but it's getting to know the people who will be your customers, and I would start to do that before you build anything. Now. Hi, I'm Larry Nichols on You're Listening to the Sales for Founder's Podcast, where each week I sit down with founders and sales experts bring you actionable advice on how to find your first customers on grow a profitable business. This week I'm joined by Jeremy Tisa. I came across a comment by Jeremy on the indie actress Forum a couple of days ago on Dhe. Instantly, I knew I had to have him on the show as well as being a successful multi time founder in his own right, Jeremy told me something super interesting and his comment on the index form, which is that he's built his latest start up to over $150,000 in revenue in under a year without any landing page at all. Now we're gonna dive kind of into how on dhe why he's done that later in the show. But first, Jeremy, why don't you kick us off by introducing yourself? Sure thing.

Uh, my name's Jeremy teased in Ah, I am currently running rogue technologies, which is a will be a platform for anyone to be able to build kind of complex sites such as, like, sass, sites, marketplaces, anything like that. Right now, we're using the tool internally and building out sites for people making sure you know everything's come along. It's super easy to use all of that. So right now, we basically build sites for people. But my background before that is, you know,

So I've been doing entrepreneurship for awhile. My first company was 76 years ago. Now, um, it was basically tracking entertainment news. Ah, that was my first time ever entering entrepreneurship. I raised money, went through an accelerator, hired people. But at the end of the day, um, it closed down because you didn't have enough sales, um, or growth. And so that was like a huge issue,

right? So, like after raising money and hiring people, I had to let everyone go because we weren't We didn't have the product. That was we couldn't sell it nearly fast enough to make it worth raising again and all of that. So we that was kind of like, uh, interesting failure there, Um, in which case I started learning my lesson of like a How do we make this something that's going to be saleable before I build it? And so my next product, Waas, was called Insights Web analytics. Um, really cool product. Ah is basically would go through Google analytics data and provide you insights and how to improve automatically.

And so it's kind of like having a, um you know, on analyst but automated. And so that was ah, really awesome experience. Because what I was able to do was, ah, I built a very like demo slideshow version events, so I had no real functionality. All I had was just like pages that showed what it could. D'oh! Um and I published that out, and I put on Product Hunt and I was able to get. So I developed. I built the site in about a week, and then the next week I put on product Hunt and got about 700 users,

um, to start, and so I was like, Oh, now I'm starting to understand. Like what an M. V. P could be, um, it's small amount of work, and you can prove out your market really quickly from there, like really took that lesson to heart. My next company was walk through. We basically did a virtuality for real estate and a photography company on the side to get the virtuality tours on. And we started off that with just sales. So he literally made a sales presentation.

We wouldn't start anything until we sold um, $3000 a product. And we're able to do that and start the company grew that over two years to 26 employees, um, eventually raised the money. And then that company I left a little bit before. It's old, but that company has now been acquired. That was really exciting. And then I started Rotech In the first year of business with Rotech, we made $150,000. I still don't have a website. Um, but we were able to make all those sails without any marketing materials or anything like that. So that's kind of my background. And, uh, hopefully I can share some of my lessons today.

Yeah, that's super exciting. There's a whole lot of stuff that I want to dig into their Why don't we kind of go back to that very first started? You said, um, it it failed because you couldn't grow fast enough. So what do you think happened there now? Kind of looking back with, You know, the benefit of hindsight a few years later is everything you have done differently there. Is that something like lessons you learned there that you took over to your next start ups to make them a success?

Yeah, So I think so. My co founder and I, um, who are actually he's my co vendor now, still even working together for, like, 10 years now. But, um, we are both technical. So the way we went about our first product was were like we love we basically want to be able to specifically track, like, certain entertainment over time. So be, like, super specific things.

Such a cz like, Oh, I only want to see news about time travel, movies, right? And nothing else. And so we built a product that did that. But you're so technical. All we did was focused on the product. So we honestly made on excellent product for us. Um and but the problem was, is that we didn't have any clue on how Thio like, get other people to join Thio, you know, onboard them to do all of those other steps involved, um,

in getting the word out and getting people to join our product and use it. And so the problem was is that we had built this awesome product. We found investors that also thought that product was awesome because they had a similar problem. That's how we raised money. But at the end of the day, we'd never took the time to invest in our sales and marketing, like the big lesson there is that you've got two problems in your company. One is how to grow it and get customers and the others to deliver something to your customers. Right. And you have to solve both problems at the end of the day to have a successful company. And so we on Lee solved the product problem and never solved the marketing problem, and so we just could never grow. And so we had to close it down because, you know, we all have to make a living somehow and, ah, because we never devoted the time into solving the marketing and sales problem. We never made it. That was a big mistake

fair enough. So how would you How would you go about doing that differently? If you if you could go back in time and give yourself some some advice, What would you say?

