30: Dmytro and Dago wonder if his product is too small
Dagobert: [00:00:00] Oh man, good to see you.
Dmytro: I'm happy to see you too, finally. After how many, two years?
Dagobert: Yeah, I think it's been two years.
Dmytro: You were building Logology.
Dagobert: Yeah, that was some time ago then. Yeah. Yeah. so what are you up to, man?
Dagobert: what is the thing that is keeping you busy right now? What is These
Dmytro: days?okay. I'm just focused on one product. It's a MyScreenshot API and, um, It's partially, you know, it's partially my jail, my prison today, uh, because I had some small success with it. Yes, I have MRR, it's growing and it's, so I am focused only on it and that's it.
Dmytro: So nothing more.
[00:00:44] Building a screenshot API
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Dagobert: So it's a screenshot API, so can you tell us a bit more about it so we have some context?
Dmytro: yes, you give me an URL, yes, and I just give you, and I just give you a screenshot of the website. And, uh, my main, um, Users, [00:01:00] customers are developers who need to, you know, who don't want to spend their time in building all this stuff.
Dmytro: they just go with my solution and,and do. So they have more time to build their core features and focus on their business. Yes. For example, marketing agencies. They can build a screenshot API. Yes. They can invest in that, service some time.
Dmytro: Yeah. Yes. But they just go with me and hire me for 5. 10 per month and that's it.
Dagobert: So it's basically just like taking screenshots. what's the use case? That was the most common use case.
Dmytro: A lot of use cases. When I first built it, I didn't expect that, so many use cases, you can see people using it.
Dmytro: For example, okay. Obvious use cases. For example, any directory with websites, yes. Landing page directory, you will use screenshot API. It's simple. Yes. But then you will have people using it for example, for cold email outreach. They generate, [00:02:00] some videos of the website, their prospect of their lead.
Dmytro: They make it engaging and they send the GIF, GIF animation and, Or for example, I have a company who uses my API for screenshotting webpages that have copyright violations. And then they automatically send notices to the site owners, uh, that, you know, if they don't remove the copyrighted information, they will, you know, Send, uh, I don't know,
Dagobert: DMCA
Dagobert: take down request and shit.
Dmytro: Yes. Yes. And then I have use cases like, some fun use cases, people now using it for like, uh, uh, analyzing webpages, landing pages, GPT, GPT vision. Yes.
Dagobert: Oh yeah.
Dmytro: Also, interesting, something interesting.
Dagobert: So they're
Dagobert: connecting it to chat GPT, like they're using the API in their, Workflow.
Dmytro: Yes. Yes. So many cases. Yeah.
[00:02:53] Building a product that matches his strengths
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Dagobert: I would expect something like this. Yes. Yes. Already existed. So I'm curious to know like how you think [00:03:00] you managed to make it stand out and get customers for that.
Dmytro: Oh, it's a good question. It's a good question. Actually, when I had this idea, I didn't check first. It was like, I had this idea.
Dmytro: I decided to buy domain and okay, I will build it. Yes. But then I checked.
Dagobert: That's good that you built it after buying the domain. Because usually we stop there. Usually we stop at like buying the domain. So that's like pretty good stuff. Okay.
Dmytro: It was and then it's not that I built it. Yes. But I started to build it.
Dmytro: Yes. So it's,
Dagobert: yeah.
Dmytro: And I saw, then I started to Google and I saw really so many solutions, like 30 or 40 of them, I don't know, 50, but I decided, it's, it was maybe too late. It was like one month,
Dagobert: Yeah. You already
Dagobert: started.
Dmytro: Yes. And I thought, wow, it's too late. It's too late to quit.
Dmytro: And even if I quit, I didn't have. let's say better idea, because before that, when I just came to Twitter, I tried to build some Twitter analytics tool, everybody was building that, you know, this, uh, [00:04:00] this epoch of Twitter tools, but, but it didn't work for me because it wasn't, it was, everybody's building it, I tried to build it and it didn't work for me, but I was a back end developer, I built APIs, I, it's my, I, I did it for 10 years.
Dmytro: Yes. So it's, I felt very professional in this area. I just said, okay, let's do API because it doesn't require for me UX UI. It just, it should be super simple for me from technicals, from the technical side.
[00:04:26] Don't stop because of competitors
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Dagobert: I think that's
Dagobert: awesome that you didn't stop because there was competitors. Cause I think a lot of people like think, Oh, I have this idea.
Dagobert: Oh, but it already exists and so they quit and they don't even do it and that's like an excuse. Yes. It doesn't really matter, right?
Dmytro: It's really good that I had competitors because if I didn't have them, I don't know if it was like validated or not, it was, it might, it could have taken a lot of time, much more time.
Dagobert: And why do you think people go with your solution instead of others?
Dmytro: It's a good question. It's a good question. I think,
Dmytro: I think a few reasons, like I'm [00:05:00] talking a lot to my customers and some came for me from my competitors, which was like for me, one of the most,one of the huge achievements and I think quality would be an important, reason why people choose me. Performance quality, all this stuff.
Dmytro: Yes. And also I think I'm patient enough about this kind of thing. I'm focused. That's right. Yes.
Dagobert: It may be something that is pretty, you're very focused on just doing that. And maybe competitors are like doing so many things that it's confusing to customers, but you're just focusing on this simple thing.
Dmytro: I actually talked to some of my competitors and I really have. Only one really strong competitor who is also focused on doing the same. I really love them and we chatted a lot and I think they're, we are two the best, we are the best solutions in the next years, but other competitors, they, they don't improve their, uh, their APIs.
Dmytro: They don't improve their sites. They don't, [00:06:00] uh, add new features. Don't. So it's like, These products are stagnating. Yes.
[00:06:05] Building a product in a small niche
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Dagobert: Yeah, it's such a kind of like tiny product and they just did a very simple solution and then forget about it. And maybe it can't make so much money. So they don't invest in it.
Dagobert: Yes. You're alone and you're passionate. So you can do something very cool, even though it's still pretty small, but like it's for you, it's big enough. Cause like you're alone. yes. And so you can make something that stands out. That's really high quality. Even if it's a very small product.
Dmytro: yes, exactly, because for example, let's talk about, chatbots, support chats. Yes, it's really competitive niche. You need, it's not only every indie builds it. Yes, you have thousands of solutions in this market. Yes, it's really hard to compete and, if you build and for example, if I was in this niche of, let's say support chatbots and if I even innovated, build something new, really cool stuff, any of my competitors with a lot of money, developers, resources could just copy this stuff and, beat me on this feature.
Dmytro: [00:07:00] But in my niche, it's, I didn't know that when I started, yes, it's but in my niche, I'm. I am lucky in some sense because nobody is interested in building screenshot API like
Dagobert: because it's like
Dagobert: too small maybe. Like the niche is, it's like it's big enough to, for you to be successful as an indie.
Dagobert: yes. But it's too small for like big competitors to Yes. Jump in and try to really, yes. Yes. That's interesting.
Dmytro: I see that I can, for example, I see now that I can grow it to 10 KMRR. Now I'm at 500, 5,000 and, 600. Yes. Close to 6, 000 MRR. And, I see that I can grow it to 10K, maybe 20K.
Dmytro: Yes. But. It's, it is I'm in the first position of Google now for Screenshot API keyword. I try to dominate, I like your course name. Yes. I try to dominate every marketing channel that they see for, if I'm on Twitter, yes, I try to attract attention about this API to promote it. Yes. If I'm on [00:08:00] LinkedIn or for example, I don't know, IndieHackers, Reddit, Zapier, for example, it's, it's very interesting that if you, um, Zapier, uh, and, uh, similar non code, uh, tools, they bring to your customers, you know, if you have an integration with them, just, uh, they, so I also try to do in it here and, and SEO, and also paid ads, you know, so everything that's right, everything, and, uh, And I see, I see, so there is not so many customers who, like, I have maybe 30, 40 customers per month, something like that.
Dmytro: And, uh, it's not a lot, you know, it's like with my current,
Dmytro: so if I just project, all my current numbers.maybe till the end of the year, I can reach 10k, maybe after two, three years, it will be 20k. So it's, I don't see,
Dagobert: you can see the ceiling and like that this market, but man, if you're alone, having fun and just making 15k yourself on autopilot.
Dagobert: mostly that's [00:09:00] pretty awesome. I love this. I love this. I
[00:09:02] Positioning changed everything
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Dmytro: I see it. People think I do. I'm building a screenshot API. Yes. What I actually do, it's like my, it's my training platform for business. Yes. Like I am building it.
Dmytro: I try to. To make sure I will have enough money to survive later. Yes. And then I can try to build maybe something in the more competitive niche with all my skills, everything I know about marketing, positioning, all that stuff. Yes. You know,
Dagobert: So that's interesting. you're saying that cause I was really impressed with what I saw you did, like maybe a few months ago when you really worked on like changing your positioning of your landing page.
Dagobert: I was so proud of you, because you're a dev, and usually devs, they don't do positioning, and I saw that, and I was like, yes, he's doing positioning, because, positioning is everything.
