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.
Okay.
Today's interview is with Spencer Hawes.
Spencer is the founder of Long Tail Pro, a keyword research tool.
Long Tail Pro allows you to generate hundreds or thousands of Long Tail keywords in minutes.
Spencer launched the product in 2011 and has successfully grown it into a six figure software business.
Spencer, welcome to the show.
Spencer Haws (00:54.490)
Hey, thanks omer for having me.
It's great to be on the podcast.
Omer (00:58.170)
I've told our audience just a little bit about your business, but before we talk about that, tell me a little bit about you personally.
Who is Spencer when he's not working?
Spencer Haws (01:07.690)
Yeah, so I am definitely a family man.
I'm married, I have four children and they are a bundle of fun and they definitely keep me busy when I'm not working.
So when they get home from school, work is usually 10 time to wrap up, you know, as you can imagine with four kids.
So have a lot of fun with them.
Whether we go out hiking or do things outdoors, which we enjoy a lot.
Other than that, I try to get a little bit of running in when I can, but that sort of ebbs and flows with how busy I am in the business, I guess, if you will.
But all around, I enjoy the outdoors.
I love spending time with my family and certainly always enjoy talking business.
Omer (01:50.070)
Awesome.
Now, before we dive into more details, we like to kick things off with a success quote to better understand what drives and motivates our guests.
What is one of your favorite success quotes?
Spencer Haws (02:02.070)
Yeah, so as far as quotes are concerned, I really am not somebody that has a quote book, you know, that I'm referring to or I don't hang up quotes.
That's not to say that that's not a good idea, but.
So I don't have a favorite quote per se, but I do have something.
That conversation that I had with my f. Oh, a couple of years ago, I was trying to make a decision where to go with my business.
And the quote that he said that I'm sure many of you have heard is to make hay while the sun shines.
And that's something that it impacted me at that time when I was sort of at a decision point.
And I look back to that.
Make hay when the sun shines.
Just meaning when your business is going good, try to focus on that business and do what you can and grow it while.
While the sun shines, while things are going well.
Omer (02:50.380)
Awesome.
Okay, let's start by giving the listeners a better understanding of Long Tail Pro.
Who are your target customers, and what are the top pain points that you're trying to solve for them?
Spencer Haws (03:06.540)
So the target customer is typically either the solo entrepreneur or the SEO somebody that's running their own blog or maybe is running multiple niche websites.
That's the core audience that I speak to through my blog, but really the audience is anybody that runs a website that is trying to rank it in Google.
So people doing search engine optimization, and a couple of the main pain points that people have is speed of doing keyword research.
People using either other tools or just using their own pen and paper brainstorming methods, it can be a lot of time to figure out what's the right keyword to target.
So a big pain point is just speed of finding profitable keywords.
And that's the main thing that Long Tail Pro helps people do.
The other thing, the other pain point that people have is the confidence of knowing what keywords can be profitable.
So they might think.
Think that they have a great keyword.
But with Long Tail Pro, there's certain things in place that help you gain that confidence, knowing that you have a great keyword on your hands.
Omer (04:20.730)
Now, after all of the recent.
Well, they're not so recent.
The Google updates, whether it's Panda or Penguin or whatever, a lot of people would say, look, those days of SEO are gone, and it's really just now about creating great content.
What would you say to those people?
And why do you believe that a keyword research tool is still relevant today?
Spencer Haws (04:49.920)
Yeah, I mean, first of all, I actually would agree that great content is key.
You know, you still most certainly have to produce that great content.
But as long as they're search engines, the way that people are finding information through Google and other search engines is by using keywords.
Google has to be able to organize the billions of websites out there in some fashion.
And the way that they organize that is by keywords.
You type something into Google and it has to return relevant results.
And it just because people are searching for so many things each and every day on Google, there's some keywords that are very competitive, and then there's other keywords that are not very competitive, you know, meaning a lot of websites are not writing about some longer tailed phrase.
And so it still is so critical to know what to write about.
You know?
You know, you need to produce good content, but what specifically should you write about?
And you need to be thinking, how are people going to find that article?
What keywords are they going to use to hopefully find your content?
So keyword research is still absolutely critical because if you just sit down and write an article, you might write a really great article, but Google is not necessarily going to organize it the way that you want them to.
People aren't going to find that content unless you're using proper keywords.
Omer (06:25.300)
Now, Long Tail Pro wasn't the first keyword research tool in the market.
