🌐 Justin's Blog

GapScout – My New Business

August 16, 2022

Well, that didn’t take long.

Closing in on one-year since the sale of LearnDash, and I am jumping back into the software industry. This time, with a micro-SaaS as opposed to WordPress.

I’ll discuss a little about the why, but first let’s talk about what.

Meet GapScout!

In a sentence, GapScout is the easiest way to identify the profitable gaps in a market. It does this by analyzing reviews of your product or service and highlighting common themes & opportunities.

Reviews are a goldmine for a business. Not only your own reviews, but the reviews of your competitors as well. They can reveal desired features, opportunity areas, and influence your sales messaging so that you are saying the right thing, to the right people, at the right time.

From experience, I can tell you that sifting through reviews and knowing what to look for can be confusing and time-consuming. Especially if you are a solopreneur or a small business. GapScout systemizes the process and does the heavy-lifting for you. All you need to do is decide which action to take with your newfound insights.

When I was running LearnDash, I was constantly keeping an eye on the pulse of the market. What people were saying about my product, and also my competition. As a result, I was able to:

Improve my current offers
Find new opportunities
Spy on competitors
Improve sales copy

This was my secret sauce. I know it works, and I am excited to be building a solution that lets others benefit from it as well.

Sounds cool, but why start a software company (again)?

When my role with LearnDash ended, I was able to catch my breath. I’ll admit, I was a little burnt out from doing software (especially, WordPress). As I searched for inspiration outside of tech, I was originally attracted to land investing. Truth is, it’s something I’ve been interested in doing for a long time.

I was just about to pull the trigger on my business (everything was set up), but I stopped. Something didn’t feel right. I don’t know how to explain it, but I knew that I needed to pump the brakes again for some more self-reflection.

I realized that what energizes me the most, what I love to do, is to compete. To think creatively, to give people tremendous value, and to try to “win” in the game of business. The absolute best place for me to express this desire has been in software. It’s fun for me, but only if I believe in the software that I am building & selling.

I feel this way with GapScout. I completely believe in the value it can provide solopreneurs and small businesses selling services or products. I can’t wait to help people make more sales!

Even though it’s only the beginning of this journey, the response I have been getting from folks has been overwhelmingly positive. They want this product, and I’m excited to bring it to fruition.

If GapScout sounds cool to you, and you’re interested in getting early access, you can sign-up here. An early, pre-beta phase is targeted for the October/November timeframe.

Also, I am building GapScout in public, so if you like occasional updates, then follow me on Twitter as I post insights into the process there frequently.

#entrepreneurship

Spontaneous Spanish

July 10, 2022

I am often very hard on myself when it comes to learning Spanish, so I want to take a moment and recognize a breakthrough that I had with the language.

Are You Justifying Renewals?

July 2, 2022

The revenue engine behind most companies is renewal income. Be it a food delivery service or software, compounding renewals is what helps move up your bottom floor up year-over-year.

But the thing that many entrepreneurs don’t realize is that the process of selling customers on your product initially is different from selling customers on the renewal purchase. In theory, selling an existing customer should be easier than getting a new one, but only if you do it right!

Emotional Messaging vs. Validating Actions

I really enjoy the process of positioning a brand. It was my favorite part of running LearnDash, and I got pretty good at it.

What I enjoyed most is that it forced me to be creative, discover gaps in the market, and create messaging around emotional triggers that get people genuinely excited to make a purchase.

But if your product has a renewal (you should), the sales validation process is different. Specifically, you need to move from emotional messaging to validating by actions, and the best way to do this is by:

Making customer requested improvements to your product.
Effectively communicating these improvements.

Making continual improvements to your product is a given, but you should be thinking about two audiences with these efforts: new customers and current ones.

New functionality designed to bring in more customers is a natural part of any marketing strategy. To remain competitive in a market, you need to be current with the latest trends. This is where you use your intuition to develop (and position) your product accordingly.

Features that you develop for current customers are not a waste of time or effort. In fact, these kinds of releases are more beneficial than features designed solely for bringing in new customers. If you please your current customers, then they are more likely to give you that word-of-mouth marketing that companies dream of, and that is way more valuable than any paid ad campaign.

But aside from this benefit, creating functionality that your customers ask for is a surefire way to keep them around.

Look, there are an endless number of software solutions available today. Some are dirt-cheap, so competing on price isn’t going to get you anywhere.

What does get you somewhere is your responsiveness and willingness to hear out the use-cases of your customers, and then use those drive a portion of your development. This reinforces a customer’s initial decision to purchase your product (people hate to be wrong). It shows them that you are committed to them and their success.

You Need to Bring the Hype!

