 Hai, semua. Kita akan kembali di channel ini. Hari ini, kita ada Kevin, Joe di sini. Kita sekarang di Dubai. Jadi, Kevin adalah pemimpin dari Kanada, bergerak ke Panama. Sekarang, di Dubai selama sekejap, dia telah membuat perniagaan software di ruang SEO, memasukkan itu, dan mengagumkan itu. Kemudian sekarang dia... gembira? Saya rasa. Ia akan bergerak beberapa masa. Ia akan bergerak beberapa masa. Terima kasih, Kevin, untuk masa kamu. Jadi, kepada audience, orang-orang ini boleh menjadi perniagaan atau sesiapa saja. Bolehkah kamu beri sebuah ceritanya tentang diri kamu? Siapa kamu? Macam mana kamu membuat perniagaan ini? Macam mana kamu bermula? Ya, tentu. Jadi, saya bermula di Kanada, Toronto. Dan... sebagai anak-anak, saya selalu... mencari perniagaan yang berlainan dan mencari perkara yang berlainan. Saya selalu percaya saya tidak mahu bergerak di ruang SEO. Tapi ayah saya... dia lebih seperti akademik. Dia memiliki perniagaan di Jerman. Di kemestri dan dia selalu... memiliki perniagaan yang berlainan. Saya selalu berada di komputer dan cuba bermain video-game atau cuba mencari perkara yang berlainan atau sesuatu. Dan... sebenarnya, perkara yang dia cuba... cuba mencari perniagaan saya di muka saya dan mencari perkara yang berlainan. Sebelum dia datang. Tapi, ya... Jadi, ini kemudian... mungkin pada tahun 2008 atau semasa SEO... seperti... seperti... di atas perniagaan. Kemudian... kemudian kemudian... SEO adalah perkara yang berlainan. Google sangat berlainan di tahun 90-an. Dan kemudian infrastruktur berlainan di tahun 2000-an, seperti Facebook dan... Google dan perkara ini. Jadi... Ya, jadi salah satu perkara yang saya cuba membuat SEO dan cuba membuat perniagaan saya... seperti perniagaan dan perniagaan. Dan... disini saya cuba... membuat perniagaan dan memperkenalkan perniagaan. Dan kemudian, mengambil perniagaan atau... saya memperkenalkan perniagaan. Dan saya memperkenalkan perniagaan 100 perniagaan. Saya mengambil perniagaan perniagaan di sekeliling. Kemudian... perniagaan perniagaan? Ya, perniagaan perniagaan. Tapi mereka memperkenalkan perniagaan perniagaan. Mereka akan jadi... saya tak tahu, yang terbaik. sesuatu. Ya. Bagaimanapun berlainan berlainan dan perniagaan. Dan saya mencari perniagaan perniagaan di sekeliling. Saya mencari perniagaan dan saya akan berkata, kemudian saya berada di sekolah tinggi. Saya tak memperkenalkan perniagaan. Dan saya berkata, Saya tak mahu bayar $50. Jadi saya mencari perniagaan. dan beri kata-kata dengan untuk meluangkan kata-kata untuk bersama. Dan saya menggantikan kaca saya. Tapi kaca saya tak berakhir untuk berjaya. Tapi saya tahu orang lain nak bergantikan untuk menggantikan kaca. Jadi saya mengubah kaca dan itu menjadi sebuah kata-kata pelajar bersama saya. Kemudian saya akan berkaitan di keyword.com. Sebenarnya saya berlaku berlaku. Dan itu adalah kata-kata ke Kulauan Kejabat. Terima kasih. 17, 18, 17, 18. Itu apabila saya bermula melakukannya. Kemudian semasa saya memperkenalkan, saya sudah melakukannya di universiti. Sebelum tahun 2012. Sebenarnya era Facebook? Sebenarnya era Facebook? Ya. Sebelum itu, SEO masih sangat mudah. Memperkenalkan dan melakukannya. Tapi sekarang, ia sangat susah. Sebelum itu, SEO sedang mengambilkan. Ia sedang mendengar di Facebook. Kemudian saya melakukannya. Sebelum saya melakukannya, saya melakukannya di sekolah sekolah di universiti. Kemudian saya melakukannya. Jadi telah melakukannya di tahun 2012? Selepas tahun 1. Saya merasakan. Saya merasakan. Saya melakukannya di 1.6 atau sesuatu. Saya melakukannya di computer science. Saya melakukannya di computer science. Saya suka computer science. Mungkin mereka akan mengambil semua kursi lain. Itu okey. Tapi saya melakukannya di earth science. Saya mengelakukannya. Tapi kemudian k� along dengan sebuah kursi, saya merasa 2 kursi lain. Di satunya, admits tifu. Apa'rekannya? Saya menguatkan kursi lain. Saya terdurus ikut mesiak saya greasy. Saya minta civil begMike fleir seru, tapi saya tidak mahu berbuat semua. Berwe 해� orang-orang gila. Ini tidak awak. Saya boleh berusaha kalau saya mahu principles,可是 saya cari banyak masa. Awak kira activist ibu dan دك� tersatu. Dia minta mengapis kepas author.iembre tinggal berapian. dan saya beritahu bahawa saya mempunyai sosialitya, kriminalitya. Dan dia berkata, Bukankah saya tidak mempunyai sosialitya? Jadi saya sangat terkejut, saya kembali ke rumah dan saya beritahu saya, Hei, ini seperti orang yang gila. Sistem ini seperti sebesar saya. Saya sudah mempunyai versi software saya. Saya akan mempunyai degree saya di computer science. Tapi saya tidak mahu mempunyai sosialitya kriminalitya. Dan ayah saya berkata, Oh, apa yang penting dengan itu? Seperti sebuah degree. Saya rasa dalam kultur Asia, mereka mahu seperti apa-apa degree. Ia menunjukkan bahawa kamu baik-baik. Tapi setelah tahun pertama, saya rasa perniagaan saya berlaku dan ia berlaku ke tempat yang bahawa saya berjaya dan saya dapat kerja di computer science. Saya sudah membuat banyak kali itu. Jadi tidak ada perniagaan. Jadi saya berlaku ke dalam perniagaan. Dan 10 tahun lepas itu saya berlaku ke dalam perniagaan. Okey. Itu adalah tahun 2012. Okey, mari kita ambil kembali. Bukankah kamu berlaku di Canada? Saya berlaku di Jerman. Okey, apabila kamu berlaku di PHD? Ya, saya berlaku ke Canada ketika saya berlaku di PHD. Okey. Boleh kamu bercakap dengan Jerman? Tidak, saya tidak. Okey. Jadi kenapa dia berlaku ke Canada selepas dia berlaku di PHD? Kenapa dia tidak berlaku di