communities.

Follow Sean McCabe on Twitter

Sean McCabe's company

Taking a break to focus

Productize & Scale — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 07:00:00 +0000

Hey listeners — Just a quick episode to announce today that I'm taking a break from new episodes of the Productize Podcast for a little while.

I decided that I need to focus my creative energy on products—mainly ProcessKit these days—and that I can't put as much energy as I'd like to into preparing and doing interviews on this show, for now.

I expect I'll be back on this feed at some point! Maybe whenever inspiration strikes or when I just want to pick somebody's brain on air. I just don't think this will happen on the normal weekly schedule like it has been for the past few months. Basically, this show has, and will continue to be, a "seasons" based show, and for now, it looks like the 2020 season is wrapping up.

BUT...

I do have another podcast called Bootstrapped Web. That's been running even longer than Productize Podcast, and I'll continue to publish episodes there. Rather than an interview show (which takes more prep time), Bootstrapped Web is where my buddy Jordan Gal and I hop on the mics for some real talk behind the scenes of our building our businesses. Tune in!

If you're looking for all of my best content about building a productized service businesses, well all of that still lives here on Productize And Scale.

And don't forget to connect with me on Twitter, @casjam.

Don't be a stranger!

Stay safe.

[92] A Community-Based Approach to Launching Your Next Act w/Dan Andrews

Productize & Scale — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Dan Andrews of of well, a lot of things! He is the co-founder of Dynamite Jobs, the co-host of the well loved podcast Tropical MBA, co-organizer of the Dynamite Circle, and quite a few other businesses he has either exited or moved on from.

Dan discusses Productized Services, and how he has used that knowledge to run the TMBA Podcast consistently for over/almost a decade. He also dives into his new venture Dynamite Jobs discussing what led them to starting it, and covering what has and hasn't worked so far and lessons they are taking from that to run this business moving forward. (1:45)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[3:28] - Productized Services are a straightforward way to identify and put yourself into a markets cash flow.

[24:45] - Business opportunities can be found by identifying and observing cash flow in a market. Communities are a great place to do this, but also a great place to take your product/service first to validate with early adopters.

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

Join our private slack, our private forum and get matched into your own small mastermind group with other members. Give and get honest, constructive feedback to grow your productized service business this year. Plus, get access to my Productized Course. It gives you everything you need to start, grow, and systematically build your productized service business.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[91] Solving the WordPress Developer as a Service Problem w/ Jordan Johnson

Productize & Scale — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Jordan Johnson of RipplePop. RipplePop is a Productize service model that may sound familiar, but it has a twist. RipplePop is a Wordpress Developer as a Service. However, instead of tackling small maintenance from any available developer, they provide a dedicated developer for each client and a range from part-time to full-time hours.

Jordan breaks down the origin story for RipplePop, how they recognized the commoditization of the Wordpress Developer market, and the steps they took to keep their service relevant and profitable. He has a strong opinion about the type of company he and is co-founder are trying to build and it is a great interview. (1:50)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[15:30] - It is okay to stop somewhere healthy. As a service business, you can keep it in a profitable location without scaling, and use that to fund the next opportunity.

[26:15] - Opportunities do not always have to be a grind and pulled up from your bootstraps. Just as viable is being open and watchful for the timing of an opportunity. Sometimes you try to make it happen, other times it just falls into your lap and is up to you to take advantage of it.

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[90] Running Lean With Multiple SaaS w/ Mike Rubini

Productize & Scale — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Mike Rubini of Rubini Solutions. Mike Rubini is a Jazz Musician turned entrepreneur. He currently runs over 5 SaaS products focused in what he identifies as micro data.

Mike started off as a Jazz musician, but transitioned over to entrepreneurship when he realized he would not be able to make the money he needed as a musician. Since making this transition he has started multiple service and software businesses. His goal? To make enough money so that he can play Jazz, what he really loves, as often as he can. (2:00)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[22:40] - One benefit of having many micro-products under the same business is the ability to share expenses.

[52:00] - You do not need the newest or most popular software framework to build good software and a profitable business.

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[89] Tackling a Marketplace Service w/ Foti Panagiotakopoulos

Productize & Scale — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Foti Panagiotakopoulos of Growth Mentor. Growth Mentor is a marketplace model with a community foundation for helping you level up your growth skills. You have access to mentors of all skill sets for helping you break through the problems blocking you in your business.

Foti talks through how he stumbled on this problem himself and the steps he took to validate, grow, and sustain Growth Mentor. A marketplace is commonly identified as a difficult business model for bootstrapped founders, but Foti has an interesting mindset that I think you should listen to as well as the mistakes he feels he made along the way. (1:54)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[9:10] - When it comes to looking for a mentor, you will find more success if you force yourself to get stuck first. This helps you focus your question, and will help with identifying and making the most out of a mentor.

[49:50] - When building a community, think about both active and passive value provided. What value will your members get when they initiate interaction with the platform/community? What value do you provide even when they are not actively engaging?

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[88] Physical goods and universal fundamentals w/ Mike Gammarino

Productize & Scale — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Mike Gammarino of Bluprint Partners. Mike founded Bluprint Partners in 2017 to help emerging eCommerce brands build operations that scale. Prior to Bluprint, he served as the internal operator on the founding teams at BeachMint and The Black Tux; both VC-funded startups in Los Angeles.

Mike covers a lot of ground in this interview. He gives us an overview of what it is like working in the world of physical products, and the opportunities he identified that pushed him in the direction of starting Bluprint Partners. Despite the different markets in physical and digital products the business fundamentals that go into identifying, starting, and building a productized service are universal. There is a lot to learn in this episode. (2:05)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[11:00] - Understand the language of your target market and optimize your offerings to represent the result they expect to see.

[21:00] - Sometime is can be difficult to identify what to productize in a service. Offer a less productized offering as a method for gathering more experience and data.

[30:00] - Paid discovery has a lot of benefits for you as a business, but it is a good idea to make sure that you are also delivering something that provides value for your client regardless of moving forward with them or not.

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[87] Building, Selling, and Acquiring Productized Service Businesses w/ Tyler Gillespie

Productize & Scale — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Tyler Gillespie of Applause Lab and Proofreading Pros. Applause Lab is a video testimonial service focused on eCommerce businesses, and Proofreading Pros is a Software with a Service focused on...you guessed it proofreading and editing.

Tyler has also run and exited from a productized service in the content space, and does consulting for other business owners looking to productize their services business. He walks through his journey as a founder of many productized services. What was the most interesting was how he approaches every business he runs as if he is going sell them, and discusses the steps he makes to achieve that. (5:49)

Also, Brian answered this question on YouTube, How to productize when every project is different?

Brian covers three steps to tackle this problem regardless of where your service business is now (1:22):

Figure out who your best business/customers are and target them.
Identify the highest value problem for that customer.
Standardize it.

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[20:00] - There are very few people out there willing to put in the work to focus on and win sales. That skill mixed with the ability to find good people to outsource to can get a service off the ground in no time.

[38:00] - Building a service to sell involves a lot of planning before you think you are ready. You job is to de-risk the business and revenue you are generating for someone coming in to run it.

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[86] Creative Outreach Ideas for B2B Consulting w/ Marc McDougall

Productize & Scale — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Marc McDougall of Clarity First Consulting. Marc has been working as an independent CRO consultant for about 6 years now. He truly enjoys the freedom this affords him to both pursue the things I enjoy in life, and provide real value to people in the B2B SaaS space.

What is interesting about this episode is that Marc is the first guest who has reached out to me to be on the show that I have brought on, and it is no surprise why when you listen to this episode. Marc has a deep level of experience with outreach and in this episode he covers his approach and why he does it. (7:57)

Also, Brian answered this question on YouTube, What motivates you to do the work you do?

Brian covers some methods he uses to reflect on this not just once, but on a recurring basis. This is actually a constantly moving target and it is important to revisit this question along your journey. (1:39)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[19:35] - Keep it simple. Provide value. Do your research. Provide a way for them to convert, but you don't have to ask for it.

[38:30] - You have to filter clients to optimize your revenue and time. Focus the product/service you want to deliver and filter clients aggressively.

You can short circuit the amount of red tape you have to deal with by adopting a radically different approach and targeting the highest level you can in the org.

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[85] A Productized Service in the Making w/ Will King

Productize & Scale — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 06:00:00 +0000

[84] Using Productized Consulting as a Pathway into SaaS w/ Ward Sandler

Productize & Scale — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Ward Sandler of MemberSpace. A platform agnostic membership tool that makes growing a membership business a no brainer.

In this episode Ward takes us through his journey from Sales to Saas. His first step was consulting, but instead of sales he and his partner learned how to build websites and applications from scratch. Next, he identified a market perfect for Productization to get off of the feast and famine cycle. Finally, they built Memberspace. The problem Memberspace solves was easily identified by listening to the customers they already supported. (1:51)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[23:30] - Look to the data you have access to for business opportunities. Sure finding a new "idea" sounds fun, but your next business is often right under your nose.

[27:30] - Being early to a platform can give you a competitive advantage and a distribution channel that you wouldn't get waiting until something is more widely adopted.

Today's episode is brought to you by ProcessKit.

If your operation needs to become more efficient and more predictable so that your team never lets anything fall through the cracks then it is time to implement ProcessKit. A process driven project management software great for powering client services businesses. It is especially built with productized services in mind.

If you would like expert help with improving you processes and automations ask about our ProcessKit Implementer service. Request your free demo and trial here.

Links

[83] Scaling Sales & Onboarding for a Niche SaaS w/ Aaron Kassover

Productize & Scale — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Aaron Kassover of AgentMethods, a website builder and suite of marketing tools built for Insurance Agents.

After having his first 20 customers handed to him through connections built freelancing, Aaron has spent over a decade creating and scaling a marketing platform specifically for Insurance Agents. In our conversation he breaks down the turning points and growing pains as he has scaled this niche product. (11:14)

Also, Brian answered this question on YouTube, 6 Business Models in Productized Services.

One-Time Projects
Recurring Services
Unlimited Model
Coaching / Done With You
Software With A Service
Productized Consulting

Brian digs into each of these models and more. (1:55)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[27:00] - There is reach and a clarity of purpose when focusing on only a single vertical.

[38:30] - An effective sales call does not mean showing how your product looks. Sometimes the most effective sales approach is nailing down the value provided at a higher level.

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[82] Going Full-Time on a SaaS While Growing a Podcast w/ Jane Portman

Productize & Scale — Wed, 24 Jun 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Jane Portman of UI Breakfast (podcast) and Userlist (SaaS). UI Breakfast is a podcast with a rockstar line-up of guests who are industry experts sharing actionable knowledge — so that you can apply it in your business today. Userlist is a Saas for SaaS businesses focused on behavior based customer messaging.

In this episode Jane digs into the weeds of what is was like growing UI Breakfast and how that has changed now she is running a SaaS full-time. We then dig into her experience growing Userlist and how the phrase "long, slow SaaS ramp of death" can be true, but how designing your business for a market you are passionate about helping make all the difference. (2:06)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[18:39] Finding a purpose that you are invested in is a lot more sustainable than being "in it" for the money.

[19:20] Marketing becomes easier and genuine when you've found a business with a purpose that resonates with what you care about.

Today's episode is brought to you by ProcessKit.

If you would like expert help with improving you processes and automations ask about our ProcessKit Implementer service. Request your free demo and trial here.

Links

[81] An outbound sales process for client services w/ Rich Staats

Productize & Scale — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Rich Staats of Secret Stache, a development agency purely focused on partnerships with Creative Agencies.

Rich takes us through how he has been inspired by bootstrapped SaaS and Productized Services to create a development agency model that can generate the same type of margin that a software business can. He talks about process, market focus, and even walks us through his rather unique outbound sales process. This episode is packed full of real examples and details for how to approach an agency business model. (7:45)

Also, Brian answered this question on YouTube, how to keep a high quality standard when outsourcing?

Brian has three tips that he covers that helped him break the cycle when he was freelancing. (0:33)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[43:30] - You can spend much more time and resources acquiring a customer when your lifetime value is huge.

[46:44] - The difference warm vs cold leads make in conversions rates is very noticeable. How can you optimize for generating more warm leads?

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[80] From Upwork to Six-Figure SEO Productized Service w/ Marcin Chirowski

Productize & Scale — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Marcin Chirowski of Growth Turn, a productized SEO service focused on B2B SaaS companies.

Marcin explains how he went from a corporate job to freelancing on Upwork. Then he tells how he identified an opportunity from the work he was doing on Upwork to productize the work he was doing for a specific customer in the market. He is now doing over $100,000 in annual revenue. (5:43)

Also, Brian answered this question on YouTube, how to decide what to work on next?

Brian covers four tactics for how to tackle this problem:

Work backwards from your end goal
Decide quickly
Be okay with pushing priorities back
Review your progress

There is a lot to dig into and it is a topic that is always relevant no matter how big your business grows. (0:32)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[20:54] Even if you are increasing your hourly rate you are still being paid based on time spent doing something instead of the value you bring.

[38:05] Sometimes a buy button is not the quickest path to a sale. Know you market and decision makers. Sometime you need to provide something for your champions to take to the decision makers.

Today's episode is brought to you by ProcessKit.

If you would like expert help with improving you processes and automations ask about our ProcessKit Implementer service. Request your free demo and trial here.

Links

[79] The power of a process first approach w/Joel Klettke

Productize & Scale — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Joel Klettke of Case Study Buddy, a productized service delivering world class case studies. They run the whole process from interview to final deliverable.

Joel gives us insight into how he started Case Study Buddy as a side project where he focused on the process more than revenue. He then goes on to explain how he has been able to remove himself completely from the day to day work, and now focuses his effort of strategy and process optimization. (5:45)

Also, Brian answered this question on YouTube, does client feedback kill a productized service?

Brian has three tips that he covers that helped him break the cycle when he was freelancing. (0:33)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[34:40] - Self-serve is not the common approach to sales or onboarding in most Productized Services. Even if you have pricing and a buy button a sales call is usually a great idea anyway to start building trust and a relationship as soon as possible.

[51:14] - You can build a profitable business without using marketing channels like ads. It is not a strength, but Joel has done this so far and sees it as a glass half full problem. It means there are good untapped channels for growth.

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[78] Productizing business critical services w/Belinda Jacobs

Productize & Scale — Wed, 27 May 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Belinda Jacobs of Tech Packs Co. A productized service that helps product businesses create the technical packet (aka blueprint) that factories will use to manufacture their products.

Belinda walks us through her journey starting Techpacks. We learn how she took a business critical process that everyone seemed to struggle with and created not only a service, but a methodology for how to approach the problem altogether. (7:13)

Also, Brian answered this question on YouTube, how do you transition from service to productization?

He outlines a productization framework with three big steps:

Picking the right customer
Picking a valuable problem to solve
Create a predictable version of your service

He digs deeper into how to tackle each step and how you can convert your service into a productized version of it. (0:48)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[22:10] A network can be critical to unlocking early growth. Whether that is in person or in online communities. Getting to know people in your market and putting your name/business out there keeps you from toiling in the shadows hoping your product alone brings customers in.

[29:12] Hiring someone so that you can scale before you are comfortable can unlock that growth you are trying to reach sooner.

[39:48] With the right service, you can become more than just someone who get's it done. You can create processes and methodologies that influence the entire vertical and give you more opportunities for products/revenue.

Today's episode is brought to you by ProcessKit.

If you would like expert help with improving you processes and automations ask about our ProcessKit Implementer service. Request your free demo and trial here.

Links

[77] A localized video service...sold everywhere

Productize & Scale — Wed, 20 May 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Sam Shepler of Testimonial Hero, a video production service. They create high quality testimonial videos for B2B software companies anywhere in the world with zero travel fees.

Sam walks us through how he built up a network of videographers so that he can bring in a local production team without having to travel himself. He then explains how he productized not only his service, but how they onboard new freelancers. When a project gets booked in a new location they can have a new videographer up and running before the project starts. (9:48)

Also, Brian answered this question on YouTube, how do you deal with the feast and famine in freelancing?

Brian has three tips that he covers that helped him break the cycle when he was freelancing. (0:33)

Enjoy!

Key Takeaways

[23:45] - You will not be a market leading service if you are relying only on cookie cutter work that anyone could do. Not saying there isn't a place for that, but there is a huge competitive advantage of productizing your processes, but having a network of talented people that do the work.

[30:18] - When you have a service with a large price tag you need to firmly and clearly establish your value.

[47:18] - MRR in a productized service is great, but is not always beneficial for your business. If you force it you could actually be hurting your business.

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[76] Going 'premium' in the podcasting space w/ Harry Morton

Productize & Scale — Wed, 13 May 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Harry Morton of Lower Street, a premium podcast production service. With a focus on businesses and brands, Lower Street delivers podcasts for growing your audience, lead generation, or even internal communication.

Harry covers how he built and grew a premium productized service in a space with a lot of hobbyists. He talks about how that effects everything from copywriting, pricing, and delivery.

