What's up, everybody? This is Cortland from IndieHackers.com. And you're listening to
the IndieHackers podcast. On this show, I talk to the founders of profitable internet
businesses and I try to get a sense of what it's like to be in their shoes. How do they
make decisions both at their businesses and in their personal lives? And what exactly
makes their businesses tick? And the goal here, as always, is so that lens making me
laugh here. The goal here, as always, is so that the rest of us can learn from their examples
and go on to build our own successful internet businesses. Today is a special episode. I'm
here with Lynn Tai, the founder of Key Values. What's up, Lynn?
Hello.
Lynn is a really good friend of mine. We met in college 12 years ago. We moved to San Francisco
together. Yeah. Eight and a half, nine years ago, back in 2010. I think it's safe to say
that Lynn is my best friend. And I'm also like a mentor, advisor, whatever you want
to call it, to your business Key Values. So I've been there since the very beginning
two years ago.
Yeah.
When you started the company.
Almost to the day.
Almost to the day. And I remember very distinctly you saying that your goal was to eventually
come onto the IndieHackers podcast, which I had just started two years ago as well.
And you were like, you've got to make some money first.
Yeah, you got to make some money. And now you have. Yeah. Why don't you tell listeners
how much money you're making with Key Values. Yeah. So the last quarter, Q4, I did about
80K in sales. And this quarter, I'm on track to do the same or even better last week. Yeah.
Last week, I did 25K in sales. I tell you that. It was like a really, really...
You've been telling me all week.
True. It's just been like a really awesome...
Only every day.
...energizing week.
Yeah.
Really energizing week.
So you're on track. You're sort of like $300,000, $350,000 a year run rate with your revenue.
What are your expenses look like? How much money do you spend to keep this business running?
Not much. I mean, I don't have employees. I don't have an office. I work out of here
from home or a squad out of Oliver's office. My husband's my paper, subscriptions, posting.
I mean, yeah.
Like a few hundred dollars a month.
Yeah.
It's almost all profit with your business. You are a solo founder. You don't have employees.
You don't have an office. You're a first time founder. This is the very first company you've
ever started in two years. You're already at the point where you're making way more than
you made as a developer.
For sure.
How does it feel?
I mean, it's surreal, but it's also the new normal. But no, I'm really proud. And I remember
two years ago, you were like, if you just do anything, you show up every single day,
it'll happen. I was like, promise? You promise. And you're like, I mean, I don't promise.
No guarantees.
You're like, I'm not writing this down. But yeah, I mean, if you just show up for two
years, it'll happen. And I mean, you weren't wrong.
And it's been two years. I think one of the cool things about your story is that you are
not what I would describe as a business guru. You're not devouring startup essays and books.
You're not reading on the philosophies of sales.
I feel like you're calling me out right now.
It's true, though. It's like, this is how you identify.
I'm definitely not. I'm not.
And yet, your first time out of the gate starting a business, you've achieved more success than
I ever had than most people I've talked to. And I think there are a lot of special, unique
things about key values that make it just a really good business and that sort of contributed
to your outside success. So I really want to get into those details.
But before we do, why don't you tell people what key values is, how it works, who uses
it, and why.
Yeah. So key values is a website that helps software engineers find jobs based on their
values. So if you're an engineer and you want work-life balance, you want to contribute
to open source, and I don't know, maybe you hate going to meetings, you would go to key
values, select those as tags and filters, and you'd find teams that share those values.
And then you get to learn about companies before committing to the long and exhausting
interview process.
And how does your business model work? How do you make money with key values?
Yeah. So it's not a recruiting platform. There's no placement fees or contingency model. It's
a subscription model. So companies pay me. I never charge. Engineers never would. Companies
pay me a flat fee for the year to generate the content and list their page on key values.
Okay. So it's super straightforward. Let's get into the story of how you started it.
We're going to go way back into our history. Do you remember when we first moved to SF?
Or do you remember even before that in college, where I was always obsessed with startups?
I was obsessed with coding. You were on a totally different spectrum. You were, I think,
neuroscience?
Yeah. I was brain and cognitive sciences. I was, goodness, it's so weird to think back.
It's like everyone thought you were the weird one, and now living in San Francisco, it's
like everyone's in this space. But yeah, I remember you would always be coding at parties
and whatnot. People would literally be chugging beers behind you, and you'd drink a beer and
then go to your computer and code. But no, in college, I was brain and cog. I always
wanted to be a professor, my mom, my dad, my sister. They're all academic professors.
So even before I got into college, I knew for certain that that was my calling. And
so in college, I was laser focused on doing research and making sure I got good grades
and everything that set me up for success for that path. But yeah, and then when we moved
to San Francisco, I was doing that. I went to UCSF to get my PhD in neuroscience. You
were still coding. You've been so consistent. I've had so many life changes. And you've,
I mean, you too, but more or less, it's linear. But yeah, and then when we first moved, I
remember you were like, I don't know if you were in, you were NYC.
I hadn't gotten into YC. We moved to San Francisco and I didn't have a job. My plan
was I'm going to somehow get into Y Combinator.
Got it. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I did while we were living together. I remember living together and you would like
go to Mountain View and I was like, what the hell is in Mountain View? And like you went
to the thing that was two letters. I literally didn't even remember that it was called YC.
I was like Z, W, whatever. I was just like totally not in that world. And I was just
like cleaning up mouse poop, doing surgeries, wearing like booties, doing lab work.
The summer before, or two summers before we actually moved to SF, you had an internship
and you brought me to your lab where you're working with your sister and you're showing
me, yeah, you're showing me all the surgeries.
In Emeryville.
Yeah, in Emeryville. You're showing me, because I had no idea what you did.
Did we show you the animals?
Yeah, you're literally like doing brain surgery on rats.
Yeah, I'm like little, yeah. I do not remember that.
It was nuts.
That's so crazy. Yeah, so yeah, I've been doing it for a long time, so I'm wiping my
nose. Yeah, but two years in I was just like not into it anymore, which was, I think you
had already moved out at that point, but we were definitely still good friends. But yeah,
the path of being a professor was like my identity for so, so long. And then, yeah,
I just realized, I was like crying a lot. I was so unhappy. I wasn't sure if I like
missed Boston, if I missed my friends, and I didn't like my project. Maybe I didn't like
my, I don't know, some source of misery somewhere. And it took me a while to figure out what
it was, but ultimately it was just that I wasn't doing something that I loved.
Yeah, I mean, you cried a lot when we lived together. I don't know what it was. It was
a whole bunch of random stuff, but I do remember always thinking of you as somebody who followed
in your sister's footsteps, because your sister was like, what, six years older than you?
Seven years older. Yeah, I have one older sister. I mean, you know Kay really well,
but Kay and I are super close, and she's always been like this mentor role model for me. And
she's a professor at MIT in neuroscience. But yeah, we wanted to do it together. My
sister and I would be like, we're going to start an institute together someday, which
was actually not, I mean, definitely ambitious, but that was like, that was our North Star.
So it was a really big deal when I decided to not continue down that path. And it was
like, I mean, it was really hard on my family. It was really hard on me. And it was definitely
by far the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. And I talk about it a lot
though, because it's like also a huge part of my identity. Like just, I mean, honestly,
in a lot of ways, it's still behind the ethos of key values where it's just like, life is
just way too short to do something you don't love. And if you're miserable every single
day doing your work, get the fuck out, like quit, do something else. And I think it's
scary when you're, you know, older in your twenties and your thirties and beyond to like
change careers, but just do it. Like I just, I think that that's kind of where that came
from. Yeah, you say that, but it was pretty hard for you to quit. Oh my God, I cried so,
so much. Yeah, I cry a lot in general. It was a big decision because that was your whole
life up to that point. I know it was really hard. But yeah, and then I guess at some point
I just, I knew though, it like, it was actually, people always talk about Eureka moments, like
aha light bulb switches. And I've never experienced that. I thought that was just like a nice
thing. But I remember sitting in this talk a postdoc was giving about the research progress.
And I was eating this bagel, it was like 8 30 a.m. the bagel of stale. It was so tired
and it was so boring. And I just like literally had this aha moment when I was like, I don't
have to do this. Like I don't, like no one's making me do this. This isn't a life that
I have to live so I can choose. And I choose that I'm out. You chose to drive sidecar.
No, no, no, no, no, that's not okay. Okay. So it's true after I dropped out of grad school.
I had no plan, which was like obviously really scary. Everyone's like, if you don't know,
you're gonna like plan something lined up. But I just knew that I wouldn't be able to
figure out what I wanted to do if I was doing something that was draining me every day.
Stop laughing. I did not quit grad school to become a taxi driver. But after I dropped
out, you know, I didn't have a plan. I didn't barely had any money saved. I was living,
you know, I was making, when you're in grad school at that time, it was like a $30,000
stipend. So I was really poor. So I had to make money. And yeah, sidecar was this thing
that was the competitive lift. UberX didn't even exist yet. And yeah, someone like was
like, hey, you have a car, you should drive for sidecar. And I was like, cool, I need
money. So yeah, it was basically a cab driver.
You're pretty good at it. People like you. I mean, you're probably the most extroverted
person I know. And so you're driving this car around SF people giving you tips for being
a good driver.
Yeah, sidecar was donation based and people were super generous at the time because it
was like a novel idea. And yeah, for sure, everyone's response was like, okay, one, you're
a woman, two, you're young, three, you speak English. Everyone was like, your English is
so good. Whoa, you're young. Wait, you're a woman. So it was always like, it was just
really jarring at the time. I think it's not so, it's not weird or abnormal now. But back
then it definitely.
You are like the other drivers.
Yeah, for sure. Everyone's like, whoa, you're an American. That's weird. Why are you doing
this? But yeah, it was a great honestly, it was a really fun job. I met so many different
people. I really got to know my city. But yeah, it was a fun job. I did that for a while.
And that definitely like funded my life until I got a real job. But yeah,
I mean, you did a ton of stuff back then. I remember I was super focused on the startup
that I'd gotten into, I see with, and I was working all the time. And I felt like every
time I turned around, you just met some new person who had gotten you into some totally
new job.
During sidecar, I also had this like few months stint where I was producing EDM concerts and
it was so random. I met these two DJs from Burning Man and they like I'd fly out to Boston
and Rhode Island and we like produce these concerts, like massive concerts for like Steve
Aoki and Big Sean. That was also really, really fun. But I knew that wasn't what I wanted
to do forever either. And so what did I do?
You quit.
I quit again, it's a common theme. And then I went and backpacked in Southeast Asia, like
the classic soul searching journey. Yeah, I did that for months. And it was actually
really like that was hard too, because I was around Christmas time. And I just dropped
out of grad school still. My parents, it was uncomfortable. Like my family was not, they
wanted to be supportive, but it was just so hard for them to be. And then I came back
to San Francisco and started working at Homejoy, which is an on-demand cleaning company, which
is really cool and well-funded. But at the time my parents were like, holy shit, our
daughter dropped out of a PhD program in neuroscience to work at a cleaning company. We have failed.
To work at some random cleaning company.
I think they thought I was clean. I don't know. I don't know what they thought, but
they just were like really, really worried and kicked off like a panic. And then I think
Homejoy got like written up in Forbes at one point and my parents were like, oh wait, what
is this? Maybe it's okay. But yeah, that was an interesting having to explain that.
Tell me about getting the job at Homejoy. How did that happen?
I don't know if you know this story. So there were some friends. One of the co-founders
of Homejoy went to MIT. It was your class, I think. And there were several other like
MIT people. They weren't like close friends of mine, but they reached out. And it was
because I went to your pi reunion. MIT has this reunion 3.14 years after you graduate,
so nerdy. In Vegas, I think it's always in Vegas and I crashed the year above me. And
they remembered me because I was like really bossy this one day because that was a long
story. There was like, everyone was putting their stuff in my friend's cabana. And then
the people at the club were like, you can't do this. There's too many people in your cabana.
