How Tim worked on side-projects for 10+ years, and finally went full-time (with kids)
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This podcast is distributed by Transistor.fm. Hey, everybody, welcome to Build Your SaaS. This is the behind the scenes story of building a web app in 2023. I'm Justin. And today I've got a guest, Tim Leland. Tim, how's it going, man? It's going good. Great to finally be on here. I've been listening to you for

Feels like years. I don't even know how far back. Yeah, when did we start the show? We started in 2018. So it's been going for a while. And you reached out. Actually, I got a message from your wife and a message from you. So I got doubled up. You doubled up on feedback on the Aaron Francis episode. And you said, hey, I think it would be fun to have me on and talk about your experience bootstrapping on the side of

And you've just recently gone full-time, is that right? Yeah, about a month ago. About a month ago. And the product is t.ly, which is a URL shortener, which I think we can get into that too. That seems like a competitive category. Yeah.

But maybe just for the folks at home, describe what you've been doing, you know, for the past while, what you've been working on and how you kind of built yourself up to going full time a month ago. Yeah, it's a long story. I'll try to tell you the short version. But, you know, it really goes back to college, graduated college and just

Got a job working, you know, software developer and started building websites on the side. And then eventually that turned into small apps. And then I got into, like, the Chrome extension space and started building a few Chrome extensions. And then it's kind of led me to where I'm at now to where, you know, I had a weather extension that grew to, like, 250,000 users. Didn't make a ton of money, but it was nice side income. And then...

I built a link shortener extension and that actually is kind of took off and has 450,000 users. And then that led me to T.LY. Wow. Okay.

And you've also got a family. You've got kids as well. Yeah. I have an eight-year-old, five-year-old, and three-year-old. All boys. Eight-year-old, five-year-old, and three-year-old. All boys. Three boys. Okay. You're similar to my setup, except we have four and our oldest is a girl. Okay.

So we now she's at college and we've got three boys at home. And my wife is like sad because there's no girls around anymore. Just just us four boys. You said, OK, I want to you said I want to pitch you on the idea of coming on the pod and sharing my journey of building side projects for the last decade while raising a family. I can also share the guardrails I put in place before before finally going full time on T.L.Y.,

So, yeah, what's kind of your perspective on maybe what Aaron and I were talking about, but also your experience in, I mean, a decade's a long time. So you've been kind of gradually working on things on the side. What's been your experience with that while also having...

Three small boys. Yeah. Yeah. With kids and, you know, a house and bills and everything, it definitely makes it more challenging to say, hey, I'm going to go full time. So if I could have done this 10 years ago, it would have been a lot easier of a decision to take the risk early on. Yeah. But yeah, so some of the

guardrails would it be? Well, my first goal was let me make more than what I'm making or meet what I'm making at my current job. Yeah. And then once I did that, I kind of felt like, okay, I could probably do it, but it still felt a little risky. So then I just said, okay, let me just keep waiting. And I kept waiting until I was more like double what I was doing, which is probably pretty extreme. But once I hit that, I felt like, okay, I'm

If I don't take the risk now, I don't know if I ever will. So I just said, you know, worst case, I could lose half my revenue. I would still be all right.

And then the other thing is, since I've been doing this for so long, I've always had like some project making some additional side income. So a lot of that we've always been saving, trying to live off of just normal salary and putting the rest into investments and things. So having a, you know, that those are my guardrails, I guess, is hopefully make more than what you do at your day job. Yeah.

you know there's other expenses you got to think insurance you got to think uh you know you got to

to your taxes a little differently. Yeah. You mean as a business owner? Yeah. As a business owner. Yeah. So you got to think, okay, I have some expense in the business. So there's, you know, that's, that's kind of how I did it, um, to decide. Yeah. And, and the, I mean, the, the one kind of thing that jumps out at me right away is, is the timeframe that 10 years of kind of consistent effort. How would you describe your effort during that time? Like, was this, uh,

a few hours a week? Was this you waking up at three in the morning every morning and

going for a one-hour jog and then coding for three hours. What was your schedule like kind of building up to this? Before kids or when the kids were younger, it would be usually after we put them to bed, I would work for a few hours on something. And a lot of it was learning early on. So I was learning at my day job, but also building different apps, learning how to scale and how to build and support users. And a lot of it's marketing, which I don't

learned a lot from you over the years. So that's always been helpful. I mean, yeah, you've been quite successful. I don't know if I've ever done anything that's had that many users. So you've clearly done something right. You're reaching a lot of people. Yeah, yeah. The challenge is, you know, I need to figure out how to do a better job at converting. So if I have, you know, 450,000 users using a free app,

Chrome extension, how can I get a higher percentage of those to convert? And that's something I'm actively working on. Yeah. Is that your funnel right now? Like the people funnel from a free Chrome extension over to your paid URL shortening service? And then you're hoping that a few of those... I think you can use your shortener for free...

