Seeking Scale

Craig and Andy talk about refining the hiring process and lessons learned. Get prepared and things ready, but it’s still not going to be what you expect it to be.

Andy and his wife are expecting a child. So, he is wondering how he’ll handle being a father and founder. He needs clearly defined processes and know what’s most important to hire, onboard, and assign priorities/tasks. Andy, especially, wants to hire an executive assistant and copywriter.

It’s been years since Craig’s children were born, but he explains to Andy that he should not expect to travel for business or work a full schedule. Hire someone and put processes and expectations in place to take care of things that need to happen on a regular and timely basis.

Craig and Andy talk about managing technical debt. Is more data needed? Do you need to be driven by metrics? What is possible versus realistic? Who do you need to make happy—your customers or your team members?

Andy shares how a big release has been in quality assurance (QA) for about a month, which shows the shortcomings of the product process but pushes for better quality when released to the public as refactored, not redesigned.

Craig understands how the product process is never done. There’s always some metric or issue to track, improve, fix, and measure. Also, as the owner and founder of Castos, there’s times when team members are hesitant to push back or share their opinions on what can be done.

Craig and Andy talk about product feedback loops. What and who’s needed to get feedback sooner than later to be productive and build a product or add features/functionality?

Craig announced that he decided to leave Bench and switch to GrowthLab Financial for bookkeeping services. Also, he has hired a new developer who will be starting soon at Castos and will attend the company’s upcoming retreat.  

Andy finds company retreats very helpful to have collaborative discussions and make progress. However, as the team gets bigger, the more a project/product has to be presented before getting feedback and input to save time and be less disruptive. 

Craig and Andy talk about finding a life-work balance. How do you separate the two, especially for those who work remotely? Working from home does not work for everyone. Sometimes, you want to work and be productive. Other times, you want to spend time with your family and friends doing something fun in the sun.

Craig is not a minimalist. If he has fewer projects outside of work, then he can dedicate more of his mental energy to getting work done. He expects the remote workforce to become more regional. Nobody wants to commute to the office all the time, but most people do want to interact with people.

Andy’s house projects have made SaberSim’s issues more noticeable. New projects excite him, he makes progress and then hits a roadblock. If you start something, finish work-in-progress projects to move forward. There’s value in scoping out projects before starting something new.  

Craig and Andy attended MicroConf and provide a recap. Both left the conference feeling energized, full of ideas, and with a purpose to grow and scale. Whether it’s selling, buying, or making an impact through ClickFunnels, community, HubSpot, or Freshdesk, they want to be more effective, productive, and successful.  

Craig enjoyed being around like-minded people and doing a fair amount of TinySeed stuff. The biggest takeaway for him was reconnecting with Andrew Culver, who launched Churn Buster and built Bullet Train using Ruby on Rails.
Andy attended April Dunford’s How to Craft a Story that Sells session, which solidified his ideas on how to cultivate sales and what most customers feel when buying most things. The person selling to them is not helping them make better decisions unless that person is the expert.