Adii Pienaar on his darkest moments

Adii Pienaar is the founder of multiple companies. Many of us know him as the guy who created WooCommerce, an e-commerce platform that works on WordPress. It was acquired by Automatic.

He then created Conversio, email marketing automation for e-commerce brands which was acquired by Campaign Monitor. His latest company is called Cogsy. But today he’s here to talk about a book he’s releasing. Life Profitably.

I invited him here to argue about his ideas in the book. You’ll find out why in this interview.

Adii Pienaar

Adii Pienaar

Life Profitably

Adii Pienaar is the founder of WooCommerce, Conversio, Cogsy and the author of Life Profitably.

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Full Interview Transcript

Andrew: Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy and I’m having a terrible, I don’t know the terrible is the way to say it. I’m just feeling off today. It’s stinks. Um, I didn’t shave, not because I wanted to look, but, uh, I got them for a phone call with a sponsor and it was super early and it, it, the sponsor canceled.

They’re not happy and I’m not happy if they didn’t get the numbers that they wanted. And. I don’t know, I just it’s, it’s sending me into a downward spiral mentally, but I don’t have time to deal with it because I, I don’t. I had phone call after phone call and then this interview in 80 is a good friend.

He said, Andrew, we could reschedule. And I said, no, I want to talk to you right now because I feel like your book life profitably is. It’s kind of arguing with my feeling in my head. And I want to argue back with the author. All right. Ady painter is the founder of multiple companies. Many of us know him as the guy who created WooCommerce.

It’s an e-commerce platform that works on WordPress. It was acquired by automatic. He then created Conversio email marketing automation for e-commerce brands it’s acquired or was acquired by campaign monitor. His latest company is called Kasi. It helps e-commerce companies optimize working capital e-commerce e-commerce e-commerce that’s this whole thing.

Uh that’s your wife also have an online store that, that you now have been tweeting about a lot. What is it?

Adii: Yeah, she, she, um, has the biggest, uh, hair extension slash haircare business or e-commerce brand in South Africa.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s killer. So you’re all e-commerce out. And then you decide to write this book, life profitably, and the whole premise of the book, as far as I know, is. Look, don’t sweat it. You don’t have to make everything about business, be so critical. In fact, you don’t even have to be the most successful business person in the world.

He must’ve used the phrase family man, like 60 billion times in the fricking book. Um, anyway, I wanted to talk to him about it because I don’t know. I don’t feel I have all these outside interests. I got I’m a family man too. I never call myself that. I got kids. I got a wife. We love each other. And. It’s not enough.

It’s not review where we find out about his new book, life profitably, which is available the day that we publish this interview. You can get it for 99 cents from Amazon. Cause he’s a marketer and he wants to probably game the Amazon algorithms go to the chart. Yeah. Alright. It’s sponsored by two phenomenal companies.

The first is HostGator. We’ll talk to 80 about, uh, doing, um, launching an e-commerce company on HostGator. And the second is top towel. When you’re hiring a developer, go to top towel 80. Good to have you here.

Adii: Thank you so much for, um, allowing me to be your sparring partner today, Andrew.

Andrew: Dude, here’s the deal. Here’s what’s happening to me. Sponsor cancels says the numbers. Aren’t where they need to be. And I start to think, well, maybe the audiences and where it needs to be, where am I going with this? This matters. My wife, um, sees me cause we’re now working from home and she goes, Andrew, I’m thinking of you.

I know you’re, you’re not having good day. Fuck. I don’t need you to think about me right now. I don’t need the sympathy. I don’t need the love. And you’re saying to me that that’s like a nice counterbalance for bad days. It’s not, it’s not helping.

Adii: Yeah, so, and yeah, and I, you know what I think like, um, you know, the first thing I can say about the book writers, I don’t write the book and I’m not sharing these ideas because I am perfect at these things. Right. For me, it’s pretty much been this also just kind of my own growth journey. Right. And the bookers.

Trying to abstract. Some of those things that I think could be helpful to others. I like what you’re describing, what you’re feeling, that kind of, I think that’s the roller coaster that we tie up into ambition of any kind, right. When, and. I it’s fascinating when we think about just in once and I’m jumping around a little bit, but when I’m thinking about know your, the word ego, right?

And people tend to say, you know what, the ego shouldn’t be there. You should not be your testicle, blah, blah, blah. The ego is not good for you, but if we didn’t have any ego, we wouldn’t have creators. We have makers, we would have innovators, we wouldn’t have entrepreneurs, like nothing would really put us forward.

And out of this kind of status quo, the reality of that is as soon as you do something that matters to you in your case, like you create an absolutely fantastic business. Mixergy has been around for how many years. It sucks, like hearing an advertiser say, Hey, sorry, Andrew. We’re not happy with that.

There’s no way that, like, I can’t imagine like knowing you right. That you don’t take it personally. Right. And I think that’s the reality of life. Like if you, if you do work, you love, you’re passionate about. You’re always going to feel that what I’m proposing with live profitability is just that taking that step back and just recognizing that this thing that’s happened in my business, where in my work it’s only one part of my life. Well, and that’s the thing I argue. Right. Because I just don’t think that because here’s the thing like that proposes that kind of, there is ultimately kind of never like nothing’s ever going to be enough or good enough. Right. And I think like that’s a few tile, um, exercise,

Andrew: If you hadn’t sold two companies, hadn’t built a reputation for yourself. Would you hadn’t had money in the bank? Would you say that? No.

Adii: So, yes. And so I am big that guy. Right. And I’m very cognizant of exactly that, right? Cause I think so many of these things, you know, or the supposed wisdoms right, or ideas are shared by, you know, people that are successful and they share it after the fact. And it’s pretty much that kind of hindsight of a journey and you kind of retrofits the storyline to the narrative.

You’re trying to breach. The reality for me, Andrew was the following rights is, and this is where I kind of got off track in my personal life. Right. So, you know, I helped create with teams with commerce. Get sold. I’m a millionaire. I, the sign that I want to do something new because I leave kind of with teams with commerce and I feel like there’s one at wonder.

And I think we chatted about that in a kind of episode, way back, just as I got into Receiptful before it became converge eventually. Right. And probably about halfway through conversion. So I have more than enough money in the bank. I should be happy and yet I not, I’m not mad. And instead, I’m standing on this ledge in my life where I metaphorically or kind of your take this job where I decided that, you know, everything had really matters to me in my life.

This is not worth it. And I think that’s. Wrong. Right? Like, that’s the point that I’m trying to make. And maybe, maybe I think I’m just emphasize of one night and I’ve written the book just to myself. My gut feel is I think that there are more people out there that feel like they’re on this kind of, you know, in this rat race on this kind of, you know, Persistent kind of hamster wheel and I don’t know how to get off it.

And I think part of that is this notion that we’ve said that work is so important. We even kind of pitched this whole idea of, we should have work-life balance, which I don’t think exists. And I can’t exist because we’re proposing that work in life are two separate, independent things that can keep each other in balance.

