Conversation Timestamps
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Travis: Hey Jen. Hi. How's it going?
Jen: Good. How are you?
Travis: Great. Are we, are you calling me from, are we talking like from Canada or Taipei or Taiwan? Taipei, I pay that's awesome. I don't even know where that's at, but I'm impressed. Well, it is a pleasure to talk to you. I'm like boy, and I have been fanboying over your lunch money app ever since I signed up and I'm so happy that I ran across it and I'm now a customer. So I'm proud to say that. Um, so good job.
Jen: Thank you for this part. So, I'm dying. It’s so nice. Awesome.
Travis: Kind of get to know you and your husband and your story. I know you guys reside in Canada's or you're Canadian. You reside in Canada during the summers, but in the winters and you go back to Taipei, right?
Jen: Yeah. Well, this is definitely pre COVID, but we did this for two years now. The first winter we went over to Fukuoka, Japan, and then this winter, well, earlier this year we chose Taipei.
Travis: Okay. So you guys are like no meds during the winter. Just kind of like traveling around to new and exciting places.
Jen: Yeah. I think the term is digital snowman, which I've really come to like, Oh, I like that. I've never heard that one. Yeah.
Travis: That’s awesome. Okay. So you have to tell me about your story, your discipline, and how lunch money came around or came to be. And I know there's a story behind, I want to hear that sort of the listeners, but your core discipline is coding, correct? Yep. Okay. Awesome. Can you tell me a little bit about your backstory and like how you came to, to create this app and what was the epiphany and then some of those things.
Jen: Yeah. So I guess let's see, where do I start? Um, I feel like I've been creating like little web apps for a while. It just kind of to either satisfy my own curiosity or just for fun. And then that was earlier in my career when I had more free time and I was kind of less burnt out from coding. And so I started my career at Twitter and I quit after about three and a half years. And I started a company with my friend and then I burnt out from that. And then I just decided to go on a sabbatical for a year and I don't think I touched code or my get hub at all for like a year and a half. Um, and so
Travis: Twitter for a few years, what was, how did you land at Twitter and what was that experience like as you've mentioned burnout now twice. So that's a thing.
Jen: Yeah, it's definitely a thing. I don't know. I applied when I was still in college and I was lucky enough to get an interview and I guess they liked me and they offered a full-time position. And to me, you know, growing up in Canada, it was kind of a no-brainer to pursue this opportunity to kickstart my career in San Francisco.
Travis: That is awesome. And what were you getting other offers at the time or was it just like happenstance? Twitter was the first to reach out and give you an offer and you're into Twitter. So you went for it.
Jen: Yeah. So I was, I had an internship in San Francisco at the time. And so this was, let's see, I think this was about four months before graduation. And so I kind of wanted my last four months of college to be pretty chill. I didn't want it to be kind of frazzled looking for a full-time job. And so I tried to get all my interviews and while I was still in San Francisco and I had two offers in total and the other one was for a startup that eventually got acquired by LinkedIn. But looking back, I think joining Twitter was the right choice for me because it grew so fast while I was there. I was able to join all these different teams and gain just a wide array of experience. Yeah.
Travis: Yeah. Well, can you speak to any of those projects that you were working on? Cause I think that is really interesting. And also what a lot of junior devs might be interested in are those that are just still bootstrapping. They haven't worked for a large company and I like that. I know inherently because I've worked corporate America for a while that you can get bounced around from project to project. And so I'm wondering what were some interesting things that you remember you were working on?
Jen: Sure. My time at Twitter, I was pretty lucky in terms of having the right managers and also just going for the right opportunities. So I was hired initially to work on an internal team for like an internal monitoring tool. And so, you know, as drawing Twitter, I was all excited like, wow, Twitter it's used by so many people, but I ended up working on a tool that's just used by, you know, a couple of hundred engineers. Um, it ended up being a really awesome team and I think it was a great start for me to, you know, be able to work on a tool and be able to communicate directly with the people that are using it and kind of honing my skills on, you know, doing user interviews and UI and UX and all of that. It's pretty obvious how that has helped me today with lunch money.
Travis: Because the feedback loop, when you're working on large projects that eventually get shipped to the consumer, the feedback loop is much longer, mean it could be a year before you there's that like satisfaction moment, but you were creating an internal tool for your peers and you're able to get immediate feedback. And also the Atta boys pats on the back, I imagine.
