Brittany Alwerud from Handlr Business Management – Small Business Show Episode 130

The Small Business Show Episode 130 for Wednesday, August 2, 2017 Greetings, folks and welcome to the Small Business Show. The bot. The show. Easy for me to say. The show by, for and about small business owners. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in San Francisco Bay Area, I'm Shannon Jean. How goes it band?

It goes, it goes. I'll stop stumbling over myself some of one of these days here.

That's right. When you stop talking, right?

Yeah, that's, that's the key. That's the solution, man.

That's cool. That's good. Yeah, I just, I just rolled back into town from the ebay open convention out in Vegas. We're going to spend some time on next show talking about that.

Sounds like fun.

Yeah, it should be pretty good. So, but day today we have a great guest. And you know, if, if you're a small business and you're managing a team of employees that are mobile, moving around, we've talked about it before. The best way to handle scheduling, how to communicate with them. Our guest today has an awesome app, a great business that handles appointments, booking things, billing. The more I read about this product, the more impressed I was. Joining us today is Britt Alvarud. I think I got that right. Founder of Handler. They're a company specializing in small business and helping him manage communication, communications, payments, scheduling, all kinds of stuff. So, Brit, welcome to the show.

Hey, Shannon and Dave, thanks so much. I'm excited to be on here.

Yeah, we're excited to have you for sure. So we're going to talk about Handler, but first I want to spend a little bit of time talking about you and your experience because that's what we share so much on the show. So tell us how you got started and tell us how Handler was born.

Well, Shannon, I got started by picking up a lot of dog poop.

Awesome.

Wait a minute. Let me go get my kids so they can listen to this too.

Yeah, exactly.

So I was at UCSD and I really missed having animals in my life. And then when I moved out of the dorms and into my own place by the beach, I started walking my neighbor's dogs just to make some extra cash. But then I realized, oh, my gosh, I love this. And this extra cash is kind of turning into a lot of cash and a lot of dogs. So happy I'm on cloud nine hanging out with all these dogs and they're great owners that I decided that I, when I graduated, I was going to turn it into a real business and going From a sort of a passion side gig to a real business was a big leap.

Sure, I could imagine.

Mm. So then I started walking more and more dogs, and before I knew it, I was taking care of about 20 to 30 dogs a day by myself.

So.

So I was that dog walker, you see, who has 10 dogs strapped to them, walking through the streets. And it was pretty crazy. But when I, you know, all my family members are going, gosh, you're graduating UCSD and you're going to be a dog walker. And I was like, no, this is a real. This is a real thing, guys. This is getting to be a big industry here. And this was about 11 years ago now. And so at 19, I started the business, and, you know, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't really realize that I needed to have all these systems and processes in place, and I was just winging it and just making cash. And basically people were just leaving cash or checks on the table. But as soon as you get busier and busier, suddenly things start to fall apart. And I had one client who I absolutely love this client. She's a really successful businesswoman in her own right. I gave her an invoice that was about two months late because I just was walking dogs all have time to sit at my computer and do all my invoicing and making sure that all my T's were crossed and I's dotted. And so I gave her that invoice, and it was for thousand dollars worth of dog walking. And she was like, brittany, oh, my God, you can't do this. And my husband's gonna kill me when he sees this bill. And you're not a businesswoman, you're a dog walker. And at that point, I went, oh, my God, she's right. I mean, I'm just a dog walker right now, and I want to be a business owner. And so that's when everything changed for me. I also hit a literal wall. I was so busy and so burned out that I looked down because I was eating all my meals in my car. I looked down, took a bite of oatmeal, and bam. I just went straight into the back of a trash truck while I was driving.

That's wild.

So those two things happened in the same week. And then I went, you know what? Something's got to change. Something has to give.

Yeah. So, I mean, you said so much, and there's so many good things in there. You know, one of the issues we always hear from other business owners is just as you describe Trying to get a handle on the accounting side of things, trying to manage all that stuff. And you know, actually bill for your work is that people get so busy that they just stop doing it. And here you think it's the most.

Common problem that a small business owner has.

