Approaching Nebulous Tasks

Colleen and Michele both work through making big tasks less scary.
Michele Hansen  00:00
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Michele Hansen
So, last time we talked about the numbers for Simple File Upload was about two weeks ago, and you hadn't really looked at it much for a few weeks because you had been moving. Um, and it was at $515 in MRR, and it's been, like, two weeks since then. So where, where ya at?
 
Colleen Schnettler  01:46
So, I checked this morning and I am at 800. 
 
Michele Hansen  01:50
Whoa. Dude. No, I am like almost 1000. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  01:52
I know. MRR. I know. that feels like almost 1000, and like 1000 feels like a real business.
 
Michele Hansen  02:02
Holy buckets of guacamole, Batman, like 800 dollars!
 
Colleen Schnettler  02:06
Yeah, it was it was um, it's exciting. Now, like, the caveat here is the reason I had such a jump because I'm averaging about a customer a week, which is a wonderful growth rate for me. But someone signed up for my custom plan, which is $250 a month.
 
Michele Hansen  02:23
Hey, oh.
 
Colleen Schnettler  02:25
So
 
Michele Hansen  02:26
What is your custom plan?
 
Colleen Schnettler  02:27
So my custom plan is basically like, whatever you want. I don't actually even remember if I put like, what the limits I put on it. I should probably check to make sure this person is set up properly. But basically, the custom plan is, is the idea that I will set it up for you. Um, so that person is signed up, and I have, I'm sure it's a company at that, you know, it's through Heroku. So I'm sure it's a company. I have reached out, but I haven't heard anything back yet. So they're just paying me. So hopefully, I can help them out. Yeah, hopefully I can help them out. So yeah, that, that's that plan. So that's why there's been such a big jump over the two weeks, because that really made a difference. But it’s very exciting. 
 
Michele Hansen  03:10
That's so exciting. And I really hope that you can, you know, get in touch with these folks, and figure out why they bought that so you can sell a lot more of that. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  03:22
So I can sell more. 
 
Michele Hansen  03:23
Like, let's do that. Like, let's sell more of that. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  03:26
This plan.
 
Colleen Schnettler  03:28
I want everyone on this plan. So yeah, so that was a nice surprise. I have, as I said, I finally have a little more time to work on it. So this week, I pushed through like, just a few small things, a few email onboarding changes. I wasn't getting a very good response rate to my email. So I just tried to make a few changes. I just pushed them through this week, so I won't know if they work for a little while to see if I could get some more responses. And I think, you know, I'm still, I'm still in this weird place where I'm really busy, and I don't have quite the time I thought I would. So I'm really just trying to focus on small, persistent, small, consistent effort over time. And I was reading a tweet by Paul Graham, and I know a lot of people have like, mixed feelings on Paul Graham. Okay, but I still like his tweets. Anyway, someone was, was talking about when Y Combinator started, and they were talking about how the thing with Paul Graham is, he used to like, intensely focus on one thing. So if you were in his Y Combinator batch, and you were supposed to do this one thing, like, every time he saw you, that's all he would ask you about. And I like that because I think in this stage, there's just so many things, right? There's so many things pulling my attention. Like for example, I went to do these emails, which should have taken 30 minutes, and I ended up spending four hours because I was like, well while I'm in here, I'm gonna fix this thing and while I'm in here, I'm gonna write some more, I'm going to get these tests passing and, and while I'm in here, you know, and then it was like, the half day I had, I had set aside to do this stuff got taken up with, like, all those little things. And those are all good things to get done. But Michelle, it's been like, three weeks since, or four weeks since our interview with Drew, and I still have not taken the feedback we discussed, and put it on my freakin homepage. Like, I just haven’t done it.
 
Michele Hansen  05:28
That’s okay. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  05:28
I know, but I, I think that should be my number one, I think that should be like my number one thing to do. So until I get that done, I should stop getting distracted by oh, but my email copy could be better. Oh, but this thing could be better.
 
Michele Hansen  05:43
So, can we talk about your email copy for a second? So I'm curious, like do you have what the copy was before? And then I'm just curious what you changed it to.
 
