andy: welcome everyone to another episode of starting · know how to write code or do any design....
TRANSCRIPT
Andy: Welcome everyone to another episode of Starting from Nothing – the Foundation podcast. Today we have Chris Chidgey, which is a great last name, on the show with us.Chris runs bgbisland.com, a business that builds mobile apps for iPhone and Android devices. He does this even though he doesn’t know how to write code or do any design. Chris started the website two years ago after spending ten years in Corporate America and deciding that he wanted more. So today he runs BGB Island full time as is also working on a SaaS product which we’ll talk about a little bit in this interview.Chris, welcome to the show, man.Chris: Thanks, Andy. Appreciate it.Andy: Dude, so we were just chatting. Why are you in the [inaudible 00:01:01]?Chris: I don’t know if we talked via email about this but … so right now I’m moving from Mexico to Columbia so I’ve got three days at the folk’s house in between.Andy: Oh, nice.Chris: And the fiancé is already in Columbia, she left three days ago so it sucks. Getting engaged and now we’re separated right away. So I’m flying out in a couple of days and so I’m stuck here. I’m in this random room with this pretty curtain. I’ve got a doll next to me. Yeah. So it’s not ideal. There’s a dog howling in the background but I figured … here’s my mic like right on my lap.Andy: Oh, it’s [inaudible 00:01:34].Chris: I figured, let’s just do it. Who cares? So we can figure this out.Andy: Absolutely, man.Chris: Yeah.Andy: So tell me a little bit … let’s go back. What were you doing in Corporate America?Chris: In a weird way I was kind of an entrepreneur in these little businesses I was in but I would work for partners of, let’s say
Hewlett-Packard or other big IT manufacturers. A hardware and a software. I would launch their programs at new partners. So let’s say I was a services company that wanted to then sell hardware or, sorry, HP hardware and software, I would go in and help them manage the relationship with HP and Mac, sell the programs and train sales people. All that kind of stuff.Andy: Sounds complex.Chris: Yeah. It was kind of a niche role and that’s why I was kind of an entrepreneur because I was this, like, gun for hire that would come in for two or three years, start the relationship and then I’d go to like the next one.I’ve read a little bit about what growth hacking is and that’s like a term that wasn’t around when I was doing it but kind of the way I approached it with a little bit like that where … there wasn’t as much data but I was definitely that guy kind of picking apart the partner program and finding out, okay, we can squeeze another point here and another two points here or points or 2% of profit let’s say. Yeah.Andy: So, why’d you want to leave?Chris: You know I kept running into bosses where their motivation was different than mine. Mine was just growth and taking risks for growth. Theirs was, “Hey, I got two kids in school and a mortgage,” and all this stuff.I think I recognized a while back that my personality isn’t good for being managed or having a boss. I’m unmanageable. Even my old bosses told me that. “Chris, we love you, you’re killing it. I’m just going to leave you alone because I can’t help you and you’re not going to listen anyways.” It took me ten years to really go, you know what? This isn’t making me happy. This isn’t getting me where I want to go in life. Finally being in a position where, okay, I’m just going to do it. By doing it I don’t mean like designing the logo or …Even like going to Starbucks and spending three hours investigating
the thing I want to do. It’s I moved to Mexico. I cut my expenses down from … I was living on $20,000 a month then went to two. Like within two months.Andy: Damn!Chris: And you know what? I love it. I love … I’m making enough money now to … I don’t want to spend that much money because I’d like to reinvest my businesses but I’m making decent money now but I’m still living on 2,000. In fact I’m selling the truck today because I don’t need it in Columbia and why deal with it. It’s definitely becoming more fun to live modestly. My whole priorities have changed, everything’s changed, I just get stoked on business I’m working on, you know?Andy: Was there an event that caused this like big shift for you? Or was it … did it just happen gradually?Chris: Well, there was a major event in that they fired the whole marketing department and I wasn’t part of that but I was very close to that so it kind of changed my job enough where I just left. Two months prior I had broken up with a girlfriend of several years and we moved out from living in together. So all of a sudden I’m locally independent, like location independent.I went on interviews after I left a job and … I kept getting calls and I went to Idaho for two months, like figure out what I wanted to do. There was no job I was going to take. It just was becoming … I got a couple offers and I said, “Look, I’m not going to be able to give you the ROI you’re looking for.” Like I was talking myself down after already getting the offer, you know. And it just wasn’t going to work.I would say there was those two big events and then there was the event where it clicked to my head, “Hey, I’m never going to accept the job. Let’s figure it out. Time to figure it out.” That took about three months for me to really pick a direction and play around with it and kind of commit to the direction. And then it took all the way until November to incorporate a company and really like go for it.
