What's up, everybody? This is courtland from india hacker's 点 com， and you're listening to the any hacker'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 andy hackers to discuss the idea as the opportunities and the strategies they're taking advantage so the rest of us can do the same. All right? I'm here with bin orange in one of the confounders of two bin as go.

This is going great. It's great to be back on the pot.

It's great to have you back. It's been a year and a half two years and I would have you last year and I don't know what happened, a few small things like a global pandemic yeah things that that nature. But I are back and I want to get people sort of a catch up as to who you are since it's been a year and a half.

And maybe the best way to do this is sort of retell the story you have on your website. I'm going to try tell you. You tell me what I get wrong.

Way back in the day, there is this APP screen hero, and you could use that to call somebody and share your screen of them. And I was super good. IT was fast.

He was reliable as high quality. Everybody loved IT. And in fact, I was so good that programmer would use IT to collaborate and right code together and a pair.

And then the unthinking happen, slack bot, screen hero, and shut IT down. So this is amazing thing that existed in the world, suddenly ceased to exist. And that's where you came.

And then you were looking for a start of idea, and you ended up making a modern sleep screen hero replacement called two people. And so I think you were last on the pod. And late twenty eight, you had even launched yet.

But you don't a bunch of prey sales. You have beta customers. You were doing something like twenty thousand dollars months revenue that was a little but over year and a half ago, since then, we've had a goal pandemic remote work has become kind like the new norm. Where are you at now in terms of like two polls progress?

Yeah we're like millions of dollars year covet was crazy for us like the business more or less quite rupee than a month or two starting in march of of twenty twenty and the next couple months were crazy too. And basically since then, they're not quite as crazy. But there are like our growth rate is three x what I used to be.

So not for for sure. And how big is team out was just three of you total?

I yeah. So I have two offenders, so just the three of us last time. Now we are five full timers and three part timers. So I take you .

are probably profitable unless you're paying everybody very, very good salary.

No, no, yeah, yeah. If they definitely profile cool, well.

that's awesome, man. They congratulations. I've thought you a few people recently who just had their businesses explode in the last year, and it's like covet seems to play a role in all of them totally.

I mean, everything shifted so much like an one of the reasons we picked total of as the idea was that we thought there would be more remote programmes every year. And you know, IT just accelerated a insan Epace w here s omething t hat w as l ike, oh, guess what, everyone is a remote programmer.

It's tty nice to build a business on a wave that's growing. It's pretty safe to predict that there will be more software ers in the future even even if everybody's watches to no code, like they're probably going to collaborate over the internet and needs some sort of like pair programing tool. And so it's kind of like you're betting on almost a short thing. And when the market grows some degree and like you are not doing anything, you doing quite a lot, but like you could do nothing and there would just be more customers there for you tomorrow IT.

IT also helps with just like thinking about competitors, like, okay, like all of these people over here in this people over here due to this and like yeah but also every month there's more programmer and every month and them go remote, we're come home a bit more or something like that. So yeah.

competitions are fund is one of these topics that I think A A lot of us like will say one thing in public when the reality is very different. I program actually twist, I don't know exactly. That was basically something like when people say that they're flattered by competitors and copycats and like h this proves there's a market.

The reality is that actually super annoyed by because copyright sec and I read that tweet, don't like that so true. Like every time anyone copied in the hackers or anything else working on as just like this sucks like I already have a hard of time and train to grow this thing. I don't need someone like rip IT of my idea taking my customers and set oec, but i'll go on public and say like this just proves that the market exists and IT lights a fuel.

It's a fire under my butt. I want to work even harder. It's a bullshit .

IT is yeah there's this like that unflappable, magnanimous you know ext or your persona and then you're real actually like monkey mind that wants to attack of them .

yeah exactly. But you despite having do you haven't computers are there any serious of chAllenges for two? Bo.

so for a while IT didn't seem like anyone else was positioning themselves for the pair programmer market, which is what we go after select. We have built the whole upper around the idea that it's four developers doing pairing. It's not generic stream sharing, not generic video conference in kind of stuff.

And there wasn't a lot of people in that space before. There are more now it's you know it's it's happening. It's which is not shocking as I was.

This is to be expected, but you prefer if they are weren't right to be great. I want that niche, that d be the best. But you know, I just find IT very flattering and IT helps the market there. So i'm like to see IT.

but you ve got quite a head start and you ve got like a very intentional positioning because like I was mentioning early, early, anybody could use this even if i'm not developer. If I wanted to be a no code person and collaborate another no coder, I could use people. But you would like very specific. Ally said, this is the best remote pair programmer APP, because programmes Better, like, that's what this is of the top of your home page, which means in a way you're excluding other people who might not be turned on by your message and you just don't care. It's worth IT for you.

And also just the competitor thing is when people have used to be for a little bit, we asked them what they were using before and asked if they like to pull Better as a little customer survey. And interestingly, the people that I consider our competitors in terms of like doing like position similar to us and doing a similar thing don't even show up on this list.

