March 19, 2023
#67 A Fireside Chat with Kavin Patel, CEO of Convrrt on building SaaS While Bootstrapping
Join us as we sit down with Kavin Patel, co-founder and CEO of Convrrt, a landing page platform used by SaaS companies. With over 18 years of experience in the industry, Kavin shares his insights on building effective landing pages and marketing funnels, the challenges he faced while building Convrrt, and the importance of innovation in the competitive SaaS market. He also talks about his decision to bootstrap instead of seeking funding, how he stays up-to-date with technology and shares his advice for fellow entrepreneurs.
Find more about Kavin and his company here:
https://www.convrrt.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kavinpatel/
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Hello and welcome to a new
episode of the city of show with
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Muhammad.
My name is Mohammed, I'm your
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host, and in every episode, we
talk about emerging Tech,
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digital transformation, cyber
security.
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But at the same time and as you
are seeing and following us, we
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also host sometimes special
guest who give us insights about
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their Journey, while starting
their companies and today I'm
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very thrilled to have with me.
Kevin bezel, who's joining me
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from Adam?
Zola in the US and Kevin is a
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seasoned entrepreneur and he
have like more than 18 years
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experience in the tech industry,
who would like share some of his
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insights.
So first of all, thank you.
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Kevin for joining me today.
You can just introduce you to my
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audience.
I would be really more than
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thankful for that.
Yeah, certainly thanks very much
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for having me on the show.
My name is Kevin Patel here from
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Arizona, graduated out of a
issue, you know, didn't really
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make my parents happy.
Not becoming a doctor or a
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lawyer ended up actually going
to visit the school and did
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economics, always knew?
I wanted to do something on the
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Internet.
And here I am today.
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That's cool.
So you have started the company
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called convert guide.
So what inspired you to start a
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white label landing page
builder?
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You know, it started.
When I would say, I was a
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freshman in college.
One of my really good friends,
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he had sent out an email that
basically said, I'm looking to
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start a company, I don't know
what it is, it's going to do
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something on the Internet, if
you're interested me in front of
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the library.
And you know, I it was like,
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maybe 30 40 people on it, but
when I got there, is this mean
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him and that was the day where
we basically started our digital
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agency.
It was called amazing creations
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at that time and we were doing,
you know, full service work.
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We were building a website.
So, we were doing demand gen and
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that's where we started to kind
of go into our Niche was
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conversion optimization.
So, we helped a homeopath
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company that was selling HCG and
other diet, supplements online
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and they were only doing about
500 bucks a month.
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And what we did was we spun up
landing page.
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For these each individual
product in drove targeted
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traffic to it.
And we actually got to 50K a
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month, I would say within six to
seven months, it was pretty
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fast.
And so that's where, you know,
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we started to dabble and landing
pages and then that's when
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unbounce is coming out, you
know, everyone was going crazy
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over unbalanced but it was still
a bit technical for us to use.
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So we were just building a tool
for Elves.
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Actually, we wanted something
that our team members can use
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and manage customers a lot
easier and it just started from
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there, you know, I was me and
Drew we were still basically
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hustling.
We had a job and we were funding
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this tool and one day.
Our bosses pisses pissed us off
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and we were like, we're never
going back to corporate and we
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actually quit and we just went
all in on convert and You know,
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we had a couple pivots in the
market, we thought we would go B
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to C kind of like what the other
players were doing.
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But we quickly realized, you
know, that that requires a lot
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of training customer support
something that we just weren't
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ready for.
We're still bootstrap today.
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So, we actually pivoted and went
B to B to C.
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So, we found a lot of CRM
automation platforms out there
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that was basically sending all
their customers to third-party
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apps to use.
And if you calculate how much
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lost Revenue that is and also
sometimes those people just
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migrated over, you know, turn
away it was in the millions and
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we were able to share this story
with them.
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And so now you know, some of the
leading marketing automation
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companies like fresh works and
in blue, keep they all rely on
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our technology the landing page
builder.
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For their end customers to use.
So that's, that's kind of how we
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ended up in that market.
Now, that's inspiring story.
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I'm sure that down on the road,
you face a lot of challenges and
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I think it's a very good silly
question, but I have to ask it.
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What was the biggest obstacle
while you were building convert?
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And how did you overcome them?
Yeah, so myself I'm not really a
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technical founder dhruv.
He is a bit more technical.
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I would say like on the front
end ui/ux piece.
