 All right, we'll go ahead and get started Welcome to the panel Hopefully you are here for the panel and not for how to structure complex sites because if you're looking for how to complex sites that's in the other room Okay, fantastic, they're probably over there wishing they were here, so Expect more people to join We got one Yeah, so yeah, this is the business and growth panel, so we have a Group of guys who I've known all of you for a number of years and really respect What you've been able to accomplish in your your businesses and Also, really respect you all as as human beings, so I'm really glad that you guys were able to be here today Alonzo is the CEO of 11 online a digital agency in New Mexico Alonzo had been working in non-profits and Decided to go back and try a different career went to a coding boot camp Was what a six-week program something there's a nine-week program at the time nine-week program and came out started an agency and Within a year and a half two years had 11 employees and Really, you know has grown grown really quickly and done a lot of high-quality work. It's been impressive to watch Corey, you know from earlier today built I themes up from scratch to be one of the premier companies in the WordPress space and just sold it earlier this year and Jesse worked with me at Brute Protect and Helped with you were what the customer champion. What was your director of innovation director of innovation? and Now did did an amazing job of helping us Determined a product and focus and grow and It's really a key member of the team It's always good to work with you. So Jesse's now at automatic and works on growth and partnerships for jetpack So these guys know what they're talking about I Wanted to kick things off with a question and then we'll just sort of let some questions come in and go where it goes But I'm wondering for you guys What a typical day looks like how do you structure your time to be most effective? Okay, I can start Yeah, it's I Think that's something that is a constantly iterating and this constant struggle and constant battle So I do I'm basically doing most of the sales processes at this stage with our company and most of the strategic initiatives growth and development and stuff like that so Typically peppered throughout my day are calls With potential clients calls with existing clients and then what's really really important for me is I block off time in my calendar For let's say it could be anything from working on in response to an RFP. It could be It could be writing It could be community engagement of some kind or a networking piece of some of some sort That is actually the most critical component and I have to probably be more aggressive about Blocking off those times because what happens is my calendar, you know, I don't know if you guys ever heard of Calendly or service like that I I send that out to people Like they want to set up a meeting or whatever I send that out to people and then before I know it Like I look at my next week and it's like I got no time so, you know, I have to be more kind of Plantful and aggressive about that. But so it typically looks like I try and try and get going after I drop the kids off So around nine I Try and quit around five five thirty I try not to work at night after the kids go to bed You got better at that. I know you used to have a real problem. I did. Yeah Well, it's just the house is so quiet and you know So but but yeah, I mean that that just that has consequences keep doing that. So Yeah, roughly, that's what it looks like to me So broadly, I would say for me I Think in effect of what took us a long time to try to empower our team to make decisions based on Values and stories freeze me up quite a bit and then I probably end up You know meetings which are trying to facilitate conversations I try to stay out of meetings as much as I can because I realized pretty early on that when I was in meetings I caused problems and I don't like them anyway So and then I think you know the occasional fire or conversation that needs to have but mostly it's around slack and I'm I'm still kind of an introvert. So I like you know, my office is in the corner of our office in Oklahoma City Where I get to be the hermit sometimes I'll just add two little things. I use Calendly all the time It's a great tool. You can send out a link and people can schedule time with you. I Used to allow that to kind of go On without kind of any filter or anything like that But now what I really found is that meetings tend to either delay the process because you're trying to find time to Sync when you could be having these conversations and slack or email So try not to have a meeting unless it's actually important or going to drive the conversation forward and then the other thing I would add is that When you talked about blocking out part of your calendar Something I've been trying lately is that I scheduled a whole bunch of things that I want to do every day at around the 4 a.m. Block and Then the night before or early in the morning. I'll just shift those around my schedule Down each day. So whether it's taking a class or writing up Some notes from something or go into the gym I have a bunch of these little blocks at the top of my calendar I kind of slide them around so that I know I can fit a mender in the day And it's also a reminder not to forget to do it Yeah You don't do them in four Well Calendly right now is set from 6 a.m. To 2 p.m. For me, so I'll take calls early 6 a.m. Not for but that's only for you know our European and Asian Oh I'm an early bird. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure That's a great idea. I put in those at 4 a.m. And then Mr. Glansky, so I'm really curious How do you all find time In your routines that you've done over the years to kind of experiment with new ways of doing things whether it be Innovating on product whether the invading your business when you fit that in how you work that into your team working with your current ways I Have a four-day work week on everything else Monday through Friday's most of my business stuff And on Monday through Thursday's most of my business stuff my partnership meetings my all the other stuff and Fridays I've literally dedicated towards the stuff that we're working on now Around innovating on marketing and things like that. That whole day is blocked off. I take no meetings No, nothing like that Yeah, so for for me You know we have weekly partner meetings And a chunk of that is reserved for exactly what you're talking about Looking at new workflows or updated workflows looking at tools that can make us be a little more efficient It's if you're not doing that You're dying and I think part of it is also, you know, there's I've definitely seen the that You know the desire to sort of Tool your way out of everything and like has a flashy tool and stuff like that So I think it helps when you have multiple people sort of brainpower Be able to be able to kind of think on it think about how it could improve or affect our processes And then we have action items that come out of those, right? Hey, we'll discuss it. It looks promising You know, here's your action item for the next partner meeting Tested out play around with it and see where see where I think we think it could fit you think it could fit and then and report back so It's just it's I think it's just It's part of our culture from the standpoint of we're in New Mexico and every little edge Helps is it's a small market and you know, it's it's not You know, we're very lucky. We have some great out-of-state clients, but It's it's a tough market. So every little bit counts really To get first clients or customers The thing that worked is I think continually putting educational helpful content out So we started out themes and I had this set of tutorials that I had built and I was trying to sell them and then you weren't really selling And I had a copper out of friend go why don't you just put those for free? So that was our tutorial section which became some of our longest Well ranked well trafficked content that became a huge lead for us So the power WordPress and everything we do is being able to put SEO long tail type content online I think is a strategy over and over and over and over almost any business being able to so that's how we drive a lot of our lead generation I guess to date and then use email to capture market one thing that Matt mullenweg at automatic our CEO told me which really resonated with me was that Good partners motivate small part slow partners So this idea was so the work that I do is not on a typical client basis, right? We're not building websites for large companies or something like that what we're the work that I'm doing is more around partnering with hosting companies and things like that to distribute jetpack and This program that exists today that you can see in in motion dream host and a variety of other companies Didn't exist just 18 months ago So what we ended up doing was just really kind of like Getting introductions cold-calling identifying Partners that would be great partners and just working really hard to get them and then being very transparent about our partnership with those companies And that drove a great deal of traffic For us to build an entire business or partnership program around that and I think that would translate the same way for clients If you get if you land a very large client and you can be very transparent about it and innovate and do something really cool with them That'll drive Excitement around your brand and the things that you're building So writing case studies and postmortems. Yeah, even just a simple partners page or client list page is enough sometimes Can I ask are you a freelancer? Okay So this kind of brings me back right like when we first started like coming out of the boot camp I didn't know anything like nothing. I mean, I knew how to build some sites I started learning about WordPress, you know, I knew some fundamentals, but as far as like business Nothing I didn't come from like a family of entrepreneurs or any of that stuff I Went a lot with just instincts, right? And so one of my instincts was We just got to do work and so I went to friends family, that's that's where we started and then Started kind of entertaining trades one of the first WordPress sites we built was for like a rummage furniture rummage store and in Albuquerque and we did it for Old furniture So I still have some of that stuff in my house. It's pretty cool but it just just to start building our workflows and our processes and you know the first real contract I got was from a friend from high school and then I started going to You know just different networking events and what I can't tell you you ask what what didn't work what doesn't work Don't be the card dealer and like some of these, you know network things it It's that the networking stuff and and getting to know people in the community if you're doing local work It's a long play. It's a long-term investment. You're building relationships Passing out cards does not build relationships. It just makes you look like a shell and crass As far as I'm concerned and so like if you're just if you're engaging people and letting people know what you do and building real relationships a lot of the relations I built then they didn't pay off right there and then but eventually they manifested themselves into referrals or you know, so so It's I don't know. I think fondly on that time because I really didn't know what I was doing How long you've been a dietician Just started Let me let me help connect what I said earlier to your particular case if I could I would so you two years You've been working with clients and they probably have a set of common questions. They ask every single time, right? That's the stuff you put on your website Now SEO is a whole other thing But what I'm saying is the how I would use this specifically for your contacts is all those common questions people ask That's gold because see, you know, you're the expert I don't even know how to start working with you So but there's probably common questions that you can turn in put it into either an FAQ an ebook Whatever and then I would say open source your expertise and here's what I mean by that is you you have keys Sensuals things that you probably do that are like in that You know died dietician one-on-one kind of category now would put that all online and here's why and maybe considered to your personality is Video audio stuff like that because another thing it's so you're thinking of your customer and