I would say like, Ah, yeah, I mean, start basically talking to people in the space, right? So there's plenty of communities out there in the entertainment space right hand, like you get to know some people until, like, bring those people into your product while you're making it. Um, just so you have Ah, you're one you're starting to solve how you're going to start connecting with these people. And and two, it's it's the like it's not. You should never make a product just for yourself, right?

It's about the other people that you're serving. And so it's start engaging with other people that may or may not have that problem early. So you conjugate the market and deal with that, and that could be a simple is like at the very end, we're basically posting out to forums, right? So the entertainment forums feel like, Hey, that's what we've done like we want your feedback, but it's really like getting to know some of those people and talking with them and theory out what their problems are and kind of. But it's getting to know the people who will be your customers. And I would start to do that before you build anything now. So be, like, spend time with those people.

Sure, that makes less sense. So I think one of the main reason that we kind of connected actually it was because I was talking on hacker news. I remember exactly what the context was, but we were talking on tak news about not how can you say with certainty, recording only the hackers. I think about there being this kind of trend amongst founders, and I see this a lot in the cells. We found this course that a founder will I want to begin working on a new idea or a new business on. The first thing they do is go away and spend some time putting up the landing page on right. What I've seen happen a lot. Now, you know, I made this mistake the beginning as well. I think everyone kind of for some reason, implicitly assumes this is the right way to go. But you end up basically doing more harm than good.

In my opinion, on dhe, you kind of chimed in and said, Look, I'm doing 100 $50,000 in revenue this year. Andi, I still don't have a landing page. Andi, I thought I was really, really interesting to see someone else who, you know, kind of taken it to an extreme almost on. That's kind of why I you know, I really wanted to talk to you about that. So I'm gonna kind of kick up. Obviously,

I want, you know, dive quite deep into this and get your thoughts on exactly why. And you know, when you should build the landing page, all this kind of stuff. But I wanted to kick it off with them. Kind of just some feedback from a ah comments. I I posted again on indie actress and said, Look, I'm going to be interviewing Jeremy. He's going over $150,000 in revenue on dhe. He hasn't got a landing page. What should I ask you? Ah, nde.

I got some good questions, but also got one comment, which is quite details on dhe. I'd love to get your feedback on it. And you haven't seen this before, Obviously. So I'm sorry for springing it on you and I as exciting. So you're gonna like, but we're gonna kick off with this anyway. So this person says you start with the assumption that it will take a couple of hours to make a landing page. There are tools that can help you make a landing page in literally 10 minutes on DDE. Then they go on to say $150,000 in revenue in the first year is far from impressive on DDE. The right question that we should be asking isn't how you did this without the landing page. It's How much money could you be making if you did have a landing page? So those kind of the 33 kind of her opinions this person had, let's say,

um yeah, well, you know, what would you say? Because God of yours for years funds to that?

Yeah. One. I guess I would love to ask them What is a successful first year in business? Um, for them, right.

If you I checked out like e I checked that I checked out there in the hackers profile really quick they do have a company. It's currently not generating any revenue, so I'm not sure what exactly they're there. Is there a bench?

I don't think there's any necessarily success. Metric likes to find your own, but I'm just curious. That's what I'd love to ask them back. Right. Um, but yeah. So I think that there's so there's a couple of things going on there. One is that a landing page is like, um, spending 10 minutes on the landing page. Is the landing page, right? That's gonna convert, for example. So one of the reasons I don't have a landing page is a soon as I add a landing page to the game. Now,

I have to deal with that as a problem, right? So, like, if I'm sending people there, I have to consider Okay? How many of you are going there? What are their conversion rates? Um, what language would be changing at the landing page like all of these things. And I think there's Ah, there's a trick in that, um and I kind of want do. This is like an interactive thing with you, because I saw I described your email list and I saw something in there that I was like, Oh,

I wonder. Um, I I have an idea. Basically around that. So Okay. I'm gonna, you know, sell you something, but

go for it. I've got my critic audio.

Wow, you're You're aggressive. That might be an easy one, but basically Ah, I think couple weeks ago you asked, he said, And I think it's for this podcast. Like you were looking for people to come on the podcast and you're even willing to pay for them to come on. Is that correct? I read that. Right.