I think work is just part of life. Work is always just one component of life and for ambitious people, that will always be a big thing. But it can’t can never be the only thing and can never be the most important thing.

Andrew: It can’t be the most important thing. Oh, you mean the other side of life?

Adii: I think, and I think that’s the point I will backtrack kind of somewhat, right.

When I say work, can’t be the most important thing. I think for many people it totally can be. And I don’t think that’s in itself is wrong. I think the, kind of the biggest goal that I wanted to achieve in writing the book was. Not to write a how to book the proposes. Hey Andrew, here’s a 10 step blueprint for you to have greater life profitability, because I also don’t believe in that.

In fact, I think these things are superbly unique and it has to be personalized to each of us. And I think at any given stage. Life in your life, right? Your work could be the most important thing. What I didn’t recognize early enough in my life was just all of the, kind of the collateral damage that I had created by being so narrow mindedly focused on feeding the beast.

My eye. Yeah. I mean, I like the, I, I spoke about this ledge that I got to in my life. I, you know, a couple of years ago I convinced myself that the only way to fix my life is that I needed to get a divorce, for example, which was a crazy idea, like, cause ultimately at that stage, Like, even if I kind of, if that happened, I would still be sitting with myself after that.

And I was a big part of like, if not the kind of, you know, 900% of the challenges that I was facing at that stage.

Andrew: What, what do you mean? So I have to admit, I thought about that too. I love Olivia. We have a great relationship and I thought, man, if I get a divorce, I’ll be in one of these, um, uh, divorcees apartment somewhere with nothing to do. I’ll channel all my time and energy into work and I’ll be fine. But then, and then I’ll be able to create something really meaningful.

But then I also do think that that’s BS. I can do that right now. It’s I’m just. Frustrated. And I feel that some kind of dramatic move might change everything, but in reality, I might end up over there are probably likely to end up in that, in that crappy apartment, just hating life so much that I’m unproductive again, dislike.

Yeah. It doesn’t really help. I’d be just where I am now. When, what was the period? This isn’t even one of my lowest, this is just a bad day. What was your lowest period where you were thinking that.

Adii: Yeah, well, so, so, so probably at that point, like three or four years ago, and like what I think, what is interesting, um, Andrew is that rolled into shortly thereafter, rolled into a period in convergence history. That’s where kind of, we, we were on the rocks, we added the skids a little bit, right. We had to lay people off.

Um, and I had to challenge myself like here’s 80 rockstar. Your bolts fantastic business with, we think is real commerce. Has all this kind of your provider about this new business, he’s doing it again. And then it doesn’t go as intended. Like he took people’s money. Like he took investor money. And now it doesn’t work out the way he thought it’s going.

Right. And like that, that, that, that space, and this is towards the end of, um, you know, kind of I’ll draw the timeline. This is end of 2017 that this happens and for about two or three months, like really tough. Like I almost, to some extent, like it was almost like emotionally, I had to check out of the business yet mentally.

I had to be more there more than ever before. Cause I needed to find out how to reject the business. I was really tough. The reality is, and kind of fast forwarding, like a short 18 months later, right. We got acquired for kind of ultimately kind of in your life changing amount. Right. So, but at that point, like end of 2017, like really, really, really, really dark.

I mean, I, I wrote loads of poetry at the time, for example, and, um, John and my wife. Refuses to read it because it is very dark. It is very negative. It’s a very cynical, which is very counter to being this genuinely confident, positive, optimistic entrepreneur that I.

Andrew: what happened in the business?

Adii: Oh, we, uh, had reporting data fail, which meant that the revenue that I thought was there and there was like, this sounds silly when dumbed down, like without kind of, because I can’t expose the parties involved. Um, But essentially there was a lag in our payouts and I was aware of the lag, but we didn’t get the reporting wasn’t available to really quantify that.

So it was this moving target. So we constantly overestimated kind of revenue and cashflow was, was lagging. And it took us about,

Andrew: Sorry from your customers, you mean, or from a partner.

Adii: yeah, for a partner

Andrew: Okay. So someone needed to pay you money. You knew that the numbers that you were getting from them, weren’t up to the minute or in fact they were

Adii: exactly. So there’s, there’s a lag and we don’t have a way to reconcile it. Probably we’re kind of expecting this is going to be there. And then that suddenly isn’t, isn’t there and it’s suddenly kind of, there’s 15% of MRR is just not there. Um, Which meant at that stage, like we, I thought we were profitable, right.

And then suddenly we’re not profitable instead. Like we’re very close to kind of, you know, well burritos close to zero. In fact, I’ll never forget. We ended November, 2017. End of month. Cashflow was $7,300. And at that stage we were, we were beyond $2 million a year. Right. But I ended the month, 7,003, $300 in the bank and I couldn’t pay myself.

I don’t, I, I that’s it. I had to sacrifice or delay my own salary until we could fix things in the business,

Andrew: Who would pay an E commerce email marketing company and have it be that dramatic. And when you say you say your $2 million at the time, you mean $2 million revenue or $2 million expenses,

Adii: uh, too many dollars revenue, but I mean, that says it was at that stage. It was the same thing, right. Because, um, we suddenly were not profitable anymore.

Andrew: And so what you told me was that’s when you decided you were going to wake up early, I think you wrote in the book five 30 in the morning, I’ve been, I’ve been waking up at six in your book, life profitable. You say you wake up at five 30 because that’s when you know your kids won’t wake up. I wake up at six, I wake up even at five 30, they hear the Creek and I walked so quietly and then they come right out.

Um, but. I’ve got to just get up earlier than everyone else. And in my time, what I’ve been doing is I’ll clear out my email. So the rest of the day could be free for myself. And that is not what you do. I’ve interviewed other entrepreneurs recently. They refuse to wake up and do work on the business. They do work on themselves and for you, it was what.

Adii: Yeah. So I, I do a couple of things. I mean, this has changed, right? And I don’t stick to this as religiously as I, as I did back then when I felt I needed it more. But my morning routine in those harder times and where I think I. Start practicing that or exercising that mindfulness muscle ultimately was a combination of things.

So, um, I’d probably do 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes of meditation, normal  breath work, just to kind of, you know, clear the mind. Um, and then I would either do kind of, you know, kind of do some writing, some kind of. Morning pages. If I felt up to kind of writing or I would just read. Right. And I would try, um, I would try to stay clear of as much work or external stimuli as possible because those are generally the things kind of, my inbox can pull me in every kind of, you know, three 60 degrees in terms of emotions.

Right. Depending on what is, what is in there when I wake up. So I try and just delay that and I try and just have this notion of, um, Just have a slower morning. And it’s interesting. Cause, cause that changed for me completely as my kids got older. Um, because that timing then like shortly thereafter, like when they do wake up or when I have to wake them up at six, then the school run starts.

Right. And the school run is my responsibility in the morning. I have to kind of herd the herd, the sheep for them to get dressed for school, um, you know, get kind of the lunch boxes packed. Um, and then I actually drive them to school. And I’m like, so I couldn’t really get into productive work that way when they were younger and they didn’t go to formal school or school started much later.