And so I just stood on a table. It was at the pool and I was like, hey, everyone, you
gotta get your shit out of here. They're gonna throw it away. And yeah, this guy who was
like, oh, she's bossy. And he recalled that memory and hit me up to be like, hey, I remember
you bossing people around. You want to be a manager? So that's literally how I got that
job.
I remember being super excited that you got this job because at MIT, none of my friends
were programmers. When we moved to SF, I didn't have any close friends who knew anything about
the startup scene. And meanwhile, you were basically on this weird journey doing all
sorts of stuff. And you ended up at this high growth, like Silicon Valley startup.
Yeah, it's like one of the hottest companies for sure.
I was so excited. I was like, Len, you're finally in the startup world. And it had been
completely alien to you before that. What was it like being at Homejoy?
Homejoy was an awesome experience. I remember I tried to get you to work there. I was like,
it's fucking awesome. Join us. And you were like, hell no. But yeah, Homejoy was my first
real job. I was getting paid, I think I started at 65K. But at the time, I had just come from
30K a year. And so it was more than double. And it was just all the things I was craving
that I wasn't getting from grad school. It was super fast paced. It was super high energy.
It was really social. I was traveling a lot when I first started. It was just everything
that I needed. And yeah, it was a journey, man. We all worked long hours. I don't know,
80, 90. I feel like there was definitely a couple of weeks where we'd work 100 hours
a week. We slept at the office. And I know looking like saying this, a lot of people
are like, that sounds awful. But it was really, really fun for us at the time. I think we
were just super passionate. And whenever you're passionate about something, it's always...
There's nothing better than finding other people who are equally passionate and about
the same thing too. So yeah, Homejoy was a really good experience. I was a manager. So
that meant... It was like my first job. It was like 24, 25. I was managing 150 plus people.
It was like crazy how much work experience I got crammed into those few months.
So Homejoy was basically Uber for home cleaning. You would use a service to book people to
come into your house. My memories of you working at Homejoy were basically that it was this
rocket ship startup. I didn't know very much about it. I know they kept raising more and
more money. I remember going to some party you invited me to where it's like they just
raised $40 million and there was some elaborate party.
That's where all the money went. And then of course it ended up folding. But for a long
time, Homejoy, it was a rocket ship. In my 18 months there, I saw three offices. We had
to break leases and keep going to a bigger office because we kept growing. We went from
I think it was like we were just in San Francisco and maybe Seattle or something when I joined.
And then we were in over 30 cities across North America and Europe when I left. It was
pretty wild.
Why'd you leave?
It's a really good question. My heart just wasn't in it at some point. I loved it until
I didn't. I think there was... It wasn't the long hours or anything. It was just the direction.
My vision for Homejoy was that it was more of a matchmaking service, which is super foreshadowing
for key values. I think I just like making good connections.
But in order to be the Uber for anything, the idea for the direction of the company
was that it didn't matter who showed up to your house. You'd get the same quality clean.
And in my mind, I was like, that's not possible because letting someone into your private
space for four hours unattended when you're not home is a really big deal. And I don't
think that any two... There's no way that you can make two people do that same job the
same.
Yeah, I think when I realized that the direction of the company wasn't something that I was
really passionate and excited about, it was time to go. And yeah, everyone thought I left
before things started looking bad. And everyone thought I was so crazy for leaving. In fact,
everyone was like, oh, where are you going? Are you going to go start your own company?
And it pissed me off actually at the time because I felt like everyone was just projecting
their Silicon Valley dreams onto me. And I was like, no, I'm not. You want to do that?
You should, but stop trying to... I don't know. It was a weird time.
It was weird too, from my perspective, because you had been so adamant about trying to recruit
me. I mean, you were like Homejoy's biggest champion, the biggest cheerleader. I would
go there sometimes and work on my laptop because you're trying to get me to work there. And
I never even really considered it. But to see you sort of 180 from everybody should
work here, it's so great to, hey, I'm not really feeling it. And eventually quitting
was pretty shocking.
Yeah, I mean, I think it just was... I mean, to be fair, everything in that when you're
working at a high growth startup is accelerated. It wasn't like overnight. It was probably
the last six months where me figuring out that it wasn't exactly what I wanted it to
be or what I thought it once was. And of course, you can't... I think this is something I see
commonly now, actually relevant to key values, is that people say they're like, things used
to be X, Y, and Z. And that's just the nature of startups. It's impossible for a company
to stay the same way from 15 employees to 150 employees. It's just impossible. But yeah,
it grew... I outgrew Homejoy. Or maybe Homejoy outgrew me, I'm not sure. But we started diverging.
So anyway, you quit Homejoy. Homejoy exploded and Volda is a company sometime after you
quit so it was a good move.
What did you do after that?
Yeah, so I didn't, as always, I didn't know what I wanted to do next. I just knew that
I didn't want to keep working at Homejoy. I went to Machu Picchu and hiked in Patagonia,
did more backpacking, soul searching. And that's when I decided that I wanted to learn
how to code, which I thought you'd be excited about. But then when I told you, you were
like, nah, man, I don't know. I don't know.
I spent years trying to get everybody I knew to learn how to code. I taught my brother
to code. I helped one of our mutual friends, Christian, who's now an engineer at Slack,
learn how to code. And I never thought you would actually say yes.
I know, that's rude. You'd always been telling... Even in college when I was like, no way, no
chance. Like falling on deaf ears. But then yeah, you've been telling me to learn how
to code. Oliver, my boyfriend at the time, now husband, was also like, you should learn
how to code. I think everyone should know how to code. And so I spent like two months
really thinking about it. And I was like, all right, guys, like, you're right. I want
to learn how to code.
We were both shocked.
Help me.
And then both of you were like, oh, you know, I don't know if you're going to like it. Like,
I don't know. It was so weird.
Well, I think, you know, you said it earlier at Homejoy, one of the things you liked about
your job was that you talked to so many people, even at Sidecar, you were constantly talking
to people.
Yeah.
And being a programmer, I was kind of worried that like, you might not know what you were
getting into. Like, you might be too solitary, too boring for you.
Yeah.
But it doesn't have to be. I think there's, yeah, it's something I think about all the
time. Just like, I am really extroverted, but I also do like alone time, especially
when I'm working. So it's this weird trade-off. I mean, your concerns were valid. You're like,
you're going to hate coding and sitting still all day looking at a computer, not talking
to anyone, but there's, it's still social.
So tell us about this process of how you learned how to code, because a lot of people listening
in are considering this process themselves. Should they learn how to code before they
start a business? What did it look like for you?
I didn't, so I knew I wanted to learn how to code. I just didn't know how I wanted to
learn. And after much thought, I knew that I wouldn't be able to self-teach. Like, you
know, Christian, for the most part, our friend, he just bought, he like literally just bought
a bunch of textbooks, like fat textbooks, read them and just learned himself. And that's
just not my learning style. And so I knew that I wanted to do something like a bootcamp.
So I did something called dev bootcamp, and I wanted to be in person. I wanted to, you
know, like, have experts who knew all the answers to my questions, be able to answer
them when I asked them, and I didn't need to not feel guilty asking them 100 questions
every hour.
And I wanted to have other people who are learning with me. So yeah, that's, I did
a bootcamp until I quit that, until you quit the bootcamp too. I remember all the complaints
that you had about this bootcamp, maybe a few weeks in or a month and a half in, yeah,
where you were, I think, moving a lot faster than a lot of the other people who are learning
to code because you were sort of full time all in. This is the only thing we're focused
on.
It was everyone else, which to this day, I was just like, I think I honestly got unlucky,
but like people in my cohort, in my particular cohort, just did not have urgency. But it
was like, it was expensive. It was like $14,000 or something. And you know, no one's making
money during that time, everyone's learning. And I obviously wasn't making, I didn't have
that much saved from grad school and from home joys, really generous salary. So I, it
was just like a huge deal to me and I wanted to make the most of it. And I felt like everyone
else was just like super chill and like, just like go home at six. And I was like staying
there till 10 p.m. midnight, trying to learn and make them get my literally teaching other
people in your class what you had learned that week. And you had complained to me like,
you're paying the bootcamp money to teach other people to do their job for them. It
was yeah, I know. It's like, you know, people always say like, the best way to learn is
to teach, which is true, except for when you're paying to teach people. And I just felt like,
at some point, I was like, this is bullshit. And once I found out that they would refund
me if I left early, I was like, I just bounced. And also in part, because after complaining,
and you were like, so annoyed hearing me complain, you're like, well, why don't you just quit?
And then like, I'll help you continue learning. And I was like, deal, yeah, you ended up coming
over, I think every day, or at least a few times a week, every day. How dare you? I was
very committed. I literally would walk from the mission all the way through the tenderloin
to your apartment. And I never ubered or I never took a lift or anything because that
cost money and I was saving money. And I would just walk through all like the needles and
the bums who were like yelling and mean things to me. And I would sit in your living room
and make you answer my questions. But you were really helpful. I'm always I will forever
be grateful forever that you helped me.
You're a good student. I remember the contrast between helping you learn how to code and
helping my brother. And he was fighting every step of the way. Like I would check in on
him after a few days.
He's like, fuck you, dude, like, tell me how to live.
You're like more, I think this is one thing that characterizes you as a founder in general
is you're a very humble person. You're not trying to prove what you already know. You're
more just trying to get help from any source that you can.
Oh my God, I don't know how people do that. If you don't know, why? Why do you pretend
that you know? I'm like, I don't know anything. Help me. Someone I'm lost. That's like more
me.
That was a perfect impression of yourself, Len. How long did it take you to learn how
to code and get your first contract gig after you started coming over to my place?
I probably quit in April. I remember I quit dev bootcamp around my birthday and I was
like crying a lot on my birthday. And then I guess the first gig was like a shared gig-ish.
And then the first real gig I got my own was like in July maybe. But to be honest, I don't
know if I would say I knew how to code. I don't know. This is a constant debate. At
what point does someone know how to code, right?
Well, eventually there came a point where you were getting contracts without my help.
Because the first contract I was like, let's get a contract together. And we'll sort of
work on it together. And I think that was a cool learning experience for you. At some
point, I think maybe it was January of the next year or maybe even earlier than that.
No, it was earlier. It was at the end of the year. I remember at least like old school,
I got that gig around Thanksgiving in November of that year. And I definitely had some other
smaller gigs before that. Like Rosalie T and Learn-A-Vore, which I got over a tweet. That
was an awesome, that happened really easily. But I was getting gigs on my own probably
in the summer.
How does somebody go from not knowing how to code to sort of kind of knowing how to
code and suddenly getting all of these contract work-from-home jobs?
So this is a question people ask me often. And I wish I had a better answer. Because
I don't know if it was partially luck or timing or if it was like luckily I had this network.
But for me to get my gigs in the beginning was kind of random. But the thing I definitely
did was tell every single person that I knew that I was open and available for contract
work as a web developer.
And the other thing I did that was really careful to do, because three months before
that I was non-technical. I didn't even know what languages meant. I didn't know anything.
I made sure to let everyone I knew who didn't code know that it was like I'm available to
make websites. I'm available to write in these languages. I made it really clear and easy
for people to remember. Because otherwise people, they just don't know what kind of
engineer you are. And then they put you in touch with their company and it's not a good
fit, it's obvious. But yeah, I was really lucky. I think most of my gigs came in from
people that I already knew.
It was pretty inspiring watching you do this. Because I had done a lot of contract web development
work. And I guess I always just felt like I got kind of lucky getting jobs. Like I would
make something cool just for fun and then get end-bound requests. But I didn't really
have a network or tap into it. And then you came on the scene and less than a year after
learning how to code, you were making, I think you were charging like $100 an hour.
Yeah.
