$1B+ Founder Explains How To Scale Any Business In 2024

I wouldn't say you validate your idea. What you're trying to validate is whether it is a business. It's things like, other people think the idea is good, and you can find them, and you can get in front of them, and when they hit your homepage, they'll decide to stay and find out more instead of bounce off. The whole point is to learn the truth about the market, your customers, how they think, what their problems are, what they value, what they pay. The whole point is to learn those things. If things are good, and if you're on the right track, what happens is the conversations start to become the same. They get boring, because you know what they're gonna say, because that's how well you understand the customer. That's a good thing. Boring means you're no longer learning, which means you've got something. Now you gotta actually act. Static to introduce our next guest. Jason Cohen is the founder and CTO of WP Engine, a company that, if you have a website, you can't not know about. He's kinda taken the world by storm, really, in a lot of ways, so happy to have you, Jason. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. I really wanna focus on, because there's a lot of people that I've seen, you know, I judge Google Startup, again, angel hack, and we tell them to go out and validate with the real world about whether or not their idea's any good, and that's like the biggest step for them. It's like, I've gotta go and speak to real people. I'd love to hear about, when you came up with the idea of focusing on WP Engine and creating that, did you go out and speak to real people before you put in all the work to build it into a business? Yeah, I talked to 50 people. 50 people? And actually, that's only because it worked. And, you know, in other words, it came out well. I had another idea and even a prototype for a different business maybe six months prior, and I also talked to a lot of people, but that's how I realized that wasn't quite good. I wouldn't say you validate your idea. Usually, ideas are okay, pretty good, and anyway, they'll change. What you're trying to validate is whether it is a business, and that means things like other people think the idea is good, and you can find them, and you can get in front of them, and when they hit your homepage, you can say something where, literally in three seconds, they'll decide to stay and find out more instead of bounce off. And then they'll convert, whether that means a trial or they bought something, whatever conversion means, and then, especially if it's a recurring revenue business, then they come back and buy. Even if it's not recurring revenue, you still want a fan that comes back and buys more stuff, maybe tells their friends. And at the right price, will they pay that price? Is that easy? Is it not too expensive to get in front of them? All of these things are required. If those things aren't true, even if it's the best idea, it won't work. So that's what you're really validating, which is why I think it's important for people not to just talk about their ideas, but instead about these things like price and language. Like, half the thing of what you're listening for is what language does the other person use to describe the problem or the features? Because that's the words you need on your homepage, not the language you have in your mind. People feel like, well, I have the pain myself, is often how the idea comes, so therefore, I'm like my customer. But that, therefore, is wrong, because almost no one starts a company. So you're not like your customer, almost by definition. So you have to find out what the customer is actually like and so on. So this all requires being deep into the mind of the customer, and that requires, of course, interaction. You can't not interact and do that. And also, I say you don't have to sell. What I really mean is you don't have to sell as your full-time job, like what you do is be on the phone. But there is a lot of selling in startups, whether it's the first employee, you're selling, because they probably shouldn't join. That's probably not a good idea. Yeah, you've got to convince them that you're worth the risk of not going to work for that company that is secure in hiring this guy. Yeah, and that there's some other reason. In other words, I don't really think people go through a risk calculation, really, because if they did, you shouldn't do it. It's almost always the answer is that the expected value is lower than just continuing your career somewhere at a company that has to pay more, because there's really no other reason to be there. So of course they'll pay more. So there's other reasons. I prefer this work. This is going to be fun. I like the people I'm working with. I get to solve interesting problems. I get to influence the whole organization, the customers, and so on. These reasons, or maybe there's a mission the company is on that you believe in. So even if the company were to fail, the fact that you tried to move this mission along was valuable to you. There's all these reasons that have nothing to do with risk reward that are really the reasons why people join. And so as the founder, you have to be able to articulate them, because that's how you're going to sell someone on joining. Or it's a