Build Products for Yourself

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— I want to start with what you told me last night, that you feel the best way to make a product or the best way to make a product for you is by you are the actual customer. You are making the products that you want to use. — Yeah, I don't know how to do it any other way. Like, this is how I've always done it. So, back when I was 15, 16, I started in software, making stuff, actually something called FileMaker Pro, which is way back when, where you can make these databases for yourself. And I made this database to keep track of my music collection because I was loaning out tapes and CDs to friends and never getting them back. So, I'm like, I need a way to keep track of this stuff, because I keep losing these things. So, I made this product, which I eventually called AudioFile, but I made it for myself. It was just this database, right? And I made a nice interface, because I liked art, I liked making stuff, and so I made this thing, and I eventually just decided

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that I'll put a little text file in this archive of the software that said, "If you like this, send me 20 bucks." And I put it up on AOL, so this is pre-internet, right? Put it up on AOL, and I got this envelope, actually an airmail envelope, one of those with the red and blue check marks, old- school envelope, and it's from Germany. And I open it up, and somebody had printed out this piece of paper, which was the thing I included with the software, and gave me a 20-dollar crisp U.S. bill, right? And that was the moment I think it all clicked for me, which is make stuff for yourself. There's probably other people out there like you who want what you want and make it available to sell. So, you are the customer, you are the audience. It's you, you, you, and then there'll be other people just like you. We're not all that unique. There's plenty of people who like what we like,

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plenty of people who don't, and there's plenty of products for them, too. But there's enough that like what you like, and so that's where I got started. — Yeah, you have this interesting idea where if you're just making what you want, right? Doesn't matter. You just have to go and collect more people that like the things that you like and kind of ignore the people that don't. — Yes, and this is all tied into keeping your costs low. So, if you have a lot of costs, high costs, big company, you have to find a lot of people like you. But if you keep your costs low, keep your company small, at the time, it was just me when I was doing the software thing. And I was making, I don't know, 20 grand a year selling software as a solo person when I was 16 years old or something like that, or 17, then I went into college a little bit as well. And it's like, that's an amazing little small side business, a huge side business when you're that age, right? Because I had no expenses.