Colleen Schnettler  05:54
Oh, you know what, I'm only saving the ones that I have now. So I didn't save the old ones. 
 
Michele Hansen  06:01
Can you read us the new one? 
 
Colleen Schnettler  06:03
The new one says, “Hi, I just wanted to personally reach out and thank you for trying Simple File Upload. Would you mind replying and let, letting me know two things? One, are you working on a business client or personal website? Any links you want to share are encouraged. Two, what are you hoping to accomplish with Simple File Upload? I read and respond to every reply. Thanks, Colleen. Simple File Upload Founder.”
 
Michele Hansen  06:28
Can you, can you walk me through the sort of, some of the changes you made? Like what were you thinking? 
 
Colleen Schnettler  06:36
Yeah, so before I had something that was more like, “Hi, thanks for trying Simple File Upload. Please let, please reach out. If you have any questions, or you need any help getting set up.” I think I had something like that before. I don't have the exact text, but it was something along those lines. So the goal in this email copy change is to try and make it a little more specific, like, the questions. So you know, oh, and then at one point I had, are you using? I had one question. So I started with, I think the very first was just, you know, thanks. Let me know if you need any help. I think the second one was, can you let me know if you're using react or JavaScript? That one had a decent response rate. And then I went back to the old one, which was, let me know if I can help you. And where am I now. And so now I'm talking, I'm doing that curious to hear what you're working on one that we just discussed.
 
Michele Hansen  07:25
I'm interested to, to hear what the responses are. And you said that the customer who signed up for your custom plan is probably a company. And I feel like at some point, months, or I don't know, a while ago, that you had decided to focus on people who are working with clients, because they need something like this much more frequently. And it was kind of like you, like, wanted companies as customers, but it was kind of like, if you don't get in the beginning of a process, like they're basically not going to use it, they're already set up on us three, like, they're good. Like, let's focus on the people working with clients instead. And so I'm kind of, like, something interested in like, a little shift there. I feel like that, um, you know, a little, little shift in the wind there that I feel like I just picked up.
 
Colleen Schnettler  08:26
Well, I want to work with whoever will pay me. I mean, I don’t know if it has-
 
Michele Hansen  08:30
I know I was like, sort of like your like, marketing and how you were structuring things you were like, let's go after these people first. And then if we get those, like company, customers, like, great, but, be, it seemed like from what you had done from your research you had picked up there was kind of like a bigger lift and like, a little bit harder to get those bigger companies as customers.
 
Colleen Schnettler  08:54
Yes, I would agree. I think that's true. So I don't, I don't really feel like it's a shift, I feel like that, that is still, those are still my people, or my ideal customer is still kind of like, the smaller businesses just getting started, consultants who have to do this over and over and over. Those are still probably my primary market. But I am very curious about this one company that signed up. So I feel like the new email copy more accurately targets that market because it's kind of more lightweight. It's kind of more like, hi, I'm your friend and I want to know what you're working on.
 
Michele Hansen  09:32
It'll be really interesting to see what the responses are you get back and what people say they're working on and I would be so excited to, to you know, try to talk to this new customer and figure out like, are they switching from something else? Are they using this for an entirely new project? Like, like, where, like, what like how does this fit with everything? Like, are they using this for everything, or, and why are they switching to something new? That's always a question that I find so insightful to get the answers to. It's why it’s one of the first scripts I wrote for interviews, but I think that could be, like, really, really helpful for you to figure that out.
 
Colleen Schnettler  10:14
Absolutely, I, um, am a little worried that they're just gonna say they did it on accident. That's normal, right? But yeah, I will let you know when I hear back. I haven't heard anything back.
 
Michele Hansen  10:27
There’s always that fear, right, like, if I email, email the customers like, maybe I'll remind them that they signed up for it. And then they didn't mean to, or, like, they'll decide they actually don't like it because I got this email. And you know, I have never found that to be the case. But that, that fear is real, right. Like, that's a real fear. Like, you know, the bear, right?
 