But then the idea is that eventually folks will upgrade to either $5 a month, $20 a month, or $50 a month. Yeah. Yeah, so the extension initially was all I built the link shortener extension and didn't even have T.ly. And I grew that to be...

you know, I don't know, maybe 10, 50,000 users. And at that point I decided I need to build T.L.Y. and put subscriptions around it. And then, so yeah, you can install the extension, use it free. And then that was my initial funnel. Now I'm, you know, branching out to more of like, okay,

SEO, getting more people who just search URL shortener or URL shortener with custom domain, those type of things, more advanced features, trying to get those users to subscribe and sign up to, you know,

unlock some of those features. Yeah, yeah. We got to get to your SEO hot tips later on in the episode because I'm curious too. But let's get back to this idea of building on the side. So it sounds like over the past 10 years, you've had babies throughout there, right? And you were just at nighttime putting in a few hours for learning, for figuring your own things out, doing projects,

doing experiments. Am I characterizing it correctly? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of times it was just paying, you know, can I make something that would pay for lunch? You know, that was kind of my initial goal or get, you know, get coffee and not feel like, not feel guilty about doing those things. So that was initially, uh,

the goals also pay for the servers and hosting and things like that. And I'm sure if you're like me, there was also a, this is actually one interesting thing about having kids is that for me, it definitely created this additional motivation of, well, first comes the realization, wow, this is more expensive than I thought it was going to be. It's just expensive in a way that sneaks up on you.

And then the idea being, okay, wow, I need to make more income for the family. How am I going to do that? And it becomes this additional motivator, right? It's like, okay, well, I've got the day job and that's paying me whatever. And now I'm trying to do stuff on the side as well. You know, like I want to make a little bit more on the side. Was that true for you? A little motivation on the side? Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So, you know, you realize real quick, moving up in a job,

you know, takes time. So in my mind, I was like, if I could do anything on the side with the skills I have, why not, you know, go for it? And yeah, initially, it was just building websites. That's something that almost any developer could do is go out to like businesses and then, you know, pitch them on building a new website. That's that was kind of how I originally got started. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I would build like WordPress sites on the side all the time.

Which is its own form of stress that I remember. I feel like in retrospect, it all contributes to where we end up. But I have this constant debate in my head, which is I wonder if I had put as much energy as I did into side projects, if I'd put that same energy into...

career progression where I would have ended up or whatever. And it's just interesting to think about it because I think for a lot of folks, getting a better paying job is actually probably a better option. Maybe not in this economy, but the idea is that you could, for example, switch

employers. Every big jump in salary I had was switching employers. And it seems like a lot of folks don't even consider it. It's like, well, no, I'm just going to kill myself building WordPress sites on the weekend. It's like, well, you could put in maybe the same amount of effort really researching a company. I remember one time I just put all my effort into applying at 37signals.com.

And, um, I got, I didn't get a response the first time. And then the second time they flew me down for a job interview. And then I was going to take the job with them and it was less money. But then I went to my existing employer and said, I'm thinking about taking this job because it's remote. And then they gave me, I think like a $10,000 raise or something, maybe $15,000 raise. And so it was like, wow, like that, that, that was a big jump just because

Because I said I might switch careers. Anyway, that's a tangent. But did you consider career progression? Or did you just feel stuck in the career? Like what was the...

Was there any sort of math on that side? Yeah, but I think I see sometimes people say, how do I make $10,000 a month? And the number one way is just go get a job that pays $10,000 and that's kind of the best approach for that versus trying to build a SaaS product that doesn't. Yeah. Yeah, so at the same time while I was building things,

A lot of the knowledge of working like nights and weekends were helping me at my day job. So I was progressing and I, you know, I did move up over time and make more and more money. So, I mean, that's definitely not a bad approach. But if I go back to my very first job out of college,

I remember I went and it was like eight to six and I would walk in some mornings, it would be dark and I would leave some nights at six. And I thought, I don't know if I can do this for the next 40 years or so. Yeah. So I always kind of had in back of my mind, like if I could build something that would be, you know,

what I would want to do. Now, working from home remotely helped a lot with that. So that's not as big of an issue. But yeah, that was kind of my mindset all along is, okay, if I could build something that did make enough money, I would, you know, go for it and try to build it to be really big. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's, I mean, I think that is the flip side. It's like, yeah, you can go get a job. But for some folks,

