Nesha Mutuku: Customer conversations, why not at the dentist or at a baby shower?

Transcript of episode 20

Matthias:
Hello, dear listeners, this is another episode of the Audience Explorer podcast. Today, I’m happy to have Nesha Mutuku with me. Hello, Nesha.

Nesha:
Hi, thank you for having me.

Matthias:
Thanks for coming. Nesha is a founder of an interesting startup; we’ll talk about that soon. And I welcome her here today!

Nesha, tell us a little bit about yourself so that our listeners can get to know you.

Nesha:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m Nesha, and I currently live in Florida; on the Atlantic side. And I’ve been working on Swally for almost a year now. We came up to a year in November.

I actually founded Swally when I was in university. So, I went to school in Florida and I was a part of their entrepreneurship program. And I was really able to search out a lot of different ideas. And I’m not going to lie, first ones were pretty bad, but they slowly evolved into fitting my niche.

The first product I started out with was a tangible product, a removable, washable backpack liner, because I saw that college students’ backpacks looked horrible, including mine. I wanted to find a way to deal with it.

And then as I started working on the product, I realized I hate all things supply chain. I hate product sourcing. I hate working with materials, all that type. And so, I kind of went back into my more cognitive science, computational science background, and I came up with my next idea, which was Met. And that was all about paying people with equity when you want work done to be at your startup.

And I was scared of the legal issues that might come up, but it was a really awesome entrance into the world of creating digital services or digital tools for people. And then that’s kind of when Swally came around.

The whole concept for being a tech entrepreneur was so not anything I’d ever thought I was going to do. I thought I was going to become a ballerina at one of the Big Five companies in the world and pursue arts for the rest of my life. So, definitely was a unique path, for sure, to get into the world of tech entrepreneurship. So, I’m just as shocked I’m here.

Matthias:
Absolutely. Do you have a background in in tech, some kind of software engineering or what?

Nesha:
Yeah. So, my background, I could say a couple of classes when I was in college, because I had three associate’s degrees. One of them was in quantitative reasoning and then social science and psychology. So, it’s kind of bringing that like behavioral science to tech. And I was hoping to get into machine learning or AI or something as I pursued my degree, and I had a little bit of an entrance to that. But then when I transferred over to finish the rest of my schooling, I just really felt like I need to get a business degree. I just felt like this needs to happen, and if you don’t, you’re going to regret it. And I did.

And so, my background in tech is very slight. And a lot of the things I’ve really, really learned have been through YouTube University, through Twitter, through talking to people.

Matthias:
Oh, yeah.

Nesha:
People in my network. So, I have an – yeah, so okay, like 10 years; like “Hi Google” under my belt, unfortunately. But yeah, it’s been some fun nonetheless.

Matthias:
That’s nice. Quantitative reasoning; what does that mean?

Nesha:
Yeah. So, that’s like pretty much the degree meant you’re going to take a lot of calculus and computer science, like that’s really what that degree path was.

But it’s also not just calculus and comp, like you’d go into like a physics program or a typical mathematics program. But it was also like, what’s your statistical reasoning at? Like, how can you create logic pathways to figure out different situations? So, more for actual solving issues in computer science; not just like frontend development where you’re like, “I want it to look this certain way”, but actually like, how can you think logically about solving an issue using computers?

And so, that’s really what I was getting interested in. I’m not going to lie. It was hard, though; I definitely cried a couple of times.

Matthias:
Of course.

Nesha:
It was a tough program. But yeah.

Matthias:
I had some basic statistics classes in my studies when I was at university and it was terrible. I was terrible at it. This concept of probability…

Nesha:
…only if you did like statistics or like algorithmic math, I noticed, because it statistics is a lot of words and it can get people jumbled up really easily or they’re really good at like calculus and like, when we just think in a linear way. It’s all based on the same fundamentals, you know?

Matthias:
Yeah, yeah. Great.

And Behavioral Science, these two, I think, will be an excellent basis for your startup work.

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
Are you alone in your newly-founded company or are you a team?

Nesha:
I am super thankful to have a team!

Matthias:
That’s great.

Nesha:
So, I actually came up with the idea when I was on my way to be a host at a seafood place. And I was like, “You know, I get paid random amounts every single time I get paid because I work different hours because I pick up shifts sometimes.” And I was like, “I just want all my money to be instantly categorized from the amount that I’m actually making, not based on this like stunning, perfect $2000 biweekly kind of budget. It’s not for a lot of people nowadays.”

And so, I had that idea. I brought it home. I started chatting about it with my family and my brother is like, “You know, we should add this, this, this, this”, and I was like, “Well, you can become a co-founder if you really want to do this!” And so, he did.

And then we pitched for our university’s computer science department, and they chose us to develop an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for us and kind of proving our concept. And now I have a CTO from that whole track and also a senior backend developer that joined us from that as well. And then we also have some interns on the finance and marketing side as well. So, there’s a total of six of us now.

Matthias:
Oh boy, that’s fantastic!

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
Such a great start for the beginning with so many people. Interesting!

Nesha:
Yeah, it’s handy. I mean, it’s hard because we’re all like part time or we’re working and also trying to pay our bills at the same time. So, it’s not like six full-time people, which would be also great.

Matthias:
Yeah, sure.

Nesha:
It’s the next step in the in the process.

Swally, the habit-building app that makes people spend wisely

Matthias:
Cool.

So, you talked about Swally, about this wallet application, what does it do exactly? How can we image imagine that?

Nesha:
Yeah.

So, at first it became like that, “Oh, I wish things were categorized better based on what I earned. And like automatically from every deposit, money was categorized.” But as we started building it, we realized that the real pain point for people was that they had really good intentions of how they were going to spend, and then those intentions did not match up with their actual spending. So, like, “I’m going to save money this week” and then they go out and like, “I did not save money this week.”

And so, we were like, “Okay, we need to try and find some way for people to be able to like change their behavior around this.” And so, what we added was we tell you exactly what you can spend, exactly where you are. So, if you’d walk into Starbucks, you look down at your phone like, “You can spend 15 dollars here and stay in budget!” So, you’re telling them right before they’re about to make your decision, “Hey, watch yourself. Your food budget is dwindling!”

And then post-purchase, whether they stayed on budget or not, they would get either green check mark or a red X, stating that you spent wisely or maybe try it better next time.

And that’s like the fundamental logic of the app is giving people rewards for doing what they said they were going to do. Because if you ever read like “Atomic Habits” or anything like that, you will find really easy ways and you have to reward yourself for even like waking up 10 minutes earlier and you’re like, “Well, that’s dumb. I should have done that anyways.”

But creating new habits need to be rewarded at first, and then it becomes automatic. So, that’s where the whole kind of psychology behind the app.

Matthias:
Interesting! So, for the app to know the budget and for the app to know the place where you are, let’s say Starbucks, there has to be some preparation, right? Do I have to put in my budget into the application first?