Colleen Schnettler  10:49
Yeah. Exactly. Like they're, they're paying me $250 a month, maybe I should just leave them alone. Yeah, I do think, so back to, I mean, I think this is something I really need to hone in on because I still feel like, no, I'm sure, I'm still kind of bouncing around in that kind of high churn. Some people are using it, some people aren't even though they're paying for it, which is weird. But I definitely feel like I haven't found my target market. And so the people I have talked to have all been so far, as we just discussed, like, either they have a small business, or they are just getting started on something with a lot of potential, and they just want to get up and starting quickly. So I definitely still think like the consulting small SaaS people are my people. I actually had a, stop me if I told you about this, I can't remember, but I had a prospective client, customer, prospective customer for Simple File Upload interview last week, or two weeks ago. Did I tell you about that?
 
Michele Hansen  11:52
I think you were gonna have that interview, like, right after we talked. So I don't know if I heard about that.
 
Colleen Schnettler  11:57
Yeah, so what happened was, he was pair programming, like totally random. This guy was doing some pair programming with Drew, you know, the guy who came on and uses simple file upload, he saw it. And Drew said like, he wasn't, you know, he didn't draw attention to it. But this other person saw it was like, that's really cool. I could use that for my project. So he reached out to me, so we had a call. And, yeah, so I really think like, those kind of people who have like, a really, you know, a fledgling startup, you know, they're just getting started, like, and they realized they need to Simple File, or they realized I need file uploading, are kind of my people. And what, exactly what he said was, he said, I just need this to get out of my way, right? Like, I don't want to spend two or three days doing file uploading. I want to focus on my core business, and I need this to just be done, which is like, exactly the market I'm going for. Those are my people.
 
Michele Hansen  12:54
It sounds like that's like, the reason why you built this right, was like, to get it out of the way that you know, nobody wants to spend all their time dealing with file upload, like they want to do something else. Nobody wants to just upload files, they want something else, like, it's just part of the process they're going through to do whatever it is they want to do.
 
Colleen Schnettler  13:12
Yeah, absolutely. And so I've been thinking a little bit, too. I mean, I've been, as I said, busy with other things, and I haven't given this a lot of attention. So we started this podcast, I use this podcast as like my accountability to make sure I shipped a product. So now I have shipped a product. So now, I want to become accountable to you that I'm going to continue marketing, because there's a couple things we've been talking about for weeks. And I just haven't managed to get them done. So this week, my goal is to, I'm close to getting my DNS and my bucket set up to do on the homepage, like we've talked about, like, have a demo right there. I'm close, but I'm not quite ready. So my goal is to focus on that goal, not get distracted by my code for four hours, as long as there's not an error. And there haven't, you know, I haven't had that problem. That's my goal for this week is, is to get that done and see what that does for signups.
 
Michele Hansen  14:13
It sounds like, sort of putzing around in the garden of code is really where you're comfortable.
 
Colleen Schnettler  14:18
Yes. Oh my gosh, it's the worst. Like, like, you should see me with this mail thing. Like it was my hour of marketing. I was like, I'm just going to change the email copy. That should take me 20 minutes, and it was just like, oh, but this, this test should probably be passing, even though this test whether it passes or not, has like, no bearing on my like, my product like it really doesn't. It was like a thing I'm not even using, but I just wanted to get it to pass. And then I'm like, futzing, I'm like, Oh, well I could reorganize this a little bit. And wouldn't it be nice if this, you know, if I refactor this and I'm like, oh no, stop. Yeah. 
 
Michele Hansen  14:57
Do you have, like, a list somewhere of all the stuff you want to do?
 
Colleen Schnettler  15:01
I do have a list. Yeah. 
 
Michele Hansen  15:02
Is that, like, how granular is that list?
 
Colleen Schnettler  15:08
Not granular enough because I get so, I mean, I don't typically get distracted. It was just this. It was a little frustrating, though. Um, I don't know, it's kind of big at the moment, especially the marketing stuff, right? Because that's all kind of like, you should do this thing. And you’re like, okay.
 