There's always just going to be this kind of insatiable hunger to do your own thing, own your own thing, build your own thing, or have a retroactively. I'm wondering like, ah, I wonder if some of those first jobs, if they'd given me some equity, if I would have stayed or if they'd, you know what, if they'd allowed me to work remote right from the beginning, because I've also been in the experience of like throughout my career,

entire career, I've hired people. And part of the hiring process for me was like saying, okay, well, like, what are you trying to get out of this? Like, what problems are you trying to solve in your own life? And you know, for some people, it's like, I hate my commute. Other people, it's like, I've got all these student loans I'm trying to pay off. Other people are, you know, they've got all these things.

that are causing them to hustle, maybe on the side, build something on the side, build websites on the side, build projects on the side. And as an employer, you know, at different jobs I had when I was hiring people, sometimes I could just hire these people and I could just see all of their stress and everything just go down. And they no longer had that desire to run their own thing. They were just so happy to not be running their own thing. I have another friend here,

And he was like a solo contractor forever doing all sorts of like cool AWS infrastructure stuff. And then he got hired at Automatic. And it was like Automatic just took care of everything for him. And now he's like, I'm so glad I'm not running my own business, you know? And it is a legitimate option. Like I just think that people should...

There are some folks who are just like, you know what, I just have these things I'm trying to accomplish. Like, I just want more family time, less commute, remote work, a little bit more money. And that's it, you know, and some autonomy in my work. And if you find an employer that can give you that, then maybe that's good for you. There are other people, I think, that are just like, you know what, this is never going to be enough until I'm running my own thing.

Do you feel like that was you? Which side are you on, do you feel? Yeah, that's a tough one. I am kind of in the middle because I, for years, enjoyed working with people, working for a company. There's definitely great benefits.

When you go home at night, you don't really have to worry too much about if something goes wrong. But at the same time, if a company could offer ownership and all those great benefits that you mentioned, that would definitely be a selling point. I do enjoy if I build something and then directly for that time, more people sign up or subscribe or whatever.

make more money off of it, I enjoy that part of it so that I feel like when I build it, I'm the owner of it type of thing. Yeah, well, I think that's good. I think we've painted a picture of multiple paths to self-actualization. Maybe that'll be the title of this episode.

Okay, so you're working on this thing. I mean, I think the other thing to point out with what you're talking about is, I mean, one of the things I discussed with Aaron is he describes this as his maximum effort era. How would you describe your effort all along? Was it...

Like how, yeah. How did that feel to you over this decade leading up to you going full time? What was the amount of effort? What was the cost? Did you, what did you have to give up? Maybe talk through a few of those things. Yeah. That maximum effort kind of hit home with me when he was talking about that. And, um,

So over the years, I would say there would be times where I would put in maximum effort and then I would burn out and take breaks. And so I was, it was kind of like up and down and it would be like, okay, something seems to be working. And then I would kind of like get discouraged. And then I'd be like, all right, I'm going to take a break, just relax. Um,

Um, and as far as like what maybe I missed out on probably like just not watching as much TV that which, you know, some people would say is probably a good thing. So, um, I, you know, I, I don't really watch a ton of TV. So I think I would spend a lot of the time, um, you know, working on things, probably lost a lot of sleep over the years. There were times where I'd be doing something and

You know, I'd have to wake up early the next morning, but I would be up till two, three o'clock in the morning. And then I'd be like a zombie the next day. So that was definitely rough at times. But back to what you said earlier about having kids and, you know, thinking about, OK, I'd like to make more money. I only have this much time. I think it really helps you to like focus so that.

if I didn't have those factors, I might would have wasted a lot of time, built something that didn't really do anything versus when you have very little time, you end up saying, okay, what can I do and get done in the next hour or two and then push it out there. And that's kind of how I've always worked. Going back to the weather extension, I would be like, okay, what can I do? Make it a little bit better.

fix some bugs, whatever, push it out and then be done. And then, you know, move on to something else. Yeah. It's kind of like the ultimate Pomodoro. Cause you just know like, uh, okay. Uh, the baby's napping. My spouse is out shopping for groceries. I've got one hour to, uh,

to do something with. And I'm just going to use that the most efficiently that I can. Cause I was very similar. I just had projects all along. There was a, there was a period of time where, uh, like in my early twenties, when our, we had one, one or two of our babies that were still quite young. We, we, I tried launching a business with my brother and a friend and

That ended up not working out. And then after that, my wife asked if I could take a break from that stuff. Just go get a job. Take a break. Just, you know. And so I took a pretty good break. I mean, for me, I took a pretty good break from like, let's say, 2008 to

to 2012. Really didn't work on any... A few things, but for me, it was like I was taking a break. But when I did start working on stuff again, I wanted to be more mindful about it. And my motivation was always like, I'm doing this for the family. There's also a big part of me that I think maybe I wasn't completely honest. A big part of me was doing it for me too. I just...