And there are, you know, a lot of other options or competing products out there.
How, how do you, you know, what's, what do you do to differentiate your product?
And, and how is Long Tail product, the Long Tail Pro, different from those other competing products?
Spencer Haws (06:51.990)
Right.
There definitely are a lot of competing products out there.
You know, Long Tail Pro is not the first and, you know, hasn't been the last.
There will be new ones created.
But, but that is the key.
How can you be different from your competitors?
And one thing that I found, and to give people a little bit of background, before I created Long Tail Pro, I was out creating lots of websites, I was doing lots of keyword research and I was trying to do it as quickly as possible.
And so I was using the competing products that existed, for example, Market Samurai.
And one of the main pain points that I had as a user of these other keyword research tools is that it took a long time to get lots of results.
And specifically one particular point is that most of the tools only allowed you to input one seed keyword at a time.
So you'd input one seed keyword, get a batch of results, and if you didn't like those results, you had to go back and input another seed keyword.
So I just took that one small point and a big differentiator of mine now is you can input multiple seed keywords at once.
So instead of one, you can input five or 10.
And that drastically reduces the amount of research time that it takes for people.
So I was perhaps the first keyword research tool to do that.
I don't know, there may have been others, but I was the first one to really focus on that.
The multiple seed keywords at once and the overall speed, just doing some things that you could pre filter instead of filter after you get results, which also reduces time.
So that's the big, has been the big differentiator for me is speed of getting results and the quantity of the results that you get back.
Omer (08:44.330)
Now let's talk more about what you were doing before you launched Long Tail Pro.
Tell me a little bit more about these sites that you were building.
Spencer Haws (08:54.390)
Yeah, so back in about 2006 or so is when I created my first website.
And I did it more out of a desire to see if I actually could create a website, just a hobby, got something on the web, figure out what this whole Internet thing was all about, and got it up and running.
And nobody came to my website.
You know, like, probably many people have had that experience.
I was like, huh, how do I actually get people to come to my website?
And that led me on a journey of figuring out what search engine optimization was and how Google actually works.
And it was really a couple of years before the light bulb kind of went on for me and realized, oh, I see.
So if I actually write about things that are low competition in Google, I can rank very quickly because nobody else is trying to rank for that keyword.
And that led me then to start building out lots of small niche websites where I would target basically one low competition keyword.
I'd build up a small website targeting that phrase, whatever it may be.
For example, a couple of my first websites targeted worm farms, was one of them, and another one was Buffalo Nickels.
So very, you know, random, very niche sort of phrases.
And I.
And they worked.
You know, I would rank very quickly in Google.
These websites might only make me, you know, $50 or $100 a month, but the idea was to build lots and lots of these.
And that's exactly what I did.
I built out tons of these little niche websites.
And by 2011 I was making more from my side business with these niche websites than I was from my day job as a business banker at Wells Fargo.
And so I quit my job and I've been doing either SEO or just full time on my own ever since, for the past three and a half years or so.
Omer (10:57.610)
How many of these sites do you have today?
Spencer Haws (11:01.770)
So I still do have a lot of those websites, but certainly a lot has changed since I started building those, you know, five or six or seven years ago.
So I have some sites, I don't have an exact number, but I probably still have, oh, 50 or 60 sort of small niche sites out there that are really passive at this point.
I don't manage most of those.
I have probably seven or eight websites that I actually manage a little bit close closer now and put some effort into, I guess on a month to month basis.
Omer (11:38.920)
And one of those sites that you presumably spend more of your time on is nichepursuits.com.
Spencer Haws (11:45.960)
oh yeah, absolutely.
I have nichepursuits.com.
that is my primary business blog where I talk about what I'm doing, things I'm learning as I'm building out websites still in my journey in business overall.
So, yeah, it's my personal and business blog, I guess, if you will.
Omer (12:04.290)
Okay, Spencer, let's talk about the early days of Long Tail Pro and how you got started.
You mentioned a little bit earlier about why you felt there was a need to create another keyword research product.
Do you remember the moment when you came up with that idea?
Spencer Haws (12:25.250)
You know, I don't know if I remember the exact moment, but I do know that it was at some point where I was using a competing product and I was just so frustrated with how long it took me.
I was spending hours and was getting back so few results.
And just the frustration, I was like, I see no reason why there's not a better way to do this.
And so, yeah, that was really the moment when I was using a competing product.
