Hi, this is the daily overpass, my name is Eric and I make apps!
Now today I wanna talk about the employee vs the entrepreneur!
Ok so back in 2002, back way before I ever thought about starting a company, I was working
for this tiny little company which I really didn't like, and I took a day off and I went
to a trade show in London.
It was like a software development show, they used to have them all the time, it was at
the excel centre in London.
And I went down there and I was walking around, getting the goody bags and all that kind of
stuff, and then the next big haul over there was another show for small businesses and
I was curious, I'd seen everything in the one haul, so I went over and I registered
for the small business one and I went in there.
You had to put your business name and of course I didn't have one so I put 'Wroolie Information
Systems' because I thought that sounded really cool!
I thought "man, if I ever have a company, I'm gonna call it Wroolie Information Systems".
Obviously I went with Overpass.
So I walked in there, I'm walking around, everyone'e trying to sell you something and
I'm trying to look like 'yes, I have this company'.
"Yea it's really big, we're into website design", whatever, all this stuff.
And there were a few auditoriums and I went and sat in this auditorium where there was
a talk, or an interview, given with Sahar Hashemi who was one of the founders of coffee
republic which is one of the big chains here in the UK - coffee chains, like Starbucks.
So here's her book here.
Her and her brother Bobby started it up in the 90's.
And it was really interesting because she was talking about getting started, getting
funding, doing business plans, all this kind of stuff, finding a location, setting up.
Then she talked about once they set up, they weren't getting the traffic that they wanted,
so they were praying for people to come in and going out every day with samples trying
to get people to come in.
Even when they had foot traffic outside, people just weren't walking in and it was really
interesting.
I was sitting in this auditorium, mainly because my feet were tired, but it was interesting,
the stories, a struggle, and then successes and things started to catch on and everything
like that.
And then there was a question session afterwards and somebody stood up and he asked "Yes, I
just wanna ask, black in those early days did you ever think to hire a marketing consultant
to help you with all of that?"
And obviously this guy was a marketing consultant.
And it was funny because her whole demeanour changed, she almost got defensive, she was
like "Sorry?
A marketing consultant?
Why would we do that?
What would that have done for us?
We had no money, what would a marketing consultant have done for us?"
And he was like "uh...uh.. they would have given you an unbiased view of whatever", and
he gave this spiel and he started stumbling back and it was so hysterical.
I mean, nobody was laughing, everyone was kind of like embarrassed for the guy, but
I wish somebody had filmed it and put it on youtube or whatever.
Because back then I was never thinking about doing a business, I never thought I was smart
enough to have a business.
But you could see, in one room, in one shot, the difference between an employee - somebody
who is trying..."we could sell to businesses", a business to business sales person, and then
you saw an entrepreneur.
An entrepreneur with stories of struggle and hardship and success and she was going "why
would we need that?
We didn't have any money".
And one of them was playing the game and one of them was trying to tell them they could
do it better, but would never have taken the risk.
It was really really interesting.
And I know as an app developer you might experience this a lot too.
I definitely do.
Like, you put everything into an app which you're selling business to consumer.
You've got business to consumer and you've got business to business.
And we kinda do both.
So most of out revenue comes from business to consumer, so selling our apps, so that's
great.
And it's much harder to do than business to business, because business to consumer means
I have to convince thousands or millions or even hundreds of people to download and buy
my apps, whereas with business to business, I just have to convince one or two guys and
then they take care of....they have to worry about the B2C side.
So it's different, but when you're a software developer, when you're an app developer, especially
if your apps start to pick up a bit of traction, you start to become the guy that all these
people contact.
So every day I get...well some days I don't get any, some days I get 2 or 3 cold calls
from people selling app marketing services, or their software development services, or
advertising and stuff like that.
And it's always difficult because you're not talking to somebody who's actually taking
the risk, so they're very confident like "oh yes, we can help you.
Eric, we can help you get your app to the top of the app store" blah blah blah blah,
and you're thinking "yea, I can't afford to hire you anyway, and even then, the only qualifications
I actually even know about is the fact that you phoned me".
And that question that you wanna ask, that you're always too polite to ask, is "If you're
so good at advertising apps or marketing apps, why don't you have an app on the app market?
If you're so good at it, why don't you just do it, do one of your own!"
Or if they're selling advertising space, which I get a lot of too, so "If your ads are so
good, why are you calling me?
Why don't you just put up an ad?"
Or a search engine optimisation, "If you're so good at search engine optimisation, why
aren't I just finding you in search results?"
In fact, if I went into Google and types in 'search engine optimisation', wouldn't the
first one that comes up be the best at that, just logically?
Or if they're really good at ASO and they do have apps, you should say "can you show
me numbers" and all this kind of stuff.
And more often that not, they don't because they have a job.
They get paid regardless whether or not you say yes or no and you're in a very different
situation because you're in the arena, you're playing the game and it's win or lose for
you, and it's a job for them.
And it's really difficult.
And I try not to be cynical about it but you start to see that change and a lot of times,
especially when you're talking about when you leave a job or when you're doing it on
the side and you still have a job and everybody has their criticisms about the fact that...or
they have advice about how you could do it better, but they're not actually taking those
risks.
It's really easy to listen to them because everybody kinda sounds like they know what
they're talking about.
somebody who's sitting at a job can be super confident because if you say yes or no, they
don't lose that job necessarily.
But if you take it on and you can't afford it and it fails, then you lose everything.
And if nobody downloads your apps, then you lose everything.
All this kind of stuff and you are in the arena and they're just sort of watching, and
part of it is there's always a job there to go back to, there's always a comfortable life
to go back to.
And if you hire somebody, if you hire one of these services, they could make your life
easier, there's no question about it.
If I hired somebody to do my advertising for me, that would make my life easier but if
you don't have any money, you're not gonna have an easy life anyway.
I talk about my team and some people say "maybe I need to set up a team too", but I didn't
start off with a team, I started off with me.
I started off with me and then the apps, and then it was like, doing everything myself!
Answering all the reviews, emailing out, trying to do all the app videos, doing all the app
descriptions, all the app keyword research, everything like that and eventually I started
thinking, you know, the revenue started getting up, I could hire somebody to help, I could
show them how to do this part and then they could take over that, and then I could start
doing something else and then if they get sick, or if they leave or whatever, then I
have to jump back into that role and that's just part of the game.
When these people call you up and you're thinking "I'm starting off in the app business, I'm
not getting a lot of downloads or I'm not getting a lot of revenue" or even if you are,
but you're like here and you think you should be here, somebody else comes in over here
and they look like they're here, but they're telling you they can bring you up to here,
they don't know how to get up to there, and they don't know how you got to there, because
they won't even take that risk.Anyway, that's it, I hope that makes sense!
There's a big difference between someone in the arena, an entrepreneur who's taking all
those risks, and somebody who just says they can take all your problems away.
Never trust...this is the thing.
I've done a video about this once years before called App Cultures, when you put your stuff
out there, it's so tempting!
So tempting when somebody calls you up and says "hey Eric, the reason it's not working
is because you haven't hired my service" or "you haven't hired me to do this for you"
or somebody who calls up with a promise that can take all your problems away, but be very
sceptical.
And if you can't afford it, you just have to do it yourself.
So anyway, that's it for today, I'll talk to you guys tomorrow!