0:05 - DJ Chronicles: A Journey Begins
8:55 - Building a Dream App
23:39 - The Quest for Success
35:49 - Life Beyond Coding
42:34 - The Investor's Perspective
49:52 - Reflections on the Journey
51:47 - Code Evolution
53:07 - Market Competition
55:43 - Customer Retention Challenges
57:53 - Business Viability
1:00:48 - Growth Strategies
1:10:59 - Architectural Decisions
1:13:24 - Cash Flow Realities
1:18:32 - Market Positioning
1:30:54 - Marketing Strategies
1:33:17 - Documentation and Support
1:37:37 - Practical Advice for Promotion
In this episode, we engage in a deep and insightful discussion with a mobile DJ from Australia who has been a dedicated listener of the show for over a decade. He shares his journey, starting as a DJ at 16, building up a successful business, and how a sudden drop in Google rankings forced him to pivot into developing his own DJ management app. He elaborates on the challenges he faced when transitioning from a thriving DJ business to a tech venture, underlining the significant impact of search engine algorithms on his previous success.
He paints a vivid picture of the early days when SEO was simpler, sharing anecdotes about the less-than-reputable tactics used to rank high on Google that ultimately led to his current predicament. After consistently managing a substantial DJ operation, he faced the harsh reality of downsizing, which prompted him to focus on web design and app development. His story unfolds with the revelation of how he managed to keep his dreams alive through self-funding, even amidst setbacks that would have deterred many.
The conversation dives into the software development process, including the complexities and the slow pace of app growth due to non-standard coding practices. He admits that creating a robust framework from scratch has proven to be a gargantuan task that has consumed both time and resources. Despite having a dedicated developer from Armenia, the challenges of upgrading his app to be competitive in a crowded market remain daunting, particularly when watching rivals like HoneyBook thrive with far more streamlined operations.
We also explore the competitive landscape he faces, including an evaluation of similar applications in the market. Our guest categorically declares his intent to carve out a niche focused on DJs, distinguishing himself from broader event management software. His experience navigating through competitor landscapes and customer feedback highlights his tenacity as he strives to build the features he believes will allow his app to flourish.
Towards the end of our discussion, he shares his upcoming plans to market his app at a major DJ expo in Las Vegas, hoping that a revamped design along with new functionalities, such as SMS integrations and automated workflows, will spark user interest. The conversation probes deeper into whether the myriad features he plans to incorporate will be enough to lure DJs away from established competitors.
Our discussion deeply resonates with the themes of perseverance and passion, as the caller articulates his vision for success despite the financial and emotional toll of creating his software solution. His excitement for the future is palpable, and he expresses hope that all efforts will culminate in a thriving business that effectively supports DJs globally. However, the candid acknowledgment of the struggle with cash flow and market presence serves as a stark reminder of the realities of entrepreneurship.
The episode concludes with reflections on the value of persistence in the face of adversity, the critical importance of understanding market needs, and the necessity of adapting strategies to thrive in a competitive landscape.
[0:00] So, yeah, lay it on me. I've, of course, read your message, but let's get into it.
[0:06] Yeah, so if I'm going to give you some of the background story, I'm a mobile DJ from Australia. And first of all, I just want to say I'm very excited to be speaking with you. I've been listening to your show for 10 years. I appreciate that. Thank you. yeah i think it was uh there was a video that i remember watching the truth about bitcoin that was one of the first ones i saw and and then after that that's when i kind of started listening to more of your podcast well.
[0:41] Here's hoping you listen to me about bitcoin
[0:45] Sorry i.
[0:46] Hope that you listened about bitcoin
[0:47] Yeah i did um so yes i uh started djing when I was around 16 into 1997 and when I finished high school started a DJ business and my older brother who was a software developer he started building an app for me around about 2001 to help me you know manage my clients and my events and that sort of supported me with my growth over the next 10 years. And by 2010, I had 16 sets of DJ equipment and I trained all the DJs myself and everything was going really well. What helped my growth towards the peak of my DJ business was getting on first pages of Google back in the day, around about 2008, 2009. It was much easier to rank.
[1:55] Oh, yeah.
[1:58] And so at 2012, 2013, my DJ business was at its peak. But in 2013, my Google rankings dropped suddenly, and this caused me to have to downsize my business. So I had to move out of my warehouse and start selling off equipment. And that's when I decided to –.
[2:24] I found out that, yeah, I did because what that got me to do was move into web design and start building my own website and learning about SEO. So the reason why I was to rank on Google back around 2008, around that time, it was much easier and you could just literally type a keyword 50 times. And if someone else had it 52 times, they would rank higher than you. It was almost that simple. So some of the tricks my web developer was using at the time were what they now call black hat tricks, where he might use his other customer's website as a florist and create a link over to my website on a page of their website that is not on the public. And things like that, then kind of link network things and all these bad SEO. Well, I wouldn't say they were bad because they had me on pages one for three or four years. But the algorithm updates sort of started winning out some of these tactics and that's what caused my website rankings to crash.
[3:28] So I decided to, you know, I started kind of realizing that what I want to do is make money online. So I'm not tied down to a physical business anymore because I kind of, you know, I used to work long days, you know, 10 a.m. Till 10 or 9 p.m. at night.
[3:47] And uh i decided to rebuild the app that my brother um was building for me um he wasn't working on it so much anymore and so i went uh you know i got into web design myself building my own website and then i discovered websites like upwork and then found out that i can hire developers and i started rebuilding the app um that my brother first um started making for me, and uh yeah so i went from there and essentially over the last 10 years i've been working on this app um i had a first group of indian developers uh they worked on it for a couple of years and then i had another guy working on it for about six months uh and now i've had a new developer from armenia and he's been yeah for five years uh six years full-time and in the last six years it's come a long way but development's been really painfully slow and i have since realized one of the reasons is that we're not using a framework you know so with coding language you've got the php coding language and you can use a framework which is kind of like uh building website with wordpress versus html coding um so.
[5:06] The progress has been extremely painfully slow. And, you know, in the time that I've been working on my app, you know, and I've been funding it myself, you know, paying a developer full-time for six or seven years. In the time that I've, you know, been developing my app, I'm seeing other apps come up and kind of run circles around me a little bit, like one of the main competitors, which is not specific to DJs, but in the events industries, it's known as HoneyBook. And I went to HoneyBook.
[5:39] HoneyBook, okay, got it.
[5:40] HoneyBook, yeah. So I went and Googled their net worth and it says they're worth $22 billion. So it's a huge market because my app can be adapted not just to DJs but to anything in the event industry. Like it could be a photo booth, could be a photographer, anyone that has an event coming up. My app is like a CRM that helps you manage your leads. It sends an automatic quote. It does automatic follow-ups. It's a place for you to collate your notes with the customer, work on a music plan, collect payments, and all that sort of stuff. So it's a whole business solution. So it's not like just building a mobile app. It's like building an accounting software. It's very complex, and it takes a long time. And I have been getting DJs to try my app over the last 10 years. I've had over 850 trials um i've had about 30 djs sign up over time but at the moment i currently have 10 subscribers the 10 i do have so.
[6:46] I assume we can talk finances if that's all right
[6:48] Yeah okay cool yeah and.
[6:51] How much do they pay
[6:54] Um around about a well it generates about 500 a month total so on average it's probably $50 a month. Okay.
[7:03] And what does Honey, what was it? Honey book?
[7:06] Honey book.
[7:07] Yeah. What do they charge?
[7:11] I don't know. I can go and check right now. Honey book. Honey book. Honey book. I mean, I assume it's around the same because my pricing can vary depending on the size of your DJ business. So it's like a $20 plan for an individual DJ, $40 for up to five sets or bookings per night, and then like $60 for the next bracket up to 10 bookings in a night. But I'm checking HoneyBook now, but I can't find the prices quickly. But it's fine.
[7:55] Yeah, I was just curious.
[7:56] Yeah. So I guess the painful part is that just being realizing that I need a Laravel framework. But the problem is to do such a thing could take up to six months. And I think it means, from what I understand, that you're essentially rebuilding the app from scratch. So it's been one of these things that's been hanging in the back of my head for the past three, four years, where I could work on that, but then all the continual updates and features will stop continuation because we're focusing on that. But then that could be six months or it could be a year of downtime. So I've just never wanted to take that downtime.
[8:37] Sorry, when you mean downtime, you mean that your existing app would no longer function?
[8:41] No, not that it wouldn't function, but we wouldn't be adding, improving, and making new updates to make it better. But on the flip side, if I was, you know, the thing is I don't know how long it will take.
[8:55] You know, the developers say something takes three months, it ends up taking a year or two.