Enjoy!

Also, Brian answered this question on YouTube, how do you "Hack" uncertainty?

Key Takeaways

[27:19] The way you show value to a customer is not always the most common metric. For Harry it is not always about generating the most listens to provide value that is worth the price paid, but about bringing in the right audience and leads for the brand.

[31:06] When offering a service that provides such a vary range of value depending on the customer doing per customer pricing can be the best choice.

Today's episode is brought to you by ProcessKit.

If you would like expert help with improving you processes and automations ask about our ProcessKit Implementer service. Request your free demo and trial here.

Links

[75] Software WITH a Service in the SEO space w/ Lindsay Halsey

Productize & Scale — Wed, 06 May 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Lindsay Halsey of Pathfinder SEO, a software WITH a service offering guided SEO coaching with the toolkit needed to track it. In a world where majority of options are either DIY or a full blown agency, Pathfinder SEO provides a balanced approach to get the help you need without breaking the bank.

Lindsay dives into how she has setup the Coaching model they use at Pathfinder SEO by moving "customer support" out of the shadows and making it part of the core value with their service. On the flip side, we also discuss how they're handling churn. What are the steps you take to keep a customer when they no longer feel like the support is a valuable addition to the price they are paying?

Enjoy!

Also, I get Lindsay to answer the question, how does the process change dealing with direct customers (site owners) vs whitelabel customers (freelancers and agencies).

Key Takeaways

[15:10] Relationships and trust matters. When you recommend new processes or tactics they are confident in implementing them. It improves their ROI and yours making them happy and successful in your product.

[20:45] Agencies are sticky.

[33:50] Sometimes the best description of your business is found when you listen to what others say.

Today's episode is brought to you by Productize.

If, you're sick of the client services treadmill there is a better way, Productized Services. That's why I built Productize. It's a private community and training program for people like you and me.

You already get lifetime access when you signup, but get an extra 10% off here.

Links

[74] Flipping a web design service on its head w/ Jared Gold

Productize & Scale — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 06:00:00 +0000

In this interview I talk to Jared Gold of Website by Tonight, a productized service for creating websites on Squarespace live over screen share. Instead of the "we build anything" approach, Website by Tonight delivers tightly scoped websites optimized for rapid turn around and quality design.

Jared is not shying away from the details of what it is like running a growing productized service. He breaks down the productized playbook he used that helped turn his business into a success. We then end up diving into the approach he is taking to scaling Website By Tonight and finding better clients without changing the service he has already optimized.

Enjoy!

Also, Brian helps Jared answer the question, how do you tackle expanding the same productized service brand to a different audience?

Key Takeaways

[7:51] Selling to your team is just as important as selling to your clients.

[27:40] Listen to your customers. You can discover new value, problems, and processes to apply to your service.

[41:19] To reach a market that is either saturated or has a bad reputation you can reach your customers by providing genuine value. In Jared's case it was through community.

Today's episode is brought to you by ProcessKit.

If you would like expert help with improving you processes and automations ask about our ProcessKit Implementer service. Request your free demo and trial here.

Links

What to expect from Productize Podcast in 2020

Productize & Scale — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 06:00:00 +0000

It's back!

My Productize Podcast is back on the air in 2020. In this brief re-introduction I'll share:

The story behind the refreshed design & brand of ProductizeAndScale.com.
Why (and specifically how) I'm committing to growing community in 2020
What types of interviews I'm interested in sharing with you
What's happening over on my YouTube channel (and how does that fold back into the podcast?)
New live sessions that I plan to hold in 2020
How I'm building a team around me to help execute all of this new content from the Productize side of things.

Thanks for tuning in!

[73] From Freelance Designer to Full-Time on Digital Products w/ Laura Elizabeth

Productize & Scale — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I’m talking to Laura Elizabeth. She is the creator of Client Portal, as well as Design Academy.

Client Portal is a WordPress plugin that gives your clients a place to access their designed files or whatever files you are delivering as a freelancer.

In Design Academy, Laura offers a curriculum for developers who want to learn how to design.

Laura successfully transitioned from doing the freelance thing into doing digital products. We talk all about how to go from zero audience into raising your profile, speaking at conferences and growing your email list, which can enable you to launch and pre-sell products.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[9:19] Case for Client Portal. Keeping the plugin simple and not going into the SaaS model. Annual license vs monthly subscription.

“Things were always getting lost in emails. I’d finish a project and six months later someone would come and say “Hey Laura, remember that logo you did for us? I’ve lost the files again, can you resend them to me?”“
“There’s a lot of overhead in SaaS that makes it not worth for a lot of products. So yeah, I’m happy keeping it as a WordPress plugin.”

[14:24] From full-time job to freelancing to digital products. Getting practice from freelancing to make something look good.

“College hasn’t prepared me with how to make something look good. What they prepared me for was how to think about ideas and how to solve problems. But they didn’t teach me how to make those ideas look like they weren’t done by some amateur kid. So I applied to freelance jobs just to get experience.”
“To be honestly I felt massively. I could not crack productized consulting at all in web design. Every project just was different.”

[24:02] Building an audience from zero for Design Academy. Getting at conferences, guest articles, an raising a profile. Getting featured in Smashing Magazine.

“Everyone said you have to build an audience before you can sell anything to them. I spent years just building an audience. All I had was a landing page saying I want to teach design for developers. Sign up to find out more.”
“Writing is the most vital skill you could possible have.”

[31:01] Selling $10k of HTML templates. Preselling $40k of Design Academy course to accelerate development. How to write copy based on clients’ feedback.

“You have to make the effort to talk to early subscribers. Having loyal subscribers is really powerful.”

Links

[72] Bootstrapping SaaS for Teams w/ Henry Poydar (Status Hero)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I’m talking to Henry Poydar. He is the founder of Status Hero, a little SaaS app tool for teams who need to get status updates from their fellow teammates. Works like a replacement for the daily stand-up, and members get updates into Slack or email.

We talk about Henry’s story, how he bootstrapped this app, how he transitioned from working in a large corporation to consulting, and then starting up his own software business.

He coded most of the app himself and had success bootstrapping his app in the last 3 years.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:36] Extending the trial for enterprise customers.

“The idea is to eliminate meetings. Specially with today’s remote teams across timezones, it’s difficult to get the tech right, meet everyone on a zoom call.”
“I found that the extensions are the qualifiers. You know a bigger company is interested if a trial extension keeps them onboard.”

[8:11] Before Status Hero.

“I was lucky. I got into the web at a time where full-stack actually meant something.”
“Getting on a plane every week on a Sunday and coming back on Friday is a really tough way to live.”

[13:21] How working from home compares to working in a larger organization and startups.

“I noticed that in a startup, compared to a large organization, the signal to noise ratio inverted. 9 out of 10 emails matters. I a company 1 out of 10 emails matter.”
“It’s ironic that creatives avoid distraction to get into deep to work on software that’s designed to grab people’s attention”

[23:50] Legit MVPs and how to use Product Hunt to launch your product. Cutting features for an easier selling process.

“You really have one shot launching on Product Hunt. You can’t afford to have a crappy MVP.”
“The best outcome for something on Product Hunt is to get email addresses into pipeline, not trials, not customers, because you’re in awareness stage.”

[30:48] Doubling revenue when switching pricing from tiered teams to per user.

“Pricing was very difficult because my initial users weren’t startups who were price sensitive at all.”
“At the time and still now everybody advises against per seat pricing.”
“I wanted the automated credit-card sign-up make-money-while-you-sleep thing to work. I wanted it to be low touch.”

[35:01] The truth about app integrations as marketing channel.

“I think that taking on managing folks is a massive responsibility, it takes a lot of mind share.”

Links

[71] Serving Your Own People With a Solo Productized Consulting Service w/ Meg Cumby

Productize & Scale — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I’m talking to Meg Cumby, from Meg Cumby Consulting.

She is running a solo productized consulting service. She offers testimonials and case studies as an outsourced done-for-you service for her clients who happen to be consultants as well.

It’s interesting to hear how her process is very focused and streamlined, starting from sales, going to the application form, and in the way she engages with clients.

It’s all very predictable, simplified, and it permitted her to run it solo.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[3:48] Coming up with the idea of a done-for-you testimonial service.

“The word that kept coming up was awkwardness when asking for a testimonials to your clients.”
“It just saves a lot of pain if you take out the sales copy from your customers.”

[8:35] The consultation step by step. Benefits of showing the pricing upfront.

“This is the beauty of having an incredibly focused service: people that contacted me are pretty much always ideal clients.”

[13:45] The difference between testimonials and case studies. Questions to ask. Benefits of having a third-party to give feedback.

[23:43] What the deliverables look like. Recurring services vs one time products.

[30:50] Getting pilot clients at conferences and online communities.

“If you have to start something, why not starting with the market you are familiar with?”
“Being in communities is huge.”
“With clear positioning comes clear word of mouth.”

[35:54] Running processes solo.

“The biggest thing that just having a process helps with is minimizing the decision making.”
“I don’t have an SOP. It doesn’t have to be this big fancy thing, you just need to know what comes next.”

Links

[70] Scaling a Facebook Ads Agency by Staying Solo w/ Vincent Nguyen (Growth Ninja)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Today I’m talking to Vincent Nguyen (pronounced like win). He is the founder of Growth Ninja. That’s a Facebook Ads productized service. This is a very technical […]

[69] Building Products for Product People w/ Janna Bastow

Productize & Scale — Wed, 18 Jul 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I'm talking to Janna Bastow. She is the co-founder of ProdPad along with Mind The Product. Janna is a Product Manager by trade and she built her product SaaS and product community for Product Managers :) We talk about what it means to be a Product Manager. Janna does a great job clarifying that for me as sometimes that definition falls in many grey areas. We deep dive into the story of ProdPad. Her SaaS app had a great growth from 2012 and Janna has some interesting stories to share about challenges she faced. Enjoy!

Episode Notes [3:29] The origin of ProdPad and Mind The Product. Managing the 2 organizations.

"When we launched ProdPad we assumed that the typical user would look like us, tech startup with up to 50 people working alongside a Trello board; but the reality is that larger companies have larger needs and have larger interest and budgets for this app.""

[14:09] What is Product Management. How to get into it. Comparison with Project Management. [23:05] Competition. Balancing what competition is doing with listening to customers. Liabilities of building new features. When to really pay attention at competitors.

"Pay attention what the competitors are doing but don't let them change your vision on the spot."
"I like to think about competitors as what your customers would be using if you didn't exist."
"Founders are the first product managers. But after growing the team it comes a point where they can't manage the company as well as they manage the product."

[28:59] Launching and growing ProdPad. Rebuilding the SaaS to move from a timeline chart roadmap to a time horizon roadmap.

"That's the role of a project manager, to tight the big picture vision of the company with What are we doing next?"

[44:51] Challenges. The big mistake to rebuild the whole app without a clear vision, while growth flatted out for an entire year. How they had more conversions by reducing the trial time from 30 to 7 days.

"If you don't have a reliable fast app there's no point to build new features."
"I realized the only number I could play with was conversion rate from free trial to paying customer. And so we realized we didn't need more developers or more sales people, we just needed product minded people which fortunately the company already had."

[55:47] Plans and trends for 2018. The rise of Product Management.

"Nowadays we see the rise of the Chief Product Officer. So now Product Managers don't report into tech, report directly to the CEO."

Links

Janna Bastow on Twitter
Janna Bastow on LinkedIn
Janna Bastow company, ProdPad
Janna Bastow community, Mind The Product
Simon Cast, ProdPad and Mind The Product Co-Founder
ProductCamp London
Martin Eriksson - Product Tank and Mind The Product
James Mayes - Mind The Product
Jeff Last – How Good Bad Product Manager
Trello
Slack
Google Forms

[68] Traction & Growth in WordPress Maintenance as a Service w/ Joe Howard

Productize & Scale — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 06:00:00 +0000

SPECIAL WP BUFFS DISCOUNT FOR PRODUCTIZE LISTENERS

Insert PRODUCTIZEPOD at the checkout

for any of the WP Buffs productized services

CLICK HERE Today I'm talking to

Joe Howard. He is the founder of WP Buffs, a WordPress maintenance productized service that had a massive growth in the last 3 years. He also runs WPMRR a robust video course that teaches WordPress professionals how to implement, sell and execute ongoing care plans for their clients and increase their revenue every single month. Alongside that, The WPMRR WordPress podcast entirely focused on growing successful WordPress businesses and monthly recurring revenue without taking itself too seriously. We talk about Joe's journey, being a salary employee even through the launch of WP Buffs and finally going full time into his side project. Joe shares how he's been able to scale the team with freelancers and lessons learned building a remote team culture. Also structuring the productized service, analyzing competition, segmenting different customers, pricing, marketing, and more! Enjoy!

Episode Notes [7:06] How WP Buffs treats custom plugins compare to the more common ones.

"Our goals is to remove all headaches from WordPress users."

[11:49] From Public School teacher to productize business, skipping freelancing.

"The first company that hired me, they knew I didn't have the skills. But then they saw my resume and were like "Man, if you taught in Public Schools, that sounds one of the hardest jobs ever. Marketing should be a piece of cake for you!""
"The interesting part of doing work for government is that because there's so many people these portals every day, the User Experience makes a huge difference in the overall happiness of someone's day."
"That's a huge advantage of small companies, the ability to make decisions fast and move quickly."

[27:21] Launch and getting first customers. Leveraging the weak points in competition. A business model involving nurturing agencies-clients relationships

"Building websites wasn't as scalable as a process as I wanted."
"There were 3 main gaps I saw. First was in the inbound marketing area. [Having some skills, I felt I could compete there]. Second, others were not working on weekends. Third, we don't work directly with clients but with agencies."

[32:29] Running a remote team and making it feel a team. The water-cooler tactic to provoke serendipity.

"For me, the feeling of working for WP Buffs is you have all the benefits being a freelancer plus the benefits of a full-time job."
"You can feel when it's not just me driving the culture of the company, it's everyone driving it."

Links

[67] Scaling a Niche Web Design Service w/ Dustin Overbeck (Town Web)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I'm talking to Dustin Overbeck. He runs TownWeb, a web design and hosting service focused on town municipalities. It's fascinating hearing someone selling to the Government market, as my previous guest Greg Berry. A curious fact of Dustin is that basically all of his customers are based in the US, but he and his family have lived overseas for all the 11 years he was growing this business, whether in the Philippines, China, or Romania. We talk how he evolved the team to remove himself from the business, the technical aspects of running a platform with over 400 customers, moving from a custom platform to WordPress, and a bunch of other stuff. Enjoy!

Episode Notes [4:44] Selling an utility to Government. Features a municipality website has to have.

"Our motto is to make clerk's life easier, because generally that clerk is the person who receives questions for the council members, so we try to build the website to answer those questions."
"Everybody is like, can you put a checkout page and accept credit cards... and I'm: No, everybody pays us with a check. And it take weeks..."
"Selling B2G is similar to B2C, but slower. [...] Some project may take 2 years to develop because a website it's just not a priority for some municipalities."

[14:41] Payment cycles and statistics of a B2Gov business.

"The good thing about doing B2G is that they always pay. I've never had a non-sufficient funds check come through."
"Typically when people are with us, they don't want to switch around."
"That was groundbreaking back then: we were doing database-driven design before WordPress was known for anything other than blogging."

[25:35] Doing the first town websites from China, when WordPress and UpWork still didn't existed. Dealing with clients with a 12h timezone difference.

"If I have any regrets it's not hiring Filipino staff early enough to help out with technical support."
"After I went through that stage (of being afraid to outsource support), that was transformative, because it freed me up to develop other products."
"I knew their questions in the firsts 10 seconds, because when you have a productized service you have dozens of clients asking the same question."

[35:33] Lifestyle milestones. Reaching the break-even point. The problem of over-automation. The importance of a human, personal onboarding process. [44:09] Enjoying the lifestyle now. Taking flight lessons in Romania.

"We can always move back to the US, I can always go back to the Philippines. It just feels good and right being here at this moment of life."

Links

[66] Growing Multiple SaaS Products in Parallel w/ Ryan Buckley

Productize & Scale — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 06:00:00 +0000

I met Ryan Buckley at MicroConf 2018. Ryan's story is of the roller-coaster kind. He is the founder of 3 different small SaaS that he was able to fund and code himself. Before all that he built Scripted.com which was a venture-backed marketplace for hiring writers. It was interesting to hear the story of it, as is an industry I know something about. He recently published a booked about the concept of Parallel Entrepreneurship. It is about running and growing different businesses simultaneously, balancing between then, doubling on your resources, and measuring the return on those investments. Enjoy!

Episode Notes [2:44] Parallel Entrepreneurship. Learning to code his own SaaS. Philosophy to choose the front stack.

"My thesis is that your first 100 customers they're not really going to care if your page reloads [or has fancy UX]."
"The main problem that your app solves is not how slick is your UI."
"Understanding Model-View-Controller was, it, after that I feel I can build anything."

