Working_Sessions_EP_28
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[00:00:00] James Sowers (Castaway): All right. Uh, hey John. Welcome back, man, to another working session. It's been a while since we've, uh, caught up and, uh, you know, that's not, that's not just part of the script. You and I literally haven't talked face to face for, for a few weeks now, at least. Uh, we're still trading Slack messages, but it'd be great to just, uh, hear how things are going in, in life and business.

[00:00:20] So how are things over there in, uh, the mountain country? Yeah,

[00:00:22] John Doherty (EditorNinja): things are good. I mean, it's a rainy day in Denver today. We're actually getting about an inch and a half of rain over two days. So, um, you know, we moved, moved into the new house. I dunno if we've, I don't think we've recorded since we moved, um, about eight weeks ago.

[00:00:37] Um, so it's a good, good time to find out if there are leaks in the roof, I guess. But, uh, no man, things are, things are good here. We're fully in spring and. You know, everything is, everything is green and uh, ski season is just about over. It's actually not quite over yet. They're still skiing up, up high at Breckenridge.

[00:00:55] So, um, got into some good spring days. Um, but yeah, man, things are, things are all good. How are they, your end?

[00:01:03] James Sowers (Castaway): Yeah, about the same. Uh, it always amazes me how deep ski season goes in certain parts of the world. Like you're, you're sitting here mid-May and it's like, yeah, people are still in the mountain, you know?

[00:01:12] And it's like, can't even wrap my head around that. Yeah. Yep. And I'm not even in Miami, I'm in Ohio. Like if I, if you're in Miami or down there in Central America and you hear something like that, you're like, what? Do you guys ever not have snow? Is it, is it like Alaska? Um, but yeah, thi things are good here too.

[00:01:26] We're all thoughted out and, uh, this is the best time of year because you get all that vitamin D right? And you get a lot more activity and the kids get out and they stretch their legs. Uh, sometimes it's also the worst si time of the year because, um, you're spending so much time with family that some of the professional stuff feels like it's just stuck and a roadblock or not moving as quickly as you'd like.

[00:01:44] Um, so there's a little bit of that going on, but, you know, it's, it's healthy, right? I, I just keep telling myself there are seasons of, of work and life, just like there are seasons in nature and sometimes the summer is just heavy on family, and the winter is where you can really buckle down and make progress with the business or vice versa, whatever works for you.

[00:02:00] So, yeah. Um, yeah, just trying to, trying to be patient and be present in the moments that I'm not working and also be present in the moments that I already get the most outta those, you know, that kind of thing.

[00:02:09] John Doherty (EditorNinja): Yep. Yeah. No, I, I hear you man. I hear you. Yeah. We just got through a really busy period of.

[00:02:14] Moving and selling the old house and just a travel and just like a lot of, a lot of stuff ski season. Um, and now it's like, all right, life is chill. Um, but also like coming into like a busier time. We've got a few trips this summer. I'm going to Ireland next month, and then we're going, my wife and I are probably going to Europe for, I don't know, four or five days in July.

[00:02:34] And then we have a 10 day Alaska trip in August. And um, so I'm like, all right, it's kind of the calm before the storm, but also like, Becoming okay with things are more chill. And that actually means like, I can have some balance and I can, like, it's almost ki it's almost like summer 2020, you know, where we have like months on end of like can't go anywhere, right?

[00:02:53] Yeah. And like got a lot done and felt super focused and all of that. It's like I'm in like a, about a six week period of that right now and it's like, great, my creativity's back, I can focus on the business, try to, you know, try to grow it, you know, and it's, and it's kind of that like, That energy of right before you go on vacation, you know, you get so much done.

[00:03:12] Mm-hmm. And you're so focused and you get great work done, and then you go on vacation. For me, it's like, all right, I'm kind of in a sprint for the next month until I go to Ireland for 10 days and I'm, I'm basically unplugged for 10 days. And, you know, it's a good ch that'll be a good chance to like trust the team and, you know, to, to get all the things done.

[00:03:28] Um, but it's kind of like a little bit of a sprint until then. Um, also kind of hoping that like, I don't sprint too hard and then it means I'm like, I'm not gonna be able to capitalize on stuff because I'm taking, you know, a trip, but whatever. Well, you know, that would be a good problem to have, let's put it that way.

[00:03:46] James Sowers (Castaway): Right. Yeah. I mean I, I've been thinking there are two like mental models I think about a lot. One is the work, like a lion thing, and then that's basically working in sprints. Like when the gazelle comes, you take off and you do everything you can to capture the gazelle, but the rest of the time you're basically laying around being lazy and recovering and whatever.

[00:03:58] And so I think there's some, some merit to that. Um, the other thing that it has me thinking about and like, we can't go one episode without mentioning Alex Hormo, it feels like, but I think it came from him. I don't know if he was the original source, but he's basically talking about like, If you're playing the long game, like you don't need to worry about the short game.

[00:04:14] Like if you're like, Hey, this is what I'm gonna do for the next 5, 10, 15 years, or like, if the rest of my life is pursuing entrepreneurship in some way, then what weight does the next 30 days really hold if I have to slow down and, and draw back or whatever. It's like if you're playing the long game, like.

[00:04:29] You're not gonna think about, you know, taking 10 days off to go to Ireland and fully unplugging and everything that you missed during those 10 days. Like, that's gonna be a drop in the bucket from the 10 years that you plan on working on editor ninjas. So some of those things are helpful at times and, and some of those things are maybe less than helpful, but right now I'm kind of feeling the same thing.

[00:04:44] It's like, yeah, if you, if you take it a little slower in the summer to like focus on family, like there's value in that too. And strengthening. Yeah, those relationships and stuff. And if you're gonna be doing this for years, then it's fairly immaterial that you take a little bit, like you slow down a little bit in the summer and then pick back up in the winter.

[00:04:57] Whatever works for you.

[00:04:59] John Doherty (EditorNinja): Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think everyone, I think where you get into trouble when we start, like, you have to slow down in the summer and you have to do this in the winter and whatever, like do what kinda works for you, you know? Um, like for me at this point, you know, I'm, I'm trying to be pretty ambitious with Editor Ninja.

[00:05:17] Um, so I'm like, I'm, you know, working some, like more evenings. I told my wife recently, I'm like, I kind of feel like I need a period of like, Creating, so like working evenings and getting things done. Cause I can just focus, so like, not taken away from family time, but like, okay, kids down dinner's, eaten, dishes are done, wife's, you know, hanging on the couch watching a show or something.

