Rox (@RoxCodes) recently sold his SaaS thumbnailtest.com. But he’s pretty conflicted about the sale. What was promised to be a moment of joy and celebration quickly turned into doubt, grief, and confusion.
Today, I talk to my friend Rox about the emotional complexity of giving up something you hold dear, how to move forward, and what it means to level up even further after a successful exit. Rox opens up and talks candidly about the weight on his shoulders, the pressure, and the expectations.
“Surrender” is the operative term here. If you ever wondered just how nuanced the sale of a business can be and how a founder has to struggle their way through it, this one’s for you.
Rox on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RoxCodes
Arvid Kahl 0:00
Today, I’m talking to Rox. His motto is building cool shit every day until I achieve my dreams and cool shit he is building. He’s behind thumbnailtest.com, a very interesting SaaS business that competes with YouTube. He recently had some acquisition news. I’m going to talk to him about that and about how hard it is to deal with the reality of giving up your business as a founder. This episode is sponsored by acquire.com. More on that later. Now, here’s Rox.
Welcome to the show. Last time we talked on your Twitch stream, it was really cool. We turned that into a four hour conversation. Let’s see how long we’ll chat today. Rox, what’s happening in your life right now?
Rox 0:42
Oh my God. So good to hear from you, buddy. It’s been too long. Two years, man crazy. What’s happened in the past two years, I started and sold thumbnailtest.com, my first big acquisition. I met my girlfriend who I’ve been dating for about two years now. Our anniversary is like next week, Aprilynne, a legend. Let’s see. I worked for Mr. Beast for a few months. I built a bunch of creative tools that did not succeed other than Thumbnail Test. I moved out of Thailand. I moved to New York to Portugal to San Francisco to London for a little bit hanging out London now. And yeah, I’m negotiating my next big move the next big business play from Rox Codes. That is I think that’s the big two year update.
Arvid Kahl 1:44
That is a bizarre amount of things to do, right? Any of these things would already be a massive win for anybody. Right? And then combination, man, that’s really cool. I don’t even know what to start with. Like we had Aprilynne on the show and she’s spectacular. Right? So good choice right there. I am a user of thumbnailtest.com So that’s the spectacular product, perfect. I love Nomad so cool. Like you getting around. Everything is really cool. But the whole Mr. Beast thing, maybe we can start with that because that is something that I just cannot skip. Right? As somebody who is a YouTube aficionado and whenever, for some reason, whenever my browser logs me out of YouTube, you know, you go to the default YouTube page. The first video is always Mr. Beast. Right? That’s always what it is. So how did that happen? Because I think like working for him and his team probably is something that a lot of people on YouTube are interested in. How did you get that?
Rox 2:38
Yeah, they found me on Twitter and Twitch. So context, I used to live stream coding, as you know well. And I haven’t been doing that very much like I kind of haven’t done a stream in probably a year about. But they found me on Twitter like a month after I put out Thumbnail test like so early. And who would future be my boss saw me tweeting about Thumbnail test, then watched me stream building Thumbnail test for like two hours, then DM me on Twitter and was like, hey, do you want a job? Want to come work for Mr. Beast? We pay well. And at first I said no, actually. And I was like, you know, that’s like, you know, I got a bunch. Because it’s like, I don’t want to be an employee, you know and I know this is gonna be an employee. But, you know, we talked about it. We went back and forth. And I was like, you know, maybe there’s a crazy opportunity here. Maybe I could start like an even bigger YouTube tools business with them. Maybe we could do this, maybe we could do that. So they do three month trials. So I decided, okay, you know what? I can do three months. Let’s try it three months. And I flew out to Greenville, North Carolina, where only they are until I built you know internals secret tools for them for a little while, did a lot of experiments. And at the end of the three months, decided not to stick with it. That I still wanted to go back off on my own and continue Thumbnail test, which as we now know, was probably a good call. But yeah, I mean, amazing people over there, very smart, very capable. Yeah, but just not what I wanted to do long term, I think I realized.
Arvid Kahl 4:20
Yeah, that stands out. Right? Like even just your initial reaction as a founder of I don’t know, like other people jump at that opportunity immediately. Like they would already be typing yes just as that other person told them the story or whatever, right? Some people would have no issue at all with making this their next thing but for somebody who’s building a project, I kind of get it. I get it. You want to see your own thing succeed, right?
Rox 4:45
Yeah. And at some point, it’s like, I don’t do a lot of math, but if you do the napkin math, you kind of realize like, you know, pretty much what I realized with Thumbnail test is kind of like, I only have to get to so much MRR on a product that I can then exit to make X dollars. And if I stay here, the max I’ll ever make is, you know, half of X dollars. So even like, you know, a moderately successful indie hacker or like medium successful indie hacker probably ends up getting more. And not to say everything is dollars, but it’s kind of just this thing of like, well, how much am I using my potential, I guess? You know, am I going into a place where I will be 100% like of my, you know, I guess potential like, 100% of what I could ever do is going to happen here? Or is it going to be you know, 10% or 20%? You know, like if I were there, I was going to be coding, you know. I was going to always be coding and I was going to be like, leading coders at most. And, you know at some point, I had realized even like I don’t want to code all the time in the long run. Like, I actually got pretty burnt out on coding. And so even things just like that, you come to those conclusions, you know and like, you probably know Paddy Galloway, potentially, who’s a very, very, like, probably one of the best YouTube consultants in the world for those who don’t know. You know, I chatted with him when I was going to work for Jimmy and the team. And he had pretty much come to similar conclusions. And he had basically said, like, you know, he worked with them for a while and had also decided to go off on his own realizing, you know at some point, it doesn’t always add up, which isn’t to say that Mr. Beast doesn’t pay super well or that they don’t have like good incentive structure or any of those things. For 99.9% of people, it’s an amazing opportunity. But I have this weird thing in life if I keep accidentally living other people’s dreams. And I’m still trying to get to the point of living my own, you know.