[17:48] How he got into Toofr after working on a screenwriting software. Building Scripted.com and raising up to $16 millions.

"Eventually we figured out it's a lot easier to sell blogposts than to sell screenplays."

[24:00] The different business models Scripted tried through the years. Exiting the company, through layoffs, second daughter coming, and cancer.

"It's a competitive market. There is a race to the bottom in the price per word high volume game."
"Tying back to the Parallel Entrepreneurship premise, I found a buyer for Scripted through Toofr, that was coming along at this point."

[36:34] Parallel Entrepreneurship 2, or managing multiple ventures.

"The high level concept is finding win-win-win situation."

[40:40] Context switching, or switching between learning mode and administrative mode.

"The next version of this Parallel Entrepreneurship lifestyle is to not being completely solo."

Links

[65] Agency Matchmaking as a Service w/ John Doherty

Productize & Scale — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I'm talking to John Doherty, from GetCredo.com. Credo is an interesting marketplace where if you need SEO services for your business they will match you with an SEO agency. High touch SEO agency matchmaking as a service if you will. John is a long SEO expert himself. He helps his clients better understand the process of hiring an SEO agency, and he helps agencies get matched up with better clients, well vetted, and qualified every step of the way through. It is very interesting the angle from which John facilitates all the process from start to finish, in a subject which is cloudy to most of us. Enjoy!

Episode Notes [3:24] How Credo differentiates from a traditional marketplace.

"I'm kind of an agency for marketing agencies."

[14:40] The day to day of an SEO professional. Building a marketing team.

"An in-house SEO does a lot of meetings, because SEO involves the marketing team (content writing), the development team (technical fixes), the PR team (getting back links), the finance team (getting budget), the analytics team (measure the work done)."
"The works of an SEO are never done. We call it a job security because there's always more to be done."

[24:40] How agencies outsource SEO services. Why John did not go the agency model.

"Startups have trouble hiring marketers because they don't know how to measure it, to keep them accountable."
"I feel I'm on a crusade to make marketers grow up to business people."

[30:50] Launching Credo. Why a model where email is obscured like UpWork does, does not work with six figures transactions.

"I won't refer bad clients. My agencies are OK with that, because they want me to send them good clients. I save them from the bad clients."
"When I was running it as a marketplace, 5% of clients introduced to agencies were closing into a project. Now it's 25%, which is above industry average for this business."

[37:03] Credo's process to onboard clients. Avoiding client ghosting.

"When you are the expert it's hard to be OK with something not being done ideally."

Links

[64] Designing a Better YouTube (as a SaaS) w/ Jason Schuller & Chris Molitor

Productize & Scale — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I'm talking to a friend of mine, Jason Schuller. We go back to the times of Wordpress themes when he ran Press75, one of the early popular theme shops. He since sold that business and has gone on to design focusing on simplicity and minimalism. More recently he and his partner Chris Molitor came together to build Rivyt, a really cool idea where you can basically drop in your YouTube channel URL and it instantly generates a beautiful looking website pulling all your video descriptions. We talk about how they came to the idea, the design concept, the launch on Product Hunt and learning from early users. Enjoy!

Episode Notes [3:00] How Rivyt works and the problem with YouTube.

"We solve a problem for the sub 1 million subscribers content creators: recommended videos. If they send viewers to their website instead of their channel, they avoid people getting lost through the YouTube's recommended videos rabbit hole."

[12:42] Where the concept of a better YouTube channel came from.

"I wanted to leave that world of downloadable products. It's a headache in terms of support and from start to finish it was a long process. Whereas with a SaaS approach there's the possibility for instant experience."

[14:35] How to approach the tech side of the project from a designer background.

"Wordpress was the easiest way for us to take this idea and get it off the ground, in short time and for zero dollars."
"I can't sit down with a book and learn Javascript. I have to take something that already exists, break it apart and figure how it works."

[23:06] Launching on Product Hunt. Trying different pricing models, and on-boarding without the need to register.

"You can actually jump in, create a website without even registering."
"The price point helps communicate expectations."

[29:56] Integrating customer feedback with their experience building video related plugins. Including Amazon referral links and comments.

"We've heard from some subscribers that it's the thing they've been waiting for. They've tried Squarespace, they've tried WordPress, it just got too complicated from them."
"We've got just 1 cancel subscription."

Links

[64] Designing a Better YouTube (as a SaaS) w/ Jason Schuller & Chris Molitor

Productize & Scale — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Episode Notes

[3:00] How Rivyt works and the problem with YouTube.

"We solve a problem for the sub 1 million subscribers content creators: recommended videos. If they send viewers to their website instead of their channel, they avoid people getting lost through the YouTube's recommended videos rabbit hole."

[12:42] Where the concept of a better YouTube channel came from.

"I wanted to leave that world of downloadable products. It's a headache in terms of support and from start to finish it was a long process. Whereas with a SaaS approach there's the possibility for instant experience."

[14:35] How to approach the tech side of the project from a designer background.

"Wordpress was the easiest way for us to take this idea and get it off the ground, in short time and for zero dollars."
"I can't sit down with a book and learn Javascript. I have to take something that already exists, break it apart and figure how it works."

[23:06] Launching on Product Hunt. Trying different pricing models, and on-boarding without the need to register.

"You can actually jump in, create a website without even registering."
"The price point helps communicate expectations."

[29:56] Integrating customer feedback with their experience building video related plugins. Including Amazon referral links and comments.

"We've heard from some subscribers that it's the thing they've been waiting for. They've tried Squarespace, they've tried WordPress, it just got too complicated from them."
"We've got just 1 cancel subscription. Churn of 1."

Links

[63] Growing a SaaS from 0 to 5000 Photographer Customers w/ Nate Grahek (Sticky Albums)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I'm talking to Nate Grahek from StickyAlbums.com and Sticky.blog. He offers products for professional and prosumer photographers business owners. Nate shares lots of interesting tactics he used over the years to dig into the professional photographers niche. He had an amazing growth from 0 to 5000 paying customers in just 2 years. Nate is very talkative and open. We talk about viral marketing tactics where his clients are the ones to help spread the word. Also, we talk about growing a team but keeping it lean and mean and quitting his job to dive full time in his project. Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[6:48] How Nate had the blip to create Sticky Albums while shooting high school senior portraits on the side.

"My second product looked very good on paper, but after 2 months it fizzled out. I required my customers to do too much, to change too much."

[15:30] Big Groupon style launch for the concept. Delivering the SaaS in 30 days.

"I was doing 8 hours at the day job and 8 hours at night [for Sticky Albums]. It was pretty bad. But I wouldn't do other way. I didn't risk anything other than my time."
"I judge somebody's expertise on how accurately they can estimate something will take."

[26:53] Paying to access other people's audiences to promote the product. Leaving the 9 to 5, family, and first hires.

"So many entrepreneurs make this mistake. It's not the idea, it's not the product, it's your domain expertise that really have saved you."
"It's like, you have day job, business, social life, family. Pick 2."

[34:21] How to know when to hire and when to build new products.

"The old corporate model to interview 20 people to see if we can predict if you are a fit... it's like an exercise in futility. Let's just try it with a small project!"
"The lesson I continued to learn was making sure I maintain trust with my customers."

[45:48] Using Videos to communicate with everyone, even when replying to customers and hiring.

"I can save so much time in a 5min screen recording than I could ever write in a 30 minute email with images and arrows and crap."

Links

Nate Grahek on Twitter
Nate Grahek's first product, StickyAlbums
Nate Grahek blog, Sticky.Blog
Sticky Products
Drip
Bootstrapped Web Podcast with Jordan Gal
Animoto on Amazon AWS
Mixergy
Lean Startup Book
Groupon
Rework Book
Adobe AIR
Clay Collins, founder of LeadPages
Loom
Soapbox Wistia
Calendly

[62] How Allan Branch Turned a Crazy Project Into a YouTube TV Show

Productize & Scale — Wed, 30 May 2018 06:00:00 +0000

It's always fun to catch up with Allan Branch from LessAccounting and LessEverything. He's been involved in all sorts of different interesting business. This year Allan and his family bought a warehouse in Panama City (FL), turned into their home, and turned it into a YouTube show which then they sold to Lowe's. After hearing that, I've said to myself: I've had to get Allan on the show. So we've got all into that, from finding the estate to finding sponsors and selling the show. We've got also into his next project, a brewery how he's been running LessFilms (a video production company for SaaS businesses) and all his other projects. Enjoy!

Episode Notes [1:56] Converting a warehouse into a family's house and sharing the process on YouTube.

"Steve and I always said that the business is here for the business' owners to use and abuse to build the life we want."

[8:44] Involving LessFilms in the process. Getting sponsors. [19:37] The aftermath of the show. The good and the bad.

"I could have made more money writing software than shooting the show."

[23:27] Landscape of Allan's projects.

"Your business can be your prison or your playground."

[27:48] The Brewery project.

"Going with distribution reminds me of a lifestyle business vs funded startups. If you go with them it's all about sales people, huge equipment, front-loading costs, going big, scale scale scale..."
"Breweries have great profit margins and they are socially accepted."
"I basically just want a reason to recreate the craziness of LessConf every week."

[33:00] Comparison between software and real estate development. Leaving a legacy to the community.
Links

[61] Using Humor in Copywriting w/ Lianna Patch

Productize & Scale — Wed, 23 May 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today you're going to hear my conversation with Lianna Patch from Punchline Copy and SNAP. Lianna is a copywriter that writes funny sales copy, and focuses working with SaaS and ecommerce companies. I met Lianna at MicroConf Vegas where she gave a really good talk about humor in copy. I find fascinating when people take a creative skill and merge it with a freelancing or productize service career in some sort of marketing service like copywriting. We talk about tips when using both research and data-driven insights with humor to resonate more with your target audience, her stand-up and comedy background, and how she productized her copywriting consulting. Enjoy!

Episode Notes [4:15] How Lianna came to mix copywriting with humor. Systematizing the discovery of a client's style.

"There's a lot of things that work on the same level between improv and copywriting, like the rule of 3."
"What was going on in your life that brought you to solve this problem?"

[16:19] Principles to include humor in the copy. Including Easter-eggs in the text. How a typical project looks like.

"When I'm making jokes on a piece of copy I never want to sacrifice the message of the copy itself."

[23:41] What kind of humor works best to each audience. How it is a outsourcing copywriting. Working side by side with the designer.

"Design needs to support copy and vice-versa."

[30:28] How Lianna is getting her clients. The importance of a fast turnaround. The buy-my-day model and the credits model.

"Audit all your copy assets for the word we where in fact it should say you."

PS: If you know of someone who has an interesting story or angle that you think would make for a great episode here in the Productize Podcast, I'll really appreciate if you suggest them at www.staging.productizepodcast.flywheelsites.com/suggest.
Links

Lianna Patch on Twitter
Lianna Patch’s companies, Punchline Copy and SNAP
Lianna's talk at MicroConf
MicroConf Vegas
Joanna Wiebe from Copy Hackers on the Productize Podcast
Etsy
Balsamiq
Case Study Buddy

[60] Learning to Code (And Buy) Your Own Businesses w/ Ryan Kulp

Productize & Scale — Wed, 16 May 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today you'll hear my conversation with Ryan Kulp. I stumbled upon his stuff while I was googling as I'm trying to learn to code this year. He wrote a great article that caught my attention and once I started reading that, I started digging into everything he's been working on. Ryan is the co-founder of Fomo, a social proof app growing rapidly this year, among many other interesting side projects. We cover how he figured out coding on his own and how he gets into all this random projects and businesses ideas. Enjoy!

Episode Notes [6:40] Getting into coding to scale marketing efforts (rather than to get a job in tech).

"If I'm going to stay in this industry 40 years and build something important, I have to know what I'm talking about (related to technology)."

[17:18] Isolating in Thailand to learn to code. Launching the first app in 6 weeks.

"I made $6700 airbnbing my apartment in NY, which costed me $2100 to rent. With that, I could live comfortably in Thailand, paying $310 all inclusive for a similar apartment. With this hack I was able to make a profit by not working."
"In a meta-sense, it's all about learning how to learn."
"Time and pressure, that's how's learning to code."

[28:50] MKAY, the private micro equity fund. The math behind $1k to $20k in MRR SaaS acquisitions.

"A lot of founders are stuck on the Fisherman's parable."

[39:38] Criteria to buy an app. Building a pool of investors and Ryan's strategy to raise money.

"The first to market usually do it best. Competitor #30 that says 'I'm going to make it better', they mean 'I'm going to make it cheaper'."

[47:50] Fomo and Fomo Publishers.

"Word of mouth and referral marketing is the highest converting channel."
"Nobody cares what you say about you. People care what other people say about you."

Links

[59] Software Testing as a Service... And a Community w/ Rosie Sherry

Productize & Scale — Wed, 09 May 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I'm talking to Rosie Sherry. She runs Ministry of Testing, a thriving community for software testers. Software testers are people who test software application and websites. They test the user experience and check that all features are working properly and that there aren't any foreseeing risks or vulnerabilities. Testing is an extremely important piece of the puzzle when you build a product. Rosie has built up this membership community with free and private areas, courses, and organizes a lot of conferences. We talk about what is testing, what's involved, and how she's been able to build a thriving community over the past several years. Enjoy!

Episode Notes [3:12] What is Ministry of Testing. Being a professional software tester.

"Creating content is really hard work, and creating good content is even harder."

[10:52] The importance of running tests professionally. Common traits of successful testers.

"If I have to roughly split testing methods, I'd split it into the Old World and New World, non-Agile or Agile."
"Testers are probably one of the only people in a business talking to everybody else, because they want to understand the product as much as possible."
"Testing is more than finding bugs. It's looking for risks and how can people understand the risks."

[21:09] How Rosie got into testing and got into creating a community after having two kids. [27:29] Attracting the first members and bringing the community to over 20k participants. The importance of the "human connection".

"What the software testing world suffers a lot from is being... so corporate."
"One of the reasons I started the conference, is because all the conferences out there, the speakers are sold to vendors."

[36:20] Team, milestones, and revenue through 3 channels. How a guy from the community became the CEO.

"Most of the people we hired came through the community. That shows the real passion for what we do."

Links

Rosie Sherry on Twitter
Rosie Sherry’s company-community, Ministry of Testing
Atlassian
Seth Godin
Ning
Discourse

[58] How to Manage a Software Product Dev Process w/ The Carthook Team

Productize & Scale — Wed, 02 May 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I’ve got a unique one because this episode is cross posted from my other show Bootstrapped Web, co-hosted with Jordan Gal.

Jordan is the co-founder of Carthook, a product for eCommerce stores which handles abandoned carts but it also has a 1-page checkout for Shopify.

Jordan Gal, Ben Fisher and Rok Knez join us in this episode to talk about their product development process.

It’s very interesting to hear all 3 perspectives: Jordan’s as the non-technical sales/marketing head, Ben as the technical one, head of product and design, and Rok, the technical lead.

We talk about their tech stack, their choices and how they’ve switched tech, how they prioritize what to build next, and how to get the entire team to participate.

A lot of nuggets specially interesting for software developers or if you are in a team environment.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[6:40] Why most Carthook Engineers come from Slovenia. Handing design to a project based contractor.

“When you bootstrap, everything is risk. Everything that is unknown like the relationship with an Engineer is risky.”
“Where designers are most valuable are establishing a style guide effectively.”

[11:53] What is the tech stack for Carthook today. Moving from Digital Ocean to AWS for scaling.

“In the beginning they kept coming to me involving the word money in the technical decisions. ‘You fools, we are trying to build something worth a hundred million dollars, don’t tell we are going to save a hundred bucks. Spend where it’s meaningful to spend!‘”

[16:19] How the software evolved in terms of technology used, pursuing loading time and reliability optimization.

“You choose technology on what you know, and then, what you know changes, so you have to go back.”
“We were taking a huge risk building a second product when the first one barely started to get traction.”

[25:04] 3-Questions frameworks to decide which feature to build next. Tools to capture costumer insights.

“It doesn’t matter if you have a good process if you don’t have a clear goal.”

[33:46] Involving the whole company in the process. Managing progress from day to day while managing staff in different countries.

“If we want higher quality from the output, we have to invest in better inputs.”

[51:08] What’s next.

“When you start off alone you get most of your joy interacting with people. When you start to grow your team, most of your joy and fun and challenges comes from your colleagues.”

Links

[57] Building a “Minimal” Business With “Minimal” SEO w/ Dan Ray

Productize & Scale — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I’m talking to Dan Ray from Ray Digital Marketing and DanRay.me.

He is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and, specifically, a link building specialist. Link Building, building links back to websites, is a key component of SEO.

SEO get a bad reputation sometimes. It can be taught to break through the noise and the trust barrier, because there are so many shady players in the world of SEO, mainly related to black-hat SEO.

I just like how open and transparent Dan has been with the way he presents himself and his services. We talk about some interesting turns that he’s had along the way from building up to 6 figures per month in service income and then ramping down, only to build it back up again.