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So very early on we ran into,
you know, just being able to get
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the product actually built.
We started Outsourcing.
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We started to, you know, put
together a team over here in the
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US and the Problem we were
having was, you know, just
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either our expectations were
being met or we weren't finding
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the right team members to join.
So I would say like, for the
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first three years.
It was just basically trying to
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recruit a CTO who really cared
and understood what we were
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trying to get into.
And, and luckily, one day we
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came across some, we found them
through a website called mentor
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and we somehow since them to
leave his 100K salary job, moved
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to Arizona.
And then from here, we took off
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to Florida where we landed our
first contract with the company
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called sharp spring that was
acquired later and went IPO.
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So you know, in the beginning,
it's really just putting
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together that team and obviously
you know, you have the whole
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Battle of financing, it
bootstrapping, it trying to
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figure out how to do all that,
but, like really, if I look
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back, it just what kept me up at
night was like, trying to find a
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technical founder, who could
really make this product scale
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and, and like, you know, I would
say the, you know, just spend a
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lot of as much as time you can
on that because that's what
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makes the biggest difference.
At least from what I have
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experienced so far.
Yeah, so just To me, it just a
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quick question.
Do you think that it's easier
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now to Achilles get in front of
castle with MVP because I cover?
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Also the topic of no code I
myself enrolled only no code
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cohort recently although I'm I
have it little too technical
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background encoding.
I'm not take older, I'm I was
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all my career in infrastructure.
But do you think now it's more
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easier than the time that you
started?
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I would say it is definitely
getting easier, you know, you
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have like these tools, like,
call copilot, coming out where
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they're making in AI to write
some of the code.
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I don't know, honestly too much
about that.
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You know, I know a lot of
developers actually are are
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finding it helpful.
Also like we use typescript in
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our code base that's allowed for
just a lot of reduction on bugs
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and tickets.
I get submitted because again
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like the parameter of height.
How it makes you code has made a
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difference.
So like as technology starts to
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evolve, You know, I think being
able to write code is getting a
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lot smarter because it's it's
really accounting for some of,
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you know, the flaws and
securities eye makeup.
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Come into writing, just bad code
and Publishing it.
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So there are definitely better
Frameworks come in today's world
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that just allows for more, you
know, better code that again, is
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going to be able to scale and
just prevent a lot of, you know,
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Poor and bad, bad code being
published.
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Yeah.
Now the second question, which I
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think also.
It's an additional one.
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But I'm always personally love,
very curious about the decision
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that is taken to take, which
path.
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So you mentioned that the
business was bootstrapped,
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right?
So why you choose this path and
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not to go and, you know, go for
a three seed seed whatever, you
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know from funding perspective.
Yeah, honestly, like, it just
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comes from.
I think our Middle Eastern like,
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you know, background of not not
being liked what to be, you
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know, what to do.
Basically, you know, like early
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on, we're like, raised where,
you know, our parents are owning
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our own business and they have
their schedule of how they like
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it.
And so when we got started, you
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know, we weren't really
interested in seeing like, You
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know, a company come in and give
us like a million or two million
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in seed, money to go build
something, because we saw what
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came with that and early on.
You know, we were just basically
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just having fun trying to start
this company and we were already
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starting to make you know, some
money out of it and we just kept
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going, we never focused on my
you know, we need a surplus
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injection of money to do XYZ.
We were Just really from the
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beginning focused on the
customer piece.
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I can, we actually sell it.
Can we get 64?
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Your contracts going in?
And, and, and that's honestly,
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what's helped us get to where we
are on the product pieces, you
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know, being forced to go talk to
prospects and customers in and
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see if we can actually sell this
and self-fund it.
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You know, I'm not, I'm not
saying that we will never look
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at taking Investments it.
Us all safe, early early stage,
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I gets important just to try to
figure out that sales cycle.
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So then you can take that money
and double down on what you see
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is working and see if you could
scale it faster from there, make
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sense because it depends also
about the type of business or
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some businesses or some business
ideas.
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I would say they would require,
of course, like the funding from
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VCS or investors while some I
believe like, especially like
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you said something that you can
build it.
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It by your own money and yeah, I
agree with you.
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Like we have this cultural
thing.
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Yeah.
I don't want someone to tell
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you.
It's all right.
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So pretty much pretty much.
Right.
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Another thing and this is
because, you know, like you are
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offering a SAS at the end of the
day, right?