Jen: Exactly. And because it wasn't, you know, it wasn't client facing at all. I had full autonomy. I could just push things to master, you know, if something looked wonky, like I would just find out from the user, it wouldn't have to go through intense design review or any of that. So that was really great for just moving quickly and learning quickly and just growing quickly as well.
Travis: So I'm a non-technical founder. I would love to code. I did like HTML back in the nineties, but that's it. So I'm jealous number one, but number two, it's funny because every so often as I'm wandering around on YouTube, I'll see a video like the day in the life of a developer at Twitter and engineer at Twitter. And they'll just make this cute, funny, like chill video of them going to work at like nine having cereal and then coding for an hour and then going to lunch with friends. And then, I mean, is it like that? Cause it doesn't seem like burnout to me.
Jen: Yeah. I watched those videos as well. And I also very much question how real it is, but yeah. I mean I would roll into work 10 and then make myself a child latte and then start coding and then yeah, go to lunch and then keep coding, stay until dinner and then like go home. And so if you think about it, it seems pretty cool. Like, wow, you get to eat all your meals at work, you know, and we even had a gym at work. So I did that. And what you don't end up realizing is that all of that is designed to keep you at work for as long as possible. And so then that's how the burnout kind of creeps up on you.
Travis: Yeah, definitely the theme that I saw in watching several of those videos, but at different companies, like I saw one for Facebook, for Google, for Snapchat, for Twitter, and they all got home really late, you know? And so I was like, how is that the life that I would want if I was an engineer, you know what I mean? So is that where some of the burnout came in?
Jen: I think in the beginning, I didn't mind it at all. I mean, I was living in a totally new city. I was meeting new people. I was meeting friends and we would all kind of have that same schedule. And so it wouldn't be out of the norm to meet up at like seven or eight for dinner or drinks. And so my daily life would just be like work until I have plans and then like go out and then sleep late, wake up late and so on and so forth, which is pretty nice. I think, as like a post-college grad, like, you know, suddenly you have autonomy over your schedule. You're not bound by like a nine to five, really like a traditional nine to five. And you're not bound by, you know, like this is what your class schedule is. And so I think in the beginning it was nice to just kind of set my own pace. And I think, you know, I was younger. I could keep up with that and it was fun.
Travis: Yeah. And you're all, and there's camaraderie there, right? I mean, if you're out having drinks and you're talking about the day, like, I mean that there's a lot of currency there definitely fast forward that wasn't the life for you anymore. You move on for Twitter then where,
Jen: So as I was starting to get burnt out from Twitter, and I think a big reason is just how fast the company was growing. It was really cool to see, you know, like the 10 X growth that you hear about, but then there's all these little changes that happen from the top. And they trickle down eventually to the individual contributor and it all adds up. And, you know, there was a lot of org changes and it just became difficult to get excited about work. And at the time I was living with a roommate and she was trying to start up her company and she is also a non-technical founder who taught herself to code. She went through a bootcamp and then she did the MVP for the app. And I just, you know the juxtaposition of me leaving for work and being really like annoyed about it. And then seeing her code, you know, all day and all night passionately about this idea that she has, I guess just kind of like seeped into my mind a little bit. And then I think she saw that and she was able to convince me to join on as technical co-founder. So we did that for about a year and then I also burnt out from that.
Travis: Which is totally fine. I mean, you know, people pivot all the time in their, in their lives. So yeah, I mean, it's interesting. And I also correct me if I'm wrong, but does, if Twitter works the same way, I think they do, but it's not a traditional corporate company. The tech companies, the way they structure promotions, right. Promotions happen with are like project based and they're peer reviewed. I hear it like Facebook and Google and Uber. And those is it the same kind of setup for Twitter.
Jen: So when I was there and I guess this is part of the growing pains thing, every promotion cycle that I went through, the process was totally different. So there were definitely still trying to figure it out.
Travis: Yeah. You know, it's interesting what you saw your roommate doing that attracted to you. And I kind of have a similar story to like, when I started my SAS app within four years of building it, I was able to double what my corporate salary was. And I remember telling my wife, I'm like in four years, I would've never been able to get promoted fast enough in order to do get the same result. And so that's a Testament right there to invest in yourself. So you got burnout with working with your roommate and then you pivoted and then is that where lunch money came in?