Nesha:
Well, so we take all your financial data in from your spending history and we try and do as good of a job as we can, considering we have limited info – we only have your bank account. So, we don’t have access to your CashApp or Venmo, but we do know, on average, like what you’re spending.

And so, we take all that-

Matthias:
Ah, so I connect to my bank account first.

Nesha:
Mm hmm. Yes.

Matthias:
Ah, okay.

Nesha:
And so, we take all that information, we get around like twenty four months of data in. And then we, like in our beta version, we’re going to suggest numbers to you of like what you’re spending, but then you can change it if we’re wrong. Because our logic is still pretty new. But it’ll get to a point where, like, we can assess exactly what your budget should be based on how you’re spending.

And this is again, that whole like “intentions versus reality”. So, we notice, like a lot of Twitter threads went viral about budgeting because people were like,

• “Oh yeah, like it must be easy to budget if you got a lot of money” or,
• “Oh yeah, it must be easy, but the thing is I save a lot of money on groceries and then I end up eating out way more than I save money on groceries.
• I wish our budget just understood who I am as a person.”

And that’s kind of where that logic comes in is, “Okay, so we’re going to actually analyze who you are as a as a whole human being, not as perfect numbers on a screen and say, ‘You like to eat out more with your friends. That’s okay. That’s fine. That’s who you are. That’s your choice. So, let’s make sure we can budget more towards this, because it seems to be a highlight of your week, and let’s take less into groceries. So, that way you’re actually putting money where you want it to be and budgeting for the human, not the ideal human.”

Matthias:
Oh, so not for the person that people would like to be, but the person that people really are, right?

Nesha:
Eventually. Who they really, really are. And then what’s really cool is like over time, you start making them into the person they want to be because you’re like, “Hey, maybe we can take five percent and put it over here” or “two percent and put it over here” and over time, creating habits. Habits are never made overnight. They’re made over time, and they start with who you are today.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
You’re slowly improving from where you are. Absolutely.

Nesha:
Exactly.

How Nesha and her team found their first audience

Matthias:
And how did you get your first people who knew about your application at all? You were building it and at some point in time, there must be some attention to towards your app. How did that happen?

Nesha:
Yeah. So, we started completely in the dark, not knowing what we were doing, like most founders do.

Matthias:
Yeah, sure.

Nesha:
And we started talking to our friends, you know, because like, that’s your validation. You’re like, “So, you think this is a great idea, too? Okay, we’re both crazy awesome. Let’s do it.” And your mom is like, “This is the best thing I’ve ever heard of.” You’re like, “Well, look, there’s our validation. Let’s build the app now.”

But it started there with like some pseudo validation. But then we started pitching at competitions and we were finalists in one. We won money at the Tim Draper Competition for Women Entrepreneurs. And then we won first place at Embry-Riddle Launch Adventure, which is a big school here in Florida. And then we got third place in Florida’s Governor Cup.

So, it started like actually getting some validation, like winning some money for our idea, getting really good feedback from the judges saying like, “Hey, this is actually kind of investable, like this seems like a cool concept; a different spin on the typical budgeting apps that we keep on seeing out there.”

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
And so, that’s kind of when we started like saying, “Yeah, this is a real thing. This is not just like an idea in our heads.” And at that time, we were building out the proof of concept. Then we completed that, started chatting with more people about it. And similar to how I am now, it’s like, “Here’s the pitch. Does it sound interesting to you? Does it sound like something you would download?” Because at this point, what we care about is downloads. Because as soon as we have a download, then we can figure out how to reduce churn. But if we have no one on the app, then we have no data.

So, it’s like, “Would this convince you enough to for you to download it?” And like, “Absolutely, this sounds really cool.” And I’m like, “That’s the first step.” And then our waitlist grew from there. We have over a hundred people now waiting to download our app. So, yeah.

Matthias:
Hmm. Interesting.

I wonder this question that you mentioned, “Would this make you download?” or “Would this be enough to make you download that?” … Do you think that people can correctly judge their future behavior?

Nesha:
So, I mean, not entirely.

Matthias:
Okay.

Nesha:
But getting them to say something out loud is a step in the right direction, because then they’re telling themselves what they wish they would do. So, that’s better than not knowing that they would do anything at all.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
So, it’s like a good step.

And number two is actually having a conversation rather than just sending them an email. It’s super helpful, because they’re now not just really connected to an app or a service by a strange person, but they’re my friend now.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
And so, they care about my success and they want to help me out, too, which is like a little underhanded, I guess. You’re like, “Yeah, they’re my friends who are going to help me”, but it actually is a really valuable way. It’s like building relationships with customers because now they care about the success of the app, and they feel like they’re a part of the building process, not just an end user that’s being yelled at.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
And so, it’s actually a really great method that’s worked for us is getting people involved with the building process, especially when you’re in beta mode. You want people that feel like they’re building something, not just people who are using something. Because they can give you better feedback.

Because I mean, there’s some people and they’ll give me like an email of feedback; like full on like stacks of feedback. And I’m like, “That’s exactly what we want to get from our first users as people who care about the process.”

But in the long term, the best way we’ve noticed is just like landing page conversion is probably the best way. Like if they put their email in there, that’s like half of the way there. And then when we give them an – like that consumer can get lost in the cold email when we release the app saying, “Hey, the waitlist is like done. You can download the app now.” That’s only going to work so long.

So, then like what we’re going to do is send them a personalized email that I’ll write, that says, “Hey, I remember chatting with you” or “Thank you so much for your support.” Not just like Cold Blast saying, “Hey, the wait is over.”

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
You have to really personalize things. And then at least you can get like a 60, 70 percent guarantee that they’re going to download the app. So, it’s a whole process. Yeah.

About paying for an unfinished app

Matthias:
How does payment work? When people download the app does it mean they have to pay immediately or they have to subscribe to something or does it come along the way?

Nesha:
Yeah, there you go. That’s the last one; it comes along the way. Because right now we’re in beta. So, I would actually just feel personal guilt about charging anybody for the use because, you know, something happens. You know, first time we’re releasing it to the public and I’m charging somebody five dollars a month to use it. I’d be like, “Oh God, I feel horrible.”

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
And when we released our launch version, which we’re shooting for, like December, January, it’s releasing like the edited version with all the feedback, et cetera, then that’s when we start charging. And we kind of grandfather in our first users and say, like, “Hey, you know, we have to start charging this much, but for you guys would give you this kind of perk or this kind of discount”, type of thing.

Matthias:
Yeah, yeah.

Nesha:
And most of the people that are on our early waitlist completely understand the process, because they’re more like on the early side tech adoption scale. So, it’s a little easier to be able to say things like that and then be okay with it.

Matthias:
Hmm. Interesting approach!