Our competitors such that like in the sense of apps that people have used before switching to couple from are basically zoom sack calls hanging out, flash meat that's IT. So it's like we am aware I am hyper aware of everyone in the space, right? It's the TV on cool.

These guys over here doing this, these guys ever here a little different because they have this angle on IT. And most people are just like using zoom. And so like they tried to like, this is way Better than zoom for paring. Like there we go, you are our customer.

The same thing that happens, everybody who builds like to do this step or productivity APP and then like who's our competition and always turns out that people like I used like sticky notes that got used like a no pad and even been using like the high technical datas and everybody's RAID of so do you feel that are in any way being transparent about your numbers? I couldn't share your exact revenue numbers, but if you're happy to go in pocket and say that you're doing millions of revenue, a revenue quite drupal, why do that? If you have competitors and you have like not the salary, the best feelings about the fact of these people exist.

I sort of don't buy the idea that like just by talking about your revenue, you're gonna create savy competitors out of the air. Maybe at the margin, there's someone who like has three different ideas and they listen this podcast. And o oh well, two poles making millions that I going to do that.

The one that's most like two maybe that I guess. But like if you can just like here we talk about this and then go create something Better than couple and coming with us so effectively that we start to lose customers to you and our revenue goes down that wow, like dam, you're going to be at this anyway. And like you didn't need me to tell you that, hey, this is a good business to sell programing to those programmes.

It's fun that you mention savy competitors because you've got a podcast and your cohoes, your grammer as a company called savi cow, and he's literally done this thing. So there's calender, which many of us use the sort of like I use this to schedule the spot cast call, I send you the link, he pick a date that's reading my calender, super simple.

And like it's got a lot of issues, like everyone knows calli has issues and everyone also know who's the calling is crushing IT because they are found to work, go on pocket and talk about how many millions of dollars are making. And IT just seems from the surface to be a really simple APP. And so there came and built.

He's one of these competitions, napping at the heel. He built savi calo. I think he just hit what ten thousand dollars a month and revenue recently. He is a very savy competition. I don't know he's going to crush calley into the dust or anything like that, but like he's certainly make to run for IT.

that's the thing. But direct didn't start savva because he thought calonice was making a lot of money. He would looked calonge and said and talk to customers of calendar, found some other dissatisfaction and said, I think there's a space for I think that does things a little bit differently here.

IT wasn't just like, oh, they're making x million. I want some of that. I was like, I see a gap and I I think I can execute well in this particular niche.

Maybe i'm wrong. Maybe i'll come back on the podcast and a few years to say, well, f corlin never should imagine that because I inspired all these copycats. And then when I M beat us and.

Overcame my lead. Well, how do you feel now that you have this lead? I mean, I thought a lot of people who obviously want to be where you are now.

I think the last time I talk to you, you would have told me that you want to be where you are now, and that probably would have seemed much more than a year and a half out now that you're here, does that feel like you stop like the fire to keep growing the business? You feel like you're settle down a little bit. You want to focus on your personal life.

like what's going to your mind. Here's the thing that have been realizing about the start of life or just having a company, which is everyone says like the highs are high and the lose are low. And I think that's prety true um like the highs are high r and a loser are low r than say having a job but also there is a specular cork in my brain and I think a lot of people's brains, which is that as soon as I come down from the high, I don't want to lose any little Better of the like every time we hit a new high. mr.

R mark, if we go down one thousand dollars, unlike uh, h has the worst like IT hurts so much or like we drop, you know we have a big day in a big customer councils and IT hurts or like even like, okay, we signed a big contract to the customer. But you know, uh, IT was an unlimited deal and we're not getting expansion revenue from more than anymore. And even though it's A A huge track contract, I still feel the loss of that. So just like it's hard to make yourself happy is one of things I realized with with like business success is not a good happiness region that makes sense.

We are animals. We evolved in the wild. We really, really, really didn't like losing things. You know you gather a bunch a orns like you Better keep those a corns because you might start to death try monger had calls IT what like loss, super deprivation reaction syndrome is funny name for IT.

But I think psychologist college psychological version and it's this idea that, like, people are much more, much sadder about like losing a thousand dollars than they are happy about gaining a thousand dollars, which means you have this sort of a minds that switch as you like, become more successful or game. Things are important to human life, or instead of, like, kind of being the story, child, looking into the world and say, what do we want to do? What can I accomplish? Start thinking, like, how do I keep all the stuff that I have and not lose any because it's pretty fun.

awesome. Yeah, it's so irrational too. I talking to jail my coi like, what a revenue dss by this much and he was like, well, if revenue had just gotten to the point of the bottom, that drop, but he doesn't slowly, rather than going up and then down, if he had gone that directly, you would feel totally fine about IT.

Okay, with your total fine is the fact that we went down from a higher number that makes you really upset now. And it's just man. So like, anyway, I guess that the big lesson there is like, wow, try, good luck, good luck, but try not tie your happiness to like right how the business is doing.