Jen: Yeah, well, in between I took a really long break just to kind of decompress from the San Francisco life decompress from being surrounded by, you know, people that were by and large motivated by the same thing and, or had more or less the same goals of, you know, working up, working up the tech company ladder or starting your own company. Yeah. So I traveled around Asia and Europe and just kind of got a new lease on life, I guess just like figure out what's really important to me. And I think it was like literally a month into my, not even a month. I think it was like the first weekend that I was alone by myself in Europe. I was like, you know what? I think I want to end up back in Toronto. And that's where I grew up. That's where my parents are.
Jen: I never would have imagined that I would go back there, but for some reason it was just really appealing to me. And so it was really awesome how enlightening that decision was. And I continued my sabbatical with that in mind that I was going to return to Toronto and I did. And so, um, my husband joined me there and we kind of started our new life in Toronto. And at that point I knew I didn't want to work for a company again. I just knew that I didn't want to, you know, be an employee and get sucked into that. And so, but you know, I also had to make money somehow. And so I found a happy medium of freelancing.
Travis: Now, just for context, your husband was working at the time, right? Like, did you have a little bit of runway personal runway so that you could freelance and just not have to like March right into another job?
Jen: We definitely have savings from our time. And then the cost of living in Toronto is lower. My husband had to find a job in Toronto to get because he's American. So to get a work permit, to stay in Canada for a bit. And then for me, because for once I'm in a country where I can not work and legally stay, it was awesome. So I took full advantage of that after years of going through visa issues and the same, it was really nice.
Travis: Yeah, absolutely. So as I understand your story and a little bit of the research, I did, you guys were used to budgeting as a unit anyways, but that's where the idea for lunch money came up right. Through trying to automate this and just have a better experience for personal finance.
Jen: Yeah. It started off as a Google sheet and it just got bigger and bigger. And I think we did the Google sheet for almost a year. And so if you just imagine a year's worth of spending and that includes time abroad in cash based society. So every little, you know, bottle of water or snack or whatever would go in there, it got really big, it got really clunky. And I always had in my mind that I wanted to turn it into an app, not really for the purpose of marketing it into a product to sell, but more just, you know, it just seems more fun if I had more freedom with how I could formulate different pages and do different calculations and do currency exchange properly because you know, I'm on Excel with, so the sheet was pretty basic at the end of the day.
Travis: So do you look back and say, damn, I was so foolish to step into this niche because there were so many big incumbents like mint and QuickBooks and all these other finance things, or did you know that going in and were like, I'm going to build this for me. And if it turns out to be something then great.
Jen: Yeah, definitely the latter, I didn't realize I was in this, you know, personal finance and budgeting space until I was in it. And then I was like, Oh, okay, well I guess my competitors is the behemoth mint, you know, and the very awesome lineup. So it was definitely a step-by-step. I was in Japan for our first digital journey when I started coding lunch money. And it was purely for fun. It was purely an escape from the freelancing gigs that I had. And it was just the thing to do. Cause it was pretty gloomy in Fukuoka during the winter months as well.
Travis: Yeah, because I'm a non-technical founder. I have a remote team and a lot of them are contract. What didn't you like about contract work? I'm curious. Good question.
Jen: Two contract works. And one of them was for the, for the company that I helped start actually. So I enjoyed that because I knew everyone and you know, they're my friends. So working with them again was really nice. And then the other contract gig was, you know, as basically a part-time employee. That was nice because I was working with people who were much smarter than me and I had self-taught react and they had been working react for a few years. And so it was nice to kind of like round out what I knew. There was a lot of good parts, but I guess the part that I didn't like was, it was just, I wasn't really passionate about, are there things that I was working on, it was very transactional. You know, like when you're a contractor, you're given a task, you complete it, you get paid. It sounds nice, you know, an ends to a means, but having done that for a year it's I don't know. It's just like it doesn't spark.
Travis: Yeah. It's not yours. You're not building something of yours for the future. Right? Exactly. No, I totally going to resonate with folks. So yeah, absolutely. Okay. So you start tooling around with it and you get like an MVP up. And was that the first moment when you're like, Oh, this is gonna, this might be something, what was like that, that first aha moment. You're like, Oh, okay. This, I need to put a lot of energy into.
