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what does the next 5 to 10 years look like where does magnet stand in the mix and it's interesting he quoted Henry forward he's like are you building a faster horse or are you building a car I thought was an interesting question I don't have this vision of having thousands of people working in the agency doing little micro tasks I en Visage like having like an assassin team a smaller team right hard to quantify doing really good work with clients that are buying more regularly from you so like focusing on them bit more like the longevity aspect is where I'm investing most agencies have that life cycle of we're doing agency service driven work then once we build up enough of a portfolio momentum and scales and everything we then invest into our own product so I'm currently in the dreaming phase of planning and executing on something that's coming next year called graft and Labs welcome back to episode six of build from scratch uh with yours truly Eric and Dara Eric do want to give your introduction before you forget yeah um my introduction is the guy that's nearly met it to 20 podcasts CU how many podcasts fail and over 90% over 9% so I podcast number six so we're going very consistent more consistent with the gym this year uh than recording podcasts you know so um or the other way around actually the other way around uh my name is Eric I'm 24 years old I own a company called Grafton digital um where we provide companies with digital transformation Solutions and with website expertise and software development also and then I'm involved with a company called Olive for Education where we're transforming the landscape of Education across Ireland for both uh Learners and uh teachers so um that's me very Co I'm Dara I'm 23 years old I co-founded graph and digital with Eric and Eric bought me out earlier on this year we've also got Sky Park which is a revolutionizing uh parking for companies in go City with tech and then I've also my main company is magnes and we're revolutionizing messaging for people with high volumes of messaging um and centralizing all into one place and prioritizing it like giving them a new le on life man we're doing a lot of revolutionizing well here we're just trying right just trying magnate and Sky to be fair are two coming into the market we definitely come in with fresh offering so yeah how's your week been it's only Wednesday but yeah it's it's it's only Wednesday we're recording a little bit earlier my week's been okay um um I think by the time people are listening to this podcast probably north of the end of December so we're just like the first week of December um it's it's it's been busy but um look it's Christmas so just trying to get things tidied up that's my that's my main job at the moment just to make sure we get tided up and we start off January really strong you know yeah I think this will probably get released either Christmas week or the week between Christmas Day and New Year's happy Christmas every mer Christmas yeah happy Christmas to you what you get me for Christmas uh I put lots of thought it's a surprise you're just going to ask your girlfriend to buy me something and then you're going to be like this is very thoughtful yeah no absolutely not no it's going to be customized to you I some great gifts I bought you a Porsche you did buy me a Porsche but I can't I don't fit into it that's the problem a toy model Porsche toy model Porsche s in my desk still looking at me that was very tful it was very tful to be fair yeah um yeah so I'll be in Spain with my family uh and I I don't know where you're heading off to Bush I'm going to Miami for Christmas and New Year's so we're going to have a little bit of fun and sun over there we to backlog episodes to make sure we we're able to yeah we just do like a remote recording are you yeah I don't know if I want to be talking to you when you're Miami I'd be very nice yeah very humble um but yeah no my week uh has been good I uh pitched my new frontier face 2 on Monday in Dublin so I'll find out uh the outcome of that next week which they went very well so I'm optimistic about that and then I'm pitching in the porter shed in City at the end for the ndrc pre accelerator on Friday so that'll be really good I think it'll be a good opportunity to really show the progress over the last two three months of magnate and I'm excited to really kind of be be that kind of be to be the unveiling of like okay here's our progress today and here's our big plans coming sprinting into the New Year tell me this I forgot to ask you like if anybody's listening thinking about going into these accelerators or you know pitching for for for for for this next year cuz I know they're kind of in phases aren't they so like every couple of months they actually appear and have to could do like a phase one phase two and phase three yeah it depends on the screen but yes there a couple layers with just pitching there obviously there was a versatile like like load of people from different backgrounds there listening to magnet as a pitch probably tech people probably like Educators from universities you know it's probably what advice would you give for anybody about the pitch um you know next year um their their startup idea for some funding yeah like I suppose the two main things to F to focus on I really think is for me anyways was uh how how valid is your pain point and how much do you understand about it and then how much evidence can you get to back it up that people actually want that solution and like really that was that was the thing I really focused in on and I think I think my presentation was very focused on that so they were the two things that I'd made a lot of progress in so I speak spoken to way more customers and I suppose I'd really refine the story about why magnet started and that seemed to really hit about like like I was the agency owner that spent my evening trying to catch up on messaging if I spent all my days in meetings yeah and then here's a load of other companies that are successful in their domains proving that I'm correct you know that they actually want the solution because even one of the Enterprise Ireland guys acknowledged he said you made some really good progress since you last spoke to us I'm like yeah and I'm like I plan on coming back to you early in the new year with even more traction than I had previously so again the whole piece is like how they just want to see they want to see you you're on a current trajectory and then they want to see okay Ireland a little more conservative so they're like they want to see you with a good bit of trajectory and then they'll buy in and back you and I think once you're in the system