That sort of led me on to eventually researching and figuring out if I could be the one to create that new keyword research tool.
Omer (13:06.940)
Now, you're not a developer, right?
Spencer Haws (13:09.180)
That's correct.
I am not a developer.
I'm, you know, my background is finance and business management.
And so, yeah, I have very little to no actual programming experience.
Omer (13:23.340)
So what did you do next?
You've got this idea.
Did you go out and try to validate it?
Did you?
What did you do next?
Spencer Haws (13:31.590)
Yeah, so I did do quite a bit of research.
First of all, I wanted to see, is there a good enough market for this?
I felt like there was because I was involved in the market, I was the target customer.
So I understood that there was a need, but was there a big enough market?
And I went out to answer that question.
And this is sort of a side tangent slightly, but I actually got an answer to that directly.
Oddly enough, Market Samurai again, was kind of the leading keyword research tool.
I was on their email list and I remember during that research time of a few months where I did research, I got an email from Market Samurai that they sent out to all their subscribers that basically told the story, a little bit of Market Samurai.
And in there at some point it said, finally we created this product and it's now done over $6.7 million in revenue.
And so they basically gave me my answer.
I was always wondering, well, how much are these people actually making?
And well, they told me in their email.
And so I was like, there you go.
There is a healthy market.
I'm going to build this product.
And so I did my market research.
I found, yes, there's a healthy market.
And then at that point I knew because I'm not a programmer, I needed to hire somebody.
And so I started diving into the whole world of how do you hire a developer and where do you find them?
Omer (14:58.790)
Okay, so you feel like you've validated the idea.
There's clearly a need, there's a market opportunity out there.
And so how did you go about finding that developer?
Spencer Haws (15:15.750)
Yeah, and so what I did, I went over to freelancer.com and posted a job for a freelance developer to start building the product again.
I had no experience, experience, but I knew that I could find a programmer there.
So I posted my job and I made pretty much every mistake in the book.
This first go round actually took me two tries before I got it right.
But I hired somebody for pretty cheap to develop the product.
They were in a different country, we didn't speak the same language.
You know, we could, you know, he spoke English well enough to write and so we could communicate that way.
But, but I, I did get a product back that first time and you know, I don't know how far down the store you want me to go, but I did get an initial version of the product.
It did work.
I started selling it, but only for about two weeks and then it broke.
And then all sorts of problems came along where I wasn't able to get the updates from my programmer, as I expected.
When I asked him for the source code, he wasn't turning over the source code so I could take it to somebody else.
And on and on.
Lots and lots of problems.
I eventually what I ended up doing is going back, finding somebody better and starting the project from scratch all over again, actually.
Omer (16:45.640)
How much did you spend on that first version?
Not just that with a developer, but how much did you spend in total to get from the idea to the first, the officially the first version of your product,
Spencer Haws (17:01.620)
the first version that ultimately failed?
Omer (17:04.660)
No, I mean, when you eventually got to a point that you were happy with the first version of the product,
Spencer Haws (17:09.060)
I gotcha so well.
Okay, so I'll give you a breakdown.
So sort of the first version that, that failed, I probably, I spent less than $5,000, probably, you know, a very cheap developer.
It broke after about two weeks, even though I had started selling it.
I went back and hired somebody else and I put, oh, another 25 to $30,000 into the first real version, I guess is what I'll call it.
So, yeah, all said and done, probably around 30, 35,000.
Omer (17:46.950)
And how long did it take you to get to that point?
Because I mean, it sounds like you, you know, you lost some time with this first developer.
Fortunately, it looks like the.
Probably in hindsight, it was a good thing that it broke pretty quickly.
Spencer Haws (18:01.910)
Yes, I would agree with that.
Omer (18:04.470)
And then how long did it take you to get to this next developer and then eventually build this next version of this product to get to market?
Spencer Haws (18:12.010)
So it was a period of about seven months, you know, both, both versions, you know, so the, the sort of second version took five to six months to get up and running basically is, is what it worked out to be.
Actually that's, that's maybe a little long.
It was probably closer to four months or so, but about six months total from sort of idea to a version that I was happy with.
Omer (18:42.410)
And so that next version launched sometime in mid-2011, correct?
Correct.
Spencer Haws (18:49.130)
I believe it was in June 2011 that it officially launched.
Omer (18:52.970)
Okay, how did you get your first customer?