Arvid Kahl 6:41
That’s funny. Yeah, that’s the story of employment. Like in a nutshell, that’s really what it is until you realize that you could also live your own dream, which then it becomes a nightmare kinda situation in which we don’t want to find ourselves in, right? That’s yeah. One thing stands out here. Or, of course, several things stand out, like the fact that you stopped streaming kind of feels related to burnout in coding. But we can dive into that at some other point. What I kind of want to dive in first because you were talking about being a nomad and traveling from place to place. You were saying, like, you have to get to a certain point of MRR for you to feel this makes sense to build or to exit to be acquired with then that is a strong enough case. Did that change depending on the location that you were in? Because living in San Francisco requires a totally different amount of money to make from any project compared to somewhere in Thailand or other places in Southeast Asia?
Rox 7:32
Oh, yeah, that’s an interesting question. I mean, for sure it changes how you do the math. Because, you know, I sold for let’s say, like low to mid six figures, right? That after tax after lawyer fees after giving a chunk to my dad because he was with me the whole time. After paying off all the bills, I accrued from two months of not getting paid because I cut my own income because acquisitions are weird. After all that I’m ending with maybe enough money to pay for like my girlfriend and my expenses for like, a couple years out here, you know, a few years if we’re generous, right? Which is, it’s some freedom. It is and I don’t know want to like, you know, misjudge that but it doesn’t feel like that much more freedom than I’ve ever had. Right? I didn’t make millions, you know. I’m not sitting on enough money that for the rest of my life, I don’t have to worry. But if I were in Thailand and we’re spending $1,000 a month, yeah. Okay, I could probably have bought myself 5-10 years or something. Yeah, so it is different. But I think it’s always in context, right? I’ve realized that the life I want happens to be out here. Like, it’s just this is the place for me. I love San Francisco so much. And I love the people out here and the opportunity out here. And that’s worth every penny to me. And I’d rather spend a lot and live where I want to and live the life that I want to as opposed to live cheaply. And then you know, hunker down on every dollar I have, you know. Yeah
Arvid Kahl 9:00
That feels like a slightly opposed to the common indie hacker, digital nomads kind of theme that you find a lot on Twitter, right? And nothing against either choice. Obviously, a personal choice is a personal choice. But you hear Pieter Levels is an example, right? Telling a lot of people that it’s very easy to go to, I don’t know Bali. I don’t know if Bali is still the case. But you know, a place in Southeast Asia where it’s kind of cheap. You have a lot of other founders who have the same dream and want to do the same thing. Make those same thing happen. And you live a different life, you live a very inexpensive life. And any business you build very quickly is not just revenue positive, like profitable but it can actually sustain you. Whereas that number is quite different if you go to the United States, Silicon Valley in particular or even Canada where I live, right? It takes a lot more money to make money on a project like this just from the living expenses that you have. So did you choose San Francisco for the people or what was it? Because that is an expensive place.
Rox 9:01
Yeah, I got burnt out on the traveling stuff. Like I really I think I’m kind of over the Nomad life. And I think like Pete has the numbers. I think the average Nomad is like, two or three years. So I did it for like, a couple years or like maybe a year and a half. No, actually, yeah, like a couple of years. And so I think I hit pretty standard, you know, time when I wanted to exit, so I knew I wanted to be somewhere. But yeah, I think the big thing I realized was like it’s always been the people. Like, even when I went to Thailand, it was to be around Pete. It was to be around Javi and Andre and everybody out there, you know. And then when I went to Portugal, it was the same thing. But like, meet them all again and be around them all again. And I think I identify a little bit more with the SF world than with the indie hacker world. Like, I love the bootstrapping and I love the you know, just ship it kind of mentality and everything. But I think I also have, like aspirations that are beyond, you know, make a million dollar business and then like, life’s good and then I do nothing, you know, which isn’t to say like, I don’t want to minimize indie hacking to that. But it is to say most people’s aspiration with indie hacking is to pay their bills. Like, that’s generally where you start and then like to live a better life by continuing to pay your bills and then maybe an exit. For me, it’s you know, indie hacking was always supposed to just be a stepping stone to playing the bigger games and trying for the bajillions of dollars. And you just you come to SF and you go to a random party and you meet guys worth hundreds of millions to billions of dollars, you shake random hands, and all of a sudden, like your whole life can change in a conversation. And that didn’t feel as true when I was doing all the Nomad stuff. And as a guy and I think this is maybe like a perspective you really get when you’re in content on is like, it’s just that you’re one video off from your whole life changing, your one partnership off from your whole life changing, you know. Like, any one of these things could completely shift everything for you. So that net opportunity is just so high. And the people here are all trying so goddamn hard. Like it’s not even like Thailand, where it’s like, oh, there’s the indie hackers. And then there’s everybody. It’s like, everybody’s the fucking startup people here. Like, it’s crazy. So, yeah, it’s just like, it does wonders for the mental. And it does wonders for the opportunity, you know. Like, I’ve met people with channels that have 14 million subscribers, just at a random party here. And then we became friends. Now I text them sometimes, you know and that’s just like, sure Thumbnail test has also brought me that but rarely in real life, you know. But yeah, it’s just, I just haven’t found anything else like this. Yeah. So this is the place for me.
Arvid Kahl 12:45
Yeah, makes perfect sense. You chose the potential of opportunity, right? Like the fact that just through serendipity, you might run into the right person at the right time, that also has not only the intention to make it big but also is themselves in the network that allows them to get to that point. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Honestly, my story with Silicon Valley is quite similar. I was there like 2012-2013, my first ever, like real thing that I did after university where I dropped out twice, great skills right there. Like was finding work for a company in San Francisco. And even though I worked remotely for them from Germany, it was still I visited on occasion. And the first time I was there, like two days into my first visit, I was sitting on a couch just having beers with like a Product Manager from Facebook, which was bizarre. Like for somebody who grew up in Germany and having had no contact to this community of people whatsoever, being thrown in there. And then just like chilling and talking about their Africa expansion, you know, that kind of stuff, it felt surreal because it was. Like this is access that nobody really has. And if you get there, you have a chance to maybe have that kind of access. So I very much understand this serendipitous thing that you’re moving into, makes perfect sense to me. And I guess the whole stepping stone approach, in particular, Rob Walling was on the show here and explained the whole stair stepping, right? Where you start with info products or services or something or you build pluginsand then you go to your own SaaS. And from there, you go to something much bigger. It’s taking little tiny steps that build on top of each other at a time. So that being said, what is your next step here? Like what is the step after building and exiting a SaaS business with the numbers that you just mentioned? What’s the next thing?
