The Truth About Startups Nobody Talks About in Topeka, KS | Austin Roberson

Cold Open And Banter

Call John a baby turtle and yeah. We'll reenact that for all the listeners. We all have ideas of what we want to do with our lives, and my encouragement to everyone would just be don't sit on it.

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Meet Austin And His Mission

Whether you're buying or renting, Topeka and Shawnee County are ready to welcome you. Apply now at ChooseTopeka.com. Welcome to Topeka Insider. Today we've got Austin Robertson, a local investor, entrepreneur, and more. So welcome to the show, man.

Ooh, the unmoor. The anmoor.

There's some mystery. So hold on. Yeah. Well, welcome, welcome, man. So man, tell us about yourself. We we've already just I'm just gonna let the listener in on this. Yeah, we've got to be a little bit more. We've been talking for about like 45 minutes and just like laughing and like wondering, like, were we recording yet? No, we weren't. So I'll take you back.

I call John a baby turtle.

Yeah, we'll reenact that for all the listeners. You're you're catching us mid-conversation here. So uh let's let's roll it back. Austin, where are you from? And what are you doing these days?

Yeah, so I grew up in Silver Lake, um, so real real close here to Topeka. And full time I'm director of a software company that I started in 2020. What did I say earlier? 2021. Yeah. And then I sold it in 2023, and I still work there as director uh of the company. And um that keeps me busy, but what I'm passionate about is helping other people start their startup. Come on, man. So I I mean I I've even thought maybe one day, maybe one, maybe one day, I'll write a book called Start Your Startup. Somebody's probably already done that. Come on now. That's a catchy title.

Somebody's already like that. Can you check to see if that's available? Yeah, can you please check right now? Startyourstartup.com. Is it available? Check the GoDaddy domain.

That's funny that you say that because the number of domains that I own for ideas that a friend and I dreamed up, and that's what we do. We're like, you should go buy the domain.

You should tell them about how our name for the podcast can go. Don't get me started. So the name of the podcast, Topeka Insider. Uh, John and I, we connected, we were wanting to get this podcast going, and we're talking about, you know, what name do we want to call it? And I had had this idea to do something like this for five or six years now. So I bought the domain to Topeka Insider, like in 2020, and reached out to John and it was 2024. I said, Hey, you know, what do you think about Topeka Insider? He goes, I like it. I like it. We could we could roll with that. That's great. And I was like, good, I've owned the domain for like seven years now. And so like that's pretty much that or bust.

Yeah, here we are. It was hilarious because in the moment he presented it like among a list of names that he didn't care about. It was like kind of the way it felt. Like, well, what we could do this or this. And I was like, Yeah, that's cool. He's like, Cool, I've owned the domain for a long time.

What he didn't tell you that it was on a three-year renewal. He had just re-upped it. So he was really emotional. I really need this to work out. I'm really gonna need it.

Every year when I go to make that payment, it's like 22 bucks. Do I want to do this again? Yeah. It's still out there. I still like the idea.

Why We Sit On Ideas

Yeah. You know, uh something interesting stood out to me about what you're saying, but I'm gonna go to the a domain story real quick and come back. So I owned the domain pup truck because I thought it would be cool if there was a mobile truck where that were that would come and like wash your dog and groom them, but they would come to you because it's always there's always in my family, it's always like, who's gonna take the dog to the groom? Yeah, right. And then, oh, I have an I have a uh a lunch meeting or whatever. And so I thought, well, they just need to come to where I am, yeah, or meet me at my house and do it there, and then it'll be easy, right? Yeah. So I, after a couple of years, let that domain go. And then I don't know if it's sold now, but I I looked it up one day. You know, I I I I joke with people that we all had these moments of motivation and innovation where it's like the idea, and then uh and so I went back because I was like, maybe I'm gonna revisit that idea. And it was for sale for $25,000. What? What? Yeah. And that's and I don't know if it's still I'm sure it's sold, but that got me on this whole rabbit trail. There is an entire business around brokering domains. That's crazy. Buying them cheap, buying them cheap and selling them. Yep. Especially like the dotai domains right now. I mean, just like little tiny house.ai pub truck.ai. It's like you there's people out there that are just going and buying up all these domains and then listing them for thousands of dollars, and that's what they do full time.

Yeah. Is GoDaddy trying to fight that? Because aren't don't they want to be that?

They make they they broker them and make a commission kind of like uh uh like a real estate agent. Boom. Shameless plug for Justin. I know that world. But seriously, it's a it's a whole and and so I don't even know about this, and I'm in tech, and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is easy, number one. And but number two, so cool. I think it's cool when you find something that it's not a new idea. Yeah, people have been doing that for decades. And everyday people like like you, John, you could buy domains and sell them on the side.

Um everyday baby turtles.

Everyday baby turtles. Yeah. Second thing, the thing I was gonna come back to, you it's interesting because I hear a similar pattern when I talk to people about their ideas. You bought the domain and then there were four years where you didn't do anything with it. Okay. Can I ask some questions in this? Fire away. Yeah. What do you think prevented you? I'm always from doing this soon. What was wrong with that? Yeah, because this is but because this is the thing that I like to ask a lot of people because some I'm I'm I'm curious, number one, and sometimes the story that they tell themselves, you've started it now, obviously. Yep. But sometimes the story they tell themselves is just not realistic, and I like to help I find it exciting to help people navigate that. That's interesting, yeah.

Uh the and I didn't know what the answer was until after we got going, and I realized this is why this is working now and it wouldn't have worked then. Okay. Interesting. Uh when I bought it, the intention was for me to do it on my own. Yeah, I was gonna host this, I was going to schedule guests, I was gonna post the clips, maybe even do the video editing. And I realized very quickly, I was like, gosh, that's so much work. And I didn't want to sacrifice quality in order to do it because uh a Topeka podcast on its own, it's already, you know, it's it's Topeka. We love our city, but it's not like we're barstool over here, where people are just going to us every day for entertainment. And so if you didn't take it seriously, if I didn't take it seriously as the host, I didn't think other people would take me seriously. And so I kind of just kicked the can down the road until I felt like the time was right. John was doing something similar previously. I mean, when that broke up, I realized, all right, I can get a team in on this. John and I can do it together. We can share the roles, we could get Gabe involved, and he can do the editing. That would be more manageable, and we wouldn't have to sacrifice the quality.

Okay. Yeah.

The Fear Behind Not Starting

Yep. I don't know if I caught your name. Yep. So that would be my answer on why I kicked the can down the road. As I started to get involved, get it going, and then I realized, holy smokes, this is gonna be so much work. And it wasn't until John came along, I'm like, all right, we could get a team to do this, and it would accomplish the same thing.

Yeah. Which is what happened with me and uh my buddy Ryan, who started the thing, those kind of the previous iteration of this was we were doing it all ourselves and it sucked. We're like, hey, I'm not gonna do this again if I have to edit the videos and you know, do all that stuff. And so when he was like, hey man, you want to get that going and relaunch, rebrand it, and all this stuff, I was like, Yes, I don't want to edit videos and all that stuff. He's like, Cool, we'll, you know, I got a guy. Yeah. I was like, great, I'm in.

Yeah. So we got a good little system now. Everyone's kind of got a role. John does all the things. Seems like you do. Yeah. It's become super, and we'll we'll get back to you in a second. It's become super manageable now that everyone kind of knows what they do. John schedules the guest, Gabe edits the full-length episode. We have a Fiverr guy who does our clips. I have an assistant who helps me with my real estate business who posts them.

We're a global enterprise.

Global enterprise. But it's just become really manageable for the people, for everybody involved, which is nice. Yeah. Which is I I was talking to John. I would rather go, we do we release episodes every other week. So usually, you know, podcasts are weekly. I told John I would rather go for five years at once a month than six months at every week.

Yeah. Um, so that's been nice. Yeah, that that's I had a friend the other day and he was talking about we've we've talked about his startup, his it's a software idea, an iOS app actually. We've talked about it many times uh for two years. And he hasn't started. So unfortunately, that's really common. Like I get coffee or or I'll meet up with people on Zoom or people message me on Instagram or heard you over here and just what do you think of this idea? And when I talk to people about their ideas, it's usually years that people have sat on them. Wow. And so I kind of had a breakthrough on figuring out why the other day when I was talking to this particular friend, and I'm not gonna name them just because I don't know if they're comfortable with me sharing this, but I asked a question just off the cuff. I said, you know, we were going back and forth for like 20 minutes talking about whatever, and I said, Hey, do you do you asked him a similar question that I just asked you? And I said, Do you do you think that you're afraid that it won't actually succeed? And he said, Yeah. And since I already have a successful business, if it doesn't succeed, then it negatively impacts my reputation.

