hey what's going on this is the Doug
show welcome I'm doc connington in this
interview I'm gonna talk to Dave
Schneider Dave's an old friend of mine
and he recently sold his SAS company
that software-as-a-service
ninja outreach so I bet a lot of you
listening may have heard of a ninja
outreach which is basically influencer
outreach software and cool thing is Dave
and I were in a mastermind group back in
the day like roughly around the time
that I was getting started online like
2013 2014 and Dave was getting started
as well so it's good to hear how you
know he took a different path he took it
you know a different route to get to
where he is now
and it was just cool catching up with
him he started doing a travel blog and
that's initially when we met and he made
some mistakes over time like we all do
so he shares a lot of those and we
talked about a few other things like how
he stays motivated and some of the
projects he's working on now this
interview is kind of interesting to me
because you know number one Dave's a
friend of mine and I have known him
since I got started but Dave and I also
met in person at least a couple times I
can't I can't remember what what was
first but we met in in the like Boston
area somewhere somewhere in
Massachusetts up there my wife and I and
Brodie our old dog at the time he and I
he being Dave we met up at a bar he was
just a couple towns over
had a couple had a couple beers there as
I like to do and I think we we walked
our dogs together too I think we met at
a park and walked around and my wife
Elizabeth joined us as well
so it was cool catching up and Dave and
I actually worked on a couple projects
together as well or at least one project
that it was like a side project that we
like basically
you know we quit help I'll put a link to
that story in the description so if
you're interested in hearing about that
let me know actually I could probably
get Dave back on the line and we could
just talk about that as well but so we
met one time in the Boston area and then
another time we met as he and his
now-wife were they were traveling
through the Atlanta area so they were
driving through Georgia
they're big travelers and especially
during that that period of their lives
they were traveling a ton so they were
they weren't kind of going through the
and his girlfriend stopped by girlfriend
at the time wife now and they they
stopped for lunch so we chatted and I
think they came over for a couple hours
to maybe like you know catch up on some
work and in the home office there so
anyway let's get to the interview now
that I'm rambling on and on and thanks a
lot Dave everyone be sure to check out
Dave's current projects now which are
like you can get to them at Dave
Schneider dot me les churned il and
growth pros dot i oh so those are a few
links and you can get to them in the
description
hey what's up Doug Huntington here from
niche site project I'm talking with my
friend Dave Schneider how are you doing
well Doug how are you doing doing
awesome so thanks a lot for joining me
today and for the people that don't know
you can you give us a little bit of an
intro who you are and what you're
working on and then we'll kind of go
into the whole backstory after that sure
I've been working online for I don't
know about five or six years now I guess
it started I was doing some traveling
that kind of led the digital nomad and
that kind of led to maybe working a bit
more full-time online
messed around with a lot of different
things probably like you know any
entrepreneur but my guess my you know
claim to fame although it's not in
hardly you know to to famous would be
starting in growing ninja reach which
was a influencer marketing software you
know in the digital marketing space
which I sold this year in March and
since then you know I got married and
basically I've just been relaxing a
little bit cool Congrats by the way and
then you just got married recently so
thanks very much and let's go back to
the beginning cuz like you and I sort of
got started online around the same time
and it's really cool like our sort of
group of people that we came up with
like we all sort of separated to
different things but everyone did well
and it's you know when did you sell
ninja outreach by the way it was March
of this year 2018 okay cool
so you worked on that for a while you
sold it and but you came from like a lot
of people getting started I know like
Pat Flynn started with like like
affiliate marketing and some smaller
sites and I think like Mark Manson and a
couple other like big names started with
like niche sites essentially so tell us
how you kind of found your way into the
travel area and then that sort of thing
yeah so I'm kind of going back to 2012
and technically even before that but you
have to start somewhere and basically my
you know my now wife and I had agreed
that we
wanted to go traveling you know
backpacker style kind of quit our jobs
save up some money go to Asia and just
kind of go do that for like a year and a
year you know the plan at least I became
to pretty quickly and once we were out
there we decided we we you know we
wanted to have a travel blog it was
mainly a way to keep in touch with
friends and family but we also thought
in the back of our minds that maybe we
could make a little bit of money off of
it at a minimum we could maybe review
some different activities and in places
and that we'd get discounts and that
would help us
so to prolong our travel budget so a
