What's up, everyone? This is Courtland from Indy hackers dot com, and you're listening to the anti hackers podcast on this show. I talked to the founders of profitable Internet businesses and try to get a sense of what it's like to be in their shoes. How did they get to where we are today? How did it make decisions at their companies and what exactly makes their businesses take on the goal here as always, so that the rest of us could learn from the examples and go on to build our own successful Internet businesses? Today, I am excited to sit down with Rosie, sharing about the pleasure of working with Rosie for the past several months and her role as the community manager for Andy hackers. So if you're active in the community, you've certainly seen Rosie leaving comments, making posts and introductions and just having people out in general over the past few months. In addition to helping me out with Andy hackers, Rosie is the founder of her own community. It's called Ministry of Testing.

It's a global community of software testers. Rosie get started working on this in 2007 is a side project, really, But she eventually turned into a business, and since then she's boot strapped it to over $1.2 million in annual revenue. Rosie, welcome to the Reactors Podcast. Thanks for joining

me. Thanks, Courtney. It's great being

here. $1.2 million in revenue. That is a lot further than I ever got with Andy actors. Any hackers doesn't make money anymore, But before it was acquired, I was experimenting with all sorts of business models. I tried a 1,000,000,000 marketing, I said a lot of cold emails for sponsorships and podcast ads. So I'm pretty curious about all this kind of stuff. Can you explain to us how your community makes over a $1,000,000 a year and where that money comes from?

So basically, most of it comes from events at the moment, so we run conferences across a lot of countries at the moment. So we started out and basically, in 2007 started out just to the forum and kind of as a group again bigger. I felt like it was kind of stuck in the time out of me, and I was feeling not great about all the time it was taken and no happen like that financial reward for it so that I could give it my my focus. And so after about four years of it, running is the online community. I decided that I needed to fear out a way for it to make money. I had, like, dabbled in, like some advertising stuff, some light on my nads and and the promotions for companies. But to be honest, I never really enjoyed that angle of it as so much.

I didn't feel like it was like a sustainable way toe buildup community. And there's also the fact that these companies, always one kind of push things in front of people's faces way have different goals from what I had with with the community, you know, fast forward, going to like 11 4012. I basically decided that the community needed events in the way to physically come together. That's what I started with, Uh, so 2012. We hosted our first conference that was in Cambridge. Call it test bash. We did like one training course beforehand as well. Basically, that was the start of what we had. 65 people turn up everyone age for a ticket.

I didn't charge a whole lot for it. I made like some money, but it wasn't really making money compared to the amount of time I spent on it. But, you know, it's money in the bank, a little bit of cash there to decide what what to do next. But the whole idea off running the conference for me, it was that, basically for me to say I was attested and I knew that there was nothing else out there. Protesters was no nowhere where testers would would gather and speak like openly about the industry and the only other events that were out. They were completely on a corporate focused or they were full of like, sales wonders, just like shoving tools of marketing. Tiny face now is that this is no us, and test is deserved.

Toe have something better than what they had. So that's like the event side of it, and kind of as we grew. Now we do some marketing for companies as well. That's, you know, fetch a fair chunk of cash. I guess you would say on then around 2015 we started the professional membership where people would gain access. Thio benefits mostly content and most of the content was based on the conference talks that we had recorded from the beginning and the way forward was toe include all those conference what talks in the annual kind of thing package and as we did more more conferences. But firstly we did a conference. It was like nine talks. But now that we do like something like nine conferences in the year that you know ends up adding up to need to your 90 talks and that becomes really valuable was in itself on Dhe. Then on top of that, we do online Master class is a maze on DDE. We're doing courses as well that testers create

nine conferences a year. That's that's you sound like a crazy person. That's ridiculous. I remember is selling sponsorships for many actors, and I had kind of the same feeling that it sounds like you had when you were doing a little bit of sales for Ministry of Testing before it became an end person community. And that was the feeling that, you know, this is, it pays the bills. It kind of works, but it's the exact opposite of what's best for your community. In most cases, it's not like your community members are ever asking you for more advertising. No one's ever like, Hey, can you put an ad on this page like this podcast? Be much better with more ads. And so you spend a lot of time working to actually make the community worse when that's your business model.

Exactly. And it takes away a lot for energy from you as, ah, someone just trying to run the community on. And a lot of these companies are really hard to work with, marketing people notoriously difficult to communicate with and actually get something kind of signed off on greed. And by the time you agreed something, you know the amount you end up getting from you just like it wasn't worth with the hassling the stress.

So I went back and I counter this morning. Look back through the old Andy hackers interviews and you were actually the 17th person that I ever interviewed after launching Andy hackers. So this was September 2016 almost three years ago. You remember doing that interview?

Yes, it feels a lot like, Yeah, it feels like it's just so, so longer going like where we was. The business was is just like it's just not where we are now. And it's crazy to think about because So I haven't planned, literally haven't planned for where it is now that I didn't I didn't set out to start a community and to go global conference is this is kind of like I follow the community. I followed what community it were wanting and asking for and then Thistle's kind of what it is. But I've also learned that doing that means that, you know, this is a whole different beast. And then what? You know, it's one thing doing one conference here and running a website and keeping in touch with people throughout the one in the Forum, and then all of a sudden this all these multiple of conference is happening, and I think it was that 2015 or 16.

We did like a first conference outside of the U. K. And that was New York, and I just got really stressed out about it. And you know, Dickstein, I'd like you know, 180 people. Something like that s so financially it did find, you know, all our conferences had done okay, They've never lost money. Some have over the years produced a lot more than others. But it's just like the whole idea of, like bringing conferences toe another country is filled up with so so many unknowns. And you know something that I can't understand why I just said yes,

I'm doing it all right. What was I thinking? It's like, you know, all this seems like a great idea. The beginning of it. Don't say Oh my God, what I'm thinking.