Dagobert: You can just do everything with that. So that was so awesome to see you do that, like really do copywriting and tell a different story and focus on like a specific need of people and not try to speak to everyone. So can you tell us about this? Yes. I'm [00:10:00] very curious. Thank you.
Dmytro: Thank you. Thank you.
Dmytro: it's really was, it didn't happen, you know, like in one day, but it was, um, it took me maybe a few months to get, to get to this idea of positioning. I was trying to reading books. I was reading a lot of articles. I, I, I really recommend if somebody doesn't know yet, yes. Jason Cohen. Uh, Smart Bear, uh, on Twitter, uh, here it's a lot about, uh, marketing and positioning calls.
Dmytro: Yes. Customers. And, I also read some books. Yes.
Dagobert: but yeah, I would also recommend people read like the book from April Dunford, "Obviously awesome". Yes. I read this book like five times. if you guys want to start with positioning, like these two things probably going to get you covered. That's fascinating.
Dagobert: the examples she gives and shit.
Dmytro: Yes, I think yes. I also done listen to her podcast. It was very valuable for me, but it was, but you know, it didn't click because I knew about this idea a long time before. It was like maybe one year before [00:11:00] that I heard about that positioning, marketing. Okay, okay, okay.
Dmytro: But then I started to hit really, it was Some kind of ceiling, you know, my churn and my new customers, and, like I said, Yeah, new customers
Dagobert: were cancelling the churn, but you weren't growing, you were kind of stuck.
Dmytro: yes, it was like, I felt that, okay, it's maybe it's, it wasn't like 0 percent growth monthly, yes, but it was like, I don't know, 5, maybe 10%, something like that.
Dmytro: so I felt that I'm, That my growth is slowing. And also I felt, okay, I'm tired. I want to make money. I am in this project for one year and a half. Yes, it was. I'm thinking, okay, what I can do. Yes. So, and I was searching, searching and that then when positioning came in, because, because it was, it was super simple.
Dmytro: It was, the answer was so obvious. So I've had 120 customers. Yes.
Dagobert: Yeah.
Dmytro: The ideas was so simple. It's like. I feel like I'm an [00:12:00] idiot that I didn't understand it later, but idea was, I'm just analyzing them, clustering them in groups and try to understand, okay, who are my best customers who get the most value from my product, who don't care about, okay, they care about prices, yes, but for them, my product is not, let's say, super expensive, so they can pay me.
Dmytro: And, uh, who, who enjoy, uh, to work with me, who I enjoy work with, with them, yes? Yes,
Dagobert: you're really perfect customers, like the, the best ones. Yes, yes, yes. The ten best ones or something, yes.
Dmytro: It sounds, it now sounds so obvious, like it's, it's, it's dumb to not, uh, think that way, yes? But, but But I realized that, so I analyzed this, uh, customers and it, and it turned out that these customers weren't Indies, for example, because Indie hackers, I really love them.
Dmytro: And they give great feedback. They love my product too, but often they, they came to me. They don't buy, uh, higher plans. They build new projects every once. So they just [00:13:00] churn. Yes. And, uh, we can't be, we can't build a long relationship, long lasting relationships. Yes. But I had found, you know, some subsets. Of companies, let's say size, maybe from 10 to 20 employees.
Dmytro: Yes. They have, for example, two, three developers, they need to automate screenshotting. For example, as I said, yes. Marketing agency. Yes.
Dagobert: Okay.
Dmytro: but since they have only two developers, yes. And their core business is marketing for them, building a solution like screenshot API from scratch,it's really expensive because it takes.
Dmytro: since I know now from my experience, yes, it can take one month to do it right.
Dagobert: And then you have to maintain it, you have to maintain it, update it.
Dmytro: Yes. Yes. Imagine being a developer.
Dmytro: I don't know. For example. 3, 000 per month to just build this service first and then to maintain it and then fix a box in it and so on.
Dagobert: So these small agencies, like medium sized agencies, so you [00:14:00] figured out they were like your best customers. They loved it. They were, they're buying the highest plans.
Dmytro: Yes.
Dmytro: Yes. So what did you
Dagobert: do?
Dmytro: Yes. but, so it's when it gets complex because it's not that, for example, CEO of this agency searching for screenshot API. No. I realized that I saw like my flow, how people. signing, how people are signing up and how they use my app. So it was for most of the cases, it was for this customers, this type of customers.
Dmytro: It was like developers sign up. Then they try to use my API. Then they invite their manager, billing somebody who can use the credit card. Yes. And then they start using my API and so on. So it was, so I can just, I can just position for this marketing I need to position eventually for developers because the
Dagobert: developers will be the, I think we call it like the champions of your solution.
Dagobert: They will champion the solution in their [00:15:00] company. Yeah. It's never going to be the manager looking for it. It's always going to be the developer who needs it.
Dmytro: One person. So it's. Yes. Yes. So I need to build trust with developers. I need to speak to them. And also maybe when I don't know, maybe their manager or somebody who sign ups to my site and so on, they need probably to trust them.
Dmytro: They need to see that. I don't know. Maybe my site is trustable. Yes. It's also an interesting topic because,We're optimizing a lot of stuff on landing page, but I don't know if you really know what works. Yes. and then I decided, okay, if my customers are developers, I can just stop.
Dmytro: For example, promoting my solution for indie hackers for, I don't know, marketers know what I had. For example, um, I had in my mind, you know, like some kind of, uh, People, marketers who use no-code tools. Yes. And I also promoted for them. I just said, no, no, no. I also chatted with Andrea Bosoni, uh, the marketer and, uh, he eventually he [00:16:00] advised me, you know, you don't know if it works or not.
Dmytro: You just try it for three months. if it works. Okay, let's go. So I decided, okay. I positioned for developers. All my language. So
Dagobert: you stopped chasing. other people and just really focused on developers.
[00:16:12] Building a brand to resonate with developers
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Dmytro: Yes, yes, yes.
Dmytro: since developers know that I am the founder of the thing, yes, I want to be positioned also as, as an experienced developer.
Dmytro: I want developers to trust me, yes, so I need to build some kind of brand around, development, software engineering. so what I started to do for that, I completely rebuilt my landing page. I wrote a lot more about, technical stuff, something that will resonate with developers more.
Dagobert: Oh, interesting.
Dagobert: Yeah.
Dmytro: more code examples. Yes. then I decided to, okay. In my blog, I decided to write about technical stuff also to build trust with developers, yes.
Dagobert: Yeah. To show that you are thinking like an engineer and you're very deep. and that's really interesting. You say that.
Dagobert: Cause I, usually when we do a landing page. We try to make it as simple and accessible as possible. Yes. But [00:17:00] since you figured out you were targeting developers to build trust with them, you were like, I'm going to get technical. That's very interesting insight.
Dmytro: and then on Twitter also on my blog on, on onboarding. So that when developer came to my solution, they feel, okay, that's what they want. Yes. So something like that.
[00:17:18] Being afraid to make big changes and losing revenue
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Dmytro: how did it feel for you when you started making that change? Because I remember you were, I think you were pretty scared.
Dmytro: you're deciding to stop talking to a bunch of people because you're focusing on one person.
Dmytro: so it's, um, It's one of the challenges of this journey of entrepreneurship. You know, it's every time you grow to some point, you feel that, okay, like it's pretty scary to change things because you know, okay, now I have some kind of MRR.
Dmytro: It was 4, 000. It was 4, 000 K MRR, 4,000MRR. 4K. Yeah. Okay. 4K. 4,000K it's in the next episode.
Dagobert: Yeah.
Dmytro: it was 4K MRR and it was like, okay, I have some win. it's very good, it's going [00:18:00] well, and if I change that, I might lose everything, yes, so it was like a leap of faith, I think, because, what can be the worst, what can be the worst outcome, yes, it's, it doesn't work.
Dmytro: And I will just rebuild it again, I will try to rebuild it again, but if it works, I might grow faster. Yes, and, uh, maybe two things that helped me, it was Andrea Bosoni, uh, recommendation, just try it for three months and see if it works. Yes.
Dagobert: Yeah.
Dmytro: And also I read one interesting article from Jason Cohen.
Dmytro: It has a lot of details and explanation, but actually what you said, yes, thatno matter how, how hard you try to niche down, you anyway, anyway, people who are in the close niches, the people, let's say, not your target profile, but close to it, they will also can use your product.
Dagobert: I noticed the same.
Dagobert: Yeah.
Dmytro: Yes. Yeah. So it's like for me, it was okay. maybe then I can, maybe I can, figure out that later, [00:19:00] so I changed that.
Dagobert: Okay, so you tried, so you gave it a try. And so what happened?
[00:19:04] Writing for a single person at a time
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Dmytro: so what I saw, I saw a lot of positive, like a lot of people just telling me that they love my product. it's so good. it's built for them. And I see signups now from, But it was like 20 customers per month. now it's 30. Yes. but, like all the numbers are improving and, okay.
Dmytro: So you
Dagobert: started seeing an improvement after one month or something you started seeing?
Dmytro: Yes. Yes. it's really hard to tell. Yes. Yes. one problem here, one problem here that, it's a lot of things. I'm changing a lot of things, a lot of stuff. Yes. I'm not 100 percent sure that only this thing helped me.
