What's up, everybody? This is courtlandt andi hacker's that com and you're listening to the india hakon's podcast. More people than ever are building cool stuff online and making a lot of money in the process.

And on this show, I sit down with these ni hackers to discuss the idea as the opportunities and the strategies they're taking advantage so the rest of us can do the same. Today i'm talking to rob willing. Rob has been on the show plenty of times before.

He is the founder of microcom, the best conference for bootstrapped founders. He is the founder of tiny seed, where he invests, and bush jack founders, and he was also the founder of drip and email marketing. To that he sold for millions of dollars.

Finally, rob is the host of a great podcast called startups. For the rest of us, I recommend checking IT out if you haven't yet. We actually recorded this interview on his show and and cross posting in here for all of you listen to enjoy.

I'm walling your courtland, Allen. We're we're putting this on both of our fees. So I can't just like do this started for rest of in roke because people feel way a minute this is on the india. So I think we coming out a day apart, but i'm excited to sit down with a man.

me too, my favorite people to chat with and like podcast form in in real life too. And I feel like you asked a question on twitter, what should we talk about? And we got like a million different answers because we have a list this we want to talk about.

And so maybe we go long. And I think we can. You, i'm excited about IT likewise too.

I preciate the compliment. I certainly feel the same way. Look for that. You and I set down because we have I feel like we have enough shared views and enough shared kind of world views of bootstrapping and any hacking that IT makes sense, but not the overlap SE not a complete circle, you know, like a van aggro that is a circle. And so there's I was learned, feel like I learned from you and I expand my thinking when .

we do it's what do you say that I listen to your episode on my first million and I think really the end of evisions, you're giving start of ideas and sam par think he was the one hosting that particular and he's funny guy because he's so disagreable like no matter what you say, he was just like come out and be like, I think this is absolutely untrue or to see the exact opposite and he's not afraid of looking dum and being wronger whatever right that like is really entertaining. But I think you and I agree on a lot. So we probably to have that that kind of talk, but agreement is also.

oh yes, we will cause i'm going to dig now i'm going to make me disagree with everything you say just to do IT. So well, the first thing i'm going to say is I just made an offer to a producer who's going to really be heading up all the kind of back off the stuff for short taps to the rest of us. The microcomputer cast microcomputers be.

I wanted to find that, I mean, in total, inside baseball from one pod casters to another, but do you still do a lot of the work? I know I don't imagine you do audio anything, but like our use schedule in guests and put accept a wordpress writing shown notes? Or have you been able to, like.

get that to offer plate off my plate, best higher i've ever made? IT was, I call my park cast boss or or no. SHE was a producer for mixology.

SHE is still as a producer for, but SHE does the idea podcast now. And I just like have her to literally everything that you possibly can that I don't feel like I need to be involved in. And so I like kind of being involved in the guest selection.

You're going to come on, who do I want to talk to you because like someone else is choosing who I talk to you then like, maybe I could outsource that that. But right now, like, I like using all when to talk to you, and I like sort of helping prepare. But what's cool about always, I have her come on.

And even these things that I want to do, like we'll be on a zoom call where she's sitting there watching me work and offering suggestions. And i'm not even like doing that alone. She's kind of my post.

He holds my feet to the fire. SHE makes sure I work on in a few hours a week, and SHE gives me a healthful feedback while i'm working on IT. And then I sit down, pressure cord, talk to my guest, press stop at the end of the conversation.

We chat a little bit, and then I do nothing else. I don't titled the episode. I don't describe the episode. I don't eat about IT. I don't release. I'm on to the next thing and it's such a breath of fresh air because I think a lot of podcast you people turn most podcast don't last very much longer than a few episodes. And I think it's because get bogged down by all those extra work that they don't really enjoy as much as they enjoy the conversations themselves.

right? That's awesome, man. Well, i'm happy for you and i'm happy for me that next week will be at a similar situation. I mean, to be fair, i'm probably seventy five or eighty percent of the way to where you are, but I just peace milled IT together with, like a part time free.

Or who does the show notes in a part time, an edit? Who does this an add? And then there is some gaps there. And I am the fall back and and with marker comes up of sanda producers, anders, fall back. And so we're bring someone into really back up that finally, I mean, should have been then last year or years ago, to be honest, but it's just one of those things that you get. You'd do the same thing for too long and you don't think about .

how I should change, right? Get used to IT and as and it's stressful being like because there's these gaps, it's stressed having to be the glue yeah that sort of glue all these things together to fill the gaps because then it's like it's almost away as if like everything is a gap, like he thought to worry about every single thing, every single part of the process.

And it's also stressful to they hire as somebody, just trust them to do everything up because like they're not going to be as good at you as you at some things, going to have your particular eye or certain things. But cool thing is that will be good to stuff that you aren't get that if you make a higher and they will improve her shown ways you didn't really anticipate. And so only a lot of IT just learning to let go have someone I will do those things for you and see what comes out. And you know yeah .

and i've always been able to let go like when building SaaS companies. It's like I can let go of customer support. I was able like of software development.

I can look of customer success and sales on letting go of like creative stuff for me, like writing and and podcasting. And that steps a lot harder for me. And because it's like there's so much sully to IT, it's less of a less of a here's a job description. It's more like you kind of just gotten, do IT, you know and make IT good and that's hard, right?

There's popular ni hacker I want to who IT is yes, more than forty thousand followers on twitter, and his twitter account is entirely automated. He never tweet. You even know what he's tweet.

There is a team of people who tweet for him, and it's sort of accounts fire. It's also tweet several times a day. People engage some of the tree are really personal but he is like the ultimate and like being comfortable I guess letting go to element. I can't imagine .

doing that needed that lets us know um I wanted to ask you so in the hackers went invite only, is that right? Yeah and five six month ago, five six months ago yeah I don't know you've talked about that publicly, but i'm just wondering like what I was around that decision is that like does that just come with growth of a community?

IT was like, I mean, IT was very simple. Spam was out of control and I have been fighting in spammers like day two of the form for like five years. And they're so good.

They're not just like people making little bots like they are actual human beings sitting in office is somewhere on the other side of the world, like getting paid to span websites and not caring at all. And if you put up obstacles, they will figure out what the obscure is and try to around IT. And at some point last summer, like I think we had like six or seven thousand people join and hackers and like two thousand of them were spare.

And I was like, this is a battle that i'm losing. And I just want to go back to basics. I'm not obsessed with the growth at all cost. We don't need to have know thousands of people joining every week. We can just go invite only mode, completely cut out the mamas and have the community sort of returned to some level of enormous.

And I like the idea of an invite tory, where you can see every single person who they were invited by, who that person was invited by, that person was invited by. You started to build sort of like sort of a clear picture of OK. This guys a spammer.

How do they can invite IT IT? Oh, all these other accounts are spammer. And so we left that on an end vite only mode for you know, the Better half of last year. And i'm pretty sure we've rooted out like literally one hundred percent of the famers six months ago when people complained about spam and andy hackers. They are complaining about like people posting escorted ads and vig or pill's ads today when people complain about spam and happy that I didn't like, which is a huge provest that's a trip.