little did I know that there was a whole
world probably still is of link selling
which is when you basically sell a link
on your own website my guess is your
audience knows exactly why someone would
want to do this so I won't elaborate too
much but basically you buy links on
people his website to get you know the
SEO sort of Authority and that helps you
rank higher in the organic search
engines for particular terms so we work
with you know companies like Expedia who
wanted to rank for cheap flights to
Miami for example and we'd have to find
ways to include that in our blog post
and that was a that was our first sort
of introduction into you know online
marketing so to speak working you know
online where somebody's kind of paying
you and you're doing the whole thing
from your laptop and we did that for
years I mean we did that for probably
like 2 or so years and it really it
became sort of a way for us to replace
our previously full-time incomes to the
extent that we thought you know why why
go back and you know try to get you know
a good job in the corporate world again
why not see what we can kind of continue
from this so once we started with that
mentality that we wanted to be online
entrepreneurs we started thinking about
new business ideas we got in and you
know we did a few things with niche
sites a bit but I was looking for
something that I felt was going to be
more stable because dealing
selling business seemed very you know up
and down and very dependent on Google's
algorithm and where your site's gonna
get hit tomorrow and I was a bit
concerned about that so I started to
read and learn more about software which
was a sort of a business model that
seemed very attractive because of the
whole monthly recurring revenue aspect
but at the same time was something I
knew very little about but kind of dove
in headfirst and and you know that led
to ninja region
well I'll pause there for now because
you know that's kind of two years there
right yeah I was gonna say so it sounds
like you did that for a couple years and
you and I like met because of my blog in
in your blog so you used to have sort of
a marketing blog is it still out there
at all I it is not because I we
eventually then jobbers consumed it and
we just redirected all the links and
traffic and articles to kind of send the
traffic where it was valuable well got
it okay and I was blogging a niche type
project but the reason why I'm bringing
this up is I tell people like if you
want to network with people comment on
blogs send a couple emails and that's
literally what you and I did checked out
each other's blogs like we were writing
interesting things and eventually you
and I were in a mastermind group with
another person for I don't know lease I
can't remember like six months or maybe
more I don't remember yeah and
eventually we met yeah we've met a
couple of times right like I was passing
through the Boston area and then once
you were coming through Atlanta so yeah
we've hung out a couple times which is
cool I haven't met many people online so
you know so yeah like comment on blogs
cuz that many people do and then send
some emails and you may develop
something like multi-year long
relationship something like that so cool
and I remember when you were getting
started
with ninja outreach and you know I was
like I don't know it sounds so
complicated and then like you went for
it right so how did you get involved
initially with ninja outreach did you I
mean you obviously saw the need because
you knew about guest posting and link
building
like you don't know software so how'd
you do it yeah it was uh it was tricky
you know one one thing was basically so
influencer marketing was you know how do
you work with bloggers and influencers
to kind of you know build relationships
in and promote your brand originally
what I was thinking was you know more
like content promotion because like you
said we were blogging and I was thinking
how can we kind of get our content out
there and maybe get it
maybe automatically posted in different
forums and communities and and you know
the top vote sites and things like that
I started pitching that idea to a couple
other bloggers to see if they might be
interested in it and they said that they
thought it was okay of an idea but that
they were more interested in some sort
of influential marketing software and I
remember to like very prominent bloggers
had said something like that one was
Brian Dean and the other was Matthew
Barbie and you know though those two
inputs was sort of the impetus to think
about influencer marketing and you know
what was going on in that space it was
and still is like pretty hot and
basically there were some other software
at the time guys like inky B and buzz
stream who you know most of which are
still around that had a bit of a
foothold in the space but it didn't seem
like anybody was really dominating it so
I started thinking about what that
software could look like what you know
what features should have had and
instead of how could you know maybe I
try to make it work unfortunately I
didn't know any coding and still really
don't and that was you know the first
big hurdle and that's you know often the
one that kind of kind of prevents most
people from making the leap in the
software and I still haven't really
figured out a good answer to how to deal
with it but I basically connected with
another guy who had a developer friend
and he basically you know the three of
us joined in as kind of equal partners