Don’t you think that the very fact that you are building an app and make people think and make people aware of their financial behavior, related to money, is already a value that you’re giving? So, I wouldn’t be so scared to charge for that because you are already delivering something, if not a working app, but delivering something!

Nesha:
No, that’s a really good point. I mean, the reason why we didn’t want to charge at first would be, number one, setting up that process as it would take more time on our side and delay just the validation of the app in itself.

Matthias:
Yeah, that’s true.

Nesha:
But we were also scared that we wouldn’t get as many downloads or we wouldn’t get as much like interaction on the app if they would have to pay. And the payment would add as friction for us getting valuable feedback. Because like right now, we care less about money and more about feedback on the app. And so, we’re concerned that that would be friction.

Now, for some people, it might not be! And a lack of payment might be friction. They’re like, “If this isn’t worth paying for, I don’t want to have it in the first place.” But for a lot of people that we’ve interviewed, having a free something or the other for, you know, the first 100 to 500 people that are on the app, we’re okay with the sacrifice of that.

And then getting to that point where in a couple of months we grandfather them into a payment system when we actually have something that we feel like took all their concerns and made it a workable solution.

Matthias:
Okay. So, you would add your app to the usual app stores, I think, and the app stores would provide the payment mechanism?

Nesha:
Yeah.

So, I mean, it would be in-app payment. So, like it wouldn’t just be like an app that you’d have to pay for outright because then you really never get downloads. But it would be more of like a subscription in the system, and that’s around three to five dollars. Which again, we have to do the testing process to find out what the best value that we can offer for the best price for the user because it’s a little bit more testing and validation that we have to do to discover exactly how much per month the service would be.

Matthias:
Yeah.

And those people where you do the testing with, and to get validation or invalidation of your thoughts and ideas, how do they come to you? Is it all for the from the waitlist or are there other sources where you meet people?

Nesha:
Yeah. I mean, most of the time I try and funnel them to our waitlist so we can just manage everybody at the same time. It’s a lot easier for us. I mean, there’s definitely some like random people like, “Oh, I’d love to download it” on Twitter or social media. And maybe they haven’t gotten on the waitlist yet, which is annoying, because then I have to like piece them together and try and find a way to make sure that they know beta release as well. But yeah, most of the time, I try and funnel them into the waitlist.

Twitter as a massive source of people for conversations

Matthias:
Mm hmm.

And is Twitter a source of people for you or people?

Nesha:
Massively.

Matthias:
Massively?

Matthias:
Yeah, massively. So, Twitter is a big, big way that we attract people, because we can – And I’ve been slacking on our company’s Twitter – but at least on my personal Twitter, I’ve been able to get into a lot of conversations that I would have never been able to have and connections, not just even to investors, but to potential consumers and people that can give us feedback that’s actually valuable.

So, yeah, without Twitter, I think our waitlist would be diminishing and not growing, because there’s such an excited population on Twitter for whatever the next thing is, that they’re willing to try out a lot of different things.

Because if we didn’t do that, it would have to really go through more like paid ads and paid this and paid that, and we can get stuff for free if we go the social media route.

Matthias:
Yeah. Paid ads is a lot more expensive than the reach that you get on Twitter. If I click on my analytics button in the Twitter menu, I see my reach and I see the reach of the tweets, and I think I would never achieve this with Google ads, for example.

Nesha:
Exactly.

Matthias:
Each click on a Google ad costs two or three dollars. So, that’s amazing what you get for free here.

Nesha:
Yeah.

How Nesha does interviews with their audience

Matthias:
And when you finally get in touch with people, how do you prepare for these interviews that you have?

Nesha:
Yeah, so as far as like with like investors or…?

Matthias:
No, I mean, with customers, when you do – or prospects; they are not yet customers, but prospects.

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
How do you interview with them? How do you prepare for such an interview?

Nesha:
I don’t as much so interview the person, but I just kind of become friends with them.

Matthias:
Okay.

Nesha:
So, like we just talk about whatever they’re building. And then we just start creating a relationship, because I just valuably like, I genuinely value that person-

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
-because I think they’re really interesting or they’re wise or they’re considerate, kind or whatever it may be. And so, a lot of those people are just through conversation, then you start talking about your app eventually because they’ll be like, “Oh, so what do you do? What are you working on?” And you can say, and then they’re like, “Oh, let me know when this comes out” or “Give me like your prototype link” or “Give me this or this so I can give you feedback on it.” Because most people on Twitter, especially in the startup economy, really want to help each other.

But here’s the thing one thing that we do realize; there is a difference between the audience that wants to give you feedback and your eventual target audience. Because the audience that gives you feedback might be like really tech savvy, trades and crypto every single day, like understands everything to do with how to stay digitally literate. And then you’re your target might be very much so not that.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
But these people will give you feedback. Those people need to see other people giving you feedback to give you feedback because they’re like, “I don’t even know who you are. Why should I care?” But then when you say, “Hey, we have this and this many users”, that’s when they start coming in.

And so, what we do is we try and categorize the data of, “Hey, well, this person is making this much money from this place. They’re in college or they’re in whatever it is, school or however it be, and they are giving us this type of feedback. This seems like our target user.”

Because a lot of people would be like, “Who’s your audience? Who’s your target, exactly?” and you’re, “Well, you don’t really know until you start releasing the app; until you start really figuring it out.”

Because in our case, because we have like an unlimited use kind of like how Coinbase is, it’s like anybody can download Coinbase; anybody can set up a crypto wallet if they want to.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
Like anybody needs to know where they need to spend better in a certain income range. But I even know people who make stunning amounts of money a year, and there’s still this frugal and they’re like, “I want to know exactly what I can spend in this place because I want to keep most of my money in investments.”

So, because we have such a big reach, where we really figure who our target is, is once we start getting traction and when we start analyzing the waitlist, when we start seeing what users have the highest engagement on the app. Because it’s hard to – because I’ve had people from college age making no money at all to people who are sixty five and they’re like, “I would love to use this app since I’m preparing for retirement”, whatever it is.

Matthias:
Interesting. It’s such a broad range.

Nesha:
Yeah, which is hard. You have people who are like, “So, what’s your TAM (total addressable market)?” And I’m like, “Ah, that’s a difficult question to answer because it’s not as simple. We’ve had educators who want to use this for their classrooms. We’ve had international individuals want to use this in their cities. And so, saying, “Okay, we’re just going to reach this one person forever is hard. So, we’re like, “It’s okay, we’re going to start with this one type of group of people.”

Matthias:
Yeah. It’s better to focus. Absolutely.

Nesha:
Yeah. It’s like we’re going to focus on more early adopters, tech people who can give us feedback on just the functionality of the app at first, people who are probably investors or have their own startups or people like you and I that are always have a growth mindset, trying to grow, because there’s a lot of incentive for them in something like this, so they can save more, invest more, prepare more for whatever they’re doing.

