The Snappy Fixer w/ Adrian Rodriguez | Ep. 79

In this Episode David and Gary talk to Adrian Rodriguez, CEO and Founder of SnapPicFix, about becoming obsessed with your clients, listening to the problem and solving it in the snappiest way possible.

Links:

bigpixel.snappicfix.com 

Hello@snappicfix.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianxrodriguez/

https://www.snappicfix.com/

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David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel

Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel

The Podcast

David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

David: 0:05

Hi, everyone, welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, and I'm joined today by Gary Voight, who in a past life was one of those carnival character artists. Did you know that he was sat there on the side? He had a really weird hat on and he charged $20 for really bad caricatures. How was that scarier? Yeah, caricature not characters. What I said, you're, you're making fun of my list now, aren't you? I say, oh, no,

Gary: 0:29

no. When it comes to all things circus, I'll just educate you.

David: 0:34

That's fair. That's fair. You got to be serious about that. Take your job. Seriously, Gary. That's how I found him. Actually, he was on the side of the road. And he had this really bad caricature of, I think, was Angelina Jolie. And I was like, well, that's really bad. Let's see he was supposed to be Snoopy. Oh, okay. Yeah, you were way off, buddy. Well, more importantly, we are joined by Adrian Rodriguez, who is the founder and CEO of SNAP pic fix. So we're going to talk to him about that and learn more about that company in just a little bit. But first, I'm going to start a series. And I will tell you, here's a little behind the curtain. I literally chose this 30 seconds ago, and Gary's still mad at me. So it's gonna be great. It's gonna be great. We're gonna talk about leadership, I wanted to discuss with our guests, what leadership means to you, because I think it means something different for everyone. So Adrian, what do you think welcome to the podcast, by the way, I

Adrian: 1:22

should say, thanks for having me.

David: 1:25

When I say the word leadership, what does that mean to you in your role? I mean, you're the leader of your company. But what does that mean, practically?

Adrian: 1:34

I think it means that everything is your fault. At the end of the day, whether whether things go right or wrong. You're You're the captain of the ship.

Gary: 1:42

Yeah. And I'm glad it wasn't just some cliche poster, you know, motivational poster answer. So yeah, good.

Adrian: 1:48

I mean, I think when things go great, it's all thanks to the team, right, and all the hard work that they've put into it. And when things go wrong, I think the leader needs to kind of fall on the sword and take credit for it, because all the decisions that led to that probably came from decision that that leader made. So yeah, I mean, that's, that's kind of where we're, I wanted to take it.

David: 2:13

Let me press that for a second. So you're working on a client, deliverable, whatever that is. And one of your employees totally drops the ball. Right? Just, it is clearly their fault. You as leader? What, what does that mean? It's ultimately your responsibility, I get that buck stops with you, however, are you saying? Well, the reason the buck stops with you is because you made a poor hire, or just cuz that's you're supposed to take the beating?

Adrian: 2:46

Well, I mean, you can take it as far as, hey, this was the wrong hire to begin with. But I could probably something as simple as this, the training wasn't in place, or some process wasn't lined up properly, or they weren't prepared, before they got in front of the customer and made a presentation that way. So it doesn't have to be, hey, this is the wrong person for this role. But yeah, it doesn't have to be,

Gary: 3:13

I would assume there's almost two types of leadership in a position where you're selling face to face to client, or, versus just when you're talking with your team, you know, so that leadership role might have two sides to it. One, when you're talking to your team internally, and then taking the responsibility for everything in front of the client, do you find that those kind of do you have to be the same leader in both of those situations? Or obviously, you're not going to tell the client what went wrong? Because you did something? You know, internally, you're not going to blame someone in front of the client.

Adrian: 3:49

Yeah, yeah, I think you have to be, you have to be yourself. And working in the startup, you always have to be yourself, you have to be candid, you have to be transparent. There are certain things you tell customers and share with customers and certain things you don't share with customers that you kind of keep for the debrief and work directly with the customers. But at the end of the day, you need to be the same person 24/7 in front of your employees in front of customers, you Mia has the same kind of values, the same kind of passion for the company and for the customer all the time. I mean, I'm really big into being customer obsessed, and always having the customer in mind and always asking the customer. So just sitting on a whiteboard and whiteboarding ideas with the team is great for kind of developing ideas, but the initial seed of that idea should come from the customer. And I think a good leader is someone that draws that out of the customer ask the right questions from customers to get their input. And then kind of by leading with that example, gets employees and team members to Also ask those kind of questions and get the information from the customers. Because I mean, at the end of the day, the customers know the problems that they're having, they know what solutions they they are looking for. And they're the ones with the with the money, right? They gotta pay you to solve their problem. So rather than you tell them what their problems are, just ask them. And a lot of times they'll tell you.