Oh, yeah. Because I'm not I don't have a failure on the record now, but I would. Yeah. Interesting.

And I said, but could you flip that because you already have a successful story on the record? Aren't you more likely to figure it out again? Like to do it again. And it's interesting because in the weeks following that conversation, we've been talking like the idea kind of got its energy back. Wow. Yeah. And so I don't know if this is true because I can't talk to dead people, but I think a lot of people so excited about where this is going. But I think a lot of people probably die with their good ideas. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've even gone as far as wondering like, would communities be more developed? Would AI have happened five years ago? Right. If people didn't just think about their idea, but they actually did it. Took a risk and did it.

It's kind of similar to a thought I have, I'm a pastor, so I think about the Bible, you know, but that's good. Yeah. Those two things seem to live in person. The uh, I'm kidding. But the uh it like in Genesis, the fall happens uh with Adam and Eve in the garden. And I always kind of think about like, what if that had never happened? Like we probably would have had iPhones like six thousand years ago, or you know, we'd be living on Mars right now or something, you know. Like So why six thousand years ago versus now? Do what? Like if what if the fall had not happened? So like Adam, like Adam and Eve were commissioned to like explore the earth, develop the earth, right? Like make something of the earth, right? And so the fall didn't prevent us from doing that, but it made it harder. Uh and so I've thought about like, man, what if that obstacle hadn't happened and we were like just flour, just like flourishing as developing people, exploring people, you know, that kind of a thing. Yeah. So like, yeah, would we would we have had flying cars, you know, a long time ago or whatever. I don't know.

Or what's Elon Musk calling his robots?

Oh gosh, I don't know.

It's scary when you see the pictures of all those robots lined up. I'm like, I don't know about this.

I know. Every now and then you see a picture of one, you're like, oh, that's cute. And then you see 10 of them lined up. Like, it's 4,000. Not cute anymore. Yeah.

So back to your startup. Started a software company in 2021. What's that company called? What does it do? And I guess you exited very shortly after, and I guess two years. What did that process look like? Tell us about your post-exit pushback.

Post-exit. This was another pre-recording joke. So it was called or it is called Class Kid, and it manages extracurricular activities and after-school programs like dance studios, music schools, summer camps, etc. So if you're a parent and you're out there, you know, looking in your community for like you got a three and four-year-old that wants to do ballet, uh, it'll help you find those classes. And then once you enroll, you can communicate with the teachers. It takes the payment.

Um is this like a website where there's like a re a listing of activities you can sign up for?

And yeah, but in your area. And you know, we're not it's not quite large enough to where you can just uh go there and find uh an activity in every community, but but yes. Wow. So kind of a marketplace top of funnel, meaning like that's the that's where the parents interact. And then as you get deeper into it, it's doing everything from payments and communication with the teachers and staff all the way down to attendance and then even through show management. So like when the kids have their uh like for if you're in music school, you have your probably you know biannual recital. Yeah. And so it'll help you plan that show and execute it well. Yeah. And so the genesis of it was actually, as I was telling you guys before we started recording, was just I grew up in the space, uh, was heavily involved in youth activities, uh was a summer camp counselor, dance teacher. Wow. And I actually had a stint uh after I worked on Royal Caribbean cruise lines. What? Yeah. What did you do on the singer and dancer?

Well, that's awesome. It's fun. That is amazing. Is it as glamorous as it seems like it would be?

It was pretty cool. Uh when I was eight, it was when I was 18. You know, now I'm well, that doesn't matter. Oh yeah. 35. Yeah. Uh I, you know, I couldn't do it now, probably wouldn't do it now, but like if at that age, it was an incredible experience. I mean, I saw all sorts of countries from the you know, slums of riotation arrow to like the JW Marriottes in the Caribbean, and just really it really positively impacted my worldview and actually inspired me to major in Spanish and uh business marketing when I went to KU. So I kind of took a an odd path and went and did that, worked professionally as a dancer and singer for a few years right out of high school. Yeah. So literally I was 17 when I signed the contract with Royal Caribbean. Wow. Turned 18 in June. So now I was legal age to work on the cruise ships and and jumped on in uh in July for rehearsals. And so uh um I didn't go to school, I didn't go to college until I was 20. Okay. And then, you know, finished when I was when I was 24, and then started working at a dance studio, kind of circled back to my performing arts and helping that dance studio owner with marketing and lead generation. And that was here in Topeka? It was actually in Lawrence. Oh, okay, yeah. So um uh and and it was funny because I remembered the look on her face one day. We had we had published the Facebook ad and not a boosted post, a Facebook ad, which we can get into that, but it was very strategic. It was, you know, sign up and claim your free trial class. So you had to give your name and your email and a phone number. There you go. And then we would deliver automatically a coupon to your email, and you would come in and and and now you know, now you can do all this without like you can do it faster and and and more streamlined. But uh the first person showed up with it on their phone and was like, Yeah, I'm here for my free dance class. And I remember her being like, No way, it actually worked. Oh, wow. So um I ended up putting out, I ended up putting together a Facebook course, and I think I put it out and sold it for like it was like a bunch of pre-recorded videos, and I had 400 dance studios take that. What? Yeah, and learn what we were doing in Lawrence, Kansas. That's why to grow their dance studio. And we had I I this is gonna sound like like it's not real, but I promise you it is. We had people opening like second locations and and uh growing their kids' activity businesses, is what I call them now, and uh like leaps and bounds. It was crazy. People you what what this is a good business lesson too. What I had what I didn't know at the time that I know now is that I had found an industry that was ripe for innovation. Right. The industry was extremely antiquated. Wow. It had it no one was even teaching digital marketing or funnels or landing or any of that. And I was the first one to go in and take this this, and I was even more niche than kids' activities. I was just focused on helping dance studios get more students. Because the my my dance education had impacted me in a really profound way. I like truly probably for the worst, would be a completely different person if I didn't grow up in a community where I had people caring for me constantly. You know, I was never like I I was doing something after school every day. Wow, I was a very busy kid and I wouldn't have changed it for the world, but um, I wanted to help more kids find that experience that I had, and that was kind of what was driving me. So, all that to say, I COVID hit, and I had at that point had actually developed a little micro SAS with a developer from Romania that laugh out loud. Do the kids still say that? I think they do. But I had literally Googled like software developers and found one on Google, hired him, and we built this little app together. And all it did, all it did was it helped this is just the marketing lingo how I describe it. It helped these dance schools turn strangers into students. But once you were actually ready to enroll, your other system would have to pick up and do the recurring payments, the communication, the attendance, all the other stuff.

Yeah.

COVID Shock And Finding Investors

Trademark Lawsuit And Rebrand Sprint

So when COVID hit, these businesses that were paying for my software were closed. And so cancellation after cancellation after cancellation came in. Yeah. Finally, to a point where I told the team, I said, let's just start giving it away for free and tell them to stay. And we actually put even more money into development and developed a Zoom integration so that they could run their classes online and keep their business going. And we ended up saving about 60% of our customers. But what the pandemic did for me was it made me realize um, number one, I need to have a lot of N95 masks or whatever they're called. Yeah, 35, I don't know. And number two, my business was not bulletproof. Yeah. And I had built something that was very successful early and fast, but I hadn't thought, I hadn't even thought that something could come along. And in literally two weeks, I'm not kidding you, 40% of our business was gone. Wow, yeah. So I did what I know best and I kept going. And I built a slide deck and I started to talk to all the people in the industry, and I said, Do you know anybody that would invest in this thing that I'm pitching? And the thing that I was pitching was class kid. And because I knew that to make my business more bulletproof, I needed to build the other side of the software. So I have the whole thing. That's right. The whole journey, if you will. And so I ended up circling back with an industry friend and she sent me a $25,000 check without signing anything. She was just like, Yeah, I'll invest. And she just bailed me a check. Wow. And uh just goes to show that like I didn't know where it was. I was friends with her for probably seven years. I never expected anything from her. And then one phone call. Wow. Right. So it just goes to show the power of building relationships. But so we um we were able to, after about a six to eight month pause, from what I remember, we were able to get most of our clients back on, like actually giving us money again. Businesses were starting to reopen. There was a there was a trajectory, it like everybody was a little bit more optimistic than when the government just said shutting down kids' activities. So that was a good decision to basically give them some grace and let them keep using it, develop a Zoom integration, took on some additional funding in that time. There was more than the $25,000 check uh that came in. And um, and so then I was like, okay, we're gonna build Classkit. And um, the reason it's called Class Kid is because it used to be called Studio Suite. And in addition to losing 40 to 50% of the business overnight, I was also, I also got sued for using the Studio Suite name, which was trademarked. And the way they found out is that dance studios were trying to go over to their website and sign up, and it was a software for architects. And so they were putting so in the business name, what's your business name field when you're signing up? People were putting like little Suzy's dance boutique. And architects are like, what the heck? Where's this coming from? So I got a cease and desist, and then that unfolded, and we finally settled. Um how'd you land on Class Kid? Back to domains. Oh, okay. I was I was literally uh I think I was looking up classes for kids. Kid class is what I'd started for or started with, and then I claskid.net dot dev dot whatever else was available, and but classkid.com was owned by a broker. Um and they wanted, you know, five grand for it. So I reached out and I was like, Hey, will you take fifteen hundred or twelve hundred, something like that? And they were like, No. And I was like, Well, I own all the other variants, so you should because I owned Classkid.app, classkid. Dev, like what are you gonna do with a single classkit.com domain? Yeah and we ended up hopping on Zoom and we talked through and I told him what I was doing, and he was like, I remember the guy's like, I think it was just the broker, but he was just like, You seem like a good guy. I'll see what I can do. Comes back and accepts. I think we settled on like 1500 bucks or something. Um but what was driving it was I had to make a commitment if they were gonna drop the, you know, they were trying to say the they, as in the architect software company at I I guess it was called Studio Suite. Uh they were trying to say that I caused them to lose a lot of business, and they were pushing like six figures in loss, like I was gonna pay them six figures for the damage and all, and and so we basically said They're not even like adjacent at all.