Yeah, getting paid.

Getting paid by people that want to pay you.

Yeah, they want to pay.

They already agree.

Yeah. And I've already done the work.

That's it.

Yeah.

Right. The hard part, quote, unquote, is done. Although.

And there's a. And there's a huge difference between sending like, you know, $100 a week or whatever it is invoice than a thousand dollars invoice. Right. I'm sure that that flips them out. So when you decided to turn it into an app and do a real business, were you focused on a specific typ? Just service businesses in general.

So I really wanted this for my first small business, which is dogzenergy. So it's D O G Z E N E R G Y. And in this business, I decided when I hit that wall that I needed to bring on the systems, the processes, the software and the team. So that was going to be my step to becoming a real business owner. And then I started looking at solutions for that. Because if I wanted to bring on dog walkers to work for me, one, how do I trust them? That they actually went and took care of the dog, that they didn't lie and just sit on the couch with the dog instead of walking them? And to know that they were there the full amount of time because their owners aren't there. I also wanted to make sure, on the same note, of getting paid. I wanted to get paid right away so that I could pay them right away. Then I also didn't want my customers to leave cash and check on the the kitchen table anymore because what if the cleaning lady took it? Or what if my dog walker took it but forgot about it? You know, those, those weird little things that can happen. So then I was looking for software solutions or an app, and there wasn't anything out there that did what I wanted it to do. And this was when Uber was coming out and Lyft and a lot of the. An Airbnb. And I thought, you know, I wish I could have that same mobile technology for running my business on demand. And I went and looked into how much it would cost. And it was just so exorbitantly expensive for a small business like a small dog walking company to be able to afford that sort of mobile technology. So I decided, well, that means other small business owners probably want it too, but it's too expensive for them to build also. So what if we kind of crowdsource it? What if all of us are able to go onto this platform, put in all of our services, our staff, our pricing, and put it all in one place so that our business, each one of our businesses could have their business dashboard and then the Connected Handler customer app for all of our customers to book us on demand and have the team app so that we can GPS track our team members and they can check in and check out of services. And upon checkout, it automatically builds our. Builds our clients credit cards that are saved on the app, much like Uber does. So that's, that's handler. So that's kind of the quick. Well, quick and long story of how it came to be.

Go ahead.

No, so this is, this is brilliant. And I'm sure that's not the first time you've heard this, but that the kind of pulling that all together where there's no so what's the cost to the business owner?

So for the business owner, it depends on the size of their business. But what we do is we give them a free dashboard and free T maps. And if they want to just use this dashboard and the team apps and manually schedule all their clients, then it's totally free for them to use that. And if their clients want to use the app. So if the client wants to book on demand GPS track, get photos and chat updates about how their dog or their kid did that day, then in order to do that, we mark up the service fee by a few dollars. And so then they basically pay a handler service fee to use the app.

Wow, that's great. Yeah, that's awesome.

That makes perfect sense.

That's awesome. And you're so good at describing everything and how it happened, but I imagine that, you know, from the time you first, you know, thought of this and this concept to getting to today, it's got to be, you know, just an incredible journey of highs and lows.

Oh, my gosh. Yes.

And we're going to talk about all those, believe me. So we love that stuff.

So we do. Yeah.

Yeah. So what type of small business is typically, you know, your uses, your product? I mean, who really benefits from using handler?

So we've really focused on going industry by industry. So for us, because of my background and my original building it kind of out to my original small business, the dog walking one, we kind of focus on the pet industry first. So dog walkers, pet sitters, trainers, but Then once a business signs up an area, so say here in Los Angeles, there's a dog walking business here. So then we go and we approach the dog groomer and we say, hey, this dog walker is on handler. And so our handler customers have dogs already and they want to book a groomer on demand. So would you like to list your business on here as well? So then we kind of work out from there and then you know, people have dogs, they have dirty houses. Then we get the house cleaner, the house cleaning agency on there and then we have tutors and massage therapists and basically anyone who goes to people's homes operates off of a schedule and has a kind of recurring service based business like that.