you're going okay when they hit my Website, how do I lower all the barriers for them to work with me? So if they keys, right? I mean what are those key critical questions that they can learn before even calling you and you're educating your customers So here's the question. Who do you want your customers to become? Put all that on your site. It's free 24-7 lower all the barriers. What's the biggest barrier? that you your clients have to work with you and Demolish it with content on your site and then maybe use vehicles like You know if you like doing video video series like here's my tips of the week for X and Then the other phrase I would look and you know just Google is local SEO So I don't know how your business is shaped. But so for instance if you're in Portland here somebody's hitting dietician into Google and But you're the Portland Google knows they're in Portland kind of thing that I'm not an SEO expert I'm just saying that's something to probably dive into Absolutely the personalization side of that is really important So if you're if you're servicing a local community, you should define that in your site So that Google can understand that and then gives you a niche to if you're the only One if you're one of three dieticians in the area That's a lot easier for you to compete against ten thousand across the country It's like in the old days everybody would be in the phone book But you can have an edge with that like if your business is is local like face-to-face here then local SEO is Portland dietician, you know kind of stay I Would add one more thing onto that and that's just that it can become really easy to Feel like I can't I can't give this information away for free because this is what I want people to pay me for But that's not what people people are paying you for but if you can if you can establish use that to establish yourself as an expert and Give them that starter. They're still going to want to Engage you so that they can come up with a plan that works specifically for them, but yeah by putting that information out there Yeah, you're gonna see traffic and you're gonna you're gonna establish yourself as an expert And get the edge yeah So hiring is the question Tips on hiring yeah Automatic has a really unique hiring process by which we Put out an ad on our site. We actually get a decent amount of traffic to that So that's easy to to bring in resumes. We review the resume then we go through an entire trial process So it's a comprised of several interviews and then it's an actual Paid work for hire kind of scenario, but you could work for a couple weeks or a couple months on a specific project And the goal of that is really to understand not necessarily your skill level but to understand your communication abilities and and how you Blend with the teams and work well with company, you know the rest of us as far as a favorite question I usually like to just kind of create open-ended questions that help people talk about themselves Because I mean I can ask very simple questions, but if I get one word answers It's we'll be at it all day All right, so I want to hear what it is that you're passionate about and what it is that makes you think that you're Different than the ten other candidates for the position So Over ten years we've you know interviewed how many people right and I'll say that it's not a medical formula for me At all it's it's part art. There's some science to it, but there's so many You know job interview things out there that anybody can fool you, you know and we've been fooled But I would say the biggest distinguishing in just my context of 20 people not like 500 at autumn I don't know what you guys are at close to 800 800 At automatic I have not scaled to that, but I would say because of this thing criteria I'm gonna give you so I don't know how it would operate at 800 But if I don't want them or wouldn't trust them to be in my home They're not on my team and If I don't enjoy them like I don't we don't have to be best friends But if we can't like and so work with other people in the team, they don't fit So fit is first and then skill You know fit first do they are they you know Do I have enough of information to see that they're gonna like sink Jesse and I are gonna sink Because it's all in water sometimes and that can be pretty bad We've and we've got that before where we had to go. No, you're you don't fit. You need to leave you fit somewhere else You know, you're not a bad person How do you fire So I I am a people I love people I want to care about people and empathy is a big guy for me But through pain of having people with me on the team for too long I Careless about that like if you don't so I've gotten less and less and less Where it's just like sorry, you don't you you don't belong here. You belong somewhere else There's somewhere that probably fits you so you don't belong here and I've gotten easier about doing that And so it's really simple conversations now where first few times are really hard first few times suck They all suck by the way And so it's but it they become shorter because it's like I'm sorry. It's not working out. And then why I'm sorry It's not working out. I'd love to help you with that But there's a lot of constraints where you got to be careful and so it's just There's that Billy Bean movie money ball. Do you know that where? Jonas, you know, it's real quick. Sorry. You're good. Okay. Thanks It's not like that. It's not like that, but I've gotten less You know, it's more about You don't you don't belong here. Do you freeze them up to go somewhere else, too? By the way, do you tend to do performance improvement plan before? Firing or do you go straight to dismissal? Not formally and you know, we're only to 20 or so, but it's it's like you got a couple strikes And if it's just not working out, I think it's typically I was at a meeting one time And we we needed to to let go of a person and they had me, you know, they said, do you who here has someone that you know You need to find me Left and he was like, you know, sometimes people will stay longer than they need to and know it's bad drove the office said, sorry, it's not working out the person goes I was wondering Why I took you too so long, you know, and That person got freed up to go find somewhere where she's supposed