[00:05:37] I'm just gonna come back into my office and work for an hour and then go down and join her for a, you know, an episode of a show that we're watching together or something like that. But like, but then also with that, I may have mentioned this before here, um, uh, but. Then also, you know, like this morning, so I, I did that last night.

[00:05:51] Like got, my wife flew to, um, flew, flew to Vegas, she's away for the weekend. And I got my daughter down and I did the dishes and I was like, I'm gonna go do some more work, some more work. So I rocked out a guest post, um, and it was like nine 30. And I turned on a movie for a little bit. And then this morning I was like a little slower getting into things.

[00:06:08] I didn't sit down to my computer until about 10 15. Cause I, I took my daughter to school. I went to the gym. Went to the gym. I got some coffee. I got breakfast somewhere. And I was feeling a little guilty about it. I'm like, but I worked a full day yesterday and I worked last evening. Yeah. So like, why, why am I feeling guilty?

[00:06:25] You know? It's like if evenings are when I'm creative and I need to be creative right now, maybe mornings I can be a bit more chill. Right? And like, don't feel like I have to get, I have to get to my computer by nine. And that's like allowing that flexibility is kind of the beauty of. Being self-employed, you know, it's a little harder when you have a day job.

[00:06:39] Yeah. Um, but like I'm able to do that, so why not do it? You know? But it's a mindset shift. Even after eight years of self-employment, it's still a mindset shift.

[00:06:48] James Sowers (Castaway): Yeah, that's really interesting. Um, I think we both know Justin Jackson from Transistor and, um, mega Maker and stuff like that. He just, uh, released a podcast episode on his show Builder, your sas, where he was talking to Aaron Francis about.

[00:07:01] Bootstrapping a startup with young kids. And one of the concepts, uh, that came out of that episode for me, it sounds really similar to what you're doing, like Aaron and his wife, uh, I think he has wife. He just, he, I'll just say partner. I'm not sure what his relationship is, but, um, he, they have an individual pursuits night and it's kind of like their.

[00:07:17] Internal terminology they both agreed on with this, which is like, Hey, you're into watching this show. Like I, I'm kind of feeling compelled, like to get some stuff done for, for my startup here. Like, is this an individual pursuits night or would you like to spend time together? And they both just kind of say, yeah, individual pursuits.

[00:07:31] Like, I'm gonna watch whatever, you know, soap opera I like to watch. And you go back into the office and work on your business and it's like a mutual understanding. And then it's like, okay, maybe some other night. Um, we're gonna have that connection time. We're gonna have date night, we're gonna do whatever.

[00:07:42] I just thought that was like kind of a, just giving it a name sometimes is really powerful versus like this uncertainty about like, how are we spending our evening? Am I sitting here watching a show with you but not being fully present Because there my to-do list is in the back of my brain. Whereas like if we just had a clean break and there was a clear understanding that like this night we're both agreeing it's fine to pursue individual interests, then that would clear up a lot of brain space.

[00:08:03] Right? So I, I just thought that was kind of a novel concept cuz a lot of people don't. First of all, they don't communicate about it in general and they don't give it a name. So like, if you just give it a fun name and it doesn't feel as like high pressure as like, is it cool if I leave you here alone to go work?

[00:08:15] Like that doesn't sound great. But if it's like, is it cool if we both take an individual pursuits night and then we commit to like tomorrow night we're gonna reconnect or whatever feels a little different to me. Right? Like a little more palatable. So I don't know. It was

[00:08:25] John Doherty (EditorNinja): interesting. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I think it's a good, it's a good way to kind of balance it.

[00:08:30] Um, and, uh, yeah, I, I like that. I like the, the individual. Individual pursuits. I, I usually just tell my wife, I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna do some work this evening after we get, you know, Tatum to bed. And she's like, okay, cool. Right. There's never any, like, you need to hang out with me. Like, we hang out all the freaking time.

[00:08:45] We both work from home. We see each other all the freaking time. Right. Like, yeah. You know, it just, just managing those expectations works pretty well.

[00:08:53] James Sowers (Castaway): Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Um, how about on the business front, man? How are things going with, uh, editor Ninja? I, I will say that like, I have exposure to multiple B2B service kind of businesses through the day job and my own things.

[00:09:04] And then some people that I like coach with, and pretty much everybody across the board, across the sample of like maybe 10 businesses are saying pipeline is slow. Like it's there, but everybody's giving me that. Like, Hey, follow up with me in a month, follow up with me next quarter, whatever. Like I wanna work with you, but I don't have budget.

[00:09:18] Or, this has moved down the priority list or whatever, but keep in touch with me. So it just feels like pipelines are extending. It's not that demand isn't there. But it's taken longer to close deals and therefore, like revenue's not growing as much as a lot of people would like.

[00:09:31] John Doherty (EditorNinja): Interesting. Uh, I have heard that from people as well.

[00:09:34] I don't see that in my business. Um, I see the pipeline is slower thing, um, but there are also some other things that happened that I, I can get into, um, that kind of slowed down pipeline as well. Um, but you know, I'm still doing a few demos a week. Um, I'm closing so. Most of those, honestly. Um, you know, we've had a little bit of churn, uh, recently, um, which we could also get into.

[00:10:01] But, um, you know, all in all, like we're kind of steadily growing like we just cracked, so. 16, 16, 16 and a half. K m r R. Um, so, and that's outside of like single documents and bigger, like one-off projects and that sort of thing. Cause I know, I think I said in like January or February, we did like 16, 17 in a month.

[00:10:19] Um, so we're like around that same like top line, but it's like now all subscriptions and not like spiky. Right. Because that was like, oh, we did $7,000 in like one-off projects, but we we're only at like eight K m r r. Now we're at like 16 ish. Um, so it's like we're, we're steadily healthily growing, um, which is, which is exciting, which I feel like is a good, like, I'm optimistic about, let me put it that way.

[00:10:41] Um, simply because like things are slower and, you know, we doubled, I doubled prices, I think January, February. Doubled prices, and I've since bumped it up more than that. Um, and people are still closing. Um, I've tightened up my sales process. Um, so I, I think there's some sort of like, It's a combination of like, even when leads are slower, I think a lot of people aren't great at sales.

