Omer (00:11.840)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business.
In this episode, I talk to Calvin Corelli, the founder and CEO of Simplero.
Simplero is a SaaS platform that makes it easy for topic matter experts to market, sell and deliver their information online.
It combines email marketing, invoicing and billing and digital delivery into one complete package to help you run your entire business.
This is a story of a freelance developer who always wanted to build a product business.
He tried and failed several times.
So he kept working as a freelancer.
One day, a major client that generated the majority of his income told him that they decided to outsource the work he was doing to a company in India.
He and his wife had just bought a new house and had had their second child.
To say this was bad timing would be an understatement.
He had a new sense of urgency to make money, but everything he did fell flat.
Out of frustration, he sat down one night and did something that changed the course of his life.
I know it sounds a bit dramatic, but it really was a pivotal moment for him.
And that's when things suddenly seemed to start going his way.
He built a SaaS product for himself and as word spread, he started letting other people use his product for free.
Eventually, he started charging for the product.
He spent a lot of money on marketing, but nothing seemed to work.
So he went back to focusing on building a great product and hoped that the marketing would would work itself out through word of mouth.
And that bet paid off.
Today, his company generates over $2 million a year in recurring revenue.
It's a great story and there are tons of useful lessons to learn, so I hope you enjoy it.
Alvin, welcome to the show.
Calvin Correli (02:31.990)
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I'm really excited to be here.
Omer (02:35.990)
So I always like to ask my guests what kind of gets them out of bed.
Just get into the head a little bit.
So is there a favorite quote that you can share with us or maybe in your own words, tell us?
Like what, What?
Inspire to work on your business every day.
Calvin Correli (02:48.610)
Yeah, I mean, so I have a favorite quote.
I wouldn't say it inspires me today, but it really did inspire me.
I mean, still does, but like, I really used it when.
Back when I was struggling a lot.
The quote is, people have probably heard it before is from former U.S. president Calvin Coolidge.
And I'll read it to you, if you want.
It goes like this.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not.
Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not unrewarded.
Genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not.
The world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Yeah, man.
Back when I was really struggling, I didn't know what I was doing, and I felt like nothing of what I did was really working.
This kept me going, and so much so that I actually took his name.
So I changed my name to Calvin.
So literally, legally changed my name to Calvin based on this quote, essentially.
Omer (03:52.390)
Wow.
What was your name before?
Calvin Correli (03:53.990)
What was your birthday?
Yeah, it was Lass Holger Pin.
Three names.
Lars Holga and then P I N
Omer (04:03.390)
D. Because you're originally from Denmark.
Calvin Correli (04:06.150)
Yeah, and that was.
Yeah, I moved to New York in 99.
And it was just always challenging with my name.
Like, people would spell it wrong, say it wrong.
I didn't know how to say my own name over here.
And then I was just like, when.
When I met my current wife, who is a who, she had changed her name using numerology.
And then I was like, all right, let's do it.
Let's try it.
Let's see what happens.
Omer (04:27.970)
So is that a.
Is that a difficult thing to do, just to change your identity like that?
Calvin Correli (04:32.930)
I mean, on a practical level, it's super.
It's pretty easy, right?
You go over here, you go to the courts and you've, you know, filed some papers.
I have to put an ad in the newspaper.
Ours was like the Irish examiner and show the receipt for that I think is probably some kind of kickback scheme.
I have no idea.
But.
And then, like, new driver's license, new passport, these things.
But that's totally manageable, identity wise.
It was a big thing, like, from the time that I decided that I was going to do it.
And actually then it took me several months till I decided on a name.
And then from.
I decided what the new name was going to be until I actually went through and changed my name was a year.
It was just such a. Oh, wow.
Terrifying thing of like, what are people gonna say and think?
And like, it's so weird.
What if I don't like it after a while?
And, like, it was.
Yeah, it was very big.
But I think there is something really powerful in that, like, conscious shifting of identity right now.
It's just.
I've changed my name three times since.
Just like, minor, minor tweaks.
And now it's just like Whatever.
And I have friends who are like, yeah, I'm gonna call you by your gu.
Identify her by now from now on because we can't keep track.
Omer (05:46.250)
And did you advertise every time you changed?
Calvin Correli (05:49.130)
Yeah, well, no, just the first time on because I changed it to Calvin Jeremiah Conaway and then I've kept the Calvin.
So now I'm Sheldon Calvin Norbert Corelli, but I don't use Sheldon.
Nobody really knows that.
That's my name on my passport.
Omer (06:04.330)
So I want to talk about the Simplero and the product, but I think there's a really interesting story even before the business started.
But before we get to that, just set the context about the product so all the listeners understand who is simpler for.
What problem are you solving and how does simpler do that?
Calvin Correli (06:26.200)
Right, so Simplero is for coaches, information marketers, teachers, educators, people who make a living sharing their knowledge, their information with other people.
And the problem that we're solving for them is basically all of the technology and logistics involved in that.
So when you have a business like that, you need a website check.
We got that.
You need a way to get email, opt ins and build a list.
We got that you need a way to send emails, nurture them, do automation around it.
So if they're interested in this, they get that email and things like that.
Or if they click here, do this, et cetera.
If they buy this, do this, that kind of thing.
You need a way to sell to them, charge money, get paid.
You need a way to deliver the content to people.
So whether that's just like an ebook or a membership site or whatever it is, all of that stuff, you need to be able to do affiliate tracking, all of that.