EU? Kenapa dia tidak berlaku di EU? Dia beritahu saya bahawa ia sangat berlaku dengan keadaan di Jerman. Dan juga kemudian, China masih berlaku. Jadi saya rasa China berlaku di program 80s apabila mereka berlaku dengan orang yang lebih kecil di universiti. Dan mereka berlaku dan berlatih. Mereka berlaku di PHD dan berlaku kembali dan beritahu orang-orang yang berlaku di China. Tapi kemudian, saya rasa apabila orang berlaku, ada lebih banyak peluang di Canada dan kemudian kembali ke China. Seperti ke-90s, China tidak berlaku. Saya tidak berlaku di bulan di China. Dan kemudian kembali ke China. Jadi ia masih sangat... Jadi ibu itu adalah seorang pelajar yang berlaku di Jerman. Ya, betul. Adakah kamu tahu apa itu? Tidak, minta maaf. Pertama kali saya mendengar kamu. Saya tidak tahu apa-apa pun. Tapi ibu saya adalah salah satu belakang pertama yang berlaku. Dan saya rasa kemudian, jika kamu bekerja di China, kamu berlaku $10 hari ini. Dan mereka berlaku dengan sebuah pelajar yang berlaku $1,000 semasa atau sesuatu. Ya, ya. Jadi... Ya, ya. Berlaku. Ya, jadi itu sebuah kisah. Okey. Jadi bergerak ke Canada apabila enam... Tiga. Tiga. Kemudian ke sekolah, di universiti dan sebagainya. Apa yang membuat kamu... Kerana kamu berkata, kamu selalu tahu kamu tidak pergi ke tradisional. Betul. Ya. Apa yang... Untuk saya, saya rasa orang-orang selalu... kamu dapat keputusan daripada sesuatu. Kamu mendengar atau mendengar sesuatu yang berbeza daripada tradisional. Macam mana kamu dapat? Atau tahu bahawa Hey, ini bukan daripada saya. Oh ya, jadi... Saya baru beritahu, di sekolah sekolah, saya ingat saya ingat begini. Dan saya fikir, ini tidak bermakna. Kenapa saya berkata, seperti, setiap tahun saya berkata, seperti, seperti 30,000 dolar sepanjang tahun, plus hidup, seperti 30,000-50,000 dolar sepanjang tahun, untuk 4 tahun. Itu seperti 200,000 dolar. Saya berkata, saya melihat perniagaan untuk perniagaan, dan saya berkata, untuk 200,000 dolar, kamu dapat melihat perniagaan yang membuat 60,000 dolar. Kenapa saya tidak membeli sesuatu untuk membeli perniagaan untuk 60,000 dolar, atau, kamu tahu, jika kamu akan membeli duit untuk sekolah sekolah, ia membeli perniagaan, bukan untuk 4 tahun. Pada akhir 4 tahun, mereka akan mempunyai beberapa ribu lagi. Saya berkata, mereka sudah membuat 120 dolar. Apabila kamu membeli perniagaan, kamu akan membuat 40, 50 dolar sepanjang tahun. Saya berkata, saya akan mempunyai sesuatu, dan saya akan beritahu teman saya, dan mereka akan berkata, tidak, tidak, itu salah. atau, itu tidak membuat perniagaan. Dan saya hanya berfikir lebih-mereka. Dan orang yang lebih banyak, tidak dapat beri saya poin yang berjaya, yang lebih saya berfikir lebih-banyak, dan saya hanya berkata, dan sekarang, apabila saya memikirkan lebih-banyak, saya akan memikirkan mengapa mereka akan memikirkan begitu. Ia hanya sebab, seperti saya, bahkan di tempat ini, saya akan memikirkan perempuan Peter yang kami melihat. Ya. Di tempat ini, dia berkata, hey, oh, pada awal dia berkata, oh, kamu tidak perlu ambil kerja, jika saya tidak ambil kerja, saya tidak akan mempunyai duit, kemudian, anak-anak akan berada di jalan-jalan. Di jalan-jalan, anak-anak akan berada di jalan-jalan. Ya. Jadi, ia seperti program ini. Apabila saya anak-anak dan anak-anak, saya berkata, oh, saya akan berkata, dia pergi ke sekolah, semua anak-anak berburu di sekolah, sekolah sekolah, juga di Kanada, tapi dia berkata, dia bercakap tentang pilihan, saya berkata, apabila dia berkata, ya, dia berkata, atau seperti, mereka kawan, mereka kawan, perniagaan, semua orang berkata, penyakit, profesional, atau perniagaan. Jadi, saya rasa, saya rasa seperti, hanya, saya rasa, saya rasa di wang, kamu dapat sebuah perjalanan, itu yang saya akan katakan, seperti kamu dapat mengajakirkan, mengajakirkan, kamu dapat sebuah perjalanan, tapi kamu akan seperti, seperti, berkata, kamu tahu, ya, perniagaan, ya, seperti sangat perniagaan, seperti sangat, kamu tahu, menjadikan perniagaan ini, bahkan di sekolah, seperti, bahkan di sekolah, seperti, hey, kamu ingin melakukan, di Kanada, ada sesuatu yang perlu diberkati, di akademik, jadi akademik, seperti, kamu melakukannya, di sainsah, dan melakukannya, lebih sering, lebih sering, seperti, kerja, jadi bahkan ke sekolah, dan mereka beritahu kamu, ada sebuah pilihan, seperti, hey, seperti, kamu ingin melakukan, akademik atau kamu ingin melakukan, seperti, melakukan sesuatu yang perlu diberkati, kamu fikir kamu ada pilihan, tetapi, berkata-kata, sebenarnya, berkata-kata, kembali, kembali, kembali, kamu tahu, bekerja seperti, berkata-kata, kembali, ya, jadi, saya tidak tahu, apabila saya mulakan, mengenai lebih-sebelah, dan ini seperti, ini seperti, 10 tahun lalu, seperti, sebelum ini, seperti, berkata-kata, semua hal, seperti sekarang, kamu dapat semua ini, kamu akan seperti ini, kamu tahu, berkata-kata, di sisi, dan berkata-kata, tetapi kemudian, ini seperti, tidak ada siapa bercakap tentang politik, sesuatu seperti ini. Ya. Jadi, ya, itu sebuah kata-kata, berkata-kata tentangnya. Sebenarnya, jadi, itu sebabnya, saya berminat untuk berkata-kata, seperti, di sekolah tinggi, Youtube, seperti, adalah sebuah periode nasen, seperti, seperti, itu selalu dengan TV, seperti, apabila kamu mendapat informasi ini tentang, jika saya, membuat perniagaan, yang berkata-kata, kamu tahu tak, kamu tidak akan berfikir tentang itu. Ya, itu adalah pertanyaan yang bagus. Ya, saya rasa Youtube, itu berkata-kata, seperti, tapi, tapi, tidak ada, itu