More important than anything (and I cannot stress this enough), you need to over-communicate what it is you are doing, specifically why it matters to your customers.

This is where most businesses get it wrong.

They listen to customers and develop “crowd pleasing” functionality, but then they suck at getting the word out about it. They fire off an email and that’s about it. I mean, if you do the bare minimum, then expect a bare minimum response.

While it’s not necessary for every release you do, at least once a quarter you should be building a robust marketing hype train with your new releases. Things like:

Teasing the new functionality on social media with screenshots.
Creating pre-release videos to share with customers.
Working with your affiliates to notify them of the new functionality, why it’s good, and how they can spread the word.
Doing live webinars to show the new stuff in action.
Creating a release blog post and video(s) to show it all off.
Holding post-release webinars to demonstrate further.
Sharing case studies with the new functionality in action.
Running re-retargeting campaigns.
Having a limited time sale in conjunction with the announcement.
Emailing people who didn’t open your initial email (several times).
Contacting folks who let their license expire and give them a limited-time discount to jump back on board with your product.

Honestly, the above is just scratching the surface on what you should be doing. If you’re excited, that will get other people excited. You show people you are excited by making a lot of noise, plain and simple.

Keep your current customers excited, and they will reward you by sticking around.

The excitement you generate with your releases translates to new customers (because of the hype) but it also shows your commitment to existing ones.

When their renewal hits, they’ll remember that you keep giving them a return on investment. You’ll be giving folks FOMO if they don't renew. People who let their account expire will jump back on board (you should be emailing old customers about the exciting stuff you’re doing).

You need to over-communicate.

You need to beat your own drum and never stop.

Remember that you are competing with an infinite number of other options out there — it pays to be the loudest one in the room.

#WordPress #entrepreneurship

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That Just Happened

June 25, 2022

It’s a sad time to be an American.

Well, “embarrassing” is probably a better word.

As if the insanity of weekly mass shootings wasn’t enough, Roe v. Wade was overturned, thrusting the country back 50-years into an America of yesteryear.

It’s no secret: I’m not a Republican. If someone were to ever call me one, I would be deeply offended, an insult among insults. Republican policy today is why the entire world looks at us like we’re crazy. In fact, the only thing that Republicans do well is pass legislation, and it is scary. as. fuck.

I’ve been asking myself: where in the holy hell are all the Democrats? How is it possible that the Democrats have a majority in the government yet still are getting their asses handed to them by the Republican Party? In the past 20 years, Obamacare is the only significant Democratic legislation passed, and even that has been shredded into pieces by the powerhouse that is the GOP.

As I quickly approach “midlife”, I am keenly aware that I don’t have anything in common with half of my country.

When I was a kid, I drank the American exceptionalism Kool-Aid. We were all Americans, united, living in the greatest country on the planet. That sentiment.

By name, yes, we are all Americans. But there are two, very distinct Americas. Two ideologies. Two worldviews. Only one of them supports civil and social liberties that are beneficial to the greater good (spoiler: it’s not the party that advocates for the sale of high-powered assault rifles).

Like everyone, I have some people in my life who vote Republican. I have to admit, it makes me question everything about them. Even with their education, they say things like:

I prefer small government, that’s why I vote Republican.

Maybe that was the case in 1950, but it sure as hell isn’t the case anymore. A quick look at the Federal deficit over the past 25 years is evidence of that.

What folks are really saying is that they believe minorities and underrepresented segments of the population are in the situation they are in because of some fault of their own, and they don’t deserve any help. It’s a mix of ignorance, racism, classism, and denial. It’s the result of people living in a fantasy land. It’s deeply woven in the fabric of American exceptionalism and “The American dream” propaganda.

If you vote for today’s Republican Party, then you are in support of all of this nonsense. You help to put the people in power that continue to strip women and minorities of their fundamental human rights. You are on the wrong side of history, and should be deeply ashamed.

But alas, those who vote Republican don’t feel this way. They’ll do the usual mental gymnastics to justify their actions. However, if you peel back a few layers of the onion, you quickly see where they are out of touch, or in denial, about the realities of this country.

Finding my America.

As I write this, Lorena and I are living in Texas, but we are getting the hell out of here. I am certain that will make the majority of the populace happy, as they don’t want our liberal mindset anyhow. They want their out-of-touch-Ted-Cruz version of America, and they can have it.

California will eventually be our home, and once we settle in, I will personally be doing a little soul-searching. There is a part of me that is starting to grow tired of sitting on the sidelines as people get continually marginalized by the uneducated. Real change happens when real people get into the game – be it in politics or social causes.

