BootstrFM

Welcome all, to already the sixth episode of BootstrFM, the time flies. Honestly, I have to say, one episode every week is quite heavy. So Dom and I are also talking to perhaps, start doing a couple of seasons with ten episodes at a time. Um, could be a bit of a change of concept, but would be pretty cool. Regardless, Booster is a space where we talk about bootstrapping, a startup, which has massive overlap, of course, also with indie hacking. And we started this weekly Twitter space because we thought that it's a good extra opportunity, besides the conversations we already have on Twitter itself, to investigate a couple of concepts, interview people within the community, and basically learn together and become better bootstrappers, indie hackers, and people in general. With all the new attained knowledge. I'd like to ask Dom, my co host, to also introduce himself for those that don't know yet.

Yeah, sure. Hi folks. I'm [00:01:00] Dom. Also bootstrapping for the past few years, also solo bootstrapping. The project I'm working on the most right now is called Helpkit. Which turns your Notion pages into a professional help center or documentation site. And yeah, that's what I'm working on the most. Um, Erwin hasn't mentioned it, but the thing he's working on the most is a Tailscan, which is a Chrome extension that helps you to inspect your Tailwind CSS websites. Ah, yes. Classic. I always, Not getting paid for this.

I don't have an affiliate scheme in general, so no, I always forget to mention, yes, I'm working on Tailscan. You can check my bio and check it out if you'd like. So the concept is as follows. First of all, we have Dagobert as a guest, whom I'll ask to introduce himself in just a moment. We'll have some questions for him. And then see what he has to say and learn from his perspectives and his journey thus far. We'll switch it around. Normally, I will, I do the interviews. This time, Dom will be doing the interviews. [00:02:00] And then, after about 20 Give or take 25 minutes, we'll be doing some discussion questions, which is the open mic part of Bootstr. So if you would like to contribute to the conversation, you can by simply clicking on the bottom left icon, the purple microphone icon, to request to speak. And you can weigh in on the conversation as well, if you'd like. And we very much encourage this. It's always fun to hear multiple perspectives, so definitely don't be shy. But first up, Dagobert, would you like to introduce yourself to us, for those that don't know?

Yes, so hey guys, uh, thanks for having me. I mean, I used to be a bootstrapper for five years. I built a startup called Logology with my Now ex wife, which was my co founder, and we didn't make it work, we didn't manage to make it work. And now I'm in this fun situation where after like trying everything with bootstrapping, to [00:03:00] find let's say happiness and freedom, I feel more happiness and freedom at a job, which is very surprising to me and very weird.

But you know, that's what I'm going through now. Uh, and I think it's pretty interesting. So. Yeah, love bootstrapping. I think I will start, I will do something like that again, eventually. And right now, for the first time in my life, enjoying a job too, which feels very freeing. So that's it.

Awesome. Thanks for the intro, Dagobert. I think having you, as a guest here on the show, it's very interesting because I think you're one of the first person that I've seen in the, especially in the Twitter indie hacker community that actually switched from being an indie hacker back to going back to a job, which perhaps is actually very common. It's just not a lot of people talk about it. Maybe they feel ashamed or maybe they have other reasons why they don't publicly talk about it. And you, kind of leading the full front of just being open about it I think it’s really interesting, that's also [00:04:00] why we wanted to have you on the pod and the first question I want to ask you, that you also kind of already started talking about is like, Would you like to just briefly tell us about like the recent events that happened and kind of like how you find yourself like transitioning back to your like, quote unquote, normal job? How does it feel?

Yeah. So basically what happened is earlier this year, like in February, I had like a massive burnout, which was because of the startup mostly. And because I was working. On average, like 50 actual productive hours a week with like peaks at 70, to try to keep the startup afloat, to try to get us, you know, revenue to reach our goals of, our goal was like 10k revenue per month, And I was working overtime and overtime and going beyond my own limits. And which was, interesting is that I noticed, you know, in hindsight is that I had put myself in such a [00:05:00] state of like hardworking and not even considering stopping, you know, cause we always say, don't quit, keep going, keep pushing. I had basically rewired my brain after five years of doing this that I would have literally never quit.

Like I could have never quit. I remember like, you know, cause I launched like a course about how to go on Twitter and the week of the launch, I remember it was like, I did like three all nighters in a row. I didn't sleep. And I was always excited, always like on a high of like adrenaline and shit. And so anyway, eventually in February. My body eventually collapsed, like my mind didn't and like my, but my body did. And the funny thing is like for the first five weeks, I didn't realize it was burnout. I thought it was like long COVID or something like purely physical. And it took me a while to realize that I was just completely exhausted, and even mentally, um, actually when I look back.

And so, yeah, so my body collapsed. I couldn't, uh, almost get out of bed for five weeks. I mean, I could, [00:06:00] but like, my heart would start racing and I would, you know, if I worked for more than a couple of minutes, I would be like fainting or something. So, yeah, so that's what was the, well, Wake up call, let's say of like, I mean, it wasn't even a wake up call. It was like, I couldn't keep going. I was forced to stop working on my startup and my projects. And so I started doing some soul searching at this time and realized, okay. Like the pressure of, cause like. For those who don't know, my product wasn't something where you have like recurring revenue or anything.

It was just like one time sales, whether it's like my logo startup, which was called Logology, or my Twitter course, it was two things that were like one time payments. And so every day and every month, uh, we would start at zero and the pressure was immense. Especially since my acquisition channel was mostly Twitter and the pressure was enormous to always perform, go viral, and try to get as much attention as I could to get traffic and sales. And [00:07:00] eventually we made it to like 8k monthly stable like that, but it required so much work from me that when I stopped, it then became like, once I, like, had this burnout, revenue went down very quickly. And so that was why I think I burned out. It's like there was such a pressure on me to perform in terms of marketing, in terms of, like, audience that eventually was too much and I could never rest.

I could never take breaks. And at the same time, there was all the drama with Elon buying Twitter and the algorithm changing and impressions changing, and it was just, kind of like the, the last thing that, that really got me is that, okay, I can't even control the Twitter reach or engagement anymore, so like, it was just way too stressful, and yeah, so that's what happened.