bukan, sebuah kata-kata. Ya, itu seperti, sangat, sangat, sangat, sangat, berkata-kata. Sekarang, itu lebih berkata-kata, ya, sekarang, itu lebih berkata-kata, berkata-kata, saya rasa, saya rasa, ada video, tapi, jika kamu beritahu seseorang pada tahun 2010, hey, kamu boleh membuat duit, seperti, seperti, seperti, online, itu seperti, tidak terlalu susah, itu seperti, itu seperti, itu seperti, tidak berfikir, seperti, saya berfikir, seperti, semua perkara, sekarang, itu seperti, oh, kamu tahu, seperti, pergi membuat duit, seperti, kamu tahu, itu seperti, itu seperti, seperti, lebih, ya. Ya. Maaf, kamu tidak pernah jawab pertanyaan. Ha, pertanyaan adalah, bagaimana kamu, dapat tahu tentang itu? Ya, dengan YouTube. YouTube. Ya, itu adalah, itu adalah, kartunnya. Okey. Jadi, kamu mulakan membuat website, saya menurut kamu, kamu memahami permainan Philip, bukan? Ia adalah, iya. Okey. Well, konsepnya mudah, hanya, kamu tahu, kamu membuat beberapa website, untuk memasukkan mereka, dan, dapat memasukkan trafik, dan, iya, dapat memasukkan duit dari sana. Okey. Dan, apakah kamu, seperti, memasukkan kota custom, seperti, bagaimana kamu memasukkan kota itu? Um, saya rasa ia memasukkan kota, ia memasukkan kota, ini adalah sekejap, tapi ia, mungkin ia memasukkan kota, dengan beberapa, iya, iya. Kota yang memasukkan kota itu. Mungkin di luar, iya. Saya rasa ia memasukkan kota itu. Okey. Kemudian, ya. O.G. Hehehehe. Okey, bagaimana kamu memasukkan, dari, dari pembangunan website, kamu akan berkata, okey, saya perlu belajar cara memasukkan kota itu, iya. Jadi, seperti, mana perlukan langgan yang kamu memulakan? Saya bermakna, ada, ada, ada, seperti, perlukan dan perlukan, Semuanya seperti, P.H.P dan sebagainya. Jadi, bagaimana kamu memasukkan kota itu? Kemudian ia, ya, infrastruktur adalah, iya, tidak, tidak, tidak ada perlukan langgan, perlukan langgan, tidak ada, tidak ada, seperti, kota itu hanya memasukkan kemudian, seperti, tidak ada orang yang pernah dengar. Iya. Iya. Iya, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, ia, Okay. Macam mana, jadi, bermula memasukkan sebagainya, basically? Iya. Saya cuba menolakkan masalah sendiri. Am I korang? Iya, masalah sendiri. Iya. Okay. Jadi, saya adalah perempuan saya. Okay. Jadi, bagaimana kamu, tentu-tentu, memasukkan kota itu, semuanya? U.I mungkin memasukkan, atau apa-apa-apa, hanya memasukkan, iya. Macam mana kamu dapat, perempuan kamu pertama? Well, perempuan pertama, ada sebuah kota yang dipanggil, dunia dunia, yang sangat popular. Iya, It's still popular. Iya, but I think, the forms are still good, but I think, more commu is like reddit, and Twitter have kind of popped up now, or just pop up the distribution. Iya. But back then, I mean, I think the peak of these forms were, in 2010s. But I, I think I posted a thread saying, hey, like I'm working on this, you know, web rank tracker thing, like, you know, who's interested in it. I was getting like, pages of pages, of a, you know, people pointing their hands. I'm okay, so I coded it. Well, I was already coded for internal use. So I just, you know, I made it like a login, sign up, and I did like a PIM processing, and then I launched, I gave some trials out, and some people signed up, gave me feedback, had read a few, for a few more months, and then eventually, released it, for, you know, public, people, I made it like a launch for people to sign up publicly. Iya. Iya, and so sort of. It basically, the best form of MVP product launch, which is what popularized today, right? Iya. Iya, Iya, but, I think, Iya, back then, but I think the key thing back then was I validated the demand first, um, before I, before I launched it. Because I think, if I went, like even if I, it's like the right place by the time, because if I went today and I did the same thing, there's so many ranked trackers out there, you know, might be difficult for people to show interest now. Yup. Yup. Okay. So 2012 launched? Is that correct? Yeah, 2012. Okay. Launch got you feel customers, beta customers. I'm guessing you improve the product along the way. Um, how did you, imagine if you had 50 customers and stuff, right? Those have referrals word of mouth. How did you improve the product over the years? Because, like you said, you only sold it like 10 years later. So like, what were you doing like, in between those years? Ya, so I would, I would, I would take customer feedback and just, you know, figure out what the pain points are and then iterate it. I think, a lot of customers they like to suggest features, but, you know, it's um, it's like a rule where it's not their job to suggest features and it's not your job to suggest pain. It's like, you have to figure out their pain point and then you have to figure out which features they need. So it's actually like an inverse of what they would ask for. So, so, and you, the customer as well. So you actually knew the pain. Ya, as well. Ya, so I think it's easier also if you, if you're your first customer, but if not, like, I think I've seen a lot of products where they just start adding random features and it ends up being like this frankincider product. It's possible. Or like, you know, I've seen a lot of other sales. Ya, they had the one thing and then they start adding little things and no one even use them but then they have to end up maintaining all these things. Ya. So it kind of iterate that way and it improving the UI, the UX. Also in the back end like we were scraping on this, we're gathering