Knows that was actually slightly different. So I wanted to invite some sales experts onto the podcast on Also talked them about a paid collaboration, which is slightly more involved, so it wouldn't be paid to do the podcast. It would be fatal for something else. Slightly more involved with the course. Okay, basically kind of with me to Grayson content.

Norris. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Well, this this will be an even better example, but, uh, you know, I think it makes it better. Okay. Um okay. So ah, with cigarettes, you're looking for salespeople to partner with you in some way. No,

my question and they'll, you know, you paid for. And given that you're asking for that, right, if I could introduce you to people that were rail regarded in the space and could really solve, you know, help you with the content. Why would you pay any sort of Madame uneven? It's $5 for that. Yeah, I introduce you. Yeah. Okay. So excellent. So there you go.

I I could have a sale. We could go further in this and, you know, get some contracts written or whatever, but that's not really the point. The point is, is it? So I even misunderstood what you wanted, right? But talking to you in the two minutes it took toe, understand? Oh, that's what you really meant right now, actually can sell you something. I just I could reach out to the sales replied, and my network introduce them to you.

And if it works out, you could pay me for the referral, right? Yeah. If I had made landing page for you, right, I would have said, Ah, here are excellent sales people that can come on your podcast, right? If you want the introduction to them, right? Like pay $5 you can get them on your podcast, right? Right. Which you just said.

That's not what you're actually looking for. You. So what I sold you if the Landing Page said that? No. So that's that. Exactly. That's my point. Is it like, Yes, I could build a landing page for now. I'm putting all my assumptions in there, right? Versus talking to you. I could be like, Oh, what you really want is for people to help you make partner with content.

That's totally different ball game. Have I could tell you that instead. So that's for the landing page. I think problem comes in a bit. I just I just played my hand to say this is what I'm selling, and you're gonna now make a decision. Like Okay, if that's what is selling, that's not what I need. So I'm gonna leave. Where is if you engage us? Someone in the conversation, right? You like? Okay, I guess that's not what you wanted,

what you really want and we can get there and I can make a sale that way. It is long is it still fits, right? What you're eventual aspiration is, but It's about understanding now, Mike, my customer and my client. Instead, they're just, like, guessing and putting on a landing pitch That makes sense.

That does make sense. Yeah, but makes a lot of sense. And I see that happening a lot. Um, yet for sure. So I think there's there's a couple of things going on there that I see happen. Um, firstly, what I really like about your approach there is what you're basically saying is my number one priority going into this sale or even going into trying to make some money, is to create value and to solve a pain or a problem for my customer. Pretty flexible On what? That is pretty flexible on how I do it. But I want to help somebody. You know, at the end of the day, I want to generate value for somebody on Def.

I know I can do that. Then they'll pay me for it. Obviously, which is very different to saying I'm gonna build this product on dhe. I now need to find a way to make people buy it, which is, I think, something that a lot of people kind of mistakenly go into on the second thing. Just kind of following on. From what you said there about, um, you kind of beat by doing sales without a landing page gives you this opportunity to find out exactly what I do. Want to buy the other thing that it does, which we didn't really get a chance to show. There are. You know,

I was too much of an easy sale. We were pretty vague. I mean, you know, if we would have seen it if we carried on down that road, right? Um, it allows you a chance to discover what objections I have to buy. So is there something I need to kind of sort out? Is there someone else who is involved in the buying process? Who, You know? You know who I need to get a degree like agreement and buy in from to be able to make the purchase. For example, All those kind of things are things that if you just put up a landing page, you I won't buy because you don't kind of handle one of my objections,

But you'll never know what it wa ce. You'll be able to make any improvements. All you can see is that I didn't buy for some reason. So if you don't at least go into doing those, you know, finding out those objections, I'm working out a way to handle them in the early stages by doing direct sales. Then you basically have no chance of it working out what they are.

Exactly. Yeah, I think it's it's It's this discovery process that takes a long time. And so, um, I would say, You gotta spend I mean, there's no reason. Do not have someone that's like I will buy what you have when you have it, um, beforehand, because it's you gotta discover these things right? It's like if there's not a single person that you can talk Thio now, it will buy the product that you're going to build. I don't see where that person is gonna come from once you build it right, because again, it's to solving that those two problems the marketing and selling side and the product sign. And so that's kind of the The key here is to figure out who your customers are. Start talking to them, figure out what their real problems are. Fill that product.

Sure, yeah, I agree. So everything dive a bit deeper into that by looking at your I think the first it wasn't the first, but it was one of the products you were talking about. So walk through the the photography for, um was it for home spaces for? Exactly for saying so. You how? Maybe you can walk me through. Kind of. How you found your first customer is something I like to do a lot of kind of. When I talk to people who are a bit further further along its saying, How did you find customers? For How did you find customer number five on How do you find customers for 50? Like, how did you close those deals? You know what? It's really interesting to see here that the changes between the approaches t get a customer. One what you had to do on customer 50.