Michele Hansen  15:24
I think if you broke it down, those tasks more, like, you know, into not just like, you know, make a landing page, but like, you know, which specific one? What specific things are we putting on there? Like, what do we need to do? Like, and so like, can we like, what is the top priority marketing item? They're like, are they all prioritized? Or are they just kind of there.
 
Colleen Schnettler  15:50
They are not. They are just kind of,
 
Michele Hansen  15:51
They're just floating in space. Okay, so let's, let's take one that feels kind of important. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  15:56
Okay, so for me, the important one is, the most important one is on my main page, I want a, I want to get testimonials up. And I want to get a try it now, like you can try it like as soon as you hit the page. 
 
Michele Hansen  16:14
Is this one task in your list? 
 
Colleen Schnettler  16:17
Yeah, yeah. Landing page update.
 
Michele Hansen  16:19
Okay, that sounds like more than one task. And at the, you know, risk of sort of being somewhat of like a to do list pedant here, like, I think we should, like, slice that one up a bit. Right? Like, make them all individual, because I think where this, you know, when you're doing something new, that's scary. Like finding a sense of progress when you're just spending all this time learning, like can like, I'm here right now, like, I feel like, I had like fish out of water, figuring out how to market and sell and layout and everything else like a, like a book like, I’m so there. Just breaking it down and giving yourself a sense of accomplishment. And so like, you know, from what you said there, like, I believe it was getting testimonials on the homepage and adding the code pen. So the testimonials and the code pen, those sound like two separate tasks to me, and then also getting the testimonials, that sounds like a combination of tasks. Because unless you have those already off the shelf and ready to go, you're going to need to reach out to people to get them, get the, to write some copy, get them to approve it, get like, an image of them or whatever that is, and then you have to load it. And so there's all these other tasks there. And so it, like, makes sense to me that you would look at that and kind of be like, ah, I'm just gonna go do some weeding and refactor some stuff. Like, because that task is not like, like, if a product manager or project manager handed you that task, you know, on a Trello board and you're, you know, in a suit and tie kind of job, you'd be like, this task is not properly scoped. It's not ready to be taken in. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  18:14
I totally would, too. Be like, yeah, no. 
 
Michele Hansen  16:19
And so apply that to your marketing tasks, too. Like, and I think that'll give you a sense of progress when you can start checking stuff off at least, and seeing these differences too.
 
Colleen Schnettler  18:14
Yeah, I absolutely think you're right. And I had kind of been feeling like, well, I don't want to change anything until I can change everything. But yeah, I think that, that I think you're absolutely right, like, a testimonial is like at least five steps. And my code pen is at least five steps because I got to get, you know, I got to do all these things we talked about a couple weeks ago to protect myself. So I've got to make sure I'm cycling a delete on the files every five minutes. And the domain is independent from my other domain. And like, it's not insignificant to do that. So yeah, that's like, that's like 10 tasks total. So you're absolutely right. I love that idea.
 
Michele Hansen  18:50
The first, the first step on the to do list is the bingo card free space. It's breakout all of the tasks in the to do list.
 
Colleen Schnettler  18:58
Your first task on your task list is make your task list.
 
Michele Hansen  19:01
It’s very meta, but it's so works, like.
 
Colleen Schnettler  19:04
Okay, I'm totally gonna do that. I'm usually really good at this. And I think this marketing stuff is just a bigger, you know, because it's, it feels nebulous, as we've discussed before.
 
Michele Hansen  19:13
Yeah. And when something feels nebulous, it's so easy to just be like, I'm going to do this thing I understand. Even if it's not the most important thing I could do be doing because it's the other thing feels a little bit like, ah. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  19:24
It's so weird how you can like know, know this, know this about yourself and know you're doing it and still do it, isn’t it? Like, I literally when I was doing four hours trying to debug these specs, I was like, I knew this was a waste of my time. I was like, these specs have no bearing on my product at all. And they will eventually, right? It's a future task. It's like when I get API stuff set up, but like, I'm not anywhere near that.
 
Michele Hansen  19:50
It's like your brain is like getting away with something that another part of your brain doesn't want to happen. It's like, sneaking off in the corner and it's like, look at me, I'm just gonna refactor now. You can't see me.
 