David: 5:25

So finish this question for me aging. Leadership means you are the lead blank.

Adrian: 5:35

You are the lead cheerleader, I think, more for the company, for the product for your employees, for the customer, right, the voice of the customer, within the company, you're you're magnifying the information that that comes in, you're celebrating the maybe potentially small victories in as the company grows, you know, when when the sale comes through. The leader is the one that rings the bell and kind of pipes everyone up because that sale went through. So you're kind of like a magnifying magnifying glass or amplification. To what? What's going on.

David: 6:21

So what has surprised you most about being the leader? What's some of the happened that you didn't expect?

Adrian: 6:29

Yeah, so So I think, being a leader and coming in to starting a company, you thought you had a lot of answers, and you had a product, and you had a market. And, and it was just, you know, build it, build it out and get in front of customers. And I really took a step back, within a first first couple months of running the company and realized the answers to these questions are not in my head, maybe not in my co founders had not in the team's brainstorming session, it's going to come from the customers. And so going back out to the customer, and asking them those questions. And sometimes they were difficult questions. And, you know, sometimes they would say, you know, I don't really like this feature. Thanks for for building it. Thanks for putting this out there. But I couldn't care less, or it's not as important as as I thought it was going to be. So just yeah, go I'm going back out to them. And that kind of that surprised me a bit at that. I'd have a little more answers going into this.

David: 7:42

I totally understand that. I think for me, the thing that surprised me, which I mean, it's all hindsight, right. But what surprised me was how much weight my opinion would hold even on accident. Right? It's one thing to like, I'm not the kind of leader who throws his weight around. I don't like that. I think that's jerky, right. But sometimes you do that on accident, like if I have an opinion. And I just express that opinion. Oftentimes, it becomes the right opinion without anyone arguing with me. Before I was the leader, I was just one of many voices. Now. My voice has, in my, in my experience, a lot of times too much weight. And so people don't feel like they can argue with me. Because I'm the boss. And I don't like that I want people to engage. I want people to challenge because I certainly don't have all the answers. I'm just spitballing here, but everyone's like, Oh, yeah, yeah, no stomach. Challenge Me challenge the company because a company can't grow based off just me. Not anymore. Originally it did, right? Because it was just me. But that was the biggest surprise, I think, or at least the one that's coming to mind. First is is that wait. I did not expect that.

Adrian: 8:53

So how have you been able to get past it? Is there? Is there a technique? Do you just not give your opinion anymore in meetings?

David: 9:01

I am more careful, I am more careful for sure. I often like if you if I'm in a meeting with I think I'm learning the weight of your response is magnified by the levels between you and the employee. Right. So we have a small company, but there's a couple of levels in between me and say, the average dev on our team, right? Technically speaking, there's a couple now they all come to me because we're for certain things, but we're trying to establish that so I can get out of the way a little bit and let people do their jobs. But if so what I try to do is if I'm in the leadership group, which for some reason Gary's in when, when we're in the leadership group, I will be much more frank. Because basically, I view us as all peers, right? And so they understand that we have the report that they can argue with me and tell me I'm an idiot, totally fine with that. But if I'm talking to the team at large, if there's something that needs to be expressed I generally, and I'm trying this more is I will tell their manager, my thoughts and have them relay it, because then it's one level down. And then then it's more in more engageable. Does that make sense? Yeah, I, I have found that to be more effective. Because again, if I say something, and your two rungs are now in big companies, it could be 3456 rungs, right? And then I can't even imagine, but in our case, we have basically two rungs. But even with that much weight, it's it's too much. So if I can drop it down a level, get as close as I can to the to the group that we're talking to, I find that that's much more effective. But that's been a lesson learned the hard way. Because when I say something, the room gets quiet. And man, I hate that. If you know me for more than five minutes, clearly, I'm argumentative, right? Let's do this, right? This is how we get stuff done. And so I try to and that's one of the reasons I give my leadership group such a hard time, because I want them to know that I'm going to dish it and yeah, I want you to give it back. And that creates that rapport. So