Rox 14:32
Yeah, great question. So I am pursuing something I’ve wanted to pursue for a while. Being in creator economy for a long time, you really get a sense of the potential of distribution, which we’ve seen a lot with physical products. Mr. Beast sells Feastables, Logan Paul and KSI have Prime their hydration drink. And Chamberlain has Chamberlain coffee. So many of these businesses doing millions 10s of millions, hundreds of millions, literal billions in the case of like Prime. I want to try and endeavor to do software in the same way. So creator led software or you know creator led brand that is software. So I’m currently negotiating the exact terms, but with intention to partner with a very large creator to build software to sell to their audience and beyond not to sound like Buzz Lightyear. But to see if I can, in a matter of months, replicate what has previously taken me years. And like you said, those kinds of like stairstep levels in creator economy, it’s very similar, where it’s like AdSense is 100, you know, the like, course level it’s like 100 level is AdSense. And then 200 level is, you know, you sell some kind of like, course or education. 300 is like coaching personal or community. 400-500, you start to talk about a brand that could be acquired like 400 is a brand and a product. 500 is a product that could be acquired. So it’s a product separate from your name, that happens to use your name. And that’s the space that I really am trying to play in is can I build software that is multiplied by the people I partner with? And then still, stand alone is valuable, is powerful, has legs and is a full business that can then be sold. And can I go from making hundreds of 1000s to making millions in life by taking that and then maybe over the next 5-10 years taking it to its absolute, you know, 1,000,000% and maybe get to the crazy numbers I’m hoping for in life, you know.
Arvid Kahl 16:56
That’s so awesome. What an interesting idea. Like, that’s something I’ve literally never thought about, like doing this kind of which is probably great for you because otherwise you would have some competition.
Rox 17:07
Let me hear.
Arvid Kahl 17:08
Yeah, this is a wonderful idea because I do know all of these brands you just mentioned, right? The physical products, the Feastables and the Prime and all that stuff, you just cannot escape this because these creators are so strong in putting out the word. So in a world that more and more becomes digital, I mean, let’s just look at the whole apple vision pro thing and how it’s perceived, right? We were all laughing at VR headsets for the longest time and all of a sudden, people find actual use cases for this. And people are still laughing because Vitriol exists on the internet. But there are more and more people who are willing to give this a shot. And anything in that world is effectively software. So I’m not saying you should do VR stuff all the time. But I think there’s a tendency, right? The people’s adoption of AI, people’s adoption of VR, it becomes a thing that people use because it’s actually useful for the very first time and approachable. So you building something there. It’s interesting, I kind of want to ask you more about it. I just, it seems like you’re kind of hesitant to tell me the details, which is fine. Because if you’re still working on it, but where’s that going? Like can you exemplify it, maybe?
Rox 18:19
I’ll tell you my like 12 month plan on this. I’m partnering with a creator who has a little bit of a wider brand. So they’re not too niche down. And I’m treating it as a product studio with the intent of basically creating like a validation engine that just figures out if something could sell to his audience, could sell pass his audience, right? And if those things are true, then it’s the thing that we pursue, right? So a lot of early testing, a lot of like, you know, A/B testing on landing pages and pre sales and this and that all that. I’m starting with bass hits. So the creator has sold products before. We’re going to try and digitize those. And that’s going to be you know, the first couple of months and see how much revenue we can pull from that. And then use that to fund the next projects. I’m not writing the code for this. I have an amazing engineer friend that I brought on, who is functionally my CTO and who’s gonna get a bunch of a good deal, let’s say excuse me. And hopefully, if all goes well, the idea is kind of like have him build MVPs. And like V ones, put those out into the world. If they start succeeding, bring on another dev to run and maintain that, keep that going. And as that makes more profit, it becomes its own business. And then my main guy goes on to the next one and starts building on to the next one. And we just keep launching and seeing what works and if something really starts to break out then we’ll devote all the resources back to that kind of thing. But I’m treating this I don’t want to treat it like I have a bunch of VC money right? Like I want to break even on the year, that’s the plan. But I want to try and like spend a million and make a million, you know, that’s kind of like the outline of it. And if I could pull that off and have broken even on making a ton of software with very expensive software engineers in several different products, that’s a huge deal. But it’s tough. There’s not a lot of like case studies to follow here. It’s a little bit like blue ocean or Greenfield or whatever buzzword you want to use for it.
Arvid Kahl 20:29
Take another color and another noun
Rox 20:31
Orange, meadow. But honestly, it’s really exciting to me because I would love to feel like I was one of the first to pull it off. Well, and I’m sure someone in the comments is gonna know. They’re gonna be like, oh, but you know, insert guy did its thing. And it’s another guy did this another thing. And this fitness guy did this fitness app. And it’s like, yeah, that’s 300 level. But it’s just, it’s so interesting to me because it intuitively feels like it should work. But I’ve already found there to be a lot of complexity even just before I’ve really gotten sprinting on it.
Arvid Kahl 21:06
What kind of complexity are you talking about here?