Well, that's kind of the comes with the territory running a community where you can't just head out of road map and do everything that you want to do you because your community members have kind of a steak. You. What you do is necessarily going to be somewhat reactive in terms of what they want.

Yeah, that's been tough. And I don't think that people kind of see that from from my perspective is like it's a lot of pressure. Thio. Think about these things, let alone actor on them. And just like everything that's involved around everything, every decision we make, it's quite kind of overwhelming and then another Guinness sick. You know, Isaac doing one conference in one country doesn't mean you can just pick up like, copy and paste that and bring it to another country. But you know, you don't know until you try and that we're trying things and it's hard and it's frustrating and there's lots of lots of work that's really not a lot of fun and really know a lot of fun. And I feel fortunate that my husband's came onboard midway to help out that he's kind of really kept me saying Megatech and management of the business because there's like there's lots of things with events that just tedious

but said by some that if they had known how hard it would be to be a founder, that they never would have gotten started. They're saying that in a way they had to be naive to have made that initial decision to start. Do you think that applies to you? What was your mindset like in the early days,

so, so naive? But you know, at the same time, it's like, Why not? And when do you think sometimes you have the back? Another community. You think he'll be okay? But in reality, you're kind of alone in that position of trying to make things happen. Yeah. I mean, totally is like, I don't know if it's naive to your stupid it to you

a little bit about

I can't, like, pinpointed it sick. What? What makes me have picked those decisions and that there looks my husband gives me when I say we're doing some things like Oh my God. And you know that since New York I kept saying, I'm not doing another test bash in another location and that was like the second location and what now We're nine. We keep saying that as a team, we're like no more tuna specials, no morning locations. But we'll keep we just find it so hard to say, Say no. Sometimes

let's go back to the beginning of the story Before you got on this treadmill that made it so hard to say no and so hard to stop, I would think that to be someone who starts the community for software testers, you probably need to be someone who has experience as a software test of yourself and ideally, experience running communities and you actually had both. So tell us about the years that you spent learning these things and picking up the skill sets that you used to eventually build such a successful community.

Yes. So I started testing like, but my first job in testing in 2001. It was like 21 at the time. I was young, don't know what I was doing and I had no qualifications or anything like that. Kind of just managed to get this job that wasn't very well paid like as a testing job, But it was better paid than the job that I had at the time, which was working in a bank. I was really desperate to get out of that position. And to be honest it once you get a job, intestine, it's so easy to just, like, get another job in testing further down the line. So what's in six months? I got in another job,

that baby evermore. I was so happy about that, even though it still wasn't that much, you know? Okay, it gave me a taste of what testing was all about, and I enjoyed it, you know, did interest me and then the company that I was working for, when I'm going to dot com, boom and bust. So after that, I my freelance. Then I contracted for bit because it was kind of tough toe get work at that stage, especially. I had,

like, two years experience, and I just felt like any job that was out there. So those loads more people with experience. I just had challenges there, and then it wasn't too long after that that I managed to get a job, and then I had my first job on 2000 and three. But when I was pregnant with him, you know that my boss was not very nice, too, so that's had an impact on me as well.

He wasn't nice

about the fact that you were pregnant. Yeah, basically and say As soon as he found out I was pregnant, he completely changed his attitude towards me and that was really not not nice to me and just was out to make my life as difficult as possible. So I was really stressed about that and I decided just to get myself signed. Officer could not go back because I didn't didn't want to deal with here. You know, people don't tell you this, or, you know, society doesn't tell you that there's a you know, as a mother was always the parents of nobody likes, you can have all you can have a job and you know you could have a career and you can have a family and we'll be fine. But actually, it's not fine. And there's all these hurdles that no one ever talks about. The reality of going back to work after you have kids is this really hard?

And the child cares when expensive. And even when I tried getting jobs after my first child a few months after, so they were taught to me. But then, as soon as he found out I had kids they would like stop communicating. That's it, OK, so it's gonna be It's really bad, it really is and say everywhere I want us out.

What kind of companies were these? Were these, like tech start ups or

all kinds, to be honest and a lot, a lot of them over. We're recruiters as well. So so is sometimes that at that point now we're going back to 2004. It was hard to play directly to companies. A lot of the jobs posted were jobs via recruitment agencies who they would pick, who would go to put forward. And I think because recruiters air just generally motivated by money, they would, you know, be very selective in who they were put toward. And, you know, if that person is a woman was kids they would see that person is not being not having the best chance and getting the job, I guess I don't know. So you know, it's hard to pinpoint

it. So how did you get out of this rat from, you know, going for this point? It was easy for you to find jobs as a software tester to the point where now your mother and nobody wants to hire you.

Mostly, I've realized tow. I did some contract. I often found, like work work from home, and I also worked with my husband for a while on his company. Partly, he's used like a tough guy as well, so I did some testing stuff. They're also just generally helping out was running the business. I was there for probably a couple of years helping her and then I kind of decided to move on to other stuff. I got sucked into the local geek world Off core work in building up the core working community.

Yeah, I know. You started hosting a meet up a CZ. Well, I think it was called girl Geek dinners. Tell us about how you got involved with that.

I thought this that Sarah who used to run them in London, and I saw that she was doing them after all. That's a great idea. I'd love to. I'd love to run one down and bright, and I think it would go down. Well, I've seen I've been to a few meet ups just general, like, kick took me tops in Brighton. And I just, you know, given my I expect my experience I had and I just wanted a chance toe meet people and that what with people. But when I started, it was I didn't again, because I don't really think about why I do things. I just like do them because because a good idea.

