What were some of the things that you had to do early on?

I mean, when you're first starting off, I think you have to be a megaphone, right? You can't be afraid of putting yourself out there.

So for me, it was, you know, how do I leverage my network? How do I leverage people I know within my founder network to at least give this a shot or refer people that it can be a good fit for? And how do i again going back to like plg how do i add value before asking for anything in return right so for me it was how do i go on forums how do i go on reddit threads um how do i go to uh different discussions being had where people are actively talking about a problem or um you know posting about pitfalls with the way they record videos or the way they create demos and the pain points that they're having and actually um going out and creating demos for them or offering to create demos that they could use in production so a tacit example of that is on reddit i would actually create these um posts where i would say hey drop in your product url or product name i'll go ahead and sign up for your tool i'll learn the ropes and figure out what it does and i'm gonna i'm gonna create a 10-click super demo for you that you can start using or if you want to edit it um you can just sign up quickly on our free plan click duplicate and just make the changes you need to make and and start using it so i think by like putting our product out there without actually asking for them to sign up or asking them to pay and doing the work for them i think we were able to build a layer of uh trust And implicitly, other people on the thread would see that as we were posting the demos in line and commenting on their company name, the demo links.

They were like, whoa, this is really cool.

I get it.

I can envision my own use cases.

So that, doing things like that on LinkedIn, obviously building in public on places like IndieHackers or Product Hunt, that's something we did from day one.

you know which kind of in the beginning i would say you're bootstrapped ish right and talk about the decision but you did take on capital but you didn't spend it talk about the decision early on and what you were thinking

That is

interesting.

So they're using that promises of paychecks that never arrive, employment that is not valid, so that employment disappears pretty quickly once you know you've been scammed.

But then you've lost your time.

You might have lost your personal identification information.

And there was one feature in the news story, where there was a $4,200 per month offer being made for the work that never really materialized.

I mean, you know, and they're just, again, and that's clearly excessive.

see

Okay.

So we do have the online payment opportunity.

You can go to ShelbyCountyTrustee.com, and the first box to your left will say Pay Taxes, and you can go through that portal.

It will connect with our Pay It LLC, and it's an easy payment opportunity where you can use your credit card, debit card or you can do an ACH with your bank account and your routing number.

So that takes care of that.

Some people's payments are coming in through your mortgage companies.

We continue to process those payments as they come in.

And

[laughs]

... uh, as you all know.

But, uh, you know, I just think that, um, uh, people get better.

People get better in recovery, and that's what the research shows.

A lot of people get shortsighted, and they get stuck on, um, uh, they get stuck on, you know, the treatment failed or, you know, the ups and downs of it.

Uh, and I, I don't think we talk that way when, when a diabetic's blood sugar goes high or...

You know what I mean? Or maybe they didn't adhere to their diet like they should have.

This is just a, you know, conference uniform.

that still viable? Like, if you're going mid-market, should you still build in public?

Yes.

Yeah, I think it's even more paramount than before.

I mean, people have always said ideas are cheap, execution is what matters.

And I think... nothing you do is original.

Let's be honest here, right? Like every idea pretty much on earth, unless you're, you know, building in quantum quantum physics has been explored.

Maybe the market timing was wrong or people executed in a different way, but ideas have been explored, right? Left and right.

And probably you too, right? So how do you, we talked about defensibility, right? And we touched upon some modes and if they even exist now, right? So how do you, and not only you, but how do we all not become a feature or, you know, clots kill? Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so speaking on the simplicity, we've designed it in a way where anyone, whether they're a designer, developer, salesperson, technical, non-technical, can come on board and create and edit these very, very easily.

But as you had alluded to, if people want more advanced functionality, just like Microsoft Word, they can click around and find it.

They can add forms.

They can password protect it.

They can add branching buttons that do different things.

They can...

That was a long way of asking that question.

Yeah.

Yeah, so speaking of the simplicity, we've designed it in a way where anyone, whether they're a designer, developer, salesperson, technical, non-technical, can come on board and create and edit these very, very easily.

But as you had alluded to, if people want more advanced functionality, just like Microsoft Word, they can click around and find it.

They can add forms.

They can password protect it.

They can add branching buttons that do different things.

They can...

That was a long way of asking that question.

It kind of all w- uh, blends together to paint this picture of, of this very specific part of the country.

country.Yeah, I think Martha's Vineyard is a good example of how history and modern life is just more complicated than we tend to think of it.

You, you know, yeah, the, the common vision of Martha's Vineyard is that it's just fancy celebrities, presidents, vacation spots.

These like multimillion-dollar homes.

Um, but it's also the home of my tribe.

It's, it's a home of a really longtime historical Black community.

There's a really, um, active, uh, Deaf community on the island.

Can you speak a little bit about tourism and also capitalism (laughs) um, and the extractive ways that those work together, especially when this is a community that, that i- can't even really afford to live in many ways, was being pushed out of the land that was, that was theirs?

But would you mind reading, uh, a section from your book where you describe the other parts, the people and the land and the feeling of this island?

island?The thing about Martha's Vineyard is that it's more complicated than people think.

There's a Martha's Vineyard where politicians and wealthy Democratic donors have private parties with catering and security guards.

There's a Martha's Vineyard that is filled with Vineyard Vines polos, private beaches, and sailboats.

There's another for families who come over for the day to buy ice cream and keychains.

There are those who own a summer house, those who rent one, and those who might stay at a hotel or the youth hostel.

It's been home to fishermen, hippies, tribal members, Brazilian immigrants, working families, and so much more.

And you write about this in the book, how much identity comes down to choice, the choice to be involved and engaged with your culture, and what have you come to?

Can you talk a little bit about some of the qualifications of being federally recognized? Because your tribe actually gained sovereignty, if I'm reading this correctly, kind of by the skin of its teeth.

Yeah, the federal government has basically a list, I believe it's seven criteria that you have to apply for and meet, and there's an Office of Federal Acknowledgement in the Department of Interior that makes these determinations.

And my tribe applied and then were denied, and then we had an opportunity to resubmit some documents, some additional information, and eventually, we were accepted.

Um, but I read back through those documents, and it's kind of strange.

In the initial rejection, there's a little bit of what I would read as kind of criticism of, of our community and, you know, the community is very dispersed.

Not everybody lives on Martha's Vineyard.

And they're kind of saying, like, "Well, that's, you know, that's kind of a, a bad mark in, in our little score book here, and that might mean they're not really legitimate." And it's strange because they do acknowledge the historical reasons why that's happened, and they acknowledge historical reasons why, for example, we were not speaking our language at that time.

And you write about this in the book, how much identity comes down to choice, the choice to be involved and engaged with your culture, and what have you come to?