Jen: My first goal was yeah. The MVP to get my husband and I off of our spreadsheet. So after I achieved that, that was not the aha moment because then my husband filed like a ton of bugs and I was like, okay, let's keep working on this. And then I run it out a bit more. And then I think I put up a landing page to try to get some interests. I think I got maybe like 10 or 20 signups. And so definitely not the aha moment. And then I launched it to them and then I hit like a crises, like, okay, my product is live. I did that thing where I didn't like validate it at all. I didn't like, pre-sell it. I don't have like a wait list of hundreds of people. And I just didn't, you know, I had no idea how to market it. And then on a whim, I decided to post it on hacker news. And then that was definitely the aha moment because it hit front page for almost 24 hours. And I just remember that day, I have like a little Slack bot that dings me every time there's a sign up. And it was just like crazy how quick it was going. And I think in that moment, I was just like, wow, I'm going to like quit my freelancing gigs and do this full time because that's, it
Travis: Was that like glass of wine night with you in the hubs and like, yeah.
Jen: 00:17:44 Oh my God. I remember that day so vividly because it was like I was making lunch and then I just started hearing the dings and then it wouldn't stop. And then my husband had to finish making the lunch and then I remember it just kept going all day. And then that night, that evening we had plans with a friend that we hadn't seen in a while. So this is one of those like all night catch up sessions. And I was trying so hard to like stay in the moment and like not looking at my phone and all the while emails are piling up, like people are sending in feedback and all these comments. And I think it was pretty successful. I think we stayed out from like six to like 11 or maybe even midnight. And then I remember after a friend left, I just, I was like, Justin, my husband, as I just said, I'm staying up late tonight. Like I got to go through all these emails. I got to find out like, find out what's happening. It was so exhilarating.
Travis: Oh my gosh. I've had those moments too when friends or family are over and it's like, you just, that's the entrepreneur life. You just got it. Like, I gotta take a break, hold on. I gotta, I would dip into my office and like do something real quick or answer a Slack message or when something exciting what's happened. So that totally resonates with me. And that's so cool. Was your husband like, high-fiving you? And…
Jen: I think he has a few videos from that day where he's just like laughing at me, like happily, of course. And I'm just sitting there looking very like anxious and I'm just like, what's going on? What does this mean?
Travis: You got it to be brave enough one day to put that on your, about us page. That would be so cool. That like founder moment when you know it's gonna work, you know?
Jen: Yeah. That's a good idea.
Travis: So, okay. So, but so now you've got the sing and the sing is getting some attention, some traction, you can see the future of it, you know, you can see like the rainbow and you can't see the end where the rainbow hits the ground, but you know, it's somewhere there and you start inching forward. What's your next move the next day?
Jen: Yeah, it was basically trying to, let's see. I had put all of the feedback, feature requests, bug reports into a sauna, I think. And I think my first party was fixing the main bugs and then just trying to figure out what people were looking for. I think at that point, yeah. My first party was definitely fixing the bugs. And then afterwards I was trying to figure out what was going to get people to confer because at that point it was a 45 day trial. So I have 45 days to convince a thousand people that signed up to stay on. And some of them were like, you know, I really want API or, Hey, I'm not in the U S and Canada. So I don't have a good way of importing my transactions properly. And so something like a CSV importer would work. So just figuring out what those must haves are.
Travis: Okay. I totally get that. So basically like what a lot of founders don't know that having built something yet is like building. This is like driving the car and doing an oil change at the same time. Right.
Jen: While your tire is like wobbly. So
Travis: You start fixing the bugs, you start trying to figure out, and I saw your blog post about how you, that was one of your mistakes. And I love how you were so open about that with that the 45 day trial. I agree with that. It's way too long. It's like, you know, they're going to know within the first, probably 48 hours now, I think even, I would say within the first six hours of trying an app, you know, whether it's right for you and that you're going to commit to at least the first couple months of billing. So I'm glad you learned that lesson and then you course corrected, but the Jew immediately start thinking about, okay, how am I going to market this?