And of course we talk tactics about SEO and building individual links to your website.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[5:16] Dan’s philosophy to cap his maximum revenue per client and intentional ceiling his income.

[8:29] Building the team for the first operation.

[11:55] How Dan got into SEO. The point Dan understood he had to build systems to run his business.

“My thinking was, I need to be able to go into hospital and retain my clients. I need to stop being a freelancer.”

[16:06] Turning points and restricting personal time to clients.

“If you are providing 100k£ worth of services, you are getting 100k£ worth of stress.”

[20:11] Closing down the business, and rebuilding it up again. What’s different this time.

[25:06] How the process looks like from the client’s point view. Common places to get back-links. Types of links.

“90% of links come from the follow-up.”

[32:57] Competing for attention in outreach cold emailing.

[37:41] How Dan’s clients think in terms of results. The “Transparency Strategy”.

“By not selling SEO and just link building as a standalone thing, my only responsibility is to do what I said I’ll do.”

[41:11] Community and his strategy to sell high ticket training.

Links

[56] Building a Service That Keeps You Healthy & Productive w/ Dr. Alexis Shields

Productize & Scale — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 06:00:00 +0000

[55] Building Software for Hiring Software Engineers w/ Vincent Woo

Productize & Scale — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today you’re going to hear my conversation with Vincent Woo. He is the founder of CoderPad.io, a software that helps companies hire Software Engineers.

The software is pretty cool. I, as the interviewer, can see in real time on the screen the interviewee writing and rendering code.

But we’re not getting too technical on this interview. We talk about how he came up with the idea after working at Amazon and Google.

He needed to hire people himself and found a pain point when running into troubles. He built the tool on the side. Is impressive how he managed to reach high revenues with a small team of 4.

We talk about all what he learnt along the way such as selling to enterprise, to figuring out pricing, to showing a live demo before asking for payment, and more.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[1:28] Vincent’s bad experience at the biggest software companies, Amazon and Google.

“I started programming to cheat at videogames.”
“I never though Dilbert cartoons were real until Amazon.”

[10:25] A refreshing experience at a small clothing startup company.

“The environment is the biggest issue. When people change, they change because of their immediate environment.”

[14:13] How Vincent started CoderPad after endless frustrating hiring interviews with software companies.

“It’s absurd you are asked a bunch of computer programming but don’t ask computers to run it.”
“Google still requires people to write code on Google Docs to do a phone screen interview.”

[21:48] First customers and getting customers without a blog.

[28:02] Pricing and don’t being afraid to charge more. What’s behind the Enterprise form.

“Having the buyer been totally educated before you are entering a price negotiation, I think is very valuable.”

[34:31] Team and keeping everything small.

Links

[54] Automating a SaaS to World Traveling w/ Brandon Pearce

Productize & Scale — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today you are going to hear my conversation with Brandon Pearce. He is running a couple different things.

Brandon is the founder of Music Teacher’s Helper, a SaaS niched down into the music teaching space. What’s interesting is that he’s been running that for over 14 years. He built it up, he automated it, he’s got a team in place, and he completely removed himself from the day to day. That allowed him and his family to travel the world full-time!

Brandon is very much running the location independent lifestyle. He and his wife have really dove in into that whole world and built a whole community around that. That what’s they publish and write about, and run conferences and events over on PearceOnEarth.com.

Really interesting talking about that whole location independent thing, something that I’m forever interested in and fascinated by, and I know that a lot of founders and online business owners like us we do have that option available to us.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:54] How Brandon came to build Music Teacher’s Helper. Spinning of.

“It’s easier to support a musician’s hobby on a programmer’s salary, not the other way around.”

[11:10] Bootstrapping Marketing. Conferences. Offering free websites to teachers.

[13:42] Scaling and removing himself from the business. Constantly developing new features.

“There’s a misconception with SaaS that you can reach a point where you write the whole thing and then you’re done.”

[17:40] Pearce On Earth. Traveling full-time. Wolrdschooling kids.

“In Utah, we were pulled in many directions, but we felt we were stagnating in our growth.”
“Somebody close passed away and it woke us up to the fact that life can be really short.”

[27:20] Friends, family, and long term relationships while traveling.

“I don’t think it takes years and years of living in one location to develop meaningful relationships.”
“You have to learn to say goodbye.”

[30:59] Family Adventure Summit. Annual event for families interested in long term travel, alternative education, entrepreneurship.

“The family leading the How To Travel Affordably academy was traveling for the past 6 years on a $25k budget a year. 2 kids, 40 countries!”

Links

Brandon Pearce on Twitter
Brandon Pearce’s company, Music Teacher’s Helper
Brandon Pearce’s blog, Pearce On Earth
Family Adventure Summit
Into the Wind – Documentary
San Miguel de Allende on Wikipedia
Basecamp
Music Teacher’s National Association
4 Hour Work Week

[53] The Art of Great Copywriting w/ Sean D’Souza

Productize & Scale — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 06:00:00 +0000

On the show today, Sean D’Souza, the well-known copywriter and marketing “thinker” from PsychoTactics. He has a membership site called 5000bc and he’s most well known for his incredible book on copywriting, the Brain Audit.

The Brain Audit really made a big impact to me when I read it a few years ago, so it was a thrill to talk to Sean today, and pick his brain about just a strategic kind of psychological-based approach to writing really strong marketing copy for any sort of product.

We also got into his story, where he came from and how he built up his business, and a lot on his lifestyle. We talk about how he takes 3 months of vacations every single year, thing that he’s been doing for about 10 years.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[1:46] Sean’s approach to copywriting and business. Focusing on the 3rd conversion instead of the 1st.

“What we have today is a lot of information. But we don’t end up whit a lot of skill. My goal is to give someone not more information, but skill.”
“I can proud myself, I am a marketer that does very little marketing.”
“The key to business is to get people to come back to you. I’m focusing on the third conversion, not the first conversion.”

[6:25] Sean’s past as a cartoonist. Persistence. The simplest way to start a business.

[16:28] Consulting, training and product: the 3 parts of a business’ system.

“The companies that do really well do the least amount of consulting.”
“Why do you start a business? Nobody starts to make a million dollar. They start because they want a better life, which usually means more time.”

[18:40] How to make the transition to more leverage and less consulting.

“The most important thing in a business is time. The most important thing in life is time. So, if you are going to waste your clients’ time, it doesn’t matter how much you’ll charge, they are going to leave.”

[22:10] What makes a membership site interesting, and how to keep the value long term.

“If people don’t know people, they’ll leave.”
“For me, every time someone leaves a job it’s not because of a better salary, but because ‘the people here are not as great as I thought they would be’.”

[31:26] Three months vacations. The formula to set an earnings goal. Work momentum vs Vacation momentum.

“The right question is not How do I take 3 months off? but is Can I meet the goals in 9, 10, or 11 months instead of 12?“

[37:14] Copywriting firsts steps for a new project. Incorporating storytelling.

“The first thing is define a human being. Do not do personas, do not look at target audiences, do not make anything from your computer.”
“Often, research will tell you what you want to hear.”

Links

[52] How Nathan Barry 10x’d ConvertKit

Productize & Scale — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Got a good one for you today, I’m talking to Nathan Barry, founder of ConvertKit.

Nathan runs an impressive self-funded business for a long time now. Nathan started with info-products, books, training and apps. Finally he ended up building ConvertKit, the email marketing SaaS application, which has had a really impressive growth.

It’s always great to catch up with Nathan, because, as many of you already know his story especially from the earlier years, I could dive in in to the questions I wanted to ask him. We covered many topics that you probably haven’t heard elsewhere.

We dug into some of the tactical outbound sales strategy that he used early on in ConvertKit and how that scaled to today. Also, we talked how he was able to grow the team, and his thoughts on staying profitable and self funded, and when to invest cash into your business.

Lot’s of insightful and inspiring stuff with Nathan. Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:26] Early Sales process and niching down. Tactics in building the lists to outreach. Twitter for discovering people. Exact email sequence he used to cold outreach bloggers.

“I don’t think you can do cold outreach if don’t have a really specific market, because you are not building up the momentum. The reason you do cold outreach is to get that momentum in a specific area, so it feels like everyone is using your product.”

[13:40] What led Nathan to do cold sales email outreach every single day. Scaling the outreach process. Meeting clients in their cities.

“Hopefully there will come a time that you desire to make this product a success will out-weight your fears of getting out of your comfort zone.”

[23:51] Self-funding. Profitability. 2-questions framework to feeling confident to invest our personal money into the business, or shutdown.

“That gave me the confidence to looking back, if it’d failed, I’d have been able to say ‘yep, I gave my best shot and didn’t work out‘, rather than always asking ‘could it have worked?‘.”

[30:48] Keeping costs in check. Embedding frugality in the company’s culture.

“Money was not an option to solve problems. We had to do it in a different way.”
“I think a lot of bootstrappers use bootstrapping as an excuse for laziness.”

[37:17] How marketing looks in 2018 for ConvertKit. Why they are organizing a conference.

“Education is a huge thing for us, teaching people how to earn a living online.”
“We help creators earn a living.”

Links

People Mentioned

[51] Growing an Amazon-Focused Agency w/ Kiri Masters (Bobsled Marketing)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Got a really good one today with Kiri Masters. She is the founder of Bobsled Marketing. You’re not going to forget that name, it’s… hey, the Bobsled Team!

They are a marketing agency for Amazon sellers. They help businesses that sell on Amazon optimize their whole product funnels and “give them a push”, going with the bobsled metaphor.

We talk all about her journey from quitting her job to starting this consulting business just for herself, and within months, bringing on a few people. Now, 3 years in, she has a team of 21 people all running marketing services for Amazon sellers.

We talk about delegating, building systems and processes. We also touch on content marketing, involving her team and developing each personal’s brand as an holistic way of building trust with her clients.

As a bonus, we talk about selling a book on Amazon as a lead generation tool.

Lot of really good insights here from Kiri. Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:55] The story behind Bobsled’s name. What an agency focused on Amazon do. Working for free to gain experience and authority.

“I was pretty resistant to Amazon for a long time ’cause I had this opinion that it was not a place for branded products.”
“I decided to give a shot and I saw a dramatic increase in sales on Amazon fairly quickly.”
“I told my first clients: if you don’t make money, we don’t make money, we are motivated to success.”

[13:03] How Kiri’s moved from a performance based fee to a monthly retainer. Experimenting with pricing and contracts.

[16:44] What the team looks like. On-boarding the very first employee. Planning for maternity leave.

“A key milestone was promoting Julie to Operations Manager and planning for really not being available at all for 3 months. It was important to prove everyone that it was possible.”
“I think that by trying to protect our company and do everything ourselves, we can be a little bit selfish. We should give people the opportunity to step up.”

[25:57] What happens after filling in the consultation form on Bobsled website. Coordination between sales and ops to offer a customized project. Difficulties to productize in the Amazon space.

[30:21] Bobsled’s content marketing secret. Developing team member’s personal brand.

[33:59] A book on Amazon as a lead generation tool.

“It was very instrumental in building credibility for the company.”
“You want to establish credibility. You are establishing that credibility through your company”

[39:45] Trends for 2018. Trust as the differentiation in a crowded market.

“A lot of equity analysts are saying Amazon’s going to be the third competitor among Facebook and Google paid search.”
“I anticipate pressures from both sides. And that is case in any growth industry.”

Links

Kiri Masters on Twitter
Kiri Masters’s company, Bobsled Marketing
The Amazon Expansion Plan book by Kiri Masters
The ECommerce BrainTrust Podcast
I Like That Lamp
Dynatime Circle
Kiri on The Tropical MBA Podcast 1, 2, 3, 4
Etsy
Amazon
Kickstarter
Julie Spears
Kat Boogaard on the Productize Podcast
Sheryl Sandberg
Scott Galloway from L2 Consulting
Jordan Gal on the Bootstrapped Web podcast
Rob Walling from Drip

[50] Pricing… Intelligently w/ Patrick Campbell (ProfitWell)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 06:00:00 +0000

You are going to hear my conversation with Patrick Campbell, founder of ProfitWell and Price Intelligently.

Patrick helps companies price intelligently, and his companies mix services with software products or how they put it, tech-enabled services.

We talk through Patrick story, how he started with the service side of the business, but then leveraging that to fund the launch of his freemium SaaS product, Profit Well, with some premium add-ons layered on that.

Of course I couldn’t let Patrick go without picking his brain about pricing strategy and how to figure out how to price your services or your software products and where to focus your attention in those areas.

We also talk about content strategy. They’ve been doing a lot with video in the last year too, taking a new approach to that.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[4:17] From Google to bootstrapping a 10M MRR company in 6 years. Why they considered themselves a tech-enabled service and not a consulting company.

“We found that people didn’t want to do the work [of loading the data into the platform], and this is a problem we see with most products that we see, they require the user to do a lot of work.”
“Small changes in your price can create giant holes in your revenue or giant spikes in your revenue”

[11:58] Pitfalls trying to productize. Reconsidering business after competitors launched before you.

“The best customer development is someone paying you to do something even though it may not be what the product ever becomes.”

[20:32] How to make Freemium model a viable business. Converting trial users in paying users.

“If you can reduce someone’s churn you can have a really good pricing model because you can charge based on how much you’ve recovered.”

[29:05] Top of the funnel marketing content through different media.

[36:47] Pricing in Productized vs SaaS. How a service business can have 90% margins.

“Unless you have a commodity business, the first thing to realize is that there’s no perfect pricing.”
“A services business can have the same margins as a SaaS.”

[43:37] When does the Freemium model make sense? How to figure out the first price point? 4 questions to ask your target customers.

“The biggest thing to keep in mind is that Freemium is an acquisition model, it is not a revenue model.”
“As human beings we don’t see value as a point, we see it as a spectrum.”

Links

Patrick Campbell on Twitter
Patrick Campbell’s companies, Price Intelligently and ProfitWell
Gemvara
Blue Nile
Litmus
Baremetrics
Josh Pigford from Baremetrics on the Productize Podcast
How freemium nearly caused our business to implode – Baremetrics’ Blog
ChartMogul
Nick Franklin from ChartMogul
Stripe
Brian Balfour
Sean Ellis
Wistia

[49] Community-Driven Marketing for a WordPress Product w/ Chris Badgett (LifterLMS)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Today I’m talking to Chris Badgett, Co-Founder of LifterLMS (Lifter Learning Management System). That’s a very popular WordPress plugin for creating a course and/or a membership site. I’m actually using it myself for the Productize Course.

Chris’s done an incredibly job building a community around his product and brand. He has done a lot with Facebook Groups and connecting with customer on a regular daily basis, and Chris shares his unique tactics for this.

We talk about the WordPress market using the Freemium model. Chris knows this space very well and I think there’s huge opportunity in this ecosystem.

Then of course, we talk about combining services with software products. At Lifter they’ve been doing it with great effect, offering their course software plugins, with done-for-you setting up course/membership sites.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[1:36] From helicopters in Alaska to building websites, to building WordPress plug-ins.

“So I really understand the psychology and the mind of the course creator and membership site builder because I am one.”
“The big challenge is client work always cannibalizes the product stuff. So you have to treat it as a separate company.”

[10:44] Transitioning from Paid to Freemium Add-On or Appstore model.

“I wanted to be premium from the beginning. I just see people struggling with stuff that’s way too cheap.”
“We wanted to have a free front-end product, but it was very important for validation that the very first version was going to be paid.”
“People needed it to be flexible, so the add-on model is really helpful.”
“We’ve really invested a lot in helping other developers build products for Lifter.”

[17:12] Building Community. Specific tactics, tips and rituals to build community.

“Building community is about habits.”
“It’s a sign of a healthy group that you don’t have to do the [group] moderation alone.”

[30:48] Matching services to go with the product.

“By hanging out with the community a lot you don’t take for granted where you are and how you are different from your customer.”

Links

Chris Badgett on Twitter
Chris Badgett’s product, LifterLMS
Chris Badgett’s Web Agency
Chris’ Organic Permaculture courses
Productize Course
Tropical MBA podcast
Phil Derksen
Lifter LMS VIP Facebook Group
Mandi Ellefson on the Productize Podcast
Brian Casel on LMS Cast
Drift Chatbot
LMS Partial Scholarships
Books mentioned

[48] Bootstrapping Software Products w/ Ian Landsman

Productize & Scale — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 06:00:00 +0000

It’s the Productize Podcast 2018, Happy New Year!

Back out to January, it’s cold outside but here I am, staying warm inside recording podcasts.

Today I meet Ian Landsman. He is the founder of UserScape. Ian’s been around for few years now, bootstrapping and sustaining a self-funded software company.

Ian’s been involved in quite few different projects. HelpSpot, the help-desk software it’s been the bread and butter, but he’s been heavily involved in the Laravel/PHP community – he built a job board, a conference, and a recruiting service.

In this interview we talk about a new product that he is just getting off the ground this year, a SaaS with the freemium model called Thermostat.io.

We talk about marketing and shady tactics, and how to play it straight in 2018, and why that’s what works.