Colleen Schnettler  20:00
It's totally true. Like it, I knew it, right, you're like, this is a waste of time, just stop, but you're like, but it'll be so nice when they're all green. 
 
Michele Hansen  20:09
And it feels good to complete things. And so work in that, like, I, I'm always amazed when I know the psychology of to do lists that like, I just get a little dopamine hit from checking things off. And so I put things off on it that's like, you know, make the to do list like, you know, walk the dog, like, oh, my gosh, I've gotten five things done already. Look at me. I'm amazing. And then like, then you can power through the rest of it.
 
Colleen Schnettler  20:31
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I like it. I'm gonna do that. And, and like I said, you know, I'm just going to focus on little tasks, compounding over time, right. Like, like, this is going really well. Just go really well. So I just got to keep at it, and I can really make some progress.
 
Michele Hansen  20:50
Yeah, dude. I mean, you're at like 800. MRR like that's,
 
Colleen Schnettler  20:53
I know.
 
Michele Hansen  20:55
I think it took us like, six months to get above like, like, 500. Like, 
 
Colleen Schnettler  21:03
That's encouraging. 
 
Michele Hansen  21:06
Yeah, this is, this is very, very encouraging. Like it you're like, so you were so chill about it. And you're like, yeah, so that was great. And I hope they use it. And I'm like, I would be like, I don't know. I would not be, I was, I was really struggling to not swear in the beginning of this episode. Like, because we have to, like, flag it that it's, you know, not safe for, you know, and I was like, do not swear, because that's Oh, my God. Amazing.
 
Colleen Schnettler  21:33
Yes, yes. And I am super pumped. So, Michelle, earlier when I was telling you about this new customer, I have, you mentioned the switch script for customer interviews.
 
Michele Hansen  21:43
Yeah, one of the scripts I have, which is one of the most common ones. You know, like thinking about that, like, whole project, because it's so like, I just, I keep feeling like I'm in the position you were in, in like, August and September, when you're like, spending all this time and you're like, is this even gonna amount to anything? Like, is this gonna be worth my time? Is anyone gonna buy this? Is, you know, how much do I need to get done now, versus how much do I get done later? You know, so I feel like I have the scripts done, which is pretty awesome. Like, I feel like I had like, 90% of the actual written content, like in a rough draft form. It does need surgery, like it needs, like, there's some structural changes that need to happen. But um, I don't know. Yeah, it's, it's so, it's, it's doing, doing the new stuff, as you've been saying is, is challenging and trying to like, break that down.
 
Colleen Schnettler  22:44
I can't believe how much you have done.
 
Michele Hansen  22:48
I'm Marie Kondo-ing my brain. There's a lot of like, there's a lot of stuff in Michele's mental attic here. We're just pulling it all out. You know, I'm not building new pieces of furniture, we're just bringing down, you know, the old secretary desk and putting it in the yard. That’s what I feel like I’m mentally doing.
 
Colleen Schnettler  23:01
Still, most people talk about writing a book and then it takes like two years, you're gonna be done in like, six months.
 
Michele Hansen  23:07
I actually don't know how long it's gonna take. Like, I was trying to ask friends who've written books, like, how long did it take to go from like, rough draft to actually publishing something, and it seems like there's a huge variability and also like getting responses from people and they're like, oh, well, then we send it to my editor once we finished every chapter, and I'm like, okay, I don't have an editor like, I'm, like, I'm gonna, like, print out this whole thing, and go through it with a red pen. And I have a couple of friends who I know are, you know, good editors, who will not be nice to me. Like, they will tell me when something doesn't make sense. They aren't in the target market, open it up to other people, as well, a ton of people from the newsletter have been interested in reading it. Um, yeah, I have no idea how long it's gonna take until it's actually, and then also, okay, so this is something I'm trying to figure out. And maybe you can, like, sort of help me think this through. So in my head, I realize that I've been like, okay, so I'm gonna have an e-book and a book book, and like, I guess, an audio book, and then do I need like, you know, maybe it'll be good to have some sort of, like, package that goes with the e-book or something. And then like, but as I think about, like, creating all of that would take me so long. And so it's like, what do I do first? Like, like, which one of those is launched first? Like, I feel like I need to even do that. Because, because if I start thinking about, you know, recording an audio book and stuff, like, like, I mean, this just this to the position that you were in in September like this, I could just keep adding features to this forever and then never like,
 
Colleen Schnettler  24:45
Yeah, yeah. I mean, how hard is it to actually get a physical book made?
 