I mean, I have not have much success is that onesta? I'm very tired to IT, but i'm working on IT. I'm like a meditation and china, you know do do my waking up up and and try to be common stuff and make success something you're spending .

like it's like your life's work are spending a great deal of your time and energy effort on this is like hard to say I care about this and not spent on my time on IT, but not enough to feel any negative feelings when things don't go well.

And I think like the trajectory of the change matters to because you know, if you hit this revenue number a little bit more slowly, that actually is, I think, Better then hitting IT and then like reverting because if you revert, that means like the tractor is not going down and like you don't necessarily know where the bottom is. So part of that is kind of a fear like, oh yeah, went down this month, but also like would keep going down like if we like lost some Spark. I think in your particular case, you know you have any apprehensive about the facility.

The pendel c is going to end in some former fashion everybodys getting vaccinated things, things going back to Normal people, going to a work in the office. I just saw something today like google rack reopening their officers or something and like a part of your tail wind has been the fact that, like, we've had people working remote you and so like, I could imagine that there might be some like fear in the back of your minds. Okay, may be this won last forever, may be the good times aren't here to stay and we're going to go back to like some baseline level.

Yeah, that could certain ly happen. I'm kind of hope ing they'll be residual effects of like people now you know want to work a couple days from home or some some chunk of people will stay home more. We'll be more higher remote.

Now the people have seen IT works, so we might not grow as fast as we have during the peak of this. When I like everyone's force to, I be surprised if we do. But I do think there there's still a tail wind caused by that initial event that won't go back down to zero. I think they'll stay stick around.

Yeah i'm the same same sort feeling then on a personal level, trying to, I guess, reconcile my own feelings about the cow I feel about the into the pandemic or it's like, obviously ly is a horrible thing and I wanted to end and it's like it's super isolating to just not be able to see everybody you want to you and go to eventually you want to you.

Like, I miss live music and I miss a lot of these bigger gatherings that out my friends but like, it's pretty nice, literally never feeling formal like every day that I stay and i'm like, i'm not missing anything. There is nothing Better that I could be doing and like that's pretty cool. I love that feeling and like that's going to go away.

So beyond your company i've been taken look at like your personal website, you got a lot of cool stuff you're working on on obvious ly working on your podcast with dirk ulrich mentioned, that's we going pretty well. I'm a listener. I case onal catch up.

You won. You should say you stole from me very precious award. You are microcom SaaS pocket awards.

Best show of two thousand twenty. I forgot. I want like best host and best ever ode.

But you've got the crown, you've got the actual I did I got like the consolation prize and you wait like a pretty brutal campaign. And ah I know you would just like you you I was like attacked marketing. You know I felt a personally attacked with a lot of good components.

Actually, I remember our podcast episode title was courland Allen must be stopped. Yes.

I saw that in the feed. I did a double take at that. Someone's going April fools prank on me, but you did IT. I mean, you were all over me twitter. You pointed out some very sAiling apocrypha the fact and end hackers is often the nd founder and yet we're owned by, what do you say like a giant you in a corn mega corp, something like that which I ve tried to hide. Ah I didn't feel winning the .

the best show award how I was great. I mean, it's so stupid because it's just a made up award but I wanted in and when I I saw we were nominated as like art, I want this award and I was clear as like art coral in is the heavy heater on this list. He's my, he's the one I gotto worry about. And so what what Better to do than to personally attack him and make our obligations on twitter that I understand to win elections these days?

So that's what I went for. Pretty sure that when and I you and I was well for me, because I always feel like dog my way. I am the an underdog in this story.

What is what even is this very small dog? 嗯， well, they doing in the end this year, and i've got some plans. I didn't even, I don't even signy in the hacker is like fan bason yeah, I said nothing about IT on the podcast.

I put no ads on the website. I just let let IT happen and we ll see we will see you this naturally plays out. But next the gloves off.

Good in in on. I'm going to buy a lot of facebook ads or something i'm I frame in a way, you inviting me on your podcast is a huge mistake because now you've exposed my podcast to your listeners, still eighty percent of them, at least people should .

check out to show what is that art, art of product been seen direct rymer. R what do I just do that you basically just talk about? You do what we're doing right here. You just cch up with each other and explain what's new in your lives.

Two dudes talking. This is the two duos talking for mat. So it's like we reach run, start of companies suffer an's trying to make.

And so each week can kind of come on and say, what do you worked on? What is strugling with that kind of thing? Well.

I love to show to do you I think is really cool. And I whenever I see someone who's like very successful and they're still running their podcast and curious, what do you get out of IT? You know why I do this pocket is is just like a weekly ritual at this point. Is that move in the numbers in anyway? Or you make an money from IT?

Or is IT just like pure fun? Good question. Is the closest thing is kind of to fun.

Honestly, we in the in the early days, a lot of our our first customers came from the podcast. He was like, definite a good seed for the business these days. I don't think that i'd be surprised many people found us through that.