So I never I mean, i'm on the hackers relatively frequently and I never saw the spam was IT just getting moved IT out before I saw .

IT or what was yeah I mean, what what time are you?

The united states central time? yeah. okay.

So if you are like in that europe, he said last, so what happens when we go to sleep? A community manager, we would go to sleep the form be over on the spam or if like, depending on your browser habits, if you go, andy, hackers, that com slash the newest and you just see like a firehose of posts, a lot. That was a span.

And also, people don't go there. But like the people who do go there, the people who want to Carry the community, and, you know, some sort of control, what makes IT to the front page, where uploading stuff, and like, they are just illusion to span. And that's sex, because if they can go there and get a good experience. So I onna go there, but no one to give me us the signals, we need an update on posters to figure out. What should you go to the home page?

That's a problem. A big know. One of the things I was most frustrated with running drip was the the spammer slash people who would hack IT and not hacked in, but they're not from account.

They do fishing attacks on a dream. They or they would send shady emails and get us on black list like IT was such a headache. And we had all these checks in.

We had this code that would validate IT was like credit card versus some actions in the APP omit if you could call IT these days, if we are raising funding, we call IT in A I thing. But IT was IT was just code that measured. We could detect patterns and behaviors.

Um I hated IT and IT was one of the things that IT was one IT was a smaller factor. But I remember being like I could see selling this company purely because you know on the worst days of those like when direction I went to sleep and then at sunday, you know, is monday morning at two. And then like russian, basically spammers, like created a bunch account, send a bit of fishing itself. And I thought I could sell this company that was early on, you know, we're like twenty k mr, so that wasn't, what did IT do that for you? Did I ever feel like, you know what, I I could rage quit this thing up in here because of this.

Yeah, I never got quite of the point of that. I would quit because of this. But it's super demoralizing because it's like the number one thing I think thing I think about every day, like how do I improve the community?

How do I like promote the people who are doing like a genuine and authentic job of contributing great content and stories? And then you have these other people who just caused you to lose your faith in you, just like total assets, like sociopathic, just don't care you're trying to build a good thing. They're just trying to ruin IT do not even trying to run just try to promote their own thing.

They don't care that it's going to rule in your thing. And I thought to so many people who built this problem like famously, a paypal, they're sending money over the internet and a huge percentage, what they needed to do to make that business work was get really smart at fighting Fosters. And I was super hard from to do and they had a super town, the team to do IT.

I thought to, i'm joya rapper. So it's like an online of code editing tool and code education tool. And it's like what are people he's wrapper for building sort like crypto box to mind cyp to using his servers band with and costing the company whole unch money.

Just not are release business if they can make a few thousand dollars. Uh, time and time again, I thought people have this issue where you just like deal with the worst people. So the year at school, because you can reach everybody, you can reach all the good people, but you also end up on the rate are straight crisis of sort of the bad people who don't care yeah .

when you get any more outcome of success. I mean, we have tiny seed companies who by the time they hit twenty K M R R twenty five case, but still relatively small. They are if they send any type of email, there's any time of email sending capability like people start targeting them in terms of and I do a fishing attack i'm going to do a no spam attack i'm going to send until the city made based on your good black layer, you're good ips.

This doesn't happen in real life as much. If you ever got to events business or like a store, you don't get people come into your store and just like yelling loudly to advertise their product. No, you just don't deal with like that money, I guess going to be like shoplift and stuff.

There's like that as many assets. When you can see people face to face, you can look the owner and the eyes and see that it's like human and you look go to want to rule in this person's business, you know. But online, uh, people just kind of assets, you know, they are default to like everything's a face of CoOperation.

If I can take a manager, them right the unites real problem and we've seen that with with online forms are IT. It's like facebook. I know people get out of control too, but at least usually relies attach to adverse youtube comments even you know read IT to a certain nuclear. I think there's a big, big case to be made there.

but in the action is no longer and by only as of three weeks ago. So IT is anybody can join. And now we have a whole process, a lot of its manual, what would like sort of look at like your contributions.

So when you join, you can make a post, but you can't make comments. You can sort of help other people on the community and contribute and discuss and up for comments. And essentially, if you earn your way out of that sort of second class citizenship, so we call IT, you're going a little email for me and will promote you.

And you can now be like a fully fledge member of the community. And every now, then we just promote somebody that now we do an A, A with somebody will just kick them right up to a full flash member because that somebody that we know interest, but everybody also go through this. And it's really good at we eating out like who wants to be an authentic member of the community and who wants to just do like a drive by ham launching my product today.

Can you give me access so I can launch today and disappear and go somewhere else? And it's it's really funny to me like how people will literally ask to you that like I get emails every every day like, hey, you know, i'm launching today. I haven't any work reference to the community. He just ite less me so I can do my drive by. Even when we got rid of spam with the invite codes, I got dms on twitter from spammers like, hey, i'm trying to post my vago pills thing and I can't get end like, can I get and like and you can mean, why would you .

ask me this crazy? It's like they think you are customer service. Rap hod just doesn't know any Better. You know he's going to send that. That's such a trip, man.

We had similarly it's of you know odd that a forum spammer reform spammers, committed spammers and email spammers are similar because we built up a thing, we architecture IT out, and we never got to build IT. But IT was a trust score. And IT was like, when you first signed up for drip, your trust score was like zero.

And then depending on what you did and your open rates and your click rates and what your credit card of is prepay or not, there are all these factors. They were like ten factors over time, that score would go up or IT would go down. And so if you had, you know, you got a bunch of stamp complete or you ve got low open rates like we would start to knock cut down.

And when you got below a certain threshold, ld would block sending on your account. And when you obviously, you know you built IT up over time, I think if you had a butcher sense that went great, you get up to ten, twenty, thirty or whatever. And so IT sounds like you forget out a nice perhaps this way to hack that same thing.

but that you basically a little score. You don't see your score. Okay, below we are in score. I don't even look at your comments and stuff above certain score like ads can like we have some moderators and stuff can see, okay, here, the people this week to reach the score hear their comments like who should we promote into a fully fridge member and it's it's fine because like you know, there's a whole black meir episode. This is very just top in.

This woman has everyone in society as a little score and people can constantly score you and you just is like the worst, never gets like a negative score. And now she's like an outcast. SHE can't get an apartment and can't get invited parties. But I think in reality is that so that so ably, it's usually pretty useful and that makes the community Better for everybody. For there be the score that's invisible, because so long as is responsible and IT can be like gamed to, like, ruined a perfectly good person's time.

IT works gray, so I sent to tweet out. I found some pictures for microphone eleven. IT was the very first microcode.

And so this is like eleven years ago and I posted a picture of like it's like another Warner taking the stage for the first ever talk, the microphone. He looks we all look super Young. I mean, because it's seven years ago.

And so under Warner and then there's like me and my tire and a remember and he and shaw and you know there's the texting guys are shown Alice and heat and shot. So there's there's just handful lipps. I got me thinking as I looked back as a pen, we were really Young.