[00:11:04] And so they like when demos go down and leads go down, like their sales also go down versus like if you're, you know, pretty good at sales. And I, I made a change in, um, This was probably March, um, that, like basically I went nine for nine on my next, like on my, my next leads. Um, yeah. And, uh, since then I've, I've gone like seven for, or six for eight or something like that.

[00:11:28] So like, I've closed like 80% of people that I've spoken with in the last couple of months, um, by tightening up our sales process. So, um, but yeah, I've seen, yeah, so slower pipeline, but like stuff is still, is still closing. Um, I think we're priced low enough. I think our value prop is strong enough. That like, I think we're priced competitively now, but it's still like kind of a no-brainer, which is what I've always wanted.

[00:11:51] Um, so kind of a no-brainer. Um, and so people are willing to, to do it and also like people are hiring us because their alternative is hire a bunch of freelancers and hope they work out and manage 'em yourself. Or hire a full-time editor, which costs $75,000 a year plus benefits in the us. Yeah, so you know, the alternatives aren't great.

[00:12:10] You know, it's like use us or have a lot more pain, so, you know, which, which is kind of where I've always wanted to be with this business.

[00:12:16] James Sowers (Castaway): And I think from the outside looking in, one of the things that you have going away increasingly is like, uh, whatever competitors existed, they seem to be quiet or dropping off.

[00:12:26] Whereas like I'm seeing more and more in some of the content marketing Slack groups and stuff that I'm a part of. Like when somebody says, Hey, does anybody know a good editor? I'm seeing Editor Ninja get dropped into those conversations more and more is like that Rolodex moment where it's like, yes.

[00:12:38] Mm-hmm. I know this is the, this is not a content marketing agency. That produces content for you. Like I need somebody specifically to edit the pieces and get 'em across the finish line so that they're published ready. Yeah. And John Doherty, or Editor Ninja seem to be first in mind for a lot more folks now.

[00:12:51] So whether that's competitors dropping off or just your positioning being dialed in that much, I am seeing a lot of that where it's like, that's the best place, because I think that's when. The flywheel really starts to spin on its own, like under its own. Mm-hmm. Um, momentum is like, yeah, if I need this one thing, I know exactly who you need to talk to because yeah, that's what they do.

[00:13:08] That's their H one. Right. Is the like done for you editing services or whatever? That's right. It's like, that's right. Once you get to that point, it can kinda start to run away on its own, and then you're just hanging on. Yeah. Yeah,

[00:13:17] John Doherty (EditorNinja): exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I think that's happened. I think we've made, I made some smart moves around like, uh, sponsoring some podcasts and doing some advertising and different slack groups and that kind of thing.

[00:13:26] So like, we're kind of consistently like staying, uh, you know, top of mind. And then our messaging has gotten better, our designs gotten better. Like we've just, I've just made a lot of upgrades this year, um, to all of that. And so, but yeah, some of it is just like, Uh, just staying alive, you know? Yeah. Just like not going out of business, not running out of money.

[00:13:45] Um, and if you do that for long enough, you're kind of gonna succeed, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, I think that

[00:13:51] James Sowers (Castaway): was Sam Altman from, uh, Y Combinator that said like the number one, uh, superpower of startups is to just be hard to kill, like just be a cockroach. Mm-hmm. Whether that means like you're always gonna adapt to a changing market and be ready to pivot, or whether that means you're like hyper profitable and so you can afford to whatever, spend more on ads or whatever to compare to other people.

[00:14:08] Like whatever it takes for you to be hard to kill, like that's the number one superpower you wanna try to gain because, uh, if you can outlast everybody else, then you're the only one left. Then by default you get a hundred percent of the market share. Totally. So

[00:14:19] John Doherty (EditorNinja): yeah, that's, that's a good place to be.

[00:14:20] Well, an outlast in your competitors as well. And you know, the, the old, uh, um, uh, Berkshire Hathaway. Why am I forgetting their names? Um, oh, the exit strategy

[00:14:31] James Sowers (Castaway): is death. Uh, Warren Buffet. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:32] John Doherty (EditorNinja): Well there's that one. Uh, but yeah, buffet. Exactly. Wow. I'm embarrassed. Er on Buffett's name. Yeah. And Munger. Yeah.

[00:14:39] James Sowers (Castaway): That's what editing's for, you know, that, you know, that's what editing's for. We cut, we cut off the chat. You wanna take it from the top?

[00:14:45] John Doherty (EditorNinja): Warren and Charlie? Say, um, yeah. Uh, now, now I lost, uh, I lost my train of thought about what they say. Um, But, uh, be hard to tell. Yeah. Well be hard to kill, but also be, be greedy when others are scared and be scared when others are greedy.

[00:14:59] You know? Um, like if it's a, I mean, there's kind of the, like you can ride trends, but also like riding trends is really hard. Um, because like a lot of other people are riding those trends, right? It's a, like, it's a, you know, it's a wave surfing, right? There's, it's a wave that everyone else wants to be on, um, and everyone else is trying to stand up on versus like, What if you can find an awesome wave that's kind of out in the middle of nowhere, right.

[00:15:21] Um, that like people know about. Right. Um, but there aren't a ton of people that, that are able to surf it. You know, that's part of it too, is like, yeah, if it's low hanging fruit, then you know there's gonna be a lot of people kind of getting into it versus like, it is hard to build like, An editing service.

[00:15:37] Like I, you know, like I have done a tech enabled, like editing service. Cause I had to build an agency, I had to build a product. I have to get both sides. It's a two, it's a two-sided problem as well. Like, it's, it's all of those, you know, like it's hard to do. So, um, you know, so we've seen competitors drop off.

[00:15:51] Um, you know, simply because of that, it's like, okay, they, they dropped off. That doesn't mean I'm not working on a good idea. It means that maybe they were working on the idea that wasn't right for them. So now I should be a little, I should be greedy. I should be like, Competitive, you know, um, and, uh, You know, be because other, you know, other people aren't being so, like that's an opportunity there.

[00:16:11] So

[00:16:11] James Sowers (Castaway): yeah, I mean, I think if everybody was dropping off and your revenue was flat lining or churn was going up or something like that, if you had negative signals from both sides, then that might be cause for concern. But since if everybody's dropping off and your revenue's still going up into the right, then you should almost double down.

[00:16:25] Right. You should almost push even harder to claim more of that. Yeah. Um, That revenue that's being forgone. Right? Uh oh, I had a question about the sales stuff. So you said like your win rate basically went up significantly in March because you changed some things. Now if you don't wanna give away the secret sauce here, I totally get it.