Andy: I find the most frustrating part of getting started the overwhelm where it’s like in college, if your professor is like “Write a five-page paper” and they don’t really tell you what to write about. Just write a five-page paper about anything that you want. How that tends to be more stressful for me than if they say, “Hey, write a five-page paper about this topic.” And I think that’s one of the core pieces of like stress and overwhelm for people who are just getting started is that there are so many directions to go and there are so many things to pick from. How did you narrow in your focus to what you wanted?Chris: Yeah. So, the ten years of corporate life. I definitely recognize the value in jumping in a … I always mess this analogy up. But jumping in a stream that’s flowing fast and going with the current as oppose to swimming against the stream. So I started looking at the different things and I thought, well, I could do automated marketing and the inbound marketing thing and sell that back into the industry I was in because I still had all those connections. That would have been something that I probably could have built a business in a tenure career off of but mobile was just more. Interesting and exciting and that … there was so much undefined that I figured, man, even if I suck I’ll be able to make a good ten and 20 year run on this. Because I had no idea specifically of what I was going to do but I thought, okay, mobile is a good direction and so I just started exploring that and banging out … I say banging out apps but it actually took like nine months to the process where I was banging out apps. Making an app and failing miserably make another one. Failing less, incrementally less terribly.Andy: What was the first app you made?Chris: The first app was Golden Beauty Meter. This is the first time I’ve admitted there’s something like this on a podcast. At the time it was … Ugly Meter was an app that was really popular and we decided to take another spin on it where it wasn’t like, “Hey, you’re so ugly. No one loves you.” We decided to make it more
science-based and a little more uplifting than just this crass, rude type of app.Andy: Yeah.Chris: But there are still a sense of … those 13-year old girls are going to be like seeing a 5.7 and feeling bad.Andy: Yeah.Chris: We try to get away from that quickly and move to an app called … At the time I had a partner …Andy: Wait, wait. Why did you pick this as an app?Chris: Because the buddy that I used to work with at the previous company had this as an idea and I said, “That sounds good. Let’s do it.” Seriously.Andy: Nice.Chris: That was more of a … seeing if it … how hard it was if it was possible. Like I said this was … that was launched in May or June and I didn’t incorporate a company till November. So it took a while to really dedicate real money and real attention. I shouldn’t say real attention but I was dead focused when November came around and that’s when it became really real.Andy: So, this is the first time you do. You do it just kind of on a whim because it’s an idea and you want to test the waters, see what happens.Chris: Yeah. This isn’t without reading a ton. So I don’t want to give the wrong impression like, “Hey, I had this idea at the bar and I went and did it.” Like we researched everything, I read every book I could find on apps. I read every blog I could find. I don’t even know how to use Twitter back then. I still don’t, let’s be honest but I recognize, “Holy crap! People are sharing a ton of great stuff on Twitter,” and so I just was reading like a mad man for months.But it was. It was just of shot in the dark. Hey, maybe this will work, maybe it won’t. It was a very small investment to make it happen; I think it was $1500. It got a couple of downloads. It had
like 5200 today. It’s like, oh, okay.Andy: What does 5200 per day make for you?Chris: Well, at the time it was … Well, let me think. I think we started with the paid app and that maybe had one or two. Then we want a free app and that had 5200. And the only way we monetize that one, that 5200 downloads was converting them to the paid app. And I think we’d put ads in it, it was a [inaudible 00:09:30] ads or something like that. Yeah.So that was making like five bucks a day; all in, both apps, free and paid. Ad revenue in an apps. But it was more of, okay, I can build from here. I can keep trying.And so the next one was where we used the same technology to measure your face and then we compared you to celebrities. That one still makes me money. That one still gets … I mean that one recently has gotten resurgence and gets like 500 to a thousand downloads a day.Andy: No way.Chris: Yeah, it’s insane. So I’ve actually recently go unpack and said, hold on. I need to take another look at this app. Because I haven’t played with it for like four months so it’s just an asset I have sitting out there that probably has outdated SD case and old monetization techniques. So I actually have just kind of re-implemented some stuff new stuff, adding some new libraries.But yeah, that’s the second app and that was the one that kind of said, okay, cool. So this can … this can actually work. We can make 50 bucks a day which is nothing, right? But still $1500 a month and when you have a partner that’s 750.Andy: Yeah.Chris: [inaudible 00:10:31] the cost of the thing.Andy: Yeah.Chris: So there’s a lot more to do and a lot more to do. Yeah. And it took a couple of more months of playing around before I figured out. I mean we had a massive failure. We did Face