I was like, I went from like 30. I remember the first time I was like, because in the
beginning, and this is the advice everyone will give you is like start building side
projects so you have a portfolio. So that when someone reaches out or you reach out,
they have something to look at. And so I think for me, I was like, why don't I just get paid
to build my portfolio? Like why don't I get paid to learn? There are people who just need
some base like, you know, the Shopify example, like she had a very simple site. She just
wanted some help figuring out how to like make a new landing page or something like
I should do that and get paid. So I was like, pay me $30 an hour. Because I would have done
it for free. And it was like a weird thing. And it's really analogous to charging doing
sales for a company actually, just like knowing how much your rate how much you're worth.
And then eventually, yeah, the story of how I started charging $100 an hour is embarrassing.
So I don't want to.
Well, now you have to tell it.
Do you not remember?
No, not at all.
I did the call at your apartment. You don't remember?
I don't have any members.
Okay, so this is embarrassing. And I don't know if I'm maybe want you to cut this out
because it's just like, God, it's so terrible. But basically, I was talking to a recruiter
for a company. And I was like, yeah, I want to say like, $80 an hour. But my last client
was $100 an hour, which was kind of true. It was really short. And then he like paused,
which probably wasn't even longer than half a second. But I'm just so crazy. I was like,
but I'll do it for 65. And then he was like, um, why don't I just pretend the last 30 seconds
didn't happen? And I heard you say 100 sometimes. So why don't I go in and say that you're charging
$100 an hour? Is that okay with you? I was like, yes, thank you. Sorry. I guess he must
have gotten paid a percentage.
I don't remember this at all.
It was just so embarrassing because I like immediately backpedaled. And I was like, I'll
just do it for free. No, I mean, I didn't go that far. But basically, and he helped,
he basically negotiated for me. I didn't need to go. He was on my side. Like, I'm sure he
got paid more if I charge more. So that's how I.
But then after that, it was $100 an hour for everything.
And then yeah, of course, once I started doing, I was like, no, I am totally, this is, that
is my worth. If anything, I should have raised my rate.
But that's amazing. The power of really just code. I mean, you went from poor grad student
making 30K to operations manager for Homejoy making like 60K, learn how to code and in
under a year, you're charging $100 an hour to work from home on whatever projects you
thought were interesting.
It's so funny hearing you say it now because it's like, wow, that sounds magical. But it
was a lot of hardware. It did not feel fast at the time at all. I remember it was just
like I was getting antsy.
I was like, when am I going to start making money? When am I going to start making money?
I'm starting to run out of money. I need to get a job. Like, how do you know you're ready?
Who do you, what kind of gig should I get? Like, and I remember in the beginning you
were talking me through this. I was like, okay, I need to build up my portfolio, but
I don't have much more time to keep building and learning on my own without getting paid.
So if someone offers to pay me to kind of like simultaneously build my portfolio, because
when you work with a client, that's building your, you know, that's building your portfolio.
Like how low can I go?
So if I'm going to do it anyway, like why not do it for $30 an hour? And you're like,
no, Lynn, do not. It's way, like, you're like, no, no, no. So I think it's hard to know,
but just say a number and take a stab at it and people can always say, can always negotiate
down. Don't do what I did, which is backpedal immediately.
One of the coolest things about how you found jobs, and it really different from the way
that I found jobs as a programmer, because I did a lot of contract work back then. And
what I would do is work on some cool open source project that I thought was fun and
just put it out into the world. And then people would reach out to me and be like, hey, can
you build this?
This is cool, can we use it?
Yeah, can you build this for our company? And I found like a lot of jobs that way, but
you were more of a networker. You just learned how to code.
Yeah, think about it. You had, you flexed your advantage. I did not have 10, 15. You
were like coding when you were an infant. Like seriously, you were coding since you
were like what?
Like, yeah, 14 maybe.
14? That's fucking crazy. And so I didn't have that. So I can't lean on that. So my
strength at that time was my network. So I leaned on that.
But even watching you network, it wasn't like you were going to networking events. It was
literally you just talked to everybody you knew. And I distinctly remember this because
I was like, oh, that's super smart. And Stephanie Halbert, who's been on this podcast, did the
same thing where to get contract work, she just literally told everybody that she knew,
hey, I'm a programmer or whatever it is, and I'm open for work. And you told everybody
that. And people would just keep that in mind. And when they had interactions, they would
think of you and sort of forge these requests.
And so it sounds like it's not a very clear guaranteed way to get stuff, but it's definitely
not stupid to make sure everyone knows what you're doing now and to help you generate
leads.
It just sticks out to me because I gave this talk at a conference last summer. I think
it was called How to Get Lucky. And one of the big points that I made was just tell everybody
what you need help with. Tell everybody what you're doing.
Broadcast that shit.
Yeah. And it just gives people the chance to help you out. And I think a lot of people
struggle with like, what is networking? How do I leverage other people?
I feel like it's funny. I feel like there's so many people who want to start businesses
around this, where it's like, you need help and someone within like a 10 block radius
has your answers, like how do you know enemies? But it's true. I think since no one's cracked
the code yet and there's no product that exists that solves this problem, hit up all your
friends. It's a good excuse to catch up with people you haven't talked to in a long time.
I definitely hit up everyone who used to work at Homejoy and was like, hey, what are you
guys up to now if you're not there? Want to help me find a job? And yeah, they did.
I think the first four gigs I got were all through friends.
Fast forward, I don't know, I guess a year after that, I had started ND Hackers. You're
still doing lots of contract work, charging 100 bucks an hour, maybe more at some point.
And I remember going to your boyfriend, Oliver's office, where you would work in sort of a
back room and I would come and work on ND Hackers.
We co-worked like every day together for months, I felt like.
Yeah, I would come and I was super jazzed because ND Hackers was brand new. I was getting
on the front page of Hacker News once or twice a month.
Yeah, I remember. We'd be like, whoa, look how many people are in your site right now.
Yeah, and then I was super excited about you because you're making so much money with us.
Yeah, that was an exciting time.
Yeah, you're working on these interesting projects. You're making more money than you
ever have your entire life. Why leave that all behind to decide to start your own company?
Oh God, this is like memory lane. So I actually remember a lot of this. So I remember in December
in January, like the cold rainy months in San Francisco in 2000, what is this, must
have been 16 going to 17. I was so into making money because this is honestly, I mean, you
just heard my whole backstory. I did not get paid very much at home. It was like the first
time in my life that I was making real money and I had never, I didn't obviously save any
money from my grad school days. So I was like addicted to just watching that dollar amount
grow my bank account for the first time. And I was working at two full-time clients. I
was like working around the clock, worked through Christmas and New Year's and I was,
I felt like I was really killing it. And then it must've been March. Yeah. I worked through
in through February. March was like this crazy storm. It was like a perfect storm of events.
So the weather was getting nicer, which is, I know this sounds crazy, but for me, weather
really impacts my mood. My mom had just visited and my mom lives in Hong Kong. So I don't
see her very often. She was 70 and was supposed to retire, but she was actually traveling
to San Francisco cause she was like doing some talks or something. Cause she'd actually
just made this huge discovery in science. Like, I don't know the, I don't know if people
care about the details, but she basically made this huge discovery and a breakthrough
in science and was like peaking in her career. And that was just like so inspiring cause
my mom's like 70 killing it. Right. And then also at the same time you, Cortland were entertaining
this idea of getting acquired. And I was like, what? You just started indie hackers like
eight or nine months ago, what's going on? And all that happened. And I felt like really
inspired. There's all this exciting things happening on me. And then I had no outlet
because like my project ended and my other main client actually had to pause the work
that I was supposed to do. I was, I was supposed to do like this huge project that was coming
up, but they needed like four or six weeks to get it started and do paperwork with the
third party that they were using as a long story. But basically like everything was happening.
I had all this energy. I felt super inspired by you and my mom and how's my birthday was
coming up. And it was just like, I just had so much energy and know where to put it. And
so yeah, I think I kind of went a little crazy and I was like, what do I do with my life?
I had this whole existential crisis of like, what do I want? Like, what is the purpose
of what is the meaning of my life? What do I want? And I think everyone, oh yeah. And
I think you and my mom both were like, you should just follow your dreams, Lynn. Like
do whatever you want. Follow, follow your dreams.
That definitely wasn't me.
Yes, it was. You were like, you should do what you vote. I don't know. Oh, you were
probably like, you should start a company because I probably said something very analytical
and try to make a.
No, you were like, you should start a side business. You should start a, you should have
a side project. You were doing indie hackers. So you were like, you should start a side
business. Yeah. So anyways, what freaked me out was just like, I didn't have like a clear
dream. And that was like freaking me out because I was like, oh my God, I'm a shell of a human
walking around planet earth. Dreamless. It was a dreamless state. And I remember I was
like seriously manic for a couple of weeks. And then I realized that there was like three
things that I think maybe could count as a dream because I had sort of wanted them loosely
for at least a decade. And they were one, I always wanted to do an iron man. Totally
random. Two, I always wanted to start a family and have kids. And then three, I think I always
wanted to like in some way work with my friends in some capacity and maybe have some type
of like the perfect in a perfect world, be so cool to have a business that you own. You
call it like, I mean, I think everyone knows this, but like consulting is kind of like
a gateway drug into entrepreneurship because you get a taste of the freedom and like setting
your own schedule. I mean, you're like, you get to create your own little world and set
your own rules. So I had been sipping on that for a couple of years and I was like, yeah,
I like that. So yeah, I think I like I guess dream number three was like maybe starting
a company with my friends or like, I don't know, something to that nature. So yeah, and
then obviously, Oliver, my boyfriend was like, number two, starting a family. Let's not don't
chase that dream just yet. So I so yeah, I picked number one and three.
All right, so we're not going to talk about the Iron Man as much. This is a show about
entrepreneurship. Let's talk about dream number three, starting a company, working with your
friends, and sort of following, like you said, the gateway drug of consulting into entrepreneurship.
You eventually settled on the idea for key values. How did you get there? If your dream
was as vague as I want to do something and maybe work with my friends, how did you sort
of shape that into the concrete vision that became key values?
I think I like tried to think of a bunch of ideas are all really shitty. I wasn't excited
about any of them. I started some like 24 hours later, I was like, I'm over it. And
then you were like, well, maybe you should like find a full time job because I also was
pissed that you abandoned me. You were the only like, so I didn't say this before. But
the deal was if you helped me learn how to code, I had to promise that I would try consulting
like not become a full time employee. And I was like, deal. So that was that was how
I even started thinking about consulting. And then here, this whole like, as long as
I've ever known you, you're like, being an employee sucks. And then here you are like
entertaining becoming an employee of Stripe. And I was like, I felt so betrayed. I felt
betrayal. It was weird. Because I'm like, okay, you're leaving me out in the dust. But
yeah, so then I was like, I should look for full time jobs. And so I spent a week or two
on a job search. And it was just so shitty. And I complained about it so much. And it
finally like always when you're like, all right, Lynn, you've been complaining about
this. Like, wait, could you build a business around it? You have this problem, like maybe
you could build a business to solve this problem. Yeah. And that was I remember how excited
I was like, I don't remember exactly the day, but I remember at the end of the day, like
running up to Oliver and being like, I'm so excited about this idea. And he, you know,
I probably said the exact same thing, like multiple days in a row, and then just drop
those. But this one felt like it really stuck. What was the problem you had that you ended
up building a business to solve? Well, if you remember, actually, it's so fun. I kind
of forgot this detail, but there's part of me like, well, maybe will you hire me for
indie hackers? Like maybe I should work with you or like, I just like maybe I should help
Oliver with his company. He's the startup founder also, like that in that way that checks
the boxes. So I was also for a couple of weeks, you know, loosely just seeing what like what
other startups there were. And of course, I was looking at like what my friends companies
were doing because then I could then work with my friends. And yeah, but the process
of looking for jobs was so dreadful. So, so, so dreadful. For me, I've always had a strong
affinity for startups, like being scrappy and starting something early. I never was
interested in working at the Googles and Facebooks of the world. But yeah, I couldn't find any
information about these cool startups. And I felt like that was ridiculous because you
know, I'd worked at Homejoy, which was a YC company. All my friends were in the startup
scene. We were sitting in Fideye, which meant like, I don't know, like a 10 block radius.