I know, right? So, anyways, you're stealing all the dance studios that we wanted to you just sometimes you can't fight that though, right?

It's just like okay, how do we move forward? was the question. And how we decided to move forward was you need to rebrand in 90 days. And so it was interesting the timing of like the the pandemic uh, you know, the cancellations and trying to bring the business back and then the lawsuit, and then so it's just like, all right, let's clean slate, we're gonna, we're gonna uh, you know, brand it as class kid.

And then wait, wait, can I pause you for a second? Yes. Because it seems like to me, like that's one way to interpret the events, is what you just described. Another way to interpret the events is holy crap, this is like the fifth thing in a row. Maybe we should quit.

Yeah. You know, it gets it actually gets worse. Oh my so like before it gets better.

But you're like the way you're describing it is like it was a perfect opportunity. Like it all hit at the same time. It was a perfect chance to rebrand. I'm like, that's one way to interpret it, you know. Like my question is like you.

If you had talked to me at the time, I think my perspective would have been different. Um how?

Yeah, I mean, how are you like, yeah, I mean you just like you're obviously seeing not seeing it as holy crap, we're done, or more as like, hey, okay, this is a perfect chance to rebrand and move forward in a better way or something.

Yeah, well, you just took me back to a scene that I replay in my head because it sounds like a movie scene, but it was it was actually my story, part of my life really happened, and that was uh when I was at my office and I was crouched down with my back against the wall, and I was crying, and I was talking to my mentor, and I and I said, I think it's time that I call it quits. Okay. And this was like when all this was going on. Wow. Because we were like two months from not being able to run payroll due to the cancellations, and I mean, it was just it was not not great. And their advice was to sleep on it and decide tomorrow. And when I woke up, of course I felt better. Yeah. And I kept going. Wow. And and I will tell you, the the the day I received that check, I'd never taken on any funding, mind you. So I had started from zero. I had never taken on any investment. But the day that I received that check from my friend, the one that didn't sign any paperwork or know how she was gonna get it back, I don't think she cared. I think she just wanted to help. But that was the that just having someone come alongside you. She literally wrote a note. I don't remember exactly what it said, but it said something like, I believe in you. Wow, yeah. And that was all it said. Right. Dash Misty. Wow. You know, and then it was a cashier's check. So I I cashed it. That bought me more time. I did the roadshow, raised more funding. Uh ultimately when we did our second round of funding was when the company got bought. Because they we were we were raising a few million dollars to continue funding, and and then they and they were just like, we really love the whole idea. So could we just buy it now? I was like, okay, I did not really see that coming, but was that always the goal?

And it's like, hey, we Yeah, it was the goal. Okay, I didn't know if the goal was to, you know, be the CEO of this for, you know, decades, or is it always an exit?

Selling The Company And PE Flywheels

Yeah, I mean, uh, so I think that this decision is definitely up to whoever, you know, like you don't have to do it this way, is what I'm saying. If you want to build a startup or a software company, I think of businesses as assets, not identity. So I'm fine to let them go. I look at them as something you steward and you build up, and then there's probably a next chapter that makes sense where someone else comes along and uh and takes it. So to answer your question, I always build to sell. Yeah. But you don't have to do it that way. I mean, you know, um, I didn't actually want to sell, but my they it initially, because there's something like this, this might not be good advice, but when you go through something really hard and then you come out of it, you're like, well, I could probably do that again. So I don't care if it's hard. Yeah. So like things weren't perfect. Things aren't perfect just because you raise funding. Now you have a board of people to be accountable to. Now you have, you know, it the accountability actually increases. Um, but so I was like, he they just want they wanted to control the roadmap. And so I was like, well, um, let's talk more about it. And the series of like two or three meetings, you know, it just made sense. They were able to give all of my like double the salaries of all of my people, give everybody benefits. You know, we're they were gonna, I felt they were gonna steward the project well. Their primary business is they actually buy and sell, they buy music and dance schools. And so they were interested. Oh, sure.

Had some synergy.

And so something interesting about the kids' activity industry is dance studios traditionally are not able to provide good salaries and benefits. And so their whole thesis is we can go into an industry like kids activities and we can win if we help them win. Wow. And so they were interested in the platform because they needed something to run. They had like 70 schools at the time, and they and they were trying to get to 100 by the end of the year, and they wanted a platform to kind of consolidate.

Yep. Nope, that makes sense.

And so, um, but back to it getting worse before it got better. When we had Studio Suite and then pandemic cancellations, and then the lawsuit, when I brought on funding, one thing that happened was they wanted to audit the product, they wanted to do technical due due diligence, which was uh, you know, while it was still suite, it was still Studio Suite's code. Yeah. So they came back and said, We still want like we still believe in you. We still want this, we want to see this in the world, but we want to start over. Gosh. So all of the code that was written for Studio Suite, all of the results that we had been getting for people was just wiped away because they it they said it couldn't scale. So there's there's a few ways to do software. One of them is you build uh you use a bunch of third-party tools and you kind of plug things together and you you you get it to work. Piecemeal it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Piecemeal? Piecemeal. I feel like I always thought it was piecemeal.

No, me piecemeal. I have no idea. But I feel like what he just explained was dumbing it down for the turtles here. For the turtles. Well, I just got to do that to you.

Well, there's one, yeah, you did. Right back at me. But but that's that's one way. And and I didn't know, you just don't know what you don't know. And and sometimes I don't, you know, catchy phrases aren't really my thing, but that one has is true sometimes. And so I didn't know that that's what the developer was doing that I hired from Google.

Oh, that he was not making a streamlined thing. Yeah. Yeah.

So, but the good news was not all was lost, uh, except a little bit of a further hit to my ego of like you should have, you know, yeah. I felt like I should have known that. Sure. But looking back, it's like, how would you? You'd be a software company. Yeah. Uh so building Classkid from scratch post-lawsuit, we took, we were able to, I'd built so much trust with the customers that 100 of them, 101 of them actually, prepaid for two-year plans for Classkid before we even started development. Wow. So we went to them and we said, hey, unfortunately, we're shutting down Studio Suite. If you want to continue with us and the brand, it's gonna now be called ClassKid. Here's what we're doing. And that was actually, I wish I would have told this story, the story in chronological sequential order, but that was actually we we raised a uh I want to say $300 and some thousand dollars from pre-selling before we even built it. And that was how we got Class Kid post-audit, wow, where we decided that we were gonna start over. That was the first kind of stint, and then there was funding after that. Wow, that's crazy. So yeah, we I I had I had uh been working with consum some consultants at the time, and and um and it's normal. So when people invest in the company, they're going to due diligence, as they should. And and uh I was just fortunate that they were still willing to stick with me, even though what they found was not great. Yeah. So um, but then it gets really good, and we we go do our our second round of funding where we're now raising millions. What what would be your series A? And and that's when it got bought. So now technically it's owned by a uh a private equity group. They don't like the term private equity, so they call them self-growth equity marketing. Uh, but they've stewarded, they they've been a great steward to it. Uh I love the way one of their one of their values is stage hands. And if you know much about the performing arts, the stage hands are the people that make the show go on, but you never see them. Right. They don't get any credit. And it's been really fun to work in a in a large company. They're uh they just barely made it on the uh Fortune 500. Oh wow. So yeah.