So we basically do everything in the box, everything that you need for that kind of thing.
Which means people have one place to go for customer service, one, one place.
Like they don't need to figure out how to integrate three different things, et cetera.
Omer (07:37.810)
So, okay, so let's kind of go back to before you came up with the idea for Simplero.
I know that you were kind of, you know, life wise, kind of at a roadblock and kind of figuring things out.
So tell us kind of what you were going through then.
Calvin Correli (08:00.100)
Right?
Yeah, I was really at a low point.
So I had been out of school for probably about, yeah, about 10 years at that point.
And I'd done, I had been self employed the whole time, mostly doing, you know, programming, consulting.
So basically, you know, coding for.
For money, right.
Selling my time for my.
For.
For money.
Um, and it had Been okay.
But I always wanted to get into a product business, and I tried that several times and just failed so hard.
I was.
I knew David Heinemeyer, who created Ruby on Rails, and I, like, just watched him skyrocket with Rails and with Basecamp and everything.
I was like, that was the guy I wanted to be.
It was just.
That wasn't.
That wasn't how things were going.
And so, yeah, in 2008, I finally sat down.
It actually started in 2003.
There was a friend who was like, I don't know what you want.
Like, I invited him as a advisor to my company, and he was like, you talk about all these strategies and all these things, but I can't feel you.
I have no idea what you really want.
And I just didn't realize at that point that that was something that you could do in business, that, like, who you are and what you care about and what you want in life, that that even mattered.
I thought it was all just down to business.
And I didn't know because I couldn't.
I was so lost from myself.
I couldn't feel my feelings.
I was just so stuck in my head.
And so it took me about five years till 2008, when I'd been making money from servicing Greenpeace.
We did their intranet and just servicing that for like five or six years.
Just little tweaks and stuff.
And that was basically how I made a living at that at the end there.
And then they called me and said, hey, we've outsourced this to India.
And at the same time, we just bought a house.
Omer (09:56.540)
Oh, man.
Calvin Correli (09:57.140)
That was like three times more expensive in mortgage than we thought because of some technicality that we thought it was going to be solved in a month, but it ended up taking two years.
And then, so we couldn't get a regular mortgage.
We had to take a bank loan and just crazy.
And then we just had our second child and he wouldn't sleep at night.
So it was like, really, really traumatic.
And everything I tried to do to make money just fell flat.
It was like, ridiculous how everything was crashing down.
And then I was like, all right, maybe now is the time to actually sit down and figure out, like, what am I here to do?
What am I passionate about?
And that was like, at that point, I'd actually worked with a spiritual teacher for about a year.
I'd taken a.
Worked with a coach and then taken a coach education myself.
And I sat down one night and I wrote some questions out for myself, like, what do I love to do and what kind of people do I love being around.
You know, what energizes me, what did I dream of doing when I was a kid and things like that.
Special moments that really excited me.
One of the moments actually was in college when we were doing parties and I would be tending the bar and just doing everything I could from that position to connect with people and make sure they had a good time and just offer them this beer in this, like the most, you know, real present way I could.
That really turned me on.
So that sense of being of service was a big key to me.
But basically what I found was connecting this spiritual sense of like just being present in the moment and there's nowhere to go or be or achieve and really just coming from a place of being, being filled up with love as much as I can in this moment and feeling like I had some kind of like being curious about, like, why, why am I here on earth?
And so, you know, combining that side of me, which I kind of always had, but then really repressed and forgotten with this very pragmatic, practical like dollars and cents programming, you know, root access on the server, like this world that's very black and white and unforgiving, putting the two together, I was like, bingo.
That's what I'm, what, that's what I'm about.
That's what I want to do.
Omer (12:22.520)
So how did you kind of figure that out?
I mean, you talked about kind of sitting down and kind of asking yourself these questions, but you kind of described a situation which, you know, seemed incredibly difficult with, you know, losing a major source of income, having a new house, and you know, more expenses than you'd imagined or planned for a second child.
It's really hard then to sit down and say, okay, take a step back.
What do I want to do?
What am I here for?
And what would I do even if money didn't matter?
Because probably money mattered a lot.
And that was probably, probably in your head a lot at that time, right?
Calvin Correli (13:08.060)
But what I found was that I'd actually been in this constant state of like financial firefighting, always, like just on the brink of like, are we okay?
Are we okay?
For, for years at this point.
And what I found after doing so that was what it was like, really that like universe moment.
Like, what, what, like what do you want me to do?
Come on, like, how, how can I.
Like I had like five or six consulting gigs that all just vanished and disappeared with like in some of them up in flames and crazy blow ups and stuff, right?
So that Was really was like, all right, this is clearly a sign from the universe.
I got to sit down, and it didn't take that long.
It really just took, like, one evening of sitting down and focusing on it, and it just leapt out of the paper at me, like, of course.
This is what it is.
It just felt so right.
And then what I realized once I did that was that I had been super scared of looking for what it was that I was really passionate about for three very specific and very odd reasons.
Number one was I was afraid that there wouldn't be anything I was passionate about.
It's kind of absurd, but I was a number two or a B. I don't forget.
I'm doing one or two or A or B.
But anyway, the second one was I was afraid that maybe there was something, but it would take me several decades to find it, and it would be too late to matter, and something like that.
And number three was that I would find something that I was passionate about, but I wouldn't like it.
I would be unhappy with it.