That's cool. That's a great ecosystem that you're building there. I like it.

And that's part of the challenge.

Yeah, yeah, of course. So getting the word out, it sounds like you're kind of connecting to like minded businesses, but what's the main way that you market handler? And I want to say it's H A N d l r myhandler.com and we'll post this up in the show notes and on the website as well. So how do you first go into an area and let everybody know about how great your service is?

Old fashioned cold calling and it's tough.

Yeah, we talk about that on the show here, about it, feeling successful when you get 1 out of 50 call you back and you know that kind of thing.

Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. But we also have been really lucky in that we are one of kind of the first on demand mobile platform. So Google's been very good to us and we've gotten a lot of organic search traffic. So a lot of business owners go online and that's how they find new software is either by asking their peers in private Facebook groups, which I'm also part of. But you have to be, you have to be a little wary of being spammy.

Sure, yeah, totally. Yeah, you've got to be a participant first and then market, you know, very, very small percentage of the time.

Yeah, exactly. And it's tough because you see all these people asking, oh, what do you guys use for this and that? And it's really hard not to say, please use my product. It's amazing.

Yeah, it is tough and I feel your pain because you often think, oh this is a great solution. But the more you push your own product, it seems like the more they can IGN you so you have to just, you know, be out there. So that's great.

So we've also gone to conferences also too. Like we went to the national association of Professional Pet Sitters conference and also the Pet Sitters International last year. And that was a great way to just kind of say that, hey, we've launched this last year. We've got this incredible game changing platform for you. So that's been a great way to get our word out as well.

That's great. I'm impressed that you did that and I'm impressed that they actually have those conferences. That's fantastic. Every sub genre or niche like that has some sort of conference.

Oh, and get this, you guys, there was a woman there at the last conference and her business in North Virginia does over $10 million a year in revenue walking dogs.

Is that right? That's brilliant. You know, I don't want to hijack the interview, but I just got back from this ebay sh and they had a big party at the end and there was a couple there that had started a business and they were called the Bumbees. And they did this thing called a fair and honest assessment of your appearance. And they were all disguised so you couldn't know who they were. Yeah, it was really fascinating. And they were typing it up on old typewriters and handing you a card. You couldn't talk to them, couldn't do anything. And I was thinking, look at, I asked their producer, they were flying all over the country doing appearances. I was like, man, you can make a living doing anything. And just like that, over 10 million. And is dog walking or dog sitting?

Yeah, they do both.

Wow. Yeah. That's fantastic.

That's awesome.

Yeah, that's cool. Okay, so let's get to the good stuff. We're big fans of mistakes on this show because Dave and I have both learned so much by making them. And so what do you think is the best mistake that you've made while you're getting handler off the ground? And what mistake did you learn the most from?

Well, I think the, the biggest mistake was not launching fast enough, not releasing fast enough. You know how you just want your product to be perfect.

Sure, yeah.

So that took a while, but then at the same time, I did sort of rush it. And so we had the typical, you know, when you launch a product the first time, especially software, there's going to be bugs, or not just bugs, but a few different logic flaws that we needed to fix. And so even though it took pretty long to get out, and then even though we kind of launched when the product wasn't fully, fully completed, all the features fully Baked. But at the same time I'm glad that we didn't quite have perfect product market fit because it would have been crazy if we had had thousands of people sign up originally. So I'm kind of glad that we didn't do a huge crowdfunding campaign or have a huge push when we first launched because we've been able to really dial in the product in the last year and now we're launching version two, which is going to be ready in two weeks and it is kick ass and it's that product market fit. So we're really excited to just go crazy with this.

That's great. How long was the app in development before you launched it?

Oh boy. Well, I started engaging and looking for app developers about three and a half years ago and then it took about, I think it was almost six months to find the perfect team and to get everything in order, contracts and also product scope and everything ready to then start developing. So by the time that it was probably a year and a half of development before we actually launched.

So how, what kind of a team did you hire? Did you bring people in house or did you hire an external team and are they local here in the US or did you go offshore?