they're absy amazing to deal with apparently talking to the people that are in the Enterprise Ireland ndrc sphere but yeah everyone speaks very very very highly of the the whole program yeah both yeah um and tell me this how did that slide do where you had all the mobile apps on one screen and then like the whole before and after was it really did it yeah it did it really his that was like a good one really good knew as soon as I created it I was like this is going to be good this is going to be good it did well in the room and then we put it on socials and it did really well as well it really popped cuz like it it's interesting because people don't complain about their messaging because it's something that people just taking inevitable it's well people just taken it for granted that that's the way it is you know your iMessage your WhatsApp your telegram your emails your whatsapps your slack your teams people just take it for granted that's the way it has to be and when I speak to my demographic which is in the people in the highest amount of messaging there you see the whites of their eyes like I talk about last week so I love when you see that and one of the guy from Enterprise Ireland who's on the panel he really got it and he actually asked really interesting question he goes okay I'm a government employee but I really have this pain point I don't think Enterprise Ireland will probably let you plug into our system because you need to like allow it and I said probably not right now but I don't think it's a matter of if they will ever let you it's when and I want to be the software knocking on the door as soon as they allow AI soft that we the company that will be able to help their team become even more efficient and I think you like that answer and it's the truth like I I I really think we're still at a very early curve and I want to be the people revolutionizing yeah messaging and task manager people early days so anyways yeah so that was the pitch went really well I was really happy with it but again I've spent six plus months working on it so you know it's it's really it's it's just like a checkin point of like where are you at now and doesn't make sense to the panelists yeah yeah and I think that feeds into your first point you wanted to share um on today's you know about building the future and making sure you know what the future looks like right it's interesting I was talking to an investor uh the day after the pitch and a lot of the time it's very much like what was the pain point that inspired you to get here and then what have you build to solve the problem now but it's interesting he was very much F future focused he was like what does the next 5 to 10 years look like where does magnate stand in the mix and it's interesting he quoted Henry forward he's like are you building a faster horse or are you building a car and he's like where where are you thinking about us you know I thought was an interesting question um like I suppose where we're at currently and again this is not just a plug magnet the entire time but where we're at currently is I want this to be the fastest onboarding process to add value as fast as possible to keep people back control but the long-term vision for this is I want to be able to introduce automations remove any repetitive tasks and have this as kind of and again as as repetitive this is an AI system that can really remove a lot of the administrative tasks yeah across the board and that will be down the down the line but what I found is and the point that I was talking about and I definitely hear from you as well because obviously the agency landscape is changing a lot at the moment as well is customers are really focused on paino today like you know any any weight lless users any trial users are like paino a day it that okay we're cool we're interested where the investors and shareholders on or potential shareholders unsurprisingly are saying okay that's all well and good for today but where is this going in five to 10 years time like how is magnet going to be The Cutting Edge of messaging and task management for the future and be competitive and I suppose I spent a long time thinking about I'm like okay in 10 years time where do are people going to be and I suppose like the couple insights like I've looked at market trends like the increase in Virtual assistance both you know online and remote like humans has been a huge upward Trend and if you look at that what I've seen is that a lot of people are using them for messaging management task management pulling out to-do lists uh doing all repetitive tasks which I'd like to eliminate with a with magnate but what I've also kind of looked at is like okay what's been big disruptions the in the messaging space to date and how can we build on top of that and build for the future so I think personally that I think my punt for the next 10 years is that people will be focused on real deep work I think AI is going to have a huge place in the workplace so I think it's going to do a lot of the repetitive a lot of administrative tasks I think people really focus on deep work real Focus work not this like inbox hopping management so I suppose how does magnet enable people to really focus on deep work really make huge strides in their work and then the AI takes away a lot of the ministry of tas% so I but I suppose the question for you then inside of this and kind of focusing on building for the future is what way are you poting grafting over the next 5 to 10 years and what way are you looking at that because I think with AI introducing I think the agency landscape is going to change you know more and more of a Time 100% and actually a point to discuss a little bit later as well is just I thought about it I think be very relevant is like I got asked um this week of like Eric how do you build a plan as a business uh over the next 5 10 years like how do you even Envision that or how like like every year everything changes so fast how do you actually do it so like let's actually touch on that yeah but um the way I look at the agency space is I think when we started Grafton doing social media content marketing and and and web design we were taking existing tools and making the most out of these tools for for businesses and we were showing we're doing a lot of handholding for our customers and doing a lot of uh lot of U we we've done very good service in the space um on automating and doing everything on their behalf I think the agency space has shifted towards you got to be an expert in your field um providing constant value to your client and actually this week I've had um one of Ireland's largest retailers in fashion uh come into the office today and spend um quite a few hour I think actually