Sure. Yeah. Um Okay. So yeah, customer number one for walk through. So walk thio. Just a little bit of context there. Walk through. We did virtuality for real estate. We're trying to get, um, like you could. The product was you could physically walk through a house without ever having to visit says the end goal to kind of change the way real estate works. What way? Start talking with lots of real turfs and fearing out like a Is this a good idea? Like, would you use this if you had it on?

We got a ton of yeses, but with two like, two main problems And the first problem was, this sounds awesome. But how do you How do we get the house is right. I'm gonna tour someone through a house, But like, if you don't have it, then I can't do it. So that was like problem number one. We're like, Okay, how we solve that problem on We ended up coming up doing the photography company in order to be able to have access to houses, do virtual reality tours and them, then add them to our database for built her season. So we're gonna talk about that first customer.

Basically, we started talking to as many realtors We could, um, and saying, Hey, wow. You know, can we photograph your house? Well, d'oh, we'll do this virtuality to Earth at that whole thing. And we just talked to a lot of realtors. That was pretty much We just, you know, is calling and talking to cultures. But you did finally get someone.

Um, no. At the time we neither of us had ever taken a professional photo our lives. Um, but we we got the customer. So we d'oh and we, uh, ran a professional camera and we ran the stuff that we need to be able to take the virtual reality tour, and we basically go and deliver that product. It was terrible. We did a bad job. We refunded the customer. You made sure that, like I didn't We learned our lesson about, like what to do better next time. We did actually win that customer back about two years later,

but it takes some time. Um, 1000th Customer number one was literally phone calls right to realtors because we knew realtors were markets were just gonna call lots of them. Tell them what we're doing. Give them a discount. I, like get someone to sign on with us. So that was Custer number one. Customer number five. Um, meet actually in the realtors that we talked. Thio. Hi. My cofounder Pascal. He's super great. It cold calls and being friendly on the phone And so he made friends with a realtor.

I'm actually in another city, so I'm in Denver. You made friends with real turn Austin, and they got us a presentation toe like 40 realtors. Um and so we went and we flew to Austin to do his presentation. And so we go in the room, we have a power point presentation. Kind of showing like, hey, this what we're doing for you? Um, and we got we offered a discount issue prepaid for your package. Um, because we didn't live in Austin. So we want to make sure there's enough interest. Um,

and we did. We got $3000 preorders that day, so that was, like customers to through 15 or something. We ended up moving to Austin the next weekend and her fulfill these problems. So 1000 sounds kind of that stage after, So that was I'm not sure. That's probably like in those stages that's we're doing calls and getting customers like that, I think fit at 50. We're probably still just doing phone calls like we just started calling Every realtor on like that's listed in any city. Says like, Okay, here's all of the realtors on, I will jump a little bit ahead. So I know this. Probably customer,

like 100 or 200. Um, just to kind of show the different dynamics that we move through. Yeah, exactly. I'm looking for you. Yeah. So then we essentially got to the point of like, Okay. Ah, we were calling all these realtors, but they're all is cold, right? So the way that real estate works is interesting Where realtors don't really care about anything for trying to get a new home until they get a new home. And then they have to solve all these other problems. Like photography,

cleaning, staging, right? A bunch of that. And so we called all these realtors cold, but, like, they didn't necessarily have a house where they've already had photos taken of that house. And so, like, it wasn't the best time to just, like, call randomly. So we did. Is we, um,

be the MLS? We basically started looking at every side of script that ran. They would catch every single new house listed on the market. Um, and then the realtor tied to it and their email and phone number. We'd send them an email automatically. So it's basically like this in the MLS. You basically say, like you have a home that's upcoming, so it doesnt photos or anything. It's just announcement the other real tourists it like, Hey, this homes for sale. So we would contact all of those people the next day, or as soon as it came on with an e mail and then follow up the next day with a phone call if they hadn't e mailed us because we knew that they needed photography done. But someone And so that's how we started converting at a bigger scale on. And then we just took that city a city across, um, five cities for a walk through

Nice. So did you have a landing page? But that point when did you when you get a landing page set up for that one?

Ah, we got a landing page after we did our first presentation to Realtors so that after when we got that, like the 14 customers in a day, is basically after that, we turned our presentation like our Power point presentation you made to them into our landing page because we actually had feedback from them that they're like that's it. That is what we want, right?

