🧰 Sam Parr’s research toolkit, most people are insecure and fearful, ...

I listen to 10 hours of podcasts a week, so you don’t have to.

This is the 34th edition of Best 3 Podcasts of the Week 🥉🥈🥇, featuring Rework, Indie Hackers, and Marketing Against The Grain.

What you need to know

• 🏕 Why biannual offsites are essential

• 🚀 The 3 step indie hacker playbook

• 🧠 Most people are insecure and fearful

BONUS segment

• 🧰 Sam Parr’s research toolkit

From the community

• 🍳 Recipe to crush it on YouTube

🏕 Why biannual offsites are essential

🥉 Third place (4 min read vs 18 mins listening)

Most of us forget what we worked on last week, let alone last year. Offsites are the exception. They’re memorable because they break up the monotony of work. You stay in a new place, you enjoy new experiences, and you ideate new and improved ways to run your business.

It’s clear offsites add value. But are they worth it? Given that we’re in recession, should you fork out the cash when most companies are just trying to survive? David and Jason dive into this and so much more on the latest episode of Rework.

What they say

What’s the cost of not doing an offsite?

Offsites should feel extravagant because they’re rare. We don’t do this every week or every month. We do this twice a year. It’s expensive, but you’ve got to consider the comparable expense of not doing it.

Offsites are a social cohesion machine. Everyone got exposed to what it feels like to not see coworkers for years during the pandemic. The results are not good at all.

Humans simply need these live connections to stay strong. Therefore, the expense of an offsite feels priceless in the moment. It feels like an expense you would not want to cut because you know the corrosive effect this would have on your culture.

We started very small. Our meet-ups had 7 people. It doesn’t have to be a big production with all the bells and whistles we have now.

The important thing is the social engagement. Just do something. If you’re in a remote setup and you haven’t done something in person, you’re missing out. You really are.

David Heinemeier Hansson

Learnings about how to run a good offsite

We should do a bit more Q&A. We typically have done that but didn’t do enough last time.

[Our offsite in] Miami was too structured. We had too many things going on so we dialled that back [at our latest offsite] in Amsterdam.

Having empty space with nothing to do is really valuable, especially when people are travelling from far away. People want to acclimate and spend some time together and hang out.

Jason Fried

What I say

Why it matters: Offsites make strategic sense for most companies. If you’re unprofitable, you simply do it on a budget. Offsites can provide an injection of much needed morale into companies that have recently undergone redundancies, high attrition, or faced other major challenges.

You’re presented with a unique opportunity to rally the troops with a wartime mentality and reshape your company strategy to focus only on what matters. I’d echo everything David said about offsites - it doesn’t matter how small it is, or at what cost, just do something.

Between the lines: Mike Pallett scheduled an offsite within his first month of joining Medicspot as Chief of Staff. Why? He answered this exclusively for you:

“Offsites are where the magic happens. They offer a chance to build connections with your team much faster and much deeper than you otherwise would. These connections result in trust and open communication, which is vital for a high performing, high functioning team.

I planned an offsite almost immediately because the senior management team was in dire need of one. The company had recovered from the initial shock of COVID-19 and now had a number of exciting opportunities to choose from.

We used this to cement a rhythm and establish relationships with a newly formed management team, resulting in our first major pivot into COVID testing. I’ve run many offsites since then and found that the most impactful company decisions happened at or stemmed from conversations at those offsites.”

🚀 The 3 step indie hacker playbook

🥈 Second place (4 min read vs 56 mins listening)

Generative AI is taking over the world. However, there a few things that will still need us humans for the foreseeable future:

• High ticket sales

• Recruitment and HR

• Offline research

The later is the oil that powers most database businesses. AI won’t grow legs and start walking and talking, at least not anytime soon. Therefore, this business model is both defensible and lucrative. Courtland shared more on the Indie Hackers podcast.

What they say

How to build a database business

This is one of my favorite strategies for starting a business. I used it for Indie Hackers that got acquired by Stripe. Pieter Levels used it for Nomad List and he’s making millions of dollars a year from that.

If you go through this 3 step process, you have a pretty good chance of building a profitable business.

Step 1 - You notice something in your life that’s important to you where you’re doing a lot of research.

In my case, I wanted to start a bootstrapped company. I started doing a ton of research to find other people who had done this so I could learn as much as I could.

Step 2 - You take all of your research and make it presentable. Other people have to care about this research - it can’t just be you. You need to put it on a website in a list or grid format.

Indie Hackers in its early days was a grid of interviews. Nomad List was a grid of cities. What’s important is that you know what your target audience want so your research is formatted in a way that adds value.

Step 3 - This is the hard part. You’ve got to distribute it. It’s got to be discoverable. It’s not good enough to have this all on the web. You need to get it out there in front of people who are doing the research that you were trying to do.

With Indie Hackers, I knew that everyone who wanted to start a bootstrapped business were looking on Hacker News so I posted there.

Courtland Allen

What I say

Why it matters: I was inadvertently following Courtland’s 3 step process way before I listened to this podcast. For me, this validates the simplicity of his strategy but I’ll let you decide for yourself:

1. I listened to loads of podcasts and realised I could summarise them for peers and friends.

2. I started this newsletter and made the archive presentable on thepodup.com to help people get smarter, faster. 

3. I’m working on discoverability via SEO and expanding content with community writers (want to join?)

Between the lines: You can thank me later. Here’s a free business idea that follows this framework and can be started tomorrow:

1. What’s a near me term you searched lately and you’re passionate about? Garage near me? Hairdresser near me?

2. Find your niche then create an aggregator site using the Google Maps API. Enrich the data with price, type of service, availability, etc.

3. Create location based pages that pull in all businesses within said area. Add a few FAQs at the bottom and start ranking on Google.