There's like hundreds of thousands of startups, but I didn't know how, like, how do you know
that they exist? And then of course, you know, people are like go to AngelList and then you
see a long list of companies and logos and not knocking AngelList, but like, you know,
it's just a long catalog of companies with their logo and like, that's it. And I just
felt like that they all start kind of looking, you scroll and scroll and they all look the
same and you don't get to know anything about these companies. And so for me, if you were
going to work at a startup, like anyone else, you're not doing it for high salary. If you
are, you're doing it wrong. If you're optimizing for salary, go somewhere else. But if you're
working at a startup, it matters so much who you're working with because that's like the
value. And for me, it was just felt so crazy that I couldn't get to know the people I'd
be working with until so much later. And I know this is like, I wasn't, you know, I'd
only been coding for two years. I wasn't, you know, like a super senior expert, but
I still feel like I'm a really good hire. I think that any startup would be lucky to
have me because I work really hard. I'm really scrappy. I'm, you know, really good at learning
on the job, like throw me into any situation, I'll figure it out. And I think I felt a little
offended by all of the hoops that they ask you to, you know, you have to write a cover
letter, you have to apply, you do a phone screen. Sometimes you do a screen with someone
who doesn't work at the company. They're like a third party recruiter. They're not technical.
You ask them a bunch of questions. They can't answer it. You wait a week. They invite you
on site. You do a bunch of coding questions, like you pair, you do some whiteboard questions,
then you come on, come back tomorrow. And then you wait another week for them to decide
or give you like, it's just like, what is all this? And like, you never even really
get to sit down and talk to the people you'll be working with. And so yeah, this is the
pain point. And you were like, well, how do you turn this into a business? And it was
like, I wish there was a resource where I could learn more about what the day to day
was like before I even have to commit to a conversation with these people, because maybe
I don't, it's not even a good fit. And that's, yeah, it was like,
Dusky values was born. Yeah.
This is March two years ago, pretty early on.
Yeah, 2017.
2017. And you're like, okay, I want to come on the Indie Hackers podcast. I think I just
started the podcast a month before. I'm like, yeah, not yet, but make some money.
No, you said no. You're like, Lynn, you're not, no, nice try. Yeah, you said if I make
money, once I make money, I can do it. So that was my goal.
I remember releasing a podcast episode around that time. And I can't remember who it was
with exactly. But the upshot from the episode was that it's okay to have competition. It's
okay to enter a crowded market. And I remember that was something that you had been struggling
with a lot as you kind of grappled with this initial idea. You didn't necessarily like
the fact that there were other companies already helping developers find jobs. I wish I can
remember the episode.
Laura, or?
Yep, that's it, Laura.
Meet Iker.
Meet Iker.
And you had been circling around this idea. It was like a theme, a common theme in Indie
Hackers. All of these successful founders were like, yeah, it doesn't matter. It's good
to have competitors. And it took me so long for that to click. So long. And that was another
aha moment. I remember, I was driving in a car, I was listening to your ass on my speakers
interviewing someone else. And I think I pulled over because I was like, holy shit, that makes
so much sense. And every other industry, aside from tech, there's tons of people making money
making new sunglasses. I think that was her example. There are a lot of other companies
that make sunglasses, but people start companies that make new sunglasses every day. And it's
like water bottles, pens, papers, notepads. That was her example.
And the other thing I think that came up over and over again was pricing. Because we knew
that companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire engineers.
I mean, I learned this after Homejoy. I was like, I don't want to work at a company that
sells to consumers again. It's just brutal to not sell to businesses.
And so you knew from the get-go that with key values, if you helped solve this problem,
you were going to be making a lot of money. You could charge your customers thousands
of dollars. It wouldn't be like $5 a month. It wouldn't be $10 a month. It wouldn't be
$50. It'd be, hey, we're going to pay you, Len, $2,000 referral fee because you hired
an engineer for us or something like that.
Right, right, right. Yeah, because today, hunters and recruiters charge 20, 30. I just
talked to someone who says they charge 35% of a first-year seller. That is wild. They're
placing executive level. That is nuts. So recruiting is definitely like, there's a lot
of money changing hands. That's what you always say.
So yeah, I guess I didn't even really thought about it as analytically as you were at the
time.
Well, I'm a business nerd, so the whole time, I was just sort of...
Yeah, I think it's funny because for me at the time, I was more like, I want to help
people, but I don't want to charge them. And so it was like, well, there's only two sides
on this marketplace. If I'm not charging software engineers, I'm charging companies.
The last thing, and the reason I'm going into all this detail is because I want to highlight
some of the good decisions that you made early on that made key values sort of the rocket
ship that it's been, even though it's a lifestyle business.
Okay, well, I was like, whoa, whoa, I don't call it a rocket ship.
But it is for you, for you personally.
The last thing I think you did that was really good was rather than starting with a product
idea, you didn't say, okay, here's exactly what I want to build. What you did was you
started with the customer. You said, here's the problem that people have. Here's the thing
that is a pain point that's very valuable to solve, as evidenced by the fact that money
is changing hands here. And then you went in search of what's the product that's going
to fix it. And after talking to so many other founders, especially first-time founders,
it's more common for people to do things the other way.
They say, oh, I've got a great idea for this thing I want to build. I don't know who's
going to use it. I don't know why they're going to use it. I don't know if they'll pay
money for it.
I mean, as you.
But I want to build this thing.
As you.
Yeah, that was me for like 10 years.
Yeah, you did that for a long time.
Yeah, that was the problem. And then you spent, I guess it was like a month of you trying
to figure out.
Longer, man. It was weeks. I just talked to everyone.
To try to figure out what the product should be to solve that problem.
Yeah, I talked to technical recruiters. I talked to every single person I knew that
was an engineer, which was a lot of people. Engineering managers. I was researching dating
sites and Myers-Briggs. I wasn't sure what it was or should I administer some questionnaire
to help people figure out what they want and then match them? I didn't know what it was.
But it's interesting hearing you always talk about stuff like this and it's like why it's
a good idea.
But for me, it's like I was never in danger of doing it the other way because I'm still
relatively new to building. It would take me a long time to build something. So for
me it was like I have to be fucking sure that this is like I really have to plan a lot before
I commit because unlike you, you could whip up a product in a day and be like, okay, let's
iterate. Let's start over. Here's a new idea. For me, it would take me a lot longer. In
no universe would I ever just be like, let's just start building something and see if someone
uses it.
It took you a long time to get to the building. I did the other thing too much. I remember
I was thinking about the idea, what the product would look like. I also spent a whole week
devoted to picking a company name. You were like, Lynn, start coding. I hadn't even written
a single line of code. I spent so long thinking of the name Key Values and I'm glad I did
because I fucking love that name.
It's one of my favorite company names of all time.
Thank you. I remember it was almost culture code. At the time you liked it, you're laughing
now.
I was just like, it's the name. Get the domain, let's go.
Culture code was already taken so I went with key values.
On this note, it's funny, you remember earlier this week I sent you that screenshot from
the beginning of Indie Hackers where I'm like, oh Lynn, which one of these names do you think
sounds better? I said, I'm starting a community website for developers who want to learn how
to build profitable side projects. Which one of these names sounds better? I sent you this
list of horrible names.
You guys, Indie Hackers was almost wage breakers. Can you imagine wage breakers?
Probably between Indie Hackers.com.
Dream Catchers, wage breakers. I forgot, they're really bad names.
IndieFounders.com was the second best.
IndieFounders is not bad.
Yeah, it wasn't bad. But you came up with key values for your own company and at some
point you finally had the vision for what the product was going to look like.
And then building it was like a slog because I was happy with how much I'd learned. I felt
so empowered after, you know, I spent two years building websites basically for other
companies as a developer. So I definitely felt like that was really fun and what I knew.
The design part though is really hard. I'm not a designer. And it took me, oh my God,
do you remember like the early mock-up?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
You were like kind of mean. You're like, uh, pass. Hurts my eyes. That was your feedback.
That's hard now.
Hurts my, yeah. So it took a really long time designing it and looking back like I'm really
proud that it looks the way it does. But now with the experience I have, man, I would love
to redo key values someday, but it's just not a priority. So, but yeah. And then of
course getting the companies like that was the really, that was so hard. It was like,
man, it's so fun to look back because now I like can't even, I have so many company
companies like inbound reaching out to me wanting to be on key values that it's hard
to remember.
There was a time where I was begging companies to let me show up to their office, interview
them. Like I was basically like, Hey, I'm Lynn. I'm going to do free labor for you.
Do you accept? And companies would say no, but yeah, I mean that took a long time.
It's very analogous to when I first started Indie Hackers and there was nobody on the
website. The website didn't exist. And I was just emailing all of these people, these founders
saying, Hey, will you come on my website and share your revenue numbers? And everyone's
like, fuck no.
They're like, who are you?
Absolutely not. Who are you?
Yeah. Yeah. Who's your first person? Who did you, who got, who said yes first?
I had like 10 people. I don't know who, I don't know. It's a good question. I remember
you saying that you emailed like 50 people and you're waiting. You're like, I hope someone
responds today. And like, no one responds today. And I just be like, no, no, no.
But yours was, I think a better sell because you were actually telling companies, Hey,
I'm going to help you with your hiring process and I will come in and put together a profile
that will help you.
Hello. That's what you could have said too. Like you were, this is, this is, this is where
my sales skills come in now. By the way, I learned so much sales in the last year, but
this is like, so for anyone starting out and you're like offering a free service, because
most, how people usually, you know, get started, you should make sure that you realize you
are providing a service. Like you're doing something for free. If for you and me both,
it's actually really analogous where it's like, Hey, I'm going to help tell your story.
I'm going to help you with branding. It's content. That's going to be quality that you
can share. It promotes you. It's hosted on a third party site. Like this is like you,
I mean, yeah, you probably didn't do that, but I didn't, and to be fair, I didn't really
know how to do it either, which is why so many people said no, we just glossed over
a whole thing, which is something I don't think we can take for granted, which is that
you knew eventually that your business model would be to charge companies, but in the very
beginning it was free. Yeah. You ended up onboarding companies charging them $0. Why
was that? Why was that? Well, I mean, it's like, I, if I'm going to launch a site with
a bunch of company profiles, there has to be company profiles. If you go to a site and
there's like one company, probably like cool, bro. Like, do you ever consider that like
going to these companies and saying, Hey, I'm launching the site. It doesn't exist yet.
It's going to cost you $1,000 to have a profile. I like didn't even cross my mind. I don't
even think you would, I don't think anyone had, well, I can't remember, but no, for
me, I was like, hell no, that's going to take way too long. Doing sales takes time. So if
my goal was to get as many companies on as possible, reducing the friction to get them
on is the goal. So yeah, there was this whole plan. It was like, get enough companies onto
key values. And then once there's enough companies launch and start getting developers onto key
values. And once there's like enough matches, then yeah, start charging people. Yeah. It's
like a chicken and egg classic marketplace problem. Yeah. But I remember I ended up launching
in September of 2017. It was like 20 companies, 22 companies. And everyone's like, how'd you
get those companies? The answer is it was basically a catalog of all the companies that
ex home joyers now worked. And it's like hilarious. But yeah, I just like milk my network again.
And it was like, Hey, I'm like trying to help your company hire, which every company is struggling
to do. And like, yeah, let me help you do that for free. Free of charge. Come on, say
yes.
What's the process of contacting a company and creating a profile for them? Because I
think it sounds well and good when you just say, Oh, I found 22 companies. But who are
you emailing? Who did you talk to? How long did it take?
It was a lot of work. I got so many no's. It was honestly, I see people struggling to
get started too. And it's the answer is straight up grind and hustle. Like I just, I would
show up, I would email, I would call, I would text, I would do cold emails to like the CTO
or founder. I mean, I just hit up people at some point. I remember this is like a huge
hurdle I got. I was like, am I being annoying if I email three times without a reply yet?