Like I didn’t necessarily do that. I would, I was the guy that woke up, like at five or six and I would immediately, as quick as I can get a cup of coffee and like be in my email inbox.

Andrew: So morning pages means what I’m curious about, because I think in the book you say how important it is to write out your thoughts, how you keep journaling, how long have you been journaling your whole life?

Adii: I’ve been writing my whole life. I wouldn’t necessarily call it journaling. Um, and I think like I know when I recently, when I try, I do kind of that kind of journaling, I try and just write the first sentence pops into my head and I just do this kind of, you know, stream of consciousness. Right. And.

Andrew: It could be anything. You’re not guiding it towards what’s good in my life. What do I want to create? No.

Adii: Um, and I’ve tried multiple things. I’ve, I’ve also used like simply a times use the five minute journal. Right. Which has specific kind of more intention. I’m kind of more focused on gratitude. I think morning pages are just. The thing for me to take whatever is supposedly top of mind for me, because I think that’s, what’s interesting is somethings that are stuck in our minds.

They’re very persistent, very prominent, but they’re not necessarily very important. And they just kind of want almost like I find sometimes they just want that acknowledgement by. Putting pen to paper, and then you can kind of release things, right. And sometimes what has been valuable in that sense, beyond that feeding of releases.

Sometimes I flip back through kind of my notebook and I read these things sometimes kind of a year later. And you can kind of see some patterns emerging about, Hey, like here’s how that kind of train of thought was probably suboptimal at the time. I think. Like I don’t have massive learnings, but it’s interesting.

I mean, I, the most recent one I probably had was I looked back at a few journal entries around the time that, um, I sold conversion. Right. And I think there were interesting things there, like little seeds of how it was probably already evidenced, even though I was trying to tell myself. You know, 80, this is, this is you the year.

Like you’re not going to start in your business where like between the lines and what I wrote down there, the evidence was there, or the idea was there. The possibility was there that I was always going to want to build another business. Eventually.

Andrew: Even as you look in the journal, you could see your S you’re writing out. Not getting another job I’m taking, I’m taking a six months sabbatical. I think you say in life profitably, but you read between the lines and you see that you’re coming into something else. I that’s something I don’t do. I don’t go back and I read my journals and I feel like I should.

It’s just so painful to go back and see that stupid person. Right. Because no matter what, you’re becoming smarter today than you were before. And so it’s painful to see that

Adii: Excellent. And I would actually just flip that narrative, right. I, I believe in the power of words there and I would just flip it, like when you see that version of yourself, like that puts it in perspective, the progress you’ve made since

Andrew: Yeah, that’s what I should be thinking. Okay. So you’re just sitting down and letting whatever comes to you happen, your journal you’re meditating. Excuse me. And then you’re reading. What were you reading?

Adii: Any, anything, the thing that I can probably be kind of leased the stages, any kind of business books. Um, so I try and you know, many of the concepts that I’ve put into the book, um, it’s very diverse, so philosophy stuff. Um, I got kind of, you’re very deep on kind of the Stoics, um, you know, some kind of new Buddhism stuff, but anything essentially that.

Um, you know, pools kind of my mind to different directions. Like I, I like I wouldn’t box to illuminates more of the universe for me and not just read down a narrow path where I decided like, Hey, I like, I need to learn more about sales. Let’s get, you know, the 10 best sales books and read through all of them.

Um, so something that I

Andrew: do you care about Buddhism or the Stoics and all that? You clearly have a goal for your life. You want to make as much wealth and as big a reputation as you can. Right. But maybe that maybe I’m oversimplifying it, but there’s, there’s a clear financial, um, and popularity motivation for you. Fair to say.

No,

Adii: No, no.

Andrew: What do you want then?

Adii: yeah. Um, I mean, I, I would say popularity, I do want relevance, right? I think. Feeling relevant in the spaces in which I kind of move on a daily and weekly basis. Like I do think that part of the ego is there. Um, I do want to have my finances at such a place where I can essentially explore the universe without kind of you’re worrying too much about my next paycheck.

Right. So there is a kind of, uh, a level there that is working for me. Um, But ultimately, I like the things that are important to me as, as more my legacy, it’s more kind of the stories that my kids tell about me, you know, kind of once I eventually kind of, you know, pass on like legacy is important to me.

Um, you know, constantly learning those things are important to me, like being challenged on a kind of on a regular basis, like taking on new challenges, those things are important to me. Um, Kind of contributing to the societies or the spaces, community ecosystems in which I operate. Um, you know, those things are part of me.

So all of

Andrew: Buddhism get you to that? Doesn’t Buddhism tell you. And D doesn’t the reading that you’re, that you’re going into tell you to let go of those desires.

Adii: Yes, but hence, hence, hence why? Like I cherry pick the ideas that I ultimately like. Right. Um, like I think, and there’s probably, I’m, I’m not a kind of a Buddhist scholar too, to this extent, Crites. Um, but again, I think a big part of. That you know of Buddhism is also just acknowledging where that ego is.

And not necessarily trying to put yourself into kind of discontent with that ego. Cause all those things are often the ego, right. It’s things that I want. Um, but no, like as I, I’m not a perfect Buddhist, I don’t categorize myself or label myself in that sense with anything for that matter. Um, yeah.

Andrew: You know what, one of the things that that’s been sticking in my head from your book is in the section where you say, look, I’m going to give you some prompts at the end of each chapter, write something down. I’m not. And I don’t think it’s like question and answer. It’s just, here’s a thought and you encourage people to write, but you say in there too, If you’re not a writer, consider audio recordings, consider alternatives.

And I’ve been thinking about that a lot. I am someone who’s journaled for years, since, since I was about to graduate college. And I thought, where the hell am I going? Everyone else is getting a job what’s wrong with me. And I needed to write I’ve been doing it, but I wonder if there’s room to create a video journaling platform for myself or for the world.

Here’s what I mean. Writing now is it’s, it’s not in the same flow as I do when I’m having a conversation with you and just talking it through and saying what I want. And in an interview, I found that people will be more open with me than they realized, even if they’re journaling. And I wonder if I would do better to open up a video app and, or open up the video of a journal app that I have, and just record directly into that.

I wish it was a little more scannable or searchable, I should say, but. I, I, I like your approach to having alternatives for journaling and not just be so dogmatic about it. Having to be on paper

Adii: Yeah. Right. And, and again, like, I think that was the whole theory year of, um, and I’ll explain where the kind of, that journey or, or kind of your voice notes for self comes from. Right. But again, like the idea of like profitability and everyone defining and discovering their own version of their, of, um, is that it’s all an unused.

So the reason we included the. Kind of those reflections at the end of each chapter is an OSS, those questions and suggest kind of journaling or these capturing those thoughts is by the end of the book, there is some worksheets that helps you think through this in a kind of holistic manner. And having those breadcrumbs as you work through a chapter is then helpful.

Right? I think to the same extent, like if you’re figuring anything in your life, if you leave yourself some of those breadcrumbs. Especially if it’s in that moment, like if it’s in the kind of moment in this day that you felt shitty, right. And you made a note of that and you had the context and the color about why today, you felt so shitty there’s value in that.