[00:16:40] But wasn't that right about the time that you had that new demo deck? Like there was some kind of deck, um, specific format around that, that you were like, I'm excited about this and you had a couple calls. I remember you saying like, that's working well and yeah.

[00:16:50] John Doherty (EditorNinja): Yeah. So yes, that is exactly what it was.

[00:16:53] Um, so it was a, uh, startups for the Rest of Us podcast episode. So shout out to Rob. Um, where it was, um, it was with a guy who did, so it was like March-ish. Um, and something about sales, here it, here it is learning to sell SaaS as a founder. So obviously we're not sas, but this guy, Peter Kaji, Kani, something like that.

[00:17:18] I dunno if it's a soft J or not. Um, but, uh, basically wrote a book about sales. And so I, I listened, I was listening to it. I remember I was like waiting to wash my car and was listening to it. He basically said, he basically talked about like building a sales deck. But like, you don't have to have it beautifully designed.

[00:17:32] That messaging has, doesn't have to be perfect like that sort of thing. Basically at the start, make it ugly, slap your logo on it, but like, make it ugly so that then you can like, you know, walk people through it, uh, whatever questions they have, like that aren't things that aren't clear. You right after the call, you can go and you can adjust it, right?

[00:17:51] And so then for the next one it's better, and then it's better, and then it's better. And then eventually it just works, you know? So like, Yeah, so, so, so that was, that was really like the lockstep change for us. Cause I went from like closing 15, 20% to basically closing a hundred percent for the next like six weeks.

[00:18:06] And then recently it's been like 80, 85%. So like that was the lockstep change. I will say the challenge here, and this is something that I'm gonna be working on moving forward, is um, I don't feel like our messaging on our website is as good as what I tell people, what I show people in the sales deck. So I'm gonna be working on kind of iterating on our messaging and getting some of those things, just like showing people the alternatives.

[00:18:33] Cause I, I do see people that, you know, they're like, oh, like you're, you're expensive. Like, you're way more expensive than, you know, than I'm willing to pay for, for editing. I'm like, Hey, that probably means you're not our ideal customer. And like, we're, we're increasingly going up market. Um, but, um, you know, I, I actually changed some messaging yesterday that's basically like, uh, you know, um, Get all of your marketing content edited for the price of one blog post.

[00:18:56] Right? Mm-hmm. Just to kind of try to put it in context and then showing the differences. And then, you know, I, I have a slide in our deck that's like the alternatives, right? It's like, but how do you get editing done? Your choices are basically like, change nothing, right? Like people always laugh at that one.

[00:19:10] I'm like, you can change nothing. You can keep doing what you're doing. It is a choice. Might not be a good choice. We're talking because like what you've been doing isn't working, but. Let's just recognize it's a choice, right? You can go hire a bunch of freelancers, but here are the challenges. You can go hire a full-time editor, but it's gonna cost you X And you know, there's basically like four, four choices.

[00:19:26] And then, yeah, but, and then a fifth and new option is Editor n Gen. This is who we are and this is how we work and, and this is what makes us different. And then I go into, uh, uh, like it's an anti sale. It's like, But no service is perfect and no service is perfect for everybody. So here's who we're not a good fit for.

[00:19:42] Right? And then I push on like if you're a control freak, if you wanna send word documents via email, like that sort of stuff, we're pro. We're not a good fit for you, right? If you need a strategist, we're not a good fit for you, right? We're editors. If you need a writer, we're not a good fit for you. We're editors like that kind of thing.

[00:19:55] Yeah. And it really just like cements in people's minds. So anyways, like that, that stuff, I wanna get like more onto our site publicly, um, just because it'll, it can probably help overcome some of those like pre-sales objections before we even get on the call. Right? Because ideally people would be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that.

[00:20:10] Let's just like talk about if you can, like, do what we need. Yeah. Great. Let's talk about, let's talk about pricing. Let's talk about when we can kick you off, you know,

[00:20:17] James Sowers (Castaway): Yeah, that, that was gonna be my observation is because like, I've kind of taken the opposite approach where, because castaway is a side thing for me.

[00:20:23] Like I don't wanna be on a bunch of sales calls. I like, I'd love to be, but I just don't have the time to do that myself now. So I tried to basically make the landing page, the sales deck, And, but I found that some people just want to call and it's for a number of reasons. Mm-hmm. It could be like, that's just the way they prefer to work and like that's how they build trust in relationships and they wanna see face to face that you're a legit person.

[00:20:41] Some people are like, Hey, I need to get approval from my boss on this and I need to be able to tell them I spoke to somebody at this organization, not just that I visited the landing page and I wanna give 'em 1500 bucks a month. Sure. Like I just need to be able to. Do my diligence and look my boss in the eye and not lie when I say, Hey, I talked to 'em, they seem like good people, I think we should do this.

[00:20:55] Mm-hmm. Like there are any number of reasons that people want to have a conversation about it. So it was interesting cuz like I, I was like, well if I just buttoned up my landing page, I'll never have to have a sales call. Whereas you kinda went the other way, like, not that your landing page is bad, but it's like, Hey, I started with sales first and I did demos and I got that buttoned up and now I need to take that and port it back to the landing page to try to, not necessarily reduce volume, but like you said, address those objections or those considerations.

[00:21:16] Proactively, and then you get farther down the funnel when you actually have that conversation. Mm-hmm. It's more of a closing type of conversation. So I just think it's interesting the two differences and like, it's not that there's a right or wrong answer, like yours is clearly working for you. Mine has worked for me in the past.

[00:21:29] And so I think it's just like, what is, what is your philosophy like. Um, and what's your situation like if you don't have a bunch of time to be on sales calls like I do, or, you know, like my situation, then maybe it makes sense to try to make your sales demo your, your pitch deck, your website. Mm-hmm. As much as possible, if you do wanna, like, if you're not quite sure that you have your offering dialed in or who your best customer is and you wanna get people on the phone, it's your full-time thing, you might make more sense to.

[00:21:51] Funnel everybody to a sales conversation and then use that to effectively like build version two, your landing page and get it done in that way. Yeah. I think your approach is better. Um, but not everybody's in a position where they can do that. Like they're side hustling, they're working nights and weekends or doing whatever, so.

[00:22:02] Totally.