Jen: No, I mean, cause I had a thousand signups already. I didn't, I was like, Oh my God, no more please. Yeah. And the 45 day trial was definitely, it was really good in the beginning because it bought me a lot of time and then it was nice to have gotten to a point where eventually I realized like, okay, I don't need that much time. You know, like, yeah. It's at a point where it's full, featured enough that people can use it for a week and be like, yeah, this meets my needs.
Travis: That's awesome. So you're, we're about 12 months into production now. Yeah.
Jen: Yeah. Just over 12 months. Yup. Okay.
Travis: And are you happy where you're at?
Jen: Yes. I'm pretty happy. Yeah. People ask me like, you know, my kind of like corporate friends, you know, like, Oh, have you met your goals? Like, what are your KPIs like and all that stuff. And you know, I have like a loose goals spreadsheet where I just kind of like kind of estimate where I'll be and where I want to be, but I don't follow it too, too closely. I was at the beginning of the year and I think it was just giving me extra stress. And by then, I guess like, you know, as lunch money is getting bigger and like more people are knowing about it and knowing about me and the app and then kind of word of mouth spreads. And so it just kind of compounding at this point. And so I'm learning to just kind of chill out and letting it kind of grow organically. I could definitely put a lot of like marketing effort and all that, but I don't know. I think I was on the brink of burning out and maybe I, you know, realize that. And so I'm just chilling out for a bit. Cause I don't want to, you know, I don't want to burn out with lunch money. This is like, I see this going for as long as I can for sure.
Travis: Yeah. And you're not looking necessarily for VC money, so nobody is breathing down your neck. If you got a decent MRR going and you and your husband are happy with that, then that's the whole reason why you don't take VC money is so that you can control your pace. Right?
Jen: Definitely. Definitely. I wrote a blog post recently where I was reflecting on solo preneur worship and staying independent. And I think I wrote something that was like, if I wanted to make a bunch of money and make a name for myself, I wouldn't be a solopreneur ship optimizes for freedom for us and not much.
Travis: Absolutely. I call it lifestyle businesses. And that's what I tried to build as well. I'm right there with you. I mean, I could tell you as a user, how I feel like you differentiate in the market, but how do you feel you differentiate between some of these other apps?
Jen: Great question. So the whole reason why I created lunch money and why didn't just go for one of the many, many existing solutions, because I couldn't find a solution that did multicurrency well, because at that point I had, you know, I made money in America and then I was living in Toronto and then we were living in Japan. And so it was just really crazy. And so I set out to do a really great multi-currency solution and none of the major budgeting apps out there do multi-currency, it's all like, you know, if you sign up for a minutes, like everything is in one currency, which is kind of silly. Um, and I think why not have some like third party, you know, extra manual steps that you have to do to make it all work. And so that was the main differentiating factor. And I think as lunch money has grown, I think there's a few features that are really interesting.
Travis: I think the rules engine is something that our users really like, that was one of the things that I didn't like about mince was it felt like there was a lot of magic happening and most of the time the magic wasn't very good. Yeah. Yeah. Like a lot of times I think just end up kind of confused why things, you know, got categorized a certain way or whatever. And so a big thing that I tried bacon to lunch money is like, Hey, we're going to try to like automate what we can, but we're going to be super transparent about it. So you can dig under the hood and see, you know, what your auto categorization rules are and stuff like that. So you're aware, but you can also use the rules engine to create more kind of complex rules. Like, you know, if a transaction comes in, then split it automatically and tag things appropriately and stuff like that. I think there's a lot more customization. And then I think one of the other differentiating factors is just the fact that I'm, you know, an indie developer support is really important to me. Like I think providing really good customer service, letting users know that I'm working on the product actively, that I really care about it. You know, I'm not going to sell out and shut it down or whatever. I think that's also really important because this is something that I want people to use for a really long time.
Jen: Yeah. And so let me tell you my perspective of lunch money and what there's three things that drew me to it or made me kind of fanatical about your products. When I first tried it out, um, one was the design. It feels like it doesn't feel like an old stuffy budgeting app. I mean, most people don't like the budget. Anyways. Most people don't like to see their bleak outlook for their finances. And so your design is whimsical and it's lighthearted. And so it's a little less intimidating when you go into it. So that was the first thing that caught my eye. But the second thing was just how easy the layout is. And then also the rules, you know, a lot of apps, the rules engine behind it, it doesn't work, you know, in my experience with, with money it's working really, really well. And that alleviates a lot of work that I to think about.