Right, right, man. I've been following, I mean, we've known each other now for, I think, two and a half years. And The very early beginnings, I think, when you were on the pod with James, um, talking about like you feeling kind of sad. I had a similar situation a while, like a month, like years [00:08:00] ago now, where kind of like had a small burnout coming and I kind of could sense already that you were in front of like this very misery, and now then seeing you going through this was absolutely horrible and I really appreciate you being so open about it.

I think probably had a lot of people in the same situation seeing you like, I mean, I vividly remember the moment where you were like, you couldn't even stand up, you were like kind of laying in your bed, but you had this nice like black background. So it looked like you were standing. That's, I guess like the Indie Hacker startup mindset. Like even if you feel at the lowest point kind of your life, you're still like rocking it, or winging it. Like you mentioned so many interesting things now. The first question I have for you in regards to this is that, do you regret not building a recurring revenue business where you maybe focus more on subscriptions rather than have like one time purchases?

Yeah, I have a couple of thoughts on that. So the first thing is that I mean, I wouldn't say regret it, but cause I'm happy, I went through all of this and I learned what I learned, you know, this [00:09:00] way. But yeah, I would do it differently. And I think, so the first mistake I made is that, you know, this was really much a passion project for me and Lucy.

It was really a project of like trying to give The most awesome thing that we could give to entrepreneurs and founders, because that's who we wanted to help. And we thought, you know, selling a logo doesn't make any sense to do in terms of recurring revenue. It's not really fair or anything. So we didn't really dig into it. But now looking back, I think instead of focusing 100 percent on like, what's the best thing you can give people, we should have focused most like, let's say 80 percent on that, and then 20 percent on like, Okay. What's the best for like a solid business that is less stressful? Because in the end, if you don't build a solid business and you're only like trying to give something to help others, you know, the price was pretty low as well for that reason.

And I think both things in the end, the business, isn't stable and it dies. And so in the end you end [00:10:00] up ending helping no one because like the business is not solid. So we mostly focus too much on like what we can do for others, which is very important, obviously, but we didn't focus as much on like what we can do for like our business and ourselves. So I think looking back, we would have done. Yeah, I mean, and actually, I had some ideas, before we changed, but like, I had some ideas on like, okay, how we could have done a different approach, like sell a kind of different product, like with logo, but also other things so that it could have been sustainable as a recurring revenue model.

And like, also make sense, you know, from a sales perspective. So that was definitely the first mistake, and also something I want to touch on regarding that is that, so, you know, Daniel Vassallo, awesome Twitter guy, and he talks a lot about small bets, and it's funny, I disagree with him on something, and I wanted to mention because that's what, you make me think of that.

He often says it's better to have one time products because it's easier to sell. You know, when you have like a running business, it's way easier. 'cause you can do, you know, very aggressive promotions. [00:11:00] You don't have much supports. People are easier to be convinced than with recurring revenue, and I think he's right, but I think, maybe it works like when you are someone with like a lot of solid, I don't know assets or like you have a solid, you have a lot of stability financially, so you can allow yourself to have the ups and downs of one-time payments. But when you have only that, like it was our case, Man, it's like, the most stressful thing. I would have been way happier making, let's say, 5, 000 a month recurring revenue, than having to hustle like I did for doing 10, 000, uh, non recurring but regular monthly revenue. Because like, it just eats at you that you basically can't take a break. Because I haven't had a startup with recurring revenue, but I assume, like it's your case, Dom.

If you, like, take a two week break, you know you might miss some growth. But you don't like lose everything. You just take a two week break and then you come back and then you can pick it up. Like maybe you had some churn, maybe you lost a bit, but it's not like you [00:12:00] didn't make money for two weeks. And I think that's something very, very important that, I should have, you know, be more mindful about.

Right. Right. I also think that Like, when it comes to like a digital product, one time purchase, I think distribution is key. And with distribution, I mean, having automated distribution, if you manage to, I think having a huge following on Twitter and that being one of your growth channels is like an amazing way. But it is sort of like you, like the whole business being tied to your activity, especially if it's on Twitter, the algorithm changing. There are so many things that can wreck you, like absolutely, where if you focus, I guess, if you have the privilege to focus more like SEO or have a really nice newsletter or like an information page, like information website that somehow gathers traffic, I think then like these one time purchase products or businesses can work and kind of fly, but I do it, like, I fully agree, it feels so nice knowing that every month [00:13:00] there is recurring revenue coming in, like literally two weeks ago, I was actually sick for two weeks, I couldn't barely like look at my laptop, and While the customer support, like I had to do customer support tickets every day.

I still do this regardless of how sick I am, but like having the safety in the back of my mind of like, there is recurring revenue definitely, definitely made a big, big change for me. I guess like when it comes to you and your startup, do you think you maybe relied a little bit too much on like, you as like your own person on Twitter in terms of growing, like you did like an fucking amazing job with the like startup memes, right? Like that was the most hilarious thing ever. And I think that led to a lot of growth for your channel or for your account. But have you ever considered like investing more in like long term marketing channels, like organic ones, like maybe SEO? Was that something retrospectively you were thinking about as well, or?

Yeah, so actually, we had been thinking of SEO for like three years and the [00:14:00] trap that I fell into is that, so for three years, Logology was making between nothing and 300 a month, and then I found Twitter and for the next two years, I grew rapidly and in like three months or like six months, we went from like 300 to 3000. a month in terms of sales. So for us, that was life changing. We started being able to pay ourselves, you know, a small salary or something. So that was like completely life changing, and the problem is that I didn't want to let go of that because, you know, I was very, very active on Twitter. Like the first six months I was spending about, you know, between 6 and 10 hours a day, every day, including like no Sundays, but like Saturdays as well.

And The thing is, I couldn't let go of it. I mean, I didn't allow myself to let go of it and be like, okay, I'm going to be less present on Twitter for a while so I can invest in SEO. We had a plan. We had like, Lucy wrote some amazing articles that we never even published yet, which is crazy because we never found [00:15:00] the time to really, you know, do it. And so, and that was one of the reasons like we kind of like fought on Logology because like she wanted to let the articles out. And I agree with her, but like there was always something kind of like, I didn't want to let go of like Twitter because it kind of like gave me reassurance that, okay, this is the first channel that works.