Compare With Friends. Oh my gosh! This is going to be so much better than face compare and you’re going to compare it with your network and it’s got viral where you could say virality.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Yeah. Oh, it’s going to be so awesome. And it took us so long to develop and it just bombed. It was worst than Face Compare.Andy: Oh, no way.Chris: We spent like five, six grand on this thing. Basically spend all the proceeds from Face Compare, dropped in Face Compare With Friends and now Face Compare With Friends is out of the store because it’s so bad. Like I had to pull it. It was that bad.Andy: Oh damn.Chris: Yeah. It’s the only app that I’ve pulled actually and it was the most expensive one to build.Andy: Why do you think it failed?Chris: Oh, it was a failure from the beginning. We took on way too much. We were trying to do like this facial recognition software, interacting with this server that’s hosted on Amazon and we’re like, oh, you just order a server and then it’s already just … We didn’t know what we’re doing. Like my background is not technical. I can put together WordPress site but I’m not an engineer, I can’t mess around with Adobe.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Yeah.Andy: So this is the third app? Third or fourth?Chris: Oh yeah. Face Compare With Friends I think was the third.Andy: So it’s like you did one app, got a little bit of traction, did the next app, got a decent amount, made a decent amount of money, put all the money back in, lost it all.Chris: Essentially but I wouldn’t … it wasn’t so black and white where we were just taking proceeds. I had enough savings to
like throw money and just to test stuff out but for me it was much more about proving the concept. Like, okay, if I can make $5 I can probably make 50.Andy: Yeah.Chris: If I can make 50 I can probably make 500 because the app scenario is almost limitless. You’ll tap out of money before you tap out of people willing to give you money.Andy: (Laughs)Chris: Right?Yeah. I just looked at it more of like a testing round. Can this happen? Can this work? If I threw 20 grand into this what would happen? Would I get my money back in 30 days, 60 days, a hundred days, never?Yeah. Around … I don’t know, April of 2013, so less than a year ago, and this is November 12 when I incorporate it. I had a series of apps that really did well and they’re still doing well. I started making about 10, 12, 15,000 dollars a month. That was kind of like, okay, cool. This is working. I figured out I need $4,000 to not feel like I need to get a job.Andy: Yeah.Chris: So $12,000 is like, okay, I don’t need to get a job, I can get the VA going, I can get my books in order or hire bookkeeper and treat it like a real business because … I mean that’s kind of my background. I’m like a real business guy. I’m not trying to like … move out to my parent’s basement even though I feel like I’m …Andy: Yeah. (Laughs)Chris: No. I’m a guy who’s trying to build a business and to me like building a million dollar or $10 million software business, I recognize how small that is and those numbers don’t intimidate me. It’s a small business.Now, would it put a lot of money in my pocket and would that be awesome? Yeah. I’ve been around business like then, it’s not a big
deal to me. So, I don’t know if the app business that I’m building that I … the BGB business is going to be a $10 million business. It might be a million dollar business but the idea was to keep growing and keep pushing and keep doing things in mobile. So app was part of it, now I’m moving on to some shovels …Andy: Some shovels.Chris: … or a shovel specifically. Like during the gold rush you … that … was that an analogy or whatever. Yeah. I’m finally building a shovel and we can talk about that now or we can talk about app some more.Andy: Yeah. Let’s talk about it. And just for the gold rush analogy we reference it a lot in The Foundation of the people who make the most money during the gold rush are the people selling tools, people selling shovels.Chris: Yeah. Exactly.Andy: Not necessarily the people mining for gold. I think really about two years ago was when the app store gold rush really hit. It’s kind of how it felt.Chris: Yeah.Andy: It seems like everybody is doing it, courses were coming out on it. Just a lot of stuff was happening there. People saw the fart app making 40 grand a day.Chris: Yeah.Andy: It was like, “I have to make a fart app.”Chris: Yeah. They actually have that in Apple like developer guide. We don’t need another fart app. It says that.Andy: No way! Does it really?Chris: Yeah.Andy: That’s so awesome.It’s fun watching. I love watching markets evolve though and how like at the beginning all you have to do is build a fart app and you can get a ton of downloads. But then competition comes into play.Well, before we move on to the thing, how are you marketing the
apps?Chris: So, almost no marketing. I’ve tried everything. It’s not from not wanting to do it, it’s that your time is better spent making a better app than hoping to get one of the … getting coverage for your release or getting someone to cover it on one of the app review sites.We didn’t build landing pages and measured the effectiveness of [SEO 00:15:31] … get a landing page, get it all optimized and then measure the people, the traffic that is driving to my app. It’s nominal. It’s just not worth … it’s so easy to build the landing page, I usually do anyways.Andy: Yeah.Chris: But I don’t put much talk in it. It’s really focus on the things that are in the app that have a much bigger impact. The biggest one is the ASO which is the keywords and title. That’s for the initial, just getting traffic because if you don’t get traffic nothing matters.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Having great icon matters. I say all this why Flappy Bird is number one in the store.Andy: (Laughs)Chris: So, [inaudible 00:16:08], right? In fact they’re still … the jury is still out on what happened exactly there and if there are some … how it went so viral. And so maybe there is some techniques that I haven’t figured out yet but I’m reading all the blogs and what everyone’s is thinking about all that stuff and no one’s cracked the code yet but in general, how about this, to increase your chances of mobile app success.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Have great ASO, have a great icon, great screenshots and great [inaudible 00:16:37] but there’s depth behind that, right?Andy: Yup.Chris: There’s techniques you can do and different