I honest, just really like IT. I like talking to dig. I like trying to summarize my week.

I like that I can go back almost any lack of time and hear a podcast episode of, like, what I was talking at the time I went and first for kicks, I just like, listen, like the first episode whales. Like, I think i'm going to quit my job and build this thing. And IT was just like, IT was great to go to listen to me.

And like, here me says stupid things you like, well, so I eve about this. There are like, well, really bent on the shape about this thing that turned out to be nothing. and. It's just a cool record to have.

its super or nice and it's like quite easier than doing like you know like like a youtube show or something that's super er like hi effort. And I think more people should do this sort of audio format just for their Normal lives. Like, for example, I did a podcast of my friend lin on any access, and he just loved so much, having a record that was a snapshot of us at that time.

She's asked me, like, ever sense him like, which is a podcast not publish IT at all and just have IT between us. And i'd ve seen others doing the same thing at the crater or of the show. Midnight gospel, one of my favor shows on net licks.

Every episode is basically an animated podcast. And like his last episode, one that he did with his mom before he passed away and was super emotional and moving. And who always have that record. And so I just think people should consider buy a couple of good mikes, get people you love and care about, sit down and record something with them. And you can always go back and listen to you and just it's worth is waiting go I think so the other good thing about having a podcast is that you are put in yourself out there so trong around your personal website.

You've got, uh, something on your website that I i've only see one or two other people do ever, which is kind of a call to action that says, by the way, i'm searching for an awesome life partner no, any smart, funny, accomplished or are you on yourself? Get touch and you quit the link and a little just goes directly to your email in box. So you created like and almost like a tender for yourself, where at any point in time people can in touch and you can like, you can find something to date.

And where are you, by the way, boston and boston, all right. So if any lovely ladies want to date a successful, smart, uh, eligible bachelor with a booming ing deep voice who makes me some battle, my own pocket, you know where to find out? What are your thing in there? What did you put a dating ad on on your personal website?

IT felt like worth a shot. Um some that site gets some traffic and I I wanted people to know like I actually think being set up is great. And I think meeting people through eight typical ways is great like everyone's the dating out.

Of course I am too, but finding somebody through a organic channel like a different just a unique way seems good to me and is what rather than being a tender profile number five million. And I say it's it's resulted in some dates like I i've had I been on days with people, it's it's great. Had this experience recently, I was on clubhouse talking to my body and waving and I mentioned being single and someone like D M.

Me afterward it's was like, oh, hey, you're single like do you wanna do a one date and I like, absolutely I realized like i'm really underutilized my audience honestly, to find a partner by like not talking about IT enough. And so I I have have a to do item which is like write up a public dating profile linked to IT for my twitter bio, talk about IT on twitter. And i'm i'm glad were bringing this up now because this is like, honestly, like kind of the top priority of my life.

Honey ly couple is great and matters and is going well. But like, got I got to the dating thing and IT feels like i'm missing peace right now. So your exhortation to get in touch with me if, uh, you think that sounds good, uh, is I second IT, please do and please refer your awesome friends to me yeah .

it's hard to be on the bleeding edge of anything involving dating like, let's say you're online dating two thousand one IT was just wear back then like people give me crap ford, that you've also watch the questions. But now obviously is completely Normal. I remember being in college actually, and like two thousand five, I think, and facebook brand new and actually met somebody on facebook.

I don't know how I found her, like the features for facebook were different back then, but I somehow met someone who was a twin like I was. He was also born on march twenty second, like I was. And then we just kind of talk and corresponded on facebook for maybe like eight or nine months.

And then he eventually moved to boston for completely different reasons. And SHE showed up on campus, and we want a few dates. And I was super cool.

And people like that. So weird, like you just met this girl line. Like, how do you trust her? Like, what if he's a serial killer? Know you had all these weird questions. But today, like, nobody would blink about something like that because everybody dates online.

And so IT gives me thinking like, okay, I maybe, but you're just like five to ten years ahead of the curve and maybe like five years of now, I will be super common for everybody uh, on the twitter profile to link to you know a personal dating page they have on their website and you're just way I had to everybody and I should probably be considering stuff like this too because i'm technically single. I date nominoe ously, which means I have multiple partners, but I don't have what we call a primary partner right now. Like I would love to meet someone to actually spend my life with and I don't know.

I think talking about these things in public probably helps. And I think you're probably onto something where if we have a unique platform, we're like way more likely to be able to take advantage something like this. And I never really do IT IT feels that kind of a no go zone on the podcast because that is nothing do what the he was about.