So I did them and like, for year, like it was amazing to say it was kind of completely like fully booked without any effort to put them on. I just had to, like, reserve a space and people turn up people to reserve the space.

What exactly were they?

It was just a talk and then, like, drinks afterwards and would invite people people to talk about something related to what you were doing. Good. You know, just like that you get these days lots of gonna talks just related to tech or whatever the mutant might be about. And I don't think people necessarily went for the talks. It was just the idea of like, does this meet up? That was just for women. And we had this rule that, uh, it wasn't just some woman. So I lie that we had this rule that guys could come, but they had to be invited by a woman, so some guys would like, scramble for invites to come along.

So that was kind of fun. Yeah, I think that that for me, is that I had never done anything like that. And it just kind of opened my eyes to the fact that I can make stuff happen and it's fun and I enjoy. And from those days I became No. One is like Rosie share in sight. I realize that people in Brighton started, you know, they do who who I was just by the things that was doing. And then I took that to the next level with a co worker and stuff. Why help start? Eiko started a cork in space with someone else and again for me that that experiences similar. But obviously that's a responsibility. And again, I question why,

Why I did it. Because it was a lot of stress as well. But I just had lots and lots of fun doing it. And I met so many great people and and it just boosted my whole my confidence in everything that I was doing. Like going from like a mother. No, really sure what she wanted to do. Thio you know, running local events and creating a space for people and being recognized with that, that's that. For me, it was a real confidence booster.

One thing I've noticed from working with you and talking to you is that you're in general just a super helpful person. Even in your interview three years ago, you talked about putting others first, being one of your core values you care more about the experiences of your community members than you do with generating revenue. Maybe that's why you got finding yourself into these situations where you're running these very social businesses, providing spaces for people and talks for people in communities for people because you just end up wanting to help you get sucked in.

Yeah, I think it isn't it. Yes, I can quite pinpoint why I like doing that, but I'm kind of like, Well, if I can help people and then why not? And I could see opportunities toe help All these people when I was doing these meet ups and co work and and then when I go into creating a on my community for testing, you know, that kind of started taking it toe kind of a different space in a different level. But there's something in me that just kind of kid's pushing me for words. And what if I can help you? I'm gonna help you not pointing to the right place. It's not that I expect anything in return. It just feels like the right thing to do.

Well, the good thing is, if you orient yourself that way, you end up probably hitting on a lot better business ideas because you're actually doing things that you see that people need us. We're talking to people first rather than sort of sitting in isolation and just thinking about what might potentially be. Ah, good business idea. You're actually out there, and I think of it talking to people and sort of being pulled in the direction where you could be the most helpful on provide the most value to people.

Yeah, I mean, I say to a lot of people say when When people are trying to figure out what to build the eyes, I encourage people to build communities a za way to build a business because, like with me, you say you're in there every single day, at least if you build any kind of community, I'm sure you know, cool and you're speaking to to your audience. They India, you understand in the struggles are the high points in the low points and so much goodness in the people just don't pay attention to those kind of things. I don't do customer research or anything like that. We could just like my community is my customer. Researchers say I know who they are. I know what triggers them. I hope this is the walls, and based on that is that I end up making decisions that I believe a good smell.

I don't last in the commission because sometimes I think they don't know what they want, and we have to make it before they realize they do. I think I think about asked people whether they wanted a conference and whether we should take it around the world. I would have said, You stupid No, it's the reality. Is that you know, I just you know, I believe so much and just getting to know people know enough people do it.

So at some point you found yourself in a situation where you had worked as a software tester. You had started the girl geek dinner for Brighton and brought together speakers and attendees. For over a year, you had started in co working space. Your time's of experience bringing people together tons of experience and software around other geeks in general. How did you decide to create an online form for software testing? Because that's how Ministry of Testing was born. Really, This online community

Yeah, to be honest and say this tool came out and I thought, Well, that's kind of cool. I could probably do something with that on It was Ning. I don't know if you know, nothing was basically a hosted online community forum, which was great at the time. It was a, you know, better than anything else that was out there. And I thought, Well, I'm a tester, you know, I could you know, I think I just need to come together.

Maybe I could do something around that, and it was really easy to set something up, you know? And so I just set something up. I knew a few testers at being in contact with What if you kind of Well, no one tested, you know, in that day and age, I want a lot out there. They want a lot of people Bloggin. It was probably know, maybe 2030 people reliably broken at the time, But I just started it and I let them know about it. And that's really how it started. And it was small to begin with. And like,

I remember getting too late. I don't know how long it took me But when I got to the 1st 100 people asked it, Well, this is amazing 100 people. What maybe is I don't know, I had nothing to measure against. And this is the thing is there s a when I when I do things, I don't really mention my itself against how other people do it. But, you know, to me, I was kind of thinking to myself, Yeah, it's good, Good, you know.