had that desire to that itch I needed to scratch. And I do think that between 2012 and 2000, let's say maybe 16, 17, there were probably multiple times where, um,

I was just consumed with thinking about the business. Like even though I was trying to be balanced, you know, it was just like, it's just so easy when you're at the dinner table to fit, to kind of like zone out and be thinking about something else or all the other things that could fit in your brain. Like, I don't know, like, uh, when's the last time I took the kids to the park? Uh, Oh, we got a birthday party coming up. Uh,

Oh, we still need to plan a vacation. Man, it's been three weeks since I've gone on a date. Like all those normal things that you could be thinking about, for me, got replaced by business thoughts. Did you have any of that? And were you able to set up any sort of guardrails that were actually...

effective in creating good boundaries between those things? Yeah, you probably would have to ask my wife that question. I'm trying to think back. You know, I wouldn't say I really missed out on anything. Probably now more than ever in the last six months or so where I've been, you know, kind of consumed with T-Dial-Y, like thinking, what can I do? What can I do to

you know, I keep thinking like I turn the turn knobs, I switch this, I do this. And then, you know, I see different results. So I keep trying to think what knobs can I turn? What switches can I, you know, to grow traffic, grow users. Yeah. But like in the past with some of these other projects, it would just be like maybe 10 o'clock at night and I would just get on my computer and

You know, I would probably be thinking about it all throughout the day. And then I would put like little reminders in my phone and I just go through and be like, oh, I need to do this. This is a good idea. I need to try to, you know, fix this issue or go through my emails. But no, really, probably in the last like year is when I've really been more consumed now more than ever, which has had some negatives to where I'm, you know, thinking a lot about

the business more because now it's more important. It's like, okay, if it fails now, then, you know, I'm gonna have to do a 180 and, you know, either go back and get a regular job or, uh, figure out, you know, what can I do to fix it type of thing? Yeah. Yeah. There's two things I want to touch on there. One thing I just keep thinking about, and maybe this is just me. So I'm, I'm open to that, that being true, but realizing that,

that creating room, creating space, creating margin to even have thoughts. So, I mean, since Transistor's been doing well and I've kind of in some ways taken my foot off the accelerator a little bit in terms of like pushing myself real hard,

All of a sudden, I've had room, space, energy, the mindfulness to be aware of other things. And that could be

things with me personally, like my own mental health. It could be things with the kids. It could be things with my spouse. It could be things with friends. It could be things with my parents. Like I've called my mom and dad probably more in the last two or three years than I have combined since I left home. And part of it is I've just had more room, more space to

I've given myself more space to have those thoughts. And it's almost like I have only a certain number of thought blocks in a day. And it's just so easy for me to default to business because I like business. There's lots to think about. There's lots to do. And as you said, there's always these different knobs that you could be turning. I'm

Having this realization personally, I've just wondered how other people have dealt with that because there is a real danger, I think, to feeling like, well, I'm present. I show up for all the kids' recitals and my spouse and I have just a recurring date night all the time. And again, it could just be me, but I just found like it was a real battle between

to give myself the room, the space to just not think about business and to allow other thoughts to come up like, oh, I wonder how my second youngest is doing in math right now. Like I should be thinking about that. And yeah, I'm wondering what you think about all that. Like what's the, is there a danger or a risk when you're,

building stuff like this to just fill all your thoughts and all the available brain time and space with business stuff to the exclusion of some other stuff that might kind of naturally emerge if you gave it space and time to do so. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think that's that maximum effort. My, my,

The last six months or so, I feel like I've been putting maximum effort into T.O.I. And yes, there have been times where I probably have thought, okay, I'm throwing the baseball with my oldest son and I'm

not really thinking about what we're doing. I'm thinking about some other idea I have or I need to be doing this. Or you're sitting at a dinner table and you pull out your phone and writing down reminders so you don't forget or responding to emails. And sometimes, yeah, I'm telling myself, it's worth it. Let me do this now. And then I'll make up for it with more time later. And it's definitely like you're gambling. You're gambling this time for...

hopefully more in the future. And it's a risk. I think it was there in an episode where he talked about how his wife...

It was him, right? He said his wife really, you know, did a lot of the stuff with the kids. And that's why I sent it to my wife originally because I was like, I bet you can relate to this. And she's like, you know, great mom. She, you know, does a lot and keeps us kind of organized on that side. So that really helps out. It allows me to, you know, focus and spend time doing this stuff, like the business side of things. Yeah. And I think that's like another thing.