IT has nothing to do with that. My public persona or my tweet are about, and most my followers are probably guys anyway. But I think you're right, and I think you're smart. And even if IT feels a little bit weird, is probably just a head of its time and looked at through another lens, if you are a ffo der type person, you're party like kind of predisposed to sort of fant societal conventions like if you did what society said you should do, like you wouldn't start a company, you won't run too, like you would get a job because I like the tracks I just want to be on. Anything else is like risky and improvement, and might fail in catching burn dating now. And argument y is definitely that way going have to make up your own rules and figure things out in a little of dangerous and scary, but also very rewarding and also like using your social profile or a sort of meat e people, although IT seems like a total no brainer, is like for whatever reason, like not that done. There's still some shame around IT.

Even like as i'm thinking, even as we're doing in alc, I still feel like five percent around. Like is this embarrassing? Like should I admit this? Should I say these things if you go to like a bar.

for example, and you're been a aranca in a bar, there's like literally nothing that separate you from every other ran in person in that bar besides your high international looks like nothing separate tube, right? And maybe accounts for a lot, but you've done all these other cool things, and there are a lot of people on her who are aware that you've done these cool things.

And like if you have, you know, all these tools in your arsenal, like why not bring that to the competition? Basically, which is kind of thing isn't away. You know why beyon tender swiping and just be one face of millions when you can be your own unique thing .

yeah he feels like a waste to to not do that and honest like I appreciate your openness like talking about your situation because you you don't know who knows people in seattle. Like maybe I know someone who's amazing who look at for a primary partner but does not but obviously like that's like like you just you I can't tell who in your audience who in the world might be somebody or know somebody that might be a good match. So like I want to maximize the possible opportunities to make that match because you only need one ish basically .

like I was seeing A A dentist a little while back and you should get both vaccine shots. You've super excited and we're just talking about dating. She's obviously not as well and she's tell me about how a at some point in her past friend connected to to another person who was like, oh my god, I met another nominoe's dentist and IT just like, what are the chances that I would mean another number and understanding s and see adults.

So they connected the two of them and they want a few dates or whatever. But yeah, if you if you don't put yourself out there and tell people like what you about, no one's going to help you. You're not going to get any many people will talk about this.

How do you make your own luck? And like a huge part of IT is you just literally tell people constantly what that is trying to do and know what you're looking for. And then like magically, serendipity happens. And for people who like, don't you know, who aren't transparent, who don't share what's going on with them, we don't ask for help or who don't put build in public. They just tend to be much less lucky because people literally can help them because if no idea is going on .

with so this this is actually a great forcing function, because I ve been meaning to like publish this like dating profile page on my website. And now I can make sure to do IT before this podcast drops, so we can throw a link in .

the shower notes. The other thing is that I think you're your priorities tend to shift to founders. I was asking earlier like can you feel differently now that tubes are success? I know that like for me with the hackers, I don't know.

I spent like most of my twenty years work in a lot and like I had a lot of really good fun vacations and trips and experiences with friends and went up, but like to some degree I definitely sacrifice some of my personal life to like chase professional goals. And i'm thirty three and its okay. I should I should reverse that.

Like professional, I am doing really well. I feel super secure because a lot I want to accomplish. But like, I want to figure like a really good living situation. I can be near as near as possible with friends and family and cool people. I want to like travel a lot and like how lots of experiences, like I want to use the sort of things i've accomplished, just look at Better life, know I want to like me a really great partner. And it's much easier to sort of notice the absence of these things and to focus them once you've gotten to a point where your company is doing really well, least in my experience.

Super true. yeah. I mean, IT honestly feels a little bit like a waste. Where is like I can I have all this flexibility. I can go take an amazing trip by myself like or like. I can leave work at new, not a wedding day, and go home by myself like this.

It's not nearly as cool to have these things without uh, someone awesome to do them with and like I do stuff with friends a lot and you know have friends are very close to do and that helps helps quite a bit, but it's definitely the same. So yeah I like you. My my focuses is definitely shifting.

So you mentioned being on a clubhouse call with adam weapon and the sort of came up, but I was screen through you're tweet. You've been on like a few different club house calls recently. For example, you had one that was called money and emptiness just in Jackson tweet that going to do this stream with you.

And I wasn't thin her. I have no idea what you talked about. But like, that's the most click Betty title i've ever heard. Like I was in soon.

Like, what are they? What's the the top of this conversation would you talk about? So I like to get you here. I can just ask, what's the most memorable part of that conversation was going on?

Yeah, IT really is just that like it's not going to make you happy reality for me and it's so clear, shay and everyone hates and it's even like shade to say that saying this is cliche. This is just like an infinitely nested class. There's no way out of IT but here we are which is like, yeah, I make them more money than before.

It's really cool now is like as soon as I hit a new level, I instantly used to IT IT feels Normal and the idea of going down at all socks and like if the divided is lower next next quarter. And like a man, we didn't hit the same levels last time. It's like, man, just there's just no, there's I mean, there's a very little happiness to be had there.

There's there's some fun. There's some financial comfort. They're sleeping Better at night definitely but like my brains, I think there are just not so wired to be like, ah yes, that is enough resource. I now reached contentment and happiness and we're good here.