Makes sense here on also, this is a very visual product right now. Yes. Yeah. More visual than they. The average, the average soccer like it helps you to see this.

So I think so, Yeah. Even still, we got 15 people with I mean, it's a very visual product, right? But we basically we re told them that we could solve their problem of doing photography in in a way that they wanted. So they're like a couple main differences there. After he talked to realtors. Number one difference that ended up being for business was online. Scheduling This, like having an online scheduler was huge for that. And that was like a huge product differentiator. And they told us that we were like, we have online scheduling people like, Yes,

we're in for them. So I can tell just from from what you said that that kind of founders early stage founders sitting at home today, developers thinking about trying to build the first business, they're gonna have to questions off the Reds. Right? I'd love to ask you kind of follow ups from that. The 1st 1 is simply you were. I mean, some people find find doing cold emails. Quite quite daunting. You're doing cold calling on. You were just ringing up without departed. Without a website with anything like that. You were just ringing up these these realtors who didn't know Andi they were talking to on the phone. You know, some of them were even paying you money. Um, what did you say? What did you do to make them to make them talk to you?

Uh, yeah. Realtors are luckily very talkative people, so that made it easier. I will not discount cold calling cold coins hard. Have made lots of cold calls. I usually have to lay down after mayor cold call because it's so, like, intimidating

and draining. It's the 1st 5 Every day, every new section. 1st 5 were always nerve wracking. Yeah, um never goes.

Yeah. So it's ah, you know, it's calling them in. I think again, similar to what we talked about earlier, about just wanting to help taking that approach makes it a lot easier, right? Just like a You know, I'm on. I know you need photography, right? Or like, you know Hey, I'm new to the area. Ah, what kind of you know we do photography?

You know, what is your What are you using now are like things like that. Just, like get to the point for one Because they don't know who you are. And so I will find that you need to get started fast. If anyone starts is talking to me about anything but what? They're trying to sell me on a cold call. It's over. Bryant senior, you need get to the point and start asking like, good questions. And more of that's just about being authentic, right? Is it? I feel like I want to help you and you know Hey, is there anything wrong?

You know, with your father for now, right? And like, they'll tell you if they're interested, otherwise will be like, hey, I'm having with my photographer, and I think that's you can totally accept that right? And be like, Okay, awesome. Thank you very much. Right. Um, I don't This is where it gets interesting.

This is a great point where you can kind of drive it a little bit further. They may hang up on you after this, right? Because they're like, OK, It's too cold Called out of dog fur. I have a target for goodbye. But there is an opportunity here to be like, Hey, that's awesome. I don't want to sell you anything, right? I'm new to the area in photography. I'm just curious. Like, what do you like about your photographer?

Right. Um, and coming in from the point of, like, I'm looking for your help as opposed. I'm trying to sell you something. Can can change the the thing they're right have to show you. So it's It's kind of getting to that point. Here's why I'm calling you and you can start with help, right? Hey, uh, you know Hey, Mr Jones. Right. I'm a new photographer in the area,

and I was just looking Thio. See if you could give me some guidance. Right? Right. Because I know you're in the real estate space, and I know you. You know, I've seen your house on the market. They have great photography. I just wantedto ask some questions about you know, how I might be able to become a good photographer like yours is things like that, right? You don't have to be sales e. You could just look for help. Lots of times, people are happy to help people.

Um, yeah. I also know you will get hung up on. Yeah, we'll get yelled at things that that's part of that deal. But some There are also nice, helpful people, so

for sure, But I think that's something that people just They think that if they don't see right, I mean, people say, Okay, well, if you don't, I don't called, you know, do cold calling because the noise people and you hear their reactions that they're annoyed and they don't want to talk to you. And they put the phone down and buy a nasty and stuff, which, which doesn't really happen that often to be fair. But at the same time, I mean, when you send a cold email, the exact same thing happens.

Just you don't see the reaction as directly. Maybe you'll get an angry email every now and again, but you don't see the ones that they're just clicking spam on, you know, angrily deleting on the same with even with Facebook. That's right. If you think we'll Facebook ads or less intrusive or whatever, like people are still annoyed when they see them when they're on instagram and they see the morning there on YouTube and they can watch their video because afterward, you know, spend five seconds listening to you. It's exactly the same thing. Like you're causing the same amount of pain and inconvenience. Just you don't see it, right? So it's not. I think cold calling sometimes unfairly gets gets gets kind of maligned.

