The Bootstrapped Founder

Arvid Kahl 0:00
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Bootstrapped Founder podcast. My name is Arvid Kahl. And today, I am talking to Michelle Hansen, the co founder of JUCO do an indie software as a service business in the world of mapping and geolocation. I've been a fan of her work both as a founder and as an active member of the indie hacker community. For years now, I followed her journey with the business just as much as her foray into writing her first book, deploy empathy. Michelle really gets the founder community and she's a respected teacher of all things, customer development. And that's not all Michelle has going on. She is also one of the two founders behind this software social podcast where she talks to her friend Colleen, on a weekly basis. And this is something that I'm doing in private to, to stay in touch with my friends back in Europe, one call a week, just to chat recorded just for ourselves as our own little podcast. And I wondered if that's how it started for Michelle and Colleen. So I asked, How did that happen? Was it also just because you wanted to talk wanted to just hang out?

Michele Hansen 1:05
Yeah. So where our podcast came from Colleen and I met through mutual friends who I think I had met them at micro confort. And, and they were like, hey, like, Colleen just moved to Arlington, Virginia where I used to live. And they're like, You should grab coffee with her. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. And then it kind of get turned out, we're both sort of in this indie space. Like she she was a full time consultant at the time wanted to have a business going. But also, we lived one neighborhood away from each other, our kids went to the same school, there are similar ages. And so we just became friends really quickly. And we started meeting for coffee every week to just talk about business and life and did that for quite a while. And then COVID hit, and we, you know, couldn't go meet up at a coffee shop anymore. And then, in the middle of 2020, we moved to Denmark. And so, so and I realized, oh, you know, I really like missed our chats. And, you know, we had kind of joked about making a podcast at some point, but it was never really serious. And then another one of our friends actually Benedict from user list. He tweeted out how he loves this sort of founder ride along podcast, but why weren't any women doing any of them? And I just replied to that. I was like, Oh, well, Colleen, like what if we did that podcast we joked about and like, not really expecting anything of it, and then got a ton of people replying to that tweet and sending me messages privately being like, yes, yes, you should absolutely do that. And I was really like, Oh, that was that was a joke. Like one too, but now you know, especially like having moved abroad before that me now calling is in California, right. So we've both gone like totally opposite directions. Geographically. I think that if I didn't have a scheduled meeting with her every week, I probably would not be as good as at like keeping up with her. Like I have a you know, a spoken conversation with her more often than I do any of my other friends in the US. And so there's a certain value in doing a podcast with a friend because it forces you to talk to them and have it be you know, an event that is that is not missed.

Arvid Kahl 3:43
Yeah, it's an amazing, amazing way of just keeping in touch with people. And also just having a another year for your your issues or your your wins your losses, like all these things to like that that's a building and public thing that the entrepreneur right along that you're doing. One thing that always comes to my mind when I listened to your show, and I listened to every single episode because I walk the dog a lot. Because our little puppy that we did with God last year or this early this year, she needs a lot of walk. She's a quite the energetic little thing. And your show is always on because it's the perfect length with a little walk that I do with my Bob. And whenever I listened to you guys, I always wonder, how do you set boundaries. And I kind of want to make this whole conversation today about boundaries, because that's something that you in particular have been really good at both expressing and keeping to, at least in my perception. I don't know if you feel the same way about this yourself. But but the podcast in particular, I think that's a good opportunity to touch on this topic. The boundary when you have a podcast with somebody is that you have a personal conversation, but it's not a private conversation. Right? It's something that your friends, but you won't talk about everything in public, right? Not everything you talk about on the show, or everything you're talking about on the show. It's kind filtered at a certain level. So how do you draw those lines? You probably wouldn't talk about like relationship issues beyond a certain point or, you know, financial problems or litigation or stuff like that, where it could be a problem. How do you draw this line with that show? Because you're very friendly. You're you're having a great, often very honest, and, you know, sometimes quite confrontational conversation on that show. But it's always it's to me at least, I wonder where this line is?

Michele Hansen 5:29
You know, I think for for us, first of all, I think we both have a little bit of a natural sense of what our own boundaries are, for what we're willing to talk about in public and what we aren't. And, and also, I mean, there's offline conversation that people don't see, right, and so we kind of joke that the podcast, yes, people listened to it, but really, it's for us, right, like, you know, we often chat after the show just about life. You know, we have other ways of talking to each other. I think for me, when it comes to sharing something that is more, I don't know, more difficult, right? I think, for me, the first filter is a, is this something that I myself have processed, right? Like have I had a chance to not even you know, think it through or move on from it, but like, Have I taken the time to sit down with us and and process and at least acknowledge what I'm, what I'm going through and how I'm feeling about it and talk to somebody about that? And, like, do I have a sense of grounding on it? Maybe not perspective yet, but at least do like, do I feel comfortable in that feeling? Whether that's business or personal? And then the second one is really, is this something that's relatable to people? And are people gaining, by me specifically disclosing this? And if no, then I don't share it. And now, and I don't know if that's, that makes sense. But like, if there's something that is difficult for me, whether it's in the business or or in personal life, I feel like the, the great benefit of being a podcaster is, is you're podcasting for other people like for I guess for our show, and specifically like, like we say that our job is to make people feel less alone in building their businesses, because many of us, you know, we work alone or we work. Or, you know, maybe you work in a co working space or from your house, or maybe you have one or to other people you work with, but you're not working in a big company, like maybe you're used to right where you're seeing lots of people every day. And loneliness I think is a big issue for indie founders. So, so that's how we view the purpose of the podcast is first to make ourselves less alone, because it forces us to talk to each other every week. And then second, that we make other people feel less alone. Even just talking about business, even if it's a one way conversation, makes them feel less alone as they're out walking the dog or whatever it is. And so it's like, is sharing something, serving that purpose of making feel somebody feel less alone, and sometimes hearing somebody's success makes you feel less alone in your own success, right? Because you didn't have anyone to tell about it that would understand your fake internet job, right? Or maybe it's something difficult. So I think that's kind of the filter that that we run everything through, or certainly I do. And then of course, there's after the fact, which is that there are times when we say hey, like I said that and that came out weird, or I shouldn't have said that, or whatever. And we just edited it out.