[00:22:03] John Doherty (EditorNinja): Yeah. And, and I think it's, uh, and I was actually talking about this last week with, uh, with Chris Lima, um, but like I've come to the realization, cause I tried to do the self-serve thing, right. Um, and it just, it didn't work. I actually posted a tweet about it this morning that like, I see people complaining about like having to schedule demos and I was like, ah, maybe people aren't like, Sche, you know, uh, maybe I'm losing customers cuz I'm making everyone schedule a demo.

[00:22:23] And like, I rolled it out in November and six months later had had two people try to sign up. Um, and they were both like overseas scammers testing out credit cards that got declined. Um, so like, okay, maybe, maybe not it, right? And maybe, yeah, maybe there's like issues with our messaging or something like that.

[00:22:38] But like, I actually want, it's a service, right? And it's like a semi high ticket service. Now our average customer value per month is over a thousand dollars. So like, I actually don't want people signing up for like thousand plus dollars a month if we don't even know 'em. Right. We don't know how they're thinking about things.

[00:22:52] They don't know how we work, like all of that. We actually need that personal touch. We get all of our customers into a, like, into a Slack channel with us. So it's them, myself, our managing editor, um, Michael. Um, and so there's that like direct feedback, like there as well. And so we're talking async, um, you know, to, um, there.

[00:23:08] So like actually in a service business like this, we actually want that personal touch at some point, maybe like, yeah. May that cause like scale issues maybe, but like it's not now. So like let's keep on going with it, you know? Um, but I do think the feeding back in like the messaging, right? Like cuz some of these are like objections or it's just like a little bit like, The goal would be both to like increase, uh, demos and then also pe, like keep people as qualified, right?

[00:23:36] Because they've like, they've seen it, right? And they're like, actually, like, I'm already convinced I'm just gonna have a call with you. And maybe it takes 15, 20 minutes and they ask their last couple questions. And then it's basically a formality of like, all right, cool, we kick people off on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

[00:23:47] I've gotta slot this Thursday. You wanna kick off this Thursday, or you wanna do it next Tuesday? Makes it super easy as opposed to like follow-ups and you know, all that sort of stuff. So,

[00:23:56] James Sowers (Castaway): Anyways. Yeah, like with, um, with Castaway, I always did the onboarding call, like after somebody bought the, the onboarding call to like collect the assets and stuff like that was always face to face with me.

[00:24:05] I just never did like the front end sales conversations, but I do think your approach is better, especially for high ticket, uh, services and stuff like that. I've also seen people do like a hybrid model where basically I think they're like, not when you first started doing demos with this deck, but like now that you've had it refined and you're considering.

[00:24:21] Rolling that out to the, the broader marketing site at this point, I think some, I've seen some people record the pitch one time, like an Evergreen, here's my pitch, and you can get that on demand as a video and you have to put your email in to get that or whatever. Then you have that person's email and you can consider them whatever marketing qualified as an MQL or something like that.

[00:24:40] They watch the video and then at the end of the video you say, Now that you've seen this, do you wanna book a 15 minute call just to hone in on like whatever questions you have left? Right? Yeah. And I've seen people do that. I don't know how well it works. Yeah. But that seems like a nice balance of asynchronous plus, like giving them that, that high touch, that supportive feel that they need.

[00:24:56] Yeah. You know, through the sales process. Yeah.

[00:24:57] John Doherty (EditorNinja): I think it's something I'll probably try in the future. It could be something really effective for you with Castaway. Um, just like to reduce the, like, you know, the calls that you have to do if you wanna do calls, right. As opposed to like hopping on, have to go through everything fresh.

[00:25:10] Um, it's probably something I'll test, um, in the future, uh, for, uh, for Editor Ninja. Uh, SAS Academy always called a demo on demand. Um, so, you know, you don't have to like give a demo to everyone. I think that's when you have like a lot more volume probably. Um, but I am also seeing like a decent chunk, our conversions from like people viewing our pricing page or viewing our demo page to booking a call.

[00:25:31] Like that conversion rate isn't as high as I would like it. And so I'm like, there's something that's not quite right here, so it's, it'd be worth trying some of that stuff. Um, but at this point I'm pretty happy with our growth and you know, just like keeping it all and rolling out some new features. Some more like enterprise focus features soon.

[00:25:45] So, Um, yeah. All good stuff here. What, what, what about you? What's going on on the castaway side? I mean, I know we catch up, but like castaway and productized side. Yeah. Like what's going on your end?

[00:25:56] James Sowers (Castaway): Yeah. I'm trying to think. So the last time this show aired, um, I think things were going pretty well, but pretty stagnant and because the productized acquisition I was working on, like integrating that into my preferred tool set and all that kinda stuff.

[00:26:07] Um, we had the Silicon Valley bank issue, and I don't necessarily want to like recap that cuz I think a lot of people saw the headlines and it's kind of run its course. But, um, so our final two, like. Big subscription clients were affected by that. They had their funds frozen or whatever, and they basically, um, canceled until further notice, right.

[00:26:24] Until they recovered from that situation. And, you know, the, the federal government or some other bank was gonna buy out Silicon Valley Bank and hopefully back, you know, make those funds available again and stuff. So that kind of put us into place where it was like, Yeah, we don't really have a whole lot going on right now, you know, because I wasn't exactly like out there trying to juice the pipeline or whatever.

[00:26:40] Um, so where we stand today is basically like Castaways recovered a little bit. One of those clients came back. Um, we do have some smaller clients that are basically like independent, uh, consultants who wanna repurpose some of their private workshops and things like that, but smaller budget. Um, but it, it pays the bills and it keeps us profitable and, um, So I've been mainly focusing on productize because there's a lot of work to be done there to kind of update the course, and I'm exploring a community angle and things like that.

[00:27:05] So I'm trying to, um, focus on that because there was a big financial investment into acquiring that business that I'm trying to recover, you know, through, through monetization and revenue on that side. So I've taken this as a convenient. Pause on the productized service itself to focus on the personal branding and the productized services education component of this like business ecosystem that I'm trying to build.

[00:27:27] Um, but Castaway is picking up again and, um, Actually, who knows what's gonna happen with, but I am talking to a very small podcast editing service that, um, they, the owner wants to sell. And I'm thinking about if it works out, uh, basically acquiring that very small business and layering it into Castaway and basically having it being the editing arm.

[00:27:45] So then Castaway would be equipped to handle full spectrum, like podcast production and promotion kind of operations. And there'd be a book of business that comes over with that. So I could cross sell Castaway services to them and that kind of thing. There's a lot of complimentary stuff going on there.