Dmytro: I want to say that even if it didn't work or even if it doesn't work and I don't know it, yes, for example, some, another factor, uh, improves my growth. Yes. Anyway, I have so much clarity now, so much easier for me to write. I know what to write. I know how to market it.
Dmytro: Yeah, it's
Dagobert: exactly. I think like once, once you found who you're [00:20:00] talking to, So like you need to do like the positioning exercise, using the resources we talked about earlier to like figure this out. But once you figure out who your best customer is. it makes your life so much easier because you stop hesitating and that's like such a relief and you can get so much more done because you're like, it's easy to prioritize features, you know, like if you're targeting marketing agencies, maybe you're going to try to build something like more like a WYSIWYG or like a non developer way of doing screenshots.
Dagobert: if you're focusing on developers, no, I'm just going to do it for developers. And you don't have to worry about this. Just an example. And then when you write your content, the type of blog posts you write, the tweets you make, everything you do, you think of developer first. And or whatever customer you're targeting.
Dagobert: And that makes things, for example, my Twitter course, I was very niche. I was like, this is to help you get awareness for your personal brand and then grow sales of your startup. That's like very precise, but you know, this helped [00:21:00] me be very clear, have a lot of credibility. And then because I was myself a startup founder and done it.
Dagobert: And then all the people like still thought, Oh, this looks awesome. Even though they are not building startups.
Dagobert: And once you know who you're talking to and your positioning, you can like, Kind of like breathe again. And you're like, okay, I know what to do. Now, all of these decisions are kind of like easy to make,
Dagobert: yeah.
Dagobert: Like once you know who you're talking to now that you know, I'm targeting developers, well, you know, where to go, you know, where to find them, you know?
Dagobert: Yes. maybe
Dagobert: you're going to go like reply to things on stack overflow. Maybe you're going to go on Reddit. Maybe you're going to go to specific places where they hang out.
Dagobert: So that's like way easier to make these decisions.
[00:21:43] Picking marketing channels that your customeers actually use
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Dmytro: Also, you're not going to go
Dagobert: on Tik TOK.
Dmytro: Yes, exactly. I don't want to go. Some people say to me, Oh, go to do some cold email outreach, for example. Yes. But I think, okay, you know, I will call the outreach developers.
Dagobert: Developers hate it. Developers hate that. We, we [00:22:00] hate this shit.
Dagobert: We don't want that. Yes. Yes. Fuck your marketing. If you're targeting marketers, they will be, accepting and be like, yeah, nice cold email. And they might be interested. You send that to a developer. He's going to mark you as spam. He's gonna Yes. DDoS your website. He's gonna try to kill you, man.
Dagobert: Don't do this. but
Dmytro: it's really hard to explain because my, my good friends, really good friends that try to recommend me to do that, but I know from my positioning, like I know that we can developers, GitHub, Reddit, maybe some indie hackers, Twitter and Google. Okay. That's it for me. You know that.
Dmytro: I love it. YouTube, also YouTube, yes, but I didn't try it yet.
Dagobert: Yeah.
Dmytro: It just feels like a lot of time to invest in that. Maybe I will hire somebody to translate my post into video or something like that, yes. But, so what I wanted to say that, uh, It's, it's really, it becomes 100 percent easier to do everything in the product and it's, it sounds funny, but yes, positioning is everything.
Dmytro: It's how you speak. It's your pricing calls. So [00:23:00] it's your onboarding process. It's your product features.
[00:23:03] Becoming bored with what he post on social media
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Dagobert: it's interesting, you talked about, you're talking about marketing channels, and I saw that you were taking a Twitter break or something, and now you're like on LinkedIn.
Dagobert: which is actually weird with what you just said, because developers, they don't like LinkedIn. I'm actually curious about this.
Dmytro: It's, don't take it seriously, because like on Twitter, I felt, I was writing daily on Twitter, posting daily, and I felt, like my writing became a little bit boring.
Dmytro: I don't like it myself. If I don't like it myself.
Dagobert: I know. Yeah. It happened. It happened to me after a while. Like I was bored with my shit and that's not a good feeling. Yeah. when you feel like you're repeating yourself, like, you know, it doesn't feel good.
Dmytro: I think it's much better to just. To just stop, because people feel it, you know.
Dmytro: People feel everything. Especially on Twitter, people are so smart. They feel everything, they know everything, they understand everything. You can only be honest, you [00:24:00] know. You can't trick people, you can't lie and so on. So, I felt that, I also felt a little bit tired, I was building this, Product screenshot one, my, my API.
Dmytro: Yes. And I felt,
Dagobert: I
Dmytro: need to make this 5k MRR.it was beginning of the March. It was, 4, 300.
Dagobert: Yeah.
Dmytro: And I was thinking, okay, I need to focus. I need to do something. I need to, because Twitter also consumes a lot of time. So I take a break. So I took a break from Twitter, but this habit of writing, you know,it's really hard to break for me.
Dmytro: So I continue to write daily, but then I realized, okay, I want some feedback. I want some help, you know, if, if I write something good or not something. So I decided I will post it on LinkedIn.
Dagobert: Nice.
Dmytro: So it's not, so on LinkedIn, I am not For developers, I think, but maybe I will try to, I will try to write a little bit of technical stuff [00:25:00] and see if I can, you know, maybe target this audience, but I'm not sure the developers really use it.
Dmytro: And actually,
Dagobert: maybe for developers, maybe you could try Mastodon or Threads, but especially Mastodon, maybe it works for developers.
Dmytro: Let me write it down. yes, Mastodon.
Dagobert: That could be a good one.
Dmytro: It's a good idea. It's a good idea.
Dagobert: Yeah.
Dmytro: I don't know. Okay. so yes, it was just likejust
Dagobert: it was for yourself.
Dagobert: It was for yourself. You wanted to keep writing. And so you had, you didn't want to go back on Twitter because it's distracting.
Dagobert: okay. So do you plan on coming back? Cause I miss you.
Dmytro: Twitter or LinkedIn?
Dagobert: Twitter. I don't give a shit about LinkedIn.
Dmytro: Yeah. The Twitter, I, I thank you. Yes. I returned to Twitter because my goal was, you know, I returned to Twitter when I got to 5k and suddenly it was I was forced to do everything to get to this 5k, so I decided to raise prices, I did a lot of stuff and so on, and eventually I get to 5k, [00:26:00] so I return to Twitter now, but I try to, I try not to post daily,
Dagobert: I
Dmytro: write daily, but I don't want to post everything, and I try to engage probably more with people.
Dmytro: to help them and so on, it's,
Dagobert: that's a good strategy. Like just replying to people is already awesome. Like it can be great to just connect and you don't have to just tweet and think of like an interesting thing to say. You can just like connect with people daily. That's already a very good thing to do.
Dagobert: Yeah.
Dmytro: it's I want to have some kind of. You're super experienced in that, but you're the only one person on Twitter that I know who answers and replies to every reply, it's really, if some, I had maybe three viral tweets in, in the past week, and. It just exhausted me, you know, it's like, so many people reply.
[00:26:51] replying to everyone on twitter and burning out
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Dagobert: to be honest, I don't recommend it because that's part of the reason I burnt out is I eventually felt obligated to do it because at first I was doing it [00:27:00] genuinely, but then even when I had thousands, I think the max I got on one tweet were like more than a thousand replies. It's like a lot of replies and that's like, and trying to be nice to everyone.
Dagobert: And like, this, this was, it was really killing me.Like I feel so grateful when everybody, when anybody gives a shit about what I'm doing. Like I really feel it. And so I'm like, I want to be nice, but then eventually I had to accept, like, Okay.
Dagobert: I gotta take care of myself. And so, and, and so the funny thing is that actually people don't mind. They told you, they don't expect a reply when they see there's a hundred. they don't even expect it. They appreciate it, but they're not mad if you don't reply to
Dmytro: them, they get
Dagobert: it.
Dagobert: Yeah.
Dmytro: I tried recently something like for the past week and now I write a post. something that's really in my head now that concerns me. Yes. Like I want to speak with people, people reply and I don't post on the next day, something new.
Dmytro: I just reply, reply, reply to every.
Dagobert: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. [00:28:00] Yeah. Yeah. The next couple of days you can just reply. Yeah.
Dmytro: Yes. Yes. Yes. And it seems for me such a balanced approach to this kind of engagement. So it will probably, it will probably be like maybe two posts per week. Yes. But I will really engage with people.
[00:28:18] Healthier social media algorithms
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Dagobert: And actually the
Dagobert: new Twitter algorithm is, is cool with that. You don't need to do it every day as, as you used to, because like, it's really focused on like, is this tweet interesting?
Dagobert: No matter the context. Like, so, uh, it's as long as you're a bit active and engaging with a few people, like, weekly and just like being active on the platform when you tweet something you don't have to tweet every day i mean so yeah i think i think it's healthier actually the new algorithm is healthier
Dmytro: people say that you know people said that in deposit um if you take a break then your engagement sucks i took a break and the next i i wasn't on twitter for two weeks And the first port port that I wrote was like something like, I don't know, 300, [00:29:00] uh, likes, uh, one, I don't know, one I had a similar thing.