I have tried to bring up is that if there's alignment there, like if one person's like building a business or projects on the side or whatever, and the other person is okay with that and is also okay to take on

another role and they're just like, you know, if one person just wants to be like home with the kids, that's their full-time thing. That's great. That's, that's a, an alignment that can work. I just have an inbox full of examples of people who have emailed me saying, man, like, wow, this just did not work because I'm,

maybe their spouse doesn't want to do that much of the housework and child rearing and other things. I think that's like this crucial bedrock to all of this.

is having as much alignment as you can and being pretty sure about it. Like, okay, this is going to consume some of my thinking blocks, some of my energy blocks. And that's going to mean I have to give that space up for something else. And all of this is a bet. I'm betting my time, energy, focus, and resources now with the hope, like you said,

of it paying off in the future. And also depending on what kind of business you build, that could be there or it couldn't be there either, right? These are all difficult things to figure out, especially since

For me, so much of the motivation was like, I just knew we needed to make more money. And so knowing that, and then I also just knew I didn't want to commute anymore. And I also, so in the, in the search for these things, it's good to want those things. And then it's just like this navigating the costs, what you're giving up, if you're giving up too much right now.

None of it's easy to figure out. Yeah, I've thought over the years, I've thought to myself, I wish I could just kind of be normal and just work a nine to five, enjoy it. But I just always, like I said, I would take breaks over the years and I would work on something, get a great idea. But yeah, I would be, why can't I just go to work, come home? But just my...

I guess, drive to build something just every single time just took over. And I was like, okay, this idea is going to be it. I just need to, you know, build it, put it out there, see what happens. And yeah, um,

It's definitely been a journey and everything kind of builds on top of each other too. So that's what's been nice is the learnings of your past have really helped your future. Yeah. I mean, I think overall, especially the way you did it kind of gradually, because Aaron describes maximum effort as the most, the max I can do. He says the effort he can give is the maximum to

determined by what he's willing to sacrifice. In my mind, it sounds like he's saying like, okay, there's things I won't sacrifice and I'm willing to give everything else

to that. And maybe one reason that hasn't really resonated with me is because it's like, to me, it was like, well, of course I'm not going to watch TV. Like I'm the same. I don't watch TV. I don't watch sports. I don't have hobbies. Like all that stuff resonated with me, but that was just like, well, of course that's not going to be true. I always found it difficult. And maybe he just doesn't have this difficulty. Um,

I always found it difficult to navigate in real life when you're getting up to like, am I going to be home for dinner? Sure. Okay. I'll be home for dinner. But then am I going to stay up all night and then just be a real shithead the next day? Well, that happened a lot. And then am I going to be like consumed by something like a launch or something?

whatever. And then my kids are saying, Hey dad, dad, dad. And I'm just like in my own world all the time. That stuff just happened more than I'd probably like to admit. Yeah.

So how do you define, like, what is the effort piece for you? Is it just like, have you been good at just saying, you know what, this part, I'm just, I'm not going to cross that line and I'm good with it? Or have you just been able to do it over a longer period of time, like you said, 10 years, and just that pace was manageable? What's the navigation of all that for you? Yeah, I think one of the benefits of

you know, building a business like a web business SaaS product is you're usually home anyways unless you have to travel with it. So that's kind of been a benefit to where, you know, I usually would be always home working on something. But yes, so you might be home but are you present mentally? Mm-hmm.

Not, I wouldn't say 100% always, you know, like I said, the whole, you know, being at dinner and checking your phone. Yeah. So those are things to work on. So be present in the times where, you know, it's important. You know, don't miss meals.

uh, school events, sporting things, um, try to be there for all those. But yeah, I think a lot of my sacrifice was probably my own sleep and, uh, probably health at times, but, and also maybe doing what I want to do, you know, like watch a TV or like, I don't really watch sports or TV. So that, that really helped with, uh, you know, giving you that extra time. The other thing though, is that it's interesting. Cause like,

In a way, your own sleep, I think you said sleep and health is your own sacrifice, but in another way, that affects everybody else. So it's like, I understand the distinction, like, oh, I'm just giving this up. It can also, I think, set up sometimes this idea of like, yeah, I'm just sacrificing my own stuff for the sake of the family or whatever. And

Again, I'm just speaking personally, but I haven't found that always to be healthy. I also had that feeling like, well, I'm just up at four in the morning working on this email newsletter that I'm going to send out that's contributing to this bigger thing I'm trying to build over time. Overall, am I glad that I did it? Yes. But on the other hand, I'm always kind of questioning. I wonder if I could have done it differently. I'm wondering if I could have been...