strategies you can try for that.And then having like viral features in the game and making a great game. Making game people want to come back to. But then all that can be in place and then you cannot have your monetization right. Like you cannot have … you can be putting too many ads or the wrong kind of ads or not enough ads or not the right ads or, you know, etc., etc.Andy: Yeah.Chris: So I really got interested in monetization like how you turn a download into a retained user and someone that’s willing to either buy something from you or how you maximize ad spaces and opportunities.Andy: Yeah.Chris: If a user is in your app for two minutes, what’s the right amount of ads, what’s the mix, blah, blah, blah. So I really enjoyed getting it to that.Yeah. Like so many other things. If you’re a gold miner then you’re probably very well-suited to sell the shovels, right? Because you know the experience of the gold miner. I’m definitely one of the gold miners. So I think I can build some good shovels because I’m building …A lot of your titles of your podcast are like this person built a tool that they needed and then repurpose it. Or they scratched their own niche is what it’s called, they’re serving their own market, you know, and I’m definitely building tools where I’m the first customer. I’m imagining there’s other people like me that are going to need the tools. I’m not imaging. I’m testing it as I go. I’m making it sound worse than it is.Andy: Yeah.Chris: But I’m definitely the user is like the men’s hair club. I’m not just the founder, I’m a user.Andy: Yup. It’s fun. We’re in the middle of doing that right now too. It’s just different. It’s way more fun when you’re building
something for yourself. It feels like for me anyway.Chris: Yeah. And the SaaS app is so different than … And this is what’s going to be more interesting to your audience. Mobile apps is mobile apps, right?Andy: Yeah.Chris: It’s just little pocketed little things where you build a product and you throw it out to the world and they like it or they don’t.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Where I’m building a SaaS product and it’s like, oh, I need a social media account. I need all these things that … Oh, I need an autoresponder series from MailChimp. How does that work?Andy: Yeah.Chris: And it’s like my first real attempt at a real niche product or offering or service or whatever we call it.Yeah. It’s definitely … I saw my comfort zone. I’ve never done it before. I’m not like a guy who has sold a $10 million business before or anything like that. So I’m right there with a lot of your listeners where I’m … I’ve had a little success where I don’t live in mama’s basement and I do … how old am I? Thirty-seven. I had a good run, tenure career, but I don’t have to … have a boss anymore. I can live anywhere in the world. We’re going to Columbia to New Zealand, like we’re just bouncing around wherever we want. Because why not? You know.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Like my dog is going in a crate for ten hours. It sucks but we’re moving from Mexico to Columbia and that’s what we’re doing and we’re having fun doing it. So you get a little Geoarbitrage because you can do that. So I’m moderately successful as an entrepreneur but I haven’t taken that next step where I have a million dollars in revenue from subscription base clients.Andy: Yeah.
Chris: And that’s …Andy: Where you’re headed.Chris: Yeah.Andy: So tell me … Let’s shift into … because I think a lot of people have … they’ve heard about apps and they may have tried apps or not. It seems like you’ve got that pretty dialed in and you want something that’s a bit more of a challenge maybe or maybe a bigger opportunity for you is probably a better.Chris: Yeah. Or maybe just to diversify too.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Or I mean, I’ve kind of got the app thing flowing and I can only do so many things at a time without just becoming this behemoth of … Oh, I got four different agencies working for me, all doing the same thing. Yeah. I guess it’s a new challenge and diversify … diversification as well.Andy: It’s interesting for … Peter Shallard and I had … the first interview I did we talked about this moment that happens generally like three years in for entrepreneur-ish who’ve had a decent amount of success and have grown relatively fast. Is that somewhere about three years in the shift comes from … the stress doesn’t come from a lack of opportunities, the stress comes from an abundance of opportunities and it’s hard to figure out what is the highest leverage thing that you could be possibly working on.Chris: Yeah.Andy: And it sounds like that’s where you’re at right now where you’ve got plenty of things you could be doing.Chris: Yeah. So we are talking right before … we only talk for a couple of minutes before we start recording so you guys didn’t miss much. We talked about the DC a little bit. How I was telling you how, yeah, they have like 700 members and they put on a really good event in Bangkok a couple of months ago.So, before I went to this event in Bangkok I had a couple of things I wanted to do. I wanted to get a podcast out and I’ve been recording
those consistently every week. I wanted to get a Udemy course out. I was trying to get a book out but that didn’t happen but then randomly it happened while I was in Bali after the conference. But the idea was I wanted to get these things done so when I was in Bangkok I could be like, yeah, I just started the podcast. It wasn’t like I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. It’s like I’ve started. I put the Buy button on the store and now I’m trying to get more people to click on the Buy button.Andy: Yup.Chris: As a result … oh, I get a offer to be an adviser to this start up in Hong Kong about … It’s like an Elance for sales people, right? It’s like free agent sales people. Oh, I’m getting offers left and right. In fact now I’m to the point where I don’t even have to pay for apps. People say, “You think this is a good idea? If you do, here, you get 50% and let’s go build it together.” It’s almost like I’m doing too much but I don’t want to pass on anything because it’s all these great opportunities.I’m going to have to start. This is the first time in my entrepreneurial life where I’ve had this where, it’s like, oh, all of a sudden people are really like … They know who I am and they’re going for me. Like I’m a thought leader in some small niche, you know?Andy: Yeah. And then it becomes easier and easier, like opportunity just come in.Chris: Yeah. And then you’re right. It’s to the part of what do I say yes to?Andy: So tell me what’s the SaaS thing you’re working on.Chris: Yeah. So it’s called App Jetpack. And in fact by the time this airs or is posted there’ll be a beta sign up. There’s a beta sign up now but I was showing my mastermind the website behind the beta sign up. And so I have the beta sign up down but I’ll just click it on after we’re done here.Andy: Okay.Chris: It is an app diagnostic tool. Basically what it does is