for 45 minutes with um with Eugene our CTO and they really want to invest in AI in the next few few few few months SL year and they set up the Whiteboard and they started doing everything that they're currently doing manually and um the client just goes to to Eugene actually Eugene can you come into our office right now um because like we're just kind of thinking our our wheels are kind of churning in our heads and will you come in and really have a look at what we're doing and and let's accelerate this and and as I was arriving to the office I seen um I seen Eugene following the client at the car called the client was like did you hire him did you like take him out of the office he's like he's like yeah it all took me 45 minutes I was like Grace going to look for a new CTO but like yeah um in terms of where I see the space is is you got to really see how do you specialize in these areas and what value can you bring to your clients and I think I'm looking at more High leverage situations where uh we can come into an organization and spend quite a few years you know or like just a longer period working with them and that whole digital transformation word comes very effective as the years go on in the agency space rather than doing a quick website which AI can kind of do now right um we're trying to think around okay what way are you currently doing your accounts okay there's input here input there a lot of data CV files floating around here how do we synchronize and automate this and create you know better reporting better efficiency uh task management you know um and and that's what I'm trying to really really you know put towards to all our clients that are coming on board now I'm trying to change and have a smaller team but a more nure team for this solution um and and like in the last I think in the last podcast kind of talked about like the plan of I don't have um this vision of having like thousands of people working in the agency you know doing little micro tasks I en Visage like having like an assassin team a smaller team right hard to quantify but but having a smaller team but doing really good work for with clients that are buying more regularly from you so like focusing on them bit more than clients that are just very transactional just looking for small help so it's like that's like the longevity aspect is where I'm investing but I think most agencies have that life cycle of we're doing agency service driven work then once we build up enough of a portfolio momentum and scales and everything we then invest into our own product so I'm currently uh in the dreaming phase of planning and executing on um something that's coming next year called graft and labs and Grafton Labs I'll be creating product like software solutions for uh solving smaller uh more repetitive problems for for our clients um both in the education space Hospitality wherever the CFT and digital clients lie um so like that's where I see the space AI is disrupting it very very much like claw and and and the whole gbts and open AI Etc like there's so much out there and I just feel like it's it's a jungle you know it's just a new Jungle to go in and explore so I'm trying to just invest in the team learning as well which is which is you know quite a resource for a business to both learn and continue providing this service um because we our job is to be the best in our fields and that's again just doubling down on that that's my vision of the agency world for the next while is I think will be very relevant to provide that uh expertise continuously handhold and do the transformation cuz a companies don't have the time internally or the expertise and that's why they come to you know Del Le of Grafton to get that you know on a but I want to go on a more regular long-term basis because just the impact has been much greater yeah and I think I think we're both touching on very similar points because like what Graf is leading into is the human contact The Human Experience on like hey we'll bring you down this Tech we bring you towards the technology bring in this Innovation to your company and we're going to be guys holding your hand and bringing you there because that's a huge transition for a company and with magnet I suppose like that's one thing I have in my pitch deck about like magnet will reduce down minister of tasks so people can FOC managers can actually focus on yeah relationships with their team because currently when you're bombarded with messaging you know obviously you don't have the time to actually build relationship with your team which is one of the big like the relationship with your manager like it's something like 70% of people's satisfaction is based on their relationship with the manager and then obviously your satisfaction and your your ability to Succeed In Your Role but I think the human to human contact over the next 10 years is something that AI can't take out I think it's one thing with grafting you're really leaning into to is that the PMS have a long-term relationship with the client that's right and they're bringing them on that Journey versus them going online obviously some guy you know some some 16-year-old can build an AI website and sell them for 50 Quid and it looks great but someone can't handhold be on site be there with them walk them through that techn that technology Journey you know digitalization journey and bring them there yeah he I can't do that in the next at least 5 to 10 years unless unless the Tesla robots those robots come out on the streets I don't know yeah like even then I think people are very much like still like we still want someone to you know help with that but look it is it's just one of those spaces you got to keep watching and like that's why you you have to always be on edge and uncomfortable in business to be to be to make sure you survive you know um it's it's all about surviving and then driving but it's just like it's the whole industrialization is what's happening to business now with AI like the big thing I do like like like acknowledge the difficulty is is the cost yeah because this technology is so new like co-pilot for example is um quite expensive right now right and it provides you know a lot of value or whatever but just businesses can't just easily adapt that internally just yet and they have to wait until it becomes a little bit more available a little bit more T out and then it becomes more affordable but like the like most of the customers I'm speaking with at the moment they're all it's all in the Forefront the biggest challenge is budget and time dedication to this project but they all admit that if they do not invest in a with AI and any sort of digital implementation to their business they will be in like a