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And right when we talk about
Seth and this I'm asking it
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because some of the people who
might be listening or watching
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this later and thinking about
starting a size business.
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So you know, there was always
this concept all you know, like
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I need to hide the idea that
people will copy my idea.
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So what you can share about
this, you know, competition
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especially in this s market and
how it's important that you keep
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innovating and trying to to get
rapidly with, with a new
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features to your Customers.
Yeah.
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So you know early on you is when
you're pitching your idea to
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people, they'll be like oh have
you heard of XYZ and you know
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it's always good to hear about
them just because the validates
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that there is a need in that
market if a company's already
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succeeding right?
But we never we never spent too
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much really focusing on what our
customers are a kind of
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providing.
We got that more through.
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Just again, talking to our
customers.
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For example, when we were
working with fresh works really
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quickly, they were like, you
know, landing pages.
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It's going great with their
customers.
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But now we want to provide
pop-ups.
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Can you turn the Builder to
making pop-ups and so, that
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ended up becoming like a request
form Enterprise customer and
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when I may be like, if if we
can, if we do this, then we can
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sell it to Denim blue or keep,
and that's kind of like what
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happened is.
Once we got pop-ups built, we
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saw demand for mother customers
and so that's how we kind of
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just build out our suite of
products of what we want to
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provide is kind of letting the
market customers.
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Tell us instead of really kind
of looking at what other people
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are doing, just let your
customers and Market kind of
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guide on what's really wanted
and needed.
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Out of the product.
Yeah.
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Cool.
And as I found the, you know,
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like of course, like you
believe, you still involved in
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the day-to-day operation so how
easy or how difficult it is, to
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keep the balance between, you
know, the time that you need to
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spend on strategic planning, you
know, managing the team.
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But at the same time you know
keeping up to the latest
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industry Trends whether like
let's say it now ai is taking
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the World by by the hype it
created.
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So How do you manage you know,
the time to make the balance
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between both?
Yeah, I mean it's just spending
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a lot of time on Twitter.
Yeah, like honestly, early in
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the mornings when I first wake
up and then when I go to bed, I
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usually try to use that time to
kind of, you know,
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self-indulgence and into some of
the news out there.
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But, you know, Twitter has from
day one for me, been my source
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of information and Tech LinkedIn
used to used to do Ooh, well
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too, but I found myself getting
more off of LinkedIn recently.
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I'm not sure why, I like, I
don't find people really talking
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much that resonates.
I don't know if that's because
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I'm in like discovery mode all
the time, like what's new,
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what's happening?
And I see a lot more of that on
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Twitter.
And so again like you know, you
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find your moments where you're
by yourself not on calls or on
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your computer and that's all I
do is catch up on Twitter.
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Yeah, I Frankly, Speaking I have
to agree with you on this, so
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I'm active more on Lincoln then
and little bit on Twitter.
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But I mean, from content
consumption perspective, right?
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A lot of the things that I found
recently is staying it.
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I found it on Twitter because
naked and more and I hope that
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they're going to do something
because I love I love because
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you know at least the people
there are really no not much
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00:15:25,300 --> 00:15:29,700
else similar to Twitter story
but yet at You know, and this is
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one of the outs a motivation for
me to start this whole thing
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that I'm doing now which is the
potent gas and this thing
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because I was shaving them in,
then article, I was trying to
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educate people Hayfork like you
know, there is this new
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technology.
I think it's cool.
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But tell me what you think and
let's have a discussion.
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I don't find this much on
LinkedIn, but there are some
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guys.
Like if you have heard about
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Justin Walsh, for example, like
this guy, he started to create
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this.
I'm on LinkedIn.
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So where people, he's trying to
tell people, look, the
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professional people are sitting
there, you can sell your value
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there.
You can share your stories that
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I hope that this change, really
because I don't think it then,
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but yeah, I agree with you.
Like I rely on Twitter, I like
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personally like on some of the
feed reader apps, you know.
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So I have some yeah, San Jose.
I think what it is is like it's
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just easier to consume the
content on Twitter, right?
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Because it's short.
Forked and On LinkedIn.
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I don't know how it got started
but those long form post and and
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I mean I'm guilty of it.
I do a lot of that and again
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some of that was just a kind of
a B test if I can get comments
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or how people would interact and
so like it's just came a thing
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of like you know these short
noble noble post on LinkedIn
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compared to like you know
bite-sized content on Twitter,
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that's all.