Travis: 00:26:43 So that's like, perfect. And then also your tech stack on it. It was really good because it's super Zippy when I go in, there were other apps lag when going from screen to screen or like button actions and that kind of stuff. That makes sense. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. So huge fan of it. That's so awesome. So you're going to take it easy now. And are you still actively, uh, I'm sure you are. I mean, you can't say no. Right, but are you sure you're actively listening to feedback from the users and like, you know, where do you see yourself with lunch money in terms of feature sets in the next year? Yeah,
Jen: I am definitely always listening to user feedback. I reply to every single email, even the ones that are like, oh, you know, you don't need to reply this, but here's like a little snippet of feedback. I just love hearing what people think about my product and I'm constantly improving it. The next major release is going to have, you know, a huge redesign for the tables to kind of make them a little bit going back to the spreadsheet, uh, roots. And so resizable columns and, and keyboard shortcuts are coming soon. So it's definitely improving continuously. I dunno, it's just such a great feeling to work on a product, you know, and have total freedom to develop the next feature sets and have a set of users that really trust you and feel like their feedback is being heard. And it's just, it's unlike any job I've ever had. You know, I'm just excited to get up in the morning and, and continue on the feature that I was working on the night before.
Travis: Yeah. It is a special bond and kinship when they suggest a feature and then you're able to accommodate it or you eventually ship it. It does build that confidence. And this is a great feeling. And you know, I've been working my ass off for the last five years on various projects and my main SAS, but a lot of folks will ask me, well, how, how are you working so hard or why do you work? And I tell them, it's not, you know, at this point it's not like work, you know, I enjoy building something for my future. So it doesn't seem like work. So it's a lot easier to burn the midnight oil when you're in that scenario versus when you're building somebody else's dream, you know?
Jen: Exactly. Yeah. I remember like the only time I've ever had this feeling was like back in high school. When, you know, I also started with just HTML and CSS and very basic, I think PHP and JavaScript and I would make websites all the time and I just, that's how it spend my summers. I would sleep really late. Just kind of making graphics where my website and getting up at like six in the morning, the second my parents went to work, I just got up and like continued working on it. And it was just such a great feeling. It's I dunno, it's just like pure passion, I guess. Yeah.
Travis: And you know, the other thing that a lot of founders miss is they're always looking for like this idea and you're doing something that I'm doing too, which is I'm building something to solve a need or problem for myself because I have that problem. And then all you need to do is just go and look for other use that also have the same problems. That makes sense. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I think that you've executed on that. Well, and you have kind of proven out that theory, you know,
Jen: I got lucky there because I didn't, it didn't start off like that. And, and then it was more like I stumbled upon. Oh wow. Like, you know, I guess it would make sense that a lot of readers of hacker news, you know, mostly also engineers from San Francisco that travel a lot and maybe remote workers and they also see the value in lunch money.
Travis: Okay. So lunch money goes another year, let's say another two years and it grows exponentially. You get bigger and bigger.
Jen: Okay.
Travis: I like using that word and I want that for you. What do you do? How do you as a solo entrepreneur, how do you grow a team to support that lifestyle that you're trying to live? And you know what I mean? Yeah.
Jen: Well, let me preface this by saying, this is totally my thinking now. And you're so free to ask me in a year where my thinking is, but I have no aspirations to build a team around this. I think that that would just add complexity. I think it would add more stress because I didn't feel like onboarding someone would be a lot of work and I have, you know, high standards for the stuff that I ship. And I think that for now, like it's still very much sustainable for me to continue developing on my own. I think the hardest part to scale would probably be support, but I'm trying to look into other channels for that. Like we have a Slack channel where people can chat with each other and I feel like that's alleviated a lot of support tickets, to be honest, I think that I would actually implement like a cap on users. So I think if I hit, you know, a couple of thousand or a hundred more users and it became maybe unsustainable, but you know, I'm still very satisfied with the MRR that I'm bringing in that I would probably just close sign-ups and turn it into kind of a waitlist type product.