I was really afraid that I was one of these softies, kind of a soft guy inside.
And I really wanted to be a tough guy like David Heinemeyer.
And what I found was that, yeah, I'm kind of soft in many ways, and I've just had to deal with that.
Those are the cards I was dealt.
So use it.
It's actually something I'm working on now in reverse, but we can talk about that more later.
But at this point, it was like, what I realized was that I hadn't looked because I'd been scared to look.
Once I looked, it wasn't that hard, and it changed everything.
And I had been manufacturing unconsciously these constant situations of bad financial stress, of not enough money so that I wouldn't look, because that was my excuse.
Oh, I really should be looking at this stuff.
But I can't right now because I'm too broke and I need to make money and I don't have time.
That was the story I used.
And so then it's like, all right, if your unconscious doesn't want to look there, it's going to keep creating, like, whatever it is you say you don't want to.
Omer (15:51.530)
I have this beautiful hardback little book on my desk right now, which I bought recently.
It's called the Little Book of Ikigai, the Essential Japanese way to finding your purpose in life, by this guy called Ken Moki or Moji.
I don't know.
But yeah, I mean, it's this concept of I don't know if you've come across that in terms of this ikigai, like, I K I G A I.
And it's basically kind of like this Japanese concept of like.
Like discovering your purpose.
And it's just.
I just.
I haven't finished the book yet, but it's just.
I don't know.
There's something I really like about it.
Anyway, let's get back to your story, not mine.
So how did you know David, by the way?
Calvin Correli (16:40.250)
David Heimer.
So we're.
We're from the same city.
We're both from Copenhagen.
And when.
I actually knew him from way back, because I worked in America, in Boston for a company called arsdigita.
And there was a copycat company in Denmark doing the same thing in Java by the guy who later went on to found Zendesk, Mikael Svein.
He's the CEO of Zendesk.
And so he invited me to talk about that.
David was working for him at the time and was actually creating a lot of trouble because he was a very.
He was a loudmouth and he was shitting on the.
He was saying that.
Pardon my French.
He was, like, saying that they were doing really bad things and, like, just, you know, blogging about their horrendous practices.
And then.
But then he went on to create Rails.
And I have, like, some friends in the community were just, like, immediately were like, hey, dude, you need to check this out.
So I called him up and said, hey, can I hire you to.
To come into my company?
I had a consulting firm.
We were like 13 people at the time.
Can I hire you to come in and, like, show us Rails?
Because it looks really awesome and that.
So he came in for five, four or five hours, and I was just blown away.
I immediately went out and bought a Mac.
I'd been PC at that point, just seeing how he.
How he did his stuff, and I just right then decided, we're just gonna be.
Everything's gonna be Rails from now on.
Omer (18:03.030)
Cool.
All right, so you've got your purpose.
That's kind of become clearer to you.
How did that lead to you coming up with the idea for Simplera?
Calvin Correli (18:14.070)
It came out.
So I just immediately realized, like, all the things that I've been struggling with as an entrepreneur, like, what should I do?
What's the right way here?
Like, what.
Like, what am I?
What should I even create?
How do I decide on this thing?
And, like, scared about money and future and projecting and trying to control everything that you can't necessarily control.
And all these Things that I'd been struggling with.
I was like, all my entrepreneur friends are struggling with the same things.
And I'm now like learning tools.
I've learned tools to deal with that, like being present, questioning your thinking in your mind and actually starting to feel your body and being able to feel your intuition.
And so you just like at a gut level, you know the answer to stuff so you can move forward.
And I was like, I need to teach this stuff to other entrepreneurs.
And so I did that.
So I started to put together some course and some workshop and then I was like, I'm just a developer, I have no idea how to do like a seminar or a workshop and which is which.
And how do you even do this stuff?
And so I started to look into on the Internet, like how do I do that kind of thing?
And that's when I came across the whole information marketing world.
So in 2008.
And I was like, this makes sense.
Like I know, I know computers, I can do video, I can do all this stuff.
And so I started to do this as online teaching.
Online course.
And of course when I did online courses, I was like, what software do I use for this?
Oh, there's nothing really good out there that I like.
So let me just write my own.
So that's how that started.
Omer (20:00.170)
And you built that in Rails?
Calvin Correli (20:01.930)
I built that in Rails, yeah.
And then like the, the, the Denmark is a small country and like communities are pretty tight knit.
So very quickly it spread like, hey, like what is you?
What are you doing?
Oh, I've seen that.
And like then people came to me and said, hey, can I use it too for my business?
And I was like, sure, I'll probably charge you at some point, but yeah, I'll get you set up.
And I, I set it up for, for like multi tenant as they call it, from the, from the get go.
Right.
Because I knew that that would make sense.
And then, yeah, some of those people are still with me today.
That was, you know, has been there from 2009.
I signed up with the first outside customers.
Omer (20:40.030)
Wow.
So you originally built this for yourself because you wanted to kind of go out and teach.
And then what was it?
It was probably for like the first couple of years that you didn't charge for it.
You just kind of let about about
Calvin Correli (20:56.090)
a year I didn't charge.
I started charging in September 2010.
So like a year, year and a half I didn't charge.
And then, yeah, and then I financed it by doing my own courses.
So from basically January 1, 2009.
I haven't sold anything other than either Simplero or online courses.
So I was doing online courses to finance development for the first several years.
Omer (21:26.710)
Do you still sell those online courses?
Calvin Correli (21:29.270)
I don't really.