Arvid Kahl 8:51
Yeah, that makes sense. And I completely understand this goal of like making people less alone, which is an admirable goal. I really like that. And I say this as a person like living in my own basement, pretty much alone all day because it's kind of what I chose to be my job at this point. But having the connection with people and and just looking and having a look into somebody else's world that already improves your own world, right? It's just so evil. That's why I read a lot of fiction not escaping the other words, but to enrich my own and it feels like many, many people do that too. One question that I have though, because you had this interesting point where you kind of judge everything you say against is this good for that purpose or not? Is I always struggled with that myself in anything that I write about or talk about how can I judge what somebody else would perceive as useful for themselves you know, what I always feels this is some some kind of highly subjective rule that I set for myself some kind of subjective filter, and how do you weigh the potential of you judging something not worth being talked about against, you know, the cup People that it might actually help versus this whole, you know, most people won't benefit from that, because that's what I struggled with, with highly specific niche topics, it would probably help a lot of people, a little, and some people a lot. But this other topic that's more generic would help everybody, to a certain extent, but not these people who would need the specific advice. How do you how do you struggle or how you deal with that kind of struggle?

Michele Hansen 10:24
I think for me, I think about whether those people already in my audience, or whether they, they should be part of that audience, right? You know, every episode is not for every person, right? That's, you know, what is the the quote that you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all the people all the time. And sometimes it's all the people none of the time. But I guess that's what I run it through. It's like, and often it's like, would this have helped me? Seven years ago? Yeah, that's right. Eight years ago, nine years ago, would this would this have been something that helped me when we were thinking about side projects and trying to get something going, or we had a side project, or we're trying to balance that? Or five years ago, when I still didn't feel like I was a part of the indie founder community and didn't really know anybody? Like, would this have helped me then? Or heck would this have helped me six months ago? I think that's kind of the filter that I look at it through there are, I mean, there's an infinite thing, amount of things that any person could share that inevitably, another human being would find relatable, right? I think this is the kind of the beautiful thing about humanity is that we have so much in common with other people. And if we open up about it, then we will find those things. But it doesn't necessarily mean those people are standing in front of you. And so And also, when we go into something more specific, we try to limit it. And told you, okay, we'll just do one episode on that. And then we'll kind of go on to other things, because it's not as relevant to everybody. But there is a group that would really appreciate being seen and hearing about that.

Arvid Kahl 12:17
Yeah, that makes sense to me. Like the also the choices you make, right, and what you talk about what you don't talk about, that's your unique voice. That's the things are, those are the things that people will associate with you. And some people might self select out of your audience because of it, and other people will select into your audience, which in the end is a win win situation for everybody, right? Because you get the people you want to talk to who care about the topics you talk about. And the people who don't while they listen to somebody else, I think that's that's, that's a great point like that you limiting yourself allows people to make a discern discerning choice, and then either listen to you, or Joe Rogan, or somebody else that they find, like more appealing, or whatever it is, I think, yeah, that that makes that makes sense to me that I'm interested in this because it feels to me that we always have this perfectionist approach. We want everybody to be happy. We want to serve as many people as possible with the things that we built and you building Ducote? Do you probably know this too, like you have the you have customers that are perfect for your business? And then there are the customers who you know, you could serve? But should you know, that's another level of setting a boundary. But in this case, not for what you talk about, but for what your business does. How do you do this with your own customers? Like how do you make sure that you serve the right customers with your software as a service business that you run

Michele Hansen 13:38
is a continual process to be serving the right customer segments and figuring out where we're a good fit and where we aren't. The first way, quite frankly, is to see who's paying you all the time, right? If a customer has been paying you every month, for six months, a year, four years, chances are, what you do is a good fit for what they're doing. And maybe there are other things that they're doing that they're doing manually or using other services for that are adjacent to what you do that they would love if you did even more of. And so I like to start with those customers that I'm already or our business is already a good fit for and grow from there. It's much easier to grow a business by understanding what people already like about what you do, whether that is a podcast or a SAS and doubling down on that and understanding what is it that brings them to you and why you specifically what are the advantages you have in their eyes over the competition? How do you speak to those? How do you use their words to market to them understand which features are important to them? Because if you serve the happy customers, you will be a happier founder. And now there's there's a lot of analysis that you needs to go into that this is actually something I got to dive into recently on my own podcast talking about moats and competitive advantages with Matt wensing of Summit. Because we can't just listen to our customers and just build everything that everybody says, We have to filter that and understand what is in scope for our company, and what isn't? And where are their advantages for our company and where aren't there. And that is a kind of filtering that only the founder can do. Or usually the product manager of a company, but we're an indie crowd. So we're usually doing the product strategy ourselves,

Arvid Kahl 15:41
small SAS, that's, that's a different choice. And you have to make that choice. And particularly, how many people are you? Are you still just two people in your company? Or are you more at this

Michele Hansen 15:50
point, we made our first hire in July. So the company is my husband and I as co founders, and then we hired a former coworker of his as our content and Support Engineer.

Arvid Kahl 16:02
Oh, that's cool. So you have like some kind of boy, okay, that's pretty cool. Still, that's small, but it's also big, because, you know, like, the smallest unit is zero, that's not having a business at all. But yeah, my question here really is like, how do you not overstep what this unit of three people can do? And how do you not overreach into yet another adjacent feature or yet another potential rocket ship to the moon kind of product that that might revolutionize your industry? Lots of people have really high ambitions there. How do you keep to the core of what makes your business work? Like, do you have any metrics or any kind of just framework strategies to to keep that in place like to stay on course.