and we got started kind of working yeah
there's gotta a mark Sam's and and you
know I was a podcast guest on his show
and then he had a friend named Paul and
basically you know that that worked
because you know if you don't have a
developer like
a co-founder becomes really expensive
like really fast so having somebody you
know with equity in the business and
stuff like that
you know what was key and basically you
know we started mapping out the MVP we
started trying to get the word out you
know asking people were they happy with
the software that they had available to
them you know trying to figure out who
was using the competitors and sort of
maybe who wasn't the happiest customer
and things like that and I don't know if
and I don't know if it was easier than
than it is now lately I've also you know
done some things with software and I I
feel like maybe four or five years ago
people were a little bit more
I don't know accessible with email and
maybe a little bit more willing to meet
and talk and chat about things maybe
they just hadn't been quite like
bombarded as they have in the last
couple of years by a lot of sales
pitches but you know needless to say
we've contacted a lot of people
generated some good phone calls a little
bit of buzz did some blogging and just
kind of little by little started started
growing cool and with the partnership
right especially with three people how
did you structure that from like a
business standpoint and did you know
like did you meet those guys beforehand
before you started you know transacting
and stuff so yeah so it's Philly you
know I mean officially officially we
eventually made it like a c-corporation
that was in America basically in the
states in Delaware which is a common
state to kind of make a corporation and
and they are they're both British so I
hadn't I didn't have sort of easy access
per se to meeting them but we could you
know basically all owned one third of
the company but but I guess sort of
unofficially in terms of I guess like
division of labor and things like that
you know mark and I were market errors
and then girl was decoder his job was
very clear and mark and I just tried to
split two dues say okay you're gonna you
know you're gonna contact and talk with
these people on the phone I'm gonna
contact you know these people on the
phone
and in the early days you know when this
when the business was really quite small
there was more stepping on each other's
toes I'd say just because it was harder
to sort of draw a line in the sand about
who was doing what because sort of it
was a small business basically I mean it
you know it was never like a large large
business but it was a particularly small
business in the beginning as it grew
like that division of labour became like
more define and mark started running
almost purely the services side of the
business and I started working purely on
like the software side of the business
because it took on a little bit of a
services model like a few years later
and he had certain employees that kind
of worked with him and I had sort of my
guys and in that in that sense it worked
out you know nicely but basically there
was a lot of I guess trust in sort of
faith that we've kind of put into it in
terms of look I don't really know you
you don't really know me but um we seem
to share the same vision here and and
you seem like a nice guy and you know
let's let's give it a shot
and I say a lot of people would probably
not recommend that approach it's
probably you know failed more times than
it's worked but I don't know I had a
good feeling about the guys that seemed
alright so so we went with it and more
or less it worked out reasonable I
didn't meet any of them until like three
years into the business even after like
it was you know things were clearly
going okay and things were established
that still just had never really gotten
around to meeting mark never and still
never met Paul eventually he did he did
leave and you know to work on other
things but I did meet mark you know last
last year so for the first time and yeah
and then not not that long after we
actually ended up selling the business
but basically yeah so again it's sort of
like the the coding thing I'm not sure
you know the probably hurdle number two
is how do I find a co-founder right and
it's another one of those things where I
say unfortunately I maybe kind of lucked
into it it worked out okay I don't know
if it would be like my advice to
somebody else but you know sometimes you
just have to go with those types of you
know opportunities when they present
themselves right yeah in that's super
interesting because I mean I think
you're right a lot more people are
reaching out these days I get a few
email
a week some sort of a pitch so like it
really has to be good for me to even
reply back and not mark it as spam I'd
like to be honest with you so if you can
get like a warm introduction and I mean
I think you demonstrated that with you
know you were a guest on his podcast so
like you came in with some you know
experience you have demonstrated value
as a guest and then you hit it off from
there so that that makes some sense and
I was gonna say it's it's interesting
right you're right because I don't think
it's normal for people to be like yeah
you know you just meet someone you talk
a couple times and like you move forward
it's like you're getting married you're
starting to business together and then
like you hope it works out so yeah it's
really pretty amazing were there are