Dagobert: it's, yeah, taking breaks isn't as bad as it used to be, yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Dmytro: It's, uh, I feel, I like this kind of algorithm because it allows me to be more it's like more about relationships about variable style than about, you know, uh, being on the feed of the people. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It
Dagobert: feels way better.
Dagobert: Like we can take it easier. Actually. It's more brutal though. Like most tweets are going to get very shit engagement now, and sometimes you're going to get huge. And it used to be like, you could have like. a better average engagement on every tweet, more like if evenly spread out. And now you can have very, very low performing tweets and then very big one, but it's actually better because it's like, if it's not interesting, like if people are interested, you can just like forget about it and it's okay.
Dagobert: and it's the same on other social platforms.
Dagobert: It seems, now, like I know that threads, cause I really like threads. I started using it like [00:30:00] randomly. And now I have like only like a hundred followers, but it's awesome. Cause I get like a lot of actual, very meaningful engagement and conversations. And I can feel an Andrea Bosoni that you talked about earlier.
Dagobert: He feels the same way and we're like really enjoying it. And I feel like in the next six months to one year threads might become way bigger because like, you can feel like the really nice vibe that they used to be on Twitter three years ago. And it's very healthy. And what I was getting at is that.
Dagobert: the engineers at threads, are saying that they're building it purposefully to make something that is healthier. You know, something where like, you don't have to go every day. You can just go like 10 minutes a day or something and it doesn't have to become addictive.
Dagobert: And they're actually purposefully building the algorithm. So it's more like a normal algorithm of just showing you everything and not having too many trending or viral posts. And they said that like they're trying to do [00:31:00] that. So I think that might be a new trend and that's pretty interesting to see, you know, how we can have like a healthier relationship to social media.
Dmytro: Also what I love in threads, that I probably can reuse my writings, my content from Twitter to threads. A little bit, maybe, probably I need to change them a little bit for LinkedIn too. Yes. So I will try it. I will try it.
Dagobert: Yeah. you never know. Like it was surprising to me, that it worked better than I thought.
Dagobert: So yeah, but maybe Mastodon. Oh yeah. And they said they will interoperate with the Fediverse and Mastodon and shit. Like they will be compatible and they just shipped it recently. They're like working on it. So that might be a really interesting thing.
Dmytro: It's cool. I love
Dagobert: how you said, wow. Cause you're like, you're a developer.
Dagobert: So wow, they're going to interoperate with the Fediverse, which is the thing I literally personally really don't give a shit about, but like, it's like, I knew you would like it. It's funny. Oh, wow. [00:32:00] Yeah.
Dmytro: No, but also from the marketing perspective, let's say yes. No, yeah. That's really cool. That's really cool.
Dmytro: If I can do less stuff, yes. To promote my content. It will be great.
Dagobert: You're right.
Dagobert: You're right.
[00:32:09] Crazy customer support story - sponsor
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Speaker 2: Now, before continuing our awesome conversation, let me take a minute to talk about this week's sponsor. Don't skip. I know you hate advertising. I hate it too. Everybody with common sense does, you know, it's just like the most human thing. But this week, I have something awesome. And it's not even about the product, but the story that I'm about to tell you.
Speaker 2: It might even be the best part of this episode. I'm not even kidding. A couple of days ago on Twitter, I asked startup founders what was their worst experience in customer support. And I got some very funny, but mostly shocking submissions of customers who were literally insulting, you know, being mad, threatening legal action against founders who had done nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: Just basically crazy customers who attack you, make fun of you, [00:33:00] and traumatize you for no reason. And actually my plan with these submissions is to turn it into memes. So I'm still working on that. I will release them soon. But what's interesting is that one of the people who replied to me is one of the sponsors of this podcast, Chad from BetterLegal that I already told you about in the episode with Nico and his submission was like, I mean, I listened to it cause it's an audio recording of a mad customer and I was literally laughing for five minutes.
Speaker 2: But I thought, you know what, this could be a good way to talk about his product, you know, for the sponsorship, because it's very interesting. It's shocking. And it also shows that even when like the craziest customer talks to him, he keeps his composure and he still handles support perfectly. So props to you, Chad.
Speaker 2: And let's listen to the recording. Now, just a little bit of context. His app is [00:34:00] called BetterLegal, and it's an online service where you can register for a US based LLC from anywhere in the world. So now that the context is clear, let's play the recording.
Chad: Hello?
Crazy customer: Hello? Yes, hold on one second, do not start talking, my dad is on the phone. Sir, what's your name? You're with the US Army. Okay? Do you have a phone? Can you record this right now? Because I need you to come over here and record this so we have you say,
Dagobert: okay, the US Army,
Crazy customer: get your phone out and record. I need you right now.
Crazy customer: Please,
Crazy customer: please.
Chad: I'm sorry, what's,
Crazy customer: and my dad is on the phone as well. So What? I'm sorry, what?
Dagobert: US army, dad,
Chad: I, I don't know if you're talking to me or other who, what
Crazy customer: I'm talking to you is you. What you gotta tell me because I've been calling y'all all day, so what you gotta say, you only got record.
Crazy customer: Okay. So what [00:35:00] do you have to tell me? Um, what's your name?
Chad: My name is Chad.
Crazy customer: What's your last name, Chad?
Chad: Sakonchick
Crazy customer: who do you work for?
Chad: BetterLegal.
Crazy customer: And what are you, like, with BetterLegal? Are you a co owner or an owner?
Chad: I'm, I'm an owner. You're the
Crazy customer: owner. Okay, great. I knew you were going to be in contact fast and that's what the focus is on right now.
Crazy customer: Like I said, I have people over here recording. So whether your line is recorded or not, you need protection. I need protection. I got my protection right here. My dad is on the phone right now. And I have other people that have already recorded what's happened and me trying to get in contact. And *** the woman that works for you hung up in my face and I told her not to.
Crazy customer: So I am livid and I am suing. So get your lawyers together, we're taking this to federal court. Get them together, chad.
Chad: Can I cut you off real quick? Are you familiar with what a business day is? If
Crazy customer: I'm cutting you off right now, you need to have your stuff in order, because we're going to court. At the federal level.[00:36:00]
Chad: Are you, are you familiar with what a business day is?
Crazy customer: Oh yeah,
Crazy customer: okay, so go ahead and explain that for me too, please.
Chad: Okay, a business day is a weekday. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So you purchased, you purchased Sunday, you purchased Sunday, and the email confirmation that we sent you that is in your inbox, it says one business day.
Chad: So that means that the state of Tennessee government employees do not work on Sunday. So we file on the first one. Are you in a different world?
Crazy customer: Are you in a different universe, Chad?
Chad: What's today?
Chad: First, today is Tuesday.
Crazy customer: Okay, I'm glad you're aware of that, Chad. So we file
Chad: on, we file on, we filed it on Monday.
Chad: Okay, so, because the state employees don't work on Sunday. So we filed it on
Chad: Monday. And one business day, one
Chad: business day from Monday is Tuesday, which is today. So you will be getting your documents today as [00:37:00] promised.
Crazy customer: Oh, of course I am, because you're saying it and you're being recorded right now. I tried to get in contact with whomever, and your privacy policy is not even on your website, sweetheart.
Crazy customer: Your website hasn't been updated since 2016.
Chad: That's because So it's 2018, but I don't know what universe you're in. That's when it was written. What does that have to do with anything?
Dagobert: She's gonna take you to court because you don't have the right date in your footer, man.
Crazy customer: I go to MTSU. What's your name again?
Crazy customer: Do you work for the government? He works for the government. He's in his middle age. So,
Crazy customer: I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead and I miss
Crazy customer: two classes because of this bullshit Chad. Because of this fucking bullshit Chad. I'm fucking livid. I am livid right now. And you can hear it in my voice. And I'm recording all this right now.
Crazy customer: And everything. We're still going to court. Have my documents ready. And don't add anything. And don't take anything out. Don't touch your website because I've recorded your website.
Dagobert: Why would she
Dagobert: want to go [00:38:00] to court?
Crazy customer: Don't do anything
Crazy customer: stupid. Don't pull no investors out because I'm taking all that and more.
Crazy customer: And so is everybody else that has something to do with this. So get your shit together, Tad. Because I'm not fucking with you.
Chad: This has been very enlightening for me. I appreciate your, I don't,
Crazy customer: I don't, you said enlightening? Cool. Great. Get ready to go to court. Give me my stuff. If you don't give me my stuff, like you just promised.
Dagobert: So this is the kind of crazy customer that you can deal with sometimes. Literally he was doing everything perfectly. He was delivering the service on time, warning her ahead of time with email. He's even answering and listening to her complaints over phone, even though she's completely nuts. And she's still like threatening to go to court and like having her dad having like everybody around her like this is just like nuts like and I to be honest, I don't really know how he handles it because I would have probably told her to fuck off way earlier and refunded her [00:39:00] and be like, get out of my life, crazy lady, you know, but Chad just keeps his composure.
Dagobert: He's just nice. Yeah, we're going to have your documents ready. Let's keep going.