better to myself, which it would have in turn helped in other areas of life. Just like eventually, you know, the sleep doesn't just affect you. It affects other folks too. And, uh, you know, the same is true for our physical and mental health. Eventually, you know, you can't, you can't keep grinding that down. And then, uh,

you know, think that it's not going to affect anything, right? Like it's going to eventually affect you, which will in turn affect the people around you. I'm open to the idea that other people just navigate this better than me, but I'm also like wanting to, it feels like I have this responsibility to also question, not just, not just you or, but just the listener to say,

How healthy are you being? Is there something you can do to make this more manageable, more healthy for you? We can sacrifice things for a certain stretch, but in some ways, your position is also interesting. That was the second thing I wanted to talk about is once you've launched the business and you've cut the cord to the employer and you're like, okay, I don't want to go back. That part there was like,

Kind of a whole other phase of this. In some ways, everything up to that point was more manageable for me because it was just like, yeah, like if this email newsletter doesn't go out, it's fine. If this launch doesn't do as well, it's fine because I still have a full-time job. But once I cut the cord to the job, that became...

more kind of consuming. Have you felt that way too? Yeah, definitely more pressure and I'd say even stress of not messing something up to cause issues. When you're doing this solo, you've got servers, you've got users support, you've got all kinds of issues that can happen. So yeah, I keep thinking

you know, six months, I'll feel like, okay, everything's gone well for six months. I'm in a good state and, and, uh, you know, I'll feel better about it, but I don't know. You

Do you still worry at times? No, I worry a lot less. So that part is true. There's a threshold where... But it took a while to get here, right? Because I went independent in 2016 with Marketing for Developers course. And I thought, okay, I'd done like whatever, 60 or 70K on that part-time. And I thought, well, if I go full-time, maybe I can double it. And I ended up doing more than double it. So...

Initially, those things were great. But then there was kind of like, you know, like in terms of marketing for developers, it just wasn't like a SaaS where there's like this recurring revenue always coming in, right? With Transistor, the initial period of building it was stressful. But once we hit, you know...

probably 20 K a month. Um, I calmed down a lot. And then since then, it's just more and more calm because you get after a while, you just realize, sure, there is a

a chance that this could all go away overnight, but it's just so small, you know? So for me, it's gone down, but every business is going to be different. I mean, I've talked to friends who have SaaS businesses and they are stressed constantly, um, because of the market they're in because of the competition. Um, I mean, if, if,

a big player in our industry really hammered us that would be stressful for sure but overall on a day-to-day basis it's definitely less stressful so there that that part and we've got more people now so it's like at first it was just john worrying about servers and then me worrying about john worrying about servers and now jason is also worrying about servers so it's like

The stress is spread out a little bit, you know? And then, you know, Helen's always there to help with customers. And now I've got Josh as well. And it's just like, okay, between us five, we can manage all of this.

Yeah. So I'd say it's less stress now, but it really depends on so many factors, right? Let's maybe in the last little bit here, let's talk a little bit about T.LY. So you went full time on it once you'd done double the revenue of your salary. Yeah, close to it. And it's only been a month, but how's it gone since then? The way you described like working on the knobs, that's exactly what it is. It's like when

Once you get something that's working, it's like, okay, now you're just like kind of iteratively turning knobs and hoping that you get, you know, little boosts. So yeah, how's it been since you launched, since you went full time? Yeah, it's been, it's been good. You know, my big focus has been trying to split my time between like features and marketing. So if,

in my mind, if I could just continue to grow like awareness of T.L.Y. being out there, people are still looking for URL shorteners every single day. They're still, you know, using them. There's actually some new, like, well, I would say newer, but newer use cases I've seen where people are using like URL shorteners and putting like QR codes in books. And so there's always like these new ideas for, you know, how people are using them.

It gets quite a bit of traffic just searching for a URL shortener. So that's been my biggest goal is how can I move up

and search ranking for some of those key terms. And then from there, just, you know, building more brand awareness. Yeah, yeah. So this is, I mean, I think now's the time for your SEO hot tips. Because in my mind, like when you told me about this in our Twitter DMs, I was like, URL, like URL shorteners, that is competitive. Like, it's just like,

A lot of people have been doing it. There's been some big players like TinyURL and Bitly that have been around forever. And I searched for URL shortener free, and you're on the first page. You're right up there with those folks I just mentioned. So how did you do that, Tim? Yeah.