all this data and stuff in-house so it was it was very challenging back then to you know, keep everything operationally going as well. Okay. Gathering all the data means all the search queries that people are is the inputting. Process everything. Okay. Okay. So, how did you scale the product from the 2012? So, going from you know, like 10 users to like 1,000 users, the back end and the DevOps must be insane as well because back end AWS was like non-existent, right? Ya, exactly. So, right, ya, these are good points. I'm not even had anything about this stuff. Um, ya, I mean, I didn't have any I didn't really have any employees until 2000 or I didn't have anyone working with me so I was doing all the decoding, all the DevOps and the marketing and the customer service. Ya, I was doing everything. Okay. Okay. Until around 20, 20, 17, 18 ish? 17, 18. Ya, so 5, 6 years. Ha, ha, ha, ha, I think I solo okay, all the okay. Ya, so I hit, I hit a, I hit mill AR with just myself. Ha, ha, ha, ha, it is good, it is good. Bootstrap profitable is basically all the good metrics. Ya. Ya. Ya. So, so, when did you just start realizing hey man, I just need someone to help me here? Well, I was, I was like working 16 hours a day and um, 5 years in, you were working 16 hours a day? Ya, still. Why? Because I was, I was doing everything myself, right? Ya. Let's say servers were crashing, they had like set them up, the DevOps and like they're adding new features and bugs, customer support. Ya. I was just like go, go, go. Okay, okay. Treadmill. And um, also like I, I didn't have any like, you know, I didn't know anyone who was like into business or I didn't have any mentors. I was very difficult. Um, so, you know, I'd ask my mom, hey, but I'd be like, hey, like what the hell do I do? Ya. I'm like, no, like, don't hide anyone. They're gonna steal your business. Ya, like the Chinese one, Chinese mindset. So, Wait, wait, was your mom working on housewife one? Ya, she was just like housewife, right? So, Okay, okay. So, she didn't know anything about business either. Ya, ya, ya. That's a lot of the people who it has. And then, you know, eventually I end up being like a business coach and he's like, he's like, freaking out. He's like, what the hell you got all the way here and you're still learning everything. He's like, First thing I want to get you some customer support staff and I was like, oh, and I didn't know anything. So, it was like a, it was a brutal like 2-3 year like a kind of on-ramp. So, I ended up hiring building up the team. Ya. And everything trained those couple of years later on. Okay. So, you got to a mill total revenue by yourself and then you started hiring. Ya, then it's, ya, okay. Okay. How long did it take for you to like, because like business coach, stuff like that, right? For you to like really remove yourself from the business such that you could just do whatever you want. Oh, it took a, it took a good 4 year, 3-4 years I think. Okay. From 2017, basically 2020. Ya, like 20, let's say 2018 until 2020-21. Ya. Ya, something like this. Ya. Okay. I mean, some of the competitors in this space like Ahrefs, Sam Rush, ya know, Sam Rush, I think it's public, right? As well. Ya. Ya. So like, these guys, you know, they're coming after your throats as well at the same time. Like, what were you thinking and were you even trying to compete with these people? Ya, it was, well um, well the first few years I had like very high parabolic growth and later on, I think it really slowed down a few years in because that's around the year when Sam Rush and Ahrefs they started releasing these at free, like they just bundled the whole product into their their suite, right? I'm like, oh shit, like and then people are canceling like oh, and that's the mind like oh, this will, you know, this thing's getting for free and um, it was quite, it's quite frightening at the time because I, you know, I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Um, and then I saw my competitors as well, a lot of other like core rank trackers they were also they started to like try to compete against those big, big tools like they started trying to adding they started to try bloat, basically just bloat Ya, they tried they started to add to like um, like a, like a, you know, site crawlers and like these things and uh, but for me, my strategy was I'm gonna just hunker down and defend rank tracking so I, you know, I was looking at um, like I guess Sam Rush in HSN I was saying, okay, well, they have their rank tracker. Um, what would somebody who's a more dedicated SEO person like need for rank tracking and try to just double down and focus just on rank tracking. Ya. Ya. Was, looking behind site was that the correct decision? Ya, I think so, ya. Ya, I think so, because um, I think SAS is like a, it's more like a winner takes all the thing, right? It's like a, you're basically buying um, you're basically starting a refrigerator. Other works or it doesn't work, like in other niches like info or e-con. Um, like if you're doing info, I'm doing info, we each get a piece of the pie. And in SAS, it's winner takes all. There's no such thing as um, you like divide it up evenly. Okay. So it's basically the best rank tracker will win. And of course you can niche down like ya. The best high-end rank tracker, best low-end, ya. Best rank tracker for agencies, best rank tracker for enterprise, but the best of each category will win. There's no such thing like, oh, you