Totally dimension returns but tell Justin um had a different feeling of that and he was like, no, no I my stress have gone down a ton sits like going from like s to why and I was like, well, Justin got married at like nineteen and had like five kids starting at twenty or something like he started having kids really Young and has five of them. It's not like kids finances and my finances were very different like i've been single for a long time. I have no dependence like I was a programming before this. And so it's like I was yeah I felt pretty comfortable for a long time.

In a way, it's like the contrast like he needed to have to be in sort of a bad place where every business has to work because he's been very entrepreneurial despite having a bunch of kids and stuff. And so like to go from like this huge I don't say negative or like you know, very far away from rio today. Transistor, think is also making millions of dollars a year to where is now like that's a crazy change.

Where is to go from? Like a successful single software engineer who like doesn't want for money. You can eat anything you want. You can live prety much anywhere you want to. Now having a little is very successful business, which is great.

And like it's an accomplished member, it's not like a million miles removed from where you were really it's not gonna a permanent change your life and leave in this permanent state of all. And I think it's a cliche because like the fact of the matter is when you're not, there is still feels like bullshit. Like if you'd asked me five years ago, well, how I respond to that person who said, say it's easy for you to say if you're there, right but once you you are there, it's okay.

I get know there's other things in life, right? And then then after dating, let's say you have like the perfect partner that's going well. Is so other categories in like that matter to right? Some would say like mental health or spirituality. There's also like your own like solo, sort of like hobby endeavors.

I tweet this thing maybe the last time one of the podcast is around, when I was, like, taken chess lessons before chest got super huge, because in the network show, I was just like, you know what, I wanna a have to play chess because my friend keep beating me. So like, I want to beat him and I arted taking chess coaching lessons. And it's some very mundane tweet about, I was playing a guy, thirty box and out, she's my chest and I blew up.

So when I was popular tweet all time in two thousand likes, and remember, you respond to to IT, you're like, I love one on one. Coaching is my favorite thing. We didn't say what IT was that you pay for one or one coaching for and so I didn't know for a the longest time so I start listen to your show but IT seems like you get like a few things and like i'm curious about like what those are and like why you pay for for coaching.

Yeah, improving at things rapidly causes more dopamine, my brain, than almost anything. It's basically my favorite. Like, I love master ing a new skill.

We're like rapidly improving in a new skill. I don't have to matter IT. It's just like, you know going from where I am to Better.

And so usually when I want coaching, is that kind of the fastest way to progress at a thing? So I love being coached. The thing is one pointing out, no, that's not an efficient to do that.

You should do this instead. And so like I get i've had one of my coach for a lot of things. Um I tried to get IT for almost everything like that.

I get into the latest example that probably is maybe illustrative of how much I like coaching is. I've been playing this game called overwatch. It's a video game and you play and h we play once a week.

And I take video recordings of our games. And then I pay a coach to record a video, critical our play and telling us how to do a Better next time. So like, I want coach for everything.

I want coach for video games. I I want like i've got, I get voice lessons. I used get voice lessons. Squash lessons just is like whatever I meant to at the time, whatever hobby is occupying me, like I want to get a Better at IT, as icky as possible.

super smart. And I love that feeling of like getting Better stuck. So for me for a little while, his chest and then I I got, i'm pretty, get a chess is fine, like I don't want to be like a master anything you'll take years and years and years, other things like this podcast.

I don't have a podcast coach, but I have like I heard a pocket boss we've talked about on the show before who just going to sits IT down with me SHE washes me come up the topics and questions and put guests and SHE just like keeps me honest and it's GTA cool. It's I was like a little you know a person on my shoulder he's telling me like the right thing to do even as i'm doing the wrong thing and I try to commence myself that it's right. And I guess it's an argument to mate for that.

Anything in life that you actually care about where you have the funds to get a coach like why not get a coach like I want to get Better cooking? Like, why don't I have a cking coach? I want to get Better like at athletic training nutrition? Like, why not hire nutritionist and the personal trainer if I can afford IT right away? It's kind of like I can explain why I have IT you know maybe it's fear, maybe it's just pure laziness, but I would make perfect sense to do IT and it's like maybe i'm afraid that if I have a person who keeps me honest, i'm going to have to do the work that i'm a little more scared doing yeah I mean.

the thing that I learned about coaching is like as often more affordable than you might guess. Like you don't doesn't have to be every week, doesn't have to be all the time, like you can get occasional sessions, but it's just so I find it's so delightful to have my eyes opened to a thing that was like kind of invisible to me before when I was work of the squash coach.

He would like record, be playing and he be like, you see what you're doing right here at the way you're taking this step instead of that step. Like notice how like now you're all mess up and you don't have a room to swing. And it's like like that the experience of going through the learning process, like now seeing a thing that I couldn't see before and then like still making the mistake, but at least seeing the mistake and then you try to anticipate the mistake and then you don't do the thing anymore.

Like now you're just at a new level and now you're looking for new mistakes. Ah I feel feel so good. I just love that feeling.