Spencer Haws (18:57.850)
So I did have a very small blog, actually a precursor to my niche pursuits blog.
I had another small blog that had been running for a short time.
So I did have an email list of maybe a thousand people, not, not a lot, you know, several hundred to a thousand people that I launched it to them first.
You know, I told them, hey, I'm creating this tool and go check it out.
So that's how I got my very first customer.
Omer (19:25.980)
And this list had these people signed up for.
Specifically for this upcoming product or was it kind of a related site?
Spencer Haws (19:37.950)
Right, it was a related site.
I had a blog is very similar to nichepursuits.com so I was talking about SEO and building my niche website.
So these were people that were interested in getting updates about niche websites.
They were out building their own and certainly closely tied to that is keyword research.
So they were very interested in that topic.
And of course I had been sending out emails and blogs post letting them know that I was developing this product.
So they kind of knew it was coming.
And so when it launched, I basically let them know that, hey, it's ready to go.
Go check it out.
Omer (20:13.370)
Okay.
And did you start charging from day one?
Spencer Haws (20:17.450)
Yes, I did.
From, from day one.
It was a one time purchase product, you know, that they paid once and they had lifetime access to the tool.
But yeah, right out of the gate I did start charging right away.
Omer (20:33.340)
Okay, so you sent the email to these thousand people.
How many of them ended up buying the product?
Spencer Haws (20:39.900)
I'm actually looking at some of my numbers and you know, I should also say that at about the same time I sent that email, I also listed it on the Warrior forum as a Warrior forum special offer.
So I don't know how many from my email list bought versus how many from that sort of special offer on the Warrior forum, but I will say I didn't do anything special with that listing on the Warrior forum other than I put it out and I emailed my list and said, hey, go check out this special offer.
So there was some purchases from directly from Warrior form, some directly from my email list.
But all said and done, I sold about 100 copies of the software in the first few weeks.
Omer (21:28.150)
Do you remember what you were charging for it?
Spencer Haws (21:31.430)
Yeah, it was either 37 or $47 that I launched it at that first time.
Omer (21:41.590)
Okay, so you made about $4,000.
Spencer Haws (21:47.110)
That sounds about right.
Omer (21:48.470)
Okay.
Almost covering the cost of that first developer.
Spencer Haws (21:52.390)
That's correct, yeah.
I basically broke even, I think is how it worked out to be with that first developer and the first logo and web design and sort of all the costs I had.
Omer (22:02.920)
Okay, so what did you do next?
Spencer Haws (22:07.800)
So at that point it was a really tough decision because here I am, I broke even, but the software quickly broke and I had to decide, do I just scrap the business completely or do I think there's a good enough market here to continue on and pursue that?
You know, I ultimately, of course, made the decision that I needed to go back and do it right the second time.
So I went this time over to Elance, and this time I did a lot more interviews, a lot more.
I put a lot more effort into finding a great developer, and instead of hiring somebody cheap, they could get it done quickly, I hired somebody that was great, whatever the cost would be.
I just wanted the best person possible.
And so I ended up hiring, I think, the most expensive person, but they've absolutely been worth every penny that I paid them.
I still use the same developer today, three and a half years later.
So it was a great decision.
I got the second version.
It took four months, four to five months to get it out the door.
And then I basically did another launch in, in June of 2011, and that launch went much, much better.
Omer (23:20.920)
Now, what was the reaction from these early people who'd bought the product?
And then it broke.
So presumably it wasn't working for them either.
Spencer Haws (23:29.480)
Yeah, and so there was all ranges of reactions, of course, people that wanted an immediate refund, which I issued right away, if I recall.
And this is going back a little ways, but I believe that I emailed everybody that had purchased the hundred people and Said, hey, we know there's issues with the software.
If you want a refund, let me know.
However, I am also developing a new version.
It's going to take a few months to get that, but if you're willing to hold on, you're going to get a free copy of the new version.
A lot of people opted to just wait until the new version came out and then I did give them a free copy of that.
Other people wanted refunds, so that's how I handled it.
Omer (24:16.510)
Okay, so looking back at those early days, if you could go back and do things again, how would you do it differently?
Spencer Haws (24:27.230)
Well, definitely I would be more concerned with hiring the best possible programmer out there rather than trying to get it done for as cheaply as possible.
That's a big mistake that I made.