[00:27:58] So we'll see where that conversation goes, but interesting. I'm excited about it. I think really the back, the back half of 2023 is gonna be back shifting focus back to Castaway. Um, I think the first half has been like castaway naturally paused itself because of this economic situation. That's probably not a bad idea because I'm spread pretty thin and I need to get productized, like, you know, set up for success.

[00:28:17] And now I think we're ready to be, have a more balanced approach for the, for the second half of the year.

[00:28:20] John Doherty (EditorNinja): So, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So, uh, First I've heard about the business, uh, that you're thinking about acquiring is, uh, like a video editing, like what sort of, what sort of, uh, I assume it comes with customers and revenue and all of that, that you can kind of like Yeah.

[00:28:34] Fold in, kinda like take it over, but yeah.

[00:28:38] James Sowers (Castaway): Yeah. It's, uh, it's just the audio editing piece right now, but I think it would be smart to like, take the resources we already have in Castaway and offer video editing too. So, which we do. Right. But it's like, Hey, you're already doing audio editing. All you have to do is buy Riverside subscription record video at the same time that you do it, and now we'll get you up on YouTube.

[00:28:54] By the way, YouTube just wants this new feature to have podcasts specifically. Mm-hmm. Spotify has been talking about supporting video podcasts too, so there's a lot of momentum in that space. I do think it would be pretty easy to layer video onto the editing and also layer editing into the, um, repurposing side of the house too, because it's like, Hey, you work with us for repurposing.

[00:29:13] You're probably working with somebody else for editing. They might be great at what they do, but wouldn't it be nice to have everything under one house with one team, with one account manager, like one billing cycle, all that kind of stuff. There is, I think a lot of people would bite on that if the pricing and the quality were both comparable to what they're already using.

[00:29:27] I think there's a big incentive to switch over and have all that managed under one. One roof. Yeah. Cuz the fewer, the fewer vendors you have, the more peaceful your mind tends to be. Right. You're not constantly chasing stuff down. Right. I was

[00:29:38] John Doherty (EditorNinja): listening to, uh, there's another startup for the rest of us podcast, uh, episode today.

[00:29:43] It was actually an older, um, An older episode is, uh, like in the late five hundreds, I was with, uh, Dan and Ian from, um, uh, dynamite Circle Dynamite Jobs. Uh, tropical MBA podcast is one they're, they're most known for. Um, and they were talking with Rob and, and this was a year ago that they put this one out.

[00:30:01] Um, so very different like economic situation. And they were talking about growing dynamite jobs. I know they've had some like headwinds there, like all job boards have. Over the last, like, six, eight months. But, um, they were talking about how they're seeing a lot of like their dynamite circle, um, members, customers I'm in, I'm in the dc, um, that are hiring, uh, freelancers and services and especially services, productized services a lot more than they're hiring full-time people or hiring individual freelancers.

[00:30:27] Um, Just because it's like, yeah, it's kind of the, the get it all, you know, done under one, under one roof sort of thing, um, is, is very, is very attractive. It's just way less overhead. Especially when like, you're often to zoom in on other things and there's like economic turbulence and all that, and you're like, wow, I have to zoom in on marketing.

[00:30:43] I have to really tighten up sales and all this. Like, but I'm spending all of my time managing eight people. What if I could just hire one service? And I basically outsource all of that management of those people to my account manager, and then I'm managing one person. Who is then managing eight people, right?

[00:30:57] And like, you can't afford to hire in eight p eight people or hire a person, a full-time person to hire eight people. You basically get a team for the, this is what I always said about what I've always said about agencies at Credo is, uh, you, you get, you get a full team for the price of a full-time person.

[00:31:12] Like it makes so much sense. So yeah, if you could do that and kind of fold all that in and kind of be that like one stop shop for editing, repurposing, promotion, et cetera. And you get up your prices, right? You expand the, the customer value, the monthly, all of that. That's a pretty big win.

[00:31:29] James Sowers (Castaway): Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

[00:31:30] And I, I was hesitant to get into the editing space because I think it's largely commoditized. There are a lot of tools that like offer quote unquote one click editing or whatever. Yeah. But I think really the value comes in and like, Uh, the, the close relationship between who's actually editing the audio of your show and who's repurposing it and identifying the best moments to clip out and make threads and make video clips and stuff like that.

[00:31:52] Like if those two people talk, then they can start to say like, Hey, I really want you to like, Focus in on this person's voice and maybe even raise the volume a couple of decibels so that they really hone in on this point. And like, I think that close relationship of somebody who understands your business and the strategy you're trying to execute and has all your brand assets and knows your ideal customer avatar and stuff like that.

[00:32:11] Mm-hmm. Talking to that editor versus like, here's my solo editor that I hired off of Upwork, that's based across the world that works in isolation. You know what I mean? And like Right. Just does basic cleanup like, um, I do think there, there's value in, in bringing those two things together and having those.

[00:32:25] And to your point, like you pay one flat fee for not just a team of people, but a multidisciplinary team of people. Mm. Like you're gonna get an account manager, you're gonna get a video editor, you're gonna get an audio engineer, you're gonna get a graphic designer, you're gonna get a copywriter. Like if you try to hire those people desperately as 10 99 contractors, it's always going to cost more probably.

[00:32:44] Mm-hmm. Because like you're gonna have all the, the fixed fees for every payment and stuff like that or whatever, and it's like, yeah. I don't know. Um, I think, I think a lot of, especially small and emerging businesses, If they're trying to hire somebody in marketing, they're kind of hoping that person's a Swiss Army knife, right?

[00:32:58] Like they're like, oh yeah, you're really good at this, but I hope you can also figure out these six other things because like we just have a small marketing department. We need you to do a bunch of stuff. But like, You're not gonna find anybody who can, who has video editing skills and copywriting skills and you know, graphic design skills and audio engineering skills.

[00:33:13] Like, it's very rare to find one person who can do all of those things. Mm-hmm. Because they are so disparate. Yeah. So to pay one flat fee to find a team that's already been vetted and is managed by somebody else. I think there's a lot of value in that. And, and to your point, like, yeah, you've got the same kind of thing going on where you have an account manager, you have, uh, a frontline editor, and then you have like kind of a senior editor or whatever that's doing that quality assurance check and stuff like that.

[00:33:34] Like you try to get all that outta one person for, you know, 50 grand a year as a fresh college grad with an MFA or whatever. It's like, probably not, right?