Also, we talk about bootstrapping, stair-stepping and sustaining a business and having the flexibility to take it slow.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:39] Involving yourself in many projects.

“That’s something nobody talks about. [Being an independent founder] you can choose to go as slow as you want.”

[11:33] LaraTalent. Building a marketplace in the HR space.

[23:09] Shady marketing tactics. The importance of building a Community. Community vs Audience.

“We are still picking your solution because you think about the problem the way we think about the problem.“

[32:17] Thermostat.io. building a Net Promoter Score surveys (NPS). Freemium vs Paid.

“Businesses like NPS surveys because they have a single number to track customer satisfaction.”
“The whole point is to get you so fanatical that you are doing 9 and 10.”

[50:25] Thoughts on business models for 2018.

“Days of easy wins are gone.”
“People may not buy software forever, but they’ll want somebody do they work for them forever.”

Links

Ian Landsman on Twitter
Ian Landsman’s umbrella company, UserScape and other projects
Ian’s co-hosted podcast, Bootstrapped.fm
Ian on the Bootstrapped Web podcast
HelpSpot
Ian’s Laravel/PHP related initiatives
Thermostat.io
Big Snow Tiny Conf
Shady Tactics – Ian Landsman’s blogpost
Zendesk

[47] 3 Productized Service Founders Compare Notes

Productize & Scale — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Really really good episode for you today. I’m excited for you to hear it.

It’s a round table with Craig Hewitt, founder of PodcastMotor, and Russ Perry, from Design Pickle.

The three of us all running productized service businesses of varying shapes, sizes, and phases of growth.

We compare notes and share our experiences about why we started a service business in the first place, what where our first growing pains, how we were able to remove ourselves and what it looks today into growing sometimes massive teams with layers of management.

Then of course, we talk taking the turn into software products which is kind of a trend these days with a lot of productized service businesses taking that next step.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[9:00] Why Russ and Craig started a service business instead of a software company.

“I was broke. I needed money now. So I was motivated to get it going and launch it.” Russ
“The business model tends to build on itself as opposed to software.” Craig
“If initially you are limited to only software, or only training, there is kind of a limit to number of available problems you are able to solve.” Brian
“What’s the fastest way to reach a launching-to-revenue point where I can pay my own salary and fund new products down the road?” Brian

[14:49] Pricing and money conversation.

“Just raise your prices, you’ll probably have same trajectory of growth but with better clients and less headaches.” Craig
“Clients want to buy services like they buy products on Amazon.” Brian

[18:53] Russ plays the host: How to deal with Haters?

[25:12] Craig plays the host: How to grow 3x?

[28:15] Removing ourselves from the business. Thoughts on hiring.

“We created a hierarchy of advancement. Everyone comes in at the same level. We don’t hire at a manager level. We don’t hire at a level other than designers.” Russ

[41:46] Why going to other products and not just keep growing the service.

“A SaaS product is worth a ton more money for the same revenue. A software product business is more predictable.” Craig
“Design Pickle was the stepping stone to my SaaS empire, and… that didn’t happen” Russ
“The problem is our businesses are growable but not as scalable as a Saas could be.” Brian

[50:27] Work balance managing the services and the products development.

Links

[46] Productizing Course Creation w/ Janet Kafadar

Productize & Scale — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Janet Kafadar focuses on the online courses, online membership, online training space. Her clients are anyone who needs to launch, set-up, maintain, grow their online training.

Janet followed a similar path to the one that I took and I think, many people in the Productize Course have taken.

She left her full-time job, then went freelancing on her own doing generalized consulting work. Finally she transitioned pretty quickly to a productized service model which has allowed her to grow and scale up her team.

Janet discuss the importance to focus on her most ideal costumer and how important is the on-boarding process.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[1:36] Details of Janet’s product. One-time project vs recurring. Tools used.

“My clients call me the course midwife.”

[11:24] Tools

“Clickfunnels comes as a great an entry point: is what people think they need, but then once they get in they are ‘Oh, I don’t know if this is what I really needed‘.”

[13:47] How Janet came with the idea of helping entrepreneurs create better courses after purchasing low quality ones.

“It’s my job to make sure I’m working with the right clients, because it’s my job to make sure the people I work with want to create something that really, truly, helps someone get to an outcome.”
“People didn’t know how to put what they wanted to say onto paper.”

[27:09] From coaching services to a done-for-you product. Why Janet avoids selling marketing services.

[37:57] YouTube as a marketing channel and keeping a small team.

“If you want to bring a new team member you have to be prepared to train them.”

Links

[45] Selling a Product to Governments w/ Greg Berry

Productize & Scale — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Greg Berry is the founder of Municibid, a marketplace for government organizations and agencies to sell their stuff, like cars, trucks, police cars, educational equipment, furniture, electronics, lawn and leaf maintenance, engines, electronics… I’m just seeing about everything on their site.

Greg comes from a background in serving in public office. That led him to discover this major problem: gov agencies accumulating a lot of stuff and not getting the full value from it.

We talk about building products for and selling to governments. What it’s like to work inside gov, the mentalities, and the problems they are facing that need to be solved one way or another. We talk about the inefficiencies and, at least, my frustrations with technology and how gov’s approach technology and why they seem to be living in the stone age.

This conversation gave me a lot of insights to think about, I’m sure it will do the same for you. Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:29] Where the idea of Municibid comes from. How Greg ended at his city council and what looks like working at a public elected office.

[13:21] Mentality and requirements at governments. How an entrepreneur can fit a business in public spaces.

“[At the council,] we have a list of problems, and we have to work them with a political agenda beside them.”
“The biggest challenge was getting governments to try something new.”
“I’ve got some municipalities to try it and it worked so well that they thought there was something wrong.”
“The challenge of working with governments is an opportunity for entrepreneurs.”

[24:09] Approaching, marketing, and selling to public agencies.

“Direct mail still is our number one marketing channel for getting governments on-board.”
“The proposal process can take from two months to a year.”

[33:10] Insights and opportunities for entrepreneurs in governments.

“When you are dealing with government you’re going have to plan to be in it for the long haul.”
“Make sure that they think they came up with your idea, and not that you did.”

Links

[44] Stair-Stepping From Productized Consulting to SaaS w/ Jane Portman

Productize & Scale — Wed, 06 Dec 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Today you’re going to hear my conversation with my friend Jane Portman.

Jane is a very talented UI/UX designer and she’s become pretty well known for that as well as using the productized consulting model which has been very successful, one of the very first productized consultants that I knew of.

She’s built her portfolio of products starting with books on UI design for SaaS applications. Then Jane went into building some few SaaS applications on her own (Tiny Reminder), and recently, one bringing in partners (UserList.io, email automation for SaaS).

An interesting part of the conversation is about where she’s based: Russia! She’s one of the few people that come from that part of the world who really has been able to break out and build a name for herself.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:08] How Jane leveraged his business by meeting people at conferences.

[6:46] Why Jane learned that it is important to not overbook clients after her first experience with productizing her consulting services.

“Recurring revenue was amazing because I just racked in monthly revenue from 4-5 clients, and I didn’t have to hunt for any new project at all.”

[9:42] Tips for overcoming the fear of pricing by package instead of pricing by project or by the our.

[11:27] Insights of how an Eastern should position to offer services for the Western market.

[14:55] The birth of Tiny Reminder: from SaaS idea to MVP in 2 months. Benefits and challenges of not being a technical founder.

“Developing new features do not save you from the lack of product/market fit.”
“Freemium users and paying users are completely different people almost from day 1.”

[26:14] UserLis.io, on-boarding email automation for SaaS. Working with partners vs solo-founder.

Links

Jane Portman on Twitter
Jane Portman’s websites, UI Breakfast, Tiny Reminder, UserList.io
MicroConf
How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

People Mentioned

[43] Productizing a 2-Sided Marketplace w/ Mike Hardenbrook (Growth Geeks)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Mike Hardenbrook is the co-founder of Growth Geeks, Growth Hacker TV and Workify.co.

There are many different properties in there but they are all intertwined as Mike will tell us.

Basically Growth Geeks is a marketplace for on-demand marketing service providers. It’s kind of marketplace for productized marketing services.

We cover a lot of ground as usual, got into the whole process of building this business starting with building a premium content site over Growth Hacker TV and how that pretty quickly evolved into a clear need for this type of marketplace. In off, Mike confessed to me they’ve grown above 6 figures a month in revenue, pretty exciting.

Mike shares how he and his partners manage the 2 sides of the marketplace, how they vet for quality and focus on the system for selling the service without getting too deeply involved in the day-to-day delivery which is where the freelancers and the agencies come in.

Mike went through the TechStars incubator/accelerator, and we talk about doing the transition from bootstrapping, self-funded, into the accelerator and Venture Capital.

Finally, we wrap up talking about Workify.co, which is a natural corollary for all of Mike’s projects. They’ve built this for agencies to white-label they services, which is another whole dimension to all this.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[1:53] Panorama of Mike’s projects. How Growth Hacker TV started, and how Growth Geeks developed from it.

“With Growth Hacker TV we recognized a wave coming in, and either you catch the wave too early, or you never catch it.”

[9:13] How to build a productized marketing services marketplace. How Growth Geeks originated, by listening what their audience was asking for.

“You keep hearing this over and over again, and we realized we had both the supply and the demand in our audience space.”
“On-demand marketing wasn’t a concept you would think about. I mean, Uber was still brand new [at the time]. We said: why we can’t do that for marketing?”

[18:59] Challenges that led to switch to a highly curated model.

“Marketplaces are tough. Is like building two products at once.”

[30:16] How Growth Geeks and Mike look like after TechStars.

“My claim to fame is that it is easier to get into Harvard than in to TechStars.”

Links

[42] Productizing LinkedIn Lead Gen (with a Guarantee!) w/ Jake Jorgovan (LeadCookie)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 06:00:00 +0000

LinkedIn is definitely a social network that I am not totally at a speed on. I had a profile on it, for ever, for years, but is just abandoned and not kept up to date. And I know there’s so much I can be doing on that platform to connect, network, and generate leads for my businesses.

Today you’ll hear my conversation with Jake Jorgovan, the founder of LeadCookie. It is a productize lead generation service focused on LinkedIn.

Jake’s been able to build and launch a really successful productize service offering in really short amount of time. In his very first 4 months he went from zero to nearly $20k a month in recurring revenue.

We cover the whole process of how he built this up, how he validated it, how he got his first customers, how he figured out the process to deliver it.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:12] What LeadCookie do, and how it grow spectacularly even turning away most of their leads.

“What we do it’s really really simple basic stuff, but it’s also very monotonous and repetitive.”
“I probably turn away 5 out of every 6 leads that I get.”

[10:43] How Jake transitioned into productized services and his first attempt packaging cakes as a marketing tactic.

“As I was doing consulting I was looking for tactics that could be repeatable and systematized.”
“What I ended up landing on is not even some crazy new innovation, it’s taking a bunch of other people’s idea and just turning it into a done-for-you service.”
“When someone doesn’t know how to sell they are actually not a good customer for us, because they won’t close the lead we get them.”

[32:59] Setting clients’ expectations and refining the on-boarding process. How LeadCookie is structured today and what roles are they filling up. Exact details of the on-boarding process.

“We’re not doing a sales pitch, it’s like conversational, really casual.”

Links

Jake Jorgovan on Twitter
Jake Jorgovan on LinkedIn
Jake Jorgovan’s company, LeadCookie
Jake Jorgovan’s company, Outbound Creative
Jake Jorgovan’s personal website
Jake Jorgovan’s podcast, Working Without Pants
Jake’s article: Zero to $33k MRR Productized Service in 6 Months
Win Your Dream Clients – Book
A how-to guide on Linkedin Lead Generation
Pipedrive CRM

People mentioned

Books mentioned

[41] To Freemium or Not as a Bootstrapper? w/ Josh Haynam (Interact)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Today on the show my conversation with Josh Hayman, co-founder of Interact, where they build Interactive Quiz Builder. This software helps building quizzes primarily for businesses to be used as a content marketing tool on Facebook or own’s landing pages. The quizzes help grow email lists and get leads into the sales funnel.

Josh and partners bootstrapped Interact, so he shares the story of starting from zero to growing up to over +35k users, coming up to 1M ARR. This is very impressive for a bootstrapped company, especially in a niche with highly funded competitors.

We discuss price points, freemium vs paid plans, and what experience Josh’s gained testing those models.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[3:58] What is Interactive Quiz Builder and what happened when they suspended their freemium offer.

[10:05] Josh’s teens experience in Central California: mowing and installing lawn, trading notebooks. How did they come up with the quiz idea.

“Literally the only metric we’d ever get asked about was: how many subscribers they’ve got. We just spent so much time doing stuff that is unnecessary, when this quiz does that on its own, and it can basically replace an entire website.”
“Because we were in the agencies world we new what problems businesses had, the biggest problem being needing more contacts.”

[19:08] Struggling getting the first while attending school. Testing marketing channels. Landing the first clients through content marketing.

“I’ve got so good at writing that I did one of my last finals in 45 minutes.”

[30:06] Experiences raising prices. Leveraging the “Adidas-influencers” marketing method to grow 300%.

“Good is the enemy of great.”

[41:24] How Josh managed to keep over the funded competition.

“I love the competition. It forces you to be on your own toes all time.”

Links

Josh Hayman on Twitter
Josh Hayman’s company, Interact Quiz Builder
Bootstrapped Web
Shopify
Leadpages
ConvertKit

[40] Acquiring a Portfolio of SaaS Products w/ JD Graffam

Productize & Scale — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 06:00:00 +0000

JD Graffam is the founder Simple Focus, but has experience buying other products, services and agencies.

Simple Focus, his primary agency, is a design UX shop along with a development arm and whole line of SaaS applications. JD’s been able to acquire most of his SaaS products from others, take on them, and bring in to his operation.

It is fascinating how JD built his agency and made a turn to expand his portfolio combining both agency work and SaaS products. Listen to grab JD’s mindset when analyzing a potential acquisition, bringing it under his umbrella, and finally growing it.

Enjoy!

Episodes Notes

[2:00] Running an agency together with a products company. The constellation of products behind Simple Focus and Clear Function

“I love running an agency and I love running a products company. And they require a complete different skill-set and different kind of employees.”

[8:41] The evolution from creative writing at high school, working as a web designer at Hilton, and publishing a best-seller about CSS.

“I learned the best way to get something is not to ask it directly but be known for your passion for the industry.”

[15:53] Challenges owning and growing an agency and why JD went the product route. Buying a SaaS product as a viable way forward after unsuccessful built ones.

[24:17] The story and numbers behind PulseApp, JD’s first acquisition.

[36:42] The day after buying a SaaS app: handing off technical aspects, customer support, and marketing. The steps after building confidence in the service work-flow.

Links

JD Graffam on Twitter
JD Graffam’s agency, Simple Focus
JD Graffam’s Personal Website
JD Graffam’s Blog
CSS for Print Designers, book by JD Graffam
Pulse

[39] Managing Ads as a Service to Managing Ads as Software w/ Michael Erickson (AdBadger)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Today on the show, Michael Erickson. Mike runs Search Scientists, a productized service/agency that focuses on marketing services like pay-per-click (PPC), AdWords, and Amazon Ads management.

What is interesting about Michael is that in 2017 he made the transition from the service into a Service-as-a-Software. Michael is building AdBadger which is an ad management platform for the Amazon Ads system.

I completely relate to Michael’s recent experience, so we compare notes on managing our agencies, putting people in place, restructuring our processes and team, and of course transitioning into building a software product.

Stay tuned to listen how to work with developers, ins and outs of a remote team vs in-house, and how Michael met his developer at a dog park ????.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:29] How started Search Scientists after Michael being disappointed when being a High School biology teacher. Mindset shifts from being a self-employed, to freelancer, to having a team. Separating deep practitioners and managers roles.

“When will AdBadger go public? people ask me. I want to be sure that when you put in your Amazon paid traffic campaign it will spit out a better campaign.”

[13:46] Roles at Search Scientists. Client Success Specialist, a role introduced whose only job is to brainstorm new initiatives auditing clients’ campaigns.

“One thing I decided early on is not having Customer Service dedicated people.”

[21:33] Why Michael stripped away all of their SOPs.

“If you have professionals on your team, let them be professionals.”

[27:20] Going from productized service to building software.

[34:59] Funding the launch of AdBadger. The rationale behind partnering with people vs hiring. Finding developers in dog parks. Remote vs in-house team.

“Business is really fun with great partners.”
“It’s OK to optimize for experience too.”

Links

Michael Erickson on Twitter
Michael Erickson marketing agency, Search Scientists
Michael Erickson new SaaS, AdBadger
Mike’s Personal Blog
Michael Erickson on The Tropical MBA
Design Pickle
The Lean Startup book by Eric Ries

[38] Audience Ops Behind The Scenes (Meet The Team!)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Today on the Productize Podcast a special episode wit Kat Boogaard and Raj Chander, long team members of AudienceOps.