Michele Hansen 16:46
Here's an example of something of a decision where we decided to not proceed with a feature. For years, we've had people ask us about global geocoding. So when we launched, we supported the US only, and shortly thereafter, added support for Canada. And pretty much since the beginning, people have been asking for more international support and really global support. And I think we launched a an alpha of global geocoding in can't remember the year but I remember we lived in our old old house, isn't it funny how we remember things like that? Yeah. So I want to say this was probably 2016 2017. And we quickly realized, even with only having one or two customers using this alpha, who were long term customers who were very nice and understanding people, that for a small team, the world is a very big place. And, and we simply could not handle the scale of problems that could happen, doing worldwide address to coordinate conversions that we just simply couldn't do it. Now, that was an inflection point, we could have decided, yes, we're going to do this, we are the people to do this. Let's go, let's get some funding. Let's go full time now. Like we are the people to do this because there's an opportunity there. We instead looked at that and said, Alright, there's a million other companies doing this. Most of them are extremely well funded. You may have heard of them, like they're, they're called Microsoft and Google, as well as some very well financed VC backed companies like Mapbox. And some and some indie competitors as well. And we're like, you know what, we can't, we can't compete with that. And so instead, we decided to say, Okay, well, well, what are people using us for, that other people aren't doing? And this is really what led us down the path of focusing more on data enrichment, for example. So coordinates are a doorway to information about an address. So for example, you can't determine what someone's timezone is, unless you have the coordinates for their address. And so we started to understand all of these other adjacent use cases. And we learned that, hey, if people can, we've we can save people from having to hit eight different API's with all these different formats and pricing and data storage policies, and wrangling all that data. And they can just get it and one request from us, they will pay us and they will keep paying us. And so that was a strategic decision that we made that another company, and I mean, quite frankly, other companies have made different decisions at that inflection point. But that was a decision on staying a small team. And I think being humble, quite frankly, about what we were able to solve and what we weren't. That continues to guide us.

Arvid Kahl 19:50
That's interesting because it's quite literally a boundary as as a geographical boundary that you chose for your, your product and your business. And I like it because you focus in work, right? You look at what can we do with what we already have, instead of where can we go beyond what we have right now, right? You don't look at the past Do you don't look at the greener grass over there, that's pretty much what it is. Or you look at what you can do to fertilize the grass that you already have in your backyard. Which brings me to another point, you seem to do a lot of gardening and a lot of like apple cider pressing and that kind of stuff. And that's, I don't know, I was thinking about what I would like to talk to you about because it's you share a lot of things quite openly on Twitter, which I'm very grateful for, because I get to have a glimpse into the little Danish life that you live that you live and it's really nice. And on the show with you, you're talking about these things. I wonder like with all these things going on in your life podcasts, right appearances on podcasts running, do you co do learning a second language? Or probably no, this is your second language? Or do you have a couple of others in there as well?

Michele Hansen 20:56
This is the fifth language I have studied. I would not say I am fluent in any other language. Deutsch is mine. seitan what is it? What's the word for language? It's been like Spraga oh my gosh, go Deutsches mind. seitens rockin now and then I married a Dane and stop practicing. It's

Arvid Kahl 21:23
close enough.

Michele Hansen 21:27
That's on the list for after I finish. Oh, yeah. Anyway,

Arvid Kahl 21:32
after I finish, right with languages, does that ever happen? This is what I'm thinking about. Because there's so many things. These are kind of open ended projects. So I podcasts, you can run them forever businesses hopefully run them forever. And learning should never end anyway. So how do you manage that? Like how do you juggle a family to like you have a decent sized family? And, you know, like building projects, I guess the room in which you're currently recording, this is also one of these things that, you know, has been part of your journey? How do you manage these things? Because these are a lot of things. And most founders, they try to focus on building a business and ignore everything else. How does that work? Because I want to know,

Michele Hansen 22:11
I think I mean, honestly, the truth is that I just, I just have to have a lot of projects going on. Just interested in a lot of things. I don't think I necessarily manage all of it well. So there's a difference between seeing the life that somebody posts on Instagram or Twitter, even though I you know, I'm not like trying to, like project like a perfect Instagram life. Right. But like, you know, you might you might see my tomato plants and our headquarters on Twitter. And like, what you don't see is the fact that yes, I have been in our lovely little shed quarters in the yard all day. And also the whole day intending to take a long walk with the dog and finding time to eat the healthy lunch that I packed. And it's 330. And I haven't found time for any of that. I barely had enough water today, because I was fighting with various state sales tax websites. So yeah, I, how do I manage it? Honestly, not? Well, if we're being truly honest, I just I have a lot of interests and a lot of enthusiasm. And you know, I think, thankfully, I have a good amount of follow through my husband certainly has an even better follow through gene than I do. So, you know, we work as a team and you following work in progress, though.

Arvid Kahl 23:40
That's right. Right. If and if it isn't, I think there's only two other states that work in progress. And that's didn't start or just finished it stopped stopped doing what you wanted to do. Right? That's those are the other two, but honestly, no, I didn't expect like, like a perfect guide to managing your life. I don't think anybody has this. But I think what you do is you at least are good at compartmentalizing things that you do that from what I see, which is again, a filter perspective, obviously. And even even though you share with me that you do struggle with like everybody struggles to a certain degree, it just seems that you still get stuff done, which is nice. Right? And what I think it is, and please do correct me if I'm wrong, is that you don't have like extremely super high expectations. You have an iterative, iterative approach to stuff like that's that's what I guess anyone building and public sharing these little updates, these these tiny little wins, tiny losses, whatever it might be. They understand that it doesn't have to be this grand goal. Just doing anything is fine. Anything towards that goal. Is that how you approach your projects as well?