[9:05] So I've always been nervous to do that. On the flip side of all of that information, I am now reaching a sort of critical number of updates, like nearly at an MVP, where I think that DJs will really love it. And we have done enough of the features. Like, for example, one of the things I needed was a contract system so that when people book, that they will sign a contract with the DJ. In australia we didn't need that because no one ever collected contracts in australia but in america since i started doing demo calls with djs they would i remember one dj was like yeah show me this and show me the booking process all right now show me the contract and i'm like we don't have a contract they just tick i agree and then they submit and he's like nah we need a contract so that was that was about four years ago and that's when i realized okay we're going to build contract system and we've got a really good contract system now uh but you know it took like six to eight months um to build so everything's really painfully slow um um but yeah.
[10:16] But at the same time now i've knew we've nearly done all the hard stuff uh one of the things we're about to do now is add a you know a real-time chat so you can send and receive sms an email or chat with a customer in the login area, you know, in real time. So it's like a timeline chat, which shows when payments are received and everything. And the other thing that I know HoneyBook has, which is, I need to have is, uh, automation. Like they have a automation workflows where you can automate an SMS, you know, three days after the inquiry, send this SMS seven days before or 20 days before a wedding, send this email. Um, so I can't, we haven't added that yet. I mean, it's been on my plans for like five years or more, but we just haven't got around to building it because we've been busy building the other things like the contract and, you know, the customer login area, rebuilding that. So, um, uh, yeah, the, the main features we need to build now is this, you know, send receive SMS and email chatting and automations, which I think we can have done by the end of the year.
[11:23] But that would be at the expense of moving to a platform, right?
[11:28] Um no uh we're going to build it we're going to build the automation um tools ourself from scratch no.
[11:36] No but what i mean is that if you if you focus on this sms stuff the automation stuff then you're not also at the same time moving to a platform
[11:44] Oh not to the laravel framework yeah like the laravel framework no no i mean that it's it's like an oxymoron if that's the right word because it will be six months downtime, but... But then on the plus side, once it's done, then we could move much faster. But I don't know how much faster because I don't know enough about coding to appreciate how much faster we could be moving.
[12:11] Well, because you're not on a platform, you don't get access to plugins, right? So WordPress has all these plugins, right, that you buy or some are even free, right? Like my website is on WordPress. And so if I need payment stuff, I just buy a plug-in for like $100 or $200, as opposed to having to code it all myself, which is brutal. And there's also Quest. They handle all the security stuff and like all of the, you know, whatever needs to be done to make the data secure because that stuff can be a real nightmare, right? Yeah, so you don't know. If you're building everything yourself, then you don't get access to the plug-ins, right? So, I mean, I'm sure you're right.
[12:50] It's kind of like plug-ins. Yeah, they're not exactly plug-ins. But yeah, it's called the Laravel framework. Essentially, it's a framework for the PHP coding language. So yeah, if you go to ThemeForest, which you probably know about, you can buy, it's like a plugin, but yeah, you can buy, you can connect to your app, which would save heaps of time.
[13:09] Right. Okay. Okay. And then also, if there's a security hole, they patch it and it's automatically upgraded.
[13:16] Yeah. I mean, if you choose a popular one, then, you know, some of these things, like for example, i was just looking at a chat bot ai integration which you can just fully integrate all sorts of ai tools into your app it's like 40 us but it's got like 30 000 downloads so they're making a few million dollars they're happy and so they're constantly making updates well.
[13:39] It's because they're saving people like thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars by having a plug-in for ai I mean, we tried to do AI ourselves here at Freedomain, and we ended up just paying a third party because it's really, really horrible to get working.
[13:57] Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, we were thinking, we are thinking to add some AI to this chat because I think connecting to ChatGPT is, I hope, it's as simple as an API. I mean, there is an API. So I assume that, you know, if you're just doing simple stuff that it's not hard to connect. Um but yeah you know i guess uh well one thing i want to mention is that i just booked my app um into a dj expo in las vegas for february next year um so this is like one of the biggest dj expo shows in america and i've been keeping my eye on it for 10 years and i've been wanting to go, but I just haven't been ready yet. But I do think I will be ready by February next year enough to start marketing. But it's been a long and slow and painful ride, and there's been many times where I did kind of want to quit, but I would never quit because it's just that's not what I do. But yeah, I mean, I don't know more to say like I wasn't oh.
[15:15] Man I have some feedback but I'm obviously happy to hear more about what's going on with the business
[15:22] Yeah well I, like I said I have done demo calls with many DJs and I've got lots of feedback about what they want, I'm always taking notes and I do really think I am on the on the verge of you know a breakout so to speak um because we've just redesigned one of the main screens it's essentially the screen where you're looking at the event details um it looked nice before but it looked very overwhelming and cluttered it looks like an accounting software whereas what i've done in this year is rebuild that screen and made it look more like um like a i don't know if you've used Airbnb. When you make a reservation, then you've got a nice mobile-friendly design and it feels like just a chat. It feels like you're just chatting to someone with Airbnb when you book with someone. But essentially, a reservation is very similar to an event where there is an event date or there's a reservation date upcoming and you've got a communication thing where you can share files and look at the event details and look at the payments. And so, I kind of modeled a little bit off airbnb um and so the new designer have looks really nice and it's mobile friendly because it wasn't before.
[16:43] So I think that combined with we have done the contract system and I think we've got enough core features now and the design is looking good that it's going to be easier for me to sign people up. I had a DJ make a subscription about a month ago, two months ago, and he paid $399, which is the small business plan for one year. And I didn't even notice. So I actually didn't get an email notification. And then when I logged in a month later, I was like, oh, wow, someone actually paid for a whole year up front. So I called that guy and asked him why he chose my app. And he said that his assistant was looking at three different apps, including HoneyBook, and she chose my one over the other one. So I was like, that's good to know. Um and yeah you know one of the edges i think i have over honey book is first of all that i am focused on djs for now um and even though i might be a little bit behind on a few of their features like another feature that i need is a form builder tool um so that djs can create event plans or questionnaires for their customers you know what kind of music do you want um when people are eating what kind of music do you want after the speeches, how many people are going to be speaking what's their names all that sort of stuff.
[18:12] A form builder is also something that I will need and you know we plan to build in the next six months but that could.
[18:20] Be a plugin
[18:21] Right? yeah there are form builder plugins and I have found some stuff that is done with the coding that we can use so there are tools that can speed it up ok um uh.
[18:37] But, yeah, I think I have an edge on them in the sense that I'm focused on DJs only. And also, I think I'm pretty good with design. And I think my idea of kind of modeling off Airbnb's way of doing it, because they're, you know, obviously, you know, they're a multi-billion dollar company as well. I just think that it just made the most sense to have a design like that. I mean, I can't show you over the call, but the difference between the old screen design for the event details and the new one is like completely different. Like the new one just looks like a, it looks like an Airbnb reservation in a way, but it looks fun. And it's, and instead of them having to use a dropdown to change the status of the event, now they just click a button that says confirm the sale, you know? So it's a little bit more intuitive instead of me having one of the problems I found was the way it was before my app was very powerful and awesome but I would have to explain to people okay so when you want to book it now you got to click this status and change it to booked and then when you want to do this you got it and I'll have to explain too much whereas I think the new way, is to make everything intuitive so that you know no one has to teach anyone how to use Airbnb you You know, you just do it. It's got the buttons there that says book it in or cancel this event or, you know what I mean?
[20:06] So I think I'm moving in the right direction. It's just a, it's very slow and painful.
[20:16] Right, right.
[20:17] But I do enjoy it at the same time. Like I love designing. I love coming up with software ideas and I like designing screens.
[20:25] Right. Okay. I don't want to give feedback if there's more information to come in
[20:38] Um, in, I guess I could tell you that my developer is, uh, I was saying he's Armenian, and he's a really good guy. So I've actually, um, two years ago, I moved to the country of Georgia to become a tax resident. Um, so I, I basically exited the Australian tax system, closed all my bank accounts and everything and went to Georgia and became a resident there. And it uh i chose that place because it's a zero percent um tax on foreign income, and but it just happens to be next door to armenia um and that's where my developer is so i have visited him in the last two years and uh you know he's just an authentic um you know good person like uh if you saw him on the street in armenia you have no idea that this guy is a coder but I think he's really smart, and he's a good person so I've visited him a couple of times, the second time I went to visit him I bought him a new computer, so he could have the latest, fastest computer.
[21:53] And we have a good relationship and he's also focused on the goal so I know he's not, having me on, he wants to reach the goal as fast as possible so I can pay him more too I have increased his pay over the years from around $8 to now around $14 US. But yeah.
[22:15] We've developed a close relationship and he's also focused on, you know, the goal of what my goals are because I let him know. Yeah.