Adrian: 11:10

yeah, it's funny how you mentioned, getting out of the way, when you were you were talking about what about the devs, and things like that. And I think that's a good quality of a leader is realizing when they just need to get out of the way, right? They they've done, what they were going to do, they've empowered the team to accomplish the goal, the team knows what the goal is. And then you just got to move out of the way and let them go with it and run with it. It's it's nice to see the results of that.

David: 11:39

We're still working on that part. We talked for a lot several weeks with our guests about time management. And I would say regularly, you know, our biggest job is giving away our job, which is a really weird concept that only happens to founders. Because you can't fire us technically speaking, right? So we can give away our entire job. And we're still fine, we still are employed, right? Anybody else does that they lose their job, right. And so that is so in my case, it's it is that I'm the more I get out of the way, the better the team seems to run. And that's, that's a humbling experience, first of all. But second, it's really fascinating to watch that, because it for every new co founder, whatever you want to call us, they feel they have to hold tight to everything to get anything done. I was certainly that way for many years. And as I started letting go, there's still some things I can't let go of, I still have that, that grip of death on some things. But the more I let go and trust and empower, the better off we have been. And that's been really interesting to watch and to grow in that regard. Because it's totally counterintuitive from when you started to where you are now. As a leader, any you know, leaders if you've been doing it one year versus five, eight years, 10 years, 20 years, it changes more and more. And eventually, you'd let go completely right and let the another team run. And you kind of just am the guidance and the vision alignment and crazy idea guy, right. That's ultimately what you want.

Adrian: 13:20

Yeah, and I think part of that, when you're leading a group like that, it's good that you've been there, it's difficult to let go. But that means you have been there and you have gone through the motion. And you're not just saying something and guiding someone down a path that you haven't done. You know, like on the sales side, if we're making a cold call, I've done the call. I've heard the objections. I've gone through that process. And so it helps to kind of coach them and to empower them. And then that last step is very important part you just kind of Alright, that's it. I've taught you what what you need to know, I'm gonna move out of the way now. And if you have any questions come back. But, but I'm gonna go I

David: 14:04

think that's the reason why a lot of second generation, third generation, whenever there's a generational change, especially to father, son, father, daughter kind of thing. A lot of times those steps are skipped. And they don't do every job. And so they come into the head honcho spot unprepared, because they haven't made those cold calls. You know, you started them in management, you see that all the time. And the company suffers until that person assuming they're bright and can figure things out and are dedicated, but they've got some hard knocks coming as they learn these things as opposed to sticking with the bottom. You know, starting in the mailroom, that's a classic example and make a move up. I have a guy on my business group who his son he is he's this will be a third generation I believe that's correct. His son had he had a rule and I love this. I'm totally doing this for my kids if they ever show ninja is in our company, you have to work at another company didn't care where he had worked there for at least three years, you had to earn a promotion at said company while you were there. And when you came, you had to start at the bottom. So it wasn't, it wasn't, you know, quickie right out of college, you're coming in. Now, once the child came in, in his case, it was a son. When his son came into the business, he led him into leadership meetings early, but he was still in the mailroom wouldn't really, but you know, the, the lowest end of the job. The son was allowed to see the leadership side. But he was also the grunt. And so over time, he's slowly moving up the ranks. And now he's in charge of sales or something like that, whatever. But I always thought that was so cool. What a great way of doing I don't know if he made that up, or someone gave that to him or whatever. But I'm totally stealing it. Because it's a great way to make that next generation understand. Yeah, yeah. Like, in our case, my son, who I mentioned all the time, is our editor of our podcast, I have purposefully built three layers between me and him, so that I am never managing him ever. Because that would end poorly, that would in various areas. And, and it's just because you know, we have a different dynamic when I go home on Dad, when I'm here on boss, which I hate that term, but whatever. I'm in charge. And so that's, I don't want to mess that up. And so we built levels in between us, so that he does, and he's like, dude, this isn't working out, whatever. And I'm like, don't talk to me. Talk to your boss. I'm not involved. Grumble, grumble. But so Okay, Gary, did you have any wise thoughts you'd like to say? Because I totally commandeered this conversation?