Yeah, you've got coaches and they can basically spot everything that you are doing wrong, way easier than you. And for them, it's like super easy for you. It's like a struggle and like you've write is also like kind of affordable. I was looking into you like a legion about this a few episodes about like getting like A A personal chef which is not a coach to someone a little the cut for you but it's like actually like you would think is like the most luxurious thing in the world if you've got ta be basically screw my duck to ford this. And now it's kind of the same cost as a personal trainer plus the cost of ingredient, you get someone to come over like cookie winter meals.

And i've been thinking about like start up ideas around this where they could just be so much more, I don't know, education and teaching, like there are just so many people in the world who are good at things and who probably don't like their jobs, but they would be very enthusiast, teach people about the things that they're good at, like they're really good at crossing and they're really good at like. I know taking care plans like I just bottle into plants for my place like I don't know what i'm doing. I want to the nursery.

I asked them what's easy to grow like the gaming and recommendations. I've have killed some of them already, even of these, like among the easiest plans. But like I would pay someone who loves plants to come over, you know, once a month and give me recommendations that could do this, do that, buy some more plans, get these or just like go plant shopping with me and like, that could be a profession.

No, they're not going to be super rich. And I can main hundred box an hour, but like, I don't need them so often that I need that I would shy away from paying like kind of a high rate. Maybe I only need them an hour a month. And so I wonder this room to build more and more forms where you can essentially find people who have all these like niche interests, who are really good things and just let them make a living as coaches doing the thing that they love enough to be good at in the first place.

I think i've already to seen sort of nature versions of the general idea. So like maybe maybe the general thing of like we are the the position of all coaches, uh, is a hard, hard not to crack. But I mean that there's sort of the seeds where it's like, okay, like I found my overwatch coach on a site that matches people with video game coaches. So like this, that particular slicer is like apparently enough to sustain some sort of business.

I found my chess coach on like a chess website where you go to play chess. But I was like, just like a listing for a coaches. Like, I should probably do this an ending.

Hackers like you want a business coach. There are a lot of people who love their sas applications and who love talking to people about IT, especially people who are serious, which just be a director in any hackers. Hire this person for how many dollar is a month or or whatever. And no, talk you about your recent thing.

if you like. One on one feedback. That's interesting. I mean, i've onesta considered offering that kind of service to people because like I love like it's it's fun to talk about SaaS and offer people advice and and do things the easiest part as the advice.

But like there's just enough activation energy, like I don't really want to advertise IT and figured out and all that. So I don't know. I I would consider if you had an easy thing to log into.

Yeah I like the matter work if you could just like basically a button and there's a call and you know this who is gona be and you you got a little brief ing of what they what they need you go to to go to them, you know, to do any other work. Servicing people are being paid or then suddenly is worth doing.

And who wouldn't listen to you talk? You're growing your business to millions in revenue like super quickly, pretty much like nine and nine percent founders never get to that point. And so would be like rewarding for you. Probably maybe the downside is a ut even more time on start of stuff and less time dating you.

right? That's a good point. Also, in classic mom has fashion, you definitely can trust me when I said I would total use that.

Yeah, I want to go just build this .

whole thing yeah actuality, I can't. I'm busy. Actually, i'm sorry.

sorry. Doing that uses, I don't know. I I think it's an interesting idea and I to explore IT, I think looking at where you have come, it's going to do this catch up epo.

It's hopeful you back on. We can catch up like at least a couple times of years to see where you're at. But i'm pretty lown away. But how far you come and you know we talked about cover driving out of the growth, a lot of traffic, but people are going to be pissed off for me. If I don't at least ask you some questions about OK.

How do this happen? You know like what what did you guys do at two pole disorder of drivers growth? So what besides cove IT, what presides like a huge shift to remote work has gone really well for you in the past year.

One thing that we did that I think was good was we hire E A sales person. I'm a programmer by training, and so I was getting these sales leads from people wanting to like purchase like annual plans or things are. But I too people from larger companies, and I have a hard time being patient with those people.

It's an extremely inefficient process for large companies to buy most large companies to buy things. And so I would like try to be like how do we do this really efficiently? And like I would try to like change their process or like be kind of ordinary and they refuse to give them things they would ask for.

And that's just way talking about. And so that's not the best way to treat your leads probably. So we we hired to sales first. He just like doesn't mind the stuff, like he he is n't mind that as to sign up for a stupid website and then like punching the invoice manually rather than just like send on the strip voice and haven't pay with the credit card. Like he is like he doesn't love IT but he doesn't mind IT and like, I hate IT and so it's like IT took something that like I hate IT that the business kind of should have someone doing and like how someone do that who doesn't mind IT and was like, uh, I was yeah there will go delegation that that seems to be hard what this is for.

I think it's pretty magical. And you can learn that when you learn that you can hire someone who is not only like Better at certain things, you didn't think that would be Better either, but then they actually like some of the stuff that you didn't like, like our community manager for any hackers. SHE actually just left.