We even have a category called Side Hustle, because like, that’s something they plan on investing or putting their money into. So, then we’ll talk with those people. Kind of like that Facebook method; let’s start with this tiny group of people first, and then we can see where it expands as we move on.

Matthias:
Yeah.

When you imagine such people in this other audience that you say they don’t give you feedback at the moment.

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
If you really think about people who want to spend wiser, whoever that may might be, but they want to spend wiser. Can you walk me through one point in time where you really got contact with someone like that?

The couple who prepares for retirement

Nesha:
Yeah, absolutely. So, those are really fun conversations, too. There’s this one couple, and she was talking to me and they were, I mean, middle-upper-class couple. And they were preparing for retirement, if not retired already. And she’s like, “This would just be so helpful for me.” And she really like the instant categorization from every paycheck into the envelopes, and that was like the feature that really resounded with her.

I remember talking to another woman, she was right in her forties, fifties, and she’s an impulse buyer, as actually most women in their forties in America tend to be. And so, she was like, “Well, what would really help me is just knowing how much to spend before I walk into a store. Because I go to Home Goods and I want to buy the entire place. And just having a frame of reference in my mind, just knowing that would really help me cut down and just be, you know, feel like there’s more accountability for what I’m doing.” So, that’s one thing.

Matthias:
I’m curious, how did you meet this woman? What was the situation?

At a baby shower, or at the dentist…

Nesha:
The first people I met at a baby shower and I just started talking to them about the concept. They did not know me. And I was like, “Hi, I am Nesha.” Like, “How are you doing?” You know what I mean?

And then another one, I was at the dentist and there was like a lady that was like the assistant to my dentist, and she doesn’t know me either. And I was like, “So, hey, I’m building this…” I mean, like, I’m talking like to the manager.

Matthias:
That’s amazing!

Nesha:
Yeah, random people. And because they start talking, too, like, “Oh, hey, who are you? What’s your life about again?” Like, you start with that relationship and then you can really say anything, and they’re going to be like, “Here’s some feedback.”

You know, a lot of college students, we’ve discovered are, “Oh, that’s cool.” But then they don’t actually want to save money; some of them do. So, that’s hard. Because it’s like some of them really do. Like, I was a college student who definitely wanted to save money and prepare.

But if you think about even like the logic in the app, it’s all based on rent. We call it “housing”. College students either have their housing taken care of or they pay big sum amounts at the beginning of a semester. That’s what I did. So, like, “Okay, it’s going to be three thousand dollars for you to stay here for this amount of time.” You pay it all up front. You’ll pay on a month-to-month basis.

Having multiple audiences

So, even that changes the logic. I’m sure you notice; when you change your audience, your UX and UI has to change with it. Because building an app for a college student, it’s very different almost than building an app for a millennial working adult.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
So, based on our feedback, most of the people who are interested in this, have consistent jobs, have monthly housing, monthly subscriptions, monthly everything. And they’re all different age ranges, what we noticed, but most of them are going to be that Millennial/Gen X type of person.

So, yeah, it is still difficult, though. So, it’s the conversation we’re constantly having is like, “who really is or is our target and how do we hit them first rather than hitting the world at the same time”, because that’s inefficient and all that fun stuff?

Matthias:
That’s interesting. So, you meet random people, let’s say at the dentist or at the baby shower and you start talking about who you are, who they are, what life is like.

Nesha:
What life is like. It’s like, “Hey…”

Matthias:
How do you get to the real learnings you could get? For example, do you really ask people for their financial behavior, “How much do you spend for this?” or “How much for that?” or “How often do you spend? What was the last time you spend something?” Did you ask questions like that or how do you have this conversation?

Measuring unscripted conversations

Nesha:
I never really script things; I’m really horrible about that. I should have like this really lovely, like consistent method with each person I go to, but it normally does not happen to be like that because I’m not a hyper consistent person.

But normally I’m measuring for two things. Because these are two things that I think are really valuable is, I’m measuring for enthusiasm about the product, because if you’re excited about it, you’ll tell your friends. And if you’re excited about it, you’ll download it faster. And then I measure for, “Is this something that you could see yourself using?” and, “Do you do you spend monthly? Do you spend bi-weekly? Do you get income at this rate? And this time?”

And so, talking to people; like some people do get paid monthly. A lot of people, it’s going to be bi-weekly. So, you’re like, “Okay, let’s make sure we have a feature; like we’re working with the API system that can bring in, make sure that we’re measuring income on a biweekly basis rather than on a gig basis.”

A lot of the people we’ve spoken with have jobs. So, like, “So, hey, do you work? Do you have what type of income do you get?” And so, we’re building it for somebody that has some type of consistent cash flow from some type of employer.

It’s a little bit harder when you have a gig worker who’s like, “Yeah, I just got paid two months ago and I’m still saving from that.” And so, we have to create a whole ‘nother payment boundary for some with gig.

Matthias:
Oh yeah, that’s totally different because you have to average out. Yeah.

Different audience => different app

Nesha:
And that’s the audience issue. And it’s like, “So, wait. Who are we targeting? Because if we’re targeting to people that have gigs, that’s a different app now because we’re going to say, ‘Okay, so your gig jobs and how are you categorizing each job and then when are you…’ Like you’d have to even get a gig planning measure on the app to be like, “When’s your next job that you think you can get?” And then we can back to make your money works for you for over that period of time. If we know that somebody is getting paid in two weeks, we have to make sure their money works for them in that period of time. So, it’s like it’s a different product.

And so, that’s why like on average, we see like age is not a factor that matters on whether they’re enthusiastic or interested. But consistency of character or consistency of job is important for them; like that’s one thing we’ve noticed. And having something on like a monthly basis; a lot of people are monthly people.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Building vs. learning

Nesha:
So, that’s one thing that we’ve noticed as a trend.

And again, it’s hard because we focused – This is something I would not suggest anybody else to do – We focus so much on building a product. And it’s like, “Hey, we need the product. We need to get it out there. We need to get out there.” And we could have spent a good bit more time and just more and more and more conversations with as many people as possible.

Because when I look back, I’m like a lot of my conversations were with more high net worth individuals, concerning investment. And then the feedback were people who were more tech fluent. And so, that’s kind of where our app has been targeted to.

But then our goal is to take a step back, you know, kind of do like Zuckerberg did with like just targeting for schools and say, “Okay, wait, how can we retarget this for a wider audience” or “How can we retarget it for these people who seem interested and bring everybody into the fold?”

But I don’t even have a clear like, “Oh, it’s exactly going to go this way.” Pretty much every audience that we’ve nailed down has been a shock to us. Like, I didn’t know those people are going to be interested, but they are. So, it’s been a weird journey. It’s not been linear, for sure.