[00:33:41] John Doherty (EditorNinja): They're just not there yet. No, no. And I think people are realizing that. And also like that, you know, yeah, you're paying 'em 50 grand, so, you know, four, four-ish k a month.

[00:33:49] But also then you have payroll taxes and you have, uh, benefits and you probably have, uh, you know, uh, equipment, computers, like that sort of stuff, right? You have to, you know, you have to worry more about culture, which isn't a bad thing. It's just different versus like hiring services and that kind of thing, you know?

[00:34:05] And, and it's way harder to manage, like, Eight individual people than it is to, to manage like a, you know, a few agencies or a few services. Um, and then you're gonna get better work done. Um, yeah. And you're not gonna have to like, because, because at that point it's like upskilling or hiring or whatever it's like, You know, it isn't your problem anymore.

[00:34:22] Right? Like in our case, and I, and I actually tell people this and it for the right, for the right people, especially like enterprise that are having trouble, they can't open up headcount. Right. Or they can't find good people still. Yeah. Um, I still hear that. Um, even with all the layouts in the te in the tech sector or they're just like, we can find good people, but they were making double what they should have been making at like meta.

[00:34:43] And so like, and they're not willing to take a pay cut because they inflated their lifestyle. And so like we can't, we cannot afford them at that. Um, so. Yeah. You know the, I, yeah, they're coming to us. I straight up tell them, Hey, like you're offloading the pain of like someone quitting to us. Cuz like if one of our editors leaves, which like rarely happens, but like if your editor from Editor Ninja left, you already have a backup editor that already knows your account.

[00:35:07] So we just slot them in. Your editor goes on vacation, you don't not have capacity for a week. You have your, your, we move your backup editor onto it. So like, and that's a big, and I've had multiple people tell us recently, they're like, that's actually a big thing for me, um, that like, you know, I don't have to like deal with time off and that kind of stuff, or I don't have to worry about like, hiring someone or finding someone new.

[00:35:26] I'm like, yeah, that's my problem now. They're like, awesome. Yeah. You know, it's also a big, uh, big problem. It's a, it's, it's one of those like unspoken things that once you voice it, like to prospects, they're like, oh, I didn't even think about that. Like if my SEO consultant got covid and was out for three weeks.

[00:35:44] It's one person who am I using? Right? Versus if you have an SEO agency, like yeah, there might be a little bit of like a change, but like there are gonna be people there that the agency should be able to slot in. Right? Especially at services like ours, you know, your, your, uh, your video editor, you know, quits or gets fired or whatever.

[00:35:58] You're not gonna do that until you have another video editor ready to go. You know? Or you probably have video editors in the pipeline, so you're still gonna be able to like guarantee that capacity and for the right customers, that's a huge selling point. It's

[00:36:09] James Sowers (Castaway): like a, it's like a pair of stretchy jeans, right?

[00:36:11] Like it's secure, but when you need it to flex a little bit, it can. Right? Yeah. And, and I think like I just new Flexy jeans.

[00:36:17] John Doherty (EditorNinja): Justin jeans are awesome.

[00:36:18] James Sowers (Castaway): I love them. They're the best. Yeah. The pajama jeans or whatever. Yeah. Um, but, so you had some good points. The one I don't think I heard, and I, I apologize if I missed it, but there is that like temporary flex.

[00:36:28] That's what I was thinking with the pajama jeans, the stretchy jeans is like, Okay. Well, like, okay, well we, we wanna publish a, a big ebook this quarter. Yeah. And it's gonna be a big campaign for us, so we just need one extra editor for like the next 60 days. Yep. Can we do that? Like good luck going out into the market and finding that person and getting them trained and like, but with Editor Ninja, it's like, oh, you need to know the editor.

[00:36:46] Yeah, they'll start tomorrow, right? Like, you know, all you have to do is fire off an email or Slack message and get on a 30 minute call with them to like share where the writing briefs are or wherever your, uh, style guide is or whatever, right? And they're ready, right? And they're ready to rock and roll.

[00:36:58] And then by the way, at the end of that 60 days, you just scale back down to the plan that you had, and it's totally fine. Whereas like if you're trying to find a freelance or whatever, like you gotta worry about the optics of letting that person go or whatever, and it's just, yeah. Yeah. It's a mess, man. So it's, it's, it's that perfect blend of like, yeah, I'm secure, I've got this position locked up no matter what.

[00:37:13] There's not gonna be any churn here, at least visually to me as the client. But also if I need to flex up a little bit, yeah, I can do that for a couple of months. If I need to flex down and then come back, I can do that. Yeah. So, um, yeah, it's really

[00:37:22] John Doherty (EditorNinja): appealing in well and building multiple ways for them to do that as well.

[00:37:25] Like for us, our pricing is based off of, uh, basically output per day documents per day. But I've also, uh, flexed in a couple different ways. One is like if you just have, people are like, well, what if I just, like, one day I need two documents done, or something like that. Uh, I've recently made it so that they can actually go and just like, purchase an additional document, right?

[00:37:46] It's outside of their subscription, but they're like, I need this one done like today or same day. We also have a like, Just get one document returned to you same day. It's a, it's a nominal amount, right? It's a small amount, but like, you know, it, it, but, but they're not ready to do the, like ano additional a hundred a month to like be able to get everything back same day.

[00:38:02] Um, you know, yeah. It's a big ebook. I'll, I can just sell it, sell that to them one off. Right? Because they still have all their other, like, content coming through. They still need to use their subscription for that, but they have this one need and they need it done the next 30 days. Cool. Let me just price that out for you.

[00:38:16] Right. Or they can actually price out themselves and just check out now, which is awesome. Um, yeah. So, so we also have to build in that like flexibility. You know, the productized is, who was it? Maybe it was Brian Castle. Um, or I don't know, maybe it was, I forget who it was, but someone basically said like, the productized, the productized service is the how you deliver it, right?

[00:38:37] It's how you price it and how you deliver it. Um, but we can always allow for that flexibility as well. Um, that doesn't like overly complicate things. So, um, that, that stuck

[00:38:48] James Sowers (Castaway): with me. Yeah, I was just talking to. I was talking to somebody the other day and they were basically coming to me as like an expert in the productized space because they're looking to get involved there and they wanna know what things are like.