you log in and you connect your store account which is iTunes connecting Google Play. And then most mobile apps use some analytic service. So then you’d connect let’s say Flurry or Google Analytics and you can connect your ad networks as well. That’s optional but it’s recommended. And then we’ll tell you the highest ROI activity to take on your app to take it to the next level.“Hey, your … well, an obvious one is your downloads are low. Have you tried these five things?” Right? Or, “Hey, your retention is low. Let’s fix these things.” There’s a million of them. “Your ECPM is low, your fillrate is low. Have you thought about ad mediation? Your ECPM is low for this ad network, are you …” We’ve written five diagnostics just for the testing and I’ve got a sheet of 30.Andy: So you’re building this for yourself because you’ve got a portfolio of apps.Chris: Yeah.Andy: Have you validate it with anyone else?Chris: So I’m following the framework from its running lane. It’s the second book from the Lean Startup series. I’m forgetting the author’s name but maybe we could put in the show notes because I need to give that guy a hug. He has written a book that … I mean I’ve devoured these kinds of books and this one just as like talking my language. Some of these books just really resonate and this is one of them. And I’m using his framework and he’s very big in interviewing people. I know you guys are too. Interviewing people and validating not only what you think is the solution but validating the problem. Is this a problem we’re solving? Is my solution the right way to solve this problem? Are you willing to pay for it? Those are kind of the three things.Andy: Yup.Chris: So I interviewed 15 people. Every single one of them … this seems like a step you could skip even though you know you shouldn’t but you’d get lazy and you maybe interview three and you check it off your list. I’ve interviewed 15 and every single one of
them has thrown out some gem of, “Oh, and if you did this it’d be awesome,” or “Have you thought about this?” Or just giving you a different way to think about it.A quick example is I thought about ROI where, “Hey, if you make this change you’re going to make $800 more a month.” And I was thinking they would use that $800 against the development cost. Like they’d say, “Okay, I’m going to make $800 a month; it’s going to cost $500 to make this change. Cool.” That’s a 20-day return so that’s great.Andy: Yeah.Chris: But really what they’re going to do is say, “Oh, this tool that I’m paying a $100 a month for found me $800. So they’re going to not do the ROI on the development cost, they’re going to do it most likely on what they’re paying me for the monthly subscription.And it’s just under thing to think about like, oh, you’re right. Most people probably would do it like that. Or at least that’d be one of the ways they could look at that data. So it just little gems like that where everyone you talk to give you some little gem of how it could work and how it works for them and how they’re looking at it.Andy: Have you sold this to them yet? Have you asked them for money?Chris: We don’t even have a working version yet but that is a huge point that I announced it this morning on our mastermind. Yeah. That’s the proving point. We’re not even there yet. That’s how early this is.Andy: It’s fun. We’ve just started doing this with a really small group of people. We’re building an app, the SaaS platform and its fun getting to the point where you’re asking for money.Chris: I’m scared.Andy: Are you?Chris: Well, because they’re going to … I’m really worried I’ve heard so many stories of, oh, I love it. It’s so awesome. Yeah,
this is great. No, this solves my need. Yeah, this is perfect. Oh, you want $100 a month? I don’t know.Andy: Yeah. That’s a huge thing.Chris: It’s almost like all the stuff before that doesn’t matter until we get to that point where they say yay or nay. And so I’m kind of … Everyone’s getting really excited because they saw the first mockups last week and then they see my marketing stuff this week. That’s not [inaudible 00:26:40]. Every week we’re showing our mastermind what we’re doing. But I know it’s like, well, yeah, it’s cool. They’re like, oh, you’re going to need funding because when you figure this out you’re going to need to go after all these ads. It’s like, dude, wait until we get five people paying us and then we’ll talk about it. Yeah.Andy: Is there a reason you haven’t asked for money yet? Aside from like the fear around it?Chris: Well, yeah, because we don’t have anything for them to pay for yet.Andy: Cool.Chris: That’s the only thing. Yeah. I’m not afraid of doing it, I’m afraid of the … Well, I’m afraid of the answers but not … it’s not enough afraid to not do it.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Yeah. I’m not that kind of guy.Andy: Consider doing it anyway and putting … in The Foundation we teach pre-selling module around how to pre-sell the software before it exist.Chris: Okay.Andy: Because what happens is you’re exactly right of … when you start asking $100 a month then the objection start flying of like, “Oh, but it doesn’t have this. I really want this.”Chris: Yeah.Andy: So at the end of the calls … We’ve just started doing this at this point in the development process. But we started putting