Gary: 16:53

No, actually, you mentioned the one thing that I was thinking of bringing up is getting out of your own way. And your job is to give away your job as a leader. So we've covered that before, and I wanted to kind of hear you go through that again. So that was good. I'd like to learn more about Adrian though.

David: 17:09

Yeah, man. That's where I was going. So tell me about SNAP pic. Fix how, where this came from? What is up to?

Adrian: 17:16

Yeah, yeah. So Adrian is originally from South Florida. And I flew up, do

David: 17:23

you always talk to yourself as the third person because

Adrian: 17:28

I grew up in South Florida and went to the University of Miami graduated from there. IBM brought me to Durham, North Carolina for an internship and spent a lot of time in Durham work, worked at IBM for a while, eventually continued my path north and went to Boston, so got my Master's from MIT, two years in the cold. And then came back down to North Carolina, and continued to work in tech companies in a Research Triangle Park, kind of doing the corporate thing. And yeah, a couple years ago, I decided to try this entrepreneurial endeavor. I had dabbled with startups in grad school and kind of been a little entrepreneurial growing up. And so I thought, you know, there's never a perfect time, and might as well give it a shot now. And so that's where we're snapping fix came from. It was a looking back on it, if you consider my hobbies, my passions, my my technical background. It's like the perfect Venn diagram of what I would be doing now. So I had DIY and real estate experience, right. So been dealing with rental properties and home service companies. And then I had the artificial intelligence, machine learning background, technical background. And so when you put those two together, you basically end up with SNAP, pick fix, and now we're helping home service professionals, plumbers, electricians, handyman, roofers, make sure that they never miss a customer. But with technology, so it's a fun space to be in right now, with everything that's happening in conversational AI. It's been, it's been a lot of fun.

David: 19:18

So give me the 30,000 foot view, what is your company to do?

Adrian: 19:23

Yeah, so we make sure that a home service professional doesn't miss a customer. So we will tie into all of their lead sources. So those could be paid lead sources, it could be organic, it could be calls coming in on their cell phone can be text messages coming in could be Facebook Messenger will tie into all those lead sources. And if they can't respond to that customer within a couple of minutes, we will respond on their behalf as if we were them. And just kind of engage with that customer grab the basic information that they would ask or that an office manager would ask right first name, last name, description of what's going on. Let's get some pictures and had to prep the whole situation for maybe someone to go on site to do an estimate. Or if they end up going on site to do the job, at least they'll be prepared, right? They won't be the first time they that they see the job. And a lot of times customers, you know that they know that the the sink is leaking, but they don't know where the water's coming from. They don't know the difference between a P trap and, and the valves and things like that. So grab a picture of what's going on, let the plumber look at it, he'll bring the right stuff, ultimately get the issue resolved faster.

David: 20:33

They go to your website or whatever. You have embeds and all that good stuff for your tech. And someone complains about something broken or whatever. You guys intercepted give them some time, depending on the settings, right? Yeah. And then if they don't, then you guys engage? Is that Yeah, really?

Adrian: 20:54

That's about right. So we work with directly with the home service provider. So we would be embedded in their systems for the most part, you wouldn't even know snap pic fix was driving that conversation. It would just look like it's coming from the office manager. So when you get up text message back from the office manager on the Saturday night, you're not going to know that if the owner was awake, or if it was coming from

Gary: 21:19

pretty impressed. Wow, Saturday, responded, that's awesome.

Adrian: 21:23

And we get that. So we get that from customers at the tail end of it. They're like, Oh, wow, you're the only person that responded to me this late on the weekend, like automated service. I mean, we were booking jobs during the Superbowl while our customers were presumably watching the game. There were folks that had issues coming in. And they were getting routed to snap pick fix. And we were booking jobs for him so that when they did get back to their computer, CRM, come Monday morning, all the customers information was was already there queued up for him, and the customer was waiting for them because they did get that instant response. So they didn't go to the competitor.

David: 21:59

One of the things I mean, I'm assuming you're dealing with larger handyman kind of companies, Home Repair kind of companies, not your onesies and twosies. Right?