[22:31] I think that might be everything, to be honest. Yeah, you know, next year I want to start marketing. That's it. Yeah, I mean, you know, next year I want to start marketing and I think I am kind of getting ready except for, you know, all I really want is the automations and the form builder tool because that's what's really going to make it complete, you know. Right now I think I can sign up users, but anyone who's using HoneyBook is probably not going to want to downgrade. And take away features. So unless they just want something more simple or they don't like the design of HoneyBook, that's possible as well. But for me to get any big, large DJ company, like I met one a couple of years ago from Las Vegas who was doing up to, I think it was 70 gigs every Saturday night. So for me to get a business like that, I'm going to need, I believe I'm going to need to have these advanced features so that they can really automate everything. Right. That's all. Got it.
[23:40] Anything else? I'm totally happy to hear more.
[23:51] I don't think there's any more upset that I love. I do love doing it. And it's my passion. I'm working on this and I can't, you know, I mean, if I reach 1,000 users, it means I'll be making $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a month, which would be amazing and it would give me, you know, the power to keep developing the app and then also to help my developer who, you know, he's trying to build a house in the countryside. I've actually given him some loans as well, given him a $5,000 loan to help him build his house. Um, so, uh, yeah, you know, I, I, I'm really hungry for success, uh, and I'm not going to stop until I reach it. Um, so I think that's probably, that's probably all I have to say.
[24:48] Right. Okay. Got it. Got it. I appreciate that. Yeah. Okay. So how much, uh, you say you get 500 bucks a month with 10 DJs, right? I mean, maybe a little bit less than you're buying it for $399, right? That's like $40 or whatever it is, right?
[25:05] Yeah.
[25:06] Or $30, $32, something like that. Okay. So how much have you netted, would you say, of your $200K investment?
[25:16] Oh, wow. I only started getting subscribers in the last three years since COVID. Until then, I just couldn't get anyone to sign up.
[25:28] So you had a seven-year project with no income?
[25:33] Yeah. Yeah. Sounds crazy. Most people would have given up a long time ago.
[25:40] Well, you have a relationship to giving up that I'm trying to understand. And I'm not saying your relationship is wrong with it or anything like that, but, you know, I mean, isn't it wise to give up sometimes?
[25:56] Yeah. Yeah, it is.
[25:57] So what is your standard for, like, what's your emotional relationship to giving up? Because you spoke with a certain amount of contempt before, and that's fine, right? I understand that, but tell me what you feel about this sort of giving up thing.
[26:15] Yeah i mean i think it was part of my success with my uh dj business which i i grew from you know just being me to to 16 sets i there was definitely it wasn't a straight line you know between 2000 to 2010 um yeah i had some rough times uh where i was broke um and i wished i could have had certain equipment but you know hanging in there is what allowed me to eventually get to eight sets and then eventually get up to 16 sets. So I believe that if I –, If I apply the same persistence to my DJ business, to the app, that it will pay off and that it's not going to happen overnight. So I was anticipating a long time ago in the back of my mind that this could be at least 10 years before it blows up, before it takes off because that's how long it took with my DJ business and I thought nothing happens, there's no overnight success. So I have to just keep going and eventually I'll work it out.
[27:22] Well i mean but software is very different from the provision of labor and tech like because software uh if something takes 10 years to build it's like the entire architecture and infrastructure is obsolete yes exactly i mean that's sort of what you're facing now that the the infrastructure did not exist when you started building it and then people built the infrastructure and then you're kind of stuck in your own coding backwater without access to the infrastructure, right?
[27:58] Yeah, I mean, I think Laravel was starting up around the time my app was starting, but my developers at that time didn't use Framework.
[28:07] That's the Indian guys, is that right?
[28:09] Yeah, yeah, they just went like straight PHP code. Right.
[28:15] Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm sure you're aware that I spent many, many years in the software field and yes i used i used architectures wherever possible and so i'll give you a little bit of but let me ask you a couple of questions before i get into that and one of those questions is uh when you decided to move into the software service field uh did you read a bunch of business books did you read or get any mentors did you hire any any business consultants to give you advice or
[28:54] Anything like that no um no when my website went off the google rankings in 2013 um i had to start i couldn't reach out to my old developer uh the guy who did the seo because we weren't friends anymore he was my friend uh and uh he didn't do anything malicious he had a big company and he we just didn't talk anymore uh so i started learning web design myself so i started uh doing this thing at the time it was like one of those, marketing things called six figure mentors it was like some laptop lifestyle thing and then that got me into WordPress so I started building my own website again learning about SEO and I built a few websites already and then it was around about that time so I was getting involved with, web development myself right.
[29:46] So I mean you've actually found the value of the architecture i.e. WordPress fairly quickly right
[29:51] Yes yes yes but I didn't research coding languages when I started sure like i was yeah i let them choose whatever they chose whoever i had, yeah so it was a little bit of luck so what the draw what.
[30:13] Have you been living on
[30:16] Um first of my dj business uh well i mean that was kind of winding down um what i did is i converted my dj business into a dj agency so i sold all my equipment and started only using djs who have their own equipment so i kept the dj business alive and so that that's what i've been i did keep the dj business um but i just downsized massively and web design i started building websites so i started making uh doing building websites for people uh i probably built about 200 websites in the last 10 years now and I'm really good with SEO so I've learned how to do SEO and building websites and that's where my income has come and in the recent years it's been also a bit of crypto as well.
[31:03] Okay. And how is, and I know this sounds like a segue, just be patient and I think it'll make some sense. And how is the rest of your life going in terms of dating and family and things like that, if that's something that you want?
[31:18] Yeah, I've got a Thai fiancé. I love her and she's awesome. And I'm enjoying my life at the moment. One of my brothers, actually the one who was a software developer, he was the one who sent me to Georgia there. So in Georgia, we've bought property. And I've bought five or six apartments and renovated them myself. So I've been getting income from that now. And it's been fun because I've been traveling more. And I've got family. My dad's Greek, so we've got family in Greece. So I'm traveling there. And then the brother who was a software developer, he's moved to UK. Because COVID was really bad in Australia. so we all left I went to Georgia, one brother went to the UK I'm with my other brother now in Texas and, I've got another couple of brothers in Australia.
[32:37] So no life's been good, I am happy with everything overall, I'm I'm not really building websites much anymore because I don't need to. But I do. I do web design. I do maintain my websites. Yeah. Yeah so everything else going fine and i do feel confident i mean optimistic about uh you know attending the the dj expo next year um yeah yeah.
[33:16] No i appreciate that and uh uh do you want to have kids
[33:20] Yeah we're trying to have kids trying.
[33:24] To have kids okay just i mean i will say this because it's a mixed-race relationship, right?
[33:29] Yes. Yeah, I love Thailand. I mean, I didn't mention it, but I went to Thailand.
[33:36] I don't know, I get that, but with regards to, are there a lot of mixed-race kids in Thailand?
[33:47] It's not super. I mean, in the tourist areas, it's more common because there's lots of foreigners that go there and meet Thai women. So it's, I couldn't say a percentage, but yeah, I see it. You know, rather frequency, frequently. Mixed race, yeah. Okay, yeah. I mean, all my.
[34:08] Be aware, when you have mixed race kids, just do some research on some of the challenges that they're going to face in terms of identity.
[34:18] I should be right. But in terms of that identity, I mean, my mom's Maltese, my dad's Greek, and I was born in Australia, so all my friends are Aussies. And I'm an Australian, but I've always been the ethnic one. And one of my brothers has married a Polish woman and the other brother in Texas, he married a German. But the one in Melbourne, he married a Texan. So we're all completely mixed races.
[35:02] Well that's true but but whites and uh east asian is a little bit of a wider spread than malta yeah yeah yeah
[35:12] Yeah yeah it's all right actually i've learned how to speak thai in the last 10 years so i'm really i'm really embracing the culture i love it and i've met a parent and you know spend a lot of time together.
[35:21] What i'm talking about though isn't whether you speak thai or not yep i'm just just do some research into mixed race uh kids so that you can help them navigate some potential identity issues right so just yeah that's just my little little nugget there uh to help your kids along uh as as they move forward all right i mean it's one thing if you're in i don't know like uh california there's a lot of uh mixed kids but uh it may not be quite that is common in Thailand. All right.
[35:50] Yeah, yeah.
[35:51] Okay, so one to 10 level of bluntness.
[35:58] What do you want? Nine out of ten.
[36:02] Nine out of ten? Okay, that's fair. I can calibrate that. Let me just get my screwdriver out and adjust a few wires up here. Okay. The business is, from an investment and business standpoint, it is catastrophic. That you've invested $200,000. And, of course, if you had taken that money and put it into Bitcoin, right, you'd be a zillionaire, right?
[36:26] Yeah, yeah, I know that.
[36:27] So it's not just $200,000 flat, because it's $200,000 over 10 years, right?
[36:35] Yeah.
[36:36] And so given inflation and all of that, and opportunity costs of investing in other things, it's multiples of that.
[36:45] Yeah.
[36:46] So, uh, you have taken a significant portion of your net worth and invested it in a product that after 10 years is generating a few hundred dollars a month.