together a package for like you sign up for a year and you get a discount and blah, blah, blah. Helps us just validate that people are actually going to exchange money.Chris: Okay. That’s a great idea.Andy: A lot changes when you start asking.Chris: Yes.Andy: As you know already.Chris: Well, we had no idea what kind of pricing we’re going to go with and what structure because with apps it could be number of apps or downloads or users or daily advertisers.Andy: [inaudible 00:28:09]?Chris: I think so but it hasn’t been validated as evidenced by not having a dollar yet. That’s probably a really good idea … or that is a really good idea. And you know what? I knew you guys preach that, the pre-selling concept. So offering annual with the discount now like beta discount …Andy: Yup.Chris: … is probably a great idea.Andy: Cool. I’ll shoot you a little document after this.Chris: Okay, cool. Thank you.Andy: Discuss some info on it.Chris: And in three months, check on me. We’ll do this again if that’s the way … that’s the way you do this and we’ll go, “Okay, is Chris full of …” you guys cuss on the show?Andy: Yeah.Chris: Oh, you do?Andy: No, [inaudible 00:28:43].Chris: I don’t cuss on my show so I won’t cuss on yours. Yeah, we’ll see if I’m full of it or not. No, but I’m not. We’ll see if it’s a failure or not.Andy: It’s really cool. I love getting interview now where you’re in like the creation phase. And there’s so much that happens on this phase that doesn’t even get talked about. And that people just
like gloss over.Chris: Yeah.Andy: Looking back you remember it in a different light than when you’re in the middle of it.Chris: Looking back I’ll be like, of course we knew. Everyone loved it.Andy: Oh, yeah.Chris: Of course it’s going to succeed. And then if I … Yeah, if it’s a failure I’ll look back, “Oh yeah, that’s why.”Andy: (Laughs)Chris: But, you know, part of the environment right now are the culture with the startup thing is that failure is like a badge of honor. At least you try it all the way and you took the right steps. So like sharing right now it’s like, who cares, man? Everyone … even the super successful people.The founder of Twitter has a great saying like the first one was a utter failure, the second one was a failure, third one I raised money, I lost all the money, fourth one was Twitter. Or something like that. Oh, it’s PayPal. I’m sorry. Fourth one was PayPal.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Yeah. There’s no shame in failing if you fail with the right way and you learn a lot.Andy: Yeah.Chris: I feel like I’m going through … I’m trying to get as much learning as I can.Andy: Yeah. Are you doing anything to like reflect on what you’re learning and … and like document that as you go?Chris: I started recording something on my new Google phone and then I had to reformat my phone so the short answer is no.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Oh, except for the mastermind calls which, you know. Yeah.
Andy: Talk to me about how impactful having to mastermind has been in your business?Chris: Huge. Huge. Huge, huge. If you’re really going for this. If you’re an American or a Westerner, specifically if you’re a Westerner your opinion and you’re really going for this. Like you’re really going for the entrepreneur thing and you’re really cutting expenses or you’re really not committing and doing a nine-to-five job anymore. You’re going to be maybe one of the only one of your friends.I moved to Baja like North Mexico which is just an hour south to San Diego and … This is going to sound controversial but … I mean we have Detroit and Philly in the United States and people are like, “Oh my God! Mexico is so dangerous.” Like dude, what are you guys talking about? You guys living in a warzone.I lived on the beach, furnished apartment for a thousand square feet for 400 bucks. It’s like come on! It was so quiet, all I did was read and work and it was awesome. But guess what? My friends thought I was crazy. My family was really concerned. Well, my friends didn’t think I was crazy, they just thought, well, let’s see what happens, right?Andy: Yeah.Chris: They’re huge supporters and they want to see me successful but they don’t know what’s going on. But what I found was there weren’t many people I could talk to that really were trying to do the same things. At least not really, like not intelligently and taking the steps on a daily basis. I joined the DC not knowing what I would get out of it. Just never being in an online forum or group before. Didn’t know what … what’s the name of that real famous free group? Warrior, something Warrior …Andy: Warrior Forum?Chris: Warrior Forum, right?Andy: Oh, yeah.Chris: No idea what that is, right? But all these internet
marketers know all about it, right? But I’m not an internet marketer, I’m nothing close. I’m like a business guy that’s starting a business, right? So it just happens to be in this like younger, mobile area.Out of the DC came a mastermind and all of us on the six-month group just exploded. Like I went from $40 a day to 500 a day. Another guy like launched a business. I started a podcast with one of the guys on the mastermind. Oh, it’s App Business Podcast. There’s my plug. Appbusinesspodcast.com or … yeah. [inaudible 00:32:29].Yeah, we just all grew a lot and so we started another one. And now we have four of them. We have four masterminds like … I’m in one of them and there’s enough interested people that we have all these people in masterminds. It’s been really great. Yeah, it’s been awesome.Andy: For people who don’t have a community or have never been part of a mastermind, how did you start it and what’s like the format?Chris: Yeah. So this is critical because I’ve been on a couple that were terrible. Like I joined a podcasting mastermind, “Hey, we left Bangkok, we’re all going to start podcast.” And the guy who organized it and was like the proctor or the leader didn’t even end up starting one. So there’s definitely like keys to failure.A Frenchee, living in London, Patrice, reached out to me, saw I was involved in mobile on the DC and said, “Hey, you want to be involved in this mastermind?” So we had six people and that’s a good number. You don’t want more than that.You also want to institute … if it’s the first time you guys are all meeting each other, I would institute the, hey, if you miss more than one, you’re out of the group. People need to attend. Yeah.Rotating hot seat. So the first 15, 20 minutes is what you did over the previous week. The accountability will just kind of happen, right? You’ll be embarrassed to say nothing, nothing, nothing three weeks in a row.And then the mastermind is whatever topic you want to go into.