dinosaur situation where one one one strike and they're out right so it's it's it's it's just a huge disruption across the globe yeah I know it's amazing that the clients are investing early because uh a lot of companies got killed during Co being not invest in technology early and I think Co is got to learning for a lot of businesses that you need to invest early in Tech to make sure that you're robust because if you are doing things like you've always done them you know people will out out compete you and they'll outwork you and they'll outthink you and you can kill you in business so you need to stay on your toes so yeah yeah so what's what's your what's your next point my my my my point um my first point today's podcast probably more like a a little bit of a reflection point and then a prediction point so like I think we both get asked this very regularly is like whole about scaling a business managing revenue and all these numbers get thr around right and I just was like reflecting a little bit on like how did we get to for example our first 100,000 right in revenue and the answer I came down to I'd love to hear your thoughts on on this as well is U I think our first 100,000 was all about engaging uh friends family locality anybody that's ready ready to back you um and your skills and your Ambitions is just you they're investing in doesn't matter if you think that you're you know um creating a new electric car or whatever right so but there's like oh let me just buy from this person let me you know contract them in um I I think that's your first 100,000 it's just completely relies on your skills um your first million I think is just pure hard work and dedication on trying to figure out the whole what works what doesn't work and doing like a couple of years right until you reach your first million revenue of like like what what am I going to be focusing in on right and for my next 10 to 15 to 30 million right um and and that's kind of like my little Reflection Point of like I think again first 100,000 is all hard work family friends referrals your skills your first million is hard work building out you know your systems check checking out what distribution system works are you cold calling are you emailing you know are you are you building Partnerships I think the next like 1 to 10 million road then is all about building on top of that distribution system right getting your team scaled and skilled up to the sufficient Manner and creating these Department leads where they're pushing you know both Innovation and progress and and towards your company to reach your next Milestone so it becomes a little bit more of a math strategy equation from 1 to 10 million I think but below that it's all about just hard work and figuring it out yeah like I I was just reflecting on our first couple Grand we ever made were crafting and it was definitely it was all Network it was going to people and going hey like we'll do a video for €400 and or you know our first website for €200 um and that was all Network well actually our first website ever came through Facebook advertising and did Rob hey with the grinds Academy and now tribal property I remember I was in a after school study um in school studying for my leave insert or my end of high school exams and I saw the the phone line my phone started ringing and I was like oh my God this Rob called he was he was an old school customer he called so I had to ask the teacher could I step out of the room for after school study and I went out the back of the school and I took the phone call I so forgot that and I was like hello and he's like hey like like what's the example it was like your 086 number or something actually on there no company line we couldn't afford a company line but I remember taking the call and being like Oh my God it's amazing let do Facebook advertising I must actually ask him what exactly you saw or who shared it but I never he reached out to us on messenger we got a call because then you text me next to Eric we got a call this guy looking for a website you know then we built him the website and got us got a video package and everything like Rick extremely good guy backing us from the start yeah um really early days and we still keep in touch with him you know we were neighbors with him at the last office so um but yeah but again definitely like and again Rob's an exception there but it was it was all our own network one W to 100,000 and uh actually pop up we did a video at the time when we hit it I pop of the thumbnail of the two kids you know with the black wall the first 100K and and Shane edited like a glowing logo on the background yeah I know exactly we did a full photo shoot because like that was so so crazy um the 100K to a million it definitely I think there's a couple factors I think everything you said is definitely correct I think also um there's an element of like brand reputation building over time and network paying off I suppose doino effect yeah because like I suppose one thing and I think you're in particular very good at this is H really investing in relationships blindly investing in relationships on the punt that something may good come out of it in the future which actually just translates to you're nice to a lot of people and then maybe some business might come out of it and if it doesn't no worries with a fun time along the journey I think you're excellent to that I think that's one of the reasons why you exceling the service space business um but that and then kind of figuring out where the real value at because obviously when we had a free few key hires about three and a half years ago and they their skill sets we really built on top of them and like okay these are industry experts and I think Grafton really you and I over time refined of like what does that sound like is it web and app company is it digitalization like those ages to kind like get a pitch together I remember do you even remember in Longford we pitched to Gar flower's dad what we were doing and um he was um William was just looking at us and he was like so gar what do these Lads do and they were talking to me for like you know good 15 minutes about what they do and they're doing this and doing that and we just like tried to listed all our things and and and I just remember Garett just goes that you need to refine your pitch you got to have your one liner your one pickup L pitch yeah elevator pitch right and I just remember William just looking at us like we had 10 heads of like these I don't know what these guys are doing some sort of web stuff you know that's at least you took that away right I remember I remember cuz you and William were across the yard and me and G beside each other and I remember looking at the