Yeah. Anyways, I also say depending on your market and this is an interesting one is like if you can do in person, it's even better. All right, hold in person meetings. You can even get you still have the same reactions, but they're generally not gonna yell at you because it's public. Right? Um, exactly. So you do have a bigger chance of actually getting someone to talk to you then. And it just depends on your industry, whether there's a a meeting of people that you send approach

for sure, and bring if you have a small child, bring them with you and tell them to say they're hungry. Maybe veering into that now I'm joking, obviously, but yeah, I mean, at this point, you know, there wasn't probably a lot set up in terms of business and products and stuff like that. So, uh, I mean, you didn't even really have a brother get right. You were going and doing sales before you had something. So how are you handling the payments for that? I mean,

you know, was this like, we're sending them an invoice? You asking them, like, getting a contract signed or something, And, you know, getting them to pay you after the thing happened, Dick up. What was there?

Yeah. So use stripe. Um, and so we weren't using that. The, like a p i of it. We're just using the front end of it like Okay, right. We'll accept credit cards. Now s So we basically for the first person on and I generally like, I think I like to take the side of you can pay me after when you're satisfied kind of stuff. Right? So even our refund was us just saying Don't pay us. It wasn't like, here's money back. Um, but,

uh, so in any of those cases, right, it's just like, oh, you know, I'll send you the bill afterwards, straight easy to generate an invoice and send it on over, right? It has automatic reminders built in all of that. So that's handles that problem. You can You can also do a pre pay version. So we just basically had people pay on the spot, right? We said, OK,

come up. We had our phones being put their information and we charged him, right? Sure. And that was kind of how we did it. We also took cash. Ah, and that in person meeting if they had it. Some people just want to pay cash for, like, we don't care. We just had to note that down right there, like, Hey, this person is paid. So it's That's how we he did that. Yeah. I mean, just sending out an invoice is pretty easy.

Makes sense. Okay, Andi. So if we kind of move on so I want to talk a bit about Roque Tech as well, uh, join a kind of walk through roughly the same process There quickly. Just may be the first customer. And you know how you How you getting customers now?

Yep. S o. My first customer was from people I knew. Um, someone needed, like was building

something. Check. So again

real quick just wrote. Oh, sure, road check is in the long run. It's building a platform for anyone to be able to build a sass website or Mark. But is there any sort of complex website without coding in the short run? Go for

sorry. It's kind of like like Web flow. Maybe in that sense, I'm sure try give you an idea. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's in the theme of wed flow. It's more, ah, functional than design oriented. Maybe the difference so well, Well, those very design oriented, we're gonna very much for functionality based on. And so that's where we're going. Minority build that product, right? There's gonna be a lot of research for us to do, right? Like, how do you build How do you handle all these different Web sites in all these different requirements? This is basically like Okay,

well, let's start building websites. Lots of websites for people using a platform black easing our platform and make it better over time. So to start that out, Yeah, I had a basically a friend that needed some webs Bill. And so we we built their their product. Um, says that I was like, an easy number one, but, you know, obviously doesn't happen that often, but it is lucky into that. That was the case. Um,

and part of that's just because I was involved in the startup community. So I very involved in the start community. I just know a lot of people that are building things. So, yes, that is one checkmark toe. Like it was easy. It And I knew someone because I was connected into a community of builders.

Right. So you had someone basically, who knew you? They knew they could trust you. And they came to you and said, Look, can you can you build this this product, this this web app or whatever out for me? Exactly.

Yes, I worked. Okay. Yeah. Um, so customer five, basically, I started using up work. Um, because that's a community of people asking for people to build websites, so it's kind of perfect. Well, ah, lot of people are, like, super against pricing on their, um and I understand why,

but basically, you start working. That right is like, I mean, first couple clients I gave a discount to and did lower pricing just cause I need to be building stuff and get paid rights. It's That's fine. I'll take that hit. Um, in the long run said Now,

sets. Customers are still there were still being paid to build. Yeah, to learn how to build your product. Exactly. That's just still better than you know than than some people who go and lock themselves up in a bunker and just just kind of code all day. Um, you know, for free, you're still being paid to do research. Basically,

this point Exactly. Yeah. So So one of our company tenants is that we never build something that we're not being paid for. So, uh, we always have a client that we're building this for, Whether that's to make it easier for us to build it or something. A future that they need. It doesn't matter. We're getting paid till, like, build that. So that's one of our core tenants for this company. But then so, yeah, gearing up for a contract work things like that s so now I still do up work contracts. Um,

but two things are now in our favor. One I have, Ah, crazy profile. So I get better paying jobs. Right? Um, cause I have you know, it's super top developer alike. Well ranked, like here's tons of five star reviews. So I can I can say I can charge more and because I have that profile now, right? So that is you could argue that is my landing page. Um, if you wanted to,

uh, and I would accept that. But that is, you know, we're doing sales threw up work in that way, and most of its phone calls and conversations that I close sales on, um so do that. And now I also have referrals coming in. It's basically people that I have built sites for Send me people that are building sites. And so I've kind of That's really all we're doing now because we're still focused a lot on product. And that's one advantages I have that are other advantages. Now our platform is better, so I can still take lower paying Johnson. I get paid more per hour because we're so much more efficient. So that's kind of we're a rat. At this point.