Matthias:
Interesting. That’s that sounds really like learning, because if something gets you by surprise, then you know, “Oh, this is new for me. I really have learned something here.” Whereas when you say, “Yeah, okay, I expected that”, that is not so much learning, right? But if you even say it shocked you, it shows that learning is taking place. And that’s a very, very good sign, I think!

Nesha:
That’s a lot of it. It’s learning. Constantly just us being like, “We don’t know what we’re doing, what’s going on.” It’s like everybody on Twitter. It’s like, “Oh, I know exactly what I’m doing and this is my MRR and we’re doing all of this. And like kind of this is exactly the strategy.” And I’m like, “Nothing’s exactly anything.” Either I’m feeling like this great. I think, like, what is it? Andrew Gazdecki posts something. He’s like, “You think you’re going to be like a billion dollar company and then the next thing you’re like, ‘I think I’m just going to die broke and alone.’ And then the next day you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be great.’” It’s kind of like that rollercoaster, crazy.

Matthias:
Absolutely. I know that. I’m a founder myself. It’s the same journey here. Every founder is figuring stuff out, right? Nobody has the universal master plan. That doesn’t exist.

Nesha:
I wish.

Towards processes and systems

Matthias:
Yeah, amazing.

The reason why I’m asking so much about how you develop your audience and how you have conversations with people is because I’m working to make this problem easier for founders. I’m a founder myself. I created a product called Get the Audience. “Get” in the sense of understand, right? Not increase your audience, but get them; understand them.

And I’m always interested, for example, how disciplined founders are. When you say, for example, you’re not that consistent person, you’re not following a certain methodology; like jobs-to-be-done, personas or something like that. That’s very interesting for me because I’m more of the method person, right? I was a method consultant all my life.

Nesha:
I wish I was!

Matthias:
So, this shows in my app, and I always try to find out, “Am I biased in my thinking?” So that, for example, a method in the app that guides you through the audience development process, would this be a good thing for people or does it annoy them, right? So, that’s why I’m asking so much about these things.

Nesha:
Actually, that’s been the word of the week has been – but we call it processes. What processes or methods are we going to instill? Because I tend to be a very enthusiastic person and more on the side of an emotional founder than a logical founder, I’d say, which is – I feel bad for them sometimes – I’m like, “I’m sorry, I’m just like crying right now because it’s not going the way I thought I was going to go.” But I have a lot of energy.

So, my tendency is saying, “I’m really passionate about this. I’m getting really good vibes from the situation. This is a good opportunity. These people we need to be reaching and I just know it.” And then like, a waitlist would just like “boom!”, you know?

So, a lot of it is just like, “I get a good sense about this one” and it’s not a very good method. And so, we’ve been talking about how can we instill methods that are consistent across the board because when I’m not here, who’s going to be taking care of acquiring more customers? That’s why we’ve been integrating with other platforms to keep the method consistent. And that’s like what we’re going to be doing as far as Sprig goes, where it’s like, okay, we’re going to need constant information regarding these set features, and we’re going to go through a review process and assessment process and then a completion process. We got ClickUp for the entire team to try and keep this consistent.

And so, I’ll be talking actually with my co-founder today about how can we consistently get audience feedback that’s not biased. Because what’s really difficult for us is – My brother and I are like, He’s my co-founder. We’re very, very enthusiastic people. We have a lot of inflections. We talk very clearly, but we’re very excitable and we can easily get people excited about anything. I mean, I sell people clothes and I don’t even work at the store. Like, that’s like the kind of person I am. And so is he.

And so, when you’re working, people like that, you can get a lot of “hype feedback”.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
Which can be helpful because they can get excited and then they get excited for no reason. And then they get their friends excited for no reason.

And that’s a really valuable part of our growth process. It’s just Josh and I being very enthusiastic people and excited about what we’re doing. But at the same time, like you said, we need that methodology.

So, I think I’d love to see like and something like this is something that understands the fact that we’re more so likely to talk to everybody we see about what we’re doing and then keep that stored in our minds of like, “This is how the app needs to be.” And like taking a more enthusiastic, crazy founder and putting them into a method. Like how can that flow? Like, how can you take those things out of their mind and take it from just like getting people hyped about it to getting like absolutely true real feedback?

Because that’s definitely been harder for me, because most of the time I’m focused on how are we investing, our decks, our financials. Do we have the equity disbursement? What’s our cap table looking like? That’s where my brain is, like 70 to 80 percent of the time.

Matthias:
Ah, okay.

Persona modeling: the unhappy ones…

Nesha:
So, getting to a point where it’s like I can delegate to a co-founder where it’s like, he’s in charge of product and fit. So, it’d be like, “How can I delegate a system to him so that we can start creating tables and sheets of all of our audience feedback and personas? And who is this person likely?”

And at the start, we really did start like that; like the persona modeling of like, “Who is this person?”

Matthias:
Mm hmm. Right.

Nesha:
We didn’t write it down, but we started forming that person in our minds and then we would talk to people and see if it would like clarify that or like disprove it. And that’s what I just told you of the month to month consistent jobs, working in a way.

“People who are not happy where they are in life” is normally the persona, which is a lot of people.

Matthias:
Amazingly and unfortunately, by the way, right?

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
I think very much about the situation of people today. So, many are working in employment relationships. And I think the culture – no, the culture is not yet shifting, but it will be shifting. I see a shift coming from employment culture to more side hustle or self-owned stuff, right? So, people will redirect, hopefully, their energy towards self-owned businesses.

I see that coming, but it will be a big change for everyone because right now you teach children, “Yeah, you need to learn something. You need to get a job. You need to get employed. You need to work all your life.” And I don’t think this will take us very much longer than now.

Nesha:
Yeah. Which is a massive change, because if you start working with people who are doing gigs consistently and they’re like, “Oh, I just had this job. I just had this job”, that’s like essentially like fundamental of our system is “how can we scale with this growth”? And that’s why all the budgeting is percent based because you get a check and it’s immediately categorized based on just that check.

We need to know like the consistency of it for processing essentials, bills and things like that. But for the most part, it’s like if you just randomly do a job for two hundred dollars, it’ll immediately be categorized like 20 percent to investments, 10 percent to saving, 30 percent to the food, immediately from that. So, we’re like, we want to accommodate the multifaceted individual because nobody’s just one person.

Matthias:
Oh, that’s a good understanding. I have a big problem with all kinds of systems in the world, not understanding me as multiple persons.

Nesha:
Exactly.

Matthias:
For example, Google is trying to treat me as one person. When I watch YouTube on Apple TV, it says, “Who is logged in? Hey, Matthias Bohlen” and I say, “Which one of those Matthias Bohlens is logged in here, because I have multiple Google accounts. I can’t bring this machine to understand that I am more than one person!” So, this is already a huge discovery!