Okay, so they is dance studios their main thing, or it's one of many things they do.

Dance and music schools technically they're a consolidator. So I'm gonna talk about private equity, which you remember what we said earlier, it's at at it for them. I don't know if it's this way in every case, but and I guess I've only had a few years exposure to it, but wealthy families investing in people's ideas that they believe. Yes, there if you've you might have some people, if you're familiar with investing, they've heard the term family office. Yep. That's kind of what it means. So I'm not familiar with that term. What was your question? Sorry.

I was asking if the company if they're like invest in all kinds of stuff, or it's just music and dance series.

Yeah, okay. Thanks for the reminder. So the they're a consolidator, and so in private equity, what you're looking for is your flywheel. And so dance in music schools is kind of like a hamster wheel, it makes the whole thing go. It's like your main thing. Look on your face made me think I should clarify.

I was waiting for it to click, and I was like, flywheel. Let's see what that means. Let's see what he means by that. I know what a flywheel is.

So but so if you envision like a diagram and you've got, so you know, for for uh let's use uh let's use a uh a uh different industry. So coffee shops, right? You might have coffee shops that have a burnout owner. So what you go in and do is you buy 75% of the coffee shop, the owner gets to stay involved in the community, you professionalize it, bring in a team to run it. Now you own it, it stays, it stays the name that it is, and that all the people stay, right? But you give it capital. Then you might go over here and you might buy a booking software that now would help a coffee shop do more catering. And then you're gonna go buy coffee cup manufacturing here.

And then you're gonna go over here and you're gonna So coffee is the thing that is the reason for all of this.

Yeah, it's at the center of the flywheel. Probably community is the thing and the reason, right? Right. But then you're buying all of these assets related to it, right? Yeah, and that creates your flywheel.

It's like the ecosystem of the coffee shop, yeah.

Yeah, and so a consolidator goes into typically an unprofessionalized industry that is or underprofessionalized that is um, you know, has lacked innovation, is typically something they look for. And if you want to read, this is not going to incentivize you to read it, but if you want to read one of the most boring and useful business books ever, it's called Blue Ocean Strategy. And the whole fundamental driver of the book is it's this, it's this theory that if you look at the world's most successful companies, they're they don't actually have a lot of competition. So they've been able to drive value up and cost down. And in between, they've created this huge margin of I forget exactly what they call it, but value added, basically. Right. And so if you look at like um, for example, this is happening in c in the car wash industry right now. When Club Car Wash came out, it was innovative and it was new. It was a blue ocean. They took an industry that had lacked innovation for decades. Right. I mean, as far as I for my whole childhood, you had to put a quarter in and spray wash your car, right? And now I grew up in Silver Lake, so maybe my perspective was skewed. But there wasn't any innovation in the car wash space. There was eagle, there was Eagle Auto Wash, but then Club Car Wash came along and said cheap subscription, high value, powerful vacuums. They basically solved all the things that people hate, and they found the Blue Ocean.

Pain Tolerance And Tenacity

Right. So So the Blue Ocean is the like untapped opportunity, uncontested market space, untapped market space.

Yes. I need to reread the book because truly it is a phenomenal book. Have you read this book? Nope. But it is not, it is not intended to be entertaining. So you are you are you are forewarned. Yeah. But they looked at like yellowtail wines. Are you guys familiar with that? And yellowtail wines, their whole thing was nobody, nobody knows what Chardonnay and Cabernet and Saumillon and Pinot Noir and all these things are, right? Nobody knows what that means. So let's just put buttery soft white wine on the label. And so they literally went in and they found the second press of grapes out in you know, California or wherever. And they're using the second press of grapes. So like the less good ones. The less good ones. But if you don't know wine, if you're not a wine collector, you don't care. Right. That's what they found, right? And then better marketing, like that a fourth grader could read the label and understand it with a cute little kangaroo. Yeah. You know who doesn't want to buy a bottle of wine with a kangaroo on it? And then, and they found again the uncontested market space in an industry that had lacked innovation for decades. And so back to your original question. These consolidators are looking for that, and then they create their thesis, and then their thesis distills down to all of the assets they're gonna buy. And then ClassKid was just one of those assets.

Okay, so their ecosystem is music and dance, and they needed this was one of the things that was gonna help them do that well, and they probably have other areas, but they're all centered around helping music and dance studios if they buy. Okay. Yeah, makes sense.

And I'm not sure how much I'm supposed to share, which is why I used an analogy, but yeah, yeah.

No, no, no. Yeah, I was I would yeah, I was just curious if it was like if you are on staff with like now just kind of like a general like investment firm or like the dance studio that you know uses it, or that's what I was just curious about.

Yeah, so it's not it's not individual users that are invested. It's it's basically this is my understanding of how it all plays out. Again, I've only had a couple years of it of exposure to the PE world, but um you you've got like an office that you've got a family office at the top, let's just say three wealthy people that are sometimes they they are their own office, or they're literally just a wealthy family that wants to invest. That the consolidator takes their funding and then they and distribute that out into assets that they want to buy.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah.

Going back to your story, it reminded me. I heard this, I don't know if it's a quote or just an idea of uh what kind of characteristics makes a successful entrepreneur. And pardon my French here, but I've heard the number one characteristics of an entrepreneur is pain tolerance.

Oh, yeah.

Wait, so what was your French? Tolerance. Pain tolerance and the way I I read it was how uh how often you can kick in the nuts and keep standing, stand back up.

Oh, okay.

And it's funny, as you were telling your story, that's all I could think about was a high level of pain tolerance that you have, and that's why you're successful.

That is interesting. Yeah, that is interesting. Yeah. The thing that sticks out to me about that is like I I feel like I don't have like a business acumen or mind, like seeing the kinds of opportunities on honestly, like like you do as well. Um, but like what you're describing, like the situation where you're even describing, like, uh, you know, we're in the middle of this and I'm talking with my mentor or um we're working with this consultant. Like I'm putting myself, if I was in your shoes, I would feel so just kind of like alone and unsure what to do, like overwhelmed by the situation, feeling like I don't know who I would even reach out to, but you're like, yeah, we're working with this consultant. You can reach out to me this person. Yeah, now, you know, but like 2021 when I'm in your shoes, you know, I'm that's kind of what I'm just like, man, how just the like the ability to see like resources and maybe opportunities, you know.

Does that make sense? Yeah, but I think something else uh is blocking you there, and it's probably this, and and I'm guilty of this, and I could be wrong, so you feel free to tell me. But when we have problems and things are difficult, it is so easy to convince ourselves that we are alone in this. Nobody has navigated this, right? Even really, really difficult things, marriage crises, you know, uh addiction, those types of things. How people get there is it's this spirit of loneliness that can easily absorb. So I think that uh to your point, I would call it tenacity. Yep. And I don't know if I have the answer around how to develop tenacity.

AI Changes SaaS And MVP Building

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But what I do know is that a lot of people wait until they're motivated to start, and motivation is a downstream consequence of doing the thing you dream about.

Oh, yeah.

It is not, it does not arrive in your lap one day. So when you are in these periods of discouragement, you have to continue to get the confidence, the drive, the motivation back. So for me, you know, there were parts of my childhood that were that were challenging, and um I grew up in a very vocal family where the fighting was visible. And so, you know, maybe it was a little bit of that, but I think a lot of it is as cheesy as it sounds, you just a lot of people give up. I think because they burn out and and this, I would call it what did I call it a moment ago, the spirit of loneliness. Right, yeah, yeah. I can't tell anyone because if I tell if I tell someone that I don't have any money left around two months from not being able to run payroll, then I don't know what I'm doing. Right. Makes me look bad. And then you make that phone call like I did, and they say, gosh, I remember when I remember when I went through that. Wow. Yeah. I remember in the 2008 recession when we lost half of our because Misty also owned a dance studio, we lost a bunch of students, and I had to work over the next four years to get them all back. And then you're like, oh. Because I thought of you as this like, sure, you don't, you probably don't mess up. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And it's not the story being told online, and we all know that, but yet, but but yet it's still the story we believe. Um so good, man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I had this uh kind of a like a burnout experience in the last six months. Um and I was talking with my mentor. I was talking with uh just a pastor friend who I've known since I was in college, and just a dear friend. And um, you know, just kind of opening up about this, and and it was the exact same situation. He's like, Oh yeah, it was about your age that I I hit a burnout. And I was like, I was like, I literally I had never been. Oh, so this is normal. Yeah, okay, good, good. Yeah. He's like, oh yeah, I was about, I was about that that age when I hit, and he described, and it he would basically describe something way worse than what I was currently going through. And uh I was like, I had no idea. I thought you were just on the steady upward trajectory, you know? And he's like, No, yeah, it was you know, basically way worse than what I was describing. I was like, man, and so it is exactly what you're describing. It was so helpful to be, and it was a person I've had in my corner for a long time that I'm I'm talking to consistently about just random stuff. And so it's very natural to just go and talk to this person about what's going on. Um, but it was very encouraging to hear him say exactly what you're describing. Man, I've I've been there and uh you can get through this, and here's what I did.