And at some point I was like, fuck it. No, I'm just going to keep emailing. I'm like,
I'm just going to be annoying. Sorry, I'm annoying. I would say it in my email. Sorry,
I'm annoying. This is like my fifth email to you. You haven't responded yet, but just
want to check in. And eventually some people would be like, thank you so much for following
up actually. I'm sorry, like thanks for bringing this to the top of my inbox again and again,
like I'm interested.
Do you remember what some of the first things you did were to attract developers to your
website after you got this first batch of companies to create profiles?
Launching is basically crickets. I mean, I posted on indie hackers. I didn't even like,
I wasn't really even on Twitter yet. I feel like I don't know. I mean, there wasn't, there
was like no developer traffic until I launched. And then after I launched, it was great. And
then there was of course the, what is it? The trough of sorrow, the post launch trough
of sorrow, which was like so much traffic. And then where'd it go? Where'd everyone go?
Come back, come back.
How'd you launch?
Yeah, I launched on Hacker News and on Product Hunt, all of that was kind of a mistake. I
actually wrote, I wrote about all of this. This is my first post that I ever wrote about
key values was on indie hackers because it's so like everything comes full circle. But
yeah, I launched on Hacker News, which to be fair, I like always knew that Hacker News
would be a channel, a distribution channel. So in a lot of ways, I actually built key
values and designed it with the Hacker News audience in mind.
Because you just knew there's a ton of developers there who needed jobs.
I mean, yeah, I mean, even still today, go to the ask thread and it's like, how do I
interview or like, how do you learn about companies culture before you join? Like there's
all these people, people always want to know these things. So I mean, it was a recurring
theme.
How'd the launch go?
It went really great, man. I was like, it was like, so high on life that day. I remember
being physically tired from being excited all day. No, it went really great. I mean,
I had basically no expectations. I had never launched anything before. Like let alone,
I mean, I guess it wasn't a business yet, but I never even like worked on a side project
long enough to see it through to launch it, you know? And so yeah, it was only positive
things.
So you mentioned that you had a trough of sorrow period after you launched. For those
who don't know, it's basically the shape of this graph where you launched day one, day
two.
Huge spike.
Huge spike in traffic. You're riding a high. You just feel amazing. And then people leave
and you realize that your site isn't that good at keeping people going back.
They're going to come back, right? Oh no, they're gone. They're gone. That's it. Cool.
Okay. Now what? Yeah. You know what's funny is that I thought naively that like all you
needed to do is launch. I told you that that wasn't enough. I told you that that wasn't
enough.
I know, but like in a, yeah, I guess. I mean, it was kind of an experiment because we didn't,
we weren't sure whether or not people would come back. We couldn't know. You were like,
you know, you were like, you told me, I think everyone told me, but I just, it just felt
like such a monumental, like rite of passage to, to even launch, like put yourself out
there to build, to put anything that you've been building out there that that's all I
could focus on. And then yeah, like I wake up September 6th, 2017. I'm like, Oh, I mean,
there was like a little trail, but yeah, there's, there's basically as it hats, weird to look
back. I don't know. It's so funny. Like all these things, I remember feeling that way.
And now it's like, so, I just feel like I was so naive or it's like, it's so cute that
I thought that, or that I felt that way.
What'd you do to sort of combat this problem? What were your next steps?
I mean, truthfully, I'm still in it. Like I remember we set a goal. My goal was to have
2000 sessions a day without like, you know, pushing anything, like I could just go on
vacation and I would have 2000 sessions a day. And I'm still working towards that goal.
Like it's hard work. And this is the part of like, just showing up every day for two
years. But content marketing, a little SEO, I launched a side project. I did side project
marketing inspired by the, what was it? Unsplash crew guys. I don't know, but site, this, someone
posted on Hacker News, I don't even remember, I'm not giving credit. But I saw, we saw this post on Hacker News,
or sorry, on Indie Hackers, about someone who had done side project marketing. And I was like, oh, cool,
maybe I should do that. Because content marketing was like, not that fun. And so I built culture
queries, which was this tool. It's still, you can go to it on key values now, but it suggests good
questions for people to ask their interviewers.
So the idea was that developers would come to this thing, basically use this tool and the process of you
helping them ask questions in interviews, you would sort of push key values and be like, hey, by the way,
here's some great companies that match those out. Yeah, exactly. So and then like, you can join my
newsletter and all this stuff. So I think that really helps. But yeah, there's no one fix. It's not like
you flip a switch and it's like, Oh, turn on growth. Yay, it started, it's working. It's just a constant.
Yeah, I think most companies struggle with growth.
It's tough. It's the hard part. And for you, the the easy part was growing the, the company side of your
marketplace. You're really good at convincing people to come on to the key values platform, especially
since it was free, but it was hard to find developers.
Yeah, for sure. And it's still, that's still the case. I think the crux is getting like senior high
quality engineers to visit key values. And it's also tricky because it's not like a, it's not like
indie hackers, but you want people to show up every day or every week. Usually people. Yeah. And then I
also, oh my God, I forgot that I also did YC to help. I thought that there was some, I mean, this is a
long story. I don't know. It's a very long story. Let's go into it. Tell us why you decided to apply to
Y Combinator.
Yeah. Well, actually, so you may have to remind me because I'm going to, I'm not going to answer this
question. It's a different one. I just want to say that I never, ever would have started any company
or definitely key values without indie hackers. Because like I said, after my experience at home
joy, I was like, uh-uh, this is not for me. Like I was convinced that the only way to start a company
was that you pitched to investors, you get them to give you money, you hire a big team, and then
there's all this pressure to grow really, really, really fast. And I just like didn't subscribe to
that model. And it was only through you talking to you as a friend, not even like really using
indie hackers at the time, to be honest, but for those months of you just being like, Oh, I just
talked to this really cool guy. He's like, I don't know. I'm making something up. I don't remember
who was who, but they were like, I don't know. This is one guy living in the Midwest and he just built
this thing and now he's making 500K a year by himself and he doesn't even work that much. Isn't
that cool? And I was like, yeah, that is really cool. And then you're like, Hey, I met this other guy
who like, you know, he blogs a lot and then he started this newsletter and he was like, Hey,
people love my newsletter. Maybe I'll just charge people $3 a month to read my newsletter. And now
he's making 40K a month. And I was like, what? I was like, holy shit, there's other ways to start a
business. And so for me, that was like always the plan. So the YC thing was like a really random
thing. Like I totally didn't think about doing YC. And then, you know, I talked to someone they're
like, Oh, you know, applications are due soon. Like maybe you should apply. I was like, no, no,
because my experience at Homejoy companies that raise money, not so good. But yeah, I, you know,
I think I got Jedi mind tricked. Someone was like, you know, it's a really good introspective
exercise. And I was like, okay, I'll do it. So I fill out the application. And it really,
it honestly was like, I actually recommend everyone fill out in a YC application. It's just
a nice helps people zoom out because you're just so focused. You're like so close to what you're
working on every day. It's nice to like step back and see it holistically. And then yeah,
I got the interview and I remember you, I don't even remember. Did you tell me not to do the
interview? I can't remember your advice. I think I told you not to focus on the interview until a
few days before it was going to come up. Yeah. Yeah. You knew just consume all of your mindset,
all of your. No, that was good advice. That's so true. So I like, I was like, okay, I got the
interview won't think about it until like the weekend before. And then yeah, that went well.
I got in and it was too. At that point I, that's when it was like, Oh, do I even really want to do
YC? Because I thought that they were going to make me be homejoy. And I was so scared of being
homejoyed. Homejoy was great, but I just didn't want to like have that experience and be the
leader of that. Yeah. The investors, investors in Silicon Valley, they want to see you going for
the goal. It was stressful. Like home joy was stressful. Like I don't even know what it would
have been like to be a founder, one of the founders for a company like that. So I was so
attached to the bootstrapper self-funded indie hacker. Is that like the definition of.
Yeah. You're an indie hacker.
Yeah. Like that's like to me what the identity of indie hacker was. And so doing YC was like
selling out in a way. And so I don't know. It was weird. Like, I don't know. It sounds stupid
because everyone's like, you got into YC. Like, of course you do it. But for me, it just, I wasn't,
I wasn't positive. But the main reason that I did was like, I am helping really cool companies who
are doing really cool things, talk about them, and like get getting on people's radar because
people want to know about them. And YC is a network of really cool companies doing really
cool things that no one's ever heard of. So it was like perfect. And I was definitely open
because again, this is like my first time ever doing anything. I wanted to stay open minded
about different ways to run and build the business.
So YC, it's like a three month program companies go through it. I regularly hear from people
who go through YC and I felt this myself that it's the most productive that they have ever
been. It's three months.
Was it for you?
I think it was. I think during YC, it's just this combination of having a batch of peers
doing the same thing and you've gotten to this sort of prestigious institution. You
just all really want to go fast. You want to impress each other. You want to check in
with your partners every week and show progress. For you, it was the opposite.
Goddamn. I'm like, that was true for you too. I'm jealous. Yeah, it was not. It was like
the least productive three months of my life. No, that's not true. That's not fair to say.
But I was definitely not nearly as productive as you were or anyone else was.
Why was YC so hard for you?
YC was, I'm not sure how to describe it. YC was really hard for me for a number of reasons.
One of them was just that I was just so, and this is true for everyone, but I just didn't
handle it very well. It was just so overwhelmed by the amount of advice.
Like pre-YC, I'm in a vacuum. I'm like in a desert looking for water, water being advice
from smart people. Then you go to YC and you're like drowning in the ocean. There's all these
smart people. There's all the partners. They're super experienced founders. They have so much
good advice to give, but of course that advice is not... A lot of it was conflicting and
it just was really confusing for me. Then of course there was all the pressure of leading
up to demo day. YC is three months. You pick one metric and you just focus 100% to growing
that number.
For me, it was like three weeks in, me and the partners and even talking to you, we couldn't
even agree on what the metric I was trying to focus on. Then I was like, do I even want
to do demo day and fundraise? They're like, why else would you do YC? It was really confusing.
Thresh.
It was a lot of thrashing.
Hashtag thrash. That's like, I don't know what else to say about it.
It's funny because earlier I was talking about you being such a good student when I was helping
you learn to code. I think that played into you doing YC because you cared so much about
whatever you thought about learning.
I'm so Asian. I just want an A plus and that's so true. I just wanted to be an A plus student
and anyone who gives me really good advice and I think they're smart, it is like ingrained
in me to follow the advice, do a good job and then thank them. I want to make people
who help me proud of me and there was just way too many people to make proud. I think
it was just like my own internal issues.
It's a tough thing for any founder which is that you have all sorts of advice flying at
you from every channel. Even if you're not a Y Combinator, even if you don't have mentors
or advisors, you might be reading books or blogs or various videos on YouTube and you
have to sort of filter out which advice applies to you, which advice you just don't have time
to do.
Yeah, and I think some of the advice around... So I had no experience building a company.
I was new to all of that so it's hard for me to filter because I don't have any data
to pull from. I don't have a pre-existing mental schema or rubric to filter advice through
because I'm new to this. But the one thing that I did know was I know how I want to live
my life and I know how taking investment will make me feel if I have people to answer to
and I'm like, I don't know. I just knew that part. So I don't know. There's lots of things
going on just like with the tactical advice versus just the religious question of what
kind of company I wanted to build. All that together just made for three months of straight
crying.
That's almost...
I cried so much.
I cried a lot. I think the religious part of it is big. What do you want to do? What
is your actual goal? And if somebody doesn't share the same goal as you...
Their advice doesn't help.
Yeah, their advice doesn't matter.
But it's so interesting. It's like people ask advice and they're so bad at asking for
advice. People always ask, how do I be successful? What the fuck question is? I hate seeing that
question so much because first of all, what does success even mean? What are your circumstances?
It's just the most vague question. What does success look like for you? It depends completely.
I know. And so I think... And this is another thing. It's not a knock on YC. Looking back,
I'm so glad I did YC. Of course, if I could do it again, I would do it very differently.