contractor, or you're raising money, or the customers, there are customers, and even if you're not selling by talking to them, the homepage is still selling, the whole website's selling, and the product itself. So it is selling, and it is convincing, even if it doesn't have to all be face-to-face. But there's certain pieces of it, like employees, or investors, or sometimes customers, tech support, for example, where of course, by definition, it's interaction. But I think introversion does not mean you cannot interact with people ever. That's not the same thing. So for example, I know a lot of introverts, and I'm this way, but I know other people that aren't, where if I'm at a big party, and it's loud, bad. But if I can go to the back porch, where it's quiet, and there's only three people, and we can have a conversation, then it's good. Now, still, sometimes I just need to be alone, fine. But that's still a pretty decent environment. That's not the whole hubbub. So I don't think it's a black and white, I'm either alone, or with 100 people. Also, I think a lot of introverts are forced extroverts, meaning you can force yourself to be extroverted a bit, or act that way a bit. And that can be fun. In other words, that party where you're in the back, and they have a different conversation, that can be fulfilling, even for an introvert. You don't want to do that every single night. But doing that never, versus doing it every single night. Again, this is not a binary choice. There's middle grounds. So I think, especially when you're thinking about things like, well, should I force myself to go to a party? Well, that may or may not be the right question. Maybe the right question is, what am I trying to get out of things, or what am I trying to do, what am I trying to accomplish? If I'm just forcing myself, because there's some vague notion of, I should, it's good for me, like broccoli, that's probably a bad reason. But don't, because you're not gonna get a lot of value out of it, your heart's not in it. You, in fact, will not get the value out of it that an extrovert might, by meeting people. You're not gonna meet that many people, because that's not what you're gonna do. On the other hand, you could say, there's a few people out there that I want to talk to. My goal is to go in and have conversations with just them. That may be an interesting middle ground. Not every night, but sometimes. That's useful to you. There's a reason you're trying to talk to these folks, and you can zero in. Or, I do need to go network because something or other, but I'm gonna save up. I'm gonna have a quiet night before and after, for example, so I have the energy to do it. And then I'm gonna do that energy, but again, why? Because I have a goal. So that's why I'm doing it, and I'm gonna save up. And how you do that, that depends on the individual. There's not a rule, but these are various things that might help. So the point is to have the actual goal. Let's say you want to start a company and the goal's validation. Like you're saying, that's what I want to do. I don't want to talk to 50 people, but I want a company more than I don't want to talk to 50 people. Now, that's a reason to sort of get over it and do it. Yeah, definitely, and I think that introverts, especially, have to have a why for doing those things. I was talking to Ryan and Ryan Dice, who we both know well, and he talked about, I didn't want to be the head of my company, but I knew I had to be at the start, and then I could put people in charge later. And his why was so much stronger than his terror of doing all the things that he didn't want to do. And I'm just imagining a person that wants to be a founder like you, wants to start, whether it be a tech business or an Etsy business, and they want to go out and do this validation. It may not be the fact that they're not willing to do it, but maybe they don't know how to ask the right questions. What is, how they actually reach out to speak to people to do that validation? I'd love for you to just share with us or talk us through how you went about validating the idea that you didn't go with, and then validating the idea that you did go with, and maybe explain, perhaps, some of the difference in responses. Well, validating stuff is, that's a whole, you know, you could write a book, well, I guess people have written a book about that. So I'll rapid-fire give you some things that I think are true for this particular thing. And I don't think it has anything to do with introversion, by the way. This is just what to do for this. So first of all, people often go into these trying to sell. In other words, you want your idea to be validated. Of course you do. It's your idea. You know, like, what are you doing? You're very attached to it. Of course, of course. And also, of course, the whole point is to do just the opposite. To try to shoot holes in it so that you can actually learn. Because if you just validate what you know, by definition, you haven't learned anything. And the whole point is to learn the truth about the market, the customers, how they think, what their problems are, what they value, what they pay. The whole point is to learn those things. And so if you're selling and validating a positive, by definition, you're not doing that. So people will go in and sell for 