Easier to just read like within
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the first one or two seconds.
You know, if you want to click
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on that tweet and read more
instead of just, you know,
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seeing a bunch a job content,
that's not bad.
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Advice from my side, just follow
the right people.
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So you see in your feet that I
think because I recently they
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change something in the, in the
algorithm seems.
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And I had to unfollow a lot of
things that I followed, maybe 10
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years back.
So, I was getting no sense
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content, but yeah, now, it's
much better.
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Just finally question before we
close with you today.
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Kevin, what do you tell your
advice, your younger self.
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And I'm asking this question.
If someone today, maybe he's
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just graduating what she just
graduated, and they want to go
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and take and doing this
entrepreneurship Journey.
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00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:50,700
What advice you would give to
yourself as a younger self or
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two to this younger generation?
I mean, like so I, you know, a
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lot of family members and some
of my peers always are like, oh,
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I have this great idea and I'm
going to quit, I'm going to go
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into this and I see sometimes
they're fueled by just what they
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00:18:10,200 --> 00:18:14,900
hear in the in the media about
you know Investments and all
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these series money that they're
getting and you know like just
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going with the with the right
intentions basically.
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00:18:22,500 --> 00:18:25,000
Like don't think you're going to
become an overnight Eight
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million.
Are you going to have an
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00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:29,800
overnight success?
Like this is like real you know
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00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:34,200
grinding it's a lot of stress
that mean there's a lot of work
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00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:37,400
that goes into it.
Like you need to really want
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00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:40,300
this to make it work and and
that's it.
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I mean I could just comes down
to passion is what I would tell
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again.
Like, I mean that that's what I
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told myself.
When I first started is like, I
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have this passion of wanting to
do something on the Internet and
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I'm going to go full into this.
And make it work.
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And that's the mentality.
I had that's mentality.
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Drew my other co-founder had.
And, and, you know, that's kind
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of like the message to diss.
Anyone starting out is like, you
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know, just make sure you have
that passion and that you're
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going to commit at least eight
to ten years, to that idea to
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really see something happen.
Yeah, great.
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Thank you very much Kevin for
this, the inside.
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So your product is B2B as I
understand.
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So I can still share, you know,
the link for anyone who's
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interested to know more about
convert, how you can create
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landing pages easily and all the
features that convert offers so
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I would be sharing that in the
episode description.
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00:19:42,100 --> 00:19:43,800
Well, thank you very much,
Kevin.
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I really appreciated your time.
It's early in the morning for
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00:19:46,500 --> 00:19:51,300
you, and thank you for everyone
who watched or listened to this
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00:19:51,300 --> 00:19:53,600
episode.
And as usual, if you have any
313
00:19:53,600 --> 00:19:56,700
feedback, if you have Any
questions if you want to even
314
00:19:56,700 --> 00:19:59,300
come to the show, please let me
know.
315
00:19:59,300 --> 00:20:01,800
You can send me an email, you
can find me on LinkedIn or
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00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:04,200
Twitter.
We just talked about that and
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I'll be more than happy to have
this discussion with you so
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until next time, see you soon.
Bye bye.
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Any questions if you want to
even come to the show, please
320
00:19:58,500 --> 00:20:00,700
let me know.
You can send me an email, you
321
00:20:00,700 --> 00:20:02,200
can find me on LinkedIn or
Twitter.
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00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:05,900
We just talked about that and
I'll be more than happy to have
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this discussion with you so
until next time, see you soon.
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00:20:09,300 --> 00:20:09,800
Bye bye.
00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:12,300
Hello and welcome to a new
episode of the city of show with
2
00:00:12,300 --> 00:00:14,200
Muhammad.
My name is Mohammed, I'm your
3
00:00:14,200 --> 00:00:18,200
host, and in every episode, we
talk about emerging Tech,
4
00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:20,600
digital transformation, cyber
security.
5
00:00:20,800 --> 00:00:25,500
But at the same time and as you
are seeing and following us, we
6
00:00:25,500 --> 00:00:29,900
also host sometimes special
guest who give us insights about
7
00:00:29,900 --> 00:00:34,900
their Journey, while starting
their companies and today I'm
8
00:00:34,900 --> 00:00:38,500
very thrilled to have with me.
Kevin bezel, who's joining me
9
00:00:38,500 --> 00:00:42,000
from Adam?