SEO was kind of like long term, we knew it would take months to take off. And so, basically, my plan was to release the Twitter course and it would make enough money to give us room to do, you know, to spend, to take a break from Twitter and do some SEO. But then I pushed so hard that my body kind of like let go before I could complete that. But even then, to be honest, I think I would have had a very hard time letting go still because there's also this. It's kind of like addictive feeling of getting followers, getting attention, getting recognition. And it's something that I feel pretty strongly, You know, like I can be addicted to that pretty quickly.[00:16:00]

And so it was very hard to let go, and now I've been forced to let go. And that's awesome. Cause now I feel a lot of freedom from it, but that's not how I was feeling one year ago and yeah, I mean, it was both like fear of losing money for a few months, and also, kind of like existential fear of like, I had finally found kind of like a place in the world. Like I had people cheering for me. I was making friends and I was afraid of, you know, letting go of that and being kind of like, go back from square one with SEO and be less, you know, less the center of attention and shit. That was scary.

It's a bit of a catch 22, right? Because a lot of marketers say like, once you found a channel that actually works, double down on it. So that's actually what we did. And so I think there is no wrong in doing this. It's actually a good practice. Unfortunately, it's just in your case. You double down on the thing that, where you have to put in the most effort and work. [00:17:00] So it's like directly tied to you.

I enjoyed it. So that's also why, you know, I really enjoy, you know, the vibe of Twitter, talking with other people, making jokes with memes, figuring out content. So there was also kind of like, I love doing that more than SEO or any other thing. You know, I find Twitter more, fun and enjoyable. So that was also hard to let go cause it was comfortable in a way.

Right. I agree. I think that's the thing, right? Cause, sometimes being on Twitter doesn't feel like work, and in your case, it actually was contributing to your work and your marketing. Yeah, I totally feel that on a tangent, what I want to ask you, because we have you here today, because like you have been working before you started Logology, right?

Yeah, I mean, I mostly was freelancing because I started freelancing like when I was 16 up to when I was 28. So I did a lot of things like I was a developer, UX designer. I did a bunch of jobs in the I always relate to startup and web space, but at 28, I had my first and only job for one year. No, [00:18:00] at 27 for like, I was a like front end developer for a New York based company for a year. And so.

Right. Right. So what I'm curious about is like, just if you can briefly touch on why did you decide to build your own business in the first place, like your own startup, because you have been working a lot. You've probably made good amount of money. Why did you decide to actually get started and actually build a business? What do you want to get out of it?

Okay. I think the main reason is like, I always wanted to build my own business. Like since I was 16 or stuff, I was always building websites, you know, trying some, like I built a couple of websites on video game, walkthroughs. I built a website on like, French idol TV show, when I was like 17 distributing content from that. I worked with a couple of startups and so I always had a, and in my twenties, I had so many ideas for like startups. But I never like did them because I was too scared because I was always like more safe with like the money from freelancing. And so it was always hard to be [00:19:00] like, I'm going to not take this client and instead I'm going to work on this very uncertain project.

And so I never had the guts to do it, and so what happened is, eventually I got very kind of like, fed up with freelancing? Not really fed up, more like I had been at the end, kind of like, of the road with it. I felt like I experienced everything. I'd been doing that for 10 years, tons of different clients, projects, scale, and I was like, okay, It's not really for me. I tried, but like, it's not something I find happiness in anymore. So then I thought, okay, I'm gonna get a job, because I mean a high paying job, at like a US company. Initially I wanted to work at a startup, but I didn't find that.

And I ended up working for like a dev shop of like five to 10 people who were working for like startups and companies. But it was still very cool. And so I did that, but, pretty quickly, even though the job was pretty awesome, to be honest, it was kind of like perfect. I was making like 100k. And I was working remotely from my hometown in France, so that was a lot of money. And then there was a great team. I had a lot of autonomy, but you know, since I had never did that thing, [00:20:00] I had never like started my own company, which I was thinking of for like 12 years. I had never had the guts to do it. Then eventually even that, having this job.

Became frustrating because in my mind, there was always this idea that, Oh, if I had my own company, I wouldn't have to deal with these frustrations. If I had my own startup, I wouldn't have to do what my boss wants me to do when I think it's stupid. Like I had this kind of like fantasy that startups would bring me freedom, you know, that building my own startup would bring me freedom. And so when you have something in your head like that, when you're convinced that you can do it better than others, that you can do better on your own and with other people. Well, you know, for me, like I was always kind of like resenting my situation of freelancing or having a job.

And so eventually, like there was like a very small thing that my boss did is like, he wanted me to move one of my vacation weeks because, a client needed us, and in my mind, I got crazy, like, Oh, he can't do that. That's like, I warned him ahead of time for my vacation. He can't do that. [00:21:00] But I think that was just like me looking for kind of an excuse because deep down, I really wanted to try my way out, and this kind of like gave me the courage and a reason to do it. And so finally, you know, that's how I decided to leave and start a startup, five and a half years ago.

So would you say that you essentially then starting your startup, cause you were expecting, right? Some sort of more freedom. You wanted to have this like. Kind of picture perfect, I guess like North Star, we all think about when like making our own business, you can dedicate your own time. Nobody is really like looking over your shoulders. There's no boss. You can do essentially whatever you want. Did you end up essentially finding that freedom? And I want to kind of transition that into the question then, what made you actually decide to go back to a job and how is it now?

Yeah. So that was interesting is that I really thought a startup would bring me freedom and that was really the [00:22:00] goal. But I think from the beginning after, like I remember one month after it, the weight of how heavy this was really fell on my shoulders. Like I really started feeling it like, Oh shit, like I'm on my own. I mean, I was with my ex wife and co founder were like, I feel like we were on our own. It's like, obviously there's nobody to tell me what to do, but like, Oh shit, there's nobody to tell me what to do, so what do I do? You know, like, it's fucking scary. And then you work on something for two years and it doesn't pay off and you have no money. Like, it's fucking scary, and so I think looking back, I think from the beginning, I had the wrong world. And I think we, most of us have the wrong world. I think freedom, it's not freedom. Like, I don't, I know very few indie hikers who have freedom.