45 minutes, essentially. And at the end of the conversation, the customer's like, I guess that sounds pretty good. Well, it better be, because you had a halfway different idea and you just talked to them for 45 minutes. Like, if that didn't work, I mean, I don't know what. But this is all wrong, right? This is typically what happens. So then you hear people come by and say, look, I talked to five people and they all thought it was a pretty good idea. And to them, that's validation. So here's what you do instead. Like a scientist, you have to have theories and then you see if they're true. So you literally write down the theories that you think are true. And I did this. So I'd write down things like, I think a digital agency manages many, many websites, like more than 20, typically. I also think they have a problem like keeping all the usernames and passwords. It's either in a document and insecure or something, anyway, it's annoying or hard or something. I also think that they tell their clients what web host to use. So that if they, therefore, if they liked us, then they would just drag us into deals. I also think, whatever, just all these very specific theories. So then you can say, all right, what would I ask that does not lead the witness, but is open-ended? Not, yes, no. Not lead the witness, open-ended, that would validate or invalidate the theory. For example, how many websites do you manage? Not, do you manage more than 20? Yes, no. See, that's leading and binary. How many websites do you manage? Maybe they say, oh, I don't even manage websites, I make apps, right? Open-ended questions allow new things to come to light as well than the dimension that you had a theory on. What do you do to manage those passwords? How does your client decide what web host to use? These are open-ended questions that allow us to figure it out. Give you really detailed responses. Yeah, well, because some of your theories will turn out to be true and validated, for real, wonderful, or tweaked, like the average is actually 15, not 20, but yeah, right? Some, of course, will be wrong, and now you'll know the truth because you had it open-ended, and not just that it's no. And, of course, there's the third category. There's stuff you didn't think of in the first place that arose because it was open-ended. Which become features, perhaps, in whatever you're building. And the other thing they do is turn into new theories. This isn't static. Once you realize this is wrong or this is new, you change. Okay, well, now I think this is the theory, and I've heard these new things, which is really interesting, so now I think, of course, you evolve those things as you're hearing. Now, eventually, what you should, if things are good, and if you're on the right track, like it was with WP Engine, what happens is the conversations start to become the same. They get boring. Boring, because you know what they're gonna say because that's how well you understand the customer. It's almost like they could play an audio tape to respond to the answers. Yeah, it's like they're either gonna say this or that, and depending on that, they're gonna say this or that. That's a good thing. Boring means you're no longer learning, which means you've got something, and now continuing to do this is not helpful because you're not adding information. Now you gotta actually act, and there'll still be surprises. You won't be exactly right, but it's time to do something else because this process is not working. You can now build it into a system, right? You can now create a website with the right messaging because you know what they're thinking. Maybe, but you'll be wrong again. It's just that this particular way of doing it is no longer helping. You will now need to act and learn that way by A, B testing a website, by building a product, by actually charging and seeing if they pay, which is different if they say they'll pay and if they do. You have to do new things now for learning. This path is no longer helpful, but as you asked, like, well, that's good if it worked. What about when it doesn't work? What does that look like? Because you do the same technique, but when it doesn't work, the way it looks is you don't get to that boring phase. This person says yes. This person says no to this thing. It's just not clear. Or this person says, so for example, in this other idea, no one could agree on the price. So one person would say, look, I would never pay for this for a regular site, but I would totally use it for free, and then if I got value out of it and I saw that and I went over some limit, then I would probably pay $20 a month. Then the next person would say, oh, yeah, small business will never use this, but enterprise would love it. You need to charge $20,000 a month plus. You need to sell it through agencies that will bring it in, and you could rev share with them a little, and so everyone's making money. That's what you've got to do. That's who's going to love this. Then I talked to the next person, and they say, absolutely a small business ought to pay $49 a month for this, because whatever reason. The next one said advertisers would love this, but not marketers, because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you would have been forced into scattershot marketing if you hadn't done the