to be. So I think it's a double thing pain and then free Yeah, they usually know Oh, yeah, they know. Yeah, uh, so You know, just generally hiring we we really have had some good success and found some great people Um hiring non-traditional we're all the all four partners are from non-traditional you know, not necessarily undergrad CS backgrounds and So a lot of people we hired we hired them as junior or entry level We've hired some people out of the same boot camp we went to um And actually it was interesting was I think one of the one of the ideas that I had that I think it really allowed us to scale You know, I was thinking a lot about Well, what what kind of makes this different in the context of the local ecosystem and I thought Oh, yeah, I went to this boot camp Nobody around here knows what to do with people coming out of this boot camp. Um, but maybe we do Right. So so that I think so we've had the attitude of giving Looking for inefficiencies in the market and like giving people shots And they're they typically are very loyal and work really really hard. Um So so there's that as far as letting people go Uh, you know first time I had to do it. It was Really rough It's really rough And I had the you know a couple three or four months ago. I had to let go our first the first person we hired Um And you know, I had to do it. It just it wasn't working out It wasn't working out and and our business is kind of pivoted a little bit and and You know, the person wasn't able to help us the way we needed um And it you know in my mind, I just built it up as like Just this painful horrible thing and then what I realized was and it became true like when when she left was Uh, we leveled her up And someone else went and grabbed her and we're We're both happier And she's my friend. So, you know, like You know, like, I don't know. I'm proud of how that whole thing worked out. It's just sometimes it needs to happen and I think, you know, if you have if you do do things in good faith And people can sense that and realize that understand that I think it's a little bit easier Oh, can I can pick you on that? Yeah, so that just resonated with me too So when when when we have fired people we have probably given people more uh Then then maybe they should have But with one defining characteristic I can go to sleep at night. So I do the right thing. That's my right And if I know I'm doing the right thing at night and can sleep at night That's not always the case for the other person, by the way Uh, but if I know I've done the right thing, I'm good like And I I think too that that that hiring process Is and needs to be a lot different when you are You know a company Of five it looks different than when you're a company of 20, which looks way different from when you're a company of hundreds You know when when you're a small team, it's absolutely culture fit number one, right culture fit And for me it was always culture fit and drive or capability And then skill a distant third that Derek When when I hired Derek years ago, uh, he didn't have much skill And uh, no, no, I mean he But he fit in well with the team and I could tell that he he wanted to get better And he was really passionate about it and he came in and did an amazing job and is now Uh, one of the lead engineers working on jetpack having his software used by millions of people every day Um in the course of like four years, you know, not a not a long period Good job, Sam. That's that's always worked out really well. No good job there But yeah, that's If you have people who mesh well Especially when you're a small company, it's all about like having each other's backs And going to work Together every day So you you have to be 100 on the same team at the same page Yeah Scaling is in hiring or scaling I'll let you guys handle that one Well, uh, you know, I think that uh We had an interesting scenario with jetpack a product that was built for the web for free It was something that we gave back to the community Uh for five years before we put any kind of plans or or revenue behind it And now we've got a pricing model and a A plan system and everything in place. Um, but we're still kind of struggling with that because um, It's built on the foundation of something that was never really meant to To grow in that way But you know, I think that what really happens for us one of the things that I could just Give you as a tip was just internally for us. We had an entire Uh division dedicated towards giving something away for free and we had to change the entire mindset of that entire Corporate structure, right? Um, so when it came time to scale and to to kind of grow out of that mindset it just took a lot of very determined people kind of like churning away every single day and and Setting uh the standards the new standard for the company From a leadership perspective So I would I would kind of say that translates to whatever it is that you're working on. I'll let these guys answer a deeper level more granular Uh When you scale your work phone your process has changed they have to um, and so For me that it's been invest in that you know, um You know because I so I guess, you know, it really depends on on your goals, right? So for me, um, I'm crazy like I I just want to ride this thing I want to take as far as I can Um, and you know, there are lots of people and this is not to you know No disrespect at all. You're probably much Sainter and mentally healthier than I am if you want to just build like a little boutique operation That's that's super cool. It's never really been my thing um And so I've I've felt like I've every time that I've pushed to invest in the long term in the long play like Okay, maybe we're not going to have as many double hours this month, but We're going to You know up end our process and make this thing more efficient Um, it's paid off eventually And so if I think that's just a great driving principle to have always but especially in that because you can have Old processes that work for you at a certain scale and Are nonsense when you try and scale and then the pain of negotiating that on the fly is not worth it So find your your magic like your superpower and the thing that you enjoy And delegate and empower Everything else like so I had a bunch of uh hats one of my first