two of you and you were like you were like really passionately telling about what he did and him just like looking off into his face you were just grilling a burger with Garrett and I was just there pitching to I may laughing as well to see there's just nothing there but and again that was part of the learning curve of like you know how do we explain what we do in a manner that really resonates people understand it really quickly but I suppose there was an element of us figuring out like where's the strongest value at and when we kind of stumbled kind of stumbled upon digitalization and we went okay we can charge a retainer team really enjoy working on it and the clients get great results okay winner winner okay let's double down on this and then that's been the last two three years you know 100% And just add to your point a little bit that's why a lot of agencies burn out and agency owners burn out is because they cannot achieve longevity with their business you know and what happens is is they're picking up a lot of small business jumping from client to client just chasing their tail all the time you know forgetting to invoice doing all that kind of stuff and it's like you got to like stop like like like and realize where you want to focus how do you create a long relationship how do you get into longer term Contracting right because it's that's that's where you burn out big time you know I was even talking to a guy at an agency a web development agency in 2006 and he was saying the exact same issues was like you know deposit payment then progress payment just changing their tail right and then like you get halfway to your project and you go oh no this money's going to run out I need to go find another project whereas when it's retainer based long longevity at least you have some projection Run Race business coming in so I definitely think I think really really refining well just being in the market for many years and then really refining where the really strong value is was for Grafton that really went from the 100K to a million and obviously then obviously going on from there and again I've never done 5 to 10 Millions I don't know what that looks like but I definitely be curious as to what that looks like but it definitely was it's it's different skills along the way and obviously also like there was an element of we had no real skills at the start either we had some basic skills but it was a lot of learning on the job and it was interesting I was talking to one of my developers with magnate and he's been developer for a couple years and he's on the desktop team and he said to me when we brought him on he didn't know any react he learned it in the first couple of weeks and now he's like to and he was like I believe in this opportunity I think these gu I back these guys I want to get involved and he UPS skill really quickly which I really appreciate it he he told me this recently um and but but now he's like one of our best performers in death St off team he's taking leadership taking ownership he's really running with things and I'm like wow like I have a lot of respect for that because in a lot of ways us early days and still to today is is we're still like learning on the job and just trying take till you make it totally okay yeah and again it was just yeah just that story sucking me but yeah no one to 100 100 to million and then you know hopefully over time in this podcast we can document what you know 5 10 the next next Millions that's a really good one um do you want to does your point next Point flow in better or do you want want me to hop over to mine um well look I my like probably my point there was probably a combination of what I just want to kind of get across I did want to just highlight like a lot of people do ask me like Eric is there like a huge sales team behind you what you do you know and like the the short answer is no there's no this huge commercial team behind me I think as a as a CEO you are the sales team I am the sales team a major you know majorly but I think it's like as a CEO you got to wear multiple hats at the one time but like I think nobody can sell better than the business owner themselves so if you have the skills and the privilege to step out of running your business and have the skills of actually selling like like no one else is going to beat you on sales and so many businesses like like are now running at much smaller um Team size etcil mus with the whole X um um transformation has really highlighted like how to optimize yourself and where to invest you know your time and skills can we talk about did you see the clip about recently about what he did with every Twitter staff member no this is amazing and you can keep going because you're about to make a great point but I saw this during the week and this is insane when he first came on to Twitter yeah he spent 18 hours a day every staff member had a 5minute block with them they had to tell him what they were working on and he just ified whether they keep their job or not so you had like a 5 minute pitch feel on musk like what are you working on I'm on this every day yeah and and and they're like he's like you have to basically pitch to keep your job wow and he did it for 18 hours a day every day till he got through every staff member wow like absolutely that's absolutely crazy I heard that I went but El musk is just like such like a traditional um ballsy entrepreneur right and like you'll see many billionaires um would have that confidence that aura when they step in a room like musk really really has you know I think mastered the whole um I don't give a toss right um and it's just like yeah it's just like watching it from this side you're like oh my God you're very ballsy like you just walking out around and that so funny seeing hey Donald Trump and all the guys just like ganging walking around you know it's like Dana White appears there every now and then it's just like such a boys club going on the new influencers I watched a video earlier talking about like a CEOs becoming more like like online influencers because that's how people feel towards their brands you know like Mark Zuckerberg went from a lizard person people human to like now he show up the UFC events he surfs and he's got he's surfing he has like a he does MMA you know he wants to fight Elon Musk in a cage and Rome you know yeah it's becoming this is like the whole thing of like being a rock star or being a business owner SL mixing the two sometimes so really it's it's it's it's an interesting one um yeah like I was just going to just conclude my point kind of saying like I my kind of successful metric um sorry my successful um like path to sales was Partnerships so as you highlighted like I love talking