Every mastermind has its own personality. Ours has tended to be, you know, very open and we share lots of information. There’s another guy in my mastermind that is almost a direct competitor in the app store and we just share everything because we figure the market is big enough for both of us and we just share everything. Let’s see.Andy: Cool.Chris: Yeah. Yeah. So I think those are the big ones. Having a strong host who is good with moving the conversation forward. That should only be a problem the first couple of times and then you’ll get in … you’ll fall in to some normal group dynamic. But having the defined leader who’s saying, okay, that’s it.Like one guy was talking a lot so he put up a timer. The German put up a timer. Of course the German does it. So we had to limit this guy to three minutes of talking and it wasn’t me, I promise. Although it seems like it might have been. We had to limit his talking because he just go on and on and on and on.If you understand the goal as to help each other out and you’re all going to be successful, in an entrepreneur world six months is a long time so being involved in a mastermind for six months, if you guys aren’t growing and seeing growth, just get out of it. It’s not working then.Andy: Yeah.Chris: You should be growing over six months. Yeah. So we developed a real friendship, you know?Andy: Yeah.Chris: Yeah, it’s been really cool.Andy: So what’s the biggest thing you learned from transitioning from apps to software so far?Chris: Dude, I don’t feel like I really have transitioned to software because it’s so … Well, first of all I’m not building it. I’ve got a partner who’s building the whole thing. I built the website so you can compliment me on that but … I don’t know. I guess just
how much more real of a startup it is than apps. That’s the big thing. Apps are little pieces of product in. You don’t have to even market them and you throw them in the store and people like them or they don’t. And you get really good at optimizing them, liking them, right?SaaS is so different. Like I need to have a voice. I need to have a blog that shows my position on what I think about user retention and engagement and tools for monetization and basically shares all the secrets I’ve learned over the last 18 months. But I’m okay with that because it’s fun to share the stuff and see new people do well with it. But I’m this guy didn’t know how to use Twitter 18 months ago. So it’s figuring out how it all works together.Frankly not a lot of people do it very well and there are some that do it extremely well. So following like the KISSmetrics of the world and some of these other guys, right? And really seeing how they’ve done well helps me. Yeah, it’s just much a realer startup than apps. I have to talk to people but apps I don’t even have to talk to people, you know?Andy: Yeah. It’s really interesting that Apple’s created a market where the product rises to the top not necessarily the marketing where I think in the world that we live in it’s generally like the marketing is such a … it’s almost 80% a lot of the time, you know? Like 80% of [effort 00:36:52] marketing, 20% profit. I think a lot of people do. I think that’s actually starting to get a little bit more even but the … you have to spend a significant amount of time on marketing and on product and it’s just … it’s different.Chris: Yeah. Android is pulling Apple more into meeting more marketing. Just because of SEO alone, right? Those kinds of things. But you’re right, there’s not a lot you can do to affect an app unless you have one app and you’re like building a new podcasting app. Then you put a lot more into your press release and you go into … like trying to connect with different writers and journalist and maybe you have a huge blog post. Maybe there’s this bigger effort.