Well, one thing by kind of nature of the product, so like backlinks are, I'm definitely, I'm not an SEO expert. I've been trying to learn as much as I can. But so when you think of a URL shortener,

by nature, they get a lot of backlinks because people will create a short link, post it on a website, post it somewhere. And through all that, I guess you get some credit. So that's helped to where you have millions of backlinks. But then how to compete against these other ones that have made hundreds of millions of backlinks. It's just been kind of like, you know,

Multiple things, writing content around anything to do with short links, marketing. So I've been doing a lot with the blog, trying to do a little bit of keyword research, trying to figure out some of that stuff. Building additional tools that kind of help with marketing. So just like a QR code builder on the site, like some other...

you know, tools that drive additional traffic. And then also just like really trying to make it easy for somebody wants to create a short link, they can come on the homepage and click shorten and they'll get a short link right away versus some of the other ones make it a little bit more difficult, want you to sign up and that type of thing. So,

And then also I've been trying to do some promotion stuff to where I get people to write about it or share articles about URL shorteners and T.O.Y. I mean, it just sounds like just standard stuff. Like you've got a product that people are searching for. So, I mean, I think this is the... I mean, in some ways it's like... It is amazing that in such a big established category...

an upstart like you could start something and get traction, right? Like that is amazing in a way. And I think speaks to this idea of like people being in motion, searching for a solution is kind of the foundation of every good business. And even when things are competitive, sometimes there's a way of threading the needle to getting enough attention because sometimes

Yeah. And are you using tools like you're using just like Ahrefs to monitor backlinks and keywords? Is there anything in particular you're looking at in Ahrefs or similar tool?

yeah i i've signed up maybe like a month ago for href so i haven't really been using it for that long um it it's helped a little bit to you know just track some different things um but for you know for the most part like the keywords are pretty straightforward for what i'm trying to do and adding new features that people have been wanting and then writing you know articles about how to like bulk shorten urls and people are searching for that type of stuff so

you know, once I kind of figure out that, I just keep doing it. So your keyword research tactic, Tim's keyword research tactic is just to listen to what customers are asking for, build it, and then write a blog post with those keywords in it. Yeah, usually. Yeah, that's it. I mean, sometimes it doesn't have to be too complicated, right? And if you're listening...

you might already be ahead of the competitors just because you're listening. So what are people actively wanting? What do they want so much that they're willing to search on Google for bulk shortened URLs and then like look, look, look, and then find t.ly. And then if you don't have what they want, they ask you for it. Like there's just so much effort there. And if they're willing to go through all of that work,

it's probably a pretty good signal that, you know, that's what they want. And I just search for bulk shortened URLs and yeah, you're on the first page. Pretty impressive. It's really impressive. Yeah. Do you have any other...

things that you think I'm surprised that you just started using Ahrefs. Have you tried any paid acquisition? Yeah. Um, I've, you know, experimented maybe a year ago and then recently I've started it back. Um, Google ads, just trying, uh, it, it hasn't really converted well, uh, at least I'm, and I'm not an expert on that either. So at times you feel like you're just wasting money, you know, paying Google, but, um,

Yeah, I've been experimenting with it, I guess, trying to drive more awareness, get more signups, and then see if I can convert some of those users. And when you talk to customers, is the vast majority just saying, yeah, I was just searching for you, searching something on Google, tried a few things out, and then landed on T.ly? And what's the differentiator? It's just like you have features that they want?

That nobody else does? A couple of things there. So yeah, so I try to talk to customers, but a lot of times, you know, I don't really hear anything back. I have some like, you know, onboarding emails, but a lot of times they'll say, I searched for URL shortener and one of the key differences is mine's

the shortest. My latest marketing tactic is marketing it as the world's shortest URL shortener. Okay. Curious your thoughts on that. If that's what people are searching for, if they care about it, then it matters. I do get a lot of messages about that. They say they wanted to create short links and mine was the shortest. So that's what kind of drove them. Yeah, interesting.

Yeah. So they want features and then some of the other ones. So when I started the, back in like 2018, when I started the link shortener extension, um, I think it was bitly charged like a thousand dollars for custom domains. And since then, I don't know what their latest price is, but it's, you know, it's more expensive than mine. So if somebody who's just a solo person or small company, and they want to create a few hundred or thousand like branded links, um,

My solution is really the most affordable, which I know when you talk about pricing isn't always the best thing to be the cheapest. But that's kind of one of my ways I try to stand out is to be more affordable. Yeah. Actually, I'm against the grain on this one. I think that when you're an indie product and you're trying to stand out,

one of the easiest, most accessible ways to stand out is to be more affordable. I think it's fine to be the more affordable option as long as you can make the economics work, as long as you've got enough volume coming in responding to that pricing, and as long as those customers are not too much trouble to...

service, I think it's great. It's such an easy way. If there's two comparable products and one is more affordable, most of us choose the more affordable option. It's like, okay, I could go here, I could go here. And they're both the same or similar. And it's like, well, okay, I'm just going to go after the one that's a little bit more affordable. And if you can give better customer service on top of that and everything else,

Usually the problems with the funny thing about this binary of like, don't charge less is that there's so much other nuance that you'd have to explore to see if that was truly a bad idea. Um,

Um, like are you, if sure, if you don't have enough volume of interest and you're charging $10 a year, that's going to be tricky. But if you're a landing page builder like card and you've got tons and tons of interest, lots and lots of people want this thing. Charging $19 a year is actually a huge advantage because there's tons of people like me that signed up.