We have less freedom than if we have like a good job. What we have is we have autonomy and we have the ability to take our decisions. We can do whatever we want. And that is very freeing. That's very enjoyable. I wasn't free, man. I was working way more. I, even when I was taking a [00:23:00] break, you know, my mind wasn't really taking a break. I was always stressed, I was always worried. I was the opposite of free. I was like in jail, but I had autonomy though, you know, and that's the big difference And I think I had this fantasy that I could build, you know, I could live on the beach and work two hours a day and have passive income and shit, and I think that's possible.

You can get to that point, obviously, a few of us managed to do that. But I think even if you have that, you'll never truly passive because you can always have like, I don't know, like, google changes their algorithm and you lose your SEO or like OpenAI changes their policy and like your, whatever you built on top of it doesn't work or people like who built, uh, tools for Twitter API, and then one day Elon pulled the rug under their feet and they lost their businesses. So I think it's a fantasy to think that you get freedom. You get freedom maybe, but like, it's more like in your head, but, you're like very [00:24:00] much facing reality head on without, like you're naked, basically.

You're vulnerable, you're naked and you can get hit and you have no armor and nobody's going to protect you, and so, you know, it was something that I really eventually understood, but yeah, that wasn't what I was expecting.

Yeah, I feel you. I honestly feel you so much because while you do get some sense of autonomy, you can do whatever you want. I myself, even though Helpkit has been running really, really successful now for the past, I guess, like two years now, and I managed to offload a lot of, I guess like annoying tasks with, well, essentially dogfooding Helpkit myself and building stuff that helps me have less customer support tickets, et cetera, et cetera. Yet still every day, and I'm not lying every day I wake up and I'm kind of scared that all of a sudden. Either the server farm burned up, I don't know, somehow pedal, like my payment provider canceled all my subscriptions. My [00:25:00] computer is going up in flames where my server is down and I can't like fix it in like a timely manner.

Like this is all going up in my mind every single day, and no matter how I want to suppress it, it's going to be there anytime, any day, it's just something I kind of learn how to live with, I guess, and also just learning from experience that sometimes like even the most like horrible things you can imagine, there is a way out and kind of honestly also going through this, like your server is down and you're like literally in the middle of nowhere. You have no data and like, you got to find a way. And like, These things absolutely suck. I guess it's just part of being an entrepreneur and a lot of people, I think also just like everyone is kind of glorifying how nice it is to be an entrepreneur. It's like the kind of dream you can do whatever you want.

But then again, there's a whole other side where it's like, yes, you are your own boss, but that means you're responsible for every single action you do. And if you fuck it up, you got to fix this and you got to fix this fast. Otherwise your whole livelihood is on the line. [00:26:00] I feel like it sounds maybe a bit exaggerated, but like, if you are an entrepreneur, if you are building your own startup, you kind of need to be a bit into like masochism, like you just gotta be in the mindset of like getting kicked and kind of starting to enjoy also the lows, not just the ups. It's a whole rollercoaster, right? So I totally feel you with that. What I'm curious about now, obviously, is since you now found your way back to a, I guess, quote unquote, normal job that is likely paying you very well, you sound very happy now.

So you want to tell us a little bit about like, how is it different to like the startup world now? Do you feel much more autonomy? Is there the boss now telling you about your calendar, like holiday, shifting dates again? Or like, how is it now? And you said you, you might end up building your own thing again, cause I feel like everyone had started building one thing, one to go back and like, Make other stuff, but how is your life now? How is [00:27:00] it being employed?

So I think I basically found the best job. I think the thing that happened is, I started thinking I should look for a job when, you know, after a couple of months, I realized I wasn't ready to come back to building startups because it was too stressful and building the things we needed to build to make it sustainable would take too long. And I didn't have the energy or motivation for it anymore. And so, one of my Twitter friends, Oli, he told me about This startup in France who was looking for someone to build a part, I mean, to do, to manage your product, and that's something I was looking to get into. And so, you know, I was very laid back.

I didn't really care, but like, I ended up meeting the CEO, because I just, it's a team of like 10 people basically. And I ended up Meeting the CEO, Del Strico Founders, and you know, we spoke for two hours and I was like, huh, this guy seems like a good CEO. Like he has like, he's pretty inspiring. Like he could be pretty good at business. Then, they kind of like me. So like I did a second interview with the CTO and I thought, oh, this guy is [00:28:00] like pretty complimentary to the first guy. So that sounds good. And then eventually they made me an offer that was pretty good. And I was like, Well, you know what? I'm just going to try it. And what happened is, so the luck that I got, I mean, it's not luck, but let's say opportunity that I got is they knew me from Twitter, basically. They like the CEO followed me from Twitter. He loved my memes. So like, obviously they were very welcoming and receptive because they kind of knew what I was about.

And so the thing that's really beautiful is that they're giving me, Well, full autonomy, to be honest, like, I haven't asked for something that they say no to yet, like in four, four and a half months or no, five months, I think now, and like, it's very funny cause they raised some money, so we have some money and there's a tech, there's a dev team. There's a designer, and I'm just like leading the product and they are letting me take huge decisions because they trust me, and so I can do what I love doing. So build a nice product, but, I don't even have to code it. I can just be like leading the thing and they give me complete [00:29:00] autonomy, good salary, a lot of perks, you know, and it's a French company.

So like, obviously you have all the benefits that we have here that are pretty crazy, like a lot of vacation. If one day I want to leave and build my own startups, I will have years of unemployment benefits with like almost a full salary while I do it. So like crazy benefits and yeah, all that with full autonomy. So for me, that was crazy to eventually come to this realization that, well, I'm also aware that, it's pretty uncommon to have a job like this because it's also fully remote. So I'm working from like a co working space in my hometown that they're paying for, and like, I mean, I'm just chill. But at the same time, you know, I give myself to it. It's a nice challenge, but it's a challenge without pressure. I mean, I guess if I was someone who had never built a startup, I would say there is pressure, but to me it's like such little pressure compared to like having to figure out how you're going to get viral every day to stay alive, you know?