But for people like me who are pumping out five games a month or five games a week, you put stuff in the store and what resonates, resonates and what doesn’t, doesn’t and nothing else is going to help you. Literally. I mean, yeah.Andy: Yup. Oh, man, dude. I think what’s really impressive is that you made the transition after being in Corporate America for so long. And I think what happens is that like Jade’s people. Like ten years is a long time and ten years you see reality through the lens of Corporate America which is very different.Chris: Look at this beard, dude. It’s been a long time.Andy: Yeah. (Laughs)Chris: (Laughs) Yeah.Andy: It’s just such a different lens than the startup world, you know? How did you do that? How did you make the transition?Chris: Well, one I agree with you. I think that is what’s unique about my story is. It wasn’t like I was this guy who got an MBA and then failed in business and then, you know, just trying to figure out what I wanted to do and then got lucky. No. I made a conscious decision. I’m going to live on a lot less and I’m going to be happy with that. Even like today. Now everyone is saying, “Oh, when Chris makes his billions …” I’m like, “Whoa, guys! That’s not the goal.” It might happen but I’m happy with what I’m doing now. It’s not about that. Once I figure that out that I would be really happy with a lot less, a lot less then it just didn’t matter. It made the … well, what it’s called? What it’s called when your time between you’re out of money?Andy: Runaway?Chris: Runaway, yeah. I was going to say roadmap but that wasn’t it.Andy: Close.Chris: And I know that a lot of your … The Foundation stuff is to eliminate or greatly reduce the need for runaway. Let’s say the first time you do the process that Foundation espouses you
fail or the first three times, it just doesn’t work and that happens.Andy: Yeah.Chris: It doesn’t mean the approach is wrong, it just takes time sometimes.Yeah. Recognizing that if I live super and expensively I can keep my … I already forgot it … runaway, very long. Well, now I’m to the point where I can keep my runaway my whole like. Like I can just keep living and building things and seeing what resonates. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to build a $10 million software company or $100 million service. It just means that I … I don’t need to live like so many Americans do where they’ve got, you know, a month of savings if they’re lucky and they’re like paying two car payments.I think the material life is just … the entrepreneurial life and the material life sometimes don’t even … aren’t the same character. Like you look like some of these billionaires and they’re just living the same life.Andy: Yeah.Chris: It doesn’t even affect them, it doesn’t change them.Andy: Yeah.Chris: They fly private but other than that it’s like the same.Andy: Yeah.Chris: And I think that I really just kind of found … you know I’m more happy building stuff and reading than I am golfing on weekends or whatever. Whatever I was doing before, yeah.Andy: Yeah.Chris: And my friends are still golfing on weekends and doing whatever. So they’re happy and they’ve got their kids and their family and they’re into it but it just didn’t work for me. I’m lucky to find a chick that is into it too and that’s rare.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Is being an entrepreneur and finding a girl, before you’ve made your money. That’s like … if, again, if I ever do that is
willing to like go for the ride.Andy: Yeah.Chris: But she’s way into it. Everything is kind of falling … You’re catching me at a really good time because everything is kind of falling in place. It has been over the last six months.Andy: Dude, I love hearing your story and I think … Let’s plan on having you back in like six to 12 months or something.Chris: Yeah.Andy: Let’s plan on scheduling a call when you’re at, like, somewhere between like three and five grand a month or something.Chris: Oh, with the new …Andy: With the software product.Chris: Okay. Three and five grand a month, shoot! That better be … Yeah.Andy: Couple of months?Chris: Six months should be plenty but who knows. You never know.Andy: Yeah. Let’s do it again. That sounds really fun to me.Chris: Yeah. Like a reality check, right?Andy: Yeah. Exactly.Chris: It’ll be great for me too. It’ll be great to look back on this and go this is amazing how much we all change.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Look back and go, oh, that’s what I was thinking in six months and why am I wearing that beanie and where am I at? Oh, [inaudible 00:41:58]. Yeah. But, yeah, that will be great. That will be cool.Andy: One of my mentors, Bryan Franklin, who’s a rapid scale expert. He’s helped seven companies scaled to a billion dollars in revenue. He says if you weren’t … what he say? If there isn’t like a little part of you who’s kind of ashamed about who you were like three to six months ago, you’re not growing fast enough.Chris: That’s good. Yeah.
Andy: It rings really, really true for me.Chris: Like I said I was embarrassed to admit what app it was but if it weren’t for that app I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.Andy: Exactly.Chris: I wanted to say this at the beginning of the call. When I was doing my research for … I wanted to listen to one of your podcast or a couple of your podcast before I was a guest. If you guys, the listeners, haven’t heard the Dan Martell at least the first 15 minutes of it, dude, you guys are missing out on a really interesting first 15 minutes of a podcast.Andy: Dude …Chris: So, I wanted to pitch that one.Andy: Dude, thank you, man.Chris: Yeah.Andy: Dan and I … we just met real deep, real quickly.Chris: Yeah. So then I had the gun. I’m like, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”Andy: Yeah.Chris: Yeah. Yeah.Andy: Yeah.Chris: Not overselling this. Go listen to it guys.Andy: Yeah. I love that we open that nice little loop for people to check that one out. I can’t remember which episode it was but just Google thefoundationpodcast and Dan Martell because he’s … he’s an incredible human being too.Dude, if people want to find you and meet you and talk to you, get in touch with some of the stuff you’re doing, where can they do that?Chris: Maybe the best one is [email protected]: Cool.Chris: I don’t know. I don’t even know how to manage my
emails because I have so many. With the new email I have appbusinesspodcast, I have bgbisland. I started the services company Green Rhino services. I’ve got [email protected] but let’s do it with the podcast. So that’d be [email protected]: Beautiful. And we will put that in the show notes for y’all.Chris: Okay. Cool.Andy: Awesome, dude. Thank you so much for coming on. I’m stoked to see where you go and having you back again.Chris: Yeah, it’s been fun. Thanks, man.Closing: Thank you for joining us. We’ve taken this interview and created a custom action guide so you know exactly what action steps to take to grow your business. Just head over to thefoundationpodcast.com to download it for free. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next week.