certain pieces like especially in the
early days that were like much easier or
harder than you expected oh boy I think
in the in the early days I think
everything was kind of hard and it was
just kind of hard the whole time and it
never ever really good got that easy you
know it was we I think we found good
people you know we found good employees
to kind of help us and you know mostly
you like threw up work and things like
that you know through freelancer
marketplaces and we'd kind of work with
them and then if things would go well
and we kind of transition them into more
of like a full-time role and basically
you know these these good employees were
just huge assets that really helped the
company kind of grow because I mean oh
yeah again pretty much anybody that's
worked online is probably dealt with
some freelancers that just kind of
didn't pan out and just maybe would
disappoint and they got burned a little
bit and then some people you know that
really just say well that's it I'm done
I'm never working with outsourced labor
again and I think that's kind of you
know probably a mistake but we had a
couple of guys that we you know we
worked with in the beginning and they
stayed with us like the whole three
years for three four years that we ran
the company which is fairly uncommon you
know when you think about like outsource
labor usually people like they leave in
like six months or something so I think
that you know
being able to find good help that was
you know affordable for us you know
really helped us and then you know
because often what we do is we would put
a lot of work into maybe training people
and kind of getting them up to speed
we'd get them kind of that you know
pretty good rates because they didn't
have a lot of experience but they had
like the right attitude and we teach
them kind of the marketing that they
needed to know and that we needed from
them and then by the end of it you know
one two years later I mean the people
were like all-stars but we were paying
like probably a lot less than them then
maybe other companies wouldn't I think
that was really really helpful for us so
but we had invested a lot of time you
know it wasn't like you know there was a
give-and-take there so I think that you
know that was one thing for sure
cool and do you have any tips for people
like hiring on up work for example maybe
your application process interviewing
and you know the training piece yeah I
mean I think there's sort of maybe maybe
too many different approaches but but
one for sure is if you just you have
something that's very specialized and
you need a guy who's like he's an expert
and you can't really mess around with
you know training him so you may need
someone to run your paid advertising to
do something would say Google AdWords
and you know there's a lot of nuances
there is fairly fairly niche you know
system marketing channel and you're
looking for a guy who is not just gonna
like be learning while he's spending
your money right and for that you might
all you might pay kind of you know
quote-unquote top dollar my higher end
freelancer just kind of say get it done
but then there's a lot of other you know
marketing work that you know if the guy
has just the right attitude and he seems
like he's you know he's willing to learn
and he's got good command of English and
loyal those types of things then in in
more cases you know than one I'd be
willing to cut up that on that guy train
them up a little bit because at the end
of the day almost everybody needs to be
trained anyway on sort of specifically
what you want them to do and then kind
of you know continue to work with them
in that in that case you often will find
someone at a little bit of a discount
rate and then they'll don't learn to do
exactly you know what you'd like them to
do you can
kind of you know giving people a task
right away and that represents something
that they'll be doing in the future and
kind of seeing how they run with it and
if it doesn't go well
probably you know unless you really feel
like this person has a lot of potential
you should kind of cut them probably
pretty soon in that way it's you know
there's no over-investment on anybody's
part you know they always I don't want
to say like fire fast and stuff like
that I don't know but basically I just
basically if you feel like it's not
working out early on don't force it
there's a lot of other people out there
and you just find a better fit yep and
I've seen a lot of people will come up
with an excuse and you're like okay what
is slide but usually it's like three or
so like there's always something else
and it's very rare like I'll give
something like when one chance but if
it's like habitual there was just too
many people out there that want to work
hard and are not gonna be late so yeah
yeah I agree so are there any people
that like I guess looking back then and
even now that inspire you and you're
like looking up to and you're like I
like that path that they are on yeah I
mean uh I mean one there's not a person
per se that I like follow sort of
everything they do but there are certain
people that I I kind of look at and I go
you know that looks like pretty neat
like Spencer Hawes you know I think is
just you know one of those guys that
just uh seems to sort of kill it with
everything he does I mean I I know that
must not really be the case he's
probably had his share of failures like
everybody else but uh I don't know
everything from him is like I started