I invited Kat and Raj to have a conversation about behind the scenes at AudienceOps (AO).

Hopefully you’ll get some insights, a window on how things work, the various roles in the team, what makes a really good team member at AO, which clients tends to stay for the long haul, and how clients get the most value from AO.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:33] What is AudienceOps in the eyes of Kat and Raj. Why AO is not the typical agency, and why focusing brings much better outcomes to the clients as to the team.

Kat: “We have the advantage of doing this one thing and doing it really well”.

[9:38] Why AO gives such importance on the clients on-boarding process. Common traits of AO clients.

[18:22] What does our team look like. Roles and responsibilities to run everything smooth even if fully remote. How Kat and Raj roles evolved while AO was growing. What type of person makes a good fit for working at AO (and what doesn’t).

[36:45] Processes. Key improvements made to AO processes so far. Challenges and opportunities to improve the service.

Kat: “At this point I think our processes are one of our biggest advantages. They make on-boarding new team members easier, they make communicating with clients easier, they make everything just far more streamlined.”
Raj: “You are able to answer a lot of the questions that you have yourself when there’s that documented process that you can tell has been run a bunch of times, and optimized, before.”

[40:40] Valuable lessons Kat and Raj learned while at AO. How thinking in processes helps their private projects.

Links

[37] From Training Business to SaaS w/ Brennan Dunn (RightMessage)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Today you’re gonna hear my conversation with Brennan Dunn. It’s been awesome to get to know Brennan these past few years and to follow along in his journey.

We start talking about Planscope, the previous SaaS company that he built and sold. Then we shift to his training business which he’s grown with an Engineering approach.

In 2017 Brennan is launching a new SaaS company called RightMessage. Brennan shares how he came with the initial idea, how he on-boarded the first customers, and then of course how he’s been growing it at very rapid pace.

Listen to this episode to understand Brennan’s mindset, how things unfolded from year to year, and give a peek at behind the scenes of RightMessage, his new SaaS.

Enjoy!

Episodes Notes

[1:52] Why Brennan decided to sell and leave Planscope. The main mistakes that makes a SaaS difficult to be adopted. Differences selling SaaS products and training.

“It was stressful to see that it was easier to sell somebody a 300 dollar course, than a 20 dollars subscription to a SaaS.”
“I gave up on the idea of a SaaS that required people really to change habits and to be in it all the time for it to be valuable.”

[8:36] The seed that generated Right Message.

“I’m an Engineer at heart, and I really like the idea of making software.”

[11:49] Engineering a training business. Automatizing and personalizing email marketing.

[20:11] The very first steps building RightMessage. Bringing in a co-founder, launching a landing page, and writing manually to each opt-in to validate the product. Building a course to educate future customers.

“Our MRR is higher than Planescope’s after many years, and we are just a month live.”
“The customer should not dictate the features or the usability. As product creators that’s our job.”

[27:30] Common objections and how Brennan is addressing them to assure customer success.

[37:44] How Brennan sees himself in the near future.

Links

Brennan Dunn on Twitter
Brennan Dunn’s new SaaS, RightMessage
Brennan’s Double Your Freelancing
Planescope
Brennan’s course on Marketing Automation
Drip
ConvertKit
Leadpages

Previous mentions of Brennan on Productized Podcast

[36] How to Get 10 Extra Hours (And What To Do With Them) w/ Mandi Ellefson

Productize & Scale — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Mandi Ellefson from The Hands Off CEO is an expert when it comes to removing yourself from your business and getting into a more scalable state. A lot of her writing, coaching and consulting has a ton of overlap with the things I was teaching the past few years, whether it’s about productize services, systems and processes, hiring people.

Mandi focuses on larger companies going from 75k/year to 500k/year, to over 7 figures/year. She reveals us how she structures her coaching, the type of advice and common pitfalls founders tend to deal with at these various levels.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:01] Why Mandi focused on two or three time management tweaks instead of a complete productivity overhaul.

“That one tweak will shift so many other things. What happens is a very effortless transformation.”
“Systematize: what that often means is devaluing the service, making it a commoditized product. That’s something I don’t want to see happen.”
“There’s a mindset shift that happens between solo entrepreneur to having a team.”

[12:20] The most common problems 6-7 figures company founders struggle with. Why you should guarantee something in your service/product offering.

“Identifying a single product or service […] is what allows you to scale profits instead of scaling what you already have which is a mess.”
“When companies know who they can get the best results for, and what conditions have to apply for them to get these results, sells become effortless.”

[18:23] The process to hire a CEO that will run your business and free your time.

[27:35] Mandi’s transition from a web design company to coaching.

Links

Mandi Ellefson on Twitter
Mandi Ellefson’s company, The Hands Off CEO
Bulletproof Coffee
Hire Your First Project Manager by Laura Roeder
Avatar Survey Template
Scalable Growth Toolkit

People Mentioned

Brennan Dunn on Twitter

[35] Josh Pigford on Solo Founding & Acquiring Many Skillsets

Productize & Scale — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 06:00:00 +0000

[34] Un-Productizing a Conversion Rate Optimization service w/ Josh Frank

Productize & Scale — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Today on the show we’ve got Josh Frank, the founder of Test Triggers. That’s a productized service focused on Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) for e-commerce stores.

Joshua’s been out with this over 3 years now. In his words, he built this productize service, then tore it down and built it up back again, so we get the whole story about this decision.

Josh was one of the very first people that I connected with through my Productize Program. He was able to leave a full time position and pretty quickly transition into this productized service offering. He found success early on and evolved over time. So we talk about this story and how he scaled and adapted to the point he felt comfortable.

Also, Josh describes his marketing strategies, gives tips and tricks about CRO, and shares useful tools when it comes to optimize conversions on our sites.

Special Conversion Research tools for Productize podcast listeners:

https://testtriggers.com/productize/

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[1:33] How Josh used his experience working for e-commerce stores to start his company. Why Josh understands better than others his clients’ psychology.

“Traditional marketing agencies are generally pretty terrible at providing actual measurable results.”
“[The Productized Course] helped me close deal a hell of a lot faster.”
“I was walking around the office and people was… oh he is the A/B testing guy.”

[14:15] How Conversion Rate Optimization works.

“Underneath CRO is A/B testing, that’s just a way you prove out these ideas. Conversion Research is the biggest portion of it, by far.”
“If you are really into this, you know that best practices really just aren’t a thing. They just aren’t.”

[19:13] Why Josh “un-productized” his company at one point. How he let clients go to focus on more profitable ones.

“I didn’t enjoy the process of scaling it. I just liked what I was doing. I though if I could do more like would give me the same destination, just with a different route.”

[34:02] Examples of how Customer Research works. Tools and tips for CRO.

“The biggest lesson that I try to help everybody un-learn is: successful A/B testing has nothing to do with how smart you are.”
“Being able to justify the ROI of CRO is very scalable.”

Links

Josh Frank on Twitter
Josh Frank’s company, Test Triggers
Hotjar
UserTesting.com

People Mentioned

Taylor Pearson on Productize Podcast

[33] The Rebirth of Apprenticeships with Taylor Pearson of GetApprenticeship

Productize & Scale — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Today I talk with Taylor Pearson. Taylor started his entrepreneurial journey as an apprentice of Dan and Ian from the Tropical MBA podcast. We talk about his journey since then, writing and launching his now famous book The End Of Jobs, and how this brought him into consulting and coaching.

This year, Taylor focused on a new site called GetApprenticeship.com where he matches businesses with apprentices. Definitely, there’s certainly a need on both sides of that equation.

It’s always great to talk to Taylor and get his unique perspective on things. I think he brings a lot of focus to the table. Taylor has a very systems mindset and it’s interesting how his path has evolved these two years and how he’ll evolve next.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[4:28] Taylor’s apprentice experience with Dan and Ian (Tropical MBA). Steps that brought him to the build-your-lifestyle world.

“The biggest thing I took away from this experience is probably the most ephemeral, this sense of everything being crazy and out of control, and that being the norm.”

[9:42] The path to self fund his first book launch, The End Of Jobs. Gaining momentum on Amazon. Benefits and impact of a best-seller. New book coming, about uncertainty and innovation and the relationship between them.

“The Ends Of Jobs idea is to explain what that career script looks like, and why it makes more sense than the traditional doctor or lawyer career path.”
“There’s a real gap between what can feels emotionally risky, and what is actually probabilistic risky when you run the numbers.”
“The book is the business card, it gave me access benefits.”

[19:17] How Taylor got into coaching. Structuring in 90 days sprints. Getting clients by referrals.

[25:04] How GetApprenticeship.com grew after The End Of Jobs. How companies should frame, and what can they expect from an apprentice position.

“After my apprenticeship I was in a better position than had I had gone to a business school for those years.”
“I basically spent a year trying to kill the project and making it go away. […] But it kept getting traction despite giving no resources to it.”

Links

Taylor Pearson on Twitter
Taylor Pearson’s website, TaylorPearson.me
The End of Jobs
GetApprenticeship
The TropicalMBA
DCBKK
4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris
Taylor Pearson on The End of Jobs – Bootstrapped Web Podcast
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Alliance by Reid Hoffman

[32] All About Membership Sites w/ Travis Northcutt

Productize & Scale — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Today you’re gonna hear my conversation with Travis Northcutt, the man behind MemberUp.co. Travis’s been a long time an expert and consultant in all things membership sites. Also, Travis is an WordPress consultant, and specializes setting up membership sites on WordPress. I’ve been thinking about doing for the Productized community, so I asked Travis all about the various tools, practices and best strategies one may use if that is something you’re thinking about doing.

Travis is also working on a book when it comes to launching, managing and growing your membership site, so that’s definitely something you wanna check out.

Special Deal for Travis’s book just for Productize podcast listeners:

https://memberup.co/productize

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[5:10] Travis beginnings as a WordPress web developer. How he transitioned to the membership site model niche. Sending daily emails to his audience. Getting referral clients from plug-ins developers. Specialists’ vs generalists’ marketing.

“Once you become known for it, just a little bit, then it builds on itself so much.”
“[With marketing] we are kind of starting almost at the finish line, because it just clicks with people.”

[17:27] Travis new project: a SaaS product to measure member engagement to increase up-sales and reduce churn in membership sites. Communities as a way to reduce churn and extend the lifetime of customers.

“A SaaS integrates in your workflow. But with membership sites, the barrier to cancel subscription is much lower.”
“The community thing is something they [the members] can interact with long-term, and it’s also something that people can build an emotional connection to.”

[22:58] Churn, causes and tips to reduce it. Pricing and packaging tips. Dripping the content vs giving it all. Facebook, Slack, Discourse vs own platform. Best community engagement practices.

“If people are not engaged with your site and what they are paying for, then at some point they will make the emotional decision like “OK this isn’t worth it for me anymore”.”
“Don’t let a question go unanswered more than one day.”

[37:44] Tools and plug-ins. Issues when migrating platforms.

“Eventually, almost inevitably, people want a custom functionality.”
“It’s risky. You’re gonna lose people [when migrating]”

Links

Travis Northcutt on Twitter

Travis Northcutt’s company, MemberUp.co

Member Up book

Membership sites mentioned

Plug-ins and services mentioned

People mentioned

Phillip Morgan – on the Productized Podcast – Book
Brennan Dunn

[31] Launch, validation, and first customers for Bot Academy w/ Andrew Warner of Mixergy

Productize & Scale — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 05:00:45 +0000

Well, you know this guy… it’s Andrew Warner! This time around we’re talking something that maybe you are not so familiar with: Bot Academy, Andrew’s new company.

You probably expected me to say Mixergy, right? Well of course that’s going strong several years in. But we talk about Andrew’s new thing around Facebook Messenger bots. It’s still in early days and we cover the backstory of where it came from. Andrew shares a very smart way to validate ideas, how he got his first early costumers, the launch process, and also the process for delivering the service, which includes training at the same time.

Tune in to hear Andrew talk about this cutting edge marketing tool that can replace your email list.

By the way, Andrew also posted the video of this interview over on Mixergy, you can watch that here. Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[1:50] Why Facebook Messenger bots took Andrew’s attention while trying to improve email open rates.

“I’m working on email because that’s the best thing I have, frankly. And still, no matter what I do I can’t get dramatic increases [in open rates].””
“I think there are two platforms for chat apps. Slack for business, and Facebook Messenger for anything else.””

[8:37] Evolution of building Bot Academy. Validating by fake charging instead of pre-selling.

“Lessons I learned from Mixergy is: if you really want to know if people really care about it, sell it.”

[16:31] Why Andrew got personally involved in starting a business around Facebook Messenger bots.

“I thought the direction bots were going, was wrong.”
“It’s just moving so fast, it’s such an exciting space to be, I couldn’t not do something here.”
“Checklists don’t get checked enough. But if you have a process that has a checklist built in, you are more likely to make it done.”

[27:41] Pros and cons of leveraging Mixergy brand for Bot Academy. Tactics to validate success without biases. Current challenges to scale and thoughts on how to evolve to a new business model.

[38:42] Best practices when setting up bots. How chat bots compare with email newsletters.

“Teaching is a great thing to do with your bot because it gives you a reason to come into someones chat app on a weekly basis.”

Links

Andrew Warner on Twitter
Andrew’s new project, Bot Academy
Mixergy
Mixergy Premium
Tam Pham
ManyChat
Chatfuel
Shane Mac – on Twitter – Assist (company)
Nir Eyal – on Twitter – Hooked (book)
CastBox.fm
Expedia

[30] All my SEO Questions Answered by Mike Arnesen (UpBuild)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 30 Aug 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Today I’m talking to Mike Arnesen, an expert in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Technical Marketing, Analytics and everything in between. Mike runs UpBuild.io, a marketing agency that has an interesting approach to productized services. I split this conversation in two.

In the first part we talk about UpBuild, and how he’s been able to build his remote team. We focus on how he gives his marketing strategist the autonomy to figure out their own solutions for clients. We compared it to my approach to productized services where we have a very well defined process that everybody goes through using the same methodology and tools. It’s very interesting to see how Mike’s team can tell their solutions in different ways to different clients but in a very efficient lean way.

I constantly feel that I’m outdated about SEO, as things change so fast in the Internet and Google tweaks the way they analyze the web. So we spend a great deal of time digging into what we need to know about SEO and optimization in general today as in 2017. Topics covered goes from Google’s AMP project, mobile first, WordPress vs Squarespace vs Medium vs building your own platform, republishing to Medium, sub-domains vs main domains, and much more.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[5:13] UpBuild.io structure, and Mike’s unique approach to sell SEO services. Optimizing the business model both for the clients and for the team. Managing the complexity of people’s autonomy to solve problems.

“I don’t want to sell SEO services. I want to sell SEO people, one person army.”
“I view UpBuild not as a company, but as a framework.”

[15:53] The points of offering an umbrella of services instead of a single product. Escaping the commoditized approach to increase pricing. When and when not to accept ad hoc projects.

“Marketing directors are the players. We want them to use us as the chess-pieces to get where they need to go.”
“If the client can’t say I’m doing my job well with our products, then they [our products] don’t really matter.”

[26:29] Managing client expectations from the start. Analyzing context for accurate results reporting and analysis.

[35:07] SEO updates for 2017 and next years. Mobile first by default. Semantic markup and Google’s Accelerated Mobile Project (AMP). Accessibility. Robots.txt. Top SEO priorities for a SaaS company. Ranking for own’s name. “Not provided” data in Google Analytics.

“If you are coming into new space and solving a problem there never been a solution to, Google’s not gonna have search data on that for you. Talk to your users and discover how they are searching for.”
“Google Analytics is the best tool we have, but is an imperfect one.”

[53:18] Company’s blog on main domain sub-directory vs sub-domain. Publishing on owns blog vs Medium. Republishing and syndication. Publishing content: benefits of choosing an open source platform.

Links

Mike Arnesen on Twitter
Mike Arnesen’s company, UpBuild.io
Google Analytics Measurement Protocol
SEMrush
Moz
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Project (AMP)
Google Search Console
Medium
Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin

[29] Learning to delegate and hiring VAs to scale w/ Barbara Turley

Productize & Scale — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Barbara is the founder of Virtual Angel Hub. We do a deep dive on today’s conversation, all about on how to outsource to virtual assistants. We don’t just talk about those best practices, but I also wanted to understand how Barbara’s been able to build and grow Virtual Angel Hub. She started managing some VAs for herself, and scaled into a powerhouse with 70 VAs in the Philippines and growing.

We talk about how she manages the pipeline, and the systems and the tools she uses. How she delegates tasks to the team, how she built the management structure around to give her the freedom to be able to be at home with her 9-month-old child while also managing this fast growing online business.

Some people may think this stuff is boring, but, at the end of the day, if you’re going to build an operation that can truly grow without you, you’ve got to learn how to delegate, build the systems and put people in place, and learn how to manage those people. And nobody knows this better than Barbara.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[1:51] Training the VA and training the manager. The journey from coaching to pivoting into VA recruiting.