[37:04] Yeah. I think my logic behind that is that I'm building something that, okay, if I had funding like $2 million 10 years ago, I probably could have built it much faster, but because I'm self-funded, I feel like I'm building a multi-million dollar product, even though I'm not going to see the return yet. It's like, I will see the return down the track because it's what I'm building is worth potentially $22 billion. So I've been willing to not make money for a certain amount of time.
[37:39] Sorry. So you have in your head that you can scale from a few hundred dollars a month to $22 billion?
[37:46] Maybe not $22 billion. They're probably on the stock market.
[37:49] Hey, man, I'm just going with the number you used. I'm not trying to pull things out of my armpit here.
[37:54] I mean, look, I wouldn't say $22 billion. I could say it could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah. 1,000 DJs that's, when I'm at that stage I think averaging subscription will be $50 a month so it's maybe $5 or $6 million a year but I mean that's just 1,000 DJs. In America there's when you're talking about just not club DJs but DJs who DJ weddings and parties I mean we could be talking about 10,000 DJs making $5 million a month.
[38:27] How many DJs are there in America?
[38:30] Um i think there is a lot because i've uh.
[38:35] Information that you should i mean so i'm going to play skeptical investor here right i assume that's what you're calling me for yep okay and skeptical investor is just like let's say that you were calling me let's say that i was an investor and you said like i want half a million dollars right so then i would expect you to have all of the marketing knowledge on the tip of your tongue because you have been building for this business for 10 years and if you don't know how big the business is i'm going to view it as a nice distracting hobby for you or a daydream because you need to know how big your market is so i would expect you to know the number of djs i would also expect you to know the number of djs who do not already have a software solution
[39:28] I would expect you to have a comparison chart of the strengths and weaknesses of your major competitors, like the top five competitors. And then I would expect you to tell a compelling story as to why an unaffiliated DJ would go with you. And then if you said, well, I have these three features that others don't, I would expect you to know how difficult it would be for your competitors to build your features. Right? So let's say you have this sort of chat integration, this AI chat integration. Okay. Then I would say, okay. So you'd say, well, people would go with me for this AI chat integration. And I would say, okay, so let's say people like all your competitors have a say in your business, right? So if you say, well, I have this AI chat integration, I would then say, okay, how difficult is it for your competitors to integrate a chat AI solution? And if it is like, well it's a three million dollars and it's two years okay then that's a barrier right but if it's like well it's 150 bucks a month for ai integration in their architecture then that is not a compelling reason to go with you because you're up against a company that's worth 22 billion dollars and you have one programmer you lend money to yeah and no architecture
[40:53] Now the other reason why architecture has value i'm sure this is why you built on wordpress another reason why architecture has value is if you get hit by a bus or your programmer gets hit by a bus who's going to maintain these hundreds of thousands or millions of lines of code If it's an architecture with a plugin, then you can just hire someone with experience in that architecture, and they will be able to get up to speed much faster than, I mean, how many lines of code are in what you've built?
[41:32] Probably a lot, like 10,000, I don't know.
[41:35] Maybe a million. i mean because it's also legacy code right because there's a bunch of stuff that was built 10 years ago and you've never wiped the board clean and started again because that would be what you would do to move to the new architecture so i would say is okay so let's say that your business has you know you know how many djs there are you know how many are unaffiliated you can make a business case that they should pay you 3.99 a year or 50 bucks a month and your features can't be reproduced easily by other people then my issue is if the entire value of the business is two guys that's very risky yeah right whereas if the value of the business is an entire organization that's built on a platform that is known by a wide variety of people like this honey book right Then the problem is if you just decide to quit or let's say you decide to be a stay-at-home dad or you decide to – you get involved with drugs.
[42:34] I'm not saying you would, right? But then the problem is that the entire value of the business is – Two instances of six pounds of wetware and skulls. It's all dependent. It's like if you're investing in a movie with George Clooney and Brad Pitt and nobody else, right? Yeah. Well, let's say they quit. Well, the movie is worthless, right? Because you're investing in just those two guys.
[43:02] Pretty much.
[43:03] Right? Right, so the problem with a non-architecture is you become a failure point for the entire business, right? Steve Jobs dies, Apple continues, right? If you get sick or whatever, right, then can the business… I mean,
[43:21] At the moment, yes. Well, no, at.
[43:23] The moment for the foreseeable future because you're still building on this proprietary code, right? Yeah. proprietary code now proprietary code has its values for sure i mean otherwise there wouldn't be any such thing but it's kind of like what why do um why do gaming companies use platforms like unity or love or or other things right well because if you build all of your programming code from scratch then the problem is the people who build all their stuff from scratch have an unfair leverage in negotiations if your programmer walks away your business is dead because how long it take for someone else to come in and confidently be able to alter and upgrade and add to tens or hundreds of millions of lives of custom code to even to even understand that code and all its ramifications could take months or years
[44:28] So let's say that your programmer suddenly decides he wants a lot of extra money or he, you know, what are you going to, I mean, do you have much leverage? It's probably why you're lending him 5k for stuff. so it's kind of unfair leverage or not unfair i mean all's fair in love and war right but as an investor i would say that a custom code no platform gives too much power to you and the because you and the this guy are the business because if you leave yeah it's no business right you can't just hire someone to come in and take over that giant code base right um
[45:08] I mean i could but yeah you know they have to get familiar with it.
[45:12] So oh listen i've i've been a maintenance programmer like i this i know yeah i know this very well that to go in and i dealt with giant programs that had massive amounts of code and it's very it's very hard it's very hard it's very tough to um to to get familiar with it and to actually add value without breaking anything because you know and i don't know whether it's all is it all really well documented are the variable names clear is it built to be transferred I
[45:41] Don't know but I can tell you.
[45:43] That sorry go ahead
[45:46] I can tell you that my current developer has, constantly been complaining about the original guys who wrote the code and he's had that's also what's taken him a long time is cleaning up the old code like I kind of, I wish going back in time that my developer would have just told me this earlier on and said let's just stop wasting our time but he didn't told me so i'd be like yeah he'll say it's the one i'm working with now you know there's been times where he said oh yeah it'll take three weeks and it takes three months and i'm like i wish he told me it would take three months so i could have made a different decision or said let's do the upgrade or whatever it is you know.
[46:23] And is it so months when he has to go and touch the original code from the group in india is that right yeah
[46:30] Yeah he says there's been lots of messy stuff and starts where it starts where you had to reduce the code.
[46:35] It's probably a bunch of undocumented code and by documents i mean you put remark statements comments this is yeah yeah and this touches on this and you know is there is there a map of the entire program flow uh is is it documented are the variable names is it like you know a a dollar versus you know this does this dollar right i mean and so i assume you're going back in it's called spaghetti code too like it's not structured it just go to statements and go subs and return yeah he was cleaning up i keep trying to talk and you keep talking at the same time No, that's fine. I'm just, I'm not sure why, like you're calling me up to get some feedback, right?
[47:18] Yeah, sure.
[47:18] And did I not spend a good deal of time listening?
[47:23] Yeah, yeah.
[47:24] Is it fair to say that this might be a time to just listen? And I'm not saying you agree. And if I get things wrong, I mean, I know I'm not wrong about this stuff. But if I'm talking and you're talking at the same time, it's really difficult to have a conversation. I'm not trying to be mean or anything. I'm actually trying to get you to get the most value out of the call. So yeah, just let me finish. And then if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But if you talk while I'm talking, it's a little tough to get information across, if that's all right.
[47:51] Okay, sure.
[47:52] No, it's fine. So, yeah, so he probably thinks it's going to take three weeks, and then he goes into the old mishmash of potential spaghetti code you got from the original Indian guys, and it's really messy. And he changes one thing and something breaks somewhere else that's not documented because code is not like you just see a bunch of things on a screen, but code is a whole ecosystem, right? And you touch one thing and it can touch something or mess up something completely that you think would be completely unrelated, but it's like, especially if it's built in this sort of ad hoc out of house of cards stuff. So those are the challenges that would be faced by any investor. Another challenge would be that you as a business manager have invested the equivalent of probably $400,000 or $500,000 if you look at the opportunity costs of the money and millions of dollars if you put it in Bitcoin instead. Which is not to say that you should have, right? I'm just saying that these are the opportunity costs. So that you've spent 10 years running a project that's only generating a few hundred dollars a month which means that and and in the software field as well right it's it's one thing if you're i don't know if you're building a giant fabrication plant or something or you're you're you're looking for gold in the wilderness okay then you can have a lot of investment without but but there's a software, which is the fastest moving business on the planet, right?
