🌐 Justin's Blog

Allow me to paint a scenario…

You have passed the first six-months as a software startup. You have paying customers, and there is some buzz around your product. Your customers are pretty happy, and surprisingly understanding to the fact that your product still lacks some functionality compared to the competition.

Naturally, you want to repay them for their dedication and trust. You want them to know that you are listening to them, so you decide to publicly publish your product’s roadmap, so they can see what you are working towards.

They are happy, and you are energized. Everything is good!

The truth is, product roadmaps can be helpful in the first year of business, but then become a liability.

In the early years of a business, product roadmaps are a good way to get (and keep) people excited about your software, but at the end of the day, they do more harm than good – particularly in competitive markets.

When I was running LearnDash, I used to always look at my competitors roadmaps to see what they were working on. It gave me insight into what they (and their customers) thought was most important.

But here’s the thing. Occasionally, there were times when I would swipe their ideas and get it to market quicker. In the process, snapping up more market share and tempting their users to come over to my product.

Any worthwhile industry will be competitive, and public product roadmaps are the equivalent to showing your competition your cards before you even play, giving them an opportunity to play their hand accordingly.

Public roadmaps can frustrate customers.

I think most entrepreneurs think that having a roadmap available is a way to give customers confidence in the direction of the business. It shows movement and dedication. This is certainly true to a degree.

But what is often overlooked is that the roadmap can also be a source of frustration for customers. This is particularly true if it does not include features that they really want or believe are necessary. Worse, they may disagree with the entire direction and think that you’re out of touch with the market.

I know this to be true because I experienced it first-hand. I once had a roadmap where I shared the development priorities. For a while (during the first year of business) it was a value-add. However, I noticed that people would write into support increasingly frustrated with the roadmap.

From what I recall, the complaints fell into one of the following areas:

• They wanted a certain feature that was not on it.
• They thought it was taking too long for features in development.
• They didn’t think it was being consistently updated.

I noticed that the more vocal critics would often cite the roadmap in their public complaints, which meant that I had to jump in and “defend the roadmap” at times in lengthy back & forth conversations. Both sides getting more and more frustrated.

This experience made me realize that the roadmap had a negative impact on the business and just gave any customer who was already annoyed fuel for their fire.

So, I scrapped it and immediately didn’t have to deal with any of that BS anymore.

Customers hardly noticed its absence.

Product roadmaps are a distraction.

Look, many folks love having a roadmap for customers. If it is working for them, then that’s great.

But they aren’t necessary. In fact, they are more often a distraction for both you and your customers. They also give your competition some incredible insights.

So, if you never had a roadmap and feel like you need to add one, then I’m here to tell you that it’s okay to bypass it and just focus on more important parts of your business.

#entrepreneurship

Ever since I was around 18-years-old, I have been trying my hand at starting new businesses. I recall coming home after my first semester of college and working over the holiday on a website and info product. I loved every second of it, but I was beyond naive.

As you would expect, nothing came from that effort. I went on to fall for pyramid schemes, bought an endless number of info products on making money online, and started countless other projects that never went anywhere.

I look back fondly on this time because with each effort, I was learning something new that would help me later in my entrepreneurial career. I got practice building a website, honing my sales messages, networking, blogging, and building a brand.

During the summers of those university years, I worked as an intern at a large company creating e-learning, which actually was the beginning of a lucrative career path. I had a cubical and wore the “uniform” (dress shirt & pants with a key badge attached to my hip). I was there to learn the ways of corporate America.

Except, I was hardly doing work.

I would spend my eight, long hours searching the internet for business opportunities and brainstorming ideas. When my boss would walk by, I’d quickly pull up my email or some random Excel document. My dad used to ask me how my days were going, and I would tell him about all the businesses I wanted to start. It drove him crazy!

While I put in the bare minimum regarding the work, my internships did teach me something: I learned that I did not want a corporate career.

Eventually, I had my first taste of success.

None of my projects produced any money. Maybe $5 here or there, but nothing substantial.

That changed when I was in grad school.

I had already secured a job with Accenture, but I still had another semester to go. I was in bed one night. I think it was around the beginning of February. It was dark outside, with snow on the ground. I was about to fall asleep, and it hit me…

Free domain names!

Ha, it’s funny to think back on this now, but I was convinced this was a revolutionary idea at the time. I mean, who wants to pay $10 or more for a domain when you can get it for free, right?? 😆

The business model was pretty simple:

1. Get someone to tell me the domain they want

2. They sign up for CPA offer

3. I got paid a commission from the company, and used it to buy their domain name

I found someone to build my website for $300-500, then used Dreamweaver (remember that?) to make edits as needed. On the homepage, I had a field where someone could enter the domain that they wanted. This field would check to see if that domain was available, and if so, a button would appear for them to register.

Sounds basic, but in 2008 this was super slick. It was very “Web 2.0”.

Even though I was pretty familiar with WordPress at that point, I started a blog on Blogger instead.

My blog posts were bad. I mean, terrible. They were mostly all about self-promotion. No images or anything engaging, just short 250-word blog posts.

But the real magic came with… wait for it… MySpace.

Yes, you read that right. MySpace.

There were chat rooms on MySpace for various interests, one of them being business and entrepreneurship. I would participate in those chat room (most of the time, it was people just sharing their MLM programs).

Through the noise, though, there were folks who were looking to set-up their own website. Of course, they needed a domain, so I would chat with them.

My efforts paid off. I made $40-$120 per day with this strategy, and it was only the first month or so!

As you can imagine, I was pretty freaking excited! I had a job waiting for me in consulting after grad school, but I was seriously thinking about going all-in with this new success. Success that I finally achieved after so many years of trial-and-error.

So, I kept doing my thing, making good money by just sharing with people my new business. All was good in the world. I had my taste of success and a ton of confidence.