Why? Because you’re probably illuminating some things that either works or does not work. Right. And if you’re able to piece that together, Then you can probably find small little kind of improvements or tweaks or changes that you can make in your life based on that. But we often move so fast beyond the moments, the good and the bad that we never take notes to sit and just think through, like, what does this actually mean?

Right. Because there was such a rise again, we’re on this hamster wheel, like we’re just constantly kind of spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning. I never setting to start, just take a step back and see, just feel the way we actually want or are feeling in that moment.

Andrew: To quote, one of my favorite poets when one road leads to the next, how do I know when things will actually change? Do you recognize that that’s you dude? I was, I was looking through my notes on you and I realized I bought a poetry. Is this a poetry book or your tweets?

Adii: That’s a book of poetry.

Andrew: is right. So it’s, it’s called motion. I bought it, I guess it must be about a year or so ago. And I’ll tell you why two years I’ll tell you why I bought it. Something about the fricking design of the cover. And the idea that you’re, that you’re a poet and I go, all right, let me just go by it. And I, in preparation for this interview, I said, let me look at all my highlights.

I’m an obsessive note taker and highlighter. There’s nothing. It was just like a read. I was just sitting there and reading it section after section. Now it occurred to me. Maybe it’s Twitter. It’s not it’s you literally posting a poll, right?

Adii: Exactly. So, and that’s what I was kind of referring to. Right. So in that dark patch of kind of your covers or cashflow issues, et cetera, I somehow got back into poetry, literally reading and I read kind of some contemporary poetry realized that. Like, I don’t have to apply all these rules that I thought you needed to apply to poetry.

Like the, the rules that I kind of got towards and, you know, in school, back in primary school, when we did poetry as part of kind of English and Afrikaans rights. And I said, well, I like to write, I’m just going to. Take take a stab at this. And as I said, most of the book is like, it’s, it’s dark. It’s kind of mostly kind of your negative stuff, but that was how I felt at the time.

Right. And it became a very nice distraction for a short amount of time that got me through the harder work that

Andrew: I’m going to read one, I’m going to read one of these. The impetus for my experience is all about you, your rejection, your criticism, your disengagement, your wants. It’s just, I felt where you were at the time that you put this together. And I said, who’s publishing this. I can’t believe that he did it. It’s.

I dig that about you. All right. I also dig your fricking design and everything that you do, your blog. Now I went to prepare and I saw that I like how simple, clear I like how you wouldn’t just underline, uh, links. You had to have that broken underline. That’s gotta be Morse code. Is there some hidden meaning behind the underlines on your hyperlinks?

No. You just liked the design.

Adii: Yeah.

Andrew: Yeah, Olivia and I, my wife were at your house, the design of everything. Even the refrigerator, pictures is beautiful and so well done. And I, before we left to South Africa, I said to Olivia, we’ve got to get rid of all the crap on our refrigerator. It’s such a distraction who, this is such a, like a middle America thing to do to put stuff on the refrigerators.

I don’t want any of this. And so she agreed to let me take it off and then we come to your place. It all looks so beautiful. She goes, that’s what I’m going for. Andrew, see, look, they’ve got taste. Why, why aren’t we keeping ours up? It’s different. I walk into your house. There’s this wine, like, is it a wine closet, wine cellar, just the show piece of the house.

It’s beautiful. Who knew that 80th cared about wine?

Adii: I’m a hundred percent sure that I’ve drunk, defeated enough for people to at least kind of have some inkling that I do like

Andrew: No I know from that, but I wouldn’t have expected from it. It’s an interesting part of your personality. You introduced yourself at some point, here is 80 rockstar. That’s the way that you presented yourself to the world, your first name, 80 last name rockstar for a while. And, um, maybe that’s why I would have expected like an ale collection, but no very fine style at home.

Very refined collection of why. All right. Uh, I, I forgot to do my first sponsor. Maybe this is why my sponsors are canceling. I go like 30 minutes into an interview. My first sponsor is HostGator. One of the things 80 that I was thinking I would do this year is just experiment for fun, create stuff online for fun and not even connected to me, but let it be an exploration you’re into e-commerce.

Honestly, if you said, look, Andrew, take 30 days. Play with this one thing digit later, what not blog? What e-commerce thing would you suggest? I host, let’s say on HostGator.

Adii: Yeah, so, I mean, I, I I’ve always been biased. Right. I mean, I, like, I think, you know, WooCommerce is the sleeping giant here. Um, and I a hundred percent think like, especially for you, Andrew, who’s big on content. Right? I think if you were to venture down, e-commerce get WooCommerce, get a no stolen HostGator.

I’m a hundred percent sure. They kind of make it super easy for

Andrew: What would I sell? Give me something that’s so out of left field, that’s like you put a publishing, a poetry book. I thought I want to do that. And I don’t even want to say there’s a synergy. Your audience is really going to dig it. If you do, if you sell microphones, I want something so different that I’m almost ashamed to talk about it publicly because it’s blacked out

Adii: dude, like, honestly, like scroll Tik TOK four. Yeah. No, that’s all hair extensions for the market’s corner diner. Um, I would probably scroll through tech talk for 10 minutes. Right. And like, whatever the cool kids are doing. Like that’s what I would probably go for. Like, cause you will find

Andrew: find a way to buy it. Do you, should I buy it first? Should I drop ship it? I should probably buy it and then sell it from my house, right?

Adii: Yes. That’s an like a hundred percent like always better customer experience than, you know, Make it as it is better. Like if, if it’s something you enjoy doing. Yes. Like, I mean, I think, um, you know, I think the most fun thing that I’ve seen someone make that’s kind of left field is, um, you know, Josh Pickford over at Baremetrics, which also just sold.

And he has a little company called laser tweets. I believe it’s laser tweets.co, right where, so, and he just kind of itches. Tweets onto kind of these wooden plaques. Right. And it’s something like he built all their own fees and tooting does it own stuff at home where he’s got this kind of workshop going?

I think like, that’s like a thing if you’re into that. All right then. Okay.

Andrew: Uh, okay. The most like Intuit thing that you are just go and make that crazy thing that. Right. Okay. And then put it up on, on WooCommerce. Why will commerce versus Shopify? Let’s be honest. You have no financial connection to e-commerce. Why.

Adii: Yeah. And neither, an and to be honest, um, my wife runs on Shopify, right. And she, when she started a business, like we had that choice and at that stage, Shopify made more sense. I think the key thing, um, and as I said, hence in your situation, like when you’re big on content, I think there’s no platform at the moment in the world that does content better or easier at least than

Andrew: Oh, you’re saying because then I could use content to promote the store.

Adii: Yes. And that’s, that’s, that’s what I would kind of go further. I think kind of ease of ease of setup, app ecosystems, all of those things are similar. Right? I think, you know, Shopify definitely has some pros versus cons. Um, whereas with commerce and vice versa, if content is a big consideration, like I would go WordPress plus.