How good is it? I don't know. But it was making me happy. And I think that's for me. That's the most important thing is they? I was doing something that people were talking about, things we're starting to create this little community. And I just built on that and we stayed on Ning. It took us ages to get off it. Needing got bought out shortly afterwards. And then they never did anything to improve it. This was really annoying, but I think it would. We stayed on until 2016. Maybe I couldn't people. It's in a way at that point we moved the whole discussion form overto Mr Intestine and under a discourse platform,

Do you remember strategically? Maybe tactically, the journey to get the's first harder to users. You said that you knew a few of the bigger names and software testing at the time. How do you go from a complete ghost town, where it's pretty much just you and maybe these people that you know to ah 100 people talking to each other and helping each other out online,

mostly talking to myself and a few other people? Uh, I think that's, you know, based on that estate, mostly about showing up every day or every week and consistently trying to do something interesting to capture people's attentions. I I struggled to remember the exact conversations we had, but yeah, I don't know. I think I think people just like new me and light through word of mouth. People have started signing off and find it finding out about the things we were doing. And I think that the other aspect is that even though like I looked back and like the design was in the locals, that we had pretty horrible's. I always tried to make it fun and the whole reason. I remember when I when I started out, I was I was so board with testing. It was a horrible kind of world to be in,

I mentioned earlier said. It's all corporate e. It's war. It was all certification based on Well, people seem to care about was talking about these You know how to pass a written exam on dhe stuff like that. I say My whole focus was to try to move away from those kind of conversations and start talking about riel issues faced around testing. And I think that's kind of what kind of clicked with most people that came in. They saw that like genuine conversations happened. It wasn't like a marketing gimmick goes like people here who were interested in talking about testing and improving themselves and the craft.

I think most people see the world is essentially unchangeable. If they enter some industry and its drab gray and boring, they think that's just how it has to be. And, you know, maybe they if they don't like it, they leave. Whereas what's fascinating about what you did and what I think a lot of founders do, As you see the world is something that can be changed if software testing is not as exciting is some other fields. You don't think I need to get out of software testing? You think? What can I do to brighten this up? What you think it is about you and maybe your experiences that led you to see things this way? I

don't know. I just I just knew, You know what it is is that I went to some conferences around the same time or, you know, what's in the year? Two of setting up. And I got Really they were, like, local where protect conferences. And I just got really inspired by the things that people were doing and like I would go to these conferences and I have great conversations. But I would always be there, like the only test of there. And if I introduced myself as a test that they'd be like, What? You know what's what do you actually do? And, um,

it really made me think about the whole testing world on what we had. And that kind of inspired me to just, like, take those ideas basically in implant into the testing communities, that how can I inspire the the next generation of testing because we need it. There's so much bad software out there. You know, I still hold heart. Can you believe that? Testers need to be there to help produce better software, but I could basically see that the testing world needed an injection, and I don't know why, but I thought I could maybe make a little Duncan to that somehow. And that I That's how I started the community as well, thinking that I'll just do a little thing for fun and let's see what happens. And and I would browse the Web scene while other people were doing We're doing and take ideas from from that,

see if they would work on our community. Still, conversation, ideas, all sorts of things. And really, it's just experimenting with ideas consistently and seeing what sticks.

There's a lot of good stuff there that I think could apply it almost any business. So the 1st 1 has been kind of a theme on the indie Akers podcast For the last month or two, You I talked to Daniel Baskin, who started 23 companies, and every one of them has been this creative, eye catching, remarkable stuff that people just don't think about. Most of the companies start as a result of jokes that she thinks would be finding it turns into companies and get a lot of attention. And I talked to Allah Fever, who runs a branding agency. And their whole sort of point of differentiation is how they inject fun and humor into your brand to make you stand out. And here you are, talking about how you started a community for software testers, which I think on its face seems like probably the least fun least humor, it's least, is anything that you could do. And yet your entire approach was to figure out like what you could take from other areas and other spaces to actually make it inspirational. What you could take that was fun from other tech conferences and inject into this otherwise gray world

on. Based on that, what one of the things that we did was create a newspaper like an actual physical news people. And again, this was kind of like I saw this company, the newspaper club, that I said that they had launched, and I would say, Oh, that's my raisin idea. You can make your newspaper, how cool would that be? And what community can I create a newspaper. 40 let's do it for the testing community. Let's see how let's get people toe to write articles and, well, you know,

create games in and half interviews and all sorts it we did. It was it was fun. Yes, I have. I have really, like, you know, it makes me smile when I think about that, even though it never really made any money, you know, we didn't ship them off to people like a couple 100 people. People used to complain about the crisis. It's too expensive and stuff like that. But we created the online version as well, and those still exist on. I still have some physical copies in my Gary JJ. One of them has had, like a mean article on the fronts of about being testing and on it. There was a picture of a guy who was not fit, and then a guy next to it really kind of muscled up.

It's a perfect example of doing something different, because how many online communities you're part of our? How many products do you love that actually have a physical newspapers? They will ship to you. All right? Pretty much none. And when you get that, then you want to talk to people about it and share it because it's just so remarkable because it's so different. One of my favorite things about your community is that probably directly related to this kind of stuff that remembers absolutely fanatic like you've had not one, not two, but nine different Ministry of testing members who've gotten tattoos on their bodies of the Ministry of Testing logo. They literally have the words Ministry of Testing permanently inked onto their four arms legs and stuff. How do you get people to care so much about what you've created?

It's really, really simple is that I'm kind to people and I think about people first, and I think about how I can help them and how I commit them up at every opportunity that I can. No matter what community you create, you can change people's lives. And that's kind of what I focused on, you know, going back to something like the newspapers that yes, it was fun. When I think about it, it's like we managed to get people to publish articles who would never publish articles before lots of those people is that that was the first article we ever published as an example. So they will always like, remember, remember that and keep them keep that kind of memory in their heart kind of thing. And as we grew is that that kind of philosophy continued to grow in everything. We did so sick a lot of conferences, for example,

these days, you know, there's a lot of pressure on them to be ethical. But sexual asked. We were ethical from the beginning because that's the right thing to do. We always paid because expenses for all the speakers we've never done keynotes we've tried toe, keep everything goes affordable. It's possible we've done scholarships for people, you know. And there's some great stories that Emma will probably hate me. But we're good friends now. Every year she gets a bit emotional with me when we when we hook up it. A test last writing because she applied for the scholarship a few years back to attend a week's worth of training and attend the conference, and she was probably 33 34 at the time, working and not very good job, really wanting to get into testing.