For anyone non technical, I’ve built a playbook on how to do this without needing a developer. You’ll have a cash machine in 6-12 months with less than $3K investment required. In most cases, the competition looks like it started in the 90s:

Reply if you want me to share the playbook!

🧠 Most people are insecure and fearful

🥇 First place (5 min read vs 47 mins listening)

Sam Parr won best business podcast of the week… again. But, this is the first time he’s won it as a guest. He joined Kipp and Kieran to discuss his method behind the madness when it comes to idea generation and the one thing that’s holding people back from starting. You’re in for a treat.

What they say

Why people overcomplicate things

It’s rooted in confidence. I know that because I was lucky enough to host Huste Con. Over the years, we probably had 150 to 200 founders speak collectively at our events.

I would tell people if they had to speak at 1pm that they’d have to get here by 11am for mic check and all that stuff. In reality, a mic check takes 5 minutes.

I wanted them to arrive early so I could hang out with them and the other 5 people who were going to speak. I wanted to listen and hear them talk.

I remember one year we had Miguel the founder of WeWork, Payal who started ClassPass, Casey Neistat, and the founders of threadUP and Zapier.

I said things to bait them into talking about sensitive stuff. They were all in a room and they would open up about being afraid of confrontation or if their business is going to be profitable.

I was like ‘Oh, sick. These people I look up to, they’re dumb idiots just like me.’

Occasionally, there’s someone who’s multiple standard deviations smarter than me. But in general, everyone is only a handful of percent smarter or dumber than I am. The difference is that they’re doing it.

They’re still not confident in a bunch of decisions. This is a normal feeling to be afraid to do X, Y, and Z. I shouldn’t let those feelings get in the way of me doing them.

Sam Parr

Insecurity is your biggest blocker

The show today was meant to be about generating ideas and curiosity. It’s actually about insecurity and fear.

The reason everybody isn’t researching 5 companies a day and putting stuff out in the public is largely just insecurity and fear. It’s not because they’re not smart enough or that they don’t have the resources.

None of these things are actually blockers. It’s just that they’re scared of what other people think, they’re scared to fail and they don’t think they’re good enough to do these things.

One of themes of this show is to go out and learn. Don’t sit on the sidelines. Don’t spend all of your time in spreadsheets. Research companies and put ideas into motion.

Kipp Bodnar

What I say

Why it matters: Since starting Podup, I can vouch that when you put yourself out there, good things happen. I’ve built new friendships and strengthened existing ones. I’ve had a few small wins along the way. That progress garners momentum. Now, it’s exponentially easier to continue writing rather than finding excuses and remaining on the sideline.

Between the lines: Debbie downer alert: I believe the recent tech layoffs are just the beginning. I’ve got a pessimistic view on the global economic outlook. My advice? Start hedging now. Write a newsletter, build an MVP, make your first sale. That way, if your business goes under of if you get laid off, you’re not starting from scratch.

BONUS segment

🧰 Sam Parr’s research toolkit

There’s this thing called Companies House in the UK. If you’re a private company north of £10 million in revenue, you have to report all of your income. Anyone can go and see income statements for privately held companies. It’s all free.

Facebook Ad Archive. It’s a way to see what ads different Facebook pages are running. That’s important because you can figure out who’s successful and what their positioning and targeting is.

Moat is a way to see what ads people are running on Google. You can do the same with Semrush. Jungle Scout is an SEO tool for Amazon.

I love going to Glassdoor and seeing what people working at companies say. They say things like ‘The business model is awesome but it just sucks that management is rude.’ I’m like ‘Oh, that’s cool. Just don’t be rude and we have a good business.’

I also go to LinkedIn. If I find a company that’s interesting I Google something like ‘HubSpot + LinkedIn + sales + quota’. You’ll see some guy who works there and put ‘I’ve always achieved my quota of $1.5 million’. I’m like ‘Oh sick, thanks. You just told me what’s an effective quota for a sales person’.

Lastly, I look at a crazy amount of reviews. I Google a company name + reviews + Reddit/Amazon/Etsy. Or I go to see what their app review are. I find out what normal people are saying. It teaches me the weaknesses and strengths of a product or service. 

Sam Parr

Companies House truly is a god send when it comes to competitor research. You can see how profitable different business models are and figure out what is needed to start something yourself. Another similar tool to add to Sam’s toolkit is GuideStar. You can see the financials of US based non profits to help you with market sizing and forecasting.

🙏 From the community

Thanks Aayush for the actionable tips on how to build an audience.

🍳 Recipe to crush it on YouTube

Being in the game long-term, serving an underserved market and getting your your packaging right. These are the three ingredients for YouTube success according to Colin and Samir. If you haven’t heard of Colin and Samir, they boast 850K+ subscribers and feature all-star YouTubers like Mr.Beast, ZHC, Marques Brownlee and Ryan Trahan…

Fancy being featured next week? Submit a summary of your favorite episode

Shoutouts

When I find newsletters, podcasts, or books worth sharing, I’ll feature them here:

• Today’s mainstream news IS NOT engaging, transparent, unbiased, or even enjoyable. The Daily DONUT newsletter IS all of these things. Join 1M monthly readers and personalize your daily news diet in 10 seconds!

• Extra Points covers the off-the-field stories that shape college sports, from TV deals to enrollment trends, coaching buyouts to sports tech and more. If you want original reporting and unique analysis on the biggest stories in college sports, you'll want to make Extra Points part of your morning read.

• And finally, this tweet:

Trung Phan @TrungTPhan

Note, these quotes were pulled at different points of the episode. Some sentences were left out to make the narrative clearer and more concise. Podup is not associated or affiliated with any podcast (unless otherwise stated). All roundups are independently written and do not imply any sponsorship or endorsement by the podcast.