So the pressure for me is very low for my standard. And So it's chill, man. It's [00:30:00] enjoyable. I have autonomy and yeah, that's why I started to realize, wow, when you have the right job and they respect you and they love you and they want you and they give you all the autonomy that you want. And a good salary and all that. Damn, like, that's freedom. Like, that's way more freedom than I ever had at a startup. And I think that I could ever have. So yeah, that was like pretty mind blowing to me. At the same time, I know it's not easy to find a job like this. I got lucky, I think, I mean, half lucky because it was also because I had built a Twitter audience that I got it, so it's also on me.

But yeah, man, and the good thing is like, I feel at peace now because I feel like I'm not running away from a job anymore, because like my whole life almost, I was always running away from that concept of having a boss. And I made a lot of memes about it, I talked a lot about it, and now I'm like, Wow, you can actually come to a job with kind of like power. You can get into a job with like power, autonomy, people respect you, people want you. And so it's not the same as like just, you know, painfully getting hired and you have [00:31:00] to climb your way up. I basically came in by like the big door, man, and like they wanted me. And so now I'm like enjoying myself, giving my best and it's a very enjoyable experience. I love the team. I love the other people there. And we're like trying to, you know, to grow this startup. So yeah, that was a pretty surprising, but I love it.

Man, I'm so happy to hear this, honestly, like I've been following your journey for like years now and like also you being so open, everything in your podcast episodes, that just like makes me so happy to hear that you found like this basically like perfect job, I guess, which a lot of people are maybe perhaps also aiming for. I do agree with you in terms of, the fact that like, I don't say you're lucky in terms of finding this amazing job, but like, I think.

You having gone through all of the pain of being a startup founder now actually makes it so much easier for you to actually appreciate, you know, being employed by like a really, really great company. Honestly, like to me, this sounds like I [00:32:00] want to quit everything now and I'm just gonna stop the BootstrFM podcast and make an EmployeeFM podcast and just become an employee as well.

I'm just half joking here. I do fully agree with like you said that like finding a way from being a startup founder back to like being an employee also gives you a lot of leverage. Right, and that's exactly what happened to you. Man, Dagobert, first of all, thank you so much for taking the time. You are now being an employee again, so the time is even more valuable. Thank you so much for tuning in and helping us understand a bit the world of like finding a way back to a job after being a I say successful startup founder. For everyone tuning in here, the concept of our BootstrFM space is that, we usually start with an interview, which is more like a bi directional way of finding out about the person. And then we switch into the more open format where Erwin is now going to take over and ask just questions that are a [00:33:00] bit more catered towards all of your opinions. We really want to hear like what you think. Um, Erwin, do you want to maybe take over and start a discussion round?

Absolutely. Yes. For those of you that are just tuning in and were like. Oh no, Dagobert just did this amazing interview and I missed it and, you know, now I'm too late. Don't worry, you're not too late. Once the space closes down, there's a recording available. Dagobert, thank you very much for answering all the questions. It's very insightful for me as well. As a matter of fact, I've been polishing a couple of the discussion questions based on what you mentioned. I, uh, would like to kick us off by first asking, if Dan would actually like to say something. I think he requested and he might actually have a question for you, Dagobert. Let's find out,

yeah, so one of the interesting things that he said was the reason to start on his own business. And that was quite [00:34:00] fascinating to me because it almost seemed like a challenge to himself. And I think all of us have that part inside to some extent, at least. And once you get back to a job, I'm curious, do you still have that instinct to challenge yourself? How long will you be challenging this job before you think, okay, now it's boring again, I need something else. I'm going back to it.

Hey, Dan, I'm glad to hear your voice cause we've interacted a bit on Twitter and now I know how you sound like, so nice to meet you, man. Well, that's funny because, yeah, I don't feel challenged at this job and that's the first time I enjoy that, because now, you know, I'm also starting to work on some other type of stuff, like, not really side, I mean, not businesses, but I'm writing kind of like a book on like my failures with my startup because I think it could help a lot of people, I basically found more balance in my life.

Let's say I hate that because I hate the idea of having a balanced life. I don't know why, but like, it sounds so fucking [00:35:00] boring. Like you go to the gym one hour per day, you eat healthy. You like sound so, you know, programmed and like boring. But that's kind of like where I'm at now. I have indeed a more balanced life. And so I found that, although I always love to have a challenge, I don't need that to be in my job anymore. Cause I feel like, you know, with freelancing, with building a startup, I feel like I went at the end of the road of what I wanted. Like I gave myself so much to this startup. And it ended.

And now I feel like, I don't feel like I have anything to prove to myself anymore. Cause, I know how it is, I know how it feels, and I don't think I will find kind of like an interesting challenge in that, or maybe one day if I try a new startup or a new way, maybe I will try raising money. And that would be like a new challenge that I haven't done yet. But, you know, and doing something big, but like, right now I don't really want to do that. And so, yeah, so I'm okay not having a challenge in my work anymore in my job, let's say, because I do other things beside my job, you know, that I consider [00:36:00] work in terms of like what I create and what I plan to create.

But it's not about. I just enjoy like doing this job and bringing the things that I know how to do very well to help build this company and that's enough. Yeah. That's enough for me now. Thanks, Dago. Nice to hear that because I think, at least speaking for myself every now and then I have this pressure of constantly trying to exceed what I've done before. And I'm also thinking like at some point. You know, you can't do that anymore. You cannot always double up on what you've done. And it's good to hear that you can find balance at some point and be sort of happy with yourself and probably each of us will have a different journey on how to discover that balance, but it's good to hear that there is some balance that we could strive for, awesome. Thank you so much.

Thanks, man.

I find that a really good question because, Dan, I don't know if you pre planned this or you're [00:37:00] telepathic, but it ties perfectly into what I was about to ask the first discussion question as well. So listening to Dagobert and combined with my own experiences of having a business that, we're trying out different things and not necessarily having them work or sometimes having them work a little bit, but not enough. I realized that personally for me, like fear can cause me to sometimes want to make decisions that would be right for me, but wouldn't necessarily be right for my business. So, in other words, I would make choices to do a particular type of marketing, or, you know, work on particular things that seems to work or not work.