Andrew: I’ll tell you one other reason. I love Shopify too. Here’s one reason to go. I had a guest. I was supposed to interview this week. He laid it out with Ari, our producer, what’s going on in his business. He has the software that increases sales. Shopify. Wouldn’t let them do it than Shopify did. Let him do it.

Then he didn’t great. Numbers are good. Then Shopify comes back and goes, we change our minds. We don’t want you to do this. And it’s, I’ll tell you afterwards, he’s he’s not keeping it a secret from friends, but it’s like, what kind of crazy ride is he on? And then suddenly he has this tool. He doesn’t have this tool with woo commerce.

It’s just up and running. He’s always had it. It’s always been effective. Um, and that’s one of the benefits of being on WooCommerce, because if you go to HostGator right now, install WordPress, and then with one click also add WooCommerce. You’re going to be able to sell online. And if. You don’t like HostGator, you take your stuff and you move away.

If you don’t like, what will commerce is doing well? Are you stuck? No, because WooCommerce, isn’t a company that can come and snatch your software away. They can’t tell you what to do. Your site, your software. They just happened to have made it. All right. If you go to hostgator.com/mixergy right now and play the way that I am this year, you don’t even have to send it to me.

In fact, go do something in isolation. The way I am hostgator.com/mixergy is a URL where you get their lowest possible price. Thank you, HostGator. What did, so how did all this journaling and poetry, you know what, let’s talk about, how you resolve things. And then I want to know how all the work that you did got you to resolve your business.

Last year we talked, you said, or, um, when we left, the story was you were wet down to 7,000 in the bank. What’d you do to turn it around.

Adii: hold. So tactically. Um, we literally went to every single screw in the business. You Dyer and try to turn it slightly until it kind of turned around. So at that stage we did, cause let’s say we didn’t have the cashflow to put into marketing. So just growing revenue, doesn’t become, um, a guaranteed way of kind of digging us out of that hole.

So it was a lot of like going back to kind of basics work, like paying back tech, tech, debt, opening up kind of, you know, resources by, you know, um, decreasing infrastructure costs, those kinds of things. And then.

Andrew: people off, right. To cut expenses. Am I right? Yeah.

Adii: Yes.

Andrew: and you’re saying you cut back on software that you needed, right. That you, that you signed up for? Uh huh.

Adii: Specifically. Right. So any SAS, any SAS solution that you build? You know, one of the bigger kind of costs is that infrastructure costs. So we went back, paid back some tech there in the product. I E simplified some of those operations optimize some things that kind of, you know, where our AWS bowl. Was just kind of, you’re too high, but because there’s a trade off, right.

That you have to invest engineering hours to bring that down. Didn’t make sense. Before at that stage, it makes sense. The TLDR there, Andrew is like, it’s a very, it’s it’s, it’s not riveting work right at that stage is boring work. Um, but it needed to get done. Like we needed to return the business to solid kind of your footing so that we can kind of grow and start new growth initiatives again.

So I think. That was one part thereof. I think the other part of it that, um, that I don’t often talk about, because again, it’s not that sexy, but I went through that, these thought experiments and some input into our injection of where I decided that this year. Like, if someone comes in with an offer for X tomorrow, would I sell, if this business went to zero, would I be okay?

And those were hard to set that stage because we were on a great trajectory before that. And I kind of, as I thought that through. Some of that. I wouldn’t say I was at peace, but I was a lot calmer about the possible outcomes. And at that stage we got, I had two parties, acquisition parties, even, and this is early 20, 2018.

I’m interested in the business and both were depressed. What I would call kind of depressed sales, right? Like not global offers, but low relative to, especially where we eventually sold 18 months later. But I at least knew that if I needed to exit, for whatever reason, this stage I had this plan B and having that plan be created, you know, along with the small kind of better progress we’re making internally, as you reinvigorated me to start the, that kind of your next stent or next phase of the journey.

Andrew: Knowing that someone would buy the business for something. Thing. It’s not going to go down to nothing. Your investors might make some money. It’s not ideal, but that helped calm your mind.

Adii: Yeah, I think, you know, that it’s like, uh, a graceful except of some kind. Right. And I, and I think that’s why when you asked me about kind of, you know, whether it’s, how your wealth and popularity and stuff, that’s why I told you up front. Like, I think that relevance is important. And then the biggest challenge for me across my, at least my whole kind of your professional or adult kind of know career has been the fact that 80 is an entrepreneur.

That’s the only persona that I’ve ever presented to anyone else? I’ve I, I’ve never, I spent six weeks working for a corporate before, after university, before I switched to working with full time. And the biggest. Kind of demon that’s always chased me is, you know, what is ADF is not an entrepreneur anymore.

What his 80 year fee has to tell everyone on Twitter that his business conversion went to zero. Right. And he couldn’t crack the nut. And like, that’s like, again, realistically and rationally. Like that problem is my new school and the greater context of the world and the universe, especially given this last year, for example, everything that’s happened.

I know that, but there was also my problem, right. There was my challenge and in my world, like that was significant and I was always something that was there. So just that notion that, Hey, this is not going to go to zero, right. At least freed up a lot of that kind of attention and stress.

Andrew: That happens to me too, that I won’t go to zero. It’s a really relaxing thought. I will still be able to go and have years of nothing while I figured the next thing out. Or while I get bored of nothing and then get antsy and want to come back. It gets harder with kids though. Right?

Adii: Yeah.

Andrew: It gets harder also with a wife.

I feel like my wife, isn’t looking to me for money for things, but the identity that I think she loves is associated with that dynamic personality that comes out that’s related to business unit. You know, the let’s make anything happen. You talk in your book about your wife likes Justin Bieber. I’m not sure why.

Instead of taking her to therapy, you got her on a plane and you took her to a Justin Bieber concert full of like these teenage kids. And she loved it. But, and that’s the, like the entrepreneurial excitement coming through. Maybe I need to disconnect it. It doesn’t have to be entrepreneurial, um, excitement.

It’s just spontaneity, right? It’s an aspect of your life that doesn’t have to be connected to your business.

Adii: Yeah. And I think, you know, and I think again, like that’s the point, right? I’m not, I’m not trying to propose that all of those things aren’t valuable, not, I’m not like, I’m not saying that. Entrepreneurs should exist or that I don’t want to be entrepreneur or I’m not entrepreneur. Like that’s not what life profitability is about.

I, I, what I also just know is when, when that, when me being an entrepreneur has been the only thing that’s important in my life, Things have been out of whack. Right. And I actually, and the same in the same way you mentioned Olivia, I know John, like she knew the moment kind of you’re selling the business, you know, campaign monitor and eventually leaving campaign monitor, starting to talk to her.

The first conversation I had with her is like, Hey, I kind of think I want to work in something new. She said, I always knew that you were going to work on something new and that’s what I love about you. And I think so again, like it is seeing all those things in a very holistic and wholesome manner, because I think that’s what paints the bigger picture about us as individuals.