[00:38:58] And I was like, here's, here's the common misconception I hear over and over again is like a lot of people think. Um, productizing a service is like a light switch. It's either on or it's off, but it's not, that's not true. It's a dimmer switch. There's a spectrum to this. There's like fully productized and there's fully custom, and there's any number of arrangements in between where it's like, yeah, we're about 70% productized.

[00:39:17] Like most of our clients are on this fixed scope, fixed fee kind of engagement. But there is some flexibility outside of that for add-on services or light customizations or whatever. And it's, it's really up to the business owner to make the choice about where they want to be like. When I started Castaway, I was like, this has to be fully productized because I've got a day job and like I can't have a bunch of custom engagements because I can't manage all that complexity.

[00:39:38] I just need, I. Fixed set of deliverables, fixed price, take it or leave it. You know, that's what you want. Increasingly, I'm finding that like I'm landing in the same place as you, where it's like, yeah, okay, so you might be on a subscription for your podcast, but then let's say your CEO goes and talks at a conference and you wanna repurpose that and use that for marketing material.

[00:39:54] Okay, well just buy that as an ad, like an add-on. An additional $200 this month, and we'll run that through a similar process. Right? Right. And it's, it's the perfect blend of flexibility and consistency and predictability, right? Mm-hmm. So it's more of a spectrum. Yeah. And I think it's just about like, you might start at one end of the spectrum and work your way to the other end, or you know, vice versa.

[00:40:12] But it's like, you don't have to be fully productized outta the gate. Right. But you can And, and it works

[00:40:16] John Doherty (EditorNinja): for a lot of people. Yeah. And I, and I think the, like, and I mean like Greg Hickman at Alt Agency, you know, he talks about like, he, they basically specialize in working with. Custom, like custom quote custom service agencies, um, to help them build a productized offer, right?

[00:40:30] Cause they are easier to deliver, they're easier to scale, easier to sell, all that stuff. Um, but you know, if you start off productizing, which is hard to do, and I honestly don't really recommend people do it, and unless you actually like, know how to deliver a service, like unless you actually like custom pitch stuff and all that, like, I actually don't recommend starting that way.

[00:40:47] But if you do, then also recognizing that like your initial packaging, your initial pricing, et cetera, a, you're probably gonna be priced at about half to a third of what you should actually be charging. And also your packages are gonna be fluid and you're gonna figure out like, I figured it out over time.

[00:40:59] Like this isn't, this should be included in the package cuz 80% of people need it, but this should be an add-on cause only 20% of people need it. And so like it doesn't need to be in the main package. Right. And you can move stuff in and out. And that's no problem, you know? Um, but you know, I mean, even early on, like even where we are now, um, you know, where Editor Ninja is now, it's like I still have to be flexible and I still have to like, move things around and, um, and all that.

[00:41:23] So, um, yeah. But yeah, that's, that's super important, you know, and, and just all the way through, I imagine, like, I haven't built a business seven figures yet, but I imagine even when you're at seven figures, it's still like, Yeah, you're still being flexible. It's just a little bit more like you just have a bigger customer base, you know, um, to kind of change things on.

[00:41:39] Yeah. But you can also just grandfather them in and just offer it to new people and figure out ways to get, get legacy people to upgrade anyways. They don't have to get into that, but like, I think it's a, a conversation for, for the future, but it's, uh, yeah, it's, I, I, I think it's good advice for people wanting to get started.

[00:41:56] James Sowers (Castaway): For sure. Um, cool. Maybe we'll, we'll wrap it there. I know it's been a while since we checked in. Is there anything that like, um, you know, is, is like a top priority in terms of action items or something for the next quarter that you can. Call out. I mean, I think mine is like, well, we'll see how these acquisition talks go.

[00:42:10] Um, obviously if that happens then I'm, I'm gonna find a way to layer that into Castaway as the editing wing and uh, maybe we'll have a conversation around that. Cuz I don't know, like this, this has a bit of an established identity with some. Some SEO o uh, credibility and, and organic, uh, content coming in and stuff like that.

[00:42:26] So it could be a standalone entity, but I think that's a little messy. I'd rather have it just be part of Castaway, but then maybe it's not as clean to offer editing services. So I dunno, that's, that's kind of what's top of mind for me is like, if this acquisition goes through, how do I, how do I blend these two things together, um, in a way that like, Makes things more intuitive.

[00:42:42] Mm-hmm. Not more confusing. Mm-hmm. Right. In terms of like the core, the core product offering, because that service menu could get pretty big after a while. Yeah. Um, so maybe we'll talk about that in the future episode, but that, that's what I'm taking is like, hopefully over the next two weeks I'll have some clarity about whether or not I even need to solve that problem.

[00:42:55] And then when it comes, like how, how do we handle that one? You know, so. Yep, yep.

[00:42:58] John Doherty (EditorNinja): Yeah. And, uh, for me, uh, I am push, we're pushing more into the enterprise. Um, so I've, I've realized that like, SEO managers or content managers at decent sized companies are actually like, and bigger agencies are kind of our ideal customers.

[00:43:14] Um, and, uh, so I'm, I'm working on some features, um, that are gonna kind of allow that and kind of push towards more like scale. So, um, yeah, that's kind of what I'm, what I'm focused on, um, right now. So kind of getting those features out there, tightening up our messaging, um, and then, you know, expecting big things out of the, the second half of the year.

[00:43:37] Um, so yeah, that's, that's what I'm focused on right now. We got a good team and it's just like, all right, let's get these few things in place and talk about it and mm-hmm. Deliver good work for people so,

[00:43:48] James Sowers (Castaway): Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, uh, editor Ninja, if you're running like a mile, you guys are in like your second lap, you're starting to hit your stride.

[00:43:53] Yeah. And it's like, yeah, we gotta make sure we run a really solid mid race here. Yeah. So that we don't burn out and, you know, toward the end or whatever. Yeah. It does feel like, uh, you guys are approaching escape velocity in a lot of

[00:44:02] John Doherty (EditorNinja): Yeah, we're, we're about 600 meters into the mile. I think we, if the mile is like a million in arr.

[00:44:08] We're like, yeah, we're about 600 meters in, I would say. Um, so, and I mean, revenue wise too, I guess so, um, you know, we're about 20, 25% of the way to, to where I wanna go, so, um, at least this year. So yeah, we're, we're keeping on, keeping on, you know.

[00:44:24] James Sowers (Castaway): Awesome, man. Awesome. Look forward to following along and, uh, absolutely.

[00:44:26] Yeah. Joining in the journey. Good to see you buddy.