Zola in the US and Kevin is a
10
00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:44,900
seasoned entrepreneur and he
have like more than 18 years
11
00:00:44,900 --> 00:00:49,100
experience in the tech industry,
who would like share some of his
12
00:00:49,100 --> 00:00:50,600
insights.
So first of all, thank you.
13
00:00:50,600 --> 00:00:55,300
Kevin for joining me today.
You can just introduce you to my
14
00:00:56,200 --> 00:00:59,000
audience.
I would be really more than
15
00:00:59,900 --> 00:01:03,300
thankful for that.
Yeah, certainly thanks very much
16
00:01:03,300 --> 00:01:08,000
for having me on the show.
My name is Kevin Patel here from
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Arizona, graduated out of a
issue, you know, didn't really
18
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make my parents happy.
Not becoming a doctor or a
19
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lawyer ended up actually going
to visit the school and did
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economics, always knew?
I wanted to do something on the
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Internet.
And here I am today.
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That's cool.
So you have started the company
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called convert guide.
So what inspired you to start a
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white label landing page
builder?
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You know, it started.
When I would say, I was a
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freshman in college.
One of my really good friends,
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he had sent out an email that
basically said, I'm looking to
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start a company, I don't know
what it is, it's going to do
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something on the Internet, if
you're interested me in front of
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the library.
And you know, I it was like,
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maybe 30 40 people on it, but
when I got there, is this mean
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him and that was the day where
we basically started our digital
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agency.
It was called amazing creations
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at that time and we were doing,
you know, full service work.
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We were building a website.
So, we were doing demand gen and
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that's where we started to kind
of go into our Niche was
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conversion optimization.
So, we helped a homeopath
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company that was selling HCG and
other diet, supplements online
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and they were only doing about
500 bucks a month.
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And what we did was we spun up
landing page.
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For these each individual
product in drove targeted
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traffic to it.
And we actually got to 50K a
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month, I would say within six to
seven months, it was pretty
44
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fast.
And so that's where, you know,
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we started to dabble and landing
pages and then that's when
46
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unbounce is coming out, you
know, everyone was going crazy
47
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over unbalanced but it was still
a bit technical for us to use.
48
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So we were just building a tool
for Elves.
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Actually, we wanted something
that our team members can use
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and manage customers a lot
easier and it just started from
51
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there, you know, I was me and
Drew we were still basically
52
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hustling.
We had a job and we were funding
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this tool and one day.
Our bosses pisses pissed us off
54
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and we were like, we're never
going back to corporate and we
55
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actually quit and we just went
all in on convert and You know,
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we had a couple pivots in the
market, we thought we would go B
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to C kind of like what the other
players were doing.
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But we quickly realized, you
know, that that requires a lot
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of training customer support
something that we just weren't
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ready for.
We're still bootstrap today.
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So, we actually pivoted and went
B to B to C.
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So, we found a lot of CRM
automation platforms out there
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that was basically sending all
their customers to third-party
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apps to use.
And if you calculate how much
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lost Revenue that is and also
sometimes those people just
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migrated over, you know, turn
away it was in the millions and
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we were able to share this story
with them.
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And so now you know, some of the
leading marketing automation
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companies like fresh works and
in blue, keep they all rely on
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our technology the landing page
builder.
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For their end customers to use.
So that's, that's kind of how we
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ended up in that market.
Now, that's inspiring story.
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I'm sure that down on the road,
you face a lot of challenges and
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I think it's a very good silly
question, but I have to ask it.
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What was the biggest obstacle
while you were building convert?
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And how did you overcome them?
Yeah, so myself I'm not really a
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technical founder dhruv.
He is a bit more technical.
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I would say like on the front
end ui/ux piece.
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So very early on we ran into,
you know, just being able to get
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the product actually built.
We started Outsourcing.
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We started to, you know, put
together a team over here in the
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US and the Problem we were
having was, you know, just
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either our expectations were
being met or we weren't finding
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00:05:39,700 --> 00:05:43,000
the right team members to join.
So I would say like, for the
85
00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:45,600
first three years.
It was just basically trying to
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00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:50,500
recruit a CTO who really cared
and understood what we were
87
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trying to get into.
And, and luckily, one day we
88
00:05:54,500 --> 00:05:59,100
came across some, we found them
through a website called mentor
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00:05:59,100 --> 00:06:06,100
and we somehow since them to
leave his 100K salary job, moved
90
00:06:06,100 --> 00:06:10,200
to Arizona.