[49:19] And if you have spent 10 years of your time, and it's been a part-time job for you as well, right? So if you spent 10 years and a couple of hundred K minimum, and you're generating very little, and you're in an obsolete architecture, or not even an architecture, an obsolete code base that's sitting on a bunch of spaghetti code that's undocumented, I would not invest. Now, that doesn't mean, right? I'm just telling you sort of the reasons that I would say about all of this.
[49:53] Yeah. Okay. Well, um, yeah, I mean, you know, from my perspective, I, you know, obviously I, I, I couldn't, uh, I still couldn't stop now because I think we actually, we have reached a, a point, um, where I think it's going to be easier for me to sign up DJs. Um regarding the code i wouldn't say it's like obsolete uh because it's php's is still the thing that is used to create wordpress um it's just that it doesn't have the framework obviously um.
[50:35] Well all code that is a decade old is almost almost by definition obsolete because so many improvements have been made to the code architecture over 10 years i mean i yeah i did an upgrade of COBOL-74 to COBOL-85, which is only 11, well, because it's about a decade, right? And there were huge changes in the, there were no end-if statements at the beginning in COBOL-74, there were just periods, and then there were end-if statements, just as a sort of minor example, like the entire architecture of the code changes, and that would be a 10-year period. So it's not that the code doesn't run, I get that it runs, but you can still get a DOS program to run under the latest version of windows but it doesn't mean that the das code is not obsolete
[51:20] Yeah i mean i believe that he would have he would have cleaned all that up by now uh yeah we're not using a framework but he would have cleaned up all the bad code um i mean the the ugly spaghetti code that's um, Even though it's been a long time of slow progress, the hard part is mostly out of the way in terms of the old spaghetti code.
[51:47] Well, the spaghetti code is one issue. But even the best code, even the best structured and documented code, can seem obsolete after 10 years in a particular architecture. If you look at how much PHP has changed in terms of what you can do in the architecture of PHP, not the architecture of HoneyBook. But in the architecture of PHP, there's a lot of stuff that you can do now that you couldn't do in the past. I mean, I remember sort of when it was ASP.NET and then it was .NET. And like there's a huge amount of upgrades in web coding that occurred just in the sort of five years that I was working on web coding. So it's old code. Maybe it's cleaned up. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's documented. Maybe it's not. But that is a that's quite a mess to inherit. And yeah there's no the only way to do it is to dump everything and go to the new architecture right to try and recreate your application in the new architecture in which yes you're then competing with the 22 billion dollar company without any particular advantage other than you have direct experience as a dj and managing djs which is good but i assume that the 22 billion dollar company has that as well
[53:00] Yeah, no, I still do hear DJs complain about HoneyBook.
[53:07] By the way, I've just checked. HoneyBook has 100,000 users, but if I Google how many DJs in America, one particular website says 8,000. I think it's probably a little bit more, but maybe around 10 or more.
[53:24] Sorry, HoneyBook has 100,000 users, but they're using it for all kinds of event programming. yeah
[53:29] Yeah it would be.
[53:30] DJs right all
[53:31] Event types yeah.
[53:32] And it's one thing if you're the if you're the first on the block like let's say you're the first person ever to go to this Vegas DJ show you're the first person to go yep and nobody's ever heard of software solutions and so on right and then then then you get that you know first come first served kind of thing right but of course yeah now uh honey book has been advertising i assume to djs for many years and so every dj is aware of this kind of advantage right it's of this kind of digital booking not
[54:04] All not all there is a lot of djs who are rather simple and they don't even the automation is just it's they're not even at the level to to use um the automation.
[54:17] I said a lot of djs not all i'm aware. Let's not get hung up on exceptions to general statements, right? Because that's not going to get us very far. So the question is, as an investor or in terms of a business evaluation, the question would be, how many DJs are aware of and would find value in digital solutions who haven't bought yet, right? I mean, I don't know if you remember so many years ago, Oprah Winfrey gave everyone a free car, right? Yeah. Now, if you could get a list of those Oprah Winfrey people, the people who got a free car, and you would say, I'm going to try and sell them a car, well, you would have a bad market because they just got a free car, so they wouldn't buy a new car, right? So the people who've already got everything up and running in HoneyBook are unlikely to transfer. They've got all their customer lists. They've got all of their music lists. They've got their whole questionnaires. They've probably put hundreds of hours into getting that platform. They've got all of their logos and websites. I don't know, whatever they do, right? So to get them to switch would be, I would say, virtually impossible. And it's not absolutely impossible. But it would be a very tough market to move, right?
[55:43] I agree.
[55:43] That's for them. And there would have to be some huge compelling reason that they would switch to yours that your competitor couldn't recreate quickly, right? Because if, for instance, you know, I'm sure they call their DJs and say, how you doing? And if they were to say, well, this other guy's app has this great feature, I'm thinking of canceling and switching to his or anything like that, then if they got a bunch of those people, they'd say, okay, well, we need this feature. And then their 22 billion dollar company on an existing framework that accepts plugins how long would it take for them to recreate that feature and prevent any uh customer loss right that's that's the challenge right so
[56:19] Yeah so i wouldn't say that all djs who.
[56:22] Didn't sorry last last thing you'd have to have djs like your market is djs who want digital solutions but don't have one right because if they already have one they're probably not going to switch if they don't want digital solutions you have nothing to sell them right
[56:39] Yep um but no there is a portion of djs that um haven't used honeybook um because there's two other competitors out there but the the downside to these other competitors they're actual dj specialists so one's called dj intelligence the other one's called dj event planner these ones uh i mean people complain about them all the time like but they still use them so but one of the main things is they they think it's a really ugly old outdated looking software because they started in 2005 so i definitely could take their market and they're not my honey book is like they're not dj specific they're just where my my app could be adapted to all events like honey book but in direct competition would be the dj platforms okay i had let me ask you this how.
[57:32] Long does it take a dj to set up his business in one of these other platforms.
[57:38] It's very complex. Yeah, it takes a long time. I've heard DJs complaining about it. So it takes two weeks, but they need like assistance and you can pay and get someone to help you set it up. My one, you can set it up in like one hour or less. Okay. Because my one's a little bit more automated.
[57:54] So then, again, putting on my investor hat, I would say. So if you want to take business from competitors, is there an upgrade path for you to get your competitors' data if it's, of course, if it's legal and you'd have to talk to lawyers and all of that, right? Do they have any way of exporting their data that you can bring it into your system?
[58:16] Yeah we do have an import um feature that you can import from csv file but it's not perfect because there's so many different fields of data like not just importing the event date and the and the address but also like all the payments related to the event and stuff and that so it's not easy to import no.
[58:36] I get that i've worked with a lot of data transfer in my life sorry here i'm interrupting my apologies go ahead
[58:42] No that's okay we do have a csv import and it does work but it's not perfect and.
[58:49] Do the competitors have an export feature
[58:51] They do okay so.
[58:55] You could you could conceivably transfer and do you know the price points of your competitors
[59:01] It's all pretty similar like dj intelligence i think is like 200 a year um whereas my my entry your level one is $200 a year for individual DJs. So in terms of, yeah, I know HoneyBook is like the big monster competitor in a sense, but yeah, the other, the DJ IntelliD, I had a DJ that is using DJ Event Planner, and he said that, I think someone told him that he had a customer number of 9,900 whatever on his account or something. So he believes that they have around 10,000 users or something like that. So I've been told something like that.
[59:43] It seems unlikely that they would recycle numbers, right?
[59:46] Yeah.
[59:47] It's, you know, if you have employee numbers, you know, employee number 14, right? If 14 quits, you probably don't put 14 back in the pool because you probably want a sequential number of who was hired when. So they probably have had close to 10,000 customers. In total, that doesn't necessarily mean, of course, 10,000.
[1:00:07] Yeah, yeah. They could have churned them. Um, so yeah, but, but yeah, my advantage over them ones is definitely the, my app looks way nicer and more modern and it's a little bit more click and go. Uh, you know, you register, you, you put your address, your region in and you set your prices. And then I've already written all the, all the template emails, whereas with some of the other ones, you have to go and write all the template emails yourself. So I've got it, my one's a little bit more like a, like a turnkey DJ business.
[1:00:37] And do you have a mobile apps for your app?
[1:00:41] Um no it's just all it's all mobile like.
[1:00:44] Oh yeah mobile from php yeah
[1:00:47] Yeah got it it's the only way to do it.
[1:00:49] So if you were to look at this being a viable business uh and let's say that that you were to do this full-time right because you can't really grow a business much part-time at least not to yeah you know hundreds of millions or billions of dollars so what do you think would be a salary for someone who's able to grow a business from a couple of hundred dollars a month to maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars a month what salary would that kind of person command what
[1:01:21] Would i what would i pay someone if they had the skill and the talent to do that well.
[1:01:26] Let's say let's say that you decide to work on this you know for the 60 to 80 hours a week it's probably going to take to grow this business to the face of significant competition. So let's say that you were to just devote yourself to this full-time and you had the skill to grow the business from a couple of hundred dollars a month to a couple of hundred thousand dollars a month, which is a very big skill, right?