We're about to probably switch. I can tell you my next stage that we're planning for, because now I've we have a designer that builds the sights on instead of the developers. So we've made that full transition that, like someone who doesn't code, is building sites right, which is super exciting for us. Um, so now we're about to switch into Ah, like, I'm gonna go full time sales and ah, I'll probably still use up work and stuff, but I'm gonna branch out into doing, um, I'll probably go to lots of entrepreneur meet ups and start, you know,

meeting all those people. Probably hit up small business meet ups and just I'll start the networking thing to understand. The client said about toe approach and probably cold email and all that. Um, just to understand, I'll probably say, What were you looking for now for development help, right? And they'll tell me not that great. Write all that down. Now there's those air, all avenues that I can start approaching, and in the same way I'll probably start looking into How do I know when a company needs like a website bill for them? Same way that we did for a walk through and Realtors knowing that when they list a house now they need photography. If I can figure out the same thing for businesses. Like,

when do they need development? Help? Yeah. Then I'll start targeting them at that time. But I got to go out there and start talking with a lot more of them to understand when that comes. So right?

Yeah. What? We're trying to find that trigger, basically, like that moment when they're they're ready to buy. Okay, so, I mean, that's a super interesting. So how did you? Well, no. So what? I wanted to ask what kind of how you came up with the pricing for for rogue tech. But I'm guessing it's kind of variable right now based on.

So yeah, I mean, I can talk about pricing not like road text. Very interesting in that way, because we don't It's very it's client dependent, which is a new type of pricing. So walk through was very as much more simpler. Like we again, like super efficient company. So we kind of took a We did a lower priced model, right? Which is like, we'll give you all this stuff for for a low price. So you get a lot of those people, right? And we also like, I mean,

we weren't known as the best photography company. But we were. We were great at what we did, and we were always efficient on time. So, like we got all of our customers that way, So it wasn't about being the best is about being like efficient and like, he's like Commoditized rushes it, um, something you normally see in the photography industry, Um, and road texts. It's super dependent, so entrepreneurs and startups don't have a lot of money, right? So they are a little more price sensitive.

So to me, that's usually like a cost plus model where I'm trying to figure out Okay, what am I building? How many hours that take? Does that work for me? Right. But then when we get in a small business territory, it's a totally different pricing game where it's, ah, kind of what's the value being delivered to them because they have the money to be able to pay that kind of pricing where it's like this would help us, and they also know the price, right? So it's like if a company has a business and they're like, OK, if we built this thing and accomplish this goal for us, we could save $500,000 per year.

Right? Right. They can put a big price tag on that because they have a correlation. The entrepreneurs are a Well, we want to build this website too. See, if our idea works right? It's like nobody has a value on that site. So they're very different in terms of pricing. But those were the kind of two that I target. Have entrepreneurs are probably more because I feel related to them and I want to help them, right? They're obviously not the most lucrative clients. Um, versus the business is being able to pay a lot more, but yes, I have to keep those in mind and figure out who I'm working with and what price,

Right? Okay, sure on. What's the end goal with rock? Texas is gonna be something someday that people can kind of self serve amuse themselves

that we are going to be discovering as we go. So no matter what, we have a business here, which is, um, we can keep growing it. And, um, as a basically development company, it will just become an extremely efficient company where, you know, we don't have to pay a high price developers to build things because our designers do it and we can kind of lower the tear of who, who what kind of skills you need to build a website so we could become a super efficient Web development company. That's one option the other is will branch out into start offering it as a you know, no code platform. Sure, the only reason I I don't say that that's a for sure is because I don't know how.

Like I know, there's plenty of other companies in that space I have to test for our own cells. Like what was the the pricing here? How much How much money is that worth in that market? How big is it, right? How easy it is it going to be just to penetrate into that market? I don't know the answer. That question. I do know that I have a business that's growing, Um, that's what Velma company. So I will experiment just to make sure that there's a market on the other side before going like we're a platform. Use us sure, because it now it's a risk, right?