And then from here, we took off
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00:06:10,200 --> 00:06:14,900
to Florida where we landed our
first contract with the company
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called sharp spring that was
acquired later and went IPO.
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00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:22,300
So you know, in the beginning,
it's really just putting
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00:06:22,300 --> 00:06:26,000
together that team and obviously
you know, you have the whole
95
00:06:26,900 --> 00:06:30,900
Battle of financing, it
bootstrapping, it trying to
96
00:06:30,900 --> 00:06:33,500
figure out how to do all that,
but, like really, if I look
97
00:06:33,500 --> 00:06:37,100
back, it just what kept me up at
night was like, trying to find a
98
00:06:37,100 --> 00:06:40,900
technical founder, who could
really make this product scale
99
00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:47,300
and, and like, you know, I would
say the, you know, just spend a
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00:06:47,300 --> 00:06:50,600
lot of as much as time you can
on that because that's what
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00:06:50,600 --> 00:06:53,100
makes the biggest difference.
At least from what I have
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00:06:53,100 --> 00:06:57,500
experienced so far.
Yeah, so just To me, it just a
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00:06:57,508 --> 00:06:59,400
quick question.
Do you think that it's easier
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00:06:59,400 --> 00:07:04,600
now to Achilles get in front of
castle with MVP because I cover?
105
00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:08,600
Also the topic of no code I
myself enrolled only no code
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00:07:08,700 --> 00:07:12,500
cohort recently although I'm I
have it little too technical
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00:07:12,500 --> 00:07:15,100
background encoding.
I'm not take older, I'm I was
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00:07:15,100 --> 00:07:18,800
all my career in infrastructure.
But do you think now it's more
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00:07:18,800 --> 00:07:20,600
easier than the time that you
started?
110
00:07:21,900 --> 00:07:25,800
I would say it is definitely
getting easier, you know, you
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00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:30,000
have like these tools, like,
call copilot, coming out where
112
00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:33,200
they're making in AI to write
some of the code.
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I don't know, honestly too much
about that.
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00:07:36,900 --> 00:07:40,500
You know, I know a lot of
developers actually are are
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finding it helpful.
Also like we use typescript in
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00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:52,400
our code base that's allowed for
just a lot of reduction on bugs
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00:07:52,400 --> 00:07:55,400
and tickets.
I get submitted because again
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00:07:55,400 --> 00:07:59,600
like the parameter of height.
How it makes you code has made a
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difference.
So like as technology starts to
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evolve, You know, I think being
able to write code is getting a
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lot smarter because it's it's
really accounting for some of,
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you know, the flaws and
securities eye makeup.
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Come into writing, just bad code
and Publishing it.
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So there are definitely better
Frameworks come in today's world
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that just allows for more, you
know, better code that again, is
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going to be able to scale and
just prevent a lot of, you know,
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Poor and bad, bad code being
published.
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Yeah.
Now the second question, which I
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think also.
It's an additional one.
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But I'm always personally love,
very curious about the decision
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that is taken to take, which
path.
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So you mentioned that the
business was bootstrapped,
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right?
So why you choose this path and
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not to go and, you know, go for
a three seed seed whatever, you
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know from funding perspective.
Yeah, honestly, like, it just
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comes from.
I think our Middle Eastern like,
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you know, background of not not
being liked what to be, you
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know, what to do.
Basically, you know, like early
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on, we're like, raised where,
you know, our parents are owning
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our own business and they have
their schedule of how they like
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it.
And so when we got started, you
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know, we weren't really
interested in seeing like, You
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know, a company come in and give
us like a million or two million
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in seed, money to go build
something, because we saw what
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came with that and early on.
You know, we were just basically
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just having fun trying to start
this company and we were already
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starting to make you know, some
money out of it and we just kept
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going, we never focused on my
you know, we need a surplus
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injection of money to do XYZ.
We were Just really from the
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beginning focused on the
customer piece.
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I can, we actually sell it.
Can we get 64?
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Your contracts going in?
And, and, and that's honestly,
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what's helped us get to where we
are on the product pieces, you
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know, being forced to go talk to
prospects and customers in and
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see if we can actually sell this
and self-fund it.
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You know, I'm not, I'm not
saying that we will never look
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at taking Investments it.
Us all safe, early early stage,
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I gets important just to try to
figure out that sales cycle.