And so, and the way to do that is to, like I said, just do a lot more pre hire sort of interviewing and research, you know, looking at the work done by the developer, getting somebody on the phone or on Skype, actually talking to them, making sure that you can communicate and you both understand expectations.
So I would just do a much more thorough job of hiring a developer and build the best product possible.
Omer (25:07.340)
Okay, great.
All right, so let's talk a little bit about this relaunch, the launch, take two.
How did you go about, did you go back to that list again and promote this next version of the product?
Spencer Haws (25:25.500)
Yeah, I did.
But some interesting things happened in the period of.
So from January 2011 was when I initially launched, that ultimately failed is also the exact same time that I started my new blog, niche pursuits.com I also happened to quit my job, my full time job, March 11, 2011.
And so I had some very interesting things going and my niche website business was growing.
I was doing very well.
And because of that I had a lot of great blog content on my new blog, nichepursuits.com and that blog actually took off in the few months between the initial launch to the relaunch.
And so I grew my email list significantly.
I don't remember what it grew to, but it was at least three or four times the size of, you know, the initial launch.
So yes, I did go back to my email list, but because all these things had been happening, I had been producing lots of blog content, building an audience, my name had been mentioned little bit more in other, you know, in the blogosphere of my particular niche, I had a much bigger email list.
And so when I launched to them, there was a, a lot more customers the second time around.
Omer (26:50.680)
Okay, do you Remember what kind of sales you did the second time around?
Spencer Haws (26:54.680)
Yeah.
So I. I thought you might ask this, so I actually have my numbers pulled up here, so.
So the second time around, within the first couple of weeks, it did just over $10,000 worth in sales, so.
So about three to four times, kind of what I had done initially before.
Yeah.
Omer (27:17.400)
So a more successful launch this time, the product was more stable and you had more happier customers.
Spencer Haws (27:25.320)
Yep, absolutely.
Customers loved the product.
It was a product that not only worked better than what I had originally put out there, it finally sort of met my expectations of being a faster and better product than existing competitors.
And it also looked great.
I put some work into the design of the software and got lots of great feedback.
People loved the product.
It was well received.
Omer (27:51.970)
So in those four months that you were building the product, were you going out and talking to people and asking what kind of features or functionality was important to them, or were you really building this as the product that would help you to do better keyword research for your sites?
Spencer Haws (28:15.840)
Well, I definitely did a little bit of both.
I mean, because I was somebody that was doing keyword research on a regular basis, I understood the needs of the market very well, and so I had a lot of that information internally.
However, I was definitely talking to my audience.
People that were on my email list and knew that I was creating a software product certainly were very free with their opinions.
They emailed me or on my blog, and blog comments would let me know, hey, it would be great if we added this feature or if your tool did this and that.
So I was definitely in talks with my target audience all along the way through the development process.
Omer (28:58.940)
Okay.
And then.
So you've launched.
Things are looking more positive this time.
What did you do to.
To keep marketing the product and attracting more customers?
Spencer Haws (29:12.780)
Yeah.
So I did, at that time, start trying to reach out a little bit to some affiliates that could help promote the product and have it on their blog.
And so, because, again, because nichepursuits.com was getting a little bit more well known, people knew me.
At least a few people knew me that I could contact, and they became affiliates.
And also, I do have to go back to.
I know I keep harping on this, but my blog has been just a huge driver of sales all along.
So my consistent blogging and content marketing directly on niche pursuits, as that's grown, so have the sales of Long Tail Pro.
So content marketing has been huge.
And then.
Then the affiliates that I added have been big as well.
Cool.
Omer (30:02.530)
Yeah.
And I think.
I think as we were talking about earlier, I discovered niche pursuits first, and then I learned about the other things that you were doing.
Okay, so the, you know, the product is growing and you obviously did a great job while you were building this product to start to build an audience and a following and a platform where you could effectively promote this product.
What advice would you give to struggling entrepreneurs who either are struggling to get that first customer or maybe have had some sales but are really having a hard time building traction there?
Spencer Haws (31:02.420)
Yeah, one thing that I would say is definitely try to reach outside of just your own direct influence.
And this is what I did, you know, trying to reach out to other bloggers or other people.
What.
I guess the piece that people can apply no matter where they are, is try to find the influencers in your market and strike up a conversation.
Try to build a relationship with them and try to find out how you can either do some sort of joint partnership or affiliate partnership in some way.
You really do need to be building relationships with influencers in your market.
And by doing that, you're going to get some return or mentions and hopefully, you know, eventually they'll even promote your product.
