Bringing in Reinforcements | Episode 22

This week Juan is back!! We use his experience with freelancing and being a contractor to talk about when it is time to bringing reinforcements to help your company grow and take good care of your clients.

We also chat about Disney and their shenanigans.

Here are the links to all mentioned articles/videos in this episode:
The Verge - Disney is developing planned communities for fans who never want to leave its clutches
CNBC - Disney has a new executive in charge of the metaverse

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David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel

Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel

The Podcast

David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

David: 0:00

We I tried to get them involved in d&d because we were all sitting around the house, we couldn't leave. They were all bored trying new things. And so I had them roll up characters. And oh, it was it when we did two sessions. And because they're brother and sister, all they did was fight. There wasn't any camaraderie in the group. So they would just, they kind of got into it. And then they it was just too much time they got bored, they'd rather go do something. But it was interesting. Hi, everyone, welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host and I am joined by special guest this week, one Biella. He is one of our team members. I'm big pixel, how you doing man?

Juan: 0:49

doing pretty well. I'm happy to be here at being called Special last time I was here carry that in, say special.

David: 0:54

Well, yes, he has been here one other time. And Gary just doesn't appreciate you like I do. So that's that's really what it comes down to. So we're going to be doing things a little bit differently. But it should be pretty standard to our normal format here. We're going to start off I got a I got an article here. Got two Disney articles that I thought were interesting this week. The first one taps into the metaverse, which is just a constant comment topic that we talked about here. So this week, Disney has decided they're getting into the metaverse they hired or hired appointed. That's the right were appointed from on high a executive to lead their Metaverse strategy. I don't know what that means. What Disney's Metaverse strategy is, I don't think anybody knows what a Metaverse, I

Juan: 1:44

don't think they really know what it means.

David: 1:46

I think that's fair. I think they call it next generation storytelling. I, the question is, do they have legs? That's what I want to know.

Juan: 1:55

So a lot of nice marketing words there.

David: 1:57

It's me, I am fascinated by the fact and I don't think maybe you can answer this because I posed this question before, to some people, and they didn't have a good answer. Have you ever seen another time in modern history? Where so many big companies have thrown so much money to define something? Right, this doesn't exist? It's not even a definition yet.

Juan: 2:25

Yeah, I don't, I don't think I don't think I have

David: 2:28

it. That's what seems so unique here.

Juan: 2:30

I've seen small trends within technology within certain fields of psychology, something right off the bat, smartphones came out, you got iPhone coming out in like, changing everything in Android doing their thing, then Android has big phones. And everybody's like, why would I want like a fabric on my pocket, and then boom, everybody's doing big phones. I think it's something like that, which is like it's contained within certain field. But in this case, this whole Metaverse thing is encompassing all technology, every company. I mean, everybody is a technology company. Now you can expect some degree of interest in some new tech trend. But with this, like you said, Everybody's just like, they don't know what it is. But they see it's a typed up, they see people are really going for it, let's just throw a bunch of money, a bunch of resources, and see what we can make out of it. And it just feels like that is what everybody is doing. We don't really know what it is.

David: 3:20

I was trying to equate it to the web, like going back to late 90s, early 2000s. And back then it would be the equivalent of all these people, all these companies getting together and deciding what the web was. And that's not what happened. Some there was a third party, a government group, pretty much that decided what the web was, and all the companies jumped in and said, Okay, we're going to build this stuff, right? We're going to build a website, we're going to build an E commerce site, all that stuff. But they follow the rules that someone else set. And I'm wondering if they're seeing well, this time, we get to define it. And if we get to define it, we get to make money off of it. And so they're all trying to define it together, which means we're going to get six meta versus at some point. That all do different things.

Juan: 4:02

The six standard tip, it's funny that you mention that, because it really does feel like they see it this way, when but what like you said, when the web came out, there was somebody who said this is this specification of how this technology works. And the race was to who has the better tools and platform to deliver it implemented in building. But we all knew what it was. And we had browser wars, we had a different standard words. And God we're still fighting for different standards. But with this, we, again, we don't know what it is, and we're throwing resources at it. We're trying to figure out how do we deliver it? What can we make out of it? What is the best platform to serve it, but still nobody could point down their finger? This is what we're all working

David: 4:43

towards? Yeah, I think I think this is the first non direct technology company that I can think of I could be wrong here. But that has really dove in headfirst like this, like all the other ones Microsoft Facebook, Google to a lesser degree They all have a hardware stake in this right? They can make platforms and doodads and gizmos. But Disney doesn't make good gizmos, they make content. And so it's weird. It's like I'm going to make content for a platform that doesn't exist. It's a really strange thing that they're, but all they're doing right now is they're they're playing they're, they're planning to do something. So I thought that was worth bringing up. We'll see how it plays out. I think 2022 is going to be the year of the metaverse, but it won't actually be anything like we're gonna hear a lot of smoke, but I don't think there's gonna be fire. That's still my prediction. I think the hardware is just not ready yet. I think we got another year or two of cooking until the hardware itself is anything that Disney, for instance, could make their content for. But we'll see.

Juan: 5:43

Yeah, I would argue that the hardware is almost there, and that there is some good pieces of tech that you can buy now at a reasonable price. So you can experience VR, as Metaverse is like a VR, but it's, it's unlike the phone where it's something very utilitarian also, but also at the same time, something that you can enjoy with this is not necessarily something that you need, this is something that you can add to your repository of gadgets that you can use all the time that it would replace something else, kinda like we found it replaced 20 devices at once. So because you don't have a need for it, I don't think it's gaining as much traction as people thought it would, at least these companies. It's just it's nice is there.

David: 6:26

That's what I mean by the the hardware is not there because in order for it to be what they want it to be. It has to be like a phone where it's, it's on you all the time and you're wearing it or using it. hours and hours and hours a day, rather than it's now time to go play with my meta quest. And I'm going to go play Super superhuman, I think I'm gonna go workout or I'm gonna do the, you know, play a few games on it for a couple hours. And then I put it down and I go to some though, in order for their ideas to work. It has to be on you all the time. And that's what's not ready. Okay, I want to shift gears to another Disney article. We're staying with the theme here. This one was more fun to me. This was really interesting. So Disney is developing a planned community. For fans who want to live in the Disney universe all the time this will be in I believe it's Florida. Is that right?

Juan: 7:20

I think so. Yes.

David: 7:21

No, I'm wrong. I'm wrong. The other one was Florida. This one is California. Celebration, something they did they did this once before. And you're you live in? Or you've lived in Florida? I am sorry. Yeah. Yeah, you're not there. Yeah. But this was something you knew a little bit about, this was the year celebration. And they had this idea before. And it didn't mean I don't think it went horribly. It's not like it went really, really bad. But they it didn't go to their standards. And so they now backed off of it pretty hard. Disney is not as involved, they're going to try again, this time, it's going to be in Coachella Valley in California. And they're going to well, they're not going to build this is a key point, they're gonna have 1900 housing units built. And they are then going to have a lagoon in the middle, which they say will be like one of the Disney lagoons that's completely clear all the time, right? You know, it's not real water, like, I doubt you're gonna swim, or you're certainly not going to fish. But it's going to be perfectly clear. And it's going to create this whole Disney esque thing. Now they're not building the houses, they made that clear. So it is still a third party. But what do you think about this idea that a company, you love a company so much that you want to be immersed in it literally with your home?

Juan: 8:35

And I finally get the chance to upset this many people. And this is fun. So I am not a Disney fan at all. I know. And I've experienced it and I thought it was it was a very, very cool experience. And that's it. It's not something I would go once a year with the whole family. You know, drop Okay, let's take a few that. Yeah. Apparently a lot of people do. And so they love it so much that they think you know what, why not the next the park so we can do this all the time, whatever you want. Which to me it's a little bit odd because I live in Florida, it was like 30 minute drive. So I didn't put much effort into getting there but sets aside but I think that it's it goes down to the whole it everything that we see now where it's not just about I'm consuming a product I'm consuming something that somebody made. Now it's if I'm not part of their team if I'm not in their court, I'm not really a fan. You know, I'm not really part of the team and that's I don't know, that's something I don't feel too comfortable with. Maybe because I've seen it more like in a corporate sense but that's that's what I associated with you know the my boss Tommy No, so we're a family here. And it's all because I'm talking to my boss right now, but it's

David: 9:55

uh, you're not drinking the big pixel Kool Aid. Wait a minute. Sounds like we need to have another chat. I don't know

Juan: 10:00

Man, it's a

David: 10:01

disgruntled worker on the podcast. I hear what you're saying, though. I mean, Danny in particular is it almost has a cult like following that's too strong of a word. But it's, it's headed that way. I have friends who go there once a year, typically, which I don't understand, because I'm a theme park guy. But Disney rides a while. They're amazing. They're amazing one or two times, because their experiences, they're not usually thrill rides, where you can ride a crazy roller coaster 100 times, and your stomach is still going in your throat. And it's still an amazing physical experience. But Disney's rides are pretty tame in the thrill department. But they're, they're a visual spectacle. They're amazing in that regard. But once you've experienced that spectacle to me, I'm like, I've done it, like I did the Getty ride. And they're an animal kingdom years ago. And it was a brand new one at the time. And it was great. We did it twice. And I was like, yeah, and now we're gonna go backwards. And you know, the big surprises over the editorial drag, oh, I've done. So I don't understand how people do that every year. But, but this is like the next step. And the other thing is, is how big is it? I mean, they they've obviously done the research, I'm not trying to second guess their business model here. But you know, these are going to be million dollar plus homes. So not only do you have to be a Disney freak, you got to be a rich Disney freak, to be able to be a part of this.

Juan: 11:20

And I struggle to find another comparison to a different brand or different, obviously, like culture, Chip, but there is that's pissed off another group of people, the Supreme, you know, folk all the, the Hypebeast they follow a brand with a, like you said call this a strong word with a lot of fervor. And they put on anything, they buy it, and it can be like a brick with the supreme logo on it. And they're like, I got the $300 Supreme brick, you're going Oh, for sure. And I appreciate their devotion to something to that degree. But at the same time is, at this point, you're not buying something out of you know, joy or entertainment, you're just buying into it, because you were told you have to, if you're not doing it like everybody else's, you're losing out.

David: 12:07

You know, it's funny, there's actually a store, I'm trying to think what it is, it's like a it's in a very, pretty low area of town. And it's like a it's either a tire store or a something to do with cars. It might be a gas station, I drive by it sometimes. I've never stopped there, obviously. But it's got the supreme logo on it. And I'm always wondering, there's no way that's really Like, legitimately supreme, right. I mean, I know, but it's got the same red font and the asterik and the whole bit, and I'm like, but this isn't a not a great part of town. And it's not like some great retail stores have that. It's like car parts. But they've got that logo and I'm like, wow, okay, all right.

Juan: 12:51

But it now your brain is you know, you see it, it makes the connections like I'm associated with supreme and I think they've done a fantastic job with their marketing and to get people to not even think twice and just go for it. Just make three our lions buy something. Help. Same thing with this. See, and I think these people are genius marketing geniuses, they're doing their job, right. Same thing with Apple, anything Apple pulls, puts out, I want to buy it. And I know I'm just being you're a sheeple. i Yeah, My sheep I know I am and I complain about them all the time and I still buy all their products. But I don't know man living next to the Apple park will be probably a little bit too much.

David: 13:30

I don't know it to me if they can run if I imagined myself I couldn't afford anything like this. But if they could run a housing division, the way they run their parks in that there's it's immaculate all the time. The yards are perfect. You know, the the water is gorgeous. The you know if they can because the parks are miraculous, right? You don't see trash anywhere. You don't even see people taking up the trash because of all the work they've done to hide all that. If you could pull that off, I could totally see that. Take the Disney out of it just if they could actually run it that same way. I'd be on board again if I could afford it. But I mean, if they're gonna be Disney characters in it, no thanks. Right, that's that's a line too far. But

Juan: 14:10

anyway, you're not excited to see goofy delivering your mailman. Oh, maybe once.

David: 14:21

So I want to today for the for the main section, I wanted to talk about contracting. This is something that gets brought up a lot. When do you contract? Why do you contract and how do you contract? Because a lot of businesses so when you're a startup or you're a new business, like okay, I'll use me as an example. So I started big pixel. And when I got to the point where I needed to hire people, I hired two junior devs and my thinking was okay, I'm going to be the senior dev because I've been doing a long time and I'm going to bless these people with my knowledge and I was going to mentor them Yeah, that didn't work. Because I was so busy, I had no time to mentor them. And so they floundered all the time. And by the end of it, I was rewriting all their code, not great. But what was even worse was, again, I was a new business person. So I had no idea what I was doing. But in my mind, I was like, Okay, how do I afford to grow? The only way I could think of at the time was I have to bury my people overload them. And then it's because I have enough work now for let's say, I have two people, I sell enough work that I have room for three people, so they're doing the work of three people. And then I can hire another person and then relieve that stress. And then I started over again, and then I overload them again, that was my mindset. And I in my head at the time, we're talking 2015 Right now, I didn't think there was any other way of doing it. And it wasn't until this is 100%. True. These were different than my original ones, but to my two devs that I had both quit, I had three at the time, actually. Two of them quit in the same week. And the third turned in is notice. And I then I, again, we were really small at that point. But I had four projects that we had brought on board, I've killing it in sales, and then all my developers left within a week. Of course, I'm in pure panic mode, right? I have no idea what to do. And so I was like, in desperation, I turned to what was just changed, it used to be called oDesk. But now everyone knows this Upwork. Yeah, they were just rebranding themselves and changing their their strategy. And in desperation, I reached out to a couple of people long story short, we started using contractors to fill those roles. And I worked with those contractors for years and years and years, eventually hired one of them. And it was a huge godsend for me, because I allowed me to solve this. But then I realized, Gosh, what a better way of doing this, which is what we do now is I have my own people, we have full time devs. But instead of burying them, when we get sell, and we do well, on the sales side, I bring in contractors to fill those gaps that I don't have, until I can hire it until I have enough work that I can bring on another full person because I don't like to hire anybody. Unless I know I can keep them busy for at least a year. I just don't think that's right. So that now we have a mix of some contractors and some full time. And so that's worked very well for us. But at the time, I thought that was against the rules. I'm not sure why I thought it was against the rules. But I absolutely did. And but you come in from a different perspective, you've been a contractor, that's actually how we met. You're one of my contractors that I've actually hired full time. And by the way, that's the greatest, just anecdotally, that's the greatest job interview ever, right, is to hire someone for six months as a contractor, you know, if they're any good, right? There's no hiding that anymore, you know what they can and can't do? You know, their strengths and weaknesses. And then you offer them a job. It's a great way of hiring. But so what I think is, is interesting is when do you do it? How do you do it? And, you know, is there a Why do you do it? I don't think there's a Y in there. But what is your perspective on this coming from your side of the fence?

Juan: 18:24

Yes. So it's interesting how you mentioned you transition from how you viewed hiring contractors. Now before and now, because my experience has been mostly as as to what you do now. Where I would come in of this company is making the doing the new marketing push, and they got the product, they know what they want to put out, we need to get some people that can make this happen. And we don't have necessarily the type of engineers or engineers to do what we want now. Let's you know, outsource to help. And that's where I came in. And this was the case every single time with every client I had. That said the majority of the time this ended up being not a let me bring you in to fix something to make or fix something quick. When you're done. You're good to go. My team can take care of it. It always became this is my idea. Six months later, it's a completely different idea. Everything was still not Thor, we got a new, a new product, we want to push something else we want to do. And here I am with people, you know, working with a client for like maybe a year two years plus, which to me, fantastic, constant stream of revenue and clientele. But at some time, it felt like at that point, I would always ask myself, why wouldn't they just hire me? Clearly, I'm no longer the contractor. I'm part of a team. I'm in the team meetings. I'm the stand up every morning every week. Now this is no longer you know, a contractor with with employee relationship now I'm just an employee. And that was that that has been my experience. I still have people that sometimes email me saying, Hey, I'm going to keep on helping us maintain the site that I did maybe like four years ago and I don't remember what it was. But yeah, that's that's been my experience.

David: 20:00

It's funny, I still get this totally random, but I still get recruiters coming to me and emailing me for jobs in Houston. I have not lived in Houston, Texas, in 20 years. And like, how old is the resume you are finding? Where are you digging that up that you think I'm in Houston? I mean, I've lived in two other states, since that's just crazy to me. Because I mean, that's just the nature of development, you always get harassed by recruiters. It's a constant thing. So okay, so thinking about contracts? When do you do it as a new business? When do you do it? I think the simple answer is you do it when you need to do it. That sounds so trite, but the idea there is don't feel guilt about it. Don't feel like you have to hire right away. I think there as a business owner, it felt like cheating. Initially, to me, it felt like, you know, I wanted to hire people, you want to grow your business, right? I mean, my dream. And still is to some degree, I mean, we're 100% remote, I'm sitting in our the big pixel office by myself, because that's the way our company is built. But my dream was always to have a room full of devs. And we were going to have, you know, everybody was coming into the office every day, because that's what I was a consultant for ever. 15 years. And I that's, that's what I knew. And that's what I wanted. And so I felt guilt. Not having that. Does that make sense that it was, it was such a mind shift to me.

Juan: 21:28

Yeah, touching your initial point, I think what we do now is probably the right way to do this. And the reason being is that you you can grow business steadily. hiring employees, getting developers getting to fill these roles as you get more clients, but with with the nature of our business specifically, I don't think that always works out and bring an employee in is not just a matter of here's a contract, here's the works, I can send you a paycheck, there's a lot of resources that you invest into this person, so it can so they can work for you. If you have something like a small client that you just brought in for big pixel that it's, you know, it was gonna be about Voiceprint support six months ago, or something like that. Hiring a new a new hand just for that project without knowing exactly what's going to happen after you're done that if you're going to have another client to fill in, you know, that time it gives them more, you're wasting resources, I think and bringing in a contractor where you just give them a quick contract that it's essentially just a an email signature, and you're all good to go. You give them access to repo to server and they're working, you don't have to tell them what to do what they're supposed to know what how to do their job. You pay them they're done when they're not working, you don't pay him because most of these guys are outwardly, that works perfectly for those scenarios. And I think that's a way to keep a business growing without wasting too many resources when you can't,

David: 22:52

but when you have to be careful there, okay, so So there's two sides that so my business group that I meet with every month see 12 that I mentioned before, they loved when I was purely contractors, like I had no internal employees at all. Because when you talk if you're trying to build a lean business, mad, that is the leanest business you can do, right? There's, it's 100% efficient. I only pay people when I have work to do. And they love that. And but I always kind of rankled under it. I didn't like that to be 100%. That way, I wanted to have my own people. And here's why. And this isn't just development, I think it's important to know, this isn't just built into development company, this is any kind of company, when you have a contractor and they're bringing in their skills, and you hand them a client or whatever work to do. They're now learning about that client, they now know how that is built, or how that is done, how that client likes it to be done. And if they leave, they take that with them. And so let's say that same client comes back to you in six months, and that contract is not available. You're now in a pickle, right? You've got to be able to bring on either another contractor or one of your internal people to learn what that client likes without the client really knowing this is happening. Right? Because you're, we always use the analogy that you see the swan, beautiful swan on top of the lake, you never see the legs kicking underneath, right? That's the what we try to say this is a smooth ship, right? We're, we're perfectly run and everyone knows it. And we're great, right? Every company wants to portray that to their clients. Of course, that's not true. But we're all struggling. We're all making things go and there's gears flying around and things are going and it's our job to make that as smooth as possible. So when you have a contract, you just know, you're building something and you you're learning that the client really likes to build it this way, or design it that way. They now have that in their head and when they're gone. It's gone. them all that knowledge is gone and you have to so when you're a business owner, you need to keep in mind, how are you going to use them? Really that comes down? Here's the hard part that comes down to documentation. When you what we Do just transparently what we do is, our clients never meet our devs or very rarely meet our devs. And that is so that we are always a big pixel person, project manager, me, whatever, is always in front of the client, not because we're hiding something, but because we want to capture what the client likes and don't like, we want to have that knowledge for us. So that when we pass it to the dev, and if the dev leaves for whatever reason, we haven't lost all of that when I started from ground zero. In some places, I think they do it wrong in that I connect client to contractor and they have a relationship. And that relationship goes really well. And what happens is the client hires that contractor. Yeah, you're setting up your replacement, essentially. Yeah. And that's, that's a dangerous. And I can see that, you know, that's

Juan: 25:49

a fantastic point, from the business point of view, from a development point of view, it's, I don't, I can't see myself working with four other freelancers, which, when you freelance, in YouTube, any type of development work, it's, it's a very different one as a feel than when you work for a company, when you work for a company, if I'm big pixel employee, I have the big pixel way to do things. You know, a little one is sprinkled in there. But when I was a freelancer, everything was 100% my way of doing things, and when the client hired me, and like I told them, we're gonna do it this way, we're gonna use this tech stack. That's what you brought me, I'm making decisions on making this happen. And I tried to do things as much as possible. So somebody else, which will inevitably come after me, was able to pick things up and keep on going on on there. But I was not working as a team player, the most of these guys come in not being necessarily team players, they're used to going in and out on the team. So imagine bringing four people with that mentality and trying to make them a team, trying to

David: 26:49

Yeah, that's what the other thing is, we get built bit on that in that same kind of concept. These guys gals, are lone wolves, by definition, they are lone wolves. Their job is to figure things out. Now, they're most of them are hourly. And they're expensive. And in our case, they don't have I mean, depend on your industry, right? But but they're being charged, they're paying, you're paying them hourly. And if they get stuck, it is their MO, as it were to figure it out. And that might take them three days to figure X out if it's a hard problem, because they're by themselves, their lone wolves. And what we have to break hours of and this, anybody who's using contractors, I would recommend this, you've got to break them of that mentality. Because if you have internal people and external people, that means that three day thing could have been an hour because some will get another guy on your team, he'd run into this here to solve this, I can show you how to do this in an hour or two, right? But the contractor doesn't want to admit defeat, is it, we really have to train our guys. And if our devs are working with us for a long time, like we have some contractors we've worked with for years, we start Dude, come on, you're part of the team as much as anything at this point, you need to come and do things our way. Otherwise, they're going to spin out of control and you're gonna lose. Alright, so we were moving on to questions, we are getting some questions here, we're now using, I shouldn't say we, I am using Reddit now to engage with the startup community. You can find me there big pixel and see if you ever see me, trolling around the startup community there and the entrepreneurship community. So I got a question from a guy. Some of these usernames are awesome. This guy's name is wearing pajamas. And he asked a really thought provoking question. Entrepreneurs in your 30s 40s and 50s. That dream or used to dream big, but have not achieved much? When is it time to become real with yourself and say, quote, my dreams? My big dreams won't come true. What are your thoughts on that? Before I give my answer because I yeah, this is a deep one, right?

Juan: 29:11

Yeah, because it goes into the whole age thing where in our industry and development ones here, at least my career has been if you're in your mid 30s, and you're still a junior, you still figuring things out. You're really too late to the game. It's your time. You had your time we had your problem and that it is no longer the by now you have to have things figured out. And I don't feel this way. I'm on 30 right now. I just turned it a couple months ago. And but I also do feel that now when that'd be the time for me to just say, You know what, I'm gonna do something else. I'm no longer doing development. I want to be I don't know, I want to be streaming now. I don't think I would feel comfortable doing that right now. So I know that psychological I don't think I can't do it. I just feel too old to start doing it right now.

David: 30:00

So then that's that's your you're getting right in there with it is in the mind, I think, in most people, and I believe it was this guy's head, that startups and starting your own company going out on your own as a young man's game that his culture seems to think that. And I will tell you in our experience, and I've said this before, most of our clients are in their 40s 50s and 60s, and they're starting from scratch. Now, this guy's specifically asking, When am I successful? And when do I give up? And that's where I was coming from. It's like, man, the idea that you're only successful when your company's worth billions is such a weird world that we were living in, you know, it's, it's not, you can be very successful. I used an example of a hypothetical teacher, who, you know, is making $45,000 a year. And he says, You know what, I've got an idea that I can really improve the classroom. And I go, he goes, and does that idea. And three years later, he's making$400,000 in revenue, which allows him to pay himself$150,000 salary, which is great money. That guy just gave himself $100,000 raise in three years. Right? And is a startup worth millions maybe made? Probably not. But did he completely change his life? Absolutely. Is he a success? Absolutely. I just, I have a real problem with the idea that success has to have seven zeros after it.

Juan: 31:28

In I think it comes down to another aspect of it, which is how do you define success and like you were saying, it's not necessarily about how much money am I making, if I'm making enough money, if a Mexican making X amount of money, I made it, I made it successful. This was my goal. To me, and this was something that I read up not too long ago, completely change how I view success. Because I used to see it the same way. My dream was to make it bigger San Francisco Valley startup. To me now success is very aligned to what I read, which was if if you can continue to do the thing you love as long as you can, and enjoy yourself and have a comfortable life. You're successful you made you have a happy life, you you're enjoying yourself, you're not miserable. You're not struggling to make ends meet. You made it you're successful. Most people don't get to do that. You hear

David: 32:22

the stories of our parents and grandparents. And dad went to work and hated his job, but it paid the bills. And you know, he's working 12 hour shifts at the mill or wherever. And he came home exhausted and took care of the family, but never felt any sort of enjoyment. I think in our current generation, we are able you can really find a job you love. I think that's totally on the table. And you're able to do that and pay the bills. Man, that's success. I think I think that's, that's where that where my thinking comes from. Okay, great. Any other thoughts on that? Just,

Juan: 32:58

I was gonna say, and regardless of what your ages, if you're physically able, then it shouldn't matter how old you are. If you're in your 40s. And you feel like you have the energy and the resources or the mental maturity do?

