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.
This episode is part three of the interview with Shane Merloch of Thrive Themes.
Shane, welcome back.
Guest (00:40.850)
Hey, glad to be back.
Omer (00:42.370)
All right, so last time we talked about, you know, building the thrive business and a big part of that in terms of building an audience and how you basically spent five years building and growing, engaging and sort of building the trust with an audience before you actually launched Thrive Themes and how you've grown that into a seven figure business, 30,000 customers and 35 employees.
And you know, it's just been what, three years?
And so it's been a great, huge progress.
Guest (01:19.680)
Yeah.
Omer (01:20.920)
But I want to talk about you and I want the listeners to kind of learn a little bit more about your story and kind of how you got to where you are today because I think it's a really interesting story and you've had your ups and downs and I read your about page on your iamimpact.com website and what I loved about that was the transparency and the way you talked about your successes, but also your failures.
So let's talk about that.
And maybe at the time when you decided that you were going to drop out of university, what was going on then?
Guest (01:57.960)
Yeah, so I mean, I decided to drop out of university because I was just not, I was no longer capable of doing this.
You know, quite interestingly, the equivalent in Switzerland, the equivalent I think would be high school, the thing that you go to before university.
I only made it there because one of my previous teacher, whom teachers whom I hated basically, you know, made some comment about how I'd never be able to make it there.
So I basically, because I was never good at school.
I was never the kid who was good at school.
I was always the kid who was bad at school.
I was always like, I mean, my poor parents, right?
I don't know how many meetings they had with my teachers about.
I was always just on the verge of failing, right?
On the verge of having to repeat a year or whatever.
So I was basically the opposite of a model, of a model student.
And I really only went to high school or whatever that would be because kind of on a dare, right?
Because this guy said I could never do that, I could never make it.
So I was like, well, screw you, here I am.
But it was clear, it was pretty clear that I was not the academic type.
And after school, initially I thought, well, I'll do some work, maybe save some money, maybe travel a bit.
Unfortunately, that plan failed at step one because I couldn't find any work.
I did the most horrible odd jobs ever and scraped together a little bit of money, but certainly not enough to do anything with.
So after two years of failing to find any kind of employment, I went to university by default.
It's like, well, you know, my parents are getting really worried and I have to do something.
I have to do something.
And this is the thing that's available to me.
I can't find a job.
So university.
And I went to university.
I started studying psychology because I was and still am interested in psychology, but I just absolutely lost my capacity for learning stuff I wasn't interested in, because basically with psychology, I was really interested in about half of it, and I was absolutely not interested at all in the other half.
And I just couldn't get myself.
I could not get myself to spend the time needed to learn that stuff.
And it was just so clear to me that this is not going to happen.
I'm not going to spend five years here.
It's just not going to happen.
Even if I somehow managed to find the willpower to, you know, to get myself to do this work I need to do here, there's no way I'll do this for five years.
And even if I did, what the hell am I going to do afterwards?
So it was clear to me this isn't it either.
And I had the itch for.
For a long time to do something of my own.
I think I've always been.
I've always been interested in teaching, and I've always been interested in kind of making and creating something myself.
And that appealed to me much more than the idea of having a job and just working for someone else.
And so at some point, I basically just started this incredibly awkward process of trying to find a business to start.
And I went through everything because, again, you have to think of this as, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
I can guarantee you that everyone listening to this podcast, even if someone's listening to this podcast completely by accident and didn't know it was about entrepreneurship, you are better qualified to be an entrepreneur than I was at this point in the story, right?
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, and I had no personal qualities either that would make me a suitable entrepreneur.
I mean, absolutely not.
And so I went just.
I kind of had this approach where, okay, at one point I thought, I guess I could try and write a book, right?
And so I started that.
Obviously, nothing came of that.
One of the things I had a lot of experience with was giving presentations and teaching.
And at one point I thought, oh, I could.
I could maybe coach people how to do that.
I could teach people how to be better presenters.
Because somehow I came across this thing that a lot of people are terrified of, giving presentations and speeches and stuff.
And I thought, oh, I actually like doing that.
And I think I'm fairly decent at it.
Maybe I can teach people.
The place where this all came crashing down was that I had no idea.
I think even now looking back, I think, yes, I could.
Even at that point, I had a few valuable things to tell people about how to give presentations, but I had no idea how to get in front of people.
Okay, so I'm offering this service now.
How the hell do I get hired?
I have no idea, right?
Omer (07:04.970)
So.
Guest (07:06.010)
And this happened several times with several attempts at businesses where I was like, okay, I have a product essentially, and I have not the slightest idea how to get a customer for it.
And at some point, it dawned on me that the thing I needed to learn was marketing also.
What happened at some point?
So one of these business ideas was that I thought, I will build computers and sell them.