I have one thing which is funny.
The very first online course I did, it wasn't for myself, if you will.
It was through some of the.
It was for Rails developer for a small company called peepcode and I made something called Productivity for programmers.
It's a like 60 minute screencast or something like that and it's still selling and just I think this week I got another royalty check for it.
So it's not a lot of money, but it's really cool.
It's like 10 years ago I made that.
It took me all of an afternoon and it's still selling.
Omer (22:00.160)
Awesome.
Okay, so you've, you've kind of got the product out there, people are using it.
At what point did this become a business for you rather than a tool you were using to, to kind of, you know, market and sell your own content, Right?
Calvin Correli (22:29.780)
Yes.
Omer (22:31.380)
Because when you started you didn't, you didn't build this and say, hey, I'm going to build a software business.
Calvin Correli (22:35.700)
I did kind of.
Yeah, no, I did.
I did see it as that for sure.
I, I wasn't sure.
I didn't know going to be successful or it was going to be like the others.
But I mean the difference was that here was something that I was using for myself.
I didn't, I mean, and I cared about and I knew about.
Right.
And I was like, how many people are there who really get the, like doing online courses and can make software?
I'm like, I should be able to make something special in this segment, in this space.
So I did see it as a business, but I did have like the educator hat was really drawing me at this time as well.
I was like, I had this weird notion that it was kind of more cool to be like a motivational speaker or teacher educator or something like that than like a SaaS entrepreneur.
Like these days it's pretty much the exact opposite.
Everybody wants to be a SaaS entrepreneur, right?
But so at one point I actually kind of thought of like selling it to someone or like I asked some people if they were interested in taking it over and thankfully they all said no.
And I went through a really troubling time as well because I got divorced at the end of 2010 and moved back to America or tried to, but couldn't get a visa and like completely broke and knew love and met My current wife.
And so there's, like, ups and downs.
It was very, very dramatic period and very, very, very cool period.
Like, I would walk down the street and San Francisco and just burst into tears out of nowhere, just, like, sobbing and crying.
And it was, like, very raw.
And I kind of.
Sometimes I'm like, I should have enjoyed that more because it was like, there's something so beautiful about the rawness of it all.
But, yeah, so it wasn't.
We ended up moving to India for a year.
And it was while I was in India that we reached the point where, like, our cost of living were low enough, thanks to India and the pro, the revenue was rising, rising, that I was like, all right, I can make a living just from this product.
So that was like, since then, that's been my absolute.
Like, I focused on it even more.
But during the times where I was about to give it up, thankfully, I had these.
I was about to give everything up pretty much.
But, like, thankfully, I had my customers.
And because I know most of the early people and a bunch of the later people as well personally, and I know that their livelihoods and their incomes and their families putting bread on the table depends on it.
Right.
I felt this tremendous response, responsibility towards these people.
So that really helped keep me going.
And I'm very grateful for that because initially.
Omer (25:17.560)
So you were selling this within the local market in Denmark and kind of.
At what point did you go beyond that and start looking at markets like
Calvin Correli (25:27.760)
the U.S. yeah, I always knew that I wanted to.
That was always my dream to be in the US Market.
Even when I did my software consulting firm and before that, and actually when I did the consulting firm, we basically had zero Danish customers.
We had like, MIT in Boston or Cambridge and Greenpeace International in Holland.
So that was always the Desire in 2012.
There's a bunch of things that I needed to do to the code to handle other payment processors because, like, each country is different and.
And that whole thing is.
Is a.
Is super complicated.
So there's a lot of.
Of coding work I had to do there.
And then, yeah, that's when I.
So I did all that work so I was ready.
And then what I did there was like, yeah, I bought.
Bought this course by Marie Forleo called B School, which is excellent.
But I didn't care about the product, about the content.
I just cared about.
She had a community of.
I forget at that point.
I think it was like 5 or 6,000 or maybe it was just a few thousand people who had bought the course and you got access to a Facebook group with those people.
And then I just went in there and answered people's questions when they had questions about anything technical and just be like, oh, and by the way, I've created this Simplero thing.
And if you want to, like you, I have like a special deal for B school people that they can get the first 3 months completely free of charge just to try it out.
And so that got me my first, I'd say about 25 customers in the US and then word of mouth started kicking in and then it started spreading.
Omer (27:07.620)
How much did you spend on that B school course?
Calvin Correli (27:10.100)
It was two grand.
Omer (27:12.660)
So that was kind of like just a, kind of a very strategic way of just like making an investment to access your target customers.
Calvin Correli (27:19.820)
Right.
Omer (27:20.140)
It was almost like a marketing investment.
Calvin Correli (27:22.820)
Completely just that.
Exactly.
It turned out to be a little less effective than I or I mean it was super effective in the way that it was.
Did work for me, but there's so much noise in that group that it was really hard.
I had someone post for me who had bought it the year before who was a customer.
Like got zero response for that.
But the strategy of just going in there and answering questions and being helpful got my name, got my name out.
Omer (27:46.180)
So like revenue wise, what are you doing?
Calvin Correli (27:50.580)
At the moment we're about 2 million annual recurring.
Omer (27:55.380)
2 million a year.
And so when you got those first 25 U.S. customers, how much revenue were you already doing at that point with kind of customers from Denmark?
Calvin Correli (28:12.980)
I think I remember in.
So in December 12th is when we turned the corner in terms of being able to make a living off of it, including child support and all that stuff.