Michele Hansen 24:49
Yeah, I think it's always a work in progress. I remember when I first learned about the idea of kaizen and And I, you know, I learned about it sort of, you know, out of context, right not not within the context of the Toyota manufacturing system and everything else. But just as this idea of the goal is continual progress, and I get a lot of satisfaction and feeling of completion about having the next version of something out. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't feel that kind of itch to keep improving things like I constantly do. But I, I enjoy the, I enjoy the climb, so to speak, of it. And and, and I think that's really important for anything that you do that I used to look at goals and be like, Okay, I will be happy when I reached the goal. And you know, what happened, that never happened? Like it that that elusive happiness when x happens, it never happened. And so at some point, I was able to show that and just try to, you know, find a way to find completion and a sense of progress in the progress itself. And also, I mean, also, quite frankly, you know, being an entrepreneur, I can self select into the processes, which is, you know, running a business, it's a process, right, that I find rewarding throughout the journey. I think I found that when I'm doing something where all I can think about is the end result, and I'm suffering through the process of it. That's not something for me.

Arvid Kahl 26:39
Yep. Yeah, I very much agree. I think my, my own personal experience is the exact same thing, particularly after selling the company. Like you would think that having this great exit and all the financial things around it would be life changing in an emotional sense, but it's only really in a fiscal sense, if at all right, like, we were still the same people, just like having, you know, opened one more champagne bottle in our lives. That was really it. But but everything around us, like all the passion we had for work, the the things that we wanted to do that was still there, nothing really changed, right, we reached a goal. But there was not this, this emotional upheaval that we expected there to be. And I guess that that changed my perspective to on like, finding a path to walk instead of a destination to work towards. And this is a great opportunity to talk about the sponsor of this show, it couldn't be a more fitting moment, actually, because it's my core choir and my co Corissa. Number one startup acquisition marketplace, which is simply the most efficient way to sell a startup when you're ready to make the next move. And that was the position that I was in when we sold feedback panda. Typically, as a first time founder, you have no idea what you're getting yourself into. I certainly didn't when I went through my acquisition, because it was my first one. And it's most people's first acquisition, micro acquire wants to help with that and empower you when you're speaking with buyers, also, for the very first time in your life, then streamline this whole process of getting acquired for maximum amount of money without a minimum amount of headaches. And there are a lot of headaches if you go at it alone. So it's great to have somebody like Michael choir to help you with that. To date, Michael choir has helped hundreds of startups successfully get acquired 1000s, probably at this point, and they have facilitated hundreds of millions in close deal volume. If you're thinking about selling your startup, you will want to check out micro acquire, do it today, even if you might not want to be selling the business at this point. Keep yourself informed check out my core choir go to micro acquire.com to learn more. And now let's get back to the conversation. I love the books by Brandon Sanderson that fiction writer and he has a what is it called ontology at this point, called the Stormlight Archives and one of the main themes of this these like 1000s of pages per book series, which are we like is journey before destination. That's the idea the idea is that the journey is as the part of why you do it destination is just kind of that where you aim you know so you know where does is essentially kind of going. But the journey is the interesting part and the journey is the thing why you do it, not the destination. And I really like the phrase enjoy the climb because that's this essentially what it is every single

Michele Hansen 29:15
morning Miley Cyrus,

Arvid Kahl 29:16
but yeah, of course. I mean, that's, it's arts and forms life and the reality and I think that that is one that that is really really relatable to me as a as a founder as an entrepreneur and now as a writer, and we should talk about that part too. But let's let's stay with the founder entrepreneur space for a second longer because what the reason why I talk to you today is because we had a little conversation on Twitter, and it was about the psychological challenges of becoming a founder. Right? You talk about the challenges of being a founder, but even getting to this point, like becoming somebody who throws away their structured nine to five life and become somebody who is only responsible for themselves and their family and their business. That is a that is quite an intense thing to do. And enjoy the climb. The phrase just triggers in me this this this steep hill that where you has fog on top, you can't even see where you're going, you just see that something is climbing. And you make this this active choice of leaving your, the lush green valley behind you with the village and all the amenities. And you look into the just the hill to climb towards the top. And I, you, you said something in that conversation that we had on Twitter that was really between you have to enjoy the challenges if you're an entrepreneur, and an employee does not necessarily have to do that, like somebody who works full time job even though isn't entrepreneurship more than full time job, right? Like, obviously be spent all day working on the thing while an employee does not. But what I wanted to ask you is how what what kind of challenges did you in particular experience going from your I think you had a pm position like product management position into entrepreneurship with family underlying with not knowing where this was gonna go, I know that God Oh, came from a different project even like, can you talk about these these psychological challenges and how you overcame them for yourself?

Michele Hansen 31:22
Well, I think probably makes sense to start out on that sort of philosophical, psychological level. And you might be familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? This is a core idea from psychology that, you know, the bottom of this, this pyramid, right, we're talking about mountains and pyramids today, you know, the basic level, you have your needs for shelter, and food. And then as you go up the pyramid, you you have needs for you know, socialization and, and intellectual fulfilment, and all these other things. And eventually, at the top, you have self actualization. Now, without getting into Maslow and kind of loosely, loosely using that, right, I think a challenge that that that I certainly face and I see other people face as well is that, to a certain degree, when you have a stable full time job, you have self actualized in that role, right? You are getting a steady paycheck, you know, that, you know, I mean, we're in a very tough economic environment right now. But you can be relatively confident that you're going to be able to pay your mortgage next month and buy groceries and you have a certain role within that company. And in turn within your community, you have an identity, you can say this is this is what I am, this is what I do. Now, the fact that people so tightly coupled, what we do with our identities now is a whole different conversation. But that gives us this sense of stability in our lives, and to then intentionally switch away from that requires a lot of mental work, even if you're not happy in your job, you still have an identity that is tied to that job. And the fact that you're you and your families, you know, physical, social, emotional, dietary needs are all basically being met by that job. And so to sort of switch all of that inertia, over to something else is mentally a very, very difficult switch. Even if it's something that you have looked forward to your entire life, it might still be difficult. And I think sometimes people underestimate this, and they don't realize how much of a change it's going to mean, even if just from you know, working remote from their basement, but in a company of 500 people where they're on a team, and how much that gives them a sense of identity and purpose versus working from their basement by themselves alone. Even if they're still a software developer functionally, right, like there has been an identity shift there. And it can be really difficult to rebuild and sort of re self actualize. After a big transition like that,