#personal

Beauty in Stillness

June 7, 2022

When I was a kid, my parents enrolled me into sports year-round. In the fall I was playing soccer, winter basketball, spring was baseball and soccer, and in the summer I went to soccer camps.

There was a method to this madness. Truth is, I was a pretty mischievous kid and easily found trouble if my time wasn’t filled (even with all these sports, I still managed to drive my parents crazy 😆).

The sports let me spend my energy productively, and aside from filling my time, I learned about setting goals, how to deal with disappointment, discipline, how to get along with others, how to show respect, and how to follow directions.

I took this same “be busy” attitude into my teenage years and early adulthood. It served me well. But it wasn’t until I was a little older, wiser maybe, that I started to reflect upon this “fill my time” culture and realized that, despite its upsides, it has some pretty troubling downsides as well.

Choose Nothing

Doing nothing and just “being” is a valid, arguably more productive use of time.

Perhaps it’s an American thing, or a Western Culture concept, but it seems like we dislike “idle time”. We fill it with tasks, activities, apps, and projects.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these things. Everyone needs something to keep them mentally sharp. But what about those times in your life when you don’t have anything planned?

Instead of filling that time, or stressing about an expectation to do something, what if you left that time empty instead, giving yourself permission to not do anything?

I have learned to do this over the past few months, and while it’s not always easy, I think it has been a net positive for my mental well-being. When I am not thinking about “future land”, I am forced to live in the present. I have the opportunity to appreciate the ones I am with, and to fully capture the little moments. I am fully appreciating the gift of time.

Don’t Make Plans

Have you ever tried not to plan out a day and then to live that day with a present mindset? It’s harder than you think!

Look, I get it, planning our days and weeks makes us feel like we are productive, and feeling productive makes us feel good. I’m not implying that being busy is a bad way to live your life. However, it just can’t be the only way to live.

You may find something else difficult about not making plans for one day: it won’t stop other people from trying to fill your day with plans! This can actually be a little overwhelming, but remember that you are in control of your time. Put up a boundary and stick to it.

Live in the current moment with your “no plan” day. If you’re tired, take a nap. If you’re bored, read a book for a bit. Go for a walk. Get a little exercise if you feel up for it. Finally, spend some time just sitting. Reflect and/or meditate. Just be at peace.

You don’t have to be alone during this time. Enjoy the company of others. Have a meal with friends or family. Play with your kids. Embrace the beauty of living with intention and in the moment.

Most importantly: don’t stress about the future because that isn’t guaranteed anyhow. And don’t dwell on the past because what’s done is done.

Just be present and grateful for the time that you have. You will find that without all of that extra weight on your mind, you will have more energy when you return to your planning ways!

#mindfulness

My Battle for Fluency

June 3, 2022

We are coming close to halfway through 2022, and I’m checking in on my progress with Spanish. I have been writing about my goals on this site for some time, and I tend to be very honest with my status, probably even a little harsh.

My goal is to eventually look back at these posts, hopefully when I’m effortlessly fluent, and remember the journey that it took to get to that point. I don’t care what you read or hear: learning a second language takes a lot of consistent effort.

So, with that in mind… how are things going?

On pace to meet my conversational fluency goal.

In January, I wrote my Spanish goals for 2022 where the overall goal was to be at an advanced B2 level (possibly even low C1) by the end of the year.

As of right now, I am at a low B2 level when it comes to speaking, which is close to the first level of official fluency. That said, it can vary on the conversation topic and time of day. I still get caught up in certain situations and I sometimes have to think a little too much. I believe that I am on pace to meet an intermediate to advanced B2 level for speaking by the end of the year.

Regarding listening, I am finding that the language is slowing down for me, so I am able to better understand what people are saying to me, and I am also quicker to say what I want to say with less time spent translating in my head. While this isn’t always the case (sometimes I have days when it’s just not clicking), this level of comfort with the language is starting to become my norm – and it’s incredibly encouraging!

There are a few things that have helped me over the past five or six months to get to this point:

More structured lessons with my teacher
Watching Las Chicas del Cable on Netflix
Speaking with strangers

First and foremost, my lessons with my tutor have been more structured than last year, but admittedly, not as structured as when I started. However, I think this is due to the fact that I now have the ability to just shoot-the-shit in Spanish. Sometimes I don’t feel like a formal lesson, so we just chat about whatever. I need to get a little more disciplined though for the remainder of the year if I want to progress grammatically.

Next, I have found that watching Spanish shows on Netflix have really been beneficial for my comprehension. Specifically, Lorena and I have been watching Las Chicas del Cable, a very dramatic and interesting show taking place in the 1920s in Spain at a telephone company.