And yeah, and to encourage you, I would say chur you planted a church, right?

Yeah.

Uh it's kind of like starting a startup. Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I would say actually being a pastor has a lot of parallels to business. Yeah. To owning a business, because the th the the the through line, if you will, is leadership. Right. Right? Right. And so starting from zero, which is a book, by the way, dang it. Start from zero, I think it's called. I don't know if it's any good, but um it is not for the faint of heart, to your point. But if you believe, like I believed I cared about this industry, I grew up in it, and I believed this thing needs to be in the world. What I do not believe in, and this is why I, you know, I'm I'm a tech guy, I guess, but I I feel challenged by AI constantly because what is happening now is app and software development is being commoditized. Yep. So it's easy to push things to push out ideas, but it's sloppy. They're not solving real problems, they're not serving people, and therefore they will fizzle out.

So they're just producing slop, like you're just producing stuff.

Yeah, it's like, you know, to I I guess I guess what I was saying there is planting a church matters. There's something driving you beyond starting a church. You're not starting a church because of your, so you can say I'm a pastor. Right. And I wasn't starting a software company, so I could say I'm a tech guy. I don't care about that. I mean, it's it's fun. I love the industry, but it's like I wanted to do something for a group of people I cared about. Right. Yeah. And that is probably why I was willing to keep going. Yeah. Because nobody else still to this day has been willing to do kind of the all-in-one class marketing, student management thing for this industry.

Wow, that's so interesting. Yeah. Do you think there are other industries this same thing could go in and basically you could take this exact product and serve other industries?

That's easier. Yeah, yes, what it's easier said than done. Like we we had a horseback, a big horseback riding um group come along, and they've got like four 40 different locations where you can pay like a fee and then you can go ride horses. I don't I a horse stepped on my foot when I was little, so I'm not much of a cowboy.

But my mom had horses when I was young, and man, they were we hated them. God bless them.

Uh but so to answer your question, like could we tweak it and accommodate that? Yes, but then you have to look at okay, how what's the contract value of that versus your burn rate on development? So if it's gonna cost you $150,000, and I want to be clear, I'm this is a lot of this is changing right now, which we should also talk about because it's a great that's my next question. So keep on I'm using big numbers, but like I'm what is it, 2026? I'm I'm really far into this. And when I started, this whole you could whip whip out a uh uh MVP minimum viable product uh using a no-code tool didn't exist. Yeah, wow. So I, you know, there was a lot more upfront heavy lifting involved. Um circling back to your question, yes, you could, but you it's not as easy as it sounds. It's not as easy as it sounds, and also it doesn't make sense in a lot of cases. What makes more sense is serving one type of customer really well, right? And then and then go running with that vertical, they call it in software, for years before you pivot. For the riches are in the niches. The riches are in the niches.

Yeah, find a very niche avatar and go.

Is it different than the people that get stitches? That's good. Some sometimes they do.

Here's my question for you. Uh how is AI impacting the SaaS business? I know it's becoming significantly easier to produce software and but you're getting a lot of stuff.

And what is a SaaS business? Uh software as a service. Yeah. Uh-huh.

So you know you're paying monthly for something and it you're getting for like an app or something. Yeah, you get a login or whatnot. How is AI impacting the SaaS business? Maybe not from like the developing of it. Like I know it's getting commoditized, it's getting easier, but where do you see AI impacting that over the next five to seven years?

Choosing Claude And Product Decisions

I can give you a short answer and a long answer. I'll start with the short one. There's this developer named Brian that I work with at ClassKid, extremely talented, has been a developer for over a decade. And he said to me the other day, I just you know, in passing, it was like, How you doing, man? We're having an end-of-the-day recap or whatever. And he's like, uh, I'm pretty good, but I just had this like eerie feeling. I'm trying to navigate because Claude just resolved a bug that I I'd been working all day on it. So when you got people that have been in this industry for a decade saying something like that, well, that's evidence of where it's going. Wow. Uh a lot of people have ideas though, and I think that starting number one for the reasons we've discussed is difficult, whether it's a limiting belief, identity, something's in the way, uh, you know, financial uh scenario, which is again changing rapidly. But I think that a lot of people try to, like a lot of people I've talked to that come to me to talk about their ideas, have tried to go to a no-code tool. So lovable, uh Replit base 44. Yep. I mean, this is kind of actually illustrative of what I'm saying. I didn't mean I didn't intend to uh illustrate this, but there's all these no-code tools coming out. And there's this whole thing in AI called a wrapper, which means you're just wrapping somebody else's technology and putting your brand on it. But they're not successful in actually shipping a workable prototype or an MVP because they don't understand the prompting side. So the big mistake that people are making, even though it's faster and cheaper to develop an app than it's ever been, like I would, I I think I don't even know if you need $10,000, honestly. Like you have a real estate business, you could probably develop an in an internal tool to make some process in your business easier and sell it to other agents. Yep. And you could probably do it for $10,000. I don't know. I'm I'm throwing out numbers, but um, but the reason people never make it to MVP, meaning and MVP measures simply if we use real estate, it's like, would they use it? Yep. Would they use it? It's not, it doesn't have to be mature, it doesn't have to be fully baked, it doesn't have to be like have every feature under the sun.

It's just you just have to have like a model example to show people.

Yeah, typically I call it the soft, I call it the SPF. This prevents you from getting burned. Okay, it's more like that. It's not as clever as I thought.

No, I like it. It took me a second to jump to sunscreen. I was like, what is it? What is what about software? Does SPF mean? Oh, it's not just sunscreen.

Let's see if I can now remember the acronym. But but small niche is for the F. Uh uh Painful Problem is for the P. And then uh F is for frequent trigger, meaning something in your real estate business every day that you're like, I this kills me. Like I was I just listed my grandma's house for sale on uh for sale by owner. That's how my family wanted to do it. Sorry. No, you didn't.

Uh and I'll not releasing this episode now.

There's so much in the process though that I was like, there are so many software ideas here.

Yeah.

That is painful and hard and and labor intensive. And now I know why people compensate uh real estate agents, but but even when you think about like what you do over and over, I'm just using it to reflect the point that you probably have maybe have even thought of an idea. But the things for a software, but what the thing that stands in the way, and the big mistake that people make is they go to these no-code tools and they say, build me uh an app that helps streamline my contract revisions. And then it is left up to it has to then decide what to do.

Yep.

And it decides what to do based on what it knows contextually about other contract uh modification apps, right? Instead, you have to spend a lot of time developing your prompts and your product requirements. Tell it what layers you want to do. Yeah, and you gotta do, and I and one thing that's really big in AI is pushing out your scaffolding, and then you kind of and it's it's what's called low fidelity design, meaning it doesn't, it's black and white pretty much. You don't don't get caught in the branding, don't go spend hours or thousands of dollars hiring a designer. Just again, small niche, profitable or excuse me, painful problem, frequent trigger. Just one problem, you you push that out. And I guess to sum that up, what I'm saying is peep people forget these no-code tools where AI is it's the developer, sort of. It's not quite full stack all the way through yet, but it's not in software what's called the product owner or the product management. So there's this whole other side of software where you work directly with the users, you work directly with the stakeholders, meaning everybody, users, investors, a stakeholder is anybody that has stake in the business succeeding. And so I feel like is it headed headed in a really uh cool direction for people to be able to bring their ideas into the world? Uh yeah, for sure. But right, but even if it's there one day where it can literally write the code and run the company for you, like push out your Facebook ads or whatever you want it to do, there still has to be someone kind of guiding it. Right? No different than I guide my team every day at Class Kid. So what a div what AI is going to do is it's not gonna, I I don't think I'm quite on board with this idea that it's gonna replace everybody. Like that's actually, I would say, not part of the way that I think about it, but I do think that it's valuable in certain uh parts of the business. So discovery would be like you're getting your product requirements together, design would be it's just kind of what it's gonna look like. And then development would be it actually gets coded, and that's where you these no-code tools come into play. And then delivery is actually delivering you know what you promised, and that's typically where you would have all of your tests, your automated tests that actually make sure it works the way that people expect. Yeah. And so if you look across that journey of the four Ds that I just explained, it's there, it's like maybe, gosh, I wish I had some data on this. I don't feel like it's 100% there in every pillar yet, but it's getting there and it's very impressive. And when you've got developers like Brian who've been doing this a long time saying, holy cow, yeah, right. Look at what it just did. He spent all day on it. Brian's $150 an hour. Yeah. Clot code $29 a month. Yep, that's great. Solves it in one, two, three prompts. I mean, that's that's where it's but it can't do that 100% of the time with 100% accuracy in every pillar of software development yet.