But couldn't find her way in. So I gave him a scholarship. Like by the end of the week, she had a job off and she was just, like, completely blown away. But I struggled. Thio gonna take credit for that because really, it's like the whole community was behind. That was they were all supporting Emma's well, so it was like somehow it's just by kind of continually trying, tow, support these people and do positive things and do the right thing and just, like, kind of create a business in a very human kind of way. People have really,

really like gods and behind it away that I can't believe, you know, and it's kind of sad that it's not as many examples as it should be. Food. One in a business like this is that the more I do it, the more I just don't understand why people can run businesses in a human an unethical way. You're paying for this kindness and doing things because they're gonna think for us is offering a scholarship doesn't really cost us money. I'm sure there's a space of a training place in a conference of space, but really it doesn't cost us like the money of food, and usually we wouldn't like, completely sell out our tickets. So, you know, really, is that it was a no brainer for me. Why can't we do this?

And for me, is that Mason thing is sake. I've done this and people see that and they kind of take a step back when I just say yes to stuff and oh, I see I see an opportunity online or someone asking for help and I'll offer my help. And so some reason is that when I do that now, everybody does it. So it's like the whole idea of the scholarship that we we started is now taken on a new level were, quite often members of the community just buy tickets. Where are the people? And they raffle them out. Or they tried to find people to support. So it's like the whole couldn't you? The whole, like kindness singers, I replicating itself, multiplying itself.

It's showing that you know people can really nice to each other, and it really does make a difference to people's lives. And when other people will get those tickets and then become a part of the community and they didn't get blown away by. But all the support that they get, they're like, Oh my God, I give credit to the whole community, Really? Isn't it isn't just me. I think a lot of people do so much behind the scenes that they don't get credit ful. I feel a bit a bit guilty for trying to take any kind of credit,

but at the same time it starts with you because you're the one who founded the community. And I think you know, it's fascinating about communities in particular. But really, any sort of group of people or any sort of business is that people kind of lack of a better word. Enjoy copying each other. We don't know what to do you. It's pretty much a safe bet to deal with the people around us are doing. And so if you're the founder of a community and you have a personality quirk, for example, you really believe in kindness and the core of your value system, and you always do things for other people, even not expecting other things in return, and you set that example and you can kind of expect other people in your community to copy what you do. And now it's taken on a life of its own. And even if you're not the one responsible for all these acts of kindness, like you kind of let that initial match you got the spark started.

It's true. One of the challenges with being a community leader on the flip side of this is that whatever your community is, you can bet that by the time the community started growing, you're no longer doing that thing. If you're starting a community of software testers, at some point you were tested yourself, but eventually your full time community organizer and you get away from what it means to be a software tester. If you found that to be a problem with you, and if so, how did you handle that transition?

Yeah, a bit, to be honest, especially in the past couple of years, which I think is a really like, positive thing. That testing has moved so much forward with the whole kind of develops and continuous delivery that say, when I look at talks of missions now, I'm like I don't really know what this is about. So over the past couple of years, I've definitely felt like I'm not the right person Thio lead in the car, the company or making certain decisions. I felt it was important to try to find a way to get supporting that, because literally has been like years since I've done any proper testing. So that's how it's so. So based on that, I say it's interesting because you kind of feel like you want to get stuck in conversations. But you can't because you got nothing that puts it at

you could talk about running the community, but you can't software testing on the ground.

Yeah,

that's kind of the loneliness of being a founder. I think it might be true for almost any company. You're the only president, your shoes. You know, there's really not that many other people you could talk about about what you're doing except for other founders.

Yeah, it's true.

What was it like going from an online only community to deciding? No. What? I need to get paid for this. I'm gonna start doing real world events. I've done a lot of real world events with any actors, and you're right. It's not easy. How did you get your very first conference, the very first events off the ground.

I think for me, it's like I made the decision to do. And like when I make a decision, I tend to try toe follow through on it. Part of me, I think I could be like confidence a bit, so I was kind of looking for support from other people. So I partnered up with someone to take the whole testing community forward. But then that didn't end up working out, which was it frustrating And like previous to that, I had done the core working stuff in that apartment was a couple of other people, and that didn't work out like I had to walk away. So, you know, that aspect of it was like, personally for me was kind of really tough. But I decided after that I was just not gonna I'm not gonna bother thinking.

We're trying to work with other for you about I'm just gonna gonna go ahead and do things. And I think in a sense, that kind of made it easier. Kind of going forward. I just made decisions on guy lived with result off, and I didn't have to have conversations with anyone to try to agree about what to do. So in the sense that I felt like Venus, the solo founder, was the right thing for the for the first few years and really just to get the event off the ground, I basically put the venue and told people about it and said, This is how much it costs on dhe way didn't ask people to apply to speak for that 1st 1 We had just invited people that we knew that we thought you would be good for the first conference. I think we had about seven or eight talks for and it was, you know, it was great. We My only regret is that promoting it, like three months before I don't like it really was enough time to get the first event off the ground.