Adrian: 22:09

Yeah, we deal with all sorts of customers. But our ideal customer is like franchisors and franchisees that have, you know, a couple $1,000 in marketing. And so they're putting a lot of money on the marketing side to drive these leads to their business. And then we're helping them make sure they get the most out of that investment. By converting that customer and putting that customer's information into their CRM and engaging with that customer, because they're, you know, just think about it, they put a couple $1,000 into marketing a lead comes in on a Friday night, and sits in a mailbox or sits in an email or sits somewhere until Monday morning, when they or their office manager could get back to it. So speed to lead is a term that gets used a lot in the industry. And it's basically your chances of converting that customer go down every minute. After that, that lead comes in. And so that's what we're focused on.

David: 23:03

Was this an issue that you just came up with while you were in grad school? Was it something that someone brought to you? I mean, this was on the back of a napkin at a bar with a buddy, where did this idea come from?

Adrian: 23:15

Yeah, so I like I said I had I had rental properties. I've worked with home service providers for a while going through COVID When folks didn't want to have service providers in their house just to like look around. It was a way of getting a contactless estimate, getting contactless information to home service professionals. And so all those things kind of coming together. There was an opportunity that technology was ripe to be able to build these conversational systems. I mean, there were their platforms available for handling the messaging, there was computer vision algorithms were available for analyzing the images as they were coming through. And so it was a matter of just putting them all together during a global pandemic.

Gary: 24:01

It is interesting that you mentioned the pandemic because there are quite a few businesses, startups and people that we have talked to over the last year who like really kind of the pandemic, kick them into high gear and executing on their ideas, or I guess you could say created more problems for people to solve. So there was more opportunities to kind of go towards a, like a digital solution for some things that just didn't exist before.

Adrian: 24:28

Yeah, like I mentioned, that need for contact list estimation and for getting information to a home service provider was kind of amplified because home service providers didn't want to go into your house unnecessarily for a job that that they may not want to take or would be equipped to take and folks didn't want home service providers in their house unless they ultimately had to be in there and they wanted them in and out as fast as possible. Right bring the right tools bring In the equipment, just get in, replace the part, fix the thing, and then leave.

David: 25:07

So a lot of the ideas that I heard the contactless is kind of what made me think of this when you were saying, hey, people want a contactless way to do X, Y, or Z, a lot of those companies kind of spun up. And a lot of them died when the real world came back. So how have you guys adjusted in the post pandemic world or phrase, but you know, your normal life where we're back and seeing each other and all that? Because we, we joke all the time. There were so many companies that made all these bets, like big dollar bets. peloton being a really good example. People are never going to a gym again, because the pandemic is cheap. And then they realized No, stupid. That's because people couldn't go outside now that they can they do, right? So have you have you noticed that your so your company was pandemic wise, it was in their contact lists, but now you're in the real world? has that affected you guys?

Adrian: 26:05

Yeah, so so we did notice that right, that contact list element kind of went away. But what we saw a continued demand for on the service pro side was that customer engagement. So now that things were open up, and now that service Pro is going out to dinner with his family and celebrating birthdays, again, they can always be attached to their cell phone. And so tying into that customer engagement and saying hey, we'll we'll watch your customers will still provide that same kind of service. But now you don't have to worry about missing them because you're back to your post pandemic lifestyle as well. And so that kind of shift just it was kind of a organic shift for us.

David: 26:54

Where are you guys in terms of lifecycle? Are you pre revenue? Are you self sustained? And you guys are killing it? Are you on a runway? Where are you guys sitting?

Adrian: 27:05

Yeah, so we're bootstrapping the company. We do have revenue coming in. But we're reinvesting everything back into the company, so that we can continue to grow. But we do have happy customers. Really happy about all the customers that signed an initial contract and then renewed, right, because at the beginning, it's, Hey, I'm saying the right things, demonstrating that we can provide value, but at the end of that contract, are they going to stick around with us? Did we actually deliver what we said we were going to deliver? And so we're getting to that cycle where subscriptions are expiring and customers are starting to renew and renew their subscription. So yeah, things are going well.

David: 27:44

We have a concept here we talk about law called the slog, which is the time between you building the startup and people caring about the startup, right? That can be anywhere from months to years, where you built it, and no one will come right. You're yelling, you're screaming, your job is to get people to care about your app. Do you feel like you're on the other side of that? And the other side of it would be now you have your own gravity where people are coming to you? Because they now recognize your need. Where are you in that slog process?