The actors have a Spain accent (as opposed to one from Mexico, which I am more accustomed to), and they speak about a million miles per hour. I use Spanish subtitles, so I can try to grasp the conversations, which isn’t always easy. Luckily, I have Lorena to help clarify what is going on when I run into trouble. I think this has had one of the biggest impacts on my Spanish so far this year, and it was pretty unexpected!

Finally, this year, I have been putting myself out there more and starting up conversations with strangers in Spanish. There is a delicate balance here because I never want to offend anyone by implying they don’t speak English well. Usually, I ask if they speak Spanish and depending on their reaction, I’ll switch over. I suppose another good option would be to just let them know that I am studying, and if they would be okay if I practiced.

Despite making good progress in these areas, I know that I could (and should) be doing more.

While I am pleased with the progress I have made by using the methods just mentioned, I know that I could be doing more to progress quicker in the language. I don't know, sometimes I just lose motivation. I suppose that is normal, but it frustrates me just the same.

By way of example, I haven’t posted on my Spanish blog (Gringocios) on a regular basis. I think it’s perhaps because the subject of the site is boring me a bit (business and entrepreneurship). The world has plenty of people pontificating – I don’t want to just be another person adding to the noise. I think I need to consider diversifying my post topics, and perhaps that will get me back on track.

I also have taken a step back from reading, which is sad because I think reading books in Spanish is probably the one thing that helps me the most. I’ll be honest, I have never been much of a reader, so I think therein is the issue.

That said, I recently purchased few books and just finished one. They are small, short stories designed for people who are learning the language. It’s more difficult to find these books given that my current level (I search for those written at a B2 level) but I find them to be incredibly helpful in understanding grammatical structures.

My commitment to vocabulary flash cards hasn’t been strong so far this year. I take notes on vocab words during my lessons, but I haven’t been revisiting them on a regular basis. Recently, I have started to change this, and I am slowly catching up with all my flash cards.

Finally, I admit that I don’t talk to Lorena enough in Spanish. We say some things to each other during a day in Spanish, but primarily we speak in English. This is my fault. I need to commit to speaking more with her, so I get practice speaking on different topics.

I plan to start telling her a story every day in Spanish. Something small to begin, but perhaps over time we expand that to more. I just have to commit to it.

The journey never ends, but I am starting to get somewhere.

Learning Spanish will be a lifelong journey, and I know that I’ll never feel like I am “done”, but at this point, I feel like I am getting somewhere with all the effort that I have been putting into it.

I have always wanted to have conversations without much strain for the other person, and I am starting to experience that on a more regular basis. I hope that soon this becomes even more effortless.

I look forward to the end of the year and to seeing where I am no up with my level. If I supplement what I am doing with some of the opportunity areas I mentioned, then I am sure I’ll be at an excellent place heading into 2023.

#personal

One-Year Anniversary

May 31, 2022

It’s hard to believe that a year ago, Lorena and I have were married in front of family and close friends! So much has happened in our first year of marriage.

Right after we were married last year, we had an opportunity to see my brother in Colorado (he was visiting his in laws), and then we went to Mexico for an extended amount of time. After those trips, we lived life as a newly married couple, traveling around to family for the holidays and creating memories together in Texas.

I feel so incredibly fortunate that we found each other. Every day, I am reminded how much I love her, and my heart still skips a beat whenever she smiles at me.

Here’s to an incredible year number two, I can’t wait to see how it unfolds!

#personal

Becoming Godparents

May 8, 2022

This week Lorena and I arrived in Mexico to visit family, and to attend the presentation of our nephew, Diego, in the Catholic Church. In the ceremony, we were also confirmed as Diego’s Godparents. I am incredibly honored that my sister-in-law asked us to take on this role.

After the ceremony, there was a celebration with Lorena’s family (and let me just say, she has a huge family). I met family members that I have yet to meet, so I really enjoyed that. This also gave me an opportunity to further practice my Spanish. I must say that Spanish is coming along decently. The language is slowing down for me at times, making communication less stressful. I still have a long way to go, though.

We’ll be staying here in Mexico for an extended amount of time. In not so pleasant news, Lorena’s aunt Mica passed away after a hard fight with cancer. I had the opportunity to meet her last year when we visited Chicago for Christmas. We are awaiting word on when her ceremony will be back here in Mexico. She was a beautiful person, and even though I only met her once, I will miss her.

The trip is full of plans with friends and family, and also we will be going to Cancun for our one-year anniversary. I can’t believe it has already been a year, and what a year it has been!

#personal

Choosing a Security System

May 3, 2022

Well, it finally happened. The news in this country has pushed me to purchase a security system. These companies are selling piece of mind, and I’m buying!