Don't even think about it every year. It's just $19 that just, it's okay. And they're going to have me for life because now I've built, uh, also people's jobs to be done are interesting. Like card for me. Sure. I build some landing pages on it, but the primary use case is those people that want me to build a website for them. I just say, let me build you a free site on card. Just one page. I'll do it for free. And then I'll build a website for you.

And then if you need something more than that, go and get yourself a Squarespace, you know, whatever. And I'll just keep it alive just so people come to me. I can just build them a quick site and then I don't even have to think about it anymore. Right? So yeah, I think being the more affordable option, it's one way to stand out. And on some of these things, like Geocodeo, I think did this as well for...

you know, their API, Google's was more expensive. If the thing that's driving people to look for a solution is we were on Google, but now it's too expensive, or now we need this solution, but Bitly's is too expensive, why wouldn't you want to position yourself in there to be like, yeah, we're a little bit more affordable?

Seems great. It's like an underrated strategy as long as all the other variables match up. Yeah, well, that's good to hear because I've always felt like maybe I underpriced it. But yeah, so I'm trying to get the people who are just, you know, they might need a few short links for different marketing things. People need it for, I've seen people who are,

getting married and they want to have a short link to put on their invitation or QR code. So they'll use it. They don't really need a ton of features. They just need to create it. So that's why it's kind of a good solution for those type of users. Yeah.

How's churn? Is churn okay? Yeah, I'd have to go and look. It's not bad. I mean, once people kind of get using it, they stick around. But yeah, I don't have the number on top of my head. But it's not massive. I mean, that's usually the other concern with lower priced options. I just, I thought of it because you said weddings. I'm like, oh, well, that's obviously a high churn scenario there. But if you got it, I mean, the other thing is like,

Somebody might use it for their wedding. And then three months later, their boss says, hey, we need a tool for tracking how many people clicked on this link. And they go, oh, well, I use that for my wedding. Why don't we just use it for this as well? So those things can build on each other. So one scenario might be high churn, but the next one that comes along might be fine, right? There's lots of options.

There's lots of nuance beyond some of the generalized device that's out there. Yeah, I enjoy just helping out. People use it for free. The majority of users using it are just creating free links. If you go on Twitter and search T.LY slash, you can see just like thousands of people are sharing and most of those people are just doing it for free. And I kind of enjoy that part as a developer, just building a product that

you know almost from day one since i had the user base using the extension i had thousands of people creating short links and that's kind of a neat feeling and you know

I enjoy that. It doesn't really always make you money, but it is a neat side to where people are using the service and getting a lot of benefit out of it. Yeah. Perfect, man. Well, this was good. I think we covered a lot of ground. As always, if folks are listening right now, yes, that means you and your car, and you want to pull over to the side, write down some notes, shoot me or Tim a DM or...

Write us an email, whatever. Tim is Tim Leland, L-E-L-A-N-D on Twitter. I'm M-I-Justin, the letter M, the letter I. Justin, go check out t.ly or even better, search for URL Shortener Free and then click on t.ly first.

That really helps us indies out when people Google search and then click our result first. Try it out. I just tried it. I love how you make a link and it automatically gives you that QR code. That's some smart product design there. And Tim, you also have a blog, timleland.com. Yep. Anything else we should tell people about? No, definitely send me a message. I try to respond to anything that people send me. And if you need to create a short URL...

Use T.O.Y. The world's shortest URL shortener. Cool. It's a little cheesy. No, I love it, man. I love it. Thanks for doing this, Tim. Yep, thanks for having me on. That's where, you know, being a developer, I don't always think about the marketing, but I'm trying to do more and more. I've always thought if I could find me a Justin Jackson to be the marketer,

I bet you've gotten that a million times. Like, hey, I need you to come be the marketer and I'll just be the developer because developing is easy. It's the marketing. It's so challenging at times. Like, what should I do next? Yeah. Well, I'm going to save this clip in case I ever find myself unemployed, Tim.

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