Arvid Kahl 34:24
yeah. Identity conflation, is that sounds like like a problem. You know, where you overlap your your sense of who you are with your sense of what you do, and it becomes the same feels like entrepreneurs have that problem too, in a funny way, right? If you are a solopreneur if you are an indie hacker, you want to stay an indie hacker, and everything beyond that, which is like the whole term unemployable, like becoming unemployable. That seems to be almost a meme in the community, where I use it to like, I don't feel I want to be employable that you know, like, do I want somebody else to tell me you What I do, because I've now lived those many years as somebody who told himself what to do, and nobody could ever tell me, of course, customers tell you what to do all the time, right? Like their behavior, very much influences if not even decides what you do so that you don't have full control anyway. But you tell yourself that and your identity becomes this. I think there's barely any difference really, between having a job and be defining yourself as a software and enterprise software developer, or a solo entrepreneur, software developer? I think the kind of conflation is the same. How did you overcome that for yourself? Like when you started? The project took that then led to geocoder. Yeah, was it? Like, was it a side project that had happened kind of organically? Or how did it happen for you?

Michele Hansen 35:45
Yeah, so that's actually jumping back three and a half years to the start of it. So we initially got side projects going. Mostly just as a way to get extra money. You know, daycare, for example, in the US is really, really expensive. It's like $24,000 a year for infant care, it's more expensive than college and majority of states. And so, you know, we had a baby on the way and people told us it was expensive, but when you go around, and we actually found out how expensive it was. And so that kind of lit the fire under us to really start launching side projects. So we could just simply, you know, afford that or keep the same level of art life. And it was from that we launched our first app together. And then through the process of that app, which was making a couple 100 bucks a month in ad revenue, we realized we needed geocoding. For it, we couldn't use the major providers for a variety of reasons, because they wouldn't let us store the data. And their pricing wouldn't let us pay for more than the free tier at the time. And so we built our own very rudimentary geocoder and told some friends about it. And we're like, Oh, hey, I have the same problem. Like, why don't you just slap it like a paywall in front of us, and maybe other people will pay for the servers for it. And we're like, Oh, that would be awesome. And so when we launched it ours, our definition of a wild success was making $20 a month to pay for the two little Digital Ocean droplets we had.

Arvid Kahl 37:20
Started low, right, like set, really, really small goals, really,

Michele Hansen 37:23
I mean, that was that was it was was to have other people paid to host this, so we didn't have to pay for it. And then, you know, I'm skipping a lot here. But then it took three and a half years until we went full time. So it was really is really the low and slow barbecue method of building a business

Arvid Kahl 37:44
so that you that you work, like still full time in your day job until that point, wow, yeah, that's even more impressive.

Michele Hansen 37:51
I had full time jobs. So I was a product manager. My husband, Matias was a software engineer at a startup. So we both worked, you know, nine to five, and then some jobs, and found time for JUCO do on the weekends and at night. And what's so great about at that point is that when you work in a company, there is higher stakes to what you do, you know, like you can't just be like, hey, like this new JavaScript framework seems really cool. Let's use it, right? Because there's the like, you can't do that. Or like, oh, like, let's, you know, let's try out this new method of doing like onboarding, you've got to go and make a business case for that, right. And so we could just try stuff, and it didn't matter. And if we lost money that was on us. And that was liberating, especially when it wasn't our full time job that it was like, Yeah, let's just try this and see if it works like and so it was our little professional playgrounds, basically for improving our skills and getting to try new things. And you know, at that point, there wasn't too much sort of bureaucratic overhead. So it was just, it was fun. And I guess that gets back to enjoying the climb, right? Like we enjoyed the climb of it being a side project and getting to that point. Now. Not everybody has that luxury like, right, there's a lot of people who work two jobs and don't have the time or energy to have a side project going. Or they have other demands on their life or time that don't allow them to do that. Or they they need to go full time sooner or they see the opportunity to and quite frankly, I think that's what drives me to now invest in other indie style companies, I guess I will call them you know, through like tiny seed and calm fund because I never really considered our business a like an investable business sort of from it like a VC perspective, for a variety of reasons. But you know, thinking that I was like, you know, if I had, if I had had that option, I probably would have gone full time sooner, you know, through tiny seed or calm because you don't you don't, you don't have to go through three and a half years of it being a side project until you can get full time that that takes a toll on someone. Yeah, and I'm grateful there's other options now.

Arvid Kahl 40:21
Well, the the one of the one of the main benefits of Coleman tiny, I feel being also part of the conference is the mentorship network that comes with it. Because most people who built their, their businesses, they as a side project, too, they don't know, anything really made, they don't know, like how to how to scale some some part of your business enough, but not too much. Right? And not where to where to put your attention, what needs to come next and all that kind of stuff. Just even figuring out if you're in the right niche, or if you should expand somewhere or you know how to deal with certain problems that every entrepreneur has to deal with. But you have not yet all of this stuff can just eat up so much of your time and precious time to if it's a side project, if it's a moonlighting thing, right? If you do it from nine to 10, every night, it's the only time you can spend on your business, you better use that our use in a way that has impact on the business. And if you don't know what to do, everything is experimentation. That's a problem. So yeah, I very much agree with you on this. And I think this is also what the Twitter building, Publix entrepreneurial community does a lot of trying to help people figure out a path not necessarily how to walk it, but at least where to look for it is kind of what it is. That's That is interesting. I did not really know. I mean, I knew a couple things about the business that but three and a half years, that is a lot of time to run a side project. And what was what was the sign for you to make that switch? Was it? Was it an MRR? Or like a feeling or something? I wonder because for us, when when we did, we had a number, we knew that this monthly recurring revenue, I think it was somewhere around 15,000. It's funny, I knew we had a number, but I cannot recall the number. That's right. But we had something that said this is what we could pay ourselves now knowing the margins of the business. And it's better than what we had before from from where we were at, at this point, both me as a software engineer, and Danielle as an online teacher. So we knew our numbers, and we knew the business that does now it's time to go full time on it. How did that happen for you? What was the choice?