And that was around 10,000 US a little less maybe.
So when did I jump into the US market?
Maybe at 5 or 6.
I don't remember exactly.
Omer (28:36.880)
Okay, all right, so you got your first 25 kind of US based customers.
What else were you doing to grow, you know, 10, 10,000 MRR to, you know, I guess let's say, you know, 175,000 today.
Like what did you do to get there?
What were the main marketing activities that that helped you drive that growth?
Calvin Correli (29:07.010)
So I think like initially, while I was still in Denmark, early on I did a couple events that that drew people in and just, you know, allowed people to see me.
It's kind of easy in Denmark because it's such a small country and, and you know, I could draw, I think I draw, drew like 100 people or something to an event that was like part promotional and part a paid Part that would actually do.
Excuse me, something educational.
I did like a monthly showcase, like showcase or something in my, in my home.
So actually like invite people to come in.
I would show them how to use the product and like, I would always be like way over people's heads and just wait.
I was really bad at it, but.
And then we'd actually cook lunch together.
I love cooking and eat together Danish thing.
And then we continue in the afternoon and if the weather was good, we'd sit in the garden and just like have a beer or something.
Something that was super fun.
I learned not to have alcohol with, with the lunch though, because then everybody just like started snoozing in the afternoon.
But, you know, but other than that, like the, the.
The funny thing is that, that I had been to some extent the information marketing expert in Denmark because once I started to study this stuff and actually get interested in marketing, I could see like all the startups I'd tried before, how clueless we'd been about marketing.
But also how many of the people, the entrepreneurs that I wanted to teach all this like spiritual stuff and coaching stuff to, they weren't buying that.
They weren't really like, what they were interested in is like, how do I make more money?
How do I get more customers?
That's what they wanted to know.
So what do you do?
Like, you sell them what they want and then you sneak the mindset stuff in the back door.
Or like you, like, you explain to people why they need that stuff to get what they want, right, but you need to sell them what they think they need.
And so I became kind of like the information marketing expert or marketing expert in Denmark or not the.
But definitely one of.
Because I was so early in the field and yet at the same time I kind of got really disillusioned with that whole.
I don't know if the audience here knows any of these people, but like Jeff Walker and Frank Kern and Andy Jenkins and some of these people, Dan Kennedy and so on, these are kind of some of the teachers in this.
And I met a bunch of them and most of them turn out to be really slimy human beings.
And just the whole thing just became, to me at least it was like one upmanship in tricking people.
Hey, look at this great strategy I just came up with to manipulate everybody into buying shit that they don't need or really want or have no idea what is.
And I sucker you into buying it, right?
I can teach you how to sucker other people into buying it.
I was like, is that really Is that really what we want to be about?
So I kind of got bummed out about the whole marketing world there.
And so even though I was good at it and I understood it and I was teaching it, I just decided for myself, it's not what I want to do.
So I just decided to focus on what I love to do.
And one of the things back to the bartender story is, like, I really love to serve people.
I really dig serving people.
I actually had this, like, I have a friend who does these fingerprint readings.
And according to the system, it's a very specific system.
My hands say that I'm school of service.
I am wired that way.
I just love serving people.
And so I just made everything about that, how can I serve my people the best?
You know, just give great, really personal, really intimate, but really, you know, good, competent customer service to people.
And I love creating things.
So I'm like, how can I make the product as great as I possibly can and just do the best customer service I can and then hope that the marketing takes care of itself through word of mouth?
And honestly, that's what I've.
That's pretty much the only thing that has worked for me, apart from the specific strategies that we talked about.
The B school, which is very similar.
Right?
Omer (33:30.620)
Yeah.
Calvin Correli (33:31.500)
I tried AdWords.
So I went to Burning man in 2014, and I met this guy in line for the Dr. Bronner's bath.
And we started chatting, and he was this Google AdWords marketing expert dude.
And he seemed like a good guy.
And I made this, like, maybe I should only work with people I've been naked with, but so I hired him, spent, like, a couple, like, tens of thousands of dollars.
I forget the exact amount.
And he got absolutely zero result out of it.
And I hired another agency who was also, like, going to do some content and some.
Some AdWords and some other paid.
And it gave absolutely zero results.
And, like, I've tried several times.
I finally was like, all right, let me just, like, not try that.
We do.
At some point, people kept asking us to make an affiliate program.
We finally did an affiliate program.
It did, like, several years ago.
It did absolutely nothing to our growth rate.
Nothing whatsoever.
It cost us 20% of our bottom line because that's our.
You know, we pay out 20% recurring.
And like most people, it just created a bunch of whiny people who were like, but I wanted.
I meant to sign up with my friends and affiliate link, but then it didn't.
Blah, blah, blah.
And then we have to, like, sit there and figure out and change after the fact for someone to get like 20%.
Like, the idea was that some people would go in and be like, all right, I can see this as a business opportunity.
And one person did that in Norway, and he is responsible for a ton of customers and he's making good bank on it.
But only one person ever did that.
So we're like, all right, let's scrap it.
Omer (35:12.700)
Did you do any content marketing?
Did you kind of blogging or anything like that to.
Calvin Correli (35:18.140)
I mean, we have a blog.
One thing I did actually is my newsletter.
So I started to write this newsletter where I would open.
It had like three segments.
Like, one was just a small, like, blog post essay, something that I would write weekly.
That was just like, kind of where I was at in my life and what was going on.