idea. Well, the point is it's not an idea. It's not a business, because it's unclear who and why, and what does it cost, and why would they buy it, and what, it's not clear. It's divergent, so that means you're not alighting on a truth that seems, universal's a strong word, but universal enough that, wow, there must be a market for this. There's enough people who say this one thing. So that doesn't, the other idea, maybe it was good if you had selected one of those paths, and then again tried to get more customers in that path and see, that could have been another way. Instead, I just thought, well, clearly there are some good ideas, because everyone thought it was interesting, but it's not coalescing. This sounds too hard, it feels too hard. I'm gonna move on, and again, that's why I really feel like it's not validating the idea. I had a good idea. It's validating the business. That makes perfect sense, and thank you for sharing that, Jason. I think a lot of people really struggle with asking those questions, and it can feel like selling, because you're trying to share somebody your idea, and you're kind of emotionally invested in that, because it's your idea. How do you disconnect from wanting the successful outcome? So first of all, when you hear how I listed those theories, the idea wasn't in there. I didn't ask them about features. I'm trying to figure out, what's their world like? What would they pay for? At the end, you can ask, would you pay to make this go away, or if you had this feature, would that solve this thing? You could ask that. How do you disconnect is this. If your idea is not awesome, because let's put it this way. Startups are always trying to die like an infant. It's always about to die, and usually they do. They succeed in committing suicide, right? And so you want a lot of things to be right at the beginning, because there's so many other ways for it to die anyway. You've got to stack the deck a little bit, just to have a chance. You kind of want to feel like you've captured lightning in a bottle, and you want to be proven that you've caught lightning. You want to know there's at least 50 customers, because I talked to them, and they'll definitely pay $50 to $100. I don't know exactly, but that's the range. I mean, these are all variables that if they're not going to work, it's going to fail. I've got to at least have some of these variables solved, because there's still the other 40 that might, and probably will sink the company. I've got to get some things. So if you go in, and you're not honestly trying to find those things, it is going to fail anyway. That is what's going to happen, and you will have wasted a year or two, instead of wasting a month or two. So you have to do this so that you find out sooner, because you're going to find out. There's no doubt you're going to find out. That will happen. How much of your life are you going to waste? First. How much money are you going to spend? Money, well, in lifespan. You're not getting younger. Like, every single year that you're living is the best year you're going to have, in terms of your ability and energy. So you don't have that time to waste. That's the one thing, even if you do or don't have money. What we all definitely don't have is extra time. Definitely, and I think that's really great advice, because a lot of people listening might be thinking it's painful to get told no, and I'm going to defend my idea. You actually want them to defend them saying yes, that they want it, because you're about to invest all this time, all this money, into building something that you think they want, and it's horrible to find out later, to get the rejection once you've built it. It's so much worse. That's also why you can't talk to friends about it. So who did you speak to? Who did you seek out to ask these questions, and how did you reach out to them? Well, by the time I did WP Engine, I had done some startups, and I was blogging, and so I knew a lot of people, and so it was not too hard for me to get in front of people. But, let me share this technique, which I also used, but where I was not leveraging maybe an audience that I built. I wanted to find out what we should build for freelancers, specifically. So what I did is I went to LinkedIn, and it's very easy to find freelancers, because they want to be found. That's how they get business, and so it's easy to find them on LinkedIn. There's a lot of roles at companies and things that are easy to find on LinkedIn, based on title and whatnot. So I would send out an in-mail that said, I'm trying to do some research on this topic, because I'm trying to build a tool for people like you. Now, here's the key. I said, but I know that you trade time for money, and I value that, and I'm not trying to get free advice. I genuinely value your opinion, and therefore I'm willing to pay whatever you would like to charge for one hour of your time for this. And the result is almost everyone said, oh, I'm happy to do it for free. Why? Because it's weird to charge someone for one hour, and what I did by that is show that I respect them and their time. I'm not trying to mooch off of them. I'm not picking their brain, all this nonsense that is actually disrespectful. Right? I'm just proving that I actually respect, I actually want to know, and I'm not