Crazy customer: Have you on record then like I say it is it's gonna go further than this. I'm gonna own you sad I'm gonna own you and everything else you own So get your shit together because basically what y'all just did in your website just did was illegal in itself I couldn't get in contact with you.
Crazy customer: I reached out to trusted Whatever and it got trust in a name. So I'm supposed to be trusting it Y'all got trust written all over your website. I reached out to Trustpilot They, you have a subscription with them, they're, you're, you're on their platform. I reached out to them, and guess what, at that level in New York, New York, New York, he hung up on me.
Crazy customer: I have the address and all, I can pull up right now, I can fly out right now, I can pull up on you right now at your house and get your address.
Crazy customer: I'm all in your shitbag, I'm
Crazy customer: not fucking with you, I'm really mad right now. [00:40:00] I'm really fucking mad. I'm gonna stop cussing, because everything's gonna work out, it's weighing itself, just like I'm on the phone with you, and I was expecting your call anyways, and I have somebody recording it.
Crazy customer: So you're the owner, Chad. Get it together. You're gonna wanna give me some money to get me to shut up, and I'll figure out if I wanna shut up or not.
Dagobert: Okay, threatening.
Chad: Okay, so we're gonna deliver Oh, I'm sorry, I
Chad: thought
Chad: you
Chad: were done.
Crazy customer: Oh, Chad, keep being fucking sarcastic with me, and we're gonna see what fucking happens in
Crazy customer: court.
Crazy customer: Literally, I already said I own you. Okay, keep going.
Chad: Okay, so, as I said earlier, uh, we are going to have your documents today, as are, everything says, you know, we were delivering it within one business day, as stated in your confirmation email that you received on Sunday.
Crazy customer: Yep, and same thing,
Crazy customer: when business day could have happened yesterday, you could have processed it as fast as you did.
Crazy customer: No,
Chad: no, no, no,
Crazy customer: no, no. Okay, so, like you said, I hope you had to do this.
Chad: One business day is next day, same day, same,
Chad: oh, I'm sorry, I thought it was my turn to talk, [00:41:00] go ahead.
Crazy customer: Okay. Oh, you're done talking? Is that what you just said? No, I'm done. So I hope you have it in the database. I hope you have all your dates together.
Crazy customer: That you didn't just file my shit just now before I called you. And how you were trying to line up all your ducks. And all my ducks are literally lined up right now. They're all lined up. So like I said, you better stay in front of me because I'm gonna own you and everything you got right now. F k, I own her too.
Crazy customer: So don't f k with me. I'm not f king playing. So like I said, it better not f king say that you just found my s t before you call me because
Dagobert: I'm gonna stop this now because she's just gonna keep rambling and then just hang up. She has no, no leverage over him, but she's just like threatening him. And you know, this is the kind of s t that's very scary.
Dagobert: It happened to me once, and it can be traumatic, like, to be honest, it can be like, like, somebody threatening you, some, somebody like, actually like, threatening you to like, hurt you physically, or like, take your money, [00:42:00] like, this shit is tough, man. So, congrats on Chad for handling it beautifully, but, you know, I just wanted to play this, because I thought, you know, this can help all of us see that, This kind of shit happens.
Dagobert: So yeah, now we're gonna go back to our conversation, but remember, if you need to build an LLC in the us, go to BetterLegal.com. And Chad got you covered. And I actually just texted Chad to see if he could give us a coupon code. Was thinking like 30% off with Code INDIELIFE or something like that. And he tells me, no, no, I can do way better than this.
Dagobert: Usually the cost of BetterLegal is $300 plus the state fees. Well for us, and he just told me he's done that for nobody else except his friends and family. Instead of 300 plus state fees, it's gonna be 50 plus state fees. And I was like, dude, are you crazy? Like you're [00:43:00] literally gonna not make any money.
Dagobert: Like, what's the point? And he told me, no, no, no. I usually spend 300 to acquire a customer with Google ads. So I'm actually gonna make more money with this. Plus I help all the indie makers. I don't know what more we can ask from this guy. He's giving us his shittiest conversation with customers so we have a good story.
Dagobert: And he's making it almost free to file an US LLC from anywhere in the world. I will add a special link in the show notes of this episode and this will automatically reduce the price at checkout. So thank you, Chad, for allowing all the indie makers in the world to file an US LLC for almost nothing. Go check out BetterLegal.com and now we can go back to our conversation.
[00:43:47] Having less freedom than with a job
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Dagobert: So now, man, I want to talk more about, the difficult bits and like the kind of like things that you know happen when you're indie that are like that we don't often talk about.
Dmytro: And
Dagobert: [00:44:00] when we started this interview you told to tell me that at the very beginning you said that this has become your prison something.
Dmytro: Yes. So
Dagobert: what do you mean by that?
Dmytro: It's an interesting question. I mean that, when I quit my job and I thought I'm going, I were going to build some, you know, some product and my business, I will become profitable one day.
Dmytro: I thought that I will achieve, that I would achieve some kind of freedom, mental freedom. Like physical freedom from not going to job and so on. but it's not, it's not, it's it's I currently, I don't feel I can take a vacation. I just can't,I need to do support tickets.
Dmytro: I need to make sure that I have always my laptop with me and so on. So I need to work on, I need maybe to hire somebody, but I don't have enough money to hire. Yes. I also am super obsessed about my product. So, most of the time, like, I am,in [00:45:00] this kind of, you know, mental state and even when I, it's really sorry to say, but even when I'm with my kids and with my wife, I often think about, about some strategies, how we can write something, improve something, build some feature, and so on, and it feels like it's not on, like, Okay, I'm free in some sense, yes, but I'm, I'm not sure that I'm more free that I could have been if I had a job now.
Dmytro: I think it, it might be, like an intermediate state because, for example, I can hire somebody, they will help me and they will have more free time, but, the problem with mental state, having this kind of, Always obsessing about this product, this kind of business. Sometimes it's healthy obsession.
Dmytro: Yes. And sometimes it's about, oh, this new AI developer came out and it will destroy your business. And it will build a screenshot API in one day and you will just be become obsolete. so this kind of
Dagobert: worry about that. You you're constantly kind [00:46:00] of like worrying and kind of like always thinking
Dmytro: Competitors also.
Dmytro: Yes. competitors, I have really good competitors now. I really love them and they improve a lot. I'm also worried about that, so also some Indie can copy your product and, build something, so a lot of stuff, it takes a lot of space. And in some sense, it's a, it was like success, let's say small success.
Dmytro: So I have this customers and it's growing and so on, but now I am like in this prison of, I can't just quit it. I need to build it. I need to improve it. I need to deliver to my customers, build features every day, support tickets and so on. And for example, I could quit my job, but quitting this stuff is not easy.
Dmytro: it's not like just, you know, okay, bye. I am, I am.
Dagobert: Why not?
Dagobert: Actually, that's a good question. Why not?
[00:46:50] Being trapped with a product that's too successful to quit, but not enough to be free
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Dmytro: two reasons. Yes. One of the reasons is that, it's not easy to sell this kind of product. but I already have a kind of a proposition, [00:47:00] not an offer, yes, but we were talking about selling and the second reason is, because if I sell it, if I sell it, I'm not sure that I can build something again that will bring money.
Dmytro: And this reason is more, it's okay, I can sell this project. Let's say I will sell it for, I don't know, 100K, 200K. Let's say maybe, okay, 250k. I will have some runway. And what happens? It's not money, free, freedom money. I will anyway need to work.
Dagobert: Yeah, it's not 5 million or something.
Dmytro: yes. I will need to work anyway. And now I'm starting from scratch again, from zero again, marketing, building from scratch and so on. And it feels kind of a trap, you know, I can sell it, but it's too early to sell. But maybe, but selling it later, I'm not sure it can survive. I can like
Dagobert: maybe one year it's [00:48:00] obsolete.
Dagobert: Maybe the market changes
Dagobert: or like the market changes or like whatever.
Dmytro: Yes. Yes. Yes. So it's, it's kind of, um, let's say it's, uh, if for example, I had. Uh, a second product, uh, profitable product and growing in, let's say in, in the market with more customers, uh, let's say support bot or chat or something. He has like a lot of, a lot of, uh, opportunities here, yes, but super competitive, but a lot of opportunities.
Dmytro: Yes. I would probably consider selling it and reinvesting that money into the growing product.
Dmytro: Yes. Okay.
Dmytro: But since I don't have any kind of, if I sell it now, I don't have anything. I will be at zero again. Yeah.
Dagobert: And you, and you know, it can take a while to find a good one and it's not sure you will.
Dagobert: And it seems like you don't have enough free time to build another thing at the same time.
Dmytro: Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. it's. I know for sure that nothing is guaranteed. I can start [00:49:00] from, I can start from zero. Okay. Tomorrow. Yes. but there is no guarantee. Okay. I need, you need to work hard. You need to do a lot of stuff, marketing and so on.
Dmytro: But there is no, there is nothing that can guarantee you that you will again, build the second product. Like it feels, you know, it feels that I, I learned this kind of positioning, marketing channels, SEO. I go to the first position on Google. I feel that, yes, I have the skills. But still, I'm not sure that I will succeed at this, you know, so it's kind of, it's, it's a little bit of a trap, that I can, I hope I can solve it at 10k MRR, because I will be, like, ramen profitable in my, location, and, it will mean, for family, yes, family wise.
