[00:00:05] John: Hello! [00:00:05] John: You are listening to Standing in the Fire. [00:00:07] John: We're Kris, John, and sometimes Garrett. [00:00:09] John: Hopefully soon, Garrett. [00:00:11] John: The owners of Fireside.fm talk about what it's like to be in the heat of SaaS growth. [00:00:16] John: We have some heat lately. [00:00:18] Kris: You have some heat? [00:00:19] John: Yeah. [00:00:19] John: Right? [00:00:20] Kris: I mean, some heat. [00:00:20] John: Yeah. [00:00:21] John: Things don't always go perfect. [00:00:22] John: So lots of things are going great, but some things aren't. [00:00:25] John: So we're going to stick to our recent segment format because it makes it really easy to do a podcast. [00:00:31] John: Okay. [00:00:32] John: So first we're going to start with Into the Fire, which is basically, you know, what's been hard, what's been messy, what's been stretching in business, life, any of that kind of stuff. [00:00:40] John: It's the opposite of reels. [00:00:43] John: Yeah. [00:00:44] John: Who wants to go first? [00:00:45] John: Why don't you go first? [00:00:46] John: Unless you don't want to. [00:00:47] Kris: No, no. [00:00:48] Kris: We can start. [00:00:48] Kris: We'll start with today's... Debacle? [00:00:52] Kris: Catastrophe debacle. [00:00:54] Kris: Watergate? [00:00:54] Kris: Yeah, yeah. [00:00:55] Kris: Literally. [00:00:56] Kris: We have our own version of Watergate. [00:00:58] Kris: So you build an amazing space that you're like, the best amenities, what's going to bring people in from 30 minutes away to our space? [00:01:05] Kris: And we decided it was coffee, draft lattes, draft cold brew, pour over machine, batch brewing system. [00:01:11] Kris: What could go wrong? [00:01:12] Kris: What could go wrong? [00:01:13] Kris: You could run out of water. [00:01:14] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:01:17] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:01:37] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:02:04] John: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:02:06] John: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:02:23] Kris: And there's so many things we're trying to do to make sure everyone's happy, people are having a good time. [00:02:28] Kris: And the amount of coffee issues we've had since opening is like, Ben, I would say if you asked all the members what's been a recurring issue, it's with the coffee. [00:02:39] Kris: And probably because we're not a restaurant, we're not done our primary focus, but we wanted to have restaurant quality issues. [00:02:46] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fire, and Box Out. [00:03:06] John: But I feel like it has been pretty smooth for a couple months, though. [00:03:09] John: And it is really good coffee. [00:03:12] John: Yeah. [00:03:12] John: So, I mean, it's pretty rare that you just walk in and get a draft latte or something like that. [00:03:17] Kris: So, yeah, that's been today's debacle. [00:03:20] Kris: And, you know, it's interesting how that can throw off, like, what you thought you were going to do in the morning more than you expected. [00:03:26] Kris: Yeah. [00:03:27] John: Well, and it's one of those things, too, where I feel like you get hit with something, and then it's like, how do you respond? [00:03:32] John: Do you respond with like, okay, this is an opportunity to turn it around. [00:03:36] John: I'm going to go to the nearest coffee place and buy a thing. [00:03:40] John: Or like what you did, which is just reach out to our coffee provider and be like, look, we're out of water. [00:03:44] John: We don't know why, but can you just make us a batch? [00:03:48] Kris: Yeah, and what I think... [00:03:50] Kris: Probably a learning experience for us is to more quickly try to turn that into surprise and delight. [00:03:55] Kris: So when our community manager came in at 8 o'clock and understood that there was no coffee, I get a text that the water is not working as we expected to, of take that moment to go and try to temporarily fix it with something and maybe get some donuts. [00:04:13] Kris: Do something like that that's low cost. [00:04:16] Kris: I know, I thought of it as we were talking here. [00:04:17] Kris: Yeah. [00:04:19] Kris: But it would be above it. [00:04:20] Kris: So it's almost like people will forget about it. [00:04:22] Kris: So by the time that we need it again, it will hopefully be fixed because they have the watery eyes coming out today. [00:04:26] Kris: But, yeah, I think that's applicable more. [00:04:28] Kris: This is just like obviously the primary situation that we were dealing with today. [00:04:31] Kris: But even with software, like when things break, how do you turn that from people being angry into adding additional tweak to it? [00:04:40] Kris: Because of the feedback they gave, [00:04:44] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:05:03] John: Topics include Flipper, Flipper