this niche site like four weeks ago and
bam sold it for six figures and it's
like that type of thing but I just like
that um
seems like down-to-earth nice guy you
know sort of he's always working on a
lot of different you know projects and
things like that he's not particularly
flashy or salesy or marketing and you
know he's with all due respect in my
opinion sort of an average writer but he
kind of just yeah he does a good job and
he's very transparent and honest with
his with his audience and he you know he
peers to do very well on a lot of
different projects and is always trying
to try different things and so he's a
guy I've liked over the years I've
probably kind of followed a lot of his
stuff more than others even though you
know yeah he does you know I'm a lot
more we're certain niche sites and
affiliate sites and stuff like that
which is not as strong of an area for me
but still always interesting cool anyone
else you can think of um I don't know
there's a lot of guys I've I think I've
just kind of I I've sort of seen a
little bit from here and there but uh
but yeah I mean um sujin Patel from from
male shake is another one that he's a
little bit more dedicated in the
software space and his male shake and he
has some other ones and it you know I've
talked with him on the phone a couple
times because he was doing milkshake
when I was doing ninja outreach and you
know the tour caller competitors but you
know it's a everybody's okay with each
other and again always found him despite
the fact that like our companies could
resume Lee have overlap interested
customers be a very nice guy be very
willing to help you know transparent and
honest and also seems to just kind of
just be like a really great entrepreneur
and you know well you know a lot of
projects seems to do very well and he's
also doing a lot of updates like
personal like challenges sort of like
biohacking type stuff like fasting for
days and things like that it's always
really interesting cool yeah I don't
follow him much you need to check that
out you said sujin patel yeah it sighs
Neil Patel's cousin okay yeah gotcha I
was gonna say I was like I heard the
name before so I got that's why gotcha
you'll see him everywhere now
okay so I've made like so many mistakes
like on my journey and I continue to
make mistakes like bigger ones as I go
on so do you have any to share that we
can learn from yeah I mean it's sort of
there's so many I guess to choose from
and a lot of them you know you don't you
don't really know and you know
unfortunately until you find out and
some of them are you know sort of very
specific but
probably connect to a larger problem so
for example you know early on with ninja
outreach we made some killer mistakes
and I don't even know how we ever got
out of it but surely it cost us a lot of
money and one of them was that the
application was desktop only only for
Windows not even for Mac so and also
used only PayPal so it couldn't accept
credit cards and it was like like three
very killer things that we did right
away and I have to say that like at the
time I thought okay III mostly used
desktop I don't use you know I I'm okay
with that using a cloud app and I also
use Windows so okay I don't know who
uses Macs and I you know I have a PayPal
account so what's the big deal and you
know very quickly the the your audience
will let you know that you've made a
huge blunder and they say desktop like
what do you guys think it you know it's
2014 you know and Windows only like we
use Mac and sorry but PayPal doesn't
work in this country like can I use my
credit card or like the business doesn't
have a PayPal account or whatever it is
and these blunders are you know so
there's sort of like specific from a bit
of a technical perspective but they
really relate to just not really I guess
either paying attention or researching
your customer base or your potential
customer base early on I don't even
really know how we kind of determined
that it would be okay to have a Windows
only app I think we looked on Wikipedia
and we saw that like Windows had 90% of
the market share or something which
maybe is true or nothing that stat is
wrong but in our market it was certainly
like a 50/50 split there's like every
other person that signed up said oh how
do i download this for Mac and it just
didn't work and then similar with PayPal
just another one of those things that at
that time this was used to go but stripe
still existed and they were they were
the go-to payment processor for software
and basically if we had even just put in
a modicum of effort to ask another
software entrepreneur what payment
processor are you using or ask some of
our
summers and in any of this you know
would have saved us a lot of a lot of
headache unfortunately once you start to
commit to these certain things
the act of kind of undoing it or
reversing it is is a it's you know it's
really hard
in fact even years later we we sort of
offer both PayPal and stripe because you
know we already had PayPal integrated so
why not and then you know we added
stripe in while that might seem like a
fine solution to kind of offer both it
always made the analytics really
difficult because people were you know
they were stored in different you know
backends and how do you track the
conversions and and and then you'd have
tools like beer metrics that would only
integrate with stripe and not PayPal so
they'd only be capturing like a
percentage of the customer base and it
was really unfortunate you know and