Michele Hansen 42:24
Ours was very different, we did not have a number. And I was actually afraid of being a full time entrepreneur, quite frankly, I didn't know if I was capable of it. And I, I felt like it was too risky. Like I liked you know, I mean, having a full time job has has pros and cons. But it is you know, by and large, you know, stable, right? And, supposedly, right? I mean, and that's that's part of the point, right? But you know, when I was a kid, my dad was a software consultant. And I remember, you know, that sometimes things were a little bit up and down, or our health insurance was terrible, which I mean, people who are not from the US, like you have such an advantage not having to worry about health insurance, like Oh, my God, like, it's hard to explain the level of stress that that puts on someone who wants to be an entrepreneur in the US like, it's just It's massive. And it's a huge financial hurdle. Right, because yeah, I mean, it's just, I'm losing, I'm losing this. Yeah, yes, this story is about how in the US there's no social safety net, because we started a business because of daycare, and then health insurance was a consideration going full time. Yeah. No, but um, so for me, you know, and also, you know, we have a family. And so I think thinking back to my own experiences with entrepreneurship as a kid, you know, having positive ones but also that sort of negative side of it. But also remembering, you know, my dad works in tech, and there's, there's layoffs every couple of years, regardless of how good of a job you do. If a company says 10 20% Cut, like, that's, that's it? Are they fold, right? So it was it got to a point where the business was actually really stable. And I felt like I could trust the revenue, which is weird and it kind of anthropomorphize is that is not the right word, because it's not an animal, but like, personifies it a little bit because I think for the first two years, I basically woke up every day and being like, oh, you know what, Google could change something in their pricing and when Amazon can enter this market, and we're wiped out, right, like, all the customers will leave, we're gone. This has been a nice ride. We've paid off my student loans. It was a it was a good, good run, but like if I literally Yes, this is is a very American perspective on this because we are traumatized financially Arvid

Arvid Kahl 45:07
initial thing that fita kinda did for us was also pay off the student loans, so I could, okay.

Michele Hansen 45:14
So, but I, we have pretty much woke up every day thinking this could just go away. And it really wasn't until that third year when I could see hey, actually, you know, there's people who've been paying us for two years now, like, they're paying us every month, and they're sticking around. And I think also, I started to learn about things about competitive advantage and moats and, and more about business and investing. And I started to see the potential in the business. But we're still still afraid of being an entrepreneur. Mateus had wanted to go full time for a long time, you know, his parents were also entrepreneurs. And so I was the one holding us back. But then I mean, it was a very personal decision. The company I was on where I was very happy, there was a big reorg. And it was unfavorable for my department. And I decided to leave. And actually when I quit, I started applying for jobs. And, and I didn't know whether I was gonna go full time on to Kodi or not, so I just did some interviews. And I remember sitting in an interview, and, you know, I had, you know, in my, in my resume, you know, with with customers, including, you know, the Red Cross, and like, blah, blah, blah, for for my side project. And I remember one of the developers on the team being like, so if you have this successful software business on the side, why are you applying for jobs? And it wasn't a critical question. It wasn't coming from a judgment or places to wonder, it's just confused. And I was like, I really hadn't thought about that. And, you know, a big thing for me was, am I being selfish by doing the thing that will make me happier, even if it is more unstable for my family. Because I looked at entrepreneurship as bad health insurance up and down revenue, like, like, it just felt unstable to me, and, but then one of my friends was like, you know, what, if you are happier, in your work, you will be a better spouse, and a better parent, and you will work to make it work, you will find a way to make it stable, you will find a way to make it work. And that really shifted things for me because Because yeah, I really, I really almost viewed it as a selfishness on my own part to consider being an entrepreneur. And. But that helped me but I mean, it took me months to years even to really identify as an entrepreneur and not feel, I guess kind of sheepish about it.

Arvid Kahl 48:00
Do you consider this a cultural thing like some something that was instilled in you at some point, or is more like a personality? issue? I wouldn't even call it that. But you know, where does it come from? I always wonder with these kinds of things, that the stories we tell ourselves, right, where do they come from? Certainly, we didn't make them up. They have to come from somewhere.

Michele Hansen 48:19
I think I'm a very financially cautious person in general, right. So given, you know, the experience I had growing up, but also, my first week of college was the financial crisis. And so everybody ran around talking about how their college funds were gone, when we can do it, like it was, you know, there was a lot of financial trauma going on. And I, you know, come from from a, you know, middle class background, right. So it's, I don't I don't know if that's cultural, or similarly, life experiences that versus you know, Matias, like, he grew up in Denmark, they never had to worry about health insurance, if you don't have a job, the government pays for it, they'll pay for your house, like, you know, there wasn't, you know, there wasn't that same level of sort of repeated financial trauma or the threat of instability. You know, they is family, you know, they weren't wealthy, but like, there was never that threat of instability, whereas it was, it was kind of always there. For me, and for a lot of other people I know, and I don't know if that's, you can say that's a cultural thing, or it's just a life experience thing that a lot of people share.

Arvid Kahl 49:31
Well, you Yeah, sounds like a generational trauma in some regard. Even right, like it feels like a social, like, Yeah, but because I'm from Germany, pretty much Denmark in many, many regards, right, when it comes to social security systems, and he's any kind of education up to the highest levels being paid for by the government and all these kinds of things like I've never wanted for anything in my life, really. Even when I had no money people even paid partially for my place to live. And that was that was all government that's why we have extremely high taxes, which we, by the way, notice when we sold our business. Yeah, I mean, that comes kind of with with being being a European, you have the systems that make you pay a lot in taxes, but you also get a lot when you don't have any money. It's a social equalizer in many ways. So I feel the same way. I never felt threatened. And it's interesting to hear. So thank you for for sharing this perspective, that you have this kind of undercurrent of fear of losing everything, kind of that's what it sounds like, you never know, am I going to be able to go to a hospital tomorrow? And that is a whole other thing, right? Like the horrendous medical prices like with insurance, it could mean like any any accident could mean a large financial back backlash that you would have to take credit for whatever weird thing you would need to do to deal with this. So would you say that every every, every US, US entrepreneur kind of carries this trauma with? Do you feel this is a common thing?