But, like, I enjoy these things, and they are right for me to settle my fear, for example, or to make me less fearful. But they might not actually be the right decisions for the business itself, and that's quite tricky, and the next thing comes is like, when is the right time to stop? Right? That's also a fear that you constantly [00:38:00] have when things aren't fully working out. When is the right time to actually do call it quits? And then how do you know what that time is? And I'm actually just kind of wondering, if anyone wants to share a little bit about that, or if they have a story about, being right on the edge, or finding out, you know, you're making decisions for you rather than your business. Dom, did you ever experience something along those lines?

Yes. I mean, obviously I think every entrepreneur kind of is dealing with fear on a day to day basis. I mentioned it earlier that every day I wake up and I'm just scared that literally the world goes down and all my servers start burning and then I will lose everything, but maybe something more, um, more tangible, like something I learned, which is, just sounds maybe very, I guess not that important, but essentially for me, it was a big fear. And that is in terms of customer support, right? If you're solo Bootstrap founder, all the customer support [00:39:00] tickets are going to end up in your inbox, right? And so me just being the founder that I am really caring about every single request that came in.

After a certain scale of like building Helpkit, it just turned out that like on a day to day basis, there were just like, especially in the beginning when I didn't have the product really fully built, I guess, in a really good way, um, so many tickets come in and I responded to all of these tickets every, like the minute they came in, and then after like a month, I realized that I spent every single day just now answering my support tickets. And I had this fear that if I don't, people are gonna like abandon me, right? Even though now in retrospect, thinking about it, like the biggest companies, like one of the most important tools I use sometimes take like four business days for me to respond to.

So obviously it's extremely ridiculous for me, but like I always lived in that fear that if I don't respond in a minute, they Sent me the ticket, I don't know, I'm gonna get like [00:40:00] expelled. And so that kind of like led me to make a lot of bad decisions because all sudden I wasn't focusing on the product anymore. I was just focusing on like pleasing everyone. That was like riding in, and then after a time, honestly, just after almost like getting crazy with it, I realized, okay, I need to find a way. So I started just answering tickets in the morning and in the evening, and that worked. But then also like I just. It was such a horrible transition because I always kept thinking, what if like someone has a question and I'm like not looking at it right now.

So I had that in the back of my mind and it took probably like half a year for me to like finally find the balance of being like, okay, I checked my support tickets now once a day, which like some indie hackers check it maybe once every two or three days, which is totally fine. But for me, the thing is like now I check it once a day. And I managed to find peace in that and that makes me build the product, like make me improve the product much more, et cetera, et cetera. And so [00:41:00] that was definitely like a big thing that I always had in mind. Like, so fear definitely played a big part in this. The other question you have about like when to call it quit, I'm probably not the best to talk about this, I guess.

I'm curious, like for Dagobert, in terms of you, when you, like, how do you know, especially for Logology? Cause it was making really decent money. Like, do you have any like proxy of like when? When do you think you should quit your business as a Bootstrap founder and move on to the next? Do you have anything to share about this, Dagobert?

Well, you can wait until burnout. This works, you know. It's a good way to know. Oh, I can't get up off my bed. Okay, that's the time to quit. No, but I think the hard thing with that is that I think, at least the way I saw it, is that you need to be in denial at the beginning. If you want to keep pushing, you have to be in denial that this is so risky. This is so unlikely to work. You have to be crazy [00:42:00] enough to try, right? You know, so something like that, and so that's the tough part is that. You need to stop being in denial eventually and look at it from more of a objective perspective. So I think the tough thing for me is that I never planned to get out of denial.

I was just like rewired my brain that, okay, failure is just like, it doesn't matter. Like I just keep going, keep going. Even if it's the wrong direction, I'm just going to keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. But I think. I would say now the rule I would put on myself is try for like 18 months to see if you get any traction , and if after that you don't, then, you know, stop being in denial and be way more, okay. And look at it objectively and take a step back, but put yourself, like have a deadline, basically. If you have a project that you want to do now, obviously if you're, a builder who builds many things on parallel, you're going to have a different view.

But most people, they just build one thing. So if you just build one thing, I would just be like, okay, give yourself fully, like be in denial, be crazy for [00:43:00] like, one to two years. And, but then set a hard deadline that you need to stop doing that eventually. And if it doesn't pan out then, because for me, that was that like, after like my health and I started going a bit worse gradually after like two years or something, because then you lose the initial spike of motivation, you lose the initial boost. And that's when, if you don't have anything to hold you, then you can only rely on your mental state and your mindset, and that is dangerous. So I would be like, yeah, we have to give yourself fully for like 18 months. And if it doesn't pan out, move on, because then you're just going to keep fighting for nothing.

I like the thing you said about being in denial, especially in the beginning. I think that's very true. Like you need to be almost a bit crazy to believe in your idea to work and listen like really deeply on your gut feeling, which mostly you just have to rock it, right? I agree with that, also [00:44:00] the thing you said about like. I think 18 months is an interesting aspect. I haven't heard it particularly. There's a lot of sentiment right now in the Indie Hacker community of like, build a product in seven days, then give yourself seven more. And if it doesn't work, move to the next. But I think, well, if your idea is like, if it's as simple as that, that's perfect, but I do think that the timescale can be a bit expanded, especially if your product is a bit more mature and I guess more complex. Yeah, I really like that idea.

Yeah, it's going to depend on the type of product, you know, like, cause I think a lot of builders, they just want to look for like the product that's going to get the most traction and go viral instantly, and that's a viable strategy. That's kind of like the Pieter Levels approach, and that works, obviously. That's like a totally different approach. Like, that's one way of doing things. But like, if you have a product that you actually want to do, like you actually care about it deeply and you want to try it for like a good six months, one year it can work as well. It's like, it's a different [00:45:00] approach. So some people I think can find a lot of success with doing one product in seven days because they only hope to find the killer product and they don't really care what that product will be because they are not attached to what they do, I mean, partly.

And so that works, but like, if it's something you really care about, or at least have some really desire to be in a certain space or a certain field, and you want to be, you know, doing things a certain way, then You're going to be a bit more attached to your product and then you need to set more like of a longer time frame, but still set one if you don't want to be, you know, burning out like I did.