Rox 21:09
Finding the creator, way harder than people think, A. Getting a good enough idea that will actually sell to the audience, very tough 9 out of 10 times and you end up boiling down to it just being education again, most of the time. Building a thing that is not education is the hard thing, the evaluation of products. So like that iteration, like what that looks like without incidentally, burning the audience, you know, on trying to sell them too much or ask them too many questions. You know, you only get so many hits and you know, email lists, Telegram group, YouTube channel, each thing. Again, they are finite resources to some extent because if you post 100 YouTube shorts advertising your product, everybody’s gonna unsubscribe, you know and you can kill yourself. So the brand risk overall is a big thing. The quality bar, you can’t really be super indie hacker about it. You can’t just make the first version really crappy and put it out into the world. It’s got millions of followers worth of brand tied to it. So it has to be good. So if you usually can launch it, like a 5 out of 10 quality, you kind of need to be hitting a seven or an eight before you can even be out the door with this, which sucks. So it means it’s a little more expensive. You need a little more of a design eye or a designer. So I’m finding that to be tough. Yet, there’s just a lot. There’s a lot of little pieces and a lot of big pieces, but the biggest one I found was finding a creator who’s going to care, you know, finding someone for whom this isn’t just like a course, that goes out. And then it’s their, you know, your worst nightmare is you work on something for two months with some guy, you soft launch it to like, let’s say just their newsletter or they just tweeted out, the reception isn’t great. And they cancel the whole project and you lost two months of your life. Yeah. So that’s why we came into this with the product studio mindset. Because that way, like the failure is baked in. The throwing away of things is baked in. And so again, it’s like slowly as I find these things out, I shift and I adjust. Like initially, I wasn’t going to do the product studio concept. It was just going to be hey, let’s build X together. Like let’s just decide on a thing and let’s build that thing. But we moved to this, you know. I’ve pitched a lot of creators. You know, I’ve been doing this for like the past year. I’ve been lately pitching creators that I know on this concept. And it wasn’t until you know, a few months ago that I really found someone where I was like, okay, I think you have the right priority. I think you will care, which is my number one thing. Yeah, so it’s just complicated. You’re not in nearly as much control. And you know, coming from indie hacking, when it’s like I am the everything going to cool, somebody else is going to be how this gets to the world to some extent. I’m going to need to kind of, you know, be on the same page with them and keep them excited and like maintain this other person’s energy about a thing, stuff.
Arvid Kahl 24:02
Yeah, that’s an interesting point, like the kind of psychosocial part of this where you need to actually motivate somebody who’s not necessarily a software person, right? To care about software because of the implications that it might have for their audience. Let’s maybe talk about risk a little bit here. Because you just mentioned brand risk is one of the big things. How much risk do you have as the person in your partnership, right? As the software, the maker? Is there more risk than an indie hacker would have or even less like, it kind of feels like you have some kind of cushion in the sense that that creator has budget that you can tap into? Even though you still build these kinds of bootstrapping things inside of that it kind of feels like that, but it’s not VC money, where you can just frivolously spend it and hope for mass market domination. So what’s the risk distribution for you there?
Rox 24:56
That’s a great question. It’s gonna be if somebody else tried to do what I’m doing, I don’t know that they would have the same conditions I do. Right? If you approach a different creator with a different deal, all of this stuff, like again, if you call it green field or whatever, is very like, there is a precedent very much. There’s these guys that have done like some of the fitness apps in the world and everything. And they’re walking around going to creators and saying, we’ll fund the whole project 50/50 if you’ll launch it to our parameters, like, we’ll pay the whole thing. They’ll pay for 100% and then split equity 50/50. So that’s probably like, the bar to compare yourself to. That’s what like the big dev shop guys who have tried, maybe like more than 400 ish level of what I’m aiming to do. That’s what they’ve done. I am in a bit of a better scenario. So I don’t have much risk. And even if I did have more risk, I just sold Thumbnail tests. So as a human, my risk is relatively low. But I will say, I, in some ways, have chosen to take on more risk for the potential of more upside. But I think by most metrics, most people if they saw the details of the deal would not say I was in a particularly risky scenario, like I should be fine. I’m not getting $0. I have given myself a non trivial salary. But it’s also not really being treated as investment. Like there’s a reason I want to break even, you know. I want to basically be able to have given everything back and feel like we’re just, you know, executing on profit. I don’t want to draw down too much. And anything that I take will eventually be paid back, can say that much. So it’s very much not investment, it’s more of if anything, like is a closer comparison to the kind of structure that we’ll have.
Arvid Kahl 26:59
So from a founder perspective, what I’m curious building this product studio, like how tight are you to that creator? Like, just, you know, how do you avoid the whole whale situation where you have like, just this one person that gives you work? You know? And you really have to make it work for them? Do you expect to kind of branch out? Or do you want to really focus on this creator for now?
Rox 27:24
That’s a great question. Focus on this creator, for sure. I am 100% in on this, on this one person. And I’m comfortable with that, based on everything I said earlier of me thinking this is the right person to partner with. And the, sorry, repeat the second half of the question.
Arvid Kahl 27:46
Let me think what I asked.
Rox 27:48
Classic
Arvid Kahl 27:49
It’s like, how do you avoid like being over dependent on that particular?
Rox 27:55
The framing of our partnership is reversed from what one would expect. I bring ideas. We both have to agree on an idea before it goes out. Right? So I can say no to an idea they have, they can say no to an idea I have. And but if we both agree on something, that’s the thing that goes through. So and that’s obviously because you know, they don’t want me to go build, you know, a porn website and then put it onto their brand. And then it would just be fair. And obviously, I don’t want to be at their whim. Right. So I’m not being treated like a dev shop. I am, you know, their entire product arm as far as digital products could ever be. And you know, depending on how it goes, future creators, if I did work with them might end up coming in under this. Because there’s also like a very well connected creator who might bring in more deal flow there. So that structure is going to be interesting. So that’s a little bit TBD on how that goes. But like, I am comfortable enough and confident enough in this person’s brand. And in particular, the growth I think their brand will continue to see over the next year five years, that the opportunity for me of having the right to all of the digital products there is a big deal to some extent.
Arvid Kahl 29:14
That’s interesting. This sounds like a new gold rush mentality in a space that and I mean, it’s in the best possible way, right? There are new claims to stake in this for software entrepreneurs like now that craters are starting to understand that there’s value not just in making chocolate or energy drinks, or sorry, hydration drinks, just be precise. You know, like there’s also value in creating products that keep an audience engaged and keep an audience virtually, in the influence fear of an individual creator. I wonder if you’re gonna set some kind of standard with this. I hope so certainly for you, or at least that you are a subject matter expert in that field of being a software entrepreneur that works with creators. That is a really, really interesting thing. I’m mesmerized by this. It’s really cool.
Rox 30:11
Thank you. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to build in public. That’s the only tough part.
Arvid Kahl 30:14
Yeah, I was wondering about that, like you are, in some ways, you already kind of retracted a little bit from streaming and that kind of stuff, which we should maybe dive into why you stopped streaming, but this is going to be so much harder, even in the kind of secretive world of creators making choices, right?