Kind of like spiritual lessons.
Maybe I'd had a conversation with my wife or a customer or something happened.
I'd kind of make a spin on it and riff on it and tell a story, a parable from it.
People really dug that.
I've actually stopped doing that just because it was time consuming and also because at one point I was very busy.
I thought I could kind of hand the day to day of some player over to other people.
And I had some other passions.
I have a political passion.
I have a music passion.
So I was really focusing on those and letting other people run Simplero.
And customers were like, oh, I don't want to go with Simplero because it seems like Calvin's head is not in it and I don't trust it.
So I stopped doing that as well.
I want to get back into that.
But yes, we did that.
And then it had.
The second section was news from Simplero, some more practical new features.
Features or something you can do.
And then the third thing that people really love too was like, three random links.
Just stuff.
I stumbled over on the Internet and just linked to, like, a cool picture or a weird story about something or like, whatever.
And that, like, people told me, like, I don't want to stop being a customer of Simplero because I really like your newsletter.
And I didn't tell them.
Well, I did tell them, well, you.
You can keep getting the newsletter without being a customer.
Omer (37:01.770)
So it was like just three random links about anything or kind of related to what they were doing in online courses.
Calvin Correli (37:06.890)
Anything?
No, no, Usually very much not related to anything online courses.
Omer (37:11.930)
So this is kind of a little bit like your YouTube channel, right?
Like Coffee with Calvin.
Calvin Correli (37:16.810)
Yeah, Well, I kind of stopped doing the random links because if you look, what I do was basically go over my Twitter link, Twitter feed once a week and just see what I posted over the week.
But these days, like 98% of my Twitter feed is on the political stuff.
So I'm like.
And I don't want to mix the two.
So I haven't actually, I've never communicated in simplero newsletter or Facebook groups or anywhere simpler related about my political show because politics is just so divisive.
So I don't want to be like pushing.
Like I do have customers, similar customers who are also following me on Twitter, on YouTube and that show.
But I'm not mixing the two just to stay aboard.
I don't know, I guess I'm afraid of the mob.
You know how people like, like, like they'll take something and then like, like a million people descend on people on Twitter and just like, horrible person and they get fired and stuff.
I'm a little scared of that.
Omer (38:09.370)
Yeah, yeah, so it sounds like.
Okay, so you did got kind of a little bit of a start with kind of the community, this Facebook community, and just kind of answering questions there.
You tried paid advertising, you tried blogging, you tried affiliate marketing.
None of those things really seem to work.
It just seemed to be build the product, provide great customer service, and write a newsletter with a bunch of random stuff that people seem to like.
Calvin Correli (38:47.540)
Yeah, I mean, the.
Love it.
The through line here is just be very real with people.
Right.
Be intimate with people, let them see who I am through the links, through the newsletter, through the customer service, and see them as individuals as well.
Omer (39:03.400)
How long did it take for you to get to your first million dollars?
Like getting to a run rate of a million dollars.
Calvin Correli (39:13.720)
Right.
When was that point exactly?
It's a couple years ago, I think.
Yeah, it was just honestly, slow, steady growth.
It was like we just kept growing steadily month by month.
And whether or not I tried to, it would just keep growing.
So yeah, the first month that we hit the 1 million run rate mark was in April, May 16th.
So about two years ago,
Omer (39:48.870)
we kind of talked at the beginning about you kind of being at a low point and kind of stuck and figuring out where you were going.
And I mean, whether you say it's, you know, the, the universe or synchronicity or whatever it was, something was pushing you towards getting away from what you were doing to.
To doing something different here.
And it seemed like when you found the thing that you felt most resonated with you, that you felt that really was kind of, you know, kind of part of what your purpose was about.
Things seem to become easier.
Calvin Correli (40:30.560)
Oh, yeah, for sure.
And the main thing was, I think that before that, I'd been trying all these disparate things that pointed in different directions.
I would do, like a.
A project management software.
I was actually doing project management software product when I met David, and he was doing Basecamp.
And I remember him saying, like, hey, can I consult with you?
When are we.
Like, would that be weird when.
If we're also competing?
And he was just like, dude, if you're going to compete with me and Jason, you got to get up real early in the morning and work hard, man.
That was his confidence level.
I was like, okay.
And I also, like, did journalism.
Like, I try to do, like, a new.
Like a new.
New startup.
Journalism startup and a bunch of different things, right?
And then when things wouldn't work out, I did a recruiting startup.
I did a, like, online publishing platform startup.
All these things that didn't work out because they were.
It was just like, just.
I was literally just like a kid screaming, just tell me what I need to do to be successful, please.
Right?
That was kind of where I was at.
And after this, everything fit together in a pattern.
So the stuff I was studying for online marketing, and then I did some online course with a coaching celebrity in Denmark, the one who had educated me and some other people.
And all the people, everything I did fit into picture, into a pattern.
And so that allowed me to get traction on things.
And I think that's so critical, right, that you're driving and you know where you're going, and then when you have a vision and a purpose like that, it tends to coagulate around something.
Omer (42:19.500)
When we spoke before this interview, one of the things that you told me that you'd struggle with for some time was kind of like the internal piece, the mindset, and.
And kind of how you saw yourself.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Calvin Correli (42:38.170)
Yeah.
I mean, where it manifested.
It manifested in many ways.
But one of the places where it was the most difficult for me was with hiring and finding good people to work with.
I was just like.