[1:01:53] Okay.
[1:01:54] So how much do you think somebody would be worth who's able to do that? How much would it be if you could do that for someone else? Like if you could take someone else's business and take a couple of hundred dollars a month to a couple of hundred thousand dollars a month.
[1:02:11] At least $10,000 a month.
[1:02:14] Much more.
[1:02:15] Maybe more, you know.
[1:02:17] So what you're saying is if somebody could basically take a business to, let's say, I don't know, $300,000 a month. From a couple hundred dollars a month that you would pay them three percent of that which would be ten thousand dollars they wouldn't accept that right it
[1:02:32] Was five percent but yeah.
[1:02:33] Sales commissions can range it depending on the whatever right this is sort of from my old business experience that might have changed yep 25 to 40 percent right so if somebody let's say can grow the business uh to to two hundred thousand dollars a month from virtually nothing then they might charge you or they might be worth you know 40 to 50 000 a month
[1:02:58] Yeah that's a lot.
[1:02:59] Well because they're growing the business at 2.4 million yeah right so even if you pay them 300 000 but they've grown the business from nothing to 2.4 million well minus the 300 000 for their salary there's 2.1 million you're still way ahead and that's why they would charge so much yep so then the question is you'd need to hire that person first right so let's say that you had to start spending let's make it conservative right twenty thousand dollars a month for a hotshot entrepreneur or pay yourself twenty thousand dollars a month but let's say you had to pay someone twenty thousand dollars a month as a hotshot entrepreneur to grow the business to a couple of hundred k a month and i'm not saying that's where it would end but that would be the initial push. So that's a quarter mil a year, and maybe there would be sliding bonuses based upon the growth, right? But it would take a while to start growing the business in that kind of feverish way. So that as the investor, right? Because you haven't been able to do it. Like for whatever reason, and it's not any particular slack, everybody has different abilities, but you've had 10 years and you have not been able to grow the business, right? Right. So you're probably not the guy to do it, right? And no hate, no, right? It's just looking at the past. If you've had 10 years to do something and you haven't been able to do it, people probably wouldn't say, yes, it's about to happen, right?
[1:04:26] Yeah.
[1:04:27] I mean, if the girl hasn't gone out with you for 10 years, she's not probably about to change tomorrow, right? And what a bet you're doing. So you would need probably another couple of coders. You would need maybe some hotshot entrepreneur. You'd need a marketing team. You would need media guys to create promotional material, because I assume that DJs respond to really snazzy, pulsing disco kinds of videos and stuff like that. You'd have to spend a fair amount of money to grow the business. And you've spent, as far as I understand it, you've spent most of the money on back-end stuff. And obviously, to some degree, it's front end, but you spent most of the money on the technology and not on the marketing. As you say, you're going in February to the conference in Vegas, right?
[1:05:19] Yep.
[1:05:20] So why do you think you have been fairly marketing shy over the course of the business?
[1:05:29] Because uh a lot of the basic features that i i wanted were just never there um you know, i i already had one or two hundred djs try the app and not sign up until i eventually met a dj that said you need a contract system and then once i set that goal it it we didn't build it for another three years later, because we were still fixing other things. And I kind of, looking back, it sounds crazy to think that things took so long and that I would even let it take that long. But it was like I said.
[1:06:08] It was- I apologize for interrupting after just having said, please don't interrupt, but I just want to understand something before we move forward and don't want to forget this point. So when you said you spent three years fixing things, is it that the application didn't work and it needed to be fixed?
[1:06:24] Um, well, you know, I guess upgrading, like, you know, upgrading the old booking form to the contract system. Um, I think we did that last year and yeah, it takes, it took six months or more. Really. I mean, in my mind, I think shouldn't this just take like a month or two? Why would it take? It doesn't make sense, but, but at the time my developer will tell me it'll take two months and then it'll just keep going. And so I'm at the time, I'm like, what do I do? Do I stop? Do I, do I, do I keep going? Like, you know, I just, it's a, things have just kind of come, you know, ended up this way where it just kept going and going and going. And it's like, I was in this kind of conundrum where I didn't know whether to stop or continue. But I just didn't know what else to do.
[1:07:18] Sorry, you couldn't switch your coder because the code base was too huge. And for someone else to get up to speed would take forever, right?
[1:07:25] Yeah every time you get a new developer it's going to take a month or two just to, figure out what's going on right okay um so uh what was the question again, was there a question well.
[1:07:43] In order to make the business grow you have to do something different than you've done before right
[1:07:52] Yeah, yeah. I guess what was holding me back is just the lack of features. I think I had the ability to get into the marketing side of things, but the app just wasn't ready. I think it might have also been some design stuff, like the design has dramatically improved over the last 10 years as well. So I do believe that I'm at a point now where it's like the fact that someone just went and signed up without me even noticing and paid for a year subscription, $400 is a good sign. I mean, that's like, okay, we're at a point now where I don't have to talk to someone.
[1:08:28] It's nice, but that's not marketing info. That's luck, right? I mean, just happen to have someone who, you know, but that's not, how do you reproduce that? That's always the question.
[1:08:36] But that never happened. That never happened in the past. So I think it's, it's, I think it's a matter of there is, it's reaching a certain point where of features and design that someone is willing to go and sign up without, you know, normally I would meet someone and do a demo call, um, and I'd have to convince them. Whereas if someone's just signing up, um, you know, and I don't have to, you know, push them over the finish line, then that's, that's a big dramatic improvement from five years ago.
[1:09:06] And so sorry is it the case that you have to do a demo call to get someone to sign up for um
[1:09:13] Not everyone no um i've just made that a thing um it's optional now but i've done that so i can find out what the problems are so it's not that it's necessary once once i once the uh you know i'm getting i don't do it lately um just it's optional for people and um it won't be necessary in the future once things are good, what would you with the features and stuff, An onboarding guide and a video. So when they sign up, that's one thing we need to build as well, which we're going to do soon. Basically a setup wizard with some kind of video. I've already got a demo on my website. It goes to 20 minutes. So I do have some DJs who contact me and say, yeah, I watched the video and I want to do this. So the video does help. So I say a setup wizard and a video. um would be enough um the reason i've done all these meetings is so i can find out what the features are that that djs are wanting and what the problems are in terms of setting things up um and how sometimes that are doing those meetings for, um since covid i've done a lot of meetings uh but no i've been doing it for a while now actually since 2017 okay.
[1:10:39] So for seven years since since really very early on for seven years you've been meeting with customers to find out what they want but then you say well i can't sell it because it doesn't have the features that customers want which is a little hard to square if that makes sense
[1:10:53] Yeah yeah it's because it takes so long to build.
[1:11:00] Okay.
[1:11:01] Yeah. And do you think.
[1:11:04] That's largely because of the not using anybody else's architecture?
[1:11:10] Yeah, something like the contract system needs to be custom built, but there are other things that we didn't have to waste time on which could have just been inherent in the system. Like we said, adding a form builder tool, that would be... You know, it's much better just to install a tool in there than build it from scratch. So, um, I think, uh, yeah, there could, there could have been time saved, obviously, if we had a framework.
[1:11:46] Um, okay. I mean, I, I'm trying to give you, I mean, cause you're very close to this and you're very passionate about it and I, I appreciate that and, and I understand that and, and so on. Right. But the outside view, just the outside view, is you've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and 10 years of your life to build an app with 10 users.
[1:12:04] I think that'll change soon. I actually really believe that soon it's going to change because it's already right now it's much, much nicer. Like if I speak to DJs and show them the app now, I'm going to get a lot more positive reception than what I had even during COVID. Um you know we've done a lot of improvements like made it faster improve the design added things the features that they want um so i do believe i'm really close to the finish line.
[1:12:36] Yeah the only thing that matters it's like if you're a runner and you say well i've switched my shoes and i'm doing more stretching and i switched my practices and i'm doing more warm ups and i'm doing this that and the other right but what's the only thing that matters fundamentally to a runner. Money the time the time okay how fast you finish the race like the 100 meter the 400 meter the 1600 like the only thing that really matters is how how fast you finish the race that's that's what you measure an athlete by nobody gets yeah a gold medal for having nicer shorts right
[1:13:24] So yeah i understand.
[1:13:25] It is fundamentally in the business is the cash flow yep and your cash flow is terrible
[1:13:36] No i mean.