Rox 30:33
Yeah, I hate keeping secrets. Like, I as a human, it feels like lying to me. And I’m so used to just like, I’ve always lived with my heart on my sleeve. And, you know, my numbers on my fucking website, you know, like, everything’s just open, open, open. And like, you know, even with the acquisition, like the fact that I’m not allowed to say some things like, honestly, really hurts. Like, it’s very difficult for me, emotionally. And I think, like I don’t think being 100% open is like this necessity in life. And I honestly do think like, there are some downsides. And it’s probably good to get to a point in my life where I have to get more mature about what I share, in general. But it’s definitely like, it’s personal growth that doesn’t feel great. It’s personal growth, by necessity not by preference. Which, yeah, it’s just rough. Like even all of what I’ve said about the deal so far, I already don’t know if I’m maybe saying too much about that. And I can’t know because we haven’t struck the entire deal. Like right now, it’s still conversations. There’s no paperwork, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. And when I know, I’ll know. But you know, it’s like I don’t imagine a lot of creators are going to share their exact numbers until those numbers are so insane that it’s, you know, non relatable. It doesn’t matter if Mr. B’s tells you he made $100 million selling chocolate, doesn’t matter if Logan Paul tells you he made a billion dollars in sales on sorry, he sold a billion dollars of prime, not made a billion dollars. But those, like outside of that there are people who say they made millions. There’s people like Ali Abdaal, who will still like share their full year in numbers, which I think is beautiful. There’s just as many who like, don’t tell us all, nobody needs to know our numbers. And it’s weird because I feel like it’s normal to share numbers. But the reality of business is it absolutely is not, you know, like 99% of people don’t share anything. It’s just you keep your numbers and you’re happy with them. And life’s good. That’s the whole thing. And Twitter’s not your main market.
Arvid Kahl 32:41
That’s the thing, right? Like not only is building in public seasonal, like it works for a certain stage of business. And it kind of stops working the moment you grow to a size where your competitors have too much of an eye on you. Right? And I would perfectly admit the fact that building in public is not for everybody at all times, obviously. Right? There is no silver bullet for anything in business. It’s a constantly evolving space. But particularly if you’re not in a space where building in public is normalized. And I think YouTube is occasionally that but most of the time not. Right? There’s a lot of behind the scenes stuff that is still heavily choreographed, right? It’s not real behind the scenes, it’s behind the scenes as content, so there are layers to this. So if that is not a space where you are expected to operate like this, operating like it will confuse people to the point that for some reason, which is so weird, they don’t trust you even though you are extremely transparent, right? There is so much more reason to trust you. But the fact that you put trust so forward in a secretive world can quickly flip around. So that’s an interesting observation, particularly also around exits and acquisitions. I remember that too. Like, we have stipulations in our contract that I cannot talk about regarding our exit, even though I would like to. And I was also quite surprised by this. And I’m not going to talk about it. Because you know, I want to keep the money, but it’s a bizarre thing to see somebody else’s fears or somebody else’s risk judgment impact your own life. This is fear for you. Right? It sounds to me like you went through an acquisition, which was great. But it was also not that great. Can you tell me maybe more about your emotional state as it were and as it is?
Rox 34:32
Dude, it’s been so tough. I’m like, I’m the guy who gets sad, let me be clear and I personally feel like I have this problem. My friend has described it as catastrophizing my own life. So like, you know, I don’t go from 0 to 100 in terms of happy, but I quickly go from 0 to 100 in terms of sad, right? So like, if something’s bad in my head, it’s very easy for it to become very quickly, very bad. You can say I kind of round up, round down. So like, if it’s under a 25, I can keep it to a zero. If it’s over 25, it jumps to 100. And just like, selling Thumbnail Test, man, every piece of it was just so stressful. Negotiations were so tough. I felt like a bad person sometimes, like I owed it to people to be making a certain deal or to not make a certain deal or to do something this way or that way or structure it this way or that way, even when I had options. Like, it made me feel like a bad person sometimes, like just for even negotiating. And I think that’s just because it’s hard for me to differentiate like, business discussion from like human discussion. And they all like a lot of these people also, I will say the build in public really paid off in the acquisition because people trusted me inherently more so because I shared stuff. The only thing that they didn’t trust so much was that I wouldn’t share stuff, which is like, yeah, okay, pretty fair actually. I think it’s a really good read, is I have trouble about here and stuff, but I’ll try. Yeah. But, you know, then once the deal was signed, you know, realizing I had agreed to things that were like, going to be tough, you know, from signing the LOI to signing the actual contract was probably like a month. And that was my decision because I wanted to get lawyers, but like, even getting lawyers, it’s like, you realize, oh, if I’m not the one who wrote the contract, I’m in a position of weakness by such a long shot because now I’m suggesting changes, right? They get to be the default. And that makes the life that much harder with the contract. And so then there’s all that emotion. And then, you know, I spent like, eight grand on lawyers. And if I hadn’t been very aggressive and very careful, I would have spent like, 20. And that’s like, you know, almost like that’s closing in on, yeah. Let’s just say a sizable percentage of the acquisition at that point. Right? Which sucks so much that like, you know, a whole number digit percentage of my acquisition went to paying lawyers, which evidently, supposedly a regular thing, but usually that’s on the size of billions, the size of hundreds of 1000s. So that horrible and then you send them all the changes and then they feel terrible about it. So then they’re like, oh, hey, the deal is gonna go sideways because of paperwork, you know and it’s just like, oh, fuck, okay, like let’s figure this out. So you figure it out, you get all the terms agreed to. But then you finally sign. And then everything that you think this contract is got to have everything in the world and then the next day, when you start the process, immediately you realize there’s 10 things you don’t know how to handle that are not clarified in this contract. And all of a sudden, like what was really tough for me, it was like I still had all the costs on my credit cards, but I wasn’t allowed to take revenue out because the revenue is actually there. So the costs are also technically theirs. But until I had finished transferring all the accounts, obviously, they couldn’t magically instantaneously update all the credit card info and everything. So you know, they paid me back later. But for those several weeks and months, I had also been making no money because I couldn’t take money out of the business starting when we signed that contract. So you know, overnight, I went from having like an income that paid my bills and more but I don’t have savings and I don’t live like that, all back in and all that good stuff. I was like poor for what did I have? Two months, like I was caught, like I pulled every dollar out of every backup. So I pulled every dollar out of my Bar Mitzvah account from when I was 13, which is the thing you’re not supposed to touch until you’re like 30 plus. I’m about to turn 26. And I had to like take a loan out against myself, which I’ve now paid back I finally got paid, thank God. But like, it felt like everything that could be bad was bad during it. And that’s just me talking about the logistics and the money. But like I would get angry. I would get into a deep dark hole of depression. I would constantly think every day watching the business grow while I could take no money out of it and the sale had not finalized. Like every single day during the acquisition, I regretted it. Even now I feel like I still regret it. And it was it’s just so tough because it’s like there’s some aspect of it that was like this tool was my baby, right? My whole life changed because I built this tool. Mr. Beast thing happened because I built this tool. I’ve gone to all these conferences this whole YouTube world knows about me. It’s all because of this one tool. None of that happened without this. Right? And I didn’t realize that until I finally like signed the papers everything but like selling it really, like, felt like I just sold a piece of myself. And so much fear and doubt have come in since. I am sorry. It’s been so tough to think that I’ve like, sold my soul is kind of what it felt like, you know, like everything that I built all these relationships are no longer mine. This tool is no longer mine. A lot of these people who buy the tool based on me based on like, oh, this guy worked for Mr. Beast, I trust him right like to have removed that now, in some way feels like just inherently, you know, like, am I betraying people by doing this? Like, am I selling out? You know, I know I didn’t want to keep working on Thumbnail Test forever. But it could have become a side thing. I had hired an engineer. I was only working on it for a few hours a week, really. And few hours a week to pay my bills and have marketing budget was pretty crazy, actually.