“One of the biggest problems I saw is people don’t know how to outsource.”
“The training alone have been a game changer for my clients’ businesses, showing how to build processes and systems, and fire them from their companies.”
“We focus on the success rate of both the VA and client.”

[9:17] The value of outsourcing recruiting of VAs. Focusing the VA definition to scale. VA levels and responsibilities. Internal systems to support the VAs. Barbara’s best clients. What’s needed to successfully hire a VA.

“A VA’s not going create a strategy for you. They are very good at implementing.”
“If you are overwhelmed and got too much on your plate, getting a VA is not the answer.”

[19:12] On-boarding process. Why it takes at least 2 weeks to get clients in front of a VA. The importance of getting clients ready and set up. The importance of having few big processes.

“Task management with a virtual team is very difficult via email.”

[27:08] How the management between VAs and clients looks like. People involved in recruiting: Operations manager, Client liaison manager, Master Trainers, Team Leaders, Success Coaches, Helpdesk Team, Marketing and Sales.

“The job I want to do most is to be a mother.”

[39:02] Steps to deal with the “curve-ball” situations. Solving new problems and using clients testimonials as marketing. Encouraging clients to provide positive feedback.

Links

Barbara Turley on Twitter
Barbara Turley on LinkedIn
Barbara Turley’s company, Virtual Angel Hub
EnergiseWealth
Ontraport
Infusionsoft
Lucidchart
Draw.io
Asana
Trello
Teamwork
Podio
HelpScout
ZenDesk
Zoho People
Time Doctor
Zapier
Dan Norris – On this podcast

[28] Niching Down & Positioning a Coaching Business w/ Marcus Blankenship

Productize & Scale — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Marcus Blankenship is a coach of managers of technical teams. What I love about Marcus is how much he was able to focus so squarely in a niche within a niche. He is a manager expert but he’s focused on those who find themselves managing technical teams or have been bumped up from being a developer into managing roles. He identified the pain-points, the challenges, the transitions that that type of person needs to go through, and he built a very successful coaching business out of that. We talk about personal branding, content marketing, positioning, and tips about managing a technical team.

How to productize a coaching business? I get that question a lot. So if you think about this, focus on staying solo, and want to leverage your time, your expertise and experience in any sort of coaching environment, Marcus is the guy to follow and you’ll want to listen to this episode.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[1:40] How Marcus arrived to niche down to coach “accidental” and novice technical managers.

“I didn’t know coaching was a job, that you could charge money for.”
“Agency owners are accidental technical managers. People who’d grown their company into a point where they now really need to be managers.”
“Owners are some of the easiest people to extract money from, because they have so much on the line, they have everything at risk.”
“Founders are afraid to be the boss.”

[10:08] Marcus’ current tiers of service. Specifics on coaching structure, prices, commitment, number of clients, agendas and frameworks. Bringing experts in groups calls.

[17:12] How to overcome the anxiety of focusing too tightly and turning away clients. Churn.

“So part of the fact I reduce churn, is being picky [in the selection of clients].”

[24:32] Setting coaching goals. Common themes Marcus encounter when surveying tech managers: identity crisis, time management, conflict management. Experiences in scaling his coaching services.

“Time is a much bigger problem than I originally thought.”
“If I’m not a coder, does that mean I’m a manager? ’cause I don’t like managers.”
“Coaching is a real practice that deserves an educational background.”

[34:05] Marketing. First 30 days of a new lead. Writing daily vs weekly evergreen content. Overcoming the fear of giving “too much” advice for free.

“There is no substitution for regularity, consistency.”
“A low production value doesn’t mean you don’t have high quality content.”
“The more they pay for advice, the more likely they’ll act on it.”

Links

[27] Facebook Ads Funnels & Productizing Social Media Consulting w/ Mojca Mars

Productize & Scale — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Got a really jam packed interview today talking with Mojca Mars, all about social media but more specifically about Facebook and Facebook Ads Funnels.

We spend a bulk of the interview covering how she’s built her social media consulting business and how she was able to find even more focus. Mojca started being a social media management generalist and ended focusing in Facebook Ads, where there’s more value, better clients, better budget, etc.

Mojca is based in Slovenia, so we spend time talking about her experience building an audience and networking in the US, where most of her clients are based. We dig in how she managed to get her first connections and paying clients coming from overseas and basically starting from nothing, but doing it very quickly.

Mojca shares good tips about Facebook Ads Funnels, what’s working today, how to use retargeting, how to get webinars, strategies about Ads image design, video ads, and many more tips.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:00] How Mojca founded Super Spicy Media after her former employers didn’t want to enter the Facebook Ads space. The progression from being a generalist to focusing in Facebook Ads. How it looks working from Slovenia with an US clientele, and strategies to approach and grow an American market from overseas. The story on how Mojca got a speaking gig at a national conference, after systematizing her process of engaging with influencers.

“Having a Facebook Page is more of a passive approach, where Facebook Ads is doing actively something to grow your business”

[20:22] Mojca’s strategy to find her first clients by analyzing businesses’ profiles on Facebook. How to build content, and tips to engage people on Facebook.

“Once you ask the right questions, the content pretty much just comes to you”
“Whenever you post something, it should fall into one of the 3 pillars: value, personality, promotion”
“Social media is social. […] People don’t just come on Facebook to buy directly.”

[31:43] What is working on Facebook Ads today. Doing webinars to establish authority. Why Mojca asks a flat fee for her services, instead of what most social managers do.

“I wanted clients to increase or decrease investments however they see fit, instead of worrying on they’re spending.”

[40:23] All about Facebook Ads funnels. The number one mistake founders are making investing on Facebook. The very first thing you should do on Facebook even if you’re not investing on it. Which lead magnets works. Balancing budget between cold audience and retargeting. Best practices with Facebook ads images. Having most success with image and video testimonials.

Links

[26] Founding SaaS companies for faster success w/ Mike Taber

Productize & Scale — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 05:00:00 +0000

I’m sure most of you know Mike Taber, from Startups For the Rest of Us, the popular podcast he co-host with Rob Walling.

Mike had quiet a journey these past few years through his career. We really touched on a lot of it, so even if you are a fan of Mike, his podcast, or met him at MicroConf, the conference he helps organize, I think you’ll learn a thing or two about his backstory, ins and outs of how things started, the early days of him working with Rob at the Micropreneur Academy and the Startups for the Rest of us podcast, and how that grew over the years.

We went also just a bit on his work on AuditShark and now the launch of his company Bluetick.io, which is all about doing sales followups from your email, with some fancy automation builtin. It’s really interesting to see how Mike took lessons learned from previous steps along his journey and put them to see real results in the past few years in terms of traction, validating a new product, getting paying customers and moving the ball forward at a much faster clip.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:00] Mike introduces Bluetick.io, his newest SaaS product.

“Others are one-to-many, Bluetick is one-to-one automation at scale.”

[5:20] Why Mike can be the US President and the Japanese Emperor at the same time. Mike’s desires to get into the video gaming industry and first experiences after a Computational Engineering degree at RIT.

“Over the years I came to realize it’s kind of difficult to both write code and run a business at the same time.”

[12:00] Mike’s side businesses. Experiences in the video game industry, marketing games, building computers for flight simulator gamers, and ending up selling groceries online.

[22:00] The story of how Mike connected with Rob Walling, and started Micropreneur Academy. The progression to Startups for the rest of us and MicroConf. How profitable a conference can be.

“I realized that if I was to make any money, then I really need to be the founder of a business.”
“Compared to a blogpost, it is much easier to get on a podcast and just talk to somebody about what you are doing, and it resonates more with people.”

[35:27] AuditShark in retrospect. The concept of product-founder fit. How Mike came up with the idea of Bluetick. Doubling audience by asking for a referral. The power of comparative marketing and why he is integrating Bluetick in the sales process of his clients.

“If you are not comfortable selling a piece of software in the way that most people are comfortable buying it, you’re not going to be able to change the world.”

Links

Mike Taber on Twitter
Mike Taber’s new software, Bluetick.io
Mike Taber’s blog
Startups For The Rest Of Us Podcast
Big Snow Tiny Conf
MicroConf
Joel Spolsky from Fog Creek
Rob Walling’s blog
FounderCafe – ex Micropreneur Academy
Jason Cohen’s blog (A Smart Bear and WPEngine)
Mike Taber’s “21 Days Before My SaaS Launch”

[25] Scaling Bookkeeping as Service (across continents!) w/ Meryl Johnston, Bean Ninjas

Productize & Scale — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Today I’m talking Meryl Johnston all the way from the gold coast of Australia. She was kind enough to make the time early in her morning and late in my afternoon here in the US. Meryl runs a very successful productize service called Bean Ninjas.

They handle bookkeeping for a variety of clients not only in Australia but also the us, Canada, UK and New Zealand. They’ve been out for 2 years, going strong and growing steadily .

We talk about her early days and how she launched following the 7 Days method from Dan Norris. She shares her experience trying a variety of marketing channels: content marketing, Facebook groups, word of mouth, networking, etc. She shares secrets about tweaking pricing and their sales process. For example, why she chose to focus and say no to certain client requests, and how to deal with tricky client on-boarding situations.

Finally, we dug into team management, and best tools to follow members in different time zones. I love to do these especially with productize founders. I hope you’ll find tons of useful nuggets in this episode.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[3:30] Differences about accounting and bookkeeping. Serving the US from Australia and why is important hiring locals.

[8:18] Before Bean Ninjas. From tennis to accountancy to becoming an entrepreneur. The difficulties faced when starting a productized service, and testing different marketing channels.

“As an accountant you get to see inside the workings of many other businesses”
“I felt like I was always working, because I was the point of contact for clients”

[17:52] Founding Bean Ninjas with a partner. Signing a co-founder agreement. Splitting responsibilities and assessing partner’s performance.

[22:44] How to make the transition from consulting to productize services as easy as possible for your clients. Testing processes and test hiring. Focusing on a single service and software to get the most of systematizing.

[32:02] All about pricing. How much to charge and what to include. Tracking profitability by client. Setting expectations with the team.

“We realized that with bookkeeping you’re sharing your financial information, and that takes a much higher degree of trust compared to other services”

[42:02] Details of the sales and client on-boarding process. Scoping process to see if the client is a good fit. How the first weeks look like.

[48:48] Team management. Paying by the hour vs paying by expected workload. Managing check-ins and escalating issues.

[54:24] Content marketing to build trust. The power of customer cases.

Links

Meryl Johnston on Twitter

Meryl’s company, Bean Ninjas

Dan Norris – WP Curve on Productize Podcast

Robert Hartman on Productize Podcast

Xero

7 Day Startup

Tools: Harvest, HelpScout, Trello, Slack, Google Docs, Capture Genie, Loom Chrome Extension, ViewEdit

[24] Scaling Sales & Growing an Empire w/ Robert Hartline

Productize & Scale — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Today I’m talking to my friend Robert Hartline. I first met Rob at Big Snow Tiny Conf which is the ski/snowboard and business mastermind getaway that I co-organize up in Vermont. Robert built an amazing business that has grown far beyond what most of us from online spaces can really imagine.

Beyond growing a massive chain of Wireless stores, from 1 up to 51 stores, he runs a successful SaaS company called CallProof for sales teams, a ride-sharing app, and so many projects while being able to balance time with family and keep doing the things he’s good at.

Sales. That’s probably the superpower Rob brings to the table. First as a sales person himself, then also training and hiring sales people as to truly scale a business. We dug into comparing B2B vs selling to consumers, also on-the-floor vs online vs on-the-phone. Rob shares many personal anecdotes that shaped the way he approach sales and business.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[5:05] Rob talks about his successful app, CallProof, a software to track sales activity and support sales people. Also, how Rob manages his time, and the concept of time-shifting.

“In long cycle sales, the question you should ask yourself is: what is the activity you did today to warrant a sale tomorrow?”
“I do not commute, I’m allergic to traffic. I create time through time-shifting. Because the only thing we have control over, is our time.”

[11:30] Rob’s funny story on how he got into sales because of a peephole. Then how he evolved from there, and how he turned a problem into an opportunity solving phone problems.

“In retail, it’s all about your location. If you are 100% B2B, it’s about your sales people.”
“People is still buying in retail and the shopping experience is not replaced by online.”

[22:40] Comparison between selling phone accessories vs online products like SaaS apps. Techniques to get customers on-board.

“CallProof is an easy sale if I’m with an owner with the same pain I had in the past.”
“Online nor offline, in sales, all that matters is your rapport building process.”

[30:02] Hiring sales people, and teaching the sales process. Rob shares a personal story on how he learned to delegate the sales the hard way.

“There’s no possible freaking way to ever scale your business if you are the sales guy. While you’re selling, your company needs leadership.”
“Video is the most underutilized tool that we have.”

Links

Robert Hartline on Twitter
Robert Hartline’s app, CallProof
Slack
Marco Polo Video Walkie Talkie
Sherry Walling Talk at MicroConf Las Vegas

[23] The Minimalist Business w/ Paul Jarvis

Productize & Scale — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Paul Jarvis is on the call today. He talks a lot about this concept of building a minimalist business which really got me thinking. We talk about how this concept relates to profitability and lifestyle, but as well as business and personal growth.

We spend a chunk of time talking about his upcoming book, Company of One. For this one he’s going the traditional publishing route. So I asked him what’s like to find an agent, an editor, a publisher, and how works the hole process, including deal packages.

We also talk about software, infoproducts, growing an audience, and how his newsletter evolved from 12 to thousand of people.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[3:40] The concept of minimalist business and keeping it solo.

“I can make more many [either increasing revenue and time dedicated to the business, or] if I make the same amount but spend less to make it.”

[13:13] How Paul vets ideas to avoid the shiny object syndrome.

“Smaller decisions aren’t that scary to make”

[25:48] His transition from consultant to more passive revenue through content marketing.

“It’s the difference between hiring an expert or a technician. I’ll prescribe what my problem is, instead of what I want the solution to be”
“The problem with many consultants, is that they put themselves in a position to be told how to do their work”

[37:18] Paul’s new book “Company of One”. From the idea, to the process of hiring an agent, pitching, writing a book proposal and publishing the traditional way. Details including book deals, royalties, and distribution.

“I found that if you question things then you don’t necessarily need to solve every problem with more [growth/revenue]”

Links

Paul Jarvis on Twitter
Paul’s Website: Newsletter, Products, Current Projects
Fixtail
MailChimp
Stripe

[22] Monetizing Podcasts & YouTube Channels w/ Matt Medeiros

Productize & Scale — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Matt is kind of building a podcast and YouTube empire. He’s a WordPress web developer guy, but I think of him as the podcasting mastermind. We dug really deep into setting up a podcast, managing, planning, structuring in, gear he uses, how to monetize, advertising, and how he packages sponsoring in a unique way. Matt talks about his experience building paying membership sites around his podcast and YouTube channels, and leveraging his channels to drive traffic and leads to his products and services. Lots of interesting and detailed and actionable advice, complete with Matt’s tools and tips.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:44] Matt’s all about WordPress: services agency, plugins, membership sites, productized services, and podcast and YouTube channels.

[14:27] Podcasting. How planning seasons helps monetization. Tips on having guests as a host. All about recording schedule, editing, publishing, hardware setup, software, editing, show notes and transcripts.

[36:55] YouTube and Facebook Live. Tips taken from videogamers. New tools to monetize through YouTube and optimizing keywords title and content for ranking.

“On YouTube, you have to be a personality”

[46:26] Channels monetization and sponsorships. Advertising packaging options. Peculiarities of the WordPress audience. Techniques don’t skip ads.

“Podcasting is intimate advertising”

[52:09] Memberships and coaching programs. Churn. A personal experiment.

Links

Matt Medeiros on Twitter
Matt Report – Matt’s main podcast show
Crafted by Matt – Links to all of Matt’s stuff
Gear: Rode Podcaster Mic, FocusRite Mixer, Pop Screen, Shure SM57 Mic
Podcasting: Audacity, Adobe Audition, Blubrry PowerPress, Rev Transcripts, Stitcher
YouTube: OBS Open Broadcaster Software, TubeBuddy, YouTube Super Chat (ex Fan Funding)

[21] Productizing Customer Support w/ Kyle Brown (WPSaaS.net)

Productize & Scale — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 05:00:00 +0000

On today’s episode I have a conversation with Kyle Brown, the founder of WPSaaS. You might think of that as Service as a Software, but it actually is Support as a Service.

Basically, Kyle was able to productize customer support. Most of his clients are WordPress plug-in developers but he is expanding helping companies who sell SaaS products too. Kyle’s company enables you to outsource Tier 1 support, all those common questions from customers who are too lazy or can’t find your documentation.

Kyle shares his story about how he came from managing thousands of customer support reps from huge companies like Verizon, and how he bootstrapped this service for smaller software companies. It’s specially interesting how he translated all his experience in the form of processes and systems. Also, how to manage your HelpScout inbox, customer support best practices, tips when it comes to tagging, and lots more.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[2:05] What’s WPSaaS is all about and why he entered the WordPress plug-ins support space.