Adrian: 28:18

Yeah, I think we're in the slog, and the term that I use, we're in the grind. Another way of looking at it is that like that product market fit, and I've heard the analogy of like, in those early days, you're like pushing something. And then once you have product market fit, it's kind of pulling you down, and it's rolling down the hill. But we're still very much pushing our product and our vision and our idea up the hill

David: 28:42

at this point. Where are you finding your clients, your first ones, right, you've you're pushing, pushing it up? What are you Where are you finding success in finding those initial clients?

Adrian: 28:54

Yeah, so networking events. Now, now that things are open. Just there's a lot of home service providers out there. It's a huge market. And home service providers, no other home service providers, right, the painter knows the drywall or the drywall or knows the pressure washer. And then even within, like if you take a step back to real estate, and like property managers and realtors, they have these networks as well. So we're trying to tap into those networks so that they can make those introductions into their preferred vendors and things like that.

David: 29:27

Outside of networking, are you finding success? Are you upon? Are you using ads, Google ish, SEO stuff, anything online? Anything else has given you any traction besides just pure networking.

Adrian: 29:40

We've tried kind of the the Google ads and the Facebook ads, get a lot of requests that come in, and then those I would say kind of potentially warm the lead. But at the end of the day, it's still a phone call out to them. So we haven't seen a tremendous difference between the folks that were calling back and just folks that were Calling for the first time.

David: 30:01

Are you buying lists? Are you just getting big piles of business cards at these events?

Adrian: 30:08

Getting big piles of business cards. And as far as buying lists in the home service space, the lists are out there, right? You just Google sure handyman. You know, you don't have to buy it, you just go through the Google results. From that perspective.

David: 30:26

Nice. Nice. So how big are you guys as a company now,

Adrian: 30:31

we're still very small, there's five plus, I'm still the only person that's full time. Everyone else's kind of a contractor kind of believes in Division believes in a long term, where they wouldn't be part time but but they all have their their day jobs, and insurance and all that kind of stuff by their by their regular employer,

Gary: 30:54

or most of your clients in your local area.

Adrian: 30:58

So we our first customers were all outside of North Carolina, because it was just as easy to talk to someone over zoom as it was to knock on their door. Now, we're probably about 5050, with local North Carolina, Durham, Raleigh, Durham, triangle area, customers and outside of the state. But we actually started for for a really long time, probably for the first six months, all of our customers were outside of North Carolina. And I was just trying to get that first North Carolina customer in there.

Gary: 31:32

I was curious about the the machine learning the AI and then the image, you mentioned something about being able to analyze the images when they're sent over. And that's a space within what you guys do that I can see even, I'm just imagining the potential there. As long as there's decent photos going in, you know, from the actual end customer taking decent quality photos, and now, cellphone cameras are getting better and better and better. How much like can be relayed from that image to the service worker? In terms of like, nailing down what the problem is, you know, obviously, something's not gonna be able to see behind the wall. But I mean, it seems like that little area of analyzing the image can be something very beneficial to the service worker.

Adrian: 32:18

Yeah, absolutely. Like that kind of the example that I was giving earlier with the plumber, or the customer saying, hey, my, my sink is leaking, right? They don't know where the water is coming from just getting that picture allows them to get eyes on something before they drive out. Going back to an example of like a water heater, right to say, hey, my water heater is broken. And rather than someone asking, is it tankless as a gas? Is it electric? Is it in the attic? Is it in the crawlspace? Is it in the closet? All you need to do is see a picture of it, and you're going to be able to answer all those questions. So it leads to that conversation with the customer to be a higher quality conversation, because they've already seen what what they're kind of getting themselves into. So they can ask, you know, they may be able to ask, Hey, what's behind that corner? I see the picture of the room. But what's behind that that table? Or what's behind that chair with fine? You know, that drywall or something like that?

Gary: 33:15

Alright, Adrian, we asked every person that comes on here the same question. What are the top three pieces of advice that you would give to a new entrepreneur, a new business or a new startup? Someone who's just walking into it?