Michele Hansen  24:51
I don't know. That's a great question.
 
Colleen Schnettler  24:54
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that process. 
 
Michele Hansen  24:56
Yeah, I mean, so I've been trying to, you know, like, Alex Hillman has been super helpful sharing his experiences with Tiny MBA, and our friend Sean, who wrote Sketching with CSS. He's been giving me some advice about this, too. And yeah, I need to, I need to like, calm down and just finish writing, I think, and then deal with that, when it comes to it. Actually, I did something kinda crazy this morning. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  25:26
What? 
 
Michele Hansen  25:28
So I emailed everybody on the list, which is 175 people. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  25:33
Oh, I saw it! I saw it. 
 
Michele Hansen  25:34
And I asked them to set up a call with me.
 
Colleen Schnettler  25:36
50 people, I know, wanted to bring that up with you. I read that this morning. I was like, What? What is she gonna do?
 
Michele Hansen  25:41
Yeah. And my goal was originally 100. And then I was like, that is too many. That's just ridiculous. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  25:45
You're gonna get, okay, wait, wait, backup. For those that are not, who are not subscribe to Michele's newsletter, one, go do that right now. Two, so the newsletter this morning said that your goal is to talk to 50 people. Does that mean, like, get on a call?
 
Michele Hansen  26:02
Yes.
 
Colleen Schnettler  26:03
So you're committing to like, 50 calls. Holy cow. 
 
Michele Hansen  26:08
In the next few weeks.
 
Colleen Schnettler  26:10
Oh my gosh, girl, that is some crazy town. Jeez.
 
Michele Hansen  26:12
So I have been having so much just like, nervousness about like, you know, is this all gonna be worth my time? Right? Is anyone gonna buy this, like, you know, I have this, like, you know, this is totally a labor of love. And I feel like people, like, people are capable of building great software. And they need to be able to understand their customers to know what those customers like, need in their software. And so I just, I feel like I need to get this out in the world. But also, you know, if I launch it, and like, you know, it sells 10 copies, like, you know, okay, I have something that I can, you know, give to people when they ask me for advice about this stuff. But I don't know if I would feel like that was really worth all of the time I put into this. And so I've just been having a lot of like, nervousness about that. And I decided this morning, you know, I was like, you know, I'm gonna like, I'm going to just sit and like, I'm going to listen to that fear that nobody buys it. And like, what does that fear have to say to me? What, what is under, underneath that? Rather than just trying to run from it.
 
Colleen Schnettler  27:14
What did you discover? Is this a thing I can do in my life? Anyway, keep going.
 
Michele Hansen  27:17
Listening to your feelings and not running from them? Yes.
 
Colleen Schnettler  27:21
Okay. Tell me about the fear.
 
Michele Hansen  27:24
And I was like, you know, what, if I have this uncertainty about whether people would buy this, and whether this content is useful to them and whether they've been able to use it, or whether they haven't, or whether they tried, but they didn't know if they were doing it right, and they didn't get the response they wanted back. I need to ask them. I'm writing a book about asking people whether things worked for them. I need to ask the people about the book about whether talking to people like, I need to ask them about that. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  27:51
Yeah. That make sense.
 