did I think it was okay? I gotta do this support hat this hat I go. I don't want this hat And so I was like first chance I could here's the hat take it see you later But I would say generally speaking scale wise or whatever the magic formula is find the thing that like drives you And that you're really good at and then get and I'm good at like two things and everything else I find the best I can or develop them to take all that stuff that that's their magic You know I'm saying and that's the power of team too, by the way Like when everybody's jive and doing they're like the thing that drives them that sings in their heart Man, that's where the cool stuff happens Yeah, but the common the common theme with those all these answers is that you need someone in a In a leadership role right to guide those individuals through that that flow whether it's chaos and craziness or You're just scaling and building stuff. You need someone with the vision And and defining a vision Especially at those times when you're starting to really start to scale and move up Is something that everyone in the company should be leaning against Because then you know exactly whether or not you're you're you're moving in the right direction And it's easier to take risks because you know that that risk is defined in a way to You know promote or sustain that vision And to that there was something that Cory said earlier about Having a set of shared values as a company And a an overall mission and by having that Explicitly defined Then you tell people you know as long as you're operating within that spirit and within those values and towards that goal You're doing the right thing. So you if you can communicate that higher level vision And then allow people you know use that as a framework I really like that. Yeah Stories are the best way to for values now. I'm just I'm looking in risk in rich respect But stories are the best ways to enforce not enforce Share the values to actually resonate. So we had a security breach four or five years ago Me and my right hand are in Europe The team back in Oklahoma City and and spread out, you know, we're just getting the work done I tell that story all the time Because I want the people that didn't go all in To understand that's not what you do. Like what we do is we go all in And the stories help with the values and I'm with you too. Jesse is like it's leaders. You're the lid like As high as you can go as high as the organization will go So So, yeah, and Cory and you're you know, you talked about like reading strategically being like your secret So so as you guys were watching that what came up for in your mind of like What has been your kind of secret weapon as you grow the business or transition just pack into whatever it is and What are those things for for you guys have kind of did that? um I talked a little bit about risk before That's been kind of like the thing that I keep going back to for me and the success that I've seen and the work that I've been doing is that There's a few things that I've worked on over the last few years that um, if I had just Defined them and let people tell me how bad of an idea it was They would never have come into fruition And a lot of those things that actually make up a decent amount of the revenue that we're seeing For our company now So for me it was a risk because it was my job Because i'm going against a good amount of people But it was also a risk because Even if everybody agreed that it's a good idea. It's still a risk. You don't know if it's going to work So something like that, uh well defined Smart risks for me has been a big payoff i'm going to give you a real boring answer I'm starving to tell Uh just um Like so when I was so before I went to the bootcamp. I thought to myself that'd be cool Like, you know in college that like taken a few cs classes In my previous job. I had worked with programmers And you know, um, and so my like my wife had her daughter and So it was a great opportunity to kind of put Pause on my career. That wasn't really happy in any way and be a stay at home dad So I did that for a little bit and then I was A couple years later. I was like kind of itching to get back Because being productive is a really important part of my life. It always has been In the context of work. Um, so so once the boot camp and I thought You know, this will help me sort of get like be able to freelance and be able to Stay home and work from home, which is something that was important to me with with young kids um But then I in the boot camp, uh, we had uh, you know, we had guest speakers come in and there was a guest speaker and He had started an agency in albuquerque. They expanded out to Dallas and um, they did a lot of really meaningful work for nonprofits and Like at that like, you know that kind of put to see like You know this this sort of project of building this bigger thing That got me really excited and so I think that was probably the beginning of it for me Um, and then since then I feel like part of it. It's always it's just been like I'm going to prove to myself That I can do this enormous thing And then I'm going to take it as far as I can take it it sort of an exercise and like self-discipline and You know, um belief, um, which does not come natural to me. Um I like Like of course talking about reading. I I like reading But I don't love reading like business books. I like reading like You know gatsby. I don't know stuff like that, right? Um, and uh, and also, um You know You know None of that stuff comes all that natural to me these like long term sort of things. So So there's almost just a challenge myself. Um And I've also been damn lucky. So so that combination of stubbornness meeting the right people a little bit of luck You make your own luck Sometimes you you meet people sometimes you mean that's another thing. I I didn't do it by myself. I had partners I always had partners Man moral supportive partners. It's just so amazing And for me just vital, you know Uh, so we are now into break time if we got started a few minutes late. So Um, if you guys want to take a little more questions, I'm I'm good with that But if you uh, if you want to go get a snack, uh, go for that. Actually, I'm not sure that there are snacks, but I think there may be the leftover cookies