We didn't know what kind of what we were doing. And here I am still doing I was doing the podcast then yeah, I was still I was talking about start up. I was running events and i'm still doing those things in a comic thinking. I don't often will try to look out five, ten, fifteen years because it's just so far in the future. But i'm wondering if you if you have no, do you ever think like what am I am going to be doing in a decade I still going to doing something similar related to this? Or do I think i'm you know this, i'll have a time doing this and .

maybe switched up. I live in the future, man like I I think way too much about the future ah there's a good book is called the time pair dox. When they talk about how a lot of our decision making and life comes down to sort of the default time frame that we live in, and some people sort of default the past, some people default the present and certain situations. And like I think probably most tech founder and entrepreneurs are like very future focus to people, which I think cortes highly with like success because we're often thinking, know what can I do now to get to the desired state five or ten years now? And like that turns out to be really good way to plan and strategize, but it's also not the best way to sort of enjoy life and press.

And so um you know remember being in in school and going M I T and thinking um at the end of our sort of four years and our attune, everybody could get up and you could just talk and you give a speech and you could say whatever you want IT was an awesome tradition because so you just got four years to think about, are going to say, get up, you talk and one of the cool things about IT was everybody felt so lucky to go to that school. People would like sort of defauts assume that you were smart and give you the benefit of the doubt. But I thought a lot about them.

And like, none of us are here because of who we are now. We're here because of decisions we made them. We were like twelve years old.

We like thirteen years old, like i'm going to take school seriously and i'm going to stay for the t and like now ten years later, that's paying off. And that's something that never really a lesson that never really left me. You know, like the decision you make now change your life dramatically, five, ten years of in the future.

And so I hope that ten year sanam still work in any hackers. If i'm working on any hacks ten years now, and that means any hackers is and an amazing place that i'm probably super jazz about, it's way bigger, more impactful than IT is now. And if I not working on any ten years now, that doesn't essay the means of failure, but I definitely means that you'd one to something else that was more exciting.

And it's not really my plane right now, like my plane right now. I tried to build any actors and to like an institution, you know, something that like really touches a tony lives in a really positive way. And I think IT already does. But I think if you build a good thing, like bring IT to more people, and even Better thing, if you build like a really cool tool or really cool like, you know, sandwich sandwich shop, and you can like franchise IT. And now more people in the world can need that sandwich, like that's a good thing. If you can invent, you know, it's one hundred times is Better if you bring IT to one hundred times as one people and like i'm been trying to make any act is a good thing and I wanted to bring IT to thousands of times one of people and that might .

take five or ten years yeah yeah that's it's interesting. You say that because obviously you when I ve both been doing this now for years um talking to talking to and trying to help inspiring and and actual founders I guess we're all actual founders, but founders who have actually shipped in you know who are just working on IT and want to do IT yeah IT wasn't into the last couple years, really is like this podcast I microcode and now we're going to launch tiny seed out of IT and I started think like what is the I think I think we were grown up enough that I need a mission.

Like what is the mission? And i've been holding IT still right? I still strugling with exact wording, but like the misher I thread out, you know, I tossed to produce ander.

I showed A N R interesting. I was like, I think the mission was interesting as the mission of all three of those was property. This is the same thing. The mission of tiny seed microphone started to rest for saw the same. It's to it's to dramatically multiply the number of self sustaining independent startups in the world, you know.

And whether the wording exactly is that sad startups says this is, but that I just want there to be more, and I want them to be self sustaining. So look, maybe they took finding, maybe they didn't. I don't give a shit.

In fact, I never have IT. So you know, I just don't want the dogma. But so so with interesting, as once I said, that mission I was a quite a minute.

I've been doing that for like sixteen years, like a more than that seventeen so two thousand five years when I started and it's like I didn't have that machine in mind, but that is what I want to do now for me, for the rest of my life. Like that's IT. The rest of my were professional career.

I'm sure I think i'll be working till basically kill over dead. But that was an interesting umbrella term for me to realized. You know what, I don't need.

I enjoy podcasting and i'm going to keep doing IT, but I don't need the podcast if i'm still doing something that follows the admission, right. And I don't need to have an online community. No, I don't need to have a fund, but I think I will be doing something under that umbrella forever.

I think that's a great a great sort of vision. You know, like one of my heroes is charly monger. He is like a lot of writing and business advice that influences me, just life advice in ways to think that influence me when I was Younger.

Do as ninety eight years old we did last year like a podcast, is distilling investment advice and talking about he's running burks or hat way with warm buffet know can I D eight these family loves it's, I don't know, a captain healthy and then mentally and see super sharp just as engages ever uh, I think that's a great call. And I think you know your mission for microbes kind of like not just microcomputer everything you do, tiny see, as well as kind of the same as mine. You know, I want more people to become financially independent and free to live the lives that they want to live.

Know when I think that starting online businesses is one of the best ways to do IT is increasingly becoming accessible and in a good way for people to do IT. And it's fuck and encouraging to see something doing. And so like now that's my mission to and is reading some um some research my body Julian turned me on to the researcher.

Her name is the air in west gate and SHE publishes paper about different types of lives that people can live that are good. And so this kind of this idea of like, the happy life and a happy life is characterized by, you know, of the most obvious like that people want like a life full of comfort and joy, its security, free time, you one's satisfaction. But then there's also like exotic pe of life that people can optimize for, just like a meaningful life.

And that's a life like significance and purpose and coherence and societal contribution. And I think the older one gets, the more we think about living a meaningful life, like what's the purpose of all? You know, because more and more of a life is behind us and less and less is ahead of us.

And so we think, okay, what's the lasting impact that i'm having that starts to become much more valuable to us than that was. We like twenty five. I think you have to be happy in the short term. And so I I think it's the same with the business. You know in a career like IT makes a lot of sense as we get to alter to think about what's the impact of what i'm doing. How do I sort of tie all the things i'm doing together into like some sort of mission and impact? And there's a lot of personal satisfaction that comes from having, I think, sort of meaningful a meaningful life.

Yeah, yeah. I always say, you know, freedom. I think entrepreneurs most should seek freedom, purpose and relationships kind of in that order. All the relationships probably before h purpose I kor intended with that. But like I think that's one of the reasons I thought entrepreneurship was the freedom from a day job and the freedom from being told what to build and when.

And I remember working, working, working towards IT because I live in the future like you do, and just thinking to that day when I quit the job, and then I got IT and I was like, this is amazing. And I was amazing for, like, three months. And then I was kind of board.

You like, what do I need to do next? Because I had freedom, but I really didn't have a purpose. I had a bunch of small apps that were kind of like, all had this auto pilot traffic from seo and ads in this and but IT like, and nothing was that interesting to me. IT was a paycheck and you know is a nice paycheck because a one hundred I know hundred thousand one hundred fifty grand um back this is in two thousand and seven so I like going a long way is huge yeah was great and I was like free but then I was like A I I need to find a purpose and that was where I really double started double down on talking about this, on writing and doing the book in the podcast.