He was here for like two years. He turned to like a celebrity and just graduate and was like peace guys, which is gna call to see. But, uh, he is a super good at running community. And SHE does like a lot of the personal tas things on the form that i'm just like, I hate IT doing and he loved doing IT IT was like her favorite thing to wake up the morning and do I like that? Just my blowing to like unlock that when you spent years is probably going the way and you start up doing everything by yourself.

I knew sort of collections that, like, there was a reason companies hired people, but when I came to IT, I was like, kind of emotionally like, yeah. But like, no one's going to do this thing as well as I can but like we ever be able to find a good person that doesn't like no one likes to do sales that is so annoying and I was like, no, you you done so that's been like a kind of a good thing for me over the course of the the year. Which is like as we started hiring people is like, oh, i'm starting to see and appreciated a more visceral level, the power of delegation and also just the fact like it's like a win, win, win or it's like I don't have to do this thing anymore. This thing is getting done, is getting done by someone that like this thing is good at IT.

So what's the few like this point where you like hire yourself out of tubal and you can to just sort wash the machine run by itself and not something you would want to do?

I don't know. Um it's not clear like it's I have a hard time projecting that into the future that much of knowing like what it's going to feel like I could see doing that like I have friends. We've run businesses where they eventually hire a managment teams to run them and they they just know advice basically.

And that seems pretty cool. If if if I got is probably to come down to like kind of novelty interest or it's like as long as my data day changes and I have new things to learn and new stuff to get coached on um and improve that, then i'm probably good for a while. And a company so far seems to be a very good vehicle for that because IT keeps changing.

Like the thing you need to do each month to be successful is different um the chAllenges are different in IT. It's different every time we hire a new person. But I think at some point of I could see myself being like, you know what i'm tired of thinking about pair programme ah and I I just i'm really excited about this other idea over here at that point I might there's there's a few options of how you step back and what that looks like um but I would probably little problem at some point.

I think about that all the time too and it's so hard to figure out what what would the next thing be because as one of different options like you just pick something like Peter levels, for example, he's just a craft man who just likes working on things that he can perfect and that he's curious about. He's not like trying to like one up his former self. He just like, oh, this is really cool.

I want to experiment with, know this new technology here. This new trend is set around like that's what motivates and and is like super locked into that or is like another approach is like to just one up your previous self. You know, I built a company to millions in revenue.

Like, let me start a VC funded unicorn company and see if I can just go big. You know, SHE is that is to do this a lot of little to that, you know, like, why not set your site higher? Want you get to a certain level, know like want to graduate high school, you want to go to college.

And then there's another approach which is just completely leave the domain altogether. Like you've had your life as a tech founder, software engineer, like now you're going to have your life is like singer, song writer or as you know, a novel list or something. And it's like it's hard to pick which one you want, you know. But it's also cool to be in the position where you could probably live multiple lives like multiple careers, because you are able to what to find success in one at a Young age.

Such a lucky thing to have. And I I don't really worry about finding the next thing because I I just I eventually get into something like my I just love new stuff. And so I think I like the thing with couple was like, I wasn't like, okay, I got to started the company.

What are we going to do? IT was like the idea for triple was there and was like, I think i'd have to do this. And so I don't think I would be like, okay, I want to leave two people and go do another thing.

Let me just kind of figure IT out. I think i'm just going to like, get distracted by a thing like a man. I'm kind of assessed as I feel like I kind of have to do this thing and then I have to figure out what what to do at that point.

What your advice for found is you aren't your position yet, but you might someday be be in your position here, maybe like on the verge of achieving, like the success theyve been dreaming of what they should take away from kind of what you've learned in the past year and half running to poland and grow to such a large size.

if be great, if there were just like kind of one or two things that I knew, that we were like a secret, that I could just like whispers to people, and then like, IT would work for them too. But like, I don't know, I think we did a lot of small things, right? So like, you know, make sure to do one hundred things right is like not helpful advice and like our path is so hard for me to tease apart.

Like what were the things that were the key choices? What was kind of luck? What did we succeed despite of its like IT would be, I think kind of unfair for me or I just not really genuine for me to do like, oh, here you go here's your one two quips that will send you .

on your way but in a way that is like a single quip, which is like there is no single thing. And if you're founder and you're doing like a hundred little you can escape from from the question you're founded, do one hundred little things.

We'll reduce you to a small, to one quest.

to one small and to that we can take out a context that everyone can disagree with your twitter. Well, folks, you want to hear first on the next podcast, i've want to potentially use this advice, but maybe good advice. You're not really quite sure, but thanks for coming on and show the ship with me and doing sort of a funky catching up episode and hope if you're come on again.

I love to, but I was fun. It's it's quite a pleasure and uh, good luck this year and uh, try to win some awards.

I'll see even the asset pocket is twenty twenty one.

Gloves are off this time sounds good. Bring IT.