to people I'll have uh multiple coffees and teas every day of the week um with both current clients people that you know I'm just like enjoy talking to Etc so I like to grow my network and and very much invest in my network I do like for me it has been the whole network is your network has actually uh come to fruition um and you know I've got I've got two great guys in the US um who are working really hard in sales and spreading spreading The graft and brand but but ultimately I think you got to be such a good networker and Partnerships have really been my um my my distribution channel of success um and and that's I it's just so much easier the business comes towards you you could refer business on to other people and just building out those uh be be service of someone doing service you know I just that's just worked for me really well well the other thing about Partnerships and I touched on it last week is it's it's a free salesperson you know because it's it's it is but the whole in the exchanging a business like like it was actually today just a couple of hours ago I've signed a partnership with a really really big company and you know when you sign a partnership you know like it's like I could get business I might get business or I will get business this partnership we sat down and the the person um person manager just had like um Eric this is the first client second client third client I was just sitting down I was like oh my God you've I've never had a partner prepare business coming into me and he and she was like um when can you start have you the skill set on your team okay can you hire like it was just so proactive because they got acquired recently and the company that acquired them doesn't want to keep a lot of business that is not serving to their their goal of of of of um they're going into the whole Cloud infrastructure provision and they're like here's all this business um can you can you take over and I'm like yes I never say no to any kind of business as long as I have the skill set if not I'll inventor skills that are higher r or Justify you know bringing it on so I always try to make something work especially for parners cuz they love someone else like going to war for them 100% And I think it was kind of I don't know whether you putting hold into it but I feel like it was kind of an accident that over the years we started to build Partnerships and it was all very organic it was like you know oh we're in a similar sort of line of business let's me for coffee and oh here you know if anything comes out your way I think one of our first ones was with a large uh web development company that didn't take anything under really 80 grand or 100 Grand the guys that tried to buy us house yeah first how we met them is they knocked on our door in near two or three of our business and I was like to to to tell her look we got a letter and we're like we knew we weren't going to sell but were we really curious process that was a really good exercise we probably done and we should probably talk about what it taught us about a business for next episode um but uh they try to buy us and we were like let's tell the team that just in case you're here we're not selling but we're just going through this process to see where we can strengthen up our business um and it was like a couple days we've done like profit and loss and over and everything like that and then remember we said no remember the no email we sent off and it was like cuz like we were going to get like no money at all for our business we just weren't worth too much money and um and uh then um we were like can we become partners because you know the reason you wanted to buy us is to do that service and they're like hell yeah and like you so you've spoken to the commercial yeah commercial head there recently and um it's we've actually had such a good relationship even the CEO is super helpful like every now I try to talk to him a couple times a year pick up the phone like hey how's it going how's business you know and you know you want to kind of build that out but it's just been that was like the first time we were like oh we have a partner and then they refer us like three clients really good and they're also going to be one of magnet for clients as well because um which is agency yeah know strength strength of relationships and we but uh no I remember them referring the first couple websites and I being like mind blown that like well they don't they don't want this the thousands of Euros so much so much easier not just sitting down presenting justifying like I the brand as well like and I I personally never like cold cold a lot or done quite a quantity of cold emails or anything like this it was always you just pick up business from referrals and word them out and that was something we just like yeah it was definitely accidental or more of like an instinct of like this works in the back of your head and you just kind of Chase it yeah 100% And that relationship then led to more relationships and now I don't know how many Partnerships you've got now or people referring business but it's a pretty big network of people you know um and like that's not just from you know going for coffees and buddying up people it's also following through doing good quality work because every time you get your first referral 100% every time you get your first referral it's a test it's not it shouldn't be hey we've won pop bottles it's there yeah like there's no like this this like blood contract of like they will have to stay with you is like the minute you don't do the work you promised or you've breached slas or whatever you've done or not done it's going to come back to you so like it's Grace sitting saying I've got so much business but you got to deliver and you know like walk to walk and talk to talk I know even a interally with us not that we weren't attentive to our own clients we were always like anytime we got work in the door we' always be very attentive but I didn't know it in particular when there's a partner client that referred as a it was like just that more of like oh my God I cannot even afford to let down not replying straight away or not taking this calls just that like internal urgency of like I need to make sure that like I provide like exactly the service I spoke to them about and like you still do it like um I I could have a client that we've you know onboarded in 2018 call me and I will treat that client exactly the same way today because they've been a paying customer and first customer it doesn't change this where most businesses do actually fall down 100% um and it's and you know that's definitely a story to tell a little bit on why we've gone so much into the whole service is first mindset if