have to each get a piece. So I think that's the key difference between um, like playing in SAS versus um, other spaces. But personally like, I do SEO as well. I do marketing. So like, um, I wouldn't want to buy a personalized rank tracker, tracker and then buy like a key with search volume or something else. You know what I mean? I don't want to separate tools. I don't want to pay for separate subscriptions. Okay. So, am I saying it wrong or I don't know? So you mean if you have SEO mesh, you wouldn't want to buy a dedicated one? Like I'm a customer, I'm a potential leader, whatever, right? I don't want to be paying for separate subscriptions. Ya. I don't want to just have one rank tracker software and then one for search volume. You know what I mean? Ya. So you mean if you you already have SEO mesh, you're less likely to buy a dedicated one? Ya. Because like, SEO mesh probably is everything already. Ya. Ya. So it's Ya. You might Ya. So in this case you might have just churned in went with the free one. Ya. But maybe for like an agency also, so what we did was we we focused like more on SEO agencies. And they had needs that SEO mesh weren't able to feel like like a subaccounts or dedicated reporting or different shareability of projects. Okay. Stuff like that. But ya, when SEO mesh and these tools included Ya. For your use case you probably would have churned based on what you told me. Okay. So basically what you're saying is that the USB or the stickiness for your product is more to do you sell to the enterprise, you sell to the agency people. Agency people need to prove the value to the customer to hey, we're actually increasing your ranks. Ya. Whereas an ASF or SAMRES is probably more like me. Like someone who uses just the product just for the product. Not necessarily, ya. Ya, exactly. More like an in-house team or like an affiliate. Ya. Okay. Ya. Okay. Got it. Okay. So 10 years in Ya. you decided to sell the business. Why? Why? Well, well, SEO, well, sorry this project like 10 years back and Sorry, this is 2020, right? This is 2022. Two. So, so, ya, I mean it was still fun. Well, ya, trying to work on this thing but ya, my heart wasn't really in anymore because it's been over 10 years like I was good at what I was doing but Ya. Ya, I want to move on to different things and other more exciting things that, ya know, have maybe higher higher personal interest in and and ya, I just want to change it, change it up and also for my personal skills and I tried everything I could. Ya. I couldn't, like I knew what I I knew what it would cost to get to the next level and I wasn't willing to pay it and soal to me somebody else, I thought it was better I sold the business and somebody took their skills and they took it to the next level. Okay. What do you mean the next level meaning like 2-3X revenue that's all of it? Ya, let's say 2-3X revenue or 10X. Okay. And what is the price? You said you don't want to pay the price, right? Well, it's like well the price is like, you know you got a really um like the team the hiring you know build out the product team build out the background like maybe you have to go cash for neutral right maybe you have to hire like um like a heavy duty CTO like 300-400K a year well like if you really want to take a shot at SEMR at these things like you know instead of just trending maybe you got a higher CTO like 300 let's say 200-300K a year you got to hire couple of developers a product and really got to sort um like rank tracking I think we did a lot of the things we could already in the rank tracking space maybe you have to we have to take a kind of like not pivot but like kind of turn the product to more painful needs because rank tracking it's um it's more like selling a vitamin versus like the pain pill a painkiller like there were tools in the last couple of years where like they actually help you write the article that gets you the traffic right so you know I'd have to get the CTO like dedicated as to only that gen AI start coming as well or stuff like this yeah it's like you know those are like those explosive growths right so rank tracking it's um it's kind of like an older niche it's maybe it's going to be there for a while but you know it's not going to see that explosive explosive like 10x let's call it yeah yeah maybe I'd have run it cash for neutral for like 3-5 years and then take a shot but uh yeah it wasn't going to pay that price and side of change and trust me got it basically extreme capital investment need to go to neutral need to go to go to break even basically and try to just yeah like pay more shot more shot it okay okay okay got it uh I know because you said the first five years or so you didn't really talk to anybody it's more like a so-know-all entrepreneur thing when did you start opening up talking to not only the software guys just entrepreneurs in general and expanding your network of um yeah so I started a well it was very hard for me connected with people who were just like normal people I didn't really have that many friends just had maybe like my childhood friend and um and um so I was going you know I wanted to expand and connect with more people like with like-minded people kind of joining some communities like EO like entrepreneurs organisation so and then I started meeting other people and I was like oh that's pretty cool um so I started to talk to more people and uh you know get more ideas and stuff like that EO is based in multiple cities