All that came out in about an eighteen months period um because I was like, I want there to be more and here's the other thing, relationships there was kind of no one else doing IT like I like josel sk was blowing in the early two thousands and but he started to suffer company. And then Patrick, he started blogging couple years after I did, and he had not ran across each other. And I, and then i'd heard of base camp.

They had to the SaaS that I didn't use. But I am getting to two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. And i'm like, is anyone else thinking about or doing this? Hope you are kind of the hacker like bootstrap start up path.

Is that if is IT a thing? Or by the only one that's denner or what ever do? Because I generally didn't know.

And that was part of building the audience that then turned into the community was like, I want there. I want to able to hang out with other people who talk about the stuff, because this is really interesting to me. No one else in my town gives a shit about this, but I can. I find one hundred people that I can get to a room with, you know, care about IT. I was a big thing.

I mean, it's like that purposing and you talk about about like freedom. Like when I talk andy, hackers, the vast majority of and diggers are looking for some type of freedom. That's why they're starting their business because they feel like they don't want to work for somebody else.

They want they want more time. They want to work with people they like. They want to create a freedom.

They want financial independence and no ceiling on their income. And I think that is like a purpose, right? Like that can be your purpose. Like have this epic venture that you're going on and already earn your freedom.

And like you and I boat and on that adventure for some part of our life, but then you get your freedom and you get there and I suddenly you lose your purpose. You know, it's like, you have the epic journey and you completed IT and you succeed IT. And that's like, now what right? Like, it's like foto at the end of the for the rings.

Like the movie ends there. Okay, he gathering to the fire like I don't know, like ten different ending scenes, but then it's over and the created the credit rule and it's like, what if photo do after that? You like this around in the shire? Like tell stories about how do you have the epic adventure at some point, like it's kind of hard to figure what do you do after you sort of accomplish mission and how do you find a new purpose?

Then we can't just get on the boat to the and .

dying lands like a thing I want.

I wanted like piggy back on that topic because you're just talked about losing your purpose or like you find IT, it's the arrival. False is what IT is. You arrive and then you're like once I will, I will arrive once I do this and you do for about a month or three months and you decide.

Oh, I need to do something but we had um I tweet out and you retweet thanks you know what should and I talk about on this episode? And there's there's too many topics. First to cover one that I thinks interesting.

As arvind call said, please give the mental health topics some time. Building anything is hard. Building at the mole of pandemics with harder. Some people need permission to let themselves feel this, and you both can help there.

And this obvious ly is a topic that, like my wife talks and my wife's clinical psychologist, you should the then found pog few on every week. She's releasing an epsom on this topic as a founder, marito founder consults with founders and as a psychologist. But aside from that, like you and I have shared our own struggles with, you know, building businesses and mental health during during that. So um why don't you start and then i'll go. Yes, I think we bought up more stories.

You know metal have the zapp important you I ve struggled with like various meant to health issues. Sometimes i've been very depressed, I think three times in my life, and like one of them was this past year and a good six months. Or just like, what's the point of any why I do anything, you know? And I was a hard time because it's like the pandemic is very isolated.

This road trip that i've talked about where I was just like, not really seeing anyone, and i'm to seattle, and he was like, kind of ice thing as well. And I think for me, IT really tied into this this topic of purpose, because i'm like, IT probably age, age, age thirty four. I've always had this sort of like vision of like what what what do I do with my life and it's like i'm on this epic venture, right? I'm trying to build some very big ambitious project.

And it's usually creative, usually involves like building a website and designing IT and putting code together, which is like this awesome, you know, feedback loop of reward and work and the reward and work. And I think for the first time, once I was eight, I kind of got off IT last year and was like, what else is in your life know? And I sort of found myself spending and I wasn't sure what the reason was.

I was like all these like other proximate reasons like my relationships with my girlfriend going OK where is IT like my living situation? It's really easy to like sort of blame the wrong thing um but I think at at the core, I just sort of lost the drive that I had that filled up my days and made every day feel like I was excited to wake up and do something. I think everybody has their own like sort of loop the sort of like their like natural process.

We're left to their own devices. It'll do something for a lot of people. It's like i'm going to look at social media. I want to come home, look at tiktok of my phone for a lot people.

Was I going going to come home and spent out of my family for a lot of people? I did IT someone once. He would just like, impulsively, just go out and just meet strangers.

And he loved to do that. And I was like, kind of her happy, like, out of resting place. And for me is always like i'm to sit down on my computer, I am going to code something really cool and try to work on IT.

And I can think without that, that we're placing now of anything. IT was very easy for me to sit around and be like now what you know and like now i'm like dependent on other people to come in and like, hang out with me to do something entertaining or stimulating. IT was very easy to, just like I started questioning my purpose of life.

And so I don't know. I think this happens to a lot of founders. You know, I thought a lot of people who have kind of a class, people like resumes, like level of financial successor, they achieve some goal and then they're just like aimless and embracingly enough for me.

Like I took me like six months to figure out why and then like another few months ago, okay, what can I do that has a meaning and purpose that that will be interesting and like like, you know, fulfilled me and in the answers, like if I should just work on, oh yeah, like I am working on any act for more than just like, you know, like these sort of like earlier reasons that I I work out because IT actually is fun for me. IT actually is entertaining. IT actually is meaningful.

Like, I love the people that I work with, the people that I talk to, the problems that were trying to solve, like all the chAllenges in front of youth and hackers in the way that I want to grow the site, are really interesting for their own sake. And so I had to kind of have this period of rediscovering why and work not even rediscovering that kind of changing the reasons why i'm working on the site, diving into those. And i'm hoping that, like my entire life, I hope for everybody.

This is the case that my entire life, full of his epic adventures, and there is never really an end point. There's never really A A midlife crisis point, right? I'm done and I accomplish the goal on that site.

know. I hope that i'm always sort of struggling towards something that is really meaningful and really enjoyable on the meantime. And that even if I never reached the end of that sort of tunnel, it's fun the whole way through.

Yeah and i've seen I don't know if you've known people who retire like who work at day job for twenty thirty years and then they retire and they they totally lose that meaning or folks to tell a company and don't have anything else to do IT can reach havoc on their motivation and their mental health. And you can go down hill, you know.

it's kind of a cliche this point. I don't do that, I totally, but I think for me and said, I D never you don't you don't realize that you haven't to. You lose IT know.

I'd never had a second of my life. I didn't have something like that, you know. And without IT what's going on, I feel so like, what's sort harder diagnose?

I have one hundred percent gone through exactly that. I don't I don't know how many times in my in my life from the time I was a teenager and i've talked on this podcast about um you know burning out essentially while growing drip and just how hard some piece was I don't know if I had I don't know what I had, if I clinical depression for part of that, if I was just burn out because I was just hard, I I was stressed all the time um I was I was a ref go.

But what's interesting is more recently, like during covet twenty twenty, I think a lot of people had a tough hear that year for a lot of reasons. So so did I and in fact, sharing and I had just, you know, we've been married twenty two years now, like you're going to a go through up and downs and we had a pretty tough stretch there in the middle of of coffee and I there were a few days where I kinder didn't get out of bed and i've never really done i've never been that messed up before emotionally. And I remember being like, I really wanna keep doing like life and I really wanted to hang out with my family.