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So then you can take that money
and double down on what you see
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is working and see if you could
scale it faster from there, make
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sense because it depends also
about the type of business or
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some businesses or some business
ideas.
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I would say they would require,
of course, like the funding from
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VCS or investors while some I
believe like, especially like
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you said something that you can
build it.
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It by your own money and yeah, I
agree with you.
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Like we have this cultural
thing.
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Yeah.
I don't want someone to tell
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you.
It's all right.
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So pretty much pretty much.
Right.
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Another thing and this is
because, you know, like you are
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offering a SAS at the end of the
day, right?
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And right when we talk about
Seth and this I'm asking it
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because some of the people who
might be listening or watching
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this later and thinking about
starting a size business.
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So you know, there was always
this concept all you know, like
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I need to hide the idea that
people will copy my idea.
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So what you can share about
this, you know, competition
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especially in this s market and
how it's important that you keep
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innovating and trying to to get
rapidly with, with a new
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features to your Customers.
Yeah.
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So you know early on you is when
you're pitching your idea to
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people, they'll be like oh have
you heard of XYZ and you know
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it's always good to hear about
them just because the validates
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that there is a need in that
market if a company's already
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succeeding right?
But we never we never spent too
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much really focusing on what our
customers are a kind of
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providing.
We got that more through.
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Just again, talking to our
customers.
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For example, when we were
working with fresh works really
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quickly, they were like, you
know, landing pages.
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It's going great with their
customers.
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But now we want to provide
pop-ups.
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Can you turn the Builder to
making pop-ups and so, that
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ended up becoming like a request
form Enterprise customer and
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when I may be like, if if we
can, if we do this, then we can
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sell it to Denim blue or keep,
and that's kind of like what
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happened is.
Once we got pop-ups built, we
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saw demand for mother customers
and so that's how we kind of
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just build out our suite of
products of what we want to
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provide is kind of letting the
market customers.
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Tell us instead of really kind
of looking at what other people
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are doing, just let your
customers and Market kind of
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guide on what's really wanted
and needed.
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Out of the product.
Yeah.
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Cool.
And as I found the, you know,
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like of course, like you
believe, you still involved in
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the day-to-day operation so how
easy or how difficult it is, to
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keep the balance between, you
know, the time that you need to
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spend on strategic planning, you
know, managing the team.
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But at the same time you know
keeping up to the latest
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industry Trends whether like
let's say it now ai is taking
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the World by by the hype it
created.
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So How do you manage you know,
the time to make the balance
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between both?
Yeah, I mean it's just spending
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00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:06,400
a lot of time on Twitter.
Yeah, like honestly, early in
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00:14:06,400 --> 00:14:10,100
the mornings when I first wake
up and then when I go to bed, I
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00:14:10,100 --> 00:14:13,700
usually try to use that time to
kind of, you know,
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00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:17,700
self-indulgence and into some of
the news out there.
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But, you know, Twitter has from
day one for me, been my source
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of information and Tech LinkedIn
used to used to do Ooh, well
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too, but I found myself getting
more off of LinkedIn recently.
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I'm not sure why, I like, I
don't find people really talking
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much that resonates.
I don't know if that's because
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I'm in like discovery mode all
the time, like what's new,
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what's happening?
And I see a lot more of that on
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Twitter.
And so again like you know, you
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00:14:51,200 --> 00:14:54,700
find your moments where you're
by yourself not on calls or on
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your computer and that's all I
do is catch up on Twitter.
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Yeah, I Frankly, Speaking I have
to agree with you on this, so
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I'm active more on Lincoln then
and little bit on Twitter.
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But I mean, from content
consumption perspective, right?
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A lot of the things that I found
recently is staying it.
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I found it on Twitter because
naked and more and I hope that
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they're going to do something
because I love I love because
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you know at least the people
there are really no not much
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00:15:25,300 --> 00:15:29,700
else similar to Twitter story
but yet at You know, and this is
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one of the outs a motivation for
me to start this whole thing
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that I'm doing now which is the
potent gas and this thing
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because I was shaving them in,
then article, I was trying to
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educate people Hayfork like you
know, there is this new
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technology.
I think it's cool.
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But tell me what you think and
let's have a discussion.
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I don't find this much on
LinkedIn, but there are some
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guys.
Like if you have heard about
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Justin Walsh, for example, like
this guy, he started to create
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this.
I'm on LinkedIn.
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So where people, he's trying to
tell people, look, the
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professional people are sitting
there, you can sell your value
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there.