But I came crashing down from my high when payouts were due.

Reality hit hard when the company that was giving me the commissions nullified about 85% of them, which meant that I actually was operating at a loss after buying the domains for the customers!

Ugh…

It felt like someone punched me in the stomach. I called the CPA network and tried to reason with them, but it was a lost cause. They said the leads I had produced were not “high quality”. So, the business was sinking before it even had a chance to begin. I was only a few months away now from starting my consulting career.

In the end, I configured the site to use another CPA program that would pay me per email lead ($1 per email). It made about $300/mo passively. After three months, I sold it for $3500 on Flippa. A small success, but not the one that I had hoped for.

Reluctantly, I started my consulting career. It paid well and had great benefits, it just wasn’t what I wanted. That said, I was doing e-learning consulting and I did enjoy that industry. Little did I know it would translate to me finally achieving my dream with LearnDash.

Entrepreneurs never fail, they just learn.

I’ll admit, the side hustles that didn’t work out felt like failures at the time, but now that I have more perspective I see that these were not failures but rather lessons learned along the way.

True entrepreneurs never stop. We keep trying. There is a burning desire that cannot be satisfied by a normal 9-5 job. I kept trying, taking the tactics and lessons learned from previous endeavors with me and applying them to new ones until it all came together: my interests, skills, and market timing.

Because that’s the thing… if you never stop, you’re bound to get the timing right eventually. There is not a single entrepreneur out there who found success on their very first attempt. I tried countless times until finally getting it right.

Now that I have had experience with LearnDash at all parts of the business process, I am taking those lessons with me as I start GapScout. Entrepreneurship is about continuous improvement. Learning from past mistakes, and then using those experiences to be better.

#entrepreneurship

Unlike most folks who move from California to Texas, we are going the other way around. Earlier this year, Lorena and I purchased a new home in California. We are transitioning there this year and beginning in January, it will officially be our primary residence.

I will always have a special place in my heart for Austin, as it’s the place where we got married and officially started our life together. It was our home base as we travelled during the heart of the pandemic to visit family in Mexico, Michigan, Connecticut, and Colorado.

But ultimately, we both really value gorgeous weather, and SoCal has the best weather in the country. The culture is more in line with what we prefer as well. Plus, I mean… you can’t beat the ocean.

I am excited to settle in California and start this next phase of life together.

Seeya, Texas… it’s been real.

Real hot. 👎

#personal

For as long as I can remember, I have loved to win. I despise losing, so much so that it has always motivated me to outperform my competitors. I suspect that this started as a young child, when my parents enrolled me into every sport imaginable.

I vividly remember one day before a tee ball game, I asked my dad, “who are we fighting today?”

I was five years old.

He corrected me, explaining that we aren’t fighting anyone, but simply playing a game. I was confused, there was no difference in my mind.

If there is one thing I love about entrepreneurship that isn’t mentioned frequently, it’s the thrill of competing (and winning). I suppose some might describe this mentality as “old school”, especially as it relates to business. I believe there are winners and losers, and not everyone gets a trophy because not every has earned one.

When I am in a competition that I care about, I go hard. If you get one over on me, then I acknowledge it and respect your victory – but you better believe that I’m coming back, and even harder.

For me, there is no better way to show respect than by giving an opponent your absolute best. You show respect by running up the score. In business, that means getting more market share, winning customers of competing products, and being the go-to solution in a segment.

Competing makes me happy. It keeps me engaged, excited, and thinking creatively. It is for this reason that I decided to start another software company.

#personal

When I was in middle school, my principal used to say:

“The hardest part about any project is starting it.”

I had this in mind when starting GapScout, my second foray into the world of software, but first as a traditional SaaS. I learned a lot during my time building (and selling) LearnDash, and I can't wait to apply those learnings to this new venture.

One of those lessons learned was building an audience before and during the build process. For that project, I started content marketing 10 months before the product was built. I built an email list, got a good solid footing in Google, and was able to build buzz. This made the launch a success.

For GapScout, I am using this same formula (except we won't have to wait 10 months for launch this time)! 🙂

The content marketing strategy will be taking place at the same time as product development. I tapped my network and was introduced to a couple of content marketers who will be helping me in this area. As always, I like to start out with a few trial articles to see how things go. So far, so good for the both of them!

Smart content creation is just the first step.

I’d like to first build a solid footing in Google (seeing as this is a brand-new site), at which point I will begin the outreach process to start building relations with bloggers and websites in the same niche.

When you start a business, it's not always about the “big milestones”, it's nice to recognize the smaller achievements along the way.

Recently, the GapScout website celebrated one month. While developer conversations are happening in the background, the content marketing has started to make progress. There is no “hack” for content creation. It's a slow, long process. But it pays off!

The @GapScoutApp website is 1 month old today. Pretty pleased with the traffic in the first 30 days!?

Content marketing, friends.#buildinginpublic pic.twitter.com/eSuj8WcNV8

— Justin Ferriman (@JustinFerriman) September 3, 2022

In 30 days, the GapScout website has seen 2,083 unique visitors.

No secrets, just keyword research, writing quality articles, and sharing the content on the normal social channels.

I do intend to use paid ads as well, but not quite yet, as I'd prefer to do that when there is a product ready to use. So for now, the content marketing approach will continue, it definitely is paying off.

Want early access to GapScout? Get on the early adopter list!

#entrepreneurship

How do you define life?

For me, life is just a series of transitions from one moment to another.

They define our character.

They teach us.

They get easier with experience.

Our reaction to those transitions often dictates if we are stressed or content.

We measure our lives with our transitions because they are what we look back on as our most defining moments.

Embrace your transitions.

Transitions are your life.

#happiness

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

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:

1. Making customer requested improvements to your product.

2. 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

Comment

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