But like, I don't have I just didn't have the motivation to get up. I couldn't. I couldn't look at my driver board and say, I want to do these things.

I don't want to do anything. You know I was it's it's tough and so I haven't traditionally been like I don't have depression, right? I don't I don't have.

That's not a thing that Blakes my life. In fact, i'm on the other studies spectrum where i'm a stressing xiety person. That's my whole family tree, is all like alcoholic drug addicts who are self treating themselves for these anxieties, you know.

And my dad, i've talked about this before, but he had, he has O C D. He had O C D so badly he didn't leave his Better room for seven months when I was a senior in high school. And ocd is an anxiety disorder.

So IT definitely runs in my family is that i've learned to cope with as an adult. Um but I guess all that to say, like this topic of founders mental health in general, is it's always resonated with me. And I think people never used to talk about IT ten years ago, and I think a lot more of us talk about IT these days. And I think that's probably helpful to Normal ize IT.

So my favorite things about living on the west coast is everybody on the west coast compared to the east coast, in my experience, is like, so, like woo, like food fu, like everyone on the west coast that I know. Like casa pest, the most coast like a dirty word, their pest. That was wrong with you.

I ve never tell anybody about that. Like I A serious, he's awesome. He's like this, like seventy five year old al canadian dude, I want to go a million miles a minute.

You know, I talk so fast a second again that there be thing. I like fifteen things on the talk. Let's slow down courtland.

Let's take your time and find your center and be one with yourself. And I get like, so frustrating, like the first five or ten minutes. And then I slowed out on, okay, guy is like, I want to smoke with this. Guy is smoking because IT feels good and I know that I need I need to chill out a little bit.

And so yeah, I think it's worth taking the time, whether you're founder or not, I think everybody to take the time to let checking with themselves and sort work on your mental health because I think it's if your mental health is a good place, I don't think it's why to take that for granted. Every mental health isn't like a tough place. Obviously, it's like you got a prioritized that because that is sort of the engine that powers everything else in your life.

You and I think about you a lot, and I think about success. People strugling to do things like, I boys gone through different ship, you know, add so many, like, I ridiculously good. Leave a to be your childhood.

Know, like, I have zero trauma. I like zero, like real through lasting hardships that I really had to push through that like left a scar on me. And so like I was like free and my twenty to just go tackle chAllenges without any mental health issues and stuff like that.

But other people are like strugling to get out of bed. They're struggling to deal with like terrible things that have happened to them, and they're trying to take on these big chAllenges. And I think that like it's really easy underestimate ate that. And if you're going through that kind of stuff, uh, if you are to sort of ignoring IT, like I think you're doing yourself at the service.

at times in my life, I have ignored IT for too long. The other thing ignored was physical issues. I know we're talking about mental health, but like I had really bad shoulder and black pain, neck pain, because we all hunch over our desks.

And I had at four years, and I was kind of debilitating IT IT was to the point where I was under constant pain. And why the fuck didn't I do something about I members saying, like, I don't have the time. And then I went to a Carry packet and massage their pistol.

I didn't fix IT quick enough 分 as like I just don't have time to cover out two hours a week to do this。 So so I didn't do IT and IT wasn't until I moved in any apples. I'd sold the company.

I went to three different massage folks, and I found to do who's really good. And he, you know, integrate all these different things. This IT hurts like crazy. But I went to him twice a week for months, and I just said i'm covering up this time.

He also helped that I wasn't I didn't still run the company, so I could just take a couple of a week, but he and IT took him months and months to work and out of, and there are all these, you know, these toxins and crap in your muscles when they are like that. And I remember being like, almost I would almost get sick after her because I had just let IT go for too long. And it's like, these chronic, a mental, or you, you know, you ouldn't live like that. And I say that as much for anyone listening as I do for myself in the future. I, I refused to live like that again.

Yeah, it's hard. Like I think I I met a person and he was like telling me about this phase of her life. SHE was super grumpy. And you just kind of an asset I ask like you just ask like why are you being this way? She's like chronic pain.

He was like literally have chronic backend in and I would fire up and you know like what doesn't make you a happy, agreeable person being physically pain all the time that makes you really sort temper. And I think lots of people have like different things like this is sort of effect us at a lower level and then like, you know, bubble up to how like we actually behaved. And I think profoundness, in particular, we can be so single mindedly focus on what we're working on, right? So ambitious, so driven.

And I got to work on this business. It's got to take up every hour of every day. I ve got to like nothing else as a higher priority and like it's easy to get into a motor.

Let's put like working out on the back burner. It's what meant to held in the back burner. Let's put like visits, like all the stuff in the backside that that can come leader.

And I think that that was like sort of a recipe for disaster. And it's really easy to like, I don't know, all these seats that that is really basic advice. You get hours sleep to care body but but like it's not about whether you know that advice about whether or not you're doing IT.

And I think ninety nine percent of people were not doing IT. They're repeating IT. You know i'm repeating IT .

but not always doing IT. Yeah and IT wasn't until I retired from trip. Do you know tiny sees my retirement project? That's yes that's .

I put out the passion.

I could do this like just in my sport um but I want so I want to switch IT up. We have so many topics on this thing, but liam Simons says, if you had to fight one horse size duck or one hundred ducks size horses.

which would you choose, hundred ducks sized horses, you imagine how terrifying horse size that that would be say.

I mean, that big alone, like those things are hard. I don't know if if you've ever been packed or like apples, that a docker, a goose, that stuff is scary and their tongues are terrifying.

Have you ever looked like a duck in the eyes? Like any bird you like, look in their eyes are terrifying. That is deeply in human eyes. I can't imagine, like a horse ze duck, I would do almost things. So yeah, easy answers for me.

Meet, meet you as well. How about, uh, this is good. My greg dig neo says, at what point in trip for rob? And in india, ckd is for courtland. Did you guys want to quit and why didn't you?

I want to be the first mean, I, yes, you got already answered. IT.

I wanted to quit. I wanted to quit when russian spammers were hacking. Ss, I wanted to quit when I thought I couldn't make payroll because I had over hired and I got a big tax, personal tax bill. I wanted to quit when competitors would wrap off my staff, when we would spend months building and thinking and marketing thing, and someone would just ripped off shamelessly. And then, and the worst part was they would claim that IT was their idea and IT was so I need to take I take business a little too personal.

I want to be honest and that really that kindest stuff really bothered me um and I even for a bit I wanted to when I left trip twenty eighteen, I had I took a few months and I evaluated, do I want to walk away from start up together? Do I want to sell the podcast in microcode? There were times I like.

I don't know if I want to keep doing this. And I mean, the reasons I didn't is because I we talk about IT earlier, as I can realized, oh, my mission in life is this thing to to promote entrepreneurship and to get more people finding freeing purpose and relationships through IT. And when I realized that I was like, well, I already have these platforms. Why don't I build on them and just do more and double down? And then in terms of drip, like the reasons I didn't quit when those are happening was momentum.