We have a rule of like, six months these days of tonight's event, six months in advance. But you know, it was a great event, and everyone there was from the community, so in the sea, and those people, like meet up in real life and actually meeting them for the first time for me, was great, and it was a real kind of situation of connecting the dots. Was people again going to let bringing that humanity to the community? And you have some of the people like I look back at the photos and this is a good handful of people then still with us today, and that's you know, that's a great thing. Cassie,

if a similar experience with Andy actors where I don't know somebody by their user name from the online community and then a year and 1/2 2 years later, I'll see them at an N person of interest. So we have talked to you numerous times, but we've never actually really talked. And so I think events there. It's kind of a magical feeling to go to a room full of people and see just how much energy that could be in a room. It's like 15 people were actually co located and how that differs from even an online community of many thousands of people.

The great thing for me is like what I've also realized in hindsight is like when he organized an event so everybody knows you, so that makes it really easy to network from my perspective is that I don't need to introduce myself to people things like that and natural young just like really kind of introverted. And I just love the idea that, you know, people come to me to talk a CZ I realized in a lot of answers. That's not always the case, but that's really nice feeling. Toe have that experience that

I think you're the fifth introvert that I have interviewed who is running a community service community. Just a hack. French efforts to meet people easily

is, it's the best way to do it. I totally recommend it to anyone. Is that if you interrupted to start community and you can do so many things and you can get known by so so many people and you can just stand that aside and people slight naturally float to you because, you know, why would I wasn't there? That's the only thing

you could hear all the introverts in the audience groaning like, uh, why would I want people to walk up to me? So at this point, you've run multiple communities, including Ministry of Testing. You are the community manager for Andy hackers. Are there any lessons that you've learned that might be helpful to you People Listen again, who might want to start communities of their own?

The best thing people can do is see, like a community as a very long term plan. Yes, it sounds really cheesy, but is that you plant the seed, but you can't expect something to happen straightaway. I think like these days, I get really frustrated. I just feel like so many conversations on interactions really kind of transactional was. I'll give you this if you give me that kind of thing. If you're building a community I just wouldn't do that is like when you're speaking to people trying to get to know people, it's, you know, you should really be thinking about what you can do for them. What I know how you could let him feel, You know, generally it's it's kind of really said that know a lot of communities get off the ground.

I think that's why is that there isn't this long term interaction between people. It's all like quick, you know you want results quick. If you don't get them right really quick, then it's not working, but like you forget that, like humans are behind the scenes and humans have lives that they're getting from within. You might disappear for a few months and come back for whatever reason. It doesn't mean they're not important or valuable. It doesn't mean that they don't belong. So, you know, I've spent certain what with my my head's so down in the administrative of testing, and I haven't really come across many other communities that you kind of have have that heart within them. And the only one that ever stood out to me was indie hack its And so I see so many similarities between the two communities the fat in the kind of kind of kindness angle and trying to do the best thing for the community and not trying to do this quick cats just to increase engagement. You're genuinely trying toe do the best for indie hack.

It's and I've not seen a lot of that. And is that if you compare that to is that these to me? Like crime examples of how to build a community, even if even if I'm a bit jealous that you don't have to sell tickets and yeah, so loads to make sure that we can pay the bills. You know there's this obvious differences, but back in the roots of them, a very similar.

This is actually a good segue. Way to think. One of the big differences between the interview that I did with you three years ago and today You had a lot of things going through your head at that time in 2016 and one of them was that you wanted to focus on your goal of not always having to be thinking about work. But more specifically, you said that you were super keen on setting up Ministry of testing so that it could run without you. I know a lot of aspiring founders who are the opposite. They want to spend all day, every day on their business. They want to be completely under gold. Impresses Why wasn't that the case with you? And why are you focused on trading something that could sort of outlive you?

So 2015. I had my third child. No, no. Sorry forthe job. I've had so many kids that I've forgotten how many Children I have. 2015. I had my fourth child is a really kind of first year was like really intense experience for me and then pretty much steak. Soon after she was born, my husband had some health issues with these hips and just like you, no, really chronic pain. There's not a lot of fun. My daughter wouldn't sleep without me for a full year, and so she was basically attached to me. She didn't like strangers. She would cry anyone else who would come near her and stuff like that so that that year was really,

really intense for me and are still in 2016. I did my first conference outside of the U. K. On we support the family, which was interesting. So there's four kids and my husband and I or crammed into this many apartment hotel. I wouldn't do that again personally, but, you know, just sitting there before test first New York thinking this is not, well, one of you. This is not the kind of work I want to do. I don't wanna be traveling the world. I've got kids. I home educate as well,

which is a whole other story. So we just like, you know, do things as a family a lot, and if we go traveling, we just bring them along with us generally. But it was just like too much for me. I was like, personally, this is this is not where I want to be. So say at that point, I made myself a promise. The I would work towards moving, removing myself as as the bottleneck. As first new run things, I had no idea how I was gonna do it.

I just knew that in my heart that this is not the work I wanted to do was I would start a community that's getting big was going to places in, like management, trying to manage your finances and everything in between. Well, is it? This is This is absolutely it's, you know, it's not what I want to be. And I find it kind of really hard to say that because I do love the committee, the whole community behind it. But I felt like I generally felt like I was not the right person to take it for that. Where it was going was not what was not for me. So I started trying to figure out how to do that. I had tried to hire a couple people that didn't happen, which was a really frustrating one, had literally said yes.