Right. And what is ultimately important to us. It’s not these kind of narrow things. Um, And the conscious be defined. I think as me being entrepreneur, me pursuing profit or wealth needs to be something much broader, something much more diverse, something much more the stick.

Andrew: No, one thing that I feel like you’ve got that I think is messing with me because we’re, but you’ve got stability with where you live, right? It’s placed, designed your way, your community, your, um, I don’t, I don’t think you were thinking I’m going to leave because of COVID or because the city is getting quiet or anything.

Yeah. You’re shaking that off. Like it’s nothing, of course not. I also think that the question Mark in our head about where do we go as a family is added a lot of. Discomfort in that instability, then, then spills over into other aspects of my thinking. Anyway, do we stay here in San Francisco? Do we say this place?

Do we stay in California? Everyone seems to be leaving California. It makes total sense. We did the math. I asked our account and I said, tell me how much money it would be. We would save. If we left California from taxes, went over all the ways that California could still take some of pass money back. But overall it’s a significant amount of money.

And so we’re thinking, do we leave? Where do we want to go? Or are we married? It’s like all that stuff that we moved to California, not to each other, uh, we’re committed to each other, but that adds a lot of uncertainty everywhere else. Right. It feels like that’s part of what you’re saying, that you’ve got other things going for you that anchor you, that keep you stable.

If entrepreneurship is all over the place for you, you’re not all over the place because. Yeah. Are the relationships, the other parts of your existence are still stable.

Adii: Exactly. Cause I think in that sense, I think building a business will always be tough. Right. And there’s always so many variables that one needs to account for and always be somewhat of a kind of Rocky or roller coaster ride. And you’re very right. And really, we, we moved away from our like close to our families, for example, right.

Seven years ago when we moved into our current home where you and Olivia had dinner. Right. And. Um, it’s more remote, it’s slightly more countryside, right? And it’s been an incredible move for us as a family. And the fact that we have such a stable home and family life has definitely hedged any kind of volatility and chaos, like experience in my ambitious kind of endeavors.

The key thing there is though is I have a reciprocal. The responsibility there, which is I cannot work myself to the bone and then take a hollowed version of myself back to my home, back to my family, because that’s not fair on them. And that’s, those are the kinds of, you know, life costs or life losses that we ultimately accumulate along this way, when it is very narrow and we’re merely.

Going after these kind of ambitious pursuits or professional pursuits or monetary pursuits. Um, so just seeing those things in as a whole right also means that’s the definition of greater life proximity. It’s just expanding that context to be much, much larger, larger than this singular focus on just my business.

Not just my work needs to give me kind of energy and money.

Andrew: All right. There’s one sentence that I don’t know how to, from your book that just has been sitting with me. So for so long, I want to come back and read it to you. But first. Let me talk about my second sponsor because I’m feeling so bad right now. All I’m going to is I could have done this. I could have done that.

The second sponsors top tell here’s what I’m thinking. That there’s so many things that we built into Mixergy that I should have just hired someone from top talent to productize and make available to everyone else. For example. You go back to one of our older interviews, you hit play. We ask you for an email address, right?

It automatically asks for an email address before you get the older stuff, because you’re coming from Google and you’re probably gonna tap out. And we might as well, that little thing could have been some kind of a product. If we made it for ourselves, it might’ve been better discipline to think about how do we make it for other people, right.

So you’re nodding because you’re listening or not in because you agree if you don’t agree. Tell me, shake me out of my, my crazy thought today.

Adii: Yeah, I wouldn’t comment on the idea itself. Right. But yes, I think that two things that does resonate there, one from experience one, like sometimes, like we can only stumble on really great like product ideas, software, and otherwise, because we’re so in. So in the specific trenches of doing that thing ourselves.

Right. So that idea, for example, few people would be able to even stumble onto that kind of insight that this actually makes sense to, to bold. I think that’s the one thing, the other thing, and this is what I’ve done. Like I’m not top tells you kind of your best customer in the world ever, but I have used them because what I love about them is I can.

Essentially get something bolt relatively cost efficiently, and it remains a variable cost. I don’t have to go hire someone full-time to do it. And it’s not necessarily just a freelancer because top tail gives me someone that is actually verified that I am 90% sure can get me kind of what I want on budget on kind of your Titan.

So that’s, that is why I was nodding with what you were suggesting. I

Andrew: So, what you’re saying is in addition to, to the fact that I could have productized this, and maybe the idea would work, maybe not. I would have a fixed cost in this, not an ongoing commitment to a developer, one developer who knows how to do it. I think that in general, we should have been thinking not how do we create for ourselves, but.

There are probably other people who are dealing with this. How do we develop the experience of saying we need this instead of making it just for our unique needs, we’re going to spend 25% more. Even if it’s a hundred percent more time on it to make it available to others. Let’s just put it out there for free.

Let’s just put it out there to, to learn to experience. But instead what we did was we kept saying we need something. We are going to customize it exactly to us, and then it can’t get pulled out of our world because it’s directly related to us. Um, all right. From now on the possibility the, uh, the opportunity to go to top tile is there.

And if you’re listening to me and you’re in a similar situation and you go to top towel.com/mixergy, you’ll get 80 hours of developer credit. When you pay for your first 80 hours. In addition to a no-risk trial period, I still look through the transcripts. We use descripted auto transcribe, all the interviews.

They do a great job. They still transcribe top tout as top towel. I’m like, what am I saying here? And my accent that bad it’s top Tal top in the top of the mountain, um, tells and talents your PTA l.com/m I X, R G Y. All right, here it is values. Give us courage page one 67. I just highlighted that. Did you write that or is that a coauthor written thing?

Adii: That’s probably a combination of myself and editor.

Andrew: It’s such a good fricking line. And I think that up until a year ago, I knew up until I went to Estonia and I had this conversation, this interview with the founder of, uh, one of the creators of Twitter. I don’t know if I could technically call him the official founder, excuse me, not Twitter, uh, Skype.

Anyway, um, with RD one, ADI, one of the creators of Skype, he, he just. Got me to see that he let go of all of his needs to create another startup just disconnected. When he had his daughter said, I’m going to stop trying for a little bit and then see what happens. And what happened was he got excited about creating robots in his garage or something.

And he started making them, they started battling them and robot competitions. Then he said, Hey, you know what? These robots are so good. I bet they could deliver food. And suddenly they’re delivering food on college campuses and ideally medicine and other things soon too. And anyway, I just said, I’m going to let go of stuff up until then.

I had clear values. One of my clear values was this and that. If you want something, just get it, just go after it and get it. I don’t think about budgeting. I don’t think about, does it make sense financially? I don’t want that many crazy things. Anyway. If I want to go, go spend the money and get it. If I want to do something, go and do it.

I want to get on a plane and go somewhere, go and do it. Olivia has an idea. She wants to go on a plane, go somewhere, go and do it. There’s infinite money, infinite possibilities. Let’s just go do what we want. That’s one of the values and I never articulated that way, but that’s it. Now I’m thinking I’m questioning everything.

And then that does take away a lot of my courage because I’m everything is where am I going? What am I going to do? Does it, so there’s there, isn’t that grounding point of do whatever the hell you want. The money will always be there. The possibilities will always be there is that there’s any that make sense?