[1:13:37] Just to be frank right i mean you said nine i'm i'm doing nine right yeah cash flow is terrible now you can say well but i've done all of these improvements and those improvements but that doesn't matter what matters is the cash flow are you actually able
[1:13:52] To cover your expenses and have money left over to grow now there are times when you'll spend more than you make because you're investing in maybe switching platforms or maybe a big marketing campaign or something like that yep but you have lost and i understand this is difficult right and and again i i really do sympathize and understand but you have lost so far just about everything that you have put into this business it's been a giant pac-man dollar eater right because again you've got 10 users after 10 years yeah and i sympathize with that and i'm not look i'm not saying don't continue or continue that's i mean that's you know there are passion projects and so on right but i what i'm trying to get you to see is that from the outside i mean if you were to hear about this business that someone spent 10 years building something hundreds of thousands of dollars you know however many thousands and thousands of hours and has 10 users after 10 years what would you say give up well they would say it sounds crazy if you're going to continue You need an outside eye. You need an advisor. You need someone. Because you're too close, right? You're too passionate. You're too invested.
[1:15:16] And too invested is fine. I'm very invested in running a philosophy show, so too invested is fine. I have no issue with that, but you need an outside eye.
[1:15:25] Yeah.
[1:15:29] Because the only thing worse than spending 10 years in a financial sinkhole is spending 12 years in a financial sinkhole, right?
[1:15:39] Yeah, yeah. I would say that, yeah, I mean, if some real action doesn't happen in the next three months, then I would be… Okay.
[1:15:50] So you find real action? What does that mean?
[1:15:53] Well we've only just launched a new thing with it with the sms and email and you know i'd say we'd have it done by the end of november i need that finished then i'll be really confident to actually start selling um because once we can send email and sms and receive in the app i think that, is it enough of an mvp to for me to sell um so i'd like to actually you know i'm like i said uh I think I'm nearly near the finish line, so to speak, in terms of features that, you know, I think that I could actually really get the signups to actually start rolling in soon and get it to 100.
[1:16:37] How is it difficult? How difficult is it for your competitors to integrate email and SMS into their apps?
[1:16:43] Oh some already have it it's it's not necessarily about the features i think it's also uh my app has a really nice design and so copying the design is not yeah in theory they could copy a design but they they don't and that's what one of the complaints that they have is that the other apps just the one of the main apps dj event planner the djs always complain that they just don't do any updates like they did a bunch of updates 10 years ago apps finished and they don't do any new updates okay.
[1:17:15] So here's what you need to understand about business and i'm sorry to be pedantic and annoying but this is really foundational so you're saying that the companies that are vastly more successful than you are doing it all wrong
[1:17:29] Uh, in some way. Yeah.
[1:17:32] The company that has potentially 10,000 users or has had 10,000 users is doing it all wrong, but you're doing it just right with 10 users.
[1:17:42] Yeah. They kind of got in first to market, so to speak around 2005. And so they had the funding and that to, to build, but they're probably stuck in even older code and older code predicament. Um so i have some edge on the dj ones not honey book but the dj ones i think they're you're saying a bit more stuck in the past.
[1:18:05] Doing things wrong and they're a 22 billion dollar company and i'm aware that's not all dj revenue obviously but but
[1:18:11] Yeah i think.
[1:18:11] They're just your competitors yeah especially if they're hundreds or thousands of times more successful than you then if they if you say well their interface is not as nice as my interface well clearly people are willing to buy their software with the poorer interface than your software with the better interface.
[1:18:32] And so focusing on improving the interface has not carved into their market share.
[1:18:41] Yeah, not at the moment because we're only just finishing some of these stuff, which is going to put me above them. Because I needed a combination of the features and the improved design. Obviously, features is more important than design because that's why the other ones are successful and they have a very ugly design. So obviously, it's a combination.
[1:19:10] Of things right i mean so this is a warning sign for me uh from an outsider looking at your business that i point out things that you could learn from and you tell me all the reasons why what you're doing is great but the problem is of course that if what you're doing is so great why do you have only 10 users like i just keep coming back to that if you say oh well i as a hang on so if you say, look, I as a runner, I'm eating better, I'm a better weight, I'm training better, I'm just doing everything better than my competitors, but they run twice as fast as you are, that's confusing from the outside, right? And if you say, well, they do this that you're not doing, and you say, well, here's a good reason why I'm not doing this, right? Okay, but they're still running twice as fast as you, or 10 times as fast as you. So it just comes back to that you have explanations as to why what you're doing is better but the customers don't agree because the customers go to your competitors so that's i guess my question that you keep saying well here's why i'm doing this and here's why i'm doing that and here's where they're doing things that are deficient and here's why they're successful they got early to market they had more investment and so on okay
[1:20:26] Yeah but.
[1:20:27] Explanations don't change the customer base
[1:20:30] Um i could have had more customers perhaps if I did marketing but I never did active marketing I might have thrown $50 on a Facebook ad here and there but essentially the only source of DJs trying my app is through Google SEO so I believe that's part of the reason obviously I don't think it's it's purely about features I think it's the fact that most DJs don't know I exist but I didn't want them to know I exist because i didn't want them to come and try my app and go oh it doesn't have this oh it doesn't have that and then walk away and never come back so that's why i've never marketed the app on a big scale because uh i didn't want to yeah have djs come and have a bad experience so that's part of it it's not just the fact that my app's not great i think the app's great but it's it's i haven't done any marketing at all really i mean i've done facebook posting do.
[1:21:26] You think over the last 10 years, your competitors have been deficient in features that they've added over time.
[1:21:34] There's been times when they had, yeah.
[1:21:35] Okay. So clearly, if you went back in time to these competitors from 10 years ago or whenever they got into the business, then they would have started with fewer features than they have now, right?
[1:21:49] Yeah.
[1:21:50] But they still sold software, even with fewer features. But you're saying, well, and I think this is an emotional issue. I think this is, and a lot of barriers to success tend to be emotional, right? So maybe you have a difficult time with somebody saying your software is deficient in this right or your software doesn't have this feature and it's you understand that's true of everything right every single thing that you have is deficient in some way every single thing that you buy is deficient or negative in some way if you buy a cheap car the price is good but the features are bad if you buy an expensive car the features are good but the price is bad so there's always a negative it's all trade-offs so the question is what's what's the problem let's say let's say that you you were to show your software six or seven or eight years ago and let's say that
[1:22:44] I don't know 40 of the djs said or 60 let's say 60 of the djs say i'm not buying a software because it's missing x y and z but 40 gave it a trial or signed up or something like that right or let's say 90% of them said no well you still have 10% of people saying yes and then you use that revenue to build more features so waiting for it to become perfect has not served your business and so when you go out into the marketplace there's pluses and minuses to everything in the world you can get a giant fridge that does everything you want but it's crazy expensive often it's tough to keep clean because it's got you know these weird like silvery finishes and also it's probably an energy hog so there's pluses and minuses right your first class you get more leg room but it costs an arm and a leg right so you end up only with leg room for one leg right so so everything has its pluses and its minuses i guess my question is why do you have to wait for it to become perfect because you know the perfect is the enemy of the good your competitors were able to take rejection for feature sets and say, you know, I mean, the classic answer, right, is the sort of Silicon Valley or the Palo Alto answer is, it's missing this feature. Yes, that's coming soon.
[1:24:04] Yeah, I believe it's because something like I keep coming back to the contract system because I didn't realize I needed that until I met a DJ and a call. But I come back to that because it's kind of like buying a car without a seatbelt. The car is awesome, but it's not roadworthy. And so if it's not roadworthy, then it doesn't matter how much they like the car.
[1:24:31] When did you move into the US market?
[1:24:35] I mean, I've always been online positioning myself to the U S market, but I've physically, you know, come in the last one year to show my presence. Like I attended this expo in Las Vegas in February this year in preparation for me to go next year.
[1:24:55] Oh, so you went to expo in Vegas, but not with your software, just as an attendee.
[1:25:00] Yes. Just to go and check it all out.
[1:25:04] Okay, so when did you first find out that the contract was needed?
[1:25:10] It was in 2018 when I met a DJ who was like, what? You need a contract system. And I was like, oh. And then we didn't actually even build that thing for another two years because we were working on other things.
[1:25:25] Okay, let me ask you this. Do you have an account with your competitor's software and have you gone through every nook and cranny to see what features it has and doesn't have?
[1:25:38] I've done it with one of them a while back how long ago about three years ago.
[1:25:48] And you have how many major competitors i think you've mentioned three or four
[1:25:53] Yeah there's two major dj ones um and then there is you know honey book which is like all events services they're not dj related so i would say the dj ones competitors um yeah there's more three years.
[1:26:09] Ago you checked out one of your competitors features
[1:26:15] Yeah i've no i have probably in the last few years i have looked at honeybook i've logged in had a quick look around um and and there is another app called vibo which is a like music planning tool but it's not a crm and i need a form builder to to to outdo them on that on their app but they've got a an app that only does music planning and that guy's charging 99 a month, um so my goal my plan is to build the form builder tool with the music spotify integration, and basically build what that guy's has so i have actually investigated exactly how his app works and and come up with a plan for a better system than that, than the music plan at all.