And that was because I had always built my own computers.
And the computers you can buy in a shop are garbage.
And I thought, you know what?
I'll build good computers and sell them again.
The problem was, how do I find customers?
So I discovered ebay and saw that I could do that there.
But of course, on ebay, there's a lot of competition of people doing the same thing.
I did end up selling some computers, but it didn't really go anywhere.
I made a little bit of money off that, but, I mean, these were not good times, basically, in terms of financially, these were not good times.
And through that, I got into water cooling.
So, you know, one of the things crazy computer geeks do is they water cool their computers.
And I really got into that.
I got obsessed with that, and I started writing reviews of water cooling components.
And I think this was an important moment for me because in this very small niche, as you can imagine, there's not many people in this niche, right?
But in this very small niche, I went from someone who doesn't know the first thing about water cooling to a recognized authority about water cooling in the span of less than a year.
So I just.
Because of how obsessed I was with it and because I do have this thing, I. I have this thing of like perfectionism and attention to detail where that I think makes me a fairly decent review writer because I will really go into extreme detail when talking about a product.
And so I was totally obsessed with it.
I was totally obsessed with writing about these water cooling components and doing very sophisticated testing to find out which ones perform best.
And so, and it really struck me at one point that okay, people know me now, people in the forums where water cooling PC people hang out, people recognize my username, people refer to my articles on this topic as an authoritative source.
And it occurred to me how quickly I had gone from zero to that just by being totally obsessed with something.
And that's kind of when it started to dawn on me that maybe I can apply this to something else.
Unfortunately, at this point I had already signed the contract with Water Cooling Parts Distributor.
That seemed like a really great opportunity at the time.
They were like, okay, we'll do the Swiss version of our online store and you can run it and stuff.
Seemed like a great idea at the time.
Turned out to be the worst ever decision I made because I was locked into this contract, I was overwhelmed with work I had to do for this and I basically didn't get any money from it at all.
So you know, after expenses, after taxes, there was absolutely nothing left.
Basically worked as a slave for two years for this until I got out.
But at the end of that, that was one of the low points.
I really had some really, really rough times, financial problems.
And also obviously after this is several years into it, this is after several years of trying to start something.
And so certainly also some self doubt, didn't feel too great about myself and about my prospects of making something work.
But during this time, the one thing I took away from this is that I was running this online store, but I didn't have enough control over it to do anything.
I didn't have any marketing power basically.
And this is where it really dawned on me, okay, look, the thing that's always been missing, the thing that's always been the problem is that there's no marketing.
I have product, I have idea, I have service, I have whatever, but I don't have marketing.
And essentially I put two and two together and I thought, okay, what if the thing I get obsessed with, what if the thing I apply this, this method of making rapid progress, what if the thing I apply this method to is learning how to do marketing and how to build a business?
And that's, that's basically what I've been doing for the last seven years or
Omer (11:49.360)
so how many years did.
Were you kind of on this journey from having dropped out of university to the point where you kind of felt like you had a business that was generating a decent income for you?
Guest (12:13.030)
That's an interesting question.
That must have been about, yeah, I have a really bad memory for time, so this is difficult question for me, but I think that must have been about four years or so.
You know, four years of pretty much fruitless labor.
Omer (12:31.510)
And do you kind of look back at that now and think it was four years of your life that you wasted or was that kind of a necessary journey to take to get to where you are today?
Guest (12:49.580)
Look, I think most people can get this done much more quickly than I did.
But here's the thing.
What else was I going to do?
And this is, this is something that, this is something that always surprises me, you know, when basically, I think with a lot of people who have entrepreneurial dreams, when they're confronted with the reality of how difficult this can be and how much, how much of your life you have to invest into it, it's often off putting.
But the question is always, well, what else are you going to do with your time?
Because you're going to do something, the time is going to pass anyway.
And I think if for entrepreneurial stuff, okay, maybe you find out that maybe you're not an entrepreneur, maybe you should do something else with your life.
That's certainly true for a lot of people.
Not everyone is supposed to be an entrepreneur.
Not everyone's going to be fulfilled doing this.
There's no doubt about that.
We're all made differently.
But for certain things, because I think a similar pattern applies.
I mean, I talked about everything concerning entrepreneurship, but the same thing applies to just my personal development, because like I said, I was absolutely not qualified to be an entrepreneur, to run a business.
I was also basically not qualified to have any kind of fulfilling life.
I didn't have any life skills essentially.
And I invested a lot of time, I invested a huge amount of time in just in personal development, in working on myself and working on my character.
And that's also something, you know, the payoff there.
I certainly spent years and years trying all kinds of stuff to work on myself, to improve my skills, to improve my character, without any visible payoff, without seemingly, I was just absolutely spinning my wheels.