right you can they have chapters in around the world so okay so you joined the Panama one in Canada, Toronto Canada, Toronto then I left that and joined the Panama and later on okay okay I also know you you talked with Jason Lemkin the SaaS guys as well right I mean if you talk to other SaaS people you generally get ideas right so what what made you like despite talking to all those people getting new information from these people like uh you're like okay just I don't want to do this well SaaS there was an inflection point I think where it was getting like I think there was like two phase of SaaS like like okay when I first started in 2000 early 2010s that was more like like there was no such thing as it wasn't called SaaS it was called like web apps yeah and there's no such thing as SaaS there's no SaaS community there's no SaaS SaaS thing so it was more like bootstrapers who had like who were who were almost building out like the basic um SaaS is off the internet like like you know website uptime monitoring um basic basic stuff and then later on there was there was some inflection point where VC money started to enter the space right so um this was probably like 2000 uh 17, 18 and then really set salvation the institutional VC guys yeah they started fucking I'm sorry it's okay it's okay it's okay don't worry I'm not not monetize this channel anyway it's like it's like freaking you know just I'm sorry they started coming into this space and they started dumping millions of million dollars so so like after COVID SaaS really exploded and they started to like started to back all these founders okay so um okay I know there's an argument of what should be bootstrap or VC which one should you but at the end day um it um like if if I'm let's say you're VC I'm I'm bootstrap right yep it doesn't it's good for the customer because like okay let's say you got 10 million dollars in bank account but you give all you give up all your equity like you have maybe 10% equity left right but you they won't diluat that much right they won't they won't but let's say you like multiple rounds right you're like serius D or something and you diluat everything and I'm still bootstrap it's like or let's say you raise 100 mil you have 10% equity left at the end day you have 100 mil in the bank and I have I don't have I have all my equity but I don't have the capital so you you can like on average you can hire better people you can hire better team pay them more and you can ship better products and I can't right so even though I might have more upside personally as a bootstraper just because I have more equity you can still have an advantage over me and you still crush me business wise right so so as I was talking to all these SaaS people like it wasn't really helping because you know like when I went to these conferences they were all talking like hey like did you raise around did you did you like are you on seed are you on Acer I'm like going on bootstrap and like I wasn't really able to connect with those people and the bootstrapers they don't go to the events I mean like the ones I went to like Saster and a couple other ones I like I went to this one yeah the most like yeah they were like it's very much geared towards investors meeting dating for entrepreneurs basically yeah to connect them with capital allocators yeah so so it was getting hard to bootstrap yeah so even like SCMarch they they raised so much money and yeah so I mean AHRPS I know they're like bootstrap but the founder he put in like like half a mill or something to get started right so I mean yeah it's like his own kind of like seed money in a way yeah um so yeah okay I get it I get it but I'm sure people approach you right about raising yes yeah and I mean in the early days the they saw the traction they want yeah I wasn't I didn't really I wasn't really interested I was just kind of the main thing and and you know I thought it was it was nice to have make my decisions how I wanted to I made a pace um you know okay okay I get it I also see they kind of were and it's like everything's inflated why give up so much equity just for just to say I raised right that doesn't make sense yeah exactly yeah yeah and the thing is also technically most of them are not profitable on the economics as well but you're already profitable so you actually don't need that money right so yeah that's right yeah a lot of them yeah a lot of them are raising and yeah kind of digging into that cash yeah I think most people also don't understand how like you said a CTO costs 400-500k right a good one right yeah right yeah like people don't understand how capital intensive a SaaS business is would you would you redo a SaaS if you if you would how how I would run a SaaS is um you can't really run it for cash flow I think it's like a losing game because cash because SaaS is deflationary like it's it's gonna trend towards zero right because there's no cost the service because everyone's gonna compete once they see yeah so like the cost of servicing like 10 and 100 is not 10X it's maybe I don't know 20% more right and then when compared it's coming deflation deflates to zero so if you cash flow it's a losing game because you're gonna end up losing the business over the next five years and and also the problem with SaaS also you have to rebuild the whole product every three three years three years let's say right three or five years the whole product well if you don't catch up if you don't start