But just trying to reach outside of your own list, your own blog, and trying to find those people that are already involved with your target market.
Omer (32:01.980)
And how did you handle the affiliate program?
I hear about a lot of people talking about difficulties in finding the right solution and maybe that's focused more on SaaS products.
Although you have a subscription offering as well, right, with Long Tail Pro?
Spencer Haws (32:20.700)
Yes, I do now as well.
We added that about two years ago.
Yeah.
Omer (32:25.980)
So what did you do to implement the affiliate program?
Spencer Haws (32:30.950)
Yeah, so I actually use clickbank.com to handle all of the affiliate relationships and payments there.
And, you know, I don't know if that's the best solution, but it's worked well for me and our product.
It's nice because they basically handle everything.
You know, I'm able to just use their system and they, you know, collect payments, disperse affiliate, you know, commissions and everything like that.
So it removes a huge headache for me.
Omer (33:00.200)
Okay, so looking back at after you'd launched this second iteration of Long Tail
Spencer Haws (33:06.200)
Pro,
Omer (33:08.360)
tell me about one big challenge that you faced in growing the business.
Spencer Haws (33:17.480)
You know, there's always competition out there.
There's always people creating, you know, new software.
And so that's, you know, that, that's a, that's always a challenge.
As much as some people might like to think that software is something you can create once and sell unlimited amount of times, really there has to be constant, ongoing updates and development of the product.
And so that's been an ongoing challenge, especially with, you know, Google updates.
They're changing how they rank things in the search engines.
And so we've had to go back and retool how we calculate certain things within Long Tail Pro.
And so it's, I guess that's not one particular challenge other than to say it's just an ongoing challenge that as long as there's updates in the market and either with your competition or with the underlying technology, you have to constantly be updating and upgrading your software.
And so that's just an ongoing thing that we've been doing since day one.
Omer (34:28.110)
Okay, so how, how do you focus and spend enough time on keeping up to date with the, what, you know, is happening with competitors, what's happening with Google, changes in the industry, running niche pursuits, having your own podcast, having all of these other sites and your kids.
How do you manage all that?
Spencer Haws (34:51.920)
Not very well sometimes, probably.
You know, it's a great business to be in.
You know, I love staying up to date.
I read the sort of SEO news and I enjoy reading other blogs.
So I stay up to date that way, really out of enjoyment.
It's, it's what I read.
So that piece isn't real difficult for me.
And because I'm, you know, writing on my blog and interacting with my customers, I stay pretty up to date there as well.
But as far as time, time management, I guess is really the question.
You know, I, you know, I try to prioritize things pretty well.
Each morning when I wake up, I write down what my top few things that I want to get done for the day are.
And I find that that provides a lot of clarity for me throughout the day or throughout the week, so that I actually am getting important things done rather than, you know, as much as I do like to read other blogs and listen to podcasts, that can't be a top priority thing.
I need to make sure that I'm, you know, updating the software and doing the certain things that I'll move my business further along.
So that's one little productivity thing that I do, is just write down those things that are most important each day for me to accomplish.
Omer (36:13.470)
Yeah.
And I think that one great piece of advice that I heard, and I wish I could remember who I heard that from so I could kind of give them credit, but it was really about spending less time being a consumer and more time being a creator.
Spencer Haws (36:30.220)
Right.
Omer (36:30.460)
And it's so, it's so easy just to Spend time reading blogs and listening to podcasts.
But at some point, you know, if you're going to, you know, build a product or build an audience, you really have to prioritize the creation part ahead of everything else.
Spencer Haws (36:49.820)
Yep, absolutely.
I agree.
Omer (36:52.220)
Okay, let's talk about the business today.
What sort of revenue are you doing?
Spencer Haws (36:59.550)
So I usually don't share exact numbers.
I will say it's a healthy six figure business a year.
Omer (37:07.390)
Just from Long Tail Pro.
Spencer Haws (37:09.150)
Just from Long Tail Pro, Yep, absolutely healthy.
Meaning it's not just barely 100,000 and it's less than a million.
So there you go.
Omer (37:21.390)
Okay, you're somewhere in between there.
Okay, that narrows it down.
I know you've hired some people to help build and maintain the product.
So what is the size of your team today?
Spencer Haws (37:36.150)
Yeah, so I have a developer that, you know, the same one that I hired three and a half years ago that is still working with me.