Arvid Kahl 41:08
That’s not too bad
Rox 41:10
It’s not at all. It was growing. It’s growing like 10% month over month by itself. God bless. And so all of a sudden, it was like all my friends who looked at the numbers, you know, back before the acquisition finalized and I was still able to talk about them. They were like, you’re crazy. Like, purely based on MRR and profit and multiples and all that. But you know, the tool is risky, right? So I was okay with taking lower numbers like I don’t treat it like your usual SaaS exit. Because you know, YouTube’s putting out AB testing. So the core functionality of the platform, the core feature that everything is based off of is hilariously competitive.
Arvid Kahl 41:51
With the platform you’re building
Rox 41:52
With the platform itself. Sounds like yeah, okay. Fair enough, I’ll probably not get any crazy numbers out this guy.
Arvid Kahl 42:02
Dude, I think you made the absolute right choice like and this is my personal opinion, obviously. Right? And first of all, thank you for sharing this in such emotional candor and depth. I feel it resonate with a very, very deep part of myself as well because I had the exact same experience selling Feedback Panda. Like that was our baby. That was the thing that we built relationships with. It’s the thing that allowed me to be part of a community and to have something to show for. And through that, you know, the sale it was very taxing emotionally, just like what you explained. And it was taxing in a grieving way. There’s grief in losing this, in selling it and giving it to somebody else. And I don’t know if this is going to help you or not. But I still occasionally feel it, that grief. But I look at it, I look back at it. And I see where I am now because of it not because of the business. But because of the sale and everything beyond that, that came from moving up one step. Right? And that shows me that I made the right choice. And I think you are at the precipice of this with the project that you’re working on. And give it a couple months. And you’re going to look back at this, hopefully and see oh, yeah, that’s the step. Now I can see the step because I’m one step above, you know. I very much understand how you feel right now. And what is the situation that you’re in because it is a weird thing, like whoever does this kind of stuff, right? Whoever built something from nothing, that is uniquely it’s an identity thing, right? It’s a part of you. You built this. You are it for a while and then you give it away. It’s like ripping out a part of your body and handing it to somebody else. But in a way, it is not. And you only see that after the fact. So for everybody who’s listening or watching and feeling the same way, my personal experience shows me that it is a stage that just like all stages of everything you overcome eventually, but it is a very emotionally taxing stage. Did you ever get to a point where you were like, I’m gonna revert this. I’m going to cancel and scrub the whole thing.
Rox 44:16
Yeah, three minutes before I signed the paper. The guy acquiring it, he was like, oh, dude, film yourself. Like when you sign the paper, like you’ll be so happy
Arvid Kahl 44:27
Just crying
Rox 44:29
I signed it. And I didn’t say a single I only felt bad. And that’s the thing this whole time, I’ve only felt bad. And, you know, for a long time, it was kind of easy to understand why, especially when I had no money and I hadn’t gotten paid. And it was like, yeah, I haven’t gotten a single dopamine hit. And it’s like, yeah, for the first time in my life, my bank account has a six digit number in it. Yeah, doesn’t start with a crazy digit, but it’s a six digit. But all it feels like, it feels more like some relief from the pain I was feeling as opposed to like a victory, you know and that’s the thing, like it doesn’t feel like a win. And I don’t think it’ll ever feel like a win. Like, it feels most like an escape. And I think I had two months worth of graduation goggles on it, you know, because it also like, only started blowing up right as I went to sell it, you know. So for the longest time, the decision to sell is based on it not blowing up and everything and then go back and forth. I could read you. I wrote this whole thing that I didn’t post because I wanted to like, you know, work on it more. But I wrote this, like deeply sad, you know, plan for the Twitter thread of like, why I sold Thumbnail Test. And I’ll tell you the first six words in why I sold Thumbnail Test, it says how I feel awful, heartbroken, destroyed. Those are the first six words in the post that I wrote. Yeah, hugely. At some point, it says am I an idiot? I think so. Yeah
Arvid Kahl 46:14
Honestly, I get it because that’s also the thing with being an indie hacker or a founder that doesn’t have like a massive team. I mean, you had opti that’s the developer, right? And you have your partner, she also gets the solo entrepreneurial life. It’s hard because it’s all on you. Like the choices are all on you, too. That’s the thing, right? You have to make all these choices about things that you just have no idea about, what’s the future gonna look like? What’s YouTube going to do? Like are they going to eat it? Or they’re going to buy it? Probably not, who knows. But then you have to deal with all these things as well. Man, I think that’s what I mean with looking at it in retrospect, a couple months from now. It feels while you’re in the trenches, it feels incredibly stressful. And it is stressful because it’s literally creating physical stress that is also my experience, but somebody has to make these choices and stand behind them. And you don’t really have much of guidance that you can take anywhere. People look at your MRR and tell you you should keep doing it. That is really not advice that makes any sense at all, right? Because there’s so much more to a business than just the numbers and where they’re going. There’s your physical and mental well being that has the potential of something happening. You know, Feedback Panda, what happened to the business like six months after we sold it? It just flatlines because China introduced regulation that forbade people from teaching English online in China, that if they were not in China physically, so all those people that we sold our business to or we sold our subscription to our SaaS to who were employed by a Chinese company, who sourced English speaking teachers from all over the world, they lost their job. And with losing their job, they lost the need for our product. Nobody could have known this. We sold at a point where I thought like, oh, man, this is growing again, 5 to 10% month over month. We could keep doing this and running for another year. And then we would have like twice the amount of money and you know, all these thoughts, you probably are having them right now at this point. But we sold, we were pretty heartbroken as well because again, it’s even in our case, it was literally me and my girlfriend building something and giving it away. Right? That the whole baby analogy is very viscerally felt at that point. Like we built this over, you know, 15 months. It’s a bit long for virtual pregnancy. But you know, it was something that we built together and nobody else was part of this. It was our thing. We gave it away. We got money for it, which is weird. And then we saw it crumble at some later point. And we were like, wow, that was a good choice. Right? Because you never know what’s going to happen.