Dagobert: Yes, for your whole family, yeah.
Dmytro: yes, and it will mean for, minus taxes, so it will be, it ramen profitability, and I will feel, okay, so now I can, Probably have,a little bit of air to think about building a second product, maybe,
Dagobert: or maybe hire someone [00:50:00] part time to do all of the boring stuff.
Dagobert: Yes. Yes. Okay.
Dmytro: Hire somebody. Yes. Yes. Even, even, you know, building something, you were taking funding now, but, for example, no, I don't want to take funding because if I take it, it will be like just second, it will be a drop, because I will feel. I talked to some investors, you know, like really nice people and so on.
Dmytro: Not for this product, they won't invest in this product. So people, they won't demand from me, like working a lot and building stuff and making it profitable. They won't demand it, but. It doesn't matter because I will feel that I am responsible. I took some money, you know, and I need to give returns to this investment.
Dmytro: Oh yeah,
Dagobert: yeah. it feels like a job, like you, you're now working for somebody else, even though like it's, that's normal to think that way.
Dmytro: Yes. Yeah. So
Dagobert: you basically, so you don't see a way out. Like you don't see like a, you feel like you're kind of trapped in a way
Dagobert: and there's
Dagobert: hope, but it's not like [00:51:00] easy or obvious or guaranteed.
Dmytro: No, no, no. It's not guaranteed. It's every month. I'm not sure that every month I'm thinking if it will grow or not. Yes. It grows. But every month I'm not sure. Like, and this is. This one of the things that, uh, it's, it's a little bit hard, you know, also, you know, for example, you can have a lot of family stuff, like you share it a lot.
Dmytro: and so on.
[00:51:26] Having no defense against difficult life events
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Dagobert: it makes me think of when I started my startup Logology, So that was six years ago, almost like one month after, or like two months after my mother died of cancer.
Dagobert: And I was like, kind of like came as a surprise and I, for the next three months, I couldn't work, you know, cause it was very, cause there was also like a lot of drama and like problems in my family. So like, it wasn't just that she died, it was like a lot of drama and shit and a lot of burden on my shoulders at this [00:52:00] time.
Dagobert: and you know, I remember at this time, like we had our plan, we had some runway and then the runway just dipped, like, and we weren't making any progress because I wasn't able to work properly.
Dagobert: And, you know, eventually I got better, but like, what, what it made me realize is that, you know, it's whatever, like when you're building your own thing, there is no protection. So like, if you get hit by something, so let's say your mother dies, or there is some, like some, something happens in your personal life, you have nothing, you can't like, just like take it easy for two months at work and, you know, or something.
Dagobert: You, or you can't take vacation, like, and you're kind of like face, like getting slapped, getting hit by like, you know, the hard things in life, but you have literally, you're like, you have nothing to defend yourself. You have to, like, you just have to go.
Dmytro: [00:53:00] And
Dagobert: that was very shocking to me. That was like, when I experienced it was like, holy shit, I'm like naked, I feel like so vulnerable.
Dmytro: yes. It's,
Dmytro: it's exactly what you're saying.
Dmytro: Maybe what helped me
Dmytro: in some sense, I don't know if I can say that it, you're just having kids, you know, you, you, you just can't stop, you know, you need to, you need to continue living, building stuff, creating and being, let's say, an example. Yes. Even in the hardest times you can do, you can still
Dmytro: survive, do stuff.
Dmytro: It's,
[00:53:41] Why not just quit and get a job?
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Dagobert: this makes me curious because like earlier you said it's. It seems like you're kind of trapped in this and I'm just wondering very like, genuinely, what's making you keep doing this instead of getting a job?
Dmytro: Oh, it's a good question. It's a good question [00:54:00] because I also had like in some periods I had some really decent offers To join some interesting companies with good salary and so on.
Dmytro: It's a stupid maybe answer. Yes, but as it is, yes, I'm honest. I'm really curious how far I can get, you know, like before I give up before I give up. I'm curious. Like how far? What I can build alone or with people maybe later, yes. And, uh, because if I want to
Dagobert: challenge yourself a bit?
Dagobert: Is that it?
Dmytro: let's say if I just, if today I go back to job, yes?
Dmytro: Yeah.
Dmytro: I will have this itch to start entrepreneurship journey again. Anyway, I will want to return. But if I maybe fail, so I want to exhaust this desire to be, strange desire, yes?
Dmytro: But I want to exhaust this desire to be an entrepreneur. If I You want to
Dagobert: go at the, to the bottom of it, you want to [00:55:00] go, like, you want to really go all the way, like, cause that's kind of like what I did, you know, eventually, until I completely burned out and crashed, but like, at least I had went kind of all the way, so I really know, I really know what you're saying.
Dmytro: Yes. Yes. Yes. Until, until, until I burn out, until I crash, until I fail or until I win.
Dagobert: Hopefully not. Or until you make millions, you know, you, there are other ways, you know, but like, yes,
Dmytro: it's also, yes, this, that's why, that's why it's a trap. I call it a trap because I don't make millions. I don't make a lot of money, but, but I have this small success.
Dmytro: And I, like, I feel that, okay, I can do now more, but it's not easy, you know, it's like, it's not, uh, if I fail it, if I just fail and I didn't have any success for, for two years, I would just return, and that's it,
[00:55:48] Products that get stuck at $5K per month
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Dagobert: know, it's making me wonder if maybe the problem and I definitely put myself in that too is that maybe it's like not, [00:56:00] maybe you stuck with a product that is not ambitious enough that like, basically, you know, you can't make millions of this. And so now you're stuck. Cause no, I'm, I'm, I'm sorry. Cause like, but I'm serious.
Dagobert: Like it sounds terrible, but like, like sorry, but like now you're stuck with a product that is like good enough, but also shitty enough, not the product, but like the markets, you know, it's like, it's like not really an opportunity. Like, you're never going to sell it for millions. There's like, there's like, I'm so sorry dude.
Dagobert: Like, there's not really like, a huge hope of anything. I'm so sorry. But like, at the same time, it's cool enough. And it's nice, and you enjoy it, and it has value. And it can make you maybe 15 like 2 years. Which would be nice, but then, but then like, and so what I'm wondering is like, [00:57:00] maybe shouldn't stick with a product that doesn't have at least like 500k potential or something.
Dagobert: And so maybe that was like a good stepping stone product. And now you're kind of stuck. And I was stuck like this with Logology, like it was, it wasn't going to take off and we were making 3k a month of between 3 and 4 and 5k and I was like kind of stuck and, and that's shitty. That's a shitty feeling because like you made it because you know, when I went from 300 a month to 3000, I was over the moon.
Dagobert: Like that was awesome. But this is actually like not that good and then eventually, you know, like this is so awesome when you start from zero, but then it's like, uh, you know, that's, that's, that, that might be like the mistake here.
Dmytro: You, you cannot do it for, let's say, okay, it will be okay if I stuck in it for, Let's say five more months.
Dmytro: Yes, but it can be okay for 10 years to be at this number. Oh, [00:58:00] let's say three more years. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's a problem. I know it. I know it's so how do I want to, to quit from, from this problem? I decided I will just get to 10 K. Yes. It's, I see it now so I can do it. You see the
Dagobert: path. Okay. You see how you can get there like by the end of the year.
Dagobert: Okay. So let's say that it's, let's say you're at 10 K at the end of
Dmytro: the year.
Dmytro: Yes. Yes. And then I have an opportunity I can, I can hire somebody to do my job now with this product. Yes. And then I can try, okay. I can just go for much larger market and then try to apply all my experience, all my, networking, everything I know, and try to build something in this larger market, more ambitious.
Dmytro: Something. Yes. With more potential. Yeah. With potential to make 10 times more
Dagobert: money or something. Yeah.
Dmytro: And maybe without selling like this product, but just hiring somebody on, I don't know, halftime, part time job, like to, yeah,
Dagobert: because [00:59:00] you still make enough to like sustain your family and your thing, but you have like a lot of, and I, but like, I think it's very tricky because then you have to really be able to let go.
[00:59:09] The difficulty to build two products at once
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Dagobert: I think like, especially emotionally because like, no, I mean, I'm like, it's like, You're going to have to, if you really want to be able to build another product, you need to be free. Like your mind needs to be free. So you kind of like need to be able to give up the other one. Like, even though like you still own it and you still have people running it.
Dagobert: I feel like at least for me, it's so hard. Cause like, then your mind is always going to think about it. And you know, it's, it's tough.
Dmytro: It's, it's true, it's true. I also, I also built one product, one product for fun. It was dumb and good tools. It was like set of tools, uh, chatting with PDF, some AI, screenshot tools and so on, on one project.
Dmytro: And it was, It was so hard to have this two products like in parallel, especially when I started to have sales for this second [01:00:00] project, it was some support tickets. It was like, wow, my head was just exploding. So I sold it. I sold it. I was happy to sell it for, uh, And, uh, almost 10k, uh,
Dmytro: nice. Yeah. Okay.
Dmytro: So it was good to exit from it.