So it's a combination. Okay, so we, we wanted, because I'm dealing with mission critical business processes, I really wanted to find somebody who was solid and really, really, really knew their stuff and they weren't going to ghost on me because a lot of other people that I talked to who hired developers, they would all of a sudden just go blank like nothing. The product's halfway done, they've paid, you know, $50,000 and they're just, they disappear. So I wanted somebody credible. So I actually went with a company who has done all of the, a lot of the Fortune 100 media companies apps, so they HBO Go and Thomson Reuters, they've done a lot of apps for like E News and, and they're, they know their stuff and so they set me up with a project manager and they're US based, but then we also have some of our team members that are in India and I actually went out there and have worked with them and they are just. I love my team so much.

Awesome.

That's great.

That's great.

Yeah, that's very cool. So, okay, you made it through the development, you've launched, you're getting ready to launch 2.0. What do you think is your biggest obstacle to handler success and how do you plan to overcome it?

I think the biggest obstacle is that I Want to do it all. It's really hard to keep those expectations in check, and I want my team to do it tomorrow or yesterday. For me, as the product owner, that's the most difficult part, is just wanting to have tons of amazing features. Because when it comes down to it, as a small business owner, I hated doing the admin stuff. I just thought, technology can do all of this. Why are we wasting so many hours on having all these different systems that aren't in one all in one platform? I want to expand Handler out to not just being on demand apps and scheduling and payments, but also having being able to manage your team even easier being able to run payroll directly from the platform as well. Then one of the biggest pain points that we've heard from our Handler partners is that they also really want a hiring pipeline. So that's part of what we want to also bake into the app.

So where they could find local talent and connect with people that are looking for work, that kind of thing.

Exactly. So somebody could, they could come onto our platform and say, hey, these are the special skill set. I have services I can do. And then we match them to our handler partners.

I like that. That's great. Yeah. I was impressed as I started to read about the app and what it did and watch the video. It's like very all encompassing. And I think I could see your hand in there trying to solve all these issues that you had and adding these, oh, I want to do reporting here. I want to be able to handle payments and that kind of thing. Is that how it kind of came all about based on just your personal experience or did you get feedback from other business owners?

Yeah. This original version was definitely me dreaming of all the things I wanted it to do. And that's been the most rewarding part of all of this, is to see a dream that has come true. And then when other businesses, businesses sign up and start using it and when they email me and say, oh, my gosh, Brittany, you have absolutely. Handler has changed my life. When I get those emails, that just means the world to me because I know that they've been dreaming about not having to do all the crap.

Yeah, absolutely. No, that's cool. So over the next, I mean, you're going to launch this new app and you sound very passionate and energetic. It's fantastic. Your real world experience has really come through on this product. Are you really pushing for growth or are your priorities a little different on what you want to do with Handler?

I think that for Handler to be truly optimized we are going to have to have a ton of app users, but also we have to have a lot of businesses to get that crossover sale. That's the one thing you talk about challenges. I am doing a lot. Our platform is all in one, so it's kind of difficult to explain everything that it does. And it's also kind of. It's a new spin on. It's not just a scheduling software. What we're doing is we're connecting them and cross promoting businesses. So if the dog walker gets on there and the dog groomer's on there and they all bring their customers to the app, now their customers can book the other person as well. So it's a way to get new customers. And it's not just a scheduling software. That's how we're trying to differentiate. And the closest thing that I can use to describe it is open table for local services.

I like it. That's nice.

I'm curious. Obviously, you're full of ideas and full of energy and pushing this thing along. Is everything coming from you or do you have a board of advisors or a trusted team or someone or some group that you bounce ideas off? How does that work for you? Because that's a classic problem with us entrepreneurs is we're like, no, we know what to do, we'll just do it. And sometimes it's really good to bounce ideas off of people. So I'm curious because it seems like your ideas are fairly refined.

I think because I've been obsessed with this for so long, it's all I do and all I think about. But I also, I have a great team. I have my assistant, Blake, who is really in charge of our customer success. So he is great to bounce ideas off of because he's hearing all of the things that business owners still want.

Right, right.