Cloud, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:05:26] Kris: It's interesting because on the other side, I'm just thinking some of the software we've been using, like for, you know, bringing back to the space, you know, there's things that, so they now have an AI tool for like, that's the first line of support. [00:05:40] Kris: Oh, yeah. [00:05:40] Kris: Interesting question. [00:05:41] Kris: So that would I say. [00:05:42] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:05:58] Kris: Because there's a thing of like, oh, I need to figure out how to change this setting or how do I do this in the app. [00:06:03] Kris: And I would say, typically, it's been actually really good at finding the solution. [00:06:07] Kris: But it's more of, you know, it has hard-coded categories or something like that. [00:06:12] Kris: It doesn't make sense in the settings. [00:06:14] Kris: And I want that to be editable or changeable. [00:06:17] Kris: And that should be an easy thing. [00:06:18] Kris: But the chatbot's never going to give me that answer or – [00:06:23] Kris: Put that in a queue. [00:06:25] Kris: But yeah, we should take our help docs and create that agent. [00:06:31] Kris: I'm curious which one the software I'm talking about is using because it's been a very different experience. [00:06:38] Kris: Every time I want to use that, if I can't find it, I'm actually happy to use it and not have to talk to someone because I know it's not a talk-to-someone issue. [00:06:45] Kris: But other ones that I've used with one of our hosting providers for websites, anytime you want to try to say... [00:06:53] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:06:55] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:07:10] John: Yeah, I've went through that on a couple of them as well, and it always kind of drives me insane. [00:07:15] John: I feel like this just happened to me this morning, or last night. [00:07:18] John: I don't remember when I was working on this. [00:07:20] John: I think it was last night. [00:07:21] John: And I have to do this new migration for Flipper for various reasons. [00:07:27] John: But I do them so rare that I can never remember how to do them. [00:07:31] John: And it's just a little bit different process because we're talking about hundreds of gigs of data versus just tiny data. [00:07:36] John: And [00:07:39] John: Topics include Flipper, Flipper Cloud, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:08:01] John: And then I'm like, I finally dug in and I was like, oh no, like I don't have this one setting turned on on like the staging versus the, you know, the production one. [00:08:09] John: And so staging is fine to just run the migration live. [00:08:13] John: It doesn't matter because if it goes down, it's just staging. [00:08:15] John: Who cares? [00:08:16] John: And production, then we do this like safe migration type thing. [00:08:20] John: But I went through that same thing where I was like, I wish I could just talk to an AI that was tuned for that service that could tell me exactly how I do it. [00:08:28] John: And so I tried to, this time, I updated the docs because last time I did it, I figured it out. [00:08:33] John: I didn't update the docs, our own docs in our repo. [00:08:36] John: And then I came back this time, our playbook, let's say, and didn't have the playbook up to date. [00:08:42] John: And so then I was like, [00:08:43] John: Topics include Flipper, Flipper Cloud, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:09:03] Kris: Do you set your calendar to do that this morning? [00:09:08] Kris: Do you typically do that for the different tasks you're trying to do? [00:09:10] Kris: And the context is like, one thing I've been trying to think about, how to be more consistent on the different things. [00:09:18] Kris: Instead of going in a spurt and be like, cool, I posted four videos in the last week and then go a month and not doing it. [00:09:23] Kris: To not have to think about it and... [00:09:29] Kris: And, you know, oh, look, I'm just going to post this. [00:09:31] Kris: You get it done and move on versus always getting sidetracked with the different things that pop up. [00:09:36] Kris: Yeah. [00:09:37] Kris: I know there's people who calendar out their whole day. [00:09:40] Kris: I can't do that. [00:09:41] Kris: Mad massacre. [00:09:46] Kris: How do you think about that? [00:09:48] Kris: You know, and I say New Year, like, you know, that we need to – [00:09:51] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:10:19] John: Basically like this to-do list, like the next three things that need to happen. [00:10:23] John: And so right from there, every time I open my phone up randomly, I see, oh, you haven't done these things. [00:10:28] John: So it's like if I know I need to do it, I put it at the top. [00:10:31] John: I make sure that it's there so that I remember. [00:10:33] John: But if I'm not feeling messy, I might, you know, and I know I'm