Dmytro: Then I focused on this one and I am agree with you 100%. But what I think is for example, if I go into the adjacent niche, Let's say I'm, let's say I'm going to build a PDF generation API, much larger market, the same technical stuff, probably yes, but different customers, different positioning, for example.
Dmytro: So that's
Dagobert: okay. So that's pretty different.
Dmytro: So it's, or for example, I have customers who are, who asked me to, they wanted some kind of scrapping with structural data, from the website, you give me the URL, I give you features pricing, but in JSON, so it's super simple to build today.
Dmytro: Yes. I can build this product. It can be, I need to check it, but it can be [01:01:00] much, it might have much bigger potential, yes, but I can also sell it to my current customers of screenshot one. If it's related niche, yes. And related products, I probably can keep them. Probably. I'm not sure. Yes, but if it's absolutely unrelated stuff, I'm agree with you, it's, no doubt, I tried it, it doesn't work, it's like, yeah, it's very
Dagobert: tough, and it's kind of like, reminds me of what we said about positioning, that like, if you don't know who you're talking to, You're going to have a bad time because you always thinking of like many things.
Dagobert: You don't, you don't have clarity. And I feel like it's the same, like when you're like, like, for example, a big reason I was burning out as I was both trying to grow on Twitter, talk about Twitter courses and sell that. And. Coding my logo platform, like this, which is completely unrelated. And this was killing me.
Dagobert: Cause like you, you, every day I try to do both. Like my thing was like four hours of Twitter in the morning [01:02:00] and four hours of logology in the afternoon. And I never almost could do it because it's also different parts of the brain. So it's so hard to switch context and focus. And so, yeah, like that's, so, and I think like somebody like Tony, Tony Dinh, who did, you know, Blackmagic, uh, and who does now, is it like typing mind, his thing?
Dmytro: Yeah.
Dagobert: Okay. Typing mind for AI and he has multiple products, but it seems like, and Pieter Levels seems to be doing the same. It's like, they're just doing one at once, you know, they're just focusing on one at once. And then when they're doing one, the other one is just like on the back burner, they don't do anything with it.
Dagobert: They don't like, they just like leave it. And you know, and at least that's, so that's what I said about, you know, maybe giving up kind of like your screenshot API. I mean, at least mentally,
Dmytro: if you want to build
Dagobert: something else, cause like, like for example, right now myself, I'm like, okay, what should I do?
Dagobert: Should I build a [01:03:00] startup? Should I focus on this podcast? Should I focus on Twitter? Like this is very, very quickly becoming too much. And so I'm losing productivity and happiness. And so I'm like, you know, I'm focusing on this podcast now. This is my number one thing is this podcast the next six months.
Dagobert: I'm doing this podcast.Try to get to 1000, 2000, you know, subscribers that's, this is literally like I decided that because I'm enjoying it. I see potential people seem to love it, to be loving it. So like, I'm doing that. I'm doing this podcast now. And then once I'm done for like doing the podcast for the week.
Dagobert: I can write some tweets, I can do some memes, I can think of building things, but like if you don't have a clear priority, this is, I mean, this is driving me insane, like not to have like a priority.
Dmytro: No, I am with you. I'm with you. I don't believe that. I don't believe in,small bets approach that you're talking about a lot on the, on our community.
Dmytro: I really love that. But I think one of the misinterpretations of this approach is like building everything in parallel. It's just [01:04:00] impossible. Oh
Dagobert: yeah, no. I think the idea is like trying small things and then once something sticks, then you invest in it. Yes. It's not about, it's not about doing five things in parallel.
Dagobert: Yes, yes, yes. I don't think it works for anybody, you know, it's very tough.
Dmytro: I think Jason Cohen said it really clearly. I like it. It resonates with me. When you want to get rich. You focus. Once you're rich, you diversify.
Dagobert: Awesome. That's awesome. That's why
Dmytro: we don't build 10 products to become rich. If you build something, you know, the focus on something, you made it a top product.
Dmytro: What we do, we make money with it. And then we, I don't know, diversify with stocks, more companies, more products and so on once we reach some level. So for me currently, this next level being rich is thinking it's like,it's not rich, yes, but it's the level of anything I can allow myself. a little bit, you know, of space and thinking, okay, [01:05:00] I can't grow this stuff to 100K MRR.
Dmytro: Yes,it's impossible. It's possible. Yes. But then years, 20 years, it's, it's a long period of time. So, so something like that. Yes.
[01:05:14] Freedom vs autonomy
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Dagobert: awesome, man. Uh, I had one last thing I wanted to bring up. So, you know, you, You know, you talked about losing your freedom, not being free. Yes. Yes.
Dagobert: And you know, when that happened to me, when I burn out, it's because I was feeling completely not free. And that is kind of like shocking to think, Oh, wow, I'm not free. Even though I am my own boss, I take my own decisions. And when I had a job for eight months, I felt actually more freedom because I had more time off.
Dagobert: I didn't worry about money. I had paid vacation. That was so easy. And you know what it made me think? It made me think that we're using the wrong world. Like literally, like it's not freedom that we have, it's autonomy, you know? And I feel like this is the [01:06:00] difference, like we don't get freedom. Like when I talked about it with Nico in one of the last episodes, he told me and I agree with him.
Dagobert: The only way to have real freedom is to make a big exit. And that's it. Like we said earlier, like you just sell something, you make a lot of money, then you have real freedom. But until then, you don't have more freedom than a job. You probably have less, but you have way more autonomy. You can do whatever you want.
Dagobert: You have responsibility, you have autonomy, and that feels awesome. But you don't have freedom. You know what I mean?
Dmytro: yes. It resonates with me a lot. You know, I, I, I have kind of a post in my mind that I want to write, but I just don't have all the parts of it, and it's, it, it perfectly hits the base because I was thinking why I quit all my jobs in the past, like what I didn't like.
Dmytro: Yes. And, and what I like now, like why I don't quit my current job, let's say. Yes. And it was, that it was autonom autonomous. Yeah. Being autonomous in what sense? [01:07:00] It's a perfect word because I didn't think about being autonomous. I was thinking just today I was, working and thinking, okay, what I wanted in my jobs.
Dmytro: I wanted to be able if I want, if I want to go to marketing, to talk to customers, to go to, I don't know, to CEO of the company, talk with him, or sometimes if I want to build something or to do something, to take decision, take responsibility and do it.
Dmytro: Yes. But it's always, it was always impossible because, because some manager didn't want it or it was bad or so on. Because business, because it's strategy direction, the leader, the CEO of the company founder, yes. There's also how to do the stuff. Yes. And so I can imagine myself probably working for somebody, but just with really, like, you know, with having so much, how to say it right?
Dmytro: Autonomity. Autonomy. Autonomy. Autonomy. Yes. [01:08:00] It's a good word. It's a good word. Like having an opportunity to have impact on a lot of stuff and not just impact on a lot of stuff, but sometimes I think the impact, the way you see it, you know, like
Dagobert: making your own mistakes and being cause I feel like.
[01:08:22] Addicted to the intensity of startups
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Dagobert: The last job I had, like my recovery job, as I call it, was awesome because they gave me so much responsibility, but at the end of the day, I don't know, it didn't feel like if I failed, I would pay the same price. Or if I was right, I would get the same, you know, upsell. Yeah. And so upside.
Dagobert: Yeah. And so there's this weird thing. We're like, there's like a buffer between you and reality. There's and so it's, it doesn't feel as, uh, You know, intense. It's not like you fail, you die [01:09:00] and you win. You're like rich and famous. it's like you fail. It's okay. You win. Oh, it's cool. it's like the intensity is like this, but when you're like on your own, it's like this.
Dagobert: Maybe that's the answer also, you know, it's. We can, you know, we can rationalize everything. We can explain everything, but maybe the real reason we're just addicted. It's just emotions. You get the lifestyle.
Dmytro: Like it's,
Dagobert: that might be a good word. Cause I feel more alive, which sounds like an addict thing to say. like I feel more alive when I'm in this risk, when I'm like risking my money. Like it really has something to it, man. It's like, but you know, but like the other, the flip side of we could see it differently.
Dagobert: We can also imagine that this way of living is the normal way of living and that people who have a job are actually kind of like, uh, you know, sleeping and kind of like not connected to reality. And so this intense feeling is [01:10:00] maybe the normal one. Like, I, I think two things, the two ways of seeing it can be right in a way, you know?
Dmytro: yes. But, but now, maybe an year ago, maybe two years ago, I was thinking, Oh, you know, working at a job, it sucks. It's, it's so bad, you know, everybody should be an entrepreneur, but today I have more balanced position. Once I realized all the risk, all the risks I take, how
Dagobert: Oh yeah, it seems so. Sometimes it seems so impossible anyway.
Dagobert: Now I'm like, yeah, no, I mean, sometimes you just need to take a job, you don't have a choice. Yes,
[01:10:32] The mistake of building a startup that depends too much on you
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Dmytro: yes. Just take a job, enjoy it, I don't know. When you have a job, really enjoy all the benefits it gives you, yes? For example, you can take vacation. You can just quit the job after six o'clock and forget about it.