Yeah, I was literally just about to say when you said Dagovert, I think you're spot on with that. First of all, it obviously depends on the product that you have, on what the timeline is, on validating whether it can work, but It's, you know, the type of distribution as well, right, like if you cater to, developers like I do, for example, it's easier to validate on Twitter, whereas some businesses would need validation from a group of people that is very hard to find, for [00:46:00] example, and so you would have to focus on SEO, and it takes a longer time to validate, and you're not entirely sure. And what you mentioned with, whatever you do, do set a boundary, whatever time frame that would be is dynamic, but Do definitely set one and stick to it.

Um, I think that's actually great advice. I think we should be talking about that a bit more, normalizing it a bit more of, it doesn't have to be built within seven days and then validated in another seven, but if you can, you know, sit yourself down and look at the facts on this distribution, this is how I could potentially be selling it. This is what is necessary for the minimum product, how long is this going to take, and then how long is it going to take to really be able to realistically validate it. I think just set a time period and then stick to it and then, you know, when you do reach that deadline and there's still no big tangible results, then you don't have to quit, but you can at least,

Review the previous period and say, okay, it didn't work because the product's not good, or that the distribution was [00:47:00] not good, or maybe it didn't work because I didn't do my best. And those have different outcomes whether you will continue working on it or not, well, that's my takeaway from it anyway. We'll be sending a tweet out about that. Probably a good idea talking about boundaries, we had two other spaces in the last few weeks where we already touched on this particular point.

And both Dom and I have been talking about this in real life a little bit as well. It's, how to set boundaries between business and your personal life. And, you know, what boundaries to set between for example, between work and an indie hacker when you have a family, for example, or you have kids, or friends, or social life, etc. Because, part of taking this journey, building your own products, etc. You will be hyper focused on it. You will be ambitious about it. You will want to spend as much time on it as possible. You have this fire within you to just want to make it work, and it can cause you to work [00:48:00] day and night, really.

And, you know, there's not always a time and place for that. You have to guard and set boundaries and, everyone's situation is obviously different as well. Some have kids, some don't have kids or families, some don't. But yeah, how to set boundaries and what boundaries do you set? Does anyone want to share?

Yeah, can I say something? So yeah, I noticed something is that, now that I have this job, I work at a startup and so I have like boundaries I kind of enforced, you know, I'm working for a set time of hours a week and I'm very surprised to see that, I'm just doing my hours and I'm not, you know, doing much more and I'm like, wow, this is still moving forward. Like I'm not doing like 70 hour weeks at full intensity at all, but it's moving forward and you know, it's making progress. And so, this is basically teaching me that, if I needed to work 70 hours a week on my business previously, well, it wasn't a good business. Because like, if it's a good business, [00:49:00] if it's like a good product, if you have like the good market and all that, you don't need to work 70 hours a week.

You know, you're kind of like surfing a wave, but like, if there's no wave, you're going to just be like trying to, you know, to force yourself to surf it. Like it's going to be impossible and you're going to have to overextend yourself to try and stand on the board or whatever. But like, if there's a wave, you can just be like, you know, the wave is going to take you and you can just hide it. And I feel like, the fact that I needed to work this much, was a bad sign. And so, in hindsight, so I think if you're struggling to like set boundaries and like you're exhausting yourself, well, maybe the deeper question isn't like how to have work life balance, but like how to make, can you make this like a better business?

Because like, if you need to work this much, it probably means also it's going to be impossible to delegate probably. I don't know, like, if you work a lot then, and you can't see yourself stop, then maybe it's a bad sign.

Yeah, right. When the product does [00:50:00] require you to work that much for it to even work, then you should reconsider altogether to begin with. Yeah, I think that's also definitely true, especially, when the product is already a little bit more mature, but you still find yourself having to do that to Not to make the product, you know, basically flatline.

Yeah, maybe at the beginning it makes more sense to push, to like, release it and shit, but maybe even then, that's like, maybe that's overkill. Maybe you can do something very simple, have an MVP that you build pretty quickly, and that's enough to see if people like it, and to get at least some validation, not to say success, but at least some validation, and that's enough. So at least that's what's happening now that I have a job, is I see nobody's working very long hours, we're just working normal hours, and it's still progressing, it's still advancing, so, you know, that's how it is.

Yeah, I'm trying to think if there would be like a clear distinction between, you know, what would be healthy and what would not be in terms of investing time early [00:51:00] on. But, I think there's no clear answer. I think it probably also depends on, you know, your personal situation. If you're saying, like, for example, me, well, may come to a shock for some people, perhaps, I don't know. But, single life, with no kids and family, it can be, it's easier to contribute more time to it, I suppose, and not necessarily be unhealthy. I see that Alex and Brian want to weigh in. I'm going to invite Brian and ask him what he thinks about this. Brian, would you like to weigh in? What do you think?

I missed a bit of the conversation, when switching from listener to speaker. But on the topic of boundaries, we've been following you a lot for a long time. The question is as we're all kind of, quote unquote public now on Twitter, what, how or where do you draw the boundary of sharing things that are too personal, or with, and balancing that with, uh, being authentic, and I'll mute myself so you don't have to hear a crying baby in the background.

I find [00:52:00] it so funny that on the topic of boundaries, we hear your kid, crying at the same time. That's like such a good Example of that, yeah, nice to hear from you, man. I was, you know, sharing things that are personal, which I've obviously did lately, sharing about my divorce and shit, my burnout. And it's funny. I noticed, I was thinking that a couple of days ago, when you're on social media, when you share something, usually you're scared that people are not going to like it. I know I certainly am. Always scared that like, oh, is it going to be successful? Is it a good tweet?

Is it a good post? Is it, you know, all that shit. And I noticed something is that the more personal the thing is, the more vulnerable it is, the less I need that. And to put it, to try to give an example, let's say I'm sharing like a meme. Okay. So it's very not personal. I mean, it's a bit because it's by my own experience, but it's not really personal. If it doesn't get like 500 likes, I'm going to be disappointed because I'm like, Oh, I need something to go big and [00:53:00] shit. But like, if I share something incredibly personal, Like about my divorce, I can get like, I don't know, like 20 likes and I'm going to love it. I mean, I'm going to feel loved because when you share something personal, you get way more, let's say the appreciation that others give you is way stronger because it's real.