He's still on a contract basis, believe it or not.
But yeah, he works with me quite a bit.
I'm definitely his biggest client, if you will.
And then he has, or we also have two other contract developers working on it.
So three contact developers, a couple of part time customer support people.
And then I just last week hired a full time brand manager marketing employee to help me further promote the product.
Omer (38:21.610)
Cool.
So what was your reason for continuing to keep these people on a contract basis?
Spencer Haws (38:32.010)
Well, it's just, it's worked well up to this point.
The person that I have, he's somebody in a very similar situation to me.
He has children, he works from home, we get along very, very well.
And so we have a good understanding of how things work and we've had discussions back and forth about, you know, should I just hire him full time and this and that for my particular situation.
It has just worked out really well to just keep him on a contract basis because he can put in lots of hours if there's an update and then, you know, there might be a week or two where he doesn't do hardly anything at all.
So it just works well because it ebbs and flows with how much work actually needs to be done.
Omer (39:21.800)
Okay, what's the one thing in your business that you're most excited about right now?
Spencer Haws (39:31.159)
You know, believe it or not, I am most excited about the growth potential of this product and of this market.
It's a big market.
We've only tapped into just a little bit of it.
And that's why I just hired a full time marketing person just last week because as you mentioned, I'VE got all these other things going on with my blog and niche websites and children.
As much marketing as I can do, it's still a small sliver of my time.
I want somebody dedicated to that full time because I know that I can double this business.
So there's a lot of growth potential.
I'm excited about tapping into some of those other opportunities that are out there outside of kind of the target market that I've been focusing on right now that I think we can expand that a little bit to small mom and pop shops that own their own small business and they have a website and are just getting into content marketing.
People like that.
I have really not targeted specifically, but there's a lot of areas.
So I'm just.
Yeah, I'm very excited about overall growth potential.
Omer (40:43.500)
Okay, great.
Okay, it's time for our lightning round.
I'm going to ask you a series of questions and I'd like you just to answer them as quickly as you can.
Spencer Haws (40:51.980)
Okay?
Omer (40:52.700)
All right, let's go.
What's the best piece of business advice that you ever received?
Spencer Haws (41:01.100)
That was just to follow my own strategy.
Not to listen to what others are doing, but just develop your own strategy and follow that.
Omer (41:10.390)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Spencer Haws (41:16.470)
This is a classic, how to win friends and influence people.
Because you're always needing to develop those relationships, and that is a great resource to do that.
Omer (41:25.350)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Spencer Haws (41:32.640)
Somebody that's able to not only market and sell their products well, but also remain honest and have that integrity that somebody should have.
Omer (41:43.920)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Spencer Haws (41:50.080)
Currently, I use Asana.
I like it a lot.
It gets me that simple format and keeps me on task for what I need to do.
Omer (42:00.510)
If you had to start over tomorrow and you have already done that several times, how would you go about finding that next business opportunity?
Spencer Haws (42:11.870)
I would probably start by figuring out what my own pain points are by solving my own problem and then figuring out if there's actually a market for that solution.
That's absolutely where I would start.
Omer (42:27.030)
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Spencer Haws (42:35.750)
I'm a high school.
I was a high school wrestler and I had a big old cauliflower ear that I had to get drained multiple times.
Omer (42:42.550)
Wow.
Spencer Haws (42:45.750)
All right.
Omer (42:46.150)
And finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Spencer Haws (42:52.480)
I'm absolutely passionate about my family.
I can't harp on that enough, but I will give you another one I also enjoy running.
I've run a few marathons and that staying physically fit is important.
Omer (43:06.320)
All right, great answer, Spencer.
I want to thank you for joining me today and sharing your experiences and insights with our audience.
And thank you for letting us get to know you a little better personally as well.
If folks want to find out more about Long Tail Pro or niche pursuits or they want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Spencer Haws (43:25.540)
Yeah, they can go over to longtailpro.com if they want to try out Long Tail Pro of course.
And then over@nichepursuits.com I have a contact form there.
They're welcome to reach out and get in touch with me or if they want to do that on Twitter, I'm itchpursuits.
Omer (43:42.990)
Awesome, Spencer, thank you and I wish you continued success.
Spencer Haws (43:46.910)
Hey, thank you so much, Omer, for having me on.
It's been a pleasure.
Omer (43:50.110)
Cheers.
Spencer Haws (43:50.910)
Thanks a lot.