To your point, earlier, momentum, like I just had moment going and had a team I was working with and I couldn't just walk, is not like if I was really founder, I may have like, I don't know, I may have trash some stuff you know, at this point, just table for, look and say this is too hard and I could do that idea that you know, more lucrative with for less work. But I did. But I had the team of, you know, three than five and ten, and it's like, what were all everybodys on board and they kept me accountable unintentionally. They didn't come and say, you need to be accountable but I felt the burden of like, no, I got we had the vision. We all got bored with this thing and I can't wonder me for this, you know yeah so see .

us a lot of founders. We're like, I think it's kind of a miracle if you look into the world, there's billions and billions of people who wake up every day at nine am and go to a job. I don't even like that much and worth the job and come up and they are consistent.

It'll do that day after day for years, right? I talked a lot of founders and it's really hard for founders to like our pod casters or whatever IT is to last more than a few months with like I give up you, it's too much work. And I think one of the biggest difference makers is besides the obvious, like I got to get the bills paid, is that accountability right?

It's the fact that like actually of t mates and a boss and people who are depending on me and I think we're just stribble creature like a lot of wired like not want to let down the people around us. If you commit to something and we agree to something and we have work as a waiting for us, like I feel so shy to just quit and like not do that. And I think one of the best things you can do as a founder, if you really want to take up what you're doing, which is sort of necessary for succeeding, is to surround yourself with people who you feel accountable to you.

Even if I hear with their boss, you still kind of feel accountable to your employees, to your partners, your code is your team. And like, I love feeling that way. Like, I like my r in my podcast produce.

I don't want to let her down. Like, part of her work is dependent if you get in the pocket out, you know, I can't like and SHE keep me. I have a calendar event twice a week.

I got to me with I like sometimes I cancel, but like i'll feel bad. I just abandon IT, you know. And so i've also sort of enough momentum.

You know I never really wanted to quit in the access at all when things are going up into the right. And then in the early days, I had this email list where I would send out my progress every single week. Here's what I did.

Here's what I did, and people respond. And so I feel super bad. I just didn't do anything for a week to be embarrassing, quite Frankly, like when I going to tell us he boy didn't nothing and so I had a lot of late nights on.

I would just try to do something to report because I was accountable. And the only time I ever got to feeling like, you know, maybe this is what I shouldn't do was last year when I started feeling a little depressed, a little bit down. Some of the things are trying to do to grow the sie like weren't working out.

And so that sort of feedback loop i've talked about before of, you know, positive things happening and encouraging you to try more things in the future and being was sort of slowing down. And I was like on trying these things and that sites not growing like I want. And so like maybe this is IT, maybe a lot of ideas and maybe I should rest on my laurels.

I've done good thing and you know I wasn't working as much. Rosie share your community manager quit and our team was like sort of finding down a little bit and and we didn't replace her. And so have fewer of those mechanisms in place that keep you motivated. And the close is very gone to wanting to quit and expLoring like different things.

wow. John Howard asks, I always love the conversations of the scrappy early days for the hackers in boot strappers and then throws s out a bunch of questions. What does IT take to get to N V P? What is IT take to get to dollar one? What is IT take to define audience? I've been through a bunch, but a framework is always fun.

My favorite framework, if I was an any hacking right now, starting from nothing, is to just literally just solve someone is problem, like any problem. But little bullshit is possible between you solving somebody's problem and getting paid for that as you can. And so Nathan various is excEllent blog post called the latter of a wealth creation I recommended.

And it's kind of like the way he puts IT is like there's sort of reliable progression that you can take to like earn, build more wealth. And at the bottom later, you've got like trading your time for money, like working for an employer, having a job. And the top of the latter is like your selling products.

You ve got like a social network or a marketplace or a suggestion software business or something, and you thought to work your way there gradually. And I think what I would do is I would just start the bottom OK was selling time for money. Well, how do I do that? But instead of working for somebody else, working for myself, right? And so like you can go to, for example, andy hackers as a website where people have tons of problems.

You can go to andy hacks, click monthly, see the top post for every month, and like the top post for january is share your projects and i'll try to find your users three hundred hundred and thirty comments of people like i'm work on this project and I have a problem I can't find in the users and I just come on. This one guy is going to replying to everyone and just trying to figure out what the problem is and try to help them solve. And like, I bet you ten, twenty percent of the people he talks you, he could get on a phone call, but okay, you note two hundred box i'll do a consulting call with, you will see where he goes and you can make thousands of dollars tomorrow, like five or six inserting cause because he solving, he does not to build a fancy website, is not to hire a team, build an APP.

He does do anything just literally like what your problem, I will try as hard as I can to solve IT for people who are motivated to solve these problems because they think to make money. And so if I were starting out, I would do that and just follow that path and see where IT takes me because we will solve somebody is problem they pay for IT. Like that's a pretty good indicated that you're under the right thing and you can may be too eked idea to try to change your customer the problem that you solve. But IT doesn't require you being particularly growing into this requires you going to a source of problems which really easy to fight on the internet and then roll up your leave in doing something today. Right now.

i'm glad do you bring up to solve a problem? Because I I was forget to mention that because IT is so ingrained, IT is such like a fundamental precept that I don't even bring up, because I expect everyone already knows that, but they don't. And so i'm glad I know ledge.

Yep, IT totally is I forget, of course you should solve a problem, but it's like not, of course, for some people listening that this podcast is, of course, because i've been talking about this stuff for seventeen years. And I I I think it's fascinating. We have the micrograph state of independent sas survey.

We do a survey, then put out a report, and we talk about how people found their started idea, their sass idea, specifically. And I just pulled the report up and forty five percent of respondents said he was a specific problem that they were expecting. And then it's another twenty two percent a problem of my customers or clients were experiencing.

So you're at two thirds now. Another thirteen percent was a problem or experience at my day job. So now we're at eighty percent. Another eleven percent a problem a friend or relative was experiencing, where at ninety one percent of year, hundreds and hundred to responds. So the rest is a ninety one yeah anyway percent.

The the last three or eight percent said research, one and a half percent at other and point two percent said I purchased the business. And so it's just like a problem that me or someone around me tell you know and that's IT is. And I think its super important because if you're not solving a problem and that's where this is, where like I get a little prescriptive with the beat beat versus B2C thi ng.

You I i've talked about this, the I just am so bullish on B2B and rea lly bar rier h o n B2C, not only because I ve owned, I think, two or three products or companies, one was an income site that served consumers, but because every b to see company, specifically a subscribe, I see boot rappers. They just the turn is too high. They can't find customers like ten votes, the same problems over over. So I don't I never say never do this, but I say you probably don't want to do this because the problems you sold for consumers are just not as there's not as much of value as if you solve IT for businesses.

It's super true, you know, at the end of the day, businesses have way more money than consumers. They are more motivated to fix IT. Most of the time, they have a gigantic a list of problem.

They need to hire, they need to find office space, they need to market. They need to do sales and need to solve their own customers problems. They need an email solution.

They need hosting, they need accounting. This is have so many problems that need solved IT just generally a Better bet to go that way. That being said, I do think if you're judicious IT and you wanted do something that targets consumers, you can you just have to really think about the problem again.