Yeah. Do you use AI in your non-professional life? I'm using it right now. I am AI. What do you use? Uh which AI do you like the most for just like Claude. Okay. Why?

I find that I go to ChatGPT for things I would Google.

Yep.

And I go to Claude for things I want to do. Yeah. Like product.

So that's exactly what I use it.

Yeah. What did you ask me though? Uh I asked you which one you like and why. I like Claude because, well, I don't feel like it has as many, what do they call them? Like a delusion. Yeah.

Psychophanties or whatever.

What's the word? I can't even think of it right now. But it's where it just riffs on something, and you're like, what are you talking about? Dude, it's so annoying. Or I don't have any memory of that. It's like, yeah, you do. I we talked about it two hours ago. Right. Yeah. You know, gosh, it shows you how much I use it. Um, but I would say, Claude, and and that's really because so, so at ClassKid, for example, one thing we're one thing we're doing is we will meet with users and we will do the discovery process. You, you know, sales is also a form of discovery because you, it's, you know, you got to figure out what you need to build to earn new business. And then all this siphon, we basically siphon manually right now, all of this to Claude. And then we have Claude kind of diagnose it and whip up some designs of what it would look like. We then go back to the user and we say, here's what this feature would look like. Are are you good with it? And that, you know, the user study is what that's called. And then we build it. And so we're we're, if you think about discovery, design, develop, delivery, you're we're able to collapse that down. And that's why it's my favorite, because it is making my role in my day-to-day easier. And then even beyond that, at the at the at the discovery layer, you can take all these meeting transcripts if you're using a tool like granola, and then just say, hey, I had seven meetings last week. It's Friday, I got an hour left in my day. New sprint starts on Monday. Sprints are two-week development cycles. What are we building? What should we build next? And it will ingest, kind of cluster the themes. Oh, it looks like your this invoicing workflow is needs some attention.

Wow.

I mean, it would take, and then if you put the data layer on top of that through a tool like, you know, Datadog, there's all these data, these all there's all these data tools out there, but we use one called Datadog, and it would actually tell you like where most of the failures are in your code. Uh or like users tried to do this or users spend the most time on this page. Interesting. And so you can like stack these things and then you know, quantitative through data dog, and then qualitative through like what people are actually saying. And and now you don't have to guess what to build as a product, as a product owner. That's wild. Whereas when you're starting, that's kind of what you're doing.

So datadog would be based into the app in real time, knowing what people are spending time doing and what they're like stuck on and stuff. Yeah. That's crazy.

So, like the other day we figured out that that about 60% of our traffic comes on mobile and then from data dog. So that's what the data was showing. Interestingly enough, across the discovery layer of the business, we were hearing people say the timetable, where they can see all their bookings for the day, the studio schedule for the day, uh, is not mobile. The timetable experience isn't very good, is how they were is how they would describe it. But they just say, it's not very good. Oh, yeah, yeah. And so we're like, like traditionally, you're left to kind of go, huh? Well, how do I now in my role as a product person make sense of that? And you go over to you go over to Data Dog, and it's like, well, no wonder. It's not mobile optimized, and 60% of the people are spending are looking at it on mobile. Right. Yeah. And so now you take, and this is all coming in through support tickets, right? So now AI is able to look at your support tickets and then cluster and say, you need to look at this in your business. And then you got the data to back it up. So now you're just able to make better decisions. Right. And it's not all because of AI, but it's just it's collapsing the time. I mean, that that takes days, weeks traditionally. Yeah. And so to circle back to your the answer to your question, maybe self, maybe this is selfish, but I like it because I actually feel confident that I'm building the right thing, something that's going to make an impact in the business. Yeah. Um, which I I would argue that this is not only important when you're a little bit more mature, like class kid, but like especially when you're starting out, shipping the wrong product, it doesn't mean the idea is bad. Shipping the wrong feature might might mean it never takes off because that single point of value, that frequent trigger that I was talking about with the sunscreen earlier, that is that's not there. And so it's like, yeah, that that matters, but like I don't need to use it every day, type of thing. It's not painful enough. Yeah. Or you've tried to go too broad, and to your point earlier, you've tried to solve this problem for horseback riding, music schools, dance schools, golf, soccer teams, etc. And it's a little bit nuanced in each of those industries.

Yeah. So would some of that be kind of similar to like as a user, there's like this habit app I love. It's called Hello Habit, and it's amazing. That's cool. And I pay like 10 bucks a month for it, and it helps me like track new habits I'm trying to start, and I can take notes and it's really great. But about once a month it updates, and they're like, hey, we added this feature. And about 95% of the time, I'm like, I don't know interested in that. That like the new feature that you just added. I don't think I'll ever need that. Yeah. You know.

So I it's hard to it's hard to say if that's because you're not interested in it yourself, or because they lack in a proper analysis of their roadmap or of their user feedback, uh, or they're not asking. So a lot of these and and I have made this mistake, and so I'm I'm telling people because I've made this mistake not to do it. For too long, Class Kid was founder-led instead of getting a proper product team in place. And what a product team does that's different than a founder, is they actually make this to let these decisions by looking at qualitative and quantitative data instead of one person's opinion.

Instead of you just like, hey, I had an idea. Exactly. So interesting.

That's how that's how good ideas start, and that's and you can't change that. Like you probably don't want to, it's gonna be very expensive to take a product team, uh, you know, you're paying maybe a couple UX design, you UX designers, designers, and maybe three to four developers, a product manager. Like that's a lot. You you shouldn't start with that at the expense of sounding obvious, but um, it's it's just not sustainable. Um, but I think that I kind of forgot where I was going to be candid with you, but I think this is why you have to have AI. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I think that what was your question?

I asked, like, there's app I use that bring uh releases features that often I don't know.

It's possible that it like it's a great app, it's valuable to you, but if it's founder led and there's somebody just sitting back there making all the decisions with no real process, at a certain point, it's gonna be it might become a little bloated and you're and then things get in your way. Right. So that what needs to happen in that business is one of two things. Either they need to, they need to uh and and I know you're gonna email them and tell them.

I'm gonna send them this this episode. Yeah.

Yeah, they need to transition from founder to you know product-led development. You might have heard of this term called product-led growth. Typically you don't get there if the founder's making all the decisions. Uh it's you got to obsess over the customers.

Yep. Right.

Because now what you're actually saying is that bothered me a little bit because it's in my way. Right. And then usually when some a software company ships a new feature, they got a pop-up saying we ship this new feature. And you're like, I don't care. Right. Yeah. And now it's even more intrusive to your day-to-day experience. So you really, there is a point of diminishing return where in the beginning, yeah, you're gonna ship like you want to get that, you want to get into that small enough niche and that painful problem with the frequent trigger and just kind of focus on that and really streamline that. And then as you ship new features, in my opinion, and I again I've made this mistake, maybe for like the first year, it could be up to the founder's discretion. But beyond that, if you have users, you should be obsessing over what they say.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah, and you should be using something that shows you, like, hey, this is kind of where they're dropping off. Or like to your point, they shipped this feature. Sometimes companies do that as an experiment to see if people actually use it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, test new yeah.

So Airb Airbnb just rolled out this. Uh, we have a little short-term rental property that we put on Airbnb and Virgo, my wife and I. And uh they they just rolled out this thing where they tried to put start putting more of the fees on the host, and so they could advertise a more all-inclusive price for the renters, and hosts were so mad about it. And when I dug into it, what I realized was the fee was like 15%. But if you had a property management software connected, it was 18%. I think what they were trying to do, I think what they found was that people were adopting these tools outside of Airbnb and they wanted to get people back on the Airbnb platform. So they pushed out this new fee structure to experiment with whether or not it would work. They could push. But guess what? I did. I canceled my property management software, and now I manage my bookings on Airbnb to keep my fees low.

So now you can't have one that does both Verbo and Airbnb though.