adding the features it's gonna eventually you eventually yeah stagnate versus compared stagnate yeah and then compared we'll go ahead of you and you'll just end up losing market share to everyone like if you you just go back to the way back machine and you look at SaaS from like five years ago it's unrecognizable like the UI has an update and those are very expensive and time consuming and yeah because you need a front-end guide a Figma guy designer you need like yeah Figma design then you need like front-end and project manager then QA and yeah yeah yeah it's like a whole thing yeah yeah it's basically like 500k paywalls just there yeah really and yeah and other people you know people say oh no like you know I don't need to see to you I can I can get away with off-showing that yeah paying I pay my guy 60k here but okay yeah sure but on average like you hire 500k vs 60k it's on average who's gonna win right yeah like you know on average yeah so yeah okay I get it I get it so if I would do it what I do again I would but if I would have to be able to get number one or number two spot in a big market and and keep it there okay yeah and would you raise? raise depends on the niche if I can get it without raising then I think I think it's good I think I think maybe a sweet spot if you can get to like 5 mil AR strap and the whole number one with like a lean team maybe like you know 20 guys that's that's a really good spot in cash flow and couple of mill a year just that would be a good spot yeah okay but I don't know about the whole raising thing like raising all this money and explosive growth yeah I also disagree with that yeah you wanna talk about the acquisition I mean don't have to disclose anything personal about the firm or whatever um I guess how did you get the inbound offer or like were you trying to sell the yeah oh yeah that one so so when I decided to sell a business I reached out to couple of these like private equity yeah companies oh so you're going outbound yeah I did outbound yeah I think I saw it on this channel Dealer Bust from Nathan Laka so he had a couple of people there so I reached out to them to them to oh the the shakting show right and I watched it as well okay okay so it's got Tim from SAS Group he was one of the contestants there so I reached out to him and oh not him like on his contact form just basically like contact form and reached out to a few and they reached out and I also I also worked with a broker and asked them their opinion on what they could sell for yeah and ultimately SAS Group they made an offer it was like you know all clean terms quick closing and ultimately it was either to go with the SAS Group or to go through the brokerage the brokerage the price is very similar and then the fee was kind of high as well and there's also a risk that I wouldn't get the asking price that they would they were they were one so I was like okay you know if I the asking price a little bit less plus the fees all I'll get even less yep and so yeah so I did the exit with the with SAS Group okay so clean exit I'm guessing all cash and no need for you to continuously be there as well right yeah so they they asked me what I was looking for yeah so you know they would say hey you know just be honest if you want to get out in in a few months or if you want to you know if you want to stay on board and run it you can so I told them hey you know yeah I'd be happy to help you transition but ultimately want to clean the break and so they gave some cash up front like um 80, 90 I think around 80 80 or 90% and no 90% up front and then 10% hold back after after about 6 months okay okay yeah clean break so now you feel all the weight of your shoulders basically right you basically don't have to give a shit anymore um yeah it's I think it comes other problems or no problems like other experiences I would say like it was like you know once you exit people will all congrats congrats what do you work at next and like I don't know but I got my edges at show yeah yeah and then like then like you know like kind of like then also like you know because I this is all did my basically my whole life I was doing like from from you know it's your baby basically yeah like 18 to 18 years old at 28 I was doing this and so now it's like it's kind of like identity right like you don't you're like you're like what do you do you're like oh nothing okay so sorry just random question theQwer.com is a very very powerful domain name yeah how much do you buy how much do you pay for it it um I don't know if the sask group would like oh okay okay but yeah it was a if you can't disclose it's fine I'm just curious I mean yeah it was a yeah six figures yeah okay for the for the exact I got a qwer.com qwer.net .org qwer.net whole qwer.org and you you bought it when you're transitioning from so book basically right yeah I bought it I ended up buying it yeah so I I bought it in I think 2000 I came in which I came in which year about it but yeah I bought a couple years before sold it and then I reband then I sold it but I think I think that was a mistake finance buyers so they they look them revenue multiples look the revenue multiples and so I don't think they value the domain with as much so if I could why not it's a better domain than sub book right it's better but it doesn't help with the cash flow like it's not a cash producing asset like maybe they maybe you know maybe they you know I I think I could have got more money for