And of course that can be very discouraging.
If I tell you, listen, you can turn your life around in five to 10 years.
That sounds off putting, but what are you going to do?
What are you going to do as an alternative.
This time is going to pass anyway.
I see it here now, something like 10 years or more into this journey of basically working on myself.
And the rewards that I've reaped from this are basically ridiculous.
I mean, I have a better life than pretty much anyone I meet thanks to the work I've done.
And of course, yes, I've spent many, many, countless times working through the night.
I've been, I've been, I've worked so hard on this and I've had such difficulty to work through that.
I've been close to tears many times.
There have been, there have been, like you said, ups and downs.
There have definitely been downs.
There's.
There have been some horrible downs along the way.
But the big picture is that this is, this is where I am now.
And I could have, I could have made easier choices, right?
I could have, I could have chosen the path of least resistance.
I could have chosen not to do the difficult things.
I could have chosen to give up.
Certainly I had occasion to give up many, many times.
But as a result, I would still be here now.
I would just have a much less fulfilling and much less rich life.
I think my two part message is essentially, listen, this is going to be way harder than you think right now.
Prepare for some suffering and also, don't worry about it because it's good to do this, it's good to suffer through this.
And the alternative is not suffering in the moment, but suffering in the long term, which is not better.
Omer (16:38.780)
Yeah.
I love your story and I appreciate you being so open and transparent about, you know, that journey that you've taken and some of the tough times that you had.
But, you know, I think at the end of the day that has paid off the perseverance in terms of developing yourself, developing an audience, you know, where you are with Thrive themes now.
I mean, I love Thrive themes.
I love your story.
I'm really glad we had this conversation.
So thank you for that.
Guest (17:15.140)
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Omer (17:16.560)
All right, I want to wrap up.
It's time for the lightning round.
I'm going to ask you seven questions.
Just try to answer them as quickly as you can.
So you ready?
Okay.
Guest (17:25.400)
Yep.
Omer (17:26.000)
What's the best piece of business advice that you've ever received?
Guest (17:30.480)
I can't give you an exact quote, but it's the basic idea of listening to what people want and creating that instead of just having an idea in your head and creating that.
Omer (17:42.570)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Guest (17:46.650)
Depends greatly on where you are in your journey.
If you're early on in the journey, read something by Chip and Dan Heath which will help you.
For example, Switch by Chip and Dan Heath is good to help you change habits, make changes and things like that.
If you are.
If you have a growing business, read Good to Great by Jim Collins.
Omer (18:10.020)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Guest (18:15.220)
Work ethic.
Have I mentioned work ethic a few times?
Omer (18:20.660)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Guest (18:25.780)
Habit is probably exercise as a break from work, and I think it really helps you be more productive if you have kind of a regularly scheduled exercise break.
Omer (18:42.010)
What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the extra time?
Guest (18:47.290)
I'd love to get into the food business.
I'd love to build vertical farms or create a health food franchise or something like that.
That would be cool.
Omer (18:59.850)
What's one interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Guest (19:05.470)
I am probably the best swordsman you've ever met.
That's only because there aren't that many of us.
So at this point, actually I'm probably just boasting.
But I spent a lot of years training medieval sword fighting and I think
Omer (19:22.550)
there's a picture of you up on your about page.
Right, Doing that.
Guest (19:24.990)
I remember.
Omer (19:26.510)
Finally, what's one of your most important passions outside of your work.
Guest (19:33.810)
Passions?
That's an interesting point, because all of my passion is my work.
My passion is my work is the expression of my life's purpose.
So I wouldn't describe anything outside of work as a real passion.
Omer (19:51.650)
All right, cool.
Shane, thanks for joining me.
I really enjoyed this conversation.
I appreciate you sharing everything that you've done, your story, lessons from your business and, you know, I think the, you know, the listeners are going to find a lot of valuable nuggets in this content.
So thank you for being generous with your time and sharing everything that you did.
Guest (20:17.049)
Well, thank you very much, Omer.
I hope the listeners get good value out of it for sure.
Omer (20:23.290)
Now, one more time, tell me how to pronounce your last name.
Guest (20:26.740)
All right.
It's Shane Milag.
At least so I've been told.
Now, you know, I've discovered over the years that nobody can pronounce this name.
So maybe I've just been duped in a huge long con by my dad.
But it's supposed to be Shane Milag.
Omer (20:40.740)
Okay, here we go again.
I'll try again.
Shane Milag.
Shane Milag.
Guest (20:48.020)
Yeah.
Excellent.
This is probably the first time someone other than me has pronounced my name correctly on a podcast.
This is a milestone.
Omer (20:57.210)
That's awesome, Shane.
Thanks, man.
I really appreciate this.
Cheers.
Guest (21:01.250)
Thanks.