Rapid Fire Topeka Favorites And Wrap

You can, but we get our large majority come from Airbnb anyway. So it made sense for us. You know, if you're doing multiple properties and I'm not a STR coach, but uh uh short-term rental, but I'm not an expert on it. I I just started. But my point is just it's it's one of those three things. Either it's founder led, or maybe it's an experiment, uh, or maybe they're just you know pushing new things out because people actually do want them and it doesn't apply to you.

Well, who is the guy who brought up was it TLA's? Is that what he said? TLA's. Three-letter acronyms.

I don't remember who it was. I know what you're talking about, but right?

For like communic for communicating or what purposes?

Uh he it it was it was uh it was the airport guy. Um Curtis Curtis Curtis Needon. Yeah. I'm pretty sure he he is like related to like government and things, but also have a lot of three-letter acronyms for him. Yeah, they do. But he had a three-letter acronym, four three-letter acronyms.

It's for the baby turtles.

Yeah, exactly.

I think that applies to more than just the software business. I feel like if more business owners just obsessed with what their customers think, yeah, we would entrepreneurship would be a much higher success rate versus what maybe you want the. product to be or you want your business to be.

And it's interesting that you you bring that up because what happens a lot, and I was just telling uh a friend who started uh he's starting an app in the drone space it helps manage your drone bookings for you know if you want a special drone shot for real estate or your wedding you can book it on the platform. Wow and I was telling him like dude you're gonna end up building something completely different than you want to yeah like you might be able to get 10 20 30 users and and I could be wrong but all the research shows that this idea really needs to be a little bit different. And so you're right that a lot of business owners it's for example I was at Lake of the Ozarks a few weeks back and there's no sushi restaurant on Lake of the Ozarks doesn't that sound nice like light lunch you have some sushi well guess what I was thinking about it doing some research with AI and it was like yeah awesome it's a great idea but how are you gonna get fresh seafood to Lake of the Ozarks? Yeah exactly where is it coming from so it's like to your point of failure rate if I had started that just because I thought it was a good idea right it's like but that's not there's other things besides obsessing over the customers or the customer what the customers want that actually just don't make it feasible. Right. But for the most part if you could solve that problem and you could figure out how to get the sushi there or the fresh fish there then as long then the next question is are there enough people that are as obsessed as me about this idea right maybe uh maybe people at the lick of the Ozarks don't care about fresh sushi and then you're golden.

So do you just need to eat rotten fish? No you just f ship it frozen you know false yeah you're good some somebody here in Topeka at high V is making it and we're just shipping exactly I mean it I think like uh um oh my gosh Branson is known for its you know gaudiness like uh what do people care about authenticity in in Branson?

I don't know I was just using it to illustrate like yes you're like the the the the first part of starting something is is this even feasible? Yeah and then having a clear plan. Yeah and and but you're right at a certain point it's like hey this might not end up being the thing that I thought it was going to be or it might be different than what I thought due to the customer feedback. And that's really hard for a founder to not let your ego get in the way. You know what I mean?

Which I mean that goes back to I think what you were talking about uh with your business and why it was successful in that you didn't really care. You were just obsessed with that problem because you lived it and you didn't care what the solution looked like. You just wanted to have a solution for that problem. Yeah. Versus having this idea of what you think it's gonna be right and you're forcing this solution to the problem. Right. I had this creative idea. I need this idea to work. Yeah I need this idea to work versus I want this problem to be solved.

Yeah and I'm not saying that I'm not saying you know trying to bring up feasibility to discourage people because I would prefer a quick start over being uh super analytical at the same time. So because if you analyze an idea it's also true that not only is your brain wired to keep you safe from what I learned in my psychology classes but also you'll notice when you talk to friends especially people who are your caretakers right so like your parents and you say mom I'm gonna start something new or I'm gonna I was again talking to a student at Washington the day he's like I'm gonna I'm gonna I think I'm gonna drop out and I'm gonna start this startup and I said let's go I mean nobody else would say that to him what do you think people are saying to him right his parents are like no no no finish your degree yeah yeah yeah yeah they probably uh are like you're hanging out with that Austin guy again aren't you um but uh but but it's it's because they love us they're trying to keep us safe I remember when I first got into software and and and what I'm saying is it it it comes from the people that it hurts the most the people it comes from and I don't think my dad meant to do this but I remember saying Dad I'm gonna start a software company I was designing websites at the time and doing Facebook ads for dance schools and he said but you don't know anything about how to code and again I don't he wasn't trying to like right tell me not to start right but it was just like he was sharing what's on his mind. Right uh you should be careful who you share your ideas with. I love my dad yeah I share my ideas with him but I but I'm just saying he's toxic you got him out of your life no no no no no I I think that unfortunately it's the spirit behind that is like well I don't want to see you fail. Right. Yeah yeah I want you to be comfortable and be able to take care of your family and it's like yeah and I can do all those things if I build a company and sell it. Right and so and my community and my friends and and so and I can do it again you know and and I'm I think that unfortunately if you share your idea with the wrong people like it's kind of it's pretty easy especially when you don't have any validation to just let somebody else talk you out of trying. I know that seems so basic but either it's something up here or something out there that is preventing people from starting and again back to what we were talking about earlier. A lot of people I think a lot of people wait too long or die with their die with their good man I I resonate with that a lot.

I think I mean we're both kind of idea guys and um I think one of the things where I struggle with that is um I don't a lot of times I don't take the time to really flesh out an idea fully before I share it with someone. Yeah. Because I'm just like I want to know like hey is this worth going down the rabbit hole on you know like I don't I haven't thought about all of the ins and outs of what you know but like just like is the spark of this a good, a cool thing that I should go down the rabbit hole on? And I found that if I share that too early with with almost anybody like regardless but like if I haven't taken the time to really think through it a little more thoroughly in my own mind and time, then I run into that way more often too. Cause then I'm way more easily talked out of it. Because it's like well I haven't really I haven't really thought about this much at all. You know you know what I'm saying?

Yeah I do because I think there needs to be more people that okay I'm gonna be super candid the other day and I'm just gonna tell you AI said something like Austin I just want you to know you have a lot of great ideas and I was like oh my God was this chat TV Z I feel so validated. But it's like it's sad because there's so many people with great ideas and I thought about all the people that I talked to and I'm like I need to tell them I'm probably too hard on them. I need to tell them hey it's a great idea we're just in the really difficult start phase right and I'm challenging you to think about these things. And so the other the other thing the other thing is yeah so hashtag be more like Claude.

Yeah well no I feel like it's good coming from Claude because Claude doesn't lie to you like ChatGPT does. We'll see chat chat tells too many people their ideas are too good.

Like chat chat will just like make up crap and you're like okay I know that's not true. You want to hear a funny story I saw this video it had to do with a real estate agent he was a broker in a deal buyer and seller he gets it together it was over I think California million dollar sale or something and both parties feel like they were getting ripped off the buyers thought they were paying way too much sellers thought they were giving this thing away and the video was the broker in the middle who got a call from the seller and the seller called him up and said hey I talked to ChatGPT about this property they agree we are giving this thing away at a million dollars like we we need to be we need to renegotiate this is not okay you know just want to let you know AI thinks meanwhile they're making like a $600 lift on it. Yeah right yeah buyers call him the same day and said hey just want to let you know we talked to ChatGPT about this purchase chat thinks we are way overpaying he he said I kid you not in the same day I got two parties talking to the same AI getting very different answers.

Man it's so it just went on to show that you know it's you bring up a great point because you've just highlighted what I think is actually a pretty big risk to businesses using it. Because what I heard you say there was you've got context on like in like two places, but what you actually don't have is is what it's syntax of like where the two are parallel. Right. Right? And so you've got two opinions based on whatever those people are prompting it.

Yep. Right.

Which is leaning obviously that I'm paying too much I'm the buyer yeah exactly yeah yeah exactly so the mic the the the SAS opportunity there is what what are we gonna call it real estate deals AI I don't know negotiate any real estate deal that is all uh you've got real agents on the other side that are reviewing all of this advice because what you're actually saying I think is are they both wrong or who's right? Sure.

Well it'd be like someone like you to get involved to to now the mediator it'd be like the like Kelly Blue book of real estate because Kelly Blue Book is like an objective third party that will tell you what they think your car is worth and then dealers are always like yeah but Kelly Blue Book don't know anything. Right right but the idea at least whereas this is like telling two people two very opposite things. Yeah yeah which is interesting. I found that Claude won't lie to me as often as chat will. As often chat chat will straight up like glaze the crap out of you. Yeah. And it will tell you the worst idea is the best idea. But also I found that chat I was using it for a research paper trying to find sources for this I'm in this seminary class and uh I was trying to find sources for this thing and uh it was inventing sources.