Adrian: 33:29

Yeah, so So three things. Number one would be an obsession with the customer. And their pain point. And their, their problem. Regardless of the idea, the idea can morph, the technology can change. But but being focused on the customer, and their pain, because ultimately, that's what's going to drive the revenue. That's what's going to drive your renewal. It's not what's between your ears. It's what the customer is telling you. And then just listening to the customer and asking the question, even if you don't necessarily want to hear the answer to it, just make sure you ask the questions that help you progress your company, as far as possible and as fast as possible. I would say along those lines, because of the fact that you're asking all these questions and talking to these customers, it's very important to find a niche and focus on that niche, you can always expand to multiple niches, but focus on that ideal customer and try to get to that ideal customer as quick as possible so that you can spend your time and energy asking that group of people the right questions, and then you can start to hear themes within that group of people. And then the last thing I would say is just kind of be scrappy in the early days and just just get out there. Don't overthink things and just get out there and do it and Right. And, and if you're talking to the right customers, if you're focused on the right niche, just keep, keep trying to deliver value to them. And they'll be very transparent, especially in the home services space. Like, if you've got a bad idea, they'll tell you this a bad idea. But but just get out there and build that relationship with them. So that you know, you can you can deliver something, they give you feedback, you kind of go through that iterative loop of, of improving the product. So, so yeah, just be scrappy. Just get it out there. Get it out there fast. And don't overthink it.

David: 35:41

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So if anybody wanted to learn more about SNAP pit fix, where would they go? How would they learn about you and and your company?

Adrian: 35:50

Yeah, so I'm out on LinkedIn, if anyone wants to connect on LinkedIn, snap pic. fix.com is our website. And if you want to hear more about us get a demo, anything like that, you can always email us at Hello at snap pic. fix.com. Visit the website, you can book some demos that way, we've got case studies and stuff like that out there. Or reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Gary: 36:13

And we'll make sure we put those links into the show notes. So they'll be available under the video on YouTube. And they'll be available in the show notes part of every podcast.

Adrian: 36:23

Oh, and I actually created a I created a link called Big pixel dots that pic fixed.com. That's actually a contact form. So anyone that listens to this can fill that out.

David: 36:33

Fancy?

Adrian: 36:34

Ooh, yeah.

Gary: 36:36

Look at us, let them know you heard it from us. Nice. Yeah,

David: 36:41

I feel like I've got my own. You heard it here, first. Coupon Code, you know what I'm saying? It's like, Hey, make sure you go to get their 10% off when you go to slash whatever. Anyway, I see those all the time on my critical role podcast anyway,

Gary: 36:54

if anybody wants to reach out or ask us question or leave a comment, they can do so below this video, or they can email us at Hello at the big pixel dotnet. Or reach out on any one of our social media channels.

David: 37:05

Thank you so much, Adrian, for joining us, this has been a lot of fun, it's really interesting. To learn about this and your passion for it, you know, I will say, I think you have said more than I will say anyone but more than most, your laser focus on your customer is apparent. And that's really cool. We don't most startup founders, and we've talked to a lot at this point, a lot of them are focused on their idea. And that's not a bad thing. It's just a different tactic. Their idea is the one that they believe is going to solve x. And they're laser focused on that idea. When your stuff is coming across, like I don't care about the idea. The the what I'm trying to solve is the problem. Not not solve it with you know what I'm saying? I'm not promoting the idea I'm trying to solve now you have an idea, of course. But um, but I've just I commend you on that. I think that's very cool. And not heard very often. Now. I say that our future guests are all going to be like this. But you get the first one you get the first.

Adrian: 38:08

Well, yeah. And you'll have a lot of ideas, right? That come out of those conversations, right? You've got to have some idea to take to the customer, right? You've got to you can't just be like, hey, I want to ask you a bunch of questions. You need to take a product, you need to take something to the customer. But don't be tied to that initial product. Because like you said, things change, market conditions change. And so you have to be able to let go of that idea when the time is right and move to the most valuable idea. That's what's going to be successful for the rest of the company. Well said.

David: 38:39

Thank you again for joining us. This has been great. We will post all of your links and goodies on the show notes. Thank

Adrian: 38:45

you, David. Thanks, Gary. This has been a lot of fun. Everything's green meaning Adrian.

David: 38:49

Thanks again for joining us, man. we'll see everybody next week. Have a good one.