it if I sold separately and then domain separately okay but it was too late for me to like untangle it now you know okay ya but like amazing domain basically thank you ya okay we come we come to the end of the interview so I mean post post exit life and stuff a lot of people become angels right become investors become whatever they they don't want to build another business and try to make it successful they just want to allocate capital and maybe raise from some fun give me 200 mil just whatever you know for your thoughts on that and I mean what what do you enjoy doing now I'm not really into angel investing that stuff like I don't know how to do it and it's like it's considered like high like high risk and the liquid rent that kind of investment high risk illiquid I would think it's liquid if you want a company you thank you can sell it as well right well if you invest let's say if you have a company invest in you ya like you see I've asked every 25k I don't make an exit if I exit from a secondary if he's and that could that could be years or or most of the time like let's say nine of ten your business goes bankrupt and you want to have ten times phone liquidity after wait till one of the rounds or if you like IPO or you get acquired so like that's kind of a you know it could be locked up for five or ten years before I get any liquidity and so that I mean that's how I came to the conclusion it's like high risk illiquid okay but you don't have to invest in the seat you can just go to A or B ya that's right ya but again I have no experience with doing that so I mean okay ya I don't really find it interesting in there okay ya okay well I came from the boost shop world I have no like I'm not really into this like VC thing and I'm sure there's smarter people who are into it you know they talk about like preference preference preference shares there's preference share preferential shares there's like a liquidity preference ya except all these terms and you know all these five finance stuff ya ya ya ya super boring you know so it doesn't really add value to the business anyways so ya so well nowadays I'm working on just kind of finding and building a home like where I want to settle down for for next five or ten years ya ya last question I'm maybe second last so I mean what do you actually do during your day besides finding a home besides finding tax requirements or whatever like nowadays I'm just I'm reading a lot I'm I'm on a YouTube lot I'm just learning kind of learning taking things getting new ideas ya new ideas I'm new frameworks about the world how it works yep also like figure like my relationship with money a really good book like psychology of money that are read okay just helping me understand like you know what's kind of happening and taking some time off I did get really burned out from running that stuff because it was like 24 seven devops basically ya if anything crash or any fires so ya do you still code for fun? um not too much not too much okay cause it's always like frameworks nowadays and you really gotta like be in it to ya to keep up ya okay uh okay do you have any advice for the audience um I mean these people could be says entrepreneurs or they could be literally anything just building a business do you have any advice for them specifically? um I think ya I think maybe a just be careful of like the hubris you know hubris like um Tukaki ya Tukaki like there's ya well when I had some success with Sir Book I started like to try different other small other businesses and I go you know I'm so smart Sir Book work cause these are gonna buy this thing ya ya ya like buy this thing it's gonna blow up and grow but all that happened was I end up wasting all this time and it's like or like for example like later on you start uh you start you start thinking like oh like I don't need to talk to customers I'm just gonna build this thing for sure this gonna work or for sure this and this is the the next big thing that blows up but you know you know like ya ya ya you're just stuck in your head think about it ya so like just stick to what works talk to the customer and validate and just keep building that way and I think I also um may focus on one thing like if um cause I when my when the when the I when the when the when the business wasn't exploding more I started like buying other small SaaS things and all that there was I just end up like dispersing all this energy right like instead of doing one instead of focusing on the customer you just distract it yourself basically I'm enough customer but the main business like I started going all in on one business I started doing like uh saw the smaller business on the side and it's like um what I should have done there was I should just try it went all in and if I couldn't do it I should have sold the business and then did a second instead of doing like one big one and then trying to do acquisitions to grow the alternate portfolio you know okay that's great advice okay and okay hahah uh would you like to how do people find you if you don't want people to find you it's fine don't promote anything but I guess how do people find you um ya can you let us know if they want to connect if you don't want to talk to you how do they network with you or something um not really too active on social media but uh got instagram kevinzo okay i'll put the link down below ya okay okay anything else that's it thanks so much thank you so much okay thank you hahah okay cut