But it was partially my fault too. Going through YC, I was naive. I genuinely didn't understand
that a lot... The goal of YC is to go to Demo Day and fundraise. And actually, I think if
you talk to some partners at YC, they won't even agree with that statement. But it felt
like that in the batch. Everyone was like, why would you do YC if you weren't trying
to go to Demo Day and fundraise? And I was like, shit, I don't belong here. I don't know.
Explain what Demo Day is and explain the story behind you deciding not to get on the stage
at the end of the place.
I feel like you should describe Demo Day because I've never been to a Demo Day, but...
Going to Demo Day like nine years ago.
Yeah, it's probably really different. Demo Day is like everyone... I'm not even confident,
I know, because I just dipped before Demo Day. I didn't go and I've never been to one
since, but every founder or one person from each company goes on stage. I think it's a
60 second pitch to a room full of investors. And you're just trying to get people to give
you money. And for me, it was just also conflicting because you read all these essays from PG
and there's just conflicting advice everywhere. Whereas if you don't need to fundraise, don't.
If you don't need to raise money and have investors on board, then don't. And so I was
like, okay, I don't need to. I had been prepared this whole time to do this bootstrap self
funded thing and live super poor and frugal and eat ramen every night. I was prepared
for that. So I was just confused that other people at YC were still telling me, you should
fundraise now, it'll never be easier. You might not need the money now, but you might
later and it'll be too late. And everyone else was so excited about Demo Day. It was
just really confusing.
Why were you so confident that you didn't need to raise money?
Just the math. I don't have burn. I had a bunch of money saved and I was confident that
I would be able to start charging companies soon enough. And worst case scenario, I would
just do the bank loan credit card game. Worst case scenario. I'm good at living in San Francisco
on 30K a year. It sucks, but I can do it. I've had years of experience. I just felt
confident that I could do it. I wasn't confident in saying it, which is why the thrashing happened
during YC. I think I spent the bulk of YC defending my position. And then it was my
fault because I'd be like, maybe. I flip flop so much and it must have been so frustrating
for everyone, including you. Honestly, it must have been so frustrating for you.
It was frustrating, but I think it was sort of a process of discovery for you because
you got so many strong arguments from very smart people about here's why you should raise
money. Here's the up of going this sort of VC funded path. And you had your own ND hack
or instinct where it's like, you didn't want to raise money and you really wanted to do
a lifestyle business that would make you personally happy. And you were super, I don't know, scarred
is the right word, but you were just cautious after your home joy experience.
Because you can't ever give up, I guess, like Buffer did this, you can give your investors
back the money. But I think for me, it's a pretty permanent decision. Like if you fundraise.
That's it.
Yeah. It is hard to go back in time, like buy back your equity from investors. It doesn't
happen super often. And yeah, the hard part was that all the advice was true. And it just
depended on your goals. And that was like a personal question. So I think I just had
a lot of soul searching during YC of just like, what do I want? Because there isn't
right or wrong answers. And the truth is, if you raise from angels, it's not the same
as raising your Series A or Series B. The pressures are different. It depends on who
your investors are. Everyone's like, they're really cool angel investors who will help
you grow your business. They're like mentors. But I don't know, I just I felt like it wasn't
for me.
One of the interesting things to talk about here is your financial situation. You mentioned
briefly that one of the reasons that you weren't too concerned with not raising money is number
one, you had the money from YC. But number two, you had your savings. You'd literally
spent a year and a half, two years contracting at $100 an hour. Yeah, you were living super
frugally even though you're an SF. And so I don't know what your runway was. I knew
I had like, yeah, I mean, it would be savings. Yeah, exactly. I definitely had like two years
of runway, especially with the YC money. So I felt like there's no reason to. And honestly,
people really underestimate how much energy goes into doing Demo Day and fundraising.
And since I'm a one woman show, if I'm spending two months fundraising, that means no one's
working on the product, no one's doing sales, no one's growing developer traffic. And so
it was just a really expensive decision to me. And I know this sounds like all hippie
dippy and whatever. But I just think the best way for me and making decisions is just doing
what energizes me. Because because I had two years of runway, it wasn't an issue of like
running out of money, it was more a concern that I would get frustrated or like, uninspired
unmotivated and quit. So that was what I was like, protecting against. Yeah, quitting seemed
to always be on the table. It was always something comes sort of looming. Like if you don't like
this, you'll quit. Yeah, I'm so good at quitting. If I hate something, I'm gonna fucking leave
it. Like no questions asked. So I loved home, I'm home dry. Whoa, I did love home dry. No,
I love, I did love home dry. But I loved key values so, so much. And it was like, I love
doing what I'm doing. There's nothing like, it was perfect to me at the time, even like
I enjoyed working on it. And I just wanted to make sure I didn't stop enjoy that enjoyment,
because then I would quit. If my heart fell out of it, I would have quit. And so I think
for me, it wasn't like, how do I have enough money to make it? It was like, how do I make
sure I enjoy this long enough to not quit?
Okay, so that's the story of an ND hacker going through iCompanator, not doing demo day,
not raising money while all of your peers are tweeting about how many millions of dollars
they raised. Coincidentally, I was on the YC podcast not that long ago. And the title
of my interview was, your whole goal is not to quit. And that's what you did. You did
the things that you liked and you avoided the things that you didn't so that you wouldn't
quit. What did you end up doing after YC demo day?
I mean, even like the week right before demo day, I just was that Homer Simpson meme where
just he like fades into the bushes. I just wanted a long time. I needed some isolation
for real.
But yeah, I think I just went back to focusing on the company. I mean, there are definitely
lots of good things I got out of YC, don't get me wrong. But one of them for sure was
that they pressured me to start charging. So during YC, I mean, it was funny, they're
like, wait, you're providing value. Companies that you have let on to key values for free
are hiring engineers. What the fuck, Lynn? Charge them. And that was a huge debate too
of when I should start charging, when's the right time. And I could talk about that for
a long time because I think that's just, there's no, you're looking at me.
It ties into the whole thing you were mentioning was what was your North Star metric. And I
think going into YC, your North Star metric was I need to get more traffic.
Yeah, developer traffic.
Yeah, it's not valuable unless I have developers. And then YC was telling you, hey, it's already
valuable. You're already providing a service to these companies, charge them money.
Yeah. And so yeah, so I like very lukewarm efforts was trying to charge and it was bad.
The first like five companies I reached out to, they were like, no. And then other ones
were like, yeah, yeah, you know, like if once it's valuable to us, we'll pay. And I was
like, okay, cool. Like that's a positive signal. But no one wrote me a check until I actually
is around this. It's right about now at the end of February, beginning of March. And,
but they were like, it was, I didn't even know how much to charge. It was a, it was
a long journey for that. And this basically 2018, I would characterize that as like, becoming
learning sales.
So walk us through this process of these very first sales calls that you made, the very
first companies who paid for key values. How did you get them to pay? How much did you
charge them? Who was saying no? Who was saying yes and why? And the whole process.
No, it's like, it's hard to describe because it was random AF. The first thing I did was
reach out to companies that were on key values already for free and like had positive feedback
from me, people that had hired and I asked. And I think it's one thing I underestimated
is that it's really hard to get people who had something for free and convert them into
paying customers. And so that was one mistake. I should have just had everyone knew, like
everyone that was new, that was onboarding and starting to charge, but I didn't think
about that. And then it was just kind of looking at other job boards. There are other job boards
that are like anywhere from $200 to $500 to post per month. And so I was thinking about
doing monthly subscriptions, three months, six months, 12 months. I was experimenting
like crazy. People at YC, I mean, it was cool actually, other founders, we were all going
through the same thing of price testing. And it was like, how are you guys choosing? One
of them is just straight up throwing out numbers. It's like 1,000, 10,000, 5,000. Like until
someone says yes. And if someone says yes too quickly, raise it. And yeah, it was literally
just like rant. I should have been a little more strategic, had more structure, but it
was kind of just like, you have to ask. And it forced me to talk to a lot of people about
what value they did find out of key values. And then there's the whole journey of onboarding
new companies. So at some point it was like, okay, it's clear that you should just start
charging new companies, getting people who are free to start paying us really hard. And
so my process at the beginning was just like any time a company reached out, I would just
send them the same email regardless of the size of the company, regardless if it was
a founder or recruiter emailing me, regardless of how many people they were trying to hire.
It was just the same email. And it was like, I think I started with 1,800 for six months
and 3,000 for a full year. And yeah, some people said yes, and most people probably
said no. And yeah, but that's one lesson for sure is that I started doing sales calls and
that was much, much better.
$1,800 for six months, $3,000 for a whole year on your platform. I just want to highlight
how much more you were charging than the average Andy Hacker I talked to you charges for their
business.
How much are people charging?
I go to Andy Hacker's meetups and I talk to founders. And this is like the most common
thing that I hear is, oh, I'm going to charge people, you know, $5 or $10 a month for the
thing that I'm building.
For what depends on what it is though.
Yeah, but people like tend to build these products that they can only charge $5 to $10
a month for.
I'm like, oh, I've got a to-do list app and no one's going to pay more than $10 a month
for it.
To-do list app.
Yeah.
So many.
And I'm just like, don't build a to-do list app then.
I know.
It's going to be so like the number.
If anyone wants to build a to-do list app, why don't you just reach out to Corland and
ask him to show you the to-do list app that he built for years.
It's just hard.
Years.
Because you need something like 1,000 customers to get to the point where you're even sustaining
your lifestyle as an entrepreneur. You're charging $5 a month.
I did the math. We were like, okay, my goal is $300K and that's at $3,000 a year, that's
100 customers. I think I can do that.
Yeah, you can talk to 100 customers and sell to 100.
It might take a while, but I can do 100.
Right.
100 is way less daunting than 1,000.
The other thing that's cool is you're pretty much spending all of your time doing the things
that you hear in startup manuals that you should be doing.
Talk to your customers, right?
You're talking to them, you're learning how they get value, etc.
And I think one of the reasons why a lot of founders don't do these things, partly it's
because it's uncomfortable.
You're sort of a personality where you like talking to people, so you're just naturally
good at that.
But partly it's because the product that you built was so simple.
Key values is not...
Not complicated at all.
The secret is not like the code. It's not like you spent like eight months whipping
together this website.
A lot of people could probably build the website a week or a few days.
So you didn't really have to...
But that's not the value.
Yeah, the code is not the value.
Yeah, the code is not the value.
You didn't have to spend all day, every day fixing bugs, tweaking your product, etc.
You had infinite time really to just talk to customers and figure out what they wanted.
And so I think you were able to sort of progress in 2018 along this process of making your
product more valuable, figuring out the message, etc.
Whereas other people might take two or three times as long to do that because they're spending
so much time writing code.
You know, it's funny, actually, I won't say the name, but I just saw on Hacker News this
week that a company in my batch folded.
And they were like a really technical product, again, not too many details.
And they're just going to open source it.
And I think that was maybe one of it.
I mean, it was just a really complicated product, but it was also hard to get people to use
it if you're building product first.
So yeah, I don't know.
It's interesting.
I just can't imagine falling in that same scenario because I'm just not like, I don't
know.
I just, I'm in no danger of doing that.
It's another reason not to build a to-do list app because then you're like, all right, well,
I've got to catch up to all these other to-do list apps that have like a thousand features.
So I've got three years of code that I need to write before I can charge it on.
And there's people listening who like have successful to-do list apps.
I'm imagining someone listening right now, like as they're coding their to-do list apps,
and they're like, shit, side-eye, side-eye.
But it's not just to-do list apps, to be fair.
It's just very attractive to founders to build and try to sell these inexpensive, very code-intensive
apps, especially as a developer.
And your advantage was kind of almost like your lack of confidence in your development
skills.
Yeah, I know.
It's like literally it was like a blessing.
Like your desire to spend your time talking to people.
I know.