Yep. It was inventing sources oh like it was giving them creds and and just making them up. Yeah and so it was like redo my entire book.

Well yeah so I was like I was like hey I need I need direct quotes from you know Augustine Aquinas like church father people and I need the actual source so I can go verify and find it myself. And it was like all right here's a direct quote and it would give me the source and I would go look and I was like that quote does not exist.

Yeah you're exactly right I found that out a year ago I had it analyze a PDF little slide deck that I made with information in it. And I said I want you to read this PDF. I'm gonna ask you some questions to make sure you read it asked it a question on a PDF that I wrote it completely made up an answer. And I called it out I said you're lying that's not in there. I know it'll be like you're right I overspeak I overcalibrated you're right I've got it that is what it says I found Clyde will still do it but not as much.

Yeah yeah can I can I highlight though what I think is actually really important to surface in this conversation and that is that despite AI there are real still really good and valid business opportunities and what AI does is it makes them easier and faster to develop. Yeah yeah whereas the other opinion is AI is going to take over my role. Right, right yeah it's it's the doom and it's like well no I love it it's super healthy. You know I I think to your point though I mean it's super important when you're given a a a sermon that um you know I don't know your preaching style but maybe exegesis where you go line by line and then you're you're gonna now pull in an outside reference. Yeah I mean bros like you get fact checked oh yeah right he said something up there and it was like what is you get emails yeah right right yeah this thing about St. Aquinas I wasn't quite but you know the it and and and what you're actually doing is using it like Google. Right. But yeah that's a real risk that's and and so what I'm saying and trying to highlight is yes it's gonna make it faster and eat faster and easier there are still valid ideas there's a lot of risk with it right now. Right. You know imagine it imagine asking it to review your contracts are you still going to look at them yeah no way but even if you used it to flag something sure like hey analyze this and tell me the top three risks you're still going to look at it.

Yep.

Right and it's because you don't trust it. Yep. And so what has to happen and and here's another crazy thing I don't know if this is still true but I saw this graph I don't know if it was true to begin with but I saw this this like infographic and it was showing the world population and then like the number of people that have adopted AI in a in a way that's truly valuable and it was like a little tiny tiny tiny bit of people. Yeah yeah um you can tell I'm an ideas guy I'm not very data oriented. Yeah yeah but it was like it it was it kind of put things into perspective for me of like oh the world does not trust AI. Right. But we are sitting on people like the people in this room can use it to bring incredible things into the world to ship their ideas faster to solve their own problems in their day to day like we do at Classkid. And and that's where the power is not in the slop that everybody's talking about on you know on social media. It's like let's get down to what we're at like let's use it and add real value to people's lives. That's what I'm excited about come on.

Man this has been this has been incredible. This did not go in the direction I was thinking it would but I loved it. I know this is so fun. Uh honestly it'd be nice we should do a part two sometime it'd be super fun just there's so many other topics it'd be really fun to talk about. Want to hit them with some rapid fire? Yeah yeah yeah so we hit everybody with rapid fire questions at the end.

Okay, do I have rules on my No You just got to answer them rapidly.

Yeah I mean it doesn't yeah it's just it's just we don't we don't send these out ahead of time you don't know what we're gonna ask we're just asking for kind of like the whole episode.

Yeah exactly in fact we you told me where we're doing this and that was it.

Yeah exactly so uh these are basically just like as a Topekan some things that you like and love about living in the city of Topeka all right so uh so we'll we'll just jump in. I have some guesses on some some areas that might be challenging for you to answer on but we'll just throw in. Okay. Ready? Yep. Favorite restaurant local restaurant in Topeka local restaurant.

Yeah so like not McDonald's iron rail iron rail let's go that feels like a cheating he can't really say that why is related it is I am related to one of the owners but it is very good.

Yeah other than family relationships do you have like a favorite thing there I really like Thursday club yeah yeah come on makes sense too are you just gonna list off any business that you're invested in you a golfer uh I golf a little bit maybe golf course in Topeka um we should skip that I don't really golf I golf on vacation that's about okay if you're doing a home project Home Depot Menards Lowe's where are you going?

Ooh I would have said Home Depot a year ago but I'm kind of Menard's guy because you know because you'll save money yep that's right you go and pick up some some wood and a saw and you can go and pick up you know what I you know what I love the most actually is the customer experience because in Home Depot have you ever tried to go get wood on one side and then make it to the other side of the store it is especially if you do it across the front of the store.

That's how I feel about Minards. Well you're wrong menards is like a city block it takes forever to get to the other side.

Okay but here's the other thing I like that I figured out from having this short term rental property the all the like their plywood and all of that is inside. So you don't have to stand out in the rain and get the wood. You pull into this warehouse it's probably temperature controlled and you get out you load your installation or your plywood and then you drive away.

Yep oh you're saying you can load you can load it right into your vehicle yeah in a building under uh whereas home depot you gotta I just I'm always I love when you can tell somebody like somebody's put some thought into that yeah yeah you know I mean like that's a good customer experience.

Yeah yep but there are things I don't like about Menards for example they put a bunch of uh what's it called impulse buys oh yeah I think that's why they make you walk from one end of the store to the other so that you grab a can of Pringles. Yeah and guilty yeah yeah I I do it too I do it yeah yeah absolutely yeah I'm pretty hungry the Pringles sound good that I've never heard of a question I think we can we'll guess your answer on favorite local coffee shop oh okay you can guess my answer what is it it's obviously PTs yeah obviously circle coffee uh how many potholes did you hit on the way over to the center 21st Street's really bad yeah yeah it's really bad yeah um I was even thinking about writing the letter actually it's that bad dude did you know there's an app where you can like report potholes potholes AI potholes AI what was the number we had uh he said they fix was it like 600 600 a week or something 600 a week something uh how many potholes why though why are there 600 potholes to fix that's his answer was because it's a Midwest that was his answer because it's Midwest because I know it's traditionally bad in the spring because you're coming out of the winter and that makes sense but there are certain roads that are worse than others.

Anyways I think the only time I've hit I've probably only hit three that required only three that required me to like get my car checked on yeah yeah yeah okay my favorite my favorite is the the uh the the mechanic shop on Topeka and 17th Street right across from that gas station and they have a a sign that says like need an alignment or it says like hit a pothole alignments however much money and it's like the worst section yeah yeah yeah yeah so there's like 37 potholes in the two lanes right in front of that auto shop and so you're like yes yes I do I didn't and then you have to sit at the stoplight and just look at the sign yes I need an alignment right now. In marketing that's called placement yeah they really got that figured out they're probably jackhammering that intersection as soon as those potholes are filled every year. Yeah they're coming out there at midnight tearing it up okay um go to like date night Friday night saturday night I would say we find ourselves that salute is that how you say it's go yeah yeah yeah yeah for uh like if we're gonna do pre- or post dinner yeah yep for dinner we just cook a lot at home all right and we love to cook my sometimes my my idea of a perfect date night is just staying in.

Yeah yeah and they I love our son but you know he goes over to his grandparents or something and we just cook and we like actually talk. Yeah that's good so you're not being asked why every six seconds yeah I guess it I guess in it yeah in this current stage of life it's easier to go like he goes down somebody comes over and is just like sitting in the living room hanging out and we go sure yeah yeah uh you know do something for a few hours versus like a whole night right how old's your son two oh cool yeah so he's not quite asking why the question all the time did you did your wife just have a baby she did yeah week old dude boy or a girl seven days in seven days in girl are you tired I'm not too bad my wife on the other hand is maybe feeling the grunt of that yeah I take the uh the nine o'clock to midnight shift and it's not been too bad for me yeah but yeah don't let her hear that I said that yeah this is this is the boys podcast now.

Uh last question where can people find you at are you on social media? Uh where can people follow you if they wanted to connect?

Well to bring this full circle I've owned the domain Austinroberson.com for a long time I should probably do something with about about it. So I'll try to you know use AI to put a landing page up.

Yeah to so it doesn't go anywhere right now it's just yeah so they can uh they can ask uh GoDaddy if they can buy that domain from you if they go there.

Yeah they they they they could I don't know what'll happen. Yeah we'll have to negotiate but Austin Robertson.com you'll have to pay $37,000 to buy this yeah I don't know I don't know I I've just it's it's funny because this truly is full circle right it yeah we we all have ideas of what we want to do with our lives and my encouragement to everyone would just be don't sit on them. Like it's gonna it's going to be challenging and difficult but there are people in this community like all of you that support and walk and I know you know the uh because you're a real estate agent you own your own business you're a church planner and leadership is hard and so get out there and lead come on that's cool that's a great way to wrap this up cool Austin thanks for being here man thank you