[1:27:06] And how long will that take to implement it?
[1:27:11] I think we could have it done by the end of January, because I have found some kind of, there is bootstrap code. We can use bootstrap, which is a little bit frameworky, like it's kind of like a plugin, sort of almost. So there is a form builder tool that we can use to save time. I think I'll have it done by the end of Feb.
[1:27:33] And is that based upon you extending your programmer's estimates by two to three times, which has been historically the case? or is that you taking the programmer's estimate as face value?
[1:27:43] It's been my estimate because I write detailed plans on a Trello of every update in order. And we have knocked out some substantial, painfully slow stuff and we're getting to really kind of getting to the fun stuff, so to speak now. I do believe we will get these things done on schedule, like the two-way SMS email by the end of November and then we're going to basically focus on automations. But we're not building – the original plan was to build a very complex automation tool. We're going to make a much simpler one where it's just like a table where you just add and then add an automation. So I've come up with a way to build it faster so that it's not as fancy but it does what essentially ticks the box of what DJs want. And I think that will be done by the end of December. And then we're going to focus on the form builder tool.
[1:28:46] And hopefully that'll be right back in February, right?
[1:28:49] Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, it shouldn't be too complicated. Yeah, it should be done by the end of February.
[1:28:54] I think it will. Sorry, when is the conference?
[1:28:56] The DJ conference is 17th of February.
[1:29:01] So you don't have – sorry, go ahead.
[1:29:04] I was going to say that even if it took us an extra month, even if I gave myself January, February, March next year to complete this form builder tool, I think that's completely feasible and doable. And then I really think I will be at that MVP point where I'm competing with HoneyBook, but also we'll be able to take a lot of customers from the other DJ ones.
[1:29:34] But you'll need to spend on marketing, right?
[1:29:37] Yeah, yeah.
[1:29:39] And what's your budget going to be for marketing?
[1:29:43] I would uh probably spend four or five thousand dollars a month on facebook ads, and i've also set up an affiliate program where people can make djs can make 30 income for life that's already set up so i just someone can register and then get an affiliate link um so i'm going to reach out to wait.
[1:30:05] Sorry so everyone that they get to try to buy your software they get 30 percent
[1:30:11] Yeah for like of their income for life yeah um there's another app that did this to get successful uh it was like a malchimp style app it's another it's called con convert or something i forget um and they did 50 percent and and he said that that worked really well um so my my idea there is to contact there are some dj influencers in america that have huge followings, And I already did reach out to one, and he said he's interested, but get back to me when you're ready with those features. And so someone like him, I would get him to offer him the 30% to promote the app.
[1:30:54] Okay. So yeah, I mean, when I was in the software field, when a competitor had a software, I would immediately order it and go through every menu. I'd go through their entire manual in great detail, and I'd figure out their features, and I'd create like a table, right? This would be our point where here's what they have that we don't, because you want to be honest, right? There are some things that they have that you don't. Here's what we have that they don't, and here's why you should buy us, right? So I would really recommend doing that. It doesn't actually take super long because you know the answer so well, but you definitely need to create benefits and drawbacks of other people's software. And so that would be my suggestion about that. I guess another question is, have you stress tested your architecture? So let's say you get a thousand users and they're all hitting your servers or your server and your database at the same time. have you done any stress tests to be ready for growth?
[1:32:02] Um, no, we haven't, but we're using a dedicated host for software as a service. Um, so we've got a, you can upgrade service with the click of a button. Um, yes. So yeah, it.
[1:32:17] Could be choke points in your code that, that they won't be able to fix. So, uh, I would again recommend, um, there's people that you can hire who would set up a stress test. Just the last thing you want, of course, is tell a bunch of software. Services and then have people find it slow or unresponsive or something like that so a stress test is probably a good idea yep and that way you can identify are there any choke points in the code uh because hardware can obviously fix some issues but if there are choke points in the code that could be that could be a different matter maybe it's worth trying maybe it's not but uh that's something that i would be concerned about and yeah sorry go ahead my
[1:32:59] Developer claims to be very picky about the code like seeing as he's complained about the old the original guys he's always like oh look at he would show me sometimes yeah look look look how many lines of code he goes i had to compress this all you know minimize this down so he seems to be very anal about um you know, having clean code and that sort of thing so.
[1:33:18] Right okay okay um and i guess there was one other question that i had maybe it's maybe the oh yes uh your your documentation i guess of course as you develop new features you need to document them and and give uh video tutorials and all that kind of stuff and uh i assume you with the new features you're going to have to have that so when it's in beta you can uh do those videos and just make sure that when you roll out new features people know what how do you and how they work that
[1:33:54] They exist and how to use them.
[1:33:56] Yeah yeah like i was just on a website the other day and i was trying to get something done and i i had to hunt around and i was scrolling down to the bottom there's got to be some way to get this done because it was sort of amazing and it was just really hard to figure out and it does you know it's the old thing that if if if trying to understand what the website does is annoying uh and i'm not saying that would be the case with yours then sometimes people just sort of crash out because you know they're visual i
[1:34:22] Think the old design of this event detail screen because that's the main screen you spend a lot of time looking at I think the old one might have, also been uh could have been a critical problem but i think it was a problem because i, like i was saying before that things had to be explained i'd have to show someone and go so when you want to book it you got to move it to you know move it to tentative which is similar to booked but it it means it's books but without a deposit and then when they pay the deposit it's going to automatically move it to booked and well so i had to explain all this and so the new way and the new design and it's more intuitive where it's like they don't have to worry about whether it's open alternative they just click book it book it in um so i think that is going to help actually a lot um and more intuitive works not.
[1:35:16] Just for individual djs but for people like yourself in the past who would manage a group of djs i think you said you had 17 or something like that
[1:35:23] Yeah yeah a whole dj company can i've got i've got a there is three or four medium-sized dj businesses using it i've got one guy in new zealand i've got three or four in australia, and i've got two or three in america all right so so they're spread out around the world.
[1:35:44] Okay well i mean if if your feature set's almost done and you're going to start spending the money to promote it and you're going to go and show it at the conference which I've obviously tons of experience I sort of know that that can be quite a positive thing one thing that I used to do at conferences was I would get people's business cards And we'd put them all in a jar. And gosh, this is so back in the day. We would give them an iPod music player. Oh, I don't know what they're called. The original ones with just the hard drive. This is back in the day we were. So you could collect a couple of hundred business cards in return for, I don't know, you could give them whatever, some piece of cool electronics DJ thing or something like that. And that way, if you get the business cards, then you can start building up an email list. You can contact people afterwards and uh and so on so and and if you make it a piece of specialized dj equipment then you automatically filter out the non-djs from the equation because they wouldn't care about it so um like
[1:36:46] A raffle type thing just drop the card in sorry go ahead like a raffle where you ask them to put to drop their business card in a.
[1:36:54] Jar and and then you sort of scoop around randomly at the end of the day and you contact the person and say you won such and such And if you make it specialized DJ equipment, then you won't just get, you know, Joe Bob, who's just down there for shits and giggles and is not a DJ, right? Because DJs would only care about the specialized DJ equipment. So it's a great way probably to get at least a couple of hundred people who might be interested in that. That's what we used to do. Because I've been down to Vegas for these kinds of conferences. I used to go for many years. And that's a great way to get. I don't know if people still have business cards. Maybe it's just enter your email in this tablet or something. uh but i
[1:37:31] Think it could work maybe maybe if they don't have a card they can write their name and mobile a name an email on a piece of paper and just drop it in the jar.
[1:37:38] Yeah something like that or or maybe they just enter it on your tablet but but yeah so some way to gather because a lot of people will amble by maybe they're interested maybe they're not but if they are djs you definitely want to contact them and uh so that could be a good way to do that sorry that's just It's a bit more sort of practical advice regarding that.
[1:37:57] Yeah, thank you.
[1:37:58] All right. Anything else that you wanted to mention or discuss? How's the call been for you at all?
[1:38:06] It's been great. I've been very excited to talk with you. And I listen to nearly every episode. I try to listen to normally when I need to go to sleep at night time, but I will listen to all the episodes usually till the end or finish off when I wake up.
[1:38:25] I appreciate that.
[1:38:27] And uh and i love your work i just i don't know how you do it sometimes when you talk to some people i think how is he gonna what's he gonna say now or how is he gonna handle this like, but you always seem to find a way to uh come to like a resolution by the end and and and get to seem you know the source of the problem or whatever it is so i really appreciate your work and i think it's awesome well.
[1:38:52] I appreciate that and i really appreciate the window into i'm fascinated by business and entrepreneurship so i really do appreciate your window into your business and of course i wish you the very best of luck going forward
[1:39:01] Thank you very much Stefan thanks.
[1:39:05] Brother take care bye
[1:39:05] Okay goodbye.
Support the show, using a variety of donation methods
Support the show