It's so full circle that you were like, I don't know if you're going to like coding
because it's so, I mean, I definitely, even when I was coding a lot, I was still super
social and I think it's like, that's just what I'm good at.
And so in general, I think that people should build things where they're at their strengths.
And even if coding is your strength, you should definitely beware of building something.
Like if you're really good at coding, what that means is you could build simple products
so much better than all the other people building a simple product.
But don't go and spend three years in your room by yourself building this product that's
beautiful that no one ever sees.
I think your progress in 2018, it speaks for itself.
You went from making $0 a month at the very beginning of 2018.
Something about 80k a quarter, yeah.
To 80k a quarter.
What are some of the bigger milestones in that process?
Oh my goodness.
I'm like, my memory is so bad.
First renewal, that was big.
I think every time I placed an engineer, that was super huge.
It's so fun to celebrate with a company.
They're like, we found an engineer who found us new key values.
Thank you so much.
They're wonderful.
Like every single time that felt like a huge milestone.
I think I'm so like thinking about sales that I can't help but look through this lens.
One of the sales milestones, like aha moments I had was just to actually jump on the phone
and talk to people and sell.
As I said before, I was just sending these emails.
And there was this whole question I remember during YC was like, should you have a pricing
page?
I think there was a lot of...
Someone had a really strong opinion that I should make key values self-serve.
And I think there was this moment of realizing that if it's a complicated or not even if
it's complicated, if it's a product that people don't get right away, it's not obvious.
Key values is not obvious.
It's like, is it a job board?
Is it employer branding?
I'm so confused.
Are you an ATS?
Which is an applicant tracking system?
People are not so clear.
It's like jump on the phone, have them tell you what their problems are, and then tell
them how specifically your product can solve those pain points.
And then mention pricing.
So I think that was just like a huge...
That was like once I figured that out, it was like literally like a switch.
Sales were just going so much easier.
Raising prices was a huge milestone, I suppose.
I mean, it's all...
Yeah.
Tell us about that process.
How did you raise your prices?
Yeah.
I started saying a higher number, and I remember in the beginning, in the middle of the sales
call, I'd be like, okay, I had a Google Doc open, it's like, say $5,000 a year.
Say $6,000 a year.
I'd be like nervous, nervous.
And then they would say something, and I would just write, as I was saying the sentence,
right before I said the dollar amount, I'd be like, it's $3,000.
I would just go back and backpedal again.
And so it was just a confidence thing.
And then eventually, I think I started talking to companies, and I have a sales guru, so
this is what I like to call him, Danny, he definitely coached me a lot.
And he was just like, say a big number, you can always come down.
If anything, companies like to hear that they give discounts.
So say $10,000, if they're like, see the...
Look at...
It's video call, judge their face.
Some companies are like, okay, yeah, this sounds normal.
In which case you're like, good thing you said $10,000.
And if they're like, if they pause a lot or anything, work down from there.
If you give them a discount, ask for something.
So this is another thing.
If you're going to give a discount, don't do it for free.
Make it, instead of $10,000, it's like, okay, well, I'll make it $9,000 if you promise to
do a case study at the end of this, participate in a case study, and also be a reference call
if another company wants to talk to a customer.
And then you're like, so look, $8,000.
And then you'll help me write some content or participate in some blog.
Just ask for things every time you give a discount.
I think one of the coolest things for me watching you go through this process was how much you
were not only just selling companies on the value you could provide, but also learning
about the value that you could provide while talking to them.
I know.
It happens so gradually because I'm doing these calls once a day or definitely at least
once a week.
But my pitch for key values changed so much.
But it was just so gradual, I forget that that happened.
Yeah, no, I just feel like I don't understand why people don't do more sales.
Because they're too busy writing code.
I know.
How do you know what to build if you aren't talking to people who are buying it or going
to use it?
And I think just hearing companies tell me what their pain points were, talking to existing
customers and asking them what's working, what's not.
And I learned so much about my own product that I didn't even...
There are use cases that I didn't even consider when I started.
I remember one of the ones that stood out to me was that companies were basically sending
their profile out to engineers as sort of like a...
As their outbound outreach emails, yeah.
And just so you know, recruiters see anywhere like single digit percentage of response rates,
including the ones that are no.
And there's a company, they're experimenting.
They started linking to their key values profile and their outbound outreach emails, making
their emails much shorter and just letting engineers opt in to all this information.
And they have a 47% response rate.
Isn't that crazy?
That's high.
47% response rate for cold outbound emails.
That is wild.
Even for me, reaching out cold outreach, that'd be a huge response rate.
So yeah, that's a use case I didn't even think about before and talking to my customers
helps me learn the value of my own product.
So we've been going for an hour and 15 minutes here.
We're just going to keep going.
Not bad.
We're just going to keep going because we're like...
Not bad.
We've got a lot left to learn, I think.
And I want to keep talking about this progression of your sales and sort of analyze why it worked,
why you succeeded where a lot of other people have trouble.
I look at your customers list right now on key values.
You've got a lot of high profile customers.
You've got companies like Gusto paying for key values.
You've got Intercom, Coinbase, Medium is a key value customer, Ease, Nerd Wallet, Webflow.
These can't have all been companies that you had friends at.
How did you find these companies and get them interested in what you were doing?
Out of all the ones that you just listed, I think those were literally all inbound.
I'm not going through the company you just listed.
So all the companies that at this point, all my sales are inbound, which is great.
And yeah, it's just like jumping on the phone with them and understanding what their pain
points were.
I mean, these customers, the ones that you just listed came at different time points.
But...
How does that happen?
How do these big companies hear about you and reach out and ask you, can I get in key
values?
Yeah.
I'm curious about the whole process.
How do they first hear about you?
What is the process like for them to even get in touch?
Where do they go on your website?
What do you say?
Yeah.
No, it's interesting because actually I was just thinking, you and I talk about a lot
of stuff key values related, but since you aren't a sales expert, you never have to do
sales for indie hackers or any of your businesses.
That's not true.
I love it.
I love it.
I did sales for advertising for indie hackers.
Oh, yeah.
That's true.
That was also a lot of time on the phone and talking to companies and stuff like that.
All right.
But I'm not a sales expert.
You're right.
Yeah.
So I feel like it's just funny because we don't talk about it as much because it's not
your...
No.
Like your domain.
But yeah.
So first thing that's cool is that every time I jump on a call, the first question I ask
is like, how did you come across key values?
And it's so awesome and like the most rewarding thing to hear that most of the time it's like
one of our engineers, our engineering managers came across it and sent it to us or sent it
to me.
Sometimes I'm talking to the CTO and they're like, I saw it.
I don't even know where I saw it.
I think someone tweeted about it, then I saw it on Hacker News and then someone else sent
it in the Slack channel and I was like, so people are just seeing it.
And then the other cool thing is there's like, I don't know, maybe one out of six or seven
calls.
Someone's like, if I'm talking to a recruiter, they're like, actually, we were interviewing
this engineer and they asked us why we weren't on key values.
And that's how we heard about it.
We're like, what is this thing?
We feel bad that we're not on it because we're trying to close this person.
And so that's been really cool because it means I'm reaching the right people.
Yeah.
What's interesting is that ultimately I'm serving this two-sided marketplace, but engineers
that are looking for jobs end up finding jobs.
And then when they're at a company that isn't on key values, they're a champion for key
values.
And then when I work with companies, I always work really, really closely with the team
to create the content.
And oftentimes it's a handful of engineers, like I work with engineering managers, whatever.
And now that I've been doing this for almost two years, sometimes those people leave those
companies and they're like, hey, I remember when we chatted, I just wondered if you could
pick your brain, or if you wanted to help me make mint intros, then they become users
on the other end.
And I'm like, of course, happy for them to use key values on the other side.
So it's like this cycle, or would you call those things again, remember the flywheel?
Feedback loops.
Oh, the flywheel.
Flywheel.
Flywheel.
It's like a flywheel.
I like that you mentioned that I'm not a sales expert and so you didn't really come to me
for advice for sales.
And so it's sort of a black box for me, how your sales process works and key values.
And I think the thing that's cool about it is it's kind of a reflection on a core part
of your personality that I think makes you a more successful founder than a lot of people,
which is that you seek out help.
You're a solo founder, but it's kind of like you have all of these co-founders who are
helping you build different parts of your business and you do this to a better degree
than almost anybody that I've ever met.
It's one of my core weaknesses actually is I don't ask for help, I don't find people
to help me.
I've definitely started doing it.
No, you're so right.
Partly it's because of watching you and how effective you've been at getting people sort
of on your side to fill in the gaps.
So for example, you briefly mentioned Dani.
Who is Dani?
How did you find this person?
How did you play a role in key values?
So random.
Dani, actually someone that I met introduced us because of something totally unrelated.
It was like, what's it like leaving a company and just like how do you figure out next steps?
Like basically the soul searching career.
How did you, you know, all the things you've been asking me today, like how did you know
what to do after you dropped out of grad school?
How did you know what you wanted to do after you left Homejoy?
And it was like, just transition questions.
And it was just like, hey, Lynn has been through a lot of transitions, like she's a nice person
to talk to.
So we started talking and then like at the end of the hour I was like telling him about
key values and like how I'm struggling with sales and he was like, oh yeah, I've done
like 15 years of sales.
Like what kind of questions do you have?
And I was like, well, like one thing I'm working on right now is this company asked for this.
I don't remember.
It's like something, something that's like not that remarkable, but you know, anyone who's
been doing sales, like how do I respond to this email, like you like obsess over every
word and how you phrase things.
And then at some point like our meeting and we had to go and I was like, you know, can
I pay you just like, I don't know, like a couple hours to sit next to me and just walk
through all my emails and like figure out my for flow.
Like one question was like, should I do have a pricing page?
And without hit, like no, no hesitation, he was like, do not have a pricing page.
And it was like so funny.
It was like something I was grappling with for months and like all these people had different
like, like he just knew he was like, based on what your product is, you should not have
a pricing page.
So obvious.
And I was like, I just was like, Oh my God, I want to keep talking to this guy.
But yeah, we ended up becoming friends.
And I was like, of course, I want to compensate him for his time and his wisdom.
And yeah, that's just one example of you for sure.
You know, Cajun autorog of render, which now indie hackers is now hosted.
Yeah, you meet all these people who are brilliant at what they do.
There's such common advice that you should surround yourself with people who are good
at things.
You surround yourself with people who are doing the things that you want to do.
Like you're kind of the average of the five or 10 people that you spend the most time
around.
And you completely surround yourself with people who are really impressive and smart
and helpful in all these different areas.
And so what they're doing rubs off on you.
If you're ever doing anything, you know, super wrong strategically, like I'll probably comment
on it.
You know, if you ever get something wrong with sales, Danny will chime in.
But I mean, this is like, it's got this, everything is so consistent, but this is a tweet that
you had not that long ago, you were like, people underestimate how much of what your
behavior is.
It's just imitating people around you.
Yeah.
And I think you were saying like, I don't actually know why you wrote that.
I don't remember what it was in response to.
I feel like you said it kind of like in a hating way, like everyone just copying everyone.
But I was like, no, that's like, that's a superpower.
Like if it is like, you don't even realize, people don't even realize how much you just
imitate people around you.
Assuming you're imitating good people, if you could surround yourself with good people,
then that's great.
Just surround yourself with people you'd like to be more like.
And then naturally, just organically, everyone's a chameleon, you just end up kind of absorbing
what they do.
And you just kind of become that.
How do you do that?
It's much easier said than done.
I mean, there are a lot of people listening and can look around at their closest friends,
the people in their communities and environment, and not see a ton of people who are sort of
succeeding at the same goals that they want to succeed at.
How have you been so effective at finding people?
Well, sometimes they find me, to be fair.
Like Anurag reached out to me.
Someone introduced me to Kadrin, who's the founder of Alpha, and it's an all women's
online community.
And...
Well, how does that happen?
Who's making these entries to you?
And why?
Yeah, Adora, I think, introduced me to Kadrin way back when, when both of us were starting
out building our products.