trying to take advantage of them by offering that. But the reciprocity is very few people ask. So something like two people out of 50 actually quoted me something. So then I talked to the other people. I just didn't talk to them. Nevermind. Or you could pay. Whatever, right? There's different avenues, but that's what happens. And of course, there's ways other than LinkedIn. It's just an example that pretty much anyone can try. No, I think that works. And I get people all the time sending me emails saying, can I just buy you a coffee, or can I pick your brain for 15, 20 minutes? And it happens three, four times a day. And I can't speak to all of them. And no one's ever tried that technique with me. I would have totally done it for free. So everyone watching, please don't just all of a sudden hammer my inbox. But yeah, you're so right, because those questions, can I just pick your brain? I created Small Business Festival, which you gave your time to speak at because I want to help people. It's not that I don't, it's just that you only have a certain number of hours in your day. And for somebody that says, hey, I value you, I respect your time, but I want this. And if you want me to pay, I'll pay. I would have totally been open to that. So that's a great idea. The general thing is you gotta give something too. It shouldn't be a one-way thing. And then you're probably asking someone that has no time. So that's a bad combination. So one way is maybe you probably do have something to offer. Hey, I noticed that you do blah, blah, blah, blah. I know a few people here. I've just sent intros to them already. Also, I'd like to have coffee. Just do it already. Don't trade, just fricking do it. That's interesting. Or maybe you have data. I've already done 10 customer interviews. I found some interesting stuff I'd love to share just because it's fascinating, but it's still a puzzle. And so I'd like to meet and talk about blah, blah, blah, blah. That actually is kind of neat to get some new insight into something. That could be a gift, some knowledge that you have. So what's valuable to the person? Yeah, but another one is just being respectful at all. Like you're saying, that's not even a physical gift. And of course, I definitely don't mean a physical, right? That's something else altogether. Just give something like that, right? Definitely. Well, Chase, that's really great value. And I know a lot of people, they do, they build their idea for years in the garage or they build an online website and years try it, and they've never actually spoken to real people. And a lot of times they'd find the 50 customers, just speaking to 50 potential people could have saved all that heartache. So I think that's really powerful advice. So I really thank you for sharing it. Here's the converse. I can't think of any startups that labored in secret for two years and then were successful when they launched. Like that's not the startup story. That isn't it. Actually, I can't think of anyone that did it either. And maybe there is, like, oh, well, there's this one time. Well, there you go. Okay, one out of a hundred, well, that's terrible odds. Therefore, that's not the way. Yeah, no, I think that's amazing advice. And everybody that's out there that is thinking about a new business idea, take this advice, please, because I've seen so many businesses fail. I've seen, I've judged AngelHack and we've voted against people because they haven't done this validation because we're trying to avoid their heartache. If they're not willing to go out and do this, they shouldn't be in business for themselves because you think about it, you've got a family. If you had have not validated, then it would have cost not just you, it would have cost everybody in your network huge amounts of stress by not doing that. There's probably some negative feedback cycle. The more time you've spent sunk into it, the more you need it to work. And yet the less likely it is that it will work and you don't wanna give that up. And so there's probably that negative feedback cycle. Before you get too much sunk cost, just call it quits. Yeah, no, and look, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try your idea. It just means talk to some real people to make sure that the idea really does have legs and the business has legs. Well, Jason, I wanna ask you a thousand more questions and I know we're getting to the end of this segment. Especially around the fact that your trajectory from starting a company to making the decision to become the CTO instead of the CEO of your business. So we might pick that up in the next session, but I really thank you for joining me for this episode. I appreciate it. Sure, this is fun. And thank you for everyone that's tuned in today. If you're enjoying this episode, make sure you catch the second half at theintrovertsedge.com forward slash Jason. And if you are enjoying this episode, please help us get this higher and higher in the iTunes charts so that we can make sure more introverts get access to this information and start becoming more successful in their businesses and in their lives. Please subscribe, post a review, share this with your friends so that we can start helping more people together. But thank you for joining me and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.