You can share your stories that
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I hope that this change, really
because I don't think it then,
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but yeah, I agree with you.
Like I rely on Twitter, I like
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personally like on some of the
feed reader apps, you know.
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So I have some yeah, San Jose.
I think what it is is like it's
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just easier to consume the
content on Twitter, right?
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Because it's short.
Forked and On LinkedIn.
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I don't know how it got started
but those long form post and and
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I mean I'm guilty of it.
I do a lot of that and again
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some of that was just a kind of
a B test if I can get comments
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or how people would interact and
so like it's just came a thing
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of like you know these short
noble noble post on LinkedIn
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compared to like you know
bite-sized content on Twitter,
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that's all.
Easier to just read like within
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the first one or two seconds.
You know, if you want to click
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on that tweet and read more
instead of just, you know,
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seeing a bunch a job content,
that's not bad.
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Advice from my side, just follow
the right people.
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So you see in your feet that I
think because I recently they
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change something in the, in the
algorithm seems.
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And I had to unfollow a lot of
things that I followed, maybe 10
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years back.
So, I was getting no sense
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content, but yeah, now, it's
much better.
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Just finally question before we
close with you today.
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Kevin, what do you tell your
advice, your younger self.
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And I'm asking this question.
If someone today, maybe he's
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just graduating what she just
graduated, and they want to go
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and take and doing this
entrepreneurship Journey.
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What advice you would give to
yourself as a younger self or
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two to this younger generation?
I mean, like so I, you know, a
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lot of family members and some
of my peers always are like, oh,
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I have this great idea and I'm
going to quit, I'm going to go
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into this and I see sometimes
they're fueled by just what they
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hear in the in the media about
you know Investments and all
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these series money that they're
getting and you know like just
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going with the with the right
intentions basically.
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00:18:22,500 --> 00:18:25,000
Like don't think you're going to
become an overnight Eight
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00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:26,600
million.
Are you going to have an
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00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:29,800
overnight success?
Like this is like real you know
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00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:34,200
grinding it's a lot of stress
that mean there's a lot of work
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00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:37,400
that goes into it.
Like you need to really want
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00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:40,300
this to make it work and and
that's it.
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I mean I could just comes down
to passion is what I would tell
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again.
Like, I mean that that's what I
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00:18:46,508 --> 00:18:48,800
told myself.
When I first started is like, I
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have this passion of wanting to
do something on the Internet and
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I'm going to go full into this.
And make it work.
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And that's the mentality.
I had that's mentality.
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Drew my other co-founder had.
And, and, you know, that's kind
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of like the message to diss.
Anyone starting out is like, you
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know, just make sure you have
that passion and that you're
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going to commit at least eight
to ten years, to that idea to
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really see something happen.
Yeah, great.
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Thank you very much Kevin for
this, the inside.
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So your product is B2B as I
understand.
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So I can still share, you know,
the link for anyone who's
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00:19:29,500 --> 00:19:32,700
interested to know more about
convert, how you can create
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00:19:32,700 --> 00:19:39,100
landing pages easily and all the
features that convert offers so
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00:19:39,100 --> 00:19:42,100
I would be sharing that in the
episode description.
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00:19:42,100 --> 00:19:43,800
Well, thank you very much,
Kevin.
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I really appreciated your time.
It's early in the morning for
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00:19:46,500 --> 00:19:51,300
you, and thank you for everyone
who watched or listened to this
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00:19:51,300 --> 00:19:53,600
episode.
And as usual, if you have any
313
00:19:53,600 --> 00:19:56,700
feedback, if you have Any
questions if you want to even
314
00:19:56,700 --> 00:19:59,300
come to the show, please let me
know.
315
00:19:59,300 --> 00:20:01,800
You can send me an email, you
can find me on LinkedIn or
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00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:04,200
Twitter.
We just talked about that and
317
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I'll be more than happy to have
this discussion with you so
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until next time, see you soon.
Bye bye.
319
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Any questions if you want to
even come to the show, please
320
00:19:58,500 --> 00:20:00,700
let me know.
You can send me an email, you
321
00:20:00,700 --> 00:20:02,200
can find me on LinkedIn or
Twitter.
322
00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:05,900
We just talked about that and
I'll be more than happy to have
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00:20:05,900 --> 00:20:09,300
this discussion with you so
until next time, see you soon.
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Bye bye.