And then the last minute backed up but down Look at that point I was like, so overwhelmed with everything we've been having that happened. I was like, You know, it just made everything so much worse than this. If we're going back to it's square one. But also around that time Richard, who's now the Seal, had started working together and he he's UK based. And he was doing Test Batch Manchester, which was further up north in the UK, and we just started building the strong relationship when we kind of worked really well together. He was focused on just doing test batch Manchester to begin with. During our conversations, I kind of said to me, Oh,

you know, I told him honestly and openly, like what I wanted, and I would love for someone to take on more stuff and I didn't want to do certain things, and then he just started taking on more and more responsibilities kind of each month of each six months went on. He took responsibility of the conferences we started doing. We did test beautifully after New York. So he took responsibility for that. You know, I guess the rest rest was that its history is is three years, three years. It's taken me so it's not like it. This being speeding along three years, how old lives like that. You know, I've been very patient with everything I've done,

and, you know, I've tried toe make decisions. They're obviously like, beneficial to me in the long term. I obviously feel like I deserve that to some extent, but also trying to think about what's best for the community and so, like everything. Every decision we make is it's based on that. And basically over the past three years, I worked closely with Richard Toe, teach him everything I knew that it has probably Bean competent mostly on his own for the person on past year. But then he's also been hiring people as well. So it's like that transfer knowledge teau the other people has also been slow. I wasn't rushed to kind of leave, but you know,

at the same time I knew I wanted to and and the more I stayed doing Ministry of testing stuff more, I felt like I wanted to do other things, and I couldn't say, you know, stuck between two walls and say, I love the company. But I also have other things that I'd love to get on with. And as long as I'm still tightly involved with ministry intestine, I could never do these other things. Then you start thinking about God. I've only got one knife. Come, hurry up, please. And, you know,

stuff like that. Yeah. Three years and almost there. And one of the ways we transferred over knowledge was Richard would often ask me Say, what would Rosie D'oh! So you try and himself in situations, and you'd ask, you would ask me as a what Would you do it, Rosie, in this situation, literally that's been my past three years is that showing that knowledge with with the team is, well, not just him.

Do you think there's anything you could have done early on? Ministry of Testing? To make it easier for you to transition out of the business later on,

I probably should have hired someone to help me out of you. But, you know, I was trying loosely, but I just find it really hard, and I didn't know where the company's going. I didn't know what I was doing, and I was like, Who am I gonna hire? And I kind of got stuck, like in a bit of a situation of just just not making decision and, yeah, it was tough. Now I could've hired someone, which probably I wish I do wish I had. But you know, it's hindsight is,

Well, it's like I had tried, had had been looking out for people who could potentially help me. I didn't just want to put out like a standard job at. Yeah, I felt like it had to be the right person, but I was stuck about who's that right person was and what they would do. I wasn't sure I was indecisive about what that role is. I felt confused within myself, and I guess like I struggled to communicate, you know, I would have struggled to communicate that to anyone out there on then, also psych. I really wanted to hire someone within the community, but actually it's really hard to find someone who would be willing to take up that role. Well,

it's just, you know, a bunch of prick test is out there, said one community. A completely different thing.

Yeah, it's totally different. I mean, ah, people join your community for a reason. And running the community is a totally different set of skills and perhaps even interests than being a member of the community. The same time. It's really tempting to hire people from your community because they've got that domain knowledge. You know, they're interested in this space vaguely, and it's harder to find somebody else out in the world, but still not always gonna work out.

Yeah, but But saying that say where we are now, like with 9 10 people company. At least half of them have confident community. So we've got kind of a good events community person who wants a tester. Wait, This is Heather for reference for anyone else. But she was just in the community every day anyways doing stuff. So we were like, you know, we saw that as a great opportunities like that she would be perfect for the role. Those eyes Anya, who was a tester but really wanted to get into kind of marketing and social music and stuff, and I was that I was like, Well, that's ideal because, you know,

I thought about testing and what we do. You've been toe events. How cool would that be? So we hired her. We hide the developer who used to be a tester, which is, you know, interesting. Well, Richard Richard was a tester. His first speaking gig was a test batch. We helped him, you know, create his speaking career. And he remembers that, you know,

you know, was forgiveness. I would say, And we got another guy who's just focused on creating content and learning materials. Obviously, there's, you know, other people that haven't come from a test in background, but no. Yeah, I think it's great that we've managed to hire people from from within the community. I think that's a really positive thing. T keep keep certain things intact.

One of the more interesting hires, so to speak I think you've had is that of her husband, Graham, who's helped you run Ministry of Testing for, I think, six or seven years

now. Yeah,

this really ties in with what you were talking about earlier. The fact that you had a second child, 1/3 child or fourth, and now you have five Children that you home school while running this business. I have trouble getting stuff done. I don't have any kids. I have very few responsibilities. I feel like there's a lot of time in the day. What are your productivity Tips for making it work as a founder when you have such an active family life as well

at a time boxing, it's amazing you laughed at me. This It's like if I get like two hours to myself to do something, I just get my head down and I do it because I know that under two hours my time is gone and I'm getting nothing. Nothing else done. So, you know, for me, that's like people don't understand, like how how precious my time has Bean. But at the same time, it's like it's made me realize that actually, sometimes keeping really busy doesn't at Valley. And so it's a, you know, sometimes I don't do a lot of work. Were you know,

previously after having Children, I wasn't doing all the work. I was just, like, kind of staying afloat, trying to keep things going, and but that didn't stop things happening and kind of having that really realization that, you know things will be OK. Don't do anything is it is, you know, really interesting. I've also become, I guess, quite good at trying to fit everything in. So when I guess for about five years now, I've been running bean pretty committed to just like keeping a regular running route,

wanting to three times a week. Nothing massive, Just like Okay, it's time just to clear my head. It's like, helped me a lot. But there were times with young kids were the only option for me to do that would be to one with the kids, s o. You know, I guess you know it's coming up with solutions and thinking of creative ways toe to get get things done and not thinking that you have to have this eight hour block in the day, too, to get work done. It doesn't, you know, really doesn't have to be like that. I think slack has been a great game changed with with the change of my role to be more supportive than not actually doing work that I can just,

like open to slack and help my team. I'll help see if they have any questions? I don't really check my emails much anymore at all. And I guess I was privileged in the position that I waas and I could just say, Look, this is how I work And that's how it's gonna have to be on. And you know, there's no choice in the matter. I couldn't do it and get out it and they couldn't do anything about it. So everybody can have had to put up with that. And that's okay.