This is just, maybe this is more of a morning pages thing than a podcast, a statement.

Adii: which you probably could find right there, kind of a Buddha teaches us not to judge these, these thoughts and words, um, off of talking there, but what resonates there, Andrew? And like the way I think about that and where values plays a big part in the book. Cause I referenced values quite often. Right. And this idea of.

If someone were to read this book and they were thinking about their own life profitability, it doesn’t really matter like where they are at, in their current journey or what they think or what they’ve decided their next steps will be. What is crucial at that point is that they need to be an alignment with themselves.

Right. I know, kind of what your kind of your most important values are. And the reason I think that is important is very simple. It’s just that as you take those next steps, there’s only a single common denominator. On that journey and that’s ultimately yourself, right? You can get a divorce, right? So you can get another partner, which means families can change.

You can move to another country, right? New house, new friends in your business, you can kind of bankrupt your business. Start a new business, changed idea, change team members. Absolutely. Everything can change. The only thing that. It doesn’t change as quickly, at least as you. Right. Which is why I think knowing what you truly value and trying to optimize as much as possible for that.

That’s why it gives you courage. Right? It adds energy and it probably gives you much greater life profitability, profitability, when you can honor those things.

Andrew: I’ve got, I’ve got tons of examples of how values gave me courage. Right? Start a company don’t have any money. My value is just go for entrepreneurship. Uh, Olivia and I started dating and I had a trip planned overseas. I said, I’m going to buy you a ticket to, instead of worrying, what is she after what? I have the courage that I’m going to make things work.

Um, Do you have an example of how values give you courage? I have other examples too, but I I’m looking to see what, how it does it for you.

Adii: Yeah, I think the most obvious one is probably in the realm of either my thirst for learning or curiosity. I know that doesn’t really matter what challenge I encounter in future. Right. Or stumbling block that occurs. I know that like, Either kind of my curiosity to find an alternative or unique solution to that problem, or my ability to just persevere and learn through that.

Like, I would probably figure something out.

Andrew: And so to have that give you courage to try new things, because you will figure something out because you’ll read it. You’ll learn it. Yeah. That makes sense. I, yeah. So I think maybe what I need to do now is. In the morning, think about what are, what are the, what are the values that are still true for me?

What are the values I had before? I never sat down and wrote my personal values? What are they, what is it that I have been willing to sacrifice everything for? And then what about now? What’s what are the values? And I’m willing to sacrifice everything for, and then when a question, Mark comes up about how it’s going with the sponsor, how it’s going with, uh, Livia, how it’s going with my life.

I I’ve got something to come back to and just. And live that value that I believe in. And then that does give me courage, take bold moves. It gives me courage to, to know that I’m, that I’m right. Or that I’m, at least I’m aligned with what I care about.

Adii: Yeah, and, and that there’s never perfect. Right? I don’t think values. And even knowing your values is going to give you the perfect answer or next step. But I think you are at least coming from a position of strength when you are very aware of those values and how they relate to this thing in front of you.

Andrew: What’s this thing you’re doing with Dan Martel that closed. Well, I don’t know if I’m close it out with this, but I’m curious Kasi, you’re starting a new business. What’s Dan, Dan. I was a little bit worried when he started coming out with YouTube videos that he was going into some kind of guru dumb and Oh, you sat up for Dan, what the hell is it with Dan Martell?

It’s making people sit up. So he’s got some kind of, I thought he had a mastermind and a YouTube channel and he was going to start doing that route. But he’s not, there’s a lot of substance to that guy. How many people have I interviewed, including you said he helped change my SAS business for the better, right.

Adii: Yeah, exactly. Right.

Andrew: he do for you? And then what’s, what’s the new business deal with him now?

Adii: yeah, so, so what did they for me and what he does now is the same thing he has. Um, he’s my coach, he’s my SAS coach. Um, we at one stage explored kind of a, a greater working relationship with him doing more in the business itself that didn’t transpire. Um, so we’re like, he’s my coach. So I’ve been part of Dan riddles, SAS Academy for about three years now.

Um, and again, like in that period where I really needed the help, what Dan learned or taught me at least was, um, and inspired me to actually address in my business, like predominantly was things around accountability, keeping my, you know, giving my team ownership and keeping them accountable as well as kind of a couple of systems and then some tactical stuff.

So he did all of that for me. I think like three years later and I like the consequences. I’ve known Dan. We met at a micro con I think 10 years ago, and I’ve been friends since, so it’s only the last three years that I actually paid him to be my coach. And I think the biggest benefit of. Being in Dan’s vicinity is his energy and his commitment is absolutely kind of infectious, right?

Like it’s inspirational to see someone else build a business in that way. Um, and it’s amazing to tap into that. Kind of just that experience, that mindset, et cetera. I mean, to the extent, by the way that as kind of beyond kind of the new business, um, I’ve been a part-time coach in Dan sass Academy for other founders as well.

And just kind of, you’re paying, you’re paying this forward. That’s, that’s how inspired I’ve been, um, to just stay in that role and be part of SASCO me and continue working with them.

Andrew: I guess that’s also what you’re doing on your blog. You said you’re going to be building this business in public and partly to hold yourself accountable and partly to have a way for, and partly for marketing, you are fo you were forward about that. And then also to have a record of the numbers as you’re building it up, because other people aren’t as clear about the numbers or they’re smaller in their vision.

Fair.

Adii: Yeah, well, and, and the numbers there, like what I’m trying to share here is I’m actually trying to share my own health data there. So not just kind of your business health data, like I’m trying to, I think the key thing in Arizona is like, I don’t think I can write a book that proposes. You know, greater life profitability and this idea that you shouldn’t just build a business that’s profitable, it should be life profitable and then not practice it myself, right.

Or not aspire to that at least. And I think, you know, building Kasi in public and sharing that journey is a way in which I keep myself accountable as well. Right. Because there’s a public record where I’m a hundred percent sure whether it’s kind of good natured people or the trolls, they will call me out.

If you know, if I’m being a hypocrite.

Andrew: All right, that’s it. 80 a D I, i.me. And then the book, I was kind of teasing that you, of course are marketing it 99 cents available right now on Amazon. Uh, the Kindle version, which frankly, for me, the only version is digital version. I fricking hate paper version. Don’t do me a favor and send me a paper version.

You have the same way. Exclusively. And I’ll tell you why. This is some, this is a point that I will die on. Here’s why I’m talking to you right now. I need to quickly bring up your old poetry book. I don’t have to scramble to my house to find it’s right there on the iPad. If I didn’t have the iPad to be on my phone or my computer.

Right. And then my notes that I took on life profitably are going to be here forever. I just tap on it and open it up. You, you challenge me on Twitter. Just say driven, read any of my book and I go. Maybe I didn’t read any of his books. He’s I asked him to come on, we were talking about a topic. He says, did you even read my book?