going to be at my desk all day. [00:10:37] John: I have little sticky notes and sometimes I'll just write the three or four things on a sticky note. [00:10:41] John: I don't have like one tried and true way. [00:10:43] John: It kind of depends on the context of where I'm at. [00:10:46] John: But I definitely feel you on the consistency thing because there are times where you feel like, you know, like, oh, I just crushed this for like a week, you know, and then you just do nothing for three weeks and you're like, well, there's literally no point. [00:10:58] John: You just got everybody excited in that week and then you failed them for three weeks. [00:11:02] Kris: Telling this podcast. [00:11:03] John: Yes. [00:11:04] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:11:22] John: Anything else, Messi? [00:11:23] Kris: Yeah, yeah. [00:11:23] Kris: I know we kind of digress. [00:11:25] Kris: What's your next? [00:11:27] John: Next one, Fan the Flames. [00:11:28] John: We got a recommendation for book, tool, video, idea, person that has been inspiring. [00:11:33] John: I can go first since you did last time. [00:11:34] Kris: Yeah, yeah. [00:11:35] John: So the one that I liked a lot, and it's not directly applicable, but I just finished up the $100 million money models from Alex Ramosi. [00:11:44] John: And I actually really liked that guy. [00:11:46] John: I thought, you know, initially, I think we've talked about him before on here, like where, you know, he's in the... [00:11:51] John: Topics include Flipper, [00:12:10] John: Right. [00:12:10] John: Yep. [00:12:37] John: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:12:56] John: It's just like this subtle twist. [00:12:58] Kris: What's interesting, I think I was listening to that book right before the holidays. [00:13:03] Kris: And, you know, as we're doing memberships here, it made me think of how to apply it. [00:13:09] Kris: You know, offering people two different ways to get almost like a similar thing. [00:13:14] Kris: And one is, and I was listening to him and I can't remember how he was applying it, but it was like, do we give... [00:13:20] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:13:42] John: That was actually the number one thing that I thought of when I was reading the book was, like, A, Robbie for Box Out, thinking through, like, I know I've heard him on calls do a lot of those things anyways, but also, like, I thought about Momentum a lot because I was like, that is person-to-person, it's direct sales where this kind of, like, map out your entire playbook of how you sell to someone so that you get them comfortable. [00:14:03] John: And I really like, too, where he would, like, stop sometimes and be like, look, [00:14:07] John: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:14:24] Kris: And the other thing that makes me think of, and I know there's whatever people think of the guy, but like Ryan Serhant, who has done Melinda Arda listing, and now he has like selling Manhattan real estate agent, high-end real estate. [00:14:39] Kris: I know one of the clips that's on Instagram a lot is, you know, his ability to follow up with you until you die is like... [00:14:45] Kris: Amazing. [00:14:45] Kris: And he goes, it can be years of just like following up with certain people before he gets the big deal. [00:14:53] Kris: And I think of that just like how with, again, maybe it's less for SaaS things because people are just signing up on their own. [00:15:00] Kris: But with like membership stuff is like people, just because they haven't responded does mean that they're not interested. [00:15:06] Kris: They're highly interested that there could be a lot of other things going on. [00:15:10] Kris: And so, yeah, if they're eight or nine, like, I followed up with a guy that had to cancel a tour, you know, three months ago. [00:15:16] Kris: And I followed up with a couple times. [00:15:17] Kris: He hasn't responded. [00:15:18] Kris: But they were super excited from that initial thing. [00:15:20] Kris: And they couldn't make the tour. [00:15:22] Kris: And so I followed up again this new year. [00:15:23] Kris: He's like, yeah, like, let's do it at the end of January. [00:15:25] Kris: I'm like, oh, glad I kept doing that. [00:15:27] Kris: I know one of the things that I think was also in that is... [00:15:32] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:15:55] John: Here's the new single-origin coffee that we're serving as soon as we have water. [00:16:00] Kris: Oh, interesting. [00:16:01] John: Yeah, there's lots of things. [00:16:02] John: Or you could be like, this is the last talk that happened or things like that. [00:16:05] John: I feel like there's a lot of options in there. [00:16:08] John: Yeah, that's cool. [00:16:10] John: What it reminded me of is you've heard the story of the guy who was the best car salesman in the history of the world. [00:16:17] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:16:37] John: Got you a fair price, and he always followed up with you. [00:16:39] John: So he'd always send you birthday cards, Christmas cards. [00:16:42] John: His thing was cards, handwritten notes, and stuff like that. [00:16:44] John: So he would do handwritten notes every time you came in, handwritten notes for New Year's, Christmas, et cetera, and all that kind of stuff. [00:16:50] John: And then when people went to buy it, he would stay in their brain. [00:16:54] John: And then when people were like, I need a new car, they'd be like, I'm going to this guy because he's in my brain already. [00:16:59] John: Yeah, so I thought that was cool. [00:17:01] John: Okay, for you, recommendation. [00:17:02] John: Any recommendations, tools? [00:17:03] Kris: Oh, yeah. [00:17:04] Kris: I had one when he started, and then – [00:17:07] Kris: Oh, I know a lot of people probably already do this, and I'm often late to the game on cool things. [00:17:17] Kris: iPhone. [00:17:21] Kris: I bought Jesse Itzler's calendar where you try to map out your year and just be more intentional on doing activities that aren't always work-related. [00:17:30] Kris: Or they could be work-related, but they're just things you wouldn't ordinarily do just to get out of the... [00:17:35] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:18:02] Kris: We found it super valuable for here because we're trying to plan like 75 events for this coming year. [00:18:06] Kris: And so how do you map those out to be strategic and just like making sure that it's not all bunched up in the first quarter or the first half of the year? [00:18:15] Kris: So that's been great. [00:18:16] Kris: And then also just personally, I have one that I've been trying to work through. [00:18:19] Kris: And it's just like you put it on the wall, you see it every day. [00:18:23] Kris: And so it's giving that sense of like reminder of like, yeah, these are the things I want to do. [00:18:28] Kris: You know, last weekend, I went, like, trying to keep that mentality, too, of, like, doing something I wouldn't typically say yes to. [00:18:36] Kris: And so we actually went to a comedy club for one of our members who was doing stand-up comedy up in Niles, Michigan. [00:18:42] Kris: And typically, I love comedy. [00:18:45] Kris: I love music. [00:18:45] Kris: I love entertainment. [00:18:47] Kris: But sometimes if it's, you know, not the name brand, I'm like, oh, like, do I really want to go? [00:18:51] Kris: I'll stay home and, you know. [00:18:52] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:19:18] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Flipper Cloud, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:19:48] John: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:20:08] John: And so Ember and Bed, they're like almost the exact same word. [00:20:11] John: So that would be my Ember. [00:20:13] John: I worked on that, and it turned out pretty good. [00:20:16] John: It's a responsive player that, you know, you can be on whatever device, and it kind of shrinks based on the breakpoints that we define and stuff like that. [00:20:25] John: And it turned out really cool, and it's not something that I would have been able to write, you know. [00:20:30] John: It would take me forever to write that, you know, six months ago or a year ago. [00:20:35] John: But... [00:20:36] John: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:20:55] John: So that was my JavaScript era. [00:20:57] John: And so this is a lot of JavaScript. [00:20:58] John: And I'm like, ooh. [00:20:59] John: By the way, that was also your Crocs era. [00:21:02] John: Yes. [00:21:02] John: Yep. [00:21:03] John: The Nuniform. [00:21:03] John: So I had Crocs, some kind of a funny t-shirt. [00:21:08] John: Yep. [00:21:09] John: Or at least funny to me. [00:21:10] Kris: No, it was funny. [00:21:10] John: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:21:34] John: Topics include Flipper, Flipper Cloud, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:22:00] John: Cool. [00:22:01] John: I already have the Ember player in, so I'm going to try and make this playlist version. [00:22:04] John: So I did. [00:22:06] John: I basically got it where I kind of wanted in somewhere like an hour or something like that, shipped it to production, and then I replied. [00:22:13] John: And I was like, here's where it is. [00:22:14] John: Here's how it works. [00:22:15] John: Here's a screenshot. [00:22:16] John: Let me know if you have any questions. [00:22:17] John: And he was like, this is unreal. [00:22:20] John: I would not expect this level of support. [00:22:23] John: I didn't tell him it only took an hour. [00:22:24] Kris: Yeah. [00:22:24] Kris: So if you're listening, it took a long time. [00:22:26] John: Yeah, exactly. [00:22:28] John: But I thought, you know, that's kind of like this new idea in my head is like, how fast can I like do something that gets value to production? [00:22:36] John: And it's not going to be the best. [00:22:37] John: Like if Garrett, you know, or me built these things from scratch, they would be better. [00:22:44] John: But it's to the level that the customer wants. [00:22:46] John: Correct. [00:22:47] Kris: Yeah. [00:22:47] John: So that's what matters. [00:22:48] John: It's not about, you know, it's not about being a crash man. [00:22:51] Kris: We're not getting awards for it being the perfect code. [00:22:54] John: We need money for it to be what the customer needs. [00:22:56] John: Yeah. [00:22:57] John: So that's been my, like, I think my small update is, like, how fast can I get something out? [00:23:01] John: How fast can I, like... [00:23:03] John: Ship it and, like, surprise people and make them generally be like, they must have already had this in the works. [00:23:08] John: There's no way that they, you know, they received this and then built that functionality that fast. [00:23:13] John: That's what I've been doing. [00:23:14] John: And I'm finally living up to this little, you know, sticky note that I have on my monitor that says, what has to be true for it to take half the time? [00:23:23] John: Because I'm always a chronic overthinker. [00:23:26] John: Yeah. [00:23:27] Kris: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:23:28] Kris: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:23:53] John: Topics include Flipper, Flipper Cloud, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:23:55] John: Topics include Flipper, Flipper Cloud, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:24:15] Kris: Very cool. [00:24:16] John: How about you? [00:24:17] Kris: So this is Small Winds. [00:24:18] Kris: Yeah. [00:24:19] Kris: So I said this to my nieces over Christmas. [00:24:23] Kris: We were eating dinner. [00:24:24] Kris: I said, do you know who you're sitting next to? [00:24:28] Kris: Kind of a big deal. [00:24:29] Kris: And they were obviously super confused. [00:24:36] Kris: So I'll say this. [00:24:37] Kris: Do you know who you're sitting next to? [00:24:39] Kris: I think so. [00:24:42] John: I'm not sure. [00:24:43] John: I'm just sure this could go a couple different ways. [00:24:45] Kris: So maybe I should answer before you put an answer in there. [00:24:48] Kris: Is the Outstanding Young Business Leader of the Year from the South Bend Chamber. [00:24:51] Kris: Nice. [00:24:52] Kris: Congrats. [00:24:52] Kris: We'll clap. [00:24:54] Kris: So that will be from 2025. [00:24:56] Kris: So I think it's weird to say because it's like you're not trying to self-promote, but it's cool to get recognized for the work that's been done and that people are seeing like, yes, these are cool things that people are doing. [00:25:08] Kris: Do you get a trophy? [00:25:09] Kris: I don't know. [00:25:09] Kris: I would hope at least a plaque or something. [00:25:11] Kris: Yeah, yeah. [00:25:12] Kris: Put it on the front door. [00:25:16] Kris: Well, everyone, you know, one of our members, JP, you know, he always – he's actually going to be livid because he says, I had to move downstairs because I couldn't stand people telling you – giving you praise every day when I walk in. [00:25:34] Kris: He's a funny guy. [00:25:35] Kris: Like, he's saying it in jest, but, like, I should invite him to the ceremony so that he can – [00:25:40] Kris: I mean – In a room of 1,500 people that are – And definitely hang the plaque near where his office is. [00:25:46] Kris: So that was cool. [00:25:47] Kris: Yeah. [00:25:47] Kris: So that's happening like in about a month. [00:25:49] Kris: And yeah, it's just a little cool thing that – yeah. [00:25:53] Kris: We didn't do the – we don't do projects and things like for those things. [00:25:56] Kris: Yeah. [00:25:56] Kris: But it's awesome to see like other people recognizing it. [00:25:59] John: And anytime that something like that happens and you do get the recognition, I feel like the, I mean, as an entrepreneur, your end goal is to turn recognition into money. [00:26:08] John: So it's like, if you get that, there might be people who are like, okay, well, what did he do? [00:26:12] John: Oh, momentum. [00:26:13] John: Oh, I've [00:26:14] John: Topics include Flipper, Fireside, Flare, and Box Out. [00:26:34] John: Awesome. [00:26:35] John: Yeah. [00:26:35] John: What's next on your... Hey, man, that's our last segment. [00:26:38] John: And we're right around our new 20 to 30 minute mark. [00:26:42] John: So is there anything people should do at this point? [00:26:45] Kris: I think they should, you know, if you're doing things right in the new year, you're liking and subscribing. [00:26:51] Kris: Yeah. [00:26:52] Kris: That's what we're asking. [00:26:53] Kris: Like and subscribe. [00:26:54] Kris: Yeah. [00:26:55] Kris: New year, new you, new like. [00:26:58] Kris: It's good. [00:26:59] Kris: I can deal with that. [00:27:00] John: Cool. [00:27:00] John: Awesome. [00:27:00] Kris: We'll see you next time.