Rox 48:56
Yeah, and that’s like, I keep telling myself that you know that like
Arvid Kahl 49:01
No, I’m telling you too
Rox 49:02
Yeah, and like it’s sort of this weird emptiness of like you’re just putting everything on the next thing like you’re putting everything into the future. And you know, I had like a quote in here from God, I don’t even know. Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great and that was like really a lot of the rationale behind this. Yeah, and a lot of people say like, if you do it once like if you’ve done it once you can do it again. Which I want to believe but emotionally have no way to do so because it doesn’t feel like I did anything to blow up that. It feels like it just blew up
Arvid Kahl 49:43
Oh, that’s funny that because that’s like some part of you knows exactly that you’re completely wrong with this, right? This is all you’re doing.
Rox 49:51
That guy made a video.
Arvid Kahl 49:54
Without the tool the video would not have been made, right? It’s like without, I watched you getting the shoutout by Ali Abdaal, about the tool as well and getting some traction from that, like there is so much of a rat tail of decisions and things that you have to do before those things happen. And these are all the things that you did. And these are all the choices that you made, like without you and your capacity and your action, none of this would have happened. So don’t sell yourself short on that part. I get it like giving up this thing feels like you have this Tabula Rasa moment where you’re standing in front of nothing. And now you have to do it all over again. I remember this moment in 2019, after we sold, like I was like, you know what am I going to do now. So I kinda went to wordpress.com and started a blog. That’s where it started for me. I just started writing because I didn’t know. I’m not gonna build another SaaS. I was just burned out from SaaS. I was burned out from coding. I’m not gonna code again. And here I am right now building two SaaS at the same time. But you know, that’s a different story. Like it comes back to you when it needs to. And it’s hard to be able to wait for that moment because that’s also a thing. I don’t know how you experienced this right now. But like, in building the business, you spent 24/7 building that business. And then you have this acquisition period where you spent like, what is it like 48/7, you know, you spent two days worth of time every single day, both in running the business and making it acquirable. And then you hit this wall of the exit, you give it away and then you have nothing to do. How are you dealing with that?
Rox 51:27
Well. I mean, it helps to like be jumping right into the next thing. But again, there’s like not paperwork. So it’s like, I’m jumping into the next thing. But the foundation is shaky right now. Yeah, like it’s very tough, you work with a big creator, like I don’t want to, it’s just that attention thing, you know. Like, when things are nascent, less time is spent. When things are like less visible, less flashy, less time is spent, you know and there’s a lot of why I kept like flying out the craters in the UK, like I flew out to London a few times because I very cognizant of this like, you know, busy people have very have a lot of difficulty with object permanence, you know. If you’re not in front of their face, you kind of don’t exist. And so you gotta just keep finding a way to be right there, you know and so there’ll be in the US soon, so I’m gonna fly over there. And I’m just gonna, you know, everyday I can get in front of them is a valuable day. But it’s very close. And I think speed running to my next win is like the only thing I can emotionally do, which is even become tough because again, like a few of those things that like weren’t super clear in the paperwork on like, the acquisition or something like, how much I’m allowed to talk to my existing customers, like reach back out and things where it was like, originally, I thought we were going to do one thing, but now it looks like I might be able to do all those things. And technically XY and Z like, which maybe affects my future businesses, which really sucks. So again, it’s like it’s a lot of blows, you know, it’s a lot of hits. But you know, again, it’s my decision. Like, I chose to do this, you know. I signed the paperwork. I’m not like, woe is me, I made a bunch of money, you know. But, yeah, it absolutely feels terrible across the board. Like, I feel no victories. And I think the only way I will start to feel any sort of victory is by just building the next thing and building it very quickly. And so like, I have a couple, like one or two YouTube tools that I have in mind, where I’m like, okay, cool, I have the audience now. It should be much easier for me to get a product out into the world like this. And you know, start selling it to that community and I can make something higher price. And you know, even if it’s like a month or two from now, I’m sitting on three or four KMRR, it’s like, cool, something’s there. Something’s growing, something’s happening. And I’m not losing a bunch of money on it. Like, because in this moment, I am without. In this moment, I am empty. And it is a deep, deep darkness that comes from this. And all I can think about is what I left behind. And all I can think about is what I’ve lost because currently, all I’ve gained is a number. And that number hasn’t magically changed my life. And I don’t feel particularly comfortable going and spending a bunch of it because it’s all I have.