I have money coming in, so now I can't just say, Let's do it. It's just a lot riskier than it is before. I'm still gonna do all the tests. I could just do them right and slowly and make good decisions instead of having to risk it all

makes sense. Um, so this is the only road attack. This is the kind of thing that obviously it's a part of your customer base are part of people you're trying to help our founders and smaller startups. Um, is that the kind of thing do you think people from South funds would be interested in? And if so, where can they Can they find you? They have to go in search through it. Work. Is there an email address? You have a landing page finally, you know, working

the recap. I don't have a landing page, but they can really Oh, still no landing pitch. Well, as I said at the beginning, right, there's a lot of work that has to be put into a landing page. Yes. Where is already have a sales channel that converts at as much work as we can. D'oh! Like what? As we're planning right now, before I started hiring and all that fun stuff. So what I don't need I don't want more business right now until I get our platform right and functioning really will so that I can scale it,

even though it only takes 10 minutes to set about anything.

Right, then. I mean, I could set up a Atlantic page in 10 minutes and, like, I don't think the person that made that comment is wrong in any way on that. Right. Um, because it only does take 10 minutes if you want to Just kind of throw one out there. But if I if for me to really invest, it means, you know, building it, making sure the copies right. Make sure the design is right for our customer base. Marketing it, like sending out links for it.

Like there's a lot that's not just throwing a planning bridge. So because of that, I still have one. Ah, yeah, they can. Anyone that's interested. Ah, in either, You know, speaking with me, um, asking me any questions because I'm happy to help or, you know, wants to even wants to try out some no tech note. Um, no code platform stuff. You retweet Jeremy at Rogue Tech team dot com Just r o g u e t e c h t e a m dot com

Great. And I was stick a link to that. Obviously, in there in the show notes as well. Awesome. I know we're gonna conscious at the time, and we don't have much longer left. But what I'd love to hear from you is say you meet the founder, starting off with, you know, their first company of the first time today. They don't have any customers yet thinking about an idea. Maybe they have something in their head. Uh, what one piece of advice would you give them to avoid? Maybe a mistake that you made or a mistake. If you think that they're gonna make

sure. Ah, well, number one, I do this all the time because this is kind of what rogue tech deals with with entrepreneurs. They come in, they just have the idea, and they want to build. Um, and the first thing that I always do it. So I do not accept any clients that don't have a customer. Um, and so that that's my number. One piece of advice for all anyone who comes with me is like Go get a customer And usually they ask how or like, how am I gonna do without building something? And oftentimes the customers will help them out. Potential customers.

I guess we'll help them out a little bit more. And I basically just helped them research, right? What are the communities that you might be serving right? Like are there? Do they have a read it? Do they have, like, a linked in group like what groups they hang out in and like Like, who's some examples of these people just to weaken? Um, you know, Number one I set the stage of, like, don't think about selling to these people yet just figure out where they might be or who they might be. And so that's a really helpful piece of advance.

And as soon as you have that done without any of concern of having to sell, then I'm like I turned right back around like, Great. You've done all this research. You have all these people. Let's start calling us Brian. So it's it is really, like at least have one person. It's that says I want this thing, um, other than you grabs my number one piece of advice.

I've been less. That's very good advice, and I'm gonna let you go in a second. But I would love to ask the same question, but for somebody was a bit further along who's maybe getting, you know, they have, Let's say 50 customers doing maybe around, you know, 5 to 10 k in monthly revenue was one thing that they're gonna gonna struggle with that, you know, one piece of advice you leave them with?

Sure, Yeah. Says, basically, I would start looking at, um where all of your customers come from right now. Like, where'd you get all of these customers? Right. And what was that effective way of getting them and then start doubling down on that thing? Right. So it's like, Oh, well, we got all of our customers through this community. It's like, What can you can you either do multiple more communities in the same way?

Or can you like a deeper in that community? Because you already have success. So it's kind of let's identify what's making you successful and, like, really reaped the benefits from that.

Jeremy, thanks a lot for coming on, you know, sharing your stuff and I'm gonna be following. I'm sure people here will be following along as well and reaching out. Um, thanks a lot. Haven't you know have a great rest of the afternoon fee?

Yeah. Thank you very much. That's it for this episode of the sales have found his podcast. We'll be back next week with another interview finding out how amazing founders acquire their first customers on grow profitable businesses by doing sales if you're a founder and you're struggling to come up with a product that people want to buy, or maybe you just need a bit of help finding your first customers, then you should head on over to sail to founders dot com on. If you enjoyed the show, please take a few seconds on leave a rating or review. Hopefully good one in the podcast up of your choice. Thanks. And see you next week.