I had this idea that if someone was really smart or good, like, why on earth would they want to work with me?
And so I would look for people who were way below what I actually wanted to work with.
And then when they turn out to be not what I really wanted, I would get upset, and it was super frustrating.
And sometimes people would come to me and they would be like, I really want to work for you.
And then I was like, oh, that's so sweet of you.
Then I should probably give you a job.
Without thinking if they were actually contributing or good or they kind of person that I wanted or, you know, because I just felt so unworthy that I was like, oh, how sweet.
There's someone who wants to work for me.
Yeah, give me.
I'll give.
I'll give you money.
Omer (43:40.540)
But where did that come from?
That feeling?
Calvin Correli (43:43.660)
I mean, really.
I mean, really deep.
Like, I. I had this.
Like, when I started to realize this, I.
It was like I had this idea that in order to be worth that, I wasn't even worthy of breathing the air and taking up physical space.
I had to prove myself.
I had to be like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, billionaire's success by the age of 30.
Or I should just not exist.
I should just disappear, die.
Literally going around breathing.
I was like, oh, my God.
Like, I'm taking all this.
Like, I'm sucking all this air and oxygen and like, oh, someone else should have that because they're more worthy than me.
It was, like, very deep.
Omer (44:32.900)
Wow.
Calvin Correli (44:33.700)
Where does it come from?
I mean, upbringing, maybe I brought it into the world.
There's, like, definitely things around upbringings.
Like, my wife and I were doing some.
What do you call that?
Mentoring, coaching, something.
Therapy together for a relationship with a lady out in Ojai, California.
Her name is Katie Hendrix.
Kay and Gay.
Gay and Katie Hendrix.
Pretty famous authors, been on Oprah.
They're older now, but they were working with her, and she was like, it sounds like the relationship challenge you have could be related to birth trauma.
And so it turns out that back in the 80s, she studied this stuff that if you suffered.
My wife was drowned.
She was essentially dead when she was born.
Drowned in the placenta and the liquid in the womb.
And I was strangled with the umbilical cord and wasn't breathing either.
And then those things actually have a big impact on us after.
And it's hard to get to because.
Because it happens at a point when we have no words, we have no language.
So you basically can't get to it with cognitive therapy.
So she developed these healing modalities back in the 80s, and we did some of that.
And I was then put in an incubator for the first 48 hours.
So what happens during conception, during the pregnancy, the moment you're born, and then the bonding that's supposed to happen after where you come out, you bond with your mother.
Like, all of those were probably messed up for me in one way or the other, but I definitely know about the last two ones were.
Right.
So I think that probably has a big impact.
Omer (46:19.180)
I saw Gay Hendrix on a documentary I saw recently called Finding Joe, which is about Joseph Campbell and kind of like the hero's journey and stuff like that.
Really, really good documentary.
Calvin Correli (46:34.460)
Yeah.
Omer (46:35.180)
All right.
So you're in kind of like this state, this mindset, and wherever it comes from, what did you do to get over it?
Like, I mean, you're here, you got a business to run, and this is like baggage you need to kind of deal with.
Right?
Calvin Correli (46:49.140)
Yeah, I mean, I've been doing a lot.
I've been working with Gay as well.
Gay Hendricks and his wife and guy in Denmark and coaches and healers and all these things.
I think really, like, the.
More of reading books, et cetera, like, just.
That is a huge priority for me because I know that if I take care of things at that level, then the doing the practical, the day to day just becomes natural and easy.
And if I don't do it, I have.
The unconscious mind is a million times more powerful than the conscious mind in terms.
Literally in terms of processing capacity.
So if you don't take control or fix these things in the unconscious mind, then it's going to overrule whatever you consciously decide to do.
So, yeah, just.
Omer (47:39.020)
Yeah, I kind of shared like a.
This is a very small, but maybe kind of a silly example, but it just kind of came to my mind when you were just.
When you just said what you did.
You know, I have moments where, you know, I'll kind of sit in front of my computer and I'll be kind of working away at something and everything feels like a struggle and.
And there's so much to do and how do you deal with it and blah, blah, you know, all those kind of the typical stuff that anybody deals with when they're trying to do something, something new or big or challenging.
And I've had these moments where.
And I don't do this enough.
But it just.
I just realized this a few days ago is.
I've had these moments where I just, like, would just grab a, you know, like a yellow legal pad, get away from technology, get away from my computer, just go and sit somewhere quiet, and I'll just start writing stuff that comes to my mind and it's.
It's happened.
It's happened enough times for me to know that it's not a coincidence that I'll get up in 20 minutes or 30 minutes and go, oh, my God, everything seems clearer now.
It seems easier now.
And like, why didn't I Do this sooner.
I don't know what there is about that, but there's just something about finding that quiet, definitely.
Calvin Correli (49:01.270)
Well, there is like, literally, like when we get stressed, right?
When we.
And stress is just a fear reaction.
Stress is another word for there's something we're afraid of that we don't really know what is.
But the body goes into like this fight or flight kind of response.
And when you're in there, you have less mental capacity.
That's how that works, right?
When you're running away from the tiger, we don't need to think a whole lot.
We need to run.
So the.
Your blood goes through your limbs and away from your brain.
So you just think you're just stupider when you're stressed.
And so getting away from that, there's a lot of things, like connecting with nature, like you're doing free form journaling kind of thing.
Katie Hendricks there has something, something she calls creative joint place.