You think about, I want to build this solution, I want to build this APP of the service, anything but what's the problem solving? And like what is the nature of this problem specifically? Is this a problem that lucrative to solve? Because if it's not, you might solve IT, you might get happy customers.

You say thank you and you're not making any money because they are turning and they're are expecting IT for free. And so like if you look at where consumers spend money or even where business spend money, I think the same formula applies. If you want to find the problems, look at if just people are paying 的 to right， every time somebody spends money, it's because are trying to solve a problem.

People spend a tony money and housing, a tony money and transportation. People think so much money on education, it's crazy. I think that's what people are like the most business, like where they think OK. If I get this education, if I go to the school or I take this course, I ouldn't be able to use those skills I developed to go make more money in the future. So people were like willing to go into, like, hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to get education, because I see how we'll make the money in the future.

And so I think it's not a coincidence that like most of the people I know who have consumer businesses that are successful are educating consumers in some way in helping these consumers become Better versions of themselves. Where is people who are trying to select these of tools and apps and productivity software find IT much harder because like the problems are solving for consumers is like not that valuable. Like the average consumer doesn't need IT to do list to organize her life. There's a business might need that have a bunch of you know employees acord ate that, that is valuable for them.

right? Find a problem and there's a bunch of different ways to do that, right? Like i'm working on this book and I have like seven different not frameworks, just thoughts of like finding a problem, looking around.

You translate an existing idea to a new niche where it's like, O, C, rim software are well, you know who doesn't have crm software is home improvement contractors and you know who built a home improvement contractor? C, R. M, is john athan with built a prime, and he built IT to good revenue and then applied to tiny seat.

And he is in bad too. It's like just taking a simple idea like world familiar with serum, but they're all these spaces that don't have IT, you know. And another one is like looking at a large space, a competitive space.

This if you're probably be further along on the stair step approach, but that has a hated competitor. And so for drip, IT was infusion off right in in market in part for you know I think for zero, you know the accounting software IT was quick books. They were the not quick books for deck ramar and savi cw, very competitive space.

But you know no, I want to say all these I hate a competitor, but there's definitely um you know we're some improvements in some stagnation in that space. There's there's a bunch of different ways. If you look around, the problem is the paradox of choice where there's infinite.

It's like why I could look anywhere for problem is like, well, maybe focus on something you have or a day job or friend, right? Like look at each of these things in turn and keep a nobo around for a month and and then look at, you know what what are your expertise. And if you've been a software developer, credit card companies, for ten years, you probably know more about credit card companies and finance and banking and others.

So maybe you should lean into that a bit. You know if you've been all do an eat york to shop fy for five, ten years. So it's like you probably know e commerce will Better than most people. There's there's opportunity there. You 然后 you want to do one more。

Yeah, I could do this all day to someone that really I know a .

thousand questions. All right, is this one. Peter levels asked how? How was the bootstrap seen in twenty ten or earlier? And how did IT change with india kers at sea?

Were you around bootstrapped that long ago camp like paddy o eleven stuff I was reading pelty in bulson amic back then.

What about me, bro? What my chop liver I have was right now kind of stuff. You you're like this guys.

he. My red no spare his but you've .

named everybody that was IT. I mean, in twenty ten IT was I say everybody being little physical, but it's like just splashy so that the only two people I knew talking about entrepreneurship in any way that may that resonated with me. That wasn't just bullsh silicon valley.

Everybody raised raised a raised dcom with just postcard who started blog in two thousand, two thousand one and program who, well, you could say what I started by coming in or venture cup, but I was like going to know. But he actually built to start up. He actually sold IT to yahoo in the nineties.

And then he thinks, so magmatic ally, compared to a bunch of the VC crap. I was reading an ink magazine and red hearing and all that said. So that was just the two of them in the early two thousands.

Then base camp came around, and IT was two thousand and five, two thousand and six hundred thirty seven signals. First that was a blog they were consulting firm, then they launch to ask. And then IT was me, pelty, paddy eleven. And those are the only people that I knew until, I don't know, two thousand and eight, nine. That was kind of fit.

would he? Sih, that was. Nh, there was, wasn't. I mean, I did why combinator in january two thousand and eleven, and I remember going to and talking about grams like I really like the base camp guys like they're saying, remember Kevin hill from U U.

Came and gave a talk and is like, yeah, we never raise any money. We're making five million in revenue. We have to florida a it's pretty cool and programme went like, you super pragmatics like, don't raise more money than you need to that kills a lot of companies that could have had twenty, twenty, thirty, forty million dollars IT.

They just swain for the ends, try to become unicorn and like, they aren't just their company can't do that, so don't raise that money and go for the goal you can. And I use the even pragmatic about IT, but like there wasn't a lot out there. There was inspirational.

And nowadays it's like a deluge, like you could read and read to read all day and fifteen different podcast and then discovered another two hundred podcasts. And now we get to the bottom of IT. It's just the secret out, right? You can make money online. Self and a self self sustainable way from the comfort of own home. Yeah, I think that's the biggest difference.

And bootstrapping wasn't I mean, I was kind of a thing, but it's not IT like now you say boot trapping and people know like that's a movement, like there are tens of thousands of us that want to do that. And IT just wasn't. There were handful of people.

There is no community, there is no central hub. And in fact, that's why like when we started this podcast and I wrote my book, IT was still IT was like startups for the rest. Like if you look back, like this podcast should probably called bootstrapping blab a blah, but we didn't.

While the term existed, IT just didn't have the resonance with this idea. IT was more like, well, I wanted to startups because they sound fun, but I am going to do IT in a different way. This is really, really the angle there.

So do you think boot shopping is still going to buy IT? In my point, I think it's a less relevant term than that was in the past. And one your thoughts are like in the future of boot strapping and like yeah how IT is today.

I feel the same way. I think you put out a post about this a year ago where you're this leg.

Is this really import? Is the funding mechanism the most important part of this business? Or is the problem that you solve, how you go about solving IT, how you grow like IT? Isn't that all really important? I've struggled with that whole thing of like scraping b post their their tiny sy company, but they're very public about the revenue they're doing north of a million dollars.

And they got to the top of her renews with a postes like how we boot strapped to north of a million. And the biggest conversation in there was just arguing over the term boot strapping in them, whether they really boot strap because they took tiny seed money. And it's like if you talk to venture capitalists, if you read less than a million dollars, most will be like, will they basically bootstrap them to them? It's bootstrapping.

But to someone who i've built businesses with literally zero dollars, that is technically we shopping, but is IT is at all important to define what what if my dad gave me ten grand and I still up? Yeah compared IT. So that's where i'd like to stop.

It's not binary. I never thought IT was very it's a continue right. And where i've you there are people who raise a little, raise a lot, raise half a million and are still acting like boot steppers, their super capital efficient.

They are super pragmatic and they're building a real product for real customers to pay me real money. And that's what we all do, whether you have, you know zero dollars in the bank and a half a million the thing. So that's we've I I say boot trap and mostly bootstrapped.