Michele Hansen  27:53
And I was like this, this is the way to, you know, assuage this fear and this anxiety about it, is to talk to people and use that anxiety to help me make it better, and not just like, run from it and put my blinders on. But just lean into it. Full throttle, like, do something crazy, like schedule 50 phonecalls in three weeks, which is actually, it's been super fun, though, like, because there's always people I've been like, talking to on Twitter for a long time. And I’m actually gonna have phone calls with them for the first time. And I mean, time zones are just like, a hot mess. Like, it's just, it's gonna be a mess. But it'll be, you know, the nice thing about at least being like, in Europe is like, I can, like morning time here is like when Japan is awake, like Singapore and Australia, like I can talk to people there. And then, you know, sort of later in the day is, is when I talked to North America, and it's like, so I can like, I feel like I can kind of slot people in as long as I'm willing to do you know, like, some 8am’s my time with Australia and some 10pm’s with California, like I can reasonably cover like a lot of people. But I have calls scheduled like all over the world right now for the next couple of weeks. And I'm going to be so tired, like, you're going to talk to me next week, and I'm going to be like, I have no voice. But, I’m excited. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  29:07
Yes. You will be. I can't wait to hear about it.
 
Michele Hansen  29:09
Because like, I want to make it really practical. Like, I want people to be able to read just a couple of pages and feel like there is something that they can take from it because there's so many good books about jobs to be done and user interviewing and everything, but so many of them are so heavy on the theory, and the theory is, I find it really good and really interesting, and I'm such a like, a dig for the why’s kind of person that I love going deep on the theory. But like, if you're in your position, like, you just want to sell something. You want to build some like, you want to know the stuff to build like, like, if I were to write a book that has 100 pages of activity theory in front of it before getting to the really practical stuff, or is you know, like, most of these books are written for people in 1000, 100,000 person organizations. Like, you’re just not going to read it. And so I'm trying to think like, hey, like, what are the tools I can put in this book to make it something people like, okay, I can at least try this on my spouse tonight and like, see how it goes. And then they can kind of slowly build that, that confidence and in doing it. But that's what I'm trying to figure out right now is like, what are the additional practical tools I need in it? Like, is it more sample dialogues? Is it worksheets? Like, is it like, like, what can I do to help people grok all of this. So I'm trying to figure out.
 
Colleen Schnettler  30:36
I love it. I think that’s a great idea. 
 
Michele Hansen  30:37
And that’s why I’m going to talk to 50 people. 
 
Colleen Schnettler  30:40
Oh my gosh, I like, that's so funny, because I saw that this morning. And I was like, what, she's gonna talk to 50 people. Good gracious, that's wonderful. I can't wait to hear how that goes.
 
Michele Hansen  30:53
I feel like I'm gonna learn a lot from it. That's, that's the idea. You know, follow my own advice, right? Like, don't make decisions based on one person. Right? You know, you need to hear at least, you know, sort of similar things from at least five people before you sort of decide, okay, this is, you know, something we should do. And yeah, I, you know, I'm so excited. And so I had a lot of people, by the way, who said, you know, I'm under newsletter, but you kind of send them a lot and they're piled up in my inbox. I do listen to the podcast. And you know, so if you are more of a listener than a reader, that's totally cool. Like, I've, you know, and I think there's probably some overlap with people who would be interested in an audio book there. I would love to talk to you, too, and you can just, you know, DM me on Twitter if you're interested in talking to like, I want to make it very clear that people don't have to have read every single issue. Like, I think the only person who has read every single issue is my husband. So, it's totally fine if you've, you know, you've skimmed them or you've missed a whole bunch. That is actually really useful information for me, because that tells me okay, what is the kind of information that jumps at people? What like, what grabs them, what doesn't? And, you know, how can I, how can I make all of it something that feels useful and approachable?
 
Colleen Schnettler  32:18
Wonderful. That's exciting. Like, this will be just phenomenal research. I can't wait to hear about it. 
 
Michele Hansen  32:24
A crazy couple weeks I’m doing.
 
Colleen Schnettler  32:25
That is gonna be a crazy couple of weeks. Yeah, that's gonna be busy. Well, that's gonna wrap us up for this week's episode of the Software Social podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review on iTunes, and you can reach us on Twitter at SoftwareSocPod. 

Creators and Guests

Colleen Schnettler
Host
Colleen Schnettler
Co-Founder of Refine, Founder of Simple File Upload
Michele Hansen
Host
Michele Hansen
Co-Founder of Geocodio & Author of Deploy Empathy
2022, Software Social