those are those types of things I think
you know they represent the largest
thing like I said you know you have to
kind of pay attention to your customer
base and if you don't know ask another
entrepreneur who's doing you know
software and each sites or whatever it
is use one to two years ahead of you
about hey man like I'm sure you came
across this question like what payment
processor should you use what did you
use and why and the answer you know
it'll be very clear right that's I
totally forgot I remember now Dave like
you were like hey you want to try the
software I'm like I use a Mac like I
don't know so what do you what do you do
and that's crazy so it and then it was
only after you guys migrated over that I
was able to like test it out and
whatever like help you out then damn so
I guess the main lesson there ask people
that are ahead of you they probably know
a little bit more and yeah okay
interesting now we I know you signed
like an NDA and stuff selling the site
but can you share like just sort of like
the scope or how big ninja outreach was
when you sold it just to give us some
reference point sure I think at the time
we were like around 20 or so employees
you know most of them were were around
full-time you know they were
a couple part-timers I think we had you
know four or so developers and basically
you know certainly hundreds of customers
so we were on that sighs okay cool and
people can extrapolate or make
assumptions based on that but thanks for
sharing I totally understand
so what are you working on now so after
selling the business in March you know
it's sort of a weird sort of feeling I
guess where you all of a sudden like 90
percent of your responsibility is sort
of removed and you're not exactly sure
like what to do with your time and I
guess the advice that gives anybody who
might be in a similar situation is you
know just see if there's anybody maybe
you can try to help because you know if
you work on a business or startup you've
probably asked for your share of
handouts and help you know in the last
couple years I know that I had and I
felt like it was kind of time to kind of
give back a little bit so basically I
offered to do some free consulting this
was like back in March and that you know
connected me with one company their name
is they're called Alba cross therapy to
be lead generation software and they
share some similarities with ninja age
so it's very comfortable and familiar
and they've just recently launched like
a premium plan so I've been kind of
helping out with marketing on on their
side and basically that's you know
that's certainly one thing I've been
working on I have another software
product that I bought last year is
called less churn its churn reduction
basically helps help software businesses
reduce you know user turn that one is
like that's like ninja Age like four
years ago it's almost even like me and
George like six years ago
ninja Irish didn't exist six years ago
so that kind of tells you what stage
that but basically trying to get that
one off the ground and and I'll be
honest that you know even having built
you know you know a software business
before it ain't that much easier the
second time I mean this is still it's
still really hard it's still hard to get
you know to get you know users and
traffic and all these different types of
things so anyway I'm gonna kind of give
it the old college try you know for at
least a few more months and kind of see
you know how it goes
which was a really tough start in the
beginning as well I mean you know we did
like a whole beta for several months we
launched it like nobody bought you know
we was okay
like now what so you know I'm not used
I'm not I'm used to you know things not
taking off it like rocket speed but you
know so we'll see how it goes cool yeah
how do you stay motivated like in the
face of adversity like you're describing
here yeah I think that um one real
benefit of having kind of done business
for a few years and having had at least
a few you know successes or so it is
hindsight and there you know there were
millions of times with ninja reach where
I was just like oh man which we're we're
ruined you know this is this is it you
know that this competitors come out
there's things a lot better or these
guys they lower their price or we've
scanned all this terrible feedback and
that this project is delayed by so long
or while I've been traveling for like
weeks without really proper internet and
I feel like I haven't like done a great
job and just all those types of
entrepreneurial doubts and kind of
hardships and you know I mean
legitimately you know those things you
know work you know adversity so to speak
and it was difficult down but you know
now that now I can kind of see the end
result that like you know we did build a
nice business a more or less one
reasonably well and was you know
reasonably smooth we're able to sell it
and you know we were happy about the
exed and I think now I can kind of look
back at all those times and say well
yeah yeah hey I wish I hadn't made all
those mistakes with PayPal and desktop
and I and and you know that I had had
the internet for three weeks maybe when
I was complaining about it but you know
it didn't prevent us from from you know
building something you know great and so
now I I can kind of say like oh hey here
we are again it's another tough time but
you know it's not I know that that
little bumps in the road and that's
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