Slackers Great on the time boxing thing is so underrated. I have pretty much unbounded time. I have no kids. I've no your responsibilities in life. I'm just sort of free floating through the world. And I'm just less efficient because of it. Like the average hour I spend doing things probably not as efficient as the average hour you spent doing things because you've got all these deadlines built into your life. You've got five kids, you know. You homeschool them. You've got a lot of hard deadlines that can't really be negotiated with. And I find myself getting into this almost like robot mode when I'm procrastinating. You know what? I've got something. Do something coming up that last hour, I turned into almost like a machine. But you have many of those deadlines all day, every day.

Yeah, and I have no shame admitting that our work, What's the kids were watching, too? You? Sometimes that's fine. Some people would with that, You know, I'll go down the parking, they'll be playing and I'll be on my phone. I won't necessarily be playing with him, and you know, that's That's me. That's the way I caught. That's how I get things done. You know, my kids fine and they're happy.

And let's play what some people might saying. I'm never in danger kind of thing. But, you know, and at the same time the kids understand the situation that we're in, and I've been getting out a bit more than his days and no, you know, just gonna get in at the house, too. Do a bit more focused, working my young ones, looking here and there, right? Where you going? You don't understand the concept of me not being around all the time.

Let's say you were faced with a choice, Rosie. Let's say you had to start another business and you have two options option A is you start a business that has a mission. Kind of like Ministry of Testing. So you're starting a business to change other people's lives to change the world. As they say, Option B is you started business to change her own life. To make yourself happier. Thio, you know, increase your freedom to give yourself better habits to improve your relationships and stuff like that. Which of these choices would you make today? You gotta pick one.

Oh, probably changed my life so quickly. I feel like I've given a lot to everyone and like, it's time for me to be a bit more selfish and do things for me. And I don't think a lot of people realize fake how much I've given out myself and how many other things that I'd like to do. So definitely. You know, I feel like I need to focus on me. Stop saying yes to things which are still doing it. Um, yeah, I I've got so many things that I'd like to do, but I'm in no rush to do them at the same time. It's like, you know, Mr Test is going to the water is, and it's been It's been a great experience and it's happened over,

you know, fairly long period of time, which is giving a lot of time to reflect on. The industry has changed as well, and there's a lot more people creating companies in different ways. There's, you know, Paul Jarvis. It goes on about the company of one and things like that, and I find that interesting. And you know what kind of jealous lives I wanna look? ATT, models that there. And then I think a ministry, ministry, intestinal and all the responsibility I have there,

you know, it was when we don't have so I think. But, you know, I think this a lot more auctions out there. But, you know, also then thinking about the indie hacker work that I'm doing at the moment is you know, it wasn't something that I really plan for. To be honest, I feel like it just kind of happened. I did put myself out there. What is that? I didn't really expect to be where I am right now, done in the hacker community work. But you know,

that's to me. Is you know, I'm loving it. I'm honestly, really enjoying it. And I love trying to understand her other communities work and having that flexibility or similar work culture that we've had our music. Ministry of Testing That's not always easy to come by so that I would like to be grateful for the opportunities that I have At the moment. I'm not sure I'm always turned to start another company that I don't really I don't really know what what I want to do now. I'm just happy doing doing what I'm doing and learning more about the indie hacking community that I had wanted to spend a lot of time doing. Anyways, I'm just taking time to reflect on on everything and spending time with my own little thoughts in my head.

Well, count me in as well as being one of the people who's happy that you've made the choices that you've made and ended up is part of the and the hackers community. I think you've really breathed your own version of life into things and made the community and much nicer, more helpful place. So I appreciate having you at this point you started. You know, several businesses you spend literally all day, every day on the anti Hacker's forum, talking to other people who are starting businesses based on your experiences so far. What advice would you have for somebody listening? Who's considering starting a business of their own?

Ah, a few weeks back, a few months back, a test passion Brighton. I was having a conversation with someone. They called me Ah, master puppeteer. And that kind of struck me. Is something really kind of interesting? And I say, Yes, that's exactly who I am. Mistake. I start stop. I pull the strings like I make things happen. I make decisions and I make them happen and and I don't do it for myself. I hide behind the scenes,

like, literally is. I've never gotten up on stage for a test batch to speak. I refused to do it, and I love hiding behind the scenes and just looking at everything that happens and figuring out what what to do with it. I think it would be amazing if more people did that. I have less to go on. How they approached kind of really focused in on what is that People need want

great advice and very difficult to follow because, quite frankly, I think a lot of us who choose to be founders were just big balls of ego. But God doesn't make a huge difference if we can get out of her own way and start focusing on what other people need rather than just ourselves. Anyway. It's been my pleasure talking to you. Rosie, Thank you so much for coming on the show. Can you tell us what it is? Where they can go to find out more about what you're up to nowadays?

Yeah, Well, you can find the indie Hawkins, obviously slash Rosie Sherry on Rosie Jerry on Twitter on a multi sherry dot com. A website that I don't want that too often.

All right. Thanks so much, Rosie.

No problem. Thank

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