I go, did I not read it? And then I opened it up since you sent me the PDF. I open it up in a, an app called highlights. I see all my notes right there. Yeah, I’m right here. I read your fricking book. I read it. I like it. Um, what else are you doing to promote the book?

Adii: Yeah. Um, loads of these, hopefully. So loads of podcast stuff, um, as well as publishing some new kind of, I would say derivative content as well. My blog. So sharing some of the kind of key concepts, it just kind of your different ways, ways that, you know, some of the content that says you got cut from the book.

So doing that, um, and then I’ve got a whole publishing team, hopefully behind me that are actually experts at marketing, a book that takes care of all the things that.

Andrew: I wonder what they’re going to do. Tucker max, his company, right?

Adii: Yes, correct. Um, yeah. And they’ve, they’ve what I’ve seen. At least Andrew is, um, they have pedigree and they’ve got experience. I’ve got a very specific formula and I think the, kind of your, one of the key lessons, that’s not related to my book that I can probably share for, for anyone here.

And it’s actually a kind of via Rick was a recommendation from Diane as well. But there’s a book called who not how and what the book essentially poses as like the, the question should not be, how do I accomplish X or do X? The question should be like, who do I need to get X done? And just that simple notion, like, I think changes a lot.

And I think working with Lioncrest is exactly that. Why does, it’s not me saying, how can I, you know, get a book to market and get my ideas to spread it’s who do I need to. Essentially not guarantee success, but giving you the kind of, you know, the, the biggest likelihood of getting my ideas out into the world.

Andrew: Who not how by Dan Sullivan.

Adii: Yeah. That’s the one.

Andrew: All right. So your book, I’m looking, you know what you were talking about, derivative content. I’m going to tell you what I think would be really good derivative content. What is it? The 90 day profitability planner worksheet, right? You actually do this.

Adii: Yeah, well, I haven’t yet. I followed a similar, an informal process, which be formalized for the book. The idea is that as I now ramp up Coxie, um, in the kind of in the next couple of months is to actually start doing that and track that kind of myself, um, to really put that to practice. And that’s part of the things that I actually hope to just share, you know, whilst building in public.

Via my blog, as well as you say, Hey, here’s how I am actually thinking about my life at this stage. Here’s how I’m gearing it towards greater life profitability.

Andrew: here’s, what’s important to me. Then you’ve got self others business and future, and then here’s, what’s important in each one of those areas. So for others, you’ve got family, you’ve got commercial relationships, right. Commercial stakeholders, community, and so on. And then you’re rating yourself.

Um, On a scale of negative two to two on each one of those. And then you also, and getting a number can see our numbers person in addition to being a design guy. And then you also have, um, a planner, three goals for the next 90 days. Value alignment action items. Y why? 90 days? I think a lot of people prefer annual goals and I’ve been rethinking that 90 days seems like it’s.

Well, why do you think 90 days, why are you telling people that, that you do 90 day goals and they should do 90 day plans?

Adii: Yeah, I think, um, when it’s a year long goal and document, I think it’s totally fine to have a kind of big goal that you want to accomplish in a year. But I think when we plan for those things, 90 days, at least for me feels like a good motion where I have enough time and space to figure things out. Right.

Because where I stand here, if I said. Kind of the, the goal for this year is to get my revenue from a thousand bucks to 10,000 bucks. Right. And I need to start breaking that down. I don’t necessarily know today exactly what I need to do to get there. I might say I need to kind of write ebook that I’m giving away and I’m going to get email addresses, put it into a funnel, upsell them, or kind of sell them through a demo and then kind of get them into the software.

90 days feels like enough time to add that bit of time pressure that this doesn’t just kind of leak into. I know finally do this, like in month 10, because it’s a year long goal, right? But it allows me enough space to just figure things out and do things that I’m not just running on that kind of a hamster hamster wheel.

So that’s the idea there is think slightly smaller. And again, like I think the key thing there is not even the 90 days, like if your cadence is slightly different, that’s perfectly fine. I think what is much more important is like showing up on a daily basis and making small kind of, you know, incremental tweets, like 1% better because those things are ultimately the things that kind of compound.

Andrew: You worked hard, sold a company. Life is good. What’s one fun thing that you got for yourself. Anything I’ve been interviewing people for years? I keep asking the only thing that anyone ever buys is a car, nothing.

Adii: So no, this time, this time I actually, um, have you caught me off guard? You caught me off guard with a question there. Um, we bought, we bought a beach house, um, beautiful place on the beach, about an hour and a half away from here on South Africa is West coast. Um, We bought a beach house. Um, and it was one of those things.

And again, like, you know, you mentioned Libby earlier, I’ve mentioned John and how that I think, you know, when I zoom out from my lens, how things changed, like I think buying a kind of holiday home is probably the worst financial decision we could make. And yet in the last year we took transfer in March just before South Africa is first hard, locked down and it’s been the most, it’s probably been the single best purchase of my life, Andrew, like the fake kind of we as a family have spent so much time there this year.

Right. And just kind of bonded as a family. Cause most of the time it was only the four of us, my Sean, myself and our two boys. Um, And it’s just like, it’s spun up so many new traditions, so many new things in our family. Um, and it’s just, I think for the first time ever, we played board games. Right. Um, or when we go, when we go on a week, on a weekend, when the kids are at school, for example, on Friday nights, it’s burger night, white and burgers on the Bri and I’ve taught 80 junior and how to actually do that so that I can sit back and have a glass of wine.

Right. Yes with supervisor my supervision and he’s he’s nine he’s, uh, he he’s nine he’s. He’s supposed to be able to do these things. His, yeah, like without supervision, I would not guarantee you the quality, um, if you’re a , but it should be eatable. Um, but I think like those are the. The little things, um, that’s ultimately compounded from a big purchase.

Right? I mean, I don’t want to downplay the fact that it’s, we’re in a privileged position to do something like that, but yeah, I’m not a fancy cars guy. Right. But when John ultimately convinced me that this would be a good idea for the family, like I was, I was all in

Andrew: I do feel like it’s way better than I, I guess I’m also not a car person. I get no satisfaction from being in a car. All right. Congratulations. Congratulations also on having the name 80, which you gave yourself years ago. Uh, two eyes like the wheat and the reason I’m congratulating you on it is because I said, I thought I saw it on Instagram and I said, what’s his Instagram handle?

I realized, Oh yeah, it’s going to be just 80. How many other eighties are there in the freaking world? It’s just him and sure enough, that’s you all right for anyone who wants to go and get the book, go to Amazon or frankly go anywhere else. It’s life profitably, right?

Adii: Profitability, the new measure of entrepreneurial success.

Andrew: Too many fricking tabs life profitability.

All right. And I want to thank the two sponsors who made this interview happen. The first we’ll host your website, right? It’s called HostGator. Check them out at hostgator.com/mixergy. And the second when you’re hiring a developer, even if it’s just for a tool that you need for yourselves. Yes, they do have great WordPress developers and others, and whatever you create, you can share with the world.

All you have to do is go to top talent.com/mixergy 80. Thanks so much for being here

Adii: Thanks so much, Andrew.

Andrew: that

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