Anurag just told me yesterday that someone told him about key values and that's how he
reached out to me.
But I think it's just the power of reaching out.
Like people, if you want to reach out to someone, just reach out to them.
Send them a nice email.
I mean, there's definitely an art to reaching out, doing the cold outreach.
But even on Twitter, just engage with someone.
If they make a tweet, just comment, reply.
If you reply once a week, at some point, I bet you do.
You do notice this.
Like someone keeps replying to you, engaging with your tweets, you're like, you just start
to notice them.
And then when they reach out, it doesn't feel like they're a stranger and it's just like,
it's natural.
There's lots of people that are really smart that I meet, that we don't end up being friends
with.
But I think for me, it's also like, I get excited when I meet people who are, they have,
they're like struggling with something that I can help with.
And then I'm just always been a thing.
Like I've always been a fan of bartering.
I feel like anytime someone gives me something, I want to give something back.
And I think, I apply this, it's not just, and I don't think it's transactional.
I don't know.
I hate on me about this.
But it's the same thing with friendships.
If someone is a good friend to you, I want to be a good friend back.
I want to show up and be there for you when you need me the most.
I want to step up.
I don't know.
It's just like, I think I want to return the favor.
And so it's just a natural thing of finding your people.
I think a big part of it is also just building cool stuff and putting it out there because
you built key values, no one else built key values.
Of course, people are going to want to get to know who you are and you're going to meet
interesting people because they think you're interesting too.
And so you just sort of glom onto each other and build up this cool network of people.
You could have easily just never built key values or never released it, in which case
it would have been much harder to meet interesting people.
I think the second half of that equation is, it's not just about building anything, but
you want to build something that works ideally.
We talked about this earlier, but you started at the problem and then you worked backwards
toward the solution.
And I think if you had done what you had done in the other direction, what you would have
ended up with is probably just a job board.
You would have said, I'm going to build a job board and you would have released that.
And it would have looked no different than any of the other 10,000 job boards on the
internet.
And it would be much harder for you to find people, et cetera.
So I think you sort of did it the right way for meeting interesting people.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I don't know.
It's weird to hear your high level analysis because I just don't, I kind of, I didn't
make these, it didn't feel like decision points for me.
It was just like, this is my personality.
This is what I've got.
This is what I'm going to do.
It's just funny to hear this bird's eye view.
But yeah, I think that, I mean, to be fair, key values isn't a job board.
I mean, it kind of is, I remember when we first were like, you were helping coaching
me through getting into YC.
That was like my one-liner.
Like YC, or my application of YC I looked at the other day was like, key values is a
culture driven job board.
That was like for engineers or something like that.
And I think of key values now less and less like a job board.
It's just, yeah.
I think.
It's its own thing.
Yeah.
But I think it's interesting in general.
Like people want to, you want to describe something that makes sense to people.
It's easy for them to understand.
And I didn't realize how much me describing key values as a job board made me, like colored
my vision of what key values was.
And then I started like, it was just, I can't explain it, but like once I realized it was
this amorphous hybrid thing that doesn't like straddles recruiting and employer branding
and kind of like a job board, I realized like it helped me really just sell it better because
I understood it.
It didn't have to like be confined to a quote unquote job board.
Yeah.
Let's talk a little bit about key values today.
You're at a point now where you're doing over 80K in revenue per quarter.
What's changed?
What are you thinking about in terms of growing in the future?
I feel like you're like, this is a little trick question here.
I mean, I'm like literally in this process of deciding and like figuring it out because
you know, once you reach your goal, you're like, okay, now what?
Well, yeah, we can even step back because we didn't even mention that like your goal,
I think a year ago, you're like, or maybe even a year and a half ago, you're like, I
want to make $300,000 a year.
I mean, I'm not quite there yet.
Like I want to pay myself 300K.
You're definitely there.
But there's a lot of questions.
I mean, I'm still figuring out, it's like a religious question of like, what do I want
this to be?
I think there's a lot of like, should I scale this?
Should I hire people?
Sure.
Like what should I do?
So I actually, you know, Danny's doing a transition.
He's doing a lot of other stuff.
He's doing consulting.
And I was like, Oh, do you want to spend a few hours a week helping me do sales calls?
And we just started this in January of this year.
And so I hadn't been doing sales calls, but he was out of town this last week.
And I like forgot how much I love doing sales.
Like it was just, just like having not done it for a few weeks and then jumping back into
it.
And I had this like epiphany earlier this week that like, I think I don't care about
scaling.
And it's kind of like part, I think I knew this deep down inside is why I didn't want
to fundraise is because I genuinely enjoy doing this stuff.
I know it sounds like crazy.
It's like who likes doing, I get so much energy doing sales.
I love talking to people.
I love someone being like, Oh my God, I think you're going to really help me.
Like, I can't wait to work together.
I'm like, me neither.
Like, let's be friends.
Like, in a way, I feel like key values is just, I found a way to help people and network
and make friends and also get compensated for it.
I like literally that's, you generally love what you're doing.
It's pretty obvious that you do.
And then there's weeks where you're like kind of tired of stuff and you just like quit that
stuff.
I just, yeah, I just like don't spend time doing stuff.
Like there's so many features I could build for key values and I want to.
But I mean, first of all, they're not that high priority.
They're not make or break, but like, that's less fun to me than the social aspect.
And like, I love meeting these companies and helping them write their profiles.
I love like connecting and like talking to the people and getting people to visit key
values.
And like, I like answering questions and people have them on Hacker News or Indie Hackers
or whatever, dev.to, Hacker Noon, whatever on Twitter.
And yeah, the social part finally gets to live.
And I definitely, yeah, I do like coding and actually miss coding, but it's definitely
not.
And I just, you just do what you're excited about.
Yeah, I think it goes back to why you had such a hard time and why see, because there's
kind of this school of advice that falls under a circle, let's call it what you should do.
Right.
This is what you should do if you want to grow as fast as possible or be as effective
as possible.
And then there's like, what do you want to do?
Like, what makes you enjoy running your business and you consistently choose the ladder path?
Oh, consistently.
Like, I'm going to do the business that I like doing.
I don't care what I should do.
And sometimes you feel tortured because it's like, you want to get an A plus, you know?
I know, I know.
If I'm giving you advice, you want to follow it.
If YC found is giving you advice, you want to follow it.
I know.
But more so, I think you just say, treat it yourself and you just do what you want to
do.
Yeah.
No, I actually had another revelation earlier this week.
This week was a big week in that I think that after dropping out of grad school, like
I realized, so when I dropped out of grad school, I felt fucking scared.
I had spent six, seven, eight years building towards this dream, like I was very outcome
focused.
I was like, this is my destination.
I want to be a professor.
And then leaving that, it's like, fuck.
I'm starting from scratch.
I'm 24, 25.
Like, I literally can't lean on any of my previous experience.
I'm like, it's just scary to start over and you're like, feel so behind.
I feel so behind behind everyone else.
But I think that kind of like, in a way freed me.
And now I know it's like, there's no time to waste doing shit you're not excited about.
Like there's just like, so there's this article, I shared it with you earlier.
It's just like being focused on the process rather than the outcome.
Not only is it like less fun focusing on the outcome, but yeah, it's something that I learned
a long time ago.
However, I'm just still, it's like a fragile focus.
And if I'm around other people, since I'm so extroverted and just like absorb everyone's
energy, I have to like be really careful about who I'm spending time with because I do get
caught up.
And there's, if five people walked in here and they were like so excited about opening
up a bakery, I would no doubt start getting excited and be like, oh my gosh, should I
help?
Should I, like Cortland, should we like open a bakery to, should we help them open this
bakery?
Like, I'm not even kidding.
And it's kind of crazy.
I'm just like super excitable.
But because of that, like YC was just way, it was like.
Yeah.
I think the phrase when you're going through YC that I under the most was, Lynn focus.
I was like, I don't know how to help me.
Someone help me.
Yeah.
Focus.
Like I know I'm really extroverted and social, but that's also why I prefer to physically
work alone a lot of the time because it helps me focus.
What about on a personal note?
I mean, getting to the point where you're making $300,000 a year and like hitting this
milestone that like at some point you consider it almost impossible, like a distant future.
What does that feel like?
It's funny, I think.
So I don't think we talked about this at all.
But as you know, when I started key values, I literally had like a little mini life crisis
when it happened.
And I was like, okay, what are my goals and looking for a new job, blah, blah, blah.
But I started to key values at the same time as me, as I decided to do an Ironman.
Because yeah, long story short, I was like, what are my dreams?
What I want to do?
Like, you know, if I died in 10 years, like what do I want to accomplish?
And so an Ironman for, I don't even know if you know, it's 2.4 miles swim, 112 miles biking.
And then you run a full marathon, which is 26.2 miles.
And I remember when I started thinking about it.
I was like, I'm not sure I physically can do this.
And it wasn't a confidence issue.
Just like, realistically, I've had injuries, like the sneeze problem, I don't know if I
can physically do it.
But when I did, it was like, cool to look back just a few months ago at something I
genuinely thought was impossible.
And feel like that was nothing, let's do it again.
And I think I've just kind of borrowed, like I apply that to key values.
And so there's like, there's nothing that's impossible.
Honestly, it is not impossible for me to make a million dollars a year, or even 10.
Like maybe I'd raise money, maybe I won't.
It's definitely possible.
It's just a question of, do I want to do that?
Well, we've been going for an hour and a half now, I'm sure people have got stuff to do.
It's been super fun to actually have you on the podcast and walk through all the things
that make you like a special person and you make your business such a cool success.
I probably reference key values and giving advice to other people more than any other
company.
I tell people to charge more and then I tell them exactly what your finances are and I
try to get them to do a much better job.
So I think your story is an inspiration.
What do you think people listening in who are maybe considering starting a company or
taking their first steps, what do you think they should draw from your story in order
to be more successful?
Two things.
First, don't build a to-do list app.
Well, I'm kidding, but I'm actually probably not kidding.
But the main thing I was just saying is like, be good at asking for advice.
I learned this the hard way.
Perfect example is during YC, I would ask for advice without first prefacing it with
what my goals are and what my circumstances are.
So instead of asking, how do I start a business or what's a good idea, frame it with some
other things.
How do I start a side business as a full-time employee?
Be more specific.
If you're a parent, if you have kids, maybe you should mention that.
If you don't know how to code.
How do I start a profitable side business as someone who doesn't know how to code and
only has time on the weekends?
That's a much more specific question, and you'll get answers that are much more relevant
to you than just asking, how do I start a company?
So I think being good at asking for advice, and then the hard part, which I'm still working
on too, is being good at filtering that advice.
And ultimately, there's a lot of things that...
There are no wrong...
I mean, I guess there is bad advice, but sometimes there's multiple pieces of advice that are
different and they're all good, and instead of thrashing and figuring out which one's
the better one, it's really just a question of what you want, and you should filter it
through a rubric of what you enjoy doing, what's going to...
How do you flex your own advantages, I think is kind of my advice.
Well, that's all meta.
So meta.
Well, Lynn, I appreciate you coming on the podcast.
I appreciate you.
It's so cool.
I think your story is going to inspire a lot of people to start companies.
I hope it does.
Yeah.
Like, I'm literally an example, like I started on Indie Hackers and now I'm fucking on the
podcast.
Yeah, you did it.
Almost an hour and 45 minutes of podcast.
Let's go get food or something.
I'm exhausted.
All right.
Toodle doodle.
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In addition, if you are running your own internet business or if that's something you hope to
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It's a great place to get feedback on pretty much any problem or question that you might
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If you listen to the show, you know that I am a huge proponent of getting help from other
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So you'll see me on the forum for sure, as well as more than a handful of some of the
guests that I found on the podcast.
If you're looking for inspiration, we've also got a huge directory full of hundreds
of products built by other indie hackers, every one of which includes revenue numbers
and some of the behind the scenes strategies for how they grew their products from nothing.
As always, thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.