“What’s missing [at companies] is someone who can talk both to the developers and to the business people. If you figure out how to fit there, well, you’ll never worry about work again”

[12:18] Differences and similarities between customer support at large and small companies

“If a business idea requires you to change someone’s else mindset, then you probably better find another idea.”
“If you’re having any level of success with your product, then you’ll need support.”

[19:37] Specifics of Kyle’s first steps. Landing pages, switching ads for cold calls, stalking clients and first referrals. Scaling 2 months later starting.

“As there will be more and more SaaS products, customer services will start to be one of the things that break the tie in business success”

[32:17] The 3 main things to hire and scale: deep understanding of your process from A to Z, document for execution and portability, documentation maintenance.

[38:40] The power of tagging all customer support

Links

Kyle Brown on Twitter
Kyle Brown’s company, WPSaaS
Kyle’s personal blog
MicroPreneur Academy
Verizon
WooCommerce
Gravity Forms
HelpScout
Trello
Save time and money by tagging your support request article

[20] Starting a Business with One Viral Blog Post w/ Natasa Lekic

Productize & Scale — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 05:00:00 +0000

I have a great conversation today with Natasa Lekic from NY Book Editors. She runs a really interesting service for authors who want their books professionally edited and printed. Natasa shares her journey from working in a publishing industry into going on her own and unsuccessfully trying with a software app. Finally, she could leverage her experience in the publishing industry, and opened a done-for-you services company, which has grown very fast. Now Natasa runs the company with her brother and is managing a team with more than 25 editors, where they are combining software automation with some manual human automation to match editors to clients. She also tells about how the company doubled down on content over the last 2 years and the incredibly story about how she found the first costumers from a viral content.

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[6:02] How Natasha left her job and jumped into a software app project without success. How, after that, she decided to return to the field where she felt more confident and experienced, with solid success.

“I always thought that people who start businesses have to be extremely smart and capable in ways that I wasn’t or that they had a lot of resources behind them so they could fail a lot. So I’ve never imagined to do something like this.”

[9:08] The incredible story of how she got her first clients from a viral content: an infographic with more than 42.000 shares

[22:30] Simple automation steps to optimize clients acquisition, customers-editors matching, and interaction with the parts.

[30:51] Content marketing vs AdWords campaigns

Links

Natasa Lekic on Twitter
Natasa Lekic’s company, NY Book Editors

[19] Designing a Rapid-Growth Productized Service w/ Russ Perry from Design Pickle

Productize & Scale — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 05:30:00 +0000

Today I’m talking to Russ Perry, founder of Design Pickle. This year 2017 he’s actually growing into a number of other products beyond his business. We’ve talked about their rapid growth, well beyond six figures on MRR. I feel that every time we hear Russ on an interview he’s just multiples ahead of previous interview even if it was just not an amount of time. We have an update on how he’s managing the growth of the team in Philippine (70 people working remotely) as well as the team in the USA, all while traveling with the family. We get into managing multiple products and services. Russ recently purchased YesInsights, a SaaS company, and they’re building their own SaaS on top of what they’ve being doing at Design Pickle. We do a deep dive into Design Pickle today, what it looks like to scale up a productized service, the operations of hiring, boarding clients, optimizing entire processes. Enjoy.

Episode Notes

[04:15] Russ shares juicy numbers about Design Pickle: revenue, customers, production team size and expected growth. Also, why he had to hire an Event Manager.

“Moving abroad it’s been a goal of mine for the last decade since I read 4 hour work week… and I did it.”

[12:12] Systems Russ use to manage so many clients, projects, and staff. Why he trains his clients to know what they want.

“We don’t try do to everything, and that’s the mistake most creative content services make”.

[20:30] Russ explains the key to scale: systematizing interactions using a ticketing system and repeatable processes.

[36:33] How Russ gets new clients. Dropping conventional marketing strategies and doing hilarious non-sense videos to get clients.

[39:11] Russ explains how and why he bought YesInsights, a SaaS company. How it empowers Design Pickle and how the whole “group” is evolving

[45:42] A Productize Podcast premiere: Jar (Just A Request), Russ new project. A solution to manage high volume of work without leaving your inbox.

“I’m not expecting the 60 years old Sales man to figure out Trello when he needs a flyer. He should just send an email”.

Links

Russ Perry’s Personal Blog

Russ Perry on Twitter

Russ’ companies Design Pickles and YesInsights

Pickles vs Guns Campaign

[18] Evolution of a Business Coach w/ Tim Conley

Productize & Scale — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 05:15:00 +0000

On today’s episode, Tim Conley, who you may know from podcast fame of the Foolish Adventure Show (no more updated). Tim is known as a well respected and trusted business coach, or as he would prefer to be called, a business consultant. We got back into Tim’s back story: growing up in a small town in the Midwest, and how he managed to make his dreams come true. He tells us why he entered the Air Force, what he learnt there and how it impacted in his business. Also, Tim remembers the birth of the internet as we know it today, how he navigated those early years, and how he arrived to these days, coaching and consulting business owners.

I always learn when I talk to Tim, and listening this episode I’m sure you’ll learn something too. Enjoy.

Episode Notes

[01:35] Tim’s current focus: showing founders how to bring their business to the next level, and solving the most common problems he finds with the businesses he coaches.

[08:36] Tim’s Tom Sawyer’s childhood, his father’s duck call, and funding his dreams starting a business with refundable bottles.

“I understood I was poor. And I wanted things, and my couldn’t buy them. So I decided if I’m going to have my Star Wars action figures, I had to get them myself.”

[17:39] How the Air Force profoundly shaped his mindset, and its similarity with the business world: taking responsibility, systems, and scarce resources and making things happen.

“The military takes a kid right out of high school and put it in charge of a multimillion dollar equipment”.

[25:42] Failed business plans HTML 1.0 in the Mosaic/Netscape era. How Tim started consulting by teaching his friends how not to fail. Insurance and used cars to train in selling.

“Back then the only thing that mattered was: could you get funding. And then: could you use that funding to get eyeballs.”

[37:24] From a membership-site with office hours to coaching. Tim’s current consulting structure through closed groups and monthly calls.

Links

Tim Conley’s Website

Tim Conley on Twitter

The Forge Facebook Group

Direct response copy authors mentioned:

John Caples
Joe Sugarman
Victor Schwab. Book: Write Good Advertisment
Eugene Schwartz

Productize Podcast is Back!

Productize & Scale — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Welcome to new listeners, and welcome back to the old ones! The Productize Podcast is back! And I don’t want to call it Season 2, as I hope to keep it going for long. I have updated the website and the show format. Listen to this episode to know more about what’s new, behind the scenes of how the show is produced, and what you can expect from the next episodes.

Today, along with this introductory episode, I’m dropping two more awesome interviews. The first is with Tim Conley, a business coach extraordinaire, a guy with such much wisdom galore. The second is with Russ Perry, the owner of Design Pickle, a crazy growing productized service going into SaaS.

Check also these new episodes available right now:

Expect a brand new episode every Wednesday morning. And if you are enjoying this new batch of episodes, I really appreciate if you review it on iTunes.

Thanks for tuning in!

Brian – Productize Podcast

White Labeling a Productized Service: Quick Wins & Challenges w/ Jeff Couret

Productize & Scale — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 07:00:41 +0000

Jeff Couret, founder of SEOak.co, joins me today to talk about how he launched and iterated on his white label SEO service. In this interview, we talk about:

How it took only 1 phone call to craft his service and make his first sale!

How it took only 1 phone call to craft his service and make his first sale!
How he iterated from one niche vertical to another
The challenges with white label services
How Jeff used what his customers told him to iterate and expand his product line

Links:

Amazon Listings as a Service: David Lewis’ Journey From Corporate Job to High-Demand Business Owner

Productize & Scale — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:00:00 +0000

David Lewis managed to launch a highly focused service for Amazon sellers. This was an interesting case study from a Productize student. Don’t miss it!

You’ll learn:

How David replaces his income from his corporate job
How he identified the core pain point to solve
How he focused on one solution, without “doing it all”
His pricing strategy and paths to expand
How he leveraged his own first-hand experience to set himself apart

Links:

[Coaching Call] Finding a Lawyer and CPA… as a Service w/ Dina Eisenberg

Productize & Scale — Thu, 08 Sep 2016 07:00:41 +0000

Starting with scratching her own itch and leveraging her pre-existing inroads, Dina Eisenberg launched OutsourcingEasier.com to help other entrepreneurs like herself with the daunting task of finding a good Lawyer, CPA and Bookkeeper.

In this coaching session, we dug into these questions and more:

How to market and position a service like this
How to grow (or not grow) the “product ladder” for this business
Ideas for packaging up this service into smaller chunks with higher-value up-sells
Pricing strategies

Links:

Dan Norris’ Story of WPCurve: From 7-Day Launch to 7-Figure Productized Service Business

Productize & Scale — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 07:00:36 +0000

Dan Norris needs no introduction these days. In 2014, he launched WPCurve to paying customers, famously within 7-days.

Fast forward to today, and he grew this Productized WordPress Support service to over 7-figures a year in revenue. Whoa.

This conversation was recorded in late 2014, when Curve was in the thick of it’s early rise and Dan and I got into the nitty gritty of how the launch went, and how they grew so fast.

Don’t miss this one!

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Iterating From Agency to Productized Service to SaaS with Eric Chang & Matt Termeer

Productize & Scale — Thu, 11 Aug 2016 07:00:22 +0000

In this case study, we hear from Eric Chang and Matt Termeer who started with a marketing agency model and decided they needed to focus by Productizing part of their offering. What started with a purely productized service soon evolved into a SaaS, which they sold to local businesses like restaurants and others.

In this interview, you’ll hear:

Their first steps (and missteps) in breaking out of the agency model
How they landed their first paying customer by dining at their restaurant!
How the idea for their solution came directly from their customer’s feedback
The key insight that allowed them to find the “hook” that attracted their ideal customer
Their plans to focus deeper on specific niche verticals

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Can 1-to-1 Business Consulting be Productized? w/ Chris Ronzio

Productize & Scale — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 07:00:48 +0000

What started as a coaching call with Chris turned out to be quite an interesting case study. Chris is a business consultant who helps companies “organize the chaos” and figure out what to prioritize in order to move forward and grow.

He’s been offering this 1-to-1 consulting service for years, but in his words, he decided it’s time to “think bigger”. So he launched Organized Chaos to grow his consulting service beyond himself.

In this coaching call / interview, you’ll learn:

How Chris landed 20 first clients for a $60k launch in month 1
Ideas for standardizing the way he consults with clients, so that eventually others can take his place.
Next steps for delegating the tedious writing and prep work with reports.
Identifying and focusing on the specific pain that leads clients to a service like this.

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Software With a Service: The Story of LeadFuze w/ Justin McGill

Productize & Scale — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 07:00:14 +0000

My conversation with Justin McGill was an excellent case study in LEVERAGE.

He leveraged his own agency’s software tool for prospecting to build a done-for-you lead generation service, powered by his own software. You’ll hear the story of how he launched quickly and grew throughout his first year.
You’ll hear:

Justin’s 24-hour challenge to launch LeadFuze (did he make it?)
How Justin met his goal of $1000k in 30 days.
Growth strategies he used to exceed $30k in less than a year
How he’s taking the next step of releasing the software product off the success of his Productized Service.

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Selling a Productized Service to Enterprise & Speeding Up Sales Cycles with Mike Taber

Productize & Scale — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 07:00:33 +0000

Mike Taber’s AuditShark software struggled from the classic challenge that most businesses selling to the enterprise face: Extremely long sales cycles. We’re talking 6 to 12 months or longer just to close one sale.

In 2015, Mike decided to offer a Productized Service along with his server auditing software. And within 30 days, he made 3 sales! Talk about a turnaround with a simple tweak to the way it was sold.

You’ll hear:

The specific challenges with long sales cycles
The customer conversations that led to the idea to productize his software service
How Mike launched the new offer using a single webinar
The mechanics of delivering the service and scaling it.

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How Joanna Wiebe Leveraged a Productized Service to Sustain and Grow Copyhackers in The Early Days

Productize & Scale — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 07:00:41 +0000

I caught up with Joanna Wiebe to talk about a lesser-known product she offered through the years over at Copyhackers. A personalized review and copy critique.

This conversation was from late 2014 and it’s interesting to kind of “go back” and hear how Joanna used a productized service offering to grow her business.

Interesting highlights include:

How Joanna was able to turn on and off this service as she grew her business
The mechanics of delivering a recorded review as a service.
The value of a one-time purchase, instead of recurring revenue
And much more

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How Smarter Positioning Helps You Grow (by Doing Less) with Philip Morgan

Productize & Scale — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 07:00:54 +0000

Philip Morgan and I had a great conversation about Positioning. It’s all about “positioning” yourself as a specialist—even when that’s a scaring thing to do!

You’ll learn:

How to get over the fear of *not* doing everything for everyone
Specific steps you can take to narrow your focus
How to communicate what you do your ideal client
How to use Positioning in your Productize Service

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[Coaching Call] Launching a Niche Web Design Service for Coaches w/ Carlos Gonzalez

Productize & Scale — Thu, 19 May 2016 07:00:34 +0000

After 8 years of working online for all sorts of clients and doing many different services, Carlos Gonzalez and his partner decided it was time to productize, niche down, and focus on serving one market.

So they launched websforcoaches.com, a niche web design service for professional coaches. You’re going to hear my coaching session with Carlos, which took place one week after they launched their new business.

In this coaching call / interview, you’ll hear:

How they decided on the coaching niche
How (and why) they launched a business targeting the US market, despite being based in Spain
Questions about which marketing channels to start with—content marketing, PPC, cold email, or something else?
How they can optimize their website and copy to better speak to a coach’s specific pain

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A Productized Service—Without Growing a Team—With Nick Disabato

Productize & Scale — Thu, 05 May 2016 07:00:55 +0000

I caught up with Nick Disabato to talk about his Draft Revise service, a done-for-you A/B testing and conversion optimization service.

This case study is interesting because Nick intentionally designed his service to run lean and mean, without requiring him to hire a big staff (or any staff for that matter).

Don’t miss this one!

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From Accidental Idea to $50k Launch of Dan Schwartz’s Productized Service for the Real Estate Industry

Productize & Scale — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 07:00:31 +0000

What an incredible story. Dan Schwartz shares how he stumbled into an idea to offer real estate agents a streamlined sales tool, by offering a done-for-you setup of his Podio CRM template system.

In this interview, you’ll hear us talk about:

How Dan launched using a single webinar which brought in $50k in sales.
Immediate next steps and pains in serving those clients!
How he’s scaling and streamlining the service
Next steps for growing into a full software solution.

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How Greg Hickman Iterated His Productized Service to $20k MRR in 6 months

Productize & Scale — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 07:00:29 +0000

This interesting and inspiring case study comes from my friend, Greg Hickman, who iterated through two different Productized Service businesses before hitting his stride with System.ly, a done-for-you marketing automation and funnel-building service.

You’ll hear in this wide-ranging conversation:
Greg’s first steps

The tough (but right) decision to sunset his first business
How he quickly launched and gained early traction with his next iteration
How leveraged his personal network to land his first customers
How he’s growing (fast!) beyond $20k MRR in less than 6 months.

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Peering Behind The Scenes of the Operations at Audience Ops

Productize & Scale — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 09:00:12 +0000

This episode is a little different. Galen Vinter, founder of ClientFlow.io asked to pick my brain about how we run our operations at Audience Ops. He’s doing some research as they iterate their product to better serve Productized Services, among other things.

So he asked me all about how we do what we do at Audience Ops. We talked about:

How we communicate with clients without letting things fall through the cracks
How we’re scaling the team and our service
The tools we use to track progress through our service
The specific canned email responses we send to clients as well as internally to create really efficient workflows.
And much more

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Justin Jackson’s Productized Offering(s) in the Making

Productize & Scale — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 08:58:18 +0000

2016 will be an interesting year for Justin Jackson. He’s leaving semi-full-time consulting to focus on his own products, of which there are many.

And that puts him in a unique situation with several questions, such as:

How to sustain this highly diversified business?
How to leverage his existing audience to sell a productized consulting offer?
Why a one-time purchase model might be better than a recurring revenue model when it comes to Productized Consulting?

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How Jason Resnick 10x’d Revenue in 6 Months by Productizing His WordPress Dev Service

Productize & Scale — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 07:00:58 +0000

If you’re a WordPress developer (or even if you’re not!), you’ll find tons of insightful nuggets from this Productize student case study with Jason Resnick.

Jason set a goal of 10x revenue within a year. He hit that milestone within 6 months of Productizing his service.

You’ll learn:

How he shaved hours off his production time with a few simple tools and systems
How he manages to deliver “unlimited” support—without hiring a large team
Why Jason chose a productized service instead of selling WordPress themes or plugins
How he introduced his new (higher priced) packages to longtime clients, and why they still bought into it.

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