Arvid Kahl 54:26
Oh, man, 100% exact same experience, maybe a different number, but same experience. I remember that, like we looked at the bank account and we’re like, so do we have to buy champagne now for some reason? Because we didn’t want to and then we bought like the cheap stuff because we’re gonna keep that number. And it’s like, yeah, the purpose, the lack of purpose that you describe, I know the void. I know the feeling of the void. And I know that the fear of what next. I think, I mean, if your character is I need to jump into the next thing to find that meaning again, that’s what you got to do. And I’m obviously I’m not a therapist and I can’t really help you with this. Well, although I wish I would. But even just in hearing you talk about it, it feels like you need to make, you need to do, you need to build, you need to find people’s feedback. And what I’ve seen you do in the past is you just do it in public in front of people. So you can feel the resonance. You can feel the community, gathering steam around topics, projects, products, whatever it is and I think your 16,000 followers on Twitter or X as the cool kids call it now. I think that is a sizable audience that you should just keep tapping into for these things. They’re there, people are. And that’s the thing, people don’t judge you for selling your business. Like everybody who follows you probably wants to sell a business like you just did. Like, you will not be judged for this and you will also not be judged for being just honest with people and telling them, hey, I don’t know what to do. That’s fine. Like most of us go through life in the state of I don’t know what to do. Right? So this being a setback, I get it. It feels like it. It’s not, but it definitely feels like it. So just keep doing this, man. Just keep building the things that you’re interested in and are legally allowed to build, I guess at this point. And do it in front of the people who already care a lot about you, me included. I love watching you do these things. And I’ve loved watching you code. So if you pick up the stream at any point building whatever, I’ll be there, right? Is that in the future for you? Are you gonna get back to streaming at some point?
Rox 56:39
Probably not, I might get back into content. I think streaming made a lot of sense when I was programming. But streaming is also kind of this giant build in public. So if I’m especially going into a phase where I don’t get to build in public as much with as many things, probably a lot less. And, you know, I gotta be careful because I have a tendency to talk, you know. I’m like, Tom Holland with Spider Man, you know. I gotta be real careful not to say this or that. And I don’t ever know what I can or what I can’t and try to be good at that now, which sucks. Again, it sucks. So much does my least favorite thing in the world. But, you know, if I go stream, I’m gonna want to do that. But what I might do is like, you know, my old streaming buddies, we’ve been chatted about, like, maybe getting back together for some like events or doing like skits and stuff. And so you know, there might be fun, funny things coming out from me, but probably less of the actual coding actual, like long stream anything. But you know, I think about streaming like most people talk about World of Warcraft, you know. You never really quit, you just take longer breaks.
Arvid Kahl 57:45
Oh man, you’re hitting the nail on the head here. Like I occasionally log in every week to do some elevar get some stuff going. But yeah, it is the thing that you just cannot shake, right? Like you can’t shake like the act of it because it’s just enjoyable and I enjoyed watching you. Honestly, I enjoy you wherever you are, right? On the podcasts that you go to, your Twitter stuff, anything you do, your work is just a spectacular thing to watch. So, I will keep following you. I will keep supporting and motivating you even through this valley of darkness that you’re in. It’s there, it’s real. And you’re also there in real and you’re gonna get through it. I know and I’m going to help you as much as I can. I’m gonna watch you go through and come out, shining armor on the other side. If people want to get to follow you as well and join you on your journey towards the next thing, where do you want them to go?
Rox 58:42
Twitter is my number one @RoxCodes. If you want to do me a huge favor, Google the word Rox, Google Rox and then scroll until you see my Twitter and then click my Twitter. I’m really trying to get that SEO so that I want to be the first thing or like the second thing when you Google Rox. One of them’s a charity, the charity could be number one. I’ll still be number 2 in every country. So please google Rox and then by Twitter RoxCodes. Yeah, I mean, genuinely, that’s it. Like I’m on Twitter all the time. I tweet pretty much every day unless I’m actively in a period of being acquired and negotiating stuff where I’m not allowed to frickin talk about anything, man. So I gotta go dark, but yeah, yeah. And if you got cool stuff, reach out. My website is rox.codes. So you know, there’s an email out there. If you ever want to pitch me on anything cool. And yeah, you got any cool YouTube tools, ideas, let me know.
Arvid Kahl 59:42
I really appreciate you sharing all of this with me and going to dark places going to light places, going everywhere all over the map with me today. I really appreciate it. And again, you get this. You get through this and you’re gonna come out a very, very cool trendsetter in the software entrepreneur/creator world that is even just starting to blossom out there. It’s really cool. Thank you so much for sharing everything today.
Rox 1:00:08
I’m so man, thank you. Great chatting, as always.
Arvid Kahl 1:00:11
Of course, appreciate it.
And that’s it for today. I will now briefly thank my sponsor acquire.com. Imagine this, you’re a founder who’s built a really solid SaaS product, you acquired all those customers, and everything is generating really consistent monthly recurring revenue. That’s the dream of every SaaS founder, right? The problem is, you’re not growing for whatever reason, maybe it’s lack of skill or lack of focus or play in lack of interest, you don’t know. You just feel stuck in your business with your business. What should you do? Well, the story that I would like to hear is that you buckled down, you reignited the fire and you started working on the business, not just in the business and all those things you did, like audience building and marketing and sales and outreach. They really helped you to go down this road, six months down the road, making all that money. You tripled your revenue and you have this hyper successful business. That is the dream. The reality, unfortunately, is not as simple as this. And the situation that you might find yourself in is looking different for every single founder who’s facing this crossroad. This problem is common, but it looks different every time. But what doesn’t look different every time is a story that here just ends up being one of inaction and stagnation. Because the business becomes less and less valuable over time and then eventually completely worthless if you don’t do anything. So if you find yourself here, already at this point or you think your story is likely headed down a similar road, I would consider a third option. And that is selling your business on acquire.com. Because you capitalizing on the value of your time today is a pretty smart move. It’s certainly better than not doing anything. And acquire.com is free to list. They’ve helped hundreds of founders already, just go check it out at try.acquire.com/arvid, it’s me and see for yourself if this is the right option for you, your business at this time. You might just want to wait a bit and see if it works out half a year from now or a year from now. Just check it out. It’s always good to be in the know.
Thank you for listening to the Bootstrapped Founder today. I really appreciate that. You can find me on Twitter @arvidkahl. And you’ll find my books and my Twitter course there too. If you want to support me and the show, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and get the podcast in your podcast player of choice, whatever that might be. Do let me know. It’d be interesting to see and leave a rating and a review by going to (http://ratethispodcast.com/founder). It really makes a big difference if you show up there because then this podcast shows up in other people’s feeds. And that’s, I think where we all would like it to be just helping other people learn and see and understand new things. Any of this will help the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful day and bye bye.