So just get up and move your body and like, try to move all kinds of joints, your fingers, your, Your jaw, your.
Your face, your ears, whatever, in ways that you don't normally do.
So that actually impacts your.
Your brain again and opens up new pathways in your brain by doing that.
And, and like posture.
I don't know if you.
There was this, like, famous tip talk with, about power postures.
And so a lot of things that you can do with your.
Especially getting up and changing something with your body that can really then start to change your mind and then you look at the same problem.
I remember reading recently as well, something that I love, which is most of the time when we face a problem, it's like we're looking up at it and it's just so big and insurmountable.
But if you visualize, zoom out, see the problem from outside, and it's just down there and it's tiny, then kind of, that shifts your perspective.
And now when you sit down and you look at it and you're like, oh, this is so easy, right?
With your back of the problem you solved two, three, five years ago.
And now you're like, oh, that was like so easy.
Like podcasting.
Oh, my God, that's.
How can I ever do that?
Now you're just like, sure, I'll just go and chat with someone and it's super easy, right?
Omer (51:03.620)
Yeah, yeah.
No, I remember, like, when I first started podcasting, like, I never thought I could do this, right?
I don't know.
I just didn't think.
I was a podcaster and I used to be so Nervous, like recording the interviews that, like, I would be, like, looking at the question I was going to ask next, and I wasn't listening to what exactly the guest was telling.
I was just.
I don't know.
I don't know if that even.
Calvin Correli (51:29.260)
Exactly what happens.
Omer (51:30.100)
Right.
Calvin Correli (51:31.030)
We stop being present with what is, and then we.
We actually suck at it.
But if we can just be present and shut that thing up, tape recorder up, that, like, having all these stories, then we'd actually be good.
Yeah.
Omer (51:45.270)
Or better.
And it's.
It's worked out for you.
I mean, you know, Simplero is being in business for, I guess, almost 10 years.
You're bootstrapped.
You're.
You're doing $2 million a year.
You're profitable.
Right.
And I'm learning every day and proud.
Calvin Correli (52:06.080)
Right.
Omer (52:06.360)
As you told me.
Calvin Correli (52:07.760)
Yeah.
Well, Basecamp did a series that they called Bootstrap.
Profitable and Proud.
Back in the.
For a while.
Back in the day.
That's where that comes from.
Yeah.
Omer (52:18.640)
All right, we should wrap up and get on to the lightning round.
So I have seven questions for you.
Let's just run through them quickly and just try to answer them as quickly as you can.
Are you ready?
Calvin Correli (52:31.620)
Yep.
Omer (52:32.260)
What's the best piece of business advice that you've ever received?
Calvin Correli (52:36.500)
No company dies mid keystroke.
It's Paul Graham.
He wrote an essay with that title.
Omer (52:42.900)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Calvin Correli (52:46.740)
Byron.
Katie's Loving.
What is.
We talked a little bit before.
Just because you have a thought in your head doesn't mean that it's true.
Omer (52:56.270)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Calvin Correli (53:01.630)
Perseverance.
There's a pattern here.
Omer (53:05.790)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Calvin Correli (53:09.550)
To keep my calendar very clean and very open, I clump all my meetings together.
I keep days that have nothing in them.
Lets me be focused.
Omer (53:21.290)
What's the new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the extra time?
Calvin Correli (53:27.130)
I really dream about doing an entrepreneurship education that goes deep into all the mind body stuff.
And I want to create a really cool physical resort place in California where we can do that, where we can host it, and other things.
Omer (53:40.010)
I'll come down.
Calvin Correli (53:41.050)
Thank you.
Omer (53:41.690)
Very good.
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Calvin Correli (53:49.400)
I write and produce songs.
I make music.
Omer (53:53.480)
Cool.
And finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Calvin Correli (53:58.280)
Definitely politics.
Right now, I'm all about how we can organize ourselves as a society.
Again, knowing how People actually work inside.
Omer (54:05.960)
Awesome.
Well, I've got to say, it's been a pleasure talking, and there is a bunch of stuff here that we talked about that, you know, typically we don't cover on this show, but I just think that, you know, you just brought such a fresh perspective and, you know, so many great insights about not just building a business, but also just about kind of dealing with the mindset and some of the crap that we end up kind of carrying around.
Calvin Correli (54:37.860)
Yeah.
Omer (54:38.260)
So, I mean, I really enjoyed the conversation.
So, you know, thank you for making the time to.
To kind of hang out and chat with me.
Calvin Correli (54:45.610)
Thank you, Omaria.
I really enjoyed it, too.
And thank you so much to your listeners staying with us here through the end.
And thank you for doing this podcast.
Omer (54:53.930)
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
So if people want to find out more about Simplero, they can go to simplero.com that's s I m p l e r o dot com.
Calvin Correli (55:04.570)
Exactly.
Omer (55:05.210)
And if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Calvin Correli (55:10.370)
My personal website is Calvin Corelli dot com, so just my full name dot com.
And yeah, you can email calvinalvancarelli.com as well if you want to get in touch.
Or Calvin simplero.com or any of the others.
All of them.
Just take a wild guess and you can't go wrong.
Omer (55:29.890)
Awesome.
Thanks, Calvin.
It's been a pleasure.
I wish you all the best.
Calvin Correli (55:33.330)
Thank you, Omer.
It was really fun.
I really enjoyed it.
Omer (55:36.050)
Yeah, me too.
Cheers.