Nesha:
That’s interesting, though, because I feel like that even concept realization could become something more. Because I am realizing consistently that there’s definitely apps who are discovering market and discovering target, it’s a lot easier because like everybody needs a search engine. Like anybody who’s buying crypto, you need an easy way to buy crypto. It doesn’t really matter who you are. You be like 13 years old or 52. We don’t really care. There isn’t a specific market that you’re hitting there.

But I think there is a certain place where it’s like, especially because we have such a specific service that we’re offering, especially when it comes to personal finance. But like, how can we collectively understand this person as a whole?

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
Because you might see like, “Oh, this is it. They have a consistent paycheck and they seem to be a logical person.” And then out of nowhere, like they buy this crazy purchase; like our systems weren’t expecting that.

And how do you accommodate for people being multifaceted? And maybe there’s a worker that’s working 40 hours a week, but then they also have random gig jobs that they’re doing because they decide to start painting houses. You don’t know. Nowadays, it’s like behaviors are kind of erratic and difficult.

Matthias:
(Laughs) Yeah. Definitely!

Nesha:
Yeah.

Human behaviour is the real riddle

Matthias:

It’s so amazing when you go into psychology. For example, there was a German psychologist called Carl Gustav Jung at the beginning of the 20th century, and he spoke about, “There are “why?” people, there are “what?” people, there are “how?” people and their “where else?” people.

The first ones are seeking for the sense of everything. How does that make sense? Does it bring me forward if I do that? Does it have any reason to do?

The next one is the “what” person; I’m a typical “what?” person as an engineer. What does that mean? What details do I need? And I create structures with substructures and everything. So, these are the “what?” people.

The next are the “how?” people they create to-do lists. How do I this? How do I do that? Point number one, point number two and so on?

And the last one are the visionaries; the “where else?” people. Where else can I go. If I keep this doing this for, let’s say, three years, where will I be? And so, they have focused in the future.

Nesha:
That’s really interesting.

Matthias:
That’s interesting for psychology. For example, for a team, if you only have the “why?” people, then nothing will get started. They will be asking why, why, why? And if you only have “what?” people, they will dive into the details. They will spend hours on the details and nothing will get done. And if you’re missing the “how?” people, for example, the “how?” people will say, “Hey, let’s roll up our sleeves, let’s do something.” And the “what else?” people, you also need those ones, right?

Nesha:
Yeah.

And what’s funny is I’m a very much a “how?” person. My co-founder is more on the “what?” No, no, not “what?”, more on the “what else?” ish. And then the “why?” Like, “Why this being done?”

And it’s interesting. I thought I was more so a “what?” person and then I realized I’m definitely more on the “how?” side, because I’m like, “Well, how is this going to get done? Who’s going to be doing? How quickly can we make this happen? Our timeline is not what I want them to be like.” And then very much lists; like lists of things to do.

Matthias:
Yeah, right.

Bringing in order, from processes

Nesha:
But then what that can take out is a methodology. And so, I’ve been trying to teach myself like how to create structures like processes where you’re like, “Every single time we receive data like this, we act like this.” For example, like after this call, I’m trying to create a new habit, like I receive new information.

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about like our audience and creating a methodology for our audience. So, now I’m going to put it in the specific place on our Click Up dashboard for and assign it to Josh. Every single time I have new information come in, I have to have an action that coordinates with it or then it’s pointless.

So, I’m creating like new processes for myself. But we realized like, I’m more on this CEO. How is this all going to get done? And I was like, “I would kill for like a PM that was like a “what?” person.

Matthias:
(Laughs) Right.

Nesha:
(Laughs) You know, just somebody that’s like, “This is exactly what’s going to happen and this is how it’s going to…”, like the details and like you said, substructures and I was like, “That would be the dream.”

And those people are very hard to find, because people take a lot of discipline and they have to think in a way that understands how people do work. And so, if you know anybody (laughs), let me know!

Onboarding in GetTheAudience

Matthias:
Yeah, I’m trying to automate, such a “someone”. My app works very much like me. So, the app is trying to be an automated coach for audience building; something like that.

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
But I’m not sure it will transport. How do I say it? My users will understand that this is the role of the application.

Nesha:
Yeah, I actually downloaded it and was playing around with it a little. And I was thinking about like a lot of it’s really, really like valuable as far as like the what’s the actual job to be done? And then the processes.

But I think like having like an onboarding process, like a hand-holding thing of, “Okay, you did this on one slide and then you go to the next slide.” And it’s like, “Okay, now think about this” and you literally like, walk them through. Like, think about the person that your app helps the most. Like, who does this? And there’s like even a picture of like somebody thinking.

So, it’s a really like friendly experience and you feel like you’re being slowly coached through the process. Because I think that would have really resounded well with me because it’s definitely overwhelming.

And then like a process like on top of that, where it’s like, “Okay, so what’s your method of getting more information?” And then whenever you have new information, does it support the persona? Does it support your hypothesis that this is the main person or does it not? And if it doesn’t, what does that info..? Because that’s all the things I do in my brain, like every single day.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
And sure, you do it as well. But just being able to like find a stunning way to display it. Like that’s our problem, because we’re like, “Oh yeah, it’s all in our mind. Like, we know how to budget. Like this is how it works.” Like, how can you lead the user through that process?

But like, I think like hiring – Like, I don’t know if you can – but like bring like a UX designer or a UI designer to like create like slides of bringing the user through a process; unless you are one yourself. Because it’s definitely something that’s a massive pain point for us. And if we had a solution that was really simple and beautiful and clean, I think we would definitely be interested in using it on our side.

Matthias:
Interesting. Interesting.

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
Yeah, that’s a that’s a challenge. I’m not a UX specialist. I’m not a UI specialist. I’m more the backend guy.

So, I’m cheating, kind of. I’m stealing frontend ideas from all kinds of apps on the market, to make it clear and easily understandable. Yeah.

The role of tools

Matthias:

So, you were talking about Sprig and ClickUp as to as two tools you’re going to be using. What’s the role of those tools for you, mainly?

Nesha:
Yeah.

So, Sprig is a tool that I just stumbled across and I’m very excited about. And that’s really going to be nailing down our audience, not only to nailing down our audience specifically, but making sure that the current people who are using our app, like “what’s going on”?

And so, then we’re going to create a system where you can kind of reference who really likes what’s going on, who really understands this. Because we’ve noticed that, like some people, you could explain it in the most clear way, you could have the most stunning landing page and they’re like, “I don’t get it.”

Like, for example, do you know Pipe? Pipe, where you get your recurring revenue as cash up front. It got massive startup. I think it’s Harry Hearst is the founder. It just did like insanely well.

And if you’re not in our space, you still won’t understand it. I’ve never seen a more gorgeous landing page. It’s absolutely stunning. But like, if you’re my mom, for example, I was like telling her, “You don’t realize how revolutionary the site is. Like, you get recurring revenue up front. You don’t have to source investors. Like this is insane.” And she’s like, “Huh?” Like, I don’t care. (Both laugh).