we can talk about it next year but um but um it was it's it's just I still take a call no problem I'm like to local veg distribution business to Flores to whoever I and I and I show up and say hey how are you doing you know yet we'll get dist sorted or yet no problem and that's one thing that you ask any customer of ours you know current or previous it's like one thing they'll say is like oh they were like like stupidly attentive and really really helpful and really really customer focus Centric yeah no you know and it was interesting and again this is not to blow our own trumpets here but like even early days we're almost like too attentive and too much Yes Man early days oh we there's no like looking like like profit margins and everything and service it's just you're just looking for you're just looking to see where your time is going right and it's like like looking to see where you're yeah like like you cannot measure profits and client happiness you know cuz like if a client's happy they will refer you and try to make it up and again that's one of the things in an agency business it's just the margin game is very subjective you might have a very strong gross margin but when it comes down to how much time talk you know an effort you put put into a client your net margin becomes you know extremely small so you got to really know how to navigate that and make the best of it while not compromising on quality in the long run 100% um I'm going to move on to my second Point um and I think you like this when I brought it up was oh yeah I tell this sit in the cringe um done it many of times but the way you framed it that sit in the cringe I really do like it yeah so so even today uh so myself Aron and one of our developers veran we sat behind a user a real project manager and we said sign up to magnate and on board yourself right and we sat there for the 10 or 15 minutes and like you got you got this cringe the go and the the the yeah your your like your chest is like for yeah you're get tight and you're like oh no that didn't work or oh that's really slow to load or you know they clicked the wrong place yeah there actually was a typo there and he called it out as well um but I think um I think it was a really good learning experience for the team to actually see because obviously when you're in the weeds and you're building a product it's next thing next thing next thing but I was like I really wanted the guys to stop and look watch like cuz cuz this is what new customers see so you see this but what is that experience going to look like that's super important First Impressions really important cuz the current trial pool of people either like in my network or friends of friends and people are real like super users and really want to use it but like there will be a stranger that comes on board and every single click every single you don't know what this means and what where you're going next yeah you're it's like but like also like to be fair like when you're looking at something for too long without like a helicopter perspective you're like you become super complacent and you're like oh this is perfect looks great or whatever and then someone's try to actually use it and it's not actually user friendly then that's the difference between the whole UI and ux you know in principle but um I I really liked it cuz obviously even with websites going and go lives or anything you're like sweating cuzz like oh my God this form is not firing or this you know integration is not working and it was working on stage and then some developer tells you like uh well it's difference between going live to Stage I'm like I don't care I'm here burning in front of a client like you got to get this sworded where's the urgency here you know she what if her integration wasn't working for you you walked over I I was just sitting down was like Dar look not working and was like yeah will you send me a video yeah yeah please um but and again a demo it's classic and it's it's a right of passage things will go wrong always yeah and like and that's inevitable and that's why I think it's one of the upsides of our demographic that I've largely been working with software development companies like project managers to date so they get it you know it's not like someone who's in consultancy or Finance they're like oh my God this doesn't work this terrible it's like like they kind of laugh and they go I get it things go wrong and here's actually some constructive feedback yeah I was actually in a presentation there not too long ago and um the button wasn't working uh what I was trying to demonstrate I was like just imagine this is going this way and the client just burst out laughing I was like yeah look it's not working until I like we'll get it fixed after this I promise but I was like everything else is kind of working so you got to know how to manage these situations and usually people can laugh it off and you know as long it's not too serious and they can show that okay like 90% of what you've done is actually like fully functional and tght out so there's always a bit of 10% human error there totally and I think like and even though the experience there definitely was a few cringe moments there's actually some real good takeaways of like oh let's actually move that button up there because it's more intive for someone to go there or hey actually let's have let's have like not just an X out of a box let's have like a so let's say one of the Integrations um there's just an X out of a box which is not very clear but if you have like a complete integration click and then it goes away like small things but like when you have a product at mass and people using it it needs to be stupid proof it needs to be super simplistic so we got some really good learnings out of it and walking away like our our developer vardan he was like pumped about it he was like okay that finally feedback from somebody and he also likes it he's like I need the value I really this like sols my pain point and he could cuz I do a lot of customer talking but the product team largely live in a bubble of I feed them the information from the they see Cod every day though and like a figma file and they're just got to keep sprinting so they don't actually see it in action and you got to change that that design is going to like like evolve over time totally totally and it will be completely different in 12 months time um but I thought it was really interesting getting letting him see that and then see the learnings and the takeaways and the feeling and go this is real you know this is now we got to do this weekly we wear down so let's next week let's not have as much bugs I literally I'm like okay we just did with desktop there today I'm