Michele Hansen 51:05
I don't think I can speak for everybody. But you know, there's everybody has their stories, probably of how, in some ways financial instability has driven their decision making. And I think it's important to see that the people's decisions make sense, from their own perspective from their own lived life experience. You know, for me, something I thought about was how, when I graduated from college, where you probably had support from the government for being unemployed as a recent graduate and housing and everything, I spent my life savings on my first month's rent, and I had $31 leftover for the entire month. I couldn't afford heat, like I could barely afford groceries, I biked everywhere, because I couldn't afford to take the subway. And I look at that, and I say, There's no way that I could subject my family to that. And I think that was for me something was, yes, I dealt with it, and I'm fine for it. But I could never say to my kids, sorry, like, you can't sign up for you know, the sport or whatever. Because I did the selfish thing and chose to be an entrepreneur. I don't think it's selfish to be an entrepreneur. But that is the that is the mean voice in my head speaking. And it took me a really long time to, I don't know, tell it somewhere in between tell it to shut up and prove to it that there was enough data, then I was like, because actually, at that point, when I went full time, Dakota was making four times my salary. Like, and I had been just, you know, crawling at a slow pace up in my salary. Right. And it was. Still, it was four times my salary. And I still didn't trust it. Because it was just what if this disappears? Overnight,

Arvid Kahl 52:56
that's pretty much it rings a bell, like with me, like we did with not for x. But with 2x, like, our business was doing twice, what we together would make in a month. And that's when we chose to say okay, like, if we if we now pay ourselves, that means that there's more money in the company, and the company itself is valuable, so we might be able to sell it. It was also the time, I think it's also a timing thing for many people, and particularly with self care businesses. Now that there's my co acquire and all these these kind of acquisition platforms around or even just the brokers that are out there, you can still get some kind of value out of a company just kind of winding down, right, somebody else might take it, somebody else might try to take a take a run at it and turn it into something else. So there's value in even a company that doesn't do well. But I completely understand this hesitation, because it is a big risky move to make. And particularly with a family to support and with a fear of what if it doesn't work, right? It makes makes a lot of sense to for this to stay a side project. That's something that I advocate to a lot of people who come from financial backgrounds of instability to in general, right, like if you if you don't know what you're going to be doing. And if it's going to be successful, don't waste your life savings on this six month runway of a dream that you have for our business and like the idea, you know, like the idea that you think is going to revolutionize whatever industry you're in? Probably won't, and you probably have to change it. And then you're gonna wonder, was it a good idea, was it not? If you're in this stage, you should definitely not commit all your funds to starting a business. No matter where you are. Even if there is a social net, it feels like a side project and moonlighting kind of community driven kind of, you know, look at what people actually suffer from what they actually need to be solved instead of going for your big idea. That kind of project seems to me in the long run to be the better way into building something valuable meaningful that can actually sustain a life. And I see this with you and what you do like your that what you share about your businesses while you're now dealing with problems that are by far not as foundational, at least that's what it seems like, as they probably were like two or three years ago, you were talking about sales tax websites and that kind of stuff. I've been following your podcast, of course, and you're talking about your certification and these things that is like, that is when you already have momentum, you get to deal with these problems, right? They get to be annoying when the foundations are stable. How do you feel about that? I guess it's still annoying. Yeah. Are you still working on these things? How's it going with that?

Michele Hansen 55:33
No, I mean, I feel like the foundations are stable. And I think that's what gave us, you know, really the confidence to go full time, both of us and, and realizing actually, they had been stable for a while, at that point. And I Yeah, you know, to what we were talking about the journey, right, the problems I'm dealing with now, you know, sales taxes, sock to compliance, figuring out how to be a good manager, these are very, very different problems that are almost luxury problems compared to the kinds of problems that we had in 2014 2015 2017. The, the business itself, you know, not just sort of the company, but how we make money, how we provide value to other people, how they pay us for that, how we acquire new customers. All of those things have been sorted out at this point. And so now, if we think about, you know, the business as something that is going up that Maslow's triangle of self actualization, right, like, we have solved that base level of what is it that we do, where does this live? You know, and then where does this fit in the market and whatnot. And, you know, we're, we're always sort of continually climbing and improving. But yes, it's an entirely different set of problems and challenges that we face right now than we did eight and a half years ago. And I think we're, we're continually surprised that we continue to enjoy those those new challenges that come up, and that we're not bored of it. As he and I were talking about this a couple months ago. And it was like, he's like, yeah, like, I'm just surprised like that. I'm still excited to work on the same codebase I've been working in for eight and a half years. And, you know, sure, sometimes you look at it, and you're like, God, what idiot wrote that? And it was, you know, him six years ago, right? Or, like, I did something, you know, and it's like, you know, but I guess I get satisfaction out of being like, man, like, me five years ago, was such an idiot, or had me two weeks ago, right? I, I get satisfaction out of that. I like to see that I have grown and become smarter or wiser or savvier and running the business. And I guess that's probably important to being able to do this long term or really enjoy anything is kind of not just laughing at yourself, but also being able to recognize your own growth.