But it doesn’t mean that Pipe is a bad site. It’s a phenomenal site, if you understand what it’s doing or if you’re the target. Unfortunately, a lot of times you can take advice from people who aren’t our target market.

And so, what Sprig is going to help us do is say, “Hey, how is the use and function of this website?” or “What do you think about adding this feature?” Then we can take those data points and hopefully do some background on the user too. And I’m going to have my guys create like a quick application, an audit, do it ourselves.

But that way we can find out, “Okay, this person is a is a seven year old that stumbled across the site and they gave us this feedback. I don’t think what they’re saying is valuable seeing as they don’t have a job.” That’s like, that’s really important. But even so, like that could be more getting out of it.

Like, you might even get good feedback because it’s an outlier. Like a high school student uses it and says that they’re absolutely loving it. A high school student? Okay, maybe we really should – we’ve considered expanding to schools in the past, maybe that should really be a priority for us going forward, if we have 20 high school students using it every day and they’re giving us really solid feedback.

Matthias:
Oh, that would be interesting.

Nesha:
Yeah, we’re trying to figure out our audience at the beginning and figure out who’s really, really resounding. Like we think we know, but we don’t really know until they’re using it and there’s engagement to measure.

So, for also GetTheAudience, I would check out using Sprig for feedback, too, on your site. You can get some really valuable information.

And then Click Up is a phenomenal project management, US based tool. And there’s a lot of things like Trello or Asana that we use. ClickUp is just so like it’s so granular, and that’s why I love it, because you can really get in there and you can be like, “This is exactly what I need to happen.” You can create dependencies. Like it understands how a founder’s brain works.

Because you can create dependencies like, “I can’t do this until this happens.” So, it puts a priority on the thing that needs to happen so you can get to the rest of the list.

And so, it’s been stretching my brain of like there’s different spaces. So, for example, like any startup has, like a marketing space, product space, you have a design space, you have apps for like actual development, like technical development. And even that has subspaces of like frontend and then backend and then.

So, one thing I noticed; if you try and keep this on a whiteboard or if you try and keep it in your head, you will forget certain parts of your strategy, every single time.

Matthias:
Yeah. Some balls could be dropped. Yeah.

Nesha:
And that’s the thing. But then people are like, “Oh, yeah. So, do you have a marketing strategy?” And I was like, “Oh. (laughs) Yeah, kind of; like upstairs somewhere, but it’s not written out, and it’s not with a deadline.” And I realize I’m never doing anything without a calendar in my life because “some day” is not a day on the calendar!

Matthias:
Yeah, absolutely.

Nesha:
There is Monday through Sunday. There is no “some day”. And so, when you say like, “Someday”, I’ve started correcting people like, “Oh, this sounds like a good idea. When is it going to happen?” And they’re like, “I don’t know when I want it to be.” I’m like, “So, then choose to start, put it in the right category on Click Up, choose a start date and start figuring it out then. And then I’ll be checking up with you in a couple of days to see if you decided an end date yet for this project” or because like my brother is sub visionary, “Where is this going?” and “What’s happening?” and “How are we going to change the world?” And I’m just like, “You have an idea; that’s great! You put it in the right place and then you set me as a watcher, and then I’ll look at it and see how the progress flows.”

But like without this, our company communication wasn’t as strong because it was like, “I thought I told you to do that on Slack. Wait, you didn’t do it yet? Oh no. Wait, when is it going to happen?”

Matthias:
Ah, I see. I see the problem.

Nesha:
That’s the whole screw up; anything. And I just got to a point where I was like, “Nope, we’re not doing this anymore.” And so, now it’s like, “You have an idea? It has to go on the calendar. It has to be in ClickUp because if it’s not there, it’s not going to happen. It will drop off the back of the wagon when we’re so focused on development or we’re so focused on our API integrations right now or whatever the focus happens to be that week.”

Changing our behaviour

Matthias:
Yeah. I can totally relate to that. For example, I stopped podcasting about three months ago. I stopped because it was too much work for me. And the reason was I didn’t put it on the calendar. I was winging it somehow.

And recently I met someone on Twitter who is good in asking questions, and he asked me,

• “Oh, so you want to return to podcasting?”
• “Yeah, I want to.”
• “What does that mean?”
• Okay, I said, “What do you mean by what does that mean?”
• “Yeah, what would you have to do?”
• Okay, I broke it down into, “I have to find people to interview, then I want to record it, then I want to edit it, then I want to transcribe it or have it transcribed and then I want to publish it.”
• “Okay, so what does this mean exactly?” Okay, I broke it one level more down. And then he said, “How much time does that take?” “Okay, one hour for that, two hours for that and so on.”
• Okay, what was this sensational question then? “Are you willing to spend that time?” And I said, “Okay, I have to think about it”, and after a while I said, “Yes”,
• and he said, “Okay, then then put it on your calendar.”

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
Yeah, it’s so easy. If you want to do something, break it down in what it really means and estimate it and put it on your calendar.

Nesha:
You have to. And there has to be like specific date, then eventually it will become this habit/routine kind of thing. And here we are sitting having a podcast, and it’s actualized!

I mean, very few people take time to do this. This is why we have a massive debt problem in America because you don’t want to think, “Can I realistically spend on this? Is this a realistic issue? Wait, can I eat this right now?”

We don’t segment things. We don’t think about what we’re doing. We just do things.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
And then we can’t be consistent with the things that we do. For example, like, I wanted to start a podcast. So, I did, and I was like, “Oh, my method isn’t going to be, I get inspired to do one, and then I talk about something I’m interested in, and then I used to anchor it, and then I upload it on Spotify. Bam, we’re done. Okay!

Matthias:
Yeah, yeah.

Nesha:
Well, who hasn’t recorded a podcast, you know? So, this would take me about like 30 minutes, once a week to really create like a little list of things we’re going to talk about. I talk about a lot of like crazy things from like philosophy, what’s going on in the world, media, founder stuff, whatever. So, I’m like, “Okay, well, then as soon as you release it, you have to post to three different social sites or whatever.”

But it’s not on my calendar. It’s not like I’m looking at my Google Calendar and it says, “Okay, Saturday, from 9 to 12, you’re going to be working on your podcast.”

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
So, it’s not going to happen because there are too many other things going on in life. And so, the fact that you’ve been able to like make it happen, I mean, that’s a massive feat.

Matthias:
Yeah, I actually put it on Mondays and Fridays, I think two and three hours. So, five hours a week and publishing one episode every two weeks.

Nesha:
That’s awesome.

Matthias:
I should get into a kind of rhythm like that.