like mobile I'm going to find a PM mobile well I showed you something you got to get that sorted and that will that's already been pinged into the feedback grou um but um but no overall it's good and like the product is is there where you know we can we can get some good big feedback and the onboarding process is something that can get neglected when I onboard someone two months ago so it's only good to keep adding this the time to just perfect to you know make sure the clay looks good after all the handling 100% so no uh was that was my thing but it was just sitting the cringe cuz I think like I even know my own head I was like I just know there's going to be problems here but I'm going to wheel a chair over sit right behind us it's probably the best thing you can do is just like expose them to user feedback and then when a real customer is actually coming in looking to buy like ,000 bucks worth uh of licenses there's like we don't have room now to for the software not to work or the on boarding to fail so guys like this is like a you know like a pre-practice before uh we're on stage we on where the show is going and once the show is running like got to start thinking about the future then and implementing that straight away I needs to be super robust I'm like guys like this needs to be like for launch in March last April H we're going to do hard launch go to maret I'm like this needs to be bulletproof so December 24 no problem on board a little clunky no problem now February 2025 we're going to have problems you know so um no good learning experience more uncomfortable definitely something I wanted to bring up because it's something you wouldn't feel like you really want to do but I think it's hugely valuable yeah yeah it's probably something it's a bit tabooed for Founders to probably talk about like like those you know like oh like I'm perfect whatever no no one's perfect dude like you know it's you got to St you know yeah and I think that's that's the really good part of this podcast and I think U any of the feedback we've got in aoup first couple episodes is that um I think it's how candid we are and how like we're willing to be vulnerable here and go hey okay we've had some wins we had some successes to top our Revenue stuff and you know we've spent years trying to build that up but also we're still learning and there's still mistakes being made and exactly and I think and I think there's not many podcasts really doing good documentation of that and really transparently and like I really enjoy talking about business and I enjoy documenting this I enjoy chatting with you and because obviously we're in two different chat with me depends on the day depends the day yeah fair enough and apparently we've got some good chemistry as well you know I don't knowable right allegedly allegedly right but um we actually have no listener voice clip this week yeah I forgot about that dropped the balls we did um yeah we will we we we still haven't promoted it in our own socials or haven't done like this was just all like let's just pose get consistent figure out the concept and get like everything right like I'm very happy with the production I think Martin is doing an amazing job you know he's he's he's doing amazing so um I just kind of want like i y saying we just wanted to kind of get that up and going and make sure like this is like bulletproof like now I think we have the routine like now we can kind of think about when this episode goes live I think we get a little bit more social about it Etc so I think we're figuring it out and we're doing good at it yeah I definitely think over the next week or two we can definitely push it really hard in our own socials and really like I've kind of in I know yourself as well pushing in some circles about you know let people know about s to like two or three people so far just for a little bit of feedback one of them is like you know gett Jeremy just like them like guys just like feedback and like they actually like it yeah know I I got uh two I sent out a couple guys as well I got two texts today both listening to it uh good feedback they're like they like the format um and they like the kind of candid nature of aama business and kind of some of our learnings because I think it's applicable to guys that and women that want well our analytics would indicat men they're listening to us but that either want to get into business or in business you know and like usually kind of under the age of 30 are kind of interested in listening so again uh please do start in voice notes we want you know audience interaction because I definitely think they'll piece at the end where yeah it's cool I think it's cool answering questions that we mightn't think about or you know like it's nice to reflect and actually answer like a very specific question or like someone might pitch their idea that they have if they're okay with it been on the Internet or whatever but like in general I think it's a good you know kind of medium for people just to like here you go guys you know what you like pick it up or give me feedback or how did you guys solve this problem or you know how did you find this phase of business so like we're totally open for that kind of um discussion yeah 100% And um again if you want to reach out to our socials just let us know our email is built from scratchpad gmail.com so uh you figured that out I didn't know we had a Gmail um but uh no that was another good episode I think there was some good points we definitely I know we we said we maybe talk about our offer of buying Graft in early days as well so maybe we'll fly that next next episode I'll take a note of that you know and uh if you've enjoyed the podcast make sure to like subscribe and follow us and let us know um let us know if you want to if you want us to discuss anything or address anything so we're we're very excited to do so and even if you want some more insights if anyone's interested in the business of uh building content so obviously we're going heavy on clips and we're across platforms we're going to be launching an apple podcast this week wait to get the account approved um and run Spotify stct when it comes to proving yeah and they also need to pay to pay for it and stuff it's like 20 qu a year or whatever but they definitely it's it's a process getting on Apple podcast but we will be live by the time this comes out on Apple podcast as well um but been really cool even with the clips and stuff so if you want some insights on that more than happy to cover that as well so that's this another episode of Bill from scratch yes thank you um thank you for joining me and thank you for joining us and we'll see you next week all right have a good evening bye Day morning bye