Travis: Act. Now, you know what happens with wait-lists right. I mean, that's just, that's how Apple, I mean, you know, so many products, as soon as you make it elusive to somebody, I mean, just be careful what you wish for. Yeah. I mean, it's,
Jen: I think it would be awesome if lunch money grew that big, but I guess I'm thinking about where my life has headed in the next few years and starting a team is so not on my list of things that I wanna achieve.
Travis: That's awesome. Okay. Well, just be careful. Cause you know, there is support, there is marketing. I know you've tried a few things to market it right in the past and then they haven't worked out some have, so, you know, just to be careful with it, but I totally respect it.
Jen: Yeah. I mean, I just, I don't want the quality to go down, you know, like I love the connections that I can make with, you know, the users and I'm not chasing, you know, after like a huge MRR. And so I think it would be cool to just kind of cap it and it's kind of like, I don't know, just I can keep the quality I can keep, I can keep the connections and if someone turns, then I can let someone else in. I don't know. That's just my like thinking right now.
Travis: What are you at right now? You're like $8 a month. Yup. Okay. So 2000 users at 16 grand a month, minus your expenses, it looks like you're pretty prudent with that and you know, the budgeting side. So, you know, that's a really good solo lifestyle, SAS business, even after the expenses. Have you thought about, especially if you're going to cap users, have you thought about expansion revenue within the app within the same users? Because essentially once you have somebody and they've been with you for six months, they kind of know the app. I would expect support tickets to kind of level off or go down because they're used to the application and there's no more question marks, right? Less tool tips that need to be clicked on. So to me it seemed like the next evolution to grow revenue, but not increase your workload is to do expansion MRR with new features that you could charge them for. Is that something that's correct?
Jen: You mean like extra feature sets that costs more to add on? Yep. Oh interesting. No, I haven't thought about that. Actually the pricing is going to go up probably in the next few weeks to $10. So I'm trying to just increase it with every X number of new users. Um, cause I do grandfather people in to whatever price that they signed up that, but I haven't thought about, I guess I did think about it. A lot of people ask me, you know, if we don't do the automatic banking syncing, like could it be cheaper or whatever, but the way I see it as I probably, I see things just kind of for simplicity, just everyone pays the same price I think is the easiest way to go about it. And I price it based on, I guess my time that it takes to maintain it. I don't know what that extra feature set would look like just yet. It'll come to you
Travis: Come to my, from my SAS, mine didn't come to me until about three, three and a half years later after I started. But the impetus for that was my team was growing. And every time I made a new hire, I was like, I need to make some more money because I don't want to, I'm happy where I'm at. And I don't want to take that hit revenue wise for that new person, but I needed that new person. So I'm like, okay, I got to grow this a little bit more. And so I started looking at expansion revenue. So, but if you're not going to grow a team, then it doesn't really matter, I guess.
Jen: Yeah. I guess that makes sense for you for sure.
Travis: Well, look, I can't wait to tell everybody about this. I've been telling everybody, friends and family about your application because it's so cool. And I think it appeals to the folks that aren't really into doing budgets and managing the transactions. Then I also think it appeals to those that do it's, you've really done a good job of striking a balance, I think between those two segments. And so I think that's why you're going to do really, really well this application. And I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I can't wait to, to tell the world about your app, to be honest.
Jen: That's so nice. Thank you so much for your support. It really means a lot. I think like sometimes I get really sucked into what I'm doing with lunch money and then I don't hear all that good feedback and it's always nice to hear what people like about it and that they notice all the little thoughts that I put in.
Travis: Yeah. And so from one founder to another, you're doing a great job and I'm excited to watch your story as you grow. And I'm also excited that you kind of like got out of fortune 5,000 tech companies and you're just doing your own thing. I think there's a place for that and people that want to be there, they should be there. They want to be there, but I love how you're able to kind of make your own path in the world. And this is the way you're doing it. So I wish you all the best of luck. I'm going to put all the links to your blog and the app in the show notes. And I really appreciate you taking time to be on the show and letting folks get to know you a little bit better.
Jen: Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for allowing me to share my story. It was really fun talking to you.
Travis: Yeah, absolutely. And I'll see you around Twitter, I guess.”
Jen: All right. Thanks. Bye. Take care.
Travis: Thanks for listening to this episode, go to SAS preneur.blog. That's S a S P and r.blog, Saskatoon or.blog to checkout more episodes. And the art of, as I write all about being a founder and launching your next