Dmytro: You know, wow. I have, for example, in my case, I have this, um, you know, uh, uptime monitor and it's calling me on my phone at 2 AM, uh, in, in the middle, [01:11:00] after midnight. Yes. And they need to fix some, something in my API because people rely on my API and their business rely on this. If it was my job, probably somebody could, uh, support me.
Dmytro: Yes. But it's also, it's, um, I'm, I'm currently thinking about this as like, it's, it's probably my failure that they couldn't build. I need to find a way to build this kind of lifestyle I want, you know, like. Yeah.
Dagobert: that's a really good point. Cause like when I burn out is because everything was depending on so much work I was doing.
Dagobert: Everything was depending on me, always being on Twitter every day, getting sales, talking to people. And that is a lot of pressure. for example, you, if you need to wake up at 2am in the morning to fix things, that's a bad thing. And if I needed to be on Twitter every day, that's a bad thing, we should be able to be like build processes and automation so that,
Dmytro: I quit Twitter for two weeks now. I took a break. Yes. and they still had sales and my SEO strategy worked. So I realized, okay, I built [01:12:00] something great that works in SEO. I can just document my process and now I can hire somebody who can do this stuff for me. And so the same problem, I probably, it will take some time for me to get, because I think that, You know what I don't want to do?
Dmytro: I don't want to get funding. I don't want to hire people. I don't want to do anything just because everybody says I need to do it. Yes, I want to feel that I really need to
Dagobert: hire.
Dmytro: Yeah, I'm the
Dagobert: same, yeah.
Dmytro: Yes, I really need, if I need funding, I will take it, yes, but not just, oh, Dima, Dmytro, just take funding, grow it, hire people, and so on.
Dmytro: Okay, if it was so easy just to follow steps, probably everybody would be successful. Yeah.
[01:12:42] Making the mistake of somebody else
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Dagobert: that's what I noticed about my desire to build things myself is that I don't want to make the mistake of somebody else.I hate that. Like, yeah, do this thing and you do it and you fail, like it's the worst feeling in the world. But if it's you, your idea, your [01:13:00] shitty idea and you fail, you learn something and you kind of like move on.
Dagobert: But like, I, you know, doing the mistake of somebody else. It's the worst feeling ever.
Dmytro: It's the worst feeling, and I think it's also a little bit, let's say, stupid in some sense. I think because if you take decision, let's say, for example, hiring somebody, just because somebody advised you to hire and you fail, you probably, the only lesson you can learn, You don't need to take any advice.
Dmytro: That was the lesson. But if you have some context, some history of your thinking, why do you want to hire, you get here to, because you want to build some lifestyle, yes, take vacations and you want some processes. If you fail, you need to adjust something, you need to change something, and try again, and you know what to try again.
Dagobert: Yeah, because you have a goal, you have a reason for doing it, and it's, yeah. It's not just like following advice blindly,
Dagobert: and like, you know, not
Dagobert: for no clear purpose.
Dmytro: It's, for example, it's why [01:14:00] positioning probably didn't work for me earlier. I didn't have enough context for that, once I had 100 customers, I saw, oh, okay.
Dmytro: These are people I really like to work with, and these are people I don't like to work with. Ah, whoa. Cool. what, what they meant about positioning, that was that I need to choose these customers to resonate with. Yeah, okay.
Dagobert: Because you tried without it, you failed and then it showed you, okay, I'm gonna, and then you are really ready to learn because then you are opening yourself.
Dagobert: You're like, okay. I don't know. Let's see, you know, and it's like, and that's when you really learn something.
Dmytro: Yeah. And it's so sweet. It resonated so much with me. It was so clear. Wow. And now when I'm talking to some people, I really see who understands it and who doesn't understand. And I see that it's probably, it's not easy to change their mind.
Dmytro: And for example, some, one of my friends, only begins this journey. Yes.
Dagobert: Yeah.
Dmytro: And I'm talking to him and I realized, oh, okay, so he's not ready. [01:15:00] He's just not ready. It's impossible.
Dagobert: Yeah. He's still,
Dagobert: he has still like some, he's convinced of some stuff still, and he needs to, and it's normal. It's learning, it's normal.
Dmytro: Yes. Yes. Yes. It's it's okay. No, like you said, he needs to do his mistakes. Yes. And then we can talk about that and enjoy this kind of stuff. Yeah. Position. Yes.
Dagobert: Awesome man.
Dmytro: Yes.
Dagobert: Yes. So what if people wanna know more about you, what are the things you want to promote?
[01:15:27] Meditation app to stay sane
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Dagobert: Maybe is there anything, before we wrap up ?
Dmytro: It's a good question.
Dmytro: I don't know. Probably one of the things
Dmytro: that we didn't talk a lot. About that, I find, I found some way to be sane, probably mentally healthy, let's say for a long period of time, and I almost don't have burnouts now, yes, and I talk, I shared it with some people. I, but I don't see it resonates with Indies, with entrepreneurs, so I decided [01:16:00] to not write about that.
Dmytro: But I just thought that, you know, I,
Dmytro: would recommend somebody to try to use waking up app from Sam Harris. It's about meditations, about all this stuff, yes. And it's a little bit different from all the kind of meditations and stuff we can find. Like, there is a lot of apps, Headspace, and so on. But he has really rational explanations how to use it, how it can help you, and it's much, much deeper.
Dmytro: Maybe it can work for somebody else. Yes, but but it gave me a different perspective on the life and on what I do and You know, it helped me to in this highs and lows Yes It helped me to cut a little bit from highs a little bit from lows and to make it more stable this journey No, it's very
Dagobert: interesting because when I was talking with Nico in a couple interviews back He said that He was reading Stoicism every day and this was helping him make the lows less low and make the highs less high.
Dagobert: It's [01:17:00] the same thing, like not get the extremes as much because this is what can drive you crazy. Yeah. So you're doing this with this meditation app.
Dmytro: Let's say yes. Yes. It's a, it's a lot of stuff actually, you know, about free will, about not having free will, about like how our thoughts working ourself and so on.
Dmytro: Yes. And it helps to realize that we're just. You know, it's this kind of journey, this kind of movie we are watching and we can also enjoy bad and good and, uh, like we can be, we can decide if we want to live through it and to not live through it. You know, it's, it's, um, it's probably the thing that I don't write on Twitter a lot about it because I don't see it resonating with people, but I see a lot of people on Twitter complaining about burning out and having bad days and so on.
Dmytro: And I want to recommend it. But it's kind of stuff that people need to arrive to it, you know, for example, if stoicism works for you, use stoicism, if meditations work for you, use [01:18:00] meditations, yes. But this kind of specific approach from Sam Harris, I really did like it. It's like, uh,
Dagobert: Yeah, okay.
Dmytro: Everything I tried before, it didn't work.
Dmytro: But with him, it just worked, and so on,
Dagobert: Yeah, I'll put a link to that in the show notes so people can try it. So where can people find you? what's your, so on Twitter, you're back now? and then your website, what's your stuff?
Dmytro: Yes, I have a website, it's like dmytrokrasun.com yes, I post, Almost everything I write, I post on it. Yes. I also have a newsletter, newsletter.dmytrokrasun.com. Yes. And, and yes, Twitter and, like Twitter is for thinking, for chatting with people and a newsletter and my personal site is just like my daily writing, you know, something. Yeah.
Dmytro: Okay.
Dagobert: And then you have your screen screenshot.
Dmytro: Yes, yes, of course. So what's the
Dagobert: name? What's the exact name? Uh,
Dmytro: Screenshotone. com
Dagobert: Yeah, okay. [01:19:00] Screenshotone. Awesome.
Dmytro: So if I can help anybody to, I don't know, something with this stuff, I would be happy. Yeah,
Dagobert: so people can like send you a DM on Twitter or like contact you through your website.
Dmytro: Uh, I think, I think I need to publish probably my email or something because I closed DMs because of a lot of spam. Yeah. I recently closed it. But anyway, people can
Dagobert: ping you, maybe can people ping you on Twitter, like, you know, yes, yes, of course. You know, and then you will respond. Yeah.
Dmytro: Uh, SEO, I don't know, numbers, positioning, marketing, everything I know I will share.
Dmytro: No problem. Even if somebody wants to build a copycat of my product, I will help them.
Dagobert: Okay. Yeah. Okay. This is very nice of you. Okay. Cool.
Dmytro: It's kind of a fun exercise.
Dagobert: That's a good way. That's a good way of like closing this. So if you guys want to build a copycat of his moderately successful product, if you guys want to build a [01:20:00] product that has no hope of making millions, but can still make a couple thousands, then you can ask Dmytro, he will help you out.
Dmytro: I really never got, you know, how to do it. Thank you for, uh, like for, I'm finally, I really happy to see you to chat with you. And yeah, that's so awesome, man. We've been
Dagobert: like interacting for so long. That's so cool to meet you too. Yeah. That was awesome.
Dmytro: Let's do it once again. I don't know. Maybe I will be in France someday.
Dmytro: Yeah,
Dagobert: definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I can, I can easily go to Paris or something and that would be, that would be awesome.
Dmytro: Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Dagobert: Cool, man. Cheers.
Dmytro: Bye bye. Bye.
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