It's like about who you are and what you're going through. So, obviously the answer is going to depend for everyone, but all I can say is that. When you share something personal, you kind of like escape the game of social media. You escape the game of chasing, crowd. Because what happens is, you are really connecting.

Because, with social media, you're just sharing the good parts, or you know, you're presenting a persona of yourself, or whatever. And this is very unsatisfying, because even if you get thousands of likes, it's not really for you, it's for like a role that you're playing, it's for like a persona that you're portraying. And so it's not fulfilling. And so that's why you always want more. But like, if you share [00:54:00] something that's like deeply personal, like something about, I don't know, loss, about pain, about, you know, sadness, about something that you want to be heard about because you need kind of like love from others, then.

Because you open yourself so much, then having even just a little bit of attention is going to feel way better. You will feel loved, you will feel appreciation, you will feel seen, you will feel like you're not alone. And so I think this should be something, I think that's like actually a cure for like everything that's wrong with social media is like to share more personal stuff. Because it cures even your own relationship with it, and at least for me, it kind of acts as therapy to like share exactly. What I'm going through, because just putting it to words is already, or to audio when I record a podcast or something. It's already a step in the direction of like, letting go of it and overcoming it.

And then seeing the appreciation from others, it just makes it even better. So, I don't know, where you can set the boundary, but I would, [00:55:00] because it depends on you, but I would say like, try it, because trying to share something that's very personal, At least for me, it changes my relationship to social media and it connects me with others and it makes it, infinitely more fulfilling. And that is, you know, game changing. So I would recommend you try and everyone try to share something personal, but like, do you need to do it in a way that like when you post it, you need to feel a bit scared. Like you need to feel, oh shit, I'm going to really say that.

So you have to be very, Authentic, else it's not going to work. It's good. It really feels like you're, you know, putting your heart out there. Like it's really what it is. And when you do that, it just changes your whole relationship with others and social media. And I think that's very positive.

Right on. Honestly, that's exactly my experience as well. As a matter of fact, if I look at what I put on Twitter and what is in my drafts, I think maybe 90 percent of the things that is in my drafts [00:56:00] is, you know, the emotional part of things or something happened that, like, puts me in a bit more of a vulnerable spot than on average. And it's funny because I tend to write tweets and potentially just put them in draft to get it out of my system as well. I suppose it's a note taking kind of thing in some shape or form as well. But I do feel like I can touch on the exact right thing, yeah, It is very powerful, and it seems to resonate with a lot of people because, and that's a great lesson as well, and a great takeaway is, whenever I do tend to share something, you know, authentically that is close to my heart and, you know, making me a bit vulnerable, there's so much support, and always makes me realize There are so many people that have, you know, similar feelings or been through the same thing. And is also what makes our startup bubble quite beautiful in a way. I have one more request I see. Let's give it another go. I see Kaizo joining. [00:57:00] Kaizo, would you like to weigh in as well?

So I have one really quick practical tip for everyone who's working on their own businesses. Because from my experience, I kind of been there, I was going towards total breakdown, full burnout. But I did not hit the rock bottom, and I did not do it mainly because of therapy. So my practical tip for everyone, if you're working on your own business. Find a therapist and visit them every single week, tell them how you feel about your work, how you feel every single week, because that's the only person that can see. What's going on in kind of a objective perspective, because when you're inside of your own company it's really hard to see, that you're in a deep shit, let's say. So find someone you can talk to, preferably a specialist, like a therapist. And literally visit them every single week because like for me, it took me, once my therapist [00:58:00] figured out what's happening, what's gonna happen, it took me a few months to actually get out of the whole situation. But yeah, it can be, most of those situations can be prevented if you talk to, like, real therapists. It's obviously nice to write what you feel on Twitter, but mostly, in most situations it's not enough. So, yeah, that's my tip for all the people that are struggling.

Yeah, that's very great advice and I agree 100%. I now go to a therapist and now that I found the right one for me, I'm like, I should have gone to that place like from the beginning of my startup. And especially if you have a co founder, each co founder should go to their own kind of like couples therapy. Literally, I mean, I was also a couple with my co founder, but like I'm saying, if you're working with someone, it's also very important.

And now that I have found the right therapist, I'm like, wow, this is a superpower. I should have. So yeah, 100 percent agree and like, even beyond, the burnout topic, which is like [00:59:00] extreme, there's also just, it gives you, it allows you to take a step back from your ego each time you go. And when you do that, you can see things clearly, you can take better decisions, you can like, lead the business to the right way. So yeah, like definitely spend the money and do that. That's like the best investment to, you know, figure out your mistakes quicker, not get stuck up in your ego. And because that's the main thing preventing you from success, I think, is like when you get stuck to an idea that you Care about even though it's not the right one. And so a therapist definitely will help you with that.

I think that's great. Great addition, Kaizo. Thank you for that. I definitely agree with you, to go to a therapist if you're actually struggling, it's definitely the only way to get a proper objective view on, on that, and you do also inspire me a little bit to, plan in an episode at some point soon.

Zooming in a little bit more on the personal mental health aspect of indie hacking bootstrapping and how heavy it can be because it definitely is and I think [01:00:00] it's something that we don't talk about enough, and we definitely should be talking about more, so thank you for that addition.

I would like to round down, I want to thank Dagobert for coming on the show with us this week, and sharing all his wisdom and knowledge, his personal story. Thank you very, very much for that. I would also like to thank the people that weighed in, Dan, Kaizo, Brian, was very insightful as well. Thank you for that, I also would like to make a very brief mention that, and some of you have been asking, that the website is online, all the other ones will be coming on there soon.

We were already approved by Google Podcasts and Spotify, um, approved by Apple so that you can listen back all the episodes that we've been having, at your own pace, whatever you feel like. All right, that's it for this week. Thank you speakers and thank everyone for listening in. Give Dom and I a follow if you don't want to forget the next, bootstrFM episode or the BootstrFM account and see you [01:01:00] all in the next one. Have a good night, morning,afternoon.

Thanks guys. Bye bye. Thanks, everyone. There we go. I love y'all.