Over the past month or so, I have been poking around with security systems. This is a really cool industry with numerous major players. Just as many review sites and YouTubers as well! You can quickly go down a rabbit hole trying to determine what is “best” for you.

For me, “the best” means having some cameras in place to detect activity inside and outside the home. I thought for a while that it would make sense to have an alarm system as well, but that feels a little unnecessary with the cameras. I also saw that some studies have shown that anyone who wants to break into your place isn't really concerned about alarms.

In any event, I decided to go with just some cameras. There are about a dozen recommended brands on the market – each with extensive reviews and opinions in Reddit. Of course, in my typical fashion, I ended up going with one of the brands that isn’t nearly as popular as the top five. 😆

Sticking with my newfound paranoia, I’m not going to share the brand of camera I purchased. Because you know… bad guys!

While I was on this shopping spree, I also decided to purchase a mesh router. I didn’t even know what this was until doing research on cameras. I guess it’ll help the signal of your internet (including to your cameras).

So, here’s to both getting safer and getting rid of those pesky internet dead zones!

#personal

Investing in Land

April 22, 2022

If you are like most people, then at some point in your life you have considered owning real estate.

Even people who don’t consider themselves to be entrepreneurs find real estate an attractive concept because it’s an easy business model to wrap your head around. Own a couple of low-maintenance residential rentals and let that other person pay off the mortgage while building equity.

Sounds great on paper, but as anyone who does this will tell you, things don’t always run smoothly.

I just need to look to my parents. During the recession of 2008, they purchase a few foreclosed condos. They are in a nice area with low crime and good schools. Even still, there is constantly something to be taken care of. Like the time their renter was literally stabbed by their crazy ass ex-husband, and was late on the rent by a few months because of the whole ordeal. I mean, there isn’t a book that can teach you how to deal with that.

When you peel back the onion, the reality is that real estate is not for the faint of heart. While it’s a great way to build wealth, it is not passive by any means. Depending on your property and the person renting, you may end up sinking insane amounts of time and money into the property to the point where you barely break-even.

I want to build wealth in real estate, but I prefer not to deal with the bullsh*t of having renters.

Upgrading appliances, fixing sinks, evicting squatters… I don’t have time for this. Okay, scratch that. I have time, but I want to spend my time dealing with it.

Still, the idea of real estate is very appealing to me, especially as I am completely burnt out from anything to do with the software industry, especially WordPress. As someone who started and sold a software business, there is something therapeutic about owning physical real estate. Like, you can touch it. It’s real. You can actually see the asset. Most importantly, it’s proven as the world’s oldest way to generate wealth – be it for a side income or a financial empire.

So, for me, it’s land > rental properties.

That’s not to say it’s all rainbows and butterflies. Land has its ups and downs, like any industry. But what I find refreshing is that the business model is straight-forward, with less complexity than other profitable industries.

Also, land is less impacted by the housing market. It is a little as you can imagine, but seeing as banks don’t generally provide loans for land in the first place, it creates additional opportunity for seller financing of deals (which has an added benefit of spacing out capital gains tax on a short-term flip).

I have already got the wheels in motion for this journey. I started off by getting the legal entities set-up and the business presence. All the software I am going to use initially has been configured and is ready to go. I’m also taking courses and getting up-to-speed with the basics because I don’t have a background in this business. Though honestly, that’s never stopped me in the past.

2012: "I don't know how to code, how can I start a software company? Ah, screw it, doing it anyway."

Result: ?

2022: "I don't know about land investing, how can I start a land investment company? Ah screw it, doing it anyway."

Result: #entrepreneurship
— Justin Ferriman (@JustinFerriman) April 19, 2022

If I know anything about my learning style, I am a “ready-fire-aim” kind of guy. Give me the basics, and let me start working it. I know that I’ll make mistakes along the way, but I don’t sweat those as I know it’s a learning opportunity (I made a crap-ton of mistakes when running a software company, and everything worked out just fine).

Want to learn how to make money from land investing?

If you find the concept of land investing interesting, and you don’t want to worry about renters or fixing sinks, then I encourage you to follow along as I share what I learn!

I won’t be writing about it here too much, as this is my personal site and I use it to write about a variety of topics.

I started a newsletter where I document my journey in building a land investment business from scratch – with no prior experience. Think of it as my online journal of lessons learned, from “hell yes” to “oh sh*t”, and everything in between. Things like…

The strategies I use to find deals
Business set-up & tools
Marketing strategies
Growing a team
Automation of tasks
Making money buying & selling land

I hope you follow along with me, I promise you will learn something along the way!

#entrepreneurship