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
I get some help with transcribing. For example, there are A.I. tools that like Descript or like Otter. But I’m not satisfied with what I get from those tools because they insert all kinds of punctuation, sometimes they misunderstand the words. And so, I decided to hire a freelancer from Fiverr to do that for me, and they do it perfectly. So, I’m very happy with that, outsourcing things that I don’t like.

Nesha:
Awesome.

Matthias:
Yeah, it works.

Nesha:
No, that’s incredible. I mean, that’s the first step to changing the world is putting things on your calendar.

Matthias:
Yeah, it’s amazing. It’s so simple, right? You don’t even – Yeah, it’s amazing that it’s like that.

Nesha:
Yeah.

Developing the audience, further

Matthias:
So, I’ve got one question and one final question. When you imagine your audience now, you’re slowly getting into it, you’re learning people, you’re having conversations, you have this waitlist where people are on, where you can email them, for example, what would you do to regularly develop your audience further, not necessarily get more people, but get more like into a flow with your audience?

Nesha:
That’s a really good question! Honestly, I don’t think I have a specifically hashed out, calendar-ready plan for it, but I think one thing that I want to institute is having a number of people that I decided to speak to, that I feel –I see maybe there are current users of my app, or maybe they’re people we’ve sourced online that seemed to have similar characteristics to what we think is our user. And then just choosing a number and saying, “I want to ask them these bulleted questions and put it into a database based on this thing.”

So, specifically reaching out on a weekly basis and saying, “We’re going to get more data about our user and what they really value.”

The really hard part with us right now is, as you said,

• “Oh yeah, my God, I love that. That’s really cool.”
• “I use stuff like this” or
• “I would use your app all the time.”

You know, “I would, I would, I would”.

To be honest, like the best use of our time would be analyzing the people that are on the app, that have made that decision, that have already made that jump. And getting more people on our app gives us a better idea and then we can choose those, “Okay, we’re going to choose five random people on our app and work with a method.

We give people Swally Points for when they spend better. And so, saying, “Hey, we’ll give you a Swally Point bump – because like, we’re going to make it into this gameplay feature because my CTO is a designer – whenever you answer these questions.” So, you choose five people and say “You’ve been selected for a 10-point bonus, just answer these three questions.”

Matthias:
Oh, interesting.

Nesha:
Something like that. And so, then like every single week, we’re getting three, five, 15, 20, how many we decide, data points of

• why are you using this app?
• What pain point does this really apply you to?

Because just interviewing hypothetical people, you get hypothetical answers.

Matthias:
Right.

Nesha:
And that’s what we have right now. We built the app based on, “Yes, I would be very interested. I would love to use it”, which is all you really have because you don’t have something real.

And you have an MVP and people look at it and are like, “Oh my God, that’s so cool.” But I’m like, “You’re still not using it on a day to day basis.”

Matthias:
Mm hmm.

Nesha:
So, it’s like now we have to just talk to our real people on our real waitlist and having that like, “You’ve been selected” or “You’re special and you get to…” And like copy like that being thrown at somebody increases the chance of them actually responding to it. Especially if the questions are powered with Sprig, and it’s like, “One to five, do you like being rewarded for…” or “Do you do like…?”

One thing we’re concerned about is having like a red X next to their transaction if they did a bad job, is that too intense for them?

Do they like that level of accountability? Because I do. I’m like, “Yeah, I want to know how it feels.” I’m like, “I’d like to know if I can grow. But does everybody feel like that?”

So, we started talking to a couple of people, let’s say five people, maybe. And they’re like, “Oh, I really like that idea. I really like this.” One person was like, “I don’t know. I’d have to use it to find out.”

Matthias:
Hmm, okay.

Nesha:
So, then that can be a Sprig feature. Do you like this feature? Yes. No. If not, how would you change it? Bam, now you get five Swally Points that are free for us to give out!

But they feel like they’re getting something, and we definitely are getting something. And they can redeem those Swally Points at stores anyways. So, they are getting something.

Matthias:
Interesting.

Nesha:
Yeah.

Bahavioural psychology can help here

Matthias:
The wording …I find it very attractive, because it makes you proud, right? If you have been “selected” to do something or to get something, then it makes you proud.

Nesha:
You have a “duty” to complete.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
Yeah. Just like you’re a character. And we wanted to a point where we have like an avatar and like a Swally house and everything. We’re like, the better you do financially, your Swally house grows and stuff and you…

Matthias:
Oh, nice!

Nesha:
We really want this to be like super fun and like, “That’s where I get excited.” I’m a design background kind of person. I’m like, “This is going to be fun” and like, “How can we bring in like behaviour psychology?” and like, that’s where I get stoked.

But we’re not there yet. But that’s the whole point. It’s like being like, “You’ve been selected. You have a duty to carry out, and then you get rewarded for carrying out your duty.”

Which is actually the go on a philosophical level. That’s the whole basis of stoicism is I have a duty to carry out. And then when you fulfill the duty, you have deep human satisfaction in yourself and other people normally have satisfaction when they come to perceiving you.

So, that’s kind of the whole point of our app; it’s giving duty and then rewarding it, and it’s almost like a stoic level.

Nesha’s love for philosophy shows

I don’t normally get philosophical talking about tech, but I think it’s super important because Twitter, Instagram, a lot of these things can take away the sense of duty. It actually eliminates all duty together. And it’s stating that happiness can be found in satisfaction. And it’s almost like this utilitarian cult of we can all be happy all the time. But in utilitarianism of this mutual happiness, somebody has to … “die”.

I’m getting like way too deep. But it’s like some somebody has to feel bad. No one can always be feeling happy all the time. It’s just unrealistic and it’s not possible. So, then somebody has to be feeling horrible.

And so that’s why it’s why I hate social media so much. And I use it, but I genuinely hate it because we’re all trying to project how happy we are.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Nesha:
That’s why Twitter is better, because a lot of people there are honest about their sadness, and therefore other people can take joy in the catharsis of realizing their own sadness

… versus Instagram, which is everybody’s projecting their happiness constantly. And so, somebody has to feel bad at the – Yeah, it’s a little zero-sum, but I mean, like, it’s just the way I think about.

Matthias:
Interesting! We should make another podcast, only on philosophical aspects and stoicism and so on, because I’m very much into this!

Nesha:
Yeah. I know. Like, that’s where I wanted to do my Masters. Like, that’s my real love is like behavioral psychology, technological abuse. That’s what I love. But here I am, making an app to try and change the world, one human at a time! (both laugh)

Matthias:
Sooo cool!

(regains his breath) Yeah, I see we need to stop here.

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
(totally impressed) There can’t be anything beyond that.

Nesha:
Yeah.

Matthias:
It’s so great. It’s so great.

Thank you, Nesha. It has been a blast. Today, it was fantastic! Thank you very much.

Nesha:
Thank you. I appreciate it.

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Outro

Thanks for listening to The Audience Explorer podcast, today.

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