And we really let our handler partners guide us. So we really. Our roadmap is all laid out in asana. I don't know if you guys have ever used asana before. Love it.

Yeah. Nice.

And so we have all of our sprints all laid out, and then it's just a matter of moving things around and prioritizing on our handler partners needs. So it's dog's energy's needs, my needs, but it's also really now being directed by our handler partners as well. And then my husband, he's a genius. He works for a private equity fund. But what they do is they do business process outsourcing for the top Fortune 500 companies. So he is doing kind of what I'm doing in a gigantic scale.

Got it. Okay. Yeah. The answer is yes, in a sense. You listen to other people and that's the key. Right. And it sounds like your customers are part of that advisory group and that's.

I spend lots of time on screen shares with my customers because they're not just a faceless entity on the other side of my computer. I've even flown out to a lot of them and sat down with them in person in Chicago and other parts of the country to just say, hey, let me understand your business processes more and you know, what we can do for you to make your life even easier. And by listening, you just gain so much. And my only thing is I want to build fast enough to make all those things happen faster. So I study Scrum Management also, and that has really changed my life and has really sped up our progress as well.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. I think it's important to touch on that support. When Dave asked about advisors and everything and you mentioned, you know, your team, even your customers and your spouse, having that support group in place is just critically important, especially as you take this long journey to get this thing, you know, that you're so passionate about, you need to have that, that back end support for sure.

Yeah. And networking is really good here in, they call it Silicon beach in Los Angeles, west side. We, we have a lot of great tech networking events and I've met a lot of great people through there. And actually one of my dogs, Energy, we have a lot of very successful, smart clients in La Jolla. And they have really helped me so much and been so good to me. And one of my clients in particular, him and his wife, they met at MySpace and they've been kind of in the tech world for quite a while now. And they have really taken me under their wing and helped me, guide me through, you know, this, this process as well, and told me, you know, this, this is technology, you know, you gotta be patient.

Sure.

Right.

Yeah, that's right. That's awesome. That's great. Yeah. So, okay, you know, we always ask this question towards the end of the interview and if you go, if you could go back to when you were first getting started and thinking, you know, as you were walking the dog, picking up all the poop and thinking, God's gotta be a better way, you know, we gotta be able to build a business around this, you know, if you could go back and give yourself a critical piece of advice, you know, what would you tell yourself? The experience that you've had now over the last few years, I would have.

Told myself to invent a spray so that you can spray the dog poop and it just vanishes. To stay clear of technology because it is hard.

It's challenging. Yeah, that's great. That's good advice.

I'm just kidding. I think that I would have just. I think that it's just a matter of telling myself to move faster, you know, make decisions faster and don't be afraid. Jump in with both feet and go for it.

Yeah, that's great.

Avoid fear or avoid being driven by fear is probably the most common answer we get to that question.

Because all of us are sitting there thinking, okay, why don't we do this? And I can remember when I graduated from college and was expected to go one route and then went something completely different. And you have to constantly explain to everybody what you're doing. They're like, what? And got to power through it. So I commend you for pushing this through to fruition and having this product and being out there so we could find you and Brett reaching out to us. That's fantastic.

Thanks, Shannon.

Yeah. So what's the best way for people to find you and learn more about your company other than coming to BusinessShow Co, where we're going to feature you up there as well?

Yeah. So you can reach me at myhandler.com, m Y H-A-N--L R.com or Brit B R-I T@my handler.com if you want to email me directly. And then if you want to see photos of my mini donkey and my new Irish wolfhound puppy, you can find me on Instagram at Doggon Techgirl.

Nice. The mini donkey. That's good. That's good. We should have added to put that in earlier. Very cool. Well, we really appreciate you, you know, coming on the show and sharing your story, and we'd love to check in with you down the road and see how things are going.

Great. Thanks, Shannon. Bye, Dave. Thank you.

Bye. Bye. Yeah, thanks so much for having. For taking the time to come on the show. We've, it's been great. Awesome, folks. You can find us@businessshow.co you can find Brit@my handler.com keep living that charmed life, folks. We'll see you next week.