Arvid Kahl 58:20
Yeah, I think so. Like that's, that's a big part of entrepreneurship is like loving to learn, and loving to look back at the mistakes you made. And laughing about that, and understanding that you've grown like from that point to today in incredible waste that you would never thought possible. And I'm, I think you do this a lot. Because you're not only do you look at these things, but then you actively publicly talk about your learnings, and you share them with people, you essentially you teach. And that's maybe one the last thing I would like to talk to you about, because it's been something that connects me a lot with you at being a fellow writer, you know, is the book that you've written on the things that you've learned from, from all the many, many hundreds of 1000s of conversations, I guess, that you had with people in like sourcing information and figuring out stuff like deploy empathy, a book that I have two copies of one of which is signed, and I'm super happy about that, because it's really nice. So, you know, like, your book has been inspirational to me and probably a lot of other people in approaching people in an empathetic and a kind and in an understanding way, and I feel that is just such a great thing for you to have done being a founder that had success that had learned how to do something, right. And then sharing it with the community at large for the low low price. And you know, again, it's it's just a really, really cool thing that I've seen you do is give back. The book itself didn't happen as a book initially, right? Like how did that whole thing start? Because I I always love the story of things that just emerge and it's definitely emergent project. So tell me more about that.

Michele Hansen 59:57
Yeah, so you know, as I mentioned, I'm Did you know after I went full time and kind of started to get to know other indie founders, discovering that this whole world was even out there really, you know, eventually started investing in other companies and started helping other people with their product strategy and understanding customers and realizing that I didn't have one place, I could send people that was sort of a soup to nuts guide to customer research that was approachable by an indie founder, right. So there's a lot of great books from a UX and a product perspective. But they're usually written for much bigger companies, or people who come from product and UX backgrounds. They're not really written for software developers who are starting their own company. And then there's also the Mom Test, which I think is great, but it focuses on the discovery phase. And it's like, okay, well, what if people are trying to figure out why they have churn or which features they should build next, or why people keep paying them. So they can find out how to shift their marketing to attract more people like them, so they have more people who will happily pay them for a long time. And so I didn't have one place, I could send people. And so I was like, maybe I should write a book. But this was in the middle of lockdown. And I remembered what anyone who I've ever talked to who wrote a book, maybe except you said that writing a book is a lonely process. And this was locked down in the middle of Scandinavian winter. And I was like, Man, I do not need any more loneliness in my life right now. I should not write a book. And then I thought about it. And I was like, You know what, this newsletter thing, this is interesting, I've heard about this, like, maybe I'll just start writing it out. Like, I can write an email, the idea of writing a book scares me. I don't like quite frankly, I was afraid of that, right. But I write so many emails every day, I can write an email, right? Like, I can do that. And so then it just started out as the newsletter, and it was like, you know it, and if it turns into a book, people want that great, if it's just a newsletter, and then when other founders have these questions, I can just send them to the newsletter archive, even better. And so I did start out with with low expectations. And I think if I had set out saying, I am going to write a book that's going to sell over 2000 copies and be number one on Product Hunt, I never would have started yet, because of the fact that I was like, I'm just gonna write this, and maybe a couple of my founder friends will find this useful. And then maybe I can send people to it later, with very, very low expectations, but enjoying the process of doing it, I eventually got to that point where it's sold over 2000 copies, and was number one on Product Hunt. And you know, all of that. But going into it with low expectations, not having that sort of the goal was not some external metric that other people decided it was my own goal of having a place to send people, which was really not a lofty goal. And I think that was key to how I did it.

Arvid Kahl 1:02:59
Well, I'm really thankful you did choose these to have these low expectations, because I think that's a common theme and how you approach stuff, like low expectations allow you to surprise yourself, which is, you know, always nice, it's always a positive surprise, never a disappointing one. And enjoying the process more than the result leads to a better result. It's just like, with everything you do, right? If you if you like what you're doing, whatever you do becomes a better thing. If you if you're a painter, and you don't have the final image in mind, but you'd like to exploring writers do the same like in fiction does. This outline writers and those discovery writers and outline writers write the whole story in outline form, before they started writing a single piece of prose, and then this discovery writer, so just write okay, I guess this is my character. Let's see what she does. And that that leads to a story. And many of the greatest stories have been written in this discovery form. But people just let let themselves enjoy the moment of writing the moment of creation. And I see this in what you do. And I want to bring this to a close. So I just want to say thank you for writing a great book, sharing what you know, on Twitter all the time, sharing what you don't know on Twitter all the time as well sharing what you do on Twitter all the time, having the podcast going, your podcasts, your appearances, all these things. You're just a great person to follow to be around and to talk to, obviously. So thank you so much, also for having a chat with me today. Maybe as a final question, Where can people find you? And where do you want people to find you the most?

Michele Hansen 1:04:31
You are very kind Arvid It really means a lot to me. People can find me on Twitter where I quite frankly, probably spend too much time. Not alone. But it's fun to hang out with people, isn't it? Like I mean, I just love I log on and they're like, oh, I can talk to people in Japan and Australia and sitting next to me at my desk as well like anyway, um, yes at M JW. Hanson on Twitter. And from there, you'll find links to other stuff, my book and whatnot. But Twitter is kind of my home base on the internet.

Arvid Kahl 1:05:08
Yeah, mind you, I spent way too much time there too much time there as well. And it's, it's absolutely worth it, at least for for what I do. I mean, some people might probably call it a waste of time in their profession, but I, I think for for being in a community and engaging with people all the time learning stuff like teaching stuff, learning stuff, all of that what is the perfect platform? So if you're an entrepreneur, and you're not on Twitter, you should be you should follow Michelle there as well. So thank you so much for being on today. That was wonderful. So thank you so much.

Michele Hansen 1:05:38
Thank you for having me.

Arvid Kahl 1:05:39
And that's it for today. Thank you for listening to the boots have fun a podcast. You can find me on Twitter at Arvid Kahl ARV at K hl. And you'll find my books here too sold and the embedded entrepreneur and my Twitter course find your following there as well. If you want to support this podcast, and me, please go to rate this podcast.com/founder And leave a rating and review. If you can find the time. It would be an amazing and very helpful gesture. Thank you so much for listening, and have a wonderful day.

Bye bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai