The Great Intensifier w/ Chris Geiss | Ep. 212

In this episode of Biz/Dev, we talk with Chris Geiss, Co-Founder and CEO of Seguno, about building software for the ecommerce ecosystem and what it takes to create products that live inside a larger platform like Shopify.

Chris shares his path from engineering roles at IBM and product leadership at Bronto Software to co-founding Seguno, an email marketing platform built specifically for Shopify merchants. We get into how platform ecosystems shape product decisions and why understanding how customers actually work should drive what you build.

Along the way, we also discuss how AI is beginning to show up inside everyday business tools, where it can be useful, and why thoughtful implementation still matters.

Seguno Website

Chris on LinkedIn

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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

[00:00:00] Chris: I think Google and Gemini is, the sleeping giant that was caught off guard initially, but, they're gonna be one of the

[00:00:06] David: They invented this stuff. People keep forgetting that they invented the T in GPT

[00:00:14] David: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Biz Dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, joined Per Usual by Gary Voit. Hello, sir. 

[00:00:23] Gary: Hey, how you. 

[00:00:25] David: Good. More importantly, we are joined by Chris Geiss, CEO, and co-founder of Segundo. Welcome. How you doing?

[00:00:33] Chris: Hey guys. Great to see you. Thanks for having me on.

[00:00:36] David: Absolutely. So I like to start all of our podcasts with some icebreaker questions. Are you ready?

[00:00:43] Chris: Yeah, let's do it. Let's see what you got.

[00:00:46] David: Do you like to plan everything or wing it?

[00:00:50] Chris: Wing it a hundred percent.

[00:00:52] Gary: Nice, 

[00:00:53] David: nice. Hey I'm a kindred spirit. I totally understand that. All right. Do you like to work in silence or do you need some background noise?

[00:01:04] Chris: I don't mind background noise. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's helpful.

[00:01:07] Gary: Is that background noise usually music or is 

[00:01:11] Chris: Yeah

[00:01:11] Gary: or 

[00:01:13] Chris: Music is a good lately I've been using this focus channel on Apple music just for some light background noise.

[00:01:19] David: All right. Inbox zero or 10,000. Unreads.

[00:01:24] Chris: 11,000.

[00:01:25] David: Nice. He's just flying. He's just flying today. Alright. Are you 

[00:01:31] Gary: It's not exactly a lightning round. 

[00:01:33] David: It's not. What? Yeah, these are very 

[00:01:36] Gary: exactly a lightning round, but you know, you could think about it. 

[00:01:39] David: No he's got it. He's got it. It is I'd already asked him these questions, which I have not. Alright. Would you rather be really good at one thing or above average at everything?

[00:01:48] Chris: I think I'm more the latter honestly. And have been most of my life, so it'd be interesting to try the other side. Yeah.

[00:01:55] David: All right. Our last one is a hot dog, a sandwich or a taco.

[00:02:04] Chris: Oh man. Geez. This is a tough debate here. 

[00:02:08] Gary: it's old though, too. It's like, is the, is the dress blue or is it gold? Like, come on. 

[00:02:12] Chris: Yeah. I would

[00:02:13] David: that has a right answer.

[00:02:15] Gary: Oh, 

[00:02:15] Chris: probably say neither. I think a hot dog is a hot dog, but but in terms of definition, I would go more towards sandwich than taco.

[00:02:24] David: So now that we've gotten to know you a little bit better, tell me about Segundo.

[00:02:29] Chris: Yeah, sure. So we're headquartered here in Durham, North Carolina. We've been in, in business over nine years now. And we are focused on building marketing apps for Shopify. And and our core platform is a marketing suite. And so that includes things like email marketing, product reviews, popups, and forms.

And so that's the big product for us. And we have a couple of other apps that are really interesting as well. But but that is our core platform.

[00:02:59] David: So we have some clients that use Shopify, but I am not an expert myself. What is the advantage of having your marketing platform in Shopify as opposed to connecting to Shopify out externally, right? Because they're all gonna do that somehow. But what's the diff, what is the advantage of that?

[00:03:16] Chris: Yeah, that's the core reason we built Sao really, and there's some easy benefits, right? Like you're not having to switch tabs all the time. But the way that we built goes far deeper than that. So our platform is entirely embedded inside of Shopify, so you don't have to leave the admin. We actually leverage your Shopify data as the source of truth, which is the big differentiator. And we also send in more data into Shopify to make that even more powerful things like reporting and attribution. So yeah, it's really more about the data but it's also a really wonderful experience and people just love having to not switch tabs and to have access to all their data right there as they're working on their marketing.

[00:04:00] David: So this is a tough question, but I've given the advice to startups over the years that to build into build your entire company. the back of someone else's application is a risky, scary thing. What is it? You've been doing it nine years, so clearly it's working fine, but they could wake up one day and go, we wanna do marketing.

Screw these guys. And then there's not a thing you can do.

[00:04:31] Chris: They already have, they did it maybe a couple years into our business. So yeah, that's not the concern. And honestly that's a good thing. They're educating the bottom of the market and getting more people into email marketing so that when they're ready to graduate, where the perfect next step.

But yeah, it was a risky move. And, every investor I talked to, that was their first question, right? And their concern. We've been in this game a long time and we built integrations for marketing platforms and commerce platforms for all of them really.

Magento, Demandware, NetSuite, Shopify. So we, we saw that Shopify was the only platform that truly acts like a platform and enabled us to build the experience that we wanted for our customers. So that was why we went all in on, on Shopify, and it's really only paid off even better than I could have expected, honestly, in terms of how they've enabled us as a partner.

[00:05:23] David: So they have been friendly to you. Obviously

[00:05:27] Chris: Yeah. We're great partners with Shopify

[00:05:29] David: What I always think of is like there's a lot of cases like Apple, right? Where if they decide. And we want to go into the news business. Suddenly their APIs to those news people gets cut off at the knees, right? And there's a lot of stories that apple's really bad at it, but a lot of 'em do that where it's just we want to go into this and you're on our, we don't want you in here anymore.

The worst kind of example is like the classic flashlight app, right? There are no flashlights anymore. That's extreme, but it sounds like Shopify. They know you're there, clearly. They don't care and they're not being mean about it. That's, do you find that to be unusual or is that just the way that they are?

[00:06:11] Chris: I think it can be unusual in, in, tech technology in general. But but Shopify, one of their greatest strengths is their partner ecosystem. And, they're trying to build things that are great for, say the majority of people getting started with their business. When it comes to kind of other applications.

And that's, and partners fill in the rest, right? I think Shopify is unique in terms of how they enable partners. And that is in the way of embedding apps inside of Shopify and the APIs that give us access to the data that we need or want. They take a platform first approach to things, they're, some, we, we know people in the product engineering org and when they're going to build a feature they wanna make sure that the APIs are available so that we can build it too, if we want, so it's they're very friendly to partners overall and I think that's one of their greatest strengths. 

[00:07:09] Gary: I have a question. When you're building an app inside a Shopify, are you able to leverage their design system as well and does it fit into the UX as if it is just an extension of Shopify, or does it kind of, is it like a jol thing? Like, oh wait, this is awkward. Inside my admin panel. 

[00:07:27] Chris: no. Yeah it's seamless at least the way we build there's levels of at which you can integrate, but yes, they released Polaris, which is their design system, and and library of components and design patterns and all the things. We got in at the very beginning and have been using that ever since.

And it enables us to look and act just like Shopify's ui. So the learning curve for new users is extremely low.

[00:07:52] Gary: Yeah, that's cool. 

[00:07:54] David: So backing up and let's talk about Kuno as a company. What inspired this nine years ago? What is oh man, you know what I need? I need a Shopify marketing system. What inspired that?

[00:08:06] Gary: Or was it just the other marketing systems were hard to connect in a way? 

[00:08:11] Chris: So I used to work at a company called Bronto Software. Big success story here in the triangle. And so it was there for many years. And then like I said, one of the things that my team did was we built integrations with the commerce platforms and then we also built apps on top of Bronto's, API.

So we got a front row seat to what it's like to integrate with these commerce platforms. And it wasn't the easiest thing for merchants to do back then. And, like Magento, which is where we spent a lot of our time, was like the wild West. And and so when we wanted to build our own thing, we wanted things to be seamless.

We wanted people to just install our app and things just work and not have to worry about really connecting these things or worrying about one thing overriding another. Yeah, that was one of the reasons why we chose to focus on Shopify and we didn't originally start with email marketing.

We, we actually started trying to focus on the discounting space and wanting to personalize that. But we got roped into a beta program with Shopify and when we saw the direction they were going with their marketing section inside of the admin, then we said, Hey, we should put email there.

And so we paused things and built an email platform. And so yeah, that was the genesis of that.

[00:09:28] David: What's amazing to me. Nine years ago, Shopify was not what it is now. So you guys put all your eggs into a very small but basket. A good basket. But it was, they were fighting pretty hard in the e-commerce space. And I think, I don't think I'm overstepping by saying that Shopify has pretty much dominated the e-commerce space at this point.

So you had no idea that success was gonna happen. So you guys, you're riding a dragon at that point.

[00:10:00] Chris: they, they maybe had half a million shops when we got started. But yeah, they've got like over 3 million now and they are the only one in my mind, there, there are certainly other platforms still, but. Shopify is the clear winner on all fronts. And if you're not considering Shopify, then you're just doing it wrong.

[00:10:19] Gary: Now you could even connect other platforms to a smaller Shopify app store. Like I know you could do integrations with Shopify now through like Webflow and you know, other platforms Like that.

So then when you were building this into Shopify would you say that your app is for anybody starting a Shopify site, or do you think after they have a certain number of products or they hit a certain number of sales?

Like when does, yeah, when does the, a typical Shopify, Shopify user, like add your platform to theirs to find benefit from it? 

[00:10:56] Chris: Sure. Yeah. I think if someone's just starting a new store, then I think it's, using Shopify's own email is a good idea. It'll essentially be free for them and it's a good way to get going. But when you're, when it's no longer a hobby and you're really going kind of full time, you're doing maybe two 50 to 500 KA year in GMV sales there then, then that's a good time to step up to a more complex platform that can do some more sophisticated things.

And so that's a good time to graduate. We see people all over the spectrum. I think when you're really going all in on it, and it's not just a hobby, that's a great time to make that switch.

[00:11:37] David: So you don't have to be a big monster store. 'cause a lot of those features. On Shopify. Shopify. I don't know if a lot of people know this. It starts off nice and cheap, but it gets stupid. And if you've got a, and then that's fine. 'cause those are for people who are making millions in revenue off of their e-commerce store.

You want some heavy duty features. I get it. But it does get quite pricey. That's not where you guys live though. You're not on the big boy. Nike is using Shopify and then you're a natural extension. Or you're, it sounds like you're smaller. You could be a mom and pop still.

[00:12:10] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Nike's not using Shopify email to my knowledge. Yeah, we focus on the SMBs. So if you're doing, say, anywhere from 250 KA year to 20 million a year. We're a good fit. Once you get into the kind of the mid-market and the enterprise, then we're not focused there.

So we, we focus on people, doing 20 million a year and below.

[00:12:31] David: Nice. Okay. So is there a technology there that's preventing you from getting the enterprise space? Like I know from our little startup that we're working on, if we wanted to go into the enterprise space, we would have to build very specific features because they need different stuff. Is that the same in your world?

[00:12:48] Chris: Yeah, more complicated things are needed when you go enterprise and you have to start having a feature for every little thing. And that's not the way we built our product. We built our product to be seamless, to be, to know the use cases you're trying to accomplish. And if it can be a checkbox instead of building out like a complex workflow, then we're gonna, we're gonna make it a checkbox.

The we're competing against the larger enterprise. Companies that, have all the features you could ever imagine, but you're paying for a hundred percent of them and only using one 2% of them. That's where the disconnect is and why we focus on the SMB side. 

[00:13:24] Gary: Now. ability to create more with ai, whether it's vibe coding or just using a coder assistant or whatever. Kind of open the doors for more features for you guys to add for the mid-market that you're like, Ooh, now if we offer this, could step up a little bit here or step up a little bit. Or even if it's just making it a little bit easier for your current customers, or maybe adding a little bit more of a knowledge base or analytic side to it. 

[00:13:50] Chris: Yeah. Yeah, I think AI has opened up all sorts of things for both our customers, for us internally for the broader ecosystem. And and so yeah, it's a big focus for us to invest more and more in there. We've added some capabilities into the tools we're working on new ones.

And then we're also, wanna integrate with Shopify's AI sidekick. 

[00:14:12] Gary: Oh yeah, I forgot they had one. 

[00:14:13] Chris: Yeah they're, they are so all in on ai it's crazy and it's necessary and they are essentially building the backbone of commerce for AI everywhere. And so that's another reason why Shopify is the only choice you should be making a, for your commerce platform.

And so we're, we want to plug into that. And that's why having your data in Shopify is also even more important than it ever was because of that. And so we're focused on keeping your data there, using it as the source of truth, adding more data there, enabling you to keep that structured data that you may be collecting inside of Shopify because it's gonna enable their I ai that's, connected to all the places to, to be even smarter.

[00:15:06] AD: BigPixel builds world class custom software and amazing apps. Our team of pros puts passion into every one of our projects. Our design infused development leans heavily on delivering a great experience for our clients and their clients. From startups to enterprises, we can help craft your ideas into real world products that help your business do better business. 

[00:15:34] David: So I want to take a different turn on the AI question block just. Fired, laid off, whatever you wanna call it, 40% of their workforce because they believe that AI could do just as good of a job. Funnily enough, one of our clients has recently adopted Square as their payment platform, and we had to get on the phone with them, and they were like I don't know who still works in that department.

I'll have to get back to you. Holy cow, dude. What? What a mess. But anyway. My, my question to you is, what is your overall feeling of ai? Because I'm getting the feeling there are two camps being built and I'm curious. It's, it is, you're the first one. I've asked this, but I think this is something I wanna ask a lot because I'm talking to smart people, I'm talking to CEOs, people who are I molding part of the economy in some way, shape or form, and I want to get people's feel.

I've seen two camps e evolve around ai. There is the, it's a tool for humans. Then it's a tool to replace humans. Block clearly has stepped, has chosen a side, right? Which side do you sit on? And there's no right or wrong answer. I'm not gonna come down on you if you're a block fan or that side, that's fine.

I don't think that's a wrong answer, but I would like you to back it up as to why you think one way or the other.

[00:16:57] Chris: Yeah and it's funny that everyone's latching onto to this block story as like the canary in the coal mine, but I feel like we've already seen a dozen other companies do the same thing. But yeah, I think it's both. When you. We're a small company, so it's a very different situation versus if you have 10,000 employees, you likely have a little bit of bloat in your company, right?

There's likely ways to, to simplify things or to do things with less people. And AI is an amplify amplification of that, right? One person can potentially take on the work of three if you get things going well. Yeah, I think that it replaces people in that sense. But it enables people to do more at the same time.

Some people say it's not AI that's gonna take your job, it's someone who knows AI that's gonna take your job, right? So I see it as a tool, but if you don't know how to use the tool then yeah, it's gonna be tough for you over these next couple years.

[00:17:50] David: Are you one of those? Or even in your company, have you felt any need to say, I don't need to hire that person. Whatever this person might is, might be. I don't think I need to hire that person. I think I'm just going to use AI for that. And you're not firing anybody, but you might not be hiring. Is that, are you feeling that pressure even at a small company?

[00:18:11] Chris: It's, I think it's worth thinking about, it depends on the need, right? I'm a big, fan of really feeling the need for a hire before you, you hire them, right? So feeling that pain and so I think that's, that also forces you to leverage the tools that you have available to see if you can solve that pain or not.

So yeah, I, to some extent, yes.

[00:18:34] David: Fair. I read an article recently I'll credit this one. This was the Harvard Business Review and they were saying that AI is the great intensifier. It's gonna become more so because the average person now is using AI and it doesn't feel like work sometimes. Because it's conversation.

And outta that conversation comes a work product, which is really useful and great. But then they, then people wake up and realize, I didn't take a break today. I've just been, in between prompts. I did something and whatever. I did some real work. And then, oh, I had some time. I went to the check the prompt again.

And it becomes this. Compression of work and there, and the smart people doing the research over there, were afraid, and it's early 'cause they don't know yet, but they're afraid that the market is gonna overheat because yeah, you don't need that three people. You've got that one person in their AI bot, but that one person's really tired.

What do you think about that?

[00:19:32] Chris: Yeah, I think that's totally fair. I, and I think there's also. On, on Twitter there were a couple of really big, I guess I still call it Twitter 

[00:19:41] David: is okay. We do too. It's all right. It's all right. X is stupid. I'll say it. I'll say 

[00:19:45] Gary: No Twitter. Twitter is the correct name.

[00:19:47] David: Twitter is 

[00:19:47] Chris: Okay. All right. All right, good. We're amongst friends here. So yeah, on, there were a couple of big articles that got a lot of views, right? One was around. The doom side of ai you may have seen it. And then there was another one that I saw that was interesting and it was essentially talking about how like we, we feel more productive, but are we actually more productive yet?

And yeah, I think that can lead to. Perhaps burnout or something like, you need to set those guardrails and figure things out. 'Cause if you're just constantly working and then someone else's, the agents are working while you're not, or they're working on one thing while you're working on it that, that is, I think gonna cause people to overheat.

And so you you gotta manage it. You gotta pay attention to it and just be smart about it.

[00:20:30] David: I I just get this feel. We're it's so new and we've seen, there's no equivalent that I can think of, at least in my lifetime that is so dramatic and nothing's this fast. I think that's pretty clear. So whatever we say now in a year won't matter 'cause it's gonna be totally different.

And that's what I think is so unusual about this technology is it's constantly changing the thing that bothers me. And I get the feeling you're a nerd hiding behind the thing. What I can't stand is it's really hard to separate what's real and what's just hype. 'cause these machines we use 'em, work heavily into ai.

We're building ai. My dual is an AI tool. So we can see it on a day-to-day basis. And then I'll read on LinkedIn. Inevitably it's LinkedIn where some guy says in one prompt, I built an entire thingy, ma bobber and whatever. And it just, they make it seem like anyone can do, and I'm using software development.

You could choose any, just about any white collar job and it would fit here. And they make it seem like it's so effortless. But as someone who's knee deep in this stuff. You gotta really know what you're doing to make it actually do anything worth a darn, and I just wish someone would be honest about that.

[00:21:40] Chris: They're trying to get more clicks and views, right? It wouldn't be as exciting to say I made something that was good and had to make it better myself.

[00:21:48] David: It's just interesting 'cause I I have gotten some really. It's been hard on me personally recently, all of this news about anthropic and open AI and military stuff.

And I'm not trying to make it political, but it, there's just a lot going on and it's all around all of this stuff and it makes you think, do you want to side with one of these guys? 'cause one of these is gonna be the winner. I don't know. Or maybe both in some diminished capacity. I think it's really interesting, like OpenAI seems to be going, I want to be everything to everyone at all times.

And to do that, they gotta become a trillion dollar per year company. Not trillion dollar, but revenue of a trillion dollars to make their promises real. And philanthropic is we're just gonna build this thing for B2B and it's gonna be profitable, but it's not gonna be. A gazillion, trillion dollar company.

And there's some lines in the sands that Anthro is willing to do. And you're getting to see that play out really clearly right now. Anthro saying, we won't do this, and open AI is Hey, we will. They're just, we'll, we, because they need the money, right? They can't say no. And again, I'm not saying one, whether right one is right or wrong at this point, I'm just saying it's, you get a really stark feeling for what's happening.

[00:23:01] Chris: Yeah, I, I think open AI is at risk of going the way of Netscape. 

[00:23:06] David: Oh my gosh, I've said that same thing. Oh wow.

[00:23:08] Chris: yeah. It's and the, it'll still be a wonderful big company like whenever things correct, but there's a good chance that it'll not live up to the full promise that they're trying to make people believe.

Is there.

[00:23:21] David: Now I'm gonna, I'm gonna drill in on you 'cause you pulled out Netflix. Not Netflix. Ha. You pulled out Netscape. Netscape died. Are you going so far to say that Open AI will be a footnote like Netscape is, or are you saying they're just not gonna live to the potential?

[00:23:37] Chris: It's possible, right? Like once, 'cause they have so many investors and all these, crazy valuations. And so when that kind of goes bottom up, then you never know which way the company is gonna end up going, so it could be a footnote or it, if they just let it live on, then it could just be at a diminished capacity.

But, I think Google and Gemini is, the sleeping giant that was caught off guard initially, but, they're gonna be one of the, one

[00:24:02] David: They invented this stuff. People keep forgetting that they invented the T in GPT and they're, they seem like they got caught flatfooted 'cause they did, but it's not because they didn't know what was going to happen. They just didn't want to pull the trigger until they made it safe and OpenAI

[00:24:17] Chris: Why disrupt the search business when we don't have to when.

[00:24:20] David: And I think 

[00:24:21] Gary: And it seems like, 

[00:24:22] David: go ahead.

[00:24:23] Gary: I was gonna say, it seems like while Apple was kind of caught with their pants down, not doing anything with ai their, I guess, use of Gemini now use of Google or their partnership with them is probably gonna even make Google's. AI stepped forward a little bit stronger 

[00:24:39] Chris: For sure.

[00:24:40] Gary: to be. 

[00:24:40] David: I don't see how Google is not at least number two. Just purely based on distribution, whether their bought is the best, but they literally can just shove it in your face all day, every day. And there's nothing you can do about it. If you own an iPhone, it's gonna be in your face and you're not gonna know it's there.

But they don't care. They're getting billions from it. It is just, and again, whether or not philanthropic or open ai or any of these other guys show up in any real manner, you cannot stop Google as. Just Google. It's just you can't go. And I think what Gary and I have talked about many times is it seemed like, oh, apple dropped the ball, but I'm not sure that was a ball they really wanted to carry.

At the end of the day, they didn't have to spend half a trillion dollars on software. They can just go buy it from someone else. Like they didn't build a search engine and they're still a $4 trillion company. They're doing fine. I don't 

[00:25:36] Gary: Yeah, I think they were probably waiting to see who was gonna make the right, 

[00:25:41] David: See, I think you're giving them too much credit. I think they absolutely wanted to spend the half a trillion dollars. I think they tried and failed and now they're just like, I'm out. I think they

[00:25:50] Gary: Yeah. But I think they tried, they tried to do. it their way though, with the privacy and the security, and I. don't think it was working with the tools that were available at the time. Like, because unless they built their own LLMs,

[00:26:01] David: they

[00:26:01] Gary: had To plug into other ones that weren't. Well, I 

[00:26:03] David: they did try to do that and they failed miserably and that's fine. It's really hard. 

[00:26:08] Gary: true. Yeah. 

[00:26:09] David: It's really hard. I'm not taking it back. It's 

[00:26:11] Gary: look, I just want Siri to work better, 

[00:26:13] Chris: no.

[00:26:13] Gary: if Siri could work as good as the Google Assistant, then yeah, I'm all late. 

[00:26:17] Chris: They had to make a go of it. And unfortunately it didn't pan out, but what Apple is really best at is not being first to market. They come in after the fact with a much more elegant solution. And and so yeah, by partnering on that side of things, I think they'll weave it in nicely and it'll be nice.

[00:26:34] David: I think in the end, I think they're gonna win in their own way. They're not gonna be in that fight, but I think they're gonna be standing on their shoulders and they're gonna probably have a very nice. Implementation of Gemini, that's gonna make Android people really jealous. That's my assumption. I could be wrong, but it's, it'll be very interesting.

Anyway, I've gone way off topic. I'm so sorry, but I think it's worth talk. I'm talking to smart people. I should get their opinions about and about stuff. Gary, wrap us up here.

[00:27:02] Gary: All right, Chris. So with your nine years of experience with Segundo I'm sure that maybe there was some bumps along the way or there was some learning you had to do once you got started. So if you can look back now and then come up with three pieces of advice for tomorrow's entrepreneur, what would you say? 

[00:27:22] Chris: Yeah, we've certainly had our bumps in the road. I think everyone should bootstrap and

[00:27:28] David: man, after my own heart.

[00:27:30] Chris: I don't mean necessarily forever. Because some businesses require capital, or you may, be at a point where capital can really make a difference in the growth of the business. But I think too many people jump to capital as a crutch and if more people bootstrapped from the beginning for as long as you possibly can.

You may either find, you don't need to raise money or you're just able to get far better terms because you're, you've got much more attraction. So I think I think bootstrapping is an undersung kind of hero of startups, all the VC guys get the Buzz, but we need to talk about bootstrapping more.

[00:28:11] David: Here.

[00:28:11] Chris: With that I think people need to, or entrepreneurs need to downsize their expectations. I think they need to, not their ambitions, just their expectations. So it's gonna take longer than you think. It's gonna cost more than you think. You need to be willing to downsize your life, if that's what it takes to keep the business going.

If your lifestyle is dependent on a big salary. And you're not willing to change that behavior, then you're not likely gonna do so well in the entrepreneurship game. So I think downsizing is an important mindset to be scrappy and last longer in, in this game. Lastly, I would say to invest in culture and values sooner than you think.

I think it's a very important part of running a business and and something that you should invest in heavily and pay attention to and always keep, pruning and making better. And yeah, it really matters when you start to grow.

[00:29:12] Gary: All very good pieces of advice. 

[00:29:14] David: Man, I love it.

[00:29:15] Gary: So, Chris, if, if anybody wants to learn more about you or about Suno or perhaps how to add it to their Shopify store, where's the best place to find you guys? 

[00:29:23] Chris: Yeah, so we're at segundo.com, S-E-G-U-N o.com. And you can find me on LinkedIn or X as the kids call it these days. And yeah, CP guys, so yeah, happy to connect if you're local here, let's grab a coffee if I can be helpful. But yeah, thanks so much for having me, guys.

[00:29:42] Gary: will make sure those links are in the show notes as Well, 

[00:29:46] David: Thank you very much for joining us. This has been a lot of fun. Sorry for nerding out, but I just it felt it needed to happen, so I appreciate it.

[00:29:52] Chris: Yeah happy to. Thanks guys.

[00:29:55] David: And on that note, we are out. Thank you everybody. We'll be back next week. Have a good one.

[00:29:59] OUTRO: That wraps up this episode of the Biz Dev Podcast, and this time you get me, Jen Baxter, co-owner of Big Pixel and David's Wife. Yep. I finally took the mic or rusted it away from David. Biz Dev is a production of Big Pixel, a US-based provider of UX design strategy, and custom software. This podcast is edited by Audio Wiz Matt McCracken and Christie Pronto marketing guru for Big Pixel.

Want to connect, shoot us an email at hello@thebigpixel.net. Or find us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.