David: 33:11

Absolutely. Again, we have startup guys who come to us in their 60s, they finished their career, they want a new one. And they go and they have this crazy idea. Let's go do it. That's awesome. I love those guys, because they're usually super passionate. Okay, so here's the next question. This guy was by friendly mountain man. He asked, Should I try to turn my side hustle into a full time business, or leave it as a side hustle. And long term? Long story short, he works at a factory of some sort. And he's got a side business of being a mechanic. So the reason I mentioned that specifically, he's not competing with his main job. And he's asked, When do I make the switch? Or should he make the switch? So what would you how would you answer that?

Juan: 33:55

I think it's, it comes down to why are you doing this? Is it for monetary reasons? Does it help you make ends meet? If the idea is to grow this so you can make more money and you're enjoying it? If you find yourself in the position with having the resources to do it? Oh, go for it. What if your side hustle was something that you know, gets your mind off of your nine to five job, it's something you enjoy, in my personal experience, going full time on something that you you thoroughly enjoy that you've only done it as a hobby to distract yourself, you're probably not gonna like it again, my personal experience that doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna be the same for you. But that's what happened to me. I loved it. I loved networking and then I made it a career in God I hate it so much. And it's not being an enjoyable until like seven months ago. So it's good guess it depends on the circumstances why you're doing it.

David: 34:52

So yeah, so I'm going along the same lines is why did you Why do you want to switch it? If you want to switch it because it makes you more money? That's Very valid if you want to switch it because you enjoy it. Great if you're switching it because you hate your job, great. The question is, is when once you've decided that how do you do it? And I think that's that's a big that was a big part of when I was answering the question is, when do you make that jump? How do you make that jump, and I basically gave three points real quick. Make sure you have enough money to live for a few months, I'm guessing six. As you make that transition, that's step one. If you go and I I say this, and transparently, I did not do this. I started big pixel on a hope and a dream, and just jumped, we had no money saved. Don't do it. Don't be me, don't be me that added way more stress than needed to. And then step two is get your ducks in a row, get your legal stuff ready, you can do that while you're working your full time job, get your DBA set up or an LLC, however, you're going to structure yourself, get a bank bank account set up, get some insurance, get that all set up, that takes time, you know, several weeks sometimes do that. Get it out of the way. It's not a big deal, just paperwork. In my case, I mentioned a lot of prayers should go into that thought not everybody's drinks that but but in for my case, that was a big part of it. But once you're ready, then then it comes. How do you make that switch? I suggested, hey, go to your boss, since you're not competing. This is why I was made to say it's a big deal. Since you're not competing, go to him and say, Hey, can I cut my hours back? I want to do this thing. Can I go to halftime? Because he's an hourly worker for this guy. So you're halftime, you're making some money, you can spend the rest of time working on anything. If the guy's like, no, absolutely, then turn in your two weeks, man, you've already done the legwork. Right, it's time to take the

Juan: 36:48

plunge. I think it's important. Keep in mind that you are you're doing this side hustle knowing that you have your full time job as a backup. Forgetting if all goes right over there, you can still come back to your day job and still make money to pay your bills and you know, keep on living. That is no longer going to be the case you're going full on in this committed relationship with your if your side hustle. And now it has to work, it has to work because you're gonna invest money, resources and time. And if it doesn't, you have to be ready to face that any of that reality and move on if you have to, or put more resources if you have to. That is not something that you experienced so far.

David: 37:25

But on the same token, though, I believe if you don't commit and quit the job, it you will never have the fire lit underneath you to make it real, right? Oh, absolutely. You've got this soft. And I'm using this term loosely, but you have a soft landing because you have your your job paying your bills. So a side hustle is just a side hustle. It's something that occupies some time some, you know some energy of yours. But once you've jumped off and you you got no parachute, except the one you're building while you're in the air. Man that's gonna a lot of fire into you. And that will change your trajectory, as opposed to meandering with a full time job. So I would recommend do it. Get it done. Once you prepare. Don't be an idiot. Don't be me. But

Juan: 38:14

yeah, in hindsight, I know a lot of people say, you know, you have to do this. I didn't do it. It worked out fine. But you have to do it. It sounds great. Once things worked out. But if they don't, it's not that fun. So don't do it. Yeah, I

David: 38:29

know, it worked out for me. We were very blessed. And we were able to get clients or at least a client. That's a longer story relatively easily, quickly. Well, that's again, longer story. But it worked out. That's not always the case. Again, I was very blessed and and we would have been in real pickle. That not taken all the way that it did. But again, that doesn't even mean that we didn't have some really rough times there for a bit. But anyways, I think that answers that question. I think that's an important one. And I'll end with this. This is a quick one. When someone says to you, I You are too expensive. Your price is too high. What is your response to that? This was oh, let me do this. Let me give credit. This was by a guy named Anthony M. 124. He asked the question, let's hear your best response for your two expensive prices. Do I? What would you say to that? Now I know you're not a business owner, but Well,

Juan: 39:29

I I'm thinking of it in you know, harking back to the Freelancer point of view. As a contractor if somebody tells you you're more expensive, sure, it's flattering but I think it's it leads away to a conversation of how much do you value, the product that you wanted to make? And you can have that money conversation you can negotiate and that is a good opportunity to really try to you know gauge how what type of client it is that you're working with. If they are putting a $500 price tag on their bill. million dollars. idea, quote unquote, that obviously they don't value that much. But if they, they're still trying to figure out how much their self is is worth, you can have a conversation it will lead to a meaningful relationship with that client. I've had that conversation with them. Sure. But this shouldn't be something that should necessarily put you off these ethics.

David: 40:22

Yeah, no, I totally agree. So I was, my thinking is, the first thing you have to have is a conversation as to why you're more expensive. That's easy. I think, if you're proud of what you do, Hey, I've, you know, we offer this level of customer service, we offer this value, blah, blah. If they're still not going, if they still think you're ridiculous, that's fine. My response to this was, I completely understand and I've used this, by the way, many times, I completely understand we aren't cheap, but we strive to be a good value, I have no problem at all, best of luck to you in your search, right? It's just, it's time to leave, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna be a jerk about it. We're we're gonna part ways as friends, it's fine. Like we don't it, this goes back to our transparency principle that's leads our company, we don't come down on our prices. Because to me, if I say this is going to cost you, $10,000. And you finagle, that's the wrong word, you convinced me to lower my prices, what I basically said to you is, oh, my first thing that $10,000, that was a lie. It really wasn't $10,000, I was just trying to see if you are going to, to bite on that make, I can make some more money. And I don't like that what we do our pricing based on what we honestly believe the market can bear and what are what it costs us. And we don't come down from that we have one discount. And that's if you guarantee at least a certain amount of work for at least six months to a year. And then we will come down. And that's simply because that allows us to forecast, which saves us money. But we when we quote a price, that's the price, the way you if you want to get cheaper, we can remove functionality, right? That's no problem. But we are what we cost. And we're not going to change on that. Because, again, transparency, honesty, I was upfront with you, I gave you my best price to begin with, there's no need to haggle, I gave you what I could give you. And if that's too much, that's 100% Fine, go take the route, a lot of times, they'll come back.

Juan: 42:28

I mean, there always is like a cheaper alternative, you can absolutely outsource development to somewhere else, and they're gonna charge you $3 An hour, which should be a prime. And sure, you can get it done for cheaper, but you will never have the level of dedication and quality that we

David: 42:45

Yeah, I mean, that's generally when it comes if you're trying to offshore, and if I'm competing against offshore, I'm gonna lose every time, I'm fine with it. I'm wrong with that. I know what I bring to the table. And then this is and I say this not to talk about big pixel specifically, you as the owner of the company should understand what you bring to the table and be confident that pricing, make sure that you've thought through what it costs you to bring your your product to market, what that truly costs you a very reasonable amount of margin on top of that, and then charge your prices stand firm and go forth.

Juan: 43:16

And absolutely know your worth. And make sure you can translate that to the client.

David: 43:21

raga Alright, we have gone long today, which is unusual and awesome. And I feel sorry for our editors and but I think there's a good one man one. Thank you so much for joining us on this. This special day was kind of last minute Gary got sick and he could not join us. He told me that last night. So I put out the call and one step forward man put on your cave and stem so

Juan: 43:45

it was a pleasure. Alright everybody. Well, thank

David: 43:48

you so much. If you have questions, you can find me on Reddit. Big pixel, NC is my name. But also you can email us at Hello at the big pixel dotnet. Feel free to leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Those are very helpful. So please if you are enjoying this, leave us a review and we will see you next week. Thank you so much