Now you will hear me you're here to say independent sas or ini SaaS because IT implies, well, i'm not, you know, beholding to anyone. Even if I raise money, I still have control of my company. We've toyed.

I've toy around with all these terms. The thing I struggle with is in state of an disa this year, the reports not out yet. We did the survey. We said, what do you call like your type of company? And we had all these options. And IT was like, bootstrap, sass, indie, SaaS, independent, SaaS, blah, blah and I was like overwhelmingly bootstraps even people who had raised on two grant through grant, you know yeah ah .

I think in a way like the focus on with trapping events, the thing that was sort of a reaction, right, it's a reaction to the fact that like big tech really only Carried about people who have fund aries.

And if you wanted to get any sort of media attention, if you want to have any sort of success you wanted, have any sort of like support or resources like you gotten, had to go that path, which is not surprising because I was like an early next in days of startups. Not many people were doing starts. And that the people who add all the money, the v is out of control the narratives. And if you wanted to do something outside of that path, that you had to be very vocal about the fact that this is different.

I am boot shopping is that there's another way and I think it's kind of like a measure of success that that's not as important anymore, in fact, that like it's no longer a shocking thing that you didn't raise a whole town of money to start your company and still is successful means it's like but shopping kind of like won its places like a valid to a way to sort of get started in which means it's not worth like glor glorifying quite as much as I used to. I was going to go. There's a lot of from past everyone's well aware of that and pick your pick poison, you pick a prefer choice.

So I don't I don't feel like, you know, when andy hacer started, I feel like sort of fight. I was always trying to wait. You don't have to do with the other way in the the VC, the investors like you don't have to do that. And now like do IT, it's got to obvious if you don't have to do that, I don't need to do that anymore. Now it's more about, okay, what do you want to do and how do you .

do IT this paths and and funding is a tool. And if you want and need that tool to do IT, and if you don't, then don't. And that there that's you be you could be on hackers or part of microcode, and you can raise money or not.

It's is where all in this building, you trying to become independent, sustainable companies. I find IT interesting because you you brought up, uh, the boot trapping in in the real, I think religious adherents to IT was a reaction against the broader and narrative of adventure funding. I had this exact conversation about two weeks ago with a friend of mine, and I said, you know, I know.

And I think base camp s is a big part of that to be onest a little bit. But base camp s is so vocal about IT and got a lot press. And I was talking my friend, I said, I understand why they did IT.

And you know, Jason and D H H, they invested in tiny y is first fun. They meant to like, I get IT, but I actually think they went a little. I think they may have long terms done some damage.

I think by making IT such a religious thing like they used to say, like we we um will boot strapped, never take funding. Anyone who takes funding is X Y, Z. They also would say like we don't split test, we don't track in our funding like we would never sell our company like planning is guessing we don't market IT just works.

And they said all these things and they were shocking in but but I think a lot of people saw that or still hear IT and think that that's the way to grow with business. And I actually think it's not you know I I think those are anti patterns. Um and I asked Jason free about he's been a microcode y and I ve had breakfast.

He was on stage at Q, N. A. With them. I asked him about some of these things you know about, like where with base came successful and he said, we've got a lot of things right, but we got a little lucky and he admits that, you know, they were early and they they build no, they built a good product and and they did hit something just right at the right time.

Um but I do think that that narrative is a bit at the religious nature of of this other black and White nature. What I think is a bit play out, and I think it's an anti pattern. I think it's detrimental to new entrepreneur is coming.

Just seen there's like a sense in which it's like going to get ta look at like wired people writing and saying the things they're doing. Yeah and the base came of guys are just expert markers like they are really, really good. I mean, they built productivity software and they were like trial ablation as, I mean, they created rails.

They were doing this like way before everybody else. But also like they would ve really got people excited about the fact that they build productivity software and how do they do that by having great marketing, great messaging. They always stood for something.

They always had an enemy. And you know like the the sort of point there isn't necessarily like. Let's be responsible stewards of how everyone starts companies in the future.

IT was like, how do we get the word out about our philosopher in our ideals? You don't do IT by making look warm statements. You do IT by saying, like fun.

Raising is evil. No, you do if are saying, like we're fighting into the big guys and like that's the kind of messing resonates that get people talking, people argue against to you. People take aside.

No, even even on there. I think IT was reworkings. IT does not to be crazy at work. One other books they have like a chapter that basically like pick a fight. You know, just telling you those attempts like pick a fight.

And I think that does create if you are not the sort person to think about things deeply. IT does create, like religious selects who who take aside and who don't like give other side any real thought. And I don't think that's the best way to be the founder.

I think I think the best way to be the founder is when you're marketing pick aside, be super, you know, like out there and opening opening ated exactly. But when you're making decisions internally, be rational. Do cosine in IT analyses. I get out what that is that you want. Don't closure ourself of any particular path for .

religious reasons. I think that good advice, not only for founders, but for all humans actually to just you know, to evaluate both sides of that. I'm glad you said you're like their expert marketers and they did.

This is marketing. The best marketing is when you don't know you're being marketed to right this Steve job, an apple did so well as he would do these things that everyone would like. One of like we're not in a live stream, our product announcements, it's like no other company does that. They want as many people to see if, but they're like, no, no, that's like it's a secret thing. Know that well.

I had D H H on the hackers couple years ago, and we did like a debate. My god, H H is like this fire brand on twitter. Let's do a debate on like work life baLance now.

And I was trying to set up with somebody that would be like his hated enemy, like key for bar or something, and he refused. Like, now i'm going, I take to talk to somebody that I hate. So I had him talk to a nature in the delhi who runs a very calm company.

Wild bit, very much dropped as very like kind of in his style, but he had kind of a different point of view and thought that DJ, his point view was unrealistic. And IT was so endorsing the difference between mon twitter starting these crazy fights, taking these like crazy hard line opinion of positions and him when you talk to him and it's a real time conversation and he's uteri reasonable and rational and it's like can see can see the difference. The marketing is like marketing red.

Well, sir, we've been we've been changed for a while. Yeah, good, good topic. zero.

I hope that folks in both of our friends have enjoyed this conversation. I'm at rob willing on twitter. You are C S.

Allen S A L L E N. And of course, any hacker's stock com. And I don't know what do I say microsoft com. It's something we do a lot of things. But yeah.

I think you, an amy hacker, listening to this and considering starting company and you wanted like to do something a little bit bigger. Uh, raise money from tiny seat. I love tiny seat. I think razzing money is totally cool.

And at the end of the day, like tiny sea is sort of design for people of the bookshop mindset to find investors is, I think of a big part of that is going in the right match. And so I like, which is doing a tiny seed. I like anyone. He's basically trying to help and I hackers and some put in here and voluntary ad for your at your funny .

mechanism .

here check out tiny seat for an any actor.

thanks. And yeah this will go live when applications are still open for we do um two funding batches a year and in U S. In the americas and then we do when in europe.

And so if yeah hear this and you get there quick enough, had a tiny set up concerns